Passing Strange (11 page)

“And what did you find?” asked Sloan, though he was beginning to think he might know the answer.

“I found Nurse Cooper,” she said simply.

That was precisely what Sloan had feared.

“I was born at the Priory, you know, Inspector. That was before the great family bust-up.”

Families weren't so very different from nations. They usually had a dividing line which became for ever afterwards a chronological datum point. With England the benchmark was the Norman Conquest. And the Great War.

“You see,” said the girl, “my parents never did have a home in England.”

“Nurse Cooper knew you as a baby?” spelled out Sloan without enthusiasm.

“Intimately,” said Miss Mellows solemnly. She drew breath and said impressively “So intimately that she can prove to Mr Terlingham that I am Richenda Hilary Pemberton Mellows.”

Sloan did not know – had no means of knowing yet – if he had news for Miss Mellows or not.

“She told me so this afternoon,” carried on the girl. “She remembered, so it's all all right now. They can't say I'm not me any longer.”

“And I have to tell you, Miss Mellows,” said Sloan with unwonted harshness, “that this afternoon someone killed Nurse Cooper.”

She fell, the colour drained from her face, like someone trained in the art of falling – first tottering a few steps, then slowing down a bit before going into an even slower weave, after that going down a little on one side, then at the knees, then hips, then torso.

The loose edges of her woollen jacket got in the way as Detective-Inspector Sloan tried to catch her.

8

Flageolet swell

It didn't say a great deal for the prevailing climate of the legal system in the United Kingdom that Detective-Inspector Sloan's first anxiety as the unconscious form of Richenda Hilary Pemberton Mellows fell gracefully to the ground at his feet was what capital a skilled Defence Counsel would make out of it.

Give them an inch, was his experience, and they would take an ell.

He cast rapidly about in his mind for the proper course of action.

“What we need, Crosby,” he said, “are reinforcements.”

“Reinforcements, sir?” The detective-constable looked distinctly unbelieving. “Are you sure?”

The last time constable Crosby had had to send back to base for help had also been late on a Saturday afternoon but there the resemblance ended. It had been winter and he had been drafted on duty outside the football ground after the Luston United team had lost a home match. As in Macaulay's ‘Horatius', those on the march for Rome had been fourscore thousand and, while in theory Crosby was prepared to echo brave Horatius – he, too, did not think a man could die better than facing fearful odds – he hadn't wanted to do it that particular day.

One unconscious girl seemed rather less of a threat, though.

“She can't do us any harm, sir, surely. Not like this.”

“That's what you think, Crosby,” said Sloan tersely.

“A little thing like her?” The young policeman positively towered over the girl. “Besides, she's right out.”

“We think she's right out,” said Sloan, who hadn't taken his eyes off the prone figure for a single moment. “We don't know for sure.”

His grandmother, he remembered, had known a trick or two involving burnt feathers and smelling salts – indeed a vinaigrette, cherished but unused, even now reposed in his mother's china cabinet. The modern world didn't immediately offer a handy equivalent. There was less call for them, of course, he understood, because stays were out of fashion.

Sloan bent over and looked at the girl even more closely. So far no eyelid had peeped open to take a sly look at what was going on.

“I don't see how,” Crosby began his objection, “a girl on her own can …”

“Exactly,” said Sloan. “A girl on her own. Two of us, one of her and not another woman in sight. What we need is a woman constable.”

At this moment Richenda Mellows did stir but it wasn't her eyelids that moved. It was her chest that did. She gave a great shuddering sigh but she did not speak.

“In a minute,” forecast Sloan pessimistically, “she's going to come round and ask where she is.”

“A woman constable,” said Crosby, fingering his personal radio dubiously. “I'll see if I can raise one.”

Sloan noticed the reluctance. Whatever Happy Band of Brothers existed in Crosby's mind, ‘We Few' – be they Porthos, Athos and Aramis; or Harry, the King, Bedford and Exeter; or even Horatius, Herminius and Lartius – didn't include a Sister. Equal rights notwithstanding, Eve had no place in the holding of bridges against Tuscan hordes.

Richenda Mellows was beginning to surface. She opened her eyes – and promptly shut them again. She swallowed several times in rapid succession and then licked her lips as if her mouth were dry. A moment later she opened her eyes again.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“There,” said Sloan under his breath. “What did I tell you, Crosby?”

The girl peered uncomprehendingly at the two policemen.

“You're at Almstone Priory,” said Sloan.

“What happened?” said the girl.

Sloan didn't answer her straightaway. He waited instead for recollection to come flooding back on its own. He saw a frown gather.

“Nurse Cooper,” she said painfully, her forehead puckered.

“Dead,” Sloan reminded her.

Her response was quite unexpected.

“What will Maurice Esdaile do now?” she murmured.

Sloan moved forward alertly. “What was that?”

He shouldn't have let his interest show. He knew that at once.

Richenda Mellows took a deep breath and spoke apparently with great effort. “I have nothing to say, Inspector. Nothing at all.”

Nevertheless it took Sloan another five minutes to be sure that she meant it.

“To you,” sang Ken Walls.

“Mind that guy,” said the ever-watchful Norman Burton, used to being responsible for small children.

“To you,” responded Fred Pearson with the ease of long practice.

“Watch that wall pole,” said Edward Hebbinge.

“To you,” repeated Walls.

“Catch that trail rope, someone,” called out Burton.

“To you,” shouted Fred Pearson, catching the trail rope.

“Easy does it,” said Ken Walls.

“Hold the centre,” said Burton.

“You let go your end now, Mr Milsom,” instructed Fred Pearson.

“Damn!” exploded Milsom. “Caught my foot,” he explained.

“Now pull,” called out Ken Walls.

Fred Pearson had worked on the land all his life. He didn't pause in what he was doing now. Nor did he waste a single movement. He pulled purposefully at a section of canvas. It subsided like an airship suddenly denuded of essential gas.

“Carry on with your bit, Ken.”

Ken Walls, too, knew just what he was doing. His segment of the marquee wall sank gently downwards.

“My bit's stuck,” complained Cedric Milsom. “Blast it.”

“Quick,” commanded Norman Burton unceremoniously. “Undo the right-hand rope.”

For a moment Cedric Milsom looked as if he might be going to object to the schoolmaster's tone but he evidently thought better of it and did as he was told. Suddenly his section of the marquee too capitulated and fell inwards.

Ken Walls called across “Now your lot, Mr Hebbinge.”

The Priory agent didn't hesitate. His end of the wall of the Flower Show Marquee capsized according to plan.

“That just leaves the poles and the main guys,” said Burton. “All together now on the ridge pole.”

“Now we've got her down,” said Pearson presently, “we just want her folding up …”

Ken Walls jerked his shoulder towards the old stables. “I wonder how the Inspector's getting on?”

“It's a bad business.” Edward Hebbinge shook his head. “I don't like it at all.”

They all stood for a moment in silence. Busy as all the men had been, they had none of them forgotten what had happened to Joyce Cooper.

Fred Pearson was sizing up the collapsed tentage. “Worst part of the job's still to come, if you ask me.”

“That goes for the murder, too, doesn't it?” said Cedric Milsom thickly.

“You've got something there, Mr Milsom,” said Pearson. “That's not finished either. Not by a long chalk, it isn't.”

Norman Burton called out officiously: “Come along, everybody. We'll tackle this end first.”

The members of the marquee-striking team started to make their way towards where the Show Secretary was standing. Straightening out and folding up the heavy duty canvas called for as many hands as could be summoned up. Ken Walls and Fred Pearson approached from opposite ends while Cedric Milsom and Edward Hebbinge came round from the further side.

“Here comes Mr Watkinson,” said Ken Walls. “Good.”

“He said he'd come across when he could,” said Norman Burton with satisfaction.

“Hope I'm not too late to give you youngsters a hand,” said the old farmer genially.

“Now, then, Mr Watkinson,” said Fred Pearson. “You're not that old.”

“Shan't see sixty-five again,” said Sam Watkinson. “Come Michaelmas next year I'll be sitting back watching everyone else struggle.”

“You won't,” prophesied Pearson. “It's not easy to stop working.” He turned his head. “What's up, Mr Milsom?”

Cedric Milsom had stumbled over something in the grass as he advanced to join them. He swore vigorously.

“Caught your foot?” enquired Norman Burton.

“Well, I wasn't doing a ruddy fox-trot,” said the farmer, “was I?” He stooped. “I trod on something.”

“What have you found?” called out Burton sharply.

“It's green,” said Milsom as the others converged upon him. “That's why I didn't see it in the grass.”

“See what?”

“It's a reel of wire.” Hebbinge bent down to pick it up.

“Don't touch it,” said Burton stiffly, “whatever you do.”

The land agent straightened up. “All right,” he said quietly.

Burton reached the spot. “That's the stuff the flower arrangers use.”

“It's green so that you don't see it in the leaves,” said Pearson.

“I bet the judges spot it,” said Ken Walls.

“I didn't see it,” said Milsom forcefully. “That was the trouble. I might have broken my neck.”

Ken Walls stroked his chin. “Funny, isn't it?”

“What's so funny about it?” snapped Milsom.

“It being there.”

“It's only a reel of wire that women use for flower arrangements.”

“What's so funny about it,” said Walls with dignity, “is that this was the tent where the fruit and vegetables were.”

“So it was,” said Burton thoughtfully.

Fred Pearson scratched his head. “That's right. The flower people were in the tent nearest to the house. It was one of the first to come down.”

“It wasn't so far to carry the water.” Norman Burton prided himself on his organization. “That's why we put it there.”

Ken Walls looked about him. “The tomatoes would have been about here,” he said.

“You and your tomatoes,” said Burton, though he said it without conviction this time.

Edward Hebbinge was still looking down at the reel of wire. “I think it's got someone's name on the end.”

Norman Burton peered at it. “I can't quite see …”

Fred Pearson squinted over his shoulder. “I can.” Fred did not need to wear glasses. “It says ‘M. L. Kershaw' on the cardboard end.”

“Our Millicent's a great one for the Floral Art,” observed Cedric Milsom. “Can't see the appeal myself, but there's no accounting for taste.”

The Priory agent started to reach out his hand for the reel. “I'll give it back to her then when …”

“Don't touch it!” barked Norman Burton just before Hebbinge's grasp fell upon the roll of wire.

Hebbinge promptly withdrew his hand.

“I'm sorry, Edward,” said Norman Burton awkwardly.

“You're quite right,” said Hebbinge. “Don't apologize.”

A cold silence fell upon the little group. The earlier comradeship and warmth that had been engendered by the common task – shared by them all – fell away and was succeeded by unease. They had been reminded of more than a death: of a killing.

“Nurse Cooper had something thin round her neck,” remarked Fred Pearson to no one in particular.

“We couldn't see what it was,” said Walls.

Edward Hebbinge cleared his throat. “We none of us really know anything yet, do we?”

“That's a fact,” said Ken Walls.

“Better,” said Burton gruffly, “to leave it exactly where we found it, don't you think?”

“Just as well to be on the safe side,” said Ken Walls.

“Look,” said Norman Burton, “I'll mark the spot.” The schoolmaster laid the notebook without which he was never known to move, carefully down beside the reel of wire.

“We'll know where it is now,” said Fred Pearson. “We won't trip over it again.” He was in fact much too observant a man to have stumbled in the first place but he was by nature kind.

Ken Walls cast a calculating look at the sky. “We're going to run out of light if we're not careful. It won't last much longer …”

All six men applied themselves to the task at hand. Even so, it was some little time before all the sections and poles of the marquee and its great roof were folded and finally loaded on to Cedric Milsom's lorry. And even later before Norman Burton went across to the old stables and brought Detective-Constable Crosby back with him to the point where he had left the reel of flower-arrangers' wire.

“Over here, Constable,” said Burton importantly. “I left my notebook beside it so that I could find it again easily.”