by J F Straker
Archie was the first to see the police car. He hastily said good-bye, grabbed his book, and slipped into the churchyard; crouching low, he moved cautiously along the wall to a convenient listening-point. He heard the car door slam and the sound of footsteps on the path, and wondered how he was to add the inspector to his collection. He suspected it would not be easy.
‘Any luck?’ asked Pitt.
‘Not a sausage,’ answered the sergeant. ‘Cluster must have ruddy well flown to the cottage. No one in the village admits to seeing him after he left the pub.’
‘H’m! Well, perhaps he didn’t come this way. He could have gone home first. You’d better check along the Market Lacing road.’
The sergeant groaned. ‘After this morning’s work I feel like a blasted door-to-door salesman. I fancy I look like one too, the way people have been slamming doors in my face. “Not today, thank you,” seems to be the favourite greeting around these parts.’
‘It’s that red mop of yours,’ Pitt told him. ‘You should wear a hat. Now let’s get back to the pub for lunch. You’ve probably earned it.’
The throaty roar of an almost open exhaust caused Archie to raise his head cautiously above the wall. He had a passion for sports cars, and this was one he knew. He watched admiringly as the vintage green Bentley that was the joy of the young Hoopers drew up behind the police car, into which the inspector had already retreated.
The sergeant was alone on the path.
‘Good morning, Inky,’ called Penelope.
Archie ducked hastily. No one had hitherto addressed him as Inky, but he appreciated that the name might be appropriate on occasions. He hoped Penelope would not betray his presence to the detectives.
‘Good morning.’ That was the sergeant’s voice, much subdued.
‘Can you have tea with me this afternoon?’ asked Penelope. ‘I’ll be on my own. There’s something I think I ought to tell you. It probably isn’t important, but — well, I think you ought to know.’
‘Why not tell me now?’
‘No. It’ll keep till this afternoon. See you about four, eh?’
His eyes almost popping out of his head, Archie stood up. So it wasn’t himself Penelope had addressed as Inky, but the sergeant!
What colossal cheek!
The long legs of the inspector were emerging from the police car. Penelope saw them. The Bentley burst noisily into life, backed a few yards, and roared off down the village street. Archie and the inspector, the wall between them, watched it with interest until it disappeared round the bend beyond the vicarage.
Pitt turned to his subordinate. ‘Who was that?’ he asked.
‘Miss Hooper, sir. Says she has some information for us.’
‘Information about what?’
‘She won’t say, sir. Wants me to go up to the Hall this afternoon. She’ll tell me then, she said.’
Even at that distance Archie could see the red flush mantling the sergeant’s face. Almost as red as his hair, it was.
‘Sounds like a trap,’ was the inspector’s comment, after a long pause in which he too had been closely observing the sergeant’s face. ‘Tea for two and arsenic in the sugar. Better take Carter along to see fair play.’ Another pause. ‘Er — it was Inky she called you, wasn’t it?’
Norris-Kerr shuffled his feet. ‘My friends call me that sometimes,’ he explained unhappily. ‘My initials are I.N.K., you see.’
‘And is Miss Hooper a friend of yours?’
‘No, sir. At least — well, in a way.’
‘I can imagine the way.’ The Inspector’s voice was grim. ‘This is a murder hunt we’re on, sergeant, not a monkey parade. You keep your mating instincts out of it, or I’ll have you up before the Super. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Meekly he followed his superior officer into the car, and in silence they drove the few hundred yards to the Mytton Arms. As the car pulled up smoothly Pitt said, ‘Inky, eh? Anymore of that malarkey, my lad, and you’ll be blotted.’
*
Elizabeth Cluster wore no widow’s weeds for her late husband. She took unusual trouble over her toilet that Wednesday morning, wielded a hairbrush with vigour, and donned the brightest garment in her small and shabby wardrobe. She had slept well, and came downstairs in a gayer mood than she had known for years. Tom Shannon, when he called during the lunch-hour, was surprised at the change in her. He made no comment, for he was not a demonstrative lover; but from the look in his eyes Elizabeth knew he was pleased.
The knowledge did not stir her. It was for her own pleasure, not for his, that she had adorned herself. When she threw him over to marry John Cluster it had caused her no heartache, for she had never been in love with him. Only the years of misery and neglect had made her turn to him again for consolation; it had been a comfort to hear kind words instead of oaths, to receive caresses instead of blows. Even her own parents, angered as they had been by Cluster’s treatment of her, had not been as considerate as Tom.
Elizabeth had never been technically unfaithful to her husband. Tom had not demanded it of her and she herself had been indifferent, so that their meetings were not energized by passion. For the most part they sat and talked in Missemily’s barn. Occasionally Tom had urged her to leave her husband; but Elizabeth, despite her misery, had experienced too much of John Cluster’s anger to risk arousing it. Nor was she certain that she wanted Tom Shannon as a permanency.
She was glad now that she had refused. Now it was no longer a simple choice between lover and husband; she was her own mistress, with her own house and farm. If ever she married again it would be to someone very different from either of them. But when Tom arrived she greeted him civilly, albeit with real alarm. Was it wise, she asked, to come openly to the house so soon? The police would suspect...
‘They know already,’ he told her. ‘No, not from me; there’s others has been talking. All I told them was that I was in Missemily’s barn with a girl Sunday night; but this morning the inspector come round and asked straight out if it was you. Knowing the way you felt I kept my mouth shut.’ He shook his head. ‘Seems to me we might admit it now. Maybe they’ll leave us alone then.’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘What people say about us isn’t evidence. But once we admit it they’ll say we killed John so’s we could get married. I’m not having that.’
‘They couldn’t prove it. And we’d be giving each other an alibi.’
‘Think so? If they’re after one of us they’re after both. You and me can’t give each other alibis.’ After a pause she added, ‘And don’t forget you was out of the barn for a while. You haven’t got an alibi for that.’
He stared at her. ‘What’s that matter? They won’t know about it if we don’t tell them.’
While she made the tea he ate his bread and cheese, asking numerous questions about the farm and her intentions regarding it. ‘You may have to sell, of course,’ he said. ‘Cluster must’ve been up to his ears in debt. But hang on if you can. The land’s in bad shape, and the stock’s poor, but I reckon we could make something of it in time.’
The ‘we’ irritated her. You’re taking it all for granted, she thought. Can’t wait to get your hands on it, can you? Well, it’s my farm, and it’s going to stay that way.
‘I’m making no decisions until I’ve seen the lawyers,’ she told him.
He nodded. ‘I won’t like leaving Missemily; she’s a good ’un to work for.’ He smiled at her, quite unconscious of her irritation. ‘Better’n you, I shouldn’t wonder. I daresay you’ll lead me a pretty dance, you being the boss and all.’
There was the sound of a car on the drive; Elizabeth went quickly to the window. ‘It’s the police,’ she said. ‘Out you go, Tom. Use the back door — I don’t want them to see you.’
He did not protest. He considered the precaution unnecessary, but he was already late for work. When he had gone Elizabeth inspected her appearance in the mirror, letting the bell ring until she was satisfied.
&n
bsp; The inspector was alone. ‘Come into the kitchen,’ she said amiably. ‘I’ve just made a cup of tea.’ As she busied herself with the teapot she saw him eyeing the two dirty cups on the table, and smiled secretly. ‘You’ve not found the murderer yet, then?’ It was more a conversational gambit than a serious inquiry.
‘Not yet.’
He questioned her about the two men on the farm, but there was little she could tell him. They had been at Trant for less than a month; Cluster’s ungovernable temper had made him a difficult man to work for, and his employees did not stay long. And they had kept away from her while her husband was alive. He hadn’t liked them coming up to the house.
‘When I was here on Monday,’ Pitt said, ‘you told me you were at home all Sunday evening and went to bed at eleven. Are you sure that’s correct, Mrs Cluster?’ Elizabeth gave a meaningless shake of the head, but said nothing. She wanted first to know what was in his mind. ‘H’m! Well, would it surprise you to learn that someone called here at ten o’clock that evening, and is prepared to swear that there was no one at home?’
She wondered at the ‘someone.’ But it did not matter; she knew now what she had to do. The difficulty would be to conceal her purpose from the inspector.
‘I must have been wrong, then, mustn’t I?’ she said lightly. ‘Maybe I got the days mixed, or something. Does it matter?’
‘It might. But perhaps you’d care to tell me where you really were that evening?’
‘I don’t know as I would.’ She laughed openly at his discomfiture. ‘I’ve been doing what I’m told for years, and I’m just about sick of it. Now I’m free to do as I please. If I feel like answering questions I’ll answer them; if I don’t I won’t. Nobody’s going to run me around anymore, see?’
‘I’m not trying to run you around,’ he answered, frowning. ‘I’m trying to find out who killed your husband, and I’m asking you to help me. If you’re not prepared to do that—’
He shrugged his lean shoulders and stood up. But it was not her intention to drive him away. She did not want him to go until she had said what was necessary.
‘I was out with a friend,’ she volunteered hastily.
‘Tom Shannon?’
‘You know quite a bit about my private affairs, don’t you?’ There was no annoyance in her voice. ‘Yes, it was Tom.’
Pitt sat down again, pushing an empty teacup away from him.
‘A pity you didn’t say so in the first place,’ was his comment.
‘Well, you know how it is. Sunday evening I was still married; by rights I shouldn’t have been with Tom. Not that there was anythink improper between us. It’s just that people talk.’
‘Where did you meet him?’
‘In Missemily’s barn. We usually met there. It’s handy for both of us, and quiet-like.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Round about half-past eight; the barn’s only a few minutes’ walk across the fields. But I stayed longer than I’d meant to; it give me quite a turn when I got home and found it was just after half-past ten. If my husband had got back before me he’d have raised the roof.’ She smiled grimly. ‘But I needn’t have worried, need I? Not as things turned out.’
‘So between half-past eight and half-past ten you and Shannon were together in the barn?’
Now for it, thought Elizabeth. ‘More or less,’ she answered, purposefully hesitant.
The inspector rose to the bait. ‘And what does that mean?’ he asked.
‘Well’ She paused, looking at him wide-eyed. ‘Tom and me’s friends, Inspector. I don’t want to say anythink that’ll get him into trouble.’
‘Any trouble that’s coming to Shannon will be of his own making,’ he said brusquely. ‘He left you for a while, did he?’ And, when she nodded. ‘What time would that be?’
‘I don’t know exactly. About ten, perhaps; we didn’t have a watch. But he was only gone a few minutes.’
‘Five minutes?’ he suggested.
‘Perhaps,’ she agreed, feigning reluctance. ‘Certainly not more than ten. But don’t you go thinking he killed my husband, Inspector, because I know different. Tom wouldn’t do a thing like that.’
Pitt ignored the plea, as Elizabeth had intended he should. ‘What reason did he give for leaving you?’ he asked.
‘He didn’t. I asked him when he came back, but he seemed a bit upset and I didn’t press him. Tom’s not one for talking.’
‘Did you notice which way he went?’
‘No.’ She sipped at the lukewarm tea. ‘You won’t let Tom know I’ve told you, will you? He said to keep it quiet. Everyone knows he didn’t like my husband, you see, what with Tom and me walking out before I got married and then John giving him the sack. There’s times he’s even threatened to kill him. But I know he didn’t mean it. It’s just a thing one says.’
Her voice trailed into silence. The inspector was staring out of the window. He looked far away in thought, and Elizabeth wondered if he had absorbed all she had been saying; not only the words, but their implication. She didn’t want to have to go over it again.
‘It’s only two minutes’ walk from the barn to the cottage,’ Pitt said, his eyes still fixed on the window. ‘Ten minutes would have given him all the time he needed.’
‘I’m not saying he couldn’t have done it.’ One more protest, she thought, would do no harm. ‘It’s just that I’m sure he didn’t.’
Pitt stood up and reached for his hat. ‘Thank you for being frank, Mrs Cluster,’ he said. ‘And don’t worry. If Mr Shannon is innocent he has nothing to fear from the police. And neither have you.’
‘Me?’ Elizabeth felt a twinge of alarm. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘It cuts both ways, doesn’t it? Shannon leaving you alone, I mean.’ He looked her full in the face. ‘During the ten minutes he was away from the barn either of you could have gone to the cottage and back without the other knowing.’
*
Lunch at the garage was a silent meal; they had scarcely spoken to each other since the previous morning. George had hoped that Gwen’s tearful outburst after the police had left might result in sympathy and confidence between them. But she had withdrawn once more into her secret thoughts, and he was left to wrestle alone with his problems.
It is strange, even frightening, he thought bitterly, that one can be married to a woman and yet know so little about her. I know what Gwen looks like, how she talks and acts, the things that please her and the things that don’t. But I haven’t a clue as to what goes on in her mind — not even before this trouble started. And one would think that the mind is more important than the body.
Or is it because my own body is so damnably twisted that I think that way?
There’s no point in telling George anything, reflected Gwen; he wouldn’t understand. Perhaps it’s because we’re such opposites — but he never does understand. He might even go to the police. Or would he? Is he as scared of them as I am? There was that car...
If only she had been less afraid of someone recognizing her that evening she might now be more certain of herself. But the suddenness with which the lights had come on had left her no time for thought. Her instinct had been to hide, and she had obeyed it. So that even now she did not know...
‘I suppose you think I killed him,’ George said harshly. ‘If you didn’t kill him yourself, that is.’
The suddenness of his voice made her start. She looked at him warily. Was he trying to trap her?
‘I don’t think about it at all,’ she answered evasively. ‘Not anymore.’
‘Like hell you don’t!’ His frayed nerves could stand the silence no longer. Even a row would be preferable. ‘You’ve thought of nothing else since it happened. You don’t sleep, you don’t eat, you look like death warmed up. And I’m not surprised. It can’t be pleasant to remember him lying there with that knife stuck in his back. It must be quite—’
‘Shut up, blast you!’ Her voice was low, but there was a vicious edge to it. It
made him pause — long enough to recover his temper, to remember that she was his wife. But it did not stop him. For both their sakes he had to make her talk; and to provoke her, to break down her self-control, was the only way he knew.
‘I’ve shut up for long enough,’ he retorted. ‘It’s time we had some plain speaking. You know damn’ well the police haven’t finished with us yet; there’ll be more questions to answer, more lies to invent. Or were you thinking of telling them the truth for a change? Come to that, do you know the truth? I’m damned if I do.’ He pushed his plate aside and leaned forward across the table. ‘We can’t go on like this, Gwen. We’re fooling ourselves more than we’re fooling the police. Sooner or later one of us is going to slip up — contradict the other on some vital point — and then we’ve had it. Can’t you see that?’
Gwen shrugged. ‘You talk about me telling you the truth, but I notice you’re not particularly free with it yourself. Where did you get to Sunday night? You weren’t just sitting here twiddling your thumbs, were you?’
He sighed. Gwen was right; each shrank from making the first move. Yet it ought not to be like that. Not between husband and wife.
Gwen began to clear the table. As she passed the window she paused to look out. Without turning round she said, ‘If you’re so keen on plain speaking you can try it on the police. They’re here now.’
There was a business-like air about the inspector that George mistrusted. ‘I’m afraid that statement you made yesterday isn’t wearing too well, Mr Colling,’ he said, without preamble. ‘There are holes in it already. I’m hoping you can help me to patch them up.’
George shook his head. He had stuck as close to the truth as he dared. To change his story now, with no knowledge of where it had failed, would be madness.
‘What’s wrong with it?’ he asked.
‘It’s a way out on time. You say you were back here from Market Lacing a few minutes before ten. All right, we’ll accept that — though you must have put your foot down to do it in the time.’ George nodded. ‘You then went upstairs and your wife asked you to return this book to Cluster. How long before you went out again?’
