Late Delivery, page 15
‘He’s a gallant old boy. Entered into the spirit of the act, and suggested that his hair would do better with some matted leaves on it.’
‘That particular act is over. It has produced a poker with traces of blood in Mrs Denny’s blood group on it. I think we can probably show that the poker came from the Post Office, but there’s absolutely nothing to link it with the killing. What are we going to do next?’
‘Follow up the green Fiat. There’s good evidence now that a green Fiat was seen near the Post Office on the evening before the murder, and on the morning after it. I’ve now got a list of the owners of green Fiats with addresses between Reading and Oxford. I think we should interview the lot.’
‘Oxford police are going into the background of Miss Wells, who is the owner of the green Fiat I told you about. She’s got a marginal link with the case in that she’s secretary to the managing director of the stamp-printing firm. I think we might hold off general inquiries into green Fiats until we know a bit more about her. I’ve got another idea I want to put to you. It’s going to be tiresome to carry out, though.’
‘A policeman’s lot is tiresome.’
‘Suppose we’re right in our general thinking – that someone out to market a set of reversed-head stamps was involved in the Post Office murder, and used Eric Marshall’s appearance on the scene as a brilliant cover-up. We have heard evidence from Sir Gordon’s friend, Jim Coverdale, that he bought the stamp on his postcard from the Post Office at Netherwick. I haven’t had time to tell you, but when I was in Netherwick I did a small experiment, and succeeded in putting an envelope into the stamp book without the Postmaster’s having the slightest idea of it. If I could do that with an envelope, someone else could do it with a sheet of reversed-head stamps. That would get them into the ordinary sales book, from which they would be sold as ordinary stamps. I’ve no evidence that this happened – all I say is that it could have happened. Except for the one sold to Mr Coverdale we don’t know where these stamps are. Money from the Post Office was found in Eric Marshall’s cottage, but not the stamps, which at least suggests that he was not mixed up with the stamps. We don’t know why, but suppose for some reason connected with the stamps someone broke into the Post Office in the early morning, was disturbed by Mrs Denny’s coming downstairs, grabbed the poker and killed her. If you had done that, Simon, what would you do next?’
‘Get away – and get rid of the poker.’
‘Precisely. If there was any such someone who knows that he got away, because he or she has never come on the scene at all. And I think we can say that the poker was thrown away, because it was found in a ditch.’
‘Well?’
‘You’ve got away with everything so far. Then comes the irrelevant disappearance of Sir Gordon Gregory, and a police hunt for him. That doesn’t worry you very much. But now the police say they are looking for a weapon. If you’ve got a guilty conscience about a poker, wouldn’t you want to get it back and put it safely out of harm’s way?’
‘I might.’
‘Assume whoever threw away the poker does want to get it back.’
‘Wouldn’t he have done so already? As soon as the police hunt for Sir Gordon started?’
‘He didn’t, because it was there to be found by the blackberry picker. He may have thought that a search for Sir Gordon wasn’t likely to come across the poker, or there may be another reason. That means looking at a map.’
Piet got the Ordnance Survey sheet covering Netherwick and put a pencil on the road from Netherwick to Foldworth. ‘The poker was found just about here,’ he said. ‘What does the position indicate to you?’
‘That it’s an odd road to be on for a man running away from murder.’
‘That’s just what I thought. You can get to the main Hungerford road by going through Foldworth, but it’s several miles farther than going straight from Netherwick. It’s not a road that goes anywhere in particular, and a car in a hurry is more likely to be noticed in a tiny place like Foldworth than on a main road. It suggests to me an element of panic, of taking the first turning to get away from Netherwick without bothering much where it takes you. The Foldworth road –it’s a lane rather than a road – is this first left turn, just past the Post Office. Now if you’ve committed a murder and have a blood-stained poker in your car, what do you do with it?’
‘Wait till I get to a lonely bit of road, make sure there’s nothing in my mirror, open the window and chuck the thing into a ditch.’
‘Do you stop, or do you throw it without stopping?’
Simon considered this. ‘Acting rationally,’ he said, ‘it would be wiser to stop and get out of the car. Then you could be sure that the poker went into a ditch in a place where it wasn’t likely to be found. But on your assumption of a certain amount of panic, I think you might throw it away into what looked like a good ditch without stopping.’
‘The way the poker was lying rather suggests that is what happened. The point of it was actually driven into a sort of cavity in the bank, perhaps an old rabbit hole. If he slowed down to even twenty miles an hour before throwing it out, the poker would have hit the bank with considerable force. And he may have been driving much faster than that, which would increase the penetrating power of the poker.’
‘Seems quite a sound argument. But I’m still not clear what you’re getting at.’
‘If you throw a poker out of a moving car in a winding country lane, you may not know exactly where you threw it. My guess is that whoever is involved is likely to go looking for it.’
Simon now was keenly interested. ‘That means keeping a watch on the ditch,’ he said.
‘Yes. Sergeant Clifford marked the location with some bits of string. I’ve had the string removed, and the place photographed as unobtrusively as possible. I don’t think it matters much during the day, for I should expect our man –or woman – to go hedge hunting by night, and I’ve gambled on nothing happening last night because it was only today that we gave particular publicity to concentrating on our search for the weapon. Before that the news was all about the hunt for Sir Gordon. In any case, whoever is involved can’t find the poker because we’ve got it, and if I’m right in thinking that he doesn’t remember exactly where he threw it, he’ll go ditch-crawling again. Tonight is a kind of zero-hour. And I feel that you and I should do the watching ourselves.’
‘I’m not complaining, but why do you think that we shouldn’t deploy people in the ordinary way?’
Piet didn’t reply at once. Then he said slowly, as if he were thinking aloud, ‘Because only you and I know what we’re really looking for. We’ve kept the new evidence in the Post Office case to ourselves, and we’ve gone to great lengths not to link Sir Gordon’s disappearance with the murder. Perhaps I’ve too much respect for the detective ability of some of our people. It wouldn’t be difficult to start putting two and two together.’
‘Would it matter?’
‘I don’t know. Yes, I do know, it would matter. We have reason to doubt the outcome of the trial of Eric Marshall, but we’ve not reopened the case officially. Two of our officers have been commended for their part in the Marshall boy’s arrest, and I don’t want people to think that we’re not satisfied with what they did. I’m not at all satisfied with the way they made inquiries, but I may never have enough real evidence to justify saying so. I’ve got to consider the morale of the force. If I spend a few nights without much sleep and waste my time, well, nobody’s going to know about it. But I can’t spend whole nights crouching behind a hedge and carry on with all the normal business of the day. That’s why I’m dragging you into it. It’s tough on you, Simon, and maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps the best thing would be for you to arrange to have the place watched in the normal manner.’
‘I don’t think you’re wrong. I think your theories may be wrong, but they’re all we’ve got, and certainly worth working on. I’ve not got your load of responsibility, but I carry a fair bit myself, and I do understand something of the loneliness of command. I’m with you all the way. I suppose we ought to be starting about now?’
Piet held out his hand. ‘Thank you, Simon,’ he said simply. ‘God knows what will come of it, but we’re doing what we can.’ Becoming brisk again, he went on, ‘Yes, I think we ought to start. I don’t doubt your map-reading at night, but if you don’t mind I’d like us both to go to the Netherwick-Foldworth road. We can decide where to put ourselves, and what to do with our cars. Once we’ve settled things, you go back home and get some sleep, and you can relieve me at 04.00. I’ll take the first watch because I can put on some warm clothes, while you’ve got to get yours. Thank Heaven it’s not winter – but it can still get damned cold at night.’
*
Piet, in a heavy sailing pullover and a windproof smock, was additionally fortified by a vacuum flask of hot soup produced by Sally. The run to Netherwick took about half an hour, and by 22.30 Piet and Simon were on the winding lane to Foldworth, at the spot where the poker was found. ‘The hedge here is particularly thick,’ Piet said, ‘and anyone behind it is quite out of view of the road, though of course you can see through the hedge to what is going on. The main problem is the car. It’s not so much getting here, because we could organise that, but we don’t know what may happen, and we may need a car for a pursuit. Let’s see what offers.’
With torches they studied the lie of the land. What offered was quite convenient. About thirty yards to the left of the place where the poker came to light was a gate into the field behind the hedge. It had been cut, and there was nothing but stubble, no animals, and nothing to inhibit leaving the gate open. Inside the gate was stubble, on hard earth because there had been so little rain. A car could turn into the gate quite easily – it was normally used by tractors – and once a few yards inside was invisible from the road. ‘If we turn round so that we can make a quick getaway, this seems ideal,’ Piet said. ‘I don’t see why one shouldn’t sit in the car. No one can go ditch crawling without a torch, and any light in the road will be visible from here. Well, Simon, you push off now, and leave me to it. I shall expect relief at 04.00.’
‘What are we going to do during the day?’
‘Gamble on no one’s coming in daylight. Our strong card is that we know that he can’t find the poker. I agree that our imagined thrower-away of the poker would probably do better to search in daylight, but if I’m right in guessing at his panic, he won’t come in daylight.’
‘How long do you want me to stay?’
‘If you’re on watch until 07.00 I think we can risk the rest. If you leave here at 07.00 you can be home by 07.30 and at least lie down for an hour or so before starting the day’s work.’
‘Right. Good luck, Piet. I’ll be back at four.’
*
The hard stubble was no problem to the car, and by driving a few yards into the field the car was completely screened by the thick hedge. Piet opened the door, so that he could get out in a moment without making any noise, and sat with his torch on the seat beside him. It was a comfort to be able to sit in the car, but without the engine running there was no heat, and the open door added to the chill. He was glad of his thick clothes. The vigil was tedious. At 23.30 a car came from the direction of Netherwick, but it was travelling fairly fast, the driver clearly more interested in getting home than in ditch crawling. Another car passed soon after midnight, but again it seemed part of the normal night traffic of the countryside. At 02.00 Piet drank Sally’s soup. Between then and his relief at 04.00 nothing whatever happened, though there were some interesting night cries from owls. Piet wished that he knew something about owls, but he didn’t, and he had no idea which kind of owl made which hoot. He was glad to see Simon, but felt somehow guilty about having nothing to report.
He got home for a couple of hours’ sleep, and was in the office by 09.00 in the normal way. Simon’s watch also produced nothing. He had had some sleep after leaving Piet, and didn’t bother to go to bed again on getting home. He looked into Piet’s office to say that he had neither seen nor heard anything in the least out of the ordinary. ‘For a couple of night-shift workers I must say we’re good day timekeepers,’ he said. ‘Don’t know that the union would approve, though.’
X
Eleven Girls
THE EARLY AFTERNOON brought a telephone call from Oxford. It was Detective Inspector Charles Parsons, who had been given the job of going into the background of Miss Wells. Put through to Piet, he said, ‘I was instructed to report to you, sir, about a Miss Rebecca Wells. She lives near Stadhampton. I can’t say that I’ve found out anything exciting, but I’ve got quite a bit of information about her schooling, job, local connections and the like. My chief said you wanted this urgently. I could come over this afternoon, if that suited you.’
‘Fine,’ Piet said. ‘Good work to have got on with things so quickly. When you report to the duty officer, ask him to call my secretary, and she’ll bring you up straightaway.’
*
Piet asked Simon Begbroke to meet Inspector Parsons with him. Parsons was a red-haired young man, with widely-spaced, intelligent eyes. He seemed slightly over-awed in the presence of both the Chief Constable and the head of the CID of his neighbouring Force, and also rather puzzled. Piet tried to put him more at ease. ‘You’re probably wondering how we come into it,’ he said.
‘Well, sir, if it’s not impertinent to say so, I don’t quite understand why a report on a routine inquiry that seems to have originated with the Met. in London should involve North Wessex.’
‘You’re a good detective, Inspector. Tell us what you did, and then I’ll tell you why it’s important to us. You have realised already that the real purpose of the inquiry wasn’t exactly in the instructions given to you. But there are good reasons why your inquiry should seem to be on the lines set out to you.’
‘Thank you, sir. It wasn’t all that difficult for us. You may know that we have special responsibilities in looking after those security printers, and it’s my job to keep an eye on them. So I know several of the people there, particularly the personnel manager. They’re always careful about taking up references when they recruit staff, even a part-time cleaner has to be vetted. I’ve been able to help them several times in that sort of thing, so I could go to the personnel manager easily enough. He said that the whole thing was nonsense as far as they are concerned, and he gave me the file cards on all the girls employed as secretaries to show it. They keep personal details of everybody in a card index, sir, and it didn’t take him long to get them out. There are eleven girls who are counted as secretaries, working for various directors and managers in the firm. There are more typists, but I didn’t think it necessary to check on all of them, though I can, of course, if you say so.’
‘No, I don’t think they come into it. Tell me about the secretaries.’
‘As I said, sir, the firm keeps good records. Maybe he ought not to have done it, but the personnel manager gave me photo-copies of the cards for these eleven girls – he knows me, you see, and he knows that I wouldn’t put the information to any wrong use. There isn’t much real information, though.’ He handed Piet a small bundle of photo-copies of index cards. Piet ran through them, stopping at the one headed Wells, Rebecca Ernestine. Her date of birth made her just under thirty-one, and she had been with the firm for six years. Her personal particulars showed her as the second daughter and youngest child of Dr Bartholomew Wells, a general practitioner in Kent, and his wife Evelyn Wells. She was educated at a boarding school in Kent, where she obtained A levels in Maths, English, History and French, three in Grade A, the French in Grade B. Instead of going on to a university, however, she spent a year doing a secretarial course at a specialised – and undoubtedly fashionable – boarding establishment in Surrey. She left at nineteen, and worked for a year as an au pair with a family in Switzerland to improve her French. Her first job was with Creative Media Incorporated, a big firm of advertising agents in London where she stayed for four and a half years, taking the next six months off to visit an uncle, also a doctor, in Australia. On coming back to England she answered an advertisement for a secretarial job at the security printers. For two years she worked for the personnel manager – the present man’s predecessor – and when he left was promoted to be secretary to the Managing Director, his former secretary having left to be married. Her shorthand and typing speeds were excellent, and she was obviously extremely competent. She came to the firm with admirable references from the advertising agency, and personal references from a County Councillor and JP who had been a friend of the family for twenty years.
Being a security firm, the personnel records were rather fuller than most concerns would have considered necessary. Her present address, which Piet already knew from the licensing authority for her car, was Lime Kiln Cottage, near Stadhampton, but previous addresses were also listed, going back to her home address in Kent, her schools, and three flats she had shared with other girls while working for the advertising agency in London. On getting her job with the printers she had lived first in a flat in Oxford, moving to Lime Kiln Cottage some three years ago. The records noted ‘Cottage bought with help of legacy from grandfather plus a small mortgage, easily affordable on her salary.’ Leisure activities were listed as sailing and gardening. Altogether it was a picture of an able, hard working young woman, excellent at her job, and with healthy outdoor pursuits.
‘Can I keep these record cards for a bit?’ Piet asked. ‘I can assure you that there will be no breach of confidence in your relations with the personnel manager.’
‘Of course, sir.’
Piet paused for a moment. Then he said, ‘I’m afraid we’re going to need more help from you, Inspector. I want to put you more fully in the picture, and I think we might have a cup of tea. Could you organise it for us, Simon?’
It didn’t require much organising, and Simon was back in a moment from a word with Piet’s secretary. When the tea came, Piet returned to the case. ‘You’ve done remarkably well, Inspector, with next to no guidance,’ he said. ‘Now I’ll explain why you couldn’t have any proper guidance at that stage. I need scarcely add that everything I say is of the highest secrecy, though naturally you may discuss anything you like with your own superiors. Some time ago there was a brutal murder at the village Post Office in Netherwick. The Postmistress was bludgeoned to death, and some money stolen. A black youth called Eric Marshall was arrested almost at once, convicted and duly sentenced for the crime.’
