Stone Cold Dead Page 11

  Then he marched out into the hall, and I had visions of two old ladies waving umbrellas beneath Slater’s nose, and an older gentleman making lethal threats of phoning the Lord Chancellor, or some such boyhood friend.

  ‘Yuff!’ said Slater, taking the vacated chair. ‘Not much cooperation around here. It’s a good job I’ve got you, Richard. I’m sure you’ll know what it’s all about. Oh...this is WDS Tomkinson. She’s here to take notes.’

  Woman Detective Sergeant Tomkinson was a large and imposing woman, at that moment seeming even more bulky because she was wearing a padded anorak with a hood, this thrown back from her head and revealing a tangle of auburn hair. Now that’s what I need, I thought, an anorak with a hood. Two birds with one purchase. She might have observed my attention, because she frowned and turned to move a chair to a point just beyond my shoulder, so that I would always be aware of her presence, but would have no impression, from her reactions, as to whether or not what I said might be pleasing to her cherished inspector. And—oh yes she did cherish him. That much had been obvious from what I’d seen in her eyes, and noted from the discreet flexing of her lips. For me, her presence would have been distracting, because she was plainly a woman by whom one would not wish to be cherished. She would devour you, engulf you, and heaven help you if you resisted. Fourteen stone of solid woman, that was what Slater had with him, a block of a woman in a two-piece tweedy outfit with three large buttons on the jacket (revealed when she threw off the anorak) which had padded shoulders. Unless that was all muscle. I wouldn’t have been surprised. And Slater was splendidly unaware of her dour devotion.

  ‘I take it’, said Slater, leaning forward, ‘that you’ve been feeling out all the possibilities and discovering what’s been going on.’ He twisted his lips into a sour smile, then he nodded knowingly.

  ‘We’ve naturally been discussing the tragedy,’ I said. ‘Of course, I’ve listened. And of course I’ve drawn a few conclusions and discovered a certain amount of background information.’

  ‘So? Let’s have it, Richard.’

  ‘In confidence,’ I said.

  ‘You can’t expect to talk to me in confidence, for God’s sake. How can we talk in confidence with the WDS here?’

  She spoke up. It was a remarkably soft voice, and musical. ‘I could leave, Inspector.’ And take her notebook with her? Slater would not be able to permit that.

  ‘No need, no need,’ I said, gesturing towards her. ‘The inspector misunderstood. When I used the word “confidence”, I was explaining that what I’ve been told was in confidence. As a friend of the family, Ted, that’s how I’ve heard things. So of course, I can’t repeat any of it to you.’

  ‘Now you listen here...’

  ‘Oh...and I can tell you that there’s been a certain amount of rehearsal involved.’

  ‘You’ve had the bloody nerve to brief them!’ he shouted, staring at his sergeant, to make sure she had heard it. She pursed her lips in disapproval.

  ‘I’ve had the nerve, as you put it, to listen to what they had to say, and to advise them that their best and proper course is to tell the truth. You ought to be thanking me, Ted. I’ve done a lot of groundwork for you, and nothing I’ve heard can be of any help to you.’

  It’s practice that does it. I could now tell lies with fluent and nonchalant ease. Perhaps I was assisted by the knowledge that if I told him all I knew he’d be overwhelmed by useless detail. I could, however, tell him various facts without violating any confidences. I would have done so, but he burst in, furious with me.

  ‘You’ve got a duty!’ he shouted. ‘You’re an ex-copper...’

  ‘Ex. Ex. True. But now I make my own judgements.’

  ‘Much more of this and I’ll have you in for a bit of serious questioning, Patton.’ He nodded in emphasis, and he looked as though he’d like to strike me down.

  ‘Nonsense. You’d have to be prepared to charge me. And I’ve got a top-line solicitor, here on the premises, who’d tell you where you get off. Now cool down, Ted. I can tell you, for instance, that Clare Martin was seen—by that same solicitor—standing down by the locks at some time between five and five-twenty yesterday evening. At that time, the storm was still blowing, so it’s unlikely he’d get a definite enough sighting, and there was only that orange floodlight at the end of the house to help him out. It’s my opinion that he couldn’t have identified anybody with any accuracy. And that’s the only sighting of Clare Martin that I’ve discovered. Nobody’s going to say they actually spoke to her. Now...are they? But, you go around and do your questioning act. They’re all still here, except young Ray Torrance, but I expect he’s on duty at this time. But he’ll be available eventually. Are you getting all this, Sergeant?’ I asked, turning to face her.

  ‘Thank you, sir, yes.’ Only her lips moved. No hint of expression dared to invade her craggy face.

  ‘Now...tell me, Ted,’ I went on, ‘what you’ve done about the car. I can give you information there, because there’s only me involved. And my wife, of course.’

  ‘Car?’

  ‘At the crossing, the other end of the lane from here. Her car, I’d have thought. Clare’s. I came across it at about five-twenty, yesterday evening. I assume you’ve taken it in for examination? Is it hers?’

  ‘I don’t propose to discuss the investigation with you, Patton. Especially if you’re not prepared to co-operate.’

  ‘I am co-operating.’ I grinned at him. ‘What did you make of the fact that the door was unlocked and the keys left in the ignition lock?’

  He licked his lips, glanced at his WDS, and said, ‘I didn’t make anything of it.’

  ‘Nothing? Well, I ought to tell you that you’ll find my prints on the ignition key, the door handle, and probably on the outside of the door. They’re on file, of course.’

  ‘What the hell’s all this?’ he demanded. Anger rumbled deep in his throat. He thought I was playing games with him.

  ‘I’m telling you, if you’ll just listen. I got out of our car, because I was looking for a direction pointer. This was on the way here, you understand. That car was there. I noticed it’d been left with the keys in the ignition. I tried the engine, but there was nothing wrong there. So I shut the door, and left it as it’d been. Now—can you think of any explanation for that strange fact? Is it hers? Or should that be: was it?’

  ‘It was her private car,’ he told me stiffly.

  ‘And the set-up didn’t strike you as strange?’

  ‘No. No, damn it. And you’re only trying to distract me.’

  I shrugged and pouted at the WDS, but she didn’t react. So I went on, ‘I’m not trying to distract you, Ted. I believe this could matter. Just think about it. Any driver, leaving a car—especially out in the wilds—almost automatically takes the keys out of the ignition switch and locks the car door. Right? So why was it left like that? And I’m not even talking about the reason the car was left there.’

  He tried a smile, but it didn’t actually bloom. ‘Now Patton...you’re forgetting. How many reported stolen cars do we get, where the keys have been left in? Dozens, every week. Right?’

  ‘But not—surely not—by a trained police driver.’

  ‘So what the hell’re you getting at?’

  ‘Just that it’s got no logical explanation, so that makes it interesting. Just imagine it. How would that have come about? I can think of only one way.’

  He sighed. ‘You’re doing your best to distract me.’

  ‘Trying to help, Ted, help. I was just thinking...if you were getting out of a car, a heavy weight in your arms...Are you seeing this, Ted? Are you? The ignition key wouldn’t be reachable if both hands were full, and perhaps with the weight being lifted out heavy and bulky, and the door would have to be shut by leaning on it, or nudging it with a hip, say.’

  ‘It’s if this, if that, all vague and fanciful, Patton. You’re trying to distract me.’

  I shook my head, and waited.

  ‘Then what the hell’re
you getting at?’ he demanded, angry now.

  ‘I’ve been wondering whether she could’ve been dead at that time, that’s what,’ I told him. ‘How big was she? How heavy?’

  He shook his head.

  WDS Tomkinson spoke distantly. ‘She’d barely have made the regulations. Seven stone—a flipperty slip of a girl.’ There was perhaps envy in her voice, annoyance anyway.

  ‘Have you got that down?’ I asked her. Her own words—would she have recorded them?

  ‘I have, sir.’

  ‘No difficulty with “flipperty”?’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Patton, no.’ And no hint of a smile either.

  ‘So you see,’ I said to Slater. ‘A strong man, her corpse in his arms, and with access to the tow-path. He could’ve carried her as far as the lock.’

  And at last Ted Slater was pleased. ‘Not exactly logical, Patton, surely.’

  He shook his head in mock sorrow. ‘All the way—a quarter of a mile—to get rid of her, and the canal itself within a few yards! With a bridge over it, in fact. He could’ve just shoved her over the parapet. Have you got that, Sergeant?’ he asked.

  ‘Indeed, sir, yes.’

  ‘Then underline it.’

  He smirked at me. I refrained, therefore, from suggesting the alternative explanation, or pointing out the basic fallacy in what I’d described. It was simply that Clare had been seen alive at a time at least several minutes after I’d peered inside her empty car. Seen by Gerald Fulton.

  But Inspector Slater hadn’t been listening to me, anyway. Not seriously.

  ‘Now...if you’ll excuse me,’ I said, sliding back my chair and getting to my feet.

  ‘We hadn’t finished.’

  ‘No. Of course not. I haven’t asked you if you’ve got a more definite cause of death.’

  ‘I’m telling you nothing.’

  ‘I rather thought I’d send Colin in to see you, and he can arrange interviews with everybody—but if you’re going to be stroppy...’

  ‘All right! All right! She drowned. She was knocked unconscious first, then dumped in the water. That do you?’

  I nodded. ‘Right. Then I’ll go and dig out Colin Fulton, and send him here, and perhaps he can arrange for you to interview everybody in the building, those who were here last night. One at a time...however you fancy. You don’t need to go through the premises, I wouldn’t think, though Gerald Fulton (that’s the solicitor I mentioned) might agree to taking you up to his room and showing you where he was when he thought he saw Clare Martin. And where she was, at the time. But do it how you want to. Colin will fix it for you, I’m sure. Just try to get off the site before the owners arrive.’

  ‘Owners?’

  ‘Of this place. Of the whole canal and all its locks. Two elderly ladies and an old gentleman. From what I could gather, they wouldn’t want to discover police personnel on the premises, and you wouldn’t want to upset them, I’m sure.’

  ‘What the—’

  ‘I’ll send Colin to you.’ And I walked out into the hall.

  ‘Oh...Patton.’

  At the shout, I turned back. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I was forgetting. Something I intended to tell you, then you’ll know the lot. Clare was two months pregnant.’

  And how would this news be received by the two elderly ladies and their even older brother? And how by Mellie, if she had any inkling about Ray’s activities with Clare?

  Chapter Seven

  ‘They’re coming,’ cried Colin, striding purposefully along the corridor, as though he must alert everybody for this momentous occasion. I was surprised he hadn’t banged the gong to assemble us.

  ‘How long?’ I asked.

  He paused, caught in mid-stride. ‘A couple of hours. One to get as far as the Rolls and load all the luggage they’ll think they might possibly need, and one to drive here at the regulation speed of forty miles an hour.’

  Poor old Rolls, I thought, just dying to show what it could do, and restrained to forty.

  I walked in on Amelia, who was standing at our window and frowning.

  ‘I can’t decide,’ she told me, ‘whether that’s the most ugly view I’ve ever encountered, or the most splendid.’

  ‘It rather depends on the viewer, I’d have thought.’ I stared down at it. ‘Whether you get the sense of sheer magic at the imagination and accomplishment involved, or see it as shapes and proportions and practicalities. Romantic or pragmatic.’ I didn’t tell her my choice as to which was which. ‘I’ve just been told we’ve got two hours of grace. D’you still not fancy a walk?’

  ‘Two hours? Of grace?’

  ‘The owners of this little lot, plus about nineteen ordinary locks and thirty-odd miles of canal, are due to descend on us in order to find out what’s going on. Two old ladies and an older gentleman. It’s all theirs. Locks, canal, water...the lot. And now—a murder.’

  She turned to face me. ‘That’s certain, is it? Murder, I mean.’

  ‘In practice, she drowned. A blow to the head, which must have knocked her unconscious, and then she was dumped in the pound. Then she drowned. There’s nothing positive, though. She could have simply fallen, hit her head on the way down, then drowned. Could have.’

  ‘It’s all most unpleasant.’ She wrinkled her nose at me.

  ‘So why not come out for a walk? Get away from it all, for a while. As I said before, it’s a lovely morning.’

  ‘No, Richard, I don’t think so. Poor Ruby will need help. There’ll be rooms to be prepared, and a lot of other things to be thought about. I’ll stay, Richard, but that needn’t stop you from going. If you want to.’

  ‘I’m not keen on being seen in this duffle coat—and it’s too tight. I would like to buy a new anorak, one with a hood. Then,’ I said with triumph, ‘I shan’t need to bother with a new hat.’

  ‘What a clever idea! It’s obvious you’ve been a detective. No ordinary person would have thought that out.’

  Amelia had been developing a pert little habit of tossing at me these random sarcasms. Her eyes twinkled, her lips trembled as though just about to produce another little gem. So I kissed her quickly on those lips, getting in first, and she said, ‘But do try to be back for when the old people arrive, Richard.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll ask Colin where’s the nearest likely source of one anorak, with hood. Detachable, in brackets. And if it’s too far...’ I shrugged.

  ‘You could use the car.’

  ‘But that wouldn’t be the walk I’ve been promising myself.’

  She laughed. ‘Of course. Silly of me.’

  I found Colin in the bar, chatting away amicably to Inspector Ted Slater, as though they might be discussing a local football match. From the expression on Slater’s face, and the tense concentration on the face of WDS Tomkinson, it was clear that in any event Colin was not sticking to Slater’s prescribed programme.

  ‘D’you mind if I put a word in, Ted?’ I asked.

  He scowled at me. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘It’s Colin I want to speak to. I want to go and buy a new anorak, Colin,’ I explained. ‘Is there anywhere within walking distance?’

  ‘There’s Crayminster. But I hope you can get back...they’ll be here in about two hours, Richard.’ He was looking very hard pressed.

  ‘How far?’

  ‘A mile and a half, or so. Along the tow-path. You come out in the centre of the town. Walk up the ramp to the street, turn right, and you’ll find Fenton’s, on the second corner to your right. He sells everything. Everything. You’re in a farming district, you know.’

  ‘Ah!’ I said. ‘Fine.’ A mile and a half. I’d do that in about half an hour, a brisk trek on to Fenton’s, half an hour back. ‘I’ll do it easily.’

  I left them to it. Colin was trying to get across to Slater the point that his winding handle was missing, and it could make a very good weapon of offence. I walked out into the thin, chill winter sunlight, then put my head back inside.

  ‘Which way?’ I asked.
/>
  ‘Right—from here.’

  This was the opposite direction to the one by which we’d arrived. I stepped out jauntily. I was wearing the duffle coat, but without the scarf over my head, and proposed to work up enough body-heat to keep the tired old brain working.

  This was, in accordance with Colin’s set-up of the flight, ‘up’ the canal. The water lay, of course, absolutely level. Therefore, the tow-path also ran level. I stepped out ahead smartly, trying not to think about the death of Clare Martin. Usually, it’s the other way round; I try to concentrate on a problem, and get no answers because my eyes are everywhere, seeing this, observing that. Now I couldn’t relax, couldn’t even arouse any great interest in the pair of ducks paddling away from me to the far bank. No, not swimming. They seemed to be walking on the water, but then I realized that there was a thin ice layer, out here in the open. Thin ice, ice that floated, with here and there the water lying on its surface. Black ice, it seemed—it was still transparent. What were they, that pair of ducks? Mallard? Or teal? I’m not very well up on my bird recognition.

  They disappeared beneath the overhanging trees on the far bank. I paused for a moment and looked back. Already, Flight House had disappeared. I hadn’t realized that the curve in the canal was quite so extensive. But there I was, out in the open and all by myself. No traffic whipping past, no bustling and thrusting shoppers. Just a pair of ducks, who had now disappeared, and whose feet must have been very cold. I walked onwards. Better not hang around, I thought, or I might not be there to welcome the people who owned this paradise.

  You could live happily here, I realized, puttering along from lock to lock as the mood dictated. Peace. But...there would be drawbacks. The cold, for instance. Weren’t the modern boats steel-hulled, and wouldn’t they be terribly cold in the winter, Calor gas heaters or not? And it would be somewhat cramped. Yet (and hadn’t Colin said this?) people did live the year round on canals. It would be a quiet hideaway for a criminal on the run. Who would think to search the canals? It would—if I developed the theme—be a novel way in which to transport drugs, say. Slowly, but gently and innocently. Would the police think of this? I wondered. Maybe I would encounter...