The Gospel Makers (14 page)

They crossed the narrow road and, to Jackson’s regret, passed the Red Lion on the corner. ‘Now, look about you, Ken. See anything promising?’

Jackson obediently halted and looked. ‘Well, there’s the Art Centre across the way there. He could have gone into the picture gallery or the library.’

‘Wouldn’t have had time, not if he left Soames at twelve-fifteen and was in the bar about twelve-forty, having already been to his room.’

‘So he couldn’t have popped into the Town Hall or the swimming baths either,’ Jackson commented, as those buildings came into sight.

‘Hardly.’

In a depressed silence they walked on until they reached busy King Street and turned in the direction of Gloucester Circus.

‘You can see the hotel on the far corner down there, so let’s suppose he crossed over straight away.’

They waited for the traffic lights to change and made their way across the road. But as they reached the pavement Jackson stopped suddenly, causing Webb to cannon into him.

‘Look out, Ken! What are you playing at?’

‘If he did cross here, Guv, look what was staring him in the face.’

Webb turned and saw one of the new glass telephone booths against the wall.

‘Perhaps,’ Jackson went on, his voice ringing with excitement, ‘that’s how he fixed the meeting. On the spur of the moment, like.’

‘You could be right,’ Webb said slowly. ‘Well spotted, Ken. So we’re back to a phone-call rather than a chance meeting — which was always the more likely bet. But also back to the sixty-four thousand dollar question — who did he arrange to meet?’

‘We could talk through the possibilities over lunch,’ Jackson suggested hopefully.

Webb grinned. ‘OK, point taken. But who could he have phoned, Ken? He didn’t know anyone but Soames, and he’d just left him.’

They began walking again. ‘Let’s get back to his state of mind. He’s just heard that the legacy he’d been staking everything on wasn’t going to him after all but to an obscure cult he’d probably never heard of. Suddenly he sees a phone box. Who does he ring?’

‘His solicitors?’

‘Quite probably; but he couldn’t have fixed a meeting straight away, because they’re in London. Any other ideas?’

‘The Revvies,’ Jackson said promptly. ‘To try to talk them round.’

Webb’s eyes narrowed. ‘He wouldn’t have their number.’

‘His mother might have, and he’d just been to her house, remember. He could have taken her address book or phone pad. Or he might have found one of those publicity sheets like DI Petrie gave you. Come to that, they could even be in the book.’

Webb clapped him round the shoulder. ‘Ken, you’re a wonder. That could well be the answer. There’s nothing I’d like better than to involve the Revvies in this business — it’d give us a legit chance to go for them. But proving it will be tricky. Whoever it was, they’ve covered their tracks too well. And in all conscience I can’t think why they’d want to kill Kershaw. They had the money, after all; he was more likely to try to kill them. Still, it’s given us a different angle, and you’ve more than earned your pint.’

*

‘Sister Matilda!’

The commanding voice rang out as Mattie was hurrying to the front door with replacement cassettes for the girls. She considered making a dash for it, but her legs wouldn’t have carried her. Fearfully, she turned to face Brad Lübekker.

‘Yes, Prelate?’

‘I understand your last three instalments are still outstanding?’

‘Well, yes, but it was only Thursday you spoke to me. I was taken ill on Friday and spent the weekend in the sanatorium. In fact, I should still be there, but I refused to stay.’ She looked anxiously into his cold, implacable eyes.

‘If you remember, Thursday was your final warning. When so many are waiting for your place, we can’t have you reneging on your payments.’

Tears flooded her eyes and the dreaded trembling started again, as it had in the classroom on Friday. ‘I’m not reneging! I’ll get it somehow, I promise —’

‘It’s too late for promises. As you know, the Captain arrives in England this evening and we’ve heard we’re to be honoured with a personal visit on Saturday. Naturally, we want everything to be in order, so I’ll give you another twenty-four hours. If you fail to make the payment in that time, you’ll have to justify yourself to the Captain.’

She gazed at him aghast. ‘No! I’ll do anything —’

‘It’s in your own hands, Sister. Now, you must excuse me. I have work to do.’

*

Dilys had spent the afternoon at the library, doing a spot of much-needed research. After Hannah’s visit on Saturday she had determined to take her advice and put all doubts about Sarah Baines out of her head. It was getting her nowhere and seriously interfering with her work. And as Hannah had said, as long as Sebastian was safe with the girl, nothing else mattered. Consequently when Susie had phoned from Japan the previous evening she’d been able to report, with fewer reservations than before, that all was well.

Having taken herself in hand, she had just passed a profitable few hours which would stand her in good stead and might well break the block which had been plaguing her these past weeks. All in all, she felt happier and more settled than at any time since she’d learned of the proposed invasion.

The rush-hour traffic was in full swing and she glanced at her watch. A quarter to six — later than she realized. Back at the house the baby would be almost ready to put down. And what, she wondered, would the enigmatic Miss Baines be doing this evening — working on her ‘treatise’ or visiting her cousin in the town? They must be a pretty close family to spend so much time together.

Dilys reached Lethbridge Road with a sigh of relief, thinking pleasurably of the large gin and tonic she would pour herself as a reward for returning to work. Then, as she rounded the bend just before Hassocks, she saw a man standing at her gate. It was no one she recognized.

She indicated right, and, seeing she intended to drive in, he hurried to open the gates for her and stood to one side to let her pass. Dilys wound down her window.

‘Good evening,’ she said, ‘can I help you?’

He bent down towards her — an attractive-looking man in his forties with the kind of craggy, lived-in face which had always appealed to her.

‘You must be Miss Hayward. Good evening, ma’am.’ His accent surprised her; there were not many Americans in Shillingham. ‘Thank you kindly but no, I shan’t trouble you. I’m waiting for Sarah — I guess she’ll be out any minute.’

‘You’re her cousin?’ Dilys was aware of disappointment.

He smiled. ‘That’s right, ma’am, Brad Lübekker. Glad to know you.’

‘How do you do?’ Dilys said uncertainly, added, ‘I don’t suppose she’ll be long’, and with a vague smile drove on towards the garage. When she got out to open the doors, he had moved discreetly back behind the gate post. Should she have invited him in, she wondered as she emerged from the garage. But before she could decide, Sarah Baines came hurrying out of the house, stopping in surprise as she caught sight of Dilys.

‘Oh, Miss Hayward. I’ve just put Sebastian down, so I hope —’

Dilys said steadily, ‘Your cousin’s waiting at the gate.’

‘Oh! Thank you.’ And she hurried down the path, leaving Dilys staring after her. Because something in her face had, to Dilys’s observant eye, made one fact abundantly clear.

‘Cousin be damned!’ she said out loud. ‘They’re lovers, for God’s sake! That man is her lover!’

For some reason her fingers were shaking slightly as she put her key in the door and pushed it open. She dropped her sheaf of notes on to the hall table, trying to adjust to a changed image of Sarah Baines. That cold, unsmiling, unadorned young woman had a lover — and an attractive one, at that. She must, Dilys reflected grimly, have hidden depths.

She walked into the sitting-room and poured herself a generous gin and tonic, adding a slice of lemon and ice from the silver bucket Peggy had left ready. Then, with the tall glass chilling her fingers, she went to the telephone.

‘Hannah? You’ll never guess what! Nanny Baines has an admirer!’

Over the wire she heard Hannah’s light laugh. ‘You phoned to tell me that?’

‘Well, it staggered me more than somewhat. She looks as though she hasn’t an ounce of emotion in her.’

‘Except with the baby,’ Hannah reminded her.

‘Except with the baby,’ Dilys agreed.

‘Well, go on. How do you know? Have you seen him?’

Dilys recounted the brief meeting at the gate, ending, ‘What surprised me most is how attractive he is. American, too — I wonder where she met him. Anyway, it explains the number of evenings she goes into town to meet her “cousin”. I wonder if Susie knows?’

After she’d replaced the receiver, she stood looking down at it for a moment. Still waters run deep, she thought, and then, for no reason she could pinpoint, shivered suddenly.

On an impulse she put down her glass and went upstairs to the baby’s bedroom. The curtains were drawn but there was sufficient light from the landing for her to make her way over to the cot. Sebastian was not yet asleep. He lay contentedly on his back, one fist waving in the air as he cooed softly to himself. A faint smell of warm milk and talcum powder reached her nostrils.

Unable to distinguish her face in the half-light, he stared up at her, as if waiting for her to make a move.

She said softly, ‘I haven’t made you very welcome, have I, but I hope you’re enjoying your visit.’ Bending down, she retrieved a small furry toy which had become wedged in the bars of the cot and laid it by the baby’s side.

‘Good night, Sebastian. Sleep well.’

He lay looking unblinkingly up at her. Then he gave a little gurgle and, totally unexpectedly, treated her to a toothless smile. She touched his cheek with one finger, reminding herself of the conditions under which she tolerated babies.

‘Good night, poppet,’ she said, and quietly left the room.

*

It was seven o’clock when Webb pressed the doorbell at No. 5, Victoria Drive. By now, he considered, they should all have returned to the coop, and it was all of them that he intended to see.

As before, Reed opened the door to them, raising his eyebrows as he took in not only Webb and Jackson but Dawson, Cummings and Marshbanks behind them. ‘Reinforcements, Chief Inspector?’

‘Simply to speed things up, sir. We have a bit of checking to do, and would be most grateful for your cooperation.’

‘You’d better come in, then.’

This time — possibly because there were more of them — they were taken into the larger room on the left, which was furnished with groups of wooden chairs and tables. It did not, Jackson thought, look particularly inviting.

‘I believe you said there were eight of you in the house, sir?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Is everyone here at the moment?’

‘Yes, I was the last in — you’ve just caught me.’ He smiled. ‘In a manner of speaking. Actually they’re in the kitchen; we were just about to start supper.’

‘Excellent. Then DC Marshbanks can supervise proceedings from there.’ He turned to Marshbanks. ‘Send one person along in the first instance, Constable, and we’ll start with Mr Reed here. The rest of them can carry on with their supper. When the first two get back, send the next lot. We’ll have them in two by two,’ he added, deadpan, ‘like the animals going into the Ark.’

There was no flicker of response from Reed.

‘Now, Sergeant Dawson,’ Webb continued, ‘if you and DC Cummings conduct your interviews over by those folding doors, we won’t disturb each other.’

Marshbanks turned to Adam. ‘Could you tell me where the kitchen is, sir?’

‘At the end of the passage,’ he said tightly, then, to Webb, ‘I told you all I know the other day.’

‘Different questions, sir,’ Webb said implacably. ‘If you’d like to sit down, we won’t keep you from your supper longer than necessary.’

The aim of the questioning this time was to ascertain where they’d all been at lunch-time last Monday. By immediately cutting off the chance to confer, Webb hoped to have pre-empted any fabrication of alibis.

But it appeared, as the interviews progressed, that most of them had jobs outside the group, which occupied them during the day. Reed managed a shoe shop in the town centre, Daniel Stacey taught PE at the Grammar School, while Terry Doble and Vince Merrick, who had made themselves so invaluable to Mrs Kershaw, worked at a youth centre.

One after another they produced genuine-sounding alibis which, though they would be checked, sounded depressingly watertight.

Two of the four girls also had jobs, as dental nurse and receptionist respectively, but two — Lucy, whom they’d already met, and Liz Fenchurch, were unemployed. They were the only two out of the eight who admitted to being in the house at lunch-time on Monday, and they denied all knowledge of a phone-call. Looking at them, Webb had in any case the greatest difficulty in imagining them injecting poison into anyone.

But that was the damnable thing, he thought in frustration. They all seemed polite, friendly young people. It began to look as though Ken’s bright idea would not hold water after all.