Blood on the Happy Highway

by Sheila Radley

  Do you know who they are? wrote Hilary, hoping that her handwriting didn’t look as shaky as she felt.

  ‘No. She didn’t bring them here – except the one last week.’

  We know about him. Who were the others?

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose she met them in Yarchester. I smelled them, though. I used to look after her clothes, and I could smell the different after-shaves, and cigarette and cigar smoke. And then there were the stains, hers and theirs.’

  Wilkes’s face expressed the distaste he was unable to convey by tone of voice. ‘There was one other man who came here to see her, in the summer – but he wasn’t a boy friend. He had a big, pale face – straight out of jail, by the look of him. Probably one of the characters she knew when she worked at the Yarchester Black Bull. She brought him in here, and told me to make him a sandwich. While I did that, he was showing her a newspaper cutting. A photograph. I couldn’t see what it was, but he seemed to be trying to put some kind of pressure on her.’

  Was Angela frightened by him?

  ‘Not her – she was used to working in rough pubs, she knew how to deal with men. She just shook her head at him and laughed. Then she borrowed a fiver from me, and sent him off with it. That was the only time I saw him.’

  In the summer? Which month?

  ‘June or early July, as far as I can remember.’

  Would you recognise him from a photograph?

  ‘Probably.’

  Wilkes could have been making it up, in an attempt to divert her attention away from himself, but his story had to be investigated. Hilary called a patrol car, and took him to county police headquarters to look at the mug book.

  Chief Inspector Quantrill found Cyril Mutimer in his Breckham

  Market builder’s yard, down by the river. The yard was still muddy,

  after Thursday night’s deluge, and the assembled rainclouds looked likely to deposit again at any moment. Mutimer was pottering about outside his back door, wearing his tight, soiled black jacket and pinstripe trousers, together with wellington boots.

  ‘Bless my soul – it’s Chief Inspector Quantrill, isn’t it?’ He peered through his pebble glasses, his mouth curved upwards in its habitual smile. ‘What can I do for you, sir? A private building job? Nothing in the undertaking line, I trust?’

  Quantrill explained that he had come about Mrs Angela Arrowsmith. ‘I believe she was a tenant of yours, at the old chapel.’

  Mutimer backed metaphorically. ‘– the old chapel … Ah. Yes. Most unfortunate that she should have met her death. Most distressing. Strictly speaking, though, she wasn’t yet my tenant. She hadn’t actually taken over the lease.’

  ‘But you knew all about her plans for turning the chapel into a night club? A very unsound scheme, in my opinion.’

  ‘Very unsound. You’ve taken the words out of my mouth, Mr Quantrill. Not that the building wouldn’t convert ideally, but a big restaurant and night club would never have succeeded in Breckham Market. I told her so myself. I advised her against it. But Mrs Arrowsmith was a very determined lady.’

  ‘So I understand. I suppose you knew that she had nothing like enough money to finance her scheme?’

  ‘– nothing like enough money … Well, how could I have known that, Mr Quantrill? The lady didn’t take me into her confidence.’

  ‘But you’re a shrewd businessman. You knew perfectly well that she hadn’t a hope of making enough money to cover her overheads. How did you expect to be paid?’

  The infant mouth drooped. ‘To be paid? Well, I hardly liked to enquire. After all, she is an Arrowsmith, and we all know how successful Mr Ross Arrowsmith is. I assumed that the restaurant was a family enterprise.’

  Heavy spots of rain began to fall. Quantrill followed Cyril Mutimer into the shelter of his grimy office. ‘You visited Mrs Arrowsmith at the old chapel on Thursday afternoon, I believe, Mr Mutimer?’

  ‘– Thursday afternoon … yes. Yes, indeed. I wanted to discuss the conversion work with her.’

  ‘And did you see her again later that night?’

  ‘That night? No, no, certainly not. I always go the Conservative Club on Thursday evenings, to play bridge. I went just after eight, as usual, and stayed there until closing time. Councillor Kenward will be able to confirm that, if you doubt me.’

  ‘It’s not that I doubt you, sir. I’m simply collecting information about Mrs Arrowsmith’s movements on the night she died. And I do of course want to eliminate innocent witnesses, so if you could tell me what you did after the Club closed –?’

  ‘After the Club closed … I came home. Yes, that was it. With Councillor Kenward, as a matter of fact. He came back with me for a glass of whisky, and we talked into the early hours. Local politics, you know …’

  It sounded plausible enough. Quantrill turned to go, and found himself face-to-rear with the girl on the Penthouse calendar that hung on the back of the door. He stared, blinked and swallowed. Girlie photographs, however soft in terms of pornography, were bound to put ideas into a man’s head. The question was how far Cyril Mutimer – or anyone, come to that – would go in an attempt to put his fantasies into practice.

  But at that moment, Mutimer had something else on his mind. He pulled open the door and hurried out into the rain to rescue a pair of black leather shoes. Quantrill had noticed them as he came in, lying on their sides on a wooden box. They were thickly coated with mud, and had evidently been left there to dry out.

  ‘My undertaking shoes!’ Mutimer lamented, his chins quivering. ‘I had one burial on Thursday, and another yesterday. It’s always muddy at a grave-side – bound to be – but yesterday, after all that rain … well, you can see for yourself. I knocked a lot of the mud off, but just look at what’s left! And now they’re wet again. When you think of the cost of a new pair of shoes these days …’

  Quantrill commiserated with the undertaker, helped himself unobtrusively to a lump of the sodden clay, and hurried through the rain to his car.

  Detective Inspector Tait of the regional crime squad despaired over the inefficiency of the criminal records section at Yarchester county headquarters. True, the records of local criminals were kept in order, and regularly and painstakingly updated. The cross-indexing system – names, methods, suspect vehicles, associates, places frequented – was commendably extensive. But it was a steam-age presentation.

  The information was typed out on index cards; and the cards, in racks and drawers and on carousels, occupied an office that ran the full width of the building. It was a crazy waste of time and space, thought Tait. It should be computerised, like criminal records at Scotland Yard and the national vehicle licensing centre at Swansea. All he wanted was the name of a villain who had come out of jail in July, having done two years for robbery, and whose home address was in Yarchester. With a computer, the information would be available within minutes. There might be more than one man, but a quick look in their files would reveal which one had a wife named Denise.

  Without computerised records, Tait was reduced to looking through the mug book – actually a pile of books – to try to identify the potato-faced villain who had run away from him in the Black Bull. The man had looked too old to be the husband of a thirty-year-old woman, but there was no doubt that he knew something about her.

  Tait worked his way methodically through the photographs. He was about to start on the last book when Sergeant Lloyd arrived, on the same errand. They exchanged reasons for being there; Hilary passed on the description that Harold Wilkes had given her of the man who had called in the summer to see his sister.

  ‘Where is Wilkes?’ asked Tait, picking up the final book.

  ‘In number three interview room.’

  They went together, walking along the corridor side by side, almost but not quite quickening into a run. At the door of the interview room, Hilary removed the book from Tait’s hands. She put it in front of Wilkes with an encouraging smile, and they stood watching him anxiously.

  Wilkes looked il
l again. His forehead was furrowed, his eyes raw. He turned the pages obediently, but Hilary began to wonder whether – always supposing that his story were true – he could concentrate sufficiently to make an identification.

  Then, suddenly, he said, ‘That’s him. That’s the man who came to see Angela.’

  Hilary spoke her thanks clearly enough for Wilkes to lip-read, and took the book from him. Tait put out his hand for it.

  ‘Sorry,’ she told the Inspector, her voice pleasant but firm. ‘He’s mine – I want to interview him in connection with Angela Arrowsmith’s murder.’

  ‘You’d be wasting your time,’ said Tait, who had seen enough of the photograph to recognise the man from the Black Bull. ‘As far as that murder’s concerned, he’s just an off-chance. But I have reason to believe that he can identify the headless woman in the A135 case. That’s a regional crime squad responsibility, and I have priority.’

  He commandeered the book. ‘Sorry and all that, Hilary love, but this one’s mine.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The ex-prisoner with the boiled-potato face found three detectives awaiting him when he was brought to Yarchester city police station for interview later that afternoon.

  To Tait’s chagrin, the Chief Inspector had pointed out that the function of regional crime squad officers was to assist on particular investigations and to work with the detective officers of the force concerned. Accordingly, said Quantrill, he intended to be present while Tait interviewed the man; and as it would be bloody stupid to keep the investigations separate when there were links, however tenuous, between the two crimes, he wanted Sergeant Lloyd to begin the interviewing.

  They had all read the man’s file and knew his background. Reginald William Pearce, aged 55, had a lengthy record of minor crimes, chiefly thefts of and from motor vehicles. He had also been involved in several burglaries, always acting as driver. His last sentence, served in Yarchester jail, had ended on 20 June. He was unmarried, and lived in the city with his mother.

  Pearce was, he told Sergeant Lloyd indignantly, going straight; had been, ever since he’d finished his last stretch. When the coppers had picked him up, just now, he’d been in his bed enjoying a peaceful afternoon kip.

  Yes, he did go to Nether Wickford at the end of June, to see Angela Arrowsmith. Nothing wrong with that. No reason why he shouldn’t. He’d known her years ago, when she was a barmaid at the Black Bull. He visited her because he’d seen her photograph in the local paper, while he was in jail. She’d obviously done well for herself – there she was, right in the middle of a group photograph taken at the opening of some kind of computer place owned by her brother-in-law. It stood to reason that she must have plenty of money, and Pearce had hoped that she might be prepared to part with a little to help a feller who was down on his luck. Worth a try, anyway.

  He’d found Angela’s address in the telephone directory. He’d never heard of Nether Wickford, but he asked a lorry driver he knew, and the driver had given him a lift down the A135 and dropped him at a crossroads. He’d walked to Angela’s house from there. If he’d known how muckin’far it was, he wouldn’t have bothered.

  It was a waste of time, anyway. Angela had told him that her husband had left the computer firm, and that they were broke. She was pleasant enough: offered him a beer and a sandwich and a fiver, on condition that he didn’t go there again. No, of course he didn’t threaten her; what kind of a man did they think he was? No, he didn’t nick anything either. Well, all right, he might have accidentally knocked over a table lighter and one or two other bits and pieces, and found later that they’d fallen into his pocket, but the coppers’d have a muckin’ hard job to prove it. Then he’d footslogged all the way back to the main road, and hitched a lift to Yarchester. He’d never set eyes on Angela Arrowsmith since.

  There seemed no reason to connect him with her murder, and Sergeant Lloyd gave way, reluctantly, to Inspector Tait.

  ‘Why did you run when I started asking questions in the Black Bull this morning?’ Tait asked.

  ‘Because I guessed you were a copper.’

  ‘No need to run, unless you’re hiding something. What I’m interested in is the murder of the woman whose body was found in a layby on the A135 – the headless woman. You know who she was, don’t you? I don’t suspect you of being the murderer, but if you’re not you’d be wise to talk.’

  Pearce talked.

  He had been approached one weekend early in July by a man he knew – he refused to give his name, and Tait didn’t press for it at that stage – who told him that someone wanted a driving job done. The man gave Pearce a Yarchester telephone number – a call box – and told him to ring at a certain time.

  Pearce rang the number, and the man who answered told him to collect a van late that night from a piece of waste ground near the railway station. The van would contain some rubbish that Pearce was to get rid of secretly – somewhere out in the country, at least ten miles from Yarchester. He was then to return the van to the same place. When he did so, he would find a fifty-pound bundle of banknotes hidden under some loose bricks at the foot of an old wall.

  Easy money. Pearce had agreed, and picked up the van. He was Yarchester born and bred and didn’t know much about the country, but he had been driven down the A135 only a few days previously and so he took that road again. And then he remembered having seen a layby near the Nether Wickford crossroads, one that was surrounded by trees, completely secluded. Ideal for the job.

  ‘Did you know what the rubbish was?’ Tait asked.

  ‘No, I didn’t, I swear to God. I didn’t even look in the back of the van until I reached the layby. I thought it must be a shooter, or some gear that had been worn or used on a job. It didn’t worry me, either way. But as soon as I saw the size and shape of this plastic-wrapped bundle – Christ, I panicked, I don’t mind telling you. I dragged it out of the van and shoved it into the undergrowth, double-quick. I just hoped it wouldn’t be found – and then some muckin’lorry driver had to go and trip over it a couple of days later. I read all about it in the paper. Haven’t stopped shaking since.’

  ‘And you knew whose the body was?’

  ‘No!’ Pearce hesitated. ‘I had a good guess, though. I’d recognised the voice of the feller I spoke to on the phone. We shared a cell in Yarchester four or five years ago – and when you’re banged up with a feller for eighteen months, you don’t forget his voice. I remembered his missus, too. Saw her sometimes on visiting day. Her name was Denise, and she had a gap between her top front teeth. Once seen, never forgotten. I s’pose that was why he chopped her head off.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  Pearce said nothing. His prison-pale face was heavy with worry, and he gnawed at one of his thumbs.

  ‘The man had just come out of jail,’ said Tait. ‘A few weeks after you. Was he in Yarchester again?’

  ‘No. He had family in London, he often did jobs there. I heard that he was in the Scrubs.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. If he knew I’d shopped him, he’d be after me.’

  ‘No need to worry about that. He’s going to be inside for a very long time. Come on, Reg, who was it? If you tell us, we’ll believe that you had no idea what was inside the bundle before you dumped it. If you won’t talk, it might look as though you knew all about the –’

  Pearce gabbled out the man’s name before Tait had time to say ‘murder’.

  ‘Big party tonight, Hilary,’ said Quantrill with uncharacteristic exuberance as they walked out of Yarchester city police station. ‘We usually take over the back room of the Coney and Thistle when we’ve got something to celebrate.’

  ‘A bit premature for celebration, isn’t it, sir? Inspector Tait hasn’t picked the suspect up yet.’

  ‘That shouldn’t take him long. We know – and so does he – that we did all the hard work and pointed him in the right direction, and that’s what we’re going to celebrate. Plus the fact it was our new
CID sergeant who made the breakthrough. Congratulations!’

  Quantrill turned to smile at her. As he did so, his heel slipped off the edge of a low step. He twisted his body to regain his balance and save himself from an ignominious fall, and then clutched at his lower back, grimacing with pain.

  He knew exactly what it was: lumbago. It had first smitten him two years ago, when he was doing some furniture-moving at home. He’d thought that he was crippled for life, but the doctor had told him briskly that it was muscular strain caused by lifting heavy objects incorrectly. Quantrill now knew – when he remembered – that he needed to keep his back straight and bend from the knees when he was lifting anything, but his back had become vulnerable. The pain was liable to recur whenever he pulled the same muscles, particularly in cold or damp weather. It would ease magically when Molly rubbed his back with balm, and would disappear completely within a day or two; but meanwhile it would give him gyp. Lumbago made him feel and look ninety. It also sounded old.

  ‘My back’s gone again,’ he said in answer to Hilary’s enquiry. ‘Disc trouble … no, I can manage, thanks.’

  ‘You can’t drive like that,’ she said. ‘Let me have your keys.’

  He refused. He didn’t know how he was going to operate the foot controls without yelping, but he was damned if he was going to let her do the driving.

  Hilary watched him hobble to his car, his hand pressed against his back. She hadn’t sweated for three years to gain her SRN without learning that a damaged disc puts pressure on the nerves in the spinal column, producing acute pain in one or other of the legs rather than in the back itself. She suspected lumbago; but she let him cling to his more dramatic diagnosis.

  ‘Very nasty, disc trouble,’ she said sympathetically. ‘If you try to drive, you might do yourself a permanent injury. I used to be a nurse, so I do know what I’m talking about.’