Parting Breath (19 page)

Sloan changed his mind about his son being a wing three-quarter at much the same time as he launched himself in the direction of both figures. There was no doubt about it. His boy was going to be a scrum half.

‘Got you!' he said, landing fairly and squarely on the upper figure of the two.

‘But I didn't mean to hurt him,' gasped Colin Ellison, from under the weight of a well-built Detective Inspector of Police. ‘Honestly!'

‘Let me see, now,' said Superintendent Leeyes heavily, ‘Colin Ellison is the one who claimed to be a pacifist, isn't he?'

‘He is,' agreed Sloan: Constable Carpenter was going to require quite a bit of convincing on that point.

The night was really getting on now but he had known that Leeyes wouldn't have gone home. Nor would he have come to the scene of the crime, of course. That sort of work he always insisted was routine and, like all routine work, best left to those used to doing it. ‘The greatest danger to good investigation,' he would pronounce in rare moments of expansion, ‘is the fingerprints of top brass who are underfoot.' Sloan agreed with the sentiment, however expressed, and had telephoned him at the Berebury Police Station confident that he would still he there.

‘Hardly a progress report, is it, Sloan?' he remarked unhelpfully when he had heard the story through.

‘He hit Carpenter,' said Slogan doggedly.

‘That means something,' agreed Leeyes, ‘but what?'

‘He says that he just stumbled on him in the dark, didn't know who he was or what he was doing there and hit him to be on the safe side before Carpenter had time to clobber him.'

‘Assaulting a police officer in the execution of his duty,' intoned Leeyes.

‘He said,' murmured Sloan neutrally, tempering what the angry student had naturally declared with great vigour, ‘that he couldn't be expected to know that a man sitting under a tree on a dark night contemplating he knew not what was a police officer executing his duty or anything else.'

‘For a pacifist he must have packed quite a punch,' observed Leeyes appreciatively. ‘Carpenter's a big man. Mind you, remember some of the peace lovers on some of those early nuclear protest marches.…'

‘Carpenter can't remember what hit him,' said Sloan, ‘but he's still cross.'

Cross constables never had disturbed the Superintendent: he'd never have been promoted if they had. ‘And what,' he asked, ‘does Ellison say he was doing in the College grounds at this hour of the night?'

There was always this feeling in police minds that what went on after dark as opposed to in daylight needed a second look. The law had taken note of the difference, too.…

‘He won't say,' answered Sloan. It was, in fact, the only point that the student was prepared to be silent on. ‘He just tells me that he doesn't have to answer any enquiries that are put to him or to make a statement if he doesn't want to or to come to the Police Station unless charged.'

‘That's what education does for you,' said Leeyes. ‘I always said it was a bad thing.'

Sloan wondered if he should point out that it was Judges' Rules that did that for you but decided against it.

‘What about your set-up in the sanatorium?' enquired the Superintendent.

‘No one's been near the place,' said Sloan, still puzzled about this. ‘Smith and Collet and the others heard Carpenter on their radios and were on their toes waiting for the attack –'

‘I remember waiting before we went ashore at Walcheren, Sloan –'

‘And it didn't come,' interposed Sloan swiftly. ‘If Ellison was meaning to get into the sanatorium, all I can say is that he didn't go ahead. He told me he just bent over Carpenter, slapping his face, and was trying to bring him round. That's when I found him.'

‘Would he,' asked Leeyes with great pertinence, ‘have had time to get back to Berebury and attack Carpenter after turning over Henry Moleyns' aunt's house in Luston?'

‘Yes,' said Sloan unhesitatingly. ‘It's not all that far. You'd need transport, of course.'

That was one of the things he should be getting someone to look into now: he needed to know who of all those they were concerned about had the means to get over to Luston from Berebury. Not, of course, he reminded himself, that he had had all that much time to spare since Constable Crosby had rung.

The Superintendent, needless to say, never let a little matter like practical considerations come between him and his enquiries. ‘And who else,' he asked, ‘could have got there and back without being accounted for besides Colin Ellison?'

‘A great many people,' replied Sloan grimly. To all intents and purposes, everyone who hadn't actually been locked up by Palfreyman in the Almstone administration block since the sit-in started.

‘I hear,' remarked Leeyes conversationally, ‘that they've still got old Wheatley there.'

‘I know,' said Sloan slowly. Nobody needed to be too imaginative to guess the sort of gibes that would come the way of the police when news of Dr Wheatley's incarceration got known in Calleshire.

‘I did think they'd ask us to get him out,' said Leeyes, ‘but they haven't.'

‘Talk about law and order,' muttered Sloan.

‘Ah, talk about it … that's easy,' said Leeyes sagely. ‘It's the doing that's difficult.'

‘At least we know where Dr Wheatley is,' said Sloan. ‘That's more than we can say for some of the others.'

‘Such as?'

‘Professor Mautby.' Sloan pulled his notebook out of his pocket with his spare hand. ‘He came into College to go to his laboratory just before all this blew up.'

‘What for?'

‘He knows. I don't. He's sitting there saying he's only working and doesn't know what all the fuss is about.'

Leeyes granted. ‘What about the others?'

‘Neil Carruthers, Roger Hedden, Tomlin and old McLeish all seem to be at home.'

‘“Don hypocritical, Don bad, Don furtive, Don three-quarters mad …” Where did I learn that, Sloan?'

‘I couldn't say, sir, I'm sure.' In his time the Superintendent had been to so many evening classes that you could be sure neither of what he did know nor of what he didn't.

‘Professor Watkinson we're looking for now. He's Modern History. He's still not back from giving a lecture to the Calleford Historical Society.'

‘It's getting late.'

‘As he's a bachelor,' said Sloan, a note of irony creeping into his voice, ‘no one knows if he's expected back tonight or not.'

‘As a married man,' said Leeyes instantly, ‘I can tell you he's got a lot to be thankful for.'

‘And Peter Pringle,' said Sloan, ignoring both his own wife and her condition. ‘He's the Librarian.'

‘What about him?'

‘He is said to be away for the night,' replied Sloan. ‘In Bodley.'

‘Is that', enquired Leeyes truculently, ‘the same as in Chancery?'

‘In Oxford,' said Sloan. ‘It's another library.'

‘Well, find out if he's still there. The Oxford police,' said the Superintendent, still being difficult, ‘will understand. They've had a university there even longer than we have.'

‘Then,' persisted Sloan, ‘there's Miss Hilda Linaker.'

‘Not there?'

‘Not anywhere,' said Sloan worriedly.

15 Hit

‘Chinese take-away,' announced Detective Constable Crosby, dumping a collection of small cartons down on the table belonging to the don whose room at Tarsus College they were using. It was a very beautiful oval table made of rosewood – a fact which appeared to have completely escaped the notice of the constable.

‘I suppose,' said Sloan meaningly, looking at his watch, ‘that you're waiting for me to ask what kept you.'

‘There's not a lot of other drivers on the road, sir, not this time of night.'

‘That I can well believe,' said Sloan with some spirit. ‘When they see you coming they get off it if they can.'

‘Sweet and sour,' announced Crosby, concentrating on opening the first package.

‘Was it,' enquired Sloan, still doing some calculations with time and distance, ‘a personal best?'

‘Luston to Berebury, sir, yes.' Crosby sounded satisfied. Driving fast motor cars fast was about the only aspect of his police work known to really interest the detective constable: he was always trying to beat his own course record in the country.

‘Damage?'

‘Ah … bean shoots.' Crosby appeared to be giving all his attention to the food. ‘Damage, sir?' he said assiduously. ‘What damage?'

‘Suppose,' said Sloan implacably, ‘you tell me.'

‘A hen. At least I think it was a hen.' He opened the next carton. ‘Oh, good! Chicken.'

If Detective Constable Crosby saw no incongruity in this, then Detective Inspector Sloan saw no point in underscoring it.

‘Anything else?' he asked.

‘There was a bicyclist, sir.…'

Sloan groaned. ‘Don't tell me.…'

‘Chop suey. That's nice.'

‘Crosby!'

The constable squinted at him uneasily. ‘He might write in.'

Sloan breathed out. ‘As long as he's alive to tell the tale.'

‘He looked a bit upset.'

‘Is that the lot? Nothing more?'

‘Lychees,' said Crosby, still opening packages and ignoring the carefully cherished patina of the rosewood.

‘Somewhere,' observed Sloan mordantly, ‘there is someone who loves that table.'

‘What table?… Oh, sorry.' He produced a handkerchief of young bandanna proportions and colour and mopped away.

‘I'm glad you had time for the shopping as well,' remarked Sloan astringently. He'd just worked out Crosby's average speed: what the upper level had been he didn't dare think.

‘Velly quick service,' said the constable, grinning. He pushed a
mélange
of what he had brought back in Sloan's direction. ‘Here, sir. Try this.'

It wasn't an hour at which Sloan usually ate. If he had been asked he would have declared that he wasn't hungry. To his surprise neither factor stopped him eating with relish. Buddha might have managed on a single grain of rice a day: Sloan found several hundred more satisfying. By the time he had finished eating, the world looked a slightly more promising place.

The same feeling must have overtaken the detective constable, too, because he said quite cheerfully, ‘Just Miss Linaker missing, sir?'

‘Isn't that enough?' growled Sloan.

‘Nobody else, I mean?'

‘Not Professor Mautby anyway,' said Sloan with feeling. ‘He's still over in his precious laboratory. He's been there for half the night. I've got someone watching him now – not that they can see much of what he's up to. And I daresay they'd understand less if they could see more.'

‘I don't suppose that there's anyone here that would understand it, sir, even if they could see,' said Crosby comfortably. ‘They say he's very clever. Miss Moleyns told me that Henry kept on telling her that.'

‘Professor Watkinson,' said Sloan, consulting his notebook, ‘finished his talk to the Calleshire Historical Society just before ten o'clock and then went off with all the men on the Committee for a drink at the Tabard in Calleford. Nobody seems to know what's happened to him since closing time.'

‘Ah,' said the constable expressively.

‘Ah, indeed,' echoed Sloan.

‘He could be anywhere, then.'

‘Mr Peter Pringle,' said Sloan, one eye still on his notebook, ‘is said to be spending the night with an old friend at Oxford and driving back first thing in the morning. The Library opens again tomorrow.'

‘Just the milkman on the road, then, if you're early enough,' said Crosby knowledgeably.

‘You've got a one-track mind,' said Sloan – and immediately regretted it. In a university it should be the others who went in for the double meanings: not the police.

‘Yes, sir.' It was impossible to tell if the pun had registered.

‘And Colin Ellison …'

‘“A Hard Day's Night,”' observed Crosby suddenly.

‘What?'

‘It's a song title, sir.'

‘What about it?'

‘It's us, isn't it?'

‘Crosby, are you having me on?'

‘No, sir. Honest. It's the title of a song. I just thought it's us, isn't it, sir? We're having a hard day's night, aren't we?'

‘If we're going in for titles,' said Sloan grimly, ‘
Crime and Punishment
has a lot to be said for it. Now, where was I?'

Constable Crosby wasn't exactly making the hard day's night any easier himself but Sloan saw no point in going into that.…

‘Colin Ellison, sir'

‘Master Colin Ellison,' said Sloan with determination, ‘whether he likes it or not, is spending the rest of the night under lock and key at the Police Station.'

‘So he's accounted for,' said Crosby.

‘Everyone else,' said Sloan, suddenly weary, ‘is either at the sit-in or in their own beds because we've checked, but without exception they could all have got over to Luston before you did.'

‘And one of 'em's a murderer. Lychees, sir?'

The two policemen were interrupted by the jangling of the telephone bell.

‘Your call's through, sir,' said Crosby, handing over the receiver, ‘to something that sounds like Petty France. Can that be right?'

It was a strange place-name for the office of Her Britannic Majesty's Passport Office. Sloan would have been the first to admit that. After a moment or two on the telephone he was also, to his surprise, prepared to admit something else.

That our civil servants are wonderful, too.

In their own way, that is.

The young man on night duty in the Passport Office sounded alert and co-operative. ‘Not a simple loss, I take it, Inspector?'