The Killing of Katie Steelstock (5 page)

“Well—” said Mrs. Havelock.

“You’re letting him wriggle out of it, as usual,” said Lavinia. “He ought to be on bread and water for a week.”

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” said Mrs. Havelock. “Take those trousers off, Sim, and leave them on my work basket. They’ll need a patch putting in them.”

The boys accepted this as dismissal with a caution. When he was safe in the doorway, with the door open, Roney said, “You’ve changed, Lavinia—did you know it yourself? I wonder—into someone
quite, quite
different.”

“You little beast,” said Lavinia, jumping up. “Just wait till I get hold of you.”

Roney slammed the door, and they heard his feet scuttering down the passage.

“It’s no good,” said Michael. “He’ll lock his bedroom door. If you want to do anything to him you’ll have to wait till tomorrow.”

“It’s time someone took him in hand,” said Mrs. Havelock. “He ought to be at boarding school, only the fees are so impossible nowadays.”

“What exciting lives you do all lead,” said Miss Tress wistfully. “I really must be going.”

When she got home, she undressed slowly and climbed into her four-poster bed. It was a pity the night was so warm or she might have comforted herself with a hot water bottle. She looked at the bedside table and looked quickly away again.

What a difficult and expensive life Mrs. Havelock must lead. Seven children to feed and clothe and educate. The young ones, she knew, went to the secondary school at Hannington – that sweet little Roney – but the three older children were at Coverdales, the well-known Reading grammar school. A day school, but by no means cheap.

She looked at the bedside table again and her resolution weakened. One of the tablets would surely do no harm. The doctor had warned her. They’re strong. Don’t start to rely on them. It’s much better to sleep naturally if you can.

She took one of the tablets. Might two work quicker? Better not. She was already beginning to feel drowsy when she thought she heard a car start up. It must have been parked actually on the towpath. She listened to it driving away, and as she did so was suddenly shaken by an uncontrollable fit of shuddering. It was as though a powerful electric shock had passed through her body. She reached out a hand, which was shaking so badly that she had some difficulty in unscrewing the top of the bottle, tipped out the tablets onto the bedside table and crammed two of them into her mouth. Her throat was so dry that they choked her. She grabbed the carafe of water that stood on the table and drank directly out of it.

Gradually the tremors ceased. Sleep came down like a grey blanket.

The dancers were thinning out now. The bandleader, looking quickly at his watch, saw that it was five past twelve. With luck, and a bit of stage management, he might bring the thing to an end soon. Then he and the boys could get to bed, which would be a blessing as they had an engagement for the following night, which was a Saturday; and Saturday engagements were always heavy ones. Like his fellow musicians, he worked by day and was beginning to feel the effects of trying to squeeze two jobs into twenty-four hours.

Tony Windle was dancing with a plain girl, a serious performer, whose name he had forgotten. His mind was not on her. He was wondering why Katie had been in such a hurry to get away. And he was wondering where Sally Nurse was. When Katie was not available, he found Sally an agreeable substitute. A self-created substitute. He had often laughed at her for her artless impersonation of Katie. But Sally was a very sweet girl. And where the hell
had
she got to? He was thinking so hard about this that he missed some comment his partner had made.

He said, “Sorry, I didn’t get that.”

“I said that this band had no real sense of rhythm.”

“Perhaps they’re getting tired.”

Noel Vigors said the same thing to Georgie. “You look quite done up.”

“Actually,” said Georgie, “I’m feeling a bit sick.”

“Sick?”

“Don’t panic. I’m not going to
be
sick. I’m just feeling sick. Let’s get up to that corner and sit down.”

Noel steered her to the chair which had recently been occupied by Mr. Beaumorris. He said, “Do you think it might be . .?”

“I think it might. I missed at the weekend.”

Noel sat down beside her, slipped an arm through hers and said, “Well. What do you know?”

“Which would you like it to be?”

“A boy, of course. He’ll be articled in the firm. Third generation.”

“Sometime next century.”

“You realise we shall have to shift Dad out. The house is crowded enough now. Which reminds me. He’s taken the car. How are we going to get home?”

“Walk, of course.”

“Are you sure you can?”

“Fussing already,” said Georgie. “A month or two and everything will be back to normal, I expect: ‘Do you mind filling the coal scuttle and bringing some logs in. I’ve simply
got
to finish reading these papers.’”

Mr. Cavey came in and looked around the hall. About a dozen pairs of youngsters were still dancing. He walked over and said something to the bandleader, who nodded and brought the music to a firm conclusion.

Some of the dancers shouted out, “Encore.”

Mr. Cavey was looking for someone in authority. The only person he could see whom he would have classified as belonging to the officer class was Tony Windle. He walked across and said, “I think we ought to finish now, sir. If you don’t mind.”

Tony said in some surprise, “You’re packing us up very sharp tonight, Joe. It’s only a quarter past twelve. You usually give us half an hour’s grace.”

“I know, sir. But I think the band want to get home.”

They were already packing up their instruments. The dancers started to drift slowly toward the door. Tony said, “You haven’t seen Billy anywhere, have you?”

“Mr. Gonville? No, sir. I did happen to notice, when I was coming past the parking place, his car wasn’t there.”

“It’s not the sort of car you could miss,” agreed Tony. It was a blood-red Austin-Healey frog-eyed Sprite, ten years old and lovingly maintained.

The band had filed out of the back entrance and the last of the dancers could be heard claiming their belongings from the cloakroom.

“’After the ball was over’,” said Tony. “’After the break of day. After the dancers leaving. After the skies are grey. Many’s the heart is breaking—’ What’s up, Joe?”

“Well, sir—”

“You’ve been looking like the ghost of Hamlet’s father ever since you came in. George Mariner’s driven into a lamppost? Old Mr. Beaumorris has fallen off his bicycle? Mrs. Havelock has run over a chicken?”

“It’s not really funny—”

“I’m sure it isn’t,” said Tony, suddenly quite serious. “What is it?”

“It’s our Miss Katie. I found her myself when I went down to check over the boathouse. Someone’s smashed her head in.”

Dr. Farmiloe was on the point of going to bed when the telephone rang. Being a methodical man, he noted the time. It was ten minutes to twelve.

He listened to what the telephone had to say, contributed one “Where?” and one “Right” and replaced the receiver. Without appearing to hurry, but without losing any time, he collected a small black bag, which lived in a cupboard in the hall, opened it and added one or two items to it from a shelf in the cupboard. Then he went out, leaving the front door carefully on the latch, extracted his car from the garage, which occupied the space between his house and the Beaumorris cottage, and drove off.

The whole of this sequence of actions took him less than five minutes. Before he had retired into private practice at West Hannington, he had spent twenty-five years as a police surgeon in the Clerkenwell area of South London.

He saw Cavey standing at the corner where Church Lane ran out onto the towpath. Cavey waved to him to stop and climbed in beside him. “It’s two-three hundred yards along,” he said. “Just before the boathouse.”

“Who found her?”

“I did.”

“Then it was you who telephoned Dandridge?”

“That’s right. Straightaway I rang him.”

The car had bumped on a hundred yards farther before Dr. Farmiloe said, “I suppose there’s no doubt she’s dead.”

“I’ve seen plenty of dead people in my time,” said Cavey. There was a note in his voice which might have been panic, or might have been bravado. “She’s dead. No question.”

“It’s not always easy to be sure,” said the doctor. A torchlight waved ahead of them. The doctor brought the car to a halt and climbed out. He said, “Better stay in the car. The less feet trampling about the better.”

Cavey seemed glad of the advice. He was clearly more shaken than he chose to appear.

The man behind the torch was Chief Inspector Dandridge, who was, at that time, in charge of the Hannington Station. He was a slow, heavy Berkshire man. His real name was Herbert, but people had called him Dan ever since he had joined the Berkshire County Force twenty-five years before. He said, “She’s over there, Doctor. In the grass.”

The girl was lying face downward, with one arm flung forward, the other arm doubled up under her body. Dr. Farmiloe knelt down beside her. He felt for the pulse in her neck and found nothing. Using his own torch, he examined the back of her head carefully and then shone its light into her wide-open eyes. He did all this quite slowly, because he wanted time to think.

He was in no doubt that Katie was dead. He had been sure of that from the moment he had seen the way she was lying: the disjointed, abandoned sprawl, as though the body, deprived of life, was hugging the ground from which it had come. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was in the beginning. And the spirit—yes, what had happened to the spirit of Katie, beloved of millions of people who had seen her picture on the small screen and had built their own image from it? The spirit, said the author of the book of Ecclesiastes, shall return unto God who gave it.

The problem remained.

How was he going to tell Dandridge what to do without upsetting his dignity? Because it was clear that he was out of his depth.

Thinking it out as he got to his feet, he said, “I shan’t be able to make a proper examination before it gets light. But there are some things I’ve got to do at once. It’s clearly going to be important to know exactly when she died. I can probably tell you that, but I shall need a bit of space to work in. Could you organise some screens?”

“Screens?” said Dandridge vaguely.

Detective Sergeant Esdaile, who had just arrived on his bicycle, said, “There should be a few screens and posts in the boathouse. They had them up round the Gents’ at the regatta.”

“Is the boathouse locked?”

“Cavey’s got the key.”

Hearing his name, Cavey climbed out of the car and shambled forward. He averted his eyes from the thing on the ground. Yes, he had a key of the padlock which held the big sliding doors, but it was back at his cottage.

“If he goes back to fetch it,” said the doctor, “he could telephone for help. You’re going to need all the hands you can get.”

Dandridge turned this over in his mind and then said, “Right. Give McCourt a ring, too. He can get down here quick on his moped. And then get onto Detective Superintendent Farr, at Reading.” He pulled out a pocket book and scribbled down the numbers.

“Tell him we’ve got a case of suspected murder. Will he please contact the Chief Constable and then get here as quickly as he can. After that, you might pack up the dance at the hall. Don’t say anything about this, of course. The last thing we want is a lot of people coming down to have a look.”

The doctor drew a line with his toe in the dust. “Screens here and here,” he said. “And we ought to think about blocking the towpath altogether.”

McCourt ignored the telephone as long as he could before stretching out a hand. He listened to Mr. Cavey, said “What?” and “Where?” and then “Right” and tumbled out of bed. By the time he got to the boathouse, progress had been made. Three hessian screens had been put up, one along the edge of the path and one at either end, forming three sides of a square inside which Dr. Farmiloe was at work. A long flex had been run out from the boathouse. The light he was working by was an incongruous string of red, white and blue bulbs which had last been used to adorn the rostrum at the annual regatta. White tapes marked off a further area of grass on each side of the screens.

Sergeant Esdaile said, “Now we’ve got Ian here, Skipper, couldn’t he go and break the news to Mrs. Steelstock?”

Dandridge brought himself back from wherever his thoughts had taken him and said, “Mrs. Steelstock?”

“She’ll have to know sometime. It doesn’t hardly seem right just to telephone her. Ian’s got his moped. He could do it easiest.”

“Yes,” said Dandridge. He moved across and peered over the top of the screen as though he was hoping that Dr. Farmiloe might have brought Katie back to life. “I suppose that’s right. You do that.”

McCourt looked as if the job was one he would willingly have refused and started to say something. But Dandridge had retired into the hinterland of his own thoughts and was staring at him blankly as McCourt remounted his moped and bumped off along the towpath. When he reached the corner of River Park Avenue, he noticed that there were lights still on in Heavealong, but that Shalimar was dark. There was a little coolness in the air now and he was glad of it. He was not looking forward to what he had to do.

The front door of the Manor House was opened to him by Walter. He said, “Come in. You were lucky to find me up. The others are in bed. Is there some trouble?”

McCourt told him what had happened. Walter seemed to take in the information with deliberate slowness, absorbing it piece by piece, as though to cushion the shock. He said, “Have we really got to wake Mother up? She’s probably just got off to sleep.”

“The Superintendent thought she ought to know as soon as possible.”

“Then I’d better do it. Peter needn’t know until tomorrow.”

He had himself well under control, the Sergeant thought. He said, thankfully, “I’ll leave you to it, then.” He was outside the front door when he heard Mrs. Steelstock cry out. It was a cry of pain and shock. But McCourt, who was an observant young man, detected another note behind the simple anguish: a note of outrage, a note of anger with fate for dealing her a foul blow.