Jam and Jeopardy (25 page)

‘Did you get drunk?’ That might excuse his behaviour.

‘I don’t think so. A bit happy, maybe, but I was scared out of my wits when she sat down beside me on the settee, so I moved away a bit. She laughed at that and I just stood up went
home.’

‘But you must have kept on going back?’ she persisted.

He looked even more uncomfortable. ‘Oh, you don’t want to hear any more, Phyllis. I was just plain daft.’

Realising at last that it would probably be too painful to hear all the sordid details of his affair, Phyllis changed the subject. ‘I wonder if the detectives have got any further with
their investigiation? The sergeant came into the shop, you know, asking what Miss Wheeler knew about Janet Souter.’

‘They suspected me of doing her in.’ He could laugh about it now, but he’d had the wind up at all the questioning. Innocent men had been arrested before.

‘You did threaten her on the street,’ she reminded him. ‘And a lot of people heard you.’

Phyllis wasn’t actually one hundred per cent sure if she really believed he was innocent. That’s what gave a touch of mystery and fascination to their dates now. ‘Yes, I was
the murderer’s girlfriend,’ she could say to the reporters after he was found guilty. She pulled herself up with a jerk when she realised what she was thinking – Douglas could
never have done it.

‘I know I said I’d sort her out,’ he was saying, ‘but I never really meant to do anything, especially not murder. But I’d a good alibi, so it’s all over now,
and that’s enough about it. Did you see that new pop programme last night?’

The current favourite groups, their albums and singles, held their attention for the next hour, until Phyllis said, ‘I told Mum I’d be home early tonight. I want to wash my hair, and
I promised I’d give her a hand with the ironing – my own things, anyway. Don’t bother coming home with me.’

Her house was just three doors along, but she was rather disappointed that Douglas didn’t insist on accompanying her. She’d only herself to blame.

He couldn’t help thinking about his visits to May, Phyllis had brought it fresh to his mind, and he remembered their first kiss. He’d kissed girls before, including Phyllis, but
never anything like that, and he’d been completely lost.

Recalling their nights of passion, he felt an unwanted need of her surging up in him, and he rose to buy another lager to cool down. His train of thought refused to be broken, however, and he
remembered how pleased he’d been, with her and himself, when they’d finished their lovemaking that last night, until she rolled over and laughed at him.

‘You can’t make love like a man, Dougie boy,’ she’d taunted him. ‘My men can be animals, and that’s the way I like it.’

‘Your men?’ He’d been horrified at what she was inferring.

‘Most of the men round here have been in this bed at one time or other. You name them, I’ve had them.’

He’d named two men he imagined to be unlikely and she’d laughed again. ‘Yes, they’ve both been here. Ask them if you don’t believe me, though I bet they’re
too scared of their wives to admit it. They weren’t too bad, but there’s one . . . Oh, boy! As a lover, he’s absolutely marvellous.’

‘Your husband, I suppose?’ Jealousy of that lucky man often came to his mind.

‘God, no. Not Gilbert. Lean over and I’ll whisper his name in your ear.’

Masochism, and sheer curiosity, had made him obey, and he’d been shocked when she told him, although he hadn’t fully believed her. He’d been sickened by her boasting, and had
left as soon as he pulled on his clothes. He’d felt sapped, knowing that she’d been laughing at him all along.

That had been the night before old Nosey Parker Souter told his father about him, and he’d been secretly relieved to have the excuse not to go back to May’s house.

He took a gulp of his lager and something else stirred in his mind. Something he’d thought nothing of at the time, but now it came back vividly and meaningfully. He’d seen the very
man May had raved about coming out of Janet Souter’s garden after midnight one night, stealthily and furtively – or was he just imagining that bit?

It was the night that he’d gone down to spy on May, to settle the seething unrest inside him, to know for sure that she had other men friends. He’d hung around the foot of the Lane
for almost an hour, lurking in the shadows of the railway wall, but had seen nobody coming in or going out, and had given up his vigil about five past midnight, frozen to the marrow.

She was a liar as well as a tart, he’d thought angrily as he walked up the hill, and had laughed at himself for believing what she’d told him. She’d been wanting rid of him
– that’s what it had been. That was when he had made up his mind to go back to Phyllis Barclay again, if she’d have him.

He’d treated her badly, and he wouldn’t blame her if she refused to have anything more to do with him, but he’d ask her. She was a decent girl, and he respected her for
stopping him when she thought he was going too far. It wouldn’t stop him from trying, though, if he got the chance. He smiled to himself.

When he was halfway between the bottom group of houses and Honeysuckle Cottages, he’d seen the man coming out of the middle gate, wearing the long coat he always wore in the winter. It was
difficult to see his face at first, but when he turned into the High Street his profile had been unmistakable in the light from the street lamps.

That had been on the night he was playing snooker, Douglas remembered then; the night the inspector was interested in; the night that Janet Souter had been murdered.

The youth’s blood ran cold. He’d better find McGillivray right away and let him know.

He jumped up quickly and went through the bar into the hotel itself and after enquiring at the desk for the inspector’s room number, he took the stairs two at a time and knocked on the
door. When he received no answer to his second knock, he raced down and out on to the street.

Thinking that Sergeant Black would know where to find the CID men, he ran along to the police station, where the local sergeant looked up in surprise when he burst in breathlessly.

‘What’s up, Douglas?’

‘Where’s the Chief Inspector?’

‘He’ll be at the Starline.’

‘I’ve just come from there. I’ve got to find him, it’s very important.’

John Black could see that the boy was in a state of extreme agitation. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘No, it’s to do with the murder, and it’s McGillivray I’ll have to tell.’

Slightly offended, Black said, ‘I’ve no idea where he is, if he isn’t at the hotel. They’re maybe not in the village at all. They often go to Thornkirk to interview
suspects, though he usually tells me before he goes.’

Douglas shook his head. ‘Their Vauxhall’s sitting in the Starline carpark. I noticed it when I came past.’

‘They must be around here somewhere, then, but I can’t tell you where, because I don’t know. I think you’d better tell me whatever it is that’s got you so steamed
up.’

It came pouring out. ‘It was the night of the murder, you see, and I’d gone down to watch May White’s house.’

He saw the sergeant giving him a peculiar look and tried to explain. ‘I’d been a bloody idiot and I was glad to be finished with her, but I wanted to prove to myself that she’d
been telling the truth about all the lovers she’d had. So I went and hid beside the railway wall and waited for nearly an hour, but nobody came near her. She’d told me, as well, about
this special man, this best lover, and when I was halfway up the Lane to go home, I saw him coming out of old Miss Souter’s gate. It would have been about ten past twelve, maybe just
before.’ He stopped for breath.

John Black, who’d been listening with only half an ear to the boy’s ramblings, suddenly straightened up and took notice. ‘What night did you say that was?’

‘Last Wednesday, the night before she was found. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but now – well, he must have just done her in and it wasn’t
arsenic.’

‘How did you know it wasn’t arsenic?’ The sergeant’s voice was sharp and suspicious; this information had been kept from the general public.

‘The inspector asked me if I’d ever trained as a chemist, so I guessed she must’ve been killed with some other kind of poison. A bloody fiend, that’s what he
is.’

‘Who was this man?’

Leaning across the counter, Douglas said the name quietly, then stood back, enjoying the expression on the other man’s face, and knowing exactly how he felt.

‘Douglas Pettigrew! You’ve been drinking! I can smell it on your breath.’

‘I only had two halves of lager, that’s all. I’m dead sober, and I tell you, that’s who it was. I saw his face by the streetlight, so I’m positive.’

‘And you say Mrs White told you he was the best . . . ? Oh no, I can’t believe that. A man of the cloth? She must have been lying through her teeth.’ Black’s scandalised
face was almost as red as the youth’s now.

‘She might well have been, Sergeant, I’m not denying that, but it
was
him I saw coming out of Janet Souter’s gate that night. What’ll we do?’

Rubbing his jaw, Black considered for a moment. ‘Well, I don’t know. It’s Derek’s night off, and I can’t leave this place unattended. The inspector’ll likely
call in here before he goes back to the hotel. I think you’d be best to wait here for him.’

‘It’s the only thing I can do, I suppose.’ Douglas shrugged and went over to sit on the bench. ‘He’s going to be bloody annoyed at me, anyway, for telling him a lie
about Wednesday night. Well, not a lie, exactly, but not the whole truth.’

‘You’re speaking in riddles.’

‘He asked me to account for my movements, and I told him I’d been playing snooker all evening. That was true enough, but we went into the pub for about an hour, I forgot about that
when I was speaking to him. My mum told the young sergeant I was home by five past eleven and never went out again, which wasn’t true, though she didn’t know.’

‘I hope the inspector can understand what you’re at, Douglas, for I’m dashed if I can.’

‘She didn’t know I went out again. I told you, I wanted to spy on May, so I nipped out of my bedroom window on to the roof of my Dad’s lean-to store. I’ve done it often
enough before, and I always went back the same way. I didn’t tell the inspector, because I didn’t remember it was the same night.’

‘How did you come to put two and two together?’

‘I was in the Starline lounge bar with Phyllis and she was asking me about May, and after she went home I began going over things in my mind, and it just struck me. If he denies
everything, McGillivray’ll suspect me again, and I
was
in the Lane that night. My God! It’ll be the finish of me, for I know who the inspector’s going to
believe.’

Douglas turned stricken eyes on the sergeant, who didn’t know what to think, and was turning Douglas’s incredible story over and over in his mind.

At last Black said, ‘We’ll have to wait till the inspector gets back, but stop worrying, Douglas. I’m sure the truth’ll come out, whatever it is.’

When his wife took the two men into the room, Sydney Pettigrew raised his head in annoyance at the intrusion. He was watching the BBC news and objected to being disturbed,
particularly by these two.

He recognised the young, well-dressed sergeant who’d come into the shop asking questions on the day they arrived, and he presumed the other one was the inspector. There was always
something about policemen, even in plain clothes, that you couldn’t mistake, apart from the size of their feet. They’d been harassing Douglas, but that was all sorted out now according
to the boy, so why had they come here?

With barely concealed resignation, he rose and switched off his television set. ‘Yes?’

‘We won’t take long, but we’d like to ask you a few questions, Mr Pettigrew. I suppose you know we’re investigating the murder of Janet Souter?’

It was the older man who spoke, and Sydney thought that he didn’t look much like a detective chief inspector – more like an uncouth farm labourer with his rough clothes, or a boxer,
with his broken nose. ‘Yes, I know who you are. Moore and McGillivray, I believe. A fine-sounding double act, but your performance doesn’t measure up too well. Have you run out of
suspects, or are you casting about blindly for inspiration, on the off chance of striking it lucky?’

‘Neither, sir.’ McGillivray was careful to remain polite, but he hadn’t cared for the man’s sarcastic remarks, nor for him putting the sergeant’s name first.
‘We’ve to be as thorough in our search as we can. How well did you know the murdered lady?’

The chemist raised one shoulder. ‘Fairly well, as a customer, and I’ve sampled her vile tongue for years, like all the other shopkeepers in Tollerton, as I told your
sergeant.’

‘Even in your line of work?’

‘Oh yes. She complained about my prices every time she came in, and then there was the business about our Douglas and May Falconer, er, White, which I’ve no doubt you’ll have
sniffed out. She was very outspoken about that, although I was glad she told me. I soon put a stop to it.’ His stern expression was that of a Victorian father.

The inspector coughed discreetly. ‘That would have given your son a very good motive for killing her, of course.’

‘It would look that way to your suspicious mind, but I think the boy had seen the error of his ways before that. He wasn’t too upset about it.’

There had been enough shilly-shallying, McGillivray decided. ‘Mrs White has been giving the names of the men who’ve been involved with her, and I must say she seems very popular. I
expect there are quite a lot of married men shaking in their shoes right now, in case their liaisons with her come to light.’

He thought he could detect a slight, very slight, flash of alarm in the man’s eyes, but it was quickly gone. Perhaps he’d been mistaken.

‘She’s well known to be a bit of a story-teller.’

‘A liar, do you mean?’

The chemist shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘A stronger word than I’d have used, Inspector, but I think she wanted people to think she was a
femme fatale
, and exaggerated a
bit for effect.’