Who Saw Him Die? (19 page)

‘Miss Bell feels aggrieved, all right,' remembered Quantrill. ‘She was at
My Fair Lady
last night – I tried to avoid speaking to her, but she made a point of telling me that her opinion hasn't changed. If she'd wanted to have Goodrum killed, though, she wouldn't have needed to hire anyone to steal his shotgun for the purpose. There was a gun cabinet in Tower House – I caught a glimpse of it in a corridor when she took us to see Clanger's old room. A heavy, glass-fronted mahogany job, her father's or grandfather's, I suppose, with four shotguns in it. So if she'd wanted a murder done, she could have offered whoever she hired a choice of guns.'

‘I didn't see the cabinet, I must admit – I suppose I was talking to her at the time.' Hilary stifled a yawn; it had been a long day, and the railway carriage was stuffy. ‘I'm surprised,' she added with a drowsy grin, ‘that you didn't take the opportunity, when you saw the guns, to give Miss Bell a lecture on security.'

‘Not me,' Quantrill protested with mock horror. ‘I was terrified of her! And she said she was about to sell up, so it seemed pointless to make an issue of it. I say –' aware that he was losing Hilary's attention, he sought to revive it – ‘would you like another cup of tea?'

‘No thanks. I don't know about you, but I', his sergeant added elegantly, ‘intend to have a kip.'

She leaned back in her corner and closed her eyes. Frustrated, Quantrill made his way to the buffet car and tried to console himself with a can of beer.

Hilary dozed uneasily, disturbed by images of violent death. She was not sorry when the train, leaving Stowmarket station, jerked her awake. But when she opened her eyes and saw Douglas Quantrill gazing at her avidly, she promptly closed them again.

One of the hazards of being a woman in what was predominantly a man's world was that senior officers so often seemed to think her sex more significant than her job. Rather than treating her according to her rank, and valuing her according to her efficiency, they reacted to her as a woman. Some were smarmy, some were lecherous; some were coldly hostile, some aggressive. Some, like Douglas, were persistently hopeful. Occasionally, as in her previous job with the county scenes-of-serious-crime team in Yarchester, she had been lucky enough to have a really nice boss who treated her with friendly courtesy. But Harry Colman – who was safely through the male menopause and nearing retirement – had been an exception.

She had, though, become very fond of Douglas Quantrill. She liked working with him, valuing his understanding of Suffolk ways and people, and admiring his dogged pursuit of villainy. And she found his occasional lapses into gloom almost endearing. But she had no intention of establishing a closer relationship with him.

He was attractive, certainly; he carried his weight well, and though the contours of his face were becoming a little blurred they were still undeniably handsome. In other circumstances, Hilary would have been only too happy to meet his eye. But as things were, she didn't propose to reciprocate her chief inspector's interest in her. The only kind of relationship she wanted with Douglas Quantrill was as a colleague and a good friend.

She had hoped that he would realise this, by now. Instead, his approaches were becoming more open. She disliked the situation, embarrassed on her boss's behalf as much as on her own. If he couldn't accept the clear messages she'd already given him, their working partnership would have to be dissolved. And that would be a great pity.

Hilary opened her lids a fraction. Douglas was still gazing at her; not with love – that at least was something to be thankful for – but with calculating hope. She feigned sleep again, instinctively caressing her eternity ring with the thumb of her left hand.

She had nothing at all against affairs, as long as they were of the heart. The memory of Stephen hadn't – after the first numbed months following his death – inhibited desire; but his ring had come to act as a touchstone. Recalling the quality of their love, she had discovered that brief physical relationships had nothing to offer but ultimate emptiness.

As for marriage, the right man – right not only emotionally and physically, but also in his willingness to support her in her career just as she would expect to support him in his – had never appeared. No, that wasn't entirely true: there had been another detective chief inspector, an instructor on a CID refresher course that she'd attended just before coming to Breckham Market, who had seemed wonderfully, almost incredibly right.

Clive had told her, when he first took her out to dinner, that he was separated from his wife. A divorce was on the way, he'd said. And Hilary had believed what he'd wanted her to believe, because she wanted to believe it too.

It was Clive's calculating lie, his smooth-tongued readiness to dismiss what she eventually discovered was a stable marriage, that Hilary thought more despicable than his actual infidelity. She had despised herself, too, for being so easily conned.

There was no danger of a solid countryman like Douglas Quantrill conning her in the same way; but even he had tried to suggest that there was a permanent rift in his marriage. This was another reason why Hilary had no intention of embarking on an extra-marital affair with him. Whenever he had mentioned his wife and son to her it had almost invariably been with gloom or exasperation, but she had not been deceived. She felt sure that he loved them both. It would be a very good thing, she thought, if only there were some way of making him realise that whatever he might imagine, he would be desolate without them.

She started as something touched her knee. Her eyes flew open and she saw, with a jolt of surprise, that it was his hand.

For a few seconds he left it there, large and strong, radiating the heat of his blood. Against her will, Hilary felt her own blood begin to respond. She looked up, met his bold eye, almost weakened; then she gave her head a slight shake.

‘Sorry,' he said, withdrawing his hand immediately. His breath was shorter than usual. ‘Didn't mean to make you jump. We'll be arriving at Breckham Market in a few minutes. Thought I'd better wake you.'

‘Thanks.' Hilary composed herself at a different angle, her legs unobtrusively out of his reach, and forced herself to give him a pleasant, non-committal smile. Undeterred, he continued to stare at her with the look of a man who hadn't been properly fed for twenty years.

‘Let's have supper together, Hilary,' he urged. ‘We could go to that new place in Ashthorpe. No one knows us there.'

This time, she shook her head decisively. ‘No thank you. I've got a better idea, Douglas. Why don't we both just go home?'

During the absence of Chief Inspector Quantrill and Sergeant Lloyd, the other members of the divisional CID had been following the only lead so far in the hunt for Jack Goodrum's killer. Every pub, bikers'café and snooker hall in and near Breckham Market had been visited, with the object of interviewing every young man who could conceivably answer to the description of ‘a bit of a punk with one gold ear-stud'.

This description had been liberally interpreted by the CID to include those who wore any kind of visible metal adornment, on either their clothing or their skin. The incidental charges that arose ranged from possession of cannabis to riding a motor cycle without a licence, and Breckham CID felt that a useful Sunday's work had been done. But only three of the interviewees could be justifiably suspected as the man who had gone into the Coney and Thistle at lunch time on Saturday November 15th – the day the shotgun was stolen – and asked where he could find Mr Goodrum.

At an identity parade held on Monday morning, the barmaid failed to identify any one of the three suspects. And as for the actual burglary at The Mount, the CID were still no nearer pinning it on anyone.

Chief Inspector Quantrill gave instructions for the search to be widened. He also enlisted the co-operation of the neighbouring police divisions. His opposite number at Saintsbury, Detective Chief Inspector Tait – recently promoted, so young and so ambitious that he chafed at the current dearth of serious crime in his own division – was eager to come straight over to Breckham Market and give his former boss the benefit of his advice. But Quantrill told him firmly that all he and Sergeant Lloyd needed from the Saintsbury division, thank you very much, was a round-up of semi-punks with gold ear-studs – preferably those who also wore size nine trainers with a ridged sole.

By the time Quantrill and Hilary were free to set off for their interview with the first Mrs Goodrum, Monday morning was more than half over. But it was still within school hours, and so they were surprised to see children wandering about the town doing some pre-Christmas window-shopping. In the market place a group of senior boys, most of them properly crash-helmeted, were on the bikers'favourite pitch opposite the chippy, revving up their scooters. Quantrill was not only amazed but furious to see his son among them. Peter, bareheaded and with a look of bliss on his face, was sitting astride a scooter revving with his mates.

Quantrill did an emergency stop. Abandoning the car to Hilary he threw off his seat belt, slammed out of the door and advanced menacingly on his son.

‘Peter! What the devil d'you think you're doing?'

The rest of the young riders, some of whom recognised the Chief Inspector and all of whom recognised trouble, stopped extracting macho noises from their small engines and put-putted decorously away. The only other boy unable to escape was lanky Darren Catchpole, the owner of the Yamaha 125 that his friend Peter was trying for size.

‘Hallo, Mr Quantrill,' said Darren guiltily, switching off the engine. He too was bareheaded, having taken off his helmet while he explained the controls. He couldn't think offhand of any offence he was committing – it couldn't be illegal to allow someone without a licence just to sit on his bike – but he'd heard from Peter what a totally unreasonable pig his old man was.

‘We can't help not being in school,' Darren added. ‘It's not our fault.' His helmet, a super model with a full-face tinted visor, had been snatched out of his hands by Peter and jammed on as soon as the Chief Inspector appeared. Peter was now deaf, unintelligible and facially invisible. All right for
him
.

‘A hot water pipe leaked, you see,' Darren plunged on desperately. ‘All the cloakrooms are flooded. We were sent home as soon as we got there …'

Quantrill ignored him. He pointed an angry finger at Peter.
Take that thing off
, he mouthed.

Slowly, with sullen resentment, Peter removed his headgear and returned it to its owner.

‘And now get off that bike.'

Peter gave his father a furious look, but complied.

‘This is your machine, I suppose, Darren?' The Chief Inspector grilled the youngster, demanding to see his licence and insurance and checking the tax disc. Then he turned back to Peter and, with angry deliberation, blistered his son's ears in front of his friend.

‘Don't you
ever
', he concluded, ‘let me catch you on a motor bike again, whether it's on the road or not. You do as you're told, my lad – or old as you are you'll get the biggest hiding of your life!'

Quantrill travelled most of the way towards Ipswich in a silent fume. ‘Blast the boy …' he muttered at intervals. ‘
Blast
the boy.'

Hilary maintained a discreet silence, until she needed to navigate the last few winding rural miles to Jack Goodrum's former home.

On a dull winter's day, Factory Bungalow looked particularly desolate. It had been painted up at some time within the last couple of years, but its immediate surroundings consisted of nothing but rough, rain-sodden grass and scrub. A dead-end concrete road led past it to a group of ex-wartime aircraft hangars, once presumably used for Goodrum's poultry-processing enterprise but now standing abandoned in the November mist.

The door of the bungalow was opened to them by a big, slatternly woman. Although it was well after midday she wore a dressing gown over a nightdress, and bedroom slippers on her feet. Everything about her – her yellow-grey hair, her cheeks, her chins, her voice, her body – sagged. She held a newly opened packet of custard cream biscuits in one hand, and throughout the course of her conversation with the detectives she used the other hand as a semi-automatic conveyor between the packet and her mouth.

She agreed that she was Mrs Goodrum, Mrs Doreen Goodrum; she supposed, reluctantly, that the detectives had better step inside. Yes, that's right, she was Jack's first wife … Her voice as she said it was as sour as the air in the sketchily cleaned, electrical appliance-crammed living room.

The three of them stood round the table, on which was all the evidence of a permanently on-going makeshift meal. The local newspaper also lay on the table: SUFFOLK MURDER ran the banner headline;
wealthy former businessman shot in front of wife
.

‘You were notified yesterday, I believe?' said Quantrill.

Doreen Goodrum nodded. Her conveying hand speeded up the transfer of biscuits to her mouth, cramming them in faster than she could chew. At the same time a fat tear rolled out of one eye and down her cheek, and plopped to join the various other stains on the front of her dressing gown.

A half-empty cup of stewed tea stood on the table in front of her. ‘What about some fresh tea?' said Sergeant Lloyd. ‘Perhaps one of your daughters –?' She had been watching out for the other members of the family, and now she began to move as she caught a glimpse of a wraith-like girl crossing the narrow corridor beyond the open inner door. ‘Shall I ask her?'

‘No,' said Doreen, speaking hurriedly through a mouthful of biscuit. ‘Tracey won't … she's not much good at making tea … she's not too well …' Then, with relief as she heard the plug being pulled in the bathroom: ‘Oh, there's my Sharon! She'll do it – won't you my lovely, eh?'