Ellis Peters - George Felse 03 - Flight Of A Witch (16 page)

‘We’ll leave it at that,’ he said, ‘for the moment. And on your own head be it.’

‘Are you taking me in?’ asked the young man from a dry throat.

‘No. Not yet. I don’t want you yet, and you’ll keep. But you won’t do anything rash, will you? Such as deciding to get out of here, fast. I shouldn’t. You wouldn’t get far.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Stockwood steadily, and sat with his clenched hands braced on his knees, tense and still, as George turned and walked out of the stable block.

Peter Blacklock was waiting in the leaf-strewn border of the drive, just out of sight of the windows of the house.

‘Well, did you satisfy yourself?’ His kind face was clouded, his eyes anxiously questioning. ‘You know, Felse, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m sure Stockwood had nothing whatever to do with it.’

‘I’ve finished with him for the time being,’ said George noncommittally, his voice mild.

‘I’m glad. I was sure—’

He fell into step beside George, shaking his head helplessly over his thoughts, and feeling for words.

‘You know, Regina and I are very worried about Annet. One can’t help realising, from what was published in the papers, that she’s very deeply implicated. What I wanted to say— to ask— You do realise, don’t you, that she must have been dragged into this terrible position quite innocently? We know her, you see, very well. It’s quite impossible that she should willingly hurt or wrong anyone. She can have known nothing, nothing whatever, about the crime – before or after the act.’

He waited, and George walked beside him and said nothing.

‘Forgive me, but I had to tell you what we feel about her, we who know her, perhaps, as well as anyone. We’re very fond of her, Mr Felse. I’m sure you can understand that.’

‘I can understand it,’ said George. ‘I’m beginning to think I know her pretty well myself.’ And could be very fond of her, too, his mind added, but he kept that to himself.

‘Then you must have realised that she can’t have known anything about murder or theft.’ He looked up into George’s face with the shadowy, emasculated reflection of his wife’s confidence, authority and energy. ‘I know this isn’t professional conduct, but I should be very grateful to you for some reassurance – a hint as to how you’re thinking of her—’

‘I think of her,’ said George, goaded, ‘as a human creature, not a doll, a whole lot more complicated and dangerous than any of you seem to realise. She isn’t anyone’s hapless victim, and she isn’t a pawn in anyone’s game, and when I pity her I know I’m wasting my time. But if it’s any consolation to you, I
don’t
think she’s a murderess.’

He climbed into the MG, swung it round, hissing, on the apron of rosy gravel, and drove away down the avenue of old lime trees, leaving Blacklock standing with a faint, assuaged smile on his lips and the deep grief still in his eyes; slender and tall and elegant in his ancient and excellent clothes, like a monument to a stratum of society into which he had been drafted just in time to decay with it.

George telephoned Superintendent Duckett from home, over the hasty lunch Bunty had spent so much time and care preparing, and he had now no leisure to enjoy.

‘The bike again,’ said Duckett hopefully. ‘If you can find where they stayed there may be a real chance of finding out if anyone saw the bike around. And if so, then it’s looking unhealthy for our friend. But why, for God’s sake, say he spent the week-end with a woman, if he really is the one who was off with the Beck girl? You’d have thought he’d turn out absolutely any tale rather than go so near the truth.’

‘He did, originally. It fell down under him. This time he was pushed. And of course,’ said George cautiously, ‘there’s always the chance that it may be true – even provably true, if it’s that or his neck. He’s a good-looking chap, and there could be other women, besides Annet, who’d think so. Even some others he might risk a good deal before he’d name.’

‘You’ve got one in mind?’ said Duckett alertly, hearing the note of wary thoughtfulness he knew how to interpret.

‘I have, but it’s far-fetched. I’d rather plough other ground first, it’s more likely to yield.’

He could picture in Technicolor Duckett’s face if the receiver should blurt out baldly in his ear: ‘Well, he
could
have gone off back to Gloucester, and spent the week-end amusing Mrs Blacklock between lectures and discussions. She’s noticed him, all right. She speaks up for him, as well she might if she knows where he was but doesn’t want to have to say so – and a little more freely than you would normally for a good chauffeur you’d had only three months, and who otherwise meant nothing to you. And what would be more likely to shut his mouth, and make him stick out even the threat of a murder charge rather than come out with the real facts? A blazing scandal, her reputation gone and his job, and where would he get another in a hurry? If it was Regina, it all makes sense!’

No, that was all true enough, but not for publication, and for the moment non-essential in any case. It couldn’t catch their murderer for them, even if they proved it, it could only cancel out one more possibility. The elimination of Stockwood could wait its turn.

‘I’m making for Birmingham now,’ he said, aloud. ‘It looks the more profitable end at the moment.’

‘Give ’em my love,‘ said Duckett. ‘And keep off them corns.’

George drove to Birmingham, and conferred with his opposite numbers there briefly and amicably. They had worked together on other occasions, and understood each other very well. Hag-ridden and undermanned, the city CID were hardly likely to chill their welcome for someone who came with a handful of suggestions, however dubious; all the more if he was willing to investigate them himself.

The sum of their own discoveries, up to then, was two shop assistants who had sold clothing to Annet in one of the big stores, and one elderly newsboy from whom she had bought a paper on Friday evening.

‘Never reads the damned things himself,’ complained the Superintendent bitterly, ‘except the racing page. Says he’s seen too many of ’em to care. Waving the girl’s face in front of the rush hour crowds, and never noticed it himself!’

‘She was alone when they saw her?’

‘Every time.’

‘Well, let’s see if we can get anything out of her old class-mates.’

The student of literature was out of town for the weekend; he should, of course, have thought of that. But her lodgings were easy enough to find, shared with three other students, and presided over by a competent matron of fifty, who had reared a family of her own, and knew all the pitfalls. It was clear within ten minutes that it would be quite impossible for any irregularities to creep into her well-ordered household, or any of her girls to misbehave herself or entertain a misbehaving visitor within these walls. Contact with Beryl there might have been, but on the whole even that was improbable. The one girl who was spending the week-end in town, over a crucial essay, had never heard Annet mentioned, and never seen her, and from her George gathered that Beryl’s time and attention was very largely taken up by men friends rather than women. He wrote that one off, and made for the retired teacher who had enjoyed Annet’s liking and confidence.

Miss Roscoe was rosy and grey and garrulous, of uncertain memory, but certain that she had not heard from or seen Annet Beck for over a year.

It took him some time to run the art student to earth, for Myra Gibbons had known no exact address for her, and before he could find her he had to find the secretary of the school. But he had luck, and when at last he located the small old house in a quiet road, and the side-door in the yard which led directly to the converted first-floor flatlet, it was Mary Clarkson in person who opened the door to him.

No, she had not seen Annet Beck during the weekend, because she had herself been home in Comerbourne for a whole week, and left the flat closed up. She knew, of course, about Annet’s picture being in the paper, and the appeal for information about her, but she had had no information to give. She was terribly concerned about her, of course, but mostly just plain astonished, because it seemed so incredible.

They wrote to each other very occasionally. When had she last written? Oh, maybe a month ago. And had she mentioned that she would be going home for such a long visit at half-term? Yes, she believed she had, now that he came to suggest it. It was terrible about Annet, wasn’t it? But no, she’d never told Mary anything about boys, or not about any special boy. Annet didn’t confide that kind of thing. No, nothing at all, never a word to indicate that she was either in love or in trouble. She was quite sure. She’d have been curious enough to read between the lines and try to work it out in detail, if ever there’d been the slightest hint.

It appeared that he had drawn a blank again, and the hours of his single and irreplaceable day were slipping away from him with nothing gained. But when she was letting him out, and he looked round the yard and saw how securely enclosed it was, with no window overlooking it, and no other door sharing it, his thumbs pricked.

‘Where’s the actual door of the house?’

‘Oh, that’s round the corner in the other street. This was the back door originally, but when she had the flat made to let, she made use of this door to serve it, and walled it off from the kitchen and the passage. That’s what makes it so beautifully private.’

And so it did, so beautifully private that now he could not be mistaken, and he could not and would not go back with nothing to show for it.

‘Has Annet ever been here?’

‘Oh, yes, two or three times. She stayed with me once, just overnight, but that’s a long time ago.’

‘She never asked about coming again? Or suggested that she might borrow the flat when you were away?’

‘No, not exactly. I mean,
she
didn’t. But I remember
I did
tell her, when she was here, that she could make use of it if ever she wanted to be in Birmingham, even if I wasn’t here. I told her to ask Mrs Brookes for the spare key, if she needed it. And I told Mrs Brookes about it, just in case she came. But she never did—’

She let that ending trail away into silence. She stared at George.

‘I think,’ said George, ‘we’d better have a word with Mrs Brooks.’ He made for the yard door, and the girl came eagerly after, hard on his heels. ‘When did you get back into town?’

‘Only this morning. We haven’t got any classes until Monday, but I’m meeting someone tonight, or I should have stayed over until tomorrow evening. I haven’t seen her to talk to yet. Do you really think—?’

‘Yes,’ said George, and headed round the corner at speed to ring the bell at the coy blue front door. ‘Were there no signs of occupation?’

‘Not that I noticed. Everything was tidy, and just as I left it. But it would be – she was always tidier than I am. And I haven’t really looked for anything, why should I? I never even thought of it.’

The door was opened, softly and gradually. A thin, small, elderly woman in black, of infinite gentility, glanced enquiringly over George, and smiled in swift, incurious understanding, reassured, at sight of the girl beside him.

‘Ah, there you are, my dear,’ said Mrs Brookes. ‘I caught just a glimpse of you this morning when you came in with the shopping, but I thought you’d look in during the day sometime. Your friend was here last week-end – I expect she left a message for you, didn’t she? I gave her the key, and she promised she’d leave everything nice for you. Such a pretty child, I was so glad to see her again. And no trouble at all,’ she said serenely, smiling with vague benevolence at the remembered image of Annet, shy, silent and aloof, clenched about her secret.

‘Quiet as a mouse about the place. And she thanked me so sweetly when she brought the key back on Tuesday evening. If only all the young girls nowadays had such pretty manners, I’m sure there wouldn’t be any occasion for all this talk about what are the younger generation coming to.’

‘She’s seventy-one,’ said George, reporting over an acrid cup of tea and a Birmingham sausage roll that represented all the meal he was going to have time for. ‘A widow, no relations very close, a few friends, but they don’t pop in at all hours. She’s not very active or strong, her groceries and laundry are delivered, no dog to walk— Astonishing how completely isolated and insulated you can be in a city, if you let it happen. And she’s the kind that doesn’t mind, not even particularly inquisitive. She doesn’t take a newspaper, except on Sundays, because she gets all the news the modern way. Where we made our mistake was bothering about the Press at all, it seems what we should have done was put the girl’s photograph on television. She follows that, all right, religiously. As it was, she simply didn’t know – after all this labour she really didn’t know – what our girl looked like. Not that she’s been able to tell us very much even now, but at least we know now where Annet and her boyfriend spent their nights. And knowing that, it’s surely only a matter of time finding out more. Mrs Brookes may not be the nosy type, but there must be somebody in that street who spends her time peering through the net curtains to watch everybody’s comings and goings. Somebody will have seen them – some other old girl who doesn’t see the papers, or didn’t want to get mixed up in the business. They still come like that our way, I don’t know about Birmingham.’

‘They still come like that here, too,’ the Superintendent assured him grimly, and went on with his notes.

‘Even some old soul too blind to identify a photograph may have a pretty good eye for general appearances, height, walk, the basic cut of a man. The knocking on doors begins now, all along the street. Thank God that’s your job, not mine.’

‘Not mine, either,’ said the Superintendent with a tight smile, ‘if I know it. A hate of leg-work got me where I am. Check on this for me. The girl came for the key on Thursday evening about seven – by which time it was dark – reminded Mrs Brookes that her friend had given permission for her to use the flat any week-end. And Mrs Brooks remembered and obliged. Girl said she didn’t need anything, she had everything, and old lady left her alone to run her own show. The entrance is private, a motor-bike could lie in the yard there and not be seen. Old lady saw her three or four times during the week-end, coming home with shopping. Not only food, but fancy bags from a dress-shop, very natural in any girl. But always alone. Two or three times they chatted for a few minutes, but that was all. Never saw a man there. Voices don’t carry through the walls – that I can believe, those are old houses, and solid. No mention of a man, no glimpse of a man, but with her windows facing the opposite way, and her eye on television most of the time, anyhow, that doesn’t mean much. Anyhow, she can tell us nothing about a man, and she won’t hear of one. Not in connection with this angelic girl. And on Sunday morning Beck was in the local church for morning service, alone, which only reinforces Mrs Brookes’s opinion that we’re misjudging her cruelly. On Tuesday evening she brought back the key, said thank-you prettily, and left, by what means of transport Mrs Brookes doesn’t know. We could,’ he said sourly, ‘have done with a more inquisitive landlady, that’s a fact.’