The Killing of Katie Steelstock (19 page)

“Understood,” said Shilling. He thought, the old man’s playing this one very carefully. Natural enough if he’s looking for promotion, I suppose. Bit uncharacteristic, all the same.

A word on the internal telephone brought in Esdaile and McCourt. Both looked as though they had been expecting the summons. The electricity in the air was unmistakable.

Knott said, “I’ve got jobs for both of you. Ian, I want you to talk to a Mrs. Mason. Here’s her address. She’s got a statement for us. As soon as you’ve got it, let Bob have it. Eddie, I want you to get hold of Limbery. He’ll either be at his office or his house. Don’t make a big occasion of it. Just tell him I’d like him to step round here. If he asks why, be vague. Say that something’s cropped up and I want to ask him some questions. Right?”

McCourt said, “Aye,” and took himself off. Esdaile hesitated for a moment and said, “What do I do if he won’t come?”

“Let’s worry about that when it happens,” said Knott.

Sergeant Esdaile drew blank at the
Gazette
office and devoted some thought to his next move. To ask a hair-trigger character like Jonathan Limbery to “step round” the short distance from his office to the police station, that was one thing. To ask him to make the journey on foot, under escort, from his house in Belsize Road was quite different. It would have to be done by car. Fortunately the Chief Inspector’s car was parked in the yard. Dandridge said, “Certainly you can borrow it. What do you want it for?”

“To bring in Limbery.”

“Bring him in?”

“For questioning.”

“Well, do it tactfully,” said Dandridge.

Be vague, said Knott. Do it tactfully, said Dandridge. Bloody useful advice. If they wanted Limbery, why didn’t they go and fetch him themselves? He knew the answer to that one. If there was a cock-up and someone had to carry the can, it was going to be poor old Eddie.

A crowd outside the door of number 17. Something up? No, it was just a gang of boys who had been to pay Jonathan a visit. Tim Nurse, Terry Gonville and the Havelock tearaways. Funny how the kids hung around him all the time. Better give them a minute to get clear.

Jonathan was standing inside his open front window as Esdaile drew up. Some instinct for trouble had made the boys stop and turn to stare. Esdaile cursed quietly. The last thing he wanted was an audience. He started up the front path.

Jonathan said, “What do you want, Eddie?”

“Can I come in?”

“Not until you tell me what you want.”

“The Superintendent wants to ask you a few questions.”

“Then let him come and ask them.”

“He’d be obliged if you’d come round to the station.”

“To help the police with their inquiries. Isn’t that the correct expression?”

“Well—”

“Well,” said Jonathan, suddenly savage, “you can give the Superintendent a message from me. He can go jump in the river. And if he never surfaces again, so much the better. Bad luck on the fishes, of course.”

The boys liked this.

Esdaile said, “Look. Be reasonable. I’m not enjoying this either. I’m just obeying orders.”

“Who said I wasn’t enjoying it?” Jonathan swung one leg over the low sill and climbed out onto the front path. It could now be seen that he was holding a polished black walking stick in his hand, a stick with an ivory handle, which he twisted. The long bright blade came out.

“Now don’t be stupid,” said Esdaile, backing down the path.

Mrs. Havelock had been out shopping and had stopped to pick up Sim and Roney. She took in the scene in one comprehensive glance. Limbery, Esdaile, the rapt boys, two delivery men, a mother with a child in a stroller and, thank goodness for possible support, Gerry Gonville taking his old cocker spaniel for a walk.

She crossed the pavement in three quick strides and stepped into the telephone box.

“You’re trespassing,” said Jonathan, “on my property.” The blade flickered. Esdaile retreated another step. “I have the right to defend my property, by force if necessary.”

“You’ve got no right to threaten me.”

“You’ve got it all wrong. It’s not me who’s threatening you. It’s you and other pigs like you”—the blade flashed again—”who threaten the peace and privacy of people too timid to stand up for themselves. This time you’ve picked the wrong victim. Now take yourself off, you great looby.”

The point of the blade was flickering in Esdaile’s face. He stepped back. One of the watching boys laughed. The Sergeant, angry himself now, plunged forward.

The point of the blade slid through the top of his arm.

The only person who did not seem to be paralysed into inactivity was Group Captain Gonville. He hitched the loop in the dog’s lead over a railing, dropped his walking stick, pulled out a handkerchief, folded it into a pad and clapped it over the wound with one hand while he felt for the pressure point with his other hand.

“If he’s hit an artery,” he said, “we’ll have to put some sort of tourniquet on it until help arrives.” He had his back to Limbery and ignored him. “Let’s have your tie, Terry.”

“Tie?” said his son blankly.

“And quick.”

Terry pulled off the school tie he was wearing. Limbery was watching them with a smile on his face. Mrs. Havelock emerged from the telephone box. Before she could say anything they heard the car coming. It cornered with a squeal of tyres and stopped.

Knott got out. He moved across without haste to where Sergeant Esdaile was sitting on the pavement, looking pale but angry, his back propped against the garden wall. The Group Captain had got his son’s tie into position above the wound and was tightening it. He said, “It’s all right, I think. No artery. Better be on the safe side, though.”

Knott nodded, picked up the heavy ash-plant walking stick and walked toward Limbery holding it loosely in his right hand.

“Put down that sword,” he said.

“Not on your life.”

Knott continued to advance. Limbery said, “I’ve stuck one pig this morning. Let’s make it a double.”

As the blade came at him, Knott dropped onto one knee and swung the heavy stick in a circle. It hit Limbery with a crack on the outside of his knee. He gave a scream and keeled over, dropping the sword.

Knott straightened up, put one foot on the sword and said to the larger of the two delivery men, “I’ll need a hand here.”

Together they lifted Limbery into the back of the car.

Knott said, “Sit in with him and see that he doesn’t try to do anything silly.” He turned to the Group Captain and said, “It might be best if you used the car Esdaile came in to take him to the hospital.”

“Will do,” said Gonville.

Mrs. Havelock said, “I’ll take all the boys home. Climb in, kids.” The crowd dispersed slowly.

For nearly two days the second body had been lying half in, half out of the water among the tall rushes. It was on the opposite side to the towpath, the unexplored side of the river, a mile or more below Whitchurch. To get at it you would have had to wade across a backwater and force your way through the thorn bushes and scrub elder; and since no one had happened to do this, the body had lain in peace.

The bow wave from a river steamer had lifted it and carried it into its hiding place. Subsiding, it had deposited it on an underwater snag which had caught the belt of the raincoat and held it. A pair of swans had investigated it with supercilious yellow eyes and had turned away in disgust. So far the carnivores of the undergrowth had left it alone, but they would soon be busy. Unless, of course, another wave floated the body off into deep water, when it would be the turn of fish and the submarine parasites.

The Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions said, “He’s saved you a bit of trouble, anyway. No need to think up a holding charge. He’s thought one up for you. How’s Esdaile?”

“He’s all right. A clean flesh wound. He’ll be back on the job in a day or two.”

“Assaulting an officer in the course of his duty and causing him actual bodily harm. You could hold him on that, while you looked around for more evidence on the main charge.”

“I could,” said Knott. “But I wouldn’t want to. I’d prefer to go the whole way now.”

The Assistant Director said, “I agree. I think you’ve got more than enough to justify charging Limbery with murder. Short of finding someone who actually saw him do it, I really don’t see how you could get any more.”

“No one saw him,” said Knott. “I’m sure of that. Before the moon got up the night was pitch black. And if anyone
had
been passing, I think he’d have killed them, too. It’s lucky the Havelock kids weren’t by ten minutes sooner. We might have had two other bodies on our hands.”

“If that’s the sort of man he is,” said the Assistant Director, “the sooner we have him under hatches the better. It’s your decision, of course. But you can take it that I’ll back you all the way on this one.”

“Thank you,” said Knott.

“And Philip Frost would like a word with you before you go.”

The Deputy Director, Philip Frost, brother of Mrs. Steelstock and uncle of Katie, was a portly person with a manner which combined the acerbity of the barrister he had once been with the smoothness of the politicians he had occasionally to deal with.

He said, “I’d like to congratulate you, Superintendent. I read the papers last night. I think you’ve done an excellent job. I don’t know if you realise that it was I who asked the Assistant Commissioner to give you the assignment.” He smiled. “I imagine you cursed him at the time.”

Knott smiled, too. He said, “I confess I’d have liked one good night’s sleep after the Oxford business. However, things seem to have come out all right. I had a lot of help from Sergeant Shilling.”

“Bob’s a good lad. We shan’t forget him. Since we’ve gone so far so fast, do you think we could get the committal proceedings expedited? Could you be ready in a fortnight?”

“Quicker than that, if you want.”

“We’ll have to brief council. Davenport should be all right for the preliminaries. We’ll get Mavor or Masterton for the Crown Court. It’ll be at Reading. It won’t come on before October at the earliest. That should give you all the time you want to tie up the loose ends. If there are any.”

“There are three loose ends,” said Knott slowly. “If I can tie up any one of them, I’d say the case really would be defence-proof. First and most important, of course, if that print on the cupboard door above Katie’s desk can be brought out sharp enough for legal identification.”

“The laboratory are working on it now.”

“If we can’t get that, I’d like to identify the typewriter that was used. I don’t imagine that it was Limbery’s own machine. He wouldn’t be that stupid, but—”

“Enough if you can show he had access to it. Agreed. What else?”

“The third thing’s more difficult. Sergeant Shilling pointed it out to me. Part of the killer’s plan must have turned on the probability – maybe simply on the possibility – that Katie would bring the note with her to the rendezvous.”

“He certainly expected her to do so. That’s why he searched her bag.”

“Quite so, sir. But there wasn’t anything in the note itself which meant that she
had
to take it with her. Things, I mean, like complicated directions that she’d have to study. It was just ‘Come to the usual place.’”

The Deputy Director said, “H’m. Yes. I see your point.”

“I believe the only way he could have any hope she’d bring it along was by leaving it actually
in her car,
sometime during the day. And the later the better. To follow that up, we’ll have to know exactly what her movements were on Friday. There’s a lot of ground still to cover there. But if we could find someone who saw Limbery near her car during the afternoon, say, or the early evening, that should go a long way towards clinching it.”

“Can’t expect miracles,” said the Deputy Director genially. “Any of those extra bits would be useful. Agreed. But they’re only extras. You’ve got what matters. Motive, access and a string of lies afterwards. And remember this. The defence have got to put Limbery in the box. Or risk the most damaging construction being put on his refusal to give evidence. And once he gets into the box, from all I’ve heard of him, he’ll hang himself five times over.”

“A search warrant,” said Mariner. “Certainly you can have one. My clerk will make it out for you. I should have thought, after what’s happened, that you’d have every right to search his house without one.”

“Better be on the safe side,” said Knott.

“Are you looking for anything in particular? Or shouldn’t I ask?”

“No secret about it. The buzz is that he had a collection of lethal weapons. There was talk of a revolver. He used to boast to the boys about it.”

“Stupid,” said Mariner. “Stupid as well as vicious.”

Number 17 Lower Belsize Road was already a focus of local interest. Photographs of it had appeared in the press. Tradesmen and passers-by slowed their pace as they came to it, or stopped altogether to stare at the closed front door and the empty windows.

When Knott arrived, with McCourt and Esdaile in attendance, a crowd gathered as though by magic. Knott viewed his audience impassively. He knew that from now on most of his moves would have to be made under the stare of publicity. He said, “Does anyone happen to know who locked the house up?”

A woman said, “Parson did it. He’s got the keys.”

McCourt was already on his useful moped. He said, “I’ll get them for you. Shouldn’t take long.”

The Reverend Bird was out, but his wife was at home and located the keys for him.

“Dicky thought it wasn’t right to leave the house unlocked and the windows open,” she said. “You know what people are like. They’d have been trampling all over it. Helping themselves to souvenirs, probably. I hope he did right.”

“We’re much obliged to him,” said McCourt.

“He’s taken this very hard, you know. He seems to think that something which happened in church might have upset Jonathan. You heard about that?”

“Aye. We all heard about it. It wasn’t in any way your husband’s fault.”

“So I told him. But he’s very worried. He went to Reading this morning, to the prison. To see if he could help.”