The Nine-Spoked Wheel, page 12
Diana Revers laughed. ‘Policeman’s lot – at any rate, police wife’s lot,’ she said. ‘Of course I’ll do it. But do try to come home soon, John.’
*
The Reverses lived about a mile from police headquarters, and John Revers usually walked there: he enjoyed the walk to his office in the morning, and it gave him a quiet chance to think over the day ahead; going home in the evening he felt that the walk helped him to unwind. At work, he had a police car, so his own small Renault stayed at home for Diana’s use. Taking her small son, she got out the car now and drove to South Down. She was pleased rather than irritated by the errand. The child was being a bit tiresome, and it gave her something to do with him. She was also pleased in another way. She was very deeply in love with her husband, and hated the demands his job made on him. She often wanted to persuade him to give it up and go in for something else – she felt that she probably could. But she knew that though he might do it for her sake, he’d be miserably unhappy, so loyally she did not try. She wished that she could do more to help him, and was privately glad that he’d turned to her like this.
At the camp she met little groups of men and women in dusty jeans coming back from the dig. ‘Can you tell me where I can find Dr Marryat?’ she asked one young man.
‘Yes, he’s coming up behind us. He’ll be here any minute.’ Then she saw Marryat, with another man, about fifty yards away. Holding her son’s hand, she walked towards them. ‘Hullo Tony,’ she called out, ‘it’s marvellous to see you. I got your letter this morning, so I’ve driven out this evening.’
‘Why it’s –’ Marryat racked his brains for a moment – ‘Diana!’ he said.
She rushed forward and flung her arms round his neck. The man with Marryat politely hung back a little, and Diana whispered hurriedly ‘Don’t say anything about my husband, but he wants you to come with me at once.’ She released him, and Marryat said, ‘Diana is a very old Cambridge friend. She lives near Newbury, and I wrote on the offchance that she’d be around.’ To Diana he said, ‘This is George Armitage. He’s Dr Arbolent’s second-in-command, and he really does most of the work about the place.’
They shook hands, and Diana said, ‘Please, can I kidnap you Tony? We can get home in less than an hour, and everyone wants to see you. And I’ll bring you back in good time after dinner – promise.’
‘Would you mind, George?’ Marryat asked. ‘I know I said I’d give a lecture to the students this evening, but it was a pretty casual arrangement, and I can do it tomorrow instead. I really would like to go back with Diana now.’
‘Tomorrow wouldn’t be any good for us,’ Diana said. ‘And we’re off on holiday the day after that. It’s tonight or nothing.’
‘Of course you must go,’ said Armitage. ‘It doesn’t matter a bit about the lecture – indeed, it will be better to make it tomorrow, because I know that some people have already arranged to go into Devizes tonight, and they’d all like to hear you.’
‘Well, thanks a lot, George. Give me about five minutes, Diana, to have a wash and get into some clean clothes, and I’ll be with you.’
*
In the car, Diana said, ‘Thank you for playing up so well. I’m sorry I had to kiss you, but it seemed the best thing to do.’
‘I’m not a bit sorry,’ Marryat said.
‘Well, my husband is very anxious to see you, but he didn’t want anyone to know about the police. You see, he’s been to interview the students here, so people would have recognised him if he’d come himself. That’s why I came instead. John asked me to take you to our home, and he wondered if you’d stay for supper.’
‘I seem to be rather a heavy charge on your household, but I’d love to, if it’s not too much bother.’
‘Good. But I’m afraid you’ll have to put up with me for a bit first, because John’s frightfully involved with something and he won’t be home for an hour or so.’
*
Diana thought that her husband looked dreadfully tired. ‘I suppose you haven’t had any lunch,’ she said.
‘You’re becoming quite a detective! As a matter of fact, I haven’t.’
‘Well, Dr Marryat is here waiting for you, but you’re not going to talk about anything until you’ve had some supper.’
After supper, Revers took Marryat into the small room that he called his study. ‘It’s very good of you to come like this, Dr Marryat,’ he said. ‘I’m going to risk my job and do something highly improper – I’m going to discuss some of the actual evidence in Paul Clayton’s case. I feel that you want to get to the bottom of it as much as I do. Can I have your word that I can speak in absolute confidence?’
‘I don’t know, until I’ve heard what you want to say,’ Marryat said. ‘You must understand that I have my own standards, and I can’t possibly bind myself in advance to say nothing about something I don’t yet know about. I’ll gladly give my word that I won’t disclose anything that might prejudice you, or your inquiries, in any way. You’ll have to trust me for the rest.’
‘I respect that. How is your palaeo-botany?’
Marryat looked slightly startled. Revers laughed, deliberately relieving the little tension between them. ‘No, I’ve not gone off my head,’ he said. ‘I haven’t told you before, but one of the things we found in Paul Clayton’s wallet was a cigarette end. It seemed a curious thing to keep in a wallet. When I read that postscript in his letter to you it struck me that the cigarette end might have an important bearing on his death. You see, I’m convinced now that he was murdered. Suppose he had found that cigarette end in a tomb or somewhere that was not supposed to have been entered for a few thousand years – and suppose he told someone that he had found it? If that someone was engaged in faking archaeological finds, that could be a motive for murder.’
There was a pause, then Marryat said, ‘You’re saying what I’ve been thinking myself, Inspector. I didn’t know about the cigarette end, but I feel more and more strongly that Paul knew something was wrong about the dig. And I don’t see how that stone could have fallen on him as it apparently did. He was a young man, with a career in archaeology to make. He had to be very careful. But he was transparently honest as a person. If he had suspicions about faking, he might well have said something in private to someone – as I think he tried to tell me in that letter. But how on earth does palaeo-botany come into it?’
‘Like this. We don’t know, of course, where Paul Clayton’s cigarette end came from – all I’ve said so far is pure speculation. I sent it to the National Forensic Laboratory at Oxford, and a scientist there has identified certain microscopic pollen grains on it. But they’re not ordinary pollens – they appear to come from some prehistoric member of the vetch family, which has been extinct in Britain for at least 3,000 years. That’s why I wanted to see you. Is it possible for such pollens to survive in the dust, say, of a sealed tomb?’
‘Perfectly possible. I am not a palaeo-botanist – it’s a very specialised branch of science – but palaeo-botany does sometimes touch on archaeology, and it can sometimes be very helpful in dating things. But I couldn’t identify pollen grains myself. I’d be like you, I’d need to go to an expert.’
‘We’ve got experts. Could you collect samples of dust from anywhere you can think of where Paul Clayton might have picked up that cigarette end? It would be somewhere it was stubbed out, or trodden on, I should think, rather than just thrown away: more dust would adhere to a stubbed cigarette than one merely lying around.’
Marryat thought hard. ‘If you’re right, the most likely place would be one of the Wansdyke tombs. They are undoubtedly early – whatever may be the provenance of the inscriptions, the tomb chambers themselves are certainly early second or even third millennium. That would meet your palaeo-botanist’s date – I mean, his vetch would still have been around when those tombs were built. And they were pretty effectively sealed, so that the original dust would not have been disturbed much. True, there is some suggestion that they may have been robbed in antiquity – but that may have been 3,000 or more years ago, and in any case, it would not necessarily have affected the original dust to any great extent. I can certainly get samples from all the Wansdyke tomb chambers. They have been much trodden over recently, so I’ll cut down an inch or two into the floors with my knife, and take samples from a bit below the surface. When do you want them?’
‘As soon as possible. But I don’t want anyone to know about it just yet.’
‘That means that I’d better not make a special visit, but go there tomorrow in the ordinary way. I can be discreet enough about getting the samples, I think. How do I get them to you? I’ve got to give that damned lecture tomorrow evening. But it won’t be late. I’m to talk to the students after tea, which means around six thirty, or say nearer seven o’clock. I’ve got to allow time for questions, but it should be over by nine – I can make sure it is over by then. Can I come to your house between nine thirty and ten?’
‘That will be fine. And I’ll send them on to the Forensic Laboratory in a police car.’
VII
In the Dark
REVERS COULDN’T DO much more with the Clayton case for the moment, because Jan Korsky’s murder meant an immense amount of work. The Press, particularly the local Press, were far more concerned with the Korsky case than they were about Clayton. There had been no public hint that Paul Clayton’s death was anything other than an accident, and it had been swallowed up in the vast publicity attracted by Dr Arbolent’s sensational discoveries. The Korsky case was different – it was obviously a brutal murder. The Press wanted to know what the police were doing, whether they had found a motive, whether there was anyone they particularly wanted to interview. Revers was realistic about the Press. It could be an unmitigated nuisance, but it could also give valuable help, and he was sufficiently sensitive to the climate of modern society to accept that the police were not a private army but a public authority. He had always got on well with reporters, combining a slightly official manner with a genuine readiness to help where he could. For their part, reporters generally respected him, and he seldom felt let down. But it all made for a great deal of work.
He compiled a careful statement about the Korsky case, which omitted mention of the box found under the floor-boards of the hut, but which suggested that robbery was probably the motive. The old man was known to sell an occasional painting, and he had apparently been in funds for the past few weeks: he had been drunk most nights, and although he was tolerated in the local pubs because he never became argumentative or quarrelsome, two publicans had recently refused to serve him. He would take such rebuffs philosophically and stagger off home, usually with a bottle of gin that he had bought earlier in the evening. Without actually saying so, Revers’s statement implied that he might have been helped home in such a state by a stranger who concluded that he must have money hidden in his hut, and proceeded to hit him on the head. The police were anxious to get in touch with anyone who might have helped to take the old man home. Revers also provided copy for some good headlines by saying that the police were looking for a blood-stained hammer. He invited the public to help by reporting at once any such heavy instrument they might come across in a hedge or by a roadside.
He himself remained very much puzzled. The old man’s box contained nearly £800 in £5 and £1 notes, all used notes, which made them next to impossible to trace. They could not have been a lifetime’s savings, because, although used notes, they were all of relatively recent issue. It was true that the old man occasionally sold a painting – Sergeant Grey had found three people who had bought paintings from him. One had paid £3, the others £1.50 apiece, which was nothing like enough to account for the considerable sum of money in his box.
The other contents of the box cast little light on Korsky’s life. There were two bundles of letters, all in Polish, and all dating back to the war. Korsky had apparently risen to the rank of Corporal in General Anders’ army, and he seemed to have fought in most of its campaigns. One lot of letters were moving love-letters, written to him when he was in the army by a Polish girl in London. There was none dated after the summer of 1944. Revers asked the Metropolitan Police to find out anything they could about the girl, but it was not a hopeful quest: the house where she had lived had been hit by a flying bomb, and the whole terrace rebuilt as office-blocks after the war. The other bundle was smaller. It held a few letters from army friends, and a personal document or two – his discharge papers from the army, a faded sepia photograph of an old woman in Polish costume, apparently his mother, and a page torn from an exercise book which turned out to contain a list of churches. The latest letter in this bundle was dated 1949. There were no envelopes, so there was no indication of where he had been living when he got the letters.
Most of the rolls of canvas were blank, but two were covered with drawings, wild, whirling lines and circles that might have been done when he was drunk, but were somehow strangely beautiful. Mixed with them were other little pictures more like sober work – firm, clean outlines of houses, trees and boats. There were several lines of lettering, but they did not seem to make words: they seemed more practice-letters in Roman, Gothic and various decorated fonts. Revers looked particularly closely at one group, which seemed to have some resemblance to the lettering he had seen on the urn at Avebury.
*
Revers telephoned the police-surgeon and learned that Mrs Kranz had had a fairly good night, and that she was fit to be interviewed. He went to the hospital, where the doctor had succeeded in doing very well for the Kranzes: they had been put in little single rooms, adjoining one another. Mrs Kranz was sitting up in bed, her eyes still very bright, and obviously worried at having anything to do with the police. A nurse tried to comfort her, explaining that she had done nothing wrong, and that the inspector just wanted to talk to her about her neighbour. ‘I promise he won’t hurt you,’ she said. Mrs Kranz did not appear much happier, but agreed to answer Revers’s questions. ‘But you must not tell Karl; he must not know that the police have come for us,’ she said.
Revers was gentle and patient. Gradually the old woman became less ill at ease, and gradually, too, she became interested in talking about Jan Korsky. She had a high opinion of him, he had been good to her and her husband. ‘Before, he would take Karl for little walks,’ she said. ‘But not this year – Karl cannot walk much now.’ From time to time Korsky had given them money. ‘We have so little. Jan did not have much, but he would work sometimes for a farmer, and sometimes he would sell a picture, and then he always gave us money,’ she said. Yes, his trouble was drink – ‘But he had no home, no family, everybody killed. He had much to forget.’ He had come to the huts, she thought, about ten years ago, but she did not know from where. She and her husband were already living there – Karl could work in those days, and he, too, had worked for farmers. Jan had been working at a church.
‘At a church?’ Revers said in some surprise. Yes, the old woman explained, Jan was very good at churches, and if he had not drunk so much – well, what could you do? Churches could not have drunk men sleeping in the pews. But he had not always been drunk quite so much, and then he had been famous for his carving. The Inspector could see some of his work even in a cathedral, she thought it might be Salisbury Cathedral, or perhaps Winchester. It was clear that neither place was more than a name to her.
No, Jan did not have enemies: who would want to hurt him? He had a friend, who had come for him in a car a few times, and taken him to work somewhere – she could not say where. He had not come lately – the last time was in the winter, she thought. Yes, it must have been in the winter, because Jan had come to borrow a coat of her Karl’s, because he felt so cold. She had never seen Jan’s friend, and apart from the fact that he had a car, she knew nothing about him. She had no idea what sort of car.
Revers did not want to tire her, and he felt that he had probably learned all he could. Deliberately, he had asked her nothing about the finding of Jan Korsky’s body – it did not seem to matter, somehow. On his way back to the office he called at a florist’s and sent her a bunch of flowers. ‘From your policeman’, he wrote on the card.
*
That afternoon was a notable occasion at the Wansdyke dig, because Dr Arbolent was there himself. The papers were still full of his projected voyage, and several photographers accompanied him to the barrow, to take pictures of him directing his students. Excavation of the bank beyond the most easterly tomb chamber yet found had made considerable progress, and it was clear that the diggers were breaking through into yet another tomb. They were extending the lighting into the new chamber, when there was a slight fall of roof. Dr Arbolent ordered the little room to be evacuated. ‘We must have some props,’ he said to Armitage. ‘There must be no more work here until that roof is supported.’
Armitage turned to Juliet. ‘There’s no one in the workshop this afternoon because Bill is having a day off. You’ve been working there a bit, and know your way around. Can you slip up and get some timbers? Take the Land Rover. The chaps on Mess duty can give you a hand with the loading.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ said Marryat. ‘I know just what’s wanted.’ He measured the roof height with a steel tape, and they went off.
Work at the dig had been a little disorganised by Dr Arbolent’s trips to London, and by the inevitable absenteeism that is liable to inflict a student party: one girl had gone off to be a bridesmaid at her sister’s wedding, one of the men had to visit his father in hospital, and another had to go to London for an interview about a job. Thus no timbers had been pre-cut for use in the new chamber. It didn’t matter much, because there was plenty of timber, in a variety of shapes and sizes, but it meant that Marryat and Juliet had to hunt round a bit. They found four pieces that Marryat reckoned would do the job all right, and took them back to the dig.
