David Webb 10 - Three, Three, the Rivals

by Anthea Fraser

  ‘I feel pretty rotten, you know. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make it up to her.’

  Webb smiled. ‘Don’t overdo it, or you’ll arouse her suspicions. I hope things work out.’

  Colin smiled wryly, rousing himself from his preoccupations. ‘How’s the case going, anyway? Any progress on Dick’s death?’

  ‘With the trail stone cold it’s not easy. I’m banking on a link with Billy.’

  ‘And it’s Sheila’s ghost story?’

  ‘I think it has to be. If we could only discover who Billy told about it, we’d be home and dry. He must have called on someone on his way to the club.’

  ‘Nobody saw him?’

  ‘If they did, they’re not saying. It’s so frustrating, Colin — all kinds of permutations are floating round my head but I can’t pin them down. I need to set out what we’ve got in black and white, as I was saying to Sheila. She’s offered to supply pen and paper if I get desperate.’

  ‘We might see you later, then.’

  Webb nodded. ‘In the meantime I’ll be on my way.’

  Colin wiped his hand on his trousers and held it out. Webb solemnly shook it. Both men knew their friendship had been tested and seemed to have survived. Which, in the circumstances, was something to be thankful for.

  Webb turned up his collar and set off in the rain, not, this time, along the towpath, which today would be a sea of mud, but down the main road. There was a continuous stream of traffic, and several times he had to dodge sprays of water which heavy wheels sent sluicing over the pavement. And still the rain fell relentlessly, darkening stone walls and dripping steadily through the heavy foliage overhanging the footpath, so that every so often an extra shower of drops landed on Webb’s unprotected head.

  Hands deep in his pockets, he scarcely noticed them. His mind was still on Colin and the effect the affair must have had on his marriage. He’d learned a lot about his family as well as himself during this investigation; provided he could clear his father and bring the case to a satisfactory conclusion, he and Sheila might finally be free of the past and able to get on with their lives.

  *

  Jackson was waiting for him at a corner table in the Fox and Grapes. Webb smoothed the excess water from his hair and hung his dripping raincoat on the stand. Jackson, who had watched him from across the room, grinned as he approached and sat down.

  ‘Swim here, did you, Guv? You should have phoned and I’d have come for you.’

  ‘A little bit of rain never hurt anyone,’ Webb said stoically. ‘And it’s great for clearing the head.’

  ‘You’ve solved the case, then?’

  ‘No call to be cheeky. No, I haven’t, but things are becoming clearer. I cracked Fairchild’s alibi, by the way. He’d been indulging in a bit of hanky-panky on the side.’

  ‘Couldn’t have been easy telling you that.’

  Webb took a long drink from the pint awaiting him. ‘How did you get on? Any more leads?’

  ‘The names of several villains who thought they got a raw deal from Makepeace, but if you ask me it’s pretty thin. A lad might swear vengeance when he’s sentenced, but he usually calms down pretty quickly.’

  Webb nodded. ‘I’m going to take a couple of hours off, Ken, and try to map it all out. My sister will provide the wherewithal. In the meantime, I’ve a bit more checking for you.’ He paused, wondering how to disclose Dick’s presence in the barn while concealing his own and his father’s.

  ‘Remember Sam Wainwright saying my mother and Dick had been engaged?’

  Jackson nodded warily.

  ‘And Mavis told us she went out that evening after a phone-call? Well, I’m pretty certain it was Dick who phoned, asking her to meet him at the old barn.’ He paused again, hoping Jackson wouldn’t question the source of this unsubstantiated allegation. ‘We know my mother arrived home, very upset, soon after nine. What we don’t know is where Dick went from there.’

  Jackson moved uneasily. He did wish the Governor’s family wouldn’t keep intruding into the case. And where’d he got this idea about a barn? It sounded pretty far-fetched to him; perhaps he wasn’t being told the whole story.

  He said cautiously, ‘So you’re saying that instead of going to the pub for cigarettes, Vernon went to this barn to meet your mum? Where exactly is it. Guv?’

  ‘Almost directly opposite here, in the field bordered by Bridge Street and the Heatherton road. It’s pretty derelict now, but it was a popular meeting place in my youth. I went there last night after seeing the Vernons. They still live in the same house, so I took the cross-country route as Dick would have done.’

  Jackson was still looking sceptical, but to Webb’s relief made no comment. ‘He was in a state about his sister,’ he continued, ‘and, as my mother’d been upset, probably worried about her, too. Surely when he left the barn, the obvious place he’d make for was home. So why didn’t he get there?’

  ‘He’d have gone across the fields, you said?’

  ‘That’s the quickest way to his house. But he’d have had to cross two roads, the Heatherton road and Chapel Lane.’

  ‘Couldn’t have been run over, could he, Guv?’ Jackson asked hopefully.

  ‘Stapleton says not. But if he bumped into someone — as he must have done, I reckon — it’s more likely to have been on one of those roads than in the fields.’

  ‘Unless someone saw him leave the barn and followed him?’ Jackson suggested, which was a possibility Webb preferred not to consider.

  ‘True. Still, let’s take the roads first. It’s forty years too late to try contacting motorists who’d used them that night, but some of the houses might still have the same occupants. So while I’m at my scribbling, I’d like you to round up a couple of the lads and do a house-to-house along both roads. Not the whole length of them, just the houses nearest to the access to the fields, where Dick would have crossed over. There won’t be that many.’

  Jackson nodded. ‘Right you are, Guv. Now, what are we going to eat? I was looking at that blackboard before you arrived, and the grilled ham sounds tasty.’

  Webb smiled. The preliminaries over, Ken was now ready to get down to the serious business. ‘Make it two hams,’ he said.

  *

  Knowing he’d want to be alone, Sheila had set up an old easel of Stephen’s in the guest-room, and laid out a selection of pens, pencils and crayons and a large pad of paper.

  Moses the cat was asleep on the bed, and she was about to shoo him off but Webb stopped her. ‘He won’t disturb me — might even bring me some luck. Heaven knows, I could do with it. Thanks, Sheila, this is perfect.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, then. Let me know if there’s anything else you need.’

  He nodded, already seating himself at the easel and reaching for the paper as he planned how to set about his task. Normally he sketched in the background first, the area in which the crime had taken place, but in the case of Dick Vernon the scene was not known. Almost without thinking, he embarked instead on a series of small pictures — a strip cartoon telling the story of that last day as far as he knew it.

  In the first square he drew Dick, a caricature based on the portrait on the piano. He was shown locked in his bedroom staring at the wedding photo. Why did it have such a traumatic effect on him? There must have been other pictures of Joan about the house; was it just that it had been the last occasion they’d all been happy?

  The next square was split in half — Dick making a phone-call, Lilian Webb — recognizable by her fair curls and down-turned mouth — receiving it. Then Dick’s progress across the fields to the barn, and their meeting. One picture, drawn in more detail than the others, showed the loft above the barn, and the boy who lay asleep there. Webb stared at that square for a long time before, with a sigh, he forced himself to go on.

  John Webb’s arrival; Lilian’s departure; the blow which felled Dick. That much was easy. But what next? How long had Dick lain there, and, when he finally came round — as, please God, he h
ad — which way had he gone? Suppose, disorientated, he set off in the opposite direction from home? That would have taken him to the canal; might he have met Billy Makepeace there?

  But guessing at this stage was against the rules; to be of any use, the drawings must keep to the facts as known. Perforce he left a gap, and the next square showed five-year-old Sheila and the figure in the graveyard. But what had happened in that blank space? Who had met Dick and killed him? And why?

  Webb tore off the sheet and let it slide to the floor as he began to draw in more detail the possible actors in the drama. If one man were responsible for both murders, it was a pretty thin list of suspects. But he might be putting too much importance on that conversation in the café; Dick could just as easily have been killed by someone no longer alive, and Billy’s murder have no connection with it.

  There were therefore three groups to consider: those who could have committed both crimes, and those who could have killed only Dick or only Billy.

  Embarking on the first category, Webb began with Gus Lang the organist, who professed hardly to have known Dick but was a friend of Billy’s. How true was either statement?

  He considered the upright figure he had drawn, whose military bearing belied the sensitivity of his musical talents. A dual nature, to some extent; capable, therefore, of enmity as well as friendship? Webb doubted it, and moved on to Stanley Fox. Since he hadn’t met the church treasurer a stick man had to suffice this time. Dawson’d suspected he was hiding something; perhaps he should go and see the man for himself.

  In the meantime he turned to Dr Adams. He’d been around for both crimes but had hardly known Dick who, like his family, had been his partner’s patient. And of Billy Makepeace he had spoken with affection.

  The widow, then, Eileen Vernon? Webb sketched rapidly, considering the possibility. Strong-willed she certainly was, and determined, but not, he felt, murderous.

  And Sam Wainwright: unhinged by grief, could he have resented Dick’s being alive when his twin was dead? Hardly a believable motive, and he’d an alibi for Billy’s death.

  Which exhausted the first list. Webb leaned back in his chair and surveyed the representations of each in turn, trying to insinuate himself into their minds. What fears, guilts, secrets, lurked there? If there were any, they remained hidden from him.

  Picking up his pen again, he was forced to admit that of those now dead who could have murdered Dick, the only likely suspects were his two old rivals, John Webb and Billy Makepeace. Carefully he drew in his father, surprised at how painful it proved. When he’d finished it — a few skilful lines bringing immediately to mind the dour, surly man who had dominated his childhood — he sat staring at it for a long time. Had John Webb loved his wife enough to kill his rival? Mavis Parker might have thought so.

  So to Billy. The heavy face took shape beneath his pen — broad, fleshy nose, thick neck and the aggressive, forward thrust of the head. Had the old enmity between him and Dick somehow rekindled, culminating in murder? If so, there had been no hint of it.

  Finally Webb turned to Billy’s own murder, starting by drawing the canal path with its railway bridge and the steps up to Bridge Street. No mystery about this scene, but precious few clues, either, he thought, sketching in the arch of the bridge. Someone had lain in wait here — who was it? Everyone knew of Billy’s Monday ritual, the visit to the club and the walk home along the towpath.

  So to suspects relevant only to this case, the first of them Jerry Croft. Had the old man nagged him once too often, tipping his tightly controlled frustration over the edge into violence? It was possible.

  Then there was the solicitor, Martin Allerdyce, who’d found the body. His likeness took shape on the page — thinning hair, horn-rimmed spectacles. Makepeace was a client of his; might he have been caught out in some malpractice?

  Webb considered him and his statement for some time before turning to the Vernon brothers. They had no love for Billy; if they’d discovered something linking him with their father’s death, they might have turned violent. Yet could a passion for revenge last all that time?

  As with the other suspects, he thought dispiritedly, no sooner did he divine a motive than common sense forced him to discount it.

  As he called these people to mind, most of whom he’d known all his life, it occurred to Webb that this exercise, no less than last night’s visit to the barn, was part of his exorcism of the past. During the last week he’d come to realize that all his life he’d seen Erlesborough and everything connected with it through a distorting mirror. As he’d gone about his inquiries his memories, both painful and happy, had, against his will, been shaken up and fallen back into a slightly different pattern. A split viewpoint had been thrust before him, the memory of a child’s impression melded with adult perception. It had forced him to re-examine, compare, contrast, and he now saw that nothing had been as clear-cut, as black and white, as he had supposed.

  He looked again at his dramatis personæ. Billy, he was sure, had called on his murderer the night of his death. It had taken him an hour and ten minutes to reach the club instead of the usual twenty, leaving fifty minutes unaccounted for. A fair distance could be covered in that time, even by an elderly man unaccustomed to walking. In fact, depending on the time spent on the actual visit, most of the suspects’ homes were within reach. No help from that angle.

  Doggedly he went through the list again. Basically it was unlikely Billy would have approached the Vernons with his problem. Unlikely but not, Webb reminded himself, out of the question, since he’d already tried to contact Sheila that evening.

  On the other hand Sam Wainwright, though related by marriage to the Vernons, had not been involved in the feud and, as Sam had indicated, the two men were on speaking terms. Therefore, if Billy thought he’d learned something pertaining to Dick’s death, he was quite likely to call on the man’s brother-in-law. But Sam had been playing whist — or so he said. He must check that the alibi had been verified.

  Studying his little figures one after another, it struck Webb that one of Billy’s most likely confidants would have been the man he considered an old friend — Dr Frank Adams.

  He frowned, staring down at the caricature of the dapper little man with his moustache and the flower in his buttonhole. He was known in the town as a devoted doctor, dedicated both to his profession and his patients, as Webb knew from Sheila’s testimony. Though there’d been murderous doctors in the past, he found it hard to cast Frank Adams in the role. If he had killed Billy, it could only have been because he’d also murdered Dick. And Dick had died soon after Adams came to the area. What possible motive could he have had?

  Webb sighed, trying to keep an open mind. No harm, anyway, in checking if Mrs Adams had been with her husband at the time Makepeace died. And as the thought came to him he recalled sitting in Janet Conway’s pleasant sitting-room overlooking the fairway. How, he had asked, had she learned of Billy’s death? From the doctor’s wife, she’d replied, when she’d called to return the scarf Vera left in the car after WI.

  So if Billy had called on him, Frank Adams would have been alone. But would he have had time — even if he wanted to — to lie in wait, push him in the canal, and still reach home before his wife?

  And on cue Webb’s memory again stirred. Sheila said she’d have phoned Billy back that evening, had she not been so late home. Had Vera been subjected to the same delay?

  He pushed back his chair, strode to the door and hurried down the stairs, calling for his sister as he went. She came quickly into the hall to meet him, looking startled by his urgency.

  ‘You were late home from WI last Monday?’

  ‘That’s right; old Mrs Simpson couldn’t find her bag and had us all searching for it. Then, if you please, she remembered she hadn’t brought it with her that evening.’

  ‘How many of you stayed to look for it?’

  ‘Angela, Janet and me. Oh, and Vera Adams, because Janet was giving her a lift.’

  Webb let out
his held breath. ‘And you got home at what time?’

  ‘After eleven-thirty. I thought Colin might have been back from his Dinner, but he wasn’t. Why? Is it important?’

  ‘It might very well be vital,’ Webb said.

  ‘But why? What possible—?’ She was interrupted by the sudden strident ringing of the phone. She picked it up, then turned to Webb. ‘It’s for you, David. Sergeant Jackson.’

  He almost snatched it from her. ‘Ken? You’ve got something?’

  ‘Yes, Guv, it looks like it. Best not over the phone, though.’

  ‘How soon can you pick me up?’

  ‘Five minutes?’

  ‘I’ll be ready.’

  ‘Thanks, Sheila,’ Webb said over his shoulder as he ran back up the stairs two at a time. He rapidly gathered up the sheets of discarded paper and stuffed them into his briefcase. Then, with a feeling of growing excitement, he raced back down the stairs and out to the gate to wait for Jackson.

  CHAPTER 14

  It had at last stopped raining, though as Webb stood waiting outside the Garden Centre he didn’t register the fact. His brain was churning with the startling possibilities that had suddenly opened up, and he was impatient to learn whether Jackson’s news would confirm or dispel them.

  As the car drew up, he opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. ‘What is it, Ken?’

  ‘A bit of a shaker actually, Guv.’

  ‘Dr Adams?’

  Jackson’s head spun round. ‘How did you—?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Well, Bob took the Heatherton road and I did Chapel Lane. And I struck gold at the third house. A Miss Grant lives there — very nice lady, she is — head of English at St Anne’s, she was telling me.’

  ‘Go on, Ken.’

  ‘I asked her if she’d always lived there, and she said yes, she was born there. So I explained what we were looking for, and asked whether she or her parents had happened to look out of the window that evening and see Dick Vernon. I thought at first I’d drawn a blank, because she said no, she remembered the evening quite well because she’d been ill and certainly not looking out of any windows.