by Alan Clark
I must get into that cabin of Gevaert’s, that much was clear. But it now seemed less likely that Kitty was there; his transparent shiftiness and desire to please didn’t add up to being a kidnapper.
‘That would be a matter for the local force. What I’m down here to do is to try and find Miss du Chair.’
‘Oh, well, of course, that’s rediculous, officer. By all means leave no stone unturned—but if you think …’
‘What do you think about it, Mr. Gevaert?’ I asked.
‘Now there’s an interesting question, Detective Inspector. My view, and that of several others who are close to the situation, is that the police are not paying enough attention to a certain person.’
‘Really?’ I said, not feeling too good all of a sudden. ‘Who?’
‘Well, this tutor whom my veive engaged; he was friendly with Kitty, you know. My little boy saw them together, for example, on the last occasion on which she was seen, if you follow me.’
‘You may be sure that we are taking everything into consideration,’ I said stiffly. ‘But at present the C.I.D. view is that interest must focus chiefly on those persons who have known her’—I tried within the limitations imposed by our surroundings to look him fixedly in the eye—‘for a long time.’
The interview, which had been going well, now suffered a serious reverse.
At the far end of the Battery Terrace, where it gave access on to Scattercrumb Street, someone who had been standing watching us for a few moments began to approach. As he drew nearer certain primary identification features emerged from the gloom, chief of which was his wearing of a bowler hat. ‘Is that Mr. Gevaert there?’ he said.
‘Aha, here is one of your colleagues,’ said Gevaert without much pleasure.
In very few tenths of a second I realized that Sergeant Chambers, prowling about on God-knows-what purpose, had arrived. As he covered the remaining few feet between us I said:
‘Thank you, Mr. Gevaert, that’ll do for the time being.’ Resisting with difficulty the urge to say ‘Carry on, Sergeant-Major’, I vaulted over the railings and landed, pretty unsteadily, on the steeply sloping ground that fell away from the Battery, against which the tide had, in former centuries, lapped. As I slithered down, more or less out of control, among the boulders, stunted bushes, lovers’ nests, and tramps’ latrines that abounded there, a variety of flinty stones cut and jabbed at me.
I wasn’t thinking very clearly, or indeed very connectedly, at the time, but I did realize that I must not get the uniform, to which I had already become very attached, too dishevelled. It was bad luck Sergeant Chambers coming on the scene just when I was beginning to get Gevaert on the run, but up to that point nothing whatsoever had happened to shake my confidence in the almost magical properties of the dress. Only Sergeant Chambers, like a witch in the Yellow Fairy Book, could break the spell.
Emerging, finally, on to the pavement of the ring road, I began energetically to brush myself down with my hands, soliciting an offensively curious stare from a labourer passing on a bicycle. With this done to the best of my satisfaction, I began to walk back along the road, with appropriately measured tread, towards a pub, the Hind’s Head, much frequented by bus-drivers and which I remembered from an exploratory visit on my first day in Westerlea.
Although trying to avoid reflection on the danger of this impersonation, I was beginning to feel a little uneasy. When I arrived at the pub I went first, in obedience to some inner prompting, to the gents’, where I pressed the false moustache firmly but, owing to the absence of a looking-glass, somewhat inaccurately, into place.
For my sortie to Pyedums my original plan had been to make my way round and come back down Scattercrumb Street from the opposite, or Church Square, end. But with my second neat Plymouth gin (they didn’t have any vodka) another, better, idea occurred to me. I had been trying to keep my mind away from the subject of what Gevaert and Sergeant Chambers must have been thinking, and saying, after my abrupt departure from their company. It seemed unlikely that Gevaert would have put off his visit to Pick, but there was always the risk that he might have been so put out by the whole experience that he had gone straight back to Pyedums. There was also the danger, infinitely more serious, of running into Sergeant Chambers again if I made the return journey on foot. Therefore, taking into account the fact that I still had eighteen shillings of my wages left, I made the landlord of the pub telephone for a taxi, and when we arrived at Pyedums told the driver to wait for a few minutes in case I had to leave at once, and in haste.
I pulled the peak of my cap impossibly far down over my face and rapped smartly on the door.
‘Mrs. Roydon?’ I said, deep-notedly interrogative as Mrs. Gevaert opened the door.
‘No, I’m Mrs. Gevaert. My sister-in-law’s inside. Won’t you come in?’
I inferred from her tone of polite anxiety that Gevaert had not returned and spilt the beans, but as I followed her into that familiar hall I could feel a good deal of my self-assurance ebbing away at the realization—which I had not foreseen—that I would have to take off my hat.
‘Good evening, madam,’ I said, bowing, but not removing it, and, as Mrs. Roydon appeared in the doorway of the lounge, ‘Could we go somewhere in complete privacy?’
‘You won’t be disturbed in there,’ said Mrs. Gevaert, gesturing at the lounge. ‘I’m working in the kitchen, but give me a call, Fleur, before the inspector goes, as he must have a drink for the road.’ She gave me one of her smiles. ‘My husband will be back in half an hour.’
Thanks, I thought, for the tip. I followed Mrs. Roydon into the room.
‘Well, what can I do for you?’ She turned and looked at me closely.
Thank God for that moustache, I thought. ‘I’m just conducting a few independent inquiries into the disappearance of Miss Katherine du Chair …’ I said. I started going round the room, switching out the standard lamps. Would she think that odd? Not as odd, anyway, as the sight of my bare, piebald head under the glare of about three hundred watts. ‘… for the Yard.’
‘I’m sure I can’t be of any help,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you can,’ I replied, giving, quite unintentionally, a grin that amounted, virtually, to a leer.
To add to the dream-like synthesis of farce and nightmare that seemed to be enveloping me, I felt a growing conviction that in some way that wasn’t in the script, but which would inexorably make itself apparent as the passage of time accelerated, my role was to be that not of inquisitor but of great lover. I always react pliably to concept-stimuli; there I was in that black uniform, pips glinting metallically in the (now) soft light, while she, the delicate elder woman, nervously troubled, tremulously expectant I burped softly and was reminded of the two double vodkas and subsequent Plymouth gins.
‘Won’t you sit down?’ she said, placing herself in one corner of the sofa.
‘Thanks.’
I sat down beside her and took off, though not without some misgivings, my cap. ‘This is a difficult task that I have, Mrs. Roydon.’ I didn’t seem to have any idea where to begin. Furthermore, my voice, which had been fairly well disciplined during my interview with Gevaert, now seemed to be reverting to its natural tone. I had to say something that would get her on the run. It had been so easy with Gevaert, it seemed so difficult with her. Now let’s see. My line was that she was mad, wasn’t it, and that she had done Kitty to death or something while suffering from a fit or seizure of some kind?
‘I believe that you’ve been mentally ill?’ I found myself blurting.
‘What?’ she said, very loudly. ‘What on earth are you talking about? Who are you? What do you mean by such an absurd allegation?’
‘Calm yourself,’ I said, leaning over and taking her by the shoulders. ‘Quiet, woman.’
Our faces were very close; once more those electric-blue eyes seemed to draw me forward and for a few seconds the balance hung delicately. Then simultaneously my, and her, horror and revulsion got the upper hand.
‘Get away from me,’ she said, pushing at me. ‘What do you mean by this? I shall report it.’
‘So sorry,’ I mumbled weakly, in my own voice, and rose to my feet. I ran in a jerky, crablike gait for the door, not forgetting to make a grab for my cap en route.
Once in the hall, I thought faster. Shrewdly, I opened the front door, then loudly banged it again and tip-toed up the stairs to my own room where I undressed rapidly and got into bed.
16 * More of Sergeant Chambers
‘Would you care to state what clothes you were wearing on the Tuesday?’
With a splitting headache and the dully pressing knowledge that a police inspector’s uniform was stuffed under the bed, I was closeted once again, this time almost unbearably, with Sergeant Chambers.
He had called early, before breakfast, and been shown up to my bedroom by Mrs. Gevaert—now very nervous at all these police comings and goings—to find me in pyjama trousers, face and hair covered in soap as I tried to remove the ‘Essence of Walnut’ from my skin and the black dye from the sides of my head.
‘A green sports jacket and grey flannels, I think.’ I was uncomfortably aware that these were, also, the clothes that I had left in the committee changing-room.
‘Could I have a look at them, Mr. Crane? I take it you’ve got them here?’
‘Well, no, actually, officer, I haven’t. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I—I don’t seem to have them.’
I felt very lame indeed that morning and some of the soap was getting in my eyes. I didn’t want to wipe it away fully in case the traces of last night’s disguise could still be seen.
‘Some garments answering to that description were found by one of my men hidden away behind some old timber in Chandler’s Yard early this morning.’
How the hell had they got there? Perhaps ‘George’ had thrown them out of the window in a fit of temper. Anyway, so what. ‘So what?’ I said, but meekly.
‘You weren’t trying to get rid of them by any chance, were you?’
‘Certainly not,’ I snapped.
I was feeling even iller than I had been five minutes before, and I sat down, gropingly, on the edge of the bed.
‘This is all rather ridiculous, you know,’ I attempted.
He ignored this and said sharply, dropping the ‘Mr.’: ‘These clothes of yours will have to go to the laboratory for testing. You realize that, Crane?’
‘Testing for what?’ I asked. That friendly old green jacket of mine must have accumulated, in the eight years since it emerged from Hall Bros., traces of pretty well every substance known to a police biochemist, including, of course, blood.
‘I think you’d better get dressed, Crane, and come along back to the station with me so that we can go into this a little more thoroughly, eh?’
‘Oh, all right,’ I said wearily.
I had little resistance left. I wiped my face and hair with one of the Gevaerts’ hand towels. It came away terribly brown. I hoped Chambers wouldn’t notice this and placed the towel, white side uppermost, over the false moustache which, looking very amorphous and odd, suddenly caught my eye as it lay on the dressing-table. In the absence of my customary attire I was forced to put on my blue suit. I also put on that same white shirt whose dirty, rumpled collar had even last night caused me some disquiet, and, because I could find no other in the urgency of the moment, a rather flashy orange-and-brown tie once given to me by an Italian maid at a private school in Hampshire where I had worked as a junior assistant master.
I looked, as I caught sight of myself in the mirror, exactly what I was: namely, a man who is questioned for four hours at the police station after a young girl has disappeared.
On the first floor we met Gevaert coming out of the bathroom.
‘Oh, Mr. Gevaert,’ I said, ‘I’m just off with Sergeant Chambers to the police station for a few minutes—er—whether I’ll be back in time for Paul’s first tutorial …’ I looked interrogatively at Sergeant Chambers.
‘If you don’t mind, sir,’ he said to Gevaert, ‘we may require Mr. Crane for some time.’
‘By all means, Sergeant, by all means.’ Did he look relieved? He gave me a peculiar glance.
In the hall Mrs. Gevaert said, ‘Can’t I offer you both a cup of coffee?’
But Sergeant Chambers said, ‘I think we’d better be getting along, madam, if you don’t mind,’ and we went out into the street, where he bundled me, pretty brusquely, into the back seat of a police Ago which had been waiting there.
By about a quarter to three that afternoon I was suffering from a raging thirst.
‘Could I possibly have a glass of water?’ I asked from time to time of the various types of policemen who came into the room where I was detained. Sometimes they assented, but in fact one was never brought.
‘Look here, I’ve been here for a considerable time, I’m extremely thirsty, and I have asked on several occasions for a glass of water …’
I didn’t like to positively threaten, talk of my solicitor, possible exposure in court of police practices towards witnesses and so on, for to do so would have carried me one stage further towards admitting that I was actually going to need a solicitor, that I would in due course be in court. Things were still, formally speaking, on an inquiry level and I wanted to keep them that way. I was in a small, irregularly shaped room with dark-brown linoleum on the floor. The walls, down which ran a number and variety of pipes and cables, were painted in two contrasting shades of green—dark up to a height of five foot, lighter above that.
They didn’t subject me to a continuous inquisition. Sergeant Chambers and another man, heavily built and ill looking—a real inspector at last—would examine me sometimes singly, sometimes jointly. Then they would disappear for long periods and I would be left alone except for the intermittent passage of constables, carrying sheafs of paper, who would come in at one door, walk across the room without looking at me, and leave by the other. I started by looking up each time the door opened, expectantly, co-operatively; but after a succession of snubs I gave up doing this and gazed instead at, but not through, the frosted-glass panes of the small, elevated window.
At one of these interruptions the person instead of proceeding into, and across, the room seemed to have remained in the doorway. With a show of insolent indifference—raging thirst had not improved my temper—I turned slowly round to look at him; it was Riddle-Brede; once again he gave no sign of recognition but, with an abrupt grunt, or snort, withdrew and shut the door.
I didn’t like that at all. What part was he playing in all this? He was a magistrate, wasn’t he? I couldn’t remember much from my Gibson and Weldon days but one fact had remained in my mind, namely that the signature of a magistrate is required before a warrant for arrest is valid. Where could I turn? How would I get out of this?
I got up and began walking up and down the room. What time was it? I had been so rattled by Chambers’ early call that I had forgotten to put on my watch. Had I been here all day? It was impossible to observe the position of the sun through those frosted panes. Perhaps I would be driven mad, certified (Riddle-Brede again), and committed to Broadmoor. My mind galloped away on one of its more desperate fantasies.
It was not, anyway, as if I had anything to conceal (except why my clothes had come to be found in Chandler’s Yard—I didn’t know the full answer to that one myself, apart from anything else, and anyway I judged it better to keep quiet about the impersonating-an-officer episode). So our ‘interviews’ had a particularly aimless, inconclusive, and, latterly, abusive quality.
‘I must tell you, Crane, I don’t like your attitude. I don’t like it at all.’
‘I don’t like your attitude,’ I would reply.
‘That sort of talk won’t get you anywhere.’
‘I don’t want to get anywhere, except back to number eleven Scattercrumb Street.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ he would say grimly, and leave.
Once, with an excess of choler, he banged on
the table with his fist. ‘You think this is a laughing matter, don’t you? But I’m telling you, Crane, I’m going to get to the bottom of this case, and when I get my hands on that chap, that bastard—and I will, don’t you worry—he’s going to feel sorry for himself.’
‘What chap? What bastard?’ I asked the ill-looking inspector who had stayed behind after Chambers went storming out.
‘Now look here, Kenneth,’ he said. ‘You don’t mind my calling you Kenneth, do you? After all, you’re young enough to be my son. You mustn’t mind old Chambers. He gets a bit worked up, but he’s a good man really. But don’t you think you could make a clean breast of it all to me? There is something you ought to tell us, isn’t there, old man? I can promise you, from all my long experience with the force, it’s always better to play ball with us. You’ll find us very understanding.’
His manner was likeable, genial. He looked as if he might at any moment produce a pipe and light up with ‘Three Nuns’ or ‘Four Square’ or whatever it is that clergymen smoke. He was a father figure. Perhaps I really ought to tell him about the disguise and my attempt at some private detection. After all, as I said to myself for the two hundred and seventy-eighth time that morning, I was innocent, wasn’t I?
‘Actually, Inspector …’ I began. A sinister, purposeful gleam flashed momentarily in his expression as unobtrusively, too softly, he picked up a pencil.
‘Mmm?’ he said, encouragingly.
No, it was no good, I couldn’t tell him that the reason I had discarded my clothes was so as to put on the same dress as, and in other ways impersonate, him.
‘Couldn’t you ring up my parents?’ I substituted. ‘They live fairly near. I mean I’d pay for the call. My father’s a civil servant, actually he’s retired now, but what I mean is that I’m really not the sort of person you seem to think——’
