“We must work on the basis that he, or she, did. Let’s allow the male to embrace the female, shall we? He did. Successfully. Wouldn’t be noticed. Not any more than someone adjusting his collar, or tapping a friend on the back to show presence.”
“Or ramming the one in front with your trolley,” was Brian’s comment. “Much how Matthew bumped into me. When the queue jammed again just short of the door. A jab would have been easy. I could have been decapitated and few would have noticed. Even if they then saw my head rolling around the ground, I doubt they would have stopped, specially for my head! Again,” he was becoming eloquent once more, “after a bumping halt like that, everyone pushes forward again as fast as they were stopped in the first place. If,” he used his usual little coda, “you get my drift.”
“So, then,” recommenced Grant, “you saw Graveney in the car park. You saw Harriday there, with his trolley …”
“… they both had trolleys.”
“Right. Trolleys. You saw them. Who else?”
Wiseton scarce drew breath before answering that one.
“A lot of them. As I say, we all try to arrive early to get a handy spot in the car park. Less walking at the start and the end of the day.”
“Understood. Now, back to the doorway once more. You’ve told us about Harriday without his trolley at the gate, or so you think, and Mr Stimson. Anyone else? Other than the Afghan owner?”
“Wanted to keep out of her way! She was a danger to human limb. Plenty, but none especial. Anna Goldey, for sure, as I’ve said.”
“Where else did you see Ambrose Graveney along the way.”
“I didn’t. Saw him at the start, as I say. Saw him put his dog in and drop the flaps over the sides of his trolley – all small dog owners do that; reduces the stress on the animals. They’ve every right to be scared of feet and noise being all the way down there. Saw him then, but not that I recall afterwards. Left him in the car park. I was in here ahead of him. Getting ready.” He didn’t mention his ‘wee doze’. “So far as I can remember, he was talking to someone. In the car park I mean. Might have been Kem, come to that, though he wouldn’t want to be too close to him when he was having a fag. Objected to smoke, did Ambrose. Maybe Anna, or it could have been John Pugh. You can ask them.”
“We will. There’s our line, Simon. Who saw Graveney. Where and when. At the start, on the route, near the door. Graveney, and anyone else who was near him. Talking to him. Walking with him. Chatting in the crush at the doorway. Any and all links. Now, how shall we share out our targets?”
Chapter Twenty
Saturday, 4pm precisely
“Spot on four.” Grant had no need of his timepiece. Trott’s equivalent of Big Ben, and as equally tended, was visible from the cafe balcony so dominant that he wondered why he hadn’t noticed it before. “The witching hour. Off we go.”
“In what order, sir?”
“As we come to them, Simon. You’ll take five. I’ll take Brian with me and tackle the other five. Fair enough? Catch them as we can. Bump into them. They won’t be far from their benches I’ll be bound. All packed up and ready, raring, to go. Be a bit edgy, I’m sure. They won’t like us questioning them again, but needs must. Let’s get this villain. Don’t waste time. No garrulous recollections. Just concentrate on Graveney. Not so much what they have to say about him, but concentrate on the when and the where, of the man himself and others near to him at that critical point. We have to go on my notes from Doc Meredith. At the door, or near as dammit, is when the needle went in. Find it.”
Yale was relieved that he had not drawn Janice. He feared she would see him as a traitor, having caused her to be trapped despite her help and hospitality. When time was pressing on her. Grant had, somewhat arbitrarily in his opinion, leaned over, taken his page of notes, and plonked a ‘G’ or a ‘Y’ against each of the names. He quickly reviewed his. Susan Goodlife and Madge Donnelly clearly made a pair. They were on the spot when Ambrose reached his bench. That first sighting must be looked at again. John Pugh he did not expect much of; hardly in the frame. Jean Greatrex, he feared, would do no more than regale him with her sensational revelations made to camera; Anna Goldey might or might not present him with a dilemma.
He puzzled over the ? against the bracketed names Harriday and Charles, the Yank. The unknown X3. Unknown other than casual observation across a busy Bichon ring. Simon wasn’t sure why he was on the list. As a provider of champagne? From overseas so, vide Haig, could be of interest. Also, a friend of Brian and of Harriday in school. No! Wrong. X3 went with Brian; Harriday was a younger man; school reunion thing. Then this remarkable chance of all three turning up with similar dog-breeding in common. That was it. Simon was wary. There could be an old boys reunion racket in the wind. Had Grant that possibility in mind? Coincidence was remarkable. At the time Graveney was stabbed, Brian and Kem had been near him. Was X3 with them? Bottle and card at the ready? The ex-corporal said that X3 was no more than an interested observer. Sizing up the UK style. If so, he would have arrived later, and by the public entrance. Yet, a trio could co-operate well. One drawing attention from the other two’s movements. How to handle X3? Sensitive or not, it might be as well to include 887 for that one. Watch faces. Yale decided to place Pugh fifth on his list. He took the chance to run this idea past Grant. He pointed to the bracket on the paper.
“This pair, sir. How best to tackle? I’ve spoken to Harriday, but this Charles character is as unknown.” He gave his thought. Grant gave the answer he hoped for.
“Agreed. We’ll do them as a pair, and take Wiseton with us. He knows them well and has seen quite a bit of them today. Might be interesting.”
They left the café and strode forth. As Grant had expected, most owners were at their benches, trolleys stacked and, despite the PR appeal from Trott, many with their dogs already inside. Members of the public were wandering among them, still getting some enthusiastic comments on their animals, as well as some hands-on experience, from becalmed owners. Yale never ceased to marvel at the dedication of these people. None of these visitors was likely to be in the market for such fine pedigree, high priced, animals. Most wanted no more than to ooh and aah and entertain their enthralled offspring, hoping the while that said children would not begin to pester for a purchase. The parents had some protection. Sales were out of the question at the show. Yet trade cards could be exchanged and the joys of such specialised ownership proclaimed by breeders, if only to pass the wearisome time as they waited to go home.
“Have you come to release us, Superintendent?”
“I fear not, Ms Mulholland.”
“You wouldn’t keep us here like this if the camera crew was still about. Think what they would make of such incarceration.”
“We have a job to do, to clear up this murder. With your help that will be easier.”
“Help you again?” squeaked Miss Greatrex. “I can’t think of anything more. I said all I know. I’ve told the Inspector everything.”
“No doubt.” Grant was his emollient best. “Thanks to your, to all your, help,” he spoke loudly, hoping to be heard by most in both the ETT and the Bichon lines, “we have discovered some further interesting facts. I shall be most grateful if you will allow us to press some of you for recollections related to those discoveries. Things you didn’t tell us because we didn’t ask.”
Wordy, but a good approach, thought Yale. What of his own approaches? As Grant was nearest the Bichons, and had Janice Mulholland on his list, Simon edged left and looked down the ETT line, much as Ambrose Graveney must have done in the last moments of his life. Here he had a break. Well deserved on such a day. Chatting together, as they had been for a few moments at seven o’clock or so that morning, were the well-rounded Susan Goodlife and her friend Madge Donnelly. He decided to take the two as one. Nothing to lose, and time was now nearly spent. Bannister was bound to arrive by five. Unless? Yale dismissed the word from his mind. Bannister would be there by five, and that was that. He made his way down
the line of benches, and halted beside the two.
“Couldn’t quite catch what was said just now,” said Madge. “Not more about being kept in detention, I hope. Anything else affecting us?”
“Yes.” He gave the two ladies the gist of what his Super had pronounced. “So you see, I must press you again on what you saw of Ambrose at any stage, any time at all, on the way in. From the car park to the entrance. Was he ever anywhere near you, before you saw him in his bench?”
The two ladies were polite enough to put on a show of deep thought. Simon waited as, unknown to him, Bannister cursed the lights and the resultant queue at the watermain works. It was no good putting on his siren. Nothing to gain in this Saturday afternoon jam. His road was blocked. He had to queue with the rest. It was no help that the lights were evenly timed and, it seemed to the frustrated and angry Inspector, he had hit the heavy side going outward on his misdirected way to look at a collection of blooms, and now again on the way back to where he was urgently needed and desperately awaited.
Yale hoped Bannister would be taking his time. He had caught the Super’s ‘let’s-do-it’ bug and wanted to push the two ladies, and the others on his list, for all they were worth. Maybe they sensed his eagerness. They spoke almost together, each politely gave way, then, at Simon’s invitation, Madge began.
“Well.” She paused. This was not the speed he wanted. “I did see Ambrose getting out of his car. Most of us in the ETT world know that car. Distinctive.”
“So I’ve been told. Was he with anyone? Talking to anyone?”
“I saw him getting his trolley from the back seat, and then his dog Roley out of the travelling cage – oh! poor Roley. What’s going to happen to him?”
“In very good hands,” assured Simon. “Then?”
“Oh yes. Then, after Roley was safely in the trolley, he locked the car and sorted himself out. More or less alongside me – us, indeed Susan. Do you remember?” Susan nodded. “After that, next, as he was about to set off, he stopped. Was stopped. By someone. Harriday. Kem Harriday, I do swear.”
“And someone else,” put in Susan.
“Another? I don’t think so, dear. Another. You know! Could have been, but I couldn’t swear to it. If it was, nobody I know. Would have remembered otherwise. I think. Oh dear. Things are a bit of a rush at that stage of the day you know, Inspector. I’m sure enough about Kem Harriday, mind. Wasn’t Brian there as well? Three of them. Men I mean.”
“Not three, Madge. Thinking again, I’m sure it wasn’t three. Could have been two, as I say, but not three. I truly can’t recall seeing three. With Ambrose, or including him do you mean?”
Simon wished to move them along. “On the way to the entrance, did Ambrose catch you up?”
This caused a further delay of much thinking.
“Kem did, of course. Always does. Dashing up the outside with his trolley almost taking off in the slipstream,” – Susan was a fan of Formula One – “but Ambrose? I don’t think so. In fact I’m sure he couldn’t have. Not his style. Not his style at all. As he was behind us, as he was for certain when we left the cars, then there is no way he would do anything else but take his place in line and follow along.”
“At the entrance? When things came to a halt. In the squash. Did he catch you up then? Did you see him? This is most important. Did you see Ambrose at or near the competitors’ entrance?”
Further internal consultations followed this question. At last – surely Bannister was as good as at the door! – Madge was positive.
“Yes. Yes I did. We did. Didn’t we, Susan. I said so. I hoped he hadn’t been hurt. Remember how at Paignton last year – Exeter, really Inspector, but it was the Paignton show,” Simon stifled a sigh, “he got rammed by that over-sized wagon the man from Kettering – you haven’t forgotten him, I’m sure – was pushing in front of him. Of all things! Not good for a man getting on in years.”
“Quite right. He had caught us up. Still with Kem Harriday as it comes to me now. They must have come along together. Or he had caught up with him?” Simon could translate which was which. “And, do you know, Anna Goldey as well! She could have been the other one in the car park come to that. With Ambrose. The Third Man,” she giggled; in Simon’s brain a tune stirred. “If there were three with him. Could have been her. She was wearing sensible trousers, and that long, warm coat. Looked like a man. At that distance, I mean, and not in the best light.”
Simon strove to get them back to his main theme.
“So, you saw Ambrose Graveney, along with Harriday and Mrs Goldey, all together at the door. Or near it.”
“A lot of people were, as you put it, ‘near’ the door, Mr Yale. We were all being pressed from behind.” Simon took a stab.
“Did Harriday have his trolley with him?”
The question was not understood.
“Must have done.”
“Always did. Rushed up the outside to get to the head of the queue after lingering in the car park for a last cigarette. Always. As we just said. Not that I could swear to it in the witness box. Too congested.”
Yale tried other approaches to stimulate memory, but got nothing new. That Ambrose had been near them, Goldey, Harriday and, for that matter, Wiseton and a crowd of others as well, was as specific as he was likely to get out of the two ladies. He had one last shot before pressing on.
“You’re both ETT persons. Like Ambrose. Did you read his articles in Dogs Talk?”
There was no immediate answer.
“You do read it?”
“Madge buys it, and passes it on to me. As a swop for my women’s mag. Do read it, most times, but can’t say I ever saw anything by him.”
“He used to be mentioned sometimes. When he was doing inspections and the like,” said Madge. “Funny though. Sure you’ve got it right? Can’t remember anything written by Ambrose.”
“Does the name ‘Varro’ ring any bells?”
“Those! Were they by Ambrose? Well, well! Didn’t like them much.”
“Bitchy,” added Susan.
After asking them, urgently, to track him down and tell him if any other detail, however small, came to them, he left them. He told them he was off next to see Mrs Goldey at the Dogs from the Shows stand. Then he would be back in the Bichon lines for another word with Jean Greatrex. That was his plan. It didn’t work out.
Yale set off towards the area of the Goldey spectacular, but had scarce taken four strides when he was called from the equivalent end of the Bichon lines by Grant’s well-known voice.
“Thought you ought to know,” said the voice. “Jumped onto your list.”
He turned to see the Super with Janice and his own target of Miss Greatrex. The Super explained.
“Miss Greatrex came in with Ms Mulholland. All the way, from meeting in the car park. So thought it as well to kill two birds with one stone and question them together.”
“Snap! Done the same thing myself with Mesdames Goodlife and Donnelly. Got something extra, but hoped for more.”
Grant spoke to the two ladies, and then came over to join Yale. He led the Inspector, in a now practised silence, towards where the two guards were blocking the exit through the dog-owners’ door. Near enough to them, but not too close, he spoke, quietly but clearly.
“Seems all this lot were more or less pushed together. All had the same idea of getting in first; setting up first; getting grooming first. Mad scheme if you ask me, but common enough. They all knew the others would be there doing the same thing. Like the rush hour. Everybody from one side of town works on the other side of town, and they all want to cross the one-way linking bridge at the same time. Morning and evening. Why not stagger things a bit?”
Simon knew that his boss was not au fait with the imperatives of top dog showing. He didn’t bother to comment. Merely nodded and made the point that, as both of them had achieved a two-for-one, there was some value in the herd instinct. This failed to cut much ice. Grant had his drive for a solution in top gear.
&n
bsp; “What’s clear is that, from the evidence these two have given me, your man Wiseton,” where was Brian? Simon wondered, “is as much in the frame, had the same chance of sticking in the needle as your Mrs Goldey,” Simon was beginning to feel uneasy at this repetition of ‘your’, “or that chap Harriday. My two interviewees confirm that and, I’ve no doubt you’ll be telling me, your two as well.”
“In that they were in the same hold-up, the cause of which none of them is clear about, yes. That’s so. Yet can’t see my two ladies killing off Graveney, any more than yours. What reason would they have? Mine tell a natural enough tale. I would have preferred a clearer yarn, but the thing rings all the truer to me from the way they spoke.” He summarised what he had been told. “Your two any different? Did the Bichon pair bump into, literally or not, my ETT pair?”
“Not from what they said to me. No. They were more concerned about protecting their belongings from being disturbed or upset. Didn’t want to drop anything. Very easy for a cage door to open if the trolley is jarred.”
“Did you ask them about who might be using a syringe? Who might need one for their dog’s preparation?”
“No. That is, not yet. Little point. We haven’t the time or the resources to search the Hall for such a thing. Not much of a hope of success if we did. In one of the waste bins collected this morning, I wouldn’t wonder, or smuggled out long since. Did you?”
“No.”
“That’s that, then. The set up, now that you’ve told me what Donnelly and Goodlife have had to say, seems to me to be homing in on the Goldey woman and this Harriday chap.”
“With or without his trolley.”
“Yes. Any significance in that do you suppose?”
“Brian Wiseton might be able to help us there. He raised the matter. Where is he, by the way?”
“On an errand. To scout out where his former school pals are hiding. The ones we’ll tackle together. They aren’t in the bench rows. Scarcely been there all day. You?”
“Haven’t asked specifically, but you’re right about our Kem.” Simon liked his use of ‘our’. Mustn’t be bullied! “Saw him at the ETT ringside this morning scrutinising the work of the judge Agnes Thorpe, and possibly Mr Jenkins, along with his Yankee pal. He popped up later to ask to go outside for a fag. Didn’t see any trolley, or dog come to that, then. When he came back and gave his statement, he made no attempt to hide his far from flattering opinion of Ambrose Graveney. Then I lost sight of him.”
A Question of Pedigree Page 18
