by Alan Clark
Underlying and strengthening my unease at all this was a nasty feeling, of obscure origin, that she had been the victim of a ‘local man’. Very local, I thought, as I caught Gevaert’s eye and he looked away sharply. No, not necessarily Gevaert; I would not jump to conclusions. But there he was, thick-set, powerful: those reddish lips.
He was eating well this evening, hairs bristling along the backs of his hands as he sliced eagerly into his steak. Perhaps things had been getting a bit too hot for him. Kitty’s reckless propensity towards light blackmail had decided him to cut things short. Not by taking her life, abduction it could have been—it had been him down at Cumber, I was sure now. …
He could have her hidden away down there in some derelict bungalow and then if the scent should get too hot … There was no death penalty now, was there? He might well calculate that the disgrace and other consequences of exposure would be tantamount to a life sentence, but if she could be silenced for ever, committed to the grey waves that pounded at the sand …
‘Crane.’ Gevaert’s voice grated at me.
‘Eh? Uh?’ I goggled at him, then sneezed wetly. With the impact of the sneeze I experienced a revelation, albeit imperfectly. Kitty was kidnapped, she was somewhere among the dunes at Cumber. I must go there and rescue her. …
‘Crane.’
There was no mistaking the tone of rebuke now. What was he thinking? Was he thinking what I was thinking?
‘Will you please pass up your plate?’ he gestured appropriately.
Too hurriedly, I jerked it towards Mrs. Gevaert, who was stacking them at the head of the table, and the fork, sliding round through 110 degrees, and collecting en route some miscellaneous debris, fell, loudly but not destructively, in front of Mrs. Roydon.
‘So sorry,’ I said, leaning over with my napkin, which in some way already seemed to be very dirty, to try to wipe clean the patch in front of her. ‘It was hidden away, I mean it was——’
‘Pick’s view is,’ Gevaert was saying, ‘we were having a chat about it this morning, and his view is that Kitty may have gone off with some local boy. We should think carefully about that, you know, for Pick has his ear close to the ground, with all his contacts necessary through his work and so forth.’
Pick! He too must be nervous of what Kitty might say to a receptive ear. She had stopped going to choir-practice, she said, but I felt that they hadn’t stopped seeing each other; she was always hanging round the churchyard.
Perhaps an unguarded moment in the gloom of the vestry at three in the afternoon … no one about, so cool in there after the heat of the Square … but what is this? She taunts him, she loves a younger man (this part intensified my mood of feverish chivalry) blind anger overcomes the lecherous cleric and with a quick movement … a piece of cord … those tight-knit arms and shoulders straining, pulling … the lithe young form of the victim struggling at first so frenziedly now twitches convulsively and lies still. There is no sound save the heavy breathing of the murderer (very heavy it would be, judging from the severity of the cold that he had passed on to me) and the slight, dry scuffling noises of a body being dragged across the timeless stone flags of the cathedral floor. Creakingly he raises the lid of the massive oak chest in the vestry …
Chairs were being scraped back; it was evident that the meal had ended, as it was that Gevaert was saying something to me:
‘… have a proper, methodical review of the situation, my friend.’
‘Quite,’ I said. ‘Good. Thank you.’ Was this train of thought too fantastic? I had first-hand evidence of Pick’s nasty temper; at this moment I could see his ferrety eyes, puffy, choleric features …
‘I am sure, indeed, that you would be the first to agree,’ Gevaert was continuing. I woke up to the fact that he and I were having a heart-to-heart talk about Paul’s syllabus and progress to date. This, in view of the fact that tomorrow was pay-day, had a particular importance to me and, after loudly blowing my nose, I put on a mild frown that I have developed, which manages, I believe, to combine deference with an appearance of concentration.
‘… I don’t want the atmosphere to get unsettled. All manner of things seem to be happening at present, and now to cap it all Elizabeth’s brother comes meddling round …’
Ponsonby! Of course. In the case of the other two the motive was plain. But here we were dealing, it was clear, with one whose sexual attitudes were actively and notoriously warped.
It was true that the bias seemed towards homosexuality, but, then, once one accepted the fact of unbalance it had to be faced that any outlet might, on impulse, have been taken.
He had been ‘away’ during the spring, hadn’t somebody said? Undergoing treatment? The conduct of such persons on release was notoriously unpredictable. And what were the facts of that disreputable incident at last year’s harvest festival, to which guarded reference had been from time to time made?
As I considered Ponsonby, a sort of nightmarish seizing up of the mental processes seemed imminent. It was too much, being surrounded like this. Was I going mad? Perhaps with this terrible cold a clot of phlegm had made its way round to the brain and was exerting pressure there. (At different moments of hypochondriacal terror I had perused medical textbooks on various subjects, but, unfortunately, cranial surgery had not been among them.)
‘But are we up to scholarship standard? I hope that your silence is not concealing anything?’
‘Oh yes, no,’ I answered. ‘Yes, some of them.’
‘What exactly do you mean by this, Crane?’
(One of the many unnerving elements of a duet with Gevaert was this habit of his of subtly transposing words, chiefly prepositions, accidentally, of course, but with the result that his sentences often had a greater twist, or edge, than if correctly formulated. What he meant was what do you mean by that. Use of ‘this’ instead evoked nasty echoes of being confronted with terrible, inescapable misdemeanour, wetted beds, cribbed exercises, frightful acts of impertinence.)
‘Your manner is very strange this evening, Crane.’
‘It’s this awful cold,’ I said, reblowing my nose. ‘But I quite agree with you—about the syllabus, I mean.’
‘My good fellow, your agreement will not be any use without a full and continued assurance of co-operation.’ He edged forward in the armchair and poured himself another cup of black coffee without offering me any. We were sitting at one end of the lounge near to the door that led into his study, while the two ladies occupied the sofa in front of the fireplace, conversing on some independent topic.
What this was became apparent a few seconds later when I heard Mrs. Roydon say, in a voice pitched up for omnibus consumption:
‘Of course, the tutor was the last person to see Kitty du Chair alive, wasn’t he?’
I suffered a moment’s panic during which other village voices were discussing me:
‘Who is this fellow, anyway?’
‘Yes, what’s known about him?’
‘Can’t hold a job down, it seems.’
‘That’s right.’
‘You should have seen him at poor Elizabeth’s party.’
‘As soon as he turns up here she disappears.’
‘Of course, they were meeting a lot, you know.’
‘Somebody saw him slinking round Cumber beach the day after …’
‘Oh. Oh no. I think that really was a mistake,’ I said. Paul had fortunately gone to bed. Was I right to go on lying about this? Answer yes, undoubtedly.
‘Of course we don’t really know anything about the tutor,’ said Mrs. Roydon, injecting a minimal note of facetiousness into her tone, ‘do we?’
‘Oh, but he’s fitting in very nicely,’ said Mrs. Gevaert, loyally coming to my rescue, although her smile carried less conviction than in earlier days. I looked desperately round at Max for him to give me at least purely formal support, but he had risen and was shuffling out through the communicating door into his study. ‘Don’t you think that you ought to go to bed now,’ Mrs. Geva
ert went on, ‘with that cold?’
As I thought over those words of Mrs. Roydon’s in the stuffy August warmth of my small bedroom the thought began to creep up on me and assume ever more creditable proportions that it was she who had murdered Kitty du Chair.
This embittered, frustrated woman, cooped up for years in the small-time provincial compound that was Westerlea, with its sterile gossip, how likely it seemed that, her reason deranged, she should have chosen to take revenge and gratification in such an act. Improbable? Ludicrous? Wild? Through the gloom there recurred to my mind’s eye the picture of two French sisters—I had seen it in Le Monde several years before—who had cut up a male member of their family and fed his pieces nightly to the Seine; those thin, scraggy neck muscles, intense eyes down-pulled at the outer corners, there, with her Max Factor pack removed, was Mrs. Roydon.
Furtively, I got up from the table and tiptoed over to the door, which I locked.
This was appalling. Here she was in this house, an outwardly respectable citizen, joining in with the general dismay at this hideous and quite unprecedented occurrence. Only I knew the truth, one which was, quite literally, incredible. I lay down, gingerly, on the bed: I could feel myself becoming increasingly ‘nervous’ and could have fainted had it not been for the positive turmoil of thoughts that disquieted my brain. The most sinister aspect of this discovery, from an immediately personal point of view, was that as well as being a murderess she was also undoubtedly determined to implicate and, if possible, have arraigned as many others as possible. As many others? Or one other?
The innuendo of her remark at dinner had embarrassed even Mrs. Gevaert and at the time I had mentally laughed it off, putting it down to her general sexual frustration, and irritation with me for having rebuffed her so gauchely in the greenhouse. But now I saw it as part of a deeper design; for with the inner knowledge of the murderer it would be simple for her to ‘frame’ me in some clinging web of planted evidence; slowly it would build up: at first the casual remark, laughable at first, then gradually arousing suspicion: ‘There was something in it, you know’; ‘To think that …’ etc.
Finally the anonymous letters, the denunciation, ‘who may be able to help them in their inquiries’.
In a lather of panic I sprang up from the bed and stumbled over, with a strong sense of depersonalization, to the open window. Outside, damp vapours were rising from the lawn and flower-beds, giving the garden, in the half-light of darkening evening, an appearance of suspended reality. I breathed deeply two or three times, but felt little calmer, the enormity of the situation was too overpowering. Then, quite suddenly, I noticed a movement in the garden: someone had entered from the gate at the far end of the lawn and was moving rapidly across towards the house. I could tell that it was a woman and I could just hear her skirt rustling, but it was impossible, in that twilight, to identify her further. In a few seconds she had slipped out of my sight and I heard the french window into the study shut softly. It must have been Mrs. Gevaert or Mrs. Roydon. But which? And what on earth was she doing?
There seemed to have been something sinister and purposeful about her movements. Supposing it had been Mrs. Roydon out laying false clues? Or visiting, perhaps, for some insane ritual, the remains of her victim?
I tiptied across to my door and tried it again. It was locked securely enough, but the handle creaked loudly when I let it go, and upstairs someone cried out. It was that little wretch Paul, but he made me jump, none the less.
I passed a very bad night, and, latterly, a very uncomfortable one, as I was too frightened to leave my room for the lavatory until daylight had returned.
11 * Sergeant Chambers
‘Could I have a word with you, sir?’
It seemed almost incredible that the detective sergeant, for such he was, should be using that particular phrase; also that he should be wearing a raincoat and be carrying, having lately doffed, a bowler hat.
‘Of course,’ I said, ‘where shall we go? I mean, do you want me for long, sort of thing?’
He had caught me on the doorstep of Pyedums as I was leaving, a little better today but still very catarrhal, to go round and have a pint or two at the Gambia Castle. I had noticed him earlier in the morning having a ‘chat’ with Mr. and Mrs. Gevaert in the lounge, and shortly afterwards had taken advantage of Gevaert’s post-traumatic demoralization to ask for, and be fumblingly given, my wages.
‘Shall we step inside, then?’ he asked.
‘Yes, let’s.’
He courteously gestured for me to precede him, which I did. We stood for what seemed an appreciable period in the gloom of the hall, with him looking at me penetratingly, but, it seemed, benevolently, like a housemaster scrutinizing a new boy whose parents are still in the room.
‘Have you got a room? Perhaps if we went there …’
We went up the stairs, I creeping, he clumping. I hoped that no one of the household would hear us. Vainly, it turned out, as Gevaert emerged from his dressing-room as we went past and said:
‘Ha, Sergeant, any news?’
‘None so far, sir,’ said the policeman, not very cordially I thought. ‘I’m just having a word with Mr. Crane.’
‘Splendid, splendid. Let no stone be left unturned.’
When we got into my small room the sergeant said, ‘Funny the way these young girls behave, isn’t it?’
Wishing that all this was taking place after and not before or, worse, instead of, my visit to the Gambia Castle, I said, ‘Very funny.’ I could come to no harm, surely, by echoing his own words.
‘Did you make the young lady’s acquaintance at any time?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I did. Vaguely, you know, ha. Do sit down, officer.’
‘She’s a pretty little thing,’ he said, genially, ‘by all accounts.’
‘So glad to hear you use the present tense,’ I told him. ‘Everybody round here’s talking as if she were already dead.’
He looked at me for a long time without answering. Then, with rather more edge to his voice, ‘Such things do heppen, you know.’ He actually pronounced it ‘heppen’.
‘Yes, I know, but have you any reason to believe …? I mean, it seems too incredible in a place like this.’
‘When you’ve been in my job as long as I have,’ he got up, indicating both by his tone and manner that the interview was over, ‘nothing surprises you.’ He walked to the window.
‘Another lovely day, just right for an afternoon on the beach, eh?’
‘Rather. Lovely.’ I fixed a good-bye smile firmly into place, but he continued to stare out into the garden.
‘Ever go down Cumber way?’ he asked, turning round. ‘There’s a lovely stretch of sand out there.’
My lips felt terribly dry, so I licked them and swallowed. ‘Actually, I was there yesterday,’ I said.
‘Yes.’ His tone was noncommittal. ‘We had a report of someone answering to your description as having been down there.’
Wishing he wouldn’t use expressions like ‘answering to your description’, I replied, ‘It’s a wildish sort of place, really.’
‘We’ve had some nasty crimes down there. I remember one chap—a young fellow he was, well, about your age—killed a girl there. By our reconstruction of the crime he surprised her while she was sunbathing. He must have been stalking her for hours. He raped and strangled her.’
You and Mrs. Roydon should get together, I thought. I said, ‘She didn’t seem to me to be the sort of girl who’d go wandering off down there on her own, really.’
‘Didn’t she now? Didn’t she?’ He nodded his head slowly up and down as if I had said something highly important. Then after an interval he went on, ‘Do you know one of the worst things that has heppened since the war?’
Thinking it would be impossible to even get down to a short list for this title in less than an hour, I said: ‘No? What?’
‘Abolition of the death penalty.’ He clenched his jaw. Far from leaving, he now seemed to have every
intention of remaining, and indefinitely.
‘It’s not been completely abolished,’ I corrected him, ‘has it?’
‘For gain,’ he said. ‘You can still hang when a murder has been committed for gain. But there’s no death penalty for sex killings. Still, we have our own way of dealing with them.’
I didn’t prompt him or inquire, and so he went on, ‘Do you know what we do?’
‘No.’ I must be friendlier. But it would be wrong to smile, at this stage, wouldn’t it? ‘What?’
‘We have our ways of frightening them. Oh yes, you can’t cock a snook at the British police force and get away with it. Not yet, believe me.’
‘I do believe you.’
‘Sometimes we pretend we can get ’em for capital—that’s the hanging sort—even when we can’t. Then, of course, we can always have them beaten up after they’ve been sentenced. They can’t squawk in front of the judge then, you see. The lads like to work them over before they get sent away.’
Die Westerlea Polizienschaft und der Sadismus, I thought, another early German film. Then, as I looked at him, I realized that he had something in his hand which he kept glancing down at.
It was Kitty’s scarf that she had given me to wave from the window as a sign on that morning when we had taken a walk along the Flats.
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I forgot to tell you, I mean I should …’
‘Yes?’ he barked.
‘You see she gave it to me after we had been out for a walk.’
‘When was that?’
‘Oh, that would have been a couple of days ago, I suppose.’
‘Tuesday?’
‘Yes. Yes, that’s right, it was Tuesday.’
‘The day on which she disappeared, in fact.’
Beginning to feel really rather terrible, I said, ‘Yes.’
‘I understand from conversation with other members of the household that you deny having met Miss du Chair on the day in question.’
‘Well, you see, at the time I didn’t realize how serious it was and I didn’t want Mr. Gevaert to know that I had been out when I should have been working.’
