Shot in Southwold

by Suzette A. Hill

  Jennings nodded but said nothing. An awful thought had struck him. It would be just his luck if he was instructed to make an inventory of all properties within a mile radius of the seafront, to launch a thorough search of the owners’ cupboards, sheds and dustbins and get detailed accounts of their activities between the relevant hours. Those not available for comment would have to be contacted, and those pleading absence on that Sunday would need their alibis strictly verifying … On the whole Jennings rather enjoyed ticking lists and making notes, but there were some procedures that were a bridge too far! Perhaps if he played his cards right he could offload the task on to some junior lackey who could report to him when complete. Yes, that would be the thing …

  He opened his eyes, which had been momentarily closed, to see Nathan staring at him quizzically.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ his boss asked sternly. ‘I asked if you were up for a pint at the Red Lion, but all you can do is stand there and wince with your eyes shut! One of your earache spasms, I suppose.’ He sighed and added grudgingly, ‘Oh well, I’ll fork out this time, but you can get the crisps – ordinary Smith’s, mind, none of those tarty new ones at twice the price!’ He reached for his hat, and Jennings gave thanks to something or other.

  On their way to the Red Lion they passed, but did not observe, Felix and Cedric descending the steps of the post office. The latter had been sending soothing postcards to friends saying they were having a marvellous time, and assuring the recipients that Southwold’s growing reputation for gruesome skulduggery was grossly exaggerated. ‘It has been nothing to do with us!’ he wrote (and lied) gaily.

  Just as Cedric was breathing a sigh of relief at the completion of the chore, Felix gripped his arm and hissed, ‘Watch out, we don’t want to bump into them!’

  ‘Who?’ Cedric asked, adjusting his spectacles.

  ‘Them – the heavies, Nathan and the Jennings boy,’ Felix whispered.

  They hesitated on the steps, looking resolutely in the opposite direction as the two policemen strolled by and continued up the high street.

  ‘You don’t think, do you,’ Cedric muttered, ‘that we are being just a trifle paranoid? I mean, I know that we didn’t exactly hit it off with them the last time we were here, but other than the coincidence of our being associated with another homicide case, I cannot see that there is much to fear.’

  ‘There is always much to fear with the police,’ Felix replied grimly. ‘You may remember the problems we had in London with the Beasley affair.4 Besides, if they learn that my hat was there, let alone me not reporting the fact, it could turn sticky. We don’t want that, do we?’

  Cedric agreed that stickiness would be distasteful, but added mildly that it was a moot point which was the more risky: the hat being revealed or concealed. ‘Quite likely the latter,’ he suggested. ‘Tampering with evidence is generally frowned upon by the authorities; they don’t like it.’

  ‘I did not tamper, I took it,’ Felix replied with some asperity. ‘I had every right. It was my hat and it shouldn’t have been there! I can’t think why it was.’ He thrust his hands into his pockets and pouted.

  ‘Yes, I’ve been thinking about that. You know, it occurs to me that the girl herself may have taken it. After all, she did show a distinct fancy for it at the Sole Bay, if you remember.’ Felix did remember, and shuddered. ‘And when you were at the studio last week doing your mournful wanderings among the paths of “the labyrinth”, I noticed her fingering the brim. You had left the thing on the sideboard, and it seemed to have caught her attention again. She was obviously very drawn to it.’ Cedric shot a sly glance at his friend: ‘Perhaps she whipped it to go with the new bikini. I wouldn’t have put it past her.’

  Felix’s face froze, and it was difficult to tell which possibility dismayed him most: the police uncovering his misdemeanour, or Tippy’s dastardly theft. Neither was savoury. ‘I think I need a coffee,’ he announced, ‘oh, and a large flapjack too. They do excellent ones in that cafe further up the street.’

  With eyes primed for Nathan and Jennings, they slunk into the sanctuary of the tea shop’s back room, where Cedric chastely ordered a pot of lapsang, and Felix commandeered a flapjack plus a cream bun.

  4 See A Little Murder.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Busily absorbed in matters of consumption, they did not see Alicia’s entry until she was seated at the table next to theirs. She gave them a vague wave and rather pointedly took out her newspaper.

  Cedric leant towards his companion. ‘We are evidently not in the communing mood today,’ he whispered. Felix nodded, too busy with his bun to care.

  To complement his second cup, Cedric withdrew his cigarette case, selected a filter tip and lit up. The smoke curled in the direction of the neighbouring table.

  The newspaper was cast aside. ‘Oh, I say,’ Alicia exclaimed, ‘that’s splendid; you’ve got some gaspers. I’ve left mine behind. Could I be awfully rude and cadge one off you?’

  ‘By all means.’ Cedric held out the case and invited her to join them.

  She brought her chair and coffee over; and gazing at Felix, now about to embark on the flapjack, observed that having an appetite was all right for some but for others it was deadly. ‘I only have to look at a cake,’ she grumbled, ‘and it goes to my hips. Or here,’ she laughed, gesturing to her bosom. ‘But you’re like Tippy, thin as a lath … though of course, she never ate anything except gin and lettuce leaves. Obviously that’s not your diet!’

  ‘Certainly not the lettuce leaves,’ Cedric observed dryly.

  ‘Actually, she didn’t eat many of those either,’ Alicia continued, ‘in fact, it’s amazing she didn’t peg out long before this business. Silly little thing.’ She smiled, but the voice held a note of scorn.

  Felix ceased munching and looked up. ‘Silly? Hmm, you’re right about that,’ he agreed darkly. He spoke with feeling but didn’t enlarge.

  ‘But, Alicia, I thought you rather approved of her – at least, that’s what you implied when we were interviewed by the police officer.’ Cedric remarked mildly.

  ‘Well, of course I did! When in a corner lay on the charm, everyone knows that.’ She took a final puff of her cigarette, studying its diminished length with evident regret.

  However, deeming one good turn a day to be quite sufficient, Cedric refrained from offering her another and instead asked: ‘So what corner would that be?’

  She grimaced. ‘Being interrogated by the fuzz, of course. They are so eager to find clues and make an arrest they’ll grasp at anything if it suits their book. A friend of mine was once caught in a nightclub raid – the Cat’s Pyjamas in Soho – and, oh my goodness, was there a fuss! No, if I had told them that Tippy Tildred was a nasty little troublemaker and that any of us would have shot her given half a chance, they would have marched me down to the station in a trice!’ She paused, and added, ‘Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration but you know what I mean. There would have been endless questions and probings and one would never hear the end of it. Too tiresome for words!’

  Felix nodded in fervent agreement.

  Alicia looked at her watch. ‘O Lord, is that the time? I must fly. I’m supposed to be meeting Robert in five minutes. He’s in an awful state – Tippy was simply beastly to him, you know. In fact, if it had been me I’d have done her in myself. There was good reason, all right!’

  ‘Oh. Do you think he did?’ Felix asked with interest.

  She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘Robert? Oh, I shouldn’t think so. Not one to chance his arm is our Robert. Preserving number one is his priority! Always has been.’ She dropped a shilling on the table, telling them to give the waitress the change, and with another laugh and a flurry of Chanel, set off to bring cheer to the apparently wounded Kestrel.

  ‘Interesting, really,’ Cedric mused after she had gone.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘The fact that she showed no curiosity about the girl’s death: perfectly ready to admit her dislike, but no
t a word of actual interest as to how it happened or who might have been responsible. I wonder why.’

  Felix shrugged. ‘They are all the same these thespians, totally self-engrossed … Oh, by the way, I’ve been shown the rushes for that scene where I am found loitering in the labyrinth. They’re rather good, I think – Fred has got exactly the right angle and has caught that teasing little smile I give just before being enveloped in the swirling mist. You should take a look sometime.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ Cedric assured him earnestly.

  Out in the street and wandering back to Cot O’Bedlam, they came face-to-face with Vincent Ramsgate (party garb replaced by an inoffensive raincoat and plain trilby). With head down, he at first appeared not to have seen them and would have hurried past, had not Felix, negotiating a stray cat, blocked his path. He stopped and greeted them politely.

  ‘Ah, nice to see you,’ he exclaimed. ‘Just the day for a stroll – if you can keep out of the wind, that is. You’ll probably be glad to get back to the fug of London, I expect! Going soon, I daresay?’

  ‘Er, well,’ Cedric began. But then remembering Ramsgate’s book lying unopened at the cottage, he felt he should make some reference to the gift. ‘It was really most kind of you to leave that book the other day,’ he said; and then, fearful he might be required to make some perceptive comment, added hastily, ‘though what with all this unsettling business going on, I am afraid I haven’t had a chance even to open it. I shall reserve that pleasure until once more sheltered by that London fug!’

  For a few seconds Ramsgate seemed to hesitate, regarding him intently, and then said dismissively, ‘Oh, don’t give it another thought, old man, absolutely not. Put it on the back boiler, that’s my advice! As you say, this frightful business looms over everything. I’ve got the grieving aunt staying with me this very moment. She came to identify the poor girl and collect her belongings – a beastly task.’ He gave a rueful sigh, adding, ‘In any case, we scholars have far more pressing things to attend to than to read one another’s publications, wouldn’t you say? Keep it for a long winter evening!’ And briskly sidestepping them, he pressed on in the direction of Queen Street.

  Felix thought Cedric looked peeved. He was right. ‘I don’t know what he means by that,’ the professor remarked coldly.

  ‘Means by what?’

  ‘Bracketing us together as scholars. The term may well apply to me, but he is a mere populist. My Cappadocian book is a keenly researched study, not some pappy stream of personal anecdotes!’

  ‘Oh no, of course not,’ Felix agreed. He gazed after the man’s retreating back, frowning slightly. ‘Considering we were the life and soul of his wretched party, I think he gave us rather short shrift. Not exactly chummy, was he? A bit shifty, I thought.’

  ‘Hmm. And presumptuous with it,’ Cedric said, still bridling. ‘And I have no desire to read his book, either now or in London. Put it on the back boiler? In the damn thing more likely!’

  Felix, alert to the cloud hovering, said brightly: ‘I have a superb lunch ready for us, a melange of Sole Bay prawns, lobster tails and sautéed local samphire. I have also managed to track down a bottle of that excellent Meursault you are so fond of. It’s in the fridge now – we don’t want it overchilled. Come on!’

  Thus, like Ramsgate, the two friends also pressed on – though in their case to a goal possibly more indulgent.

  However, the prospect of such goal did not stop Felix from stopping to peer at some colourful fabrics displayed in a draper’s shop window. As they walked on he referred to one of the samples, but Cedric made no answer, his mind being elsewhere.

  ‘Wake up, didn’t you hear?’ Felix prompted. ‘I said that that piece of brocade might be suitable for the little side window in your drawing room, the one where the cat damaged the blind. It’s about the right colour. You ought to go in and take a look.’

  ‘What? Oh yes, yes I will, sometime,’ Cedric replied vaguely.

  ‘Well, don’t get too excited, it was merely a thought!’

  Cedric stopped and frowned. ‘I have been thinking,’ he said.

  ‘Extraordinary. What about?’

  ‘Kestrel. What do you think Alicia meant when she said he was in such a stew?’

  Felix shrugged. ‘Could have been anything.’

  ‘Yes, but it was something to do with Tippy; Alicia implied she had behaved badly to him, had said or done something intolerable.’

  ‘Nothing surprising there,’ Felix said with feeling. ‘What about my—’

  Cedric sighed. ‘I was thinking about something a little more pertinent to her death: i.e. he may have had a hand in it.’

  ‘Really? So what makes you say that?’

  ‘That night we were coming back from Buss Creek … why was he lurking behind those three? I very much doubt it was because he was fascinated by Charlie or Frank. No, the object of his attention, as we rather assumed at the time, was clearly Tippy.’

  ‘Got it!’ Felix cried. ‘He fancied the girl, she spurned him, he killed her. And now he’s in floods of tears and having to be comforted by Alicia.’

  ‘That’s putting it a little crudely but it could have been something like that. After all, it’s not just in books or opera that one encounters the crime passionnel.’

  Felix looked doubtful. ‘Well, he might fancy himself as Al Capone or Errol Flynn, but I can’t imagine him using a real gun.’

  ‘Then you imagine wrong. I overheard him telling Rosy Gilchrist all about his prowess in the Surbiton Pistol Society and how he had won some prize: £15, I think it was.’

  ‘Was she impressed?’

  ‘Looked bored out of her mind.’

  When they got back to the cottage and Felix busied himself with assembling the luncheon and rearranging the flowers, Cedric continued to look preoccupied.

  ‘Are you still brooding about Kestrel?’ Felix asked, tweaking a lily and discarding a rose.

  ‘He has been rather playing on my mind,’ the other replied, ‘but I’m not sure if—’

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t let him play too long,’ Felix giggled, ‘you might become obsessed.’

  His friend closed his eyes: ‘Oh, very droll.’ Opening them, he said, ‘You know, it might be worth having a word with Rosy Gilchrist. Occasionally, she can be quite discerning, and I saw her in close conversation with him recently. You never know, she might just have a view.’

  ‘We will invite her to tea,’ Felix said briskly, ‘and she can be guinea pig for my new biscuit recipe. It was given to me by Rosemary Hume herself! Yes, why don’t you telephone The Swan and tell her you have a vital matter to discuss and would value her opinion.’

  Without waiting for a response Felix had whipped into the little kitchen, switched on the oven and donned an apron.

  Two hours later Rosy was seated on the sofa in Cot O’Bedlam sipping tea and munching one of Felix’s exquisite biscuits.

  ‘The secret,’ he explained, ‘is not to use too much flour or to overbake, or to be heavy-handed with the mixing. A light touch is needed: the keynote is delicacy.’

  Rosy nodded appreciatively. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘one can certainly taste the delicacy – in fact, I’ve never tasted such good delicacy in my life!’ She grinned and requested another.

  Cedric cleared his throat. ‘Without wishing to sound overly curious, we should be interested to hear your views on Robert Kestrel. You see …’ And he told her of their conversation with Alicia, the previous episode on North Green and their tentative suspicions.

  Rosy had not expected this and was momentarily flummoxed. Would it be fair to reveal what the dead girl had confided – or hinted at – in the Walberswick pub? It seemed a bit rotten. And yet in view of what the girl had implied to her about Robert’s ‘problem’, plus Alicia’s comments as relayed by Cedric and Felix, it did rather look as if he had an involvement with Tippy that had been far from satisfactory. But would that really drive him to murder – to exact revenge for being scornfully rejected, as Cedric s
eemed to think? Probably not.

  But blackmail might. What had Cedric quoted Alicia as saying? Something like: ‘Not one to chance his arm is our Robert. Preserving number one is his priority’ … Thus to risk all for thwarted passion might not be his priority – whereas safeguarding his own interests and reputation could be. According to Tippy, she had threatened not only to expose his sexual ‘inadequacy’ but also to tell his wife. Some men might not care, but Robert just might. Preserving number one is his priority, she mused.

  ‘Come on, Rosy, what do you think?’ Felix urged impatiently.

  Rosy beamed. ‘I think I would simply love another of your biscuits!’ she said.

  Eventually, and reluctantly, she did tell them what Tippy had so maliciously revealed, and indeed what the girl had hinted she might do about it.

  ‘Poor sod,’ Cedric remarked, ‘not a happy circumstance.’

  ‘Especially if he is guilty,’ added Felix.

  ‘But that’s just it,’ Rosy protested, ‘we don’t know that he is. What we have is interpretation; there’s not a shred of evidence. It’s simply speculation and gossip, our gossip!’

  Yet even as she said this, a doubt nagged insidiously at the back of her mind.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  As it happened, the process wasn’t as grisly as she had feared. The first few moments while waiting for the sheet to be drawn back had been a trifle fraught, but after that things were all right. Mercifully, the girl’s face was unscathed and the features sufficiently recognisable as not to need a prolonged perusal. A glance was enough. The whole procedure had been quick and remarkably painless with no ill effects; indeed, Ida had experienced no feelings at all. Vincent’s presence had doubtlessly helped and she was grateful for his understated sympathy.