A Choice of Victims (6 page)

The landlord shook his head. ‘Cars are parked out there all hours,’ he said. ‘Specially at holiday times. Most of the small hotels and guesthouses and such don’t have parking space, so a lot of the visitors leave their cars here. Some ask, some don’t. But we don’t mind. There’s plenty of room and it’s good for business. Brings them in for a drink after they’ve parked.’

The damage to the front of the Morris, together with its estimated time of arrival in the car park, was proof enough that this was the car that had collided with Driver’s Rover outside the chief’s house. Driver remembered the neighbour’s comment, ‘Going like the clappers’, coupled with a collision that could have been the result only of reckless driving, suggested that the driver could have been high on drink or drugs. In which case the man might have been crazy enough to visit the pub after parking. But there the landlord could offer no help. The place had been packed, he said, they had been rushed off their feet. He could recall a few of the regulars. The rest were just a blur in his memory.

They went upstairs to talk to the Doyles. Andrew was by the window, staring out at the darkening sea; he turned as the door opened. David sat in an armchair, his pipe gurgling wetly as he drew on it. There was no obvious evidence of grief, Hasted noticed. Nor had there been. They had both looked shocked at the sight of Elizabeth Doyle’s dead body. Then they had turned away, to wait in silence until Driver had taken them into the pub. Either they’re great poker players, he thought, or they weren’t all that sold on the late Mrs D.

‘We found a small black purse in the pocket of your wife’s mackintosh,’ Driver told David. ‘It contained six pounds and fifty pence, all in silver. Would that be payment for the meals?’

‘I imagine so,’ David said. ‘She would keep her own money separate, probably in the handbag.’

‘In a red purse?’

‘If the handbag was red, yes.’

‘There was no money in the handbag, sir,’ Driver said. ‘Nor in the matching purse. How much would you expect there to have been?’

‘Not much. Twenty—thirty pounds, maybe. Mostly she used her credit cards. Were they stolen, Inspector?’

‘No,’ Driver said. ‘Nor her chequebook. And it’s Superintendent.’

‘Sorry. But that’s odd, isn’t it? They’d be a hell of a lot more valuable, wouldn’t they, than just a few quid?’

‘They could be,’ Driver agreed. ‘It’s odd, too, that he should take the money in her handbag but leave the purse in her mackintosh untouched.’

‘He must have missed it.’

‘Possibly,’ Driver said, without conviction. ‘But he could hardly have missed the pearl necklace she was wearing, or her rings, or her gold wristwatch. And he didn’t take those.’

‘Would there have been anything else of value in her handbag, Mr Doyle?’ Hasted asked.

‘I don’t know, I’m afraid.’

‘There’s her gold pencil,’ Andrew said. ‘She kept that in her handbag. A propelling pencil.’

Driver looked at Hasted, who shook his head. They had found no pencil. ‘Were her initials on it?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ David said. ‘E. J. M. Her middle name was Jane.’

‘M.?’ Hasted queried.

‘A present from her first husband. His name was Mackie.’

‘Well, I think that’s about all for the present,’ Driver said. ‘I need hardly say how much we regret this tragic business. You can rest assured we’ll do all we can to catch the brute responsible. Not that there’s much consolation for you in that, I’m afraid.’

‘Not much,’ David agreed. He stood up, pocketing his pipe. ‘How did she die, Superintendent?’

‘We won’t know that until after the autopsy,’ Driver said. ‘There was a nasty wound on the back of her head. But we can’t say how it was caused. We don’t even know if it was the actual cause of death. That’s for the pathologist to determine.’

‘But you think it was a blow, don’t you? That killed her, I mean.’

‘I’d say it’s highly probable.’

Despite the lateness of the hour, neither Driver nor Hasted suggested they stay for a meal. Both men were hungry, but Hasted was anxious to get home as soon as the job permitted and Driver sensed his anxiety. They made a brief stop at Greenway’s house on the way back. The chief was not a patient invalid. He hated the enforced absence from his office, unable to believe that it could function satisfactorily without him. ‘I want to be kept fully informed,’ he had told Driver. ‘I want today’s news today, not tomorrow or the day after. The body may be shaky but the brain isn’t. So don’t hold out on me, Driver.’ And although at times it was inconvenient, Driver had done his best to comply.

Hasted waited outside in the car and considered the prospect of fatherhood for the second time. Neither he nor Sybil had firm opinions on names, although Sybil favoured ‘James’ for a boy and ‘Rosemary’ for a girl. Driver and Sybil’s sister Enid had agreed to be godparents; a decision on the third godparent would be decided later, dependent on the baby’s sex. Jason, who had developed a precocious aptitude for picking up adult expressions and mostly applying them correctly, said it did not matter to him a can of beans whether it was a boy or a girl, and gave the impression he would prefer neither. No doubt he saw the baby as a potential rival for his parents’ love and attention, which hitherto had been solely his.

Driver returned to the car with fresh information on the vehicle that had collided with his Rover. A woman who lived further down the road had heard the noise of the collision and had reached a window in time to see the Morris pass. ‘Edna Greenway says the woman is positive there were two people in front,’ Driver said. ‘Unfortunately she couldn’t describe them, although she thinks the driver was young and a man.’

‘We could have guessed that,’ Hasted said.

‘Yes. So we have two alternatives. Either chummy had an accomplice, or his companion was Elizabeth Doyle, alive and yet to be disposed of.’

‘If she were struggling with him it could explain the erratic driving,’ Hasted said.

‘True. All the same, I fancy the accomplice.’

The bishop made no reference to the murder in his sermon. He had taken as his text a passage from St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans—‘Let love be without dissimulation’—and murder did not fit readily into the substance he had prepared. Especially as he had not known of it until he arrived at the Vicarage. But when the congregation left the church after the service and gathered in little groups to chat, it was the murder, not the sermon, that was the main topic of conversation. Elizabeth Doyle had been a figure in the community. Not a popular figure, perhaps, but a figure nonetheless: President of the Women’s Institute, a member of the parish council, the representative for West Deering on the county housing committee. She would certainly be missed, as would her financial contributions to various local funds and causes.

Neither Andrew nor his father attended the service. They were not regular church-goers, and usually it had been Elizabeth’s bullying that had got them there. But most of West Deering and the neighbouring villages were there in force. No doubt the bishop was partly the attraction, but Frances suspected the murder had much to do with it. For herself, she had heard it from Sybil Hasted, when she had telephoned after breakfast to ask after Sybil’s condition. But how had others come by the news?

‘Straight from the horse’s mouth,’ Harvey Scott boomed when she asked him. ‘Patricia went over to the Manor yesterday evening to invite Andrew for tennis this afternoon.’ He grinned. ‘Couldn’t just telephone, of course, had to ask him in person. The Doyles had just got back from where the body was found.’

‘Poor Andrew!’ Frances said. ‘I feel so sad for him. He strikes me as such a lost person, if you know what I mean. Lost and lonely.’

‘Andrew and Elizabeth weren’t exactly close,’ Maisie Scott said. Like her two daughters she had an abundance of rich auburn hair, but the resemblance ended there. She was a cheerful little tub of a woman, with a round face in which the features—nose, mouth, eyes—seemed unnaturally large. ‘I doubt if he’ll miss her all that much.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Frances said. ‘But now he has to rely entirely on his father. And although I’m sure David’s fond of him, he—well, he’s not an outward-looking person, is he?’

‘You mean he’s selfish,’ Harvey said. ‘Unsympathetic.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Andrew isn’t exactly a hail-fellow-well-met type either, is he?’ Maisie wiped perspiration from her brow. ‘Not what you’d call a mixer. So withdrawn.’

‘You can say that again,’ Harvey said. ‘Did you know we are off on holiday on Wednesday, Frances? No? Well, we are. To Cos. However, yesterday Felicity told us she couldn’t make it—something to do with that gallery of hers—and when Patricia heard the news about Elizabeth she asked if she might invite Andrew to take Felicity’s place. Well, it seemed like a good idea. Get the lad away for a bit, and he’d be company for Patricia. You know how she feels about him. Besides, why waste a ticket?’ Harvey shook his head. ‘Blow me if Andrew didn’t turn it down!’

‘Really? Did he say why?’

‘No. Or if he did Patricia kept it to herself. But I can guess.’

So could Frances. The prospect of an adoring Patricia Scott as a constant holiday companion had scared Andrew stiff. She was about to ask if her children might continue to use the Scotts’ swimming pool while they were away (the Scotts would consider the request superfluous between friends, but courtesy demanded it) when she saw George Hasted in conversation with her husband and moved away to join them. Before she could do so, however, she was button-holed by Margaret Shawby, who lived with her retired schoolmaster husband in a modern bungalow down Yellham Lane. She was a frail little woman in her late sixties and fluttered her hands nervously as she talked. What a terrible thing to happen, Mrs Shawby said; she had heard of it only that morning from Ivy Bates, who had given her a lift to church. ‘I don’t drive, you see,’ she explained. ‘And Arthur’s in hospital.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Frances said. ‘I didn’t know. I hope it isn’t serious.’

‘Waterworks. He had the operation Thursday. Doing nicely, they say. But it means I’m on my own, you see, and when something like this happens it—well, it makes you think, doesn’t it?’ Frances nodded. The Shawby bungalow was isolated. ‘Only yesterday—no, Friday—two young men knocked on the door and asked if they could shelter somewhere from the rain. Lunchtime, it was, during that downpour. Well, I had the door on the chain, like I always do when I’m alone in the house, but even so I was nervous.’

‘I’m sure you were,’ Frances said. ‘Were they local?’

‘No. Londoners, they said. They said they’d spent the night in a barn and were making for the coast, hoping to find work.’

‘You didn’t let them in, did you?’

‘Oh, no! I felt sorry for them, poor things, they were absolutely soaked. But I couldn’t risk it.’

‘Very sensible,’ Frances said. ‘You know, I think Inspector Hasted might be interested in what you’ve just told me. He’s over there, talking to my husband. Come and have a word with him, will you?’

Hasted was very much interested. He listened intently as Mrs Shawby said her piece. Then he said, ‘Let me drive you home, Mrs Shawby. I’d like to hear more about your visitors. All right?’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Are you thinking they might have killed poor Mrs Doyle?’

‘I’m in no position to say,’ he told her. ‘But I’m interested in all strangers who were in the neighbourhood on Friday.’ He put out an arm to usher her away. Frances stopped him. ‘Those hot-boxes in the Morris, Mr Hasted,’ she said. ‘When do we get them back?’

‘When will you be needing them again?’ he asked.

‘Tuesday. Tuesday morning. The dishes too, of course. And I need to know now, because if they’re not going to be available I’ll have to ask the social services people to find replacements.’

Hasted nodded. ‘Tuesday should be okay, Mrs Holden. We’ll have got all they can tell us by then.’

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ Frances said. ‘How’s Sybil?’

‘Still expecting. On the brink, one might say.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I wish she’d get a move on. The suspense is killing me.’

The Shawby bungalow was little more than a mile from the church. Mrs Shawby invited him in for coffee and did her best to describe her two visitors. Both had been around twenty years of age, she thought, slimly built and slightly above average height. Both were unshaven and looked as if they had slept rough. The one who did the talking had long untidy fair hair and was dressed in a blue anorak and tightfitting jeans. The other also wore jeans, and a leather jacket with bright metal studs. His hair was slicked down, perhaps by the rain, and he had a gold ring in his left ear.

‘I congratulate you, ma’am,’ Hasted said. ‘You’re very observant. Was their manner intimidating in any way?’

‘Oh, no! The one who spoke to me was quite polite. I’m not very good on accents, but I’d say he was a Cockney.’

‘And the other?’

She fluttered her hands at him. ‘I don’t know, Inspector. He never spoke, you see. Not a word. Just stood there in the rain with a funny sort of smile on his face. I got the impression he wasn’t quite all there. But I could be wrong, of course.’

‘Did you see which way they went when they left?’

‘Yes. Down the lane towards Yellham.’

South. That figured. The lane joined the Yellham road about five hundred yards north of the gateway to the track leading to Philipson’s cottage. And the gateway seemed as likely a spot as any in which the murder might have been committed.