by J M Gregson
At this point Douglas Gibson intervened. ‘Without revealing too much,’ he said benignly, ‘I think I can say that in this case we feel hopeful of an early arrest.’ His eyebrows curved a question at Lambert, with what might have been archness in someone other than a Chief Constable.
Lambert became uncomfortably conscious of the quiet whirr of the television videotape, of the cameraman zooming in on his sweating visage. For a moment he wished he had not waved away the make-up girl and her powder so airily half an hour earlier. When he replied carefully that routine police procedures had narrowed the field of suspects, Gibson smiled like a headmaster endorsing a favourite pupil and said, ‘Superintendent Lambert is naturally cautious, a quality of which I thoroughly approve.’
One of the tabloid reporters wanted to know if women figured among the suspects, and the sports reporter of the Oldford Advertiser, an aged Welshman called Williams whom Lambert had known for years, began an ironic commentary on the headlines he foresaw. ‘Leading industrialist struck down in love nest,’ he intoned with relish. Williams resented being transferred from his sporting interests to act for the day as crime reporter: now he scented a little fun.
He was sitting not three yards from Lambert on the front row, and his comments, delivered towards the ceiling with the air of a philosopher, were plainly intended for the Superintendent’s amusement. Lambert’s heart sank as his practised eye detected the traces of a happy and characteristic inebriation.
‘Two women, you say, Mr Lambert,’ said another London man, not looking up from his scribblings. ‘Are both of them suspects?’
‘Saucy sex romps topple tycoon!’ muttered Williams reminiscently, his smile recalling long-gone Fleet Street days with fond indulgence.
‘Do I understand only one of the women in the party was a wife?’ came next from the persistent group at the back of the room, who were now more animated than at any time during the conference.
They were too far back to hear any of Williams’s unofficial glosses on their questions. ‘Wild orgy goes wrong at plush club,’ the Celtic oracle now interpreted. ‘The Sun doesn’t like more than one syllable at a time,’ he explained apologetically. Lambert was cheered by the sight of the young producer, who had emerged with arms flapping from his control box. He was directing a variety of minions in search of the invisible source of these disturbing asides, which were in danger of ruining his recording.
One of the tabloid group had plainly done some research. Warming to his task, he shot at Lambert, ‘Has this red-haired actress been cleared of suspicion yet, Superintendent Lambert?’
Williams took his attention from the ceiling and fixed the platform party with a single wild eye. ‘Titful temptress topples top tycoon,’ he said. Overcome with his artistry and the visions it produced in one of his imaginative temperament, he slid slowly down his leather chair and shut that disturbing eye; a beatific smile suffused the whole of his thoroughly lived-in visage.
*
‘They cut you off before you even got into your stride,’ said Christine Lambert resentfully as the local news faded to a weatherman lugubriously predicting a continuation of the fine spell. She was more enthusiastic about her husband’s occasional television appearances than he was himself, though Lambert had observed the item surreptitiously over the newspaper he had apparently found so absorbing.
‘There was more than that in the can,’ he said, using the only piece of film jargon he knew with the confidence of a professional broadcaster, ‘but it had to be edited.’
‘I expect you mumbled as usual,’ said his wife.
Lambert reflected that the man who said that no man is a hero to his valet had obviously not been married. ‘On the contrary, I was a model of elocution,’ he said, with the determined dignity of the liar who knows he cannot be disproved. ‘In fact, it was old Williams who had to be edited out. He was making tabloid headlines out of the questions I got. It’s a hobby of his.’
‘The old boy I met from the Oldford Advertiser? He won’t get into trouble, will he?’ Christine, who had once found a boring dinner redeemed by the stories of the old reprobate, was immediately concerned for his welfare.
‘The old bugger’s fireproof in that respect. He did everything he wanted to do years ago. Now for most of the time he just reports golf for the local rag, to keep himself out of mischief, he says. Obviously without success. I was quite grateful to him for the diversion. I think the producer had set me up as a fall guy, if that’s the expression.’
‘You know quite well it is. Only judges are allowed to pretend they don’t know phrases like that, not policemen.’ His resentment of American linguistic intrusions was tolerated with affectionate resignation by those closest to him. As a teacher, Christine had a sneaking sympathy for it. ‘And you underestimate your own public performances. You’re well capable of creating your own diversions when you require them. Anyway, what was edited out? Are you about to unmask the killer at the Wye Castle?’
Lambert’s face wrinkled with displeasure at so amateurish a conception of detection. ‘We’re getting nearer. I have an inkling, but I might be quite wrong.’
‘Don’t say you’re playing a hunch. Cyril Burgess would be delighted with the idea.’
John Lambert smiled wanly. The pathologist paraded his reading of crime literature, even American crime literature, at the slightest hint of encouragement. ‘I’d like to be able to make an arrest before the golfing group disperses. That means a lot of work tomorrow. Bert has arranged for me to see Harrington’s widow first thing in the morning. I have a feeling she may hold the key to this.’
In a way he could not foresee on that quiet evening, he was quite right.
Chapter 20
Marie Harrington was glad to get out of her hotel. It was comfortable, but its small rooms were increasingly claustrophobic. It was a relief to escape to the vast, anonymous darkness of the night outside.
She glanced at the tiny watch on her left wrist in the last of the light from the hotel’s frontage. It was five minutes after half past ten. She was deliberately a few minutes after the appointed time, for she did not want to wait alone at the rendezvous. Even in these quiet parts, a woman might be unwise to wander alone at night.
There was more wind than she had expected, but it was not cold. She glanced at the sky and remembered a line she had learned years ago at school: ‘The moon was a ghostly galleon, tossed upon cloudy seas.’ This night’s almost full moon was not exactly tossed, but it was intermittently obscured by swiftly moving dark patches. She couldn’t remember the next line of a poem she thought she had forgotten for ever: something about the road being a ribbon of moonlight, she thought. Well, that was fair enough: the lane which branched of the hotel road and ran away towards the river looked almost white in the light of the new moon, until it disappeared beneath the high trees near the river. She gathered her short summer coat about her and set of vigorously to her meeting.
Her footsteps rang loud upon the silent lane. The only natural sound was a screech-owl from the woods ahead of her, but it was quiet enough for her to catch faintly the scream of a car’s brakes away towards Hereford. She was not frightened of the dark, she told herself resolutely. She had been brought up in Wiltshire countryside, where there was no such thing as street lighting, and she had not been allowed the girlish fears of the suburban adolescent. Now she reverted to her youthful reaction to disquiet at night, and walked even more briskly.
Her eyes grew more accustomed to the limited light from the full moon, as she knew they would. In five minutes, she caught the silver mirror of the river, where it curved in a wide bend beneath the trees. Half a mile away the castellations of the Wye Castle loomed for a moment against the night sky, a black, evocative silhouette that disappeared even as she watched when a patch of cloud obscured the moon.
It was around here that they had arranged to meet. She hesitated, then passed on reluctantly into the black shadow of the trees. With the moon still clouded, she could scarcely see
enough to follow the road here. It was past the agreed time for the meeting; her partner in it was perhaps as nervous about being here alone as she felt herself. She called the name tentatively; it seemed to bounce back from the wall of darkness ahead of her.
Then, after she had faltered forward another few steps, a low voice from the trees on her right, between her and the now invisible river said urgently, ‘Marie?’
‘Who else at this hour?’ she said irritably. ‘Surely there was no need for all this cloak and dagger stuff?’ But she was relieved to feel another human presence in that silent place, despite herself. When the shadow detached itself from the deeper blackness behind it and came softly to her side, she had to resist an impulse to reach out and touch it, to give herself the tactile reassurance of a friendly presence.
As if to confirm her safety, the moon reappeared after its brief oblivion, dappling the narrow lane with patches of silver where it filtered between the high branches of beech and oak. ‘It was necessary to be cautious,’ said the companion beside her. ‘The police are watching all of us, and I’m afraid we’re even beginning to watch each other. But I don’t think my absence from the Wye Castle will be noticed at this time.’
The voice sounded as strained as her own; she wondered how much the setting was contributing to their tension. It was a long time since she had made an assignation like this at night, and then it had had other, more romantic, connotations. ‘I might have enjoyed a stroll by the Wye in darkness at one time. I’m getting a little long in the tooth for it now!’ she said. Her nervous giggle rang brittle as glass amid the trees.
Her companion said nothing. After a few seconds, Marie remembered her feeling of gratitude earlier in the day and her resolution to express it. ‘I wanted to thank you,’ she said awkwardly. ‘To thank you for delivering me from Guy.’ It sounded as silly as she felt, and she said no more. She wished the person who had arranged this strange meeting had more to say. They were almost beside the river itself now; she felt herself steered gently through a gateway and on to the bank. ‘The farmer won’t be pleased to find that left open,’ she said edgily.
‘I opened it, just now,’ said the voice at her side. It was breathy, unnaturally harsh, and a gust of bad breath engulfed her briefly with the statement.
She felt without knowing why that this was the first clear evidence of a danger she should have acknowledged much earlier. Desperately she said, ‘I don’t want to know any more, you know. I just wanted to assure you that you’re quite safe as far—’
Suddenly she was in the water, with hands pressing inexorably upon her shoulders. The water was no more than three or four feet deep, but she was off balance. The sudden coldness ran like a shock through her whole body. It was not until her head was beneath its surface that she realised that she was fighting for her life.
The struggle was brief and unavailing. The hands pressed steadily upon her shoulders and the back of her neck. Her feet fought unsuccessfully to get a grip on the muddy bed of the Wye. With the relentless pressure downwards which was applied, she could not even rise to her knees. She could not believe the other’s hands had such strength.
As the water burst into the lungs of Marie Harrington it was not her past life which flashed in vivid retrospect before her. Her last thought was of her own stupidity in coming to such a place at such a time. And to meet such a companion.
Once her slim body had ceased its brief and violent struggle, her adversary cautiously removed the gloved hands from her back. The corpse was gently eased towards the middle of the river, where the slow current bore it away downstream. A torch flashed briefly over the river’s bank, checking for any obvious traces of the brief struggle.
When the dark shadow had moved back to the road, it removed the plastic bags which had covered its feet, disguising the imprints of sole and heel.
Then, darkly silhouetted in the moonlight like the instrument of death it was, it moved swiftly and silently back towards the Wye Castle.
Chapter 21
FRIDAY
Alison Munro moved with uncharacteristic stealth. She was not used to disguising her actions from others, but on this occasion there had been no alternative.
Her first visit to the place on the previous evening had been under the cover of darkness, and there had been little chance of detection. Now, the early-morning light seemed brilliant, even harsh, and she felt that there was no way that her actions would not be detected. But it was scarcely after six, though the sun was already so bright, and no curious eye peeped around the drawn curtains behind her.
She checked briefly, but thoroughly, on what she had come here to see. As far as her untrained eye could judge, all was satisfactory. She looked all around her, feeling a furtiveness that was quite foreign. Then, lifted by a relief she had no need to disguise, she turned and went back towards her room.
The evidence seemed effectively destroyed.
*
‘Check Mrs Harrington’s room, please.’ Lambert’s’ face was grey with foreboding.
‘It’s not our policy to disturb guests in the mornings, Superintendent. We could get the chambermaid to look in and—’
‘Now!’ It was a shout, a fierce, impersonal order. The starchy receptionist leapt into action as though she had been hit. ‘I want to know whether the bed has been slept in,’ he flung after her rapidly disappearing back.
The woman was back in two minutes, prickly with resentment, but cowed by the news she brought. ‘Mrs Harrington isn’t there. Her bed hasn’t been slept in. As far as I can see, her clothes are still in the room, and she hasn’t packed.’ She seemed to find a bleak comfort in this last fact; perhaps she thought it indicated that the customer had not departed without payment.
‘If she turns up, please ring Oldford police station immediately. It’s very important.’ His tone was neutral, but his face told her that he thought such a reappearance most unlikely. ‘Meantime, will you try to find out when she was last seen here, please?’
While she went off into the hotel kitchen, Bert Hook bustled in breathlessly from the hotel car park. ‘Her car is still there. Engine cold: it certainly hasn’t been used this morning.’
‘Get Rushton to put out a full alert. I don’t think for a moment that she’ll be there, but he’d better set up a check round her home area to see if anyone has seen her. Get a description round the Hereford beat men who were operating last night to see if anyone saw her.’ Hook knew the routine well enough and so did Rushton: a single terse instruction would have been enough. Lambert was talking to relieve his own tension.
The receptionist came back, her face clouded now with the concern she had caught from them. ‘The night porter says he saw her go out at about half past ten, or maybe a little later. He didn’t see her come back, but he isn’t on duty all night. He goes off between twelve and one. Our guests have keys.’
Women vanished often enough, usually for reasons which did not warrant police attention. Without any evidence yet to hand, both of them felt already that this disappearance was sinister.
*
In the Murder Room at the Wye Castle, detective-sergeants and constables moved on large and careful feet, keeping an eye on the chief who was so uncharacteristically disturbed by the absence of a woman who had seemed to most of them only on the periphery of the case. Lambert was not even conscious that he was treated warily, or that he spoke to any of them harshly. His fury was with himself, for not anticipating this development and frustrating it.
He pursued his investigation now like a man driven by some outside force. The Munros felt it immediately, but he gave them no explanation for the cold dynamism that cut through the normal politeness of dialogue.
It was turned first upon Alison. ‘You lied about your movements on the night of Harrington’s death. Why?’
She was thrown on to the defensive by his abruptness. ‘I am not in the habit of lying,’ she said stiffly. ‘What makes you think—’
‘You were heard having a row with Ha
rrington when you said you were wandering round the outside of the hotel buildings.’
‘Who told you—’
‘It doesn’t matter who told me. Do you deny it?’
She looked at him furiously. She had such a natural, unconscious superiority in her bearing that it was a long time since anyone had spoken to her like this. Lambert was so intense that he was totally unaware of his manner. Perhaps she realised it, for she said, ‘No. It’s true. We had an argument. I suppose others must have heard.’
‘What about?’
‘Do you have to know?’ Her dark eyes flashed across the grim faces opposite her; what she saw there made her fear an outburst from Lambert, so that she answered herself. ‘Yes, I suppose you do. Damn Guy Harrington! He’s still causing trouble after he’s dead.’ She glanced sideways at her husband; suddenly the proud set of her head disappeared and she was vulnerable, wondering what reaction her revelations would elicit from that taciturn presence she relied upon so much.
‘It’s the oldest story in the book. Guy was trying to get between the sheets with me. He had been trying for several months.’
‘And did the determined Mr Harrington offer anything in the way of persuasion for you to acquiesce?’ Lambert’s phrasing, edged with sarcasm and suggesting his scepticism, made her eyes flash angrily. But he was careless of her feelings in what might have been a delicate area; she had lied once and might do so again.
‘He was persuasive and threatening by turns. He couldn’t believe I wouldn’t cooperate eventually. I should have sent him packing to start with.’
‘So why didn’t you?’ Hook watched Munro clenching his fists beside his wife; perhaps it was the question he had himself been asking. He did not look at Alison. His eyes stared at Lambert as unblinkingly as if he was in a trance.
