The Measby Murder Enquiry (18 page)

And then there was Deirdre. He hoped it was Deirdre, because if he was right in reading the signs, she would be keen to have him back. Then he remembered that it was extremely unlikely that she had anything to hide from the police, and his heart sank ever deeper.

AT TEN O’CLOCK, Deirdre called with her car at Springfields to pick up Ivy and Roy. They were sitting in the hall, coats on, ready for her to take them to Gus’s cottage. When Ivy rang Deirdre first thing to suggest Deirdre go by herself, she had refused.

“No telling what I might be blamed for,” she had said. “No, Ivy, you must come with me.” So, of course, Ivy had said she wanted Roy to protect her from possible intruders lurking in Gus’s cottage, and he must come, too. Although Deirdre did not rate Roy’s abilities as bodyguard very highly, she agreed.

“You’ll both be back for lunch, Miss Beasley?” Mrs. Spurling asked sourly. She had had a bad night, kept awake by hooting owls. She knew if she mentioned it to Miss Pinkney, she would get a gushing rebuke for her lack of appreciation of wild birdlife, especially birds whose habitat was under threat, like owls. If only she could get at them, she promised herself, she would strangle the lot.

“Naturally,” Miss Beasley said. “We would have informed you if not. Come along, Roy,” she added, and the two went out to Deirdre’s waiting car.

As they stopped outside Gus’s cottage in Hangman’s Row, Ivy immediately spotted Miriam Blake’s curtains twitching. “She’ll be round for a cup of sugar, mark my words,” she said to Deirdre. “That sort can’t resist poking their nose in.”

“Cup of sugar?” said Deirdre, looking puzzled.

“Figure of speech,” Roy said. “My mother used to say it about the wife of one of our farmworkers in the old days. Always coming round borrowing things and never returning them.”

By this time, Deirdre had unlocked Gus’s front door and they followed her inside. Shrill barking came from next door, and sure enough, a tap at the door signalled the arrival of Miriam Blake with Whippy at her heels.

“Is he back?” she said urgently. “No? Do you expect him back soon? Poor little Whippy here is pining for her master, aren’t you, doggie?”

Whippy whimpered pitifully, and began sniffing all round Gus’s cottage, looking for traces of him.

“We’d better be methodical, Deirdre,” Ivy said. “You go upstairs and see if you can find any documents in that little room he used as an office. Me and Roy will get going downstairs. We’ll start with that little desk over there, though that looks more ornamental than useful. And we’ll say good-bye for the present, Miss Blake. We’ll be sure to let you know if we hear anything, and I’m sure you’ll do the same for us.”

Miriam bridled at being shunted towards the door, but went off muttering that if Miss Beasley was so keen on keeping Gus to herself, perhaps she would like to take a turn at looking after his dog.

“Be careful to put everything back in its place,” Roy said. “Of course, when Gus comes back, we’ll have to tell him we’ve been here, but at least he’ll find everything in its right place.”

“
If
he comes back,” Ivy said quietly, so that Deirdre would not hear.

Roy stopped opening drawers and looked at her. “Do you mean that, Ivy?” he said.

“It’s possible,” she answered, and then pointed up the stairs and put her finger to her lips.

They continued searching in silence, and Ivy moved on from the small desk, having found nothing but a tatty piece of used blotting paper and an incongruous bow of blue ribbon. She wondered what past owner of the desk had kept this souvenir of a loved one.

“I’ll try this cupboard by the fireplace,” she said, and tried to open the door. It was stuck, and as there was no keyhole for locking it, she concluded it had swollen with damp. She shivered. “Shall we have a cup of coffee?” she shouted up the stairs to Deirdre. “It’s damp cold in here. I’m not happy about Roy being in this atmosphere.”

Deirdre came down, and looked at the pair of them. She was suddenly appalled at the ridiculousness of their quest. “Come on, both,” she said as cheerfully as she could manage. “We’re not going to do any good here. If you think about it, Ivy, a man like Gus with secrets to hide is not going to leave anything where an intruder could find it, is he? I mean, there was that time when that awful man broke in and whopped him one over the head.”

“Good thinking, Deirdre,” Roy said, and made for the front door, only too pleased to be let off guard duty.

“No, wait a minute,” Ivy said. “Let’s remember why we’re here. Gus has gone missing. We’ve heard nothing, and he’s probably been taken where he can’t get in touch. God knows why, but that’s the fact. We want a contact, like his ex-wife, so we can get to him as soon as possible. After all, he is a colleague, isn’t he?”

Deirdre nodded. “And a friend,” she said. “But then you two don’t need to be here. Why don’t you go and sit in the garden in the sunshine while I have a quick search round the most likely places?”

“You could start with this cupboard,” Ivy said, taking hold of the knob and yanking hard. It gave way suddenly, and she tottered, rescued from falling over by Roy who was standing behind her. Straightening up, she put her hand inside, reached to the back and pulled out a small tin box.

“Ah,” said Deirdre, “that looks promising. But is it locked?”

Ivy tried the lid, but it did not move. There was no sign of a key, though she searched the entire contents of the cupboard. “Nothing but a pile of old paperbacks,” she said.

“Give it here, Ivy,” Roy said, and fumbling in his pocket brought out an unbent paper clip. “Never without it,” he said. “Not much use for it in Springfields, ’tis true,” he added, “but I’ll have a go.”

The two women looked at him sceptically. Silly old fool, thought Deirdre, and even Ivy could not keep doubt from her eyes. Still, let him try, she thought. There’s a lot I don’t know about Roy, and maybe picking locks is one of his skills.

After Roy fiddled about with it for a minute or two, there was a tiny clicking sound, and he looked up. “There we are!” he said triumphantly. “Who’s going to look inside?”

“Well done, Roy!” Deirdre said, and Ivy nodded in agreement.

“You’d better look, Deirdre,” Roy said. “Your eyes are better than ours.”

Deirdre opened the lid and took out the dog-eared address book. She looked at Ivy. “Not a waste of time, after all,” she said. “Sorry. Now, what shall I look under? Do you think his ex still uses his name?”

“That’s all we’ve got,” Ivy said. “So at least start there. Halfhide. Can’t be many of those around.”

 

 

THEO ROUSSEL WAS also looking up telephone numbers. He had been browsing through his father’s old books about rare breeds when he remembered to ring Freddie Armstrong. It took him some while to find the number, and when he rang, it was engaged. He put in a ring-back request, and started to doodle on a piece of paper on his desk. Not much like a horse, he decided. There had been no trace of artistic talent in the Roussels, and Theo was no exception. He tried a dog, but it looked more like a cat, and he screwed up the paper and threw it into his wastepaper basket. Then the telephone rang.

“Hello, Freddie! Theo Roussel here. Yes, Theo from the past! What are you doing with yourself these days? Still a racing man?”

Freddie Armstrong was delighted to hear from someone who had been a close friend in the giddy round of hunting, horse racing and gambling in casinos years ago. “Wonderful to hear from you, Theo!” he said. “Coming back to us, are you? Things have changed, old chap, but we’ll keep an eye on you until you’re back into the ways of our wicked world!”

Theo laughed. “Can’t afford it anymore, Freddie. Cares of the estate, I’m afraid. No, this is a small plea for help. Not too serious, as far as I’m concerned, but a dear girl is worried about the disappearance of her friend Augustus Halfhide. Yes, I’m afraid that
is
his name. What? You remember him? Well, that’s marvellous! Left his wife, apparently. Oh, you knew her, too? Don’t have a contact for her, by any chance? Oh, wonderful. Yes, pen at the ready. Fire away.” He scribbled down a name and address, and after fond farewells, ended the call.

Noreen knocked at his door and came in with a mug of coffee balanced precariously on a tin tray, with a plate of biscuits sliding from side to side. “No brown sugar, Mr. Theo,” she said. “Still, I always say white’s much cleaner. You never know where that brown stuff has been. Anything else you want?”

Yes, said Theo to himself. I want to see the back of you, Noreen, and have little Katya filling the house with sunshine and efficiency. But aloud he said there was nothing, and waited until she had gone before dialling Deirdre. She was out, and he left a message to say he had some information for her, and why didn’t she come up for a drink this evening? He put down the phone and forgot all about Augustus Halfhide.

GUS HAD SLEPT fitfully on the uncomfortable camp bed. Noises from the café and surrounding streets had woken him almost immediately after he began to doze. He was cold and hungry, and already there were strong smells of spicy meat being cooked below. He desperately wanted to shower and shave, and clean his teeth. The inside of his mouth felt gritty, and he craved a glass of pure water. Well, that’s something new for Gus Halfhide, he said to himself wryly.

“Morning, Gus!” Keys turned in locks, and the time it took to open his door made him think this wasn’t the first time his disgusting room had been used to confine a prisoner. Martin slid in, going once more through the elaborate locking process. He was carrying a plastic carrier bag, which proved to contain a generous chamber pot. “Use this,” he said. “It’ll be emptied now and then.”

I could kill him easily, let myself out of here and escape, Gus thought. But good sense prevailed, and he decided to say absolutely nothing for as long as he could keep it up. That way he was bound to learn more from them. They would give themselves away, sooner or later, and he intended to be around when it happened.

“I expect you’d like some breakfast? And, by the way, you may as well call me Max,” the man said. “I am, of course, familiar with the real Martin.” He laughed, and Gus thought it was one of the ugliest sounds he had heard for a long time.

“Not answering this morning?” he continued. “Shall we just have a little chat about this and that now?” He began asking questions. How did Gus like Barrington? Had he made many friends? What did he do with himself all day?

“Well, if you won’t even give me your order for breakfast, I can’t bring you any, can I?” Max said after a while. “We shall just have to see if you’ve found your voice in time for lunch. Of course, before that we shall need some answers to more questions we’ve prepared. We’ll be back later.” He left, this time fumbling impatiently with the locks. Gus remained silent.

Ah, so that’s it, thought Gus. Starve the prisoner until he’s so hungry he’ll tell you anything for a slice of bread. Well, I suppose these idiots have no way of knowing that I can go for days on nothing but deep gulps of fresh air. Not that the foetid air in this room could be called fresh, by any stretch of the imagination. Anyway, real Martin will embark on a hunt for me soon, I hope. But maybe not. Maybe he’ll shrug his shoulders and think Gus Halfhide is as unreliable as ever, and forget him. It was so long since he’d seen him that he was not at all sure Martin would still have the clout, or, more seriously, the desire, to rescue a retired colleague who had lost the knack of keeping himself out of trouble.

Well, the one thing he had time to do now was to think about why an apparently innocent victim had been found dead in his cottage in the village of Measby, and what it had to do with his present imprisonment. It must be dangerous and widespread for the department to have bothered with it in the first place. Maybe the imposter Martin and the woman Margaret wanted to question him to get one jump ahead of an undercover investigation into whatever they were up to.