‘Aha! Cliffie the chippy – just what we need.’
A tall old van, well known in and around Breckham Market, had trundled up behind them. In one side of the van body was a large sliding window; from the roof protruded a Flue that puthered aromatic smoke. The van parked a little further up the street. Immediately, the interior was lighted up and the driver’s mate, a pale man in a soiled white apron, began to shovel raw potato chips from a plastic bucket into a vat of hot cooking-oil. Half the population of Thirling promptly emerged from their houses to collect fish and chips for supper.
Quantrill put away both cigar and lighter and gladly produced a pound note. ‘Have this on me,’ he said.
‘Damn it, this isn’t a police van,’ protested Tait indignantly. ‘Fish and chips will stink my car out.’
‘I’ll have plaice,’ said Quantrill, ‘if Cliffie’s got any, otherwise cod. Not too many chips. Plenty of salt, but go easy with the vinegar.’
Tait muttered insubordination.
‘Stop making a fuss,’ said Quantrill, ‘and go and join the queue. I’ll do the same for you when you’re Chief Constable.’
‘This looks like a dead end, at the moment, Martin. I’ve just been talking to the incident-room, and no-one they’ve interviewed saw any person or vehicle going to or coming from Yeoman’s after the time when Hussey says he left. So presumably, as he suggested, Jasmine Woods decided to spend the rest of the day at home. And presumably the next visitor was her killer.’
Tait, having decided that the only way he could bear the smell in his car would be to succumb to the Chief Inspector’s offer, blew on a hot chip.
‘No word from Yarchester about Smith, I suppose?’
Quantrill crunched a piece of fishy batter. ‘No. They’re all sitting on their behinds having refreshments instead of going out looking for him.’
‘I’m interested in the fact that Smith called on Jasmine yesterday morning, and was interrupted by the Elliotts,’ said Tait. ‘Oh, I know that he lived in the garden, so he must have been in and out of her house a good deal; but he’d been there a couple of years, and if he had any part in her murder something must have happened yesterday to trigger it off. We know that he spent money on drugs, and he might have got to the stage where he needed more money than he earned. Perhaps he went to see Jasmine yesterday morning to try to get a loan. But I know that she disapproved of hard drugs, and I think she’d refuse. And then the Elliotts arrived, and after them Hussey. By the evening, Smith would have been getting desperate.’
‘It’s a possibility,’ agreed Quantrill. ‘We badly need Smith, but until Yarchester finds him, or forensic comes up with some evidence that definitely ties him in with the murder, we can’t be sure that he did it. So we have to go on looking elsewhere and I was thinking, while you were getting the fish and chips – by the way, was there any change from my pound?’
‘You’ve been overtaken by inflation. I had to put in another 10p.’
Quantrill grumbled about the cost of Cliffie’s newfangled white wrapping paper and cardboard trays. ‘When I was a kid we ate fish and chips out of newspaper. Very educational, especially when it was the News of the World. Anyway, it occurs to me that we might have been concentrating too hard on the people we met at that party. On the face of it, several of them had motives that might have led them to kill her. And Gilbert Smith and her brother-in-law Paul Pardoe and Hussey all had the opportunity.’
‘So did Jonathan Elliott,’ said Tait. ‘That study of his has a patio-door – he could have slipped out of there after dark and walked down to Yeoman’s without anyone else in the family knowing that he’d gone.’
‘All right, they all had the opportunity. But if we hadn’t known Jasmine Woods, and met those men at her party, I think we’d have paid more attention to the way the murder was done.’
‘With hatred, you mean. Yes, it wasn’t simply murder in furtherance of theft, we all saw that right away. Whoever killed Jasmine might have wanted her jade and netsuke; alternatively he might have taken them just to make us think that was why he did it. But we could see for ourselves that there was a much stronger motive for the murder than that. And – excluding Smith, because druggies might do anything – the men we’ve interviewed haven’t really been sufficiently strongly motivated to do that kind of murder.’
‘With the exception of Rodney Gifford,’ Quantrill amended, chip in hand. ‘He was strongly motivated, all right. With half a bottle of her wine inside him, he was licking his lips over the prospect of making her suffer. The only snag is that he lives seventeen miles away, there’s no public transport out here on Sunday evenings, he doesn’t own a vehicle and he’s got his dear old mother as an alibi …’
Quantrill brooded for a moment. Tait ignored the interruption.
‘Jasmine told me, at her party, that most of the guests were relations and neighbours rather than personal friends. In other words, we haven’t yet met any of the people she was really involved with. We know nothing about her private life. While I was at Yeoman’s this afternoon there was a telephone call from her publisher, asking for news. I spoke to him myself. He was shocked by the murder. He’d known her for years and regarded her as a friend, but he didn’t seem to know much more about her than George Hussey did. He knew that she had friends in London, but he couldn’t tell me who they were. And I don’t think there was any doubt that Jasmine had an active private life – she told me once that she thought we were all entitled to our private pleasures. So presumably there’s a lover about somewhere, and possibly an ex-lover or two. There’s certainly an ex-husband, name of Potter—’
The Chief Inspector stopped brooding and screwed the wrapping paper round the remains of his fish and chips. ‘You’re right, Martin. It’s the men who have loved her who are most likely to hate her – and particularly the ex-husband, now that she’s rich and famous. Right, see if you can track him down. I’ll go back home and have a word with Alison. I must see her anyway, to get some details filled in, but I’ll also ask her about Jasmine’s current men-friends. Alison’s bound to know something about them. It wasn’t just an employer-employee relationship, I bet she knows a lot more about Jasmine Woods than anyone else round here. By God, she can probably put her finger straight on the man we want!’
Sergeant Tait snatched up their supper wrappings, leaped out of his car and stuffed them in the rubbish bin outside the village shop. He sprinted back to the driving seat and switched on the ignition. ‘Straight to your home, sir?’
But Quantrill had gone broody again. ‘No, hold hard,’ he said slowly, ‘I can see Alison later. I was thinking about Rodney Gifford. His mother told me that they were both watching television last night – BBC2, she said. That was what George Hussey said he was watching, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. A play by Pinter.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘A modern English playwright.’ Tait had never been interested in the theatre, and his job absorbed most of his time and energy, but he tried to keep up with the Arts pages of the Sunday Times. A quick glance through the reviews was, he found, a surprisingly effective substitute for going to plays and films and reading books.
‘Does he write romantic plays?’ asked Quantrill. ‘The sort of thing Rodney Gifford’s mother might enjoy? She’s a dear old soul, pushing eighty; used to love going to the pictures to see Clark Gable.’
Tait smiled knowledgeably. ‘I doubt she’d enjoy Pinter, then.’
‘That’s what I was wondering. I think the chances are that she’d sleep all the way through it … Get moving, Martin. Alison’s information will keep. I’m going back to talk to Gifford.’
‘But he lives in Yarchester, and you said he hasn’t any transport.’
‘I know. But that doesn’t mean that he can’t drive, does it?’
Chapter Eighteen
‘Oh – it’s Mr – er Roddy’s friend, isn’t it? How nice of you to call back.’
Mrs Gifford stood in the doorway of the semi-detached house in
Rowan Road, peering uncertainly up at Chief Inspector Quantrill in the dim light from the hall. She looked very weary; smaller and frailer that she had seemed that morning. She had exchanged her bunion-shaped shoes for a pair of carpet slippers, and her neat cardigan for a heavier hand-knitted jacket that she clutched to her throat as though she were cold. ‘It’s rather late, though,’ she went on. ‘Roddy’s in his room, working, and he doesn’t like to be disturbed. And I shall be going to bed just after ten.’
‘I’m very sorry to bother you, Mrs Gifford, but I’m afraid that I need to have another word with your son.’
‘He’s very upset, you know,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he wants to see anyone. We’re both upset. His poor dear cousin Jasmine is dead – a wicked murder—’ She pulled an inadequate wad of handkerchief from her sleeve and searched for a dry corner to dab her eyes with. ‘But then, I expect you’ve heard about the tragedy – you were a friend of Jasmine’s, weren’t you?’
Quantrill offered his sympathy. ‘But I must tell you,’ he added, ‘that I’m a police officer, and I need your son’s help. May I come in?’
He stepped firmly into the hall. Mrs Gifford stood pale and alarmed. She held her arms crossed on her thin chest, with both hands hugging the collar of her jacket close to her corded neck.
‘Who is it?’ called Gifford’s deep, fierce voice from upstairs. ‘Who the hell is it?’
‘Rodney!’ his mother piped with tearful reproof. She tried to reassure herself. ‘He doesn’t usually swear, he’s a good boy. I’m sure he’ll help you in any way he can,’ she told Quantrill. She raised her voice again. ‘Someone to see you, Rodney.’
Gifford came thundering down the stairs. As soon as he saw the Chief Inspector he stopped dead, one hand grabbing at the banister, one shabbily carpet-slippered foot poised in mid-descent. He glanced back the way he had come, and for a moment Quantrill thought that he was going to bolt for his room.
‘Just a couple of queries,’ Quantrill assured him. ‘You could help me too, Mrs Gifford, if you will.’
Gifford came reluctantly to ground level, complaining about the inconvenience of the call. Quantrill held open the sitting-room door for both mother and son, and followed them in. A big old-fashioned monochrome television set was switched on, though the sound was turned down.
Mrs Gifford sat down nervously in an unyielding armchair. Her son stood in a protective Victorian position behind her, one hand on her shoulder, head up, ears protruding scarlet through his hair. ‘What did you want to ask Mother?’ he demanded.
Quantrill sat opposite the old lady. He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘I’d just like to know whether you have a car, Mrs Gifford.’
‘We haven’t,’ growled Rodney. ‘You know that, I told you this afternoon.’
His mother glanced up at him. ‘Well, we did have a car, Rodney, don’t forget that. When your poor dear father was alive.’ She proceeded to tell the Chief Inspector more than he wished to know about the family car, and her decision to sell it after her husband had died, at the time when Rodney was being successful in London. ‘And after he came home to keep me company, we decided that a car was an unnecessary expense. Not that we couldn’t afford one, of course, Rodney’s father left me fairly comfortable, and then there’s my pension …’
Quantrill met Gifford’s uneasy eyes. ‘You can drive, then?’
‘Of course he can,’ said his mother proudly. ‘His father taught him to drive – he’s had a licence ever since he was eighteen, haven’t you dear?’
‘I see. The other thing I wanted to ask you about, Mrs Gifford,’ said Quantrill, ‘is yesterday evening. I wonder if you’d mind telling me exactly what you did?’
‘I told you about that too,’ her son intervened fiercely. ‘Last night my mother and I sat here watching television.’
‘Yes, of course we did,’ she agreed. ‘We always do on Sunday evenings.’
‘Did you enjoy the programme?’
‘Oh yes. Not that you get the same atmosphere as a cinema, but I quite enjoy television.’ Her eyes were drawn towards the silent screen where a spaghetti-Western film was in progress: Clint Eastwood, thin, unshaven, expressionless, with stetson on head and cigar in mouth was – apparently without removing either – about to give a girl in vaguely Victorian fancy-dress exactly what she was asking for.
‘Did you watch a film last night?’ Quantrill asked.
Mrs Gifford dragged her eyes from the screen with shocked reluctance. Her son strode over to the television set and switched it off, muttering his distaste for such offensive rubbish. ‘I’ve told you, Mother, you should stick to BBC2. That’s what we were watching last night, a play by Pinter.’
‘Good, was it?’ Quantrill asked her, smiling encouragingly. ‘My wife always enjoys watching plays.’
‘Well …’ Mrs Gifford’s rheumaticky fingers picked shyly at the hand-embroidered linen cover on the arm of her chair. ‘It’s really the hymns I enjoy most on Sunday evenings. After that, I often take a nap.’
‘And why not?’ said Quantrill. ‘I fall asleep in front of the set myself, if I’ve had a busy day. Were you asleep for long, last night?’
‘Let me see … we had tea in here, we always do that on Sundays, and then Rodney washed up while I watched the hymn-singing. And then he brought me another cup of tea; that’s what he does every Sunday evening. Such a good son to me.’
‘And then you saw the start of the play?’ Quantrill prompted.
‘Oh no, it’s “The World about Us” first; animals, you know, and sometimes birds.’
‘Which was it last night?’
‘I’m not sure – I think I must have dozed off.’
‘But you woke for the start of the play?’
‘Now you come to mention it, I don’t think I did … I can’t remember the play at all. Surely I didn’t sleep all the way through it, Rodney?’
‘You just dozed on and off, Mother. We discussed the plot at one point, don’t you remember?’
She shook her head. ‘Isn’t it silly of me? All I can remember is you waking me up with my Horlicks and biscuits and telling me that it was nearly eleven o’clock!’
‘Oh – you fell into such a sound sleep towards the end of the play that it seemed a shame to wake you. No wonder you’re tired this evening, after such a late night.’ He turned angrily to Quantrill. ‘Have you quite finished?’
Quantrill addressed the old lady. ‘Thank you, you’ve been very helpful. I’d just like to have a word with Rodney – out in the hall, perhaps?’
‘No, no.’ Mrs Gifford got stiffly to her feet. ‘You couldn’t stay for tea this afternoon, so you must have some Horlicks now. I’ll go and make it. After all, you were one of poor dear Jasmine’s friends …’
She went out to the kitchen. Quantrill stood facing her son.
‘Right, Mr Gifford.’ He pulled out his notebook. ‘I took the precaution of checking last night’s television programme before I came here: “The World About Us” started at 7.15 last night. It was about an expedition in the Himalayas, incidentally, so I don’t think your mother can have taken much interest in it, do you? And if you didn’t wake her until eleven she must have been asleep for all of three hours, possibly nearer four.’
Gifford’s tongue flicked across his wide mouth. ‘And what concern is that of yours?’
‘The pathologist who did the autopsy on your cousin Jasmine puts the time of her death between eight and nine last night. What were you doing at that time, Mr Gifford?’
‘For God’s sake, I’ve told you! Sitting here with my mother watching television!’
‘I see. Someone else I’ve interviewed this evening said that he was doing just the same thing – watching the play on BBC2, I mean. I asked him,’ said Quantrill, bluffing – or lying – as detectives often find it expedient to do, ‘to give me full details about the sets and what the actors were wearing. So if you’d like to do the same, Mr Gifford, and if your recollections tally with his, I shan’t have to
trouble you any further.’
There was a long pause. From the kitchen, Mrs Gifford’s voice could be heard in a quavering rendering of a hymn for Palm Sunday, which she must have heard on television the previous evening. Her son’s face looked a dirty grey under his gingerish hair.
‘I’ve got nothing to say,’ he muttered. ‘Except that I don’t know anything about Jasmine’s death.’
‘Did you go to her house last night?’
‘No.’
‘So where were you?’
‘I’ve got nothing to say.’
‘Then I’ll have to ask you to come with me to the station.’
‘You can’t arrest me! You’ve got nothing against me!’
‘I’m not arresting you, Mr Gifford – simply asking for your cooperation. If you’re not prepared to talk to me here, it’ll have to be the station.’
He licked his lips again. ‘I can’t leave my mother alone, she’d be worried sick.’
‘I thought of that. I brought one of the Yarchester policewomen with me – she’s waiting outside in my car. I daresay she’ll enjoy a nice chat and a mug of Horlicks with your mother while you’re helping me with my enquiries.’
‘Sure of yourself, weren’t you?’ sneered Gifford bitterly.
For a moment, Quantrill saw him again as he had seen him at Jasmine Woods’s party. He recalled the wolfish way Gifford had looked at his cousin, his gesture with the wine bottle. He recalled the relish with which Gifford had said, A bit of suffering would do cousin Jasmine a world of good. Yes, he was sure that he had found the murderer.
He might, with reason, have felt at that moment a surge of anger. After all, he had known and liked the victim; and then, there was his daughter’s connection with her. Jasmine Woods was beyond either help or suffering now, poor woman, but Alison might well be emotionally scarred for the rest of her life by what she had seen when she found the body. On her behalf, if not the victim’s, he might have been moved to anger against Rodney Gifford.
The Chief Inspector's Daughter Page 13
