The Dreaming Detective

by H. R. F. Keating

  So should I, she thought, just sit and wait? Possess myself in patience. Wait for that report, and hope that the message from Mr Newbroom which I relayed as tactfully as I could has not put someone’s back up over in Cherry Fettleham? Or should I go to see Mrs Nair in her old folks’ home and, perhaps, find some evidence that supports my feeling about her long-dead husband? Or will I find the opposite?

  Chapter Twelve

  When Harriet saw next morning that there was no bulky report from Cherry Fettleham waiting on her desk, she wondered for a moment what to do next. But at once she found her mind had been made up for her. She would go and see old Mrs Nair. One way or another she was going to settle the question of Harish Nair’s likely responsibility for the death of Krishna Kumaramangalam.

  ‘All right,’ she said to Pip Steadman, as he stood there quivering with puppy-dog eagerness, ‘I may not be able to get anything at all out of Mrs Nair. She may, heaven knows, be totally gaga, but — ’

  ‘No, no, ma’am. They told me at the home. No. No, she’s perfectly compos mentis, very good for — She’s very — Very alert for her age. No, if we go to see her — ’ ‘Not we, DC. This isn’t going to be any sort of formal interview. I shall just be trying to see how the land lies. The last thing I want is — ’

  And then she noticed the utterly crestfallen look on Pip Steadman’s face.

  Damn it, I’ve knocked him off his perch. There he was, all agog to go crusading away to find the truth and rescue poor dead Harish Nair from the evil thoughts people will have about him when news of the inquiry breaks, and what have I done? I have stamped right down on all his delicate idealism.

  But bugger that. This investigation is about finding who killed the Boy Preacher thirty-odd years ago, and I’m not going to let even the frailest line of inquiry be compromised by soft feelings for a half-recovered subordinate.

  ‘No, I’m sorry, Pip, but I don’t want the old lady to feel in any way pressured. So it’s a solo operation, absolutely.’

  ‘Very good, ma’am.’

  But the crestfallen look had hardly disappeared.

  ‘No, when I come back, nothing will have pleased me more than to be able to put Harish Nair’s name on my list of dead ends in the inquiry, alongside Marcus Fairchild’s. Because, after what I learnt in London yesterday about why he was actually at the Imperial on the evening of the murder, I can’t see that he can have had any reason to strangle that poor boy.’

  ‘You’re sure, ma’am?’

  Plainly Pip was not going to crusade to rescue the reputation of a dead journalist, however much he wanted to save that of a decent little Indian.

  ‘Oh, yes, you have to recognize in an investigation of this sort, of any sort, that there will be lines of inquiry that end up nowhere, and the Fairchild one falls into that category. But the Harish Nair line hasn’t reached that point yet. Assume nothing, Pip. It’s a rule always worth having in one’s mind. So, make me an appointment, please. For as soon as possible.’

  Restholme was, as Pip Steadman had said, a nice-looking place. Harriet, going up the path to its front door, suppressed a tendency to shudder.

  God, imagine if one day, well into the future I hope, I end up somewhere like this. Everything as it should be. Neat flower beds to either side of the path, all the external woodwork crisply painted, brass knocker on the door glinting with polish in the sunlight. And, no doubt, as well organized and sanitary inside. Including the people who have ended up here. Ruled and regulated, told what to do and what not to do at every hour of their lives.

  What was it John was saying the other night? How the one thing we all really want is to be in control. And how, on the other side of the coin, what a good many people also want is to be in control of the lives all around them. That’s what preaching’s about, he said. Making other people do what you want them to do, behave in the way you think they ought to. And I dare say he’s right. Even if he was exaggerating a little, as he usually does. Poor John. Dear John.

  She rang the well-polished bell beside the door.

  And, the moment it was opened, by a girl neatly wrapped in a standard light-blue polyester overall, a waft assailed her of pine disinfectant mingled with floor-polish.

  But, yes, she was told. Mrs Nair is expecting you. She’s in her room.

  A brisk walk then behind the girl’s clicking heels, with just one glimpse through a wide-open door of the row of chairs facing the television — already, at this hour of the morning — sunken-cheeked faces goggling and open-mouthed.

  Me one day? It could happen. A long-retired police officer, widowed, the Hard Detective gone irretrievably soft.

  Up the stairs, pine floor-polish smell and pine disinfectant ever present. And then a brisk knock, and the door of Mrs Nair’s room thrust open.

  ‘Your visitor, dear.’

  Mrs Nair was every bit as old as her fellow residents mesmerized by the TV down below. A little hunched-up Indian woman who could be any age from eighty to a hundred. But surviving. Something in the shining brown eyes set in the brown-skinned face, withered almost to nothing, told Harriet that much. Tenacious of life, and preserving, despite all the ravages of time, an outward-going intelligence.

  ‘Mrs Nair, I’m Detective Superintendent Martens, Greater Birchester Police, and I have asked to see you because we are looking into the possibility, thanks to recent scientific advances, of re-opening the case of the death of your cousin, or cousin by marriage.’

  ‘It wasn’t my Harish.’

  The words came almost spitting out of the toothless, shrunken lips.

  Harriet wished she could echo them wholeheartedly. But assume nothing.

  ‘I am glad to find you know so quickly what I am talking about,’ she said.

  ‘Of course I do. What do you think is in my mind, day in, day out in this place?’

  ‘But it seems quite a pleasant place to me,’ Harriet said, not quite ready to cope with such an unexpectedly strong view.

  ‘Oh yes. Very nice, very nice. I’m lucky to be ending up my days here. It’s thanks to one of the people there outside that ballroom with my Harish, you know.’

  Now, is she wandering? Or what?

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.’

  A look of contempt in the shining brown eyes? Yes, it was. Plain contempt.

  ‘Mr Lucas Calverte. When I was so ill after Harish was dying he was still the big man there, and he arranged for some funds to pay for me at this place. You don’t think we live here for nothing, do you?’

  ‘No. No, I suppose not. To tell the truth, I hadn’t thought how it was that you came to be here. Your husband was not a particularly well-off man, I believe.’

  A spark of resistance.

  ‘Harish did very well. You know, when we came to Birchester not many people wanted an Indian to be mending their clothes. We had very much of hard times. But in the end business was doing well. No, my Harish left me with a good sum in the bank. Yes.’

  ‘But not quite enough to let you live here?’

  ‘Yes, not quite enough. So Immigrant Welfare Council was making up the amount.’ An abrupt cackle of a laugh. ‘And they have had to do it much, much longer than they were thinking.’

  Harriet smiled broadly. She could hardly help it.

  ‘And you have kept the memory of your husband alive all this time?’

  ‘I must. I have to. If I am not doing it, there will be people even now who will be saying Harish, my poor Harish, was strangling Krishna in that place. You know they are knocking it altogether down? I was reading that in the paper. Specs I need to do it, but I can still read. If the print is proper.’

  ‘That’s very good. Very good. But are you really sure people, after thirty years, would say that about your husband?’

  ‘They do. Go downstairs and ask. If they will stop watching those silly programmes. For children, you know. For children, and they watch them. But they are not so much of child as all that. They can be wicked, very, very wicked, in talkin
g about my Harish.’

  ‘But what is it they say? Is it any more than just making out your husband must be the one who — Who killed your young cousin?’

  ‘Oh, no. There is not any more to what they say than that. It is just only malice. It is that. Malice. Because I am an Indian, because Harish was Indian, because poor, good Krishna was Indian.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. Things are meant to be better these days, but with the very old prejudices die hard.’

  Mrs Nair gave her a quick, shrewd look.

  ‘And what about you also? Are you believing, Miss Police Officer, that Harish did that murder?’

  What to answer? Easy enough to deny it. Easy enough to let my feelings about nice, decent Harish Nair come pouring out. But it is possible, possible in strict logic, that he did kill his cousin. He could have had some reason, deep-buried even from his wife, for needing to bring the Boy’s life to an end. So how do I answer?

  Answer. I answer with a question. The old technique when interrogating any hostile, challenging suspect.

  ‘Mrs Nair, how much do you remember about that day Krishna Kumaramangalam was killed?’

  ‘How much am I remembering? All. Everything. What else can you think?’

  ‘I am glad to hear you say so. If there is any hope of clearing up the mystery of Krishna’s death, then we in the police need to know as much as we possibly can learn.’

  ‘So, ask. Ask.’

  ‘Very well. Where were you yourself at the time?’

  ‘Where I was? At home, of course. When the men are going here and there preach-preaching, the woman must stay at home, quiet-quiet. For cook-cooking. Whatever important things are going on, men and women must always eat.’

  ‘Quite right. So Krishna and your husband set out to go to the Imperial Hotel together?’

  ‘They must. Krishna was not always well, you are knowing. Just only the day before that meeting he was having one of his what they are calling funny turns, smelling sweet smells in air when there was nothing whatsoever there to smell. So, yes, yes, Harish was going with him in the bus in case another funny turn was coming.’

  ‘I see. And that was the last you saw of them? Until — was it — your husband came back and told you what had happened?’

  ‘No. No, he was not telling.’

  ‘Not?’

  ‘Yes, yes, not. Police were keeping and keeping all in that hotel. They were questioning and questioning. Who was entering that ballroom? Who were you seeing and when also? Taking away all their shirts and blouses, ties also. Giving out horrible ones instead. Harish was explaining all to me, but not till late, late that night when a police car was at last returning him home.’

  ‘But you said he did not tell you that Krishna had been killed? Yes?’

  ‘Yes, that is a hundred per cent correct. It was Mr Lucas Calverte who was informing. The police were allowing a big, big man like him to go to telephone, and he was ringing me up. I was ironing Harish’s shirt for next day. He had insisted to wear the one he had already put on for Sunday, when the meeting was going to be held, except for Krishna’s funny turn. I was putting down electric iron and going to the phone. You are never knowing when a customer will ring with some order. And then, Mrs Nair, it is bad news, Calverte sahib was saying, and afterwards he told.’

  ‘And did he say anything more than just that, that Krishna was dead? Did he perhaps tell you who he thought must have strangled him?’

  ‘No, no. He was not saying one thing about that. He was not even telling me Harish could not have done that thing.’

  ‘But you had expected him to?’

  ‘Yes, yes. At once he must say it. It was impossible that it could be Harish. It is impossible-impossible still. I will fight and fight for his good name till I have not one more breath in body.’

  *

  Harriet had continued asking questions, but from that moment on Mrs Nair had, it seemed, been unable to say anything but that she was going to fight and fight for her dead husband’s ‘good name’. Eventually Harriet had left her, stopping on her way out to see the matron and tell her that perhaps someone should look in on the old lady.

  What did I learn from all that? she asked herself as she drove away through the sedate, leafy suburban streets of Boreham. Precious little, despite her telling me to ask, ask. No, I did learn that, beyond doubt, Harish Nair’s aged widow believes he cannot have killed his young cousin thirty years ago. And that’s something I would like to believe about such a decent, unassuming man myself. But I shouldn’t do so. Not when I am the investigating officer tasked with finding out who did kill Krishna Kumaramangalam.

  Tasked, she thought with a sharply wry smile, by the new Chief Constable of the Greater Birchester Police, who for some crazy reason wants me to fail ignominiously in the task.

  And I am not going to. The answer must be there somewhere, however locked behind the iron gates of time. Perhaps it will become clear, quite simply, when the report from Cherry Fettleham lands on my desk. Perhaps then it will be only a matter of going to one of the suspects and telling them that now we know. Then with a confession at once pouring out, breaking down the dam of all those years, it’s done. All right, Mr Newbroom will then make sure he gets all the sweep-clean credit. But I can put up with that, if I have to. At least the truth will have been brought to light. And isn’t that, after all, what a detective is for?

  But perhaps I can bring that truth to light without Mr Newcomen’s latest in DNA techniques. I could. All right, the murder was investigated very thoroughly at the time. But it was investigated, as I have now realized, with blinkered eyes. So can a detective who prides herself on not being blinkered do better? Someone who’s prepared to let her subconscious take its wild jumps, and is then prepared to look at where they’ve landed her?

  Damn it, we’ll see.

  No more pussyfooting around in case word gets out that Mr Newbroom’s newly polished police are tackling the case. No, damn him, what if the Evening Star does plaster that juicy rumour all over its front page? What if the new-broom thunder gets stolen? The truth is there, somewhere, to be found, and if there are possible ways of finding it ahead of the boys down in Cherry Fettleham, then I am going to probe into each one of them until I get there.

  So, right, yes, get DC Steadman to locate the missing Sydney Bigod, if he has to stay up all night to do it. And me? What am I going to do? Yes, go and see whichever of the other suspects comes immediately to hand.

  Barney Trapnell, crippled watch repairer. Why not?

  *

  There was a small swinging sign outside Barney Trapnell’s little repair shop in one of the huddle of streets north of the Birchester-Liverpool canal. Clocks and Watches Mended, it read. As, Harriet thought peering up at it, it had probably done thirty years ago in the days when the cripple had set out, time and again, to offer the use of his strong arms to weak and washed-out Krishna Kumaramangalam.

  Approaching on foot — she knew better than to leave an unattended car hereabouts — she thought about what that ‘True Crime’ work Who Killed the Preacher? had said about Trapnell. Yes, one of its more flagrant guesses. What had it been? Something like Can a cripple’s twisted bitterness have led to a moment of terrible revenge on life? Good old Meadowcraft, perhaps the wildest of his string of hope-to-hit nudging questions.

  Right, we’ll see now just how much that one’s worth. Isn’t it equally likely, after all, that years of crippled suffering can have led to a calm acceptance of the worst blows of fate? Or even that in the past thirty years medical science has found a way of dealing with the blow that polio, if it was polio, inflicted long ago? Pip’s description of his state, however vivid, might not have been accurate.

  When she opened the shop door — the bell above it rang with much the same old-fashioned clang as the one above the door of Mack’s Sausages Are the Best — she saw at once from across the narrow counter that her rosy pipe dream had not got it right. The man working in the solitary pool of light at a bench on the
far wall was yet more crippled than she had been led to believe. As he swung round to see who had entered, Harriet could not keep the thought out of her head that, yes, he looked like a human three-legged stool.

  Both legs, not just one, were now grasped in callipers and above them the body was bent, it seemed, almost at a permanent right-angle. Nor did the expression on his frown-etched face show any of the calm acceptance she had imagined for him.

  He glowered.

  Harriet straightened her back, in unconscious repudiation of any such crippling effect time had brought to the watch repairer, and delivered yet another version of her standard introduction.

  ‘Good morning, I am Detective Superintendent Martens, Greater Birchester Police, and I have come to you because we are considering re-opening, with the aid of recent scientific advances in the use of DNA, our investigation into the murder of Krishna Kumara-mangalam, known as the Boy Preacher.’

  ‘Don’t know nothing about that,’ came a growled response, and the crippled body was swung round again to the bench.

  ‘I think you do, Mr Trapnell,’ Harriet replied with equal directness.

  ‘I said, I don’t. So you can get out.’

  The words were delivered to the wall in front of the bent form of the watch mender.

  ‘No, Mr Trapnell, on May the twenty-second, 1969, you were one of the seven people, the seven people only, who could have entered the ballroom of the Imperial Hotel and strangled the Boy. And I am the police officer in charge of the investigation into his death. So I have questions for you, and I warn you that you are bound to answer them.’

  Into Harriet’s head there came, in a sudden camera shot, the sight of the ballroom as she had seen it for herself, ornate and ridiculous even under the layers of dust that had accumulated on all its surfaces. Now the cripple did ponderously shift himself round till he was facing her directly.

  ‘And if I’ve forgotten?’ he said. ‘If after thirty years and more I have managed to put all that out of my mind, right out of it, how can I answer the questions you’re so set on having answered?’