Stop Press Murder

by Peter Bartram

  “He can’t know for sure that it’s you,” I said.

  “He doesn’t have to. In our game, suspicion is enough.”

  “Ted, I’m sorry about that, but I need your help again. I need more about the motor accident that killed Marie Richmond.”

  “Forget it. I thought I could trust you. I was wrong.”

  He replaced the receiver.

  I thumped my desk in frustration. Some pencils rolled onto the floor. Ted was the only contact I had in Brighton cop shop. Without his help, I was going to find it near impossible to crack any stories ahead of the Argus. Especially this one. I’d have to work out a way to regain his confidence.

  But my immediate priority was to discover whether Marie’s death was an accident or something more sinister. I remembered that Clarence said he’d been helped by a sympathetic nurse at the hospital. I rummaged in my notebook and found her name. Trish. Perhaps she would know more.

  I stuffed my notebook into my pocket and headed for the door.

  Pushed through it and ran straight into the person I least wanted to see – Sidney Pinker.

  “Really, dear boy, you’re so rough with me.” He winked. “Not that I’d normally mind, but can’t you think of anywhere more intimate than a corridor.”

  “Haven’t got time for your gay banter, Sidney. I have real work to do.”

  His hand gently held my elbow. “Just before you fly. About the show tonight.”

  “The music hall at the Hippodrome. Don’t worry you’ll have your blood money in time for the Midday Special tomorrow.”

  “My notice?”

  “Yes, that too.”

  “About that, I’ve got a teensy-wheensy favour to ask.”

  I brushed his hand off my elbow. “What is it?”

  “The features editor, bless his darling pink corduroys, has asked me to do a featurette on one of the acts for the weekend review in Saturday’s paper. Obviously, as I won’t be there, I must throw myself on your mercy.”

  “Meaning you want me to write it?”

  “You’re such an angel. It’ll be just three hundred words and I’ve already arranged for you to do the interview during the interval in tonight’s performance.”

  “And the name of this star performer?”

  “Performers, dear boy. Performers. It’s an animal act. Professor Pettigrew and his Pixilated Poodles. Woof, woof.”

  Chapter 11

  Sidney Pinker was developing the unwelcome habit of popping up like the demon king in a pantomime.

  At least he’d reminded me that I was due at the Hippodrome this evening to write his crit. And I remembered that I had a date with Fanny Archer. So the evening might not be entirely wasted.

  But before the fun with Pettigrew’s poodles could begin, I needed to find and speak to the saintly nurse Trish who’d consoled Clarence on the day Marie Richmond died.

  The Royal Sussex County Hospital was in Eastern Road. It had a gloomy Victorian façade which was about as welcoming as a debtors’ prison.

  When you stepped through the door, you half expected to see Florence Nightingale doing her rounds with the lamp.

  Instead, I ran into a fat commissionaire who eyed me biliously. He had a peaked cap and a uniform with brass buttons that strained round his bulging stomach. He had bushy eyebrows and a whisky nose. He wheezed as he waddled over to me.

  He said: “You look too healthy to be in here, my lad.”

  “I wish I could return the compliment,” I said.

  “Now, now. A little less cheek. Or I’ll send you along to the doc with the rubber gloves and those long tubes.”

  “Don’t let me take your turn,” I said. “Meanwhile, can you tell me whether Trish is on duty?”

  “Do you mean Trish, the radiographer, Trish who takes the tea trolley round the surgical wards or Trish who works in Accident and Emergency.”

  “The last one.”

  “And who might you be?”

  “Her brother-in-law.”

  “That’s interesting. I didn’t know Trish’s sister Marjorie had married.”

  “Marge and I wanted to keep it quiet,” I said. “There’s a little one on the way.”

  I winked at him and headed off towards A&E before he could ask any more questions.

  I had a bit of luck when I reached Accident and Emergency.

  The place was unusually quiet. But at four o’clock, I suppose it was a bit late for window cleaners who’d fallen off ladders and too early for drunks who’d tripped over their own feet. A solitary old girl sat in the reception area knitting. A young bloke in a brown overall was mopping vigorously at a stain on the floor. The place smelt of disinfectant.

  There was a small room off the main reception area. I stuck my head round the door. A young nurse with auburn hair and a single wrinkle on her forehead was washing some metal dishes in a sink.

  I said: “If you pass me a tea-towel, I’ll dry.”

  She turned and gave me a quick but searching once-over. Decided I was in no immediate need of medical assistance and smiled. The wrinkle in her forehead crinkled fetchingly.

  She said: “Where were you when I was washing up after Sunday lunch?”

  I winked. “Not where I should have been when you were serving it.”

  She nodded towards the dishes. “Actually, these have to be sterilised. And, anyway, you shouldn’t be in here.”

  I said: “I’m looking for Trish.”

  She said: “Do you mean Trish, the radiographer…”

  “I’ve been through that. It’s Trish in Accident and Emergency I need to find.”

  She smiled again and I thought I could get to like that crinkle in her forehead.

  “Looks as though you could be lucky, then. I’m Trish. But if you’re from admin looking for someone to do more unpaid overtime or the League of Friends selling raffle tickets, that luck just ran out.”

  “Nothing like that. I’m looking for information.”

  She frowned. “I don’t think there’s any information I can give you.”

  “Actually, it was the son of a previous patient who suggested I came to see you. Clarence Bulstrode. You may remember his mother Sybil Clackett died here on Friday after a motor accident.”

  Trish nodded. “I remember. Very sad case.”

  I put on my serious face. “Do you know what happened?”

  “I was told she’d been knocked down by a baker’s van. But surely Clarence has told you…”

  I cursed myself for asking an unguarded question.

  I said: “Clarence has been too distraught to talk about the actual accident. He simply can’t bring himself to think about it.”

  “I can understand that. He became almost hysterical when Sybil passed on.”

  “Poor Clarence. He’s taken it very badly. I was with him earlier today. He’s still very depressed but I managed to cheer him up by taking him out to a slap-up lunch.”

  “That was nice.”

  I crossed the room. Closed the gap between us. “Well, the point is this. Clarence was able to tell me about his time at the bedside. He remembers his mother was trying to give him a final message before she died. But he was so distraught, he can’t remember what it was. Now he’s beating himself up because he feels he’s missed out on his mother’s last words. I thought that if someone here heard what she’d said, I could pass the information on to him. I think it would help him come to terms with her death. My good deed for the day, really.”

  Trish stacked the dishes together and dried her hands. “I didn’t hear much, you understand. We’re trained not to listen into patients’ private conversations. But when you’re at the bedside striving to save someone’s life, it’s impossible not to hear some of what’s said.”

  “Did Sybil say anything to Clarence that sounded as though it might be a last message?” I asked.

  “She was slipping rapidly into delirium. Much of what she muttered made little sense. But, shortly before she died, she reached up and stroked Clarence’s f
ace. It’s sometimes like that. People who are facing death find one last reserve of strength. Her eyes opened and she tried to lift her head off the pillow. There was a kind of urgency in her eyes. Again, I’ve seen that before. ‘Clarrie, my darling, your fortune lies on the pier,’ she said. ‘Seek and find your fortune on the pier.’ Speaking seemed to suck the last strength out of her. She flopped back on the pillow and closed her eyes.”

  “And she said nothing else?” I asked.

  “No. She breathed her last about two minutes later. But I’m surprised Clarence didn’t recall her last words. She spoke them so clearly – and with such urgency – even I heard them at the end of the bed.”

  “Maybe he heard them. But perhaps the trauma made him forget them afterwards. The mind plays tricks with people when they’re under so much strain.”

  Trish nodded. “That’s true.”

  I didn’t mention I knew full well that Clarence had heard the message. He’d told me so himself. And he’d said the message was private. Which was fair enough. The last words between a mother and son could well be too intimate to share with strangers. But Marie’s words were bizarre. Trish said Marie had spoken them urgently, which suggested she, at least, knew they held some important meaning. Perhaps Clarence knew what it was. But I could make nothing of it.

  So I asked Trish: “Did you have any idea what Sybil meant? As someone’s final words, they seem very strange.”

  “No. And I didn’t have any time to think about it because minutes later I was called to help the other person injured in the accident.”

  My eyebrows jumped at that news. There’d been no talk of a second victim.

  “I didn’t realise anyone else was involved.”

  “This was nothing serious. A lady who lived nearby – a Hilda Bailey – saw the accident from her window, rushed out to help, fell off the kerb and sprained her ankle. Nothing life threatening, but very painful.”

  “So just walking wounded,” I said.

  “More limping wounded as it turned out.”

  Trish hurried across the room carrying the metal dishes. She stacked them in a steriliser and switched it on.

  She said: “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a bad case of piles.”

  “From the way you skipped across the room, I’d never have guessed.”

  “In cubicle seven.”

  I grinned. “And who said there’s no glamour in nursing?”

  I slipped out of the room and headed for the exit.

  I thought about what Trish had told me as I walked back to my car.

  Marie’s dying message came just two days before Milady’s Bath Night was stolen. And four days before Fred Snout’s killing. On the face of it, Clarence could be in the frame for both those crimes. He was a strange man, sent spinning close to the edge by his mother’s sudden death. But did he have the gumption to organise a theft – let alone the guts to commit a killing?

  He wasn’t the only suspect in my book. From what I’d seen, Lord Piddinghoe’s henchman Hardmann had the gumption and guts to do both. One of the few facts I’d discovered from my interview with Venetia was that her family already knew of her sister’s death. All the while Milady’s Bath Night was a forgotten entertainment on a seaside pier, it posed no threat. But if the tabloids picked up that Marie was Piddinghoe’s aunt, they’d be sure to run stories – and pictures – with headlines like “Minister’s naughty aunt comes clean” or “Piddinghoe aunty’s saucy soap opera”. In the moral panic which had gripped Macmillan’s government in the wake of the Profumo revelations, the Prime Minister wouldn’t wait a second to dump Piddinghoe from the government.

  If I accused Clarence to his face, he’d probably flip over the edge and start babbling quotations. And Piddinghoe would have Hardmann dump me out in the street – or somewhere worse. So if I was going to make any progress on the story, I needed more background. Marie’s dying words could well have been the incoherent ramblings of a dying woman. But what if there was a fortune on the pier?

  All in all, I decided my next move ought to be to track down the witness of the accident – the limping Mrs Bailey. She observed Marie come out of a telephone box. There couldn’t be many boxes that Marie would have used and Mrs Bailey would need a direct line of sight to it to see what happened. So with some doorstep work it should be possible to track her down.

  I glanced at my watch. It was ten to five. If I hurried and got lucky, I could find and interview Mrs Bailey before I met Fanny at the Hippodrome. I slid into the driving seat of my MGB, revved up the engine and roared off towards Lewes Road.

  In the event, I discovered there were two phone boxes which Marie could have used for her call.

  So I had to ring fifteen doorbells before I found Mrs Bailey.

  She opened the door with her hair in curlers, did a doubletake and said: “You’re not Rene with the Littlewoods catalogue.”

  I glanced down, spotted the bandage around her left ankle and said. “Sorry to disappoint, Mrs Bailey.”

  Her eyebrows lifted as she looked me up and down. She was wearing an apron with blue stripes over a cream blouse and a fawn skirt.

  She said: “I don’t normally have my curlers in when I answer the door. Especially when it’s a young gentleman.”

  I said: “I hope your ankle is feeling better.”

  “How did you hear about that?”

  “Trish at the Accident and Emergency department briefed me.”

  “A real saint that girl. Heart of gold.”

  “Twenty-four carat.”

  “You a doctor, then?”

  “Not exactly. But I’m here because we need a bit more information about the accident.”

  “Nothing much to say. I tripped off the kerb. Felt my ankle go. Next thing I knew I was lying in the road with a corporation dustcart bearing down on me.”

  “It must have been very distressing. But, actually, it’s the other lady’s accident we need to know about. We want to get the full picture. To put her son’s mind at rest, you understand.”

  Mrs Bailey nodded. “If you don’t mind the curlers, you better come in.”

  I said: “Actually, I think they make a contemporary fashion statement.”

  She preened herself in the hall mirror and said: “Perhaps you’re right.”

  She led me into the kitchen at the back of the house and we sat down at a deal table. A pile of unwashed crocks stood on the draining board. A frying pan with congealed lard festered on the hob.

  I said: “I understand you saw the whole accident unfold from your sitting-room window.”

  “I told the police all this. Didn’t they pass the information on?”

  “They like to play their cards close to their chest. We sometimes have to ask a second time.”

  “I don’t like to think about it. Quite shook me up.”

  She stood up, reached into a cupboard and brought out a bottle of gin.

  “The doctor said the occasional one would steady my nerves.” She poured three fingers into a tooth glass and took a gulp. “Where are my manners? Will you join me?”

  “Not while I’m on duty.”

  She stared into the glass.

  I said: “So I gather you saw the lady come out of a telephone box.”

  Mrs Bailey braced herself with another gulp of the gin. “Yes. She sort of pushed her way out of the box reading a letter. She was shaking her head. I think she may have been crying but I couldn’t be sure.”

  “You didn’t see how long she’d been in the box?”

  “No.”

  “But she looked distressed?”

  “She just kept looking at the letter and shaking her head. You know, as though she couldn’t believe what she was reading.”

  “So, bad news,” I said.

  “Must have been, I suppose. Anyway, after a minute or so of this, she fumbles in her coat pocket and pulls out an envelope. By now she’s walking to the kerb. She steps off the kerb trying to fold up the letter and stuff it in the envelope.”<
br />
  “Not looking to see whether any traffic was coming?”

  “I suppose she can’t have done. She just wanders into the road trying to stuff her letter in the envelope. But it was windy and the letter kept blowing around. So she stopped dead, scrunched the letter and shoved it in. Then she stepped forward into the middle of the road. And that’s when the van hit her. Bam! She went up in the air, over the bonnet. Nothing the driver could have done about it. I just dropped everything and raced out.”

  “And twisted your ankle falling off the kerb.”

  Mrs Bailey poured herself another slug of gin and took a gulp.

  “That’s right. I tried to get up, fell down again and got grease from an oil patch on the road all over my apron. Thought to myself, that’s another pinny for the rag-bag. Daft thought under the circumstances.”

  “So you were lying in the road?”

  “Couldn’t get up. Looked over towards the old lady. Couldn’t even crawl towards her. I was feeling woozy. Thought I might faint. Then something happened which made me pull myself together.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “The wind was still blustery. Must have caught the letter the old woman had been looking at when she came out of the phone box. It started to blow towards me. Well, I thought, can’t let that go – it might be important. But I could tell it was going to blow right past me. So I heaved myself up on my elbows and dragged myself into its path. Well, nearly at any rate. Had to reach out my right arm at full stretch to get it. The action sent a jolt of pain right down my leg.”

  “The leg with the twisted ankle.”

  Mrs Bailey nodded. “Felt like a red-hot poker being run down my leg. I passed out. By the time, I came-to the ambulance men were loading me onto a stretcher.”

  “And the letter?”

  “No sign. I suppose I must have let go when I fainted. Probably blew away down the street.”

  I clenched my jaw in frustration.

  “So gone for ever?”

  “Like my pinny.”

  Mrs Bailey took another sip of her gin. Her cheeks had turned pink.