The Trebelzue Gate

by Anna Fitzwilliam

  ‘Jones, I’d like you to see what you can find out about this man, you’ll have to go through MoD in Whitehall. Captain Simon Nyland, he’s here on loan from the Army, he’s probably a Russian specialist. His last posting was Germany, Osnabrück. Now, is there any news of the car?’

  Ellery looked up, ‘On that, M’am, we’ve had a call from Mr Bardolph, one of the vets in St Columb, he reckons he saw her on Tuesday evening, he was rushing to a calving out St Merryn way. Toy’s gone to see him now, to take a statement.’

  Monica was back at her desk when Jones came to the doorway.

  ‘Problem, M’am,’ she said.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘The MoD – I got through all right, and they put me on to the right section, at least I think they did, but then someone came on the line and said they were unable to help, not without a signal from a higher authority. I asked them what that meant and whoever it was said surely I ought to know it had to be chief constable or above.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t sure what to say M’am, and then they cut me off anyway.’

  ‘All right, leave it with me. Meanwhile, see if you can get through to that bunker number Squadron Leader Gentleman gave us, maybe they’ll be able to tell us where we might find Captain Nyland.’

  When Jones had gone Monica took from her handbag a small blue leather covered address book. The covers inside were lined with marble patterned paper. The cut-out sections at the edges of the pages were lettered alternately in red and black. On an otherwise blank page between the sections for O and P Garth’s handwriting, moderated to fit the little book, had once pencilled some dashes and letters. ‘Crossword clue for you to work out, if ever you need me at the office. You like puzzles,’ he had said. She sat looking at the page and then she dialled the telephone number suggested by the dashes. The call was answered by a woman’s voice announcing, briskly, ‘Accounts Office’. Monica said

  ‘My name is Monica Guard, I would like to speak to Anthony Sheldon please.’

  She waited to the point where she suspected that the line had been disconnected but then a voice said

  ‘Monica, long time no squeak! How lovely to hear from you.’

  She had met only three of Garth’s colleagues, Anthony Sheldon was one. He and Garth had worked together since the war. Several times Anthony had invited them to his house at Remenham where one ground floor room was given over to his music collection. He had a French wife named Laure, a serenely elegant woman with dark hair in a chignon, she wore full skirts and ballet pumps. There were two or three small children and a Bedlington terrier who stole socks. They used to load the youngest child and the terrier into an old coach-built pram and go to drink gin in the garden of the Flower Pot.

  Monica and Anthony spoke of Garth.

  ‘He’s not too good, I fear, is he?’ said Anthony

  ‘Have you seen him?’ she asked.

  ‘Not for some time, but Personnel, you know, they always like to keep an eye. And now my dear, how are you, I believe there’s been a promotion?’

  ‘There has, yes, I’m in Cornwall now,’

  ‘Bad luck,’ he said.

  Once, unexpectedly, she had bumped into Anthony at Clapham Junction, one of the side roads near Arding and Hobbs. A late afternoon in winter, the market traders in Northcote Road had lit lamps so that each stall became its own stage. A week later the BBC news had broken the story about the deportation of two Russian spies, a married couple who had been living quietly in Battersea.

  ‘Yes, well … I hope you won’t mind, but I would like to ask a favour. I am leading a murder investigation, there’s a person of interest – he’s Army, name of Simon Nyland. His last posting was Osnabrück, but I can’t find out anything about him. MoD just sent my WPC away with a flea in her ear.’

  ‘Dear, dear, that won’t do. This case of yours, I presume it’s the one on a rather touchy doorstep?’

  ‘That’s the one,’

  ‘Leave it with me, I’ll see what I can turn up.’

  Monica thanked him.

  ‘Don’t mention it. I do think of dear Garth, you know, often. Next time you see him tell him I’ve a new recording of Wanda Wiłkomirska, he and I went to hear her play at Wigmore Hall, about a thousand years ago. Better than that, tell him I’ll call in and see him one of these days and take it for him to listen to.’

  When she had replaced the receiver she lit a cigarette and tried to put from her thoughts the two different but certain null values of memory in their conversation: Anthony would not remember to call in to the nursing home with the L.P., Garth would have no memory of the concert at Wigmore Hall.

  ‘We’re working on the list that Bazeley brought over, M’am, the sex offenders,’ said Ellery, ‘We’re checking up on all of them all, there was two convicted living close by. First was a kitchen porter at one of the big hotels in Newquay, but he’s gone back to Liverpool, the other one’s from St Dennis, we’re still chasing him.’

  ‘Good, carry on with that. Any more news on her car?’

  ‘Still out looking, M’am.’

  She turned to Sergeant Bee ‘Right, we’ve given the family a period of grace, it’s time to tell them about the pregnancy, we also need to go through the girl’s room properly.’

  At the Mermaid Hotel there was no one at the reception desk. Sergeant Bee tapped on the door of the office but it was empty. Then Roxanna appeared from the kitchen, her expression was dull and tired.

  ‘Just wondering where everyone was,’ said the sergeant affably.

  ‘It’s our quiet time,’ she said, as though his remark had been accusatory.

  ‘It’s a welcome break, I’m sure,’

  ‘Providing the sun shines, so that they all stay on the beach, it is. When it rains the guests hang around here all day, demanding board games and cream teas.’

  Irritably she opened and closed one of the desk drawers.

  ‘Do you need my mother? I’ll buzz up to her suite.’

  They climbed two flights of the wide oak staircase to a side landing and knocked at a door with a Private sign. Mrs Shute called for them to come in, she was standing in front of a large wall mirror, smoothing the lacquered bouffant back of her hair. She turned to them with a brief professional smile

  ‘That was good timing, I was just about to go back downstairs,’

  ‘Have you been working as normal Madam?’ the sergeant asked.

  She raised her eyebrows slightly, ‘Of course, what else would I be doing? May I offer you a drink? No? Well I think shall, if nobody minds.’

  A galleried tray bearing a rank of bottles stood on a side table. She mixed herself a gin and Dubonnet and came to sit opposite them in a high-backed wing chair.

  ‘Well Inspector, are there any developments?’

  ‘We are following several lines of enquiry. We issued a brief press statement yesterday, as you may be aware.’

  ‘Of course, but I imagine that everybody within a fifty-mile radius knew already. They always do, in Cornwall - jungle drums.’

  ‘We also spoke to your daughter Alexa yesterday,’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘She gave us to understand that there were some problems when Amanda was a teenager.’

  ‘She did, did she? Well, I don’t know whether you have children of your own, Inspector, but personally I found that it was all a great deal more difficult than one could possibly have imagined. They don’t come with a manual, unfortunately,’ she sighed, ‘I don’t know, perhaps I am just not blessed with maternal instincts. We are supposed to be, aren’t we, as women?’

  She lifted her glass and Monica watched for any tremor in her hand, there was none.

  ‘Anyway, yes, what Alexa told you was quite correct. There were problems when Amanda was a teenager, probably even earlier than that. She became quite wild, out of control, ran us all ragged. I certainly couldn’t manage her. At one stage I arranged for her to go up to stay in Scotland – Roxanna’s then husba
nd had been posted to RAF Kinloss - but that didn’t work out. Then I sent her off to boarding school, a good one too, but again, not a success.’

  ‘Did she show an aptitude for any particular subjects?’

  ‘None whatsoever, she was a complete dunce, oh, except for drama, apparently she used to be a big hit in the school plays.’

  ‘Did you not see the plays?’

  ‘No, quite impossible - Somerset and back for an evening of amateur dramatics is hardly practical for someone with a business to run.’

  ‘I gather she left school early,’

  ‘That’s one way of putting it, I suppose, let’s not beat about the bush – she was expelled.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Nominally, for going out at night to meet a boy, there was actually a long list of misdemeanours – drinking, smoking, damage to school premises …’

  ‘Alexa told us that she went into modelling after school, did she settle down?’

  ‘Amanda dabbled in modelling, it would be fairer to say, and no, she did not settle down, not really. I suppose up to a point she became more functional, more personable, but one could never entirely rely upon her. It was Conrad who insisted we should make a job for her within the firm, he was far more patient with her than I ever could be. Her time keeping was hopeless – that never goes down well with the other staff - and her private life was utter chaos,’ she paused to finish her drink, ‘Amanda was never any good at managing men. Surprising really, for someone with her looks. Anyway, I must go downstairs in a moment. Do you need anything else from me?’

  She had taken a compact mirror from the handbag beside her chair and was applying a lipstick which was the pink of petunia flowers.

  ‘There is something else we have to tell you, something not mentioned in the press statement.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Were you aware that your daughter was pregnant, Mrs Shute?’

  She paused for a moment and then carefully put away the lipstick and the compact mirror and snapped closed the fastening of her handbag.

  ‘The bloody little fool,’ she said.

  They waited in silence. Mrs Shute stood up and they followed, she brushed a hand over the skirt of her dress.

  ‘Forgive my reaction, it was rather a shock. To answer your question, no, I certainly was not aware that my daughter was pregnant.’

  ‘About three months pregnant, according to the pathologist. Do you know who the father might have been?’

  She gave a dismissive laugh and bent to pick up her handbag. ‘Me! I haven’t the faintest idea. I would be the last person to know. Why not ask Alexa, she seems to have been the member of the family most helpful to you. Now, if there’s nothing else?’

  ‘We would like to take a thorough look at Amanda’s room,’

  ‘Very well, we’ll go downstairs and Roxanna can take you across,’

  Roxanna took a key from behind the reception desk and they crossed the car park to the two-storey breeze block building. The blockwork had been painted white. The ground floor was a garage, large enough to accommodate several cars. The doors stood open and they saw a dinghy and oars stowed on brackets on the ceiling beams, maintenance tools and garden equipment were neatly ranged around the walls. At the top of the metal stairway to Amanda’s flat the sergeant broke the seals which had been placed at the edges of the door. Roxanna turned the key in the lock.

  ‘You don’t need me to stay, do you?’ she asked.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Blencowe, that won’t be necessary.’

  The large bed sitting room held the warmth from the day’s sun, a wide window looked out towards the sea. Because of the warmth and the floral scent which hung in the air and the general disorder of the possessions, it seemed that the room had been only lately vacated. For a moment Monica hesitated, tuning her senses to the invisible traces of its occupant. Then she said ‘Right, I’ll go clockwise, you do anticlockwise’ and they began systematically to search. On the dressing table there were several bottles of costly perfume and a jumble of cosmetics and a NATO issue air sickness bag being used to hold jewellery. Two strips of passport photos from a booth were stuck under a clip at the edge of the mirror. Eight miniature Amandas stared out upon her former domain, her gaze level and serious.

  ‘Those must have been for something official,’ the sergeant said.

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  She tried to respond to the sergeant in the way that the best of her mentors, John Gosling, had used to respond to her, encouraging thought processes, ready to listen to the reasoning behind a premise, even when it seemed to be a foregone conclusion. ‘Never take for granted what some might call the bleeding obvious,’ he had cautioned.

  ‘Well,’ said the sergeant, ‘when people go in a booth to have these done it’s either for an official purpose or they’re mucking about, with their friends. These ones are definitely official, and look at the way she’s dressed for it as well – hair tied back, and that looks like the collar of a suit jacket, and a white blouse, she’s done herself up to look business like …’

  ‘That’s a very good point, Sergeant, when we get back, check on her passport status. Also, try to find out whether there was a new job in the offing, maybe work outside the family firm, I suppose that’s something else she wouldn’t have confided to her mother … talking of …’

  She picked up a blue and white box of contraceptive pills which lay on top of a square wooden flower press, ‘So, I wonder if it was accident or design, getting pregnant?’

  ‘But would she have wanted a baby, do you think, from what we know of her, surely it would have cramped her style?’

  ‘You would think, but then I suppose it all depends whose baby it was – remember, her sister told us that she’d been planning to tell Jarvis she was pregnant with his child.’

  She turned from the dressing table to the wardrobe. There were several evening dresses, their silky material slipping deshabillé from the hangers, there was a tweed hacking jacket and flowered skirts and a fine cheesecloth muslin dress. She lifted the hem which hung in handkerchief points over the heap of blue jeans and shoes on the wardrobe floor.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind betting this was the one she was wearing when Graham Jarvis says he last saw her …’

  Among the shoes and the jeans was a tan leather handbag in the style of a hunting satchel, it was empty except for a few Polo mints screwed in silver paper and a tube of Lipsyl.

  The dressing table drawers were similarly disordered. Beneath the crammed tee shirts and tights and stockings and the several sets of white net underwear decorated with daisy motifs, she found a very worn RAF uniform side cap.

  ‘Boyfriend souvenir?’ asked the sergeant, looking across.

  ‘I think it’s too old for that … yes …’ on the worn Gieves and Hawkes label inside the cap was inked ‘F/L SHUTE’ ‘… it must have been her father’s …’

  The bed was heaped with cushions of bright Indian cloths, some were embroidered and shiny with mirror sequins. Among the cushions lay an old pyjama case, it was in the form of a black dog of dejected look, the plush fabric was worn almost to baldness. Monica picked up the dog and opened the silver zipper on its stomach. The case was empty, the lining was green satin.

  ‘Bright Eyes’ said the sergeant, reading the title of an LP on the turntable of the record player.

  ‘And what was she reading?’ Monica asked, nodding towards some books piled on a washstand painted bright pink. The pile contained a Russian dictionary, an old hardback with worn yellow cloth boards entitled Russian Folk and Fairy Tales, and an exercise book. Carefully pasted to the first page of the exercise book was a photocopied sheet of the Russian alphabet. On the following pages the letters had been copied out, with an increasingly confident fluidity in the pen strokes. After this a series of vocabulary exercises had been completed, each neatly headed by a date in the margin. He held out the book

  ‘Do you think she did all this?’

  ‘Well, it’s her
name written on the cover. It’s certainly a whole new side to our victim.’

  She picked up Russian Folk and Fairy Tales, an engraved bookplate had been stuck to the flyleaf, but it was torn and scribbled over by a child’s crayon marks. She sat down on the edge of the bed with the book and the plush dog on her lap.

  ‘This bookplate had someone’s family crest on it once … but it could have come from anywhere, second-hand, I suppose. I remember my mother bought a big bundle of cutlery in a bomb damage sale during the Blitz, but it was all monogrammed. She was thrilled to bits with it, she thought that my father might be able to rub out the monograms with emery paper. I don’t think he ever got round to it. He said it would be easier if we changed our name by deed poll.’

  ‘Some of this might be of interest, M’am.’

  Sergeant Bee had taken an old Nestlé chocolate box from the drawer in the bedside table, the lid bore an image of an American Indian girl carrying a baby in a papoose. He spread the contents on the bed cover.

  There were several birthday cards signed ‘With love from Daddy’, some sea shells and dried flowers, a strip of cinema tickets, a book of matches from a restaurant in Truro and a champagne cork.

  ‘The cork,’ she said, ‘Has someone written a date on it – I can’t see without my glasses’.

  The sergeant turned the cork and read ‘9 September 1978’.

  ‘When’s her birthday?’

  ‘May, I think … hang on, yes, May 12th’, he had picked up one of the Daddy cards where the date had been recorded on the left-hand side.

  ‘Not birthday champagne then, but safe to suppose it was some other significant occasion for her. We’ll take the box and contents back with us.’

  She looked once more around the sun warmed room and then went to set the black dog back among the cushions. It was her instinct and habit to replace a person’s belongings as exactly as possible. As a young WPC she had sometimes been disturbed by the deliberate chaos caused by her senior male colleagues. There had been a search at the home of an MP where unnecessary, spiteful damage was caused. She recalled a miniature porcelain figure of Pulcinella, smashed on the edge of the mantelpiece. For several minutes the smiling face on the broken off head had rocked gently back and forth, until it came to rest on the white marble. As she resettled the dog pyjama case she felt the small rectangular outline of an object within the fabric. Undoing the zip once more she found a pale pink diary hidden beneath the green lining. Tucked inside the diary cover was an appointment card for a GP surgery in St Columb Major. Monica turned the pages