An Act of Evil (9 page)

By
the time they got back, Madden had received a full report on Powell. The attack had been on a neighbour’s sixteen-year-old daughter when he was living with his parents in a mining village near Swansea. He had given himself up and made a full confession, claiming that he had only used the knife to frighten her and had cut her in the neck when she started screaming. He had been jailed for six months during which he was a model prisoner and had undergone psychiatric treatment. The psychiatrist’s report told of a markedly introverted character with difficulties over relationships with women. His father was a miner who had been pensioned off after contracting pneumoconiosis. This had caused the family financial difficulties resulting in his mother becoming a hostess at a Swansea nightclub, supplementing her income by casual prostitution. But the report noted that she had remained loyal to her husband, who had colluded with her activities, and the truth had been kept from the boy Arthur. Only when the psychiatrist had pushed him towards acknowledging what had been happening did he show any hostility, totally rejecting the suggestion about his mother as offensive and ridiculous. So extreme had his rejection been that the report concluded he had known the truth but refused to accept it. He had never married and there was no evidence that he was homosexual. Since that experience, Powell had apparently gone totally within himself, taking various unskilled jobs in different parts of Britain, always merging with the background and leaving no trace when he moved on. He had allowed nobody to come close to him.

There
was one other development before Jackson and Neale reached Vercaster. The Belsthwaite police obtained a picture of Arthur Powell taken at the retirement of the previous supermarket manager and wired it down to the Vercaster incident room. Madden was examining it when they reported to his office.

“
On the extreme left,” he said and handed the photograph to them.

It
showed an overweight, totally bald man in the centre, smiling ridiculously and holding an automatic tea-maker in a most unnatural pose, surrounded by about a dozen men and women in supermarket uniforms. Powell was standing towards the back, somehow giving the impression that he would have preferred not to be in the picture. Jackson looked at the face closely: pinched, narrow, furtive, expressionless amid smiles. Mentally he tried to stop selecting the adjectives which would fit the suspicions, but it remained a face which created a sense of unease. And there was something familiar about it.

“
Copies are being issued in time for this evening’s main television news,” Madden continued. “In the meantime, take one round to Punt Yard and see if anyone there recognises him.”

“
Yes, sir.” Jackson paused and looked at the picture again, frowning. “It’s just that …I think I know him…I think…” He shook his head.

“
Know him?” snapped Madden.

“
I’ve got the feeling I’ve seen him. In Vercaster. But I can’t remember where.”

“
Take it to Punt Yard,” said Madden. “Perhaps it will come back to you.” There was the slightest edge in his voice indicating that he expected it to.

The
recollection remained frustratingly elusive as Jackson drove to Punt Yard and he sat in the car outside the house for several minutes vainly chasing it, an image in the corners of his memory. Maltravers suddenly appeared by the car door.

“
I saw you through the window,” he said as Jackson stepped out. “Have you found him?”

“
I’m afraid not,” said Jackson. “But I’ve got a picture I want you all to look at. I’ll explain inside.”

They
listened in silence to Jackson’s news, then he handed them the photograph without indicating which one was Powell. “Just tell me if there’s anyone you recognise,” he said.

“
Him.” Maltravers and Melissa spoke instantly and together and then looked at each other in surprise.

Jackson
stood up and took the picture back. “Which one are you referring to, Mrs Cowan? The man on the left. Mr Maltravers? The man on the left. Very well. Mrs Cowan, when and where have you seen him?”

“
He was at the reception after Diana’s performance. Don’t you remember Augustus, I said he was staring in a funny way? But you didn’t see him! He’d gone when you turned round. How do you recognise him?”

“
Because I saw him the following day,” replied Maltravers. “He was the chap staring at the house when we set off for the Dean’s garden party. But you weren’t with me then so you didn’t see him.”

“
Are you both positive?” asked Jackson. They nodded their heads. “Very well, so Arthur Powell was in Vercaster on Saturday evening…” He stopped and snapped his fingers. “And that’s where I saw him! In the Refectory! I’m sorry but I deliberately hadn’t told you I thought I had seen him somewhere. And you say he was still here on Sunday afternoon.”

“
And now he’s disappeared,” said Maltravers. “Just like Diana.”

For
a moment all five of them were silent, reflecting on the implications of what had emerged.

“
May I use your telephone, Canon?” said Jackson. “I want to speak to Mr Madden. Thank you.”

Jackson
could mentally see Madden making his precise notes as he related what had happened.

“
Did you notice anything strange about his behaviour in the Refectory?” Madden asked when he had finished.

“
Not really. It was just that he was one of the few people there who seemed to be on their own, talking to nobody, and that made him catch my eye.”

“
Take statements. Establish the times. Report back to me as soon as you return.” Madden rang off abruptly.

The
statements were brief, neither Melissa nor Maltravers having taken any great notice of Powell. Maltravers remembered he wore a checked shirt but was vague about the colour.

“
And he was staring at this house?” said Jackson.

“
Yes, but I expect a lot of people do. It’s Georgian and tourists look at Georgian houses. When Tess said that was probably what he was I didn’t think about it again.”

“
If you recall anything else, let us know,” said Jackson and looked perceptively at their concerned faces. “I realise that this is not making things any better for you. Believe me, we’re doing all we can to find Powell but he seems to have a habit of taking his holidays in remote places and if he is hiding somewhere he knows the sort of places to go. But don’t worry, we’ll find him.”

“
And Diana?” asked Maltravers quietly.

“
I hope we can find her first,” said Jackson. “We still have no reports of her being treated for her injuries but that doesn’t mean it’s not been done.”

“
No body, no murder,” Maltravers said cynically.

Tess
closed her eyes. “Shut up, Gus,” she said and Jackson felt the vibrations of raw emotions breaking through the surface of their calm.

“
I realise the worst thing is not knowing,” he said as he stood up to leave. “Believe me we’ll keep you fully informed. I’ll see to that.”

“
Thank you, sergeant,” said Melissa. “We’re very grateful. We’re going to the string quartet concert this evening so that may help to take our minds off things.”

“
The festival is still going ahead then?”

“
Yes. The Dean came to see us today and wanted to cancel it but my brother insisted we should carry on. Most of our events have completely sold out and, as he said, Diana would want things to continue.” Melissa smiled at Maltravers. “And we think it’s best that we are seen to behave as normally as possible. We’re being…very British. It’s silly, but it’s one way of getting through.”

Decent
behaviour was observed in the Chapter House that evening as well, the room tangibly tense, the audience speaking in whispers and averting their eyes away from the group to which they were irresistibly drawn, the musicians sombre, the applause polite but muted. There was another gathering in the Refectory afterwards with strained good manners polluting the air until it had the quality of poisoned jelly. The Dean apologised for the Bishop’s absence.

“
He’s taking this very badly,” he explained. “I don’t need to tell you how impressed and attracted he was by Miss Porter. He asked me to convey his greatest sympathy. My wife and I feel a sense of responsibility as well. Miss Porter was a guest in our home and if we had taken greater notice, then…”

“
That’s very kind but quite unnecessary, Dean,” Maltravers interrupted. “There was nothing any of us could have done.”

Affected
by the atmosphere, people began leaving early and Maltravers and Tess were preparing to follow them when he felt the sleeve of his jacket plucked. It was Miss Targett.

“
Oh, Mr Maltravers,” she began and tears sprang to her eyes as she overcame the obstacle of speech. “This is a very, very wicked thing. Miss Porter was so...” Her kindly little face suddenly shivered into grief and Maltravers swallowed hastily as her emotion caught him.

“
Thank you, Miss Targett,” he said. “We do appreciate your feelings.”

“
But she was your friend!” Miss Targett’s voice cried with simple anguish. “Such a dear, kind, lovely girl…” She began to sob helplessly and Maltravers and Tess gazed in embarrassment, unable to find anything to do or say in comfort. They were saved by the arrival of Webster, the Succentor, who put his arm round the old lady.

“
Come along, Miss Targett,” he said gently. “Let me take you through to the Lady Chapel for a few minutes.” As she turned with childlike obedience, he smiled slightly at Tess and Maltravers to indicate he would handle things and walked away with his arm still about Miss Targett’s shoulders.

“
It’s not just us, is it?” said Tess as they watched them go. “There are all sorts of people being hurt by this. The Bishop, Melissa and Michael, Miss Targett. All those people who identify with the famous. Even the Dean’s wife. Dear God, let Diana be found soon.”

Chapter Eight

THE STING OF Miss Targett’s distress and the image of her cheerful and animated face distorted by horror moved restlessly about Maltravers’ mind all through the night. The Dean’s feelings of responsibility added irrational echoes. It was Maltravers who had brought Diana to Vercaster, the archetypal cathedral city where bad things did not happen. The feeling began to grow in him that he could not just allow things to go on without trying to do something. As morning light seeped through the bedroom curtains he lay and stared at them.

“
Are you awake?” Tess’s arm stretched across his body.

“
I can’t remember being asleep. There’s something Hardy wrote — in
The
Mayor
of
Casterbridge
I think — about there being an outer compartment to the mind into which terrible thoughts come uninvited. Mine’s very over-occupied at the moment.”

“
I know. I keep trying to tell myself the reality won’t be as bad. But I don’t believe myself.”

“
I’m going to Belsthwaite,” he said.

Tess
raised her head. “Belsthwaite? Why?”

“
Because I might find something out. Because it’s something to
do
.”

“
The police are doing everything they can.”

“
I know that, but I just might…I don’t know…I might find something they’ve missed. Perhaps someone will talk to me because I’m not a policeman. Perhaps…I can’t just stay here and do nothing.”

Tess
looked at him for a moment. “All right. But I’m coming with you. Don’t argue. You’re not the only one who needs something to do.”

Maltravers
did not argue or even reply but put his arm around Tess and pulled her closer to him. They lay in silence until they heard the sound of the morning paper arriving through the letter box.

Arthur
Powell’s thin face, slightly blurred after being enlarged from the original photograph, stared impassively from the grey columns of the
Daily
Telegraph
. Maltravers stood in the hall reading the accompanying story, a cold informative narrative, inevitably detached from the reality of the experience. There was a description of Powell’s vehicle — like himself it was nondescript — and a warning from the police that he should not be approached. The story added that he had been seen in Vercaster at the weekend but the official position was still that he was wanted for nothing more specific than to assist with police inquiries. Maltravers suddenly found the iron laws which curtailed reporting in such circumstances slightly absurd. The suspicions against Powell were overwhelming and his disappearance a tacit confirmation of his guilt, which would be increasingly reinforced the longer he failed to come forward. At the end of the story about Powell was a separate short piece about the Latimer Mercy which included a quote by Madden that the police were not connecting the incidents.

Over
breakfast Maltravers told Melissa what he and Tess planned to do.

“
I can’t see what you’ll achieve,” she said. “But I can’t see what anything will achieve. Michael’s taking Rebecca to his parents in Sussex for a few days and will stay overnight but I’ll be here to take any messages.”

“
You’ll be all right on your own?”

“
Yes. Don’t worry. I’ve got people coming round. You’ll be back tonight?”

“
Of course, but it might be late. We’ll call you before we set off. And we’d better get going now.”

Their
departure was delayed by a telephone call from Joe Goldman.

“
Have they found this bastard yet?” he demanded.

“
Not as far as we know and I’m sure they’d be in touch with us if they had. How are things with you?”

“
You wouldn’t believe it, Gus. It’s death in the family time. I’ve had grown men crying on the phone.”

“
Joe, there’s no proof Diana’s dead.”

“
You said that before but what comfort is it that she might be alive with her godammed hand cut off? Sorry, Gus, I know it must be worse for you but this is getting to a lot of people here. Anyway, that’s not why I called. There’s something worrying me and I wanted to talk to you about it.”

“
About Powell?”

“
No something else. It doesn’t make much sense but I can’t stop thinking about it. Do you remember Peter Sinclair? He was in
Success
City
.”

Maltravers
had to think a moment before Sinclair, an actor with the facial looks of an Action Man toy whose conceit far outweighed his talent, came back to him. His part in the trilogy had been a minor one; he died halfway through the first episode.

“
What about him?”

“
You know he and Diana had an affair? Nothing serious for her, she was just playing the field, but he really got in deep. When she finished it he became the classic rejected lover, flowers, phone calls, the lot. If you met him all he talked about was Diana. Anyway, the next thing is he’s going into hate, stupid threats that he’ll get even. You wouldn’t believe what he was like. You remember that cat Diana had?”

“
Who doesn’t? She was besotted with the thing. It disappeared, didn’t it?”

“
Yes…and a couple of days later its tail was pushed through her letter box. Next thing is Sinclair’s saying he’s had his revenge. The guy’s a weirdo, Gus.”

“
Did she ask him about the cat?”

“
He just laughed it off. But you see what I’m thinking? There’s only one problem. He’s in California.”

“
California! Since when?”

“
About three months ago. He landed a part as an English chauffeur in some new American TV soap opera.”

“
Come on, Joe, you know what those shooting schedules are like. How does he find time to get back to England?”

“
I don’t know. It just keeps nagging me. If he did cut up the cat he’s nutty enough for anything.”

“
Just a minute. When was this affair? When did it end?”

“
It started when they were shooting
Success
City
.”

“
When was that?”

“
Just over a year ago. It lasted about three months. Why?”

“
It’s all right, it doesn’t fit. You knew Diana was pregnant?”

“
Yes, I read it in the paper…Oh, I see what you’re driving at. No, it can’t have been him. She’d have had it by now.”

“
Any idea who it might have been? The father?”

Goldman
grunted down the phone. “No one comes to mind. She was kicking around with two or three guys but there was nothing serious as far as I know.”

“
OK, Joe, thanks for telling me about Sinclair. I’ll keep in touch.”

“
Do that, Gus. Love to Tess, you know? A lot of people have asked me to say that.”

Maltravers
thought over what Joe had told him as they prepared to leave for Belsthwaite. The continuous pattern of rehearsals and shooting for a long-running series left nobody any time to get away and there would probably be contractual limitations on Sinclair’s movements as well. But he still decided the police should know. He called Goldman back to ask the name of the studios, then called Jackson.

“
I take your point that it seems highly unlikely,” Jackson said when he had finished. “But we’ll check it out just in case. Incidentally, we’ve had the usual crop of reported sightings of Powell since his picture appeared but none has turned out to be him so far. It always happens. If he does turn up I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

“
Thanks. Actually I won’t be here for the rest of the day but my sister will be at home,” Maltravers replied. “Tess and I are going to London.”

*

Maltravers felt ridiculously guilty as they left Vercaster heading north, imagining that Jackson would see them and stop the car. He had no rational explanation for what they were doing; his reasons for going to Belsthwaite were deep, personal and irrelevant to everybody and everything except himself.

Belsthwaite
lay in the remains of what must have been a beautiful Yorkshire dale, its lower reaches now savagely scarred by the merciless urban development spawned by the industrial explosion which had supported the world’s last and greatest Empire. As they crested a hill it appeared below them, a dark sluggish river coiling out of its unlovely brickwork which climbed unevenly towards the tops of the valley ridges. A silent mill dominated one side of the town, long disused and with windows like tombstones staring blankly across the cramped back yards and alleyways of what had been the homes of its workers. On the opposite side of the river, post-war development had planted some newer industries and brighter houses scattered amid worn, patches of green. Sebastopol Terrace, with its parallel companions of Inkerman, Balaclava and Crimea itself, instantly admitted its origins in far-away battlefields. The houses stood in long, stark rows like the very brigades they silently commemorated and the brilliant sun only served to exaggerate their bleakness.

Number
twenty-seven was one of many which had been converted into upper and lower, obviously cramped, flats. There were no front gardens. The step up from the pavement was of porous sandstone, now leprous with age, and the narrow strip of diamond-shaped black and white tiles beyond it was cracked and discoloured. There were two doorbells, one unmarked and the other with a yellowing strip of paper beneath it, in a dirty clear plastic holder, bearing the name Powell.

“
Not much point in trying that,” said Maltravers and pressed the alternative. There was no sound.

“
Does it work?” asked Tess.

“
Who knows? Bells that you can’t hear from outside are always infuriating.”

They
had discussed where they would start as they drove north, deciding that gossip of their visit would spread more quickly from the supermarket and might provoke police interest, which could interfere with calling in Powell’s neighbourhood.

“
Although asking questions is no offence in law,” Maltravers had remarked.

“
But it’s not advisable when the police are involved,” Tess had replied.

Maltravers
peered through one of the matching mottled-glass panes in the front door, his hand cupped above his eyes.

“
I think there’s someone coming,” he said and moments later the blurred outline of a figure became visible on the inside. After a fumbling of lock the door opened slightly and a face peered out suspiciously.

The
resulting conversation became so bizarre that Maltravers later regretted that he did not have the opportunity to record it. Having established that they were not from the landlord, the council, or any one of several hire-purchase companies; were not social workers, Jehovah’s Witnesses or itinerant sellers of any manner of goods; did not want to lend or borrow money; had no intention of offering cut-price decorating; did not wish to discuss the purchase of unwanted jewellery or other valuables; were not conducting any form of consumer survey; had no connection with Authority (particularly the police) in any way, shape or form; and meant, in short, no harm, expense or embarrassment, the occupier opened the door more fully to reveal himself as a man of advanced years and sullen manner with braces and a shirt without a collar.

“
What do you want then?” he demanded.

“
Well, actually, we’re inquiring about your neighbour, Mr Powell,” said Maltravers with the greatest amiability he could manage after so relentless a grilling.

“
Don’t know ‘im,” said the man and closed the door before even the fleetest foot could have stopped it. Maltravers, his mouth still open to continue what he had to say, stared in amazement and Tess suddenly giggled.

“
We’re not very good at this,” she said.

“
I’ve always thought they were mad in Yorkshire,” said Maltravers. “This never happened to Lord Peter Wimsey.”

“
Perhaps not. But he never came to Belsthwaite.”

Calls
at the immediately adjacent houses were equally unprofitable. Nobody was at home in one case and at the other house there was a lady of remarkable deafness, a handicap made more difficult by the fact that she carried a perpetually yapping Yorkshire terrier. Gesturing meaninglessly at her, Tess and Maltravers admitted defeat and returned to the car.

They
were about to drive away when Tess pointed out a small corner shop at the end of the terrace, a surprising survivor of changing shopping habits. Maltravers said it would be little use as Powell would obviously buy his groceries at the supermarket where he was employed but Tess said she would try it.