by J M Gregson
‘The murderer removed Shepherd’s “black box” of incriminating material from the wall-safe. The photograph of Mary Hartford with James Shepherd which he found in that box seemed too good an opportunity to miss. Once we see the intention to frame Mary in subsequent happenings, the murderer has to be someone with the keys to Shepherd’s Rolls and easy access to the greenkeeper’s cottage.’
‘Which could be your friend Bill Birch as easily as me,’ said Parsons. ‘He was Shepherd’s Works Manager and a former Chairman of our Greens Committee.’
For a moment, the boldness of this switch almost disconcerted Lambert. As he thought ahead, he saw the way Parsons’s mind had worked, but the swiftness of the switch in his adversary’s defences surprised him none the less.
‘True. I considered that,’ said Lambert harshly. ‘What Bill couldn’t have committed is your second murder.’ Suddenly, he wanted this over. He resented the brutal murder of vain, harmless Michael Taylor far more than that of the unregretted James Shepherd. Perhaps because he felt responsible; he had miscalculated the ruthlessness of Parsons and not thought Taylor in much danger until it was too late.
He had his man now, and had dropped the conjectural tones he had used to the group at large. He was as aggressive as he would have been had he been trying to break Parsons down in an unfurnished interview room at the station. ‘Michael Taylor was about to expose you and you guessed it. He had not the temperament for a murderer, or even an accessory. So you beat him to death with Debbie’s 5-iron. I presume you simply removed it from a golf bag outside the ladies’ locker-room. Probably you thought it was Mary’s: Debbie had been playing with her and the bags were together. You had to act quickly to prevent Michael Taylor talking to me, and anything which would throw suspicion on anyone else would have to do.’
‘I don’t have to listen to this!’ said Parsons, and made as if to rise. Perhaps his legs would not support him, for he did not leave his chair. No one moved to assist him.
Lambert went on without even acknowledging the protest. ‘You did what planning you could before you followed Taylor out on to the course, leaving fake messages for Debbie and Bill so as to leave them without alibis. Your own alibi with the chicken wire will be investigated and found wanting. You collected that wire yesterday, not this morning.’
‘Conjecture,’ said David Parsons flatly, but the panache he tried to summon would not come.
Lambert ignored him. ‘The murder weapon was found suspiciously near the crime. If I’d murdered someone on a deserted golf course, I certainly wouldn’t deposit the weapon with the blood of the victim upon it within ten yards of the corpse. There is plenty of deeper undergrowth a good half-mile away. We were meant to find that club.
‘And then your tendency to over-elaborate was helpful to us again. The clear print of Bill Birch’s golf shoe was found as you intended by the body.’ Lambert was interrupted by a sudden gasp and the scrape of Birch’s chair as the Vice-Captain moved involuntarily: it was the first he had known of this. The Superintendent stilled him with a slight movement of his hand, but did not take his eyes off Parsons.
‘Those shoes were worn by the murderer all right. And I remember how carefully you drew my attention to your shining city shoes when you returned to the scene of the crime with the ambulance. Size nine, I think; feet which would fit well enough into Bill Birch’s size ten golf shoes, left like those of a hundred other golfers in our locker-room.’
‘This is preposterous!’ shouted Parsons. This time his articulation of the word had lost its precision. ‘If you’ve indeed found a shoe-print beside the body of my friend Michael Taylor, then there’s your murderer and it’s time you arrested him!’ He turned with an attempt at outrage towards the appalled Birch, but there was little menace left in him now, though Bert Hook tensed his muscles for action.
‘Mr Birch couldn’t have murdered Michael Taylor,’ said Lambert with cold formality. Now he was moving securely upon a platform of fact, not conjecture, and the audience he had almost forgotten felt the authority of his words. ‘Would you stand up for a moment please, Bill? Sergeant Hook, let’s have that club for a moment.’
The Vice-Captain came gingerly forward as Hook retrieved Debbie Hall’s club from the corner of the room where it had lain decently covered with a cloth. The club had already been checked for fingerprints, but he put it into the large hands of the Vice-Captain with all the reluctance of an officer relinquishing a vital exhibit.
‘Now,’ said Lambert, ‘would you pretend to strike the stationary Sergeant Hook on the back of the neck, please?’ Birch raised the club, then mimed an awkward blow to the back of Bert Hook’s impassive head. There were gasps around the room as the purpose of the little pantomime became clear. There was no way in which the Vice-Captain could cut viciously into the back of anyone’s head with this club, for he was striking with the smooth back of the club, not the cutting front edge.
For Bill Birch was a left-hander.
‘It is as well after all that we played those few holes yesterday afternoon or I might not have remembered,’ said Lambert, as Birch resumed his seat and Hook moved quietly behind David Parsons. All eyes were now on the Secretary, who was gazing sullenly at his hands, as if they had independently led him into such deeds. It was Birch who said to him, ‘We were all glad to see Shepherd dead. But how could you kill Mike Taylor?’
There was silence for two, three long seconds. Then Parsons said in a weary monotone, ‘I had no choice. He knew I’d killed Shepherd and he was never going to hold out under pressure. He told me he’d arranged to meet you this morning. I followed him when he parked his car.’ Then he looked up and his eyes blazed. ‘He was the kind of man who panics under fire. A rat who would run from the enemy. I killed him like a fleeing rat!’ There was in his eye a psychotic gleam, in his voice an insane conviction, which made Lambert think that he might yet end his days not in Parkstone but in Broadmoor.
*
The confessed murderer was duly charged, and departed under discreet arrest in a police car. Cyril Garner positively revelled in the press conference he had arranged with such apprehension. John Lambert received a benevolent mention from his Chief Constable on television; his own tribute to his team got no further than the editing room.
By the evening of this eventful day, the extreme humidity had departed but the weather seemed set fair again. On the first tee, a strange four-ball assembled. It was Bill Birch’s idea, and as the unfortunate decease of his predecessor had now made him Captain of the club, convention decreed that his word should be law in all golfing matters. The only way for golfers to dismiss the nightmare which had ended, he said, was to play golf: it was their duty to show the shaken membership that things were returning to normal. Being golfers, they found his logic irrefutable.
Thus those members in the newly reopened bar were surprised to see on the first tee Bill Birch, Mary Hartford, Debbie Hall and John Lambert. The Lady Captain, trim and unfussy, drove her ball down the middle of the fairway after the minimum of preparation. Debbie Hall settled over her ball and gave that preliminary swivel of the hips which made strong men weak with excitement; then she cracked the ball away, slightly pulled to the left but safe enough. The new Captain dispatched the majestic drive appropriate to his new status, long and high, with the controlled draw which took him as a left-hander well over the bunker on the right of the fairway.
John Lambert signalled the return to normality more clearly than any of them. There was a pleasing rhythm about his swing, a reassuring solidity about the contact of his driver with the ball. He looked up to see the ball arching high and proud against an azure English sky. Then it sliced gently away to the right, bounced once, and came to rest unerringly in the centre of the bunker which Bill Birch’s ball had just cleared so easily.
Burnham Cross Golf Club might never be quite the same again. But some things did not change.
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