by Tony Cape
Hawken considered returning to Bowles’ room to take a last look around for himself, but dismissed the idea as too risky. He had examined the premises as thoroughly and as carefully as possible before the first arrival of the police, and had seen nothing remotely compromising. Of course, he had not had time to examine the files themselves, as he would have liked. But it was all now too late. And after all, there was no cause for alarm.
Chapter Four
SERGEANT HARRY SMAILES had been no ordinary policeman. His family had been grocers in Newnham village for generations, but he himself had joined the force in his teens after the Depression had put his father out of business. He had served on the beat for twenty years before winning his sergeant’s stripes, and by the time Derek was a teenager he was a desk officer with all manner of important administrative duties.
The tales of his bravery were legion and he was an almost legendary figure in the town. He seemed to know everyone. On Saturday mornings, when Derek was a boy, if they went to town to Woolworth’s or Marks and Spencer, his father would continually stop to swap news with someone from his vast acquaintance. Occasionally, Derek would be examined by some strong-breathed stranger or chucked under the chin by a lady in a hat. He hated these encounters but would endure them in silence.
Harry Smailes was a huge man, with the large hands and feet he had passed on to his son, a bulbous pitted nose and black hair that flowed back from his forehead in brilliantined waves like a washboard. He took great pride in his appearance and his uniform was always immaculate. Derek’s first memories of his father were that he was like a fairy-tale giant. He was afraid of him.
His father was never off duty. He translated the sacrifice of police service into an unyielding sternness, and ran his household with a calm tyranny which kept Derek’s mother in a continuous state of anxiety. His elder sister Denise adopted sullen defiance, and he himself alternated between conciliation and resentment. He had always been desperate to please his father, who had an heroic and terrifying stature for him, but he had never found how.
Derek Smailes was big for his age and good at sports, and his physical recklessness made him a first-rate goal-keeper. His father rarely missed the home games of the football teams he played on, but no matter how well he played, his father always seemed unimpressed. Derek could never understand why he continued to attend, unless it was to silently remonstrate with him, to remind him that his performance was lacking. He began to prefer the away games, the absence of the accusatory presence on the edge of his vision.
Report time was always a time of particular terror. He usually scored well in English, but the other subjects were always in the Inadequate or Must Try Harder category. His father would sit opposite him at the dining table, the report card between them like a felon’s statement. Then he would wag the stem of his pipe at it and tell him he was letting himself down. Derek’s cheeks would burn with anger and shame. School bored him. He passed most subjects—why couldn’t his father acknowledge that? And anyway, his father behaved as if he didn’t want him to go to University. His mother, who doted on him, let him know privately that if her Derek didn’t do so well at school, it was all right with her. He would ask her to reason with his father, but she would only look at him helplessly. Harry Smailes’ household authority was an absolute she dared not challenge.
Derek Smailes shifted uneasily in his chair and stared at the small pile of Simon Bowles’ belongings that he had removed from the plastic personal bag on his blotter. The canteen lunch felt like a bowling ball in his stomach.
He poked at Bowles’ key ring with a pencil. There were keys to his room and file cabinet, and two others that looked like house keys. He took out a handkerchief to examine the wallet, but changed his mind. There was no crime here, no need for precautions over fingerprints. The typed note still bothered him slightly, but given what he had learned about Simon Bowles’ personality, it could be explained.
During lunch he had found himself ruminating on the note, irked by the knowledge that whereas you could fake a suicide, you couldn’t fake a suicide note in someone else’s handwriting. But you could use a typewriter. Should he have dusted the machine, just to be sure?
Years of training had made him rehearse these possibilities. What was Bowles’ latest research project? Was it connected to his death? Had a third party been involved in the suicide, by contrivance or coercion? Some of these questions would be answered by the post mortem report, which would show any unusual circumstances in the cause of death.
But then, if Bowles’ death had been somehow induced, it would be foolish to draw attention by typing a fake note. Just leave no note. After all, Bowles had attempted suicide before. As he stared at Bowles’ meager belongings he was puzzled why these questions still nagged at him. Something about the college—Beecroft, Hawken and Davies—made him uneasy. Had Hawken and Davies insisted on bringing Bowles under the tutor’s wing out of concern for his welfare, or from other motives? Certainly, the suicide was shocking, but the reactions of both men seemed exaggerated. Davies was able to identify the Russell poster, but by his own account had not visited Bowles’ room in almost two years. A good memory, simply? And then his thoughts would turn to the note, the incongruity of it.
The state of the room had swayed him, finally. No clothes lying around, no dirty ashtrays, no books or papers out of place. Bowles was a fastidious type. He had set the plant down carefully before climbing on to the chair and looping his belt through the plant hook. He was the type who could have rolled a sheet of paper into his type-writer and written his explanation tidily, without an error. What was it Mrs. Allen had said? So quiet and shy and neat… The thought of the stricken boy’s last moments suddenly filled him with anger and disgust, a sense of waste.
The wallet contained a little paper money, library cards, some book receipts and a dog-eared notecard with telephone numbers on it. Alan, Hugh, Lauren, Alice (work). Two of the numbers had long distance codes he did not recognize. The names were in scrawny capitals and were difficult to read. On the reverse side were a series of doodles around a question that had been overwritten again and again to make it almost illegible. It looked like, “Who flagged the fliers from Bletchley?” Derek Smailes was not sure what the reference to Bletchley meant, although he seemed to think there had been some Government offices there during the War. It was also the site of a well-known race course, which was not far from Cambridge, although a bit further than Newmarket. It seemed peculiar that Bowles might have fancied the horses. Could he have had gambling debts?
No, it seemed probable that for whatever reason, Bowles’ frightening delusions had returned and he had killed himself in panic. The thought made Smailes shudder.
He opened the spectacle case and saw a pair of black-framed glasses. The lenses looked fairly strong. Again, it seemed typical. Bowles typing his final note, and putting away his glasses carefully before climbing up on his chair for the last time.
He turned to the Sudden Death report and was relieved to find that between them Dickley and Swedenbank had got it right. Under “Death pronounced by” Ted had filled in the name of Dr. Maurice Jones, the pathologist at Addenbrookes, and not the name of Detective Sergeant Smailes. Under “Relative informed” he read the name of Alice Wentworth. Must be the sister, he thought. He decided to hand carry the report up to Dearnley, despite its routine nature. He hadn’t spoken to George since The Crowe School case, and was curious to know its disposition.
“Why’d he do it, Derek? Exam pressure, thwarted in love, any idea?”
“Not really George. Except he tried it before. Two years ago. Cracked up after his father died, and ended up at Myrtlefields.”
“Pills?”
“No, jumped out the window. Didn’t mess it up this time.”
“Any negligence? Doctors, college authorities? We’re not going to see any family suits, are we?”
“Unlikely. Apparently he’d been doing fine for the last couple of years. No wind of this at all, according
to his tutor. I’m going to interview a couple of his friends who were with him last night. Might give us more to go on.”
Smailes could tell from George’s manner that he was already losing interest in the case. As long as there was no foul play and the police were not going to get in the middle of any messy litigation, the dead student was just another statistic to George. Smailes told him about the note anyway.
George merely shrugged and glared at the SD report again, shaking his jowls at it slightly.
“Sounds like a relapse. See what the coroner’s office wants. They may want us to talk to the people out at Myrtlefields. Usually do with these ‘balance of mind’ verdicts. Just cover our arse for the inquest. You know, Derek.” He tossed the SD report into a file tray and wiped his nose and mouth methodically with a large blue handkerchief.
George Dearnley was a big man who had obviously been handsome in his youth and had managed to retain a certain swagger into his middle years. It was a matter of pride in the department that the man at the helm was married to his third wife, who was nearly twenty years younger than himself. However, George Dearnley was an aloof figure and his staff rarely discussed personal matters with him. Not even Derek Smailes, who had known him all his life.
Dearnley’s girth had spread considerably in recent years, particularly since his latest marriage, so that he could no longer sit close to his desk. But he had the nimble step of an athlete and was reputedly still a formidable tennis player. He had introduced Derek Smailes to the game, although the two of them no longer played. Dearnley’s office, a mishmash of the institutional and the personal, was full of mementos of his love of the game. His desk stood at the end of his large office, facing into it, and behind his head were calendars from equipment compavies and a large framed picture of the Cambridge police team that Dearnley had led to the county championship ten years earlier. Someone had given him a large brass tennis ball that he used as a paperweight. The coffee table at the far end of the room, next to the orange vinyl settee, held copies of Tennis magazine, along with The Economist and Police Review.
The crown of Dearnley’s bald head gave off a pale glow in the fluorescent light. He kept what was left of his hair clipped very short. He stretched back in his chair and rested his eyes on the ceiling. The polyester sheen of his blue Marks and Spencer suit made him look like a huge shark.
Smailes got up and walked to the door, holding a folder, then paused. He drummed lightly on it with his finger-tips.
“George, did you see the statements on the fraud job out at The Crowe? Swedenbank’s first go?”
“Oh yeah. I’m going to NFA that, if the bus company agrees,” said Dearnley absently.
“Yeah, seems reasonable. First offenders,” said Smailes, and to his surprise, meaning it. He suddenly realized that his earlier irritation had been misplaced, that he had been annoyed at himself in advance for arranging an embarrassment for the Chief Super. Who the hell was he to try and make George squirm? Objectively, a minor fraud involving teenage forgers and dud bus passes was not worth hauling through the courts, no matter who was involved. Any kids with clean sheets would have been given an NFA by Dearnley, he realized. But he could tell by the feigned casualness of Dearnley’s manner that he knew exactly why Smailes had asked the question, and that the connection between himself and the boy’s father was awkward for him. Smailes felt as if he had played a mean trick.
Both men looked away as the silence extended. The problem was the expectations they had for each other. Smailes thought to himself that he couldn’t have it both ways. If George had an undeclared interest in this Crowe School case, what about his own undeclared interest in George? It was never acknowledged by the two men, but they both knew it keenly, as did most of the CID detectives. He had known George Dearnley since boyhood, and had only stopped calling him Uncle George after he had joined the force. The advantages he had enjoyed at the station were subtle, but real. As she had done moments ago, Gloria usually nodded him through without an appointment when he wanted a word in private. And Dearnley, although he carefully avoided any overt favoritism, always managed to let Smailes know which way the wind was blowing from Hinchingbrooke, so he was prepared when the brass came through with policy changes. Smailes had not won his sergeant’s stripes in any record time, but he was fairly sure Dearnley went to bat for him whenever doors were closed. He was an unconventional cop, and was under no illusion that he owed some measure of his success to this unstated patronage.
Smailes had joined the police force because it had seemed inevitable, but had stayed because there was something fundamentally satisfying to him in its simple duties. He found himself confused on many issues, particularly those involving freedom and responsibility, and equity and power in general. But he was not confused about the necessity of the laws of the land, or about the desirability of enforcing them. Crooks were crooks, whether they were bullion thieves or neurotic shoplifting housewives. He felt good about catching them, about his small contribution to things being orderly and safe. Let someone else decide the bigger issues. He couldn’t even decide which way to vote.
Still, he could not claim to be at ease in the policeman’s domain. He had never understood his colleagues’ boorish preoccupation with “villains,” and their small-minded bigotries and occasional brutalities troubled him. But in his eyes, Dearnley was different, and Smailes knew he felt awkward about anything that appeared to stain the Chief Super’s motives in his eyes. He trusted Dearnley the way he trusted no one else on the force. Dearnley understood him intuitively, had known him all his life, and particularly understood his complex relationship with his father, and the mechanism of guilt and resentment that was its hinge. And Dearnley was discreet. Smailes loved to watch George in action in tight situations, the way he could accomplish awkward tasks with few words. Since Smailes’ divorce, George would occasionally ask questions about his mother, or Tracy, and even probe a little about his amorous liaisons. But mostly the two men guarded their privacy, and maintained the conventions of the junior and senior officer relationship. But Smailes was grateful he finally had a more evenhanded authority to appease, and Dearnley knew it.
He kept his voice even and looked George directly in the eye. “He did a good job, Swedenbank, for a first try. He’s going to be good,” he said.
“Good Sergeant, keep me posted,” said Dearnley, returning to the fat computer print out he had been studying when Smailes had entered.
George Dearnley waited until the Smailes’ footsteps had retreated well down the hall before looking up. “Bloody impertinence,” he said under his breath.
It was shortly after one forty-five when Smailes drew up outside St. Margaret’s, and the scene had returned to normal, bereft of bystanders and emergency vehicles. He parked his car in the space reserved for The Master, lowering the visor with its Cambridge Police CID sign. He checked in his inside pocket for his notes on the next-of-kin arrangements. The wind had dropped and Trinity Street seemed strangely calm. A woman in a headscarf passed by slowly, as if under water.
St. Margaret’s porters’ lodge felt like the waiting room of a Victorian railway station. The heat was oppressive, and there were expanses of polished wood and linoleum, and a long wooden bench against the wall where people sat with bags next to them. There was a smell of floor wax and shaving soap. Grave men in shirtsleeves and waistcoats stood behind an enormous oak counter that ran down the center of the room. From behind these men emerged Paul Beecroft, wearing his suit jacket, his face flushed and shining.
“Ah, officer, good afternoon,” he said, rounding the counter. “Let me introduce Mr. Giles Allerton and Miss Lauren Greenwald. They were with young Mr. Bowles last night in the college bar. I believe Dr. Hawken informed you.”
Beecroft indicated the bench behind Smailes. He turned to notice for the first time the two students who were waiting for him. He was struck immediately by how alike they looked, like twins. The man was twenty-one or two, slightly built with long dark hair. Allerton
wore a black blazer with a faded school badge on the breast pocket and yellow piping around the lapels and collar. Inside an open-necked white shirt he wore a white silk scarf which heightened the pallor of his face and accentuated the heavy shadow across his upper lip and chin. He had a strong brow and nose, and looked handsome and vaguely famous. He was staring blankly ahead, and glanced mutely up at Smailes when the detective sergeant turned to face him.
The woman was a few years older. She was also dressed in black with a white, open-throated shirt, and her hair fell in untidy curls onto her forehead and the collar of a black jacket. She was of similar height and build to Allerton, but her complexion was darker and her features Jewish rather than aristocratic. She wore small, round glasses like the old National Health type, and was slumped almost diagonally across the wooden bench, her hands thrust into the pockets of her jacket, staring sullenly at her black leather boots. She did not look up.
The two of them looked numb with shock, and Smailes was reminded once again that a real person, with friends, lovers and family, was dead.
He considered interviewing them both at once, to save time, but decided to stick with strict procedures. Always interview witnesses separately, he reminded himself. It was important that the stories match independently, no matter what the situation. He turned to Beecroft and asked whether Poole’s rooms were unlocked. Beecroft nodded and signalled with his eyes that he wanted a word with him privately. Smailes stepped towards him and Beecroft murmured discreetly, “Please go up and see Dr. Hawken when you have the opportunity, officer. I think he has heard from young Mr. Bowles’ sister, and needs your advice.” Smailes acknowledged the request, and turned to follow Allerton who was already leaving the lodge.
By the time they were seated, Allerton had emerged from his daze, and needed no prompting.
