Season Of Darkness (19 page)

“There are two temporary registrations,” said Gough. “They’re both garaged at the manor. A Mrs. Devereau, who owns an
MG
, and a Miss Hancocks, who has a Riley. Isn’t she the same girl who claims her brother gave her a gun?”

Tyler had rung Gough the previous night to tell him what had occurred at the hostel.

“One and the same. She says she was at home in ‘Barth’, with her mummy and daddy until eleven in the morning. Have the local plod go to the house and confirm that. He should also get a sworn affidavit from the brother. From the description, the Luger that killed Elsie is no doubt the same as the one he purchased. The holster I put in the drawer of
my desk, with a piece of paper with the serial number of the gun on it. Compare the two, will you Guff?”

“Will do. You said it seems like the Bates girl stole the gun herself. Was she carrying it with her, do you think?”

“Might have been. Maybe she aimed it at her killer and he grabbed it.” He rubbed his head vigorously, and turned his attention back to the list of registered vehicles, checking off each name. Seven vehicles belonging to local farmers, all men he knew well. Two motorcycles; one of them registered to Jimmy, and the other to Bobby Walker. He remembered they had bought them at the same time, shortly before they signed up for the army. Come to think of it, he’d lent Jimmy the money and he hadn’t paid it back yet.

“Good work, Guff. Let’s get our lads for this job. They should talk to everybody on this list who I haven’t crossed off. We need to ask the owners for their whereabouts yesterday morning between six and seven, no, make that five-thirty and seven. I want to talk personally to anybody who can’t account for themselves.”

“Yes, sir. Does that include Jimmy?”

“Of course. Why not? Complete impartiality is our middle name.” Tyler tried to make a joke of it.

“Yes, sir. I just thought that if you could vouch for Jimmy’s whereabouts, it would save us some time.”

“We’re talking about six o’clock in the morning, Guff. I don’t sleep with the lad. I didn’t see him when I was hauled out of bed by Sir P.’s phone call, which was at seven. He’s the original Scarlet Pimpernel, that boy. Speak to Bobby Walker, too, if you can get permission from the hospital.”

Tyler realized how peculiar his words must sound, and he touched his finger to the side of his nose.

“Here’s a clue for you, Guff. Seven-letter word for a major cock-up of this war.”

“I’d say that was Dunkirk.”

“And you’d be right. Perhaps one of these days my son will tell me what went on.”

A thunder clap sounded close, and they stopped for a moment to listen to the rain drumming on the roof.

“I’ve a cousin as lives in Dover,” continued the sergeant. “His fishing boat got commandeered by the navy. He could have left it to them blokes, but he dotes on that boat of his and he insisted on, skippering it himself. Nobody would tell him what was going on, but he was ordered to cross the channel. They says he’d get his instructions when they got there.” The sergeant paused. “He’s not what you’d call a fanciful man, is my cousin, but he wrote to me after. He said it was like sailing into hell itself. The smoke from the burning tankers was making everything dark, like it was night, even though the sun was shining. The sea was thick with the dead, bobbing like apples on a pond … his words, not mine, sir. There were hundreds and hundreds of men waiting to get off the beaches. The little boats like his were used to ferry the soldiers to the destroyers, which couldn’t get in close enough. But Jerry was strafing them as they waited. My cousin was told to get out and return to Dover, so he did. He was overloaded and could have hit a mine at any time, but he made it. He says he has nightmares.”

This lengthy speech by the normally taciturn sergeant was unprecedented and took Tyler aback. Then he nodded. “So does Jimmy. But he won’t talk about it. I don’t know how to help him.”

“Maybe it’s just a matter of time, sir.”

“I don’t know how much of that we’ve got. He’ll be sent back to join his unit soon and then to the front. I’m not happy knowing he’ll be fighting in the state he’s in now.”

“I saw him in the market a couple of weeks ago,” said
Gough. “He bought one of Mrs. Thorne’s concoctions, I noticed. I got some soap for the wife myself. Perhaps your lad has a lass he’s courting on the sly.”

Tyler registered this information but said nothing.

“What about the car belonging to Mrs. Devereau?” asked the sergeant. “The
MG
? Do you want us to speak to her as well?”

Tyler drummed his fingers on the desk. “Let’s put it this way, Guff. Mrs. Devereau is living on the Somerville estate and she works at the Prees Heath camp. She had no reason to be on the Heath Road. I think we can assume she’s not involved.”

“If you say so, sir. Shouldn’t we follow up anyway? Then we can cross her off the list.”

Tyler handed the list back.

“I’ll look after it, Guffie. I will also speak to my son. Happy now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have Eagleton and Collis come in yet?”

“I told them to be here by seven-thirty.”

“Ah, speaking of the devils.”

The door banged open and the two constables burst in. They too had got soaked and were laughing together at their mutual state.

“Well look at the sweet little duckies,” said Tyler. “Don’t you lads have enough sense to carry brollies?”

“Morning, sir,” said the two constables in unison.

“You’re dripping all over the floor. Here.” He threw them the towel. “There’s another one in the kitchen. Eager, go and get it. I don’t want you lads catching your death. I don’t have any replacements.” The constable scurried off.

“And while you’re doing that, make us all a cuppa. Extra sugar for me. Use your own ration if you have to. I’ll owe you.”

When the two young men had dried off as best they could, and the tea was made, the three police officers gathered around Tyler’s desk.

“All right. Do I now have your complete attention?” They nodded. “Collis, when will the photographs of the body be ready?”

“Mr. Henry promised to have them developed early this afternoon.”

“Good. Dr. Murnaghan has completed his post-mortem and is sending those photos over as well. We’ll pin them up in the duty room so we can have a good study. If either of you faints, you’ll have to lie there; I’m not picking you up and rubbing your cold little hands. Understood?”

“Excuse me, sir,” said Collis. “I don’t think any photograph could be as bad as the actual thing.”

“Quite right, lad. You lads did good. Now then.” Tyler tapped on the piece of paper. “Guff here has made three copies of this list. I’m giving you one. Don’t lose it. You’ve got to track down everybody. Get alibis. While you’re at it, see if anybody heard anything, saw anything, smelled anything … I don’t care which. We know somebody was driving on the Heath Road around six o’clock, and that shortly afterward a girl was shot. Ask if anybody heard the gun shot.”

“Yes, sir.” Eagleton especially was having difficulty containing his enthusiasm.

“While you’re asking these questions you are also what, Eagleton? What are you also doing?”

“Keeping our eyes and ears open for anything that seems suspicious.”

“Good. Now it’s very possible, given the precarious times we are living in, that the person you are talking to may be evidencing signs of guilt. It doesn’t mean they know eff all about Elsie
Bates. They may be into profiteering or messing with the neighbour’s wife while the poor sod’s on the front line. Don’t arrest them. Just make a mental note and tell me about it later.”

He looked at his watch. “Sergeant, get hold of the Barth chappies, will you? Tell them it’s urgent. You know how lackadaisical they are. Too much sulphur in the water. Collis, go and fetch that blackboard. The one we used to teach the infant school kiddies how to put on their gas masks. There’s one more thing I want to think about before we all scatter. Then I’ve got to get over to the camp to meet a German professor who thinks he can help us. He’s an expert on the criminal mind, apparently. As far as I am concerned he can stuff his theories up his jacksie but he’s an enemy alien. He might be able to tell me more than he realizes.”

Tyler stood the blackboard in the centre of his office. “All right, lads, put on your thinking caps. I want you to say anything that comes to mind, don’t worry if it sounds right stupid. We’ll sort out the gold from the dross as we go. Now then, Collis, you can be teacher. Draw a line down the middle; on the left, write ‘certain’, on the right, ‘possible’. You’d better write small; there are more variables in this case than there are pieces in Guffie’s dog’s sick up.”

The constables allowed themselves little disloyal grins. Sergeant Gough owned a racing greyhound that he was very proud of. It had a sensitive stomach.

Tyler drank some of his tea. “Ready? Question number one. Where was the vehicle going at that hour of the morning? Was it driving
south
from the direction of Whitchurch or north
toward
Whitchurch? The Heath Road is joined further down by the number four road, which comes from Shrewsbury or from Market Drayton. And of course anywhere beyond that. Any ideas?”

Both constables were quiet, then Eagleton said tentatively, “There aren’t many people out driving in the dark these days, sir, unless their journey is urgent or …”

“Or what, Eager? Spit it out.”

“Or they are doing something nefarious, sir.”

“Good word, nefarious. I like it. Makes me feel educated. Or in common parlance, they are doing something against the law. Which could be a variety of things, such as?”

“
B
and
E
. The driver was coming from a robbery.”

“A well-heeled crook if he has his own car, but that’s all right. Besides, nobody has reported a robbery. Go on.”

“Black marketeering,” chipped in Collis. “The driver had either made a delivery or was on his way to do so.”

“Or was collecting something himself on the black market,” said Eagleton.

Collis scrambled to write all this on the board.

“Now for convenience sake we are referring to our crook as male, but the driver could have been female,” remarked Tyler.

“Or more than one person,” said Eagleton.

“Exactly, could be a whole bloody gang for all we know.”

“In which case we should particularly take a look at lorries,” said Eagleton, dead serious.

“Good point. If there was more than one person in the vehicle, it possibly makes our case a bit easier. Why is that, Eager?” Tyler pointed at him.

“Because there is no honour among thieves and somebody could snitch.”

“Exactly. All right, let’s continue. We still don’t have much on the certain side. I think we can safely assume Elsie Bates was heading south toward the hostel, although we can’t totally rule out that she had left her lorry, biked off, met somebody for a bit of a shag, then was returning to the lorry in a northerly direction.”

“That would put her having sex about five o’clock in the morning, or sooner, sir,” blurted out Collis. “It’s a bit early, isn’t it?”

“Lad, are you a virgin?”

The constable blushed. “Well yes, sir, I am. I live at home and …”

“I thought you must be with a comment like that. You’ll find out. Mornings are the best time to do it. For a man, anyway. So where were we? The lorry worked quite all right when we tried to start it, and we were able to drive it to the station. However, according to Elsie’s friend, Rose, it had been giving her trouble. Anyway, let’s go for the simplest explanation. The lorry conked out and Elsie left it and set off to bike to the hostel. The coroner said Elsie was hit hard on the left thigh. What does that tell you, Eager?”

“Not a lot, I’m afraid, sir. The road isn’t wide, so we can’t assume the vehicle was keeping to the left-hand side. They rarely do. In fact they’d be foolish to do so in the dark.”

“Continue then.”

“Sir,” said Collis, “if I were biking on the road in the near dark and I heard a car coming, I would move over to one side or the other to get out of the way.”

“Right. So we’re betting even odds that the vehicle was coming from the north, but we won’t close our minds to the possibility that it was the opposite. Write that down, Collis. But dammit. I feel like I’m trying to do a crossword puzzle without any clues.”

“You should speak to the sergeant about that, sir,” said Eager. “He’s an expert.”

Tyler drummed his fingers on the paper in front of him. “What else do we know? Just give me the certainties.”

“She was killed approximately one hour before a quarter to seven, when her body was discovered. It wasn’t light yet and
it can be really dark in the lanes. The car was probably driving quite fast, which would suggest the driver was familiar with the roads.”

“Not necessarily. Because he hit her, it might mean he was
not
familiar with the roads. We can’t even assume the vehicle was travelling at a high speed. Even a tractor colliding with a human frame can inflict a lot of damage.”

“Maybe it was even pursuing her.”

“You certainly do have a good imagination, Eager. Why would the car be pursuing her?”