Who Saw Him Die? (24 page)

But the police weren't at the moment interested in the burglary itself, she emphasised. That was a minor matter. It was the murderer they wanted.

They had reason to believe that a man answering the description of Tracey's boy friend had done the burglary. If that was so, and if he wasn't the murderer, it would be in his – and Tracey's – interests, Hilary had told the girl, to hand over her father's gun in order to prove it.

‘A very useful tactic,' agreed Chief Inspector Tait. ‘It rarely fails to work.'

‘Oh yes, it worked. They promptly turned in Jack's own AYA side-by-side 12-bore. But since forensic says that it wasn't the murder weapon either, it doesn't take us anywhere, unfortunately. We've got Tracey's boy friend – not a nice young man – for the burglary, and Tracey herself for handling stolen goods. They'd intended to return to Breckham Market, disguised, and threaten her father into giving them more money, but his murder put a stop to their plans. And as far as
that's
concerned, we're still plodding through the wretchedly long list of people who had good reason to hate Jack Goodrum.'

Tait took their emply glasses to the bar, and returned with cups of coffee. ‘It's the second Mrs Goodrum's ex-husband who interests me most,' he said. ‘Austin Napier QC …'

‘He may be a QC,' said Hilary, ‘but he's also unbalanced, as far as his relationship with his ex-wife is concerned.'

‘That's exactly why he interests me.' Tait looked at his watch. ‘I'll go up to London and try to catch him at his chambers. The three-thirty train should do it – I can't spare the time to go by car, I've a briefcase full of my own Saintsbury work to deal with. What about you, Hilary? Shall you be out on enquiries this afternoon, or in the office?'

She had been admiring her bunch of chrysanthemums, and didn't answer immediately. She sniffed them again, intrigued by their instant evocation of her suburban childhood. Then she said, ‘They remind me of my family … And that reminded me of the poor Quantrills, and what you said about Alison's anxiety for Peter because she'd loved him so much as a child. And
that
reminded me of Eunice Bell and her brother Cuthbert. You remember Clanger, the town drunk, don't you?'

‘Yes, of course. I heard he'd been killed in a road accident – he played chicken once too often, I suppose?'

‘That was what everyone thought, except his sister. She tried to convince us that he'd been murdered. We didn't entirely disbelieve her, but we simply couldn't prove it. The thing is, though, Martin – the man who drove into Clanger was Jack Goodrum.'

‘
Really?
Well then, doesn't that suggest that Clanger's sister might have taken a shotgun to Goodrum in retaliation?'

‘We've thought of that one, but Douglas knows she was at the Operatic Society's performance of
My Fair Lady
on the night of the murder. No, the point I'm making is that Eunice Bell couldn't suggest a really convincing reason why Goodrum might have wanted Clanger dead. She told us that they'd known each other as boys, and that they got into some kind of mischief for which Jack was thrashed by her father. But she didn't know what the mischief was … and I'm beginning to wonder whether it was something more serious than she thought.'

‘That's an interesting possibility,' said Tait. ‘You mean the boys had shared a secret, all those years ago, and Jack Goodrum was afraid Clanger might blurt it out?'

‘Something like that, yes. After all, Jack was newly arrived in the town, and very much in love with his wife. If there was some old scandal that only he and Clanger knew about, Jack wouldn't want to risk having it revived to spoil his marriage.'

‘Ah – but perhaps Clanger wasn't the only other boy originally involved?'

‘That's what I've been thinking. We could be looking for someone who's had no connection with Jack Goodrum for thirty or forty years. Someone who recognised him as soon as he returned to Breckham Market, and took the opportunity to settle a very old score.'

Although he was interested in Sergeant Lloyd's theory, Chief Inspector Tait declined to give the pursuit of it any priority.

‘It's not as though we're having to search for a motive for Goodrum's murder,' he pointed out as they left the Coney. ‘Just the opposite – there are so many people who had reason to hate the man that it's hard to know which lead to follow next. So unless you can come up rapidly with some proof that he intended to kill Clanger Bell, I'd rather you didn't waste time digging about in Goodrum's remote past.'

‘That's fair,' agreed Hilary. ‘What's niggling at me, you see, is the fact that there were three such respectable and convincing witnesses to Clanger Bell's death. It was on their evidence that the Coroner decided that Jack Goodrum didn't have a chance of avoiding the collision. I went to interview all three of them and I couldn't find any real ground for suspicion, but I'm still not entirely satisfied. Come and see where it happened.'

Hilary darted up Pump Hill, just off the market place, the narrow street in which Clanger Bell's favourite pub was situated. The Boot, an inn since the eighteenth century, displayed its sign in the form of a gilt-painted wooden riding boot that hung from an iron bracket high above the doorway of the flint-faced building. The pub was too small to be brought up to the carpeted and upholstered standards now demanded by female social drinkers, and so it remained what it had always been, a male preserve with a doubtful reputation.

Despite that – and the fact that a betting shop had been strategically placed next door to the Boot – Pump Hill itself was a perfectly respectable street. It also contained a bank, the offices of a building society, and a number of small country town shops; in addition, it provided a useful pedestrian link between the upper residential part of the town and the market place. There was nothing suspicious to be read into the presence on Pump Hill of the three eye-witnesses to Clanger Bell's death.

Hilary pointed out to Tait where they had been standing: Mrs Napthen outside the Trustee Savings Bank near the top of the street, Mr Woodrow by the ironmonger's opposite the Boot, Mr Pike at the greengrocer's at the bottom. ‘They were so conveniently spread out,' Hilary said. ‘And they all happened to be looking in the right direction at the right time. Miss Bell thought that suspicious. But the DCI made the point that everyone who knew Clanger would always stand and watch, when they saw him emerging from a pub, to see whether or not he was going to make it across the road.'

‘I've done it myself,' Tait agreed. The detectives moved back, out of the way of shoppers and pedestrians, into the angle between a sixteenth-century timber-framed building, now an electrical retailer's, and the late eighteenth-century grey brick of the building society. ‘But these three eye-witnesses,' he went on; ‘after Clanger was knocked down, did they volunteer their information on the spot?'

‘Yes, and that seems significant. Some people do rush towards road accidents, a few wanting to help but most of them with a kind of instinctive ghoulishness. Others just as instinctively hurry away, even if – perhaps because – they saw what happened, and they don't want to be involved. But I understand that our three witnesses hung about until the police arrived, and then spoke up without any persuasion.'

‘Did they? And what have they got in common?' asked Tait. ‘Are they all local people?'

‘Yes, Breckham Market born and bred, so they told me.'

‘Age?'

‘Mrs Napthen's a widow in her late fifties. The men are both widowers, both retired – Mr Woodrow's late sixties, Mr Pike's well into his seventies.'

‘They're all older than Goodrum, then. And not exactly affluent?'

‘Far from it. They're decent, respectable people who've worked hard all their lives, and they're now managing as best they can on their state pensions.'

‘If they were all brought up in the town, they knew each other, presumably?'

‘Not necessarily. They seem to live quiet, rather lonely lives in different parts of the town, keeping themselves to themselves.'

Chief Inspector Tait folded his arms and thought silently for a few moments. ‘But Goodrum might well have known them when he was a butcher's boy … What did you ask them?'

‘Whether they knew the driver of the vehicle that had knocked Clanger down. All three of them denied it, and repeated what they'd told the Coroner. But now I've thought about it again, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Jack Goodrum had planted them on Pump Hill.'

‘Try them again, Hilary,' said Tait, making a quick decision. ‘When you went to see them, Goodrum was still alive. Now he's dead, they may be prepared to talk. I'll give you the rest of today to prove that Clanger's death was no accident – if you can't, your theory's a non-runner. All right?'

‘Thank you, sir,' she said.

The last time he'd been here, Martin Tait reflected as he stood on the platform at Breckham Market railway station waiting for the London train, was with Alison. That was four years ago, when he was a detective sergeant and she was his chief inspector's daughter. He'd come to see her off, back to her London job, and it was here – just about where he was now standing – that he'd first kissed her, and realised that he was already half in love with her.

A lot had happened since then. But their relationship had endured, in an off-on fashion that suited him. He thought he might well marry Alison, eventually; but he had no intention of doing so before his next promotion. Superintendent by the time he was thirty, that was his immediate goal.

True, he ran the risk of losing her by waiting so long. But Alison had so far shown no serious inclination to desert him for anyone else, though she'd rejected his suggestion that they should live together, and had even refused (to his great relief) the premature offer of marriage he'd made when he thought he was going to inherit a fortune. The fact that she had turned to him for comfort and support in the aftermath of her young brother's accident had convinced Martin that he was secure in her affections.

He walked briskly to the far end of the platform, executive briefcase in hand. He was looking forward to his visit to the Middle Temple, where Austin Napier QC had his chambers. Though Suffolk-born, Tait was no countryman; he had chosen to join the county police force only because, as a graduate, he would shine more brightly among rural policemen than he would have done in the Met. But he welcomed this opportunity to pit his wits against a London barrister. He didn't doubt he'd make a better job of it than poor old Doug Quantrill had.

The brightness of the day was fading. From the high, exposed platform, Tait looked westwards across waste ground (fields, four years ago; now earmarked for major building development) to the small town half a mile away, where mist was beginning to rise from the river and mingle with chimney smoke. The air was chilly enough for him to be glad of his hat and scarf.

Turning to retrace his steps he saw, far away up the line, a dark pinpoint that was the approaching train. At the same time he noticed an Austin Metro being driven into the station yard at full lick. A young woman who reminded him of Hilary Lloyd got out and hurried towards the entrance.

It was good to be working with Hilary again, Tait reflected. He liked having a woman sergeant, especially one who was always stylishly dressed as well as efficient. They had a very satisfactory relationship: she knew how to be friendly with him without losing sight of the fact that he was in charge, and that what he said went. Perhaps he could inveigle her over to the Saintsbury division? Doug Quantrill would no doubt be furious, but Hilary herself might well be glad to get away from Alison's father's inarticulate admiration.

The young woman who darted on to the platform, still in a hurry but with hardly a hair of her new short style out of place, was in fact Hilary Lloyd. She looked about her, caught sight of him, and gave him a more-enthusiastic-than-usual greeting.

‘I'm so glad I've caught you, Martin! No need to rush off to London – we're on to something here.'

Chief Inspector Tait frowned. The train was now well in sight, and
he
intended to be the judge of whether or not he should board it.

‘Is it what you thought?' he asked. ‘Did Goodrum pay his eye-witnesses to be on Pump Hill that afternoon at closing time, when he knew Clanger would be leaving the Boot?'

‘In effect,' Hilary agreed, ‘though he did it less crudely than that. So far I've talked to only one of them, Mrs Napthen. She's very upset about Jack's murder. In her view he was a kind, generous man. He told her, two or three weeks ago, that he‘d had the luck to make his fortune, and that he'd sought her out because her family had always been friends and customers of his grandparents. He said he knew that a widow such as herself must find it difficult to make ends meet, and he hoped she'd allow him to pay her electricity bill for her.'

The train had pulled in. The diesel engine stood throbbing as carriage doors were opened and passengers began to board. Tait saw no reason, from what Hilary had told him, to postpone his own journey; but he didn't want her to think he was brushing her off. He began to walk up the platform towards the first-class carriages, with the sergeant at his elbow.

‘Didn't Mrs Napthen realise there was something fishy about Goodrum's approach?' he said. ‘After all, he was a stranger to her, wasn't he?'

‘Yes – but don't forget that Breckham Market was much smaller, thirty-odd years ago, and therefore much more of a community than it is now. Mrs Napthen remembered Jack Goodrum as a boy, and she enjoyed talking to him about old times. She saw no reason to be suspicious.'

‘Not even when he asked her not to mention to anyone that he was paying her bill?' said Tait. ‘I imagine that's what he said –?'