‘I haven’t been offered anything.’
‘In this house you bloody well take what you want or you go thirsty. There’s gin or whisky. Me? I’m going to have another little gin. I don’t feel very well.’
Rusk went round behind the bar and found a clean glass. He poured out a small whisky and looked for a soda siphon. ‘Is there any soda?’
‘Never touch the stuff, puts too much gas in the belly. Use water.’
He looked for water.
‘There’s plenty in that bowl.’ She pointed to the floor.
It was a dog’s bowl. He decided to drink the whisky neat. He raised his glass. ‘Cheers.’
She gave herself a quarter glass of gin.
‘I want something in it.’ She stood up and stumbled out of the room and returned within the minute with a small bottle of ginger ale. She gave it to him. ‘Be a darling boy and open it for me.’
He used a triangular opener to remove the metal cap and passed the bottle back to her. She put it down by the side of her glass and then drank the gin neat.
One of the poodles cocked its leg and watered the empty jeroboam or champagne that stood in the near corner.
She watched the dog without any visible signs of annoyance. ‘You’re nice and I like you very much. What’s your name?’
‘Detective-Sergeant Rusk.’
‘My, my, what a very nice policeman.’
‘I’ve come to have a word with Mr Broom.’
‘That sod.’ She finished the gin, poured herself out another. ‘Got a cigarette?’
He gave her one. ‘Is he in?’
‘If he’s not, I’ll have him. He’s running after the Tait bitch as hard as he can sniff. Caught him pawning my favourite silver tea-pot the other day. Pawning it, so he could use the money on that Tait bitch! By God, I’ll settle her hash one of these days. Always on heat.’
‘I’d like a word with him.’
‘He’s probably too tight. Drinks like a fish.’
‘Perhaps you could go and see what state he’s in?’
‘Why the hell should I? I don’t want him, drunk or sober. You go and fetch him, and tell him from me if I catch him once more sniffing round that Tait bitch, I’ll cut off his necessaries and feed ’em to the dogs.’
Rusk finished the whisky. ‘Where’s he most likely to be? Upstairs or downstairs?’
‘In my bloody lady’s chamber.’
There was no need for a search. He heard the sound of shuffling footsteps and a man came into the bar. He was tall but had a badly bowed back. He hadn’t shaved and his chin was a mass of white whiskers in contrast to his head which was almost bald. To see, he had to wear very high-powered glasses that had the effect of making his eyes seem twice the size they were. He was dressed in trousers, a shirt with no collar, frayed dressing-gown, and carpet slippers.
‘Here he is,’ she shouted. ‘The only walking ruin in the country.’ She spoke to her husband. ‘Have you been at that bitch again?’
He smiled gently and guided himself into one of the two wicker chairs. ‘I’ll have a whisky, dear.’
‘You’ll have sweet fanny adams twice over. Where’s my pearl necklace?’
‘I don’t know, dear.’
‘If you’ve sold that in order to be able to give your little sugar daughter another little present, I’ll cut your throat with a blunt carving knife.’
‘I’ll have a whisky, dear.’
Rusk went behind the bar and poured out a whisky. He carried the glass across to Broom. ‘There’s no soda.’
‘Thank you.’
‘It’s a policeman,’ said his wife. ‘A very nice policeman, and I like him.’
‘Good, dear.’ Broom drank the whisky. ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions,’ said Rusk. ‘Perhaps we could go somewhere?’
‘He’s not going anywhere without me,’ snapped his wife. ‘I’ll have my pearl necklace or I’ll do that bitch.’
Rusk shrugged his shoulders. He said: ‘Several years ago, you were convicted of immorality with a girl of fifteen.’
‘I’ll say the old goat was,’ she said. She gave herself another gin. The poodle with no hair came into the bar and watered the champagne bottle. ‘Until his eyesight went, nothing that had two legs and wore a skirt was safe. Not that that little bitch wasn’t asking for it … I’ve never seen two of my diamond rings from that day to this. Gave them to her, I suppose, for services rendered.’
‘We’re working on the Brenda Ellery murder,’ said Rusk.
She laughed harshly, picked up the glass in front of her and finished the contents. ‘You’re not crediting him with her, are you?’
‘Routine inquiries.’
‘You could’ve counted him in years ago, but he’s gone dry since then.’
‘Where was he between ten-thirty on the eleventh and one o’clock on the morning of the twelfth?’
‘Stretched out on the couch next door snoring, as like as not.’
‘Can I have another little drink, dear?’ said Broom.
‘You’re drunk already. We haven’t enough money to pay the bills and I’m not pouring any more down your throat, you old goat. Why don’t you leave that bitch alone so as we’d have something to spend?’ She turned, belched, and spoke to Rusk. ‘I take his spectacles away every night at eight o’clock; he’s so blind then, he can’t see his hand before his face. Only way to keep him from pawning everything for that Tait bitch.’
‘Would you have taken them away on the night of the eleventh?’
She gave herself another gin. ‘I said every night.’ She stared at Rusk. ‘You’ve been official too long. Give yourself another drink and come and sit close to me. You’re nice.’
He pleaded a previous engagement and fled.
*
Rusk drove through Rustle-by, up the rising, winding lane to Frithton Look. Ten minutes reading an old book describing this part of Kent had told him that Frithton Look had been one of the lookout and signalling spots for the smuggling gangs. Spy-glasses swept the countryside as they searched for preventive officers, and bonfires were ready to be lit. A man called Wilder had tried to betray the gang for the hundred guineas reward and had been found hanging from one of the beams in the old house, his tongue nearly bitten through and, as the old report had it, his eyes most horribly bulging as he went forth to meet his Maker. Now the old house was gone, burnt down at the beginning of the present century, but to anyone with imagination the new house had about its bricks the scent of the parson’s brandy, the clerk’s ’baccy, and the ghost of the dead Wilder.
Rusk climbed out of the car and stared immediately to the right of the house, across the Marsh at Dungeness. Just off-shore was a two-funnel liner, outward bound to lands of distant horizons. Nutmegs and vanilla pods, cinnamon trees and coconut palms …
‘Good morning, Mr Rusk.’
He turned. Anne Kremayne was standing immediately inside the massive porch that would have more readily suited some monstrous bureaucratic building.
‘I was wondering where that liner’s bound for, and thinking of tropical sand with the tropical sea breaking gently on it,’ he said.
She stepped out on to the drive and came forward sufficiently to be able to see past the house. ‘You’re like me, then. Every ship — even when it’s doing nothing more than Falmouth to Hull — is a messenger of romance and mystery.’ She shook her head slightly. ‘Jonathan always laughs at me. He says a ship is a ship, and I suppose he’s really right. Even coral beaches have been taken over by big business men with fat cigars.’
He watched her smile and was once again fascinated by the way in which her whole face altered and she looked quite absurdly young. He wondered why she had married a man like the Jerk.
‘I suppose you’ve come back to have a word with Jonathan?’
‘If he’s around, yes, I’d like to.’
‘I’m afraid you’re unlucky. He went off at the crack of dawn to a cattle sale and I’m pretty certain he won’t be back until
late this evening. He’s hoping to expand to a yearly ninety cows in milk, and there’s a large sale of pedigree Fresians in Essex where he may buy some stock if the prices aren’t too fantastic. Is there any way I can help?’
‘Perhaps you could. What cars do you own?’
‘A three litre Rover and a Land Rover.’
‘And what colour’s the Rover?’
‘Dark green.’ She used her right hand to brush a loose wisp of hair away from her forehead. ‘Why does it matter?’
‘It’s a case of cleaning up. You know how things go; if there are a thousand and one details to check up on, you have to go right through the thousand before you know that the one left is the one you were after from the start.’
‘Jonathan said you were investigating the murder of the Ellery girl?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then what makes you think he could be even remotely connected with that dreadful affair?’
He took out his cigarette case and offered it to her. He flicked open his lighter and they both lit their cigarettes. ‘We’ve been questioning several hundred people and your husband just happens to be one of them.’
‘But he never knew the girl, did he?’
‘We’ve no reason at the moment to think he did.’
‘Then what makes him one of the several hundred? There must be a reason to pick him out.’
‘You’d better ask Jonathan that one.’ He hoped she would. Make the Jerk sweat.
‘You’re not going to tell me?’
He shook his head.
She laughed shortly. ‘For once, feminine curiosity isn’t to be satisfied. You’re a man of iron, utterly incorruptible … Let’s change the subject. Have you time for a drink?’
‘I haven’t, but if I can’t make it I’m not a good policeman.’
‘Then come on in and, having proved you’re a good policeman, forget you’re one. I find it rather off-putting almost as though I had to tell the truth or be found out and punished.’
‘And don’t you normally tell the truth?’
‘That question marks you out as either an optimist or very ingenuous — who was it said that the secret of a happy marriage was a woman who could successfully lie with ease?’
‘Shaw?’
‘Not quite sharp enough for him. In any case, he’d never have let it be the woman who controlled the marriage.’ She turned. ‘Come on in.’ She led the way inside, across the small hall and into the lounge, and from there into the library which was on the right. ‘We call this the library but it’s not really all that learned. The thing is, it’s small enough to make for informality. We use it a lot.’
If the house had been his, he would have used that room a lot. It wasn’t particularly graceful, if anything, the opposite, but it possessed a warm, livable air. The walls were panelled in dark oak with eight oak bookcases along three of them. Books in uniform leather bindings filled the shelves and the mantelpiece above the open fireplace had on it several framed photographs. The furniture was large, ugly, and obviously comfortable.
‘I think I can offer you almost any drink you care to name,’ she said.
‘How about a Cinzano?’
‘My favourite.’ She turned. ‘I shan’t be a second.’ She left, soon to return with a clover-leaf silver tray on which was a bottle of Cinzano and two glasses. She put the tray down near him and he poured out the drinks.
‘Cheers,’ he said, as he lifted up his glass. ‘And thanks again for that wonderful meal last night.’
She went to speak, hesitated, looked up at him and then away. ‘I wanted to say that … Never mind, I’m sure you understand.’
It was damned pathetic, he thought, to see her trying to apologise for her husband without actually apologising, because if she had done so it would have been an open acknowledgment on her part of his glaring faults. He was not surprised by this quick glimpse of her loyalty. She was the kind of woman who’d remain loyal until it was no longer humanly possible.
He studied her profile. Although there was no real similarity between them, she vaguely reminded him of his ex-wife — provided one removed the sullen lines of discontent that had settled into Ruth’s face.
‘A penny for them,’ she said suddenly.
‘I was thinking you looked in a very vague way like my wife.’
‘But … but you said you weren’t married.’ She shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she suddenly realised she was moving into fields that were best unexplored.
‘She left me many years ago. When last seen she was in company with a master sergeant called Big Buddy who swore he owned a ranch in Texas where the oil wells were so close together the cattle had difficulty in finding enough grass to eat. I divorced her after the statutory three-year desertion period.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘There’s no need to be. The hurt-time is long past and the only thing about the whole affair that intrigues me now is whether he really came from the Bronx or Little Rock.’
She sipped her drink. ‘You make it sound as though life has left you completely cynical.’
‘Let’s say it has rather taught me not to expect the maybe’s to come true. After all, I’ve been well schooled in this point. I might have been an admiral, I might have taken silk as successfully as F. E. Smith, I might have been appointed Chief Constable. And, of course, I might have had a happy marriage.’
‘Does success mean so much to you?’
‘Not in straight terms of success. But as a measure of self-pride, I’d rather be a good street-cleaner than a bad stockbroker … But then pride’s the most treacherous of the deadly sins and perhaps I’m constitutionally incapable of success because having achieved one target I’d always force myself on towards another to prove to myself I was still a success and consequently I’d eventually meet failure.’
‘How do you enjoy police work?’
‘It has the fascination of a jig-saw puzzle that may, or may not, contain the right number of pieces. The one thing about it I hate is the necessity to pry into other people’s lives.’
‘And, obviously, you don’t get very far without doing that.’
‘Nor do you get very far when you stop and question the basis of your own authority and you discover it is surprisingly little, although most people think it is a lot and pay service to it. The good policeman needs an assumption of utter superiority.’
‘You’re prying into Jonathan’s private life now?’
‘In a way.’
‘And you don’t like it?’
‘It doesn’t amuse me. I don’t like hurting by-standers.’
For some reason, her face reddened. She said: ‘You smoke, so have one of the cigarettes from the box by your side, there are tipped ones there.’
She had noticed he smoked only tipped cigarettes. How much else had she noticed? It was odd how he felt as though he’d visited this house often enough to cease to be a visitor, whereas he normally disliked strange places and felt uneasy in them. It was also odd how, despite Kremayne’s repeated requests to them the previous night, they still had not used Christian names to each other.
He took a cigarette from the box and noticed the engraved lid. After he had closed the box, he lifted it up to read the inscription.
‘Jonathan won that two years ago,’ she said, ‘when one of his Fresians came first in a show.’
‘I’d really like to see him in a cattle show … I’ll bet he dresses the part, tweed suit and cap?’
‘Naturally,’ she answered light-heartedly.
‘And knowing Jonathan, I’ll wager the suit’s red-brown with yellow flecks?’
‘How in the world did you … ?’ She became silent.
*
The DI lounged back in his chair. His long black hair was slicked down with so much grease it looked as though it had just come out of the deep-freeze. ‘You’re having a bloody good time out of it, aren’t you?’
Rusk was silent.
‘A slap-up meal one night and drinks wit
h the missus next day. What’s she like? A neat dish?’
‘She’s a very pleasant person.’
‘You make it sound as though she wouldn’t set fire to a chap straight out of ten years’ preventative.’
‘I’d back a double whisky against anyone.’
‘All right, all right, so women leave you cold. You swigged their booze. What then?’
‘He runs a three litre Rover, dark green, and has a Harris tweed suit, red-brown with yellow flecks.’
The DI fingered his lower lip, puckering it up between forefinger and thumb and then letting go so that it made a sloshing noise against his teeth. ‘There’s something I just don’t get, Rusk. I thought blokes who wore the same old school tie stuck together through hell and high water?’ They did, most of the time, even when they hadn’t been friendly at school. When circumstances forced one man to forgo that instinctive sense of comradeship, it raised conflicting emotions that could hurt. ‘I’m a policeman. I also saw the dead girl. Have you imagined what she went through just before she was killed?’
‘All victims suffer.’
They were talking on different planes. The DI saw a dead body and began to look for the murderer. He didn’t stop to wonder what terror flooded the girl’s mind as she struggled, he couldn’t begin to share the frightful panic that had exploded about the girl.
The DI picked up a sheet of paper. ‘The report’s come through from your dear old school.’ He looked over the top of the paper.
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Jonathan Edgar Royce Kremayne was expelled for messing about with one of the kitchen maids without her consent. The details haven’t been kept — naturally. Mustn’t underline the dreadful proboscium.’
‘He’s quite a record behind him.’
‘But the wife gives him an alibi?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The DI stood up, crossed to the window and looked out over the expanse of roofs, chimney pots, and general chaos of a town that had expanded, and was expanding, without any apparent attempt at harmony. ‘The Old Man says you’d better handle ’em since you’re practically blood brother to them.’
Exhibit No. Thirteen Page 6
