The Saint Valentine's Day Murders (22 page)

‘I suppose we were unduly optimistic in expecting anything from official records,’ said Milton thoughtfully. ‘I’d like to hear something from their colleagues.’

Pooley’s eyes lit up. ‘Just what I was thinking, sir. Couldn’t we get lists of the men in their platoons or whatever, and have them interviewed?’

Milton shifted unhappily. ‘It’s the same old problem, Ellis. We’ve been using manpower with abandon, and the top brass are complaining that we’re showing no results. I’m even under pressure to call off the tails. Apart from DC Richmond’s foray, the most exciting thing anyone’s had to report is that Tiny is spending most of his time in the local gym and the rugby club.’

‘Just one or two interviews each?’ suggested Pooley hopefully.

Milton drummed his fingers on the desk indecisively. ‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘Get the names and addresses as quickly as possible and do the initial chasing up yourself. It’s going to be a matter of simple drudgery – going through telephone directories to locate the few chaps whose families haven’t moved house or died. It’s as good a method of random selection as any. Though I should think your chances of tracking down any of Henry’s comrades from over thirty years ago are slim. I’ll authorize you to request assistance from the local forces to interview a maximum of two per suspect, if it proves necessary. But if you can do it all on the telephone, so much the better.’

‘Thank you, sir. I’ll get on to it straight away.’ Pooley jumped up and headed for the door.

‘Ellis,’ said Milton patiently. ‘You came in here bearing several files for my perusal, all of which you’re now disappearing with.’

Pooley stopped in his tracks and returned to his chair. ‘Sorry, sir. I got carried away. I haven’t told you yet that we drew a virtual blank on the passports. None of them has one except Crump, and only Illingworth’s had one in the last ten years. If anyone except Crump’s been abroad in search of poison supplies, he’s done it on a false passport. But I suppose you haven’t changed your mind about going through the application forms?’

‘Look, you know I couldn’t do it if I wanted to.’

‘It’s just that several of them have some experience of abroad. And I still believe that they might be prepared to take more risks in finding a supplier if they were away from their own patch.’

‘Ellis. I’ll make a bargain with you. You and Sammy between you can check with the wives and neighbours. If you can find evidence that any of our suspects has had the opportunity to be out of the country for a couple of days in the last six months, then I’ll reconsider the matter. I can see the sense in your theory. But keep quiet about it. The only person who seems to have had the necessary freedom and a passport is Robert Amiss. And I don’t really want to draw him to Romford’s attention.’

He stopped abruptly, shocked at his own indiscretion. ‘Forget what I just said. It was highly improper. I have the utmost confidence in Inspector Romford. It’s just that we don’t quite see eye to eye on the question of whether Robert Amiss is a likely murderer.’

Pooley nodded tactfully. ‘Of course, sir. Now, there’s just one other matter. All the papers on Mrs Thomas’s accident have now come in. At least they’re conclusive as well as negative. The circumstances were investigated thoroughly. She fell down the stairs in the middle of the afternoon, and Bill had been at work all day. A couple of neighbours had seen her in the morning and she was in lively form. She was found by her next-door neighbour who had front-door keys and used to keep an eye on her. And the police checked the stairs. There was no tripwire or anything like that. She was dead for an hour before Bill got home.’

‘And they confirmed his alibi.’

‘They did. And what’s more, there was a comment on the file that he was utterly distraught.’

Shit, thought Milton. Then he wondered what he was coming to. Did he really want to discover that Bill had pushed his poor old mother down the stairs? No. It was just that he was sick of dead ends. ‘All right, Ellis. Is that the lot?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Pooley deposited the files on the desk and left the room.

Milton reached out compulsively to the drawer and took out the familiar stack. Then he dialled a number and asked for his wife.

‘Sorry, Mr Milton. She’s in a meeting. Can I give her a message?’

‘Yes, please.’ He made a rapid mental calculation. Pacifist and mother-mourner. ‘Would you tell her I said the odds on her horse have just lengthened to 50-1. And tell her that’s an ungenerous price.’

31

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Tuesday, 1 March

‘I’m very sorry if I’ve caused you any distress, ma’am. Goodnight.’

Pooley put down the receiver and crossed another name off his master list. He felt exhausted and dispirited. It had seemed a good omen that the army and air force had responded so quickly to his request. He had been overjoyed when the names and addresses started coming over the telex at the end of yesterday afternoon. And though it had been frustrating that so few of them could be located via the old addresses, at least that promised to keep the numbers to be interviewed at a manageable level. But now, after many hours of solid telephoning, he had nothing to show for his work. His main achievement had been to upset a couple of families whose sons had died prematurely.

He looked at his notes and tried to be positive. Wasn’t he looking at this the wrong way? As the super had said, elimination was important too. It must count for something that two blokes remembered Tiny Short extremely well and with great affection. One of them had said he’d been the life and soul socially in Singapore. The guy must have real leadership qualities, thought Pooley. How awful for him to have landed up in such a foul job. He hoped he’d get to Kenya and have a good life. But wasn’t it possible that he had been driven mad by PD and had turned his talents in a vicious direction? Hell. This information was not necessarily helpful. On one reading, the thing his old corporal had said about him being on for anything daring was a black mark against him.

The only old comrade of Graham Illingworth had hardly been helpful, and he had no other name to try. It had taken ten minutes before he had placed him at all, and then all he could remember was that he was a dull sort of chap. Tony Farson’s old comrade hadn’t been much more use, although after a few leading questions he did admit that old Tony had been a bit tight when it came to standing his round. No joy at all with Henry, and only the two Bill Thomas contacts left. His first pessimistic conclusion had been right. This had proved to be a waste of twenty-four hours.

He looked at his watch and saw that it was now 9:45. He just had time to try the two remaining numbers before the magic hour of 10:00, after which it was regarded as impolite to ring.

He dialled the Darlington number.

‘Hello. I’m trying to get hold of Peter Kelly. Does he still live at this number?’

‘Who are you?’ asked a suspicious female voice.

‘Detective Constable Pooley from Scotland Yard. I am making a series of routine enquiries about someone Mr Kelly used to know many years ago and I thought he might be able to help.’

‘Well, Detective Constable Pooley. You can do something for me. I’ve been trying to find Peter Kelly for about five years, since he disappeared out of my life without a forwarding address. If you catch up with him, you might mention that his wife would appreciate a postcard.’

Pooley mumbled his apologies and rang off. He mopped his brow. He was the wrong man for this kind of job. Sammy would have been able to do it better and without getting so embarrassed when things went wrong. 9:55. Well, he wasn’t leaving until he had rung his last number. Surely the dramatic conventions required this to be the winner. There must somewhere be some reward for effort. He dialled the Oxford number.

‘Yes?’ said a rather impatient voice. ‘Roland Eastty here.’

Pooley’s stomach tightened with mingled excitement and the fear of another anti-climax. At least there couldn’t be any danger that there were two Roland Easttys. This one sounded as upper-class as his address. He must have inherited the family home.

‘Hello, Mr Eastty.’ Pooley went through the preparatory rigmarole. He tried to make it as crisp as possible. This chap sounded as if he would tolerate fools ungladly.

‘I see. Bill Thomas indeed. What’s he supposed to have done?’

Pooley made a rapid decision. He looked around him and saw no one within earshot. He thought he knew the type he was dealing with. They didn’t like pigs in pokes. Apparent frankness was what was called for.

‘He is not supposed to have done anything, sir. It is merely that we are investigating a murder case and Mr Thomas is unfortunately though almost certainly coincidentally among those in a position to have…’

‘Done the evil deed, eh? Well, well. And you want me to tell you if he showed any homicidal tendencies in the army?’

Pooley couldn’t decide if it was an advantage that Eastty was this smart. On balance it probably was. He offered a silent prayer that Eastty was more pro the police force than anti snooping into the private lives of citizens. ‘Frankly, yes, sir.’

‘What kind of murder?’

Pooley outlined the main facts. ‘You’ve probably read about it, sir,’ he concluded.

‘It does ring a faint distant bell. But
The Times
is a bit lax in its coverage of such titillating events.’

Pooley thanked the gods. If Eastty had said the
Guardian
, he’d have been more worried. He had a flash of memory of his own activities as a left-wing undergraduate and wondered if he could really have changed so fundamentally in so short a time. Just pragmatism, he reassured himself. ‘I’d be grateful for anything you can remember about him, sir. It’s a matter of trying to build up a pattern of behaviour.’

‘I don’t remember a lot. In fact I probably wouldn’t remember anything at all if it wasn’t that one thing he did once stuck in my mind. For most of the time he was a boring little bugger.’

Patronizing swine, thought Pooley. He felt a sudden sense of shame. Then his natural ambition reasserted itself.

‘I should be most interested in hearing about it, sir.’

‘It was a row about pornographic pictures.’

Pooley gaped at the telephone.

‘That’s right,’ went on Eastty. ‘We all went out one night on the piss. And when we came back Bill suddenly got furious about the pin-ups in our quarters. When I say pornographic, you understand, I’m talking about pornography
circa
1957. Nothing much you wouldn’t get in one of those prole papers nowadays.’

‘I understand, sir.’

‘Yes, well… we were all lying on our beds when he suddenly went rushing round tearing the pin-ups off the walls, shouting about it not being right or some such thing. We managed to stop him when he’d torn up about half of them.’

‘Why did he object to them so much?’

‘Oh God. Don’t ask me. I assumed he was some kind of religious zealot. Come to think of it, he was behaving like an adherent of one of those fundamentalist sects in the Deep South. All to do with the purity of womanhood, motherhood and apple pie, you know. As I remember, he was a trifle incoherent. He’d had a few pints and they didn’t seem to agree with him. But the gist of it was anyway that he didn’t approve. The other chaps were furious. A couple of us had to intervene to save him from being lynched.’

‘And this was an untypical outburst, you say?’

‘Oh, absolutely. He was normally inoffensive to a fault. He apologized next day and explained it was brought on because he felt protective about his mother who had been recently widowed. And he explained he didn’t usually drink. Everyone forgot about it and in due course another lot of lovelies replaced the old ones.’

‘I see, sir,’ said Pooley, who was trying vainly to arrive at some conclusions.

‘I don’t suppose I’ve really helped you, have I? In so far as it points towards anything, that story shows him to be rather more pro than anti women. In fact what he did would be approved of by modern feminists, I dare say.’

‘I suppose it would, sir.’ Pooley felt really drained now.

‘Well, if that’s all, I’ll say goodnight to you, officer. I hope Bill doesn’t turn out to be your man. From what I recall he was a rather pathetic, timid little chap. In fact, now I come to think of it, he had a thing about not killing spiders.’

‘And that’s absolutely all you remember, sir?’

‘The lot, I’m afraid.’

‘I’m grateful to you, sir. Thank you very much and goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, officer. And good hunting.’

Pooley sat and stared at his list. Another bloody dead-end. Unless?… He scribbled a couple of questions on a pad, picked it up and left the office. He would go home, have a bath and try to unwind. Then he’d see if he could come up with any bright ideas over a whisky and soda. A large one.

32

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Wednesday, 2 March

‘I’m sorry, Milton,’ said the Commissioner, ‘but you must see I have no choice. I’d leave you in control if you seemed to be about to make a breakthrough, but by your own testimony you are really flailing around. It may be that Detective Chief Superintendent Randall will be able to make quicker progress through bringing a fresh mind to the case.’

‘Does this mean I’ll be moved off it on Monday?’

‘No. Well, that is to say, it’s really a matter for Randall. But I expect he’ll want you to work under him.’

And he’ll ultimately take all the credit himself, thought Milton, who knew Randall of old.

‘Very well, sir. Did you want to talk about anything else?’

‘No. The AC wants a word, though.’

He nodded a dismissal and returned to his paperwork. Milton trailed disconsolately out of the room and went in to see the AC, who was wearing his unconvincing ‘this hurts me more than it hurts you’ expression.