Clutch of Constables (14 page)

Troy pushed back the red blanket, sat up on her bunk, put her feet on the deck and ran her fingers through her short hair. “Well, Mr Tillottson,” she said, “what about this one?”

-2-

With the exception of Chief-Inspector Fox for whom she had a deep affection, Troy did not meet her husband’s colleagues with any regularity. Sometimes Alleyn would bring a few of them in for drinks and two or three times a year the Alleyns had easy-going evenings when their house, like Troy’s cabin in the
Zodiac
, was full of enormous men talking shop.

From these encounters she had, she thought, learnt to recognise certain occupational characteristics among officers of the Criminal Investigation Department.

They were men who, day in, day out, worked in an atmosphere of intense hostility. They were, they would have said, without illusions and unless a built-in scepticism, by definition includes a degree of illusion, she supposed they were right. Some of them, she thought, had retained a kind of basic compassion: they were shocked by certain crimes and angered by others. They honestly saw themselves as guardians of the peace however disillusioned they might be as to the character of the beings they protected. Some regarded modern psychiatric theories about crime with massive contempt. Others seemed to look upon the men and women they hunted with a kind of sardonic affection and would strike up what passed for friendships with them. Many of them, like Fox, were of a very kindly disposition yet, as Alleyn once said of them, if pity entered far into the hunter his occupation was gone. And he had quoted Mark Antony who talked about “pity choked with custom of fell deeds”. Some of the men she met were bitter and with reason, about public attitudes towards the police. “A character comes and robs their till or does their old Mum or interferes with their kid sister,” Mr Fox once remarked, “and they’re all over you. Next day they’re among the pigeons in Trafalgar Square advising the gang our chaps are trying to deal with to put in the boot. You could say it’s a lonely sort of job.”

Very few of Alleyn’s colleagues, Troy thought, were natural bullies but it was to be expected that the Service would occasionally attract such men and that its disciplines would sometimes fail to control them. At which point in her consideration of the genus of CID Troy was invariably brought up short by the reflection that her husband fitted into none of these categories. And she would give up generalisation as a bad job.

Now, however, she found herself trying to place Superintendent Tillottson and was unable to do so.

How tough was Mr Tillottson? How intelligent? How impenetrable? And what on earth did he now make of the cruise of the
Zodiac
? If he carried on in his usual way, ironing-out her remarks into a featureless expanse of words, she would feel like hitting him.

So. “What do you make of this one?” she asked and heard his ‘Well, now, Mrs Alleyn—’ before he said it.

“Well, now, Mrs Alleyn,” said Mr Tillottson and she cut in.

“Has she been murdered? Or can’t you say until after the autopsy?”

“We can’t say,” he admitted, looking wary, “until after the inquest. Not on — er — on — er—”

“The external appearance of her body?”

“That is so, Mrs Alleyn. That is correct, yes.”

“Have you heard that last night the Skipper got a telegram purporting to come from her? From Carlisle? Intimating she was on her way to the Highlands?”

“We have that information, Mrs Alleyn. Yes.”

“Well, then?”

Mr Tillottson coined a phrase: “It’s quite a little problem.” he said.

“You,” Troy said with feeling, “are telling me.”

She indicated the stool. “Do sit down, Mr Tillottson,” she said.

He thanked her and did so, obliterating the stool.

“I suppose,” she continued. “You want a statement from me, don’t you?”

He became cautiously playful. “I see you know all about routine, Mrs Alleyn. Well, yes, if you’ve no objection, just a wee statement. Seeing you, as you might say—”

“Discovered the body?”

“That is so, Mrs Alleyn.”

Troy said rapidly: “I was on deck on the port side at the after-end, I think you call it. I leant on the rail and looked at the water which was covered with detergent foam. We were, I suppose, about two chains below Ramsdyke weir and turning towards the lock. I saw it—I saw her face—through the foam. At first I only thought—I thought—”

“I’m sure it was very unpleasant.”

She felt that to concede this understatement would be to give ground before Mr Tillottson.

“I thought it was something else: a trick of light and colour. And then the foam broke and I saw. That’s all really. I don’t think I called out. I’m not sure. Very stupidly, I fainted. Mr Tillottson,” Troy hurried on, “we know she left the
Zodiac
some time during the night before last at Crossdyke. She slept on deck, that night.”

“Yes?” he asked quickly. “On deck? Sure?”

“Didn’t you know?”

“I haven’t had the opportunity as yet, to get what you’d call the full picture.”

“No, of course not. She told Dr Natouche she meant to sleep on deck. She complained of insomnia. And I think she must have done so because he and I found a bit of cloth from the cover of her diary — you know I told you how it went over-board — on her Li-lo mattress.”

“Not necessarily left there during the night, though, would you say?”

“Perhaps not. It was discoloured. I think Dr Natouche has kept it.”

“Has he? Now why would the doctor do that, I wonder.”

“Because I asked him to.”

“You did!”

“We were both a bit worried about her. Well, you know I was, don’t you? I told you.”

Mr. Tillottson at once looked guarded. “That’s so, Mrs Alleyn,” he said. “You did mention it. Yerse.”

“There’s one thing I want you to tell me. I daresay I’ve got no business to pester you but I hope you won’t mind too much.”

“Well, of course not. Naturally not, I’m sure.”

“It’s just this. If it is found to be homicide you won’t will you, entertain any idea of her having been set upon by thugs when she went ashore in the night? That can’t be the case, possibly, can it?”

“We always like to keep an open mind.”

“Yes, but you can’t, can you, keep an open mind about that one? Because if she was killed by some unknown thug, who on earth sent the telegram from Carlisle?”

“We’ll have to get you in the Force, Mrs Alleyn. I can see that,” he joked uneasily.

“I know I’m being a bore.”

“Not at all.”

“But you see,” Troy couldn’t resist adding, “it’s because of all those silly little things I told you about at the police stations. They don’t sound quite so foolish, now. Or do they?”

“Er — no. No. You may be quite sure, Mrs Alleyn, that we won’t neglect any detail, however small.”

“Of course. I know.”

“I might just mention, Mrs Alleyn, that since we had our last chat we’ve re-checked on the whereabouts of the passengers over last week-end. They’re O.K. The Hewson couple were in Stratford-upon-Avon. Mr Pollock did stay in Birmingham. Dr Natouche was in Liverpool, and—”

“But — that’s all before the cruise began!”

“Yerse,” he said and seemed to be in two minds what to say next. “Still,” he said, “as far as it goes, there it is,” and left it at that.

“Please, Mr Tillottson, there’s only one more thing. Had she—did you find anything round her neck. A cord or tape with a sort of little bundle on it. Sewn up, I fancy, in chamois leather?”

“No,” he said sharply. “Nothing like that. Did she wear something of that nature?”

“Yes,” Troy said. “She did. It was—I know this sounds fantastic but it’s what she told me—it was an extremely valuable Fabergé jewel representing the signs of the zodiac and given to her grandfather who was a surgeon, by, believe it or not, the Czar of Russia. She told me she never took it off. Except one supposes when she—” Troy stopped short.

“Did she talk about it to anyone else, Mrs Alleyn?”

“I understood she’d told Miss Hewson about it.”

“There you are! The foolishness of some ladies.”

“I know.”

“Well, now,” he said. “This is interesting. This is quite interesting, Mrs Alleyn.”

“You’re thinking of motive.”

“We have to think of everything,” he sighed portentously. “Everything.”

“I suppose,” Troy said, “you’ve looked in her suitcase.” She thought how preposterous it was that she should be asking the question and said to herself: “If it wasn’t for Rory, he’d have slapped me back long ago.”

He said: “That would be routine procedure, wouldn’t it, Mrs Alleyn?”

“You were alongside this cabin when you—when you—were in that boat. The porthole was open. I heard about the suitcase.”

He glanced with something like irritation at the porthole.

“There’s nothing of the nature of the object you describe in the suitcase,” he said and stood up with an air of finality. “I expect you’ll appreciate, Mrs Alleyn, that we’ll ask for signed statements from all the personnel in this craft.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’ve suggested they assemble in the saloon upstairs for a preliminary interview. You’re feeling quite yourself again—?”

“Quite, thank you.”

“That’s fine. In about five minutes, then?”

“Certainly.”

When he had gone, softly closing the door behind him, Troy tidied herself up. The face that looked out of her glass was pretty white and her hand was not perfectly steady but she was all right. She straightened the red blanket and turned to the wash-basin. The tumbler had been half-filled with water and placed on the shelf. Beside it were two capsules.

Trankwitones, no doubt.

Persistent woman: Miss Hewson.

Never in her life, Troy thought, had she felt lonelier. Never had she wished more heartily for her husband’s return.

She believed she knew now for certain, what had happened to Hazel Rickerby-Carrick. She had been murdered and her murderer was aboard the
Zodiac
.

“But,” she thought, “it may stop there. She told Miss Hewson about the jewel and Miss Hewson may well have told — who? Her brother almost certainly and perhaps Mr Pollock with whom they seem to be pretty thick. Or the Tretheways? For the matter of that, every man and woman of us may know about the thing and the ones like Dr Natouche and Caley Bard and me may simply have used discretion and held their tongues.

“And then it might follow that some single one of us,” she thought, “tried to steal the jewel when she was asleep on deck and she woke and would have screamed and given him — or her — away and so she got her quietus. But after that—? Here’s a nightmarish sort of thing — after that how did poor Hazel get to Ramsdyke weir seven miles or more upstream?”

She remembered that Miss Rickerby-Carrick had been presented with some of Miss Hewson’s Trankwitones and that Dr Natouche had said they were unknown to him.

Now. Was there any reason to suppose that the base didn’t stop there but reached out all round itself like a spider to draw in Andropulos and behind Andropulos, the shadowy figure of Foljambe? The Jampot? The ultra-clever one?

Was it too fantastic, now, to think the Jampot might be on board? And if he was? Well, Troy thought, she couldn’t for the life of her name her fancy. Figures, recalled by a professional memory, swam before her mind’s eye, each in its way outlandish — black patch, deaf ear, club foot and with a sort of mental giggle she thought: “If it’s Caley I’ve been kissed by a triple murderer and Rory can put that on his needles and knit it.”

At this point Mrs Tretheway’s little bell that she rang for meal-times, tinkled incisively. Troy opened the door and heard Tillottson’s paddy voice and a general stir as of an arrival. While she listened, trying to interpret these sounds, the cabin door on her left opened and Mr Lazenby came out. He turned and stood on her threshold and they were face-to-face. Even as close to him as she was now Troy could make nothing of the eyes behind the dark glasses and this circumstance lent his face an obviously sinister look as if he were a character out of an early Hitchcock film.

“You are better?” he asked. “I was about to inquire, I’m afraid you were very much upset and distressed. As indeed we all are. Oh, terribly distressed. Poor soul! Poor quaint, kindly soul! It’s hard to believe she’s gone.”

“I don’t find it so,” Troy snapped.

She saw his lips settle in a rather sharp line. There was a further subdued commotion somewhere on deck. Troy listened for a second. A new voice sounded and her heart began to thud against her ribs.

“If a poor parson may make a suggestion, Mrs Alleyn,” Mr Lazenby said and seemed to peer at her. “I think perhaps you should leave the
Zodiac
. You have had a great shock. You look—” The bell rang again. He turned his head sharply and the spectacles moved. For a fraction of a second Troy caught a glimpse of the left eye-socket behind its dark window. There was no eye in it.

And then she heard a very deep voice at the head of the companionway.

Without thought or conscious effort she was past Mr Lazenby, out of the cabin, up the stairs and into her husband’s arms.

-3-

Of course it was an extraordinary situation. She could think: “how extraordinary” even while her delight in his return sang so loudly it was enough to deafen her to anything else.

There had been some sort of explanation at large — introductions even — to whoever had been in the saloon followed by a retreat with Alleyn to her cabin. She remembered afterwards that they had encountered Mr Lazenby in the passage.

Now they sat, side by side, on her bunk and she thought she could cope with Catastrophe itself.

He put his arm round her and swore briefly but violently, asking her what the bloody hell she thought she was doing and giving her a number of hasty but well-planted embraces. This she found satisfactory. He then said they couldn’t sit down here on their bottoms all day and invited her to relate as quickly as possible anything she thought he ought to know.

“I’ve heard your extraordinary spinster’s been found in the river and that you were the first to see her. Tillottson seems to think it’s a case of foul play. Otherwise I know nothing beyond what you wrote in your letters. Look at you. You’re as white as a sheet. Troy, my darling.”