Step in the Dark

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  Pollard thanked her for this information, and after being briefed on the route, left in the Hillman with Toye for Alma Cottages. The day’s developments had so far been encouraging. Whatever the outcome of the inquiry, a good deal of ground had to be covered, and he felt that at least some headway was being made. Progress through streets crowded with Saturday morning shoppers was slow and he found the delay irritating. At last Toye extricated the car from the town centre, and turned into Alexandra Road.

  Pollard leant forward.

  ‘Those small houses on the left, from the look of them, I should think,’ he said, and began to open the passenger door as Toye slowed down.

  A couple of moments later he was standing on the pavement, looking in surprise at an estate agent’s ‘For Sale’ notice in the small front garden of Number One, Alma Cottages.

  ‘Funny Mr Habgood didn’t know she was selling,’ Toye commented, joining him.

  They walked round to the front door. A notice on the step, weighted down by a stone, requested ‘No milk until further notice’.

  ‘Damn!’ Pollard said. ‘She’s gone away. Let’s see if the people next door have got her address.’

  The door of Number Two, Alma Cottages, was opened by a fretful woman of indeterminate age, who eyed them suspiciously.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know where Miss Escott’s gone off to,’ she said ‘’Tisn’t neighbourly, going off without a word like that. Nobody likes an empty house next door, and not knowing when people are coming back. Keeps you on the listen all the time, with all the burglaries we’ve been having here in Ramsden. If it’s the house you’re after, the agent’s name’s on the board.’

  ‘Has it been up for sale long?’ Pollard asked.

  ‘The man came yesterday and stuck that board up in the garden. You could’ve knocked me down with a feather. Never a word about it to her next-door neighbour. That’s when I found out she’d gone away, seeing all the windows shut and that notice to the milkman on the step.’

  Pollard thanked her and they withdrew, shutting the gate carefully, aware of being watched off the premises from behind the front-window curtains of the little houses. He looked at his watch. ‘It’s past one,’ he said. ‘What’ll you bet that Henry Moggs Estate Agent, has closed down for the weekend? There’s a telephone kiosk along there on the right.’

  The only reply to his call was the persistent ringing tone.

  ‘Damn!’ he said, returning to the car. ‘We’d better consult Cook.’

  Chapter 6

  Inspector Cook saw no particular significance in Evelyn Escott’s absence, or in the fact that her house had been put up for sale.

  ‘Put it this way, Mr Pollard,’ he said, planting his hands, palms downwards, on his desk. ‘The lady’s not young, not by a long chalk, and she was knocked down in the street and her handbag taken, Wednesday night. Then, Thursday morning, I go along and tell her that a friend she was talking to only the night before’s been found dead at the Athenaeum under suspicious circumstances. Passed clean out, like I said, Miss Escott did. It seems natural enough to me that she’d feel like a day or two away to get over it all. I reckon she’s gone to friends.’

  Pollard admitted that this interpretation made sense.

  ‘All the same,’ he said, ‘after what Mr Habgood told me about her, it seems a bit surprising that she’s selling her house. He certainly didn’t know anything about it. He said she bought it some years ago for her retirement, and that she’d always wanted to come back to Ramsden, and take an active part in this Society her family founded.’

  ‘There’s plenty of other houses in the town,’ Inspector Cook pointed out. ‘Granted the property market’s come off the top, but if she bought some years back she’d make a tidy profit selling now. Maybe she’s planning to move to something a bit more run-of-the-mill, with lower rates. There’s a preservation order on Alma Cottages, though God knows why. Poky little places and nothing to look at, not as far as I can see.’

  ‘Is Miss Escott the same family as Escott & Co., the estate agents?’ Toye asked. ‘I’ve noticed a lot of their boards around.’

  ‘That’s right. They’re an old Ramsden family. The Super was talking about them last night. She’s first cousin to Mr Colin Escott, who’s head of the firm now, and pretty warm. It was his old man built it up into a real going concern, and it seems he’d no use in the world for his younger brother, Miss Escott’s dad, who could never hold a job down and was always on his beam ends. I doubt if she ever sees her cousins — or wants to. You said Moggs was selling her place, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She isn’t even selling through the family firm, then... Moggs is in a much smaller way of business. Broad and long, I’d say he caters for clients in the lower price range. Very decent chap, though. Would you like us to get on to him and ask for Miss Escott’s address? He’ll be bound to have it, in case somebody comes up with an offer.’

  Pollard considered. ‘Well, yes, we would. According to Mr Habgood, she was working in the Athenaeum library all day last Wednesday, and we’re on to a new idea about how X got into the place.’

  He went on to describe the marks on the floor of the boiler house and X’s gloved fingerprints on the metal frame of the stacking chairs. On this occasion, Inspector Cook was much impressed.

  ‘Well, that’s a break-through, if you like,’ he said. ‘Wish my chaps hadn’t missed it. Reckon they saw the marks but didn’t use their imagination the way you did, Mr Pollard. Going back to Miss Escott, we’ll be glad to get in touch with her ourselves. Her handbag’s turned up. A refuse collector found it in a carton put out by one of the shops in the town centre. Cleaned out, of course, but we’re interested in the dabs on it. There was another snatch about an hour later that same evening, but the woman managed to hang on to hers. Says it was quite a kid, but he beat it and got away.’

  Pollard and Toye were sympathetic on the problems of juvenile delinquency, then finally went off to the room allotted to them, to deal with the backlog of paperwork. It was a bleak little box, with an outlook across the car park to a row of boarded-up houses awaiting demolition. Pollard looked around with distaste. The fortunate Moggs was probably off for the weekend, or on the golf course. At home, Jane would be setting off for Wimbledon Common with the twins, hoping to use up some of their almost inexhaustible supply of energy...

  He jerked himself back to the uncongenial present as Boyce and Strickland appeared, and the team settled down to a detailed study of the photographed fingerprints from the library and boiler house. It soon became clear that while these confirmed the statements of the Habgoods and Clare Fenner in all respects, and also the preliminary findings of Inspector Cook’s men, they produced no fresh information on the activities of Annabel Brown, X and Y. Annabel had come in through the boiler house, after X and before Y, crawled about on the floor round the librarian’s table, gone up the spiral staircase, examined books lying on the gallery floor in front of the cupboard forced by X, and finally returned to the top of the staircase. Just below this, there were clear signs of a frantic but ineffective attempt to grab at the rail.

  They pored over the blown-up photographs of the boiler house door handle. Strickland pointed out that X had taken a much firmer grip than either Annabel Brown or Y. X’s prints, although beneath the other two impressions, were clearer.

  ‘Interesting,’ Pollard commented. ‘If X was lying up in the boiler house and had the key to let himself out when he’d got the books he wanted, he’d have turned the handle with the usual amount of grip one uses. Now Brown and Y, coming in from the yard, would instinctively have left the door ajar, wouldn’t they? Just pushed it to. To have a quick getaway, I mean. No exit for Brown, but Y would have taken hold of the handle when he went out again. Are Y’s dabs clearer than Brown’s?’

  Further examination established that they were, as well as being more numerous. Finally, Pollard threw down the photographs and told Boyce and Strickland to call it a day and make track
s for London and home.

  ‘And you can thank your lucky stars you aren’t us,’ he added.

  The pair grinned and departed jubilantly, and Pollard and Toye began to tackle the pile of assorted documents on the table.

  Various alibis had been confirmed, among them Mrs Pinfold’s arrival at the Methodist Hall on Wednesday evening. Evidence was also forthcoming of her servitude at Annabel Brown’s shop. The latter’s associates in the receiving of stolen goods were also out of the picture. The Yard reported that they had spent the evening in a Camden Town pub, incidentally observed by a plain clothes man who was shadowing a suspected drugs pusher. The Yard also reported that, so far, no information on Annabel Brown’s early life had come to light. Local inquiries had satisfactorily accounted for the whereabouts of her former male escorts from Ramsden and its neighbourhood at the time of her death.

  The reports from the forensic laboratory were equally unhelpful. There was nothing on the soles and heels of her shoes, or about their state of wear, to account for her having slipped on the staircase, and both supporting straps were still fastened and intact.

  Pollard pushed the typed sheet across the table to Toye and began to read the analysis of the dust and fragmentary matter removed by suction from the treads of the staircase.

  “‘Eye of newt and toe of frog”,’ he muttered.

  Toye looked up with a startled expression.

  ‘Only a quote from Macbeth,’ Pollard reassured him. ‘Recipe of the witches’ hell brew. The analyst chap’s nearly as good, though. Just listen to this ... decomposed calfskin ... wing of common house fly ... short, black animal hair ... portion of awn — hell, what’s that? — of Clematis vitalba (commonly known as Old Man’s Beard or Traveller’s Joy) ... not much joy for us, that’s plain. Here, wade through it yourself.’

  Silence descended once more, ultimately broken by Toye. ‘Whoever lifted the books seems to be sitting on ’em,’ he remarked.

  ‘There’s a chit here from the booksy boys at the Yard,’ Pollard replied, hunting through a batch of papers. ‘Total value about four thousand, they say: hardly worth bothering about, in fact. Cook says there are no outstandingly valuable single items in the library. The best things they’ve got are complete runs of nineteenth-century natural histories with fine illustrations, and you could hardly carry off twenty or thirty volumes under your arm. Did I tell you that the whole set-up was on the point of folding after the war when the present Chairman — a chap called Westlake — found the original manuscript of a previously unknown sonnet by the poet John Donne? It fetched a cool hundred thousand at auction.’

  ‘And who’s John Donne when he’s at home?’ Toye demanded, in a tone of mingled stupefaction and outrage.

  ‘An unusual type of clergyman who lived in the seventeenth century. I don’t think you’d altogether approve — come in!’

  A combined knock and opening of the door precipitated a purposeful Inspector Cook into the room.

  ‘The lad who mugged Miss Escott’s been brought in,’ he announced. ‘Caught in Woolworth’s, taking a purse out of a woman’s shopping basket. We’ve taken his dabs, and they’re on Miss Escott’s handbag, but he swears he was in Abbot’s Green at seven on Wednesday night, when the second snatch happened. So we thought you’d like to come in on it. His mother’s here. Proper bitch.’

  ‘Lead on,’ Pollard said, already on his feet. ‘All we’re doing at the moment is landing up in dead ends.’

  Mother and son were sitting as far apart as the area of the interviewing room allowed, as if bent on disowning one another. Pollard experienced a sudden wonder and pity that their original biological unity could have evolved into such alienation in the short space of the boy’s life.

  Flo Dibble’s diminutive figure was huddled into a tweed overcoat several sizes too large for her. Worn slippers suggested a hasty departure from home. The roughened skin of her face was shiny, and she sat with a beaten look, her workworn hands tightly clasped. Ernie, in a navy blue anorak and clumsy, scuffed shoes, sat blinking in the strong light, looking white and pinched, with a runny nose.

  ‘These police officers are Superintendent Pollard and Inspector Toye of Scotland Yard, Mrs Dibble,’ Inspector Cook announced. ‘They want a word with Ernie about last Wednesday night.’

  She stared dumbly at Pollard and made no reply to his polite good evening. He drew up a chair and, sitting down, addressed himself to the boy.

  ‘Ernie,’ he said, ‘if you’ve been breaking the law here in Ramsden, it’s not my business. Inspector Toye and I aren’t one bit interested. We want to see you, though, because we think you can help us in the job we’ve been sent down from the Yard to do. Got that?’

  Ernie sniffed. His mouth fell open slightly.

  ‘Good,’ Pollard went on, rightly interpreting this as a sign of surprise and gratification. ‘Now, after you’d thrown away the handbag you took from that lady in Alexandra Road last Wednesday evening, what did you do next?’

  ‘Borta ice-cream,’ Ernie admitted cautiously.

  ‘With the money ’e stole!’ Flo Dibble interrupted shrilly.

  ‘Where did you buy it?’ Pollard pursued, ignoring her.

  ‘Shop in South Street.’

  ‘Sercombe’s Snack Bar?’ asked Inspector Cook.

  ‘’Sright.’

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘Ate’n, walkin’ along.’

  ‘Which way did you go?’

  Pollard patiently extracted Ernie’s route. It was clear that he was increasingly reluctant to describe it as it reached the neighbourhood of Abbot’s Green.

  ‘Come on, old chap,’ he said encouragingly. ‘This is just where we want you to help us. Did you go into the Green itself?’

  ‘’E ’adn’t got no call to go inter the Green, where I’ve worked respectable seven year an’ more. ’Tis ’is father’s bad blood comin’ out in ’im, for all I’ve toiled and struggled —’

  Pollard turned and fixed her with a look which had the effect of making her outburst tail off. She shrank back a little.

  ‘Far better that Ernie’s difficulties should come out,’ he said quietly. ‘We can help him to cope with them now. Don’t interrupt me again, Mrs Dibble, please. Now Ernie, let’s get this straight, shall we? Do you remember what time it was when you bought your ice-cream?’

  Surprisingly, Ernie did. There had been a clock on the wall behind the counter in Sercombe’s Snack Bar, saying twenty-five past six.

  ‘Right. Now you’re a Ramsden chap and must know the town pretty well. How long do you think it took you to walk from the snack bar to Abbot’s Green?’

  This question seemed to present difficulties, and Pollard tried another about possible striking clocks.

  ‘I ’eard the parish church strike the ’arf ’our afore I got ter the Green. In Bridge Street, I was.’

  After a brief discussion about distances with Inspector Cook, Pollard came to the conclusion that Ernie must have turned into Abbot’s Green at about 6.35 p.m. Possibly a few minutes later.

  ‘Inspector Cook’s told you that somebody tried to grab another lady’s handbag in West Street on the other side of the town at quarter to seven, Ernie,’ he said. ‘If you really were in Abbot’s Green when you say you were, that somebody couldn’t have been you, could he? It’s up to you to prove you were in the Green, then, isn’t it? Did you meet anybody when you walked round?’

  Looking hunted, the boy shook his head and dragged the sleeve of his anorak across his nose.

  ‘Did you see anyone there?’

  ‘I seed a chap walkin’ away on t’other side.’

  ‘Would you know him if you met him again?’

  ‘Too far orf, ’e wur.’

  Pressed for details, Ernie could only say that the man wasn’t tall or short — just ordinary, walking fast and carrying a bag. Asked what sort of bag, he pointed to a briefcase on a chair.

  ‘When you saw this man,’ Pollard said, trying to sound almost casual, ‘did
you notice if he came out of the place where your Mum works? You know it, don’t you? The big place, with doors beside it into a yard.’

  ‘Yeah, I knows ’un. No, ’e wur a fair step past ’un,’ Ernie replied without hesitation.

  ‘Were the doors into the yard open or shut?’

  ‘Open, both of ’em.’

  ‘I expect you went in yourself, to have a look round, didn’t you?’

  Ernie stiffened perceptibly. ‘I never. Didn’t put a foot in the bloody yard.’

  The vehemence of the reply brought Pollard sudden illumination. ‘No,’ he agreed, ‘I don’t think you did, Ernie. You tried that big brass door knob on the front door, didn’t you? It turned, and you slipped inside. That’s what happened, isn’t it?’

  The boy gave a brief nod and looked away.

  ‘I’m orf ’ome,’ Flo Dibble shrilled, addressing herself to Inspector Cook. ‘Fetchin’ the pound odd ’e says ’e took, an’ them stamps ’e gave ’is little brother, sayin’ ’e ’ad ’em from school. Stolen goods in me ’ouse ’ll bring down a curse, more’n what we’ve got already.’

  Cook and Pollard exchanged glances.

  ‘Have you any objection to Superintendent Pollard’s asking Ernie some more questions while you’re away, Mrs Dibble?’ the Inspector inquired.

  ‘Ask ’un what yer like. You’ll get naught but lies.’

  ‘Right, then. We’ll run you home and bring you back.’

  The atmosphere eased with Flo’s departure. Pollard recrossed his legs, folded his arms and adopted a more conversational tone.

  ‘When you were inside that place, Ernie,’ he said, ‘something scared the living daylights out of you, didn’t it? We want you to tell us what it was. You’ll feel a lot better when you’ve got it off your chest, you know.’

  Ernie whimpered, and once more dragged his sleeve across his face.

  ‘I didn’t do nuthin’. I never touched nuthin’.’