Festival, page 15
‘The name you gave me – Andrew Johnson – will be as good as any. Local police – I’m calling from Wadebridge. It’s quite a big place, and right in the area I’m most concerned with. Can you ring Wadebridge?’
‘Yes. That’s in the West Cornwall Constabulary, and the headquarters are at Newquay. I’ll have to ring Newquay first, and then I’ll get on directly to Wadebridge. You’d better give me about an hour. Rank – you can’t be too exalted, or they may have heard of you. But you’ve got to be fairly senior. What about going back to being Chief Inspector? I’ll leave it to you to talk yourself into whatever job you think most appropriate. One thing does worry me, though. Your picture’s been in all the papers, and on TV. How can you avoid being recognised by the West Cornwall police?’
‘It’s a risk I’ve got to take, but I think it will be all right. They’ll be expecting Chief Inspector Johnson – they won’t be looking out for Piet Deventer. And I’ve got my plain glass spectacles – they make quite a lot of difference to appearance.’
‘Well, again, that’s up to you. One thing more. I think you ought to know the name of the local superintendent –hang on a moment while I get my secretary to look him up.’
Piet had been impressed before by Sir John’s total thoroughness – mentally he kicked himself now for neglecting an important small professional detail. What a magnificent policeman the commissioner was! His professionalism clearly extended to his ordering of his own office, for in less time than Piet would have believed possible he was back on the line. ‘It’s Evans, Ernest John Evans – don’t know what a Welshman is doing in Cornwall, but we’re a mixed up lot in these islands,’ he said. ‘Of course I can’t guarantee that he won’t be on holiday or off duty for some reason, but that’s the name you’ll have looked up at the Yard, and I’m sure you ought to have it. I’ll get on with the rest of my job straightaway. Good luck.’
*
Before leaving the call-box Piet looked up the address of Wadebridge police station in the directory, and the next thing he did was to locate it. That didn’t take long, for it turned out to be only a few hundred yards away from where he was. But he couldn’t call there yet – Sir John had said an hour, and it would do no good at all to get to the police station before they’d heard about him from the Yard. The pubs were open now, and although he didn’t particularly want a drink, a pub is a fine anonymous place for killing time. He put on his plain glass spectacles, and walked through the town centre looking for a newsagent where he could buy some papers to read in the pub.
*
The hunt for Jo was still the lead story in most of the papers. There was a bulletin about him, stating,
The Chief Constable is holding his own but he is still gravely ill and the next 48 hours are likely to be critical. It remains of prime importance that he should see no one other than his doctors and nurses, and no one should attempt to get in touch with him.
The statement added,
Mr Victor Norton, the Acting Chief Constable, wishes to express the thanks of all ranks in the police force to representatives of the media for their cooperation in helping to assure the Chief Constable the rest and privacy that are essential to his recovery.
So far, so good, Piet thought, though he reflected that the next twelve hours were likely to be the really critical ones.
With no real news to report in the hunt for Jo, the journalists were turning more and more to speculation. At his daily press conference Victor Norton had been questioned about possible motives for the kidnapping, and could reply only that it appeared to be the work of someone with a warped mentality. Had there been any ransom demand? he was asked. No, there had been thousands of letters from members of the public expressing sympathy, but nothing from the kidnapper or kidnappers, and no indication of any terms that might be accepted for her release. Did it look like a political crime? Nothing could be ruled out, but there seemed no apparent political motive, and the police were more inclined to regard it as the action of some man or woman who was mentally ill. ‘It is for this reason that we have such grave fears about the child’s safety,’ Victor had added.
Several papers suggested that the kidnapping might be an act of revenge by some criminal or gang whose arrest had been brought about by Piet during his career as a detective. One enterprising journalist had found and interviewed a man who had just been released from prison after serving a sentence for an art fraud which Piet had uncovered. The interview did not help speculation, for the released man had been emphatic that his fellow prisoners abhorred kidnapping and all crimes against children, and he did not believe that any normal criminal would attempt such a savage vengeance against a policeman. ‘Besides, Mr Deventer was always straight,’ he added. ‘He played fair, and if you take a chance and get caught, well, that’s all there is to it.’
Piet was rather touched by this tribute to him, but he also did not believe in Jo’s kidnapping as an act of private vengeance. It had, of course, occurred to him at the outset, but even before he knew as much as he did now he did not see the kidnapping as an act directed against either him or Sally personally. In his thinking it was a kind of terrorism, but terrorism carried out for more specific, and limited, ends than motivate most political terrorists. He could still be wildly wrong – the kidnapping might indeed be the action of some demented and unhappy person, in which case he was not only wasting time and police resources, but achieving nothing towards solution of the mystery. That fear had haunted him all along – yet assuming that the kidnapping had been a rational act, it ought to be possible for reason to determine its motives and to find a solution to its problems. He believed that it was rational; moreover he felt now that the perpetrators had made certain mistakes – and a plan that goes wrong is circumstantial evidence of the existence of planning. At least some of the mistakes seemed to be accidents, but they were accidents that could not have happened unless some course of events had been deliberately set in motion – you cannot, for instance, fall off a motorcycle unless you first get on to a motorcycle.
Reason, however, can be powerless in dealing with madness. The actions of a lunatic are not rational, and until you have discovered that you are investigating the work of a lunatic, attempts to find reasonable explanations are liable to send you hopelessly astray. He believed that he had found sufficient evidence to indicate a rational chain of circumstance, though where the chain began or ended – or broke – he could not yet say. He could still be wrong, but having set out to act on reason the only course now left was to continue to try to follow reason.
He was not a profitable customer to the pub, for he consumed but one pint of bitter while reading the papers and reflecting on them. But there were few other customers so early in the day, and it was probably better for the pub to have someone sitting in the bar than for the place to be empty. Anyway, he had been left in peace while the barman got on with the work of polishing glasses and checking his stocks in readiness for later trade, and by the time Piet felt that he could not in decency stay there any longer he reckoned that it needed only a short spell of window-shopping to bring him to the point at which he could call on the police.
*
‘Is Superintendent Evans in?’ Piet asked.
The constable at the inquiry desk was cautious and noncommittal. ‘What did you want to see him about?’ he asked.
‘As a matter of fact I’m another policeman,’ Piet explained. ‘I’m Chief Inspector Andrew Johnson of the Metropolitan Police. I was instructed to ask for the superintendent here – I hope that he may be expecting me.’
The constable’s manner changed. ‘He is that, sir,’ he said. ‘He rang down about you and asked me to bring you straight up.’ He lifted a flap in the counter. ‘Will you come through, sir? The superintendent’s office is on the next floor.’
The superintendent was getting on, not far off retirement, Piet thought. But there was nothing slack about him: he had kept himself well, and his eyes – without glasses – were alert. ‘Don’t know what we can do for you, Chief Inspector, but we’re glad to see you,’ he said. ‘Top brass at the Yard was on the phone about you not twenty minutes ago, and I’ve also been instructed by our own chief to give you any help we can. Would you like a cup of tea or coffee? I generally have a coffee about this time.’
Piet did not want any more coffee, but it seemed ill-mannered to decline the invitation, so he said that it was just what he would like. The superintendent spoke into an intercom –’I’ve got a visitor, Betty. Can you bring coffee for two?’
When the girl had come and gone, Superintendent Evans stirred his cup thoughtfully. ‘Old-fashioned, me, still like sugar, and I can’t say that it’s done me any harm. Can’t be sure, of course. I see you’re all modern and don’t use sugar or milk – well, one’s man’s meat, as the old saying goes. No one’s been very explicit about what has brought you here, Chief Inspector. If you’ll give me a brief rundown, it’ll help me to see how we fit in.’
At least half Piet’s mind had been thinking of this ever since he had rung Sir John Carfax. ‘It’s not easy to be brief, and I’d better begin by saying a word about me,’ he said. ‘I’m formally attached to the Drugs Division of the CID, but for the past year or so I’ve tended to specialise on cases with some diplomatic link – I mean, where we need help or information through some embassy. This means that for a lot of the time I’m rather loosely attached to the Special Branch, and it’s more or less Special Branch business that has brought me here now. For some time we’ve been investigating a group or ring which seems to go in for disposing of the haul from raids on pharmaceutical factories – as you know, there have been two big raids within the past six months, in one of which a security guard was shot and killed. The quantity of stuff stolen – mostly heroin, cocaine and other hard drugs – make it seem unlikely that it can be handled by the normal small fry, peddling little packets in pubs, or through students. So we suspect that there must be some scheme for exporting the stuff on a fairly major scale. The trouble is that consignments worth millions take up relatively little room, and can be loaded into almost any small space. The Customs people are very experienced and they’ve helped by keeping a special watch at airports and on shipping, but although various forms of small-scale smuggling have come to light there’s been nothing to give a line on our particular problem. Then a few days ago we picked up a scrap of evidence – not much more than guesswork, really – to suggest that an elderly schooner-yacht sailing out of Padstow might be involved. It wouldn’t be a bad scheme. Apparently she’s often chartered to various parties, and she could make anywhere on the Continent easily enough, or even cross the Atlantic if it seemed worthwhile. Of course yachts are subject to the same Customs laws as anybody else, but in a good many places they are treated with a fair degree of toleration. And this is an old boat that has been around for many years, no doubt for the most part quite respectably, and she may well be quite a familiar caller at some foreign ports. We don’t know enough to take action against the owner, and naturally the last thing we want to risk is trying to act too soon and so giving everybody notice that we’re on their trail. Of course, the yacht may be wholly innocent, in which case that particular inquiry comes to an end. But the thing is too big to neglect even the slightest possibility that we may be on to the export scheme. We only learned about the yacht yesterday, and I was sent down to try to get a look at her and the people on board. I managed this more by luck than judgement and learned last night that she’s calling at a tiny place on tonight’s tide to pick up something or somebody. Obviously we can do nothing more without your help. Probably I should have let you know that I was coming down to Cornwall before, and I can but apologise for not having done so. The trouble is that one thing just led to another and I found myself driving down here without much chance of explaining things.’
‘I know exactly what you mean, young man – I should say Chief Inspector, but I’m much older than you, and you must allow something for age and length of service. If you ought to have called on us last night, I ought not to call you young man, so we’re quits. Of course I don’t hold anything against you – and I might add that your own top brass spoke of you very highly indeed. What’s the name of this boat of yours?’
‘Morning Star. She’s built on the lines of an old slating trader, but it seems she’s kept up as a yacht.’
‘That would be Major Partridge’s old boat. He died some years back, but he was very well thought of hereabouts.’
‘Yes. I haven’t had time to investigate his will, but I understand there were three children – two daughters called Harriet and Jane, and a boy. The boy seems to live away, and the one most concerned with the boat appears to be the daughter Harriet.’
‘She’s the elder daughter. I knew the whole family when I was a constable. The boy went off to some posh school and I heard he went to Cambridge, but what happened to him after that I don’t know. Miss Harriet and Miss Jane still live at Pendenna House, though it may be that Miss Jane isn’t there so much nowadays. Miss Harriet was always a sailor – and a damned good one. I remember her winning a dinghy race in a regatta, years ago – beat all the men, she did. From what I know of them it seems highly improbable that they could be mixed up in anything like you say, but people do go wrong – or we’d be out of business! I’d be happy to help you clear Miss Harriet if we can. If not, well, it’s my job to help you just the same. Where is the place you think the boat’s calling at tonight?’
‘Port Gaverne.’
‘Tricky place to get into, and you can only do it near high water. But it’s Miss Harriet’s home port, and she’d know all about that. Used to be a thriving trade in little ships in all these places – all gone now. What do you actually want us to do?’
‘Well, I’ve told you my story, and it’s not for me to tell you how to handle it. But there are several things I’d like to ask you.’
‘Come off it, young man! I hand it to you for good manners, but you know far more about your job than I do, and you must say what you want done. Then I’ll tell you whether we can do it.’
‘Thank you, Super. The first thing I’d like is for an officer to make inquiries at Padstow, to see if he can compile a list of Morning Star’s departures and arrivals over the past year. Presumably she’d have to go through Customs at Padstow, and there ought to be a record of her clearances – that is, the port from which she cleared to sail for Padstow. However, that only applies if she’s been foreign. If she’s just cruised in British waters, it will be harder to find out where she’s been, though she must be well known at Padstow, and if you can put a man who knows the place on the job he’ll know where to pick up bits of information about boats.’
‘Sure. I’ve got a young detective whose father is a fisherman. He was born and brought up in Padstow, and he’s just the man for you. What’s the next thing?’
‘I shall have to interview Miss Harriet Partridge, and I’d like a uniformed man to go with me – if possible an officer she may know by sight. I haven’t mentioned this yet, because it may be no more than incidental to other matters, but a young woman who seems to have been attending that pop festival at Earl’s Down has died in the Swindon hospital from an overdose of heroin. She has not been positively identified yet, but there are indications that she may have been Jane Partridge. Harriet almost certainly doesn’t know about this yet, and you will understand how important it is to study her reactions to the news. At the same time she may be completely innocent of any complicity in drug smuggling, and for compassionate reasons as well as anything else I don’t want to break the news with an immediate undertone of suspicion. If I go there as a detective from the Yard she’s bound to jump to all sorts of conclusions. A uniformed man is the proper person to bring news of personal tragedies, and I was wondering if I could perhaps be an inspector of your Force, accompanying the uniformed man because it’s obviously necessary to clear up details about how she got the drug, and all that sort of thing. If I could be one of your officers it will look like a straightforward local inquiry, and that’s how I’d like it to look for the moment.’
‘H’m. Yes, I see what you mean, young man, and it makes sense. I’ve certainly no objection to employing you temporarily on my staff – as long as you don’t expect me to pay you! I’ll get a warrant card made out in case she asks to check on you – she probably won’t, but it will be safer to have it. And if you want to make it look like a straightforward inquiry to get evidence for the coroner, I think you’re right in wanting to demote yourself from Chief Inspector to Inspector. There shouldn’t be any difficulty about the uniformed man. I’ll get on to Camelford, and they are bound to have someone who’s had some dealings with the family – as I told you, they’re well known locally. But what you say about Jane surprises me very much – I shouldn’t have thought that she’d be mixed up in anything like taking heroin.’
‘Maybe she wasn’t, or not much. Maybe it was just some silly experiment at the pop festival that went wrong.’
‘I’d like to think so. In spite of my name, I’m a North Cornish man myself, and the Partridges of Pendenna were always known as decent people, good employers, and good to their tenants. Of course, all that really came to an end with the old man’s death, but I suppose they’ve still got some land.’
‘I don’t know. As I say, there’s not been time to go into matters like their financial situation. Perhaps you can help me there, too.’
‘I daresay. It would be easier for your people in London to get hold of a copy of the old Major’s will, but there’ll be a shrewd idea locally about whether they’re still well off, or hard up. You spoke of the pop festival at Earl’s Down – isn’t that near where the chief constable’s baby daughter was taken?’
‘Yes, but of course I don’t know whether the festival had anything to do with it.’
