Five Dead Canaries hf-3

by Edward Marston

  Maureen nodded. ‘She told me a little bit about him, Inspector.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, she only saw them together that once. It was an evening when I’d stayed behind for a meeting of the football team. Agnes wasn’t in that, so she went home on her own for once. I remember her telling me that she was making her way to the railway station when this car pulled up at a junction.’ Maureen shrugged. ‘She saw Florrie in the front seat beside the driver. He was an older man.’

  ‘It could have been her father,’ said Diane.

  ‘It couldn’t have been Mr Ingles because Agnes had met him. Anyway, this man wasn’t as old as that. She said he might be in his late thirties.’

  ‘Go on,’ encouraged Marmion.

  ‘Agnes only saw him for a few seconds but she did say he was handsome and had a dark moustache. Also,’ she said, slowly, ‘it was a new car.’

  ‘Didn’t she ask about it the next day?’

  ‘Of course — but Florrie said it was just an old friend who’d given her a lift. Agnes didn’t believe her because she was all dressed up. She didn’t dare to have a row about it with Florrie. You didn’t argue with her, Inspector.’

  ‘How long was this before the birthday party?’

  ‘Oh, it was two or three weeks at least.’

  ‘And she was never seen with the same man again?’

  ‘Does that satisfy you?’ asked Diane, worried at the pressure that her daughter was clearly feeling. ‘There’s nothing else Maureen can tell you.’

  ‘Yes, there is,’ said Keedy. ‘Let’s go back to the party.’

  Maureen gulped. ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘You left early because you were feeling unwell.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Did you feel ill when you were at work?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘What exactly was wrong with you?’

  ‘I don’t see what this has got to do with the case,’ complained Diane.

  ‘Answer my question, please.’

  ‘I had an upset tummy,’ said Maureen, feeling her stomach.

  ‘It must have been bad if you were forced to leave a celebration like that.’

  ‘It was, Sergeant.’

  ‘Were you sick when you got back here?’

  Maureen moistened her lips. She looked from Keedy to Marmion and back again. Both were gazing at her intently. She felt as if a great weight was pressing down on her. It seemed to get heavier and heavier. Her heart began to race and her cheeks were burning. The pain was steadily increasing. When she could no longer bear it, she burst into tears and buried her head in her hands.

  Diane put an arm around her and glared at the detectives.

  ‘Do you see what you’ve done to her now?’ she said, angrily.

  Neil Beresford was still trying to distract himself from his grief with frantic activity. Dressed in shorts and singlet once again, he was pushing himself harder than ever. On the last leg of his run, he sprinted the length of the street, then paused at the corner to recover, using the lamp to support himself.

  ‘Someone is feeling energetic this morning,’ said a voice.

  Beresford looked up. ‘Oh, it’s you, Mr Jenks.’

  ‘You won’t find me doing anything like that.’

  ‘I like to keep myself fit.’

  ‘That’s what Enid told me,’ said Jonah Jenks, who’d just come round the corner. ‘The first time she came to watch a football match, she saw you jogging around it before the match with the whole team.’

  ‘It was a good way to warm them up and it paid off. Most of the teams we beat just couldn’t match us for fitness. We wore them down in the last fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Are you still planning to contest the cup final?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Beresford, ‘I’ve written to everybody who’ll be in the team. My wife and Jean Harte are no longer here, of course, and I’ve had to leave out Maureen Quinn. It would be an imposition to include her.’

  ‘She may want to come and watch the match.’

  ‘That’s highly unlikely, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Well,’ said Jenks. ‘You know her best. She’ll be at the inquest, no doubt. I was hoping they’d have made an arrest before that takes place. I’m still shocked that my daughter was indirectly involved. This whole business started when Herbert Wylie took an unhealthy interest in Enid.’

  ‘That’s no reflection on her.’

  ‘Why haven’t they caught that monster yet?’

  ‘Have patience,’ advised Beresford. ‘The search is nationwide. It’s only a question of time before they find Herbert Wylie.’

  With his collar turned up and his hat pulled down over his forehead, the man let himself into the church and closed the heavy door behind him. The only other person there was the cleaner, using a dustpan and brush in the side chapel. He hurried across to the bell tower and went in, climbing the first of many stone steps on the circular staircase. He was slow but methodical, going ever higher as he brushed his shoulder against the ancient wall. When he reached the bells, he didn’t even pause to look at the dangling ropes. He simply opened the little door that led to a second flight of steps. They seemed to curve up to infinity and his legs began to tire. By the time he finally reached the top, he was panting for breath and aching all over. Unlocking the last door, he went out onto the balcony and stared over the parapet. People moving below resembled a colony of giant ants, darting in all directions.

  It took a supreme effort to haul himself up onto the parapet. After a prayer for forgiveness, he fell forward and hurtled through the air towards destruction.

  Over a cup of tea at the police station, Marmion and Keedy wondered why Maureen Quinn had reacted so dramatically to their questioning. Keedy had felt all along that he’d never got the full details from her of the events on the day of the birthday party. He was more convinced than ever now that she was hiding something but it was difficult to prise it from her when her mother was there to protect her. One way or another, the Quinn family was causing them a lot of problems.

  ‘Oh,’ said Keedy, ‘I forgot to mention something that Alice told me.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘She’d had a letter of her own from Paul. He wanted to make it clear that he was very happy with the fact that she and I had got engaged.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It meant so much to Alice — and to me, of course.’

  ‘Could we keep our minds on the case, please?’ asked Marmion with undue sharpness. ‘We’re not here to discuss family matters.’

  ‘I thought you might be interested, that’s all.’

  ‘And I might be — at a different time.’

  ‘You can’t keep shying away from it for ever, Harv,’ said Keedy, reasonably. ‘I’m going to marry the woman I love and that just happens to be your daughter.’

  ‘I hear the message loud and clear.’

  ‘I just don’t want it to come between us.’

  ‘Then stop going on about it every minute of the bloody day!’

  Marmion immediately regretted his momentary loss of control and he gestured an apology. The telephone rang several times before he picked it up. Claude Chatfield was on the line and he gave Marmion scant opportunity to say anything. For the most part, the inspector was confined to nods of agreement and expressions of surprise. When he put the receiver down, he slumped into his chair.

  ‘Bad news?’ asked Keedy.

  ‘Yes — they’ve found Herbert Wylie.’

  ‘That’s good news, surely. Where was he?’

  ‘Splattered all over the ground,’ said Marmion. ‘He chose a church with one of the tallest spires in London and committed suicide by jumping from it.’

  ‘It will save the cost of a trial, anyway.’

  ‘There would’ve been no trial, Joe. He didn’t plant that bomb. Wylie left a long suicide note, explaining why he was innocent of the crime. He fled because he couldn’t bear the thought of staying at the factory
where he’d met Enid Jenks. After some sleepless nights in a cheap hotel,’ said Marmion, ‘he decided that he couldn’t live without her. You know the rest.’

  Keedy needed a few moments to assimilate the information. Having been so certain that Wylie was the bomber, he was flabbergasted to hear of the man’s innocence and death. It emphasised the full intensity of his unrequited love for Enid Jenks. While condemning the man for stalking her, he also felt very sorry for Wylie. A sad life had been ended in a grotesque way.

  ‘We’ve got a problem, Harv,’ he admitted. ‘We’re running out of suspects. We lost Niall Quinn and we can now cross Herbert Wylie off the list. That only leaves the supposed lover of Florrie Duncan. At least the other two suspects did actually exist. Our third man could turn out to be a figment of our imagination.’

  ‘He was real,’ Marmion argued. ‘Agnes Collier saw him.’

  ‘What she saw was Florrie being given a lift by a nameless man. He could have been a friend, a relative or someone with whom she did business. There’s nothing that identifies him as her lover,’ said Keedy, ‘still less as the father of a baby who may turn out to be another false assumption.’

  ‘Don’t lose faith, Joe. We need to trace this man.’

  ‘I know. He’s all we’ve got.’

  Maureen Quinn went to church with her mother and her sister and they all prayed together. When it was time for the others to leave, she insisted on staying there alone. Diane withdrew with Lily, telling her elder daughter that she mustn’t wallow in guilt because no blame was attached to her for the tragedy. Maureen watched them go and stayed near the confessional box until she saw Father Cleary coming towards it. As soon as he disappeared behind the curtain, she entered the box on the other side.

  ‘Forgive me, Father,’ she said, ‘for I have sinned.’

  The Golden Goose looked forlorn. Still covered in scaffolding, it gazed down on the detritus of the building site. Almost every vestige of the outhouse had been taken away, leaving a gaping hole. Leighton Hubbard was arguing with one of the workmen and didn’t hear the police car draw up. It was only when the detectives hailed him that he became aware of their presence. The landlord came quickly over to them.

  ‘Have you caught him?’ he demanded. ‘Have you arrested the blighter who ruined my pub?’

  ‘I’m afraid that we haven’t, sir,’ said Marmion.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘He’s rather elusive, Mr Hubbard, and we don’t have unlimited resources.’

  ‘But you’ve got his name and photograph. What more do you need?’

  ‘Herbert Wylie didn’t blow up your outhouse, sir. That line of enquiry has been abandoned because he is no longer a suspect. Sadly, Mr Wylie committed suicide in London today.’

  When he recovered from his shock, the landlord berated them for their incompetence and Marmion had to assert his authority, warning him that they deserved respect for their efforts. He explained why they’d returned to the pub.

  ‘We missed something,’ he said. ‘When we first interviewed you, we were dealing with a man who was in a state of despair.’

  ‘Do you blame me? I lost everything.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ said Keedy, indicating the pub. ‘You still have the main premises and you’ll be back in business.’

  ‘When you gave your account of what had happened,’ resumed Marmion, ‘it was rather garbled. We’re not blaming you for that. You told us about events immediately before the birthday party. We should have gone back a bit further.’

  Keedy referred to his notebook. ‘What the inspector means,’ he said, ‘is that we didn’t ask about how Florrie Duncan came to book the outhouse in the first place.’

  Hubbard hunched his shoulders. ‘I thought I told you that.’

  ‘Remind us when the booking was made.’

  ‘It was two or three weeks beforehand.’

  ‘Did she come here on her own?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the landlord, ‘though she was anxious to be on her way. I showed her the outhouse and gave her a price. We shook on the deal and off she went. That’s all I can tell you.’

  ‘She wasn’t alone,’ said a voice.

  Royston Liddle had crept up so that he could overhear the conversation. When the three of them turned to him, he giggled readily, pleased at the attention.

  ‘I was here,’ he continued. ‘I was on duty that evening.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Marmion.

  ‘Don’t trust him,’ sneered Hubbard. ‘He’s got a memory like a sieve.’

  ‘What happened?’ Keedy repeated.

  ‘She came in a car,’ said Liddle. ‘I remember her getting out of it and going into the bar. He stayed out here.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘The driver, of course — he was reading a paper. I know I forget most things,’ he went on, ‘but I remember that because it was such a nice car. I haven’t seen many like that around here.’

  ‘Can you describe the man?’ asked Marmion.

  Liddle pointed at Keedy. ‘He was about his age — maybe older — only he was better looking. And he had this little moustache.’ He grinned inanely. ‘I’ve always wanted to have a moustache but I can’t seem to grow one.’

  ‘Let’s go over this again,’ said Marmion, curbing his impatience. ‘This man brought Florrie Duncan-’

  He broke off when he saw a uniformed constable cycling towards him. The man was semaphoring with one arm. When he reached them, he put the message into words.

  ‘There’s someone to see you, Inspector,’ he said, adjusting his helmet. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt but you’re to come back to the station urgently.’

  When she finally emerged from church, Maureen Quinn was both chastened and relieved. The terrible burden of guilt she bore could never be wholly removed but it already felt lighter. It had been a continuous ordeal in the confessional box. The effort it had taken to get her there had been immense and it had told on her. Maureen was now sagging with fatigue. All she wanted to do was to go back to her bedroom so that she could collapse on the bed. But somebody was now standing in the way.

  ‘Hello, Maureen.’

  She backed away. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I saw you go into church with your mother and sister. You were in there for ages. I thought you were never coming out again.’

  She raised a palm. ‘I don’t want to talk.’

  ‘Did you read my letter?’

  ‘I burnt it.’

  ‘But I meant what I said, Maureen.’

  Neil Beresford had kept her house under observation until he saw her come out with Diane and Lily. After trailing them to the church, he’d waited in a lane on the opposite side of the road. When he saw her mother and sister leave, he knew that he’d have the opportunity to accost Maureen alone. Beresford gave a nervous smile.

  ‘It’s so good to see you again,’ he said.

  ‘Leave me alone, Neil.’

  ‘I’ve thought so much about you.’

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘And you’ve thought about me as well — admit it.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, anger rising, ‘I did think about you and I felt ashamed. What we did was terrible, Neil. It was sinful.’

  ‘But we didn’t actually do anything,’ he complained. ‘You were on your way to my house when that bomb went off. Shirley would have stayed at that party for hours. We’d have been alone at last.’

  ‘It was a punishment for us. The bomb was our punishment.’

  ‘That’s what I thought at first and I felt as guilty as you did. But there was another way of looking at it. Instead of being a punishment, it was a blessed release. Shirley was only a wife in name,’ he told her. ‘She had such a horror of childbirth that she slept alone most of the time. I wasn’t allowed to touch her. That’s not a real marriage. We can be together now,’ he went on, taking her by the shoulders. ‘I don’t mean right away. There’d have to be a decent interval first. But later on — when it’s proper —
we can have what we’ve both wanted.’

  ‘No,’ she said, stepping back out of his hold. ‘Everything has changed, Neil. I don’t want anything to do with you ever again. It was wrong of us and it was cruel to Shirley. She was your wife. You shouldn’t have come after me.’

  ‘I don’t remember you complaining,’ he said with rancour. ‘You were as willing as I was.’ Beresford’s tone became more conciliatory. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I don’t mean that the way it sounds. Give it time, Maureen. Wait until all this goes away. If you read my letter, you know how I feel about you. We were meant to be together,’ he insisted. ‘Don’t worry about what happened in the past. Nobody will ever know about that.’

  Maureen glanced at the church. ‘Someone already does.’

  It took a cup of tea and several minutes before they could calm June Ingles down enough to get articulate information out of her. She seemed ready to lapse into hysteria at any moment. Marmion and Keedy were alone with her at the police station. With a combination of patience and understanding, they drew the story out of her.

  ‘What makes you think your husband is in trouble?’ asked Marmion, gently.

  ‘I listened,’ she replied. ‘Brian had two phone calls and started to behave wildly. He refused to tell me what was going on. So I listened, Inspector. When he made a phone call himself, I opened the door of the kitchen and eavesdropped.’ Tears welled up in her eyes again. ‘He was telling the estate agent to come to the house as soon as he could to give him a valuation. Why?’ she cried. ‘We love the house. It’s ideal for us. The other day, Brian said we wouldn’t have to move. All of a sudden, he’s putting the house on the market.’

  ‘Did you challenge him about it, Mrs Ingles?’ asked Keedy.

  ‘Yes, I did. It made me livid.’

  ‘What did your husband say?’

  ‘I’ve never seen him so angry,’ she replied. ‘When he realised that I’d been listening, he used the most disgusting language. And then he …’

  The memory was too fresh in her mind to bear repetition. June needed a few more minutes before she could go on. Marmion assured her that there was no hurry. Taking down her statement, Keedy was equally considerate. Both of them recognised the significance of what she was telling them. When she was ready to continue, she made a pathetic effort to put on a brave face.