by Alan Hunter
‘Is that the lot, mate?’
‘No, it isn’t.’ Eyke closed the file with a modest slap. ‘While you’re here you can help me with another matter. How long did you know your wife before you married her?’
‘Viv . . . ?’ You could see Selly’s mind work, flashing round the possibilities like a computer. But only a blank card dropped into the tray. ‘Might have been a year, or just under.’
‘She worked at Aplan, Rayner.’
‘Right.’
‘What was her job when you met her?’
‘Job? She was a typist and general dogsbody round the office.’
‘But what department?’
‘Orders and Despatch. That’s where she was when I met her. Typing up orders and that caper, checking out samples to the reps.’
‘Was she doing that job when you married her?’
‘Well, a similar sort of thing.’
‘What sort of thing?’
‘Typing and clerking. Only then they’d shifted her into the Top Office.’
‘And what was that?’
‘Bloody everything, wasn’t it? The Top Office was where the nobs hung out.’
‘Was it where the Accounts Department was situated?’
Selly hauled up short: now the drift was clicking with him!
‘You’re a sweet sonofabitch, aren’t you?’
‘To put it briefly, your wife worked in Accounts.’
‘So if she did what are you trying to make of it?’
‘I’d like first to know the name of the man she was working under.’
Selly turned incredulous eyes towards me. ‘This joker is bonkers. He’s a nut!’
‘The name of the head of that department,’ Eyke persevered. ‘And his position with Aplan, Rayner.’
Selly gazed at him: then he began laughing. It was a raucous, crowing, triumphant laugh. He tilted his black-haired skull back and hurled his quelling laughter at Eyke.
‘You b.f.! Do you think Viv was in on it? You think she was mixed up with the fiddle?’
Eyke’s mouth was tight. ‘I think she was working with a man who was later suspected of embezzlement.’
‘You talking of Aston?’
‘Of Reginald Aston.’
‘Sonny, you don’t even have the facts straight. Aston never got a smell of that lovely lolly. He was Joe Rayner’s fall-guy, that’s who Aston was.’
‘But your wife did work with him?’
‘She worked for Slater. Slater was boss of the department. Aston never came near the place. He had a posh office along with the brass.’
‘And you never met him?’
‘Dead right.’
‘Your wife never spoke to you of Aston?’
Selly swayed his head. ‘How do I get it through to you? It couldn’t matter less about bloody Aston. Rayner was the mother-lover who had the money, Rayner and two or three of his cronies. They’re a set of double-headed grinding bastards who don’t give a frig as long as they’re fireproof. They’d flog their grannies for eighteenpence, let alone fiddle funds from a bust business. Ask the dicks over at Brum. They know where the lolly went.’
‘So do you it seems.’
Selly rolled his eyes. ‘I’m just the boy who ran the errands. Any time you can tie me in with Joe Rayner, I’ll confess I’m Jack the Ripper.’
Eyke was through. He took defeat with dignity, but there was no doubt it was defeat. Selly went as bumptiously as he had come and not a drop of sweat on him. Perhaps more bumptiously. It couldn’t have escaped him that I took no part in the interrogation, and the reason for that could be only that I was ceasing to regard him as an urgent suspect. Eyke’s picnic, designed to put the screw on Selly, had ended by giving him new confidence.
Stiff-faced, Eyke watched him go.
‘Perhaps it was too much to hope for, sir,’ he conceded.
‘At least you tried.’
‘I’m not convinced sir. I still think Mrs Selly was a threat to him.’
‘But not this sort of threat.’
His chin lifted. ‘I’d say it was worth another chat with Birmingham. Castleford too, sir. They should know if he’s been throwing his money about.’
I gave up. Eyke wanted Selly, and if faith could do it he was going to have him. I left the office with faith in nothing: just conscious of the weight that bobbed against my thigh.
CHAPTER NINE
I WENT FROM the police station to the High Street, though not with any constructive motive. If Eyke had a hunch, so had I: this case was heading for the files. Or heading for tragedy: one or other. It was never going to finish up in court. That was my strong and depressing conviction as I mingled with the promenaders on Saturday morning.
Nor was there much to cheer me in the High Street. I was witnessing what might well be a critical exodus. A hundred or two visitors, of whom only a few would have been questioned, were in process of dispersing to their four quarters. Cars registered in Leicester, Sheffield, Glasgow, London were slowly threading the crowded way, their roof-racks loaded, their sunburned occupants still wearing the clothes of beach and promenade. Had I been neglectful: should I have insisted on Eyke calling in assistance from Eastwich and elsewhere? I hadn’t read the case so, but I could have been wrong: felt now that I was wrong, watching the cars leave. Yet the odds were with me. The caravan site had been the subject of enquiry early on. The other visitors were lodged principally at the north end of the town, and those that were not had come into Eyke’s net. Wolmering was small. All the houses bordering the Common and in the neighbourhood of the cottage had by now been covered, and the enquiry was continuing: perhaps one half of the town had already received visits from Eyke’s leg-men. The odds were with me . . . but they were odds of logic. And meanwhile I was watching the cars roll.
I watched for the Major: I didn’t see him. I didn’t see Mrs Rede or Pamela, either. Yet, I felt, normally, all three would be here with their kind on a Saturday morning. Shopping, strolling, chatting, drinking coffee in the Georgian restaurant, buying a Times (if it wasn’t delivered) or a Telegraph, or even a Guardian. A morning to enjoy, and a fine one. Why weren’t the Redes in the High Street? No red Mini, no shiny Rover with a mouthful of badges and a GB plate . . .
But Selly I saw. Selly stood out like a flea on a plate. He was strutting along with Mrs Bacon, his mauve shirt exposed and garish. An alien: his dress, his strut, his voice all insisted on it: the very set of his head on his shoulders: a Roman come among the Greeks. I watched him from across the street. He stared disparagingly at the passers-by. He peered contemptuously at the shop-windows and made sneering comments in his raw tones. His companion said little: seemed half-embarrassed, half-impressed by his gauchery; was dressed in a rather-too-young trouser-suit in an uneasy red-and-black contrast. A matched pair? It might be, though I imagined her bank-balance assisted the conjunction. Selly was the peacock. Mrs Bacon’s place to hover and admire.
They arrived opposite me, and paused to appraise a display of watercolours in a stationer’s window. The display was fresh; from across the street I had been thinking the pictures looked something above average. Not so Selly. I heard his scoffing crow. He jabbed derisive fingers at the display. Across the traffic-murmur I caught such scornful phrases as: pot-boilers, bumf for the mugs. Then a bus slowly passed. Then the scene had changed. A man was standing very close to Selly. It was Reymerston; he was dressed in his fisherman’s slop and he had an expression of ferocious composure. He was talking softly. Selly’s face was colouring. Selly’s eyes were popping, his mouth hanging slack. Mrs Bacon was tugging at Selly’s arm, but Selly seemed paralysed, hypnotised by Reymerston. At last, as though he were really a hypnotist, Reymerston snapped his fingers in Selly’s face, and Selly, after glaring stupidly for a moment, allowed Mrs Bacon to tow him away. It was delectable. I warmed to Reymerston; I wished only that Eyke had been there to see it . . .
Reymerston saw me, and grinned. I crossed the street. He was still grinning broadly.
‘I think I may have lost a customer there! That laddie won’t recommend me to his friends.’
‘Do you know him?’
‘Don’t think so. Though his face seemed familiar. Do you?’
‘Yes . . . in the way of business.’
‘Do you now.’ He looked at me shrewdly. ‘He wouldn’t happen to be the late lamented’s husband?’
‘He would.’
‘Ah . . . I see.’ His expression became less flippant. ‘Knowing that is knowing a lot. It helps one to understand the poor woman.’
I hesitated, surprised. ‘Did you know her?’
‘Oh yes.’ He smiled faintly. ‘She tried to seduce me one day, on the beach. Didn’t succeed, I may tell you.’
‘I would indeed like you to tell me.’
‘Would you?’ He looked doubtful. ‘I don’t think you’ll find it terribly helpful. It never did get off the beach, you know.’
‘All the same I would like to hear about it.’
‘Because she might have gone further with someone else?’
‘That’s the assumption.’
He nodded. ‘I accept that. You’d better come back with me and we’ll talk it over.’
He gestured down the street. I didn’t hesitate, though we were only a few steps from the Pelican. Whether his contribution was important or not, I felt I had earned my interlude with Reymerston. There was a lightness, an immediacy about him: already I was feeling less in the dumps. His long lope fell in with mine and seemed to add spring to my step.
‘Do you like doing this job of yours?’
I made a face. ‘Not very much.’
‘Why do it then?’
‘I’m not sure. There’s something sacramental about it.’
‘Sacramental!’ He laughed amusedly. ‘I suppose you do hear lots of confessions.’
‘My people are usually at the end of their tether. I represent their last link.’
‘Through you salvation.’
‘In a sort of way. Murder is a crime that must be shriven. The killer puts himself outside society, and I’m his only way back.’
‘And that works, does it? He gets back?’
‘Well . . . he squares himself with society. The thing is done that can’t be undone, but some of the weight gets on my shoulders.’
‘He must still feel himself in a special category – officially on file, but still an alien.’
‘That is inevitable. Crime punishes itself. But confession renews the forfeited relation.’
‘Through you. And that’s why you stick it.’
‘So I tell myself in times of frustration.’
‘And that goes for all policemen?’
‘More or less. But we are good and bad too.’
He laughed again. ‘But if you’re fed up with it, why go on being a crook’s confessor? You might be doing something more constructive, something that exercises all your personality.’
‘I don’t know what it would be. I’m not a painter.’
‘Thank heaven – the world’s too full of them now. What are your hobbies?’
‘Travelling, mostly.’
‘Then why not travel. With all your soul.’
I smiled: that certainly was my dream. There were countries that called to me like strange women. To cut my ties and wander through the world would be a fulfilment of my inmost longing. But these were dreams and dreams only, which perhaps would melt with the grasping. Yet it was pleasant just to be reminded of them, to hear them talked of as possible things.
‘Does painting satisfy you?’
‘If it didn’t, I would drop it. I dropped another way of life to paint. I was in business, quite a success. But one day I stopped to take a look at myself.’
‘Have you ever regretted it?’
‘Never. I was only half-alive before.’
‘What I’d want to do would need money.’
‘Just decision. The rest will come.’
There was a note of such confidence in that: such a committed belief in adventure. It no longer surprised me that Reymerston should have jumped so casually off the jetty. He had the faith which attracted success because it wasted no strength in contemplating failure. A man good for Everest. But I, myself, had not that faith.
We crossed the High Street at the post-office and continued past the craft-shop. We were over the line. A cluster of red-brick houses sprawled untidily round an open space. Parting them, on the left, was an unpaved lane which bore the name: Fryars Loke. It was short: it ended between blank walls, but with, between them, a glimpse of the Common. Reymerston turned to me with a grin.
‘You see, my house is one of the hot-seats. Two of your friends came to see me yesterday. They made me feel a lot guiltier than you do.’
‘Inspector Eyke’s men?’
‘So I presume. The one who grilled me was called Bruisyard.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘Nothing at all. I gathered they’d drawn blanks all along.’
I recognised the lane now: it was the one at the top end of the Common boundary; that which divided the terraces of rank and consequence from the cottage and allotments beyond. The cottage was uncompromisingly plebeian: Victorian red-brick, with the mortar in urgent need of repointing. It too faced the lane-end without windows. You went through a gateway into a backyard. Reymerston gestured to it.
‘I bought this cheap. A couple of thou. That’s peasant’s money in this town. Anything else with a Common-frontage would have run me into five figures.’
‘Do you intend to restore it?’
‘Not just yet. That sort of thing would upset me rather. Besides, I like it looking a bit ruinous – prevents me getting a classified feeling.’
I followed him into the yard. It was just large enough to take a breeze-block garage in one corner. The windows and backdoor had received a lick of paint and also the rails that guarded the worn steps. He ushered me in; and then it was apparent that his casualness didn’t extend to the interior. The hall had been meticulously decorated in a cool ivory, and the pemmon floor laid with rush-matting. The place smelt polishy. There was a vase of sweet-peas on the table beside the stairs. A single, large picture that hung opposite was an autumn landscape by J. J. Cotman.
‘Come on through.’
We went down the hall to enter a surprisingly spacious front-room. It was in fact two which had been knocked together, along with the bit of hall that had separated them. Mostly a studio, and smelling of linseed. There was a bench, easel, and storage racks at one end. At the other, book-shelves, easy chairs, a stereophonic record-player and a drinks-cabinet. The windows looked out on a tangle of shrubs which almost excluded the view of the Common.
‘Too early for a drink?’
‘Not today.’
He poured a couple of scotch-and-sodas. We sat down with them by the bookshelves and sipped silently for a while. A place of peace: I didn’t want to talk. Through the open windows one could hear larks singing. Reymerston sat sprawling, his legs wide. There was stillness in his pose.
‘Shall we get to business, then?’
I sighed. ‘When you like.’
‘Tell me . . . what are you doing about Major Rede?’
I looked up quickly. Reymerston was watching me with a trace of smile in his eyes.
‘What do you know about Major Rede?’
‘Enough to suggest you’ll be going after him.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I have my spies. One, anyway. And she isn’t very pleased with you.’
‘She! Do you mean Miss Rede?’
He shook his head, eyes still amused. ‘Marianne. Marianne Swefling. It so happens we are very good friends.’
‘I see.’
‘She was here last night. You’re not her favourite policeman just now. She had a baddish half-hour with the Rede girl, had to send another teacher home with her.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You can also thank me. I braved her wrath by standin
g up for you. But I’d still like an answer to my question: what are you doing about Major Rede?’
I looked away. ‘I can’t talk about that.’
‘It’s fairly important we should know.’
‘Why?’
‘There’s the kid to think of. Marianne isn’t happy about what’s happening to her.’
‘I’m not happy either.’
‘She’s not very stable. Now she’s convinced her uncle is guilty. Myself, I think that’s a load of damned nonsense, but I want to be sure that you think the same. I want your word on it. Something to pass on. To put the kid back on the rails.’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t do it.’
‘Because you think he’s guilty?’
‘Because I’m still investigating the case.’
‘You’ll be wrong, you know. He’s not your man. We’ve known the Major longer than you have.’
‘That may be so . . . but it isn’t quite so simple.’
‘A nod. A wink. We’ll be discreet.’
‘At the moment nothing. I can’t help you. Now let’s get to this business on the beach.’
Reymerston grimaced. ‘Well – I’ve done my best! But you’re a thwarting lot, you officials. And what happened on the beach is mere decoration, a coat of varnish. You know your woman.’
He drank, and I drank. The whisky didn’t seem to have much bite in it. He was staring ahead of him, at the books. No flicker of smile in his eyes.
‘I rent a beach hut, did you know? Seventy-seven, near the tea-shack. I go for a dip most afternoons. Swimming has always been my sport. So a few weeks back I began noticing this woman and her dog each afternoon. I didn’t know her of course. I’d probably seen her around, but she didn’t stand out in a crowd. Yet there was something about her – a sort of heaviness in her look, as though she were absorbing you, calculating your potential; it gave you an odd feeling, it was so unemotional: rather like being observed by a ghost. Anyway she kept coming: playing with the dog, sitting on the beach, taking little strolls; but principally keeping an eye on me, and staring back hard whenever I noticed her. Then she made her move. She brought a ball for the dog. Inevitably, it came in my direction. She’d throw it in the sea for the dog to fetch, but the dog wouldn’t follow it through the breakers. Contact made. She told me her name, and began to flatter me about my paintings. She didn’t know the first darned thing about painting, but she knew how to use it to establish her come-hitherness. And all the while she kept gazing at me with those big, heavy, expressionless eyes – hypnotic eyes: you felt you could drown in them: fall in and drown. Never once smiled, but with eyes like that she didn’t need to. We sat on the beach in front of my hut and she told me about herself. How she’d worked for a firm in Birmingham, married Selly, moved out here. No self-pity, just stating facts. The marriage had never come to anything. Selly had gone off with another woman, but she had the cottage and enough to live on. But that wasn’t quite enough, was it? She needed what every woman needed. She was taking the pill, so it was all right, and I wouldn’t need to feel an obligation to her. I was alone, just as she was, and the arrangement would suit both of us: a genuine liaison without strings. Certain to be a big success.’
