Murder at the Nineteenth (Lambert and Hook Detective series Book 1) Page 10

  ‘You had arranged to see him this morning?’ said Lambert. He spoke quietly, but the sudden silence in the entrance hall of the club gave his words more weight than he would have wished.

  ‘No. He arranged to meet me!’ Williams’s bright old eyes twinkled blue and alert. He was going to enjoy this moment. Suddenly his thoughts were in demand; it was a change from being held off.

  ‘What about?’ said Lambert. If there was anything in this, he would move Williams quickly away from the Secretary; for the moment, he was content to observe Parsons’s reactions from the corner of his eye.

  ‘No idea,’ said Williams reluctantly. Did Parsons relax? It could just as easily have been disappointment which made his shoulders drop a little.

  ‘Didn’t he give you any inkling why he wanted to see you?’ said Lambert. ‘Can you remember his exact words? It could be important.’

  Williams thought carefully: he felt his brief moment at the centre of the investigation passing from him, and all his journalist’s training made him want to cling to it.

  ‘He said he had something to tell me which I would find interesting, that’s all. I took it he meant some new development at the club.’

  Lambert looked directly at Parsons now. ‘Are there any building plans or the like that the Chairman might have wanted to reveal to the local press, David?’

  Parsons shook his head. ‘Nothing. We’ve just agreed to have a pro-am here next year. It might —’

  ‘Shepherd never told me anything about golfing affairs,’ said Williams decisively. ‘He always left me to collect such details from our esteemed Secretary.’

  ‘Can you think what it might have been, David?’

  Parsons shook his head. ‘Not for the life of me, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Did the Chairman often ask to speak to you like this?’ Lambert asked Williams.

  ‘Never,’ said Williams portentously. He was torn between disappointment in admitting that he was not a habitual confidant of the Chairman and his desire to give extra significance to this moment of mystery in which he was the central figure. His dramatic instincts won.

  ‘Perhaps he wished to tell me something about one of the luminaries of the club,’ he said, relishing the notion as his mind developed it.

  ‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ said Lambert, as drily as he could, ‘but we shouldn’t — ‘

  ‘Perhaps about the murderer!’ said Williams. His blue Celtic eyes twinkled as fervently as a Welsh preacher’s; headlines pranced through his mind as he became the central figure in a melodrama. ‘Golf Club Chairman Died in Bloodbath Before He Could Speak!’ he intoned. Hook winced in mock horror, Parsons’s mouth dropped open in genuine outrage. Pleased with his effects, Williams fixed his eye upon the middle distance and tried, ‘What did Murdered Tycoon Wish to Tell Ace Investigative Crime Reporter George Williams?’

  Lambert intervened before the scandalized Secretary could speak. ‘Keep things quiet for the present, George. I promise you the full story as soon as we have an arrest. With enough gory detail to give you an “exclusive” tag if I can.’ He was uncomfortably aware that beneath his banter the shrewd old newshawk was probably right: if Shepherd indeed planned revelations about someone, that mysterious someone might have silenced him for ever last night. The murderer had chosen a moment when there were at least four others around as alternative subjects, and covered his or her tracks with coolness and skill, but the killing still had the marks of a ruthless improvization from someone driven to action in a hurry.

  ‘When did Mr Shepherd ring you?’

  ‘About six o’clock,’ said Williams.

  ‘Where from?’

  The old Welshman thought carefully. He would have liked to maintain his position as a key witness, but he had to shake his head reluctantly. ‘He didn’t say.’

  ‘No background noises to give you a clue?’

  ‘No. It was quiet.’

  It was no more than one would have expected. If Shepherd’s call was as significant as it now appeared, he would hardly have rung from a public place. The timing of the call to Williams suggested that Shepherd’s request for a meeting with Lambert had been connected with it. Probably the late-night rendezvous at the golf club which he had tried to arrange had been designed to secure him some kind of police protection against the revelations he proposed to make. The little silver-framed photograph of Mary Hartford with her arm round Shepherd’s waist hung obstinately in Lambert’s mind’s eye. Others, he told himself stubbornly, might have secrets as yet still hidden.

  ‘This could be evidence, George, in due course. Keep it strictly to yourself for the moment. It would be a terrible deprivation for us all if you became the next victim!’ He tried hard to keep his face straight as Williams searched it in sudden anxiety. Hook supported him with a nod of impressive gravity, while the Secretary plainly found the thought of violence turned upon a journalist a sudden consolation in this time of trial.

  The detectives left Parsons to stonewall further questions from Williams and went into the car park. Lambert had left the Vauxhall in the only patch of shade he could find when he returned from his meeting with Mary Hartford, but the sun had moved on to it now; when he opened the door the heat was that of an oven. He said, ‘You drive, Bert, I’ll navigate. I’ve got the address of Debbie’s office.’ They were nerving themselves to enter the car when there was a shout from the other end of the car park.

  Detective-Inspector Rushton hurried towards them, a man pleasantly aware of his own importance. A man, perhaps, with new evidence to offer, thought Bert Hook, who had seen Rushton, ten years his junior, move from raw young DC to DI, still young for the rank, still keen. ‘We’ve done the car, sir,’ Rushton called when he was still ten yards from them. ‘There were a few prints, which will need to be checked out against the ones from your Committee members.’ Lambert wished his colleagues wouldn’t put that ‘your’ in with such satisfaction; it made him feel this baffling case was being treated as a training exercise he had organized for his juniors. In truth he had forgotten for the moment the mysterious break-in to Shepherd’s maroon Rolls-Royce.

  ‘Anything else?’ he asked. It was the role expected of him: Rushton, sharp-suited, sharp-featured, keen as mustard, plainly had more to offer yet. Lambert felt a little stab of indignation at a DI without s single grey hair, then a spurt of irritation with himself for the thought.

  ‘There’s this, sir,’ said Rushton, producing an object he had half-concealed behind his person; like an amateur conjuror, thought Hook sourly. Lambert had seen this mien often before in officers with news to impart to the man in charge of an investigation. It strove for a becoming modesty, but failed before the sense of achievement deriving from some important discovery. ‘It was under the front passenger seat. Of course, it may mean nothing at all, sir. It depends who it belongs to.’

  Rushton held towards them a small handbag. It was of grey leather, simply styled; practical enough to hold several items, elegant enough to accompany the most sophisticated outfit. Superintendent Lambert stared at it for a moment without speaking. He could not get out of his head the absurd idea that the bag was exactly the shade of grey he had seen once before that day.

  The grey of the skirt that had seemed so cool against the spring blossom in the garden of Mary Hartford.

  Chapter 11

  As the car moved from the narrow golf club lane to the wider road outside, Hook eased the speed up over forty and there was a welcome rush of air through the fully lowered front windows.

  Neither of the men spoke. Hook was anticipating the coming interview with Debbie Hall; Lambert was reviewing the retrospect of a day when every incident, every new finding, every interview, seemed to cloud rather than clarify the picture. He knew a lot more than he had known at eight o’clock that morning. They had virtually eliminated those people like Len Jackson who were peripheral possibilities in the inquiry. They had established both the ownership of the murder weapon and the fact that the owner had lied about it
. The mysterious violation of Shepherd’s Rolls-Royce was almost certainly connected with the murder. But how? The fire in the greenkeeper’s cottage in the woods might well be connected, in view of the old photograph of Shepherd with Mary Hartford which it had revealed. Already there was an urgent need for him to talk again to both David Parsons and Mary Hartford. Probably indeed, to Michael Taylor as well when he had more information from elsewhere, for the shaken Captain of Burnham Cross Golf was plainly a frightened man.

  All this underlined the fact that he had not yet eliminated any of the three major suspects he had seen from the inquiry, he thought gloomily. And he still had two more, Debbie Hall and Bill Birch, to interview. For different reasons, he hoped neither of them was guilty. But then, not one of the five struck him as a murderer, and yet he was now convinced that one of them must be.

  He was startled from this reverie by the shrill bleat of the car phone. He was still disturbed by this latest contribution of technology to modern policing; as far as he was concerned, it merely meant that he was accessible where he had thought himself insulated from outside interference. So it proved now: it was his Chief Constable. Cyril Garner was brisk, almost accusing. ‘I need an update from you, John. As you haven’t had time to contact me.’

  Lambert grimaced at the phone, while Hook gave the road ahead his concentrated attention; only his ears were alert to the delicious diversion of a little spat between his superiors. ‘We’ve had rather a full morning, sir,’ said Lambert, in measured tones which held no hint of apology. He listed the day’s happenings and summarized his interviews with the precision which Hook unfailingly admired: he was not to know that on this occasion his Superintendent had been organizing the evidence in his own mind at the very moment when the car phone had interrupted him.

  ‘How close are you to an arrest?’ Garner might or might not have assimilated the complex array of information with which Lambert had presented him, but he came up with the one question which really concerned him. Lambert smiled at his use of a phrase which seemed to come straight from a press release: the media were the bane of Cyril Garner’s life.

  ‘It’s difficult to say, sir. We still have two of our famous five to interview. By the end of the day, I hope we shall have a clearer picture.’

  ‘Hope won’t get people off my back, John. Jim Shepherd was a big man locally. And Chairman of the Golf Club. It’s the sort of label these damned newshounds love to fasten on. Why haven’t you gone straight in for this Hartford woman?’

  ‘She’s in theatre at the hospital at the moment, sir. I’ll see her later today.’ Lambert was careful not to sound defensive; if the Matron proved to be his killer, it wouldn’t do to sound anything but objective now. He allowed himself a rueful private smile: if Mary Hartford was his murderer, the press boys would have plenty of lively copy. ‘Lady Captain Kills Golf Club Captain in Love Tiff’ was a juicy enough opening to stimulate their wilder imaginings.

  ‘We need progress, John, and quickly. Two of the nationals were on to me this morning. And ITV have just rung. They’re threatening us with a camera crew.’ Television was Garner’s particular bete noir; he had been made to look very foolish a year ago when stung to a moment of pique by an aggressive young questioner at a press conference about a bank robbery.

  ‘Did you head them off, sir?’ Lambert was less concerned with media attention than his Chief Constable, but the presence of a huge television van and a camera crew in the car park at the golf club would be a major irritation. He realized for the first time how photogenic the backdrop to this murder was. The green acres of Burnham Cross in late spring, the clubhouse redolent with privilege and the trappings of an earlier era, the Chairman’s silent, accusing Rolls-Royce, the woodland cottage damaged by the mysterious fire. He could see the pictures now as the cameras panned round, hear the voice-over filling in the sensational background to these quiet scenes, hinting at scandals lurking beneath the surface of this shrine of respectability. All true, he thought suddenly. Whatever the eventual solution to this enigma, there were certain to be some sensational disclosures for the fourth estate to exploit.

  ‘I’ve promised them a conference with full disclosures on our progress tomorrow,’ said Garner. It was his usual delaying tactic to give himself breathing space. Often it worked; this time Lambert doubted if the reporters would hold off completely with such promising material already available. ‘I shall need you there with me,’ said Garner, making it sound like a punishment. ‘Unless of course we have our murderer under lock and key by then!’

  Lambert thought, ‘In which case you’ll gather every pressman and media man you can and take the credit alone, as part of your push for an OBE.’ He had no need to reply to the Chief Constable’s last sally, as Garner had rung off abruptly. He pictured him behind the big desk at headquarters, relaxing in the thought of a rebuke administered to his Superintendent. ‘Must keep the workers on the ball!’ He had heard him say it before, when he had sat by that desk and listened to Garner talking to other staff. Sometimes the retirement not too far ahead seemed quite attractive.

  Not for the first time on this case, he was struck by the contrast between their work and its setting. The fresh emerald of new leaf and the pinks and creams of spring blossom flew past in an agreeable confusion. The scents of young growth and mown lawns drove through the open windows of the car. They were on their way to see an attractive woman. But their business was to question her about a brutal murder; indeed, their first priority would be to establish whether this charming creature could be the one who had thrust seven inches of cold steel into the defenceless chest of James Shepherd. Perhaps, thought Lambert with alarm, there was a gutter pressman lurking within him: for he had divined within himself a certain relish at the prospect.

  Soon they were on the outskirts of Mersham, and he directed Hook to a street within two hundred yards of the ancient narrow centre of the town. Mersham Office Services Bureau was in an old house of mellow stone. The Georgian windows had been enlarged and replaced, in a style which was not quite in keeping with the original, but the effect within was bright and cheerful. A girl who could be little more than twenty sat behind a word-processor at the reception desk. She looked as cool and comfortable in her sleeveless blouse as the policemen were hot and sticky in suits. Not for the first time in this early heat wave, Lambert wondered why female clothing was supposed by men to be frivolous and impractical: to him, women seemed to adapt effortlessly to the erratic British seasons, whilst men’s formal attire was basically the same in winter and summer.

  ‘Is Miss Hall available? She’s expecting us,’ he said to the girl. He was trying to be discreet, but in what seemed to be an all-female world the two tall men in worsted must shout ‘policemen’ to anyone who cared to speculate upon their occupations.

  The girl nodded. ‘Please come through to her room. She’s interviewing an applicant for a post but she’ll be with you in just a moment.’ She led them down a short corridor to a door marked ‘Deborah Hall, Manager’. Lambert wondered whether the present vogue for Christian names would ever penetrate the police force; he could not imagine the Chief Constable putting ‘Cyril Garner’ on his door to still the apprehension in the breasts of young constables.

  The room was at the back of the building. There was a small yard outside the window, with plants in barrels, and beyond the stone wall the tops of full-grown oaks against the sky-line. Through the open window, they could just hear shrill childish voices through the still air; the oaks must be the boundary of the local park. Lambert had not known that Debbie Hall was in charge of this prosperous little business. She had told him she worked there, nothing more.

  The room had a large desk, with a desk diary and a small silver bowl of roses as its only relief. There were windows in two of the walls; geraniums flowered on the one which looked towards the park. On the other, north-facing sill, African violets flowered luxuriantly enough to make Lambert envious; he had attempted them with only intermittent success for ten ye
ars.

  There was one good-quality print on the long wall, a small bronze horse on the top of the single filing cabinet. But the room was not bare and functional. The flowers ensured that; moreover, the fine blue fitted carpet was relieved by three elegant armchairs, light in design but able to accommodate comfortably even Bert Hook’s sturdy posterior. ‘How the other half lives,’ the Sergeant murmured appreciatively, as he sank thankfully into the seat and thought of police-stations, with desks which were never tidy, chairs which were never comfortable and cups which never had saucers. Within seconds he sprang upright, starting guiltily like one discovered in illicit hedonism.

  Lambert, staring through the window towards the park, knew from the sudden wave of perfume upon the heavy air that Debbie Hall had arrived. She motioned them to the armchairs and he was aware that, receiving them upon her own ground, she and not he controlled the preliminaries of the interview. He half-expected her to sit above them at the desk, in the obvious position of dominance; instead, she ordered tea on the intercom and disposed herself comfortably on the third armchair. Hook had waited for her to sit: now he backed two paces behind her like a faithful retainer and circled her chair on silent, footman’s feet to seat himself respectfully in the chair beside his Superintendent. Debbie crossed her ankles quietly, and riveted the Sergeant’s attention upon her nyloned calves. Lambert, assembling his papers on his knees whilst he collected his thoughts, coughed irritably. It was difficult enough trying to preserve the formalities of an investigation with people one knew, without one’s general factotum suddenly behaving like a moonsick calf.

  He framed a slight, official opening smile — and found himself looking full into the most dazzling blue eyes he had ever seen. He had known Debbie Hall for about three years: he understood now her effect upon the relatively unprepared Bert Hook. With almost thirty years of police work behind him, the grizzled Sergeant was unmoved by the charms of girls like the one Michael Taylor had brought to the club in his Porsche. Debbie Hall’s warmth was natural, uncalculated, freely given, not a tool to exact the behaviour she wished to produce. As a consequence, it was the more devastating for those unfamiliar with it. Naturally outgoing, used to being the centre of attention, she was yet unaffected and generous. Lambert did not know her well, but no one in any gathering which contained her could be unaware of her presence. He had watched her before in social contexts, telling himself his interest in her effects was professional but wondering the while if it was the simple pleasure men take in watching an attractive and vivacious woman. He had not cared to discuss with Christine which of the two it might be: wives notoriously lacked objectivity in such matters.