Suddenly While Gardening

by Elizabeth Lemarchand

  Pollard introduced himself.

  ‘I expect all the comings and goings have attracted quite a bit of interest,’ he said tentatively.

  ‘Coupled with the Starbarrow kistvaen they’re likely to be the talking point of the century, I should think. One can hardly get inside the Woolpack these days. But I can tell you one thing.’

  ‘And that is?’ Pollard prompted.

  ‘The bobby who arrived just now and is diligently calling at every house won’t find out anything about cars going up and down. People will just clam up. It’s a village that hangs together.’

  Pollard considered the implications of this remark, and decided to come to the point.

  ‘I shouldn’t have thought that the owner of Starbarrow Farm would be reckoned as a member of the Churstow community.’

  ‘You’re wrong there. In an odd sort of way the village is quite proud of him as a well-known character. Incidentally, he’s openhanded, and always pays on the nail. And then there’s the Them and Us factor, stronger than ever since rural rates went up astronomically. That bobby is one of Them, you see, poking around at Our expense. The poor chap’s had it before he even starts.’

  Pollard laughed. ‘I suppose you yourself haven’t any helpful information about cars coming and going last weekend, for instance?’

  Elsa Fordham shook her head.

  ‘My husband and I are right out of it. We live in a small lane on the other side of the main road. Well, it’s interesting to have met you. You’re not a bit my mental image of a Scotland Yard detective... Goodbye — I’ll shut the gate after you.’

  ‘What the hell do people expect us to look like?’ Pollard demanded, as they drove down the lane. ‘Sherlock Holmes? I bet some of these locals could give you a pretty accurate list of the cars that have passed up and down during the past week. I saw a curtain drop back as we went by. Let’s hope the bobby’s smarter than Mrs Elsa Fordham obviously thinks.’

  They turned out into the main road and headed for Stoneham.

  Chapter 3

  When enquiries into the past history of the Lings had been put in train, and the appeals for information put out on the early evening news critically listened to, Pollard felt at a loose end. There was not even the usual expedient of filling in time by having a good square meal. He agreed with Toye that the heat made the hotel dining room unthinkable, and after a drink and a snack at the bar they returned unenthusiastically to the police station to await possible developments.

  Superintendent Crookshank was off duty, but they were greeted by Inspector Hemsworthy with the news that two calls had come in since the broadcast. One was obviously a hoax. The other caller had stated that he had visited the kistvaen on the Tuesday of the previous week and that there was no skeleton in it then. He had given his name and address.

  ‘Better than nothing,’ Pollard said, ‘but too far back to be much use. I simply don’t believe the skeleton was put in before the weekend.’

  Inspector Hemsworthy agreed. In the room provided for the Yard team Toye made a note of the information, and in the absence of anything further to do they settled down to study the meagre data in the case file.

  ‘Ling,’ Pollard said presently, resting his chin on his hands. ‘A lopsided type. Good brain — a retired academic of some sort, I should think. Why this eccentric buffoon act, I wonder? Is it because Nature’s given him the face for it?’

  ‘Could be,’ Toye agreed. ‘He’d have been a star turn on the box.’

  ‘After going over there this afternoon,’ Pollard went on, frowning as he spoke, ‘it’s perfectly easy to visualise him planting a skeleton in that kistvaen simply to annoy the Friends of Cattesmoor by involving the Possel Way in a lot of sensational publicity. Hitting back at them for taking the right of way dispute to court and winning hands down. The point is that it’s the wrong sort of skeleton for a jape of that sort. Not an ancient wired-up affair borrowed from a college or a medical pal, but one that was walking around as recently as about a year ago decently clothed in flesh. And one whose owner seems to have spent the intervening post mortem period under unusual conditions, to say the least of it. Somehow I can’t see Ling keeping a body in a glory hole for twelve months, and then suddenly chucking it out on a public path, nor killing the chap in the first place, come to that... Hell, we seem to have been over all this before, in one way or another.’

  ‘Suppose,’ Toye said slowly, ‘the chap was a keen salesman or something, and turned up at the farm on chance. Ling might have hit the roof and uttered threats. Brought out a gun, perhaps, or even fired a shot like the other night. Suppose the chap had a weak heart and dropped down dead. That would account for there being no signs of bone injury. Ling knows he’s got a dicey reputation locally, and bungs the body into one of those sheds. I know this doesn’t explain why he — or somebody else — brought it out and dumped it in the kistvaen. But if something like this happened and we got a search warrant, there’d bound to be traces of the body. We’d have something to work on, then.’

  Pollard thrust back his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.

  ‘As things are at the moment I can’t see that we’ve enough grounds to justify asking for a warrant. The only thing against Ling right now is that his house is the only one anywhere near the kistvaen. A suggestive fact if you like, but that’s all, so far. You know, I’m beginning to feel that it’s a mistake to concentrate so much on the kistvaen business. The roots of this affair are so much further back, right back to the dead chap himself: who he was, and what he was doing in these parts, or, if he was brought here after death, what local contact or contacts he had. That’s what we ought to be getting down to, though God knows — Come in!’

  Inspector Hemsworthy appeared, followed by a young constable.

  ‘There’s been another phonecall, Mr Pollard,’ he said. ‘This one’s reliable all right: the rector of the parish church and his wife. They were walking on the Possel Way last Thursday, and had a look at the Starbarrow kistvaen about three o’clock. No sign of a skeleton then, or anything unusual. Then there’s been an anonymous call which mayn’t be anything to do with your enquiry, but as it was a bit out of the ordinary I’ve brought along Constable Jackman who was on the switchboard.’

  Constable Jackman was a youthful-looking blond, at the moment bright pink and rigid with self-consciousness.

  ‘Let’s hear about it, my lad,’ Pollard said encouragingly.

  Relaxing slightly, the constable stated that when the call came through he had given the stock response: ‘This is Stoneham Police Station.’

  ‘Nobody spoke, sir, not for a second, say, and I was just starting to repeat what I’d said when a funny sort of voice said “AQW 227N”, and then rang off sharp.’

  ‘QW’s a Glintshire car registration mark, as no doubt you gentlemen have noticed,’ Inspector Hemsworthy took up. ‘We’ve checked on AQW 227N, and it’s a Stoneham car. A BMW belonging to Mr Peter Grant of Upway Manor. It’s a well-known local family. He’s a partner in a firm of architects here. We couldn’t trace the call. It was S.T.D.’

  Pollard’s good visual memory produced a series of pictures of the BMW and its driver passing and repassing him as he made his way out of Stoneham on the previous Monday morning.

  ‘A funny sort of voice,’ he repeated. ‘Do you mean a disguised one, Constable?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. Not what you’d call natural. Very deep it was, and sort of hoarse.’

  ‘A man’s voice?’

  Here Constable Jackman was less definite.

  ‘I took it for a man’s at the time, sir, but on thinking it over, I’m not a hundred per cent sure. I mean I couldn’t swear to it.’

  ‘This is the Mr Peter Grant who’s engaged to Mr Ling’s daughter, I take it?’ Pollard asked Inspector Hemsworthy, who dismissed the constable with a jerk of his head, and sat down on the chair indicated.

  ‘Yes, he’s the chap,’ he replied. ‘It was that made me wonder whether there might be a link
with the skeleton business, although I shouldn’t think it’s likely. What it could be is that somebody saw the car going out to Starbarrow Farm last weekend, and after the broadcast this evening thought they’d just let us know without giving themselves away.’

  Pollard looked up.

  ‘Interesting that you should say that, Inspector. We met a lady just as we were coming off the moor above Churstow this afternoon. She informed us that one of your chaps who was out there making enquiries about cars using the lane last weekend was wasting his time. He wouldn’t get anything out of anybody. Churstow v. The Rest, in fact.’

  ‘She was right enough there,’ Inspector Hemsworthy replied with asperity. ‘The chap’s just got in, with nothing whatever to report. Not a single soul had seen or heard or smelt a car in that lane anytime during the last fortnight for all he could find out. Disgraceful obstruction, that’s what it is. But there could quite well be somebody afraid to speak up in front of the neighbours who had some sense of public duty, and who’d phone in without giving a name when there was a chance.’

  Pollard considered further.

  ‘How long has the engagement been on?’

  ‘Last Christmas it came out in the Advertiser, with both their photos.’

  ‘That’s six months ago. You’d think Churstow people, for instance, would know about it, and hardly think it fishy if young Grant’s car made trips out to the farm. And incidentally, the girl was at home last weekend. We had it from her mother this afternoon.’

  Inspector Hemsworthy repeated his belief that there was nothing in the phonecall. ‘Just another nut, most likely,’ he said. ‘We get plenty of ’em on the line.’

  ‘How did Mr Ling react to the engagement?’ Pollard asked, casting round for any further possible explanations.

  ‘I wouldn’t know, Mr Pollard. Are you thinking he might be trying to chuck a spanner into the works?’

  ‘It’s a possibility, I suppose,’ Pollard said doubtfully. ‘He’s a peculiar bloke. Is there any reason why he might object to Mr Grant personally?’

  Here Inspector Hemsworthy was emphatic. Mr Peter Grant was a thoroughly good young chap and popular in the town and roundabout. Fine tennis player and fond of country life. Nice bit of money left to him by his aunt last year, too. He and his sister each got about £40,000, people said, as well as a half-share in the house, and he was doing well in the firm from all accounts.

  ‘I can’t see what more any father could want for a daughter,’ he concluded.

  They had just decided to take no steps in connection with the anonymous telephone call when the duty sergeant knocked and entered.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, uncertain to whom he should address himself, ‘but there’s a party arrived wanting to see Superintendent Pollard about the appeal for information on the telly. They say they saw a young fellow who matched up with the description over at the old lookout Easter Monday last year.’

  ‘They?’ Pollard queried. ‘How many in the party?’

  ‘Five, sir. A Mr and Mrs Sam Hawkins, their daughter and her boyfriend, and a younger lad. 17 Capstick Way’s the address. Too many to come in here, so I put ’em in Waiting Room B, pending instructions.’

  ‘Some hope of getting reliable information from a gaggle like that about what they think they saw last Easter Monday twelve month,’ Inspector Hemsworthy commented acidly.

  The sergeant stood his ground.

  ‘It’s the chap’s hair they’re on about.’

  Pollard, who had listened with some amusement, looked up with sudden interest.

  ‘Hair?’ he asked. ‘Do you mean these people say they noticed that he’d had it bleached, but it was beginning to grow out darker?’

  ‘That’s what they’re saying, sir,’ the sergeant replied stolidly. ‘From what I could make out it was the girl first spotted it, she being apprenticed to the hairdressing trade, and she pointed it out to the others. Made a joke of it, saying he’d better come along to Crowning Glory in the High Street where she works.’

  ‘Do they strike you as the sort of people who’d come along here with a cock-and-bull story just for a giggle?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say so, sir. Hawkins is a superior sort of working-class chap with a job at Letterpress, a local printing works, he says, and his wife seems sensible enough, even if she’s a talker. Both in their forties, I reckon.’

  ‘Well,’ Pollard said, ‘with an age range of about fifteen to forty-five in the party we can soon spot it if they’ve imagined the whole thing on the strength of the broadcast. Let’s go and try them out.’

  On going into the waiting room he immediately identified a close-knit matriarchal unit dominated by Mrs Hawkins, an ample woman with permed ginger hair and a briskly competent expression. Her husband, an easy-going type in shirt and trousers, reacted sheepishly on being identified as the leader of the family, and his wife attempted to take over.

  ‘Just a minute, please, Mrs Hawkins,’ Pollard interposed. ‘Scotland Yard requires full personal particulars from witnesses before statements can be made. My colleague here, Detective-Inspector Toye, will take them.’

  As he expected, this created an impression, and while Toye collected the information, he himself was able to observe the family closely. Linda Ethel Hawkins (18), apprentice hairdresser, looked a bright little piece, he thought, not as aggressive as her mother, but very much on the spot. Paul Hoggett (21), Post Office worker, was the solid type. Thomas William Hawkins (14) was so fascinated by his surroundings that he missed out on Toye’s request for his full name, and was sharply told by his mother to speak up and not be so daft.

  ‘Now then,’ Pollard said, when the operation was concluded, ‘let’s have a large-scale map, Inspector. I want you to show me exactly where you all were, Mr Hawkins, when you saw a young man on Easter Monday of last year, whom you think was the one described on the News tonight.’

  Sam Hawkins located the spot without difficulty. Stoneham was situated on the river Riddon, about three miles from the coast. West of the estuary the land rose steeply to Cattesmoor, and a footpath led up to the top of the spectacular cliffs which formed the coastline for the whole distance to Biddle Bay. The footpath continued for some miles along the cliff top before petering out. After a short distance it passed to the left of a small roofless stone building at a lower level, described on the map as ‘Lookout (disused)’. This provided some shelter from the wind, and the Hawkins family had intended to have their picnic lunch there.

  ‘That’s all quite clear, thank you, Mr Hawkins,’ Pollard told him, returning the map to Toye. ‘What time did you arrive at this place?’

  ‘Quarter to one, near enough,’ Mrs Hawkins said. ‘It’s a pull up to get there, and I remember I took a look at me watch half-way, when I stopped to get me breath. Just past the half-hour it was then. I was glad enough when we came in sight of the lookout, feelin’ ready for a nice sit-down and me lunch.’

  Tommy Hawkins seized his moment.

  ‘I ran on afore the others,’ he volunteered in a voice of uncertain pitch, ‘an’ looked down into the place. Roofs gone, see? An’ I saw the bloke in his sleepin’ bag, smokin’ a fag, with all his clobber chucked around.’

  ‘What did he look like?’ Pollard asked.

  ‘Couldn’t see much ’cos of the sleepin’ bag, only his face, all smothered in hair.’

  ‘What colour was this hair?’

  ‘Darkish. Same as Paul’s. But he’d a lot o’ mucky yellow hair on his head.’

  ‘You’re an observant chap, Tommy,’ Pollard congratulated him. ‘We’ll be seeing you in the Force one of these days. Now, what did all the rest of you notice about this fellow in the lookout?’

  Mrs Hawkins was voluble about hippies and layabouts who made a filthy dirty mess of the places where decent people liked to go and enjoy themselves. They’d had to go further along the cliff and climb up on a bank to have their picnic. Then, just as they’d finished eating, they’d seen the hippy come up out of the lookout and
start along the path. At this point Pollard cut in deftly.

  ‘I think this must be where you come in, Linda, isn’t it?’ he asked, and smiled at her.

  ‘Well, being in hairdressing, it was his hair I noticed special,’ she said, shyly at first, but gaining confidence as she went on. ‘You could see at once he’d had a bleach — a cheap one, I’d say. His hair was in a dreadful state. Then as he went past I could look right down on the top of his head, us being up on the bank, and the bleach’d grown out from the scalp a couple of inches, and the new hair was quite dark like his beard. So I whispered to Paul who was next to me and Mum on the other side, and — and said joking like, that he ought to come along to Crowning Glory where I work.’

  ‘Did you actually see the darker hair next to the man’s scalp for yourself, Mr Hoggett?’ Pollard asked.

  ‘Yeah, I saw it,’ Paul Hoggett replied.

  ‘I saw it with my own eyes,’ Mrs Hawkins announced, ‘and I’ll stand up in court any day and say so.’

  They were all agreed that the chap had been wearing dirty blue jeans and a brown windcheater, and carrying a rolled-up sleeping bag and bulging rucksack on his back. His height had been much the same as Paul’s, five feet six and a half inches. Their estimate of his age ranged from sixteen to twenty-four. He’d walked straight past them without a word, heading towards Biddle Bay, and they’d watched him out of sight a goodish way along, where the path took a dip.

  Pollard told the Hawkins family that their information could turn out to be important, and thanked them for coming forward so promptly. It was possible that some of them might be called upon to give evidence in court at a future date. Linda especially might be needed as a witness, and Inspector Toye would type out a brief statement of what she had said, and ask her to sign it, if she agreed with everything in it. Leaving Toye to get on with this job, he started off for their temporary office feeling positively elated. He had no doubt that the youth seen at the lookout on Easter Monday of the previous year had ended up as the skeleton found in Starbarrow kistvaen. However devious the route linking these two points, at least there was now somewhere to start from. In a corridor he unexpectedly ran into the chief constable, and told him of the latest development.