When Toye returned from seeing Peter Grant off he found Pollard gently tilting his chair backwards and forwards with an inscrutable expression on his face.
‘Reactions?’ he queried, coming to a halt.
‘I reckon we can count him out over the chap’s death.’ Toye said, sitting on the edge of the table. ‘Maybe he’s a good architect, but he hasn’t got what it takes to lead the likes of us up the garden path. Mind you, we’ll have to check on him,’ he added with characteristic caution.
‘Not much we can do about it on a Sunday afternoon,’ Pollard replied. ‘Still, it’s nice to feel we’ve got a definite programme for tomorrow. Another thing is that it seems to me to explain Ling’s caginess about the period when the farm was shut up. He’s no fool at all, and I expect he soon tumbled to it that Grant had been going out there. The young couple may even have told him when they got engaged. Pulling his leg, so to speak. Then, after he’d dumped the skeleton in the kistvaen as a huge joke, out comes the report that it was only about a year old, and he suddenly realises the possible implications and gets cold feet... Look here, I’ve got the ghost of an idea at the back of my mind. A drink might get it to walk. Let’s go along to that pub down the road and have a bar snack. The Red Lion, or something, isn’t it?’
Half an hour later they were coming out of the pub when they met a party just arriving. It was headed by a buxom ginger-haired woman in a frock loudly patterned in emerald green and lemon yellow. She stared and beamed broadly.
‘Why, it’s the detective gentleman,’ she exclaimed. ‘Look Sam, the gentleman from Scotland Yard we saw up at the police station. Pleased to meet you again, sir.’
Shaking hands with Mr and Mrs Hawkins, the latter’s sister and brother-in-law and young Tommy was inevitable. Pollard gathered that Linda and her boyfriend were off on their own.
‘Well, we never thought we’d be meetin’ you again, sir, did we, Sam?’ Mrs Hawkins rattled on. ‘And we nearly went to the Queen’s Head, too. You never know, do you? Why, that picnic we had up to the lookout when we saw the hippy. We all but went over to Biddle Bay that Easter Monday, and up to the lookout on the Tuesday, seeing that Sam had both days off. But Linda fancied the picnic at the lookout, and as she only had the one day, that settled it. We had a nice day at Biddle on the Tuesday, though, and saw Mr Akerman who’s Sam’s boss drivin’ through in the afternoon, didn’t we, Sam? Doin’ one of his rounds up on Cattesmoor, I daresay. Very keen on what they calls conservation, he is.’
Mr Hawkins made an inarticulate assenting sound.
‘Mr Akerman?’ Pollard said, simulating merely polite interest. ‘You’d expect him to be up there on a bank holiday when there are more vandals around.’
‘Maybe he was there on the Monday, too. But he was drivin’ back towards Stoneham that Tuesday afternoon, wherever he’d bin. Pointed him out to you and Bert, didn’t I, Margie?’
‘That’s right,’ her sister agreed.
‘I saw ’n too,’ Tommy Hawkins suddenly contributed in a bass growl. ‘Drivin’ ’is old Volvo Estate. Got a posh new one soon after we saw’n.’
Chapter 8
Even the habitually cautious Toye agreed that the unanimous evidence of the Hawkins family would stand up in court.
‘It’s the girl only having the Monday off that settles it,’ he said. ‘They just can’t have made a mistake about the day they saw Akerman at Biddle Bay being the Tuesday.’
Pollard, who had been pacing restlessly in their room at the police station, came to a halt with his back to the window and his elbows resting on the sill.
‘Let’s assume for the moment that Akerman did kill our bloke somewhere beyond Biddle, and brought the body back by car and hid it in the well at Starbarrow Farm,’ he said. ‘He only just didn’t get away with it, but it was madly risky. He’s quite well-known in this part of the world, and people have days out and go places over the Easter holiday. Why did he lie about the day he did the job? Switching the Monday and the Tuesday round was a clever idea when we started asking awkward questions. After fifteen months people get a bit hazy about when they happened to see X pass in his car, unless there’s some particular reason to fix it in their minds. It’s now common knowledge that we’re working on the assumption that the Starbarrow skeleton’s that of the chap seen at the lookout soon after midday on Easter Monday. He was hiking, and couldn’t have got to the Biddle area till about midday on Tuesday. All right. Akerman states that he was working at home all day on Tuesday, having done a round on Cattesmoor on Monday. Time’s been on his side. The chances of anyone remembering seeing him coming or going in that industrial desert where he lives are pretty well nil.’
Toye looked up from the maps spread out on the table.
‘Our chap could have got to somewhere near Biddle by Tuesday midday, but Akerman’s timing seems a bit rum. He says he got to Biddle about eleven. It wouldn’t have taken more than about a quarter of an hour to drive through it, and up the cliff road till it comes to an end, and on a bit further into the moor. Wouldn’t our chap have kept along the cliffs? Surely that’s where they’d have met? Bit public for murdering someone and stowing him into your bus, don’t you think? A car full of picnickers could have followed on any minute. And if Akerman had luck and nobody turned up, why did he hang about so long? The Hawkins lot saw him driving back about half-past two, they said.’
Pollard detached himself from the window sill and came across to the table for another look at the maps.
‘After the coast road peters out there’s a rough track for a bit,’ he said, ‘but it’s not a foregone conclusion that our bloke came along it. If he camped at the tin workings on the Monday night, the shortest way on to Biddle was to cut across country and strike the road on the outskirts. One side of a triangle instead of two. Brush up your Euclid, in fact. If he did that, he’d have passed very near the Wanton Wenches circle — might even have stopped off at it for a rest. Akerman was going there, and it would have been a much more secluded place for bumping anyone off. See?’ As he spoke, he laid a pencil on the map to illustrate his point. Toye agreed, with reservations.
‘I’ll grant you all that, sir,’ he said, ‘but if he did bump the chap off, how could he have got the body back to his car?’
‘Akerman could have been lying about parking the car and walking a couple of miles out to the circle. He might have driven right up to it. Let’s go and see if it’s a physical possibility, shall we? What’s up? Oh, I see: the thought of crashing the car over boulders and sinking it up to the axle in bogs. Go and see if we can borrow the Land Rover again. Anyway, it’s an excuse for getting out of here for the afternoon: it’s like being in an oven.’
Toye vanished with alacrity. Pollard mopped his forehead, and wondered if the heat was affecting his brain. The Akerman development seemed to raise more problems rather than solve existing ones. Could it have been a prearranged meeting with the hippy, implying a previous link, so far undiscovered? If not, what could have led a man of Akerman’s type to kill a stranger on sight? A violent punch-up seemed ruled out by the absence of any bone injury: the skeleton’s skull had been most meticulously examined. A knife? Would Akerman have been carrying round a knife? Suppose the hippy had a heart attack? Well, then, why not contact an ambulance, and say you’d found the poor devil lying on the ground?
At the sound of activity in the car park Pollard got up abruptly and left these queries unanswered. After all, the case against George Akerman was based on pure supposition at the moment. He went out of the building into the blinding glare of the early afternoon, a wave of heat seeming to rise from the ground and hitting him. The Land Rover drew up with Toye at the wheel. With a pair of sunglasses clipped to his hornrims he looked even more like a meditative owl than usual.
They were soon out on the now familiar road to Biddle Bay. It was surprising what new significance it had taken on since that early morning run into Stoneham with Aunt Is less than a fortnight ago, Pollard thought. Churstow, which he ha
d hardly registered, was now the approach to the sparking-off point of the whole business: Starbarrow Farm and the kistvaen. There, up the Holston turning, was the cottage where Aunt Is’s remark about aerial photography had led to such an important breakthrough. Just short of Biddle Bay the road to Winnage and Danby Blake branched off. As they drove into the seaside resort he considered a call at the police station, but decided against it. Obviously local enquiries about the hippy set in motion by Superintendent Pratt had drawn a blank so far.
Toye negotiated the crowded sea front with some difficulty, and they bore right and began to climb steeply on the cliff road. They passed houses and bungalows at which the hippy might have called, and the two farms with deterrent notices about dogs on their gates. Farther on again, numerous cars were parked along railings, their passengers enjoying the view out to sea in the intervals of sleeping and reading the Sunday papers. Finally the tarmac surface of the road ended. A few cars had driven farther along a stony track and their more enterprising inmates were sitting out among the heather where any patches of shade could be found.
‘People seem to have struck off into the moor here,’ Toye said. ‘See those wheel marks?’
‘O.K.,’ Pollard replied. ‘Head roughly in that direction: east-south-east. I’ll guide you from the map.’
They advanced slowly, sometimes diverging from their course to avoid rocks and dense clumps of gorse. A herd of grazing cattle raised their heads as they passed and stared curiously at the Land Rover, but there was no other sign of life. After about a mile and a half Pollard called a halt.
‘I’ll just shin up that rock pile and see if I can spot the Wenches,’ he said.
Massive horizontal slabs provided foot and hand holds, and he was soon standing on the flat top. A couple of hundred yards ahead, on a gentle slope leading to a col between two rocky hillocks, was a circle formed by nine upright stones varying between four and six feet in height. Whether by accident or design they all heeled over a little in a clockwise direction, giving the impression of a lively round dance in progress, and in some way this was enhanced by their shadows of varying length, all pointing north-eastwards. For a few moments Pollard stood fascinated. Then with an effort he switched his attention to the practical problem of how near the circle it would be possible to get the Land Rover.
‘I’ll go ahead on foot,’ he told Toye on coming down. ‘We can get quite a bit closer.’
He walked on slowly, picking out the best route for the car and studying the surface intently. Was it imagination, or were there signs that a vehicle or vehicles had come this way before: a slight flattening of the grass here, and a broken stem of bracken there? Not that it need have been Akerman’s car, of course. There were plenty of people interested in archaeology around these days... Anyway, did murderers revisit the scene of their crime? He had always been inclined to think that they did, endlessly tormented by the fear of having overlooked some vital clue to their identity.
The traces, real or imagined, led him to an outcrop of rock beyond which the ground sloped up gently to the col and the Wanton Wenches. The Land Rover lurched along in his wake and came to a halt. Toye got out, and they walked towards the circle of stones. In the wide context of empty moor and cloudless sky it had a quality of emphasis. Toye eyed it disapprovingly.
‘Heathenish,’ he commented.
‘It’s saying something that seemed important at the time,’ Pollard replied. ‘Pity the girls can’t talk.’ He stood in the centre of the circle and turned round slowly, looking at the stones one by one. ‘What’s happened to that bosomy one over there?’ He walked across to the most massive of the nine, and saw that it was blacked by smoke down one side. Attempts had been made to clean it, but the scorch marks remained. Rubbing with a moistened finger had no effect.
‘Look at this,’ Toye said, who was examining the grass at the foot of the stone. ‘Turves have been cut out and replaced.’
None of the remaining stones were damaged. They returned to the car to get some shade and discuss their findings.
‘Summing it all up,’ Pollard said, ‘I’m pretty sure that a car or cars have been out here, and obviously some vandal lit a fire by that stone. Somebody has done his or her best to clear up the mess. This may have nothing whatever to do with our case. Keen amateur archaeologists may have read about the circle and come out to see it. Vandals do get around, unfortunately, and Akerman would naturally try to repair any damage done by them. On the other hand, Akerman lied about the day he came out here, and may have lied about what he did when he arrived. Suppose he drove out instead of walking the last couple of miles, and came on our chap cooking up a snack on a fire he’d lit by that stone. Akerman sees red, beats him up and kills him, probably not intending to. Gets him by the throat and shakes him to death, or something of that sort which wouldn’t cause a bone injury. There’s nobody within miles, so he lugs the body to his car, stows it inside with a rug over it, collects all the clobber and bungs it into the boot, stamps the fire out, considers his next step and gets an inspiration. He has to go up to Starbarrow Farm, so why not dump the corpse in the old well? All this will have taken time, so his story of having walked to the circle and gone on further to look at a standing stone will account for his not going through Biddle Bay until half-past two. How’s that?’
Toye considered deeply.
‘He admitted knowing about the well, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, he said Danby Blake had told him about it. Besides, the farm was empty for several years, and I’m sure the Friends of Cattesmoor did some poking about. My guess is that he’d had a good look at it.’
For a couple of minutes they sat in silence, thinking things over.
‘There’s one thing I’d’ve done, if I’d been Akerman and had killed the bloke,’ Toye said suddenly.
‘Don’t tell me,’ Pollard said, suddenly grinning. ‘He’d have changed his car! Right. First thing tomorrow we’ll get Crookshank on to the licensing people again. If he did, not long after Easter last year, I shall begin to think that we’ve got the makings of a case. There’s another point that’s just struck me. Does Akerman report damage of these ancient monuments to the Friends’ Committee? I remember Aunt Is saying that vandals had pulled down a wayside cross. It would be interesting to know if and when he reported this fire at the Wanton Wenches. I’ll ring her when we get back. Tempting to stop off at Holston for a cuppa, but least said, best, at the moment, I think.’
There being nothing further of any use to be done on the spot, they lumbered back to the cliff road and started for Stoneham. On arriving at the police station they were greeted with the news that Mr Ling of Starbarrow Farm, Churstow, was waiting to see Superintendent Pollard. Asked how he had got on with the gentleman, the duty sergeant cast up his eyes to the ceiling and shrugged. Mr Ling, had been a bit put out at having to wait.
‘He can damn well wait a bit longer,’ Pollard said. ‘A cuppa — several cuppas — are a must. We’ve been sweating it out on Cattesmoor... I suppose Grant went out to the farm from here, and told them he’d been questioned. Kate Ling has the wits to see that it’s in his interest to clear up the whole business, and put pressure on her old man. She was certain that he’d put the skeleton in the kistvaen.’
A quarter of an hour later he drained a third large cup and looked at Toye.
‘Over to you, old cock. Bring him in.’
Toye tidily collected the tea tray and disappeared. A few minutes later the door opened again.
‘Mr Ling to see you, sir,’ he announced impassively.
‘Good evening, Mr Ling,’ Pollard opened. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had to wait. Please sit down.’
Geoffrey Ling planted himself on a chair and stared at him truculently, his lower lip characteristically out-thrust.
‘I’ve come for the purpose of making a statement,’ he announced. ‘Take it down, will you? I, Geoffrey Bruce Ling, of Starbarrow Farm, Churstow, in the county of —’
‘Just a minute,’ Pollard
interrupted. ‘There’s an official formula: I, Geoffrey Bruce Ling wish to make a statement. I want someone to write down what I say. I have been told that I need not say anything unless I wish to do so, and that whatever I say may be given in evidence.’
‘Is that all?’ Geoffrey Ling enquired sarcastically. ‘Balderdash, and jobs for the boys. Put the whole bloody preamble down if you like,’ he added, turning to Toye. ‘What, sign it? My God! Now then, let’s get on with it... I, Geoffrey Bruce Ling of Starbarrow Farm, Churstow, in the county of Glintshire, found a human skeleton in a disused well on my property on Saturday, 12 June last. I took it out, and during the night I put it in the Starbarrow kistvaen... Type it out, man, and I’ll sign it.’
‘Concise and to the point,’ Pollard commented. ‘What a nasty jolt you must have had when the post-mortem report came out, stating that death had occurred only a year or so ago. You already knew that Mr Peter Grant had visited the farm when you were all on holiday in late March and early April last year, didn’t you? How did you discover this, by the way?’
‘It came out in the besotted atmosphere of my daughter’s engagement to him,’ Geoffrey Ling replied complacently.
Recognising a doting father, Pollard waited.
‘My daughter Kate,’ Geoffrey Ling resumed, resting his hands on the table and leaning back in his chair, ‘has elected to marry a blameless young man of little more than average ability. He plays the game, carries a straight bat, keeps a stiff upper lip and can be relied upon to do the decent thing. So be it. If you think him capable of committing a murder and concealing the corpse in a well belonging to his affianced’s father, you’re a bigger fool than I take you for, Mr Superintendent Pollard of New Scotland Yard.’
‘In a case of homicide,’ Pollard replied, ‘it’s obviously necessary to question anyone who could be responsible on grounds of physical possibility. This doesn’t imply equating opportunity with guilt, but alibis have to be checked and statements verified. This is the present position in Mr Grant’s case.’
Suddenly While Gardening Page 11
