‘When you passed me yesterday afternoon with your Jack Russell.’
‘Oh, Lord, yes, sorry about that – I nearly knocked you over, didn’t I? But Tolly’s not mine. He belongs to the shop owner. I walk him for Adrian, though it’s a moot point as to who’s exercising who.’ She smiled, brilliantly. ‘That dog, you won’t be surprised to learn, is a real handful.’
‘I noticed that.’
Gilmour had also noticed the sign over the shop: Adrian Murfitt, bookseller. Presumably people in Hinton read just as much as people elsewhere but given the size of the place, a bookshop, standing out like a sore thumb amid the town’s few utilitarian shops, was surprising, to say the least. Trade could hardly have been brisk.
‘How long have you worked for Mr Llewellyn, Miss Bannerman?’ Reardon began when they were all seated and Gilmour had his notebook out.
‘Only a few months … well, nearly four, actually.’ She was well spoken, confident enough to take out a lacquered cigarette case and a lighter, though she left the case on the desktop, unopened. ‘And I would have been leaving by Christmas, anyway, even if … if this hadn’t happened. It was never meant as a long-term appointment, you know.’
‘Why was that?’
‘He was getting rid of most of the business interests he still had, which actually meant quite a lot of work, though I’m quite sure he could have coped himself with what there was to do. He’d probably have preferred it, as a matter of fact,’ she said with a little laugh. ‘But he’d been persuaded to employ me because he was supposed to be taking life more easily. To be truthful, I suspect he was finding that much harder than working.’
‘Oh yes, these work obsessives,’ agreed Reardon, the corners of his mouth turning down.
Rich, thought Gilmour, hiding a grin, considering Reardon’s own tendencies when he had his teeth into something.
‘Well, yes, I suppose you could say he was one of those – but he didn’t expect everyone else to be. It’s all too awful, all this, isn’t it? I’d known him such a short time but I liked him terrifically, you know, liked working for him, which you can’t say for every boss! He was kind to me. I was in need of somewhere to live when I started here and would you believe, he let me rent a dear little house, one of several he owned in Hinton. It was in a frightfully bad state, but he had it repainted and no end of other things done as well, before I moved in.’
An almost unreadable expression crossed her face. If he’d been pressed to name it, Reardon would have said it was guilt, though it was puzzling why Sadie Bannerman should feel guilty because her new employer had been kind to her.
‘Well. Now I’m here, how can I help?’ she asked, impatiently adjusting the wayward scarf that would insist on detaching itself from its uncertain position on her shoulder. ‘I haven’t known what to do since he died, but Mr Llewellyn – Mr Theo – thinks I should try to carry on where we’d left off.’
‘Well, for a start, we need to see what’s in the safe, and in this desk here, but we haven’t been able to locate a key.’
‘It was kept on his key ring.’
‘Which nobody seems to know the whereabouts of at the moment.’
‘Oh? Oh, well, that’s no problem. There’s a spare one here, just in case …’ She jumped up and danced over to the bookshelves, fished about in a tobacco jar that had appeared to contain nothing more than paper clips and elastic bands, and produced a small key from the bottom. ‘Voilà!’
She handed it to Gilmour, wafting a breath of whatever sweet-sharp perfume it was she wore. ‘This opens the top drawer on each side of the desk, which releases all the others. Business things this side – personal details the other.’
‘What about the safe? Is there a spare for that as well?’
‘Not much point in locking a safe if you have another hanging around, is there?’ she remarked astutely. ‘The desk’s different. There’s nothing all that private kept in there. He was the only one who ever used the safe, anyway, so I expect that’s on his ring as well.’
Gilmour pushed the key she’d produced into the lock of the top desk drawer. It slid open sweetly, as did the others when he tried them one by one.
‘Are you going to go through everything?’ Yes, they were. Looking for what? They wouldn’t know until they found it. ‘You’ll have your work cut out, I warn you, sorting it all out. There’s simply masses.’
‘In that case, Miss Bannerman,’ said Reardon, ‘it would be helpful if you could arrange to be here with Sergeant Gilmour when he begins.’
‘I thought you might say that.’ She laughed, dimpling at Gilmour, wasting it on the devoted father-to-be had she known. He was in fact wondering why this laugh was so different to the one he’d noticed before – that one of pure fun at the absurdity of being dragged along by such a small but exuberant dog, this one with something … well, almost calculated about it.
‘Then I suggest you make a start now, if it’s convenient,’ Reardon said drily, watching her and wondering whether Pen Llewellyn hadn’t, perhaps, been a dark horse, whether he’d hired this exotic bird of paradise – and what a flutter among the drab little sparrows she must have caused when she alighted here, in humdrum Hinton! – entirely for her secretarial skills. ‘All right, sergeant?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Gilmour wasn’t too successful at hiding his gloom. It wasn’t the expected dullness of it he minded. Dullness was part and parcel of the job, the boring duties, the drudgery of being the junior officer on the case, the one whose fate it always was to get the mucky end of the stick. ‘We’ve all been through it, lad,’ was what he’d have been told if he’d complained. But as far as he was concerned, paper-sorting wasn’t being a detective, or not the side of it he enjoyed. All right, it had to be done, but out of all the chores it fell to his lot to do, this was the one he hated more than most. Looking for needles in haystacks. Papers that usually meant nothing, except to the deceased, which in itself could be heart-rending: precious photographs, old theatre programmes that had marked some treasured memory, invitations, birthday cards, love letters. Anna Douglas and Mrs Knightly had rightly been anxious to get rid of painful reminders: it was no fun, weeks, perhaps months later, coming unexpectedly across some poignant reminder of the dead person you had loved, though more were probably here, in this desk.
‘Then I’ll leave you to it,’ Reardon said. ‘But first, Miss Bannerman, tell me about this supper party the night Mr Llewellyn died. Were you there?’
‘Me? Lord, no! It was just family and a few friends.’
‘Then you wouldn’t have known what it was set up for, that he intended to make an announcement to his family?’
‘That he was going to marry Anna Douglas? No.’
Reardon threw her a sharp look. ‘But you’re aware that they were?’
‘Hinton Wyvering is a very small place, inspector, as well as being extremely dull, I’m afraid. It didn’t take me long to learn you can’t blow your nose at one end of the town without the other half knowing. They call it being friendly.’ She didn’t sound as if that sort of friendship made her happy.
‘You’re a newcomer to Hinton, then? Not local?’ he asked, voicing what he had suspected.
‘I’m a Londoner. I like the bright lights.’ Of course, she was one of those young flappers who’d dance the night away in jazz clubs. Fast cars and young men. A good time girl. Cocktails – and maybe more. Excitement, and maybe a little danger, would be the spice of life to her.
‘So what brought you to this extremely dull little place?’
‘Well, a girl has to live, you know. And the salary Mr Llewellyn was offering for a few months’ work … why not?’ She smiled again.
‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’
Reardon crossed the room and opened the door, not knowing who was the more surprised when he found himself face to face with Anna Douglas, with her hand raised at that identical moment to knock on the door. They both stepped back a pace, but she recovered quickly. ‘Oh, I’m so glad you’re here
, Mr Reardon! Please come quickly, we’re all in the back sitting room. Theo thinks you should know …’ She was obviously agitated. ‘It’s Verity. She seems to have disappeared.’
A long passage ran the length of the house, windowed on one side. The plaster infill between the oak beams on the opposite side had been removed, which gave a little more light to the dark rooms behind, if less privacy. Strains of melancholy, Russian sounding piano music drifted along as they approached the room used as a sitting room. He was surprised to see it was Theo who was seated at a piano that took up too much space in such a small room, but he ceased playing and swung round on the stool as Reardon came in. Why hadn’t anyone stopped him before? It was the sort of music guaranteed to get on nerves which were on edge to begin with. All of them except Ida were lounging in various poses around the room, the air thick with smoke. She was standing in front of the window, gazing out, left arm crossed tightly across her chest, supporting her other elbow. From her fingers descended one of her black cigarettes, smoked almost to the gold filter tip.
‘There was no need to have brought you into this, inspector,’ she announced sharply, turning round as Reardon entered. ‘Verity hasn’t disappeared. All this fuss over nothing – it’s just being paranoid.’ She cast a venomous glance at Theo. ‘She’s just taken her car and gone off for a spin without letting anyone know, that’s all. Thoughtless, as usual.’
‘And taken all her things with her, clothes, everything, including Mr Fred?’ asked Claudia, raising her eyebrows.
‘Mr Fred?’ For a second, the stout, unlikely figure of Fred Parslowe flashed before Reardon’s eyes.
‘He’s a frog,’ said Ida.
A Frog? A Frenchman?
‘A stuffed animal, Mr Reardon,’ Claudia supplied, rolling her eyes.
‘She’s had him since she was three,’ Ida said. ‘She calls him her mascot and he’s scarcely out of her sight. She takes him to bed and puts him on the dashboard of her car every time she goes out, so it’s only to be expected he’s with her now.’ With an impatient gesture, she stubbed out her cigarette. She seemed determined to play down her daughter’s disappearance, but a strained look in her eyes belied it, and her hand shook a little as she fumbled to light yet another Sobranie. ‘She is so thoughtless,’ she snapped, tightness masking the attitude of a very worried mother.
‘Why do you insist on thinking she’s only doing this to annoy you?’ Theo demanded, his eyes narrowed. ‘Anyone would think you didn’t know full well the tiresome child’s taken herself off rather than being kept cooped up here, like the rest of us.’
‘Good for her if she has.’ Huwie was lolling in an armchair, one leg draped over the arm. ‘If I had a motor I dare say I’d have done the same before now,’ he added flippantly. Today he looked almost presentable. He’d exchanged his cheap suit-jacket for a sweater, and someone, Mrs Knightly no doubt, had washed and neatly ironed his shirt, and while they were at it sewed on a missing button.
Like all the other rooms in the house, this was comfortable, normally tidy and well kept, with its deep armchairs and soft rugs covering most of the stone floor. Smelling of burning apple wood, and the dry scent of old timbers. Now, used coffee cups still stood around and the ashtrays were full. The level of the bottles on the silver tray on the side table had gone down considerably. The room was in a mess that must be irritating Mrs Knightly no end, Reardon thought, glancing at the half-read books, an open cribbage board and decks of cards that were being used to pass the time and contributing to the general clutter. Scattered over chairs and parts of the floor were newspapers, one of them the local weekly, open at a half-page obituary for Mr Penrose Llewellyn, with a picture of him cutting a ribbon at the opening of the new housing estate he’d been instrumental in getting built. It wasn’t going to take long for it to become known that his death had been due to something more sinister than a mere heart attack, when it would become front page news – and not only on this paper. And he, Reardon, would be expected to conduct an orderly investigation, with half the press at his heels everywhere he went.
He eased a finger round his collar. He was finding the atmosphere in here unpleasant, claustrophobic. The linenfold panelling on the fireplace wall, though finely carved and no doubt highly regarded, was of dark oak that absorbed the light. With all the cigarette smoke, it was unbearably stuffy. As if reading his thoughts, Claudia rose in a movement graceful in such a big woman, sailed majestically across the room and with a sweeping gesture threw open one of the windows. Ida shivered theatrically and moved away as the cold air rushed in, but she didn’t object.
‘So when did you last see your daughter, Mrs Lancaster?’
‘Last night, at supper. She didn’t come down for breakfast but that’s nothing. Since Pen … she’s taken to her room and only comes down for meals and then goes straight back again – not that she eats anything to speak of, mind.’
‘And now she’s taken her precious little Baby Austin—’ Huwie began.
Ida turned on him savagely. ‘Naturally she’s taken her car. But … oh, God, the way she’s been driving lately!’ Suddenly, she choked.
There was a deep, uncomfortable silence. It lasted until Claudia said, ‘What about Carey?’
‘Carey Brewster?’ Theo looked at his wife as if the marble bust of Queen Victoria, which had stood on top of a high shelf near the fireplace for as long as any of them could remember, had suddenly given voice. ‘What has she to do with it?’
‘They’ve always seemed pretty thick to me. Isn’t that so, Ida?’
‘I don’t think they’ve seen each other since Carey came home, apart from the supper party.’
Claudia explained. ‘We’re talking of a little friend of Pen’s, Mr Reardon. She’s been living in France since her mother died, wise child – it’s put some polish on her. She looked positively chic at the party. We could ring up and find out whether Verity is with her.’ Her face fell. ‘Oh. Oh, well, of course not. Why are people so reluctant to have the telephone installed?’
Although she seemed today to have plumped for sounding cooperative, perhaps to relieve the boredom, Claudia was beginning to make Reardon feel tired. Couldn’t she see that a telephone was a needless, unaffordable luxury to ninety per cent of the population? When would most of them have any use for such a newfangled, suspect instrument anyway – apart from the remote possibility of needing the doctor in a dire emergency? But she had at least put the excuse to leave right into his hands, plus the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. ‘Tell me where Miss Brewster lives and I’ll go along and see what I can find out. But first, I’d like to take a look at Verity’s room, Mrs Lancaster.’
‘You won’t find anything. I’ve told you, she’s cleared everything out.’ She seemed unaware of her own contradictions – the insistence that her daughter had simply gone out for a day’s jaunt while in the same breath stressing that she had taken all her belongings with her.
‘It won’t take long. Standard procedure, I assure you.’
Ida shrugged and it was Anna Douglas who eventually led the way. ‘You’ll see she really has gone, Mr Reardon,’ she said when they were out of the room. ‘She was so fond of Pen and no one seems to have thought how upset she must be. I include myself in that. I did come here today intending to have a word with her, but I’m afraid I was too late. Poor Verity, she hasn’t been very happy lately.’
‘It’s easy to blame ourselves after the event, Mrs Douglas. I shouldn’t worry, she’s sure to turn up or let you know where she is.’
‘I hope so.’
Verity’s room was tiny, created from a space between roof-beams that sloped right down to the floor at one point. Its redeeming feature was a pretty little dormer alcove with a cushioned seat under the window, just big enough to curl up on. The entire room and its contents could be taken in at a glance and it seemed evident that Verity had indeed deserted it – except that, when he lifted aside the curtain across the corner that served as a wardrobe, a couple of sum
mer dresses still hung there, and a pair of sandals stood on the floor. Had she left them behind simply because they weren’t the sort of clothing suitable for this time of year, or as an intent of her return?
He took a last glance around. Apple green walls, a blue and white Welsh quilt, crisp white muslin skirt around a tiny dressing table. She’d taken her stuffed frog but she’d left a teddy bear and half a dozen other stuffed animals, plus children’s storybooks on the little bookshelf. And on the dormer windowsill, where they caught the light, dozens of small, oddly shaped pieces of sea-washed glass in magic colours, probably collected from long ago seaside holidays. It was a child’s room. He left, wondering why Verity Lancaster, age twenty-two, did not want to grow up.
THIRTEEN
Shanks’s pony again. Reardon had to admit as he walked once more uphill towards the town centre that he’d definitely underestimated the time and energy that could be wasted by to-ing and fro-ing between one house and another, even in this small place. Where you couldn’t just hop on a passing bus or a tram, and where the only bicycle he’d seen – understandably, given the terrain – had been the boy wobbling along the Townway this morning. The grey, inhospitable day was getting seriously cold now that the afternoon was drawing in, and he thought he felt a touch of sleet on his face. He pulled the collar of his coat higher, lengthened his stride and reached the road called Lessings Lane in seven minutes.
It straggled off in a hairpin bend at a midway point on Nether Bank and wound its way in an equally twisting fashion up the hillside to emerge further along the Townway. Sporadic building had occurred along its length over the years, wherever there was a suitable stretch of level land. About halfway along stood a short row of modest Victorian dwellings, with no gardens, but with a view to the river valley glimpsed over the barely visible top of a retaining wall on the other side of the road. Due to the furtive nature of Verity Lancaster’s disappearance, he hadn’t expected to see a little Baby Austin standing parked outside Carey Brewster’s door, so he wasn’t disappointed to find the road empty. A baby carriage with its hood up and a sleeping baby tucked under blankets outside the first house was the only form of transport in sight. These terraced houses stood in two blocks of three with a passageway to the back between the blocks, and they weren’t the sort to have garages. Small and unpretentious, respectable houses, each with a narrow window on one side of the front door, a wider one on the other. Most of them had lace curtains and paintwork that was varnished in durable if unattractive dark brown. The notable exception was the third door along, painted in a bright scarlet. What was the betting on that being one of those owned by Penrose Llewellyn, presently occupied by Sadie Bannerman?
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