A Choice of Victims (14 page)

‘Anything else?’

‘I don’t know. I’m not clued up on the parents’ possessions. You’ll have to ask them.’

‘They’re in Greece.’

‘Yes.’

‘How about the safe?’

‘It looks all right to me.’ She smiled. ‘To a laywoman, that is. But no doubt you’ll check.’

The safe was in the study, and it was clear that no attempt had been made to tamper with it. Nor were there any indications that the intruder had searched the rest of the house. Everything appeared to be in order. If doors or drawers had been opened they had been closed again, leaving the contents undisturbed. ‘Obviously he was in no hurry,’ Driver said, leading the way back to the sitting room. ‘Which suggests he knew the house was unoccupied and that he was in no danger of being disturbed.’

‘When do you suppose it happened?’ Felicity asked.

Driver shrugged. ‘Can you contact your father?’

‘Yes. But is that necessary? He’ll probably take the next flight home, and he needs this holiday.’

‘That’s up to him,’ Driver said. ‘But until we know what’s missing we won’t know what we’re looking for.’

‘I can tell you about the silver,’ she said. ‘Or some of it.’

‘It’ll make a start,’ he said.

‘Do you know Tony Bassett, sir?’ Elphick asked. Driver shook his head. ‘He’s a local tea-leaf. Been done twice for burglary. And he specializes in nicking silver.’

‘Does he, though! Interesting.’

‘Yes, sir. But he lives over at Compton Rye, and I’ve never known him work so close to home.’

‘There’s always a first time.’

‘Yes, sir. But although he doesn’t go in for wilful damage he—’

‘That fits,’ Driver said.

‘Yes, sir. Except that he’s also bloody untidy. Like if he pulls out a drawer it stays out. Know what I mean? He’s clumsy, too. Things get knocked over and he doesn’t bother to pick them up. Clearing up after a visit by Tony Bassett can be quite a job. That doesn’t fit this one, does it?’

‘No,’ Driver agreed. ‘It certainly doesn’t. But have a word with him all the same.’

*

Unlike his colleague, Detective Constable Burbidge, Elphick had interviewed Tony Bassett on previous occasions. He did not consider the man to be particularly smart—not with two previous convictions—but he had a certain cunning. He was also, in Elphick’s opinion, an incorrigible villain who would stoop to any crime that might show a profit and did not involve violence. Yet it was difficult to dislike him as a person. In his confrontations with the police he was always cheerfully polite, treating them more as friends than as enemies. It was as if crime were a game, and if occasionally the police won he accepted it philosophically and without a grudge. That was how it was with games. One did not expect to win them all.

‘You must be joking, Mr Elphick,’ Bassett said, leading the way into the neat sitting room. ‘Me pull a job in my own manor? I’m not that daft.’

‘We all go over the top occasionally,’ Elphick said. ‘And it had your trademark.’

‘Like the silver, you mean?’

‘That in particular,’ Elphick said. No sense in mentioning the disparities.

‘So someone’s using my M.O.,’ Bassett said. ‘It happens. You know that, Mr Elphick.’

‘You’ll have an alibi, of course,’ Burbidge said, with heavy sarcasm.

Bassett smiled at him. ‘What sort of an alibi was you thinking of, Mr Burridge?’ he asked politely. ‘I mean, you don’t—’

‘Burbidge.’

‘Sorry. But honest folk don’t have alibis, do they? Not for that time of night.’

‘What time of night?’ Elphick said quickly.

‘Any time of night, Mr Elphick. They’re asleep in their beds, aren’t they? And if they’re single like me they don’t have wives to swear they never left them. That makes if difficult, don’t it?’

‘You have a sister,’ Burbidge said.

Bassett managed to look shocked. ‘You don’t think we share a room, do you, Mr Burridge?’

‘Burbidge,’ the constable corrected again. ‘No, of course I don’t, man. But we’d like to hear what she has to say.’

‘Of course.’ He got up briskly and went to the door. ‘Moira! Come here, love, will you? These gentlemen want to talk to you.’

Moira Bassett was several years older than her brother, and although both were slimly built there was little facial resemblance. She had grey hair framing a pale grey face, drawn into a tight little bun at the back of her neck. Hair sprouted from a mole on her right cheek and she had the suspicion of a moustache. But when she smiled, as she did now rather warily, her lips parted to reveal perfect teeth and the grey eyes seemed to gain sparkle.

‘Good morning, Mr Elphick,’ she said, and nodded politely at Burbidge.

They stood up, murmuring greetings. ‘Someone’s done the Scott place over at West Deering,’ Bassett told her. ‘Last night. And seeing as some silver was took they think it might be me. Mr Elphick knows I’m partial to silver.’

‘Oh, yes?’ she said. The smile had gone. Now she looked puzzled.

‘I told them I didn’t go out last night, but they don’t seem to believe me.’ He gave a sigh of resignation. ‘You tell them, Moira.’

‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘Really. We watched telly until it closed down and then went to bed.’

‘After a cup of tea,’ Bassett explained. ‘We always have a cup of tea before bed.’

‘That’s no alibi, Bassett, and you know it,’ Burbidge said. ‘A patrol checked the house around midnight, so the break-in must have taken place after that. You could have done the job while your sister was asleep.’

Bassett shrugged. ‘Maybe I could of, Mr Burridge, but I didn’t.’ This time Burbidge did not bother to correct him. ‘Must be a good four miles to the Scotts’ place. You think I’d hump the stuff all that way?’

‘We didn’t suppose you went on foot,’ Elphick said. ‘You have a car, haven’t you? A clapped-out old Buick, if I remember alright.’

‘So I have, Mr Elphick. Only I didn’t have it last night, see? It’s in Plummer’s garage. I left it there yesterday morning to have the brakes relined.’

Elphick sighed. He was on a loser and he knew it. Bassett would not be fool enough to lie about the car, and he certainly would not have tackled the job without one. Add to that the dissimilarities he had pointed out to the superintendent, and the significance of the silver became almost minimal. There was also Moira Bassett’s reaction to their visit. On previous occasions she had been nervous and apprehensive, her attitude suggesting that she either knew or suspected her brother to be guilty. She was not like that this morning. Bewildered at first, uncertain why they had come, she had been relieved to discover they were investigating a crime of which she obviously believed her brother to be innocent.

As perhaps he was.

‘You want to take a look round, Mr Elphick?’ Bassett asked. ‘Just as a formality, like. We don’t mind, do we, Moira?’

‘Not so long as they’re careful,’ she said.

Elphick stood up. ‘May as well, now we’re here,’ he said. ‘Like you said, just as a formality.’

He knew that was all it would be.

*

Twice during that Saturday afternoon Hasted tried to contact the Marstons, much to Sybil’s displeasure; it’s our first day home, she said, and you’ve hardly given us a moment. When a further visit in the evening was also unsuccessful, he checked, at Sybil’s suggestion, with Monica Ebbutt, to learn that the family was spending the day with Bob Marston’s brother in Eastbourne and was unlikely to be home much before midnight. ‘Which means I’ll have to go over there again in the morning,’ he told Sybil. ‘I’m sorry, darling. I know it’s Sunday. But you know how it is.’

‘I should do,’ she said. ‘But can you leave it until after Matins? I’d like to go, and I’d like you and Jason to come with me.’

‘How about Martin?’

‘Eileen’s coming in.’ She squeezed his thigh. ‘Please, darling! You can spare an hour out of a Sunday morning, can’t you?’

Yes, he said, of course he could. ‘I also need a word with Andrew Doyle,’ he said. ‘But I can fit that in between breakfast and church.’

‘Will the burglary at the Scotts’ place involve you at all?’

‘No. Adam Elphick is handling that.’

He was surprised to find Mrs Trotter at the Manor when he called there the next morning. No, she agreed, she did not usually come in Sundays, only Mr Doyle was away for the weekend and had asked her to fix something for Andrew’s lunch. ‘Except that he won’t be here for lunch,’ she said. ‘Going to the Holdens, he says, when I took him up a cup of tea.’

‘Where is he now?’ Hasted asked. ‘I’d like a word with him.’

‘Still in bed,’ she said. ‘And that’s not like him at all, Mr Hasted. He’s not one for lying in bed of a morning, isn’t Andrew. More like early to bed and early to rise.’ She shook her head. ‘He looked proper poorly when I went up. Could be he’s sickening for something. But I’ll give him a call, shall I?’

‘Please,’ Hasted said. ‘I won’t keep him long, tell him.’

He was enjoying the sunshine in the garden when the young man, bare-footed and wearing jeans and a T-shirt, came out to join him. Mrs Trotter was right, Hasted thought, he does look poorly. There were dark shadows under his deep-set eyes, which seemed to have receded even further into his skull, and his movements lacked the spring of youth.

‘Mrs Trotter said you wanted to see me,’ Andrew said.

Hasted came straight to the point. ‘You told me you were in the Falcon the morning your stepmother was killed,’ he said. ‘Who else was there?’

‘No one I knew. I’m not a regular there, you see.’ Andrew’s smile was half-hearted. ‘Come to that, I’m not a regular in any pub. Oh, yes! Bob Marston was there. He used to be our gardener. And there was a chap called Bassett. Derek pointed him out to me, said he was the local burglar. Was that right, Mr Hasted? Is he really a burglar? He looked more like a farmer to me.’

‘I haven’t come across him,’ Hasted said, dodging the question. He knew of Bassett’s criminal activities, but only by repute. ‘Can you remember what time Marston left?’

Andrew showed interest. ‘Why? Do you think he might have—’

‘No,’ Hasted said quickly. ‘I don’t. And you haven’t answered my question.’

‘I can’t,’ Andrew said. ‘I mean, I don’t remember. If he left before me I didn’t see him go. Why don’t you ask the landlord?’

Hasted nodded. ‘I suppose you’ve heard about the break-in at the Scott’s place?’

‘Yes. I went swimming there yesterday with the Holdens. Felicity was there; she told us. She didn’t think they’d taken much, though.’

‘Good,’ Hasted said. ‘Mrs Trotter tells me your father is away.’

‘Yes. He’s spending the weekend with his new woman.’ Andrew grimaced. ‘Did he tell you he has a new woman, Mr Hasted?’

His tone was bitter. Was this the root cause of his apparent ill-health? Hasted wondered. Was it more psychological than physical? It was common knowledge that he had resented his late stepmother; had he seen her as being responsible for the gulf that seemed to exist between himself and his father? And if so, did he now see the advent of the ‘new woman’, a woman perhaps younger and more attractive than Elizabeth Doyle had been, as likely to widen that gulf?

‘Yes,’ Hasted said gently, feeling compassion. ‘He told me.’

Chapter Seven

Hasted suspected that Marston was suffering from a hangover. The man was unshaven and looked unwashed, and his breath smelt of stale beer. His manner was morosely belligerent, and under the dark stubble his red face glistened with perspiration. Apprehension at his visit? Hasted wondered. The morning was warm, hut not uncomfortably so.

‘Just what are you getting at, mister?’ Marston demanded. ‘What’s it to do with you where I was Friday dinner time?’

‘Not last Friday,’ Hasted said. ‘The Friday before. The day Mrs Doyle was killed.’

‘Oh, her! Good riddance, I’d say.’ Marston’s bloodshot eyes narrowed. ‘Here! Are you thinking I might have done it? Is that it?’

‘It’s probable that the killer was a local man,’ Hasted said, avoiding a direct answer. ‘Which means we have to investigate anyone who might profit by her death, or anyone who might conceivably harbour a grudge against her. And that includes you. You worked at the Manor until she gave you the sack last November. That’s so, isn’t it?’

‘You know bloody well it is.’

‘You’ve also been heard to utter threats against her. On more than one occasion.’

‘So what? The hitch didn’t only give me the hoot, she made bloody sure I didn’t get another job around here.’ Marston swore, ‘I hated her guts.’

‘Enough to kill her?’ Hasted asked quietly.

‘Oh, no!’ Kate Marston said. She had returned from visiting her daughter shortly after Hasted had arrived. Now she sat with the baby in her arms, soothing it to keep it from crying. ‘He says things like that, sir, specially when he’s had a few, but he don’t mean it. He’s never ever hurt anyone. Not seriously, I mean. He couldn’t have killed her, honest he couldn’t.’

‘Course I couldn’t,’ Marston snapped. ‘Nor I didn’t, neither.’

‘Good!’ Hasted said. ‘In that case you’ll have no objection to telling me what you were doing that morning. Between twelve-thirty and two o’clock, say.’

‘How would I know? One day’s much the same as another. Specially when you’re on the dole,’ Marston shrugged. ‘Probably down at the boozer.’

Hasted looked at the woman, who nodded. ‘He goes there most dinner times,’ she said.

‘You were there the whole hour and a half?’

‘Of course,’ Marston said. ‘Nowhere else to go, is there?’

‘Then what would you say if I told you that someone answering your description was seen in the woods at around one o’clock? And that he was heading in the direction of Philipson’s cottage?’

‘I’d say it weren’t me,’ Marston growled.

‘Any idea who it might have been?’

‘How should I know? Tony, perhaps. He goes there a lot.’

‘Tony Bassett?’

‘Yes.’

‘What would he be doing there? Don’t tell me he was out for a stroll. Not in that weather.’

Marston shrugged. ‘Rabbiting, perhaps.’

‘Poaching, you mean?’ There was no answer, and Hasted did not press for one. ‘All right, let’s get back to you. At what time did you leave here that morning?’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘I do,’ Kate said. The baby had started to whimper and she cradled it more comfortably. ‘You went out about half-past eleven, Bob, to take the list back to Monica. Remember?’ For Hasted’s benefit she added, ‘Monica’s our daughter. She lives t’other end of the village.’

‘List?’ Hasted queried.

‘Yes. She does this Meals on Wheels thing, you see, and she’d left the list in a book she’d lent me. So Bob said he’d take it back. She wasn’t doing it that day—it was Cheryl Mason what was on the list—but we thought Monica might be wanting it.’

‘It was Mrs Doyle who did Meals on Wheels that Friday,’ Hasted said, welcoming the opening. ‘Not Mrs Mason.’

‘Yes, that’s right. It was, wasn’t it?’ Kate’s tired eyes brightened as she realized the implication. ‘They must have swapped. But we didn’t know that, you see. We both thought it was Cheryl Mason. Didn’t we, Bob?’

‘Yes,’ he said. It was the answer she obviously wanted, although the way his head was banging the reason was not immediately apparent. But Kate was the bright one, he could trust her judgment.

‘You see?’ Kate said triumphantly ‘It couldn’t have been Bob. I mean, if you was thinking he might have gone out looking for Mrs Doyle—well, he wouldn’t, would he? Not with it being Cheryl Mason’s name on the list.’

Hasted nodded. Unaware of the police thinking, they did not appreciate that their eagerness to avoid suspicion in one direction might lead to suspicion in another. That suited him. They would see no reason to lie.

‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Still, just for the record, what time did you leave the pub, Mr Marston?’

Marston shrugged. ‘I wasn’t watching the clock, was I?’

‘I can tell you what time he come home,’ Kate said. ‘Just after half-past one, it was.’ Relieved of anxiety, she smiled at Hasted. ‘Nine times out of ten his dinner’s ruined by the time he sits down. Sometimes I wonder why I bother.’

‘My wife says the same,’ Hasted said. ‘I’ve no doubt a lot of wives do.’

Monica Ebbutt, a prettier edition of her mother, was not sure whether it was on the Thursday or the Friday that her father had returned the list. However, whichever day it was he had called some time before midday, she told Hasted, and had left after about ten minutes—for the pub, she supposed. But George Grover, the landlord of the Falcon, claimed to remember that Friday well, and not only because of the murder. ‘Young Andrew Doyle was in that morning,’ Grover said. ‘and I could see he was all set to get plastered. Well, that was no skin off my nose. But Bob Marston was in too—he comes in most mornings—and that had me worried.’

‘Why?’ Hasted asked.

‘Well, Bob was in an ugly mood—something must have upset him earlier—and when he saw young Doyle he started making threatening noises about the family. Luckily the two of them were at opposite ends of the bar, so there wasn’t any close contact. All the same I was bloody glad to see the lad leave.’ Grover grimaced. ‘And then blow me if a few minutes later Marston didn’t up and leave too! That didn’t look so good.’

‘You thought he was going after him?’

‘Yes. Mind you, Bob’s not what I’d call a naturally violent man, but he can be pretty nasty when he’s had a few. And he’d had a few that morning. Still, I was wrong, wasn’t I? Nothing happened, thank the Lord!’

‘What time did Andrew Doyle leave?’ Hasted asked.

‘Ten to one. On the dot.’

‘And Marston?’

‘I told you. Three—four minutes later.’

So where, Hasted wondered, had Marston gone—what had he been up to—during the half-hour between leaving the Falcon and arriving home?

*

‘I’ll have to be going,’ Cheryl Mason said. ‘It’s getting late. I hate walking through the woods after dark.’

‘Half-past six ain’t late,’ Philipson said. ‘Plenty of daylight left.’

They lay together on the bed in the front room, with the curtains drawn against possible peeping Toms. Except for Philipson’s pants, both were nude, a towel covering Cheryl’s rounded thighs. It was a hot, sticky evening, and little beads of perspiration glistened on the woman’s skin. Flies circled the room. She waved them away when they buzzed her face, slapping at them when they landed on her body.

‘It’s gloomy in the woods any time,’ she said. ‘Why do you stay here, Philly?’ She never used his Christian name; it was too cold, too severe for their relationship, she told him. ‘I’d hate it.’

‘I told you. It suits me. I don’t fancy lots of folks around.’

‘Well, I do. I’d live in London if I could.’ She raised herself on an arm and turned to face him. His chest was hairless, his skin a dull white. There was no sign of perspiration on his lean body. ‘How’ll we manage in the winter? You won’t catch me coming here then. Not of an evening, anyway.’

He lifted the towel to stroke her thigh. ‘Come in the afternoon, then,’ he said. ‘Or mornings if you’d rather. It’s all the same to me. Just so long as you come.’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘We’ll see.’

‘Oh no, we won’t!’ His hand stopped and gripped, and she exclaimed in protest. ‘I need you, lass, you know that. You mean a lot to me, you do. More’n you think, I reckon. So don’t you start talking about maybe.’

She felt a thrill of satisfaction at the intensity in his voice. This was the first time she had even hinted that their association might have to cease, and she would not have done so now had it not been for the note. She had feared it might he too soon. Now she knew it was not.

‘You’re sweet,’ she said. She brushed the strands of white hair from his forehead and kissed him lightly. ‘But the party’s over for tonight. Time I got dressed.’

He watched her slip the frock over her head, an anxious look on his craggy face. ‘Something wrong, is it?’ he said. ‘You going early like this?’

She examined herself in the mirror, straightening the frock, fluffing up her hair. She took a lipstick from her handbag and leaned closer to apply it. ‘Now don’t you start worrying yourself,’ she said. ‘It’s bad for your ticker.’

‘To hell with my ticker!’ he said. ‘Tell me.’

She perched herself on the bed and took his hand. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘If you must know, Philly, I’m—well, I’m scared.’

‘Scared? Scared of what?’

‘There’s talk,’ she said. ‘Oh, I know that’s not new but—well, it’s getting really bad.’

‘And that scares you? Why? I thought you didn’t care about gossip.’

‘I don’t. Not much, anyway. Not enough to stop me seeing you. But now...’ Her grip on his hand tightened. ‘It’s Ed, Philly. He says people are calling me a whore. He says if I don’t stop coming here he’ll throw me out.’

‘Ah!’ His hand returned the pressure. ‘All right, then—let him.’

‘But where would I go? I’ve no money of my own.’

‘You could come here. Live with me.’ He grinned at her. ‘Make it permanent, eh? That’d suit me fine.’

She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t, Philly. I’m fond of you, you know that, but—no! No, I couldn’t!’

He considered this. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Find yourself another place—one of them council flats, perhaps—and walk out on him. Don’t wait for him to give you the push; just walk out. And don’t worry about the cost. I’ll see you’re all right.’

‘You’re a darling,’ she said, and bent to kiss him. ‘A real darling.’

He put his arms round her and drew her down. ‘I love you, lass,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to keep you. So you do like I said; leave the stupid bastard. Maybe, when he realizes you ain’t going back, he’ll divorce you. We could get married then.’

Involuntarily she stiffened. Oh no, she thought, not that. That would be out of the frying pan and into the fire. True, he was old and sick, he could go any time. On the other hand he might last for years, and although she was fond of him in a way she could not take that. It was one thing to visit him once or twice a week, to give him companionship, a pretence of love, a little feeble fumbling at sex. She could not say she actually enjoyed it; it was a means to an end, but it was no great hardship. But to be with him permanently for twenty-four hours a day—tending him as he grew more and more infirm—incontinent, perhaps—she could not take that. That was not what she wanted, what she had had in mind ever since that day way back in early May when she had first visited the cottage with his midday meal and had seen the way he looked at her.

She repressed a shudder, not wanting him to recognize her revulsion. ‘Not a hope, Philly,’ she said. ‘Ed would never divorce me, no matter what. It’s against what he calls his principles.’ Gently she released herself from his embrace. ‘Then where would I be?’

‘How d’you mean?’

‘Well, if I did as you suggested—left him and got a place on my own—and then, after some years you—well, I don’t want to be morbid, Philly, but it happens to all of us eventually, and—’

‘What becomes of you when I die, eh?’ he said. ‘That what you mean?’ She nodded. ‘Don’t worry about that, lass. I said I’d look after you and I will.’

‘But how could you?’ she said, wilfully misunderstanding. ‘If you weren’t here, how could you?’

‘In my will,’ he said. ‘That’s how.’

‘You mean you’d leave me some money?’

‘Not some,’ he said. ‘All of it. Every damned cent. I’ll ring my solicitor in the morning, tell him to fix it.’

She had hoped for something, perhaps even as much as half, but never in her most optimistic dreams had she imagined the lot. She wanted to shout for joy, to leap off the bed and dance. Instead she showered his face with kisses, her hand fondling his body.

‘You’re too good to me, Philly darling,’ she said between kisses. ‘Much too good. But are you sure you won’t regret it?’

‘Why should I?’ he said. ‘Can’t take it with me, can I?’

‘How about your niece?’

‘Her? I crossed her off years ago. Left it all to charity. I wasn’t having that drunken husband of hers pour my money down his filthy throat.’

‘Do they know that?’

‘No. They’re just waiting hopefully for me to snuff it.’ He chuckled throatily. ‘There’re in for a hell of a shock when I do, eh?’