‘You’re the first person who’s tried to do me a good turn for a very long time,’ she said. ‘I’ll do you one in return, although I’m out of practice. I was born under Aquarius — that’s the water sign, you know. I’ve got something about water. Why, and how, I can’t tell you, but water matters to you at the moment. And rain and wetness comes into it somehow.’

  As soon as they were out of earshot Toye snorted with disapproval.

  ‘Slippery as they come behind all her blah. If that Haycraft wasn’t in it, she’d’ve been laid by the heels long ago.’

  Pollard brought his mind back from Jane, and possible hazards by water.

  ‘She’s certainly a very odd woman,’ he said cautiously. ‘Anyway, we’ve now got Nora Pearce’s statement confirmed, and I’m sure Pendine was speaking the truth about seeing Bickley weighing into Mullins, and the two youths going off afterwards. And I’m satisfied that she knows nothing about a return visit by Mullins. Hullo, what’s afoot here?’

  Rachel and Derek Wainwright were seeing off a man and two women in a car, bright and slightly unnatural smiles on their faces. As it drove away they relaxed visibly, seized each other’s hands and executed a light-hearted twirl round.

  Marked easing up, thought Pollard. I do believe he’s told her all about last summer.

  Catching sight of Pollard and Toye, the Wainwrights hastily composed themselves. If Derek felt embarrassment at the encounter he did not show it.

  ‘Prospective purchasers, come to inspect the house,’ he explained. ‘They seem to have swallowed the agent’s blurb hook, line and sinker. Substantially-built period house in impeccable order, and all that.’

  ‘They seem to think it would make a good small guest house,’ said Rachel. ‘Of course, we plugged the idea as hard as we could.’

  Pollard wished them luck over the deal.

  ‘I’m sure you’d be thankful to sell the place before the winter,’ he said. ‘It’ll be an upheaval for Miss Pearce, though.’

  ‘Oh, she’s agreed to come back with us,’ Rachel told him, ‘as a part-time helper for me. Isn’t it marvellous? I shan’t know myself. Our house is big enough for her to have a flatlet of her own, so that she can be independent.’

  ‘It’s a relief that it’s worked out so well,’ said Derek. ‘One felt a bit responsible for her. Fortunately she’s gone down awfully well with the kids: they’re absolute buddies. Aren’t children unpredictable? We were afraid they might start playing her up when we first arrived.’

  Pollard learnt that the twins were out on observation duty, Nora Pearce having presented them with an old pair of binoculars for which she said she had no further use.

  ‘There’s tremendous finality about that gesture,’ Pollard remarked to Toye as they went on down the lane. ‘I wonder where those two little tykes are spying from? We shall lose face if they see Bickley chasing us out of the farm on the end of a pitchfork. I’ve got a feeling that it’s going to be a difficult interview.’

  Ruby Bickley came out of the kitchen in response to Pollard’s knock, and went very white.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Bickley,’ he said. ‘Are your children at home?’

  ‘Why, watcher mean?’ she demanded, taken aback. ‘That they’re not. They’re stayin’ down with their Auntie with all this unpleasantness up here.’

  ‘In that case, we’d like a talk with you and your husband. Is he around?’

  ‘He’s out the back,’ she admitted unwillingly.

  ‘Well, perhaps you’d tell him we’re here, and ask him to come in. May we come in ourselves?’

  ‘Can’t keep you out, can we?’

  She turned on her heel and went along the passage to the back door. Pollard and Toye wiped their feet on the mat and went into the kitchen. It felt warm and cosy after the damp dreariness outside, and the table was already laid for the midday meal. After a pause they heard Reg Bickley’s heavy tread and his wife’s quick light one.

  ‘’Ere,’ he said, advancing with squared shoulders. He was in shirtsleeves, his crisp dark hair damp from the rain, and smelt powerfully of sweat and animals. ‘I’ve ’ad enough o’ this badgering from you chaps. Us don’t know nothin’ about that dead chap up there in the car, see? So that’s the end of it.’

  ‘In point of fact,’ Pollard told him, ‘we’re here to ask you about that youth you beat up on the afternoon of Saturday July 28 last year. There was a witness, you know.’

  Bickley’s jaw dropped, and he stared open-mouthed at Pollard. The silence was shrilly broken by his wife.

  ‘That dirty double-crossin’ bitch!’

  He turned on her angrily.

  ‘What the devil d’you mean?’

  Ruby Bickley burst into tears.

  ‘Mrs Pendine, ’twas. She came down one day when you were out … made it clear as daylight she’d seen it all, but wasn’t goin’ to say nothin’ so long as I made it worth ’er while.’

  ‘You bin givin’ ’er money?’ shouted Bickley.

  ‘I never, Reg. Only summat to eat, week b’week, I didn’t dare tell ’ee, I was that scared of what ’ee might do.’ She dropped on to a chair, and sobbed convulsively, her head on her arms.

  ‘I suggest we all sit down,’ said Pollard, pulling out a chair from the table. ‘Personally — and I’m speaking off the record, Mr Bickley — I should have felt like knocking the daylights out of the youth myself. But I want your account of what happened, please.’

  Bickley slumped down on a chair next to his wife, and touched her clumsily on the shoulder.

  ‘Lay off cryin’, Rube girl,’ he said, with unexpected gentleness.

  Helped by questions from Pollard he gave an account of the incident which tallied in every respect with that of Trevor Cupple. He had been riding round checking his stock, and just by the Watchers had come on a young hooligan on a scooter charging a herd of mares and foals, scattering them right and left. He’d shouted at him, but the youth had shouted back, and gone on, so he, Bickley, had galloped up, had him off the scooter, and given him a bloody good hiding. He’d left him blubbering in the bracken, and as he rode off he’d seen another youth come out from behind the rock, help the first one up, and after a bit they’d made off towards the road, taking the scooter with them.

  ‘OK,’ said Pollard, ‘that’s all quite clear. But what happened when he came back the second time?’

  Bickley stared at him blankly.

  ‘Come back? Not ’im, not after the bellyful I’d given’n.’

  ‘The youth’s name was Steve Mullins.’ Pollard’s tone was cool and almost conversational. ‘He had been lodging with a family in Bridgeford for the past four weeks. When he got home that Saturday night, considerably the worse for wear, his landlady patched him up, and advised him to take a day or two off work. On the following Monday morning, while she was out, Mullins cleared off with his belongings, and hasn’t been seen or heard of since.’

  The kitchen fell quiet, so quiet that the faint squeak of the little ship rocking to and fro in the dial of the grandfather clock was distinctly audible. A cinder tinkled into the ashpan of the Rayburn, and a spatter of rain slapped across the window.

  Suddenly Ruby Bickley gave a frightened gasp, and her husband swore luridly.

  ‘So that’s the game, is it?’ he demanded. ‘Tryin’ to make out as I killed the chap up yonder, an’ put ’im in the car? Think I’d be such a bloody fool as to dump the body on me own land?’

  ‘I’ve made no accusation whatever,’ Pollard said evenly. ‘I am merely stating facts.’

  Ruby Bickley, tears forgotten, turned on him blazing with fury.

  ‘If that wicked woman Sybil Pendine’s sayin’ my Reg’s a murderer and you believes one word she says, why, you’re stark starin’ mad. A real bad lot, she is. I’m not the only one she’s ’ad under ’er thumb, that I’m not. There was Effie Steer workin’ for ’er a day a week, an’ not a penny piece, all along of ’er findin’ out she’d took a bit o’ summat of old Miss Wainwright’s. She’d be up there now, if Miss Pearce ’adn’t tumbled to it, an’ told ’er she’d ’ave the lor on ’er. As to —’

  ‘Steady, Mrs Bickley.’ A small piece of the puzzle clicked into position in Pollard’s mind as he broke in on her angry denunciation. ‘As I said, I’m dealing with facts. Mrs Pendine hasn’t accused your husband of murder, or even hinted at it.’

  ‘She’d better not,’ growled Reg Bickley. ‘As to bein’ under ’er thumb, that don’t apply to me, whatever Ruby’s been silly enough to do. If you get a tip that pays off ’andsome, what’s wrong with passin’ a fiver for’n?’

  ‘I understand that Mrs Pendine has given you warnings of bad weather and floods, and so on, which have enabled you to protect your animals and farm buildings?’

  ‘S’right. As to ’ow she knows, t’ain’t my business. Those chaps at the weather office or whatever ’tis called don’t know everythin’.’

  ‘Fair enough, Mr Bickley, as long as any money which has passed between you and Mrs Pendine has been payment for services rendered, and not in return for keeping her mouth shut about your activities. I must tell you that there are definite points of resemblance between Steve Mullins, and the skeleton found in the car, which not unnaturally makes us wonder if we’d heard the second chapter of the story. I suggest that Mullins did come back, probably on July 30 last year. Unless he was a half-wit he wouldn’t have risked matching up to you again. But there are plenty of ways of getting one’s own back on a farmer: firing a rick, for instance. Perhaps you caught him at it, and without meaning to, hit him too hard this time, and found you’d killed him. But most unfortunately for you, Mrs Pendine was around again, either at the time, or when you were hiding the body in the car one night.’

  The china on the dresser rattled as Reg Bickley brought his fist down on the table with a resounding crash.

  ‘As God’s my judge,’ he said surprisingly, ‘it’s lies from start to finish. You chaps is paid to catch folk out any ways you can, but I’ll swear on oath I never set eyes on that Mullins again after I left’n snivellin’ down in the bracken.’ He stared at Pollard, the freeborn Briton’s awareness of his legal rights dawning in his eyes. ‘Maybe you think you’ve got circumstantial evidence agin me, but you won’t get no jury convictin’ on that.’

  ‘Why don’t you take a look next door, or up to Watchers Way?’ demanded Ruby Bickley shrilly. ‘Why don’t you try to find that Mullins? ’E must be somewhere. Rather pick on Reg, I s’pose, an’ get it chalked up you’ve caught the murderer?’

  ‘At this moment,’ Pollard told her, ‘a large number of the County Constabulary is trying to trace Mullins, and other enquiries are being carried on not only by us, but by Scotland Yard.’

  Reg Bickley still stared at him.

  ‘If that little rat ever showed up round ’ere again,’ he said, ‘I reckon ’e was brought. Feet first.’

  Deep in discussion with Toye, Pollard did not notice the Wainwright twins hanging over the gate of Moor View until they greeted him excitedly.

  ‘Does your sergeant know everything?’ Philip asked in a stage whisper.

  ‘Sure,’ Pollard replied. ‘He’s in on it all.’

  The binoculars were produced and admired. He explained that secret service agents were taken off jobs after a time, in case they were recognized.

  ‘We’ve found an awfully good place on Skiddlebag for watching the path and the cottage,’ Clare said, ‘but the man’s been out all the morning.’

  ‘Nobody’s called, either,’ said Philip. ‘I say, sir, Henry Stobart must be an — an alibi, mustn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t you mean an alias?’

  ‘Isn’t it the same thing really?’ Philip looked puzzled. ‘I mean, if you call yourself something else, isn’t it an alibi for the person who’s really you? Help! there’s Mummy calling us for lunch. Be seeing you, Super!’

  ‘Bye,’ called Clare as they ran up the path to the house.

  Pollard and Toye exchanged an amused glance as they went on up the lane. The rain had stopped, and as they reached the main road the sun came out in a rapidly clearing sky, investing the distant view with hard bright colour. In the car Pollard gave an exclamation.

  ‘See who’s there,’ he said, his eyes on the driving mirror. ‘Henry Stobart coming down the hill. Been into Wilkaton for something, I suppose.’

  ‘True enough he’s more like a blooming great insect than a human being,’ Toye commented.

  They sat watching Henry Stobart’s long loping strides helped on by a tall staff, his head thrusting forward as he walked.

  ‘Push off,’ said Pollard. ‘I don’t want to get involved with him till we’ve more to go on.’

  Toye pressed the self-starter, and the car moved slowly off the rough ground on to the road.

  NINE

  At the request of the Chief Constable a conference took place during the afternoon, at which Pollard gave an account of his progress up-to-date. As an appreciable number of Major Preece-Rilby’s men were now engaged in enquiries about Mullins, he was prepared for a chilly atmosphere, and was agreeably surprised to find a good deal more interest and readiness to co-operate than on his arrival in Bridgeford. He sensed that this was partly due to the fact that Mullins, now a strong candidate for identification with the skeleton, was non-local, almost a summer visitor, in fact, and that the whole business could be attributed to ‘foreigners’, for whom the county authorities had only incidental responsibility. He also noticed a marked tendency to cast Henry Stobart, rather than Reg Bickley, for the role of leading suspect.

  ‘This Bickley theory just doesn’t add up for me,’ said Superintendent Puckeridge. ‘I haven’t met the chap myself, but it’s clear enough from you and Crake that he’s a hefty, hot-headed sort of a bloke who might well kill someone in a scrap without meaning to. But thinking out a bluff like parking the body on his own property, where it’d be bound to turn up sooner or later, doesn’t match, somehow. Marvel is, it wasn’t found a lot sooner, the way picnickers go messing about.’

  Pollard agreed. ‘I don’t think myself that it would be in character, especially after we grilled Bickley this morning, and watched his reactions. And unless he’s a damn good actor — again, not in character — I’m inclined to think he was speaking the truth when he swore he’d never set eyes on Mullins from the afternoon he walloped him. But on the other hand, one can’t get away from the fact there are several quite striking points of resemblance between Mullins and the skeleton, and the only known link he has with Twiggadon is the dust-up with Bickley.’

  ‘Can’t build on the skeleton being Mullins, all the same,’ the CC remarked reluctantly. ‘Chap seems to have been a poor physical type, in spite of his teeth, and there are plenty of ’em around in spite of all this free milk and what-have-you. Stunted. Industrial Revolution, of course. Wonder the country had any decent breeding stock left.’

  ‘We know all about Bickley,’ Superintendent Puckeridge pursued, ignoring this incursion into social history. He paused, to get his newly-lighted pipe drawing properly. ‘Comes of a decent local family who’ve been farming in the county for the Lord knows how long. Father’s got a big farm outside Torcastle, to the north of the moor, but this Reg Bickley’s a younger son, and had to strike out on his own. Nothing’s known against any of ’em, and there’s nothing mysterious about ’em, either. This Henry Stobart’s a different kettle o’ fish altogether. I don’t say Scotland Yard hasn’t got on to his past pretty smart,’ he added magnanimously, ‘but I hold there’s something damn queer about a bloke who lives the way he does. What does he really do with himself out there? Haycraft says he goes off all day sometimes. How do we know what contacts he’s got? Needn’t be local ones. He could be picking up letters addressed to him at post offices, easy as pie. I reckon it’d pay if we followed him up, same as Mullins.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, sir,’ Pollard said to Major Preece-Rilby, ‘I was going to put in a request for this, if it can be managed.’

  ‘Of course it can. Put it in hand as soon as possible, Puckeridge. One thing, Stobart seems to be the sort of fellow you don’t forget if you’ve once seen him. I suppose, you’ll have a direct confrontation with him soon? After all, you’ve got a couple of sworn statements that he was out that night when the Pendine woman said she saw lights in the field where the cars are. She sounds a queer customer. The other woman’s quite normal, I hope?’

  ‘Perfectly, sir. She’s the sort who’d carry weight with a jury, if it came to that. I’m proposing to bring Stobart in here tomorrow for questioning about that midnight excursion of his. It’ll be a job to get him to come, but I think he’s more likely to agree to it than to letting us into his cottage. He seems to have an absolute fixation about his privacy.’

  ‘Why not get him in tonight?’

  ‘I think it’s possible some further information about his past may come by tomorrow. At the moment we’ve precious little to go on. Also, if your men do get a lead on Mullins, it could virtually clear Bickley — or the reverse.’

  The CC agreed, expatiating briefly on the value of thorough reconnaissance, and began to ask Superintendent Puckeridge about the negative reports which had already been received from villages on the main roads leading out of Bridgeford. As he followed these reports on a map, Pollard wondered how far, if at all, one could attach importance to them. Could any landlord remember a customer he had only seen once, over a year ago, with any accuracy, even if the chap had sported a black eye? Possibly a car owner who’d given a lift might. But unless it had been a local driver, tracking him or her down was going to be as big a problem as finding Mullins himself. It would be a tremendous step forward if only the skeleton could be positively identified with Mullins. At any rate one would know whose death one was investigating…

  With only half his attention on the conversation of the others, Pollard was suddenly seized with an enormous distaste for his chosen career. Memories of physical and mental squalor and horror rose up from his subconscious. Why the hell had he chosen such a foul job, when he might have worked among normal civilized people in pleasant surroundings? With proper working hours, too; and able to get home at a reasonable hour each evening. He was visited with an appalling vision of himself pursuing types like Steve Mullins down the years ahead.

 

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