The Lily-White Boys (23 page)

Jackson sat in silence for some minutes. Then he said, ‘So that's why you were asking about foreign trips.'

‘Contacts and so on. It'd fit, wouldn't it?'

‘Then the goods are flown over secretly and offered for sale in that room at the Gallery?'

‘If we're on the right track. But it seems incredibly dicey to conduct business of that kind while two hundred people are milling about downstairs.'

Monica called round to see George on the way home from work, as arranged. He'd not been into the bank that day, and greeted her looking less formal than usual in an open-neck shirt.

In view of Mrs Latimer's hostility she had been to the house only a couple of times, but it seemed still to have the aura of the dead woman. The chair in which Monica had last seen her still bore the indentations of her body, and a silk shawl was draped over the arm as though temporarily laid aside. Monica wondered if the house was to become a shrine with everything remaining as the owner had left it – her book on the table, her clothes in the drawer. But surely not; George had been fond of his mother, but he was essentially a realist.

As though reading her thoughts, he said, ‘I haven't acclimatized myself yet. This is still very much Mother's house.'

‘Will you stay on here?' Monica tried to keep her voice neutral.

‘Good lord no, I'll sell it. It doesn't hold particularly happy memories.'

So much for the mausoleum.

‘Don't think too harshly of her,' he added. ‘Things would have been very different if my father had lived.'

‘I know; I wish I'd known her better.' It was true; she felt he needed to speak of his mother with someone who'd known and understood her.

For some minutes they discussed the funeral arrangements and other depressing trappings of death. Then, refilling their glasses, George said firmly, ‘Now, enough of all that. Tell me about the Private View. Was Jeremy there?'

‘Yes, why?'

‘I saw him at Gianino's the other evening, with a couple of rather strange characters he carefully didn't introduce.'

‘How mysterious.' She went on to tell him about the pictures she was interested in buying and the mutual friends who'd been at the View.

‘And we finished up at the wine bar over the road,' she ended, ‘which was very pleasant.'

‘We?'

‘Hannah, Gwen, Dilys and I. I phoned you from there, but you were still at the hospital.'

He nodded. ‘By the way, an odd thing happened this afternoon; a couple of Bobbies came round and asked what I'd been doing on the evening of the twenty-first.'

The significance of the date was not lost on Monica. ‘Why you, for goodness sake?'

‘They assured me it was a routine inquiry, but they were uncommonly interested in the car and examined it very carefully. Lord knows what they were looking for.'

‘Oh, George, I'm sorry – I'm afraid that was my fault. Mr Webb asked me this morning who I knew with hatchbacks and I mentioned you among others. But I did ask him not to bother you unless it was necessary.'

‘He must have thought it was. Anyway, since my social life runs on very circumscribed lines, I was able to satisfy them I'd spent the evening here with Mother. Betsy confirmed it.'

‘That's something, I suppose.' She added with a smile, ‘Still, you'll be considerably less circumscribed in future.'

He looked across at her. ‘Yes; Monica, there's something I have to say, and this seems as good a time as any.'

‘My goodness, that sounds solemn. What is it?'

‘I don't want you to think that now Mother's died, you're going to be rushed straight into marriage.'

She said only half-humorously, ‘You've changed your mind?' and surprised in herself an acute anxiety. It would be rich indeed if after all her private reservations, George now turned the tables and released her from her promise. Especially when she was coming round to realizing it was what she wanted after all.

‘I think you may have changed yours,' he answered her. ‘You've been wonderfully patient over the last four years – perhaps a little too patient.' He gave a difficult smile. ‘What I'm trying to say is, I don't want you to feel tied down. If you'd rather continue on a more casual basis, I can accept that.'

Perhaps, Monica thought, his mother's disapproval had been a safety-net for him too. Now it had been removed, he might have taken fright.

‘Is that what you want?' she asked, and was humbled to find how much hung on his reply.

‘No; I want you for my wife, but I've always known your feelings weren't as strong. And why,' he added very quietly.

Monica felt a sense of shock. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Don't worry, your secret's safe with me.'

She sat very still, not looking at him. He could only be referring to Justin. How long had he known of her feelings in that direction? How long had she? Certainly she'd believed them to be private to herself.

At last she said softly, ‘I've been very stupid.'

‘No, darling. Eloise took him from you as surely as he took her from Harry.'

‘But there was nothing between us.'

‘There might have been, in time.'

She looked up, meeting his troubled eyes. ‘I'm not in love with Justin, George. There was a time when I might have been, a little, but it was probably only a case of sour grapes. I can honestly say I have no regrets. I enjoy my life; I didn't realize quite how much till it seemed under threat.'

‘And you don't want it to change?'

‘Only in one respect; I'd like you to share it with me.'

He released his breath in a long sigh, and a smile spread over his face. ‘Nothing would give me more pleasure,' he said.

It was after 7.0 when Webb arrived home. The outcome of the searches had been a great deal of indignation and not much else. Apart from the Cypriot mosaic there had been only a few pieces of doubtful provenance in the Teal household, and even these were debatable since it was possible they'd been purchased legally. The other three premises, despite several hours' diligent searching, had revealed precisely nothing. Webb was not popular. HQ had already received a strongly worded complaint from Mr Justin Teal, JP -

But damn it, he was sure he was on the right track, though he'd realized they were shutting the stable door after the horse had gone. If their search of the Gallery had been twenty-four hours earlier, the result might have been very different.

He let himself into his flat and began to prepare his meal. When his marriage broke up eight years ago he had determined never to live out of tins, and in fact did not possess a tin-opener. Normally he enjoyed cooking, and Hannah maintained that the more involved he was with a case, the more elaborate his cuisine. However, there were rare occasions when he was in a hurry to get the meal over, and this was one of them. As he peeled some potatoes, he acknowledged that baked beans would have been a useful stand-by.

Throughout the preparation and eating of his meal, his thoughts continued to circle round the people he'd been speaking to that day, their hesitations, their evasions, their unease. Something was stirring at the back of his mind, and he was impatient to get it down on paper.

As soon as he'd finished, he went to the living-room and set up his easel. Then he paused. It was stuffy in there, despite the open window, but though he preferred to work outdoors, it was too much effort, after all the comings and goings of the day, to set out again now.

Then a compromise presented itself; he'd work in the garden. It was communal to all twelve flats in the building, and he seldom made use of it. Abandoning easel and paints, he collected instead sketchpad, crayons and canvas chair and went down the two flights of stairs and round the side of the house.

The garden was deserted, which suited him very well. The grass was crisp under his feet and as he crossed it, he wondered when they'd have rain. It was only the end of May; early in the summer to face a drought.

Beyond the lawn lay the wild area, a wilderness of shrubs and bushes which had been left untended to encourage wildlife. Webb set his chair up in front of it, alongside the small pond. To his right the sun hung low in the sky. He'd an hour or more of daylight still, which should be enough for his purpose.

Quickly, with light, sure strokes, he began to sketch in the background to the crime; first, the deserted stretch of the Chipping Claydon road with, marked along its length, the house Frank Andrews had visited and the Mulberry Bush pub. To the right of the sheet he drew a broken line representing the cross-country road to Chedbury and that other pub, the Magpie, where the twins were last seen alive. On the far left, a square denoted the Badderleys' house and, down the road from it, a wood behind which he drew in a small aircraft. Then he sat back, staring at the layout. After a minute or two he inserted the van in the lay-by, and, under trees, the hatchback car.

Justin Teal had a hatchback, so did one of his sons, George Latimer the bank manager, and Harry Marlow. All of them had been asked to account for their movements and at first glance all appeared to have alibis. Those alibis were now being rechecked.

Tearing off the top sheet, he started to people the next one with the actors in the drama: the identical twins in their green tracksuits, the members of their gang, Mr and Mrs Trubshaw, the Hargreaves. Had any of them said anything which could be regarded in a different light? Had there been any discrepancies? The little figures were surprisingly lifelike and he studied each in turn, assessing what he knew or guessed of their characters.

Monica Tovey was there because the bodies had been found near her house. Then there was her sister, who owned the mosaic; the Marlows, and the softly spoken Tony Reid. Webb had not after all been able to interview him this evening; immediately after the search he had left the house and no one knew where he had gone. They'd catch up with him at the Gallery tomorrow.

Finally, little stick figures, each in its own identifying colour, were inserted into the position where, according to their statements, they'd been between 9.0 p.m. and midnight on 21st May. Could this one – or that – have got from A to B and back again in time to commit murder?

The sun disappeared behind the houses and a small breeze ruffled the papers on the grass beside him. Looking up, he saw that a light had gone on in Hannah's window. He wondered whether she had looked out and seen him. Realizing he was working, she would not have disturbed him.

He straightened, easing his back. Well, there they were, the basic ingredients of a crime. One of these pleasant, civilized people must have perpetrated it, must in fact be not only a murderer but the mastermind behind the extremely daring and brazen organization which was robbing countries of their antiquities and selling them at vast profit. If the Gallery was implicated Harry Marlow seemed the best bet, but they had no proof that it was. And Justin Teal, in whose house the mosaic rested, was as yet an unknown quantity. He would certainly merit investigation.

As Monica drove past the house on her way to the garage she saw Justin's car parked outside, and he was in the hall to meet her as she came in from the garden.

‘Hello, there; are you waiting for me?'

‘I am, yes. Your mother's out.'

‘I know, they're having a social at the bridge club. Come through.'

‘You're late yourself; have you been preparing for the sales?'

‘No, I went to see George.'

‘Ah. I must drop him a line. How is he?'

‘Fine. Are you on your way home?'

‘No,' he said, his voice tightening, ‘I've been home most of the afternoon. Eloise sent for me.'

‘She's not ill?' For a panic-stricken moment Monica wondered if she'd misjudged her sister's state of health, as she had Mrs Latimer's.

‘She's well enough, but considerably upset. The police have been turning the house over.'

‘What?'

‘Exactly. Imagine the Bench's reaction to a search-warrant for my house. The police are going to hear more about this, I can tell you.'

‘Was it to do with the car? They called to ask George about his.'

‘They looked at it, certainly, along with everything else. My God, what the hell did they imagine –'

‘Justin, wait a minute. Have you met the Chief Inspector?'

‘Only in Court.'

‘He's a man who knows what he's doing. There must be some reason –'

He interrupted her. ‘Oh, there was a reason, so-called – that knick-knack on the sitting-room wall. Religious artefacts aren't my scene, but it's inoffensive enough and if Eloise wants to hang it there, I'm not having the police trying to stop her.'

‘The mosaic, you mean? What's the matter with it?'

‘I've no idea. They were asking all sorts of questions and they've taken it away with them, together with a few other trinkets. If they so much as
hint
they're stolen property, I swear I'll take the lot of them to Court.'

‘What other things did they take?'

He shrugged. ‘A few pieces of jewellery, that carved statue from the landing and a couple of the stone vases from the hall alcove.'

‘Did they say why they wanted them?'

‘To check their provenance, if you please. Bloody nerve!'

She had never seen him so rattled. ‘Where
did
they come from?'

‘Oh, Eloise picked them up on her travels. Webb saw the mosaic when he called round earlier – that's what started it all.'

‘Well, I shouldn't let it bother you. No doubt they'll meekly return everything tomorrow and you won't hear any more about it.'

‘We
might not, but I assure you the police will. The Marlows had their place searched, too.'

Monica frowned, liking the affair less and less. ‘Perhaps it's to do with the Arts Society.'