‘That’s fine with me,’ she said, settling back comfortably in the front passenger seat. Presently she said ‘Look here, I’m not taking you out of your way, am I?’
‘Not at all.’
A little later still she said ‘You’re quite sure this isn’t putting you out at all?’
‘Quite sure,’ he said urbanely. ‘I’ve been quite looking forward to having a little chat with you on my own and now’s my chance.’
Chapter Eighteen
Albatross
‘The doctor couldn’t put his finger on Eric’s trouble,’ said Mrs Simmonds. ‘Thought he must have eaten something but he was really ill for a while.’ She patted a cretonne-covered chair. ‘Take a seat, Inspector.’ She looked anxiously at Detective Constable Crosby. ‘Will you be all right on the pouffe?’
‘That’s the sort of stool over there, Crosby,’ intervened Sloan quickly. ‘The velvet one.’
Crosby nodded as he tried to perch on the distinctly unstable stuffed seat. Having failed to straddle it, he settled for a form of uncomfortable side-saddle.
‘Eric’s only just stepped outside for a little walk. He’ll be back presently because he’s not quite up to going far yet but I expect I can help you. He tells me all about the Club after he’s played.’
Detective Inspector Sloan projected sympathy and interest.
‘He didn’t even feel like going to the Committee meeting today, you know. Anyway,’ she said placidly, ‘he said there would be bound to be argument and Eric certainly wasn’t up to that.’
Sloan said that in his experience you had to be fit and well to attend any Committee meeting.
‘Just what I said to Eric.’ Her face brightened. ‘Besides, he doesn’t really want to have to decide who is going to get to do all the new work they want doing there. He said that they’re all old friends up there and it wasn’t right that he should have to choose between them.’
‘I expect they’ll take the cheapest estimate,’ said Sloan. The Calleshire Police Committee always did. And paid for it very heavily in the long run.
‘I suppose so,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Never mind, I said to him, you’ll soon be back playing and that’s more important than any old Committee meeting.’
‘Much,’ said Sloan heartily. It wasn’t his duty to tell her that they weren’t all friends at the Golf Club. On the contrary, in fact: some of them at the very least were rival contenders for its business. And one of them had murdered twice. And probably fed mild poison to two more …
‘Mind you, Inspector, Eric was very sorry to miss some of the competitions. Especially the Pletchford Plate.’ She pointed to a great salver adorning the mantelpiece. ‘He won that last year and now it’ll have to go back for someone else to have.’
‘Got to give the others a chance,’ said Crosby, struggling to keep his balance.
‘And he did so well in the first rounds,’ she said, ignoring this sportsman-like sentiment. ‘He was ever so disappointed that he had to give Brian Southon a walkover because he was looking forward to playing him. He’d have beaten him, too, I’m sure.’
‘Would he?’ asked Sloan, uncertain still whether he was dealing with wheat or chaff.
‘Eric’s a much steadier player than Mr Southon,’ she said proudly. ‘And he was on top form. Do you know he had three horseshoes in the last match he played before he was ill and still won?’
Sloan confessed to an ignorance of golfing horseshoes.
‘It’s when the ball runs round the rim of the hole and doesn’ t drop in,’ she informed him. ‘Hard, isn’t it?’
‘Nerve-racking,’ said Sloan.
‘“Never up, never in”, is what Eric always says,’ said Mrs Simmonds.
‘It’s what they all say,’ muttered Crosby, sotto voce.
For a fleeting moment Sloan wondered how much his wife quoted him on rose-growing over the garden fence. He hoped not. What he had to say on white-fly ought not to be repeated in company.
‘Assuming he’d beaten Brian Southon,’ said Detective Inspector Sloan casually, ‘he’d have had to go on and beat quite a few other men to win in the end.’
‘Oh, yes, I know,’ she said, more golf wife than golf widow. ‘Peter Gilchrist, first, of course.’ She smiled. ‘Now that was one good thing to come out of Eric’s illness although naturally he didn’t see it that way.’
‘What was?’ asked Sloan on the instant.
‘Eric told me that Brian Southon had been trying ever so hard to fix up a game with Peter Gilchrist but that Peter hadn’ t got any spare dates at all.’
‘Well, I never,’ said Crosby.
‘So they were able to get together after all in the Pletchford Plate.’ She beamed. ‘I always think that things work out for the best in the long run, don’t you, Inspector?’
‘Sometimes,’ said Sloan, getting to his feet. ‘But not always for everyone. Come along, Crosby.’
‘What Eric really wants to do one day,’ said Mrs Simmonds happily, ‘is to shoot his age. But I’m sure he’ll answer all your questions himself when he comes in. Oh, you’re going now, are you? Don’t you want to wait and see him? He’ll be so disappointed to have missed you.’
The radio in the police car came to life as soon as the two policemen stepped back inside it.
‘Inspector Sloan? Sergeant Perkins here.’ There was the sound of distant background noises contributing to the crackling over the airwaves betokening a call being made in the open air. ‘I couldn’t find Hilary Trumper anywhere at the Golf Club. Not anywhere but …’
‘Put out a general call,’ interrupted Sloan without hesitation. ‘If seen, stop and detain for questioning.’
‘But Molly from the bar saw her get into someone’s car about five minutes ago. I’m sorry but she doesn’t know whose.’ Sergeant Perkins sounded apologetic on behalf of her sex. ‘She’s very sorry but she’s not into cars and she doesn’t know which car belongs to which member.’
‘And make a note of everyone who is still at the Club,’ said Sloan automatically. Not even a golfer had solved the problem of being in two places at once.
‘Her father’s still there,’ said Polly Perkins.
‘That’s something.’
‘But the professional isn’t.’
‘Noted.’
‘Then they drove off,’ went on the policewoman, ‘without Molly being able to see who was driving. All she knows is that the car took the Calleford road but of course that could mean anything.’
‘He could have taken a turning to anywhere he wanted at the Billing cross-roads,’ agreed Sloan, the map of the county’s road network as clear in his mind as it was on paper. ‘It’s only half a mile down that road.’
She hesitated. ‘Quite a lot of the men had already started to drift away after they’d finished playing so in theory it could be anyone who isn’t still there.’
‘We’re on our way,’ said Sloan, giving his driver a nod. ‘All right, Crosby, you can get going now.’
‘Where to, sir?’
‘Good question.’ He pulled out his notebook. ‘Back to the Golf Club first while I try to work out why it could be so important for Brian Southon to be able to have a nice quiet round with Peter Gilchrist …’
‘Or Peter Gilchrist with Brian Southon.’
‘No, Crosby. That wasn’t what Mrs Simmonds said. Weren’t you listening?’
‘That round thing was very difficult to sit on, sir.’
‘Well listen now. Suppose it was important that instead of Eric Simmonds playing Gilchrist that Southon played in his place – important enough for Southon to have made Simmonds ill.’
‘If he did.’
‘We don’t know that yet.’ Doctors and ordinary pathologists would have to be consulted, he knew, before anyone – especially the lawyers – could be sure about that. ‘But why?’
‘Blackmail?’ suggested Crosby, letting in the clutch.
‘They don’t call it that any more, Crosby,’ said Sloan. ‘It’s “Biograph
ical leverage” if you don’t mind.’
‘That then.’
‘No.’ He considered this for a long moment. ‘You can apply that sort of pressure at any time anywhere. No, I think this encounter was meant to appear more casual. Better than making an appointment to see him or anything like that.’
‘Why?’ asked Crosby.
‘There you have me …’ Sloan stared unseeingly at his notebook.
‘Something Steele heard and understood, though,’ suggested Crosby intelligently.
‘I think so. And perhaps something that Steele could have put together with something else,’ reasoned Sloan, ‘because neither Gilchrist nor Southon is silly enough to have said anything patently obvious in front of a caddy.’
“Put two and two together, did he, sir?’ said Crosby, pulling the car out of Eric Simmonds’ drive and onto the road.
‘And made five?’
‘And made four, I’m afraid,’ said Sloan. ‘That would have been the trouble.’
The Constable gave a prodigious frown. ‘Gilchrist and Steele were both together, too, when Steele caddied for Southon’s boss, Doug Garwood, in his match with Peter Gilchrist,’ said Crosby. ‘That was earlier, of course.’
The effect of this on Detective Inspector Sloan was remarkable. He slapped his notebook down on his knee and said softly. ‘Of course! I knew it had happened before but I couldn’t remember.’
‘What had?’ asked Crosby. ‘When?’
‘To Elisha and Naaman and Gehazi. And as to when, it was a very long time ago.’ He leaned forward and spoke into the car’s microphone. ‘Get me the registration number of any vehicle belonging to Brian Southon of Berebury and order all cars to search. Utmost urgency. May be off the road by now …
‘But who were they?’ asked Crosby.
‘Garwood was Elisha, Gilchrist was Naaman and Southon was Gehazi. Don’t you see? Gehazi was Elisha’s servant, which was the whole trouble.’
Detective Constable Crosby, servant of the State, did not see. Instead he switched on the police car’s blue light and stepped up his speed. This was something he did understand.
‘It wasn’t Gilchrist who wanted to play with Southon, then,’ said Sloan, ‘it was Southon who wanted to play with Gilchrist.’
The car wasn’t off the road.
Not yet.
But it was heading that way.
‘So Matt talked to you about the Club a lot, did he?’ asked Brian Southon.
‘A bit,’ admitted Hilary Trumper nervously. She shot him a sideways glance and said hastily ‘Not a lot.’
‘Thought so,’ said Southon with quiet satisfaction. ‘Otherwise you’d never have come snooping around like you did after you thought he’d gone away. Asked you to keep an eye open, I expect. Well, didn’t he?’
‘He might have done,’ she said.
‘What have you told the police?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘They were looking for me but I cleared off …’
‘Good.’ He smiled abstractedly. ‘That’s what I thought.’
‘Look here, this isn’t the way out to Larking.’
‘Isn’t it?’ He twisted his lips. ‘Well, it’s the way we’re going.’
‘We’re going south,’ she said.
‘Little Miss Clever.’ He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. ‘I told you I had a call to make on the way first.’
‘Larking’s the other way.’
‘So it may be,’ he said smoothly, ‘but we’re not going to Larking.’
‘Then you can put me out here and I’ll find my own way to Granny’s,’ she said with youthful dignity.
‘Oh, no, I can’t,’ he said, leaning back in the driving seat.
‘Not now.’
‘What do you mean?’ The girl reached over and started to unfasten her seat belt.
‘I mean that I can’t let you out of the car at all.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because of what that little rat, Matt, told you, that’s why.’
‘Matthew wasn’t a rat,’ she said tearfully.
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ Southon said smoothly. ‘Very wrong.’
‘He was just against people doing the wrong thing,’ she sobbed.
‘Only if he couldn’t cut himself into the action,’ said Southon harshly. ‘He tried his funny tricks on me and nobody who does that gets away with it.’ His voice hardened. ‘Nobody, do you understand? Nobody at all.’
‘I understand,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Now, stop the car and let me out.’
‘No way.’
‘They were doing something wrong …’ she stopped suddenly, her hand over her mouth, colour draining away from her face.
‘Ah, then he did tell you all,’ he said with a certain perverse satisfaction. ‘I thought so.’ He put his foot down on the accelerator. ‘That settles it.’
Chapter Nineteen
Dormy
‘All roads leading from the Billing crossroads,’ barked Detective Inspector Sloan into the microphone. ‘We need roadblocks on the four of them. Urgently. He could have gone anything up to twelve miles by now.’
‘And turned off anywhere,’ muttered Crosby. He was itching to go somewhere fast but at the moment there was nowhere to go fast. Instead he was following fresh orders and proceeding – by driving, against all his instincts, at a sedate pace, back in the direction the Golf Club.
‘True.’ Sloan sank back in the passenger seat, thinking hard. ‘They’re checking that the girl hasn’t just gone home or to any friends or family.’
Detective Constable Crosby didn’t really care whether chases were wild goose ones or not.
‘And that he hasn’t already dropped her off somewhere and just gone home.’
Presumptions of innocence didn’t appeal to Crosby either.
‘What we have to do,’ said Sloan, half-aloud, ‘is to work out where a man would take a girl if he wanted to do away with her quietly.’
‘Me, sir? I’d stage a hit and run,’ said Crosby. ‘All you need is a narrow road between high banks. And no witnesses, of course.’
This revealing train of thought was interrupted by another crackle from the microphone.
‘Vehicle in question seen travelling through Little Barling village,’ reported an unknown voice. ‘Going in a southward direction.’
Crosby had braked and already half-turned the police car before the message ended.
‘Find and keep in view,’ ordered Sloan. ‘Do not approach.’
A man who had killed twice wasn’t going to balk at a third time.
The microphone crackled back. ‘Understood. We’ve got two vehicles coming north to meet him head-on if he’s still on that road.’
‘Block it before the first turn-off,’ commanded Sloan.
‘I bet he’s heading for the woods,’ said Crosby, completing the about-turn and running up through the gears.
‘Then so are we,’ said Sloan. ‘Get moving, Crosby. It doesn’ t do to hang about at a time like this.’
‘That you, Margaret? Chris here.’ He heard the coins drop down in the payphone as he rang home. ‘I’m nearly on my way.’
‘Is that a promise?’ she enquired sweetly.
‘Sort of,’ he said.
‘Just a few loose ends?’ she suggested with fine irony.
‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’
‘Do you think you’ll make a player?’
‘Give me roses,’ he said fervently. ‘Any day.’
‘No need to be like that,’ she said, patently disappointed.
‘Listen love, I’ve got to go back to the Golf Club first …’
‘Go back? Where are you then?’
‘The hospital,’ he said awkwardly.
‘The hospital? Chris, what’s happened? You’re not hurt, are you?’
‘Not really.’
‘And what exactly is that supposed to mean?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘Tell me … quickly …no messing about, now.’
&nbs
p; ‘We had a little run-in with a villain, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.’
‘Nothing to worry about?’ she echoed on a rising note. ‘What happened?’
‘Crosby floored it and rammed a guy we were chasing. Didn’t do the car a lot of good and Crosby’s got the mother and father of black eyes. We got him,’ he added.
‘And you?’ she said, dismissing captured villains as irrelevant.
‘Nothing serious.’
‘That’s not an answer.’
‘Bruised.’
‘Where?’
‘Everywhere,’ he said. ‘He had the girl in the car, you see …’ That was paramount.
‘What girl?’
‘Tell you later,’ he said, suddenly very tired. ‘Crosby caught it though when the guy tripped him up. He was making for the woods south of Little Barling. The girl wouldn’t have stood a chance if he’d got there without anyone knowing.’
Margaret Sloan shuddered. ‘But he put up a fight?’
‘I’ll say.’ He brightened. ‘So did Crosby.’
She sighed. ‘You’d better bring him back with you.’
‘I’ve got to see the Super first and then we’ll be on our way.’ He hesitated and then said, ‘And that is a promise.’
‘I still don’t get it, Sloan.’ The Superintendent was sitting on one of the wooden seats outside the Clubhouse, one eye on his subordinate, the other on a foursome playing the eighteenth hole.
‘None of them appreciated that the deceased was a student of business studies and economics,’ said Sloan.
‘Come to that, neither did I,’ said Leeyes frankly, ‘but what’s it got to do with his being murdered?’
‘Everything, sir,’ said Sloan. ‘Most people overhearing what he did wouldn’t have understood its significance.’
‘Its significance was what I don’t understand,’ grumbled Leeyes with some asperity. He said at his most Churchillian, ‘Pray explain …’
‘The trouble started when Gilchrist played Doug Garwood …’
‘I don’t know about Gilchrist,’ interrupted Leeyes, ‘but I would have sworn Doug Garwood was as straight as a die.’
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