by Gwen Moffat
‘I understand,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Alsatians can create bad feeling among neighbours.’
‘Well –’ Gladys considered this, ‘– they’ve never attacked anyone. I mean, Brindle didn’t actually bite the girl, did he?’
‘He must have been pretty close if she could hit him with a frying pan. And how do you know that Satan didn’t attack anyone?’
‘Yes, that’s horrible. Richard is going to be very, very angry. I suppose one of the farmers must have shot him.’
‘It could hardly have been a tourist. Evans said there was shooting in this valley on Friday afternoon, and that was when Satan got out, wasn’t it?’
Gladys nodded. Either the excellent sherry they were drinking or the news of Satan’s death seemed to have put some spirit into her.
‘I can’t help hoping that we don’t find out who shot him, and as for Maggie Seale hitting Brindle – well, I have a feeling that Richard may be amused. Not if anyone else had done it, mind, but the fact that she hit the dog, and with a frying pan –’ She thought about it. ‘No, I can’t see Richard taking it seriously, even if the dog dies. Satan was the favourite; he was rather bored with this one. But, a frying pan!’ She giggled. ‘Dear me, I do believe – I had some sherry before you came in; this must be my fourth. I’m a little bit – you know?’
Miss Pink, whose stomach had been reminding her for some time that it was turned one o’clock, asked pleasantly: ‘Should you eat something?’
‘What time is it? My dear! We’ve been sitting here for ages! What must you think of me? The lamb will be done to a cinder –’
She blundered out of the room. Miss Pink hesitated. Transferring a joint from a roasting tin to a hot dish is a job for a sober cook, but she reflected that her hostess hadn’t drunk enough that she would be unaware of censure if her guest should volunteer to dish up. Wisely she kept her place and, in the long interval before Gladys summoned her to the dining room, she found herself thinking again of shotguns and the curious coincidence of the dog being in the wood at the same time as a poacher, and one who had come armed with a spade. For that grave had been freshly dug, purpose-dug, you might say; it wasn’t a convenient hole in the ground. She postulated a poacher because no one was allowed to shoot on a Nature Reserve except the warden, who might be allowed to shoot scavengers, like crows, possibly grey squirrels, that kind of thing. But not Alsatians. Evans had mentioned a bitch.
What bitch? I must have a word with Evans, she thought, and checked. This was no murder mystery; no crime had been committed – had it? It was in order to shoot a loose dog on your own land, or land you held in tenure – but how did a bitch enter the picture?
‘Ready,’ announced Gladys, looking round the door, a little dishevelled, somewhat relieved. ‘And it’s not burned at all.’ She beamed with pleasure. ‘How nice of you to have called –’ it was the second time she’d said that, ‘– roast lamb is rather hackneyed, but it is a saddle, and all the vegetables and fruit are home-grown ...’
Chapter 6
MISS PINK SPENT the rest of that Sunday wandering about the river flats in a kind of celebration of freedom, as if a murderer had been put out of action, and that evening the bar was crowded, everyone mocking their recent fear of shadows. In defiance of the licensing hours Waring did a good trade. Dinas was supposed to be dry on Sundays.
But excitements seldom come singly and while the village was still speculating as to who had shot Satan, next morning they were swamped by a second wave of mystery. Richard Judson’s car was found, empty and unlocked, beside the A.5 in the centre of Snowdonia.
Miss Pink was told at breakfast time. She was called to the telephone by Waring who left his office as she picked up the receiver. The caller was Ted Roberts.
‘Beside the A.5?’ she repeated. ‘But he was supposed to be in Liverpool.’
‘He could be there still, and the car was stolen by someone wanting a free ride to Wales. The odd thing is that it’s been in that same car park under Tryfan at least since yesterday morning. Men in a patrol car saw it last evening; they’d stopped there to cast an eye over the vehicles and a fellow with small children told them that the Volvo wasn’t locked. His kids had discovered that. The family had been camping nearby and they said that the Volvo hadn’t been there on Saturday evening but was there at eight o’clock on Sunday morning – yesterday. In the glove compartment the police found a shopping list on the back of an envelope addressed to Judson. Judson isn’t a climber. The car was surely stolen, but why hasn’t he reported it?’
‘That’s simple,’ Miss Pink said. ‘He doesn’t know. He must have garaged it in a lock-up or a big city car park and he doesn’t need it again until he’s about to leave Liverpool, and that will most likely be this morning, although his wife did suggest that he’d be home last night. However. He’ll report the theft at any moment – probably.’
‘Yes.’ Ted was thoughtful. ‘You’re so reasonable, Melinda.’
‘But surely it’s obvious? Why don’t you come and climb today, Ted?’
‘I’d love to, but I have a meeting at two o’clock. Tomorrow perhaps. I’ll ring you this evening.’
Waring was hovering in the hall when she came out of the office.
‘Mr Judson’s car has been found,’ she told him.
‘I didn’t know it was lost.’
She chuckled. ‘That’s a reasonable comment. The point is, its location: under Tryfan, beside the A.5; the kind of place you’d expect if Judson were a climber.’
‘But he’s not!’
‘And it was unlocked.’ He said nothing. ‘It looks as if it were stolen,’ she added.
He swallowed. ‘No doubt.’ It sounded uninterested but she wasn’t deceived. He was preoccupied.
She spent that day traversing the great horseshoe ridge of Snowdon and its satellites, returning to the hotel so late that there was time only for a bath before dinner. So it wasn’t until after eight that she had the opportunity to satisfy her curiosity. She found Waring in the bar. The dog Brindle had been put down, he told her; its skull had been fractured and evidently nothing could be done. She wasn’t surprised.
‘Mr Judson wouldn’t want the animal to live with a damaged brain,’ she said. ‘No one would.’
‘Er – no.’ He avoided her eye as he placed a brandy in front of her.
‘Unpleasant for him: losing two dogs in one weekend.’
‘Yes.’
‘Has he been in this evening?’
‘No.’ He wiped the counter unnecessarily. ‘I have not seen Mr Judson today.’
Miss Pink regarded him steadily.
‘He is back?’
‘As to that, ma’am –’ he was very stiff, ‘– I wouldn’t know. I’ve enough to do running a hotel without listening to village gossip.’
To Miss Pink a snub was a cover for something else, a challenge, or both. Accordingly and although it was a balmy evening, she didn’t take her brandy out to the terrace but sat in the river room to see if some explanation for Waring’s behaviour might appear. She hadn’t long to wait. On seeing that she was going to stay in an otherwise empty room, he retreated to the kitchen and in a few moments his place was taken by his wife.
Meticulously groomed as always, Anna looked tired. There were smudges under her eyes while her rouge served only to emphasise her pallor. She gave Miss Pink a faint smile and at that moment Handel Evans entered the room and approached the bar. He greeted Anna politely, Miss Pink more distantly, ordered lager and said, without addressing anyone in particular: ‘Where’s Mr Judson then?’
Anna paused in the act of pulling the pump handle, then completed the action. She put the glass in front of him and said icily: ‘Mr Judson, Evans? Isn’t he at Parc?’
He tasted his drink and turned slightly so that he might include Miss Pink in his reply.
‘Madam is deeply distressed. There’s his car been stole since Saturday night and no word from himself. Where can he be?’
‘No word yet?’ M
iss Pink emphasised.
‘Not a word, mum.’
Anna’s face was an enamelled mask.
‘Where did he say he was going?’ she asked.
Evans turned to her. ‘He went to Liverpool.’
‘Oh, yes?’ She returned his stare. ‘So the car was stolen in Liverpool?’
‘Well – did he go to Liverpool?’
‘You tell me, Evans. He’s your employer. What makes it so interesting?’
He flushed angrily. As the kitchen door opened to admit Waring, he said: ‘He is my employer, and he’s disappeared.’
Waring’s eyes flickered to Miss Pink, then returned to his wife.
‘Go and lie down if your head’s still bad,’ he told her and, turning back to Miss Pink: ‘She goes to Chester for a quiet weekend – in the middle of a heat-wave, so help me – and finds the Blossoms full of tourists. Can you credit it?’ He was every silly wife’s exasperated husband. He shook his head at Anna. ‘Go and have a sleep, or watch telly. There’s the little portable set. Shall I put it in the bedroom and then you can watch in comfort, or doze – which you like?’
‘I can carry the portable. I’m not an invalid.’
‘You do that.’ He pushed her towards the door. ‘Off you go.’ It was sympathetic and touching. It was also dismissal. Miss Pink watched calmly, observing that Handel Evans hung on every word, his eyes going from husband to wife as if he were afraid of missing some nuance of expression. A stranger might have thought her regard casual, and indeed she was thinking there was little of interest in Evans’s superficial manner but she was wondering if his exhibitionism might cloak a devious mind. Was he, as he appeared, a stupid man trying to be clever, or a cunning one pretending to be stupid? And then she wondered if she would be in Dinas long enough to find out. Not, she thought, unless something happened that might tempt his fugitive mind from hiding. Now what kind of event might that be?
‘It has occurred to me,’ he said, when the door had closed behind Anna, ‘that someone as killed a dog could steal a car.’
Waring’s mouth twitched but not with amusement.
Curious to know what track Evans’s mind was following now, Miss Pink said: ‘That’s possible, but the two incidents were separated by a hundred miles.’
‘That’s if he went to Liverpool.’
Waring leaned his elbows on the bar.
‘Who said he was going there?’
‘He did. That’s not to say he got there. He could have been waylaid. He didn’t have a dog with him. The best dog – the one he should have took – were dead.’ He thought about that. ‘That’s right; I reckon the dog were killed Friday afternoon.’ He looked at Waring without expression. ‘I reckon I heard the shot what killed him.’
‘It took you a long time to find the body,’ Waring said.
Evans wasn’t disconcerted. ‘On Friday I thought it was just illegal shooting. I didn’t realise I were being set up.’
There was a pause, then: ‘Set up?’ Miss Pink repeated.
‘First shots come from up the combe. So I went that way, didn’t I? Next shot come from down the way. That would be the one as killed Satan. There’s more than one person in this. It smacks of conspiracy.’
‘You’re suggesting that the dog got out as soon as you left the house,’ Miss Pink pointed out. ‘Wouldn’t Mrs Judson have seen it go?’
‘Madam left to go shopping soon after me.’
‘All right,’ Waring said. ‘So the dog was killed Friday afternoon. How do you tie that in with the stolen car?’
Evans looked vacant. ‘I don’t know. But it’s a funny coincidence, isn’t it?’ He brightened. ‘I mean, both things is getting at Mr Judson. He’s going to be annoyed when he finds out.’
Miss Pink’s eyes narrowed behind her spectacles.
‘Why hasn’t he found out?’ Waring asked.
‘Why? He ain’t home yet.’
‘So he doesn’t know about the dog. Why doesn’t he know his car’s been stolen?’
Evans glared at him open-mouthed, then turned on Miss Pink who was waiting for his reply. He drew himself up and his nostrils flared.
‘That’s what I’m going to find out,’ he said, and stalked out of the room.
‘He wants his head looking at,’ Waring said.
It was nine o’clock when Evans presented himself to Mrs Judson in the drawing room and asked for a word. She gave him her flustered attention.
‘What is it, Evans?’
‘Have you had any news, mum? About the master?’
She shook her head dumbly.
‘Have you reported it to the police?’
‘Reported what?’
‘Why, he’s missing, isn’t he?’
She opened her mouth and closed it, then looked away.
‘You need advice, mum.’
‘Yes –’ resignedly, ‘– I’m going to speak to someone tonight.’
‘The police?’
She sighed heavily. ‘What did you want to see me about, Evans?’
‘Well, I been thinking: that dog being killed, and his car turning up stolen; I reckon them things is connected. Now, I want you to cast your mind back: to Friday when we was talking in the yard. How soon after I left did you go off shopping?’
‘Oh, shortly afterwards.’
‘Did you see that Lloyd hanging around?’
‘Lloyd? No-o. Why?’
‘He shot that dog, and I’m going to prove it.’
She looked wary. ‘Don’t make trouble, Evans.’
‘I’ll watch my step, don’t worry about me. Now, concerning the master: have they printed the car?’
‘Have they what?’
‘Fingerprints. He’ll have left prints all over it, unless he used gloves.’
‘Who will?’
‘Why, Lloyd.’
She pushed a hand through her hair.
‘Are you saying that Lloyd stole the Volvo?’
He nodded. ‘Him or that woman what’s up there at the cottage with him. We’ll soon know by the prints, although I reckon they’ll have worn gloves. It’s the television what teaches people how to become criminals.’
‘Why would they steal the car?’
‘Ah now, there’s more to this than meets the eye. What I want to know is, where’s the master? If we could question them, see? If they’d left their prints on the car, I could go up there and pressure them some – like the master said: lean on them.’
‘But he was talking about the dog when he said that.’ She went on in the same tone, as if it had no importance: ‘There were no prints on the steering wheel.’
‘So you have talked to the police! What are they doing about the master?’
‘They didn’t say.’ Her fingers played with her lips.
‘Did you tell ’em about the call from Mrs Waring?’
‘What call?’
‘Saturday. Mrs Evans said as Anna Waring phoned here.’
‘That’s right. I’d forgotten. You’re saying the police should be told? Why?’
His face was a travesty of innocence.
‘Oh, nothing. I just thought – she might know something.’
‘Yes, well –’ She looked round the room helplessly. ‘He’ll see to it when he comes back.’ Evans stared at her. ‘I’m tired,’ she went on, ‘I shall go to bed shortly. There was something I wanted to say but it will keep until the morning.’
He went out and she listened to his footsteps retreating down the passage. A door opened. After a few moments he returned. ‘Where’s the master’s shotgun?’
She looked both startled and stupid. She took the bridge of her nose between her fingers and shook her head from side to side.
‘It’s gone, mum.’
‘You mean: he took it with him!’ She was near the end of her tether.
‘There’s something very wrong,’ he said slowly, taking command.
‘Oh, God! I wish he’d come home.’
Evans sat down. ‘We’ve got to talk,’ he
said.
Chapter 7
Ted Roberts arrived at the Bridge the following morning, having telephoned the evening before. The original intention had been to climb – modestly in view of their modest standard – but before they left, a second caller arrived at the Bridge: an elderly man like a brown elephant with the small, careful eyes of an elephant. He was driving an ancient Rover and he had some connection, or intended to have, with Richard Judson. Waring came to the porch to direct him. A few yards away, at the boot of her car, Miss Pink and Ted Roberts sorted gear in silence and noted every word.
‘CID?’ she whispered, when the stranger had driven away and Waring had gone back indoors.
Ted chuckled. ‘Your mind is a sink. He’s a naturalist and lives on the north coast. He’s the new secretary of the Cambrian Environmentalists’ Trust. I’ve seen his photograph in a field magazine but I can’t put a name to the face.’
‘Would even a new secretary need to inquire the whereabouts of one of the Trust’s big landlords?’
‘No. He was fishing.’
Miss Pink opened a map and they turned their backs on the building.
‘Lloyd told me that someone from the Trust would be arriving this week in response to his protests about the Alsatians on the Reserve.’
‘Arriving without an appointment? A spot check?’
‘Not with an influential landlord. Everything would have to be above board with Judson, ostensibly at least. This fellow will have made an appointment.’
‘And he’s not back yet.’
‘The grapevine says not, according to the girl who served my breakfast. She’s not a local but Lucy Banks is.’
‘But Lucy’s not a gossip.’
She didn’t contradict him but regarded him with interest.
‘She’s jolly,’ he went on, ‘but discreet. Garrulous in that she talks a lot, but it’s not about her neighbours.’
‘So you know Lucy.’
‘I handled her divorce. I’ve never known Lucy anything other than cool. She isn’t spiteful or hysterical or silly –’ Miss Pink thought that Ted was curiously intense, ‘– she adores that boy of hers; as for him, he’s intelligent and amoral but he loves his mother. I’m fond of Lucy; I hope she can keep young Bart straight.’
