Die Like a Dog (11 page)

‘No one's been up there to ask him.'

‘I see.' It was obvious he didn't.

‘They killed our dogs,' Ellen said.

The rest of it came out then. The police knew about Satan's having been shot, not that the brindled dog had died.

‘This Lloyd,' the sergeant said. ‘Is he violent?'

‘The girl is,' asserted Ellen – and Miss Pink closed her eyes.

‘Excuse me a moment.' The sergeant stood up and went outside, followed by the constable. Through the window they saw him walk to the patrol car and use its radio.

When they returned, more tea was made, more questions were asked, but Miss Pink knew that this was only a holding operation. Within half an hour two plainclothes men arrived, asked similar questions, and then all the police left, driving up the combe to Lloyd's track. The people left at Parc looked at each other dumbly. For the moment even Ellen had nothing to say. The visitors were at a loss; there seemed nothing they could do except offer comfort – but a spark of common sense asserted itself.

‘Who attends to your horse?' Miss Pink asked. ‘Is it stabled?'

‘Why, no. He's in the meadow.' Gladys stood up. ‘Ellen, we must do some work.'

‘We can't work now.'

‘Yes, we can.'

They didn't. The visitors and their hostess walked round the garden but after a while the heat drove them to a seat in the shade. Ellen brought more tea.

‘I feel you should go for a walk,' Gladys told Miss Pink, ‘but I dread your going.' It was a plea.

‘We'll stay while you need us. We were merely bird- watching.'

They didn't hear a car arrive and glanced up with resignation as Ellen approached but there were two strangers with her. Miss Pink observed them with interest, reflecting that even detectives were getting younger. This was an inspector and a sergeant, both athletic, sharply dressed, bright-eyed. They were in their thirties, she guessed, and intelligent but slightly out of their depth. The inspector was called Cross, the sergeant: Bowen. Ellen hovered in the background and no one had the heart to send her away. In the circumstances they were more immediately concerned with the whereabouts of her husband than of Judson.

Choosing his words carefully Cross told them that Lloyd and ‘the young woman' maintained that Evans had not, so far as they knew, been at the cottage last night, that they hadn't seen him since the day before: Sunday, at about midday, when Lloyd had driven him and Miss Pink down to Parc with the dog Brindle in the back of his Land-Rover.

‘They must have seen him yesterday,' Gladys said. ‘Evans went up for the body of the dog – the black one. He brought it down and buried it behind his house.'

‘The couple were at the cottage, ma'am,' Cross said. ‘They heard a car on the track and the girl went down and saw a blue Simca parked halfway up. That belongs to Evans? Yes. She concluded he'd come for the body. After a while they went down and the car had gone.' There was a lot that he wasn't saying. What he did say was: ‘We have to get some more men out here for a search.'

Ellen turned without a word and went back to the house. Gladys followed her.

‘Where are you going to search?' Ted asked.

With the departure of the two women Cross relaxed visibly.

‘Evans isn't going to be far away, sir. His car's still here. We'll have to go through those woods.'

‘Is it impossible that he's met with an accident?' Miss Pink asked, without much hope.

They considered the question.

‘What kind of accident?' Ted asked. ‘There are no cliffs, no water, no mine shafts. A heart attack?'

‘He looked healthy enough,' she admitted, then sharply: ‘Did you find a spade at the cottage?'

‘Yes, ma'am. We found a spade.'

‘Where else might he have gone?' Ted asked, more of himself than the company.

‘Giving the couple the benefit of the doubt?' Cross suggested. ‘We're new to the situation: coming in cold. We don't know the man; we haven't got all the facts – by any means.' He looked over the garden. ‘We've got several crimes – well, crimes and other forms of violence: we've got two men disappeared, we've got a stolen car and two dead dogs.' His eyes came back to Ted. ‘But how many cases have we got?'

‘There's a lot of work ahead of you.'

‘And we're short-handed. Who isn't?'

Cross looked at Miss Pink, and Ted interpreted the look correctly.

‘This lady is an old friend,' he said, adding, with a touch of mischief: ‘She knows a great deal about criminals, one way and another – quite as much as I do.'

‘Is that so?' Cross regarded her with interest. ‘So you're
that
Miss Pink. Connected with the mountain school that the terrorists were working from, stealing explosives? And Ellen Jotti, the gangster's wife? Well, well; we could do with some background here, couldn't we sergeant? What do you think of this business, ma'am?'

She blinked but, after a pause, collected herself.

‘Had you asked me that question a couple of hours ago I would have said that the main problem was the reason why Judson hadn't reported his car stolen. But, with a second man missing, the situation has ramified out of all proportion. One wonders if previous happenings should be viewed in a different light – although no light at all appears to have been shed on Judson's disappearance nor the theft of his car. Can the dog be connected: the one that was shot? There's no mystery about the brindled one. We must be thankful for small mercies.'

‘There are connections all the way through,' Ted pointed out. ‘It's Judson's dog that was killed, his car was stolen; it's even his employee – and neighbour – who's missing now.'

‘Those are the obvious connections,' Cross agreed. ‘We have to find out if there are others.'

‘Have they finished printing the car?'

‘Yes, sir. The steering wheel and doors were wiped clean. Can't find a trace anywhere in fact.'

‘Really?' Miss Pink was amazed. ‘That doesn't sound like people using it for a free ride to Snowdonia.'

‘And the petrol tank still half-full,' Bowen put in gloomily.

‘They needed to go to that particular place,' Cross hazarded.

‘Could it have been a rendezvous? With another car, another driver?'

‘Judson?' Miss Pink wondered. ‘Could he have driven the car there himself and had someone pick him up? If he wanted to disappear he'd have wiped his prints off the car in order to give the impression that it had been stolen.'

‘Yes.' Cross's tone was heavy. ‘We have to find Judson. Evans too. No doubt about it: we have to get more men on this.'

A SWALLOW JINKED
above the shallows, scooping water with its beak.

‘Water,' Miss Pink said. ‘You were wrong.'

They were sitting on the stream bank below Parc. At the house Cross was taking Gladys through her recital of the last few days, concentrating on her conversations with Evans. Ted and Miss Pink had come down to the stream to be out of the way. Gladys seemed to have struck up some kind of relationship with Cross; it was she who had suggested the walk: ‘So boring for you,' she'd said. ‘We've been over all this so many times. I can cope, I assure you.'

‘Water?' Ted repeated now. ‘What water?'

‘You said Evans couldn't have met with an accident because there were no cliffs, no mine shafts and no water.'

‘You couldn't have an accident here. And this stream isn't on the way to Lloyd's cottage.'

They turned and looked at the woods, hazy with a pale bloom, drowsing in the heat. The line of the minor road was marked by straggling hedges, interspersed with wire.

‘There's someone walking down the lane,' he said.

She focused her binoculars. ‘It's Seale. Now, where's she – She's going to her tent, of course.'

They looked at each other thoughtfully.

‘Is it safe to go?' he ventured. ‘Someone ought to stay here, to be on hand if Gladys Judson needs advice, or Ellen.'

‘I'm curious as to what Seale knows.'

‘Where's her tent?'

‘About a mile downstream. I'll follow the river.'

‘Have you got a whistle?'

‘My rucksack's at the house. Don't be melodramatic, Ted. The girl's all right.'

‘You're a reckless woman, Melinda.'

Not reckless, she thought, swishing through the buttercups. I'm taking a calculated risk. I think I've judged the girl correctly. Amoral? Well, let's say she's got her own principles. Would she kill? Anyone could, given the right circumstances, but I don't think I'm in danger. Not from Seale.

She didn't keep pace with the figure on the road. The girl was walking smartly but Miss Pink had to contend with stiles, and spreads of gorse. When she arrived at the camp site Seale had already collapsed her tent and was working it into a bag. She greeted Miss Pink with surprise and a trace of impatience.

‘You're not leaving.'

Seale took it as a question. ‘I'm going to move in with Lloyd,' she said coldly.

Miss Pink nodded. ‘He needs you.'

Seale stared at her. ‘What do you know?'

‘I've been at Parc all morning. And I've met the police.'

‘And on Sunday you were with Evans. What part are you playing in all this?'

‘Well,' Miss Pink admitted, ‘partly I've been drawn into it, but also I think there's more than meets the eye. One wouldn't want the wrong people to suffer. For instance, I'm not jumping to the conclusion that Lloyd shot the black Alsatian, nor that he's responsible for Evans's disappearance.'

‘Really.' It was sarcastic – and out of character.

Miss Pink shrugged. ‘You're both of you pretty transparent –'

‘Go on!'

‘So if he's done something criminal, you'll give the game away pretty soon.'

‘You don't think he did it.' It was a statement.

‘What makes you say that?'

‘Because you called it a game.'

‘Hm. Not quite so transparent. Have you got a moment to spare?'

‘My God! More than that. Come and sit where it's cool. Lloyd can wait a bit longer for me. He's got nothing to worry about.'

They sat in the shade of a sycamore.

‘We don't know a bloody thing about any of it,' Seale said viciously, then laughed. ‘I could be amused if it was just me, but that idiot –' her voice softened, ‘– he's hostile to the police. They're badgering him. I'm moving in to give him moral support. I'm not leaving this valley until he's in the clear.'

‘About last night –'

‘If Evans came up to spy on us, we didn't hear him. Why should he come unless he's just a Peeping Tom? I wouldn't put that beyond him.'

‘He wanted the spade from the cottage, or so he said. He must have picked up something about forensics and thought he might find traces on it which could tie it to the hole the black dog was buried in.'

Seale was incredulous. ‘The police had a good look at that spade. I see. So they think Lloyd went for Evans because Evans thought he shot the dog. He didn't.'

‘Didn't shoot the dog?'

Seale looked away. ‘I don't know. It doesn't matter. But he didn't see Evans last night so he couldn't have done the man any harm. I was with him all the time. We were out in the Reserve until late, looking for the marten, then we came back, had a brew and went to bed. About eleven.'

‘You saw no one in the woods? No one at all? You heard nothing?'

‘We didn't see a soul. And it was very quiet; we could hear the rabbits thumping. So you see, Lloyd's in the clear – for Evans anyway. I'm his alibi.' At the word her voice faltered and her eyes widened.

‘That's fine,' Miss Pink said comfortably. ‘If you were with him all the time, you know he didn't see Evans, so it's immaterial how close your relationship is; the police may suspect a false alibi because of that closeness, but you know the truth. He didn't leave you at all?'

‘He was never away for longer than it takes to pee. Of course –'

‘Time to strike a man down, but no time to dispose of the body.'

Seale shook her head in disbelief. ‘He can't be dead. Who'd need to kill that ignorant, arrogant oaf – oh! Perhaps they would.'

‘And Judson. Do you know anything about that?'

‘What about him?'

‘Why, he's disappeared too.'

‘Oh, yes. The secretary of the Trust came up to see Lloyd and said he had an appointment to see Judson this morning. He's probably had a coronary and is in hospital somewhere. At least we don't have the dogs to worry about now – so long as he doesn't buy more when he comes back. The Trust man said to go easy on the aggro. Then he asked who I was. Poor Lloyd. He's been put through the hoops today. You see why he needs – someone. Hello, reinforcements.'

Two cars were passing up the lane.

‘Damn them,' Seale said cheerfully, ‘I'll have to get back. Are you going to be around? Look in some time. Sorry I was rude; I didn't know which side you were on.'

Miss Pink walked back to Parc the way she'd come. A dark mini-bus raced up the lane followed by Seale's van. When she reached the house there were men in the kitchen and the drawing room. She walked through the cobbled stable yard and round to the front entrance. Their rucksacks stood in the porch. There was no sign of Ted. She left a note on his pack, saying she had gone back to the hotel. As she walked down the lane another car passed, full of uniformed men.

She reached the Bridge, rang the bell and when a waitress came, asked for a pot of tea to be brought to her room. She drank it by the open window, then she bathed, put on a dark linen jacket and skirt and went downstairs. It was six o'clock and the river room was empty. She was crossing to the open doors when Waring entered the bar from the kitchen.