The Protagonists

by James Barlow

  ‘At Birlchester.’

  ‘With a Mrs Wilson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Would you describe her – briefly?’

  ‘She’s got red hair,’ said Tom. He knew the tense was wrong, but could not help using it; besides, there was half a minute to go before she was made officially dead.

  The inspector paused, hoping for words like soothing ointment, but not finding any. There had been the tiny hope that Miss Hughes had not had red hair, and some other inspector would have had to inform some other parents. ‘I have today received a communication from Almond Vale, which is near Birlchester,’ he said, knowing it had to come slowly. They had been ready for disaster since the constable had called, but even now one could not blurt it out: murder, strangulation, the body not properly attired … He said, as MacIndoe had said to Mrs Wilson four hours earlier, ‘She has been killed.’

  The mother went on weeping, shaking her head from side to side. Hughes gasped ‘Ooh’ slowly. Tom, instead of paling, coloured slightly, and said, ‘Oh, God, God, why couldn’t You look after her? She was one of Yours.’

  ‘I am so sorry,’ the inspector said. ‘Believe me, if there had been anything at all – any way – I’m afraid I have few particulars.’ They said nothing. ‘I have to have a few details. Routine.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Hughes.

  ‘How old was Miss Hughes?’

  ‘Twenty-six.’

  ‘Has she always lived at the address with Mrs Wilson?’

  ‘Since she left the sanatorium.’

  ‘She was in a sanatorium?’

  ‘As a nurse. Then she left, see, a few years ago and went in this hairdresser’s shop.’

  ‘I’d better have the address.’

  Mr Hughes gave it.

  ‘And was that when she went to live with Mrs Wilson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The inspector pressed a button on his desk and almost at once the jocular constable appeared. ‘Make some tea,’ said the inspector. It was brought immediately and was a small but real comfort. When they were sipping tea – the inspector deliberately leaving his untouched in a queer token of sympathy – he approached the final half of the disaster. The loss of the daughter was terrible enough, but they had to be told how she had died. The girl’s integrity had to be smashed before their faces. Inspector Prosser said – as nobody was going to ask; they were too stunned – ‘We have reason to suppose that Miss Hughes was killed by a man – probably a young man.’

  ‘Killed by a man?’ echoed Tom. ‘You mean by a car?’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ the inspector said. ‘She was killed – deliberately.’

  Silence. Their faces changing from those of the bereaved to the more pitiful faces of victims. Hughes said, ‘Do you mean that she was killed?’

  ‘Yes,’ the inspector said. ‘It was not an accident or anything like that.’

  Hughes, white as death, said, ‘Oh, no, God, no, not my little Olwen …’ Tom whispered, ‘Surely you don’t mean murdered?’ The inspector nodded. Mrs Hughes, who had been near-silent in her tears, lifted a dreadful face and said suddenly, ‘That damn Peggy. Why couldn’t she stay at home? Why couldn’t it be her? She deserved it. I’ll never set foot in church again. Olwen …’ She was unable to say more.

  Inspector Prosser said, ‘Perhaps you’d prefer to have another talk with me later. There are a few other questions – just a few. We have to make inquiries.’

  ‘What’s the use?’ Hughes said. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Had your daughter any male friends? Did she mention them? Their names …’

  ‘No,’ said Hughes. ‘None at all.’

  ‘She would have told me,’ Mrs Hughes said. ‘She was my daughter.’

  ‘Yes,’ the inspector said. ‘I didn’t mean –’

  ‘There was Stephen,’ said Tom.

  ‘Stephen?’ said Hughes. ‘Who was he?’

  ‘She told me about him,’ said Tom. ‘He was a patient at the sanatorium. He died, of course,’ he concluded bitterly.

  ‘Did she mention anyone else? Even distantly. In another connection, perhaps …’

  ‘No. Nobody,’ said the mother. ‘I would know. I’ll read all her letters again, but I know. Her boy was Joe, who was killed in Normandy.’

  ‘I think that will be sufficient,’ the inspector said. He pressed the button again. ‘I’m dreadfully sorry about all this, Mr and Mrs Hughes.’

  Hughes said, still polite, ‘It can’t be helped.’

  ‘I’m going to order a car. It will take you home.’ The constable entered and the order was given. ‘Please call me – about anything,’ Inspector Prosser said to Hughes. ‘I’ll come to see you when I have any further news.’

  As they were going out, Mrs Hughes said abruptly, ‘What about Olwen? The funeral –’

  The inspector tensed – it had been an ordeal for him too, despite his calmness. ‘It can take place normally,’ he said, stressing the last word, ‘after the autopsy and the Coroner’s inquest … You can attend that, of course, if you wish …’

  His words conveyed the last ounce of reality. They – more than anyone else; more even than the doctors, the newspapers, the witnesses, the police – above all, they could picture the scene and imagine Olwen’s agony. She was going to be cut up by doctors. Why? Why? Why? What had happened to her? She would be treated like so much tripe for analysis; perhaps someone would laugh. Perhaps there would be students there who might say, ‘Gosh, she’s young. A bit of all right, eh?’ Then she would be patched together (or would she?) and they could have her to bury. A train would have to bring the coffin. Complicated arrangements would have to be made with unknown, indifferent people. ‘What kind of freight do you wish to send?’ – ‘To take the body out of the United Kingdom you must have the consent of the Coroner and the Registrar’ – ‘We can’t do it for less than fifty quid, madam. Sorry.’ Tom, who had been thinking a little romantically about revenge, knew that he would exact no revenge; knew also that he might be discreetly dropped by the girl he had recently met. He was as innocent as his sister, but in a murder there is a stigma of horror which makes even the innocent seem as though they have played some dreadful part.

  They all walked into a sort of courtyard to the waiting car. Seagulls flapped overhead; heads peered cautiously out of windows; there would never be privacy again. They walked to the unknown and as yet not experienced misery of being the family of a girl murdered in sin because of sin; were driven to the horrors of the cynical, besieging newspaper reporters, the Sunday paper that doubled all other offers for the exclusive biography; the crime specialists who would later want details for some special book about trials or unsolved crimes; to the whispers and the silences and the stares; to the sympathy of friends, neighbours and tradesmen, all tinged with curiosity; to the questionings, the sadness, the analyses, the self-reproaches, the letters and communications, the curious at the funeral, to the death of all silence.

  Chapter Five

  Baker hovered in the hugged dining-room of the Dragon. It was half-past two, but a few men were still eating; there was the crunch of biscuits and the rustle of Telegraphs. The Dragon had a dining-room like an airport or the Customs and Excise office at a major port. The whole place was too large for mere eating and drinking; how did they manage to make a profit? He saw MacIndoe come through swing doors from another part of the building. He didn’t look like a policeman at all, Baker thought, remembering many senior officers who looked the part: beak noses, stern faces, a military walk and heads held well back. You might believe him to be a rate-collector or a bailiff, but even that was difficult. He had a face that was too kindly. Why doesn’t he get a new raincoat? That one’s absolutely filthy. I bet the Chief Constable thinks we’re a couple of scruffs. Mac even walks like a grizzly bear. />
  MacIndoe ambled across the room. ‘The manager’s looked it up and there’s a bus due from Almond Vale at two forty-three. We’d better wait at the bus stop outside.’

  Outside, the rain had slowed down to a drizzle. It still dripped heavily from trees and the edges of buildings, but was obviously going to stop altogether within the hour. The buildings looked clean and fine; the gutters drank away all the black filth; the city had had its face washed.

  They stood at a bus stop on the main road, leaving MacIndoe’s car parked on the tarmac that surrounded the Dragon. They both yawned now and again; it had been a good lunch. After a few minutes a red bus appeared along the straight road. ‘This’ll be it,’ said MacIndoe.

  The bus overshot the stop and did not cease moving altogether. Maddocks jumped lightly to the pavement and turned to meet the two London detectives. He grinned. ‘There must be a regulation about that.’

  They all walked to MacIndoe’s car. ‘We’ve had too much to eat,’ confessed MacIndoe. ‘What sort of morning have you had?’

  ‘Lousy,’ said Maddocks, grimacing.

  ‘No conviction?’

  ‘Oh, they were convicted. I meant the court. It smells of dust and old gentlemen.’

  ‘They all do.’

  ‘What about you? Is it all over?’

  ‘No,’ said MacIndoe. ‘Still, we had quite a useful morning.’ He detailed the events of the morning to Maddocks. Maddocks then said, ‘The Murphy girl may be able to confirm what Miss Barber had to say about a red car. She may even have this married man’s name. Then, I suppose, it’s a question of having a look at him and seeing what he’s got to say.’

  ‘Yes,’ said MacIndoe. ‘It may be as simple as that. And if his prints are on the camera, that will be the end of that – bar the shouting.’

  In MacIndoe’s car they drove back along the main road, towards Birlchester, reached the cinema and zigzagged the few roads to Mrs Wilson’s house. Someone moved away quickly from the ground-floor window as they approached.

  Mrs Wilson answered the door at once and led the three officers into the same parlour. She had gone to the trouble of lighting a fire in the room. In a leather armchair a girl sat uncomfortably. Dark-haired, pale-faced, wearing a black bus-conductress’s uniform that fitted too tightly round her plump body; shoes dirty; rough, friendly hands … She sat looking resentful, clutching a tin box, tickets and satchel. It was evident that the girl had only recently arrived, that the two females had been talking about the death of Olwen and that this girl had been crying. Jolly, simple, kind-hearted, easy-going, MacIndoe thought; a girl who will laugh or cry easily and for anyone; likes a drink (probably of beer – she’s getting fat); too generous and impulsive and careless to be a virgin; a close friend, probably, of the victim; certainly not an enemy. Her enmity would be reserved for the stuffed shirts of her world: the manager who said she was lazy, the passenger who complained of impertinence, the traffic inspector who found her arithmetic wrong; and at the first laugh she would forgive these …

  ‘This is Hazel,’ said Mrs Wilson. ‘I’ve just been telling her what’s happened.’

  ‘What’s your other name?’ MacIndoe asked.

  ‘Murphy.’

  ‘And you live here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’d like to ask you some questions,’ said MacIndoe. ‘There’s nothing now anyone can do to help your friend Olwen, but your assistance may save some other girl.’

  The girl opened her mouth but said nothing. Mrs Wilson said, ‘They’ve got to find him anyway; it stands to reason.’

  MacIndoe ignored her words and said, ‘Was Olwen a friend of yours?’

  ‘Yes, she was.’

  ‘How long had you known her?’

  Hazel cleared her throat. ‘Three years about. She was here when I came.’

  ‘She shared accommodation with you?’

  ‘We’ve got a room upstairs.’

  ‘It’s the biggest room in the house,’ interrupted Mrs Wilson.

  ‘What sort of a girl was Olwen?’

  ‘She was nice, just because she was – it doesn’t mean you can – but I don’t suppose you’ll believe me.’

  ‘I shall believe you,’ said MacIndoe gently. ‘I haven’t come here to criticize Olwen – you know that, don’t you, Mrs Wilson?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Mrs Wilson. ‘He’s just got his job to do.’

  ‘Well, I meant that just because she did the same sort of things as anyone else it doesn’t mean that she was like – well, like me.’

  ‘You were friendly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you go about together out of working hours?’

  ‘When we could. She worked different hours sometimes. And then we might be too tired to go out, so we’d stay listening to the wireless.’

  ‘Where did you go together?’

  ‘When I finished early we’d go shopping together, or to the pictures; have some chips; once she took me to church …’

  ‘She went to church?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘By herself?’

  ‘Yes. I only went once.’

  ‘Did you go dancing?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Olwen also?’

  ‘No, not Olwen. I couldn’t get her to go.’

  ‘Why not? Didn’t she dance? Or perhaps she didn’t drink. Was that it?’

  ‘She wouldn’t drink in a pub. I like to dance and I like to meet the chaps and have a beer. Olwen – she didn’t mix easily. Like I told you – she was nice – better than me.’

  ‘Do you mean she was shy? She thought the chaps were – rough?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Didn’t she have a boy friend?’

  ‘She hadn’t had one for ages.’

  ‘Until when?’

  ‘Until March 17th.’

  ‘What makes you remember that date?’

  ‘I’m Irish,’ said Hazel. ‘It’s St Patrick’s Day, and I remember on that day Olwen came home and said she’d met someone.’

  ‘Whom had she met?’

  ‘I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me.’

  ‘But you know now, don’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She met him in March and it’s now July. Oh, come, Miss Murphy, you’re more feminine than that.’

  ‘I only know it was Roy.’

  ‘Didn’t she tell you his surname?’

  ‘She didn’t tell me anything.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘She’d put it in her diary.’

  ‘What did she put in her diary?’

  ‘Something about how she’d met “R.”, and that he was a traveller.’

  ‘He was a traveller?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For whom?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did you look in the diary?’

  The girl blushed. ‘Yes.’

  MacIndoe smiled. ‘I’m glad you did. Tell us about this “R.”’

  ‘I don’t know his surname. But it can’t be him. Olwen said he was going to marry her.’

  ‘You didn’t read it in the diary?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I mean, she did talk a bit about him, didn’t she? What did she say?’

  ‘She said weeks ago that he wanted to marry her, and would when his wife died …’

  ‘When his wife what?

  There was a shocked silence as the girl realized the implication of her own words. ‘Oh, but he didn’t mean anything like that. His wife was insane, Olwen said, and had been for over a year. I said he ought to get a divorce – you know, because his wife was nuts – but Olwen said No, she
was ill and would die.’

  ‘Did she die?’

  ‘I don’t know. Olwen never said.’

  ‘What was the wife’s name?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Her address?’

  ‘No. I don’t know that.’

  ‘Which asylum was she in?’

  ‘Olwen never talked about it.’

  ‘Where does this Roy work?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Wasn’t that in the diary?’

  ‘No. Except that he was a traveller.’

  ‘Did he ever come here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Has he a car?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What colour?’

  ‘Red. It’s a sports car.’

  ‘Have you ever seen it?’

  ‘No; but Olwen told me.’

  ‘What did she say about it?’

  ‘I can’t remember. I know she told me. They went for picnics sometimes on her half day off.’

  ‘On Tuesdays?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They always met on Tuesdays?’

  ‘Nearly always. I think she sometimes met him on a Sunday. He had to see his wife at the asylum then. She’d stopped going to church.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘I can guess.’

  ‘Did she ever tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why do you think she stopped?’

  ‘It’s not up to me to say.’

  ‘What were Olwen’s relations with this Roy?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Hazel said excitedly. ‘It’s not fair. She’s dead. You mustn’t –’

  Maddocks said, ‘She was in love with him?’

  ‘She must have been.’

  ‘They were going to get married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you know where?’

  ‘No. Birlchester somewhere.’

  ‘Then he lives in Birlchester?’

  ‘He must do.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’