I hoped not. There had been something deceptively deadly about Supt. Thwaites. I had felt that he’d been completely in control of the situation the whole time. George was silent as we left the Station, then seemed to hesitate, uncertain what to do next.
‘Did you tell him the truth, George?’
‘What’s the matter with you, Dave?’
‘I’m not happy. Shall we go on using the Renault?’
‘Where to now? Some other wild goose chase?’
‘To that point you had your fat finger on when you were studying the map. Do you want to use the Renault, I said.’
‘I suppose so, if we’re staying together.’
‘Don’t you think we should? They might not find the gun there.’
He glanced at me. ‘I could be a few yards out.’
‘You could be a mile out, with everything you say.’
He stopped dead. I turned and faced him calmly, but it was an effort. He’d got his shoulders high, his fists huge in the pockets of that black monstrosity of a coat.
‘We’d better get this straight,’ he growled. ‘So we should. You’re acting strange, George.’
‘Strange! The whole damned thing’s been strange. I never thought I’d see the time when I’d act as guard for a rapist and murderer. I tell you, I’ve just about had a bellyful of it, and for just one snap of the fingers I’d pack it in and go home.’
I grinned up at him and snapped my fingers under his nose.
His right fist emerged and dashed my hand away. ‘Right!’ he shouted. ‘That’s it!’
Normally he would have laughed with me. He turned and stalked into the rear yard of the Crown and headed for the Renault. I caught him up and grabbed at his arm. He looked at my fingers.
‘Take your hand off me, Dave.’
‘Stop acting like a spoiled child.’
‘I’m off, mate. Had it.’
‘You can’t just drive away. Your packing...What about...’
‘You can do that. It’s about your mark. Make the beds while you’re at it. And pay the bill — I’ll give you my half later. I can be fair, too, you know. Fair! I’ve had enough of your fairness. Lean over backwards, you do, seeing round things and through ‘em, never straight at ‘em. I don’t care who killed that bastard Collis. I wish him well, that’s all.’
‘All right, George, you go. When they get him — and they will, you know — I’ll pass on your good wishes. Not that they’ll do him any good. Me, I’m hanging around. Maybe I’ll help to see they get the right one. Maybe I’ll see round and through things enough to help him a bit with his defence. Who knows. But we owe Collis that much. If he was what you say, then we owe it to Collis to see that his murderer should get off as lightly as possible. George? Eh, George?’
‘You’re doing it again!’ he shouted.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Talk, talk. You blind anybody. Someday, Dave, I’m going to shut that mouth of yours.’
‘But not today.’
‘Oh...come on. You can bet those coppers’ll never even find the place.’
Emotion ruins driving ability. George is a little hairy at the best of times, but now, his arms tense with the anger that hadn’t really drained away, he took corners as an afterthought, and seemed to have forgotten where Monsieur Renault had put the footbrake.
The frost had gone and there had been no more snow. Only in the deepest corners of the hedgerows was it still lying. The gutters ran deep. The squad of policemen were wearing waders in the ditch.
George parked the car a bit short. He got out and scowled and watched them, as Thwaites strolled up. He must have moved fast, but police drivers can really cut through traffic when they wish.
‘About here?’
‘I was moving a bit fast.’
‘From that direction?’
George nodded. ‘Fletcher’s got the end one of four terraced houses.’
‘I know where Fletcher lives. Fast, you say. Running scared, they call it.’
‘Shall we just say I was angry?’ But calm now, coldly polite.
‘There was nothing said about anger. Why were you angry?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘It could do.’
‘That bullying pig! And he was proud of it. Have you spoken to Jonas Fletcher?’
‘I have his statement. Also, of course, I had considerable dealings with him when his child died.’
‘Tina,’ I said. ‘His step-child.’
‘They seemed very close. Yes, I know Jonas Fletcher.’
And did you ask him,’ George demanded, ‘why his precious Tina would be out at that time? This is country. No buses around here. No cafés. There’d be nowhere for her to go.’
‘He’d taken the strap to her,’ said Thwaites. ‘His own phrase.’
George stared beyond him and said nothing.
‘But she’d have been back,’ I said. They looked at me. ‘Fletcher said that. It seemed to matter.’
There was a short silence. Then George said: ‘It’s the wrong ditch.’
‘What?’
‘They’re searching what was my near-side ditch. I threw it out of the driver’s window...remember?’
‘Then why did you stand and watch...’
‘Just wondering how long it’d be before you realised.’
George had shaken Thwaites’s control. He stalked away, and we heard him testily taking it out of the uniformed sergeant. It relaxed George. He turned to me, smiling.
‘Nothing about that on the tape, Dave.’
‘You mean about Fletcher? It didn’t seem important.’
‘Why did it matter to him that she would have been back?’
I laughed. ‘George, George! Who was it said we shouldn’t look round and through?’
‘Can’t I make an observation?’
‘You’re a fraud. A sentimental old fraud.’
‘It was further this way, I’m sure.’
And he walked away, to take charge of the search calmly, to stand in the road and look round, and order them all a hundred yards along. A throwback to the old days; George wanted that gun. He’d been a weapon expert for the Midlands. The lure died hard.
Just before dusk they found it. A copper lifted his head with a cry of triumph, waving a double-barrelled 12-bore.
They clustered round. I remained with the car. Thwaites took it tenderly in his gloved hands, broke it open, snapped it shut again, then bore it off to his own car.
George walked back to the Renault. He seemed subdued; a reaction from the short-lived success. Police cars were streaming past us back to town.
He made no attempt to get in. ‘It’d been fired. One barrel.’
‘They’ll be delighted. You said nothing of this, George.’
‘How the devil would I know it’d been fired?’
‘If it was fired at you, I meant, you’d know. People do. It’s quite an experience.’
‘You’re not very funny. It was not fired at me.’
‘You play things down, that’s your trouble.’ Did Fletcher say he’d fired it at me?’
‘No. But he might, if we press him.’
‘I tell you...’
‘Don’t you see how important this is? If it was not fired at that time, it’s been fired since. Simple. And the only time since could have been into Collis’s chest.’
‘But I’ve just told you, Fletcher did not fire it at me.’
‘I believe you, George. As things are, I’d be excused for not doing so, but seeing that Fletcher can confirm it...’
He broke in dangerously. ‘Are you going to question Fletcher to check on me?’
‘I intend to ask him if it’d been fired before you went to see him.’
He thumped the car roof with his fist. ‘You’re going too far.’
‘Let’s go ask him.’
George angrily got into the driver’s seat and stabbed at the throttle when the engine caught.
‘And if it hadn’t, big-head, what then?�
�
‘Well then, I’m afraid we’re going to have to wonder how Collis’s murderer managed to find the gun, when a squad of coppers took nearly two hours.’
He glanced at me. ‘It doesn’t have to be the same gun. They’ve all got shotguns, around here.’
‘That’s so. But all the same, I’d like to ask.’
But we had spent too much time arguing, and Thwaites had beaten us to it. Or rather, Williamson had. Neither of us had spotted the one police car heading away from us. It was now standing outside the gate to the four terraces.
A local farmer, probably at the turn of the century from the look of them, had decided to build four farmworkers’ cottages on a small knoll a hundred yards back from the road. Possibly he reckoned that they did not deserve protection from the elements. A farm gate opened onto a straight, churned driveway that led up the knoll. The cottages were nakedly exposed, no fences, no hedges, no gardens, just a bare expanse of battered earth forming enough of a yard to sling a clothes line across.
The squad car was parked down on the road. Williamson was just swinging the wide gate shut after him as he came out.
‘The Super said you’d be along. He told me: Sergeant, be polite. Tell them what Fletcher says, the Super said. So I’m telling you. No, Fletcher did not fire the gun. Put two new cartridges in, and did not fire it. So there you are. No point in troubling him.’
‘No point?’ said George, watching the police car drive away. ‘Of course there’s a point.’
‘You wouldn’t get anywhere with that Fletcher character.’
George had his hand on the gate. ‘Perhaps nobody’s tried hard enough. He took a strap to his girl; perhaps somebody ought to do the same to him.’
‘Now, George!’
There was a shout from up by the house. We looked up. The lights were on in the end one, none in the others. Perhaps they were empty. A figure, no more than a shadow, was running down the drive towards us.
‘You get your bloody hand off my gate!’
George left it on. Jonas Fletcher came running up. He was panting; he would be, with that chest.
‘I’ve said all I’m goin’ to, to the police,’ he gasped. ‘You take your dirty great fist off my gate.’
George glanced at me. ‘Impetuous, ain’t he?’ He turned back to Fletcher. ‘If I lift this fist from here, friend, there’s only one place it’s going.’
Fletcher took a step back. George grinned. ‘I’m not answerin’ any more questions.’
‘Nobody’s asking. You’re not very important, Fletcher.’
‘Questions, questions. Why can’t they let my Tina lie in peace?’
‘Tina?’ said George, interested. ‘Did the sergeant ask—’
‘That Thwaites...’
‘He’s been here?’
‘At the Station. You daft or somethin’? I reckon he must be. Got me there to ask about Collis, and where was I at the time...’
‘And where was that?’
‘Ask him,’ Fletcher snarled. ‘If you won’t listen...’ He looked sullen.
‘We’re not really interested, are we, Dave?’
‘And besides,’ I said, ‘we don’t believe a word of it. Why should he go on about Tina? That was a year ago. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Well he did. He did!’ Fletcher almost howled. ‘Why’d he do that? You tell me. You two got the knowhow.’
And I could see that it really worried him.
‘Do we owe him any favours, George?’
‘I can’t think of any.’
‘I got a few cans of beer,’ said Fletcher in invitation.
George laughed. He released his grip from the gate and reached over to pat Fletcher gently on the cheek. ‘But how could we do that, friend Fletcher? We’d be your guests, in your own home, so how could we beat you up, in that event, and force you to tell us the truth?’
‘There ain’t any truth to tell.’
‘Not from you.’
‘That ain’t what I meant. You got me all mixed up.’
‘So what’d be the point, if you’re all mixed up? Don’t worry about it. Nobody’s pushing you. We can get the truth from other people. Come on, Dave.’
‘Heh...’
‘Some other time, perhaps.’
Then stubbornly George marched back to the Renault, and though I hung behind for a moment, hungry for the chance that was slipping away, I knew that George would as soon as not drive away and leave me.
I slid in beside him.
‘Why did you do that?’
‘Scared him a bit. It doesn’t do any harm.’
‘We could’ve had a friendly chat with him. Who knows, with a few beers in him he might’ve relaxed enough. We might even have heard the truth of what happened that night when Tina died.’
‘It’s past history. What we’ve got to think about is Collis’s murder.’
‘That’s occurred to you, has it?’
‘And we can always go back again.’
‘He might not be in the same mood, next time.’
‘I meant when he’s out. I reckon it’d be that road on the right.’
‘Where to?’ He was getting me confused. ‘Firbelow.’
‘Why when he’s out?’ I refused to be diverted.
‘When he’s in, he’s not going to let us go upstairs. Dave, you are getting dim. Didn’t you see that one bedroom window in the end wall? It faces towards the place where I threw the gun away, and it’s way up high. I just thought an idea, Dave, I do get ‘em, you know — I thought I’d like to stand at that window, while you drove back there, and there’s just a chance you can see it, over the trees.’
‘You’re crafty, George.’
‘Ain’t I?’
‘If he’d seen where you threw it, then rescued it, and eventually used it on Collis...’
‘What I thought.’
‘Then, George, if he’d got any sense at all, and he’s not stupid, he’d have cleaned it and replaced it with a new shell case in, back there in the ditch. And it’d have looked just the same as when you threw it away.’
‘Cold water, Dave. Who’s tossing it now?’
‘I just get the idea you’re casting around, looking for confusing side-issues, and generally messing things up.’
‘Just as long as you know whose side I’m on.’
‘And why are we now going to see Delia Collis?’
‘She knew Tina. I’m just wondering how. And if Collis did. Perhaps Delia can tell us why Tina went out that night.’
I looked sideways at him. The dashlights threw up at his face, and produced something wicked.
‘She may not be prepared to discuss Tina’s death. What we’ve got to concentrate on is her husband’s.’
‘Is it, Dave?’
‘If you weren’t driving I’d knock that smile off your face.’
‘Smile? Was I smiling? It must be a trick of the light.’
CHAPTER NINE
The gate was open invitingly and there was no sign of Major. Life had returned to normal at Firbelow. Well...not quite normal, perhaps.
We were able to drive right up to the house, and Delia had heard the car because she had the front door open as we climbed out. Major had his head thrusting forward under her armpit. He gave a welcoming woff when he saw George.
Delia seemed to be staring past us. It was now quite dark, so that there was nothing to see. But she frowned into the darkness.
Did you notice anybody?’
George extricated himself from Major long enough to ask who she meant.
‘It’s why I brought Major inside,’ she explained. ‘There’s no feeling of...of hatred, you understand. Nothing now, out there. But I got the impression there’s somebody...I’m sure I’ve seen movement by the gate. But if I walk down, there’s nothing.’
‘So you left the gate open as a kind of invitation?’ I asked. She seemed completely unconcerned, so she had no fear.
‘It’s almost as though he wants to speak, but he’s t
oo afraid. Or too shy.’
‘You say he. Nowadays it’s difficult to tell.’
‘I saw a man’s bicycle, by the trees opposite.’
I looked at George, but he seemed inclined to belittle it. ‘If there’s anything he wanted to say, he could phone.’
His tone was dismissive. She considered him with uncertainty. Up to that moment she had seemed quite normal, but George had jolted her back to the reality of murder.
‘But do come in. I’ll make some tea.’
‘We only dropped by in passing,’ I told her.
‘All the same...’ She made for the kitchen, and we obediently followed. ‘I insist.’ Her voice became sharp. ‘We can talk in the kitchen, if that’s what you want.’
‘We’d love tea, wouldn’t we George?’
He grunted. The kitchen was a modern, labour-saving triumph of ingenuity, which would probably take only a month or two to learn how to manage. The electric kettle, I thought, probably worked by radio or laser beam; there was no cord. Then I realised that the cupboard top on which it was standing was a cooker, and what I had taken to be a cooker was in fact an infra-red or ultrasonic or something like that device for spitting a whole hog.
Major sprawled on the patterned, polished floor. She conjured cups and saucers from a sliding hole in the wall.
‘I’m so glad you came,’ she said, flashing us a smile over her shoulder. ‘It’s been on my conscience. I suppose I do worry about things, but I’ve kind of got this obsession to clear everything away — debts and things — and start again from scratch.’
‘A very good idea, too.’ She would certainly have to start again, and live her own life. It was just a little soon, that was all, to become so practical.
‘So I’ll give you a cheque, and that’ll be the end of it.’
‘That wasn’t why we came, Mrs. Collis.’
‘Now, now. We don’t have to be polite, do we! I mean, it’s business. It’s your business, and you’ve got to live.’
‘There’s no hurry at all. A statement...in the post...’
‘I want to get clear of it.’ Her head was down, but there was no need to read her expression. Her voice was breaking in her attempt to control it.
‘There’ll be expenses to calculate.’
Then she looked up. Her eyes were violent. ‘Take a round figure. I don’t care. Any figure.’
The Bright Face of Danger Page 9
