by John Gardner
Joe Prince looked like a big, fat, pasty slob. Overbearing, I thought, and probably a know-all in local journalism, like Puxley: fingers in a hundred pies and some of them unsavoury. He was leaning against the wall outside the station, his big camera slung around his neck like a badge of office. Above him was a metal advertisement — VIROL — GROWING GIRLS NEED IT. I’ll say they did.
‘Darrell?’ He came up to the car.
I nodded wearily but didn’t reply. Puxley was bad enough; I did not want to start any kind of a relationship with this one.
‘Just keep clear of her while I get the pictures,’ he advised.
‘I have to play at being a taxi man, but I’ll give you working room.’
‘I’ll get one of her in the car as well, but I’ll keep your head out of it.’
‘You can recognize her?’
He chuckled unpleasantly. ‘There won’t be that much recognizing to do. We don’t get many strangers here at this time of the year. Don’t you worry.’
She came off the train hoiking a fat leather briefcase and a blue overnight bag: pretty in an aggressive modern sort of way, smart in a grey coat of mannish cut, though there was nothing masculine about her. She was no frumpish Whitehall secretary.
Prince stepped forward and raised his camera. Jane Patterson saw him but was not quick enough to move her head or lift the briefcase in front of her face before he got off a shot. I started acting then, hurrying forward and mumbling my piece about Fred being ill, taking her case and placing myself between her and Prince. She recognized the car and made for it quite quickly, getting into the back without any ceremony. I grimaced at Prince, who moved round for a shot through the window as I climbed into the front. We were away from the station forecourt in less than two minutes.
‘I’m sorry about that, Miss Patterson,’ I called back to her. ‘I didn’t realize he was after you. Should have thought.’
She was lighting a cigarette; I could see her in the mirror, big dark eyes glancing up quickly and meeting mine.
‘What’s the matter with Fred?’ she asked, her voice quite cool.
‘Took bad this morning.’
‘What about his brother? His brother usually picks us up if Fred’s ill.’
‘I don’t know, miss. I happened to be there, that’s all. Mr. Hensman’s place you want? Is that right?’
‘Yes. I haven’t seen you down here before.’
‘No, miss. Bad business about Mr. Hensman.’
‘They haven’t ...?’ she began.
‘Haven’t what, miss?’
‘I mean, there’s no more news is there?’
‘Not that I’ve heard, miss,’ I grovelled.
She leaned back and I could see her in the mirror, glancing about nervously. This one was frightened. After a couple of minutes she said, ‘You’re not from around here, are you? You’re from London.’
‘I’ve lived in London.’
‘Who are you?’
‘A friend of Fred’s. I offered to do this job for him.’
‘Look, you can tell me. If you’re the police, you can tell me.’ It did not sound as if she was too happy about the police.
‘I’m a friend of Fred’s. Not the police, miss, just a friend.’
‘You’re not the one who telephoned last night?’
‘Telephoned?’
‘Last night.’
‘No, miss. People down here can’t understand Mr. Hensman going off like that. Was he worried, like?’
‘He had a lot on his mind. You aren’t the one who telephoned?’
‘I’m just doing Fred a good turn.’
She was quite agitated in spite of the cool exterior. Two things glared out like nuns at a bar-mitzvah. She was unhappy about the police, and someone had put the wind up her on the telephone.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘You just don’t seem the type to be driving a taxi down here.’
‘One does what one can.’
‘And there’s no news of Mr. Hensman?’
‘None that I know of. What do you think’s happened to him, miss?’
‘I don’t know. It’s very worrying. I’ve no idea.’
‘Must be a grand job for a girl, working close to the eye of government.’
‘That’s not the kind of thing a taxi driver should say.’
‘Should say where? In the films? You mean I’m out of my class.’
‘I still want to know who you are.’
‘A friend of Fred’s. How many more times?’
She was becoming more nervous and more suspicious. ‘Just get me there,’ she said with a note of finality.
About a mile from the Hensmans’ I tried one more time. ‘Preoccupied was he? Mr. Hensman?’
‘He had a lot on his ... Look, stop asking questions. Just do what you’re paid to do.’
‘Yes, miss.’
I had enough for a small piece. Hensman’s secretary worried; her boss had a lot on his mind; even the strange telephone call. Not solid, but good enough for an exclusive. I then began to think about the police on the Hensmans’ gates. If they were the same ones, they would recognize me and doubtless come the old acid.
As it happened they had changed the watch, but there was another official car drawn up in the sweep before the house. Mr. Fox, I reckoned. That was not a happy thought, but I needn’t have bothered because Miss Patterson was out of the car and into the house, clutching her luggage, before I could even get the door open to give her a hand. She was undoubtedly highly suspicious of me — as was her right.
The tourer was where I had left it and Fred was back, waiting anxiously and peering around his car to make certain I hadn’t dented it. He looked terrible.
‘What did the quack say?’ I asked.
‘Some kind of nervous trouble. Had it before, you know, and I’ve got diarrhoea something shocking.’
It is wonderful what thought can do.
The Press conference began almost an hour late and we were all getting a little irritable when Fox arrived. He was a big man in his early fifties and looked like a military butcher. I hated him on sight and he appeared to have no redeeming features, bearing all the marks of an arrogant, inflexible and ruthless preserver of the law. Fact, I reflected, was always stranger than fiction: this one had none of the more comfortable and avuncular mannerisms of the detectives one found within the pages of books by Dorothy L. Sayers or Agatha Christie.
A table had been set at one end of the room and various police minions shepherded Mrs. Beryl Hensman to her place next to Fox. Jane Patterson sat slightly to the rear. It all looked like a local Conservative Party meeting ready to choose a new candidate.
Beryl Hensman had probably been a beauty in her day, genuine blonde with clear skin and the features of a handsome mare. That was what passed for beauty among her class. She looked tired and there were little pain lines etched neatly around the eyes. In spite of that, one could tell she was a tough lady — hard as diamonds and solid as gilt-edged securities.
Fox went in to bat first. ‘Gentlemen,’ he began, admirably disregarding the antecedents of most of us, ‘you have been most patient and I will have to ask you to go on being patient. In a moment you will have a chance to ask questions of me and Mrs. Hensman. I would, however, like you to realize that some of the things you will doubtless wish to ask cannot be answered here at this time. First there are matters rising out of these circumstances which must remain, er, sub judice. Also you will understand that Mrs. Hensman is under a great strain. I counsel you to go gently with her.’ He paused, looking around the faces in a challenging manner. Nobody was in any doubt. He was issuing orders.
‘To start with I have to make a statement. You are all aware that Mr. Michael Hensman, Member of Parliament for Crayshott East, left his country cottage at Boscastle at about noon yesterday. He did not return for luncheon, and by mid-afternoon Mrs. Hensman became anxious and called in the police. We have found his car, but — and I must stress this — we have as yet discovered no
trace of Mr. Hensman, nor any reason for him to have absented himself. He has not been sighted in the area, there are no indications that he has been abducted or done away with. Nor are there any indications that he has taken his own life. We are following up certain lines of routine enquiry and that is all I can say officially at this time.’
‘Can you tell us about these lines of enquiry?’ asked the Express man sitting in front of me.
‘I cannot.’ Final.
Someone else asked if the enquiries were of a political nature. Fox dismissed him with the same effortless discourtesy.
The man from the Express then asked Mrs. Hensman if her husband’s visit had been sudden and unexpected.
‘He was a little tired. He rang me from London on the twenty-second and said he was coming down for a day or two.’ She had a brittle voice, pitched a shade too high. The kind of voice one heard being acid to assistants at Harrods — not that I spent much time in Harrods; Woolworths threepenny and sixpenny stores were my mark.
‘Very serious matters are being debated in the House of Commons at the moment,’ (from the News Chronicle). ‘Was it usual for your husband to come down here when the House was in session?’
Fox cut in, ‘You know as well as I do that Members of Parliament have private lives as well as public duties. Mrs. Hensman has told you that he was in need of a day or so’s rest.’
‘Did Mr. Hensman favour Mr. Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement or did he side with Mr. Churchill’s rebels?’ From The Times political man who sat apart from everybody else.
‘My husband’s politics are well-known. He put the country first. You can get the information from the House of Commons, but he was upset at the vote of censure the other night. He stood by the Prime Minister.’
‘Why did you leave it so long before calling in the police?’ I asked, and was conscious of a movement from Jane Patterson. She was leaning forward to speak with the plainclothes man on Fox’s right, nodding towards me as she spoke: fingering me with her lips and head.
I thought about the Freudian connotations involved in that, but it did me no good.
‘One always thinks there is a simple answer when one of one’s family doesn’t turn up in time for a meal. At first I thought the car might have broken down. I remained optimistic for a long while. One doesn’t want to cause unnecessary fuss.’ It didn’t ring true. Really one did not believe one’s ears.
‘Was Mr. Hensman worried about anything in particular?’ I tried again. By this time the plainclothes man had whispered something to Fox.
A bloke from one of the Sunday rags tried to ask about Hensman’s foreign associates. Fox fielded the question and stumped him for a duck. Then the Daily Mail suggested that Mr. Hensman might have had a nervous breakdown.
Beryl Hensman went grey, and I saw her knuckles turn white as she gripped her handbag. You would have thought she had been asked if her husband was a pervert who went around cutting people’s throats.
‘It’s ludicrous to suggest such a thing. Nobody in either my husband’s family or my own ...’ She tailed off, chin quivering with suppressed rage. Her voice had risen even higher. Personally I would not have trusted my sanity had I been forced to sleep with that voice over a period of years.
Fox was looking at me, and, as someone else asked another fatuous question, I thought it time to leave. There were only two public telephones in the foyer anyway. I wanted first go.
I got to the door when the plainclothes man caught up with me. Fox was barking an answer back to the last questioner.
‘Superintendent Fox would like a word,’ said the plainclothes man. He spoke very softly.
I got a bit cheeky and looked at my watch. ‘I have to phone my editor.’
‘It’ll have to wait. The Super is quite insistent.’ His hand rested on my arm.
‘I’m sorry,’ removing his hand gently, ‘I have to telephone this story to my paper. I’ll see Mr. Fox ...’ His hands locked around my right wrist and tricep. It was a classic control grip: if I tried to move forward there was going to be a lot of pain running up that arm. I grinned weakly. ‘I’ll see Mr. Fox whenever you say.’
There was another policeman outside the door. This one was in uniform. They took me up to the second floor where a room had been set aside for Fox. As we ascended the stairs I could hear the conference breaking up. Guy would be expecting copy any minute.
Fox did not keep me waiting for much more than an hour, during which I calmed myself with the thought that Puxley would have put in a covering piece. To pass the time I composed copy — an exclusive interview with Jane Patterson: As I drove the trim, tired-looking secretary to a Press Conference in Bude, yesterday, she told me that Mr. Hensman seemed to have a lot on his mind during the day preceding his disappearance. She also had a look of concern as she spoke of the mystery telephone call she received on the day that Mr. Hensman vanished. It was not good, but the best I could offer in the circumstances. I then became distinctly uneasy about my continued employment in Fleet Street. After all, journalists were two a penny and there was always some bright young lad straight from the provinces waiting to step into your shoes.
Eventually Fox arrived. He had Jane Patterson in tow and she had now lost that cool control. She looked jumpy as a grasshopper.
‘Sorry to have kept you waiting, Darrell.’ He couldn’t have cared less. He turned to Miss Patterson. ‘This the man?’
She nodded, but would not look me in the eyes. Fox indicated the door. The plainclothes man outside beckoned to the girl and showed her out.
‘Well,’ Fox sounded like a headmaster about to deal with some serious misdemeanour. ‘Simon Darrell, eh? I read your piece on the Mayfair bank robbery a few weeks ago.’
‘Oh,’ I perked up.
‘As a piece of journalism it was good melodramatic fiction. You were nosing around the Patterson girl. What for?’
‘I’ve broken no laws.’
‘I shouldn’t be too sure of that. I could probably get you on suppression of evidence if I tried hard enough. There is also a question of misrepresentation. You played at being a taxi driver in order to seek information from Miss Patterson.’
‘There was no misrepresentation.’
He laughed. ‘Prove it, lad.’ Then he leaned forward, his face quite close to mine. ‘I want you to repeat, word for word, your conversation in that car with that young lady. If I have any reason to suspect that you are not telling me the truth, I’ll have you inside the local nick for obstructing the police in their enquiries. And remember, I’ve just had a long talk with the lady concerned.’
I did not need to think it over. Very persuasive, our Mr. Fox. When I finished telling him what little I knew, he smiled again.
‘Good lad. Now a piece of advice. I’m a senior police officer making enquiries into a case which could turn serious. I expect the general public to co-operate with me. As a newspaperman you are part of the general public. If I ever catch you trying to pull a fast one in connection with any case that I’m concerned with, I’ll have you. Understand?’
I told him that I understood perfectly. Guy would have a go at him on my behalf. In the Street we have our own methods.
‘I have to telephone my editor.’
He nodded. ‘Your editor knows you’ve been delayed. I’ve just been speaking to him.’
I hadn’t bargained for that. My hand was on the doorknob when he asked, ‘The Patterson girl, did she seem frightened in the car?’
‘She was nervous.’
He appeared to be lost in thought. ‘Not terrified?’
‘No. I think she was terrified by the telephone call, whatever that was about. You don’t think ...?’ I was going to ask him if he thought Hensman had telephoned her.
‘I don’t think anything, Darrell. Not that I’d share with you, anyway.’ His hand moved in a dismissive gesture.
I scribbled out four paragraphs that would go with Prince’s photograph and rang Copy. It was all very efficient and detached. When
the copy-taker had checked it back, I got myself transferred to Guy.
He was cool. ‘Just pack up and come home, Simon.’
‘Why?’
‘Yours not to reason why, Simon. Just do as I say.’
‘I’m off the story?’
‘I’m seriously thinking of making you assistant to the boy who files the obits.’
‘This is police interference.’
‘Look, Simon, I’m not criticizing your methods, but I did warn you about Fox. We’ll get no police co-operation while you’re on the story, so get into that motorized fart and come back.’
‘Can I stop for lunch?’
‘As long as it doesn’t cost more than one and six.’
I went down to the bar, got some sandwiches and a pint, found myself a table and prepared to brood. There was still one round of ham and tomato left when Puxley came in.
‘We ballsed it up,’ he said cheerfully.
I gave him a Boris Karloff smile.
‘Don’t worry. I’m on a new tack now,’ he grinned, lighting another cigarette. ‘I’m pretty certain I know where he went from Crackington Haven.’
‘Hensman?’
He nodded. ‘There’s one more line I’ve got to check.’
‘Well, tell me.’
He laid his finger to his nose and shook his head. ‘Not yet, Darrell, not yet. When I’ve sewn it up I’ll sell it to the highest bidder and not before.’
‘You’d better let Brer Fox know an’ all,’ I reached out for the last sandwich but his hand got there first.
‘Don’t you worry about that. Tell the editor I’ll be in touch. Give me twenty-four hours.’
I took the coast road back and stopped at Crackington Haven. It was a small bay, rock-strewn and overhung. The rain had gone but a strong wind was coming off the sea, whipping the water into white horses. I stood for a few minutes on the deserted foreshore, looking about me and getting very cold. I didn’t know what I expected to find. Maybe some fluke would bring Hensman back there — alive or dead. There wasn’t a boat in sight and nobody else on the sand or the grass which ran down to the beach from the pub. It stayed like that for ten minutes so I began to trudge my way back to the car. I had almost made it when I heard an engine coming from behind the rising cliff to my right.
