Despite the Evidence

by Roderic Jeffries

  Kerr stared at them. ‘It’s impossible,’ he muttered.

  Fusil pulled a box of matches from his pocket, emptied the matches, and put the hairs in the box. ‘Before you leave tonight, give me a few head hairs for comparison.’

  Kerr shone his torch up. ‘I’d have heard that branch breaking off and couldn’t have mistaken the direction of the sound.’

  ‘Is that so certain? With a high wind blowing, branches threshing against each other, and your mind fixed on the crash?’

  Kerr shook his head. ‘I’m positive. He must have pulled the hairs out when I was unconscious and stuck them in the branch in case anyone ever checked up.’

  ‘That’s possible,’ said Fusil quietly. ‘But if it happened that way, we’re dealing with a man who’s far-sighted and clever enough — even after a crash and the serious injury or death of his companion — to plant evidence to support his story in a matter of seconds, although he would have believed the odds were against any check.’ His voice hardened. ‘What’s more, it would mean there had to be something really big at stake.’

  *

  The Barleys lived in a semi-detached house, in a street of exactly similar solid, comfortable, but uninspired houses. Mrs. Barley was a good housekeeper and Mr. Barley a keen gardener, so that both house and garden were always neat and tidy.

  Kerr knocked on the front door. It was opened by Helen, who smiled warmly at him but didn’t kiss him until he was in the hall and the front door was shut and even then it was more of a peck on the cheek. Her nature had become surprisingly passionate since their engagement, but she disliked any form of public affection. Her character was strangely old-fashioned and she refused to wear clothes that were in any extreme of fashion, however square this made her appear to be to some. She was intensely loyal — another old-fashioned characteristic, the cynics would have said. ‘Hullo, darling,’ she murmured. ‘It’s seemed an age since I last saw you.’

  ‘Two ages, at the very least.’

  She tucked her arm round his. ‘You said that really feelingly! Is that the result of too much canteen food?’

  ‘It’s you I’ve been missing,’ he protested.

  ‘I’m glad.’ She squeezed his arm. ‘But I told Mummy I bet you’d arrive starving. She said that in that case she thought she’d make you a really big Cornish pasty since you seemed to like them.’

  ‘I knew it!’

  ‘So you have been thinking about your food just a little?’ she said archly.

  Chapter Six

  Each morning Fusil reported on the crime situation to Superintendent Passmore, the divisional superintendent. The necessity to do this normally riled him — he was perfectly capable of running the divisional C.I.D. without any interference or surveillance — but there were occasionally times when he was glad of the other’s advice. Passmore, a qualified solicitor, had a way of being able to see all of a problem and then picking out the points that really mattered. It was for this reason that, after making his usual report on the crime of the past twenty-four hours, and passing across the Crime Book and Stolen Property Book, Fusil told Passmore about Kerr’s meeting with Tarbard and events since then.

  Passmore, a large man with a round face and a mouth that usually seemed to be about to smile, rested his elbows on his desk and put the tips of fingers and thumbs together. He spoke with the slow, even tones which had never changed from the time when he had practised as a solicitor. ‘You’ve no proof of any of Kerr’s statements? And as you say, he’d had a few beers?’

  ‘I know. But I’m satisfied his judgement wasn’t seriously impaired.’

  ‘How can you afford to be satisfied unless you were there?’

  Fusil looked slightly annoyed.

  ‘Who was the second man?’ said Passmore. ‘Why should Tarbard go to so much trouble to conceal the presence of anyone so badly injured, rather than doing the obvious thing and calling a doctor? Has any major crime been reported for Tuesday evening?’

  ‘None. I’ve checked county records and they’re like ours. . . . Just the usual run-of-the-mill jobs.’

  ‘Then what do you suggest are the answers?’

  ‘Other than that some really big job is brewing up and the identity of the second man might have given a hint of this, I haven’t any.’

  ‘Surely the real likelihood is that Kerr made several mistakes in observation, from too much beer or the poor light or both?’

  ‘Don’t forget, sir, Tarbard’s got form.’

  ‘For driving dangerously. Given some bad luck, even you could cop that charge, Bob.’ Passmore’s face gave no hint of the fact that he was quite aware of what were Fusil’s standards of driving.

  ‘He was also mixed up in some housing swindle.’

  ‘And, as you’ve told me, was found not guilty.’ He held up his hand. ‘I know, on a technicality. But do either of those crimes really indicate you’re dealing with a man who’s in the big league — which is what you’re suggesting?’

  ‘I’m going to check that car,’ said Fusil doggedly.

  Passmore nodded. While there was even the faintest possibility of some sort of criminal activity, Fusil would go on checking because he was a man who hated crime and criminals with more than usual sharpness. ‘Don’t press things too far, Bob, unless you get some proof. From the sound of it, Tarbard is the type of man who’s ready to cause trouble at the drop of a hat.’

  ‘If there’s any proof to get, I’m not going to get it unless I press hard.’

  Passmore lowered his hands. ‘Let’s sum things up. You don’t know if there was a second man in the car, you don’t know if he was badly injured or killed, you don’t know if Tarbard went to a great deal of trouble to conceal that fact, you don’t know what motive Tarbard could possibly have. . . . That’s a hell of a lot not to know.’

  It was; thought Fusil. And yet Tarbard had form and according to Kerr he had only become friendly when Kerr noticed the missing tip of the middle finger of his right hand.

  *

  The patrol car drew into the forecourt of Melstone Garage. The driver and his companion in civvies climbed out. The driver took off his peaked cap, scratched his head, and led the way into the repair shed. This was typical of so many one-man country garages: inside, three cars were in various stages of repair, equipment lay all over the floor and two work benches, there were several piles of worn-out tyres, four open cans of old engine oil were ready to catch unwary feet, perished electric cable in many colours lay festooned about the walls, and charts, almost illegible from dirt and grease, gave the tyre pressures for cars long since out of production. The sleek Jensen, even though its front end was pushed in, the bonnet was buckled, and the windscreen was shattered, looked out of place in such surroundings.

  A very broad, strongly built man, with ginger hair and ginger beard, his freckled face, hands, and overalls covered in dirt and grease, looked up from the cylinder head he was tightening down. He stared with hostility at them.

  ‘You look kind of busy,’ said the constable cheerfully. His foot caught one of the open cans of old oil and he hastily made certain none of the oil had splattered over his uniform trousers. ‘Trade’s good, eh?’

  ‘Is it?’ Salisbury, the owner, put the open-ended spanner down on the cylinder head.

  ‘I’ve come looking for a car that’s been in a hit-and-run a couple of days back.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Looks as if that lush job over there has been in a bit of a smash?’

  ‘It ran into a tree.’

  ‘That’s tough, with a car like that. When was this?’

  ‘Tuesday night.’

  ‘Who’s the owner?’

  ‘Tarbard.’

  ‘A local?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Very smooth car — just the job to go bird-catching in, eh?’ The constable threaded his way between the other two, ancient, cars to the Jensen. His companion followed him. ‘So what’s going to happen to it now?’ he called out.
/>   ‘How should I know until someone tells me?’

  ‘I suppose you won’t be doing the repair work?’

  ‘Are you saying I can’t?’ demanded Salisbury angrily.

  ‘Keep your hair on, mate, nothing nasty intended. Like as not, you could build a formula one Lotus from all the bits lying around.’

  The man in civvies opened the near-side front door, which had escaped any distortion, and leaned inside to examine the webbing, buckle, and mountings, of the safety belt.

  Salisbury picked up the spanner and resumed work on the cylinder head. A car horn sounded from the forecourt. The constable looked through the doorway. ‘There’s a bloke waiting for petrol, mate.’

  ‘So let him wait a bit longer.’ It was almost a minute before Salisbury went out to serve petrol.

  ‘There’s a cheerful, smiling ray of sunshine,’ said the constable. ‘I just can’t wait to come back here.’ He looked across and saw his companion was standing upright and dusting the knees of his trousers. ‘What’s the verdict?’

  ‘It’s been under strain.’

  *

  Welland knew he was unlikely to be asked to stay on in C.I.D. after the end of his six-month term as aide, but that didn’t worry him: very little did. He had no ambition other than to go on enjoying the kind of life he did now — a loving wife at home who bossed him, frequent games of very strenuous rugger, and a good old booze-up with the boys whenever he could afford it.

  He had a loud, booming voice and over the telephone he tended to speak even more loudly, as if believing the wires couldn’t do their work unaided. ‘That’s right, I want to know whether he’s a patient of yours?’

  ‘We,’ said the woman, ‘do not discuss our patients.’

  She was a sharp, vinegary spinster without a shadow of doubt, thought Welland. ‘It’s a police matter.’

  ‘That makes no difference.’ She sniffed.

  He was not without a certain degree of native cunning. ‘Perhaps I’d better come along with a uniformed constable and discuss the matter in surgery?’

  The woman said: ‘What exactly is it you want?’

  ‘Is Gervaise Tarbard one of your patients?’

  ‘Yes.’ She sniffed again.

  ‘Has he seen any of the doctors recently?’

  ‘I couldn’t possibly say unless I check the records.’

  ‘Would you do that for me, then, please?’

  As he waited, he wondered whether he’d be able to play in the important rugger match the next afternoon. He knew he was in the running for being chosen for the county police team.

  She spoke to him again. ‘Mr. Tarbard has not seen any of the doctors in the past four days.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’ He rang off. If work should happen to prevent his playing in the match, did he stand a chance of being selected purely on past form?

  *

  Braddon never hurried anywhere, yet he still managed to do most things as quickly as anyone else. He walked into the main entrance of the hospital and crossed the mosaic floor to the small desk where he spoke to a smart, but friendly, woman who wore a neat, crisp white apron. He asked to have a word with the casualty doctor who had been on duty on Tuesday night. While she used the telephone to discover who that doctor had been and where he now was, Braddon stared up at the plaques on the wall which listed the contributions people had made to the hospital before it was nationalised. One man had given fifty thousand pounds in the days when a pound meant something. With envy, but no bitterness, Braddon wondered what it was like to be so rich that you could give away a fortune?

  The receptionist spoke to him. ‘Dr. James was on. He’s off duty now, but I’ll see if I can get hold of him.’

  A woman with a small child came in to the hall and crossed to the desk to speak to the receptionist, who took a card and then directed her to one of the benches by the far wall. She sat down. Her daughter was scared and began to cry and nothing the mother could do would comfort her.

  Braddon, who had a sweet tooth and a passion for white chocolate, found an unopened bar in his coat pocket. He offered this to the girl, who looked at her mother, then grabbed the chocolate and, tears forgotten, opened it. The mother thanked him. He smiled, remembering with soft sadness his own daughter who had died suddenly when seven.

  After a couple of telephone calls the receptionist located and spoke to the doctor, who agreed to have a word with the detective sergeant. The receptionist directed Braddon to the first house on the left beyond the main hospital gates.

  Braddon saw the doctor in a bleakly furnished sitting-room.

  ‘Kerr?’ said James. He was in his late twenties and his face held lines of fatigue, with dark half-moons under his eyes. He shook his head. ‘The name doesn’t ring a bell.’ He sat down on the arm of a battered chair.

  ‘He was brought in on Tuesday night, somewhere after eleven o’clock, suffering from a pretty heavy bash on the back of the head.’

  ‘And he’s one of your blokes?’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’ Braddon waited in silence. It was to his credit that he never flustered or distracted people by seeming to be in a hurry.

  James stared at the electric fire in the boarded-up fireplace. ‘I still can’t place him. We get so many casualties. . . .’

  ‘He’s twenty-four, with curly brown hair, and a cheerful, bit of a devil-may-care face. His clothes must have been saturated because he’d been lying on the road in the middle of that heavy rain storm.’

  ‘Now I’ve got him! We gave him some old clothes and the trousers were a mile too short.’ James smiled briefly. ‘What is it you want to know exactly?’

  ‘If you can tell me about his injuries?’

  ‘Sure.’ James yawned. ‘How about some coffee first?’

  ‘That’s a great idea.’

  He went out and Braddon could hear his moving around in the next room. From overhead came a sudden thump on their ceiling, followed by a muted ‘No’ from a woman. Life, thought Braddon, wasn’t all toil, then.

  James returned with the coffee in two chipped mugs and with a bowl of sugar. He passed one mug and the sugar across, then sat down in the nearer armchair. He drank, put the mug down on the arm, yawned, and closed his eyes. ‘I could sleep for a week. Half the population of Fortrow has been pouring in over the last few nights. . . . But you want to hear about your bloke. When he came in he was conscious and complaining of a severe headache. I examined him and then had X-rays taken, in case of a fracture. The X-rays were clear, so we stitched up the small scalp wound, slapped on a plaster, and sent him home.’

  ‘Did you find anything in or near the wound?’

  ‘Find anything?’ James looked at Braddon in surprise. ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Like any sort of foreign body,’ answered Braddon, with deliberate vagueness.

  James drank some more coffee. ‘I did remove something when I was clearing up — what the hell was it? . . . I know. It was a bit of bark.’ He smiled. ‘D’you call that a foreign body?’

  ‘I should think so, sir,’ replied Braddon gravely, though there was a smile in his eyes. ‘Would you have any idea what kind of tree the bark came from?’

  ‘Good God, no!’

  ‘And I suppose it wouldn’t still be around?’

  ‘Not a hope.’

  ‘Could you judge from the wound what sort of diameter of wood hit him?’

  ‘You’re really asking some questions! Don’t forget this was getting close to midnight, when casualties were coming in in their dozens — or so it seemed. My only concern was to make certain whether or not the wound was serious and I didn’t bother with anything else. No, I’ve no idea what diameter piece of wood clobbered him.’

  Braddon finished his coffee and stood up. ‘Thanks very much. Sorry to have troubled you.’

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.’

  Braddon returned to the car. The piece of bark the doctor had found seemed to make it certain Kerr had been hit by the branch — or had the
bark been planted, as well as the hair?

  *

  Two sets of files on all criminals arrested and convicted within the county boundaries were kept: one set at county H.Q. and the other at Scotland Yard — this latter set contributing to a nationwide coverage. The records were cross-indexed as far as was practicable, but it was admitted that until all information was computerised Records could never guarantee to identify a criminal from some minor physical feature, through a particular known associate, or for some small but peculiar part of his modus operandi.

  The duty sergeant at county Records was a man with a sharp, craggy, irregular face who looked rather as if his features hadn’t quite been finished off. His voice was hoarse. ‘You say you’re after a villain with the top of the middle finger of his right hand missing?’

  ‘That’s right, Sarge,’ answered Kerr.

  ‘What else can you tell me?’

  ‘Only that he’s an associate of Gervaise Tarbard, who’s got form.’

  ‘Gervaise? That’s a right precious name!’

  ‘He’s a right precious gentleman. Out of the very top drawer, but got slung out of school and hasn’t been near the straight and narrow since.’

  ‘That kind of bastard,’ muttered the sergeant. He looked up. ‘You’re not giving me much to work on, you know.’

  ‘But there can’t be that number of villains with missing finger-tips,’ replied Kerr breezily.

  ‘Are you tellin’ me?’

  Kerr suddenly realised he might be better advised to show some tact. ‘I was asking you, of course, Sarge.’

  ‘Then the answer’s thousands,’ replied the other, with gloomy relish. ‘It’ll take hours.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll go and get some grub.’

  Kerr left and made his way down to the canteen, far more luxuriously appointed than the canteen back at Fortrow, but with the same kind of food and the same kind of attitude amongst the civilian women who served behind the counter — that’s off and that’s off and if you don’t like what’s left, starve.

  He had some dried-up ham, lumpy potato originally from a packet, and watery, stringy beans. The poor quality of the food made him think about his forthcoming marriage. A slight sense of awe crept through his mind. Until now, he’d never taken anything in life seriously: life was simply for fun. But marriage was permanent and when the wedding march thumped out on the organ he would have made himself responsible for loving and honouring just one woman. It was odd to think of himself being tied down like that — very odd indeed.