Tell you the truth, I rather fancied a career in the police myself at one time,’ said Miss Davis, leading the way upstairs.
‘And I’m sure you would have been a great credit to the force,’ Jarvis replied gallantly.
Miss Davis tittered.
‘Either that or the Army,’ she went on as they reached the landing. ‘It was not to be, however. As the runt female of the litter, I let myself be talked into taking up the teaching game instead.’
She barked a laugh.
‘Not that it made much difference in the end. The parents apparently thought of education as a suitably ladylike activity, like being a nurse, only more genteel. Maybe it used to be, too, when there was proper discipline at home and the kids came to you already broken in. These days the only thing you have a hope of teaching most of them is that you don’t fuck with the system.’
‘Well this is it,’ murmured Jarvis.
‘And though I have no wish to brag,’ Miss Davis went on, ‘I turned out to be a natural.’
They came to a doorway opening into what looked like a walk-in cupboard.
‘The only thing I really missed was the uniform,’ she concluded reminiscently. ‘That and being able to go all the way. Know what I mean?’
Inside the narrow cubicle were two plywood doors with cheap gilt handles. Miss Davis opened the one to the left and ushered Jarvis inside. An expanse of flowery-patterned wallpaper rose to an inordinately high ceiling. A grimy sash-window overlooked an overgrown walled garden where a large dog was secured by a length of orange rope. The air was as cold and still as marble.
“That’s where she breathed her last,’ Miss Davis remarked, pointing to a metal bed-frame in the opposite corner. ‘Choked, rather. Messy business, but all part of a day’s work round here. And guess who has to get down on her bended knees and do the necessary? God forbid my precious brother should sully his fingers. I mean puleeease!’
Jarvis surveyed the personal effects gathering dust on top of the chest of drawers. He picked up a small bevelled cone of polished stone, which proved on closer inspection to be a souvenir of Land’s End. Rosemary Travis had warned him that if he asked to speak to George Channing directly the Andersons would claim that he wasn’t well enough to receive visitors. She had therefore suggested that he tell them he wished to search Mrs Davenport’s room, as was only natural in the circumstances, and then find some pretext for going next door.
Despite his reluctance to take advice from outsiders on professional matters, Jarvis had been forced to concede the wisdom of this. The last thing he wanted to do was to get on the wrong side of someone like this Anderson, who was related to the local MP and reportedly had the ear of various big noises on the council. He put the statuette down beside a set of miniature bottles in a wooden case and ran one finger along the top of the chest of drawers, tracing a straight line in the gathering dust. A long hair looped up and curled itself about his finger, glinting in the dull light. He brushed it away with a shudder. He’d seen the police photos and even attended the PM, yet it was only now that the fact of Dorothy Davenport’s death came home to him.
In the centre of the room, Miss Davis was going through a brief but energetic workout, stretching and bending alternately to either side. Jarvis pointed to the dead woman’s possessions.
‘Aren’t you going to clear this stuff out?’ he demanded brusquely. ‘Move in another paying customer?’
‘Only wish we could,’ Miss Davis puffed.
Jarvis opened the wooden case and took out a tiny replica of a green gin bottle. He unscrewed the top and turned it up. A drop of brackish water fell to the back of his hand.
‘Recession biting?’ he suggested sarcastically. ‘Bottom fallen out of the caring market, has it?’
Miss Davis laughed.
‘You must be joking! We’ve got people practically beating the door down, they’re that desperate to get rid.’
Jarvis replaced the miniature in its case and picked up a dusty bouquet of dried poppies.
‘The problem is William,’ Miss Davis panted, scissoring her arms from side to side. ‘He was spoilt rotten as a child, needless to say. No spunk, no gumption.’
One of the dead flowers, disturbed by Jarvis’s probing finger, broke free of the bouquet and fell. Borne on currents of air created by the flurry of activity at the centre of the room, it drifted laterally in a series of twirling spirals before coming to rest near the head of the bed.
‘Only a psycho could actually enjoy this work,’ Miss Davis grunted, ‘but what the hell, it’s a living. Don’t kill the golden goose is the way I look at it. But William can hardly wait.’
As Jarvis bent to pick up the poppy, a gleam caught his eye. He extended two fingers and grasped the slithery scrap of torn plastic.
‘And what will become of you?’ he murmured. ‘Back to teaching, is it?’
There was some black lettering on the plastic. Holding it up to the window, Jarvis read ‘50 ml disposable syr…’
‘Over my dead body!’ snorted Miss Davis.
Jarvis put the scrap of plastic into his wallet.
‘If you still fancied a job with the police,’ he said, ‘something might be arranged.’
Miss Davis ceased her exertions.
‘Really?’ she breathed.
‘We’re always on the lookout for people with the right mentality,’ Jarvis told her. ‘You can teach everything else, but you can’t teach that. You’ve either got it or you haven’t.’
Miss Davis’s eyes grew wider.
‘And you think I have?’
Jarvis winked.
‘I feel it. In my bones.’
Miss Davis blushed.
‘Cor,’ she said.
‘Now let’s just have a quick look next door,’ Jarvis went on briskly. ‘In case there’s a secret passage.’
Miss Davis looked flustered.
‘Secret passage?’
‘I think one might be regarded as permissible in a house such as this,’ he announced airily, heading for the door.
Miss Davis caught him up.
‘You can’t!’
‘Whyever not? You haven’t got anything to hide, have you?’
She stared at him in silence for some time, then shrugged.
‘I’d better ask William.’
Jarvis tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger.
‘Rule Number One,’ he said. ‘What your superior officer doesn’t find out didn’t happen. Right?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘Right?’
Miss Davis nodded.
‘Right,’ she said.
Jarvis opened the door and stepped inside. At first sight, the room seemed a mirror image of the one next door: the same miscellaneous assortment of third-hand furniture, the same oppressive volume of chilly grey light, the same sense of desolation and decay. The only difference Jarvis noticed at first was that the lower pane of the window had been replaced by a rectangle of plywood. Then he heard a low moan, and realised with a shock that what lay on the bed was not just a mattress but a man, bound to the frame at the wrists and ankles.
‘Doctor’s orders,’ Miss Davis explained, hurriedly undoing the webbing which bound the man to the bedframe. ‘Wouldn’t lie still, would you, George? Kept reopening his wounds, so we had to restrain him.’
The elderly man moved his arms and legs feebly, groaning through his clenched, toothless gums. A series of long shallow cuts extended from the temple to the chin on one side of his face, while on the other there were two deep gashes which had been stitched. His hands and arms were heavily bandaged. The rest of his body was concealed by the covers.
‘What happened?’ Jarvis asked.
Miss Davis took up a position at the head of the bed.
‘Had an accident, didn’t you, George? Tripped and fell out of the window.’
Ignoring her, Channing turned his head to look at Jarvis.
“They set the dog on me,’ he said.
‘We never!’ shouted Miss Davis.
She bent over the bed, fist raised. Jarvis grasped her arm and led her away.
‘If you’re to be any use to us in the police,’ he hissed, ‘you must learn never to interrupt an officer when he’s interviewing a witness!’
‘But the old bastard just fibbed himself!’
Jarvis nodded earnestly.
‘You don’t think I believe him, do you?’ he whispered.
Miss Davis gawked. Jarvis gave her a playful nudge.
‘Rule Number Two is let ‘em talk. The more he says, the easier it is to spot the inconsistencies and trap him in his own contradictions.’
A smile spread slowly across Miss Davis’s face. Leaning back slightly, she punched Jarvis on the shoulder.
‘Oooooh, you are a one!’ she said.
Surreptitiously rubbing his aching shoulder, Jarvis sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘Now then,’ he said, ‘what was that about a dog?’
A scornful smile appeared on the man’s ravaged face.
‘Jerry couldn’t hold me in ‘44. Got as far as Ostend that time, and would have made it back to Blighty if I hadn’t been turned in by some bloody Belgian. Whistling in the street, you see, hands in pockets. Not done, sur le continong, it seems.’
He pointed one bandaged hand at the broken window.
‘Worked the pane loose and climbed out. Managed to get down from the ledge in one piece, then the hound got me.’
‘And you’ve been kept tied up here ever since?’ Jarvis murmured.
The man nodded.
‘Medic came that afternoon, patched me up.’
He laughed soundlessly.
‘Worried I might die on them. Wouldn’t look good, he said. Got the wind up about old Dawers, too.’
‘Mrs Davenport?’
The bandaged hand beckoned. Jarvis bent down over the pillow and the man’s humid breath billowed in his ear.
‘Wall’s like paper. Hear every word.’
Jarvis nodded.
‘The morning they found the body, before the police got here, I heard Anderson talking to someone in there,’ Channing went on in a sibilant whisper. ‘Couldn’t make out the other voice, but it must have been…’
His eyes swivelled towards the figure in blue overalls standing by the window, ostentatiously not listening.
‘Anderson was in a bit of a panic. Man’s a dipso, of course. Always go to pieces at the first sign of trouble. Kept wittering away about how the police would be there any minute. Then something about getting rid of something at all costs. Miss Davis must have asked him where, and Anderson says, “In a bloody haystack.”’
‘A haystack?’ repeated Jarvis.
‘Then she said something else, and he said, “Well, we’ll just have to make sure they don’t get a chance to speak to her.” Then he laughed and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle them. The police are such clods.” ‘
The man lay back on the pillow, exhausted. Jarvis stood up.
“Thank you,’ he said.
He pointed to the wrist and ankle restraints.
‘I don’t really think those are necessary any more,’ he told Miss Davis.
‘Not if he’ll be good,’ she shrugged. ‘Will you be good, George?’
Jarvis took her arm.
Tm sure he will,’ he said, guiding her to the door.
‘What did he say?’ Miss Davis demanded as soon as they were outside.
Jarvis shrugged negligently.
‘Oh, nothing much. This and that. You know.’
This could be it, he thought as they started along the corridor. The one he’d always dreamed about, the one that got you on TV telling some prat in a mac how it felt. He imagined opening his morning paper to find a headline reading ‘HELL HOME HORROR – Exclusive Pictures and Interview with Detective Chief Superintendent “Accrington” Stanley Jarvis’. Then he blinked, and the next moment the whole thing looked as insubstantial as the world-shattering insights Tomkins tended to come out with after the fifth bottle of Bud or Schlitz or whatever it was that week.
No way, Stan, he told himself. The last thing he could afford to do was chance his arm on something that could blow up in his face and leave him without a leg to stand on if it subsequently turned out that he’d put his foot in it. This Miss Davis might come across with a bit of flattery, but her brother was considerably less of a soft touch, and well-connected with it. You couldn’t risk going up against people like that on the basis of a few ambiguous overheard phrases and the melodramatic fantasies of the dead woman’s best friend.
Jarvis was no longer totally convinced that Rosemary Travis had adulterated the cocoa and morphine syrup herself, but that didn’t mean she was someone you could put in the witness-box if you wanted to reach retirement age with your reputation intact. Reluctantly he let the dreams of fame and fortune fade. In his heart he had always known that he was not destined for such things any more than the football club after which he had been named. Accrington fans regarded titles and cups as slightly swanky, suitable for folk in Blackburn or Burnley, but not their style. Like them, Jarvis knew his place.
They had almost reached the landing when they heard Anderson yelling ‘Letty! Letty!’
Miss Davis broke into a run, with Jarvis close behind. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Anderson appeared from his office. He pointed to the front door, which was wide open.
‘Hargreaves is loose!’
Miss Davis’s eyes narrowed.
“The bitch. I’ll fucking spay her.’
Anderson smiled urbanely at Jarvis.
‘Sorry about this, Inspector! A minor domestic crisis, such as will happen from time to time in even the best-regulated households.’
The smile vanished as he turned to his sister.
‘You take the north side, I’ll check the paddock. She can’t have gone far.’
The front door clacked shut and footsteps scurried away over the gravel. Jarvis paused to check his appearance in the mirror at the foot of the stairs. He’d have been perfect on TV, too, he thought with a twinge of regret. He looked the part: solid, sound, dogged but fundamentally uninspired. People would have trusted him. That Jarvis, they’d have said, he’s all right. Shame there aren’t more like him in the force.
‘We’re ready for you, Inspector.’
He spun around to find Rosemary Travis looking at him from a doorway near by.
“This way!’ she said.
Jarvis walked past her into the lounge. The other residents were all in their places: Weatherby sitting by the fireplace reading The Times, Charles Symes and Grace Lebon bent over a jigsaw puzzle, Samuel Rossiter muttering into the telephone, Belinda Scott lightly touching the keys of the piano, Purvey nodding over his book.
‘So, here we are,’ Rosemary remarked brightly, ‘gathered together in the lounge of this isolated country house to face the detective’s probing questions. One of us is guilty, but which? Can the sleuth succeed in unmasking the murderer before he-or she-strikes again?’
The seven faces gazed expectantly at Jarvis.
‘Yes, well…’ he said.
He licked his lips.
‘The thing is…’ he said.
He consulted the marble clock on the mantelpiece, which read ten past four.
‘I’d like to ask you each a few questions,’ he said.
He pointed at the skinny woman bent over the keyboard of the piano, her shrivelled body hinting at vanished beauty like the chrysalis of a butterfly condemned to live its brief life backwards.
‘I’ll start with you,’ said Stanley Jarvis masterfully.