Flight of a Witch

CHAPTER VIII

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George came to Fairford very early in the morning, intent on being unexpected, appearing when Annet was still in a housecoat, pale and silent and unprepared for the renewed assault. But it seemed there was no time of the day or night when she was not armed against him and everyone. Her great eyes had swallowed half her face, the fine, clear flesh was wasting away alarmingly from her slender bones. She looked as if she had not slept at all, as if she had stared into the dark unceasingly all through the night, gazing through her window at the ridge of the Hallowmount, stretched like a slumbering beast against the eastern sky.

He asked her the old questions, and she was silent with the old silence, patient and absolute. He sat down beside her and told her, in clipped, quiet tones, everything he knew about Jacob Worrell’s narrow, harmless, shabby life, about his poor little backroom hobby of collecting local Midland porcelain, about the two blows that had splintered his fragile skull and spilled his meagre, old-man’s blood over the boards of his workroom. He chose words that made her tremble, and pushed them home like knives, but she never gave him word or sound in return. The room was full of pain, but the only words were his words. He wanted to stop, but she had to speak, she had to be made to speak.

It occurred to him at length, and why he did not know, to send Policewoman Crowther out of the room, to wait below until he should call her back. As soon as the door had closed behind her Annet leaned and took his hand and smoothed it between hers, entreating him with clinging, frantic fingers and desperate eyes.

‘Let me go!’ Her voice was only a breath between her lips, a small, broken sound. She held his hand to her cheek, and the drift of her dark hair flowed over it. ‘Take her away from me, take them all away, and let me go! Oh, please, please, take them all away and leave me alone!’

‘No, Annet, I can’t do that. You know I can’t.’

How well Miles knew her, and how deeply he understood the real threat to her now. Whether she understood what she was trying to do was another matter. All George was sure of was that he had only to remove all restrictions from her, and sit back and watch, and she would lead him to her lover; and that he could not let her do it, that he would not risk her even to catch a murderer. He could not make her speak, and she could not make him grant her the freedom of action she wanted, to throw her own life away after the old man’s life.

‘You must! Please! I’ve done nothing. Let me go! You must let me go!’

‘No.’

‘Then there’s nothing I can do, nothing, nothing – Oh, please help me! Help me! Take everyone away and let me go free!’

The dark hair slipped away on both sides to uncover the tender nape of her neck, and its childishness and fragility was more than he could bear. He took his hand from her almost roughly, and walked out of the room, and her long, shuddering sigh of despair followed him down the stairs.

‘No,’ he said wearily, meeting her mother’s questioning eyes in the doorway of the living-room. ‘Hasn’t she said anything to you that could offer us a lead?’

‘She says nothing to me. She might be struck dumb. She’s like this with everyone.’

‘And no one’s asked to see her? Or to speak to her on the telephone?’

‘Not to speak to her, no. The vicar rang up to ask after her. And Regina, of course.’ Even in this extremity she could not suppress the little, proud lift of her voice, at being on Christian name terms with Mrs Blacklock of Cwm Hall. ‘Last night, that was, after the papers came. She and Peter were both very distressed about her. They asked if there was anything they could do, and if they could come and see her. I told them you didn’t wish anyone to see her yet. Though she isn’t charged with anything,’ said Mrs Beck, staring him hard in the eye, ‘and we have a right if we choose—’

‘Of course you have. But you also have the good sense to understand the sound reasons why you should listen to me and do what I say. When you stop agreeing with me, let them all in,’ said George patiently.

‘We know you have a job to do, of course. And I suppose it gives an impression of activity to mount guard on my girl, when there’s nothing else you can think of doing. Naturally you want to keep up your reputation—’

‘What I chiefly want,’ said George, walking past her to the door, ‘is to keep Annet alive.’

He went out into the bright air of morning, and the sun was high above the Hallowmount, climbing in a sky washed clean of clouds. Thank God for a fine Saturday for Jane Darrill’s field-day with the Geographical Association. No one would wonder too much at seeing forty small boys let loose over the hills on a sunny October afternoon, no one, not even themselves, would suppose they were there to fend off a thief and murderer from recovering his gains (if, of course, he had not already recovered them), and no one would think that even their supervisors and elders were looking for anything more sensational than samples of the local flora, and of the conglomerates, grits and slates of the ridge, or the occasional fragment of galena, or bright bits of quartzite from the outcrop rocks.

Thanks to them, George thought as he slammed the door of the car and drove along the lane to Wastfield, he had this one day’s grace; and it hung heavy upon his mind that that was all he had, and that he must make it bear fruit. Time trod so close and crushingly on his heels that he had difficulty now in remembering that the murder of Jacob Worrall was, in the first place, Birmingham’s case and not his.

He had extracted a list of Annet’s closest school-friends from her mother; he checked it with Myra Gibbons, who had been closest even among these, and she supplied, with some encouragement, details of their subsequent whereabouts and fortunes. It might be time wasted, but it might not. No one had yet provided any clue as to where Annet and her partner had spent their nights in Birmingham, though by this time the hotels were all eliminated, and even the bed-and-breakfast places dwindling. One of Annet’s GCE class, it seemed, was now reading English literature at Birmingham University, and another was studying at the School of Art. Probably both in respectable supervised lodgings, but sometimes they found flatlets which afforded them privacy enough to abuse the privilege. And even if they had not given her a bed, they might have been in touch with Annet while she was there. No need for them to have seen the boy, he could easily be kept in the background. But even there, there was at least a chance.

He telephoned Duckett from the box at the edge of the village, and reported his meagre gains: three addresses where there might be something to be gleaned, the two girl students, and an old, retired teacher who had once been on unusually good terms with the fourteen-year-old Annet at the Girls’ High School in Comerbourne.

‘They’d have come forward,’ said Duckett positively, ‘if they’d known anything about her moves. The teacher, anyhow.’

‘You would think so. But we can’t afford to miss anything. Have you talked to them again at that end? I take it they’ve got nothing?’

‘Nothing? Boy, they’ve got everything, except what they want. The usual lunatic fringe ringing up from everywhere else but the right places, reporting having seen everybody but the right girl. They creep out from under every stone,’ said Duckett bitterly, ‘and run to the nearest telephone. But no sense so far. And yet they must have slept somewhere. And even with dark glasses and a different hair-do and whatever, you couldn’t hide that girl every minute of the day. Somewhere in the ladies’ room of a café she’d be sure to re-do her hair, somewhere she’d take off her hat, if she was wearing one.’

‘I don’t believe she ever tried to disguise herself,’ said George. ‘She was committing only a private sin, and she wasn’t ashamed or afraid, once she was away from Comerford, once she’d got what she wanted. I don’t believe she ever even tried very hard to hide from anyone. If she had, she might have been noticed more. And yet, as you say, they slept somewhere, they ate somewhere. Public transport they didn’t need, if they had the motor-bike. And if they walked the streets together, they did it in the dark. The two witnesses who came forward and identified her as the girl on the corner wouldn’t have been much use to us, either, if she hadn’t stood under a street-light.’

‘As you say. For one who wasn’t trying, she made a pretty good job of being invisible.’

‘Agreed, but largely accidentally. You see she didn’t mind being seen that night. She did stand under a light, she didn’t try to withdraw even when the Brummie lad came along, she only froze him out when he got too oncoming. She didn’t know of any more pressing reason for hiding herself or her lover than the mere preservation of their week-end together. But somehow the circumstances of their stay in the town were such that they did remain unnoticed. That’s how I read it.’

‘You could be right,’ said Duckett. ‘Try it out.’

‘Nothing new? Has Scott reported anything further on Geoff Westcott?’

A spurt of laughter exploded in George’s ear. Duckett laughing meant trouble for someone, but decidedly not hanging trouble.

‘Has he! And very interesting it all is, too, but I doubt if it’ll do much for you, George. No, the thing is, Geoff told Scott yesterday he’d been down in South Wales with that side-kick of his, Smoky Brown, staying with Smoky’s cousins in Gower. Said the whole clan would bear him out. Scott didn’t doubt that, knowing our Browns, so he didn’t ask ’em, he went straight to Martha Blount, before Geoff could get away from Lowthers’ last night. Told her Geoff had told him he’d travelled south for the week-end with the Browns, to stay with their cousins, and asked her if she could confirm it. Innocent style, she’d be sure to know, and all that. And Smoky Brown’s sister being the only other Brown in the reckoning, and a very hot little number into the bargain, Martha jumped to the inevitable conclusion, and all but went through the roof. The rat, she says, so that’s what he meant by doing a long-distance driving job as a favour to a friend! And me believing every word, like a damned fool! All Scott had to do was put in the right questions whenever she stopped for breath: What friend? Where to? What was he carrying? She came out with everything he’d told her, and what he’d told her was the truth as far as it went, and it went one hell of a long way. He didn’t tell her where they’d lifted all the lead from, but would you believe it, he told her in confidence where he was delivering it. Two trips, two lorry-loads, to a back-street yard in Bolton. Love’s a terrible thing.’

‘Doesn’t mix with business, anyhow,’ agreed George wryly. ‘Think they’ll be in time to pick up the goods?’

‘With luck, yes. How are the receivers to know he’d be such a fool as to tell his girl the real reason why he couldn’t take her out Saturday? Didn’t tell her his cargo was pinched, of course, but he only pulled himself up just short of that.’

So that was another one off the list of possibilities, thought George as he hung up the receiver. Poor Martha! But at least if she made up her mind she was well rid of Geoff, no one was going to die of it. And if she cut her losses and made the best of him, with her force of character she might keep him out of gaol in future. Once having told her the truth, it wouldn’t be any use telling her lies thereafter, she would always be on the look-out and ready to shorten the rein. And if young Geoff really wanted her, as seemed, oddly enough, a strong possibility, he must have thrown such a scare into himself this time that he’d do almost anything in future rather than take the risk of losing her again. She might, even, find it easy to forgive him and wait for him, in the relief of finding that he was not unfaithful, but merely a minor criminal.

Their small story, at least, need not occupy him. A few more such intrusive comedies, and his list of possibles would be dwindling out of sight.

He drove through Comerford and over the bridge, and round the eastern flank of the long, triple-folded range to Cwm Hall. The long drive unrolled before him, the vista of the park and the hollow square of the stable-yard over to the left, aside from the house and by two centuries younger. To the rear of the beautiful, E-shaped house lay the farm buildings, barns and dovecote so tall that they showed above the mellow red roofs.

Regina was at her desk in one of the large windows, ploughing her way remorselessly through her morning’s correspondence without Annet’s aid. She saw the car sweep round the wide curve of the drive to halt on the apron of gravel, and waved a hand and rose at once to come out to George on the doorstep.

‘Mr Felse, I’m so glad to see you. I’ve been longing to telephone Mrs Beck again, but it seems cruel to pester the poor woman.’ The alert, commanding blue eyes looked a little startled behind the distorting lenses of her reading glasses. The briskness and decision of her movements and words, undaunted by death, suspicion or suffering, sprang to meet him almost roughly; no wonder those on whom she conferred her quite genuine visitations of sympathy often reacted with bristling hackles and tongue-tied offence. And yet she was a kind, sincere woman, and the one thing she would not do for those in distress or need was leave them gently, self-sacrificingly alone.

‘Do tell me about Annet. This is such a terrible business, I don’t understand how she could have become involved. We were always so careful of her. And she isn’t a deceitful child by nature, I’m sure she isn’t, there were never any signs. How could we have failed to see that there was someone on her mind? How is the poor girl now?’

‘Physically,’ said George, bracing himself and digging in his heels against the force of her energy, ‘she’s well enough.’

‘You don’t want us to see her yet? I don’t want to make things more difficult for you in any way, but do let us know as soon as we can go to her. We’re very concerned. If there’s anything we can do in the meantime, please do ask, we should be very glad if we could help her.’

So would a great many people, thought George, remembering Tom Kenyon and Miles Mallindine eyeing each other across his rug in an anguish bitterly antagonistic and helplessly shared. Some with better rights even than yours.

‘Do you want to talk to Peter? He’s down in the stable-yard with Stockwood, I think, working on one of the cars.’

‘It’s with Stockwood I wanted to have a word, as a matter of fact.’

‘Oh!’ she said, drawing back a step to measure him with blue eyes wide and wary. ‘I thought he’d already satisfied you about his moves. One of your men was here yesterday afternoon to talk to him.’

‘I know. Just a detail I’d like to check with him myself. If you’ve no objection?’

‘I have no objection, of course. But I think I should tell you that I feel every confidence in this young man. I haven’t had him long, that’s true, but I can usually make up my mind fairly soon about people. I see,’ she said with authority, ‘why you must consider him as a possibility. But I’m sure you’ll be wasting your time.’

‘He’s simply one man who at least has been in occasional contact with Annet. You must take my word for it that that’s enough to make this necessary.’

‘And personable,’ said Regina, suddenly running her fingers deep into the orderly waves of her short red hair, and clenching them there for a moment. ‘And young!’

The faint, astonished tang of bitterness the word had for her made her mouth twist. Had she looked too often and too closely at the chauffeur herself? It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened to a busy, self-confident, indulgent woman suddenly shocked into awareness that youth had left her. If so, she had surely never done more than look; she was too certain of herself to sacrifice a part of her personality to an employee, whatever the momentary temptations.

‘How much more do you know about him? He came to you with references, of course?’

‘One,’ she said, ‘from his last employer, a business man down in Richmond. But of course you can see the letter if you want to. Before that he says he was in Canada for a year, driving or doing any job he could get. So far we’ve found him completely satisfactory.’ It was a royal ‘we,’ and George recognised it as such; Peter had no use for a chauffeur, and no interest in this one provided Regina was happy.

‘Oh, I don’t doubt that. And he lives in Braidie’s old quarters?’

‘In the south lodge.’ It was behind the house, and hidden from it by the older plantations Peter had brought to such excellent growth and condition.

‘Alone? Or is he a married man?’

‘He has been married. His wife got a divorce from him – at least, it won’t be absolute for a month or so yet. Over an incident with another woman. You see, he was very frank with me about his circumstances when he applied for the job.’

‘So he does live alone?’ In that minor lodge on a very quiet road, out of sight of the house, where coming and going would be easy. ‘And does for himself?’

‘Yes, very economically and neatly, so I’m told.’ She smiled for an instant, but wryly. ‘Our head gardener has a rather forward daughter who has made it her business to offer her services, but she hasn’t got anywhere so far. He doesn’t seem to have any use for women, by all the signs.’

No, maybe not. But then he wouldn’t, for other women, if he had Annet in his sights.

‘I’ll go round and join them, if I may.’

‘Do, of course. You know your way.’

George walked round the wing of the house and down the slope of grass. The eighteenth century stable block sat four-square about a large courtyard, two-storeyed, many-windowed, like a mansion in itself. There were still three riding-horses on the place, but the cars had nearly elbowed them out of their own yard. Peter Blacklock, in slacks and an old polo-necked sweater, was bending into the bonnet of the E-type Jaguar that was credibly reputed to be Regina’s last birthday present to him. Stockwood, in overalls, was washing down the Bentley. He turned his head at the hollow sound of footsteps under the stable archway, and showed that proud, dark face of his, withdrawn and defensive as a Romany. For a moment he was motionless. Water streamed from his rubber brush down the flanks of the car, and flowed away into the drain.

Peter Blacklock took his head out of the car’s innards, and shook back the lank fair hair from his forehead with a nervous toss of his head.

‘Oh, hallo, Felse!’ Something of consternation, something of resignation, showed in his long, hypersensitive features for an instant, and then was gone as suddenly, leaving only his usual faintly weary but beautifully modulated politeness. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come. Were you looking for me?’

He leaned into the car and switched off the purring engine, and stood wiping his hands on a tangle of cotton-waste. ‘Am I allowed to ask about Annet? We’ve been – we are terribly anxious about her. There’s nothing new?’

‘No, nothing new.’ He didn’t want to talk to anyone about Annet, he didn’t want to show to anyone else even a part of what she had made him experience. ‘We’re still filling in details wherever and however we can – about all the people we can. Do you mind if I ask Stockwood a few questions?’

‘If you must,’ said Peter, frowning. ‘But I thought you’d already done with him. He accounted for himself to one of your fellows yesterday. Something the matter with the liaison, or what?’

‘Nothing the matter with the liaison. Just a double check for safety’s sake. And you might fill in the timing of the week-end for me yourself first, if you will. Mrs Blacklock went off to Gloucester on the Thursday afternoon. Stockwood drove her down and brought back the car, because she was meeting a friend there who could run her about locally. You then gave him the whole long week-end off, I understand. Exactly when did he leave here, and when did he return?’

In the very brief moment of quietness Stockwood leaned and turned off the tap. He laid down the brush and took a step towards them, waiting in readiness, dark colour mounting in his face and blanching again to pallor.

‘He garaged the car about a quarter to five,’ said Peter in a thin, brittle voice, his long face sagging with reluctance and distress. ‘I told him he could consider himself free until the following Wednesday noon, and then come in for the Bentley and fetch my wife home. I told him if he liked he could make use of one of the BSAs for his weekend, and he said yes, he would like to. I don’t know what time he left the lodge, but it was all in darkness before six o’clock. He came back prompt at noon on Wednesday, and drove to Gloucester to bring Reginaback.’

‘You didn’t ask him where he was going?’

‘I didn’t. I don’t. Nor where he’d been, when he came back. He’s my wife’s employee, not mine, but even if he were mine I shouldn’t think that gave me any right to ask him where he spends his free time. Only his working hours are bought and paid for.’ He added gently and wearily: ‘Your business, of course, it may very well be. You ask him.’

The young man dried his hands carefully, automatically, confronting them both with a wary face and narrowed eyes. He had left it too late to protest at being interrogated again, and far too late to pretend surprise or indignation. He waited, moistening his lips, a glitter in his eyes that might have been anger, but looked closer kin to desperation.

‘I think,’ said George after a moment of thought, ‘I’d better talk to Stockwood alone. If you don’t mind?’

Blacklock did mind, that was abundantly clear; he felt a degree of responsibility for all the members of his wife’s staff, and was reluctant to abandon any of them to the mercies of the police, however implicit his faith might be, in theory, in British justice. He hesitated for a moment, swung on his heel to pick up his jacket from the stone bench in the middle of the yard.

‘All right! I’ll see you when you’ve finished, Felse. Look in at the house for a moment if I’m not around, will you?’

He went out through the deep archway between the coach-houses with his long, nervous stride, and vanished up the slope of the field towards the hall.

‘Well?’ said George. ‘Where did you spend the weekend?’

The young man drew breath carefully between lips curled in detestation and fright. ‘I’ve told you already. I told your bloke who was here yesterday—’

‘You told him you went to a fishing inn up the Teme valley – I know. Not having a home of your own to go to.’

Stockwood’s head jerked back, the gipsy face took fire in a brief blaze of defiance quickly suppressed.

‘You thought the landlord was a friend of yours, and quick on the uptake, and would see you through. Maybe he promised you he would, when you ’phoned him. Maybe he really would, up to a hold-up or a smash-and-grab. But as soon as he smelled murder he packed it in. He’d not getting lumbered with any part of it, boy. And you weren’t at the Angler’s Arms last Saturday night. So where were you?’

The colour had ebbed from Stockwood’s face so alarmingly that it seemed there could not be enough blood in him to keep his heart working. George took him by the arm and sat him down, unresisting, on the stone bench. The lean young face, self-conscious and proud, stood him off steadily; and in a moment the blanched lines of jaw and mouth eased.

‘That’s better. Take it quietly. It’s very simple. You gave us a phoney tale about where you spent your free week-end. Now all I want is the truth, and for your own sake you’d better produce it. You’d have done better,’ he said dryly, ‘to stick to it in the first place, when you came here after the job. Why didn’t you tell Mrs Blacklock you had a prison record? Oh, no, I haven’t told her, either, so far this is just between you and me. But you must have cased the job and the people before you tried it, you should have been able to judge that she’d take you even with a stretch behind you – maybe all the more.’

‘I didn’t know,’ said the young man through tight lips. ‘How could I? I wanted the job, and I was on the level. I didn’t dare to risk what she’d do if she knew.’

‘I’m telling you, she’d have taken you on just the same. She’d pride herself on giving you your chance.’

‘That’s what you fellows always say. And that’s what women like her always say. But when it came to the point how could I be sure? I’ve done the job properly,’ he said, stiffening his neck arrogantly, and stared up into George’s face without blinking. ‘Didn’t take your lot long to get after my record, did it?’

‘It doesn’t, once we’ve got the idea, once we know you’re lying about your movements last week-end. We can connect. It doesn’t follow,’ said George, ‘that we think you necessarily did the Bloome Street job. It’s a long way from helping to hi-jack a load of cigarettes to killing a man. But nobody lies about his movements without having something to hide. So where were you?’

Stockwood’s jaw clamped tight to shut in whatever words he might have been about to blurt out furiously in George’s face. He sat for a moment with his hands clenched and braced on the edge of the stone seat. There was no hope of success with a second lie, and all too clearly he had no new line of defence prepared. After a brief struggle his lips opened stiffly, and said abruptly: ‘With a woman.’

‘Miss Beck?’ said George conversationally.

‘No, not Miss Beck!’

‘Rosalind Piper again?’

Or was it ‘still’ rather than ‘again’? But there was as little reason for him to hide a connection with her as there was to continue or resume it. According to the records, she had cost him a year in gaol by involving him in the gang in the first place; and she had cost him his marriage, too, it seemed, since there was a divorce hanging over him. Briefly George wondered what she had looked like. A blonde decoy with a brazen face, or a little innocent creature with big blue eyes? The boy could have been only about twenty-one or twenty-two at the time, and not long married, probably a decent enough young man with good prospects, but the usual, ever-present money difficulties; and a quick share-out from one big haul must have seemed to him an enticing proposition, especially the way the experienced Miss Piper had pictured it for him, with herself as a bonus.

‘No!’ Stockwood spat the negative after her memory, and turned his head obstinately away.

‘I have no interest,’ said George patiently, ‘in your private affairs, as long as you’re breaking no laws. You’d better give her a name. If she bears you out, I can forget it.’ If she bore him out, it would be the truth.

‘You might,’ said Stockwood. ‘She wouldn’t.’

‘If she didn’t grudge you the week-end, she won’t grudge you an alibi. What harm can there be in asking her to confirm your story? If, of course, it’s true this time.’

‘It’s true!’

‘And if you did nothing the law would be interested in.’

‘No. I didn’t do anything wrong. You won’t be able to prove I did, because I didn’t.’

‘Then don’t be a fool. Tell me who she is, and help yourself and me.’

‘No – I can’t tell you!’

‘You’ll have to in the end. Come on, now, she won’t be inconvenienced, we have no interest in her. But unless you name her you’re putting yourself in a nasty spot, and casting doubt on every word you have told me.’

‘I can’t help it,’ said Stockwood stubbornly, and licked a trickle of sweat from his lips. ‘I can’t tell you.’

‘You can’t because she’s as big a lie as the fishing weekend. She doesn’t exist.’

‘She does exist! Oh, my God!’ He said it in a sudden, soft, hopeless voice to himself, as though, indeed, she was the only creature who did exist for him, and of her reality he was agonisingly unsure. ‘But I can’t tell you who she is.’

‘You won’t.’

‘All right, I won’t!’

George walked away from him as far as the hollow shadow under the archway, walked his heat and exasperation out of him for a few minutes in the chill of it, and came back to begin all over again. It went on and on and on through the sparse, barren exchange, two, three, four times over; but at the end of it, it was still no. Quivering with tension, exhausted and afraid, Stockwood looked up at him with apprehensive eyes, waiting for the inevitable, and still denied him.

‘All right,’ said George at last, with a sigh, ‘if that’s how you want it, there are more ways than one of finding her.’

But were there? Had he discovered even one way yet of finding the man who had picked up Annet and taken her to Birmingham? The city might be, must be, more productive.

‘We’ll leave it at that,’ he said, ‘for the moment. And on your own head be it.’

‘Are you taking me in?’ asked the young man from a dry throat.

‘No. Not yet. I don’t want you yet, and you’ll keep. But you won’t do anything rash, will you? Such as deciding to get out of here, fast. I shouldn’t. You wouldn’t get far.’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Stockwood steadily, and sat with his clenched hands braced on his knees, tense and still, as George turned and walked out of the stable block.

Peter Blacklock was waiting in the leaf-strewn border of the drive, just out of sight of the windows of the house.

‘Well, did you satisfy yourself?’ His kind face was clouded, his eyes anxiously questioning. ‘You know, Felse, you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’m sure Stockwood had nothing whatever to do with it.’

‘I’ve finished with him for the time being,’ said George noncommittally, his voice mild.

‘I’m glad. I was sure—’

He fell into step beside George, shaking his head helplessly over his thoughts, and feeling for words.

‘You know, Regina and I are very worried about Annet. One can’t help realising, from what was published in the papers, that she’s very deeply implicated. What I wanted to say— to ask— You do realise, don’t you, that she must have been dragged into this terrible position quite innocently? We know her, you see, very well. It’s quite impossible that she should willingly hurt or wrong anyone. She can have known nothing, nothing whatever, about the crime – before or after the act.’

He waited, and George walked beside him and said nothing.

‘Forgive me, but I had to tell you what we feel about her, we who know her, perhaps, as well as anyone. We’re very fond of her, Mr Felse. I’m sure you can understand that.’

‘I can understand it,’ said George. ‘I’m beginning to think I know her pretty well myself.’ And could be very fond of her, too, his mind added, but he kept that to himself.

‘Then you must have realised that she can’t have known anything about murder or theft.’ He looked up into George’s face with the shadowy, emasculated reflection of his wife’s confidence, authority and energy. ‘I know this isn’t professional conduct, but I should be very grateful to you for some reassurance – a hint as to how you’re thinking of her—’

‘I think of her,’ said George, goaded, ‘as a human creature, not a doll, a whole lot more complicated and dangerous than any of you seem to realise. She isn’t anyone’s hapless victim, and she isn’t a pawn in anyone’s game, and when I pity her I know I’m wasting my time. But if it’s any consolation to you, I don’t think she’s a murderess.’

He climbed into the MG, swung it round, hissing, on the apron of rosy gravel, and drove away down the avenue of old lime trees, leaving Blacklock standing with a faint, assuaged smile on his lips and the deep grief still in his eyes; slender and tall and elegant in his ancient and excellent clothes, like a monument to a stratum of society into which he had been drafted just in time to decay with it.

George telephoned Superintendent Duckett from home, over the hasty lunch Bunty had spent so much time and care preparing, and he had now no leisure to enjoy.

‘The bike again,’ said Duckett hopefully. ‘If you can find where they stayed there may be a real chance of finding out if anyone saw the bike around. And if so, then it’s looking unhealthy for our friend. But why, for God’s sake, say he spent the week-end with a woman, if he really is the one who was off with the Beck girl? You’d have thought he’d turn out absolutely any tale rather than go so near the truth.’

‘He did, originally. It fell down under him. This time he was pushed. And of course,’ said George cautiously, ‘there’s always the chance that it may be true – even provably true, if it’s that or his neck. He’s a good-looking chap, and there could be other women, besides Annet, who’d think so. Even some others he might risk a good deal before he’d name.’

‘You’ve got one in mind?’ said Duckett alertly, hearing the note of wary thoughtfulness he knew how to interpret.

‘I have, but it’s far-fetched. I’d rather plough other ground first, it’s more likely to yield.’

He could picture in Technicolor Duckett’s face if the receiver should blurt out baldly in his ear: ‘Well, he could have gone off back to Gloucester, and spent the week-end amusing Mrs Blacklock between lectures and discussions. She’s noticed him, all right. She speaks up for him, as well she might if she knows where he was but doesn’t want to have to say so – and a little more freely than you would normally for a good chauffeur you’d had only three months, and who otherwise meant nothing to you. And what would be more likely to shut his mouth, and make him stick out even the threat of a murder charge rather than come out with the real facts? A blazing scandal, her reputation gone and his job, and where would he get another in a hurry? If it was Regina, it all makes sense!’

No, that was all true enough, but not for publication, and for the moment non-essential in any case. It couldn’t catch their murderer for them, even if they proved it, it could only cancel out one more possibility. The elimination of Stockwood could wait its turn.

‘I’m making for Birmingham now,’ he said, aloud. ‘It looks the more profitable end at the moment.’

‘Give ’em my love,‘ said Duckett. ‘And keep off them corns.’

George drove to Birmingham, and conferred with his opposite numbers there briefly and amicably. They had worked together on other occasions, and understood each other very well. Hag-ridden and undermanned, the city CID were hardly likely to chill their welcome for someone who came with a handful of suggestions, however dubious; all the more if he was willing to investigate them himself.

The sum of their own discoveries, up to then, was two shop assistants who had sold clothing to Annet in one of the big stores, and one elderly newsboy from whom she had bought a paper on Friday evening.

‘Never reads the damned things himself,’ complained the Superintendent bitterly, ‘except the racing page. Says he’s seen too many of ’em to care. Waving the girl’s face in front of the rush hour crowds, and never noticed it himself!’

‘She was alone when they saw her?’

‘Every time.’

‘Well, let’s see if we can get anything out of her old class-mates.’

The student of literature was out of town for the weekend; he should, of course, have thought of that. But her lodgings were easy enough to find, shared with three other students, and presided over by a competent matron of fifty, who had reared a family of her own, and knew all the pitfalls. It was clear within ten minutes that it would be quite impossible for any irregularities to creep into her well-ordered household, or any of her girls to misbehave herself or entertain a misbehaving visitor within these walls. Contact with Beryl there might have been, but on the whole even that was improbable. The one girl who was spending the week-end in town, over a crucial essay, had never heard Annet mentioned, and never seen her, and from her George gathered that Beryl’s time and attention was very largely taken up by men friends rather than women. He wrote that one off, and made for the retired teacher who had enjoyed Annet’s liking and confidence.

Miss Roscoe was rosy and grey and garrulous, of uncertain memory, but certain that she had not heard from or seen Annet Beck for over a year.

It took him some time to run the art student to earth, for Myra Gibbons had known no exact address for her, and before he could find her he had to find the secretary of the school. But he had luck, and when at last he located the small old house in a quiet road, and the side-door in the yard which led directly to the converted first-floor flatlet, it was Mary Clarkson in person who opened the door to him.

No, she had not seen Annet Beck during the weekend, because she had herself been home in Comerbourne for a whole week, and left the flat closed up. She knew, of course, about Annet’s picture being in the paper, and the appeal for information about her, but she had had no information to give. She was terribly concerned about her, of course, but mostly just plain astonished, because it seemed so incredible.

They wrote to each other very occasionally. When had she last written? Oh, maybe a month ago. And had she mentioned that she would be going home for such a long visit at half-term? Yes, she believed she had, now that he came to suggest it. It was terrible about Annet, wasn’t it? But no, she’d never told Mary anything about boys, or not about any special boy. Annet didn’t confide that kind of thing. No, nothing at all, never a word to indicate that she was either in love or in trouble. She was quite sure. She’d have been curious enough to read between the lines and try to work it out in detail, if ever there’d been the slightest hint.

It appeared that he had drawn a blank again, and the hours of his single and irreplaceable day were slipping away from him with nothing gained. But when she was letting him out, and he looked round the yard and saw how securely enclosed it was, with no window overlooking it, and no other door sharing it, his thumbs pricked.

‘Where’s the actual door of the house?’

‘Oh, that’s round the corner in the other street. This was the back door originally, but when she had the flat made to let, she made use of this door to serve it, and walled it off from the kitchen and the passage. That’s what makes it so beautifully private.’

And so it did, so beautifully private that now he could not be mistaken, and he could not and would not go back with nothing to show for it.

‘Has Annet ever been here?’

‘Oh, yes, two or three times. She stayed with me once, just overnight, but that’s a long time ago.’

‘She never asked about coming again? Or suggested that she might borrow the flat when you were away?’

‘No, not exactly. I mean, she didn’t. But I remember I did tell her, when she was here, that she could make use of it if ever she wanted to be in Birmingham, even if I wasn’t here. I told her to ask Mrs Brookes for the spare key, if she needed it. And I told Mrs Brookes about it, just in case she came. But she never did—’

She let that ending trail away into silence. She stared at George.

‘I think,’ said George, ‘we’d better have a word with Mrs Brooks.’ He made for the yard door, and the girl came eagerly after, hard on his heels. ‘When did you get back into town?’

‘Only this morning. We haven’t got any classes until Monday, but I’m meeting someone tonight, or I should have stayed over until tomorrow evening. I haven’t seen her to talk to yet. Do you really think—?’

‘Yes,’ said George, and headed round the corner at speed to ring the bell at the coy blue front door. ‘Were there no signs of occupation?’

‘Not that I noticed. Everything was tidy, and just as I left it. But it would be – she was always tidier than I am. And I haven’t really looked for anything, why should I? I never even thought of it.’

The door was opened, softly and gradually. A thin, small, elderly woman in black, of infinite gentility, glanced enquiringly over George, and smiled in swift, incurious understanding, reassured, at sight of the girl beside him.

‘Ah, there you are, my dear,’ said Mrs Brookes. ‘I caught just a glimpse of you this morning when you came in with the shopping, but I thought you’d look in during the day sometime. Your friend was here last week-end – I expect she left a message for you, didn’t she? I gave her the key, and she promised she’d leave everything nice for you. Such a pretty child, I was so glad to see her again. And no trouble at all,’ she said serenely, smiling with vague benevolence at the remembered image of Annet, shy, silent and aloof, clenched about her secret.

‘Quiet as a mouse about the place. And she thanked me so sweetly when she brought the key back on Tuesday evening. If only all the young girls nowadays had such pretty manners, I’m sure there wouldn’t be any occasion for all this talk about what are the younger generation coming to.’

‘She’s seventy-one,’ said George, reporting over an acrid cup of tea and a Birmingham sausage roll that represented all the meal he was going to have time for. ‘A widow, no relations very close, a few friends, but they don’t pop in at all hours. She’s not very active or strong, her groceries and laundry are delivered, no dog to walk— Astonishing how completely isolated and insulated you can be in a city, if you let it happen. And she’s the kind that doesn’t mind, not even particularly inquisitive. She doesn’t take a newspaper, except on Sundays, because she gets all the news the modern way. Where we made our mistake was bothering about the Press at all, it seems what we should have done was put the girl’s photograph on television. She follows that, all right, religiously. As it was, she simply didn’t know – after all this labour she really didn’t know – what our girl looked like. Not that she’s been able to tell us very much even now, but at least we know now where Annet and her boyfriend spent their nights. And knowing that, it’s surely only a matter of time finding out more. Mrs Brookes may not be the nosy type, but there must be somebody in that street who spends her time peering through the net curtains to watch everybody’s comings and goings. Somebody will have seen them – some other old girl who doesn’t see the papers, or didn’t want to get mixed up in the business. They still come like that our way, I don’t know about Birmingham.’

‘They still come like that here, too,’ the Superintendent assured him grimly, and went on with his notes.

‘Even some old soul too blind to identify a photograph may have a pretty good eye for general appearances, height, walk, the basic cut of a man. The knocking on doors begins now, all along the street. Thank God that’s your job, not mine.’

‘Not mine, either,’ said the Superintendent with a tight smile, ‘if I know it. A hate of leg-work got me where I am. Check on this for me. The girl came for the key on Thursday evening about seven – by which time it was dark – reminded Mrs Brookes that her friend had given permission for her to use the flat any week-end. And Mrs Brooks remembered and obliged. Girl said she didn’t need anything, she had everything, and old lady left her alone to run her own show. The entrance is private, a motor-bike could lie in the yard there and not be seen. Old lady saw her three or four times during the week-end, coming home with shopping. Not only food, but fancy bags from a dress-shop, very natural in any girl. But always alone. Two or three times they chatted for a few minutes, but that was all. Never saw a man there. Voices don’t carry through the walls – that I can believe, those are old houses, and solid. No mention of a man, no glimpse of a man, but with her windows facing the opposite way, and her eye on television most of the time, anyhow, that doesn’t mean much. Anyhow, she can tell us nothing about a man, and she won’t hear of one. Not in connection with this angelic girl. And on Sunday morning Beck was in the local church for morning service, alone, which only reinforces Mrs Brookes’s opinion that we’re misjudging her cruelly. On Tuesday evening she brought back the key, said thank-you prettily, and left, by what means of transport Mrs Brookes doesn’t know. We could,’ he said sourly, ‘have done with a more inquisitive landlady, that’s a fact.’

‘There’ll be a neighbour with a flattened nose somewhere around. The girls who sold Annet the dress and the nightdress didn’t add much, either.’

‘She shopped alone. Every time. And in city shops and a supermarket, never in the small local places. If he was with her, he waited outside. Most men do. So that’s it. That’s the lot. But at least we’ve moved, and now we can keep moving.’

‘That’s the lot. And I’ve got to be on my way,’ said George, pushing away his empty cup. ‘Mrs Brookes promised me to try and dredge up every word they said to each other, or anything she can remember about the girl. If she does come through with anything, call me, will you? I’ll give you a ring as soon as I get in at the office, and give you anything new we’ve got at that end. Not that I expect anything,’ he said honestly, turning up the collar of his coat in the doorway against the thin wind that had sprung up with dusk. ‘Yet,’ he said further, and went round to the parking ground to pick up the car.

He was later than he’d said he’d be, getting back to the office in Comerbourne. Tom Kenyon had telephoned once already, with nothing to report but a blameless day of chaotic activity among the geographers, and a continuing watch on the Hallowmount, which would be faithfully maintained until he and his helpers were either called off or relieved. He had promised to ring again in half an hour, which meant he might be on the line again at any moment.

But when the telephone rang again, and George leaned across to pick it up, the voice that boomed in his ear belonged to the Superintendent in Birmingham.

‘Thought you’d be making it about now,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Two bits of news for you, for what they’re worth. First, we’ve found a small boy who lives three doors away from Mrs Brookes’s back premises, and plays football in the street there. They will do it. He kicked the ball over the wall into Miss Clarkson’s yard on Friday morning, and knowing she was away, opened the door and let himself in to fetch it. He says there was a motor-bike propped on its stand inside there. A BSA three-fifty. That fits?’

‘It fits,’ said George, aware of a sudden lurch forward, as though he had been astride just such a mount, and accelerating along a closed alley between blank walls. ‘He didn’t, by any chance, collect registrations?’

‘No luck, he didn’t. Bright as a button about what interests him, he’s completely dim about the number. But if it was there, somebody else must have seen it, if we look hard enough. Somebody will have seen the rider, too. It’s only a matter of slogging, now we know where to look. And the second thing. Mrs Brookes has had an afterthought. Don’t ask me what it means, or even if it means anything. Myself, I’d be inclined to suppose she made it up to bolster her own picture of the visiting angel, if she didn’t in other ways strike me as being scrupulously honest in her observations, if not exactly acute. She says there was mention of a man. It didn’t occur to her when she was talking to you, because it was so obvious that you were enquiring about someone very different. But she remembered it afterwards, and thought she ought to correct her statement, however irrelevant this information may be.’

‘I recognise,’ said George, ‘the style.’

‘Good, now make sense of the matter. So far, I can’t. She says when Annet Beck fetched the key on Thursday, she told her that she would probably be having a visitor during the week-end. Said he had to be in Birmingham, so he’d be looking in to see her—’

‘He?’ said George, ears pricked, suddenly aware that this was going to be the place where the cul-de-sac ended, and he must brake now, and hard, if he wanted to keep his head unbroken.

‘He. The man for whose presence she was apparently preparing Mrs Brookes, just in case he should be seen. The only man in the case. And know who she said he’d be? This’ll shake you! Her father!’