by Frank Smith
‘I’ll have a Banks Mild,’ he said. ‘And make it a pint. We could be here for a while.’
Emma drew the pint and set it on the bar. She smiled as she looked at Molly. ‘You’re driving, I take it,’ she said. ‘What’s it to be? Orange juice?’
‘No way,’ said Molly, feigning indignation. ‘We’re on expenses tonight, so I think I’ll go wild and treat myself to a shandy.’ She sighed. ‘But you’re right, Emma, I am driving, so make it a half.’
‘There you are, then, and don’t go mad with it,’ said Emma as she set the drink in front of Molly. ‘I’ll try to join you later when things have settled down a bit. Meanwhile, you might like to have a word with that woman over there.’ She indicated a small, middle-aged, rather dowdy-looking woman sitting by herself on a seat in the corner, toying with a glass of wine. ‘Her name is Olive Kershaw, and that’s her husband playing darts – the little roly-poly one. Olive was here that Saturday night, sitting right next to Mark and Mickey Doyle. She might be able to help you.’
The Red Lion was a small pub in a small village, but it was doing a good business, and Tregalles and Molly had to carry their drinks carefully as they edged their way to the corner.
‘Mind if we sit here?’ Molly asked pleasantly, ‘or are you saving this seat for someone?’ She indicated a man’s jacket hanging on the back of one of the chairs.
‘Oh, no. No, please sit down,’ the woman told her. She pulled the jacket from the chair and folded it carefully before setting it on the seat beside her. ‘It’s my husband’s,’ she explained. ‘He’s playing darts, and the way they’re playing tonight, he’ll be there for a good while yet.’
Molly sat down next to Mrs Kershaw, while Tregalles took a seat facing the two of them across the table.
‘You’re the detective, aren’t you?’ the woman said when they were seated, and it was only then that Molly realized that Mrs Kershaw had been one of the women in the tea shop.
‘That’s right,’ Molly agreed. ‘And I remember you from yesterday, Mrs . . .?’
The woman smiled guiltily. ‘Olive Kershaw,’ she said. ‘I wondered afterwards what you must have thought of us, pushing ourselves forward like that. It really was very rude of us. A proper bunch of old busybodies.’
‘Not at all,’ Molly said. ‘It’s only natural that you would be interested.’
Mrs Kershaw fiddled with her glass. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t quite catch your name yesterday. Too much chatter going on. Detective . . .?’
‘Forsythe, but Molly will do for now, Mrs Kershaw. And I’d like you to meet my sergeant, Detective Sergeant Tregalles.’
‘Oh, dear.’ Olive Kershaw looked apprehensive as she nodded in Tregalles’s direction. ‘I suppose that means you’re still looking for that young man from Wisteria Cottage, then? He did our windows not a month back. Nice lad he was. Has there been any news?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Molly told her. ‘We’ve been told that a man by the name of Mickey Doyle might be able to help us, but he seems to have disappeared as well. Emma’ – Molly nodded in the direction of the bar – ‘tells us that you were here the last time the two of them were seen together, which was a week ago last Saturday, and we wondered if you might have overheard anything that would give us a lead to where they might have gone.’
Olive Kershaw patted the seat beside her. ‘Sat right next to me, the lad was,’ she said proudly. ‘Closer to me than you are now. Packed, it was. But then, it’s always crowded on a Saturday. There’s hardly room to breathe in here. To tell the truth I’d just as soon stay home, but it’s the darts. Stan is on the team, and he doesn’t like coming alone, so I come along for company.’ She made a face and shrugged as she picked up her glass. ‘Company until we get here,’ she added ruefully, ‘but I won’t see him again until closing time.’ Olive Kershaw swirled the wine in her glass then drank it down.
Tregalles spoke for the first time. ‘Let me get you another,’ he said, picking up the empty glass. ‘Port, was it?’
‘Just tell Emma it’s for me,’ the woman said. ‘She knows. And thank you very much, Sergeant.’
‘That’s the trouble with these small pubs, isn’t it?’ said Molly sympathetically as Tregalles headed for the bar. ‘You get packed in like sardines, and even if you don’t want to hear what your neighbour is saying, you can’t help it, can you? But in this case, with so little to go on, we’re looking for help, so if you did happen to hear anything that might be helpful, we’d appreciate it, Mrs Kershaw.’
‘It’s Olive, my dear, and I’d love to help, but I really didn’t hear very much at all, they had their heads together so close. I do know this much, though: young Mark was pouring the beer down Mickey as fast as he could drink it, so I did wonder. I mean Mark is saving up to go back to university – at least that’s what he told Stan – and he’ll usually make a pint last most of the night, so I was a bit surprised to see him throwing his money about like that, especially on someone like Mickey. To tell you the truth, I was a bit put out with him, because he must have known that once Mickey gets started, he’s more likely than not to go off and drink himself silly.’
Molly’s hopes were fading fast, but she persisted. ‘Are you saying that Mark was encouraging Mickey to talk? Do you know what it was they were talking about?’
Tregalles appeared with a glass of wine in one hand and a fresh pint in the other. He shot a questioning glance at Molly, and she answered with an almost imperceptible shake of the head. He handed the glass to Olive Kershaw and sat down.
‘Cheers,’ he said as he raised his glass, and was rewarded with a smile as Olive sipped her wine. He looked from one to the other. ‘Any luck?’ he asked.
‘Olive tells me that Mark Newman was sitting where I’m sitting now, but it was quite noisy in here that night, so it would be very hard to hear anything.’ She looked at her watch and sighed as she picked up her drink. ‘So I suppose we’ll just have to see if we can find someone else, who—’
‘Oh, but I did hear some of it,’ the woman said quickly. She’d been enjoying this unexpected attention, and was already preparing in her mind what she would tell the ‘girls’ about how the police had come to her for information, so she didn’t want them to leave.
‘I know Mickey was talking about some job he’d been on,’ she continued, ‘and young Mark kept asking him questions.’
‘What sort of questions, Olive?’
The woman frowned in concentration. ‘I remember him saying, “When, Mickey? Give me a time. Give me a day” – or was it date? I can’t be sure about that. I know he was excited, and he said something about it making a great story. He took out a notebook and started to write something down, but Mickey got ever so upset when he did that, and told Mark to put that –’ Olive Kershaw shifted uncomfortably in her seat – ‘well let’s just say he used some pretty colourful language when he told Mark to put the book away. He said, “I told you, nothing in writing.”’ Olive Kershaw nodded meaningfully as she said, ‘It took Mark quite some time to get Mickey simmered down and talking again after that, and I had trouble hearing what either of them said after that.
‘Not that I was listening deliberately,’ Olive hastened to add. ‘Even if I had been, I couldn’t have heard much anyway with Mickey talking so low. Mark was between me and Mickey, and even he had to lean very close to hear what Mickey was saying.’
Olive picked up her drink, then abruptly set it aside. ‘There was something about farms,’ she said slowly. ‘I didn’t hear what Mickey said, but I remember Mark saying something like, “you mean there are other farms involved?” And Mickey said something like, “they’re not all farms,” but I didn’t hear what he said after that, because he lowered his voice again.’
The woman picked up her drink again. ‘Sorry I can’t be of more help,’ she said, ‘but it was standing room only, and you could hardly hear yourself think in here, let alone hear what anyone else had to say.’
Molly could imagine Olive Ker
shaw sitting there by herself, with little to do but drink and watch and listen to what was going on around her while her husband spent the evening playing darts. And probably straining to hear what sounded like an interesting conversation right next to her.
‘Do you recall if anyone was sitting on the other side of Mickey Doyle?’ she asked. ‘Someone who might have overheard what he was saying?’
‘No one was. It’s like now. I was sitting here, Mark was next to me, and Mickey was in the corner there by the door. There were people standing in front of us, you know, chatting in groups like they are now, but I don’t think they would have been able to hear what was going on between Mickey and Mark Newman. The two of them kept their heads down like they were planning a robbery or something – not that they were, of course,’ she added hastily, ‘but you know what I mean, and I could see that Mickey was on edge. Then, just like that, he was gone.’
‘Gone?’ Molly echoed. ‘Do you mean he left before Mark Newman did?’
Olive nodded. ‘Quite startled Mark, it did, the way Mickey jumped up. Startled me as well, come to that. Almost took the table with him. Slopped the beer and whisky all over the table. Proper mess, it was.’ Olive Kershaw leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘Taken a bit short, I shouldn’t wonder, after all that beer,’ she confided. ‘Left it a bit too long. Said he was going to the loo, but he never came back.’
Molly and Tregalles picked up on the same thing at the same time, but it was Tregalles who asked the question. ‘Whisky?’ he said. ‘I thought they were just drinking beer, and Mark was buying?’
‘Oh, he was,’ Olive said. ‘It was this friend of Mickey’s who brought the whisky.’
‘When was that, exactly?’
‘Just before Mickey left in such a hurry. This man came over to the table and set the whisky down in front of Mickey.’
‘And you say he was a friend of Mickey’s? Do you know the man?’
Olive shook her head. ‘Don’t think I’ve ever seen him before. He wasn’t local, but he must have been a friend of Mickey’s, because he said something like, “I thought you might be getting a bit dry after doing all that talking, Mickey, so have a drink on me.”’
‘Can you describe this man?’
Olive Kershaw pursed her lips and looked off into the distance. ‘No, I can’t, not really,’ she said slowly. ‘Too many people in the way.’
‘Was he tall, short, fat, thin, old, young . . .?’
‘Youngish, I should think, but like I said, I only saw his face side-on, so to speak, and I’m not very good at telling ages. He wasn’t all that tall. About like that man over there by the bar in the brown jacket. Not that I’m saying he looked like him, of course, but he’d be about the same size – a bit thinner, maybe, but it’s hard to tell when they’re wearing a mac, isn’t it?’ The woman frowned. ‘I’m trying to think what colour his hair was, but I can’t bring it to mind. It could have been dark, but I wouldn’t want you to hold me to that. I do remember that he had more hair than the man he came in with – the man in the suit.’
Molly and Tregalles exchanged glances. ‘You haven’t mentioned him before,’ Tregalles said gently. ‘But you say they came in together. Can you describe him?’
‘Oh, yes. It was the suit, you see. He was wearing a suit under his mac. I remember that because you don’t often see that nowadays in a pub. Grey, it was – the suit, I mean, not the mac. And he had bushy eyebrows. I remember thinking it seemed a bit odd when he didn’t have much hair.’
‘An older man, then?’
‘Fiftyish or thereabouts. Had a bit of a tummy on him. And a round sort of face.’ Olive put her hands to her face and cupped her own thin cheeks to demonstrate. ‘I’d know him again.’
‘Could we come back to the younger man, Olive?’ Molly said quickly. Getting information out of Olive Kershaw was proving to be harder than she’d thought it would be, and she could see that Tregalles was beginning to lose patience. ‘I’d like you to think hard, Olive. Are you quite sure you didn’t see his face when he brought Mickey the whisky? I mean he must have been standing very close to you if Mickey was sitting over there.’
‘Oh, he was, but he was sort of side on to me, and he had to push his way through the ones who were standing next to the table. And I didn’t like to look up and show interest, if you know what I mean.’
‘But you heard him speak,’ Tregalles put in, ‘and you told us earlier that he wasn’t a local man. Do you mean he wasn’t from Whitcott Lacey, or the area generally?’
‘I mean he wasn’t from round here at all,’ Olive told him. ‘He spoke very nicely, mind; quiet like, but foreign. You can always tell, can’t you, no matter how they try to put it on?’
Tregalles stifled a sigh of irritation, and reminded himself that Olive Kershaw was doing her best. ‘Can you tell me how he was dressed?’ he said.
‘Like I said, he had a mac on,’ Olive told him. ‘All I could see were his trousers. And his shoes. I couldn’t help noticing his shoes. Very dainty, they were. Glossy black and pointed like a dancer’s. They were foreign, too, I expect. You won’t see many of them around here, I’ll be bound.’
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘No. Just set the glass down and left.’
‘This other man – the one he came in with; what can you tell me about him?’
‘Nothing. I never saw him again.’
‘You mean he left?’ Tregalles’s impatience was beginning to show.
Olive Kershaw bridled. ‘I mean I never saw him again,’ she said deliberately. ‘He could have left or he could have been at the bar, but like I said, the place was so full I couldn’t see past the people around this table. Besides, I didn’t know then that you’d be asking me all these questions about him, did I?’
‘Sorry,’ Tregalles apologized. ‘I don’t mean to badger you, Mrs Kershaw, but it is important that we find out as much as we can. Tell me, did Mickey say anything when the man brought the drink over?’
Olive shook her head again. ‘Never said a word. Not even a thank you, come to think of it.’
‘And the man just walked away?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So, what did Mickey do then?’
‘He just sort of stared after the man, then jumped up and said he had to go to the loo.’
‘And he never came back? What about Mark? What did he do?’
‘Went over to the bar and got a cloth to mop the table, then sat down to wait for Mickey. He kept looking at the time, then went off to look for him – at least I suppose that’s where he went. Then he came back again and started asking people at the bar if they’d seen Mickey, and finally went through to the lounge. I never saw him again after that.’
Neither Emma nor her boss, Jack Tanner, could remember serving a whisky to a foreigner, nor did they remember the older man Olive Kershaw had described. ‘We go through a fair bit of whisky in a night, especially on Fridays and Saturdays,’ Tanner told them. ‘It’s all we can do to keep up with the orders, so we’re not paying much attention to who’s ordering, unless we know them, of course. Trouble is, you see,’ he continued as he collected glasses, ‘the Red Lion’s got a bit of a reputation for “atmosphere, conviviality, and good grub”.’ He laughed. ‘At least that’s what it says in the adverts in the local paper, so we’re always seeing new people. Sorry.’
They were halfway back to Broadminster before Tregalles roused himself from a gloomy silence. ‘What we need to know,’ he said, ‘is who Mickey Doyle was working for.’
‘And who the man was who brought him the whisky,’ Molly said. ‘They could be one and the same, and it sounded to me as if he was warning Doyle to keep his mouth shut. Which would account for Doyle’s sudden urge to leave.’
Molly flashed her lights at an oncoming car with its high beams on. The lights dipped.
‘It also suggests that he and Doyle were engaged in something illegal,’ she continued, ‘or at the very least, something he didn’t want talke
d about in a pub, especially to a budding reporter. So Mickey leaves the pub in a hurry, and no one seems to have seen much of him from that point on, with the possible exception of his closest neighbour. Newman is said to have been excited about something after talking to Doyle, then he disappears on Thursday, and Doyle is whisked off early Friday morning by two men who claim he is off to Ireland. Bit more than coincidence, wouldn’t you say?
‘So, yes, I think you are right,’ she went on without waiting for an answer, ‘we have to find out who Doyle was working for, and once we know that, we may have the answers to both disappearances.’
Molly glanced across at Tregalles. He hadn’t heard a word she’d said. Head down, chin on his chest, the sergeant was fast asleep.
Seven
Thursday, March 13
Coffee mug in hand, Tregalles sat hunched forward in his chair in Paget’s office. ‘Someone out there in Whitcott Lacey has to know what’s going on,’ he said after telling Paget about the conversation he and Molly had had with Olive Kershaw the night before.
‘The way I see it, Newman was looking for a story that would get him a job on one of the local papers, and I think he found it with Doyle. We talked to some of the regulars in the pub before we left, and they all agreed that Doyle rarely volunteered anything when he was sober, but it was quite a different story when he’d had a few too many drinks, and I think Newman took advantage of that. But someone must have realized what was going on, and warned Doyle off, because, according to Olive Kershaw, he took off like a scared rabbit after the bloke nobody seems to know or remember brought him a drink and had a few words with him.
‘So, Newman disappears the following Thursday, and two men come for Doyle first thing Friday morning, and neither Doyle nor Newman have been seen or heard from since. Then Wisteria Cottage is broken into and Newman’s room is cleaned out – possibly by the same two who came for Doyle.’
