Читать книгу Inspector Alleyn 3-Book Collection 9: Clutch of Constables, When in Rome, Tied Up in Tinsel - Ngaio Marsh, Stella Duffy - Страница 15

‘From this point,’ Alleyn said, ‘the several elements, if I can put it like that, converge.

‘The discovery of this woman’s body suddenly threw a complex of apparently unrelated incidents into an integrated whole. You grind away at routine, you collect a vast amount of data ninety-percent of which is useless and then – something happens and Bingo – the other ten-percent sits up like Jacky and Bob’s your uncle.’

He paused, having astonished himself by this intemperate excursion into jokeyness. He met broad grins from his audience and a startled glance from the man in the second row.

‘“O God, your only jig-maker”,’ thought Alleyn and resumed in a more orthodox style.

‘It struck me that there might be some interest – possibly some value – in putting this case before you as it appeared to my wife and as she put it to the county police and in her letters to me. And I wonder if at this juncture you feel you could sort out the evidential wheat from the chaff.

‘What, in fact, do you think we ought to have concentrated upon when Inspector Fox and I finally arrived on the scene?’

Alleyn fancied he could detect a certain resentment in the rest of the class when the man in the second row put up his hand.

I

Troy could hear an enormous unlocalized voice in an echo chamber. It approached and enveloped her. It was unalarming.

She emerged with a sickening upward lurch from somewhere that had been like death and for an unappreciable interval was flooded by a delicious surge of recovery. She felt grateful and opened her eyes.

A black face and white teeth were close before her. A recognizable arm supported her.

‘You fainted. You are all right. Don’t worry.’

‘I never faint.’

‘No?’

Fingers on her wrist.

‘Why did it happen, I wonder,’ said Dr Natouche. ‘When you feel more like yourself we will make you comfortable. Will you try a little water?’

Her head was supported. A rim of cold glass pressed her underlip.

‘Here are Miss Hewson and Mrs Tretheway, to help you.’

Their faces swam towards her and steadied.

Everything had steadied. The passengers stared at her with the greatest concern. Six faces behind Dr Natouche and Mrs Tretheway: Miss Hewson with the look of a startled bun, her brother with his hearing-aid and slanted head, Mr Lazenby’s black glasses, Mr Pollock’s ophthalmic stare, like close-ups in a suspense film. And beyond them the Skipper at the wheel.

‘Feeling better, honey?’ asked Miss Hewson, and then: ‘Don’t look that way, dear. What is it? What’s happened?’

‘She’s frightened,’ said Mrs Tretheway.

‘Oh God, God, God!’ Troy said and her voice sounded in her own ears like that of a stranger. ‘Oh God, I’ve remembered.’

She turned and clung to Dr Natouche, ‘They must stop,’ she stammered. ‘Stop. Make them stop. It’s Hazel Rickerby-Carrick. There. Back there. In The River.’

They broke into commotion. Caley Bard shouted: ‘You heard what she said. Skipper!’

The Zodiac stopped.

Caley Bard knelt beside her. ‘All right, my dear!’ he said. ‘We’ve stopped. Don’t be frightened. Don’t worry. We’ll attend to it.’ And to Dr Natouche: ‘Can’t we take her down?’

‘I think so. Mrs Alleyn, if we help you, do you think you can manage the stairs? It will be best. We will take it very steadily.’

‘I’m all right,’ Troy said. ‘Please don’t worry. I’m perfectly all right. It’s not me. Didn’t you hear what I said? Back there – in The River.’

‘Yes, yes. The Captain is attending to it!’

‘Attending to it!’ An ungainly laugh bubbled in Troy’s throat. ‘To that! I should hope so! Look, don’t fuss about me. I’m all right.’

But when they helped her to her feet she was very shaky. Dr Natouche went backwards before her down the companion-way and Caley Bard came behind. The two women followed making horrified comments.

In the passage her knees gave way. Dr Natouche carried her into her cabin and put her on her bunk as deftly as if she was a child. The others crowded in the doorway.

‘I’m all right,’ she kept repeating. ‘It’s ridiculous, all this. No – please.’

He covered her with the cherry-red blanket and said to Mrs Tretheway: ‘A hot-water bottle and tea would not be amiss.’

The ladies bustled away in confusion. He stooped his great body over Troy: ‘You’re shocked, Mrs Alleyn. I hope you will let me advise you.’

Troy began to tell them what she had seen. She took a firm hold of herself and spoke lucidly and slowly as if they were stupid men.

‘You must tell the police,’ Troy said. ‘At once. At once.’

Caley Bard said: ‘Yes, of course. I’m sure the Skipper will know what to do.’

‘Tell him. It mustn’t be – lost – it mustn’t be –’ she clenched her hands under the blanket. ‘Superintendent Tillottson at Tollardwark. Tell the Skipper.’

‘I’ll tell him,’ Dr Natouche offered and Caley Bard said: ‘There now! Don’t fuss. And do, like a good girl, stop bossing.’

Troy caught the familiar bantering tone and was comforted by it. She and Bard exchanged pallid grins.

‘I’ll be off,’ he said.

Dr Natouche said: ‘And I. I may be wanted. I think you should stay where you are, Mrs Alleyn.’

He had moved away when Troy, to her own astonishment, heard herself say. ‘Dr Natouche!’ and when he turned with his calmly polite air, ‘I – I should like to consult you, please, when you are free. Professionally.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘In the meantime these ladies will take care of you.’

They did. They ministered with hot-water bottles and with scalding tea. Troy only now realized that she was shivering like a puppy.

Miss Hewson was full of consolatory phrases and horrified speculation.

‘Gee,’ she gabbled, ‘isn’t this just awful? That poor girl and all of us asleep in our beds. What do you figure, Mrs Tretheway? She was kind of sudden in her reflexes wasn’t she? Now, could it add up this way? She was upset by this news about her girlfriend and she got up and dressed and packed her grip and wrote her little note on the newspaper and lit off for for wherever she fixed to meet up with her friends and in the dark she –’

Miss Hewson stopped as if jerked to a halt by her listeners’ incredulity.

‘Well – gee – well, maybe not,’ she said. ‘OK, OK. Maybe not.’

Mrs. Tretheway said: ‘I don’t fancy we do any good by wondering. Not till they know more. Whatever way it turns out, and it looks to me to be a proper mess, it’ll bring nothing but worry to us in the Zodiac: I know that much.’

She took the empty cup from Troy. ‘You’d best be left quiet,’ she said. ‘We’ll look in and see how you prosper.’

When they had gone Troy lay still and listened. The shivering had stopped. She felt at once drowsy, and horrified that she should be so.

By looking up slantways through her open porthole she could see a tree top. It remained where it was for the most part, only sliding out of its place and returning as the Zodiac moved with The River. She heard footfalls overhead and subdued voices and after an undefined interval, a police siren. It came nearer and stopped. More and heavier steps on deck. More and newer voices, very subdued. This continued for some time. She half-dozed, half-woke.

She was roused by something outside that jarred against the port wall of the Zodiac and by the clunk of oars in their rowlocks and the dip and drip of the blades.

‘Easy as you go, then,’ said a voice very close at hand. ‘Shove off a bit.’ The top of a helmet moved across the porthole. ‘That’s right. Just a wee bit over. Hold her at that, now. Careful now.’

Superintendent Tillottson. On the job.

Troy knew with terrible accuracy what was being done on the other side of the cabin wall. She was transfixed in her own vision and hag-ridden by a sick idea that there was some obligation upon her to stand on her bunk and look down into nightmare. She knew this idea was a fantasy but she was deadly afraid that she would obey its compulsion.

‘All right. Give way and easy. Easy as you go.’

‘I can’t.’

‘What? What?’

‘It’s foul of something.’

‘Here. Hold on.’

‘Look there, Super. Look.’

‘All right, all right. Hold steady again and I’ll see.’

‘What is it, then?’

‘A line. Cord. Round the waist and made fast to something.’

‘Will we cut it?’

‘Wait while I try a wee haul. Hold steady, I said. Now then.’

An interval with heavy breathing.

‘Coming up. Here she comes.’

‘Suitcase?’

‘That’s right. Now. Bear a hand to ship it. It’s bloody heavy. God, don’t do that, man. We don’t want any more disfigurement.’

A splash and then a thud.

‘Fair enough. Now, you can give way. Signal the ambulance, Sarge. Handsomely, now.’

The rhythmic clunk, dip and drip: receding.

Troy thought with horror: ‘They’re towing her. It’s Our Mutual Friend again. Through the detergent foam. They’ll lift her out, dripping foam, and put her on a stretcher and into an ambulance and drive her away. There’ll be an autopsy and an inquest and I’ll have to say what I saw and, please God, Rory will be back.’

The Zodiac trembled. Trees and blue sky with a wisp of cloud, moved across the porthole. For a minute or so they were under way and then she felt the slight familiar shock when the craft came up to her mooring.

Miss Hewson opened the door and looked in. She held a little bottle rather coyly between thumb and forefinger and put her head on one side like her brother.

‘Wide awake?’ she said. ‘I guess so. Now, look what I’ve brought!’

She tiptoed the one short pace between the door and the bunk and stooped. Her face really was like a bun, Troy thought, with currants for eyes and holes for nostrils and a bit of candy-peel for a mouth. She shrank back a little from Miss Hewson’s face.

‘I just knew how you’d be. All keyed-up like nobody’s business. And I brought you my Trankwitones. You needn’t feel any hesitation about using them, dear. They’re recommended by pretty well every darn’ doctor in the States and they just act –’

The voice droned on. Miss Hewson was pouring water into Troy’s glass.

‘Miss Hewson, you’re terribly kind but I don’t need anything like that. Really. I’m perfectly all right now and very much ashamed of myself.’

‘Now, listen dear –’

‘No, truly. Thank you very much but I’d rather not.’

‘You know something? Mama’s going to get real tough with baby –’

‘But, Miss Hewson, I promise you I don’t want –’

‘May I come in?’ said Dr Natouche.

Miss Hewson turned sharply and for a moment they faced each other.

‘I think,’ he said, and it was the first time Troy had heard him speak to her, ‘that Mrs Alleyn is in no need of sedation, Miss Hewson.’

‘Well, I’m surely not aiming – I just thought if she could get a little sleep – I –’

‘That was very kind but there is no necessity for sedation.’

‘Well – I certainly wouldn’t want to –’

‘I’m sure you wouldn’t. If I may just have a word with my patient.’

‘Your patient! Pardon me. I was not aware – well, pardon me, Doctor,’ said Miss Hewson with a spurt of venom in her voice and slammed the door on her exit.

Troy said hurriedly: ‘I want to talk to you. It’s about what we discussed before. About Miss Rickerby-Carrick. Dr Natouche, have you seen –’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They asked me to make an examination – a very superficial examination, of course.’

‘I could hear them: outside there. I could hear what they found. She’s been murdered, hasn’t she? Hasn’t she?’

He leant over the bunk and shut the porthole. He drew up the little stool and sat on it, leaning towards her. ‘I think,’ he said as softly as his huge voice permitted, ‘we should be careful.’ His fingers closed professionally on Troy’s wrist.

‘You could lock the door,’ she said.

‘So I could.’ He did so and turned back to her.

‘Until the autopsy,’ he murmured, ‘it will be impossible to say whether she was drowned or not. Externally, in most respects, it would appear that she was. It can be argued, and no doubt it will be argued, that she committed suicide by weighting her suitcase and tying it to herself and perhaps throwing herself into The River from the weir bridge.’

‘If that was so, what becomes of the telephone call and the telegram from Carlisle?’

‘I cannot think of any answer consistent with suicide.’

‘Murder, then?’

‘It would seem so.’

‘I am going to tell you something. It’s complicated and a bit nebulous but I want to tell you. First of all – my cabin. You know it was booked –’

‘To somebody called Andropulos? I saw the paragraph in the paper. I did not speak of it as I thought it would be unpleasant for you.’

‘Did any of the others?’

‘Not to my knowledge.’

‘I’ll make this as quick and as clear as I can – it has to do with a case of my husband’s. There’s a man called Foljambe –’

A crisp knock on her door and Superintendent Tillottson’s voice: ‘Mrs Alleyn? Tillotson here. May I come in.’

Troy and Dr Natouche stared at each other. She whispered: ‘He’ll have to,’ and called out: ‘Come in, Mr Tillottson.’ At the same time Dr Natouche opened the door.

Suddenly the little cabin was crammed with enormous men. Superintendent Tillottson and Doctor Natouche were both over six feet tall and comparably broad. She began to introduce these mammoths to each other and then realized they had been introduced already in hideous formality by Hazel Rickerby-Carrick. She could not help looking at Mr Tillottson’s large pink hands which were a little puckered as if he had been doing the washing. She was very glad he did not offer one to her, after his hearty fashion, for shaking.

She said: ‘Dr Natouche is looking after me on account of my making a perfect ass of myself.’

Mr Tillottson said, with a sort of wide spread of blandness, that this was very nice. Dr Natouche then advised Troy to take things easy and left them.

Troy pushed back the red blanket, sat up on her bunk, put her feet on the deck and ran her fingers through her short hair. ‘Well, Mr Tillottson,’ she said, ‘what about this one?’

II

With the exception of Chief-Inspector Fox for whom she had a deep affection, Troy did not meet her husband’s colleagues with any regularity. Sometimes Alleyn would bring a few of them in for drinks and two or three times a year the Alleyns had easy-going evenings when their house, like Troy’s cabin in the Zodiac, was full of enormous men talking shop.

From these encounters she had, she thought, learnt to recognize certain occupational characteristics among officers of the Criminal Investigation Department.

They were men who, day in, day out, worked in an atmosphere of intense hostility. They were, they would have said, without illusions and unless a built-in scepticism, by definition includes a degree of illusion, she supposed they were right. Some of them, she thought, had retained a kind of basic compassion: they were shocked by certain crimes and angered by others. They honestly saw themselves as guardians of the peace however disillusioned they might be as to the character of the beings they protected. Some regarded modern psychiatric theories about crime with massive contempt. Others seemed to look upon the men and women they hunted with a kind of sardonic affection and would strike up what passed for friendships with them. Many of them, like Fox, were of a very kindly disposition yet, as Alleyn once said of them, if pity entered far into the hunter his occupation was gone. And he had quoted Mark Antony who talked about ‘pity choked with custom of fell deeds’. Some of the men she met were bitter and with reason, about public attitudes towards the police. ‘A character comes and robs their till or does their old Mum or interferes with their kid sister,’ Mr Fox once remarked, ‘and they’re all over you. Next day they’re among the pigeons in Trafalgar Square advising the gang our chaps are trying to deal with to put in the boot. You could say it’s a lonely sort of job.’

Very few of Alleyn’s colleagues, Troy thought, were natural bullies but it was to be expected that the Service would occasionally attract such men and that its disciplines would sometimes fail to control them.

At which point in her consideration of the genus of CID Troy was invariably brought up short by the reflection that her husband fitted into none of these categories. And she would give up generalization as a bad job.

Now, however, she found herself trying to place Superintendent Tillottson and was unable to do so.

How tough was Mr Tillottson? How intelligent? How impenetrable? And what on earth did he now make of the cruise of the Zodiac? If he carried on in his usual way, ironing-out her remarks into a featureless expanse of words, she would feel like hitting him.

So. ‘What do you make of this one?’ she asked and heard his ‘Well, now, Mrs Alleyn –’ before he said it.

‘Well, now, Mrs Alleyn,’ said Mr Tillottson and she cut in.

‘Has she been murdered? Or can’t you say until after the autopsy?’

‘We can’t say,’ he admitted, looking wary, ‘until after the inquest. Not on – er – on – er –’

‘The external appearance of her body?’

‘That is so, Mrs Alleyn. That is correct, yes.’

‘Have you heard that last night the Skipper got a telegram purporting to come from her? From Carlisle? Intimating she was on her way to the Highlands?’

‘We have that information, Mrs Alleyn. Yes.’

‘Well, then?’

Mr Tillottson coined a phrase: ‘It’s quite a little problem.’ he said.

‘You,’ Troy said with feeling, ‘are telling me.’ She indicated the stool. ‘Do sit down, Mr Tillottson,’ she said.

He thanked her and did so, obliterating the stool.

‘I suppose,’ she continued. ‘You want a statement from me, don’t you?’

He became cautiously playful. ‘I see you know all about routine, Mrs Alleyn. Well, yes, if you’ve no objection, just a wee statement. Seeing you, as you might say –’

‘Discovered the body?’

‘That is so, Mrs Alleyn.’

Troy said rapidly: ‘I was on deck on the port side at the after-end, I think you call it. I leant on the rail and looked at the water which was covered with detergent foam. We were, I suppose, about two chains below Ramsdyke weir and turning towards the lock. I saw it – I saw her face – through the foam. At first I only thought – I thought –’

‘I’m sure it was very unpleasant.’

She felt that to concede this understatement would be to give ground before Mr Tillottson.

‘I thought it was something else: a trick of light and colour. And then the foam broke and I saw. That’s all really. I don’t think I called out. I’m not sure. Very stupidly, I fainted. Mr Tillottson,’ Troy hurried on, ‘we know she left the Zodiac some time during the night before last at Crossdyke. She slept on deck, that night.’

‘Yes?’ he asked quickly. ‘On deck? Sure?’

‘Didn’t you know?’

‘I haven’t had the opportunity as yet, to get what you’d call the full picture.’

‘No, of course not. She told Dr Natouche she meant to sleep on deck. She complained of insomnia. And I think she must have done so because he and I found a bit of cloth from the cover of her diary – you know I told you how it went overboard – on her Li-lo mattress.’

‘Not necessarily left there during the night, though, would you say?’

‘Perhaps not. It was discoloured. I think Dr Natouche has kept it.’

‘Has he? Now why would the doctor do that, I wonder.’

‘Because I asked him to.’

‘You did!’

‘We were both a bit worried about her. Well, you know I was, don’t you? I told you.’

Mr Tillottson at once looked guarded. ‘That’s so, Mrs Alleyn,’ he said. ‘You did mention it. Yerse.’

‘There’s one thing I want you to tell me. I daresay I’ve got no business to pester you but I hope you won’t mind too much.’

‘Well, of course not. Naturally not, I’m sure.’

‘It’s just this. If it is found to be homicide you won’t will you, entertain any idea of her having been set upon by thugs when she went ashore in the night? That can’t be the case, possibly, can it?’

‘We always like to keep an open mind.’

‘Yes, but you can’t, can you, keep an open mind about that one? Because if she was killed by some unknown thug, who on earth sent the telegram from Carlisle?’

‘We’ll have to get you in the Force, Mrs Alleyn. I can see that,’ he joked uneasily.

‘I know I’m being a bore.’

‘Not at all.’

‘But you see,’ Troy couldn’t resist adding, ‘it’s because of all those silly little things I told you about at the police stations. They don’t sound quite so foolish, now. Or do they?’

‘Er – no. No. You may be quite sure, Mrs Alleyn, that we won’t neglect any detail, however small.’

‘Of course. I know.’

‘I might just mention, Mrs Alleyn, that since we had our last chat we’ve re-checked on the whereabouts of the passengers over last weekend. They’re OK. The Hewson couple were in Stratford-upon-Avon. Mr Pollock did stay in Birmingham. Dr Natouche was in Liverpool, and –’

‘But – that’s all before the cruise began!’

‘Yerse,’ he said and seemed to be in two minds what to say next. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘as far as it goes, there it is,’ and left it at that.

‘Please, Mr Tillottson, there’s only one more thing. Had she – did you find anything round her neck. A cord or tape with a sort of little bundle on it. Sewn up, I fancy, in chamois leather?’

‘No,’ he said sharply. ‘Nothing like that. Did she wear something of that nature?’

‘Yes,’ Troy said. ‘She did. It was – I know this sounds fantastic but it’s what she told me – it was an extremely valuable Fabergé jewel representing the Signs of the Zodiac and given to her grandfather who was a surgeon, by, believe it or not, the Czar of Russia. She told me she never took it off. Except one supposes when she –’ Troy stopped short.

‘Did she talk about it to anyone else, Mrs Alleyn?’

‘I understood she’d told Miss Hewson about it.’

‘There you are! The foolishness of some ladies.’

‘I know.’

‘Well, now,’ he said. This is interesting. This is quite interesting, Mrs Alleyn.’

‘You’re thinking of motive.’

‘We have to think of everything,’ he sighed portentously. ‘Everything.’

‘I suppose,’ Troy said, ‘you’ve looked in her suitcase.’

She thought how preposterous it was that she should be asking the question and said to herself: ‘If it wasn’t for Rory, he’d have slapped me back long ago.’

He said: ‘That would be routine procedure, wouldn’t it, Mrs Alleyn?’

‘You were alongside this cabin when you – when you – were in that boat. The porthole was open. I heard about the suitcase.’

He glanced with something like irritation at the porthole.

‘There’s nothing of the nature of the object you describe in the suitcase,’ he said and stood up with an air of finality. ‘I expect you’ll appreciate, Mrs Alleyn, that we’ll ask for signed statements from all the personnel in this craft.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I’ve suggested they assemble in the saloon upstairs for a preliminary interview. You’re feeling quite yourself again –?’

‘Quite, thank you.’

‘That’s fine. In about five minutes, then?’

‘Certainly.’

When he had gone, softly closing the door behind him, Troy tidied herself up. The face that looked out of her glass was pretty white and her hand was not perfectly steady but she was all right. She straightened the red blanket and turned to the washbasin. The tumbler had been half-filled with water and placed on the shelf. Beside it were two capsules.

Trankwitones, no doubt.

Persistent woman: Miss Hewson.

Never in her life, Troy thought, had she felt lonelier. Never had she wished more heartily for her husband’s return.

She believed she knew now for certain, what had happened to Hazel Rickerby-Carrick. She had been murdered and her murderer was aboard the Zodiac.

‘But,’ she thought, ‘it may stop there. She told Miss Hewson about the jewel and Miss Hewson may well have told – who? Her brother almost certainly and perhaps Mr Pollock with whom they seem to be pretty thick. Or the Tretheways? For the matter of that, every man and woman of us may know about the thing and the ones like Dr Natouche and Caley Bard and me may simply have used discretion and held their tongues.

‘And then it might follow that some single one of us,’ she thought, ‘tried to steal the jewel when she was asleep on deck and she woke and would have screamed and given him – or her – away and so she got her quietus. But after that –? Here’s a nightmarish sort of thing – after that how did poor Hazel get to Ramsdyke weir seven miles or more upstream?’

She remembered that Miss Rickerby-Carrick had been presented with some of Miss Hewson’s Trankwitones and that Dr Natouche had said they were unknown to him.

Now. Was there any reason to suppose that the case didn’t stop there but reached out all round itself like a spider to draw in Andropulos and behind Andropulos, the shadowy figure of Foljambe? The Jampot? The ultra-clever one?

Was it too fantastic, now, to think the Jampot might be on board? And if he was? Well, Troy thought, she couldn’t for the life of her name her fancy. Figures, recalled by a professional memory, swam before her mind’s eye, each in its way outlandish – black patch, deaf ear, club foot and with a sort of mental giggle she thought: ‘If it’s Caley I’ve been kissed by a triple murderer and Rory can put that on his needles and knit it.’

At this point Mrs Tretheway’s little bell that she rang for mealtimes, tinkled incisively. Troy opened the door and heard Tillottson’s paddy voice and a general stir as of an arrival. While she listened, trying to interpret these sounds, the cabin door on her left opened and Mr Lazenby came out. He turned and stood on her threshold and they were face-to-face. Even as close to him as she was now Troy could make nothing of the eyes behind the dark glasses and this circumstance lent his face an obviously sinister look as if he were a character out of an early Hitchcock film.

‘You are better?’ he asked. ‘I was about to inquire, I’m afraid you were very much upset and distressed. As indeed we all are. Oh, terribly distressed. Poor soul! Poor quaint, kindly soul! It’s hard to believe she’s gone.’

‘I don’t find it so,’ Troy snapped.

She saw his lips settle in a rather sharp line. There was a further subdued commotion somewhere on deck. Troy listened for a second. A new voice sounded and her heart began to thud against her ribs.

‘If a poor parson may make a suggestion, Mrs Alleyn,’ Mr Lazenby said and seemed to peer at her. ‘I think perhaps you should leave the Zodiac. You have had a great shock. You look –’ The bell rang again. He turned his head sharply and the spectacles moved. For a fraction of a second Troy caught a glimpse of the left eye-socket behind its dark window. There was no eye in it.

And then she heard a very deep voice at the head of the companion-way.

Without thought or conscious effort she was past Mr Lazenby, out of the cabin, up the stairs and into her husband’s arms.

III

Of course it was an extraordinary situation. She could think: ‘how extraordinary’ even while her delight in his return sang so loudly it was enough to deafen her to anything else.

There had been some sort of explanation at large – introductions even – to whoever had been in the saloon followed by a retreat with Alleyn to her cabin. She remembered afterwards that they had encountered Mr Lazenby in the passage.

Now they sat, side by side, on her bunk and she thought she could cope with Catastrophe itself.

He put his arm round her and swore briefly but violently, asking her what the bloody hell she thought she was doing and giving her a number of hasty but well-planted embraces. This she found satisfactory. He then said they couldn’t sit down here on their bottoms all day and invited her to relate as quickly as possible anything she thought he ought to know.

‘I’ve heard your extraordinary spinster’s been found in The River and that you were the first to see her. Tillottson seems to think it’s a case of foul play. Otherwise I know nothing beyond what you wrote in your letters. Look at you. You’re as white as a sheet. Troy, my darling.’

‘It only happened a couple of hours ago, you might remember. Don’t fuss. Rory, there’s so much to tell and I’m meant to be upstairs being grilled with the others.’

‘To hell with that. No. Wait a bit. I think we must listen to Tillottson in action. I’ve thrown him into a fine old tizzy, anyway, by turning up. Tell me quickly, then: what’s happened since you posted your last letter at Tollardwark?’

‘All right. Listen.’

She told him about the diary going overboard, the behaviour of Mr Lazenby, the disappearance of Hazel Rickerby-Carrick, her sense of growing tension and Miss Hewson’s discovery of the ‘Constable’.

‘There are a lot of other little things that seemed odd to me but those are the landmarks.’

‘We’ll have the whole saga in detail later on. You’ve put me far enough in the picture for the moment. Come on. Let’s give Tillottson a treat. I’ve arranged to sit in.’

So they went upstairs. There were the other passengers in an uneasy row on the semi-circular bench at the end of the saloon: the Hewsons, Mr Pollock, Mr Lazenby, Caley Bard and, a little apart as always, Dr Natouche. The Tretheways were grouped together near the bar.

Facing the passengers at a dining table were Superintendent Tillottson and a uniformed Sergeant.

Troy sat by Dr Natouche who, with Caley Bard, rose at her approach. Alleyn stayed at the other end of the saloon. The Zodiac was tied up alongside the wapentake side of The River, below Ramsdyke Lock and the shapeless thunder of the weir could be distinctly heard. Scurries of detergent foam were blown past the open windows.

It was easy to see that Mr Tillottson suffered from a deep embarrassment. He looked at Troy and cleared his throat, he turned and nodded portentously to Alleyn. His neck turned red and he pursed up his lips to show that the situation was child’s play to him.

‘Yerse, well now,’ Mr Tillottson said. ‘I think if you don’t mind, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll just have a wee re-cap. I’ll go over the information we have produced about this unfortunate lady and I’ll be obliged if you’ll correct me if I go wrong.’

The Sergeant pushed his book across. Mr Tillottson put on a pair of spectacles and began to summarize, consulting the notes from time to time.

It was very soon clear to Troy that he refreshed his memory, not only from the Sergeant’s notes on what the passengers had divulged but also from the information she had given him on her three visits to police stations. Particularly was this apparent when he outlined the circumstances of Hazel Rickerby-Carrick’s disappearance. Troy sensed her companions’ surprise at Mr Tillottson’s omniscience. How, they must surely be asking themselves, had he found time to make so many inquiries? Or would they merely put it all down to the expeditious methods of our county police?

She glanced quickly at Alleyn and saw one eyebrow go up.

Mr Tillottson himself evidently realized his mistake. His résumé became a trifle scrambled and ended abruptly.

‘Well now,’ he said. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, since we are all agreed that as far as they go, these are the facts I won’t trouble you any more just now except to say that I hope you will all complete your cruise as planned. The craft will proceed shortly to a mooring above Ramsdyke Lock where she will tie up for the night and she will return to Norminster at about eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to remain within reach for the inquest which will probably be held the following day. In Norminster. If there is any trouble about securing accommodation, my department will be glad to assist.’

Upon this the Hewsons broke into vehement expostulation, complaining that they were on a tight schedule and were due next evening, to make a connection for Perth, Scotland.

Caley Bard said that with any luck they might meet up with Mavis and everybody but Troy and Dr Natouche looked shocked. Miss Hewson said if that was a specimen of British humour she did not, for her part, appreciate it and Mr Hewson said he did not find himself in stitches either.

Mr Lazenby asked if – since all their accounts of the affair agreed – it would not be acceptable for them to be represented at the inquest by (as it were) a spokesman and it was clear that he did not cast himself for this role. He had important appointments with ecclesiastical big-wigs in London and was loath to forgo them. He developed antipodean-type resentment and began to speak of the reactionary conduct of pom policemen. He said: ‘Good on you,’ to the Hewsons and formed an alliance.

Caley Bard said it was an unconscionable bore but one didn’t, after all, fish corpses out of the waterways every day of the week and he would resign himself to the ruling. He grew less popular with every word he uttered.

Mr Pollock whined. He wanted to know why they couldn’t sign a joint statement, for God’s sake, and then bugger off if the ladies would excuse the expression.

Everybody except Caley Bard, Troy and Alleyn looked scandalized and Mr Lazenby expostulated.

Dr Natouche asked if, since his practice was within reasonable driving distance of Norminster, he might be summoned from thence. He realized, of course, that as he had made the preliminary examination he would be required to give evidence under that heading.

Mr Tillottson glanced at Alleyn and then said he thought that would be quite in order.

He now asked to see the passports of Mr Lazenby and the Hewsons and they were produced, Mr Lazenby taking the opportunity to complain about the treatment of Australian visitors at British Customs. Mr Tillottson said the passports would be returned and shifted his feet about as a preface to rising.

It was now that Mr Lazenby suddenly said: ‘I’m puzzled.’ And Troy thought ‘Here we go.’

‘I’d like to ask,’ he said, and he seemed to be looking at her, ‘just how the police have come by some of their information. When did the Superintendent find the opportunity to make the necessary inquiries? To the best of my belief, from the time he got here until this present moment, the Superintendent has been on The River or here in this boat. If you don’t object, Superintendent, I think this calls for an explanation. Just to keep the record straight.’

‘Blimey, chum, you’re right!’ Mr Pollock exclaimed and the Hewsons broke into a little paean of agreement. They all stared at Troy.

Mr Tillottson made an almost instant recovery. He looked straight before him and said that he happened to receive information about Miss Rickerby-Carrick’s mode of departure and had thought it unusual enough to warrant a routine inquiry.

And from whom, if the Superintendent didn’t mind, Mr Lazenby persisted, had he received this information.

Troy heard herself, as if it were with somebody else’s voice, saying: ‘It was from me. I think you all know I called at the police station at Tollardwark. I happened in the course of conversation to say something about Miss Rickerby-Carrick’s unexpected departure.’

‘Quite so,’ said Mr Tillottson. ‘That is correct.’

‘And I imagine,’ Caley Bard said angrily, ‘you have no objections to that perfectly reasonable explanation, Mr Lazenby.’

‘Certainly not. By no means. One only wanted to know.’

‘And now one does know one may as well pipe down.’

‘There’s no call to take that tone,’ Mr Pollock said. ‘We didn’t mean anything personal.’

‘Then what the hell did you mean?’

‘Gentlemen!’ Mr Tillottson almost shouted and they subsided. ‘A statement,’ he said, ‘will be typed on the lines of your information. You will be asked to look it over and if you find it correct, to sign it. I have only one other remark to make, ladies and gentlemen. As you have already been informed, we have Superintendent Alleyn, CID with us. Mr Alleyn came, you might say, on unofficial business.’ Here Mr Tillottson ducked his head at Troy, ‘But I don’t have to tell him we’ll be very glad of his advice in a matter which I’m sure everybody wants to see cleared up to the satisfaction of all concerned. Thank you.’

Having wound himself into a cocoon of generalities Mr Tillottson added that as the afternoon was rather close he was sure they would all like a breath of air. Upon this hint the passengers retired above. Troy after a look from Alleyn went with them. She noticed that Dr Natouche remained below.

It seemed to her that the Hewsons and Mr Lazenby and Mr Pollock were in two minds as to what attitude they would adopt towards her. After a short and uncomfortable silence, Mr Lazenby settled this problem by bearing down upon her with his widest smile.

‘Happy now, Mrs Alleyn?’ he fluted. ‘I’ll bet! And I must say, without, I hope, being uncharitable, we all ought to congratulate ourselves on your husband’s arrival. Really,’ Mr Lazenby said, looking – or seeming to look – about him, ‘it would almost seem that he was Sent.’

It was from this moment, that Troy began to suspect Mr Lazenby, in spite of the Bishop of Norminster, of not being a clergyman.

He had sparked off a popularity poll in favour of Troy. Miss Hewson said that maybe she wasn’t qualified to speak but she certainly did not know what was with this cop and for her money the sooner Alleyn set up a regular investigation the better she’d feel and Mr Pollock hurriedly agreed.

Caley Bard watched this demonstration with a scarcely veiled expression of glee. He strolled over to Troy and said: ‘We don’t know yet, though, or do we, if the celebrated husband is going to act.’

‘I’m sure I don’t,’ she said. ‘They have to be asked. They don’t just waltz in because they happen to be on the spot.’

‘I suppose you’re enchanted to see him.’

‘Of course I am.’

‘That monumental creature seemed to indicate a collaboration, didn’t you think?’

‘Well, yes. But it’d all be by arrangement with head office.’

‘Hallo,’ he said, ‘we’re going through the lock.’

‘Thank God!’ Troy ejaculated.

It would be something – it would be a great deal – to get out of that region of polluted foam. Troy had been unable to look at The River since she came on deck.

They slipped into the clear dark waters, the sluice-gates were shut, the paddles set, and the familiar slow ascent began. She moved to the after-end of the Zodiac and Caley Bard joined her there.

‘I don’t know if it has occurred to you,’ he said, ‘that everybody is cutting dead the obvious inference.’

‘Inference?’

‘Well – question if you prefer. Aren’t we all asking ourselves whether the ebullient Hay has been made away with?’

After a pause, Troy said: ‘I suppose so.’

‘Well, of course we are. We’d be certifiable if we didn’t. Do you mind talking about it?’

‘I think it’s worse not to do so.’

‘I couldn’t agree more. Have you heard what they found?’

‘In The River?’

‘Yes.’

‘I did hear a good deal. In my cabin.’

‘I was on deck. I saw.’

‘How horrible,’ said Troy.

But she was not as deeply horrified as she might have been because her attention was riveted by a pair of large, neat and highly polished boots and decent iron-grey trousers on the rim of the lock above her. They looked familiar. She tilted her head back and was rewarded by a worm’s-eye view in violent perspective of the edge of a jacket, the modest swell of a stomach, the underneath of a massive chin, a pair of nostrils and the brim of a hat.

As the Zodiac quietly rose in the lock, these items resolved themselves into an unmistakable whole.

‘Well,’ Troy thought, ‘this settles it. It’s a case,’ and when she found herself sufficiently elevated to do so without absurd contortion, she addressed herself to the person now revealed.

‘Hallo, Br’er Fox,’ she said.

IV

‘What was said,’ Fox explained, ‘was this. Tillottson’s asked for us to come in. He rang the Department on finding the body. The AC said that as you’ve been in on this Jampot thing from the time it came our way, the only sensible course is for you to follow it up. Regardless, as it were. And I’ve been shot up here by plane to act as your support and to let you know how things stand on my file. Which is a nice way of saying how big a bloody fool I’ve been made to look by this expert.’

‘But who says this is a Jampot affair, may I ask?’ Alleyn crossly interjected.

‘The AC works it out that this job up here, this river job, ought properly to be regarded as a possible lead on Foljambe. On account of the Andropulos connection. Having been made a monkey of,’ Fox added with feeling, ‘by a faked-up false scent to Paris, I don’t say I reacted with enthusiasm to his theories but you have to look at these things with what I’ve heard you call a disparate eye.’

‘I entirely agree. And that, under the circumstances is something I cannot be expected to do. Look here, Fox. Here’s Troy, one of a group of people who, if this woman was murdered, and I’ll bet she was, come into the field of police investigation: right?’

‘The AC says it’ll be nicer for you to be here with her.’

‘That be damned! What? Me? Needle my wife? Give her the old one-two treatment if she doesn’t provide all the answers? Nicer?’

‘It won’t,’ Fox said, ‘be as bad as that now, will it?’

‘I can’t tell you how much I dislike having her mixed up in any of our shows. I came here to get her out of it. Not to take on a bloody homicide job.’

‘I know that. It’s a natural reaction,’ Mr Fox said. ‘Both of you being what you are.’

‘I don’t know what you mean by that.’

‘Suppose you didn’t take the case, Mr Alleyn. What’s the drill on that one? Somebody else comes up from the Yard and you hand him the file. And is his face red! He goes ahead and you clear out leaving Mrs Alleyn here to get through the routine as best she can.’

‘You know damn’ well that’s grotesque.’

‘Well, Mr Alleyn, the alternative’s not to your fancy either, is it?’

‘If you put it like that the only thing that remains for me to do is to retire in a hurry and to hell with the pension.’

‘Oh, now! Come, come!’

‘All right. All right. I’m unreasonable under this heading and we both know it.’

Fox mildly contemplated his superior officer. ‘I can see it’s awkward,’ he said. ‘It’s not what we’d choose. You’re thinking about her position and how it’ll appear to others and what say the Press get on to it, I daresay. But if you ask me it won’t be so bad. It’s only until the inquest.’

‘And in the meantime what’s the form? We’ve issued orders that they’re all to stay in that damned boat tonight, one of them almost certainly being the Rickerby-Carrick’s murderer and just possibly the toughest proposition in homicide on either side of the Atlantic. I can’t withdraw my wife and insist on keeping the others there. Well, can I? Can I?’

‘It might be awkward,’ said Fox. ‘But you could.’

They fell silent and as people do when they come to a blank wall in a conversation, stared vaguely about them. A lark sang, a faint breeze lifted the long grass and in the excavation below the wapentake, sand and gravel fell with a whisper of sound from the grassy overhang.

‘That’s very dangerous,’ Fox said absently. ‘That place. Kids might get in there. If they interfered with those props, anything could happen.’ He stood up, eased his legs and looked down at The River. It was masked by a rising mist.

The Zodiac was moored for the night some distance above Ramsdyke Lock. The passengers were having their dinner, Mr Tillottson and his sergeant being provided for at an extra table. Alleyn had had a moment or two with Troy and had suggested that she might slip away and join them if an opportunity presented itself. If, however, she could not do so without attracting a lot of attention she was to go early to bed and lock her door. He would come to her later and she was to unlock it to nobody else. To which she had replied: ‘Well, naturally,’ and he had said she knew damned well what he meant and they had broken into highly inappropriate laughter. He and Fox had then walked up to the wapentake where at least they were able to converse above a mutter.

‘There is,’ Alleyn said, ‘a vacant cabin, of course. Now.’

‘That’s right.’

‘I tell you what, Fox. We’ll have a word with the Skipper and take it over. We’ll search and we’ll need a warrant.’

‘I picked one up on my way from the beak at Tollardwark. He didn’t altogether see it but changed his mind when I talked about the Foljambe connection.’

‘As well he might. One of us could doss down in the cabin for the night if there’s any chance of a bit of kip which is not likely. It’d be a safety measure.’

‘You,’ said Fox, ‘if it suits. I’ve dumped a homicide bag at the Ramsdyke Arms.’

‘Tillottson kept his head and had the cabin locked. He says it’s full of junk. We’ll get the key off him. Look who’s here.’

It was Troy, coming into the field from Dyke Way by the top gate. Alleyn thought: ‘I wonder how rare it is for a man’s heart to behave as mine does at the unexpected sight of his wife.’

Fox said: ‘I’ll nip along to the pub, shall I, and settle for my room and bring back your kit and something to eat. Then you can relieve Tillottson and start on the cabin. Will I ring the Yard and get the boys sent up?’

‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘Yes. Better do that. Thank you, Br’er Fox.’ By ‘the boys’ Br’er Fox meant Sergeants Bailey and Thompson, fingerprint and photograph experts, who normally worked with Alleyn.

‘We’ll need a patrol,’ Alleyn said, ‘along The River from Tollard Lock to where she was found and we’ll have to make a complete and no doubt fruitless search of the tow-path and surroundings. You’d better get on to that, Fox. Take the Sergeant with you. Particular attention to the moorings at Crossdyke and the area round Ramsdyke weir.’

‘Right, I’ll be off, then.’

He started up the hill towards Troy looking, as always, exactly what he was. An incongruous figure was Mr Fox in that still medieval landscape. They met and spoke and Fox moved on to the gate.

Alleyn watched Troy come down the hill and went out of the wapentake to meet her.

‘They’ve all gone ashore,’ she said, ‘I think to talk about me. Except Dr Natouche who’s putting finishing touches to his map. They’re sitting in a huddle in the middle-distance of the view that inspired my original remark about Constables. I expect you must push on with routine mustn’t you? What haven’t I told you that you ought to know? Should I fill you in, as Miss Hewson would say, on some of the details?’

‘Yes, darling, fill me in, do. I’ll ask questions, shall I? It might be quickest. And you add anything – anything at all – that you think might be, however remotely, to the point. Shall we go?’

‘Fire ahead,’ said Troy.

During this process Troy’s answers became more and more staccato and her face grew progressively whiter. Alleyn watched her with an attentiveness that she wondered if she dreaded and knew that she loved. She answered his final question and said in a voice that sounded shrilly in her own ears: ‘There. Now you know as much as I do. See.’

‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘Tell me.’

‘She scratched on my door,’ Troy said. ‘And when I opened it she’d gone away. She wanted to tell me something and I let Mr Lazenby rescue me because I had a migraine and because she was such a bore. She was unhappy and who can tell what might have been the outcome if I’d let her confide? Who can tell that?’

‘I think I can. I don’t believe – and I promise you this – I don’t believe it would have made the smallest difference to what happened to her. And I’ll promise you as well, that if it turns out otherwise I shall say so.’

‘I can’t forgive myself.’

‘Yes, you can. Is one never to run away from a bore for fear she’ll be murdered?’

‘Oh Rory.’

‘All right, darling. I know. And I tell you what – I’m glad you had your migraine and I’m bloody glad she didn’t talk to you. Now, then. Better?’

‘A bit.’

‘Good. One more question. That junk shop in Tollardwark where you encountered the Hewsons. Did you notice the name of the street?’

‘I think it was Ferry Lane.’

‘You wouldn’t know the name of the shop?’

‘No,’ Troy said doubtfully. ‘It was so dark. I don’t think I saw. But – wait a bit – yes: on a very dilapidated little sign in Dr Natouche’s torchlight. “Jno. Bagg: Licensed Dealer”.’

‘Good. And it was there they made their haul?’

‘That’s right. They went back there from Longminster. Yesterday.’

‘Do you think it might be a Constable?’

‘I’ve no idea. It’s in his manner and it’s extremely well painted.’

‘What was the general reaction to the find?’

‘The Hewsons are going to show it to an expert. If it’s genuine I think they plan to come back and scour the district for more. I rather fancy Lazenby’s got the same idea.’

‘And you’ve doubts about him being a parson?’

‘Yes. I don’t know why.’

‘No eye in the left socket?’

‘It was only a glimpse but I think so. Rory –?’

‘Yes?’

‘The man who killed Andropulos – Foljambe – the Jampot. Do you know what he looks like?’

‘Not really. We’ve got a photograph but Santa Claus isn’t more heavily bearded and his hair, which looks fairish, covers his ears. It was taken over two years ago and is not a credit to the Bolivian photographer. He had both his eyes then but we have heard indirectly that he received some sort of injury after he escaped and lay doggo with it for a time. One report was that it was facial and another that it wasn’t. There was a third rumour thought to have originated in the South that he’d undergone an operation to change his appearance but none of this stuff was dependable. We think it likely that there is some sort of physical abnormality.’

‘Please tell me, Rory. Please. Do you think he’s on board?’

And because Alleyn didn’t at once protest, she said: ‘You do. Don’t you? Why?’

‘Before I got here, I would have said there was no solid reason to suppose it. On your letters and on general circumstances. Now, I’m less sure.’

‘Is it because of – have you seen …?’

‘The body? Yes, it’s largely because of that.’

‘Then – what –?’

‘We’ll have to wait for the autopsy. I don’t think they’ll find she drowned, Troy. I think she was killed in precisely the same way as Andropulos was killed. And I think it was done by the Jampot.’