The Package Included Murder (27 page)

‘No,' said Superintendent Mellor, looking haggard. ‘Well, thank you …'

‘The Lewcock brothers were next on my list,' rumbled the Hon. Con, rather pleased with the way her vague and muddled speculations were coming out in such an orderly and scientific manner. She hoped her two listeners were being suitably impressed. ‘Now, there's a couple of low-class crooks you bobbies ought to be keeping under surveillance. Do you know what they're up to?'

Superintendent Mellor consoled himself with the thought that, at least, he knew a lost cause when he saw one. He shook his head, secure in the knowledge that the Hon. Con would have enlightened him whatever response he had made.

‘They are engaged in an insurance swindle,' she said, her eyes growing round at the thought of all that money getting into the wrong hands. ‘The younger lout apparently twisted his back at work and their trade union is going to sue his employers for thousands and thousands. There's not a dashed thing wrong with him, of course.'

Superintendent Mellor smiled weakly. ‘ I don't quite see …'

‘Penny Clough-Cooper's father is an orthopaedic surgeon,' explained the Hon. Con proudly. ‘I made a few discreet enquiries and found out that from time to time, he undertook work in connection with insurance claims. Well, you can see how the old brain-box was working, can't you. Just suppose he was the medical expert called in by the insurance company used by the Lewcock fellow's employers to examine his reputedly crocked back. And suppose that, on her return from Russia, Penny Clough-Cooper told her pater all about her holiday and the people she travelled with.' The Hon. Con glowered resentfully at the fidgetting superintendent. ‘Be perfectly natural, wouldn't it?'

‘Er – yes – I suppose so.'

‘Well,' said the Hon. Con blandly, ‘it wouldn't take an intelligent man long to put two and two together, and Lewcock's not all that common a name. Penny Clough-Cooper's father would have realised that his working-class miscreant who had been bounding about up and down the length of the Soviet Union had absolutely nothing wrong with his blooming back or anything else. And he would have gone into the witness box and given expert evidence to that effect.' The Hon. Con grinned cheerfully. ‘And the Lewcocks could have kissed goodbye to that garage then, couldn't they?'

Superintendent Mellor clasped his hands tightly round the back of his neck and pulled. Maybe that would relieve the tension. ‘What garage?'

‘Oh, never mind the garage!' said the Hon. Con breezily. ‘ I've cleared the Lewcocks of any involvement in the murder. Once I discovered that Mrs Beamish was the real victim – and always had been – I crossed the Lewcocks off my list. Mind you, I still think you ought to get 'em on conspiracy to defraud but I don't want to teach you chaps your job, eh? Anyhow, we can go into all that later. So,' – she rubbed her hands – ‘that's the state of play as of this moment. I have examined all the other possible suspects and eliminated 'em.'

‘What about the Smiths?'

‘Eh?' The Hon. Con swung round to glare at the author of this impertinence. ‘The who?'

‘The Smiths,' said Sergeant Mortimer, wishing he'd kept his mouth shut. ‘You didn't mention them.' He checked his list again as though to prove he wasn't inventing the Smiths out of his own feverish imagination. ‘ They were members of your holiday group.'

‘I know who they were!' snarled the Hon. Con, who did – now.

‘I just wondered if you'd cleared them from suspicion.'

The Hon. Con regarded Sergeant Mortimer through narrowed eyes. Was this unlicked cub trying to take the mickey? ‘I did not,' she said, very slowly and deliberately, ‘clear the Smiths of suspicion because …'

Sergeant Mortimer waited with his pencil poised in mid-air.

‘…because I was never stupid enough to suspect 'em in the first place!' The Hon. Con's whoop of triumph echoed round the room several times.

Superintendent Mellor steeled himself to be ruthless. ‘ Well, thank you very much indeed, Miss Morrison-Burke! Now, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to excuse Sergeant Mortimer and me now. We've got some work to do. We don't want to haul Beamish and Miss Clough-Cooper up before a judge and jury and then have the case slung out for lack of fool-proof, legal evidence, do we?'

‘We jolly well don't!' agreed the Hon. Con. In her eagerness to help the cause of justice she allowed Superintendent Mellor to place an assisting hand under her elbow. Under his firm guidance she rose from her chair and Sergeant Mortimer leapt forward to get the door open.

Superintendent Mellor lowered his voice. ‘I wonder, Miss Morrison-Burke, if I could prevail on you to keep all this business quiet for the moment. Under your hat, eh?'

‘Mum's the word!' hissed the Hon. Con. She held up two fingers. ‘Scout's honour!'

They were over by the door. Superintendent Mellor clasped the Hon. Con's hand and shook it fervently. ‘Thank you so much – and goodbye!'

Sergeant Mortimer took his cue and the Hon. Con was through the door before she realised what was happening. The sergeant was quite ruthless. He bundled the Hon. Con down corridors and through halls and into a waiting police car before you could say Sir Robert Peel. No expense was to be spared and the police car was ordered to drive the Hon. Con home.

Back in the temporary police headquarters'office, Superintendent Mellor was dragging his coat on when Sergeant Mortimer returned. ‘Move it, Tom!' he exhorted his sergeant. ‘We might just make it before they put the towel over the pumps.'

Sergeant Mortimer snatched up his own raincoat. ‘I'm right behind you, sir! I reckoned we've earned ourselves a drink.'

They walked quickly to the main gates of the airport.

‘She was a real old cow, wasn't she, sir?'

‘You can say that again, Tom! I dunno, I always seem to get 'em. There must be something about me that brings out the worst in unmarried, middle-aged ladies.'

‘Somebody ought to certify her.'

The superintendent grunted his concurrence with this uncharitable remark.

‘You don't think,' Sergeant Mortimer went on, shooting a doubtful glance at his boss, ‘ that there's anything in what she said, do you?'

‘'Course not! It was a load of old rubbish from beginning to end.' Superintendent Mellor had no wish to be the laughing stock of the entire police force. ‘Still,' – they had reached the pub which stood just outside the main gates – ‘it mightn't do any harm to make a few enquiries.'

‘What sort of enquiries?'

‘Well,' – the superintendent shouldered his way into the Select – ‘we might as well see if there is anything in this idea that Beamish and Miss Clough-Cooper knew each other before. I mean, he's the natural suspect and if we could fit him up with a motive …'

‘I'll ask around at Beamish's golf course, shall I?'

‘That seems as good a place as any to make a start. Ah!' Superintendent Mellor greeted the barmaid like a long lost daughter. ‘Two halves, please, miss!'

‘Well, if there is anything between them, that's where it'll show up, I reckon.' Sergeant Mortimer watched with longing as the two tankards filled up. He reached for his. ‘Cheers, sir!'

‘Down the hatch,' said Superintendent Mellor. He drank thirstily. ‘Ah, that's better! He wiped his mouth. ‘Not, Tom, that I think there's anything in it for one moment, but it would just put my mind at rest.'

‘It's no skin off my nose,' said Sergeant Mortimer amiably. ‘I'll get on with it right after lunch.'

Superintendent Mellor is now in line for accelerated promotion and the Hon. Con is going to have a shot at writing a detective story. She's just waiting for Miss Jones to learn shorthand before she makes a start.

Oh, and both Norman Beamish and Penelope Clough-Cooper got life.

First published in 1975 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson

This edition published 2013 by Bello
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Copyright © Joyce Porter, 1975

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