Blood on the Happy Highway

by Sheila Radley

  Inspector Tait went immediately to the Black Bull. At 11.15 on a weekday morning it would have been almost empty, but today the bar was lined with Saturday drinkers. Tait bought a lager from the landlord, a man with a loud, cheery voice and eyes as hard as flint, and showed him his warrant card.

  The landlord dropped his jovial act immediately. There was no need for the police to look for troublemakers in his pub, he growled, because he wouldn’t give them house-room. He denied having seen, in the summer, the couple Tait described; so did his assistant barman; so did the customers at the bar.

  Tait turned his back on them and surveyed the room. The dart board was not in use. A solitary, respectably suited middle-aged man was playing the fruit machine, but Tait decided against interrupting the concentration with which he was feeding it handfuls of silver in return for nothing but ungrateful electronic burps.

  Another, scruffier, solitary man sat at a table facing the frosted glass windows. He clutched a half-pint mug of beer as though he cherished it so much that he wanted to keep it intact as long as possible. The back of his head looked uncommunicative, and Tait turned his gaze instead on the five occupants of the adjoining table.

  They were merry, so well away that had they been men the landlord would undoubtedly have given them a warning. As they were women, their ages ranging from 60 to 80, he contented himself with giving occasional sour looks in their direction. They were Saturday morning regulars, high not on the small glasses of Guinness they were sipping, but on the pleasures of elderly irresponsibility after a lifetime of being at the beck and call of their husbands and children.

  Listening to their cackles of laughter, Tait knew that he wouldn’t find it easy to talk to them. He hadn’t his colleagues’ common touch. He couldn’t be as genially patient with them as Quantrill; nor, as Wigby would have done, give them a nudge and a wink and a bit of sauce. On the other hand, he knew that his presence couldn’t fail to attract their attention and interest.

  ‘Good morning, ladies,’ he said, getting his timing exactly right and dropping his words into the silence that fell momentarily while they were drinking.

  They turned their heads – matt black, grey-blonde, grey, white and mauve – and gazed at him, Guinness in their hands, froth on their upper lips, spectacles gleaming. Tait exercised his charm: ‘May I join you?’

  Flustered by his approach they twittered and preened themselves, shifting along their perches to accommodate him. Tait made no attempt to introduce himself, but signalled to the barman for another round of Guinness. Questioning the women with idle gallantry, he discovered that they usually called in at the Black Bull while they waited for the bingo hall to open its doors.

  ‘I wonder if you can remember having seen a friend of mine here in the summer – a girl named Denise,’ he said loudly. The women were silently attentive, but he wanted to make sure that his words carried to the two solitary men as well. ‘I’m worried about her because I haven’t seen her for a month or two. Not since early July.’

  The women stirred and murmured, their faces blank. The man at the fruit machine was aware of nothing except flashing lights and rolling symbols, but the man with his back to them at the next table held his head still, as though he were listening.

  ‘You’d remember Denise if ever you saw her,’ Tait went on. ‘She had a gap between her two top front teeth, wide enough to push a pencil through. She was in a bit of trouble, poor girl. She was pregnant by her boy friend, Mick, but she was already married to a man who was due to come out of jail.’

  The women clucked with interest and sympathy, but Tait was already sure that they could tell him nothing. He was watching, instead, the man at the next table who suddenly picked up his glass, downed his beer at a gulp and hurried for the door marked Gents. As the man went, he glanced apprehensively over his shoulder. His face was heavy, with the small-eyed shape and the waxy whiteness of a boiled potato.

  Tait leaped after him. But he hadn’t taken into account the habit of bingo-going pensioners to carry with them capacious holdalls stuffed with spare cardigans, packets of boiled sweets, and batteries of coloured felt-tipped pens. Nor did he expect that the holdalls would be parked beside their owners’chairs. He tripped over one, stumbled, caught his foot in a handle and went sprawling.

  By the time he had limped through the door marked Gents, and had found that it led not only to the urinals but also to the back door of the Black Bull, the man with the unmistakable prison pallor had disappeared. And although Tait questioned everyone – the passers-by, the landlord, the barman, every last customer – their replies, true or false, were exactly the same: they had never before set eyes on the man.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘So he was the one who cut off the cat’s head and sprayed the threatening message on Angela’s door? But he wouldn’t have killed her, surely?’

  ‘It seems unlikely,’ agreed Quantrill. ‘Not impossible, of course, but improbable.’

  ‘Which means that there’s no direct connection between last week’s incident and the murder,’ said Sergeant Lloyd. ‘This reconstruction hasn’t really put us any further forward, has it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ the Chief Inspector argued. ‘For one thing –’

  The detectives were holding an impromptu conference on the back lawn of Tenerife, sitting on plastic-coated aluminium chairs designed to look like Edwardian garden furniture. Rain-clouds coming in from the west had blotted out the sun, but for the time being they were obligingly withholding their contents.

  The reconstruction of the events of the previous Saturday morning had been entirely successful. Dc Bedford had radioed for a computer check on the number of the Land Rover that had passed him and Ross Arrowsmith, and had found that it belonged to a Nether Wickford farmer.

  The farmer, when interviewed by Bedford, said that he frequently drove along that stretch of road, but only for about five hundred yards, between the farm and some outlying chicken hatcheries. Yes, he had used the road the previous Saturday – he remembered the morning because of the patchy mist. He knew Ross Arrowsmith – had known him since they were both boys – and knew that he usually jogged along the road at that time, so he had kept a look out for him; didn’t want to run him down in the mist.

  Yes, he’d seen him standing on the grass at the side of the road. Was glad Ross had his wits about him sufficiently to watch out for traffic when visibility was so dodgy … brilliant chap, of course, but he seemed to live in another world most of the time …

  The man standing by Simon Arrowsmith’s gate? Oh yes, the farmer remembered having seen him. Didn’t know his name, but knew who he was: tall skinny young chap, son of the woman Simon Arrowsmith had married.

  When questioned by the Chief Inspector, Gary had confessed so promptly to decapitating the dead cat and spraying the message on the door that Quantrill, professionally suspicious of confessions, had at first declined to believe him. It wasn’t until Gary had shown Dc Bedford where he had hidden the lawn-edger that he had used as a cutting tool, the aerosol canister of red touch-up car body paint, and his blood-spattered sneakers and jeans, that the police were prepared to accept his story.

  ‘All right, son,’ Quantrill had said not unkindly; forced to recollect his activities, Gary was near to tears. ‘It was a wicked thing to do, and we’ll keep an eye on you in future. Try anything of the sort again, and you’ll find yourself in trouble. But you haven’t broken the law, so I’ll let you off this time with a caution. Just tell me why you did it.’

  To upset his mother, explained Gary. To pay her back for the way she treated all of them, and especially for the way she treated Simon. To try to frighten her into behaving herself in future, instead of cheating poor old Si.

  ‘Cheating him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Gary took off his hornrims and wiped his damp eyes with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. ‘Having another man in her bed – in Simon’s bed.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Last week. Last Friday
night. I thought she was up to something when she picked a quarrel with Si that evening. She often did that, when she wanted something. She’d deliberately start a row, and then she’d cry and say that Simon was being unkind to her. Then he’d apologise, and give her what she wanted. But last Friday she didn’t cry. She worked herself up into a rage and finally told him that he could clear off and spend the night at his mother’s. Half an hour later, after Uncle Harold and I had gone to our rooms, this man turned up. I heard his voice, and then got a quick look at him when I went to the downstairs bog.’

  ‘Did you know him? Had he been here before?’

  ‘No. I did set eyes on him once, though, about a couple of weeks ago. Mum was with him in his car, in Breckham Market. He was quite old – dark moustache but grey hair – and he was driving a Saab.’

  ‘What was its number?’

  ‘I dunno. Just after they’d passed me, he stopped at a traffic light. That was when I had a chance to look back and see what make the car was. I didn’t notice the number, but I did see a sticker in the rear window advertising some place in Yarchester. Something to do with gaslight.’

  Quantrill jerked his head at Dc Bedford, who went out to radio an enquiry to the county operations room. There were not many Saabs on the roads of East Anglia, and a list of their owners wouldn’t take long to check. Bedford also called Yarchester city police station, confident that their local knowledge would enable them to identify the car sticker.

  Within minutes, the county operations room had acquired a computer print-out listing the names and addresses of all East Anglian Saab owners. Shortly afterwards, Bedford heard from the city police. One of the Yarchester night clubs was called Fanny’s by Gaslight; it was owned by Leonard Arthur Pratt, a local entrepreneur. The fraud squad had their suspicions about some of his business activities, but he was not officially known to the police.

  Leonard Arthur Pratt’s name appeared on the list of Saab owners. Dc Bedford informed Chief Inspector Quantrill, who asked the city CID for co-operation. A patrol car was sent immediately to pick Pratt up, but his wife said – and his personal secretary confirmed – that he was in the United States. He had flown there on Wednesday, with a group of leisure-industry businessmen, on what was described on his expense account as a fact-finding visit to Palm Springs and Las Vegas.

  ‘This reconstruction hasn’t really put us any further forward,’ said Hilary Lloyd. She got up and shifted her garden chair to a firmer patch of Tenerife’s back lawn. ‘Has it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ Quantrill argued. ‘For one thing, we now know that Simon Arrowsmith lied to us about where he was a week last Friday night. Since he lied about that, can we believe what he says about spending the whole of last Thursday night at the infirmary?’

  ‘He’s still sticking to that story. He says the only reason he lied last week was to protect Angela.’

  Quantrill snorted. ‘To save his own pride, more like. Where is he now, by the way?’

  ‘At the infirmary, visiting his mother. I must admit that I’m not much happier about his alibi than you are, sir, so I’m going there again tonight to do some more checking.’ She looked up as Dc Bedford crossed the grass towards them, still in his track suit. ‘Any luck at Ross Arrowsmith’s office, James?’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant.’ Bedford liked the way she called him by his full, preferred name, rather than arbitrarily abbreviating it – or, worse, calling him Jim-lad or Jimbo, as most of his colleagues did. ‘I interviewed the night security guards, at their homes, and they both confirm that Ross Arrowsmith arrived at the Old Maltings at about eleven fifteen on Thursday, and stayed there all night. His car was locked in the yard, and they didn’t open the gates again until seven on Friday morning.’

  ‘That eliminates Ross, then,’ said Quantrill. ‘Look, will you interview Harold Wilkes, Hilary? I’m still betting on collusion between him and Simon. It’s high time we got some more information out of him, and you’re much more likely to succeed than I am. Pressure him a bit.’

  ‘It’s not very easy to pressure someone when you have to communicate in writing,’ she pointed out.

  ‘That’s no reason for not trying. And while you’re doing that, I’m going to have a word with Angela’s builder, Cyril Mutimer. He’s only an outside chance, but he must have been well aware of her ambitions for the restaurant, and we know that he saw her there on the afternoon before her death. He’s a crafty old devil. He always looks pathetic, as innocent as a baby, but that’s an act. He owns property all over the town, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he allows selected female tenants to pay their rent in kind.’

  As Quantrill rose to go, a uniformed constable brought him a message from the civilian scene-of-crime officer at Breckham Market. Angela Arrowsmith’s flimsy shoes had been examined and found to be virtually new. Discounting the bloodstains, the saturation by rainwater, and the splashes of mud thrown up by traffic, the smooth leather soles were marked only by scratches and superficial pitting. The wearer had walked for a short distance on a hard surface – paving or flagstones, and probably gravel; demonstrably not on earth or mud.

  ‘So she didn’t get out of her car in the layby,’ said Hilary slowly. ‘That removes the possibility that she ran towards the main road, after having been frightened by the hands on her throat …’

  ‘Then she must have been carried,’ said Quantrill. ‘She was a tiny woman, and her attacker could easily have carried her, semi-conscious, and dumped her in the path of a vehicle coming over the brow of the hill.’

  ‘Risky, for whoever did it –’

  ‘Yes, risky. But it leaves us in no doubt about his intentions, does it? He’s ruthless, but at least when we find him he’ll have no chance of claiming that it was an accident. This is one murderer who won’t get away with a plea of manslaughter.’

  ‘Right,’ said Hilary purposefully. ‘I’ll start by talking to Harold Wilkes.’

  ‘Do that,’ said Quantrill. She hurried towards the house, and as an afterthought he beckoned to Dc Bedford.

  ‘Stay with Miss Lloyd, Jim. Don’t let her see you, and don’t get in her way – but make sure you keep within earshot.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Harold Wilkes looked a little better than when Hilary had first seen him. His skin was still grey, the bags round his eyes dark with sleeplessness, but the eyes themselves were less bloodshot, his manner more relaxed. He was obviously glad to see her. He poured a cup of coffee and handed it to her across the kitchen worktop, together with a scribbling pad and a ballpoint pen.

  Hilary smiled her thanks, but wasted no time on attempts at pleasantry. Not knowing whether he was aware of what they had discovered that morning, she wrote, It was Gary who cut off Angela’s cat’s head. Did you know that, last week?

  ‘I guessed,’ he said in his loud flat voice, ‘when I found traces of blood on the downstairs washbasin, and in his room. He’s not a bad lad, though. He’d never hurt a living animal.’

  Do you know why he did it? Do you know that Angela had a man here that night?

  ‘Oh yes.’ He ran his hands over his cropped hair, his lips working as he selected his words. ‘I may be deaf, but I’m not blind and stupid as well. Angela thought I was. She thought I didn’t know what was going on. As far as she was concerned I was just a housekeeping machine, with no feelings, no right to any consideration –’

  Are you glad she’s dead?

  He stopped his words and looked at her, his skin darkening. ‘I didn’t want her dead. Not dead. Just off my back. I couldn’t stand the pressures she put on me. As if it wasn’t bad enough, to be like this –’

  I’m sorry. About your deafness.

  ‘Thank you. Thank you for trying to be considerate. But you don’t understand, you can’t, nobody does. People think I’m living in a world of silence. God, if that were all I had to contend with, I’d be lucky. I live in a hell of noise – it’s like being on a busy dockyard, with anchor chains rattling and ships’sirens hooting, and it
goes on all the time. Sometimes it’s not as loud as others, and I feel that perhaps I’m adjusting to it. And then it’s as though someone turns the volume up, and up and up again, until I feel that I’m going mad … And no one can help. Nothing can be done for it. There isn’t a cure for tinnitus.’

  He began to pace the kitchen, his lips working silently. Hilary watched him, turning on her high swivel stool, the pen lying useless in her hand. There was nothing she could write, no message of comfort she could give him; particularly as she was in process of interviewing him in connection with a murder.

  After a moment she wrote, Who killed your sister? But Wilkes was still on the move, talking out loud again.

  ‘Even without the noises, though, total deafness is terrible. It’s eerie. You lose your sense of identity. When I’m with a number of people, I feel as though I’m a ghost. I can see them talking and laughing, without any reference to me. It’s as if I’m not there. But when I’m with just one person, it’s the other way round. When I’m doing the talking, it’s the other person who’s a ghost.’

  He stood still, close to Hilary. ‘You, now. I know who you are: Detective Sergeant Hilary Lloyd. You’re sitting there looking interested and sympathetic, but are you real or am I dreaming? I can hear nothing from you, not the slightest sound. How can I be sure that I’m not seeing things? – unless I touch you.’

  He put his hand on her wrist. It was a square hand, blunt-fingered, pale and immaculately clean, but damp. It trembled with nervous tension.

  Hilary looked down at it, willing her own hand not to twitch. Wilkes looked down too, and saw the last note she had written: Who killed your sister? His fingers tightened. She felt their moist tips press against her wrist.

  Then, abruptly, he released her. ‘One of Angela’s boy friends, I suppose,’ he said, turning away. ‘She had plenty of them, and she gave them enough provocation.’