Late Delivery, page 3
‘I thought at first that running home as he did rather bore out his story,’ said the sergeant. ‘But you can’t have things both ways, and when the forensic people found the woman’s blood on his arms and on his big knife, there was no getting away from it. I can’t disagree with the chief inspector, sir, or with the court, but somehow it’s not a case that I shall ever feel happy about.’
* See A Sprig of Sea Lavender and Festival
II
The Seventh Nerve
PIET WENT HOME unhappier than ever. Normally he could put off the day’s worries like taking off a coat as soon as he got home to Sally and their small daughter Jo, but that evening not even Jo’s cheerful shriek ‘Daddy’s home’ did much to lighten his dejection. He did his duty by playing a game with Jo for half an hour before she went to bed, but when Sally took her off he was thankful. He had to go up to say good night to Jo, but that achieved, Sally came down with him. ‘What’s the matter, darling?’ she asked. ‘You can’t pretend you’re not feeling miserable about something. What is it? I heard the news on the radio of the conviction of that dreadful boy, so at least that’s off your shoulders.’
‘The trouble is, it isn’t,’ Piet said.
*
The Deventers had lived in England since the seventeenth century, but the family was of Dutch extraction, the first of the English branch having come over as clockmaker to William of Orange. He was a wonderful craftsman and his clocks are rare and valuable now, the engraved faces in which he specialised being among the supreme examples of seventeenth century work. The family did not stay in clockmaking but went to sea, producing generations of master mariners for the East India Company’s ships, and, later, for the Royal Mail Company. The first Deventer’s skill with his hands stayed in the family, for many of his seafaring descendants were talented artists, and Deventer paintings of eighteenth and early nineteenth century Madras and Calcutta are in various national collections. Piet’s father was a sea captain who commanded an armed merchantman during the war. He was severely wounded when his ship was sunk in a gallant action trying to defend a convoy against a German battleship, and he never recovered his health. He died soon after the war, leaving Piet’s mother far from well off on a small pension. Piet had just gone to an art school and was considered to show outstanding talent but he decided that his mother needed more help than he was likely to provide in the lean years of trying to establish himself as an artist and for reasons that he himself never fully understood he joined the Metropolitan Police. He turned out to be a remarkably good policeman, his acute visual imagination giving him not only an eye for detail but as it were a picture of a situation that was invaluable in his job. After serving his time as a uniformed constable he was transferred to the CID and succeeded in clearing up a tricky case concerning a valuable picture stolen from a public gallery. He was promoted detective-sergeant and put in the Fine Art Squad at New Scotland Yard, a small group specialising in cases involving pictures, antiques or works of art. His progress was spectacular, and – a tribute to his own personality – was not resented by his senior colleagues. A natural sense of justice and fair play made him respected by men who served under him. His success in unravelling difficult cases earned him a considerable reputation. He became the youngest Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police, then applied for and got the job of Chief Constable of North Wessex, becoming in turn the youngest Chief Constable in Britain. He thought now of a remark made to him by a wise old colleague at the Yard. ‘A good policeman,’ this man observed, ‘needs six nerves – observation, patience, common sense, respect for other people, courage and self-discipline. You sometimes seem to have a seventh – I don’t quite know how to put it, but I could call it being able to look through a brick wall. Once in a lifetime it may be a tremendous help to you, but it can also be very dangerous because what’s behind brick walls isn’t always what you think you see there. You want to watch that seventh nerve of yours.’ Piet did not believe that he could see through brick walls any better than the next man. What he could sometimes do was to assemble a mass of seemingly irrelevant detail to project a picture on to a brick wall . . . That was simply visual imagination, and it might, or might not, have a periscopic value in looking over brick walls. John Constable was his own favourite painter, and he often felt that when Constable painted a mill or a wagon of hay he did not just show what was there but in some strange way helped to explain the lives of millers and wagoners and stable-hands. But he also knew that Constable, like other great artists, was quite capable of moving a tree to fit his picture, because he wanted to see a tree there. That might make for lovely paintings, but it did not help police work. Was he seeing trees, perhaps even looking for trees, that weren’t there?
*
‘Piet, I’ve asked you twice if you’d like a drink, and you haven’t answered me. I’m going to get you a glass of your beloved Hollands.’ That brought him back to reality. For all their long Englishness the Deventers still spelled Christian names like Pieter in the Dutch fashion, and they retained a taste for Hollands gin. In the early days of their marriage Sally had tried to like Hollands in order to please Piet, but he was too observant for the pretence to work and she soon confessed that she loathed it. Her loyalty in this respect remained a small private rivet in their life together, and when Sally suggested that Piet should have a glass of Hollands she was saying far more than offering a drink. ‘You are a darling,’ Piet said now. ‘I don’t deserve it, but yes, I think I could do with a good honest schnapps.’ Sally kissed the top of his head, fetched the traditional earthenware bottle of Hollands for him, and a glass of English gin and tonic for herself. ‘Now tell me all about it,’ she said.
Piet told her of his vague feeling of unhappiness in court, and of Sir Gordon Gregory’s visit. ‘There’s really nothing else to say,’ he went on. ‘I can’t fly in the face of all the evidence and suggest that the boy is innocent after all. There is absolutely nothing, apart from the old Governor’s lecture on the use of West Indian cutlasses, to suggest that the jury’s verdict was not completely justified. It’s my damned picture-making – I just feel that somehow the picture isn’t quite right. What makes it worse is that I think Sergeant Clifford half agrees with me, though Chief Inspector Gray certainly doesn’t.’
‘I think I’ve met Mr Gray, but not Sergeant Clifford. What’s he like, and just what did he say that bothers you?’
‘He’s an elderly sergeant with about a year to go before retirement. Painstaking and utterly reliable, but no high-flyer. I doubt if he will ever be promoted – I doubt if he wants promotion. When he gets his pension I think he’ll probably take over a pub, and he’ll make a first-rate landlord. He made most of the routine inquiries in Netherwick after the murder, but of course he wasn’t in charge of the case. The boy said that he ran off home, after finding the Postmistress dead, because he panicked and was afraid of being blamed. The chief inspector thinks this a plain lie. He believes that the boy had planned to rob the Post Office when there was pension money in the safe, that he broke in, and panicked when old Mrs Denny came down. In the inspector’s view he killed her in a panic, and ran off home leaving a trail of blood because he hadn’t the sense to realise that if he’d gone somewhere else to clean himself up, and thrown away his cutlass, he might never have been arrested. The sergeant thinks, or half-thinks, that running home in the way the boy did slightly bears out his story that he panicked after discovering the murder. But that’s not evidence, and the inspector’s view is just as likely to be right. It’s a view the jury accepted, anyway. It means that he had not gone to the Post Office intending to murder, but to steal, and that he killed because he panicked. In a way, that’s a point in the boy’s favour, though I’m sure the inspector doesn’t mean it to be. And it doesn’t matter – if he killed on the spur of the moment, or went intending to kill, it was murder just the same. But it’s interesting that the hard-headed inspector, who is not in the least well disposed to the boy, should have a theory that in a way slightly lessens the boy’s moral guilt– I mean, a murder planned in advance in cold blood seems marginally worse than murder committed in a panic. It’s a fine point that doesn’t matter a damn.’
‘But it does to you . . . My poor Piet, this is one of the times when you hate being a Chief Constable and wish that you could have done all the detecting yourself.’
‘It is not that so much, Sally. But I do rather feel that I didn’t give the case quite enough attention before the trial. There was no reason why I should. The evidence seemed conclusive enough, the accused was arrested within an hour or so of the crime’s being discovered, the committal proceedings in the magistrates’ court was straightforward, and the prosecution had no difficulty in preparing the case for trial. In a way I didn’t come into it – it was everyday police work, handled by competent officers. It was all reported to me, of course, I saw Gray and Clifford when they were on the case, and I went through the papers. I didn’t go to Netherwick, and now I wish I had. There was too much else going on. There are these horrible cases of rick-fires and burning letter boxes that we’ve not solved, and there’s been a vast load of semi-political work. As you know, we cover two counties, and when they changed the county boundaries we took in quite a large slice of a third. Now our two original County Councils are arguing that the newcomers don’t contribute a fair share of the police rate. They’ve set up a joint committee to go into this, and it’s appointed three sub-committees, one of which wants to question me about what we do and why we do it. Then there have been all those meetings at the Home Office about police powers to deal with demonstrations . . . It’s my job to be concerned with all this, and although I’m responsible for the investigation of crime it’s not my job to make house-to-house inquiries. That’s what we have a police force for. All the same, I wish now that I had been more closely involved. But you know how difficult it is – if I have detective inspectors and sergeants reporting to me it looks as if I’ve got no confidence in the superintendents. That’s the main trouble now. I can’t just reopen the case.’
‘Do you really feel, Piet, as honestly as you can say, that it ought to be reopened?’
He considered carefully before replying. ‘Put like that, Sally, I think I should have to say no. There’s so much other work to do, we’re short-handed as it is, and I couldn’t justify putting back men on an inquiry that came to what can be regarded only as a perfectly proper end with today’s verdict. But I still feel that there is something wrong with the picture presented by the evidence, and I’d like to find out what it is. That doesn’t imply the boy’s innocence. He may well be guilty, though perhaps not quite in the way the evidence suggests. I want to know.’
‘That means you’re not going to forget about it. Oh, Piet, how I wish sometimes you were just a painter, even if we didn’t have any money.’
‘You don’t mean that, darling. And you’re not very kind about my talent – we might make a great deal of money. But you’ve given me an idea – painting’s going to help me now.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Well, I talk about pictures, but one of the things nagging at me is that I haven’t got a proper picture of anything. I know roughly what Netherwick is like – I make a point of going out with the patrol cars when I can, and I try to work a system so that over a year I visit every town and village in the constabulary. Netherwick’s a pretty little place, village green more or less rectangular with the church at one end of it, houses facing each other on two sides, and the road running through the village at the top end, opposite the church. The Post Office is at a corner by the road – eighteenth or early nineteenth century brick house, but you can’t see the brick because it has a yellow wash. There were roses on it last time I saw it. What I suppose was once the front parlour has been converted into a shop.’
‘Piet, you’ve got a marvellous memory.’
‘Not particularly. I remember things I see, and although I’ve not been to Netherwick for some time there was a plan of the Post Office and the green in the papers on the case. The yellow wash is the sort of thing that stays in my mind –it’s not really a feat of memory. I want to go to Netherwick because I don’t remember enough about it. I’ll go at the weekend, and paint a picture of the church, or something. The whole Force knows that I go off painting where other men might go fishing, and no one will think it odd if I’m seen sitting at an easel in Netherwick. And you’re well placed when you’re sitting at an easel – every passer-by wants to see what you’re doing, and is ready to chat. It’s a great waste of time if you’re really concerned with getting a picture, but it can be a help if you’re a policeman.’
‘Another weekend without you for Jo and me. No, darling, I shouldn’t have said that. I know how important this is to you. That’s one of the reasons why I love you.’
*
Piet’s headquarters were in Marlborough, and he and Sally lived in what had been an eighteenth century farmhouse about four miles out of the town. When he got to his office in the morning Angela, his secretary, brought him his letters and his diary for the day. ‘Sergeant Clifford has asked if he can see you on an urgent personal matter,’ she said. ‘I told him you could probably manage 11.30. You’ve got the British Legion lunch at Hungerford at one o’clock, and I thought you could probably fit him in at 11.30. Will that be all right?’
‘Yes, I suppose so. He’s a nice old boy – a type that’s rather disappearing from the Force, I’m afraid. What does he want?’
‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t say, except that he wanted to see you personally about it.’
*
Sergeant Clifford marched in and stood sharply at attention in front of Piet’s desk. Piet got up and held out his hand. ‘Sit down, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Is it about the Netherwick case?’
‘Well, not exactly, sir, though in a sense it arises out of it. I’m afraid I’ve got a big request to make.’
‘What can we do for you?’
‘I don’t know that you can do anything, sir, though I very much hope that you will be able to suggest something. It’s like this. When I was making inquiries at Netherwick I had to go several times to the Golden Fleece Hotel there, because that’s where Eric Marshall’s mother, Mrs Bella Marshall, worked. During these visits I had a bit of a chat with the licensee, a Mr Jim Andrews, and it so happened that on one occasion a director from the brewery – it’s a Dodswell house, sir, that’s Dodswells, the big brewers at Devizes – was with him. I’ve got about eleven months to go, sir, before I retire from the police, and I’ve always wanted to take a licensed house. My father was in the trade, sir, and I was brought up to it, in a way. Well, I mentioned this to Mr Andrews, and he must have told his director, Mr Jeremy Dodswell, for when I met him he went out of his way to talk to me, and said that I seemed just the sort that Dodswells like for their houses. So I put in an application – I wasn’t trying to rush things, sir, but it takes time for interviews and the like, and I wanted if possible to have a job to go to when I do leave the Force. I got a letter out of the blue this morning from Dodswells. It seems that the manager of the big Pilgrim’s Arms at Bourton-on-the-Water has just died, and they want Mr Andrews to take over there. It’s one of their best houses, sir, and they want him at once. So they say, Could I take over at the Golden Fleece? I don’t know if you know it, sir, but it’s a good house, with a hotel trade as well as the pub. It would be a big thing for me if I could go there, but it would mean leaving the Force pretty well straightaway. I know I’d not get quite the full pension, sir, but it would be worth it for me to get into a house like the Golden Fleece.’
‘I’m sure we can arrange it, Sergeant. When do they want you to start?’
‘Well, sir, when they say “at once” they mean just about that. Mr Andrews has already left for Bourton, and they’d like me at Netherwick this week.’
‘Have you had your full entitlement of leave this year?’
‘No, sir. We were short-handed through the summer. Martha – that’s my wife – and I had no particular plans. We generally visit our daughter, who’s married and lives near Nottingham, but we don’t have to go in the summer. So I said that my leave could wait for a bit.’
‘That’s settled, then. I shall arrange for you to go on leave from today, and I shall accept your retirement from the date your leave ends. I’m sorry to see you go, sergeant, really sorry. But I do understand how important this job is for you, and we can fix your immediate retirement on compassionate grounds, or whatever words the Personnel Division think best. They may not like it very much, but I have a discretion in these matters, and after all your loyal service to the Force I’m sure I ought to use it in your favour.’
‘I just don’t know how to thank you, sir.’
‘Will you be at the Golden Fleece this weekend?’
‘If I can, sir. It will be some weeks before Martha and I can move in officially – there’s all the inventories to be taken, and valuations of furniture, etc. But Mr Andrews has left, and the brewery can get a Protection Order for me to act as licensee very quickly. That’s one advantage of being a policeman, sir – the licensing magistrates are always rather well disposed to ex-policemen.’
‘That’s because policemen make good innkeepers. I wish you the very best of luck, Sergeant. As a matter of fact I was thinking of going to Netherwick at the weekend to try a picture of the church there – after that horrible case I feel I need the sheer beauty of the place, though I can’t explain that very well. If I do go to Netherwick I’ll make a point of looking in at the Golden Fleece, and may be I’ll be among your first customers.’
