The Sleeping Salesman Enquiry (26 page)

F
ifty-one

ELVIS CAME OUT
of the men’s toilet and headed for the lift. He had been bursting; otherwise he would never have agreed to leave Miss Beasley. She had promised to stay in the beds department until he joined her, and he hastily pressed the lift button to go up one floor. To his irritation, he saw it was stuck on the basement level, and he pressed again, several times. Quicker by the stairs, he decided, and ran up two at a time.

Miss Beasley was nowhere to be seen, and he panicked.

“Have you seen an elderly woman wandering round up here?” he asked a nearby customer. She shook her head. “Sorry, mister. No elderly women, unless you count me, and I don’t think you’re looking for me, are you?”

Elvis ignored her laughter, and quickly returned to the ground floor. He pushed his way through shoppers, but could see no signs of Miss Beasley. Perhaps she was stuck in the lift again? But why would she be in it at all? She had given her word that she would stay in the beds department.

He crossed to the lift, which now opened in front of him. A man and woman, with an awkward pushchair, emerged, but no Miss Beasley.

“Have you come up from the basement?” he asked them. They looked mystified and said that as far as they knew, it was only a storeroom down there. “Sorry, mate,” the man said, and they walked away.

Only one thing to do, Elvis decided. He rushed into the lift as the doors were closing, and pressed the button for the basement. But someone on the ground floor had summoned the lift before he got in.

Finally, by blocking the entrance to the lift on the ground floor, in spite of customer protestations, he pressed the basement button and emerged into what was, as the man had said, a large storeroom in total darkness. He fumbled around for a light switch, calling all the time for Miss Beasley. At last he found the switch, and the room was flooded with light. But there was no answering call from Ivy. There was nobody to be seen or heard, and he took the lift back up to the ground floor.

Perhaps she had gone outside to look for him in the car park? He ran around at top speed, anxiety mounting. Back to the store, then. He waited for a car to pass in front of him, and as it went slowly out into the road, he saw Ivy, sitting in the passenger seat and waving frantically.

• • •

THE POLICE WERE
kind and helpful, and asked Elvis whether he had taken note of the number plate, the colour of the car, or the make. He had not registered the number or letters; nor could he be sure of the colour or make. He thought it was black, or possibly blue, and it could have been a Ford or a Toyota. Hatchback? He wasn’t sure, but thought not. All he could really remember was that it was Miss Beasley in the passenger seat, and she was being driven away from him. And yes, he thought the old lady had a mobile phone.

Having thought carefully and given a more detailed description, and been assured that they would do all they could to intercept the car, he then had the terrible task of telling Roy what had happened. First, he must inform Mrs. Spurling, and then perhaps she would agree to tell Roy. He had a sudden urge to get into his taxi and drive away, miles and miles away, and never return. But of course he could not do that. Ivy and Roy were his friends, and he must not desert them.

Mrs. Spurling was surprisingly calm. “Probably had a senior moment and asked the stranger to bring her back to Springfields. Since you had not kept your word never to let her out of your sight, she must have decided she had to make her own way home. Need I say, Elvis whatever-your-name-is, that I shall recommend never using your taxi again!”

“Can I speak to Roy Goodman, please?” said Elvis, his voice unsteady.

“Certainly not,” Mrs. Spurling said. “I shall wait half an hour to see if she turns up, and then break the news myself. Good-bye.”

• • •

“THIS IS NOT
the way to Barrington,” said Ivy, frowning at Frank, who sat at the wheel of his mother’s car, keeping his speed down to thirty miles an hour. He needed time to soften up this old biddy, and tell her exactly what would happen to her if she didn’t do what she was told.

“We’re going the pretty way,” he said. “I got things to tell you. What you’re going to do, an’ that.”

“I know perfectly well what I’m going to do,” said Ivy sharply, fishing in her capacious handbag. “I am going to phone Springfields and tell them to alert the police. And if you lay your hands on me, it’ll be the worse for you.”

Frank gave a yelp of laughter. “Got yer black belt, Miss Beasley? Wow, I’m really scared. An’ give me that!” he added, snatching her mobile and putting it in his pocket. “They’ll know soon enough that you’re missing. But not for long, you silly old bat. I don’t want a stupid woman on my hands. Just agree to what I say, an’ I’ll drop you off in Cemetery Lane in Barrington. If you don’t, o’ course, you might end up in the cemetery underground!”

“You don’t frighten me, Frank Maleham. What is your mother going to say, when she finds her car’s been stolen? She’ll report it to the police straight away, and it won’t take them long to put two and two together and start looking. Not one of the brightest, are you?”

“How d’you know I’m Frank Maleham and this car is my mother’s? I could be anybody, on the lookout for a car to borrow.” He blustered, but Ivy knew that she had shaken him off his perch, if only temporarily.

“Better listen for the siren, Frank,” she said. “And the flashing blue light. You know what the police are like. Any excuse to play cops and robbers, and they’ll be racing through town on our trail.”

Frank quickened up, until the car was doing seventy miles an hour on the narrow lane leading eventually to Barrington. He planned to find a suitably remote place to stop and have a go at frightening Miss Beasley into submission. Then, after that, he would find the way back to Barrington and drop her off before getting back to Thornwell. With any luck, his mother would still be in the store. She usually stayed until closing time, and he could park her car without her knowing it had been for a run.

As they sped along, with Ivy holding on tightly to her seat, he worked out what he would say if they were caught. Ivy was old; that was obvious. He would say he had found her wandering in the car park, lost and frightened. The only thing he could get out of her was her address: Springfields, Barrington village. So he had borrowed his mother’s car to take her back. A charitable act, that’s all, Officer, he would say, and he congratulated himself on the perfect get-out.

They stopped in a field entrance, where the grass was long, indicating that farm traffic was unlikely.

“Now, Miss Beasley, you just listen to me.”

Ivy said nothing. She would not look at him, but stared fixedly out of the window.

“That wedding you’re planning to old Roy Goodman. It won’t do. I got very good reasons why it won’t do, but you don’t need to know them. But I got orders to stop it. My orders come from a very ruthless source, an’ if you don’t agree to stop it, he’ll make sure the happy couple are down to one unhappy old fool. Or, it could be one unhappy old spinster. Need I say more?”

To his extreme irritation, Ivy turned to look at him, began to smile and then laughed loudly, holding on to her hat in case it should slip. “Frank Maleham,” she began, still spluttering, “you have been watching much too much television. You’ve made several mistakes in this heist—is that the word?—starting with taking a car by now known to the police. And there are other foolish things you’ve done. We might as well agree to cook up a story explaining what happened, and go straight back to Springfields. If you accept that, I shall say nothing about your attempt at abduction.”

“What other mistakes?” said Frank. Things were not going according to plan, not at all.

“Well, you’ve forgotten Elvis, my taxi driver. He will have the police searching high and low for me. He knows all about your threatening letters, and they’ll give their search the highest priority.”

Frank said nothing, but his face was pale and sweaty. Ivy chose her moment, and said, “So shall we do a deal? You give up your blackmail and leave Roy and me to a few years’ happiness, or I tell the police—is that a siren?—what really happened this afternoon. What do you say? Do we settle for saying you were taking a confused old lady back home, and no questions asked?”

• • •

MRS. SPURLING LOOKED
at her watch. Twenty-five minutes had gone by since Elvis’s call. So, in five minutes, she had to find Roy and tell him that his fiancée was missing. How could she possibly do this without the poor old fellow keeling over with a heart attack? She sat in her office in front of her computer, her head in her hands, thinking desperately of a solution to a problem that, in all her years of caring for old people, she had never had to face.

“Yoo-hoo! Are you all right, Mrs. Spurling?”

She looked up and saw Deirdre Bloxham peering in at her door. “Oh yes, quite all right, thank you. Just resting my eyes for a couple of minutes. Have you come to see Mr. Goodman? He’s playing in a whist four at the moment.”

“I’ll wait,” Deirdre said cheerfully. “Shall I go up and see if Ivy’s in her room?”

Mrs. Spurling blinked rapidly and said, “She went into town in Elvis’s taxi, but should be back shortly. Shall we give her half an hour or so? I’ll take you into the lounge. Mr. Goodman might have finished his game by now. Come along, Mrs. Bloxham. I am sure he’ll be pleased to see you.”

F
ifty-two

AS FRANK AND
Ivy drew up outside Springfields, a siren was heard screaming through the village. A police car drew up behind them, and two policemen emerged, running. Then they conferred, and approached the Maleham car.

Mrs. Spurling was by now out of Springfields and on her way to the car. She reached it just as Ivy descended carefully onto the pavement. “Thank you very much, Mr. Maleham,” she heard her say. “Very kind of you to rescue me. Will you come in for a cup of tea?”

The burly man, who had got out at the police request, turned his head, and Mrs. Spurling caught the sunlight flash on the single gold earring.

“Miss Beasley!” she shouted. “Thank God you’re safe! Come along in, my dear.”

One of the policemen stepped forward. “We’ll need to ask a few questions, sir,” he said, taking Frank’s arm. Perhaps you could find us a private room, madam.” They trooped in, and Mrs. Spurling ushered them into the chilly conference room.

Frank followed meekly, and sat down next to Ivy.

“Now, just for the record, Miss Beasley, will you give us a detailed account of what happened, from the time you left Maleham’s Furniture Store?”

According to Ivy, Frank Maleham was the hero of the hour. He had taken pity on her, lost and confused in the car park, and when she asked him to take her back to Springfields, he had readily agreed. His mother’s car was in the car park, and he had the key in his pocket. Rather than leave Ivy to get lost again, he had decided to take her immediately back home.

“My mum usually stays all afternoon in the store,” he interposed.

“How did you come to have her car key in your pocket?” asked one of the policemen.

Frank looked at the clock on the wall. With luck, this could be wrapped up in ten minutes, and then he’d be home for the football on telly.

“Mum always gives it to me to hold on to,” he explained. “She’s forever losing it, else.”

Mrs. Spurling had turned on the electric fire, but even before it had warmed the room, the police were satisfied that there had been no evil intent in Maleham’s offer to give a lift to Miss Beasley, and they departed, not forgetting to congratulate Frank on his good citizen act.

“Well, dearest,” said Roy, when they were settled in Ivy’s room for a peaceful hour or so. “You certainly had an adventure! But what were you doing at Maleham’s? I thought you were at the dentist’s? I shall speak sternly to Elvis when we next see him.”

“Not really his fault,” she said. “I assumed he had forgotten where he had to meet me, and we somehow missed each other. No need to upset him, beloved. After all, he is our friend, and we’d be lost without him.” She avoided answering his dentist question.

As they both drifted into a doze, Roy dreamt of roast pheasant for supper, and Ivy went once more over the point at which Frank Maleham had grabbed her from the lift in the basement and manhandled her out of a side door into the car park and his mother’s car. Before sleep took her into a well-deserved rest, she trusted that Beryl had not wanted to leave the store before Frank returned.

• • •

WHEN FRANK GOT
back to Thornwell, he parked the car exactly where it had been before, and made his way into the warehouse. Here there was some curiosity about his temporary absence, but he settled down with his mates with an uncomfortable feeling of a job only half-done. He had been taking a large box to the bedroom department when he had spotted his mother with Miss Beasley. He had made sure they hadn’t seen him, and, thinking quickly, he had come up with a plan that needed only patience to carry out. His ruse was to stand by the basement lift doors with his finger on the down button, and after several false attempts, his quarry had arrived on her own, looking confused. If his mother had been with her, then he had an alternative plan ready, but it was not needed.

He had put out the lights to scare her into submission, and this had worked. But only for a short while. Then the old bird had rallied, and outwitted him with ease. He had nothing to show for their excursion, except a negative result. Ivy Beasley now had the upper hand, and unless he could think of a way of reversing the situation, next Sunday the banns would be called and the two lovers would have only one more hurdle to jump. As he remembered that banns have to have a third time of asking, he cheered up a little. There was still enough time to find a way.

Closing time came, and he wandered out into the car park to see whether his mother had left already. If she had, it was bus queues and a long walk uphill to their house. There was no sign of her car, and so he trudged off to find the bus stop. Finally, after going over the afternoon’s events yet again, he half smiled, realising he had never for one minute worried about the possibility that Miss Beasley would break her word to keep silent.

• • •

BERYL, ARRIVING HOME,
glanced at the petrol gauge on the dashboard. It registered empty, with a little light warning her that she was almost out of fuel. She frowned. She had owned this car for so long that she knew exactly when she had to fill up, and she could have sworn there should be a little more petrol than was showing. She shrugged. Tomorrow she had to go to Oakbridge to see a friend. She was not sure she would make it to the filling station on the corner. Indoors, with a cup of tea, she made a note to remember.

“Hello, Frank,” she said, as he came wearily through the door. “Did you stay late? Sorry I couldn’t wait for you. It gets dark so early now, and I hate driving under streetlights. Oh, and by the way,” she added, remembering the petrol, “you didn’t take my car out while I was in the store, did you?”

“O’ course not, Mother. What should I do that for? Don’t you start getting all suspicious and checking up on me; else I shall have to find other accommodation!”

“That could be no bad thing,” muttered Beryl, as she poured him a cup of stewed tea.

“I heard that,” he said. “And this tea is disgusting. Put the kettle on and make me a fresh cup.”

“Don’t you issue orders to me, Frank Maleham!” Beryl shouted at him from the kitchen. If he was spelling for a fight, she was capable of giving as good as she got.

• • •

BACK AT SPRINGFIELDS,
Ivy was tucking into a coffee sponge, and several cups of tea to wash it down. She had surprised herself this afternoon, and was feeling dangerously inviolable. Roy had accepted her explanation, as had Mrs. Spurling and Miss Pinkney, and she announced that she would be ringing the vicar after tea to discuss again the advisability of reading the banns this coming Sunday. Frank Maleham had confirmed himself as the culprit and she had frightened him off. There would be no need to delay things further.

Then she remembered something he had said. He was under orders from an unnamed source. Well, they had more or less decided that already. Maybe Frank was dealt with, but he was only the messenger. She hoped he would not get shot, but he might be replaced. No, it was not over. They had to find the source.

“Roy, dearest. Have you thought any more about Wendy Wright?” They were sitting in their corner of the lounge, and she leaned towards him and took his hand. As he was eating a piece of cake at the time, this made things difficult, but he smiled at her and said the only woman he thought about was a lovely lady named Ivy.

“Idiot!” she said. But her face softened, and she said perhaps they should ask Inspector Frobisher whether he had heard anything more.

• • •

ROY MAY NOT
have been thinking about Wendy, but the inspector certainly was. The more he thought about the story she had just told him on the office telephone, the more a new and clearer explanation for the death of Steven Wright had emerged.

She had described the fateful dinner party and his subsequent violent sickness, and said she would be arriving at Heathrow tomorrow evening. He had offered to meet her and bring her back to Thornwell. “We can talk in the car on the way back,” he had said. He was far from thinking she had had any deliberate hand in the poisoning of Wright, but he needed details of the dinner party, names, addresses and telephone numbers of anyone he had been in contact with during his last twenty-four hours, and so on.

He looked at his watch and stood up from his desk. Time to be packing up and leaving unfinished business until tomorrow. As he opened his door to walk out of the police station, his telephone rang. He hesitated, sighed, and turned back to answer it.

“Thornwell police. Can I help you? Oh, it’s you, Miss Beasley. My chaps tell me you had an interesting afternoon. All safe and comfortable now?” He knew she was a sharp old tab, but he could not help having a soft spot for her.

“Fine, thank you, Inspector. I just have a question to ask you.”

“I am about to leave the office, but carry on.”

“Sorry about that, but it may be urgent. Have you had any further communication with Mrs. Wright, Steven’s wife? I have been remembering one or two occasions when it was clear they didn’t get on, and I wonder if further investigation might come up with something?”

The inspector smiled. She was no slouch, this old dear. “As a matter of fact, I am meeting her off a plane tomorrow, and shall be having talks with her on the question of the poison found in Steven’s body. Does that suit?”

“Well-done, Inspector,” Ivy said. “Let me know what transpires, please.”

He was about to give her a short lecture on police confidentiality, but remembered in time that she was still under threat from anonymous messages, and merely said he would certainly be in touch.

“Good-bye, Inspector,” Ivy said, and turned to Roy, who was sitting obediently in her room, blinking at the last rays of winter sunlight.

“So what did he say, Ivy?”

“She’s flying home tomorrow, and will be questioned by him immediately.”

“Do you really think she had anything to do with the death of her husband?”

“Possibly,” said Ivy. “If he’d been my husband, I’d have been tempted, I don’t mind telling you!”