Hardcastle's Soldiers (13 page)

‘No thank you, Mr Utting,' said Hardcastle, sitting down in one of Utting's armchairs. ‘Been married long?'

‘No. About seven months, as a matter of fact.'

Hardcastle nodded. ‘I hope you're feeling better now,' he said. ‘I understand you were off sick.'

‘Yes, I had a bilious attack, and just couldn't face going in on that day.'

‘But you've been back to work since, I suppose?'

‘Yes, I'm quite all right now, as it happens.'

‘A quick recovery, then,' said Hardcastle with a smile. He saw fit not to mention that Utting had told the bank manager that he had been knocked over by a cyclist the day before the murder.

‘Yes, I was able to go back to work the day after poor Somers was killed.'

‘I wanted to ask you about that, Mr Utting. Were you aware of anybody who might have had the robbery of your kiosk in mind?'

‘I'm not sure I know what you mean, Inspector.' Utting appeared to be puzzled by the question.

‘Well, I'd wondered if you'd seen anyone loitering near the booth for a few days before the murder. Or whether anyone asked you any questions about the hours you worked, or how the money got to Victoria Station from the bank. That sort of thing.'

‘No, nothing like that. The most we had to deal with were a few impatient soldiers who'd just come home on leave and wanted to get their money changed as quickly as possible. But there was always an army copper nearby to keep an eye on things.'

Hardcastle nodded amiably, despite thinking that the military police had not kept ‘an eye on things' the day that Somers was murdered. ‘It was just a long shot, Mr Utting. The police have to explore every avenue when they're looking into a murder.' He stood up. ‘Well, I'll not detain you any longer. And thank you for your assistance.' He paused at the door to the sitting room. ‘If you do think of anything that might help, perhaps you'd let me know at Cannon Row Police Station. It's just off Whitehall, next to Scotland Yard.'

‘Yes, of course,' said Utting, hastily ushering the two detectives to the front door.

‘You've finished work for the day, I take it?' Hardcastle turned in the doorway.

‘Yes,' said Utting. ‘There aren't any more troop trains coming in until tomorrow.'

‘Why didn't you mention what Mr Richards had told us, sir?' asked Marriott, when they were in a cab returning to Cannon Row. ‘About Utting supposedly having been knocked down by a bicycle.'

‘We don't have to tell suspects everything we know, Marriott,' said Hardcastle, leaning back against the leather of the cab's seat. ‘Interesting though. There's more to that Mr Utting than meets the eye,' he added.

‘D'you regard Utting as a suspect, then, sir?'

‘You know me, Marriott. Everyone's a suspect until I'm happy they ain't.'

And that, Marriott knew only too well, was the truth. ‘You didn't ask him where he was on the day he took off, sir.'

‘Of course not, Marriott. We'll ask his wife, and that won't give him any time to make up an alibi.'

It was obvious to Marriott that his chief was becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress in the investigation into the murder of Herbert Somers. And the DDI's almost daily telephone calls to his opposite number at Wandsworth revealed that Arthur Fitnam was no further forward in discovering the identity of Ivy Huggins's murderer. The only factor was that the fingerprint evidence pointed to the same killer being responsible for both murders.

Hardcastle crossed the corridor to the detectives' office. ‘Marriott, bring in that telegraph message that we got from the police at Lichfield.'

‘Right, sir.' Marriott quickly donned his jacket, and, moments later, appeared in the DDI's office with the document.

Hardcastle lit his pipe, and then studied afresh the information that the Chief Constable of Lichfield had sent.

‘I thought so!' exclaimed Hardcastle. ‘I knew there was something we'd missed, Marriott.'

‘What's that, sir?' Marriott was accustomed to the DDI including him in the blame for some omission when, in fact, it was Hardcastle's own shortcomings that had been responsible for an error.

‘This message says that Lieutenant Mansfield informed the adjutant at Lichfield Barracks
before
going to his fiancée's place in Westbourne Terrace, Bayswater.'

‘That's how I understood it, sir.'

Hardcastle tossed the message on to his desk and stared at Marriott. ‘Now why should he have booked a room at St John's Wood Barracks – which he never used – if the adjutant at Lichfield knew that he was going to spend his leave with his lady friend? As far as I understood it, from what Captain Grayson at St John's Wood said, officers on leave only need to book in at
one
barracks, not two. And why St John's Wood? That's miles from anywhere.' He spoke as though it were at the North Pole. ‘Why not a barracks nearer to Bayswater, like Chelsea Barracks or Hyde Park Barracks, for instance? You're my military expert, Marriott. Why did he do that?'

‘I've no idea, sir. It certainly seems a strange thing to do.' Marriott forbore from pointing out that St John's Wood Barracks was probably the nearest to Westbourne Terrace, whereas Chelsea and Hyde Park Barracks were on the other side of Hyde Park from there. Not that it mattered a great deal, and he had no desire to set the DDI off on another tirade about the army. ‘There was something else, sir.'

‘What?'

‘No one at St John's Wood Barracks seemed to have seen Mansfield.'

Hardcastle pondered that proposition for a mere second before issuing another order. ‘Marriott, telephone that Captain Grayson, and check how Mansfield informed them.'

It took Marriott about a quarter of an hour to discover the truth of the matter. ‘It appears that Captain Grayson received a telephone call from Lieutenant Mansfield, sir, but that he never saw him in person. Grayson said that it was quite normal practice.'

‘Sounds a bit sloppy to me.' Hardcastle took out his watch, glanced at it, and returned it to his waistcoat pocket. ‘We'll go and have a word with this fiancée of his, Marriott. See what she has to say.'

‘Very good, sir.' Marriott had no idea what Hardcastle hoped to discover by visiting a witness's fiancée, but he recognized the DDI's mood. If there were nothing to do, he would find something, even if it were inconsequential.

T
he house in Westbourne Terrace, where the Lichfield police had reported that Lieutenant Mansfield's fiancée lived, was an elegant residence, and clearly the quality of the property indicated that its occupants were not without a substantial income.

A trim housemaid answered the door. ‘Good morning, sir.' She gave a brief bob at the sight of the two men on the doorstep.

‘Good morning,' said Hardcastle. ‘We're police officers. Is Miss Isabella Harcourt at home?' Recalling the alarm with which Mrs Nash had greeted his arrival at Stanstead Road when he called about her absentee son Adrian, he quickly added, ‘But tell her there's nothing to worry about.'

‘If you care to step inside, sir, I'll enquire.'

Hardcastle gazed around the opulent entrance hall. ‘There's a bit of sausage and mash here, Marriott,' he remarked, while they were waiting. ‘I wonder what Miss Harcourt's old pot and pan does for a living.'

A moment or two later, the maid returned. ‘If you'd be so good as to step into the drawing room, sir, Miss Isabella will be down shortly.'

To Hardcastle's surprise, the woman who entered the room a few minutes later was about forty-five years of age. Her jet-black hair was drawn into an elegant chignon, and there was a distinctly foreign appearance about her olive skin, high cheekbones and large black eyes. Her red silk frock shone in the light cast from the windows.
Surely
, thought Hardcastle,
this woman could not be young Mansfield's fiancée.
Attractive and well groomed though she was, she was old enough to be his mother.

‘I am Miranda Maria Harcourt,' the woman announced. There was the trace of a Spanish accent, and her statement would have sounded haughty if it had not been accompanied by a smile. ‘I understand that you are from the police, and that you wish to speak to my daughter.'

‘That's correct, ma'am. I'm Divisional Detective Inspector Hardcastle of the Whitehall Division, and this is Detective Sergeant Marriott.'

‘Please sit down, gentlemen.' Mrs Harcourt indicated a sofa with a wave of her hand before seating herself opposite the two detectives. ‘Would you be so good as to tell me what this is about? My daughter is not in any trouble, I hope.'

‘No, she's not,' said Hardcastle. ‘We're are trying to trace Lieutenant Mansfield, who, I understand, is your daughter's fiancé.'

‘Is it Geoffrey who's in some sort of trouble, then?' Mrs Harcourt inclined her head in a questioning manner, and gave the impression that, if he were in trouble with the police, then he would be an unsuitable match for her daughter and, in consequence, would not be asked to call again.

‘No, not at all, and to the best of my knowledge he's quite safe.'

‘Then why are you interested in tracing him?'

Hardcastle explained, as briefly as possible, that Mansfield had witnessed a man running away from the scene of a murder at Victoria Station. ‘I was hoping that he might be able to add a little more to the statement he gave us at the time, but we've been unable to get in touch with him since then.'

‘I see.' Mrs Harcourt rose from her chair, causing the two detectives to struggle to their feet. ‘I'll call my daughter, Inspector. It's possible, I suppose, that Geoffrey mentioned something of it to her. I doubt that he would have omitted to do so.'

‘Funny business, sir,' said Marriott, once Mrs Harcourt had left the room. ‘Isabella's mother wanting to know what it was all about before we were given permission to talk to her daughter.'

‘Foreign,' said Hardcastle dismissively. ‘Always have a queer way of carrying on.'

The young woman who entered the room moments later was obviously Miranda Harcourt's daughter. Isabella Harcourt possessed her mother's beauty and poise, and also her smile, but it was warmer and open.

‘I'm Billie Harcourt,' she announced.

Momentarily nonplussed, Hardcastle did not immediately answer. ‘I thought your name was Isabella,' he said eventually.

‘So it is,' said the young woman, ‘but then it got shortened to Bella, and finally to Billie.' She smiled again. ‘Which I much prefer,' she added. She arranged herself in the chair that her mother had just vacated. ‘Please sit down, gentlemen. My mother tells me that you are anxious to trace Geoffrey.'

Once again, Hardcastle explained what had happened at Victoria Station. ‘I was hoping that Lieutenant Mansfield might have remembered something that came to him afterwards, but, as I told your mother, we're having some difficulty in tracing him.'

Billie Harcourt was unable to disguise her surprise at Hardcastle's comments. ‘This is all most extraordinary, Inspector. Geoffrey didn't mention any of this to me,' she said. ‘I wonder why.'

‘Perhaps he thought it might worry you or your parents if he told you about it, miss,' suggested Marriott.

‘I doubt that it would,' said Billie. ‘My father is a diplomat and many years ago served in Spain at our embassy there. That's where he met and married my mother. Madrid was quite a violent place in those days, so I understand. I remember my father telling me that it was not uncommon to see a dead body in the street.'

‘Good gracious!' exclaimed Hardcastle, expressing a shock he did not feel.

‘And what with the air raids here,' continued Billie Harcourt, ‘I'm afraid we're all growing regrettably accustomed to violence.'

‘So, Mr Mansfield mentioned nothing to you of this business?'

‘No, nothing at all. I somehow doubt that he would not have told me all about it. It sounds a very exciting thing to have seen. After all, murders don't happen every day, do they?'

Hardcastle did not regard any murder as ‘very exciting'. He turned to Marriott. ‘What was it that Lieutenant Mansfield said?'

‘He said that he was waiting to meet his fiancée, sir. That's why he was on the railway station.'

‘Meet me from where?' Billie Harcourt seemed even more puzzled by this statement.

‘He didn't say, miss,' said Marriott. ‘Other than to suggest you would be arriving by train.'

‘But I didn't go anywhere by train while Geoffrey was on leave, so I don't know what he meant by that.'

‘Do you happen to have a photograph of Lieutenant Mansfield, Miss Harcourt?' asked Hardcastle.

‘Yes, I do. It was taken just after he was commissioned.' Billie Harcourt stood up, but as the two CID officers were about to follow suit, she said, ‘Please, don't get up.' She left the room, and returned a few moments later clutching a silver frame. ‘There, Inspector.' She handed the photograph to Hardcastle. ‘Handsome, isn't he?'

Hardcastle studied the photograph of a young officer in uniform, and then passed it to Marriott without comment.

Marriott looked at the print carefully, but he too said nothing.

‘Thank you, miss.' Hardcastle returned the photograph to Billie Harcourt. ‘Am I to understand that your fiancé is now back in Flanders with the North Staffordshire Regiment?'

‘Yes, he is.'

‘I see. Well, I don't think we'll need to trouble you again, Miss Harcourt. I'm sorry if we've wasted your time. No doubt the military police will be able to speak to him on our behalf.'

‘It's still rather strange he didn't mention it though,' said Billie, as she showed Hardcastle and Marriott to the front door.

It was not until the two detectives had left the house that Hardcastle spoke again. ‘Well, Marriott?'