The Killing of Katie Steelstock (7 page)

Here he found Chief Inspector Dandridge waiting for him.

“Sorry to keep you up, Dan,” he said. And if Dandridge was surprised that he should know, and use, his nickname he managed not to show it. “There’s one or two things we’ve got to arrange before we all go to bed. First we’ve got to block both ends of the towpath. Trestles and a notice will do for the moment. One lot at Cavey’s cottage, the other lot where River Park Avenue comes out. But notices won’t keep the press out. We’ll need a constable on duty at each end.”

“I’ve only got—”

“Limited manpower. I know. That’s the next thing. I’m going to give Farr a buzz and borrow a dozen men.”

“A dozen?”

“For one day. Maybe two. After that we can rely on the men we’ve got here. With a little help from time to time. Next point: who does your photography here?”

“That’s Sergeant Esdaile.”

“Christian name?”

“Everyone calls him Eddie.”

“Is he O.K. with a camera? We don’t want any slip-ups.”

“He took a course at Roehampton.”

“All right. Have him down there at first light. When he’s done his stuff we can shift the body. We can probably arrange to have it taken straight down to Southampton for the autopsy. Not that I imagine they’ll find out anything we didn’t know already.” He looked at some notes he had been scribbling on a scrap of paper. “Last point: can you tell me where Dr. Farmiloe hangs out? I want a word with him. Then we can all get a bit of shut-eye.”

Dandridge gave him the address and directions for getting there. After Knott had gone he stood quite still for nearly a minute. In the same way that the recoil mechanism of a gun will nullify the shock of a shell’s discharge, he seemed to be absorbing the impact of Detective Chief Superintendent Knott’s personality.

As he went out through the charge room he looked at the clock over the Station Sergeant’s desk and saw that it was exactly five o’clock. In an hour’s time it would be fully light. He said goodnight to Sergeant Bakewell and went out into the street. He doubted whether he would get any sleep now, but he would go through the motions.

By nine o’clock Dandridge’s office had quite a few people in it. Reading was represented by Chief Superintendent Oliphant of the Uniformed Branch and Detective Superintendent Farr of the C.I.D. McCourt and Esdaile were making themselves inconspicuous in the background. Shilling had set up a blackboard and was drawing a plan on it. Knott was standing beside the blackboard in a schoolmasterly attitude. Dr. Farmiloe was seated on the edge of the table with a sheaf of notes in one hand. Sergeant Bakewell had squeezed in and was effectively blocking the door. The window was wide open. It was going to be another scorching day.

“You’ve heard Dr. Farmiloe’s report, gentlemen,” said Knott. “It was extremely fortunate that he was able to be on the spot so quickly. And knew what he had to do when he got there.”

A murmur of assent. All the senior officers present had suffered at one time or other the frustration of delayed or incompetent medical work.

“We shan’t know for certain until we get the results of the autopsy, but it’s fairly clear that Kate died at once, as the result of this single blow. Dr. Farmiloe has given us, as limits of the time of death, ten minutes to eleven and twenty minutes to twelve. He stressed that these were
outside
limits. A more probable time of death would be sometime between ten past and half past eleven.”

He paused and then said, “It’s a narrow time span. Geographically the area we have to consider is small, too.”

He turned to the blackboard on which Shilling had finished his plan.

“We know that Kate left the Memorial Hall . . . there. At the point where Church Lane– Upper Church Lane, I think they call that bit – turns off and runs down to the river. Presumably she went straight down the lane. No evidence of that, but I can’t see why she should have done anything different. The area on the left of the lane is Tennis Club property. All locked up. And there’s a thick bramble hedge on the right. So let’s assume that she made straight down the lane to the river.”

“Distance?” said Oliphant.

Knott looked at Shilling, who said, “Two hundred yards, near enough.”

“When she gets to the river she turns left, onto the towpath. That square at the corner is a cottage. It belongs to a bloke called Joe Cavey.”

“The one who found the body?” said Farr.

“That’s the man. The distance between his cottage and the boat shed is about twice the length of the lane, so call it four hundred yards. Say six hundred yards in all. It could have taken her around ten minutes to walk it.”

“It was pitch dark,” said Farr. “She couldn’t have hurried. I’d say all of ten minutes, maybe a bit more.”

“Agreed.” Knott turned back to the plan. “There are no buildings between Cavey’s corner and the boathouse. After the boathouse the path goes on again without buildings for about three hundred yards. It’s not a large area. If we put enough men onto it we can comb it thoroughly.”

“What are we looking for?” said Oliphant.

“Anything that’s there,” said Knott. The half smile that went with the words took some of the sting out of them. “But principally we’re looking for a weapon. Something short and heavy, like an iron bar or a light axe. And here is where we’ve got to consider two different possibilities. Was it a planned killing, or was it just a hit-and-run job? If it was planned, we’re not likely to find the weapon. There are too many places the killer could have hidden it. He could have buried it or thrown it into the river five miles away. On the other hand, if it was a panic job, the man will have slung the weapon away as quickly as possible. Into the bushes.”

“More likely straight into the river,” said Oliphant.

Knott helped himself to a piece of chalk and drew two lines across the Thames, one about fifty yards upstream from the boathouse and another a hundred yards downstream. He said, “I’ve laid on a team of divers from the Marine Commandos at Portsmouth. They’re coming in later this morning. I’ve given them that piece of the river to search. If they don’t find anything there, it’ll be a waste of time to extend the search.”

“You’ll have to keep the pleasure boats away while that’s going on,” said Oliphant. “It won’t be easy.”

Farr agreed. He said, “If you stop the press boys coming down the towpath, first thing they’ll do is hire boats and come down the river.”

“I had thought about that,” said Knott. “We can’t keep people off the river altogether, but the Thames Conservancy have agreed to lend me one of their launches, with a crew and a loudspeaker. They’ll see that no one gets too close. I’d like to borrow every man you can spare, Dennis. Make the search a saturation job. Get it finished in one day. Then we can lift most of the restrictions.”

Oliphant said, “That certainly sounds a practical way of tackling it. Anyone got any comments?”

No one had any comments.

Knott said, “So much for search. When it comes to inquiry, we can take that a bit more deliberately. I’d like two experienced men from you, Dennis, to help Sergeant Esdaile and Sergeant McCourt in a house-to-house routine covering the area between Brickfield Road and the river.” He was drawing further boundary lines on the board as he spoke. “I should guess that’s about two hundred houses in all. Doing it carefully, we should be able to cover it in two or three days.”

“Asking what in particular?” said Farr. “Apart from the obvious question of where people were between eleven and twelve last night, I mean.”

“I’d be very interested in the movements of cars. If this was a planned job, the chances are the man came most of the way by car and did the last bit on foot.”

Ian McCourt was aware that it was an occasion on which sergeants spoke little, or kept their mouths shut altogether. He ventured to say, “I think that almost all the people who knew Miss Steelstock well were at that dance at the Memorial Hall.”

“The point had not escaped me,” said Knott. “And the first job today for you and Esdaile will be to get round to everyone who was at the dance – and I mean everyone – and ask them to be present at eight o’clock tonight at the hall. If they ask why, tell them that they will be helping us to find out who killed Kate. If any of them won’t cooperate, take their names and I’ll talk to them later. And another thing. Tell them to come the same way they came last night. If it was by car, leave their cars in the same place.”

“They’ll all cooperate,” said McCourt.

“All right. We’ve all got a lot to do. Anything else?”

“There’s a crowd of men outside want to talk to you,” said Sergeant Bakewell. “I think they’re from the papers.”

“I’ll deal with them,” said Knott.

As he stepped out into the High Street bulbs flashed and cameras clicked. Knott had arranged his face into a noncommittal expression. Some years before, when he had been investigating a child murder, a photographer had taken a picture of him grinning. What he was laughing at was, in fact, a comment made by the local Superintendent about the Chief Constable’s wife. The paper, which was indulging in one of its anti-police crusades, had printed this picture alongside a picture of the small victim’s mother in tears.

Knott said, “You’ll understand, boys, that it’s early days and I can’t tell you anything much yet. I’ve always gone on the principle of working with the press, not against it. Anything I can tell you, I will. I’m staying at the Swan Inn, and if you care to come round at six o’clock this evening I’ll see what I can do for you. One other thing. For today, you’ll have to keep clear of that part of the towpath. We’re planning to take it to pieces and put it together again. Right?”

“Any leads yet, Superintendent?”

“I’ve been on this job for six hours, son. If you care to say that I’m baffled, help yourself.”

This produced the expected laugh. The reporters began to disperse. They recognised an old hand when they encountered one.

Knott caught Dandridge as he was leaving the station and said, “Somewhere I can have a quick word with you?”

“In my car. It’s in the yard at the back.”

He led the way around and they climbed in. Knott said, “This evening I’m going to meet a lot of the local characters. One thing I always like to find out first is, who are the nobs?”

Dandridge didn’t pretend not to understand him. He said, “The biggest man round here, by a long chalk, is George Mariner. He’s chairman of the local Bench, a District Councillor, president of the Boat Club and the Tennis Club and any other club you care to mention. Not only in Hannington. He’s vice president of the Reading branch of the British Legion and patron of a boys’ club in the East End of London.”

“Married?”

“Wife, no children.”

“Any particular reason?”

“Meet his wife.”

Knott laughed and said, “Anyone else?”

“There’s Group Captain Gonville, D.S.O., D.S.C. Retired now. A very nice chap. He’s on the Bench, too. Our third J.P.’s a woman. Mrs. Havelock. She lives in a bungalow near the end of River Park Avenue, with a pack of tearaway kids.”

Knott thought for a moment and said, “Shalimar or Heavealong?”

“Heavealong. You certainly seem to have picked up the local geography.”

“I happened to notice them as I was walking back last night. That’s one of only two places where you could get a car down onto the towpath. Who owns Shalimar?”

“Roseabel Tress. Artistic.”

Knott grunted.

Well before eight o’clock that evening there was a sizable crowd outside the Memorial Hall. They watched the cars drive up, turn into the car park and station themselves carefully in their remembered places around one car that was still there, the cynosure of all eyes.

Katie’s scarlet mini-Cooper.

Mr. Beaumorris, who had pedalled up on his ancient bicycle, said to Mrs. Havelock, “I feel like one of the minor guests at a royal wedding. A groom, or gardener, or some other humble functionary who has been invited and hides himself bashfully away behind the important guests.” He did not look either bashful or humble. He looked rather pleased with himself.

Inside the hall the crowd tended to coalesce into the sort of groups they had formed on the previous evening. The chairs had been left undisturbed, and Mr. Beaumorris took possession of the one in the comer. Rosina Havelock and Harvey Maxton started to dance, but no one else thought this funny and they stopped at once when Mrs. Steelstock came in accompanied by Walter.

Eight o’clock struck from St. Michael’s Church. The side door behind the stage opened and Detective Superintendent Knott stumped up the steps onto the stage and stationed himself in the centre of it.

All eyes were on him. The silence was absolute.

Knott said in his gravelly voice, “I have been informed by the representatives of the press that what I am doing here tonight is reconstructing the crime. That’s journalistic imagination. What I’m doing is quite different. I’m asking
you
to help
me.”

There was a slight relaxing of tension. Was the man human after all?

“Most of you knew Katie and most of you, I guess, were very fond of her.” His eye rested for a moment on Mrs. Steelstock sitting at the back of the hall. There was evidence of a sleepless night in her grey face and a livid smear under each eye, but her mouth was set in an uncompromising line.

“Our first job in a case like this is to establish times and places. Then we can do some elimination and get down to facts. It seemed to me that the quickest way of doing this was for all of you to write down – Sergeant Shilling here has got plenty of paper – as accurately as you possibly can,
when
you left the hall last night and
who
left with you and
where
you went. That’s the reason I’ve got you all together. If one can’t remember, the chances are someone else will be able to help him out. If you were in a party, discuss the matter. Someone will be sure to have looked at his watch. Someone will have said, ‘We promised the babysitter we’d be home by eleven,’ or ‘We wanted to get back to see the late night film on the box.’ Talk about it. Argue about it. And when you’ve got the best answers you can, write your name and address on the top of the paper and give it back to the Sergeant. And let me assure you once more. There’s no trick about this. All we’re doing, in a manner of speaking, is to clear away the undergrowth. When that’s done, we may be able to see a few of the trees.”