by J M Gregson
‘We’ve jumped ahead a little because I told you about Michael Taylor’s statement. What happened after you and he had been to the men’s locker-room?’
‘I went straight to the bar. I left Michael Taylor combing his hair, but he couldn’t have been more than two minutes behind me. Debbie Hall and David Parsons arrived together, just after Michael. Mary Hartford came in a couple of minutes later.’
So Birch, like the others, couldn’t be eliminated as a suspect. Even on his own admission, he had been on his own for two minutes before the assembly in the bar. Apart from what had happened after they all left the bar; Lambert was increasingly interested in that short period.
‘Was there anything unusual in your exchange in the bar?’ Lambert was aware of Birch looking sharply into his face, but he stared resolutely ahead and kept walking. After twenty yards in silence, he said, ‘The murder was committed either just before or just after you’d all sat round a convivial table in the bar. One of the five of you had either just committed a violent murder or was about to commit it. You can see why I think any abnormality of manner, any behaviour outside the normal personality, could be important. Don’t be afraid of anyone being convicted on a chance remark, but you must see that anything which was surprising to you must suggest a line of inquiry to me now.’
It was a long, slightly desperate speech. For he had sensed that something had occurred to Birch which he was reluctant to reveal. They had strolled a long way during all this. Now they emerged through an avenue of majestic chestnuts to a little knoll of ground beside the ninth green, a strategic viewpoint where a stout rustic seat had been placed in memory of a former President of the club. Birch gestured towards this now. ‘Let’s sit down for a while,’ he said hoarsely, and Lambert registered for the first time how white he had gone.
With a whimsical timing that he could not appreciate, the thought crept into his mind that this was a very quiet place to sit down with a murderer. They sat for a full minute in silence. Lambert prompted no more: he knew Birch would not turn back now.
‘Most of us seemed normal enough,’ he said eventually. ‘Mike Taylor and I were talking about fixtures. Debbie Hall and David Parsons talked about the menu and pricing for the evening social on the joint Captains’ Day — I remember him making notes. Mary Hartford was very quiet. I spoke to her when she came in and she scarcely answered. When Mike and I had finished, I teased her a bit but she didn’t respond. I don’t think she even heard. Normally, I get on very well with Mary. She’s got a dry, highly developed sense of humour and …’
Lambert, looking sharply sideways, realized that Bill Birch, practical man, formidable athlete, rugged survivor of many a sporting tussle, was near to tears. He stared down at the Vice-Captain’s well-worn white golf shoes, studying the scuffing on the right toe, and waited. Birch’s voice when he went on again after a moment was steady again, but very quiet.
‘I thought nothing of it at the time. Just that she had scratched herself, or perhaps collected it at the hospital. But there was a smear of blood on the cuff of Mary Hartford’s blouse.’
Chapter 15
It was ridiculous, but these two strong men would not look at each other. Each feared what he would see in the other’s features. Lambert knew that Birch was distraught, that the revelation of what seemed a damning fact about a woman he liked and respected had severely taxed his self-control. He knew that the Vice-Captain’s expression would contain an appeal for reassurance that he could not give. For his part, Birch feared that John Lambert’s face would offer only confirmation that this piece of evidence had delivered up his murderer.
‘Was it fresh blood?’ asked Lambert quietly after a long time. He heard the sharp intake of breath beside him but said no more. Birch must know after his initial revelation that subsidiary questions were inevitable.
‘Yes. Bright red. I almost pointed it out so that she could wash it before it dried.’ So his mention of blood from her hospital duties hours earlier had never been more than a desperate search for an excuse. Had they not been in that quiet place, his words would have been inaudible. He buried his face in his hands, not with a sudden, dramatic gesture but in slow motion, as if his wretchedness had deprived him of physical energy and coordination. ‘I’d rather it had been any of us than Mary. She’s been so good to my wife. So thoughtful.’
Lambert was puzzled for a moment. Then he remembered a fact he should never have forgotten. Bill Birch’s wife was a cripple. He thought it was multiple sclerosis; certainly it was a degenerative muscular disease which she faced with fortitude, cheerfulness, and rocklike support from her husband. She went into hospital at regular intervals for treatment and the stabilization of her drug intake. He remembered her chatting cheerfully to Mary Hartford at one of the club’s social functions.
‘If Mary Hartford is arrested, it won’t be on your evidence alone, Bill,’ was all he could say. He would reveal no detail of the damning case against the Lady Captain that had built up through the events of the day.
‘Is that supposed to console me?’ said Birch, hopelessly. Low on the horizon, through a gap in the trees behind a distant green, the first grey cloud was impinging upon the universal blue. The farmer’s son might yet be right about a change in the weather.
‘Not necessarily. But let me assure you that we shall get our murderer, whoever it is. Withholding evidence wouldn’t save Mary Hartford, if she killed James Shepherd, though it might delay us and eventually embarrass you.’ Lambert had used the words often enough before for them to sound like clichés to him; he reminded himself that they were new to Birch, as to others. ‘Now, what happened after you left the bar?’
‘We all broke up together, but went in different directions. I went to check how many of the first team had ticked their names for the match on Saturday, and then back to collect my file from the bar.’
‘Where did Michael Taylor go?’
‘Why do you ask?’ Birch was on his guard, but there was relief in his eyes now. The change of questioning away from Mary Hartford had revived hope; the case might not be closed, if Lambert was interested in the movements of other people.
‘Because he seems to have told us a lie. He said he went off to the locker-room after your drinks in the bar. It appears from what you say that he went elsewhere. I’m naturally curious to know where, since he chose not to tell me himself.’
‘I think I can tell you that,’ said Birch slowly. There was a tinge of regret in his voice; perhaps he realized that the exoneration of any one of the others threw suspicion back more firmly on to Mary Hartford. ‘I went into the Secretary’s office to collect a team sheet for Saturday’s match. Mike Taylor was coming out as I arrived. He almost cannoned into me in his hurry.’
‘Did any conversation pass between you?’
‘No, nothing you could call conversation. I said something silly like, “Steady on, Mike, I’ll need that foot again!” but he just pushed me aside and rushed off without a word.’
‘Would you say that was normal behaviour in our Captain?’
This time Birch did look the Superintendent full in the face. The brown eyes were troubled and bewildered, the dark hair for once untidy as his hand brushed it again. His lips trembled a little: this was a much greater strain on the emotions than he had anticipated.
‘I don’t know,’ he said miserably.
But Lambert knew: the normally extrovert Taylor would never have behaved so abruptly unless shocked out of the image he strove to project. But why this panic? Had he come straight from the Committee Room with the murder just accomplished?
He stood up, an indication that their exchange, and the Vice-Captain’s ordeal, was nearly over. ‘What happened next?’
‘That’s almost it. David Parsons grinned and said, “The Captain’s in a hurry tonight. Perhaps there’s a lady waiting somewhere!” He followed Mike out and left. I collected the team sheet I wanted and pulled the door behind me as David had asked. It has a Yale lock.’
‘
So the Secretary’s door was locked by you. What about the Committee Room?’
‘That wasn’t locked. The door was still slightly ajar: I could see the shaft of light as I left.’ Yet someone had locked it. Lambert and the Steward had had to unlock the heavy oak door to discover the body a little while later.
‘Think about the order in which people left last night, Bill. It could be very important.’
‘When I got into the car park after shutting the Secretary’s door I saw Michael Taylor’s rear lights shooting away into the darkness as I said. David Parsons’s space was already empty. I called good night to Mary and drove away myself. I think we were the last to leave. I can’t be absolutely sure about Debbie Hall, because she hasn’t a reserved space like the other four of us.’
‘Did you actually see Mary Hartford leave?’ Birch flashed him a look of open dislike, then looked at the ground by his feet, miserably accepting the necessity for the question.
‘She was sitting in her car as I drove out. I’m sure she left right behind me, but of course I can’t prove that.’
‘You didn’t see her lights in your mirror as you went down the lane?’
‘I don’t remember them. That doesn’t mean they weren’t there!’
‘Of course not.’
But it did mean Mary Hartford might simply have sat in her car until all was quiet, before quietly returning to the scene of her crime to cover her traces, remove Shepherd’s keys, and lock the Committee Room door. For that matter, one of the others might have come back after driving away. Had Taylor’s flamboyant exit been designed to attract attention deliberately? But the schedule for anyone returning had been a tight one: he himself had arrived on the scene within perhaps ten minutes of Birch’s leaving. For the first time, he entertained the unpleasant conjecture that the murderer might have been lurking in the shadows last night whilst he walked in the darkness around the outside of the club buildings, watching his every move.
They had used a path through the woods to cut back to their trolleys and golf bags. The two members on the green adjacent to their equipment were the first people they had seen since they had left the clubhouse. ‘Tour of inspection of your estate?’ called one of them; Lambert realized that their membership of the Greens Committee was a convenient reason why they should be strolling together down vacant fairways when the evening called out for golf. ‘The course is in fine condition, John,’ called the other player to the deputy Chairman of his Greens Committee. Lambert shrugged the compliment aside with a reference to the excellent work of the Greenkeeper, but for both of them it was a welcome reminder of a normal world outside the nightmare in which they had been involved for the last half hour.
When they had collected their clubs, they took the direct route back to the clubhouse, past the seventeenth green and down the eighteenth fairway. Lambert walked very slightly behind his man, no more than four or five inches; an observer would have thought of them as side by side. But he watched the Vice-Captain closely. Away in the trees to their left was the Greenkeeper’s cottage which had burned so dramatically earlier in the day. He watched for any turn of the head, any glance in that direction, that might reveal that Birch had a hand in that curious happening. He had purposely made no mention of the fire, and the uncomfortable thought now came to him that no one moving in that area would be less likely to be challenged than the Vice-Captain, a member and former Chairman of the Greens Committee, dutifully patrolling the course and inspecting its assets.
If Birch had any involvement in the arson, or even knowledge of it, he gave no sign. Nor did he ostentatiously ignore the burnt-out cottage. When they were almost past, he pointed over the trees to the western sky, where the gathering clouds gave promise of an angry sunset. Lambert reminded himself irritably that his murderer was a very cool customer indeed, quite capable no doubt of simulating total ignorance of a fire he knew all about. As if in response to this thought, Birch now led him directly into his next area of questioning.
‘What do you want done about Shepherd’s Rolls?’ he said, as they approached the clubhouse and the maroon wing of that splendid vehicle crept into view. ‘I’ll move it if you like. Technically, it’s a company asset; I can find safe storage for it at the works until the legalities are sorted out.’ Lambert already had a DI at Shepherd’s solicitor’s, though with this particular crime he expected no help from the details of the will. He ignored Birch’s question.
‘The Rolls has been fingerprinted and examined. We should have done so in any case after a murder, but there was a curious incident this morning.’ Birch stared at him blankly. If he was an actor, he was a very good one: the range from extreme distress at the evidence against Mary Hartford to blank incomprehension now was a considerable one. ‘Do you know of any reason why anyone should break into the car?’
‘No.’ Perhaps a shade too quickly. Check where he was at the time. Look for witnesses. More footwork for someone. If necessary. Mary Hartford might confess tonight.
‘The car was opened with a key. Did anyone at the works have a key to the Chairman’s Rolls?’
Birch gave a slow, bitter smile. ‘You mean did I have a key to the boss’s car, John? No, I didn’t, and nor did anyone else. Shepherd never employed a chauffeur and I’ve never seen anyone else drive that Rolls.’
Lambert nodded. This at least was what he had expected, even hoped for. ‘Of course, the entry to the car may be totally unconnected with the murder. But it doesn’t look like it. Entry was made with a key. James Shepherd’s car keys were not in his pockets when the body was found. Someone, presumably the murderer, had removed them. Whoever entered the car was disturbed and we’ve no idea whether he got what he wanted or not.’
‘Or she!’ said Birch. And then flushed with annoyance at himself: it had been an involuntary thought. Lambert, who had been about to agree automatically with the qualification he had so often added to his own thoughts, divined just in time that there might be a little more here. He let Birch’s embarrassment hang between them for a moment, to show it had been noted, before he said, ‘Have you seen anyone who might be connected with this business — no, let’s be precise, that means any of your four colleagues who were at last night’s meeting — in this car in the last month?’
Birch looked at him sharply. ‘What would that prove?’
‘Nothing at all. It might give a starting point for a few questions. The innocent will no doubt be only too happy to help.’ Lambert was at his blandest; this was a purely professional vein which had nothing to do with the man himself, and for the first time Birch saw him as Superintendent rather than friend. Lambert would have been delighted to know it had taken so long.
They were standing beside the Rolls now. It gleamed blood-red in the western sun; only a tell-tale patch of white powder on the ground beneath the driver’s door told the knowledgeable of the work of the fingerprint sergeant. Birch stared at the front passenger seat as he said, ‘Mike Taylor was in the car with him.’
‘When?’
‘Ten days, maybe a fortnight ago. One evening in Mersham; I was taking my wife for a drink. They were parked near the recreation ground. Talking.’
‘Talking?’ It was a strange word to use if he had merely glimpsed the pair in passing. Birch looked at him for a moment with what might have been distaste.
‘They were still there when we came out of the pub and went home.’
‘How long afterwards was this?’
‘Three quarters of an hour. Maybe an hour.’
‘Thank you, Bill.’
‘It may mean absolutely nothing.’
‘Just so. Most facts do. But one needs as many as possible before one can see which ones count.’
His feeling, indeed, was that this one added nothing. Michael Taylor had talked about the way Shepherd had taunted and threatened him; it must have happened somewhere. Because Taylor had disintegrated so completely at the end of the morning interview, they had not questioned him about the break-in to the Rolls as they had
the others. Now, he had another fact to be followed up in due course. Taylor might well have had reason to retrieve incriminating material of some sort from Shepherd’s car this morning. Either he would have his murderer within the next twenty-four hours, or the case would resolve itself into days of patient questioning, much of it in a widening circle of friends and relatives beyond the immediate suspects.
But the Superintendent had discovered one thing he had not known previously. He could scarcely wait to compare Birch’s account of the previous night’s events with that of the other four. He knew that at least three of his suspects had lied to him; indeed, it was possible that all five had. But it had taken him until now to divine what he thought was the most significant deception.
Chapter 16
The two men must have stood by the great maroon car for half a minute, each wrapped in his own thoughts. It was Birch who moved first. ‘Is that it for the moment then?’ he said. Lambert noted the attempt at a cheerful briskness. The Vice-Captain moved past David Parsons’s car to his own reserved space and began to put his clubs and trolley into his car.
‘Not quite, Bill, I’m afraid,’ said Lambert. He spoke quietly, because they were near the clubhouse, where unseen ears might pick up their private exchanges. Perhaps his low tones sounded menacing to Birch, for the Vice-Captain froze over the boot of his car. For an instant he looked to Lambert as if someone had stopped the videotape which was one of the new instruments of police work. When his head finally turned to look at the Superintendent, there was no friendliness left in the dark, deep-set eyes; exhaustion and fear were plain enough. For the tenth time in the day, Lambert wondered what his relationships would be with these people when the case was over.
‘I only want to ask you a few questions about your relationship with the deceased,’ he said. It was meant to reassure, but it sounded sinister even to him. He led his reluctant companion through the main entrance, back to where the dark-panelled room shut out the sun and afforded them an uneasy privacy. He answered Bert Hook’s interrogative look with a nod: he had shut him out of the investigation for long enough. On the golf course, sitting amidst the peace of those majestic glades of trees, Birch had talked more freely to his friend and sometime golfing partner than he would have done with a third party present. Now it was time to use the possibilities of a more formal setting.
