The burglar had entered the house by forcing the downstairs cloakroom window. He had stolen between two and three thousand pounds’ worth of property, including the shotgun, five hundred pounds in notes, a Pentax camera, a Rolex watch, an antique ruby and diamond cluster ring, several lesser items of jewellery, and some domestic silver. Although the house contained a number of other valuable items of the kind normally attractive to burglars – a video recorder, two portable colour television sets, a stereo record player, an Amstrad computer – none of these larger items had been taken; most of them, though, were included in the long list of things that had been wantonly damaged or destroyed.
Because the house was comparatively secluded, it would have been possible for the burglar to enter the gates – even to drive in, and park – without being seen. If any significant tyre marks had been made, though, they had since been obliterated by the rain and the passage of the Goodrums’Range Rover. But the fact that no large items were taken suggested either that the burglar had not used a vehicle, or that he had parked it elsewhere. The other residents of Mount Street had been questioned, but they had noticed no suspicious movements during the course of that day.
Apart from his footprints, the burglar had left behind some smears of blood and a few dark brown woollen fibres. The fibres were caught on the jagged edges of glass left in the frame of the cloakroom window, where there were also traces of blood. There was nothing about the m.o., or the size of the feet, or the footwear, that suggested the work of any particular villain known to Breckham Market police. But although it was the worst – in the sense of the most gratuitously nasty – burglary in the well-heeled Mount Street area of the town, it was by no means the first. The CID knew where to look for those of its regular villains who were not currently in gaol, and Sergeant Lloyd had had them sought out immediately after the burglary; so far, without result.
Quantrill got up from his desk and walked to the window. Looking out from his first-floor vantage point, across the busy Yarchester road to the gabled roofs of the old town, he speculated on the lengths to which a resentful resident might go. Would anyone in Breckham Market have felt so strongly anti-Goodrum as to seek out some yob who wasn’t known to the police, and persuade him to break into and dirty the man’s home? It seemed unlikely, if only because it would leave the resident wide open to blackmail. But it wasn’t impossible.
‘You don’t suppose it was Eunice Bell who put somebody up to this burglary, do you?’ he asked, turning to his sergeant. ‘After all, she did allege that Goodrum murdered her brother, and she must be feeling frustrated because we found nothing to substantiate her claim. D’you think this might have been her way of getting even?’
Hilary thought about it. ‘Miss Bell hadn’t occurred to me in this connection, I must say. But it really isn’t in character, is it? After all, it wasn’t as though she showed any personal animosity against Goodrum – she didn’t actually know the man, it was just that she wanted justice to be done.’
‘There’re probably a few others who’ve been wanting that,’ Quantrill pointed out as he returned to his desk. ‘Lucky Jack Goodrum has done very well for himself over the years, almost certainly at other people’s expense, and I reckon somebody’s finally got tired of waiting for justice to be done. If you ask me, he had this burglary coming to him.’
‘Tough on his wife,’ protested Hilary.
‘Yes – but that’s what comes of marrying that kind of man. Anyway, no doubt he’s well insured. He can easily put things to rights and replace what was stolen, so you needn’t waste your sympathy. If Goodrum’s not prepared to co-operate by telling us who he thinks might have done the job, I don’t feel inclined to waste much more of our time on it.’
‘Except that a shotgun was stolen,’ Hilary reminded him.
‘I know …’ Quantrill scowled, then burst out irritably, ‘Blast the wretched man! I hate a stolen shotgun – it’s almost certain to be used in furtherance of another crime. And here we are in the middle of a spate of raids on post offices … So far the villains have threatened the subpostmasters with concealed handguns, real or false, and that’s bad enough, God knows. But if they’ve now got hold of this shotgun that Jack Goodrum had the criminal folly to leave lying about, some innocent person’s liable to end up dead.’
Chapter Fifteen
The following week was a busy one for all the members of Breckham Market and District Amateur Operatic Society. Although she only helped backstage, Molly Quantrill was needed at the costume run-through on Monday and at the dress rehearsal on Wednesday, as well as at the Thursday, Friday and Saturday performances. Ordinarily she would have felt guilty about spending so many evenings away from home; but this week she was glad to have somewhere else to go.
After Douglas’s confrontation with Peter, the atmosphere at number 5 Benidorm Avenue had deteriorated. No longer content merely to ignore his father, the boy had worked at developing dumb insolence into an art form. Molly regretted her son’s attitude, but although she didn’t know exactly what had passed between him and Douglas she was aware that Peter had been treated unjustly, and naturally she took his part.
Quantrill himself had hoped that her birthday – on the Tuesday, not the Wednesday, as Peter had had to remind him – would provide an opportunity for family reconciliation. He had offered to take them both out for supper, even going so far as to suppress his prejudice against foreign food and suggest, entirely for Peter’s benefit, the town’s only Chinese restaurant. But his son had sneered a refusal, without even bothering to make an excuse. And although Molly had been glad enough to accept – as long as they went somewhere clean, like the Rights of Man Hotel, and confined their gastronomic adventures to avocado vinaigrette and scampi – Quantrill was called out at the last moment to yet another post office break-in and the opportunity had been lost.
Even his birthday present to his wife had misfired. In the days when his favourite uniformed policewoman, Patsy Hopkins, had been willing to undertake his shopping and wrapping, Quantrill had been confident of providing Molly with suitable surprises. Since Patsy’s defection, however, he had played safe by presenting his wife with birthday and Christmas cheques. Acceptable, surely? But perhaps a bit routine – and liable to seem uninteresting beside Peter’s handicraft and his extravagant card.
And so this year, guilty because he’d offended Molly by denigrating her amateur operatic society, and guilty because he’d offended her further by offending her beloved son, Quantrill had decided to give her a surprise of his own. His cheques had always been for twenty-five pounds. This time, he made one out for fifty.
‘Oh, Douglas –’ she’d said when she unfolded it. (He’d included a card, too, of course – an ordinary small one, chosen by himself, with a picture of a proper cat not unlike their own family moggy, and a straightforward, unsentimental message.) For a moment, staring at the cheque, Molly had gone quite pale with astonishment. Then she’d turned pink, and had given him an embarrassed, quizzical, hurt look. Not a look of pleasure at all, but of insight: a recognition that her husband felt guilty and that rather than admit it he had tried to obtain domestic harmony by purchase.
She’d thanked him, certainly. But his gesture of generosity had fallen flat. And it was in a last-resort attempt to redeem himself that he volunteered to accompany her to the final performance of My Fair Lady, on Saturday evening. Molly had said that she felt bad about always having to cadge lifts from friends, and so he offered for once to put himself out on her behalf: to drive her to the Town Hall, support the performance, be nice to her friends afterwards, and drive her home when the backstage party ended.
Always providing, of course, that he wasn’t needed on a case …
In the event, no criminal activity came to his rescue. And neither did Hilary Lloyd, when he offered to get her a ticket on a see-you-there basis. Sitting beside Hilary, and buying her a cup of coffee in the interval, would have given him pleasure whatever was happening on-stage; but she had thanked him ni
cely and declined.
Quantrill sighed. Then, at Molly’s behest, he put on his best suit – the Op, as the amateur operatic society was known, was an old-established institution in Breckham Market, and the last night of the annual production was always one of the town’s dressiest occasions – and prepared to endure a long and tedious evening.
Fog had been forecast, and Molly had worried that this might keep some potential members of the audience away. But all it amounted to, as the Quantrills drove into the town, was an occasional swirl of thin mist. They parked in the market place, which was already filling up with the other Op members’cars, and stepped out into the evening dank.
There were numerous things to be carried from the car – a plumed Edwardian cartwheel of a hat that had needed emergency repair, some small but vital props that were Molly’s personal responsibility, and a cling-wrapped dish of mince pies that she was contributing to the party. Her husband, who had already been refused a mince pie, tried to lighten the atmosphere by offering, in a boyishly mischievous tone, to carry them. But Molly was now worried about all the things she had to remember to do or to have ready during the coming performance, and she couldn’t be bothered with any of Douglas’s nonsense. She plonked the hat on her head, snatched the mince pies crossly away from him, and swept off like a domesticated duchess, leaving her husband to follow in her wake with the box of props.
Quantrill was well acquainted with the magistrates’court which occupied the rear of the Town Hall, but he was less accustomed to going up the front steps of the imposingly Italianate building. Molly, however, knew her way across the pillared antechamber and through the warren of corridors that led to the area behind the stage. Douglas followed her closely, making himself agreeable to the other newly arrived members as he went; having set out to mollify his wife by doing his husbandly duty, he intended to make sure that he was both seen and heard to do it.
His original plan had been to deposit Molly and then nip round to the Coney and Thistle for a quick anaesthetic before the performance. But now he had a better idea. Having found his way back to the antechamber, he discovered that the audience had already begun to arrive. It was the custom for them to gather and socialise in the antechamber before taking their seats in the main hall, and Quantrill saw this as an ideal opportunity to establish his support for his wife.
Happily, there was no system of numbering for the seats. Once he’d let it be known that he was there, and the performance had started, he could sneak off to the pub for most of the evening without anyone (except possibly the Town Hall doorman, who wasn’t likely to shop him) being any the wiser. As long as he returned for the last half hour of My Fair Lady, so that he could make appropriate comments as they drove away – whistle a tune or two, even – Molly would never know that he hadn’t sat through the lot. And with a little bit of luck he might be able to prise her away early from her backstage party and get home in time to watch Match of the Day on television.
Cheered by this prospect, he began to loiter as conspicuously as possible. He knew no one among the earliest arrivals, so he passed the time by taking a good look round the antechamber. It was a chill, echoing marble vault dominated by the statue of Alderman Redvers Fullerton Bell, Mayor of This Borough 1867 – 68, 1875 – 76 and 1881 – 82 and Benefactor of Breckham Market.
Yes, of course … poor old Clanger Bell’s forefather. The fellow who’d built Tower House in much the same style as the Town Hall. No doubt he’d impressed his contemporaries, but at the same time he’d condemned his family and his descendants to live in permanent cold gloom. It wasn’t surprising that Clanger had taken to drink.
But had Lucky Jack Goodrum really intended to kill him …?
The antechamber was beginning to fill. Quantrill was soon among people he knew, or people he knew Molly knew. The current Mayor and Mayoress were there, in their chains of office, and so was anyone else who was anyone in Breckham Market and district. Whether or not they came out of a sense of duty, they were all buzzing with cheerful anticipation.
Quantrill reluctantly dismissed his own concerns and set about playing the unaccustomed role of his wife’s husband. Yes, he agreed, nodding and smiling to as many people as possible: Molly was busy behind the scenes, as usual! And where indeed would the cast be without all the members who worked so hard backstage?
Yes, My Fair Lady was a very good choice for this year’s production, wasn’t it? Very lively and tuneful. Yes, there was certainly a good turn-out for it – nearly every seat had been sold, so his wife told him! Yes, it was obviously going to be a very good evening …
With ten minutes to go before the performance started, newcomers came crowding in. Most were in couples, or parties; but among them, stiff in navy blue and fastidiously solitary, was Clanger Bell’s sister, Eunice.
Quantrill was surprised to see her. He remembered that Molly had said that Miss Bell had bought a ticket for this performance, but – though he hadn’t said so, knowing that the suggestion would only offend his wife – he had assumed that Eunice Bell was merely offering token support. He couldn’t imagine her wanting to go to a musical, at the best of times. And it was only at the beginning of the week that her brother had been buried.
But then, as Miss Bell had said when he and Hilary interviewed her, she was making no pretence of mourning Cuthbert. Perhaps Molly had been right: with her drunken brother dead, Eunice could now hold up her head in the town. And as the sole remaining descendant of the man who’d developed Breckham Market into the civic centre of the district, she might feel an obligation to put in an appearance on a major social occasion such as this.
If she did happen to be attending as a duty, it was something that he and Eunice Bell had in common. But Quantrill avoided her eye. She was probably annoyed by his failure to come up with any proof that her brother had been murdered. Worse, she might want to take the opportunity to tell him so …
‘Good evening. Chief Inspector.’
There was no mistaking that strong, spiny, authoritative voice.
Quantrill’s spirits sank, but he turned to her with a smile and what he hoped was a disarming greeting.
‘Good evening, Miss Bell! My wife told me that you’d bought a ticket. She’s backstage, of course, helping with props and costumes and things –’
‘So I imagine.’ Eunice Bell ducked her head in brusque acknowledgement. Then she added, unexpectedly: ‘I understand that Mrs Quantrill is one of those modestly invaluable ladies who receives scant recognition for all the work she does. After I’d bought my ticket from her, it occurred to me that she might think I had no real intention of coming to see the performance. That would have been patronising of me, and I should be sorry if she made that assumption.’
Quantrill assured her, with truth, that Molly hadn’t done so. ‘But I don’t suppose’, he added bluntly, ‘that this sort of caper is your cup of tea, any more than it’s mine.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Eunice Bell. Her features cracked into a small, stiff smile. ‘I have happy memories of a summer spent with my cousins at Southwold, many years ago, when My Fair Lady was new. They had a recording, and we played it most of the time … I don’t expect amateur singers to reach that standard, but I’ve come here tonight with every intention of enjoying the production. And I recommend, Mr Quantrill,’ she added severely, ‘that you do the same.’
He stood rebuked. But that was better than getting an earful of complaint about the way he did his job.
Miss Bell took an audible breath, obviously in preparation for saying something far more serious. But the orchestra had begun to tune up in the main hall, drawing the latecomers out of the antechamber.
‘On the subject we discussed at Tower House –’ she said, fixing Quantrill with her stern dark eyes. ‘I want you to know that my opinion remains unchanged. But this is not the place to discuss it.’
‘No,’ he agreed with relief, gesturing her towards the hall. ‘Besides, it’s time we went in.’
As she offere
d up her ticket at the door, Miss Bell glanced back. ‘Some friends are keeping a seat for me,’ she said, distancing herself from him.
‘I was just about to say the same thing.’
Honours even, they gave each other a cool parting nod. Even so, Quantrill lingered to let her go in well ahead of him. Two of Molly’s Op friends, who knew him by sight, were on the door and he made his number with them by giving his ticket to one and buying a programme from the other.
When he finally entered the auditorium the house lights had already been switched off and the orchestra was going full blast. He lurked at the back until the ticket collectors closed the door and took their own seats; then he slipped out into the antechamber. He gave a wink to the indifferent doorkeeper, a man he didn’t know who sat in a glassed booth keeping an eye on the main doors to stop undesirables coming in, and at last made his escape to the companionable comfort of the Coney and Thistle.
What Quantrill had intended to do, as soon as he got there, was to ring the CID office and let them know where he was. If they happened to need him, he didn’t want them to blow his alibi by trying to find him at the Town Hall. But his intention was forgotten when, on his way into the pub, he met PC Ronald Timms hurrying out. The off-duty constable, also in his best suit, with beer-froth on his Kitchener moustache, a worried look on his face and a ticket for My Fair Lady in his fist, was attempting to make the Town Hall in time for curtain-up.
Ron Timms’s wife had recently been promoted assistant wardrobe mistress of the Op. He hated musicals, and everything to do with them. Only the previous day, in the canteen at Breckham Market police HQ, he had been heard to say that for the past three months his home life had been completely disrupted by the preparations for the show. He was sick of the sight of the costumes. And now that they’d finally been taken away, he was damned if he was going to waste a precious free Saturday evening by paying to see the things on stage.
Who Saw Him Die? Page 11
