Festival, page 11
The presence of a horse at the standing stones assumed the presence of a rider. Again, there could be no absolute certainty of this, for a loose horse could have been straying on the Downs, but for the moment he would assume that the horse had a rider.
If Jane had carried Jo to the standing stones and left without her, Jo must have been carried off by someone else, for there was no sign of Jo or her body in the vicinity.
Was this planned? There was no reference to anyone on horseback in the pencilled notes found in Jane’s purse. The fact that Jane was herself murdered indicated that she had not done something she was expected to do, or that she had failed to carry out the scheme in some way sufficiently important for her death to seem necessary to someone.
Her murder bore all the marks of an unpremeditated killing, carried out on the spur of the moment with such means as happened to be at hand. A massive overdose of heroin was certain death, but to inject heroin in a woman who was not herself a drug addict was to invite suspicion. True, there was a drug cult among a number of those attending the festival, and it could be reasoned that Jane had just been experimenting, and that the experiment went wrong. But where had she got the heroin from? And why did nobody at the festival appear to know her? Most of the fans were in couples or groups. Jane seemed to be quite on her own.
And how do you inject somebody, who is not accustomed to having injections, with a massive dose of heroin, without a struggle and a fuss?
Visual imagination was one of Piet’s chief gifts. Thinking of the injection, and thinking back to the interview with Mrs Cilla Bevan, the woman in the tent, the phrase she had used about a noise ‘like air escaping from a tyre’ suddenly came back to him. All at once he thought he knew what had happened to Jane – at any rate, he could see it all like a sequence from a film. It would explain the bruising, and afterwards it would take only a few seconds to inject the heroin. Such a pattern of events would also explain what had struck him as a discrepancy in the location of the broken syringe.
He gave himself a severe mental caution. This was all very well, but it was all speculation. Perhaps not quite all – the noise ‘like air escaping from a tyre’ was evidence, and so was the bruising on the back of Jane’s head when she had been found fallen face downwards. His interpretation was speculative, but it fitted the known facts, and like all theories that seem to fit facts it would do until either more facts or a better theory turned up. Where did his thinking lead about Jo?
The last thing that could be called a fact about Jo was that she had apparently been carried by Jane to the group of standing stones. Assuming that Jane had been met there by someone with a horse, and that Jane had left not carrying Jo, it seemed a reasonable further assumption that she had handed over Jo to whoever had met her. And what happened next? Piet had brought his own maps of the Downland with him in his bag, and he wanted urgently to stop and consider them.
Driving automatically, with his mind hard at work, he had made good progress on the motorway, and was approaching the turn-off for Swindon. He didn’t want to go to Swindon, but he did want to leave the motorway to go south towards the Wansdyke Downs. He would have to be careful because this was his own territory, but thanks to Sir John Carfax no one would recognise his car, and he had also taken the precaution of bringing a pair of plain glass spectacles, which he had found useful in the past for altering his appearance quickly and quite effectively. Having left the motorway he did not take the main road to Marlborough, which would have been his quickest route, but turned off by a side road that would take him west through Chiseldon and Wroughton. He pulled into the first layby, put on his glasses and got out his map.
His obvious route was to go through Avebury, cross the Marlborough-Bath road (A4) and work back a little south-east to the area of Downland to which Jo had been taken. Yes, but where did he want to go? Assuming that Jo had been handed over to someone with a horse, the implication was that she had then been taken off somewhere else – somewhere too far for her to be carried easily, but within comfortable distance for a horse. Why a horse? Well, a horse would arouse no curiosity on the Downs, and could go where there was no track for a car. But it seemed unlikely that anyone with a young baby would attempt a long journey on horseback, particularly with the public alerted to look out for young babies in situations in any way unusual. Two apparently reasonable assumptions followed – either Jo was still somewhere in the area, or the horse had been used to carry her to a waiting car. Of the two, he thought it more probable that Jo had been taken out of the area – unless they had some very secure hideout, her kidnappers would have wanted to get her away from the immediate area of the North Wessex police.
She might have been taken anywhere. There was not a scrap of evidence so far to indicate where, but the fact that Jane Partridge seemed to live, or at any rate had an address, in the West Country perhaps gave a slight edge to the possibility that Jo had been taken west. If so, the most likely thing was that she had been taken to a car or vehicle of some sort waiting near the main Bath road.
What would have been done with the horse? It might simply have been abandoned, but stray horses do not go unnoticed for long in the horse-conscious countryside of the Downs, and a borrowed or stolen horse later found abandoned would certainly prompt inquiries. There was another problem involved – where had the horse come from? It could have been brought by road in a horse-box trailer, or it could have been hired from a riding stables. Again there was not a scrap of evidence, but parked horse-boxes are likely to be noticed, and on the assumption that whoever was concerned wanted to attract as little notice as possible, he thought that the edge of probability rested on a hired horse.
Here he wanted his police force – inquiries at establishments where horses could be hired were a straightforward police job. But he couldn’t put policemen on the job without coming back to life. That was not quite true, for he had arranged a method of communication with Inspector Lovell, and he could ask Lovell to put up the suggestion of a horse inquiry. But that would disclose that Lovell knew about the horse, and Piet didn’t want anybody else at the moment to realise that the police knew anything about the possible use of a horse in the taking of Jo. The only thing was to make such inquiries as he could on his own.
He studied the map again. From the standing stones where he now assumed Jo to have been handed over it was no more than three miles or so to the little village of West Overton, and West Overton was barely a quarter of a mile off the Bath road. The distance was in easy riding reach, and a car could be parked easily enough in some byway near the village. Since he had nothing else to go on it seemed at least worth making a start by going to West Overton and asking at a pub about potential horse-riding establishments in the locality.
Avebury figured in the cryptic note found in Jane’s purse as the picking-up place for the stolen Mini van. There was evidence that Jane had been seen at the pub used by the Earl’s Down festival fans the night before Jo’s kidnapping, which meant that she had been in the district overnight. And she didn’t appear to have camped at Earl’s Down, so she must have stayed somewhere else. Somewhere within walking distance of Avebury, where she had to pick up the van? West Overton was a reasonable vicinity. Beckhampton farther west would have done equally well for Avebury, but it was considerably farther away from the standing stones, and from Earl’s Down. There was nothing to show how Jane had got to the pub on the night before her death – from somewhere in the vicinity of West Overton it would have been quite possible for her to walk.
Piet reached the Bath road through Avebury, and left it at the turning for East Kennet. He didn’t need to go as far as West Overton village, for a sign informed him of the existence of the Country House Hotel, offering Riding, Walking, Own Swimming Pool, as well as being Fully Licensed. That seemed as good a starting point as any. It was reached by a private road, nearly half a mile long, one stretch of it a lovely avenue of beech trees. The hotel when he got there seemed less ornate than its sign suggested. As well as its residential side it obviously had a considerable pub trade, and offered Ploughman’s Lunches and Meals at the Bar. It was still a few minutes before noon, and on the early side for Ploughman’s Lunches. The car park was almost empty.
Piet was conscious that his photograph had appeared in every newspaper that morning, but fortunately the photograph provided by the police public relations staff was of a Chief Constable in uniform. Piet took off his jacket and tie, rumpled his normally tidy hair, and put on his plain glass spectacles. He had a choice of public or saloon bar. There were a couple of customers in the public bar, but the saloon bar seemed empty. Since he wanted to talk to the barman he went into the saloon. It had the additional advantage of having high-backed settees against the windows, which made it a good deal darker than the other bar. Normally Piet would infinitely have preferred the light and the pitch-pine furniture of the public bar to the much heavier furnishings of the saloon, but in the circumstances the darker room suited him.
Piet had an artist’s visual alertness allied to his training to notice things, and on entering the pub he had automatically glanced at the board over the door announcing who was licensed to sell intoxicating liquors. The name of the licensee was Angus Jerrold, and it had been newly painted compared with the rest of the lettering on the board, indicating a fairly recent change of licence. The man behind the bar in the saloon had a slightly proprietorial air about him, and Piet took a chance, saying ‘Good morning. You would be Major Jerrold, I suppose.’
‘Yes. How on earth do you know?’
‘Well, I noticed the name of the licensee as I came in, and you have a look of being the proprietor.’
‘But how do you get Major?’
Piet laughed. ‘Can’t mistake the Army. Did ten years in the Gunners myself, but came out as a captain.’
‘My lot were the Durhams, and I stayed for my pension. Did you have a job to go to?’
‘My wife’s people have a small family business in the timber trade. Her father was getting on, and they rather needed me. I’m making about three times what I’d have had if I’d stayed in the Army, though I can’t say that the job I’m doing now is as important as a job with the Gunners.’
‘I know. Bloody Governments, but there it is. We scraped together the capital to buy this place – it was a bit run down, and was going fairly cheap. Thank God we’ve got the pension to tide us over.’
‘You’ll make a go of it all right. Can I have a large Scotch? And will you join me in anything?’
‘Well, as one ex-officer to another, I can’t say no. But I’ll have a beer, if you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I don’t mind. Here’s luck to your venture.’
‘Thanks.’
The two men drank, and then Piet said, ‘I saw your sign, and I really came to ask about horses. Any chance of hiring one for a bit of a ride?’
‘Not today there isn’t, I’m afraid. We’ve got quite decent stables, but only two horses at the moment, and they’re both out. I told you the establishment was a bit run down. I could do more trade with more horses, but they cost the earth to buy nowadays and we’ve got to wait till we’ve built up the place. Sorry.’
‘Not your fault. Are they out most days? How long do you have to book in advance?’
‘Depends on the weather, but you’d be on the safe side with a fortnight. We get all sorts. Earlier this week we had a woman with a baby that couldn’t have been more than eight or nine months old. She carried it in a sort of papoose slung on her back. I was a bit worried to see her go off, but she could ride all right, and she brought back horse and baby quite safely in time for lunch. I remember it particularly because it was the day of the dreadful business when the chief constable’s daughter was taken from her pram.’
This shook Piet. As unconcernedly as he could manage, he asked, ‘Did you tell the police?’
‘No. No point. It was her own baby, and she’d been here overnight. Staying with her sister. The sister didn’t ride – fell off as a kid, and got frightened. So she went for a walk while the girl with the baby went for a ride. Nice pair. They’d booked the rooms and the horse about three weeks beforehand, mentioning the baby when they’d booked. So they couldn’t possibly have been involved.’
‘No. A landlord must have problems sometimes, though.’
‘So-so. They’re a decent lot round here, and we don’t have much trouble. What about that drink?’
‘It’s your living, and I’m having a day off. I’ll have a small whisky, but I’m not having it on the house – let it go towards the next horse. I’ll have one of your Ploughman’s Lunches as well, if it’s not too early.’
‘That’s a nice attitude, and I appreciate it. You can certainly have some lunch, and the bread’s good and fresh. We keep it in the kitchen, though – away from smoke in the bar. I’ll call my wife to get it for you. Do you want pickles with the cheese?’
‘Yes, please.’
*
The landlord called through to the kitchen, and then he had to attend to customers in the other bar. A woman brought Piet’s lunch, spread a paper napkin on a small table, and served the simple plate of bread and cheese with a pleasant air of wanting to be polite to a customer. Piet thanked her and a bit of his mind wondered for how long such politeness would survive having to deal with the public. Most of his mind was concerned with what he had just heard. He badly wanted to have a look at the hotel register, but it was not in the bar, and he didn’t want to seem inquisitive. This was where he suffered from not being officially a policeman. Maybe it didn’t matter much – if the sisters had anything to do with taking Jo, the names and addresses in the register would almost certainly have been made up for the occasion. And what a brilliant scheme – to arrive at a hotel with a baby the night before a kidnapping, and to leave openly next day with, perhaps, a different baby! No problem about where to leave a car – it could be left openly in the hotel’s car park.
There would have to be help – someone to take over the original baby safely out of sight of the hotel. But the logistics were not difficult. If the two sisters were Jane and some other woman, could Jane have taken the baby when she went to collect the Mini van from Avebury? According to the notes in her purse, she was to be met, and presumably piloted to Piet’s house, by someone in a black car. Could the driver of that car have gone off with the original baby? Easily possible, but Piet’s imagination did not see it like that. The stolen Mini van, the black car and all the rest of that sequence of events held together as official planning, as it were. The rendezvous at the standing stones, the handing over of Jo to someone with a horse seemed part of an entirely different sequence – one that was to cost Jane her life.
*
Piet paid for his lunch and said goodbye to the landlord. ‘Nice to have met you,’ said Major Jerrold. ‘Do you want me to book a horse for you? What’s the name, anyway? You got mine from the board, but I don’t think you ever told me yours.’
‘Bill Prince,’ Piet replied with the first names that came into his head. ‘Business is at Reading, and I’m just having a day out. Gunners always like horses, as you know, and I still go for a ride when I can. But I can’t book a horse now, because I don’t know when I’m going to be free over the next month or so. Your place will be in the phone book, and I’ll give you a ring when I can.’
‘It won’t be in the Reading directory, so here’s one of our cards. I’ll look forward to seeing you when you can get here. And the house owes you a drink – when you hire that horse, I hope you’ll feel able to accept it.’
‘Sure. And I’ll look forward to it, too. All the best.’
*
Piet felt torn in two. Half of him wanted to ring Sir John Carfax, call in the Yard and have every available man put on tracking the movements of the two women who had stayed at the hotel. The other half of him, the half that had to stay cold and rational when all his emotions were racing about Jo, still said no. He had no evidence to link the women with Jo, and if they were wholly above board it would be a sheer waste of time to go after them. If they were not – if they were concerned with Jo – then any indication that the police were on their track might lead to Jo’s murder – if she was still alive. The body of a nine-months-old baby is horribly easily disposed of. If Jo was dead it wouldn’t matter, but until there was some evidence to suggest her death it had to be assumed that she was still alive. He had set out to discover what he could about the Jane Partridge who lived in North Cornwall, and the right course was simply to go on.
He’d decided to go by motorway as far as Exeter. The diversion to Avebury and West Overton had taken him well south of the motorway, and he wondered whether to stay on the old Bath road, and go on from Bath through Glastonbury to Taunton. The motorway route was longer, but it was easy, and in his present mood more suitable for more or less automatic driving. He decided to make for Chippenham and rejoin the motorway from there.
*
He made good time to Exeter, where he left the motorway to take the road through Okehampton, Launceston and along the northern edge of Bodmin Moor to the North Cornish coast. During the afternoon he got some news on the car radio: it seemed mostly about him. Victor Norton had held a press conference that morning to satisfy the hungry reporters as far as he could about Piet’s illness. He seemed to have done very well, developing Sir Gervase Warrinder’s line about the price that those who try to defend law and order have to pay.
There was an interesting item about Piet’s own condition. He learned that Sir Gregory Parminter, the eminent cardiologist, had been called in, and was now in charge of the case. Sir Gregory gave Piet a chance, but only if he could be left completely undisturbed. ‘Good for Gavin,’ Piet thought. ‘And nice of Sir Gregory to help. I must meet him one day. A patient really ought to meet his own doctor.’ Giving the news about Sir Gregory, Victor repeated the police appeal to the media not to attempt to interview either Sally or Piet’s mother. ‘You will understand that this is a heart-rending time for them, and they merit every consideration,’ he said.
