Amy's Seaside Secret

by Pam Weaver

  ‘Your budget?’ the inspector shouted. ‘For God’s sake, man. This is not the time to be thinking about budgets. Make the cuts somewhere else. I’ll be here first thing tomorrow morning, so make sure you get the car out.’

  As he headed for the corridor, Inspector Fry turned back and said to Amy, ‘Don’t forget to bring your wellingtons, my dear. I expect you to come along, too.’

  Chapter 8

  Rita was waiting for Amy as she came off-duty. Amy had explained about the training sessions they were having after work for the Shrove Tuesday Lark in the Park pancake race and her sister had said she would come along. The race was only three days away, so tonight they were practising in Homefield Park. Each runner carried a torch and Mr Dixon had marked the course with various items of clothing. It wasn’t far, but doing it in almost total darkness was quite a challenge. The girls had reported several incidents at work when the men had been awkward, but every encounter only encouraged them to be all the more determined.

  With the severe shortage of eggs and milk, they had decided to run with imitation pancakes. To that end, Martha and her friend Pat, who worked in the Red Cross shop, had found some silky material, frayed and too damaged to sell. They had fashioned it into pancake shapes and put a layer of kapok between. Everybody agreed that they looked very realistic.

  Rita was made to feel very welcome by the group and she joined in the warm-up session. For once, everything went really well.

  ‘I feel quite chuffed about all this,’ said Amy as she and Rita linked arms to walk home. ‘How did you get on with the petty thefts and the case of the missing party dress?’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Rita, ‘that was very interesting. When I read through the witness statements, only one thing stood out.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Amy, ‘and what was that?’

  ‘The time of day when the thefts took place,’ said Rita. ‘With the exception of the bags of coal, they all took place around four o’clock.’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed that,’ Amy admitted. ‘So what do we deduce from that, my dear Watson?’

  Rita giggled. ‘An opportunist on his way home from work perhaps?’

  ‘Bit early for that,’ Amy mused. ‘Most people knock off work at five-thirty or six o’clock.’ She paused. ‘You really mean to say everything was taken at that time? What about the milk from the doorstep?’

  ‘That’s the only theft that doesn’t fit,’ said Rita.

  ‘No one has come forward for the wheelchair, either,’ said Amy. ‘That’s a bit odd, don’t you think? Surely if you had need of one, you’d notice when it wasn’t there anymore.’ She squeezed her sister’s arm. ‘Oh, I do wish you could stay a bit longer.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Rita. ‘I enjoyed sifting through those papers. I’m beginning to see why you like the idea of being a detective.’

  ‘You’ll have to give up policing when you get married,’ said Amy.

  ‘I’m not a career woman like you,’ said Rita. ‘I’m looking forward to being a wife.’

  ‘Not me,’ Amy said stoutly.

  ‘You will, when the right man comes along,’ said Rita. ‘In the meantime, let’s be grateful for small mercies. At least we’re all still here.’

  ‘Has it been really bad at home?’

  ‘It’s nothing like as bad as the Blitz,’ said Rita, ‘but we’re still getting a pasting. Mum is a bundle of nerves at times.’

  ‘Every time I write to her,’ said Amy, ‘I try and persuade her to come to Worthing for a break.’

  ‘You know Mum,’ said Rita with a chuckle. ‘She won’t leave Dad.’

  ‘I know,’ said Amy. All their married life, her fire-fighting dad had come home to a loving wife and a hot meal. Her parents were devoted to each other. She and Rita had never had a lot when they were growing up, but they were a close-knit family. Their brother Charlie was the oldest, followed by Rita. Amy was the baby of the family. When the war started, Amy was almost eighteen but still too young to be called up, so she had followed her sister into the Met. To begin with, policing was a reserved occupation but, as the years rolled by, not even seasoned officers were exempt from the call-up. But what was one person’s dark cloud was another person’s silver lining. While Rita had been content to stay in the office typing memos and reports, Amy was a lot more ambitious.

  After their meal, the sisters looked over the witness statements together. They weren’t official documents, of course. Sergeant Goble had made it abundantly clear that he had no time for what amounted to a Paul Temple mystery, but Amy had treated it as if it were a genuine exercise.

  ‘I think you’re right about the timing,’ she said. ‘And I’d forgotten it was a windy day when that dress went missing.’

  ‘Is that significant?’ asked Rita, puzzled.

  ‘It could have blown off the line,’ said Amy. ‘Why didn’t they take any of the other washing? According to her statement, the woman had a piece of parachute silk hanging out to dry. The women make underwear out of it, and that’s like gold dust around here.’

  ‘It sounds as if you’ve got a shrewd idea who the thief is,’ said Rita.

  ‘I haven’t a clue who he is,’ said Amy, ‘but as you’ve pointed out, certain aspects don’t quite fit into the pattern, like the milk going from the doorstep.’

  ‘Beats me,’ said Rita.

  Wally’s stomach growled. He was starving hungry and perishing cold as well. Every part of him wanted to go back home, but he couldn’t bear to see his mother’s face. What would she say when she knew he’d been to Granddad’s old church and stolen the lead from the roof? Stealing from a church was like stealing from God. As he sat down on a pile of rags, hot tears coursed down his dirty cheeks. She’d say he’d been in league with the devil; that he’d committed an unforgivable sin. He had never felt so miserable in his life. What was he going to do?

  The door creaked open and Wally leapt to his feet as torchlight shone into his face.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Wally couldn’t see his inquisitor, but he could tell by the sound of his voice that he was only young.

  ‘More to the point,’ said Wally, gaining the upper hand by the authority in his own voice, ‘what are you doing here?’

  Several other boys pushed their way into the shed.

  ‘Stop shoving,’ said the first boy.

  ‘It’s Barry, isn’t it?’ said Wally. ‘Barry Antell.’

  ‘So what if it is,’ said Barry defiantly. ‘You better not have squashed our jewels.’

  The boys were all from South Farm Road and were nicknamed ‘The Farmers’. There were about six or seven of them and they had gained a reputation for being scavengers. What they couldn’t give to the war effort, they sold for a few pennies. Barry Antell, a freckle-faced kid with frizzy ginger hair, had become a bit of a spiv, even at ten years old. People joked that at the rate he was going, he’d be the next J. Paul Getty, but he had a good heart.

  ‘Got anything to eat?’ The boys shook their heads and Wally’s heart sank. One lad handed him a bottle with a dribble of cherryade in the bottom, and Wally swigged it back gratefully.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Barry asked.

  Wally gave them a quick résumé. ‘If I go back home,’ he explained, ‘my dad says he’ll take it out on my mum.’

  The boys nodded sympathetically.

  ‘You can’t sleep here,’ said Barry. ‘You’ll freeze to death.’

  ‘Take him to the old sailor’s place,’ someone said.

  ‘Who’s the old sailor?’

  ‘He’s got a tattoo shop just down the road,’ said Barry. ‘He lives on his own and he smells a bit iffy, but he’s harmless enough.’

  ‘He’s got a back room, and I know for a fact that he had a deserter there once,’ said the boy who had suggested the sailor’s place.

  ‘That’s cos it was his son,’ said Herbert Herkless, a boy with a constantly runny nose.

  ‘I still think he’d help.’

  ‘
We ought to ask him first,’ said Herbert.

  They agreed that’s what they’d do, and Herbert set off. The other boys emptied their pockets. Between them they managed to rustle up fourpence ha’penny, so one of the younger lads was dispatched to the local chippy. At the end of the day all the leftover bits of batter, pieces of fish too small to sell and any over-cooked chips were put into bags, which you could buy for a penny. The boy came back with four bags, which they shared out.

  While Wally tackled his banquet supper, Herbert came back to say that the old sailor would take Wally in for the night. A little later his protectors – all of them at least a foot shorter than he was – escorted him to the tattoo shop. Wally had never felt so grateful in his life.

  Chapter 9

  Amy sat in the back of the police car next to Sergeant Goble. He was not a happy man. She could see that his belligerent stance over Lettuce Bottomley had made him look foolish in the eyes of Inspector Fry, and having her sitting next to him rubbed salt into the wound. The inspector was in the front passenger seat and, much to her consternation, PC Perkins was the driver.

  They pulled up outside the Blue Bird Cafe about twenty minutes after leaving Worthing, having got lost on the roads leading to the sea. The whole of the beach was cordoned off with barbed wire and with large notices in English and German warning of land mines. There probably weren’t any mines, but the notices were there to deter any would-be invaders.

  Inspector Fry led the investigations and it didn’t take long to ascertain that Vera Bottomley was indeed the winner of an accumulated bet and a considerable amount of money.

  ‘Did she collect her winnings?’

  The manager, a Canadian called Donald, checked with his colleague, an Englishman called Pete, and said, ‘No, she hadn’t been in.’

  ‘We’ve been led to believe she turned up just as you were closing,’ said the inspector.

  ‘She never came,’ said Donald. ‘We heard she’d fallen in the river. I never saw her, anyway.’

  ‘Mind if we have a look around?’ the inspector asked, and he was answered with a shrug.

  There was nothing untoward in the cafe, although Amy found a hair comb down by the seat in the ladies’ toilet, which was a bucket under a wooden seat, rather unpleasant; but there was no sign of a scuffle. When she came back into the cafe, Amy put the comb on the counter. The Canadian’s face paled. No one else seemed to notice, but Amy thought that was odd. Why should the sight of a hair comb rattle him like that?

  ‘You had no intention of giving her the money, did you?’ she said coldly.

  The man gave her an indignant stare. ‘I don’t know what you mean, lady.’

  Sergeant Goble came up to her. ‘What you up to now, ’Obbs?’

  ‘I was just talking about Vera Bottomley and the case of the missing hair comb, sir,’ she said.

  As the sergeant picked it up and turned it over in his hands, Amy was watching the manager’s face. His breathing had quickened slightly but, more interestingly, his colleague Pete looked as if he was having kittens. Clearly something had happened to Vera on the premises, and this man was the weak link.

  ‘What’s the penalty for theft, Serge?’ she said, never taking her eyes from Pete’s face.

  ‘Three to five years,’ said the sergeant, holding the comb up to the light.

  ‘And for murder?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll swing for that,’ said the sergeant. ‘No doubt about it.’

  Pete let out a high-pitched squeak. ‘I’m not hanging for nobody,’ he cried. ‘I had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Shut up, you fool!’ Donald hissed.

  Sergeant Goble’s head shot up. ‘You two done her in, didn’t you? She came here for her winnings, and you done the poor old duck in!’

  There was a short scuffle, before Sergeant Goble managed to put the cuffs on Donald’s wrists. Amy held tightly onto Pete’s sleeve, but it was obvious he didn’t want to make a run for it. He put his head on the counter and sobbed.

  Inspector Fry and PC Perkins, who had both been in the small office next to the canteen kitchen, came through the swing door in a bit of a rush. ‘What’s going on here?’

  PC Perkins glared at Amy. ‘Whatever it is,’ he said, ‘this silly mare always did have ideas above her station.’

  ‘Sergeant Goble has discovered that Mrs Bottomley was here, sir,’ said Amy.

  Inspector Fry was holding a piece of paper. ‘Oh yes, she was here all right,’ he said, waving it aloft. ‘Here’s the proof that she had the money. All signed for.’

  ‘I didn’t touch her,’ cried Donald. ‘I swear, on my mother’s life, and I never took a penny of her money.’

  After Sergeant Goble had arrested Donald on suspicion of the murder of Vera Bottomley, it was decided that they should take him back to the station for questioning. PC Perkins would drive, with the inspector, of course, in the front passenger seat, so that the prisoner could sit in the back with Sergeant Goble. Amy was left to wait with the terrified Pete for the returning car.

  It was obvious that Pete had no interest in making a run for it, but he was eager to tell his side of the story and clear his conscience.

  ‘Somebody brought her here that night,’ he said. ‘I’ve no idea who it was, but we were just closing up. Donald gave her the dosh and they had a drink to celebrate. Vera was good like that. Always shared her good fortune.’

  ‘Did someone bring her in a car,’ said Amy, ‘or did they push her in the wheelchair?’

  Pete shrugged.

  ‘Did you hear a car driving off, by any chance?’

  Pete shook his head. Amy frowned. That was odd, because Vera must have come by car. If she had gone via the river path, the wheelchair – and in particular the wheels – would have been muddy, but the pub landlady said she hadn’t touched the wheelchair, and Amy had seen for herself that the wheels were clean.

  ‘So how did she get home?’ asked Amy.

  ‘Donald offered to walk her back. She didn’t even have a walking stick, and it’s very slippery down by the river bank.’

  Amy toyed with a beer mat on the table. ‘If you had nothing to do with Vera’s disappearance, when did you realize something was wrong?’

  ‘When he came back and offered me a few quid to keep shtum,’ said Pete.

  ‘So you knew she was dead. Why didn’t you go to the police?’

  Pete looked away. ‘I’ve got a crippled daughter,’ he said. ‘She loves to go down there by the bank and watch the herons and egrets. Donald kept dropping hints about how easy it was to slip in the river and how someone like her, with calipers on her legs, would never be able to get out alive.’ He hung his head. ‘What’s going to happen to me now? And what’s going to happen to my girl?’

  ‘I can’t say,’ Amy admitted. ‘You have concealed a crime, but if you tell the officers the truth, with a bit of luck they will take everything into account.’ And she hoped, with all her heart, that DC Cooper didn’t do the interview. He was about as sympathetic as a barn door.

  Just as the police car arrived back again, a woman came into the cafe. ‘What’s going on?’

  Pete told her briefly what had happened, but she didn’t seem surprised. ‘I always knew Donald was a wrong ’un,’ she said. ‘It won’t be the first time he’s pinched money off people since he’s been here.’ She hung her coat on top of another on the door, then went behind the bar to do some washing up.

  ‘Whose coat is that under yours?’ asked Amy.

  The woman pulled a face. ‘No idea.’

  ‘Can I see it?’ asked Amy.

  The woman brought it to her, and Amy unfolded it. There, under the collar, was a piece of tape sewn to the fabric. Someone had written a name on it in Indian ink: V. Bottomley. Amy felt a frisson of excitement. The pieces were coming together at last.

  As the woman wiped the bar with a dishcloth, she spotted the hair comb. ‘Oh!’ she cried. ‘That’s mine. Where was it?’

  ‘Yours?’ said Pete.

&
nbsp; ‘It was in the ladies’ toilets,’ said Amy.

  ‘Thanks,’ said the woman, pushing it into her hair.

  ‘I thought you said it belonged to Vera?’ Pete accused Amy.

  ‘I think you’ll find I simply made a remark about Vera and the missing comb,’ said Amy. ‘I knew someone – presumably this lady here – kept the toilet clean. She would have found the comb ages ago, if it had been Vera’s. Besides, Vera’s hair wasn’t long enough to fit in a comb.’

  Pete regarded her with a look of new-found respect. ‘Clever, ain’t yer?’

  Chapter 10

  On the day of the pancake race, it was business as usual at the police station. On the Sunday before, Amy had bid a tearful farewell to her sister, who had to report for duty in the morning.

  ‘I wish you could have stayed to see the race,’ she told her, as Rita leaned out of the carriage window and Amy stood on the platform, waiting for the train to move off.

  ‘So do I,’ said Rita, ‘because I’m sure you’ll win, and I’d love to see the men’s red faces.’

  The train juddered as it got ready to go. ‘Thanks for coming,’ Amy called. ‘Give my love to Mum and Dad.’

  Amy spent a restless night thinking about her sister and her mum and dad. For the first time since she’d arrived in Worthing, she felt homesick. Although she did her work as usual on the Monday, her mind was elsewhere. At the end of January the Germans had commenced another wave of bombing over London, nicknamed by the newspapers the ‘Baby Blitz’. More than 400 enemy bombers had raided the capital throughout the night. By dawn nearly a hundred people lay dead, and Londoners had experienced the kind of destruction they thought they’d never see again. The raids were still going on now, with the same lethal effect, but being in Sussex, Amy had become a little detached. Having spent time with Rita, though, and hearing about the losses of people she knew, the seriousness of the matter had become much more real. She began to dread that she would get a telegram to say that her home had been hit. What if she never saw her parents and sister again? She was aware that this maudlin thinking was pulling her down, but somehow she couldn’t stop herself. Damn this war, and damn you, Hitler! Having always prided herself on her resilience, Amy found that her pillow had been damp with silent tears for the past two nights.