A Choice of Victims (5 page)

‘Oh, no! It’s Mr Hasted. He’s arranged for my father to ring me at your place, and he wants to be there when he does.’

‘Is that all?’ Patricia laughed. ‘Of course. Come on, let’s go. I want a swim before lunch.’

‘All right if I bring Blondie?’

‘Of course.’

It was a hot sunny morning with the rain of the previous day forgotten. The distance from the Manor to Holland Farm was short, and Andrew would have walked it had not Patricia called for him in her mother’s car. In general the Scotts were an athletic family—they all rode, swam, played golf and tennis—but they got no pleasure from exercise taken solely for the sake of exercise, into which category walking seemed to fall. If transport was available, they used it.

Patricia, at 17 the younger of the two daughters, had only recently passed her driving test, and although she handled the car competently she was not completely relaxed behind the wheel. As she drove through the village she felt compelled to concentrate her gaze on the road ahead instead of on the young man beside her, as her emotions prompted. She adored Andrew; she thought him the most handsome, the most exciting young man in her life. It was disappointing that he did not respond to her barely concealed advances. But she was optimistic that time and perseverance would change that.

Holland Farm lay north of the village, the farmhouse reached by a narrow drive that ran gently uphill between fields in which cattle now grazed; the farm itself, apart from the stabling and the area immediately surrounding the house, was leased to Jacob Wilshire, whose farm adjoined it. The house was a long, two-storeyed building of local stone over which clematis and wisteria and climbing roses luxuriated. To the left of the house were smooth lawns and well-stocked flower beds, to the right was a hard tennis court surrounded by a high wire-mesh fence, with the stabling beyond. Despite the long hot spell of dry weather, broken only by the downpour of the previous day, no arid patches disfigured the even green of the grass and no flowers wilted. But then Harvey Scott was a merchant banker and a very rich man, well able to afford the skilled labour necessary to keep the grounds in perfect trim.

They got out of the car and walked round the house to the wide covered patio at the back, where Harvey Scott sat reading the
Financial
Times
, a gin and tonic on a low glass-topped table beside him. He flapped a hand at them and called a greeting to Andrew, but did not get up. A little man—both his daughters were taller—he had a deep, booming voice.

‘Any news, Andrew?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

‘Extraordinary! Well, get the lad a drink, Patricia. What’ll it be, Andrew? Gin?’

‘I’d rather have a beer, sir,’ Andrew said.

She brought him a beer, cold from the fridge, and he sat with the dog at his feet listening to her chatter but taking little of it in. Nor did he notice the view, admirable though it was: a wide lawn sloping down to woodland, and in the far distance the greys and greens and purples of the Downs. Colourful flower beds rimmed the lawn in the centre of which was a large swimming-pool surrounded by a mosaic of pastel-coloured paving, the blue water sparkling in the bright sunlight. But Andrew’s thoughts were elsewhere. He was wondering how the future would have looked had he had Harvey Scott for a father. Elizabeth might be rich, but Harvey Scott was considerably richer. He was also reputed to be generous—to his family, to the village, to charity. Harvey Scott would not have stamped so brutally on his son’s dreams.

‘Well?’ Patricia said.

‘Eh?’ Andrew looked at her. ‘Well what?’

‘How about that swim?’

‘Oh, yes.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Dad won’t be ringing just yet.’

When the girl went indoors to change he explained to Scott about Hasted and then walked down to the summer house with Blondie and chose a pair of swimming trunks from the available selection. He was already in the water when Patricia came skipping down the lawn to join him. She was a pretty girl, but she lacked the grace of her elder sister. Stocky and plump, with thick ankles and wrists, she moved clumsily, as if her limbs were not properly coordinated.

They were stretched out on the lawn, drying in the sun, when Hasted arrived. Scott put down his paper and fetched him a gin and tonic, and then collected a telephone on a long lead and placed it on the table between them. Five minutes later the telephone rang.

‘It’s your father, Andrew,’ Scott said.

Andrew came running. He looked questioningly at Hasted, who nodded. ‘Have a word with him first,’ Hasted said.

‘What’s all this about, Andrew?’ Doyle demanded. ‘What’s going on?’

Andrew told him. Then Hasted took over, explaining that although the police had circulated descriptions of the car and the missing woman there had been no reported sightings of either. ‘We’re now circulating photographs of your wife, sir,’ he said. ‘There’s no evidence that she has come to any harm. But she’s been gone for twenty-four hours and we’re worried.’

‘So am I,’ Doyle said. He sounded more aggrieved than concerned. ‘It’s completely out of character.’

‘She’s never done anything like this before?’

‘Good God, no!’

‘And you’ve no idea where she might be heading? Or why?’

‘None whatever. I’m as mystified as you are.’

‘A pity,’ Hasted said. ‘We were hoping you might be able to give us a lead. I assume you’ll be returning home?’

‘Of course. I’ll leave after lunch.’

If Sybil were missing, Hasted thought, I would not worry about lunch, I would leave now. ‘Your father will be on his way shortly,’ he told Andrew. ‘Let me know when he arrives. If I’m not at home you can get me at this number.’ He wrote the number on a leaf from his notebook. ‘Thanks for the drink, Mr Scott.’

‘My pleasure,’ Scott said.

Hasted drove back to the village and pulled up at the garage pumps for petrol. Over on the cricket field Rory Bates was now marking the wicket. Two other men were busy with a roller. Hasted watched them, envious of their freedom to plan their weekends with certainty. He was a fair cricketer and played occasionally for the Sunday eleven, but too often he had to cry off at the last minute.

‘How’s Sybil?’ Derek Mollison asked, as he removed the hose from the car’s tank and slotted it back into the pump. ‘Getting nervous, is she?’

‘I don’t know about Sybil,’ Hasted said. ‘I know I am.’

He handed Derek a tenner and followed him into the office. Looking through the door into the garage proper his gaze was arrested by the sight of a red Fiat estate. It was not a car popular in the area, and he took out his notebook and checked the number.

‘Good God!’ he exclaimed.

‘What’s up?’ Derek asked.

‘That red Fiat. It’s Mrs Doyle’s car, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. What of it?’

‘What of it? Dammit, man! We’ve got every copper in the area looking for that car, and here it is, tucked away in your bloody garage!’ Hasted took a deep breath. ‘How long has it been here?’

‘She brought it in Wednesday. The speedo cable is broken; I had to order a new one.’ Light dawned. ‘Oh, I see. You thought she was driving it yesterday when she disappeared. Is that it?’

‘Of course that’s it. Nobody told us she wasn’t.’

‘Well, she wasn’t,’ Derek said. ‘I lent her an old banger. A Morris 1100.’

Chapter Three

‘Oh, no!’ Driver exclaimed. ‘I don’t believe it! Going like the clappers,’ the man said. ‘Does that sound like your Mrs Doyle?’

Hasted agreed that it did not. ‘But the man also said the car was grey, didn’t he? Well, so was the Morris Mollison lent her. What time was your shunt?’

‘It wasn’t my shunt, damn you, George! It was the other bastard’s.’ Jacketless because of the heat, Driver scratched his chest under the white cotton shirt. ‘What time? Around one-thirty, I suppose, give or take a few minutes.’

‘Well, according to Philipson, Mrs Doyle left his cottage shortly after one o’clock,’ Hasted said. ‘Allow ten minutes to get back on the road—another ten to drive the six miles to the chief’s house—and there you are. It fits.’

‘Maybe. But it proves nothing. How does she handle a car? Do you know?’

‘Not from personal experience. Andrew says she’s competent, but a mite too cautious for his taste.’

‘There you are, then! It wasn’t her Morris. Or, if it was, she wasn’t driving.’ Driver moved to the open window, breathed in the warm air. ‘Christ, it’s hot! Must be murder for your Sybil, carrying all that extra weight. Bearing up, is she?’

Hasted nodded. He had managed lunch with Sybil but it had been a hurried meal, and Mollison’s news about the Morris seemed to have put paid to his afternoon at home. Sybil had been disappointed but had not complained. She appreciated that his job had to come first.

‘She’d prefer to start bearing down,’ he said.

Driver laughed. He was a tall man, broad-shouldered and with a stomach that hinted at too little exercise and a penchant for good living. His dark hair, lightly streaked with grey, was expertly cut, his nails well-manicured. Although it was only two-thirty in the afternoon his chin and cheeks already showed an incipient stubble that formed a dark fringe to his deeply tanned face. His eyes were grey, with long lashes. Women found him attractive, as much in his temperament as in his looks. With his cavalier attitude to life in general he could find amusement in most situations—including, on occasions, his job.

‘This Mrs Doyle, George,’ he said. ‘No possible lead from her old man?’

‘No. Maybe I’m being unkind, but I got the impression he was more upset at having his weekend interrupted than by his wife’s disappearance.’ Hasted frowned. ‘You thought it odd, didn’t you, that Mrs Fisher didn’t know Doyle would be returning for lunch?’

‘Yes. Didn’t you?’

‘Yes. I also think it odd that Doyle should have been out when both the Fishers were in. If you’re spending a couple of days with friends you don’t usually go off on your own. Or do you?’

‘Not usually, no.’

‘No. So could there be a Miss Fisher, I wonder?’

‘You have a nasty, suspicious mind, George,’ Driver said.

*

The Morris was located three hours later, in the car park of a pub down on the coast. ‘The hot-boxes are still on the back seat,’ Driver’s police informant told him over the telephone. ‘And the car’s unlocked. Keys in the ignition.’

‘But no sign of the woman, eh?’

‘No, sir. But she left her handbag in the car.’

Why would she do that? Driver wondered. Particularly when the car wasn’t locked. ‘Anyone at the pub see her arrive?’ he asked. ‘Or leave?’

‘They say not. It’s a large car park—L-shaped—and the Morris is parked round the corner. They wouldn’t see it from the pub.’

‘All right,’ Driver said. ‘Hang on. I’m coming down.’

He had sent Hasted home. Now he rang and gave him the news. ‘Pick you up in half an hour,’ he said. ‘Tell Sybil I’m sorry; I know it’s an anxious time for her. But this can’t wait. Let’s hope the infant will.’

Sybil smiled when Hasted told her. ‘You men!’ she said, patting her stomach. ‘Stop worrying, darling. It’s a baby in here, not a malignant tumour. If you’re not around when the pains start Mrs Holden will run me to the hospital. It’s all organized. So why don’t you just get on with your job and leave me to get on with mine?’

‘Do we advise Doyle?’ Hasted asked, as he joined Driver in the police car.

‘I think not,’ Driver said. ‘Not yet, anyway. Not until we’re more in the picture. All we have is the car. It’s what has happened to his wife that should concern Doyle.’

‘It should, yes,’ Hasted agreed, emphasising ‘should’.

‘There you go again,’ Driver chided.

The pub overlooked the sea, with a road separating it from the dunes and the beach. It was a large, ugly red-brick building with a suitably large car park. A uniformed sergeant and constable waited near the Morris, their attention fixed on the holiday-makers on the beach. Hasted shared their envious interest. But not Driver. For Driver, days off from the job were spent on his boat. As he left the police car he gave the beach and the sea and the holiday-makers a brief glance, and then ignored them.

‘Any further developments?’ he asked the sergeant.

‘No, sir.’

The near-side front wing of the Morris was buckled, the bumper bent. He picked up the woman’s handbag, which lay open on the front seat, and examined the contents. In addition to the usual female paraphernalia there were a chequebook and two credit cards, all bearing Elizabeth’s name or signature. But there was no money and no purse. He found that disconcerting. Why had the woman taken those items with her, wherever she had gone, and left the rest? Why not take the lot in the handbag? His bewilderment increased with the discovery that although there were traces of food in all the containers, all were now empty.

‘She must have got hungry,’ Hasted said. ‘After all, she’d missed her lunch.’

Driver ignored that. ‘Have you looked in the boot?’ he asked the sergeant.

‘No, sir. It’s locked, and none of the keys fit.’

Driver checked. It was true, none of them did. ‘Perhaps that’s why she put the hot-boxes on the back seat,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t open the boot.’

‘I doubt if they’d go in the boot,’ Hasted said. ‘Too big.’

‘Maybe.’ To Driver the boot now loomed important. ‘Ring the garage, George. Find out why there’s no key. All right?’

‘It’s Saturday,’ Hasted said. ‘The garage will be closed.’

‘Then ring the man’s home.’

‘He’ll probably be out. Playing cricket, most likely. It’s only six-thirty, and they don’t draw stumps till seven.’

‘Well, ring anyway.’

Derek Mollison was 32 and lived with his wife Alice on the top floor of his father-in-law’s house, which had been converted into two self-contained flats. It was Alice who answered Hasted’s call. Derek was out, she said. No, not playing cricket; he had gone back to the garage after tea to work on his car. Hasted rang the garage. He had quite a wait before Mollison answered.

‘We’re closed,’ Mollison said curtly. And rang off.

Hasted tried again. Immediately the ringing tone ceased he said, ‘It’s me, Derek. George Hasted. And it’s official, so don’t ring off.’

‘Oh!’ Mollison said. ‘Sorry. What’s up? Found the Morris, have you?’

‘Yes. But—’

‘Good. Is Mrs Doyle OK?’

Hasted explained the situation. Mollison was puzzled. ‘Can’t open the boot? Well, there’s nothing wrong with the lock. I fitted a new one only a few weeks ago. Someone must have tampered with it. Or perhaps you tried the wrong key.’

‘We tried all three.’

‘Four.’ Mollison said.

‘Three,’ Hasted repeated. ‘That’s all there are.’

‘There should be four.’

‘Well, there aren’t. And presumably it’s the key to the boot that’s missing. Do you have a spare?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. Can you drop whatever you’re doing and bring it down? The boss wants it and he wants it quick.’

‘Sorry, George,’ Mollison said. ‘No can do. No wheels. You’ll have to get one of your lot to collect it. Or why not ask Doyle? He’s nearer. And it’s his wife that’s missing.’

‘Well, anyway, have the key ready.’

Driver had been contemplating forcing the lock and was impatient at the prospect of further delay. But Hasted persuaded him. Doyle would know if his wife had a friend in the vicinity who she might be visiting. ‘He should make it in twenty minutes if he gets a move on,’ Hasted said. ‘We can wait that long, can’t we?’

‘I suppose so,’ Driver agreed. ‘If he’s back from Winchester, that is.’

‘He’ll be back,’ Hasted said. ‘He’s had more than enough time.’

Hitherto Hasted had had very little contact with David Doyle, and his concept of the man had been formed largely by hearsay. Hearsay had not been kind. Selfish and mean-tempered and uncooperative, hearsay had said, and not in the least interested in village affairs. So Doyle’s ready cooperation now came as a pleasant surprise. ‘I’m on my way,’ Doyle said. ‘The questions can wait.’

Andrew came with him. A uniformed policeman made way for them through the little crowd of spectators and indicated where they should park. Doyle gave Hasted the key, exchanged a few words and went to stare at the Morris. Hands in the pockets of his jeans, Andrew watched the holiday-makers trudging back over the dunes, laden with towels and hampers and rugs and other impedimenta, and then joined his father. They were peering into the interior of the car when the lid of the boot came up, followed by gasps of horror and a muttered oath from Hasted, and they hurried to discover the cause of this intense reaction. Wrapped in her plastic mackintosh, Elizabeth Doyle lay on her side, her body curled in a tight ball, her eyes staring at them sightlessly, her pale lips parted as if they had looked that way as she breathed her last.

*

David and Andrew sat together in the landlord’s private sitting room. The pub was open to custom, and the hubbub of many voices came faintly up to them from the several bars below. Down in the car park, out of sight of the sitting room, the police were busy, as they had been for the past half-hour. It had been at Driver’s suggestion, readily agreed to by the landlord, that the two men were waiting upstairs. ‘There may be questions that need to be answered,’ Driver had told David, ‘and the sooner they’re answered the better. So I’d appreciate it if you’d hang on here a while.’ They had refused the landlord’s offer of sandwiches—neither had felt like food after what they had seen—but had accepted a glass of brandy each, although Andrew had taken only a few sips at his. He did not like brandy.

David had arrived home later than expected, and after a bath and a stiff whisky he had had time for only a few words with Andrew before Hasted had rung. They had spoken little on the journey down, for communication was never easy between them and David had pushed the Volvo as fast as the road and the traffic permitted. Now, shaken by the sight of Elizabeth’s contorted body, they found it no easier to express their emotions. How do you suppose it happened? Andrew had asked. David had no ready answer. Elizabeth would never have stopped for a hitchhiker, he said, so the killer must have caught her while the Morris was stationary. But if robbery had been the motive, why kill her? Elizabeth would not have been foolish enough to resist a demand for money; the mere threat of force would have persuaded her to hand it over. And there had been no sign of dirt on her clothing to suggest she might have been thrown to the muddy ground and raped.

‘Perhaps he didn’t mean to kill her,’ Andrew said after a long silence. ‘Perhaps she started to scream and he wanted to silence her.’

‘Perhaps,’ his father agreed.

Andrew got up to stare out of the window. The Morris was obscured from his view by a wing of the building. The sun was down, the beach practically deserted.

‘There wasn’t much blood,’ he said.

‘No,’ David said. ‘There wasn’t much blood.’

*

Cramped in the confines of the boot, with rigor mortis to stiffen it, the body had been difficult to move, but it was out now and the ambulance had taken it away. The pathologist and the police photographers had gone; the crowd rimming the roped-off area of the car park had thinned. There had been no television or radio crews, and of the three newspaper reporters only one remained. Soon the Morris would be gone too, towed away to divisional headquarters for further examination. Then the ropes and the cones would be removed and the car park returned to normal.

The pub was crowded. Driver and Hasted sought out the landlord and were taken into a back room to talk. The murder was the main topic of conversation in the bars, the landlord said, and two of his regular customers reported having seen the Morris there on leaving the pub the previous day. His son had also noticed it on his return at four-thirty from visiting his fiancée. ‘So it’s certainly been there since around two o’clock yesterday,’ he said. ‘If not before.’

‘And nobody got curious, wondering what those hot-boxes were doing on the back seat?’ Driver asked.

The landlord shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose anyone saw them. I mean, who’d bother to look inside the car? You don’t, do you? Not in a pub car park. Either you’re in too big a hurry for a gargle or you’ve got to get home before the missus says the meal is ruined.’ He looked from Driver to Hasted. ‘Can I get either of you two gentlemen a drink?’

Both reluctantly declined. ‘Didn’t your son wonder what the Morris was doing in the car park at four-thirty, when the pub was closed?’ Driver asked.