‘Diana … if Max did this …’
‘Can you doubt it?’
‘I don’t know. But … If he did, he won’t run far. That was just panic. When he realizes what he’s done … the enormity of it, I mean …’
‘You think he’ll give himself up?’
‘I’m sure of it. He wouldn’t have wanted … not for all the world … to hurt you like this.’
‘But he has.’
‘He still loves you.’
‘Yes.’ She looked away. ‘That only makes it worse.’
The police arrived in two detachments: a sergeant and some constables from Dorking, plain clothes detectives from Guildford. Diana insisted on leading them up to where Vita was waiting with the body, rejecting my offer to do so on the sensible grounds that I was unfamiliar with the route. She was tight-lipped and logical now, tearfulness and confusion set aside in her determination to behave as her father would have wished.
The officer in charge, a stout gravel-faced chief inspector called Hornby, left me with firm instructions to wait where I was. One of the maids lit the fire in the drawing-room and brought me some coffee. She professed herself stunned by the news. It was an understandable reaction, but not one I could afford to give way to. Smoking one cigarette after another and pacing up and down beneath the late Mrs Charnwood’s portrait, I began to consider what I should tell the police when the time came, as soon it would. The truth – or only part of it? How much was essential, how little sufficient? If there had been any way of helping Max, I would willingly have explored it. But there seemed to be none. He had gone too far towards confirming his own guilt for my efforts to be of the slightest use.
At length, the sergeant returned with Vita and Diana. They joined me in the drawing-room, both of them pale and grim and silent. More coffee was served. The fire was stoked. The room remained stubbornly chill. Scarcely a word was spoken, cowed as we all were by grief or guilt or both. The night dragged its way towards dawn.
Then the sergeant reappeared to report that the removal of the body was imminent. We repaired unquestioningly to the porch, there to witness the covered stretcher being loaded into an ambulance. Drizzle had begun once more to fall, imparting a strange ethereality to the lamps and torches which lit the last departure of the master of Amber Court. The doors slammed behind him, the ambulance moved off and the police ushered us back in. The dead had been attended to. Now the living were to be called to account.
Chief Inspector Hornby spent the better part of an hour closeted with Vita and Diana in the drawing-room. I was banished to the library, where a goggle-eyed constable kept me mute company, mute, that is, apart from clearing his throat every couple of minutes. There was one early interruption, when a sergeant hurried in to ask me the make, colour and registration number of the car. After that, I was left with nothing to do but survey Charnwood’s collection of books. Doing so, I noticed how many of them were devoted to the Great War: political and strategic studies, regimental and campaign histories, atlases, memoirs, biographies, seemingly everything published on the subject in the English language. ‘Always,’ he had said, ‘there is the war.’ And this accumulation of scholarship seemed to prove his point, albeit posthumously.
I took down Harmsworth’s Atlas of the Great War and began to turn its pages, looking for those illustrating the Salonika campaign. Half-forgotten names leapt out at me when I found the right map: Monastir, the Vardar river, Lake Ostrovo, the Moglena mountains, the Cresna Pass. Max and I had stood by each other in all those dismal places and it seemed wrong for our alliance to be broken now, so suddenly and foolishly. But how could it not be? He had fled and I had remained, powerless to make good what he had done.
‘Mr Horton!’ barked Hornby, his words shattering my thoughts as he entered the room. ‘Time we had a chat, I think.’
I sat down then and told him what I judged he would believe was the whole story. Max and Diana had fallen in love aboard ship; Charnwood had forbidden their marriage; they had agreed to elope; I had accompanied my friend to the rendezvous; he had vanished; and I had found Diana and her aunt with Charnwood’s body. Of money-making plans and mercenary negotiations I said nothing. Of my role as Charnwood’s informant I let fall no hint.
‘You agree with the ladies, then,’ said Hornby when I had finished. ‘A crime of thwarted passion.’ He looked to me like a man who suffered from a good deal of thwarted passion himself, but I knew it was important not to be riled by his alternately polite and insinuating manner.
‘I’ve described what happened. It’s not for me to interpret events.’
‘You must have an opinion, sir. Do you think your friend murdered Mr Charnwood?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘But what do you think?’
‘I think I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt.’
‘Somebody beat Mr Charnwood to death. It was as savage an attack as I’ve come across in many a year. Done in an uncontrollable fury, I should say.’
‘Max is not given to uncontrollable furies.’
‘What about these headaches Miss Diana mentioned him suffering from? Worse lately, she reckoned. Much worse. Could it have been the strain telling – the anger boiling up inside him?’
‘I’m unaware of any recent deterioration in his health. He suffered a head injury during the war. But that was thirteen years ago.’
‘And since then the two of you have been … in business together?’
‘Yes. Mostly abroad.’
‘What type of business exactly?’
‘Finance.’
‘That isn’t very exact.’
‘Any investment we considered likely to yield a profit,’ I said levelly. ‘If it’s relevant.’
‘Oh, it may be.’ He smiled. ‘And it may not.’ He stared at the atlas I had been examining, then asked: ‘Where do you think Mr Wingate will go?’
‘A police station, as soon as he’s recovered from the shock, to offer a full explanation.’
‘I wish I could share your confidence, sir, but my experience suggests otherwise. What about this flat in London you share with him?’
‘Perhaps. It belongs to his father.’
‘Ah yes. Mr Aubrey Wingate.’ He glanced at his pocketbook. ‘A retired wine merchant, I believe. Resident in Gloucestershire. Do you happen to know his address?’
‘Jaybourne House, near Chipping Campden.’
‘Thank you.’ He noted it down. ‘We’ll be in touch with him, of course. Is Mr Wingate … close to his parents?’
‘Not especially.’
‘Then London’s a more likely hiding-place. Is there anything he’d need to go back to the flat for? Money? Clothes? Documents?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘But you would know if anything was missing, wouldn’t you? The Metropolitan Police will have the flat under surveillance by now, but he may have beaten them to it. I’d like you to accompany me there straightaway – if you’ve no objection.’
I had several, but none likely to impress Chief Inspector Hornby. ‘Very well,’ I said with a shrug.
‘Good.’ He began to rise, but stopped when I made no corresponding move. ‘No reason for delay is there, sir?’
‘Of course not.’
‘I can’t accomplish much more here until daybreak, you see. Then we can commence a search for the murder weapon, if Mr Wingate – sorry, whoever the murderer was – discarded it. Did Mr Wingate remove anything from the car, by the way? A tyre lever, perhaps? The starting handle? A monkey-wrench?’
‘Only a torch.’
‘Metal case?’
‘Yes.’
‘Heavy?’
‘Moderately.’
‘That may have been it, then.’ This time he did rise. As I stood up, I noticed him looking at my shoes. ‘We’ll need to take a cast of those soles, sir. Try to sort out the boots from the brogues. There should be some good footprints at the scene, given the wet weather we’ve been having. It may not suit the farmer
s, but it’s a blessing for …’ His words tailed off into a sheepish grin. ‘Well, it won’t take long. Then we can be off.’
‘I’d like to see Miss Charnwood before I leave.’
‘You’re out of luck there, sir, whichever one you mean. They’ve both gone to bed, though whether they’ll sleep much …’ He shook his head. ‘They’ll have a lot on their plates tomorrow. Later today, I should say. Full statements. Formal identification of the corpse. And a mob of reporters at the door, I don’t doubt. Not to mention all the to-ing and fro-ing there’d have been even if Mr Charnwood had died of natural causes. It seemed to me they should get what rest they could.’
‘Very considerate of you, Chief Inspector.’ I could not help suspecting some ploy to keep Diana and me apart, but its purpose, if there was one, eluded me. I felt too tired to protest, too weary of thinking without understanding to resist in any way. ‘Shall we go, then?’
‘Certainly, sir.’ He headed towards the door, then pulled up and turned round to face me, tugging at his ear-lobe and frowning distractedly. ‘One last point before we take those casts. After you’d come upon the ladies with Mr Charnwood’s body, you escorted Miss Diana back here, leaving Miss Vita at the scene. Why?’
‘Because Diana was extremely—’
‘But why leave Miss Vita there, alone in a dark wood with no company but her brother’s blood-boltered corpse?’
‘She insisted on staying with him.’
‘And you let her?’
‘Well … yes.’
‘You weren’t afraid the murderer might strike again?’
‘Of course not. He’d gone. We heard the car speeding off along—’ I stopped, realizing what he had made me admit: that I had never once doubted who the murderer was. I had claimed the benefit of the doubt for Max. And now I had thrown it away.
I knew before we even entered the flat that Max had been there. I had to turn the key completely in the door before the latch slid back. But I was in the habit when leaving of pulling it shut without troubling to operate the dead-lock – and I had been last to leave when we set off for Dorking. So it was no surprise to find some of his clothes missing, along with half the roll of bank-notes we kept in a tea-caddy in the kitchen and referred to as our contingency fund – without ever envisaging such a dire contingency as this.
My lack of surprise made it easier to assure Hornby nothing had been disturbed. It was a small enough favour to do Max, meaning the police would not know whether he was wearing herring-bone or chalk-stripe, nor how much money he might have in his pocket. But I was glad to do it, relieved indeed to find one lie I could tell for his sake.
Hornby prowled and poked about, asked a few desultory questions and generally expressed disappointment at the paucity of clues.
‘Are these really all Mr Wingate’s possessions, sir?’
‘He’s always tended to travel light, Chief Inspector. So have I.’
‘And where do you think he’s travelled now?’
‘I couldn’t say.’
‘We’ll have the ports watched, you know. And this flat – for some time to come.’
‘I’m sure you will.’
‘What I’m saying, sir, is that we’re bound to catch him in the end. If you’ve any idea where he may be, or if he contacts you, by letter or telephone—’
‘I’ll let you know immediately. Is that what you want me to say?’
‘Yes, sir, it is. But it’s also what I want you to mean.’
Hornby left soon afterwards, as the London sky was lightening. I had undertaken to report to Dorking Police Station that afternoon to make a formal statement. In the interim, while Hornby and his crew scoured the woods for evidence, there was nothing for me to do but brood upon the intractability of Max’s plight. Whether or not I aided the police in their search, I did not doubt how it would end: in Max’s arrest. And what then? His trial. His conviction. His execution. It was as hard to imagine any other sequence of events as it was to believe that my friend was truly set on such a course.
Mrs Dodd arrived at ten o’clock, flustered by being interrogated on the doorstep by a plain clothes policeman. Fluster turned to dismay when I told her what had happened. She insisted on cooking me some breakfast and speculating on how Max’s parents would take the news, which I had no difficulty in guessing without her assistance. I had met Mr and Mrs Wingate on several occasions and knew them to be kindly but correct. This turn of events was certain to distress and scandalize them. Sooner or later, I was going to have to account to them for my part in it and it was not a prospect I was relishing.
It was nearly noon when Mrs Dodd left. I should perhaps have telephoned the Wingates then, but the person I most wanted to talk to at that moment, aside from Max, was Diana. Surrendering to the impulse, I put a call through to Amber Court. But Diana, the maid informed me, was unavailable. With some misgivings, I agreed to speak to Vita instead.
‘My niece is resting, Mr Horton, and cannot possibly be disturbed. The poor girl is beside herself. The police are still searching the grounds and we’re besieged by pressmen. The situation is quite frightful – and deeply distressing.’
‘I can imagine how you feel.’
‘Can you? Diana’s father has been brutally murdered by a man with whom she thought herself to be in love. Can you really imagine how she feels? How I feel?’
‘Well … Of course, I realize what a terrible shock this has been … Perhaps it would help if I could talk to Diana.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘I have to be in Dorking this afternoon to make a statement at the police station. Could I call at Amber Court afterwards?’ There was a pause, during which Vita seemed to be weighing my suggestion in the balance. ‘Miss Charnwood?’
‘I think not, Mr Horton.’ My suggestion, then, had been found wanting. ‘You are closely associated in Diana’s mind with Mr Wingate. Any communication with you is therefore bound to upset her. In the circumstances, I think it would be best if you left her alone. In fact, I rather think I must insist on you doing so. Now – and for the foreseeable future.’
‘But—’
‘Good day, Mr Horton.’
The harshness in Vita’s voice fed on my self-pity till, by the time I set off for Dorking, my concern for Max had turned to resentment. Why on earth had he done such a thing? Murder was so pointless, so profitless. And it implicated me in a scandal of which I wanted no part.
My reception at the police station did nothing to alter my mood. In Hornby’s absence, a sweaty young detective sergeant took my statement. The nib of his pen caused him frequent difficulty and this, combined with the painful slowness of his writing, ensured I was there for nearly two hours before the little I had to say was recorded to his satisfaction. I was actually on my way out of the building when something happened to imply a purpose behind his dilatoriness: Hornby burst through the door in mud-caked boots and thorn-hatched tweeds, grinning broadly. Sighting me, his grin did not so much vanish as coagulate.
‘Still here, Mr Horton? I thought you’d have been gone by now.’
‘So did I.’
‘Ah well, the mills of God, you know.’
‘What have they to do with it?’
‘Thou shall not kill. It’s one of the Ten Commandments. I’m surprised a well-educated fellow like you doesn’t know that.’ He grew suddenly sombre. ‘We found a heavy wedge-shaped flint earlier this afternoon in the trees near where Mr Charnwood was killed, with enough blood and fragments of bone and tissue on it to identify it as the murder weapon. There was an argument, I suppose. Mr Charnwood began to walk away. Mr Wingate picked up the flint, ran after him and, as he turned, struck him about the head, then several more times as he lay on the ground. Afterwards, he threw the rock away, ran to the road where the car was waiting, and drove off. You agree?’
‘I don’t know.’
Hornby stepped closer. ‘Come now, Mr Horton. You must agree.’
‘I’ll believe it when I hear it from Max’s own lip
s. Not before.’
He nodded. ‘Fair enough. I’d put money on your condition being met in the very near future. Then you’ll have to believe it. Won’t you?’
I felt badly in need of a drink when I left the police station, but the bar of the Star and Garter Hotel turned out to be a poor choice. Charnwood’s murder was the sole topic of conversation among the customers, wild theories circulating as the beer flowed. Nobody could claim to have known the victim – he kept himself too much to himself for that to be possible – but nobody, on the other hand, was lacking for an opinion about what had happened. A report of the incident on the front page of the local evening newspaper was read aloud and exhaustively debated. The significance of Charnwood’s body being found by his sister and daughter, along with a man whose name meant nothing to anybody, was widely speculated upon. As to the fellow being sought by the police, Max Wingate, some said he had been a recent house-guest at Amber Court; so at least the cook was supposed to have told the butcher when he delivered the week-end joint there earlier in the day.
I fled, unable to listen to any more. But, on the train back to London, I slowly realized that I would have no choice in the matter. At least until Max was found, I would be forced to listen. Worse still, my name along with his would probably be in every national newspaper by morning. My father and sister could hardly avoid coming across the story. Even supposing they did miss it, one of their neighbours could be relied upon to draw it to their attention. My anonymity was suddenly forfeit.
By the time the train drew into Victoria station, I had decided not to go back to the flat that night. The decision meant Max could not telephone me even if he wanted to. This was a considerable sacrifice, since I badly wanted to speak to him and gauge his state of mind. But, for the present, my obligations to my father and sister had to take priority. They deserved to hear the truth – or part of it – from me before they read a garbled version of it in the Sunday papers. The prodigal son – the scapegrace brother – would have to make his overdue return.
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