The mattress creaked as Littlejohn pulled himself into a sitting posture in the bed. Next door, he could hear Lucy getting Cromwell up as well.
The night before, they’d asked Lucy to call them at seven and she’d seemed a bit surprised. It was Sunday morning and most folk stayed a bit longer in bed.
“Are you both going to early communion?”
As he shaved, Littlejohn could hear the bell clanging in the church at Peshall for early service and it was punctuated by the rhythmic bumps of Cromwell doing his morning exercises in the next room.
The day was clear and chilly and from where he stood the Chief Inspector could see the estuary, with the tide ebbing and leaving the sandbanks jutting into the river like great brown whales. At that early hour, the weekend sailors were already taking out their yachts for the day. The stiff breeze filled their sails as they tacked to and fro between the banks of the river. In the creek behind the Barlow Arms the receding tide was leaving a mass of mud, dotted with tin cans, barrel hoops, broken crockery and rubber tyres. All the rubbish from the hotel seemed to find its way there and was renewed as quickly as the tide rotted, rusted, ground it up, and washed it away.
A few women on the road which led to the church and two men in jerseys making their way to the waterfront to fish.
Cromwell joined Littlejohn in the dining-room. He was carrying his tin of Strengtho and handed it to Lucy. He religiously drank a brew of it first thing every morning. Lucy took it dutifully and shortly returned with a beaker of it looking like thick brown soup. Cromwell drank it with relish as Littlejohn finished his porridge and then they went on to the ham and eggs.
The room still smelled of stale cigar smoke from the night before. Horrocks, Bacon and Brett had then been there as usual. The atmosphere had been a bit strained and after dinner, Littlejohn and Cromwell had joined the locals in the bar, here Cromwell had again beaten Fothergill at darts. This time before a larger audience, for the place was crowded on Saturday night. Fothergill, a poor loser, had again made excuses. He’d pleaded he’d drunk too much and made himself unsteady before the contest.
Nov they were making an early trip to Pullar’s Sands. The Chief Inspector was anxious to talk to Esther Liddell again. She knew a lot more than he’d thought.
Cromwell put on his cap. Since his haircut his bowler had bothered him and he’d had difficulty keeping it on in the wind. They followed the road to the signpost and then took the path along the shore. Half the blinds of the village were drawn and as they passed the police station they saw Dixon carrying coal from the woodshed. From the chimney ascended the smoke of a wood fire waiting to be built up. Indoors, the children were being washed and made ready for Sunday School. They were in their Sunday clothes and were subdued and afraid to play in them. Dixon was so busy that he didn’t see Littlejohn and Cromwell.
Smoking their pipes, the two Scotland Yard men walked along the tideline. There must have been a storm or a wreck somewhere, for the beach was strewn with rusty cans full of pineapple chunks and peaches and old sodden sugar bags. Two men were busy rooting among the rubbish, piling up driftwood and examining the other flotsam and jetsam of the night tide.
The sky was clear and they could see the whole length of Balbeck Bay with the hills beyond. The cattle from the fields on the landward side had been taken in for milking. Smoke was rising from the farmhouses—low buildings squatting in the flat fields—and the mass of chickens in the runs of the poultry farms rushed here and there like white clouds in the distance.
The water at Pullar’s Sands was low enough to allow the pair of them to walk over the stream across the large stepping stones. The Saracen’s Head was quiet and ready for the day’s rush of trippers. Smoke rising from the chimney here, as well, and, as the detectives landed on the bank before the door, Esther Liddell appeared with a broom brushing out the dust, matches and fag ends of the previous night. She wore riding-breeches and a knitted yellow jumper and, as usual, had little else on beneath it. This time, she nodded and gave the new arrivals a ghost of a smile.
The detective from the county force was dressed as a cyclist in khaki shorts and shirt and was sitting on a box on the bank just above the inn, fishing in the river. Two little trout on the grass beside him. He looked proud of them. He tried to be discreet and, whilst showing no familiarity, merely said good morning and, when he deemed himself safe from prying eyes, he winked at Cromwell.
Littlejohn and Cromwell entered the inn. It was out of hours for beer, so Littlejohn asked Mrs. Liddell for some coffee.
“It’s a bit chilly and coffee will warm us up.”
She acknowledged the order with a nod and another faint smile and retired to the kitchen. They could hear her putting pans on the stove and then grinding coffee at a little mill. The appetizing aroma of the drink itself soon came drifting through the doorway.
There was nobody else about. The clock somewhere in the back room chimed a quarter past nine.
Finally, Esther Liddell entered with coffee. This time she seemed to have kept away from the brandy bottle. She was quite sober, but, as usual, languid, moving about with a silent grace, like a cat.
“Join us, Mrs. Liddell?”
She didn’t answer, but returned to the kitchen and emerged with three large blue cups and saucers, filled the cups, placed them on a table near the door, and then went away again for a plate of lumps of shortbread. She sat down with the two men.
“I’ve got to talk to you, Mrs. Liddell, and you’ve got to talk to me. It’s important...vital for Leo Fowler.”
She raised her eyebrows and looked Littlejohn full in the face. For her age she was a very handsome woman, and Littlejohn could understand Fowler wishing to settle down as landlord of the Saracen’s Head after all his wanderings and troubles. A nice easy life and a good-looking, sensible woman to look after him. He’d be good for her, and she’d be good for him.
“I can’t see what good I can be to Leo Fowler. He was only lodging here for two or three days.”
And that was the answer to Littlejohn’s imaginings!
“And yet, he slept in your bed and was entirely at home.”
Littlejohn had to say it, shocking though it must have sounded, judging from Cromwell’s surprised expression. This was the first real coherent thing Esther Liddell had yet said to him, and here she was trying to wash her hands of the whole affair.
“I’ve had a long talk with Leo and I know quite a lot about the days when you and your late husband were the so-called owners of the Euryanthe. Now, let’s settle down and talk sensibly.”
She sipped the hot coffee, her eyes fixed on Littlejohn’s face. He wondered if the faint smile was a challenge, or impudence, or perhaps just a hint that she was friendly.
She behaved with the same indifference as when he was there before. For the most part, when you look or speak to anyone, a kind of rapport is established for better or worse. You like or dislike them; wish to remain with them or get quickly away. But with Esther Liddell, Littlejohn felt no reaction at all. It was just a blank! She spoke and responded with no apparent emotion. Fear, interest, like, or dislike were not there. Littlejohn felt not there, as well, as far as Esther Liddell was concerned. And such a state could only, as a rule, arise from idiocy or mental trouble, alcohol, drugs, or some paralysing emotion which wiped out all other feelings.
It wasn’t mania. That was obvious. The woman was as sane as Littlejohn or Cromwell. And she was as sober as a judge. She bore no trace of drugs, either. Littlejohn knew that kind only too well. And then he understood. It was despair. Sheer, paralysing despair which held Esther Liddell in its grip. She was utterly drugged by it.
As he sipped his drink and met her eyes from time to time, Littlejohn tried to imagine what it could all be about. The death of her husband? Or some tragic love affair? Misery, loneliness, or the return of some dreaded enemy to spoil her life—the cosy, comfortable existence at the Saracen’s Head? Or...blackmail?
They had scarcely spoken a word ove
r the coffee and any remark, casual or otherwise, Littlejohn or Cromwell made either received no answer or a mere monosyllable.
Finally, Esther Liddell rose.
“More coffee?”
“Please.”
She went into the kitchen to refill the earthenware jugs which held the coffee and the milk.
Hastily Littlejohn touched Cromwell on the elbow.
“Get a report from the policeman who’s fishing. Ask him if anyone’s been here...a full report. What’s she been doing since he arrived? And then, go across to Falbright, get into the newspaper files about the death of Jack Liddell. You may have to get someone to open the office. It’s Sunday, but bring me a full account of all that happened and everyone concerned...Take a taxi or borrow a car. But please be quick, old chap. Make an excuse to get away...”
Mrs. Liddell returned as they were speaking together. She betrayed not the slightest interest in their whispering, but poured out two more cups of coffee.
“Not for me, please, Mrs. Liddell,” said Cromwell, holding up his hand as she drew his cup towards her. “I’ve got to get back to meet a colleague who’s arriving on the morning train.”
Cromwell didn’t know if there was a morning train, and he hoped Mrs. Liddell was as ignorant. She appeared to be.
“Well, sir, I’ll see you for lunch at Elmer’s Creek. Till then, goodbye. And goodbye to you, too, Mrs. Liddell. Lovely coffee. I’ll be seeing you.”
He rose, put on his cap, and made an awkward exit. Mrs. Liddell didn’t seem to mind. Littlejohn could see from where he sat, his sergeant stroll to the river, pick up one of the fish the disguised constable had caught, and enter into apparently casual conversation with him.
Littlejohn took a piece of shortcake, broke it, and ate it. Then he took out his pipe, lit it, and drank the rest of his coffee. Mrs. Liddell gathered up the cups.
“Don’t go.”
She looked at him, without interest, like an automaton obeying an order.
“What’s the matter with you, Mrs. Liddell? Are you ill, or unhappy, or is anyone or anything bothering you? Because, if so, I’d like to help.”
“I’m all right. I can look after myself. What made you think...?”
It was Littlejohn’s turn to avoid an answer.
“I want to ask you one or two questions. You knew Leo Fowler—Mills, as he was called then—before he came a few days ago?”
A pause.
“Yes. I met him years ago when my husband was alive.”
“On the Euryanthe?”
“Yes.”
The same flat uninterested tone. She didn’t even seem to wonder how Littlejohn had found it out.
“Are you in love with him?”
“No. He’s just a friend.”
That wasn’t how Leo regarded it, but it didn’t matter for the time being.
“Before the war, you and your husband were employed by John Grebe as ‘owners’ of the Euryanthe in the business of making trips to German ports and smuggling refugees and their money away?”
“Yes.”
“Fowler, or Mills, was skipper. Forgive my plain speaking, but it’s necessary. Was there an affair between you and Fowler during those trips?”
Even that didn’t shake her. No surprise, no excitement, not even revulsion at the thought of it.
“No. My husband was there with me.”
“Who else was aboard? You see, I hear that Grebe signed on a crew and many of them were local men.”
“Yes, that’s right. The mate was a Londoner and I heard he was killed in the war.”
“Who else was there?”
She seemed just too lethargic to think, but vanished into the back room. Littlejohn could hear her opening and closing drawers and then she returned with a bunch of papers. She handed them over without even looking at them. A sheet of shabby notepaper, two photographs, and some newspaper cuttings.
The photographs were faded and dog-eared, too. One was a plain print of the Euryanthe, just as Littlejohn had imagined her from the painting in Mrs. Iremonger’s house. The other showed a group of men, obviously part of the crew. A snapshot taken in port somewhere. Mrs. Liddell and a young man, tall and well-built, with a smiling round face and a short moustache, with his arm through hers.
“Was this your late husband?”
“Yes.”
The man wore the semi-nautical suit of a yacht-owner, yachting cap and all. Esther Liddell was dressed like a lady and wore her clothes like an aristocrat. Even in that old photograph, Littlejohn knew she was the kind who drove men mad. Or some men, at least, who liked them that way. Difficult to imagine the lethargic woman sitting opposite and the beautiful, vivacious animal in the picture were the same. Even the way she looked at the camera was a challenge to the photographer. The full lips, the flashing teeth and smile, the intriguing cock of the head, and the invitation in the eyes came out over all the years the photograph had been taken. And, by the looks of it, her husband was the same. Unless he had found the wife who could hold him in thrall for good, here was a man who would wreak havoc among the women.
“And is this Fothergill?”
It was an anticlimax. The entrance of the slapstick comedian right in the middle of the melodrama!
“Yes.”
A younger Fothergill, but the same moustache, the same buck teeth, the cocky nose, slightly turned up, and the head a little on one side, as though questioning, nosing into all that went on.
Littlejohn put down the photograph and took up the piece of soiled notepaper. It was a list of the officers and crew.
Mills, Catterall, Moore, Keith, Fothergill, Rimer, Battersby, Snyde, King.
“Where are they all now?”
“I don’t know. Moore, Fothergill, Rimer and Snyde, were local men. Catterall died, as I said. Moore joined the R.A.F. and was killed, too. Rimer went away. I don’t know where. Snyde is in Falbright, I think, on a fishing boat. The rest got other jobs and we lost trace of them.”
“And you put to sea when the alarm was given about the Gestapo, and left Fowler to pay the piper?”
“Catterall did. Jack and I were against it. The rest of the crew were with Catterall and we were locked below till we were miles from Hamburg.”
“And Fowler came back to find you and thank you?”
“You know he didn’t. He knew where we lived at the time we were running the Euryanthe and he came here because he’d none of his old friends left.”
“He also came to find Grebe. What was Grebe’s part in all this?”
“He arranged all the trips to Germany and ran the outfit.”
She still answered without spirit. The memories of those days of adventure ought to have roused some enthusiasm, but they didn’t.
“Did he represent some other parties? He couldn’t have financed all that himself.”
“Mr. Iremonger lent the ship. Mr. Iremonger was a Jew and he did it out of charity for his own people suffering under Hitler. Jack told me that more than once. But his wife and Grebe and some others—I don’t know who they were—took advantage of it.”
Another silence. It was all told in a matter-of-fact way, but now, as Esther Liddell forgot her own troubles, whatever they were, she warmed up a little. But only in a word or two. Then she lapsed into her old lethargy.
“In other words, Grebe, Mrs. Iremonger and their friends started shipping dope as well as refugees.”
“I heard so. I never saw any dope. Catterall and Snyde looked after the hiding places for the gold they said we carried. They must have hidden the drugs, if there were any.”
“How did you know about the drugs, then?”
“Fothergill once told me, a long time after. He has ways of getting to know things. He simply said we’d been smuggling drugs and that when Mr. Iremonger found out, he never spoke to his wife again. He said he didn’t mind a keen or risky deal with anyone, but he resented anybody borrowing his yacht for dope smuggling, especially unknown to him and under the guise of helping his own people
in their trouble.”
“And he went to Dunkirk and atoned by losing his own life and the ship he loved in a good cause?”
“He never looked up after he heard of the drug racket. He was never the same again. I think it was because his wife had let him down as much as anything.”
“How long have you been here on your own?”
She returned to her old mood of couldn’t-care-less.
“My husband died nine years since.”
“And you don’t intend marrying again?”
It was very pointed, but she didn’t mind.
“No.”
She rose and collected the cups together. Some cyclists were gathered outside the inn. Four men with spidery machines and dressed in small shorts and thin shirts. Tousled hair, naked hairy legs, dusty and thirsty. And three half-dressed women also with cycles like skeletons. Two of them looked like men except for their figures and the third was fat and bulging out of her tight clothing.
“Anything to drink?”
They all poured in the Saracen and the men strutted round, showing off, two of them obviously after the same girl.
Littlejohn rose, paid his bill, and thanked Mrs. Liddell. She made no reply, but just nodded and gave him the faint enigmatical smile again. One of the cyclists eyed her over and made a noise half between a hiss and a whistle as her beauty struck him. Outside, the detective was still fishing. Two more little trout. Littlejohn asked him about the sport and he said it wasn’t so bad.
“You reported everything to my colleague? Right. Carry on. You’re doing good work.”
The policeman smiled proudly and forthwith hooked another trout. It was smaller than the rest.
Nothing like encouraging a fellow on a boring job. Talk about the policeman’s holiday! The man looked every inch a bobby in spite of his cycling get-up.
Littlejohn strolled into the village of Pullar’s Sands. A few houses, two of them thatched and whitewashed and obviously ‘improved’ by somebody who’d retired there. Then one or two more cottages, a pond with ducks swimming on it, a large stone cross, and what looked like a maypole on the village green. Two old men sitting on a wooden seat on the edge of the pond, gossiping and watching the ducks.
Death Drops the Pilot Page 18
