Stop Press Murder

by Peter Bartram

  At the end of Meeting House Lane, I took the precaution of hanging back and peering round the corner towards the bus stop. Fanny was crossing the road towards it. Further up the street I could see a Brighton Corporation number 22 for Woodingdean approaching from the Clock Tower.

  Fanny quickened her pace and trotted to the bus stop, stuck out her hand. With grinding gears, the bus pulled into the kerb. I watched as she took a seat downstairs. The bus pulled out into the traffic and headed towards the Old Steine. It was fifty yards down the road before I stepped out of Meeting House Lane. Up towards the Clock Tower, I could see a cab with its light on heading down the road, probably towards the East Street cab rank.

  I stepped into the road and hailed it. It pulled over, I yanked open the passenger door and slid in beside the driver.

  “Follow that bus,” I said.

  “It’d be cheaper to catch it,” he said. He was a young bloke with a thin face and curly brown hair.

  “I want to see where it’s going.”

  “It’s the number 22 for Woodingdean. Where do you think it’s going – Timbuctoo?”

  I said: “Would you like a tip?”

  He grinned. “Sure.”

  “Cut the clever chat and drive.”

  He frowned, put the cab into gear and we took off down North Street.

  The bus was passing through the Steine and heading towards the Lewes Road by the time we caught up with it. I told the cabbie to keep well back. He grunted.

  The bus made a couple of stops as it headed north through Grand Parade and into Richmond Place. It pulled in again at The Level. A couple of young men got off. An elderly bloke with a walking stick got on. The bus started to move again. Then Fanny jumped off the platform, looked guiltily up and down the road and dashed into The Level.

  The cab had pulled into the side of the road about fifty yards back. I slipped the cabbie ten bob and told him to wait. I scrambled out of the cab and ran into The Level. I caught a glimpse of Fanny hurrying between the trees. I picked up my pace to close the distance between us, but she’d started too far ahead.

  She left The Level and walked briskly into Ditchling Road. I reached the edge of The Level, stood behind an oak tree and watched. Fanny was a hundred or more yards north on the far side of the street. She paused under a lamp-post, opened her handbag and searched for something inside. She found what she was looking for and walked on.

  Ten yards further on a smart red Aston Martin DB4 – top-of-the-range in sports cars and way more expensive than my own MGB – was parked by the kerb. Fanny had evidently been searching for her car keys. She sprinted round to the driver’s door, opened it and slipped inside. Seconds later, the engine roared and the car edged out into the late-evening traffic.

  There had been many puzzles during the evening. But of one thing I was sure: Fanny wasn’t running an Aston Martin on a shorthand-typist’s wages.

  I thought about running back to the cab and pursuing the Aston Martin. It would be a step up in the world from following the number 22 to Woodingdean. But there was no way a Brighton taxi could keep pace with a sports car. Even if I could find which direction it was heading.

  In any event, by the time I’d returned to our parking spot, I found the cabbie had driven off. Either that, or he was still following the bus to Woodingdean. So I walked back into town, collected my own car and drove back to my flat.

  By the time I arrived in Regency Square, I’d thought of a way to unmask the true identity of Miss Fanny Archer.

  It was a quarter to midnight when I inserted my key silently in the lock and crept stealthily into the hallway of my lodgings. A light was showing under the door of the Widow’s parlour as I tiptoed towards the stairs. I scrupulously avoided the hall table with the glass ornaments that tinkled when you brushed against them.

  I was just putting my right foot silently on the first tread of the stair when the Widow’s door opened and she said: “It’s a good job you make such a racket when you come in or I might have missed you.”

  “Goodnight, Mrs Gribble,” I said.

  “Not for me, it isn’t.”

  “You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.”

  “Unless I get one in the night.”

  The conversation seemed to be taking a dangerous turn so I said: “You’ll need to explain that last remark.”

  The Widow bustled into the hallway. She was wearing a long pink flannelette dressing gown. Her hair was in curlers.

  She said: “I got another one this evening. About half past nine.”

  “Got what?”

  “One of those breathing telephone calls.”

  I sighed. I’d forgotten the Widow had bearded me about it as I was leaving for the office.

  She wagged a finger at me. “And this time I know it’s not the butcher.”

  “With that kind of call you can never be sure.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. Because Mr Evans knows nothing about it.”

  “You asked him?”

  The Widow looked awkwardly at the picture of Holman Hunt’s Light of the World on the wall as if seeking advice.

  “Not directly,” she said. “What do you think I am?”

  I didn’t answer that question. Instead, I said: “Then how do you know?”

  “Because when I went in this morning to give him my weekly order, I deliberately paid him a kind compliment to see how he reacted.”

  If Evans had been on the wrong end of one of the Widow’s backhanded compliments, there was no telling what might have happened.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “I said I’d always admired his faggots.” Her lips pursed in a moue of disgust. “I won’t even tell you what he replied unless you insist.”

  I looked down, said nothing and studied the stains on the carpet.

  “Well, if you insist,” she said. “He said, ‘I’ve had no complaints and they deliver the necessary on a good night.’ I could tell by his leer that he was being suggestive.”

  “Perceptive of you.”

  “And that’s not the worst of it. I needed some cooking fat so asked Mr Hodges, quite politely, ‘Do you keep dripping?’”

  I brushed my hand over my forehead.

  The Widow had turned a shade of puce: “And he said, ‘Only when the old faggots are working overtime.’ I didn’t know where to put myself. So I just stormed out of the shop. I shall be placing my weekly meat order elsewhere.”

  “It’s just as well you didn’t ask whether he had any sausage meat,” I said.

  “That’s as maybe,” the Widow raged. “But I want no more nonsense about shy suitors. And I want to know where these anonymous telephone calls are coming from. At least, I know who they’re coming from.”

  My eyebrows shot up at that. “You do?”

  “Yes, he’s a filthy pervert called Ivor Colin English.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because when the call came this evening, there was the usual breathing sounds on the line and I said, ‘Who are you, you disgusting creep?’ And he said, ‘Ivor Colin English’ before I slammed the receiver down.”

  “He gave his name just like that?”

  “No, not like that. He had some kind of accent. I think he was trying to disguise his true identity.”

  “People who want to disguise their identity don’t generally give their name,” I said.

  “Well,” said the Widow, “if I ever catch him he’ll know what’s what.”

  I didn’t have time to reply to that.

  The Widow had already stormed back into her parlour and slammed the door.

  Chapter 14

  I was first into the newsroom at the Chronicle the following morning.

  I’d told myself I was going to crack at least some of the mysteries that were still puzzling me. But first I had to write the crit I’d promised Sidney Pinker.

  Just as I’d hammered out the final folio on my old Remington, Cedric, the copy boy, strolled into the room. I
called him over, handed him the folios and said: “Take this purple prose up to the subs.”

  Cedric glanced at the copy: “Branching out, are you? Surely this is Mr Pinker’s territory.”

  “And he can keep it, as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Any developments in your murder, Mr Crampton?”

  “It’s not actually my murder, Cedric. I’m still breathing. On your way.”

  Cedric grinned and sloped off across the newsroom.

  As he did so, Frank Figgis came out of his office and stomped over to my desk.

  He said: “If you spent less time at the theatre, you’d make more progress on the Snout story.” He gave a throaty chuckle. It sounded like a rake being dragged over gravel.

  “You’ve heard about my favour for Pinker, then?” I said.

  “There’s nothing happens in this office I don’t hear about.”

  “But you won’t have heard that Venetia, Dowager Marchioness of Piddinghoe, had been paying a monthly honorarium to Marie Richmond until a few days before her death.”

  Figgis shook a Woodbine out of his packet and lit up. “You interest me greatly, young Crampton.”

  I told Figgis how Trish – the one in A&E – at the Royal Sussex County hospital had put me on to Mrs Bailey and how I’d found Marie’s letter in the pocket of her pinny.

  Figgis sucked on his ciggie. “Strictly speaking, we ought to hand that letter over to Tomkins as part of a continuing murder investigation.”

  “I don’t see it that way,” I said. “For a start, Tomkins made it plain that he doesn’t believe the theft of Milady’s Bath Night is connected to Snout’s murder. Ergo, any correspondence that Marie received from anyone, apart from Snout or any of his suspected killers, is not a material clue. We’re pursuing a newspaper story which, in Tomkins’ stated opinion, is unrelated to his investigation.”

  “He won’t see it that way if it turns out that we’re right.” Figgis blew a long stream of smoke across the newsroom.

  “In which case, he’ll have to explain why he dismissed the connection when the Chronicle pointed it out right from the start. His face will be redder than when he lost that cigarette-smuggling case.”

  “I don’t want you riling Tomkins by bringing that up. Just concentrate on putting together a case to link the theft to the killing.”

  “That’s why I plan to see Venetia later today and ask some pointed questions about her payments to Marie.”

  Figgis stubbed out his fag and searched around for a bin. Couldn’t find one so dropped the dog-end on the floor. “Mind you behave in a refined way like me when you’re tangling with the aristocracy. They’ve got friends in high places.”

  “I won’t be tugging my forelock, but I’ll make sure that we’re well covered with anything I write,” I said.

  “Speaking of which, I was pleased with that backgrounder you wrote on the Profumo case. I know there’s no strong Sussex angle – more’s the pity – but at least you gave us a showing in the story.”

  “Sorry there’s not more,” I said.

  “Well, maybe. But keep a watching brief on that. I’m sure you can fit it in.”

  “Of course, I’m only working twenty-three hours a day at the moment. There’s a whole hour going to waste.”

  Figgis always ignored sarcasm. Instead, he hitched up his trousers and said: “Anything else?”

  I flipped through some papers on my desk to give the impression that I was giving his question serious consideration. I didn’t plan to tell him of my suspicions about Fanny yet. I wanted to handle that my own way.

  So I looked him the eye and said: “No, nothing.”

  Figgis stroked his chin. “Hmmm. I think you’re hiding something. But I won’t press you on that now. You’d only lie and then I couldn’t trust you.”

  He turned and headed off to his office.

  “And where would we be without trust,” I said to his retreating back.

  Shortly after Figgis had returned to his office, Sidney Pinker wafted into the newsroom.

  He threaded his way through the desks towards me like a ballet dancer on the run. The cloying aroma of his aftershave reached me ten seconds before he did.

  “Just been with the subs, dear boy.” He stroked an eyebrow, perhaps to make sure it was still there. “They showed me your notice of last night’s show. Very good, I must say. I see I shall have to watch my position here.”

  “Your seat in the front row of the stalls is safe with me, Sidney. You can keep theatricals. At least with crime you know who’s conning whom.”

  Pinker trilled a little laugh. “Always the old cynic. But, forgive me for reminding you, my bonny lad, but you also promised a featurette for the Saturday supplement.”

  “Don’t worry, Sidney, you’ll get your pound of flesh.”

  “Pound of flesh? After the night I’ve just had in Kemp Town, I don’t think I could manage any more just yet.”

  He turned and pranced his way out of the newsroom.

  As far as I was concerned, Pinker could wait for his feature on Professor Pettigrew. I had more pressing business. I swept the papers which covered my desk to one side. I’d jotted the Piddinghoes’ phone number on my blotter. I wanted to copy it into my notebook as I expected to be out of the office most of the day and I’d need to phone Venetia to question her about the retainer she’d been paying Marie.

  But when I’d cleared the detritus of a week’s Chronicles, office memos and useless press releases to one side, I discovered that somebody had changed the paper in the blotter. Probably the office cleaner. And just as well. It was a bad habit, but all of us in the newsroom tended to use our blotters as handy memo pads when we were making notes on the phone. Mine had been crammed full of jottings.

  I spent a couple of minutes looking up the number for Piddinghoe Grange in the phone directory. Then I scooped up my notebook and headed out of the newsroom.

  Pinker’s aftershave seemed to follow me like a bad memory.

  The true identity of Miss Fanny Archer was the most urgent of all the mysteries I had to unravel.

  I needed to know for sure whether or not she was a plant spying on me. It had been impossible to follow Fanny’s Aston Martin when it had sped off up Ditchling Road. But I had, at least, managed to note the number plate. The CD in the plate was a giveaway that the car had been registered in Brighton.

  The registration office was in Brighton Town Hall. It occupied a room in the basement. The Town Hall was a pleasant five-minute stroll from the Chronicle through the fringe of the Lanes.

  I arrived at the office a couple of minutes after it had opened. As I’d hoped, it was too early for Brighton’s new car owners. They’d still be under their bonnets admiring big ends or whatever it was they loved about engines.

  The office had a dark wooden counter with a couple of desks behind it. One of them was occupied by a young woman with light-brown hair tied back in a bun. She was wearing a cream blouse and a tweed skirt. Tortoiseshell framed glasses balanced on a prominent nose. She bent studiously over the Daily Telegraph crossword. A nameplate on her desk read Miss Delia Walters.

  I knocked gently on the counter and said: “Good morning, Miss Walters.”

  She glanced up with worried eyes. Saw I wasn’t one of the bosses come to reprimand her for slacking on the job. Replaced the worry with a resentful frown. From her scholarly appearance, I guessed she’d wanted a job in the public library. But the council’s personnel department had handed her the short straw. Boring car registrations, basement office. As revenge she took as little interest in her work as possible.

  I said: “Sorry to interrupt you. Bit of a beast is it?”

  “Beast?”

  “The crossword.”

  “I can normally solve the Telegraph’s in half an hour, but this morning I’m stuck.”

  “What’s the clue?”

  “‘Possibly vicar’s paperwork sin’. Two words. Eight letters, five letters.”

  I made a bit of a play wi
th scratching my head and said: “While I’m thinking about that, could you help me with another little problem?”

  She stood up and came over to the counter, leaned on it and said: “Try me.”

  “I’m thinking of selling my car but I don’t want to buy a new one until the end of the summer. I’d very much like to keep the same registration number. Is there any way I could transfer it, and reserve it for the new vehicle?”

  “That’s not normal. But I’ll see what we can do. What’s the registration number?”

  From memory, I reeled off the number on Fanny’s Aston Martin.

  Delia crossed to a bank of filing cabinets, selected a drawer and yanked it open. I crossed my fingers behind my back hoping this was going to work.

  She drew out a card and studied it. Briefly turned it over to see if anything was written on the reverse. Stared at the front again. Furrowed her brow. Scratched her cheek. Gave the edge of the card a speculative flick. Turned to me and said: “Could you repeat the registration number?”

  I did so. Nodded to emphasise my certainty.

  She looked at the card again. “There’s a problem. This car seems to have been registered to a lady.”

  “There must be some mistake.”

  “Not according to the card.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Well, it’s not strictly…”

  “I’d just take a quick confidential peek. It could save a lot of trouble. I’ll be out of your way and you can get back to your crossword.”

  Delia shrugged. “Well, the handwriting shows it’s not my mistake.”

  She passed the card over the counter. I looked at it. Couldn’t avoid a sharp intake of breath.

  “Something wrong?”

  “I’ve just realised it’s my mistake, not yours. I’ve given you the wrong registration. Mine starts CDJ not CDI. I think.”

  I handed back the card.

  “You think?” she said.

  “The best thing for me to do is to bring in the registration documents. Perhaps tomorrow,” I said. “In the meantime, that crossword clue: ‘Possibly vicar’s paperwork sin.’”