Death and the Maiden (20 page)

‘Who does he think he is,' she murmured, as Councillor Kenward stamped on the floor in his fury, ‘Rumpelstiltskin?'

Quantrill, who had been brought up on Grimm's fairy tales, gave her an appreciative grin. She blushed, and went to deal more charitably than usual with the small group of women referred to scathingly by Breckham Market people as ‘the overswill', who invariably celebrated the end of their factory working week and gave themselves the courage to face the quietness of the rural weekend by getting drunk.

The chief inspector waited diplomatically until the councillor was exhausted and his son had come round. ‘I just fainted, Dad,' the boy mumbled through lips that were still white, ‘it's all right, I just fainted.'

Councillor Kenward sat on the other chair, mopping his face with an ostentatiously silk handkerchief. ‘And what did they do to make you faint?' he growled.

‘I told him that his friend Mary Gedge had been murdered,' intervened Quantrill.

The boy's father looked astounded. ‘Murdered—the girl Gedge?'

‘Yes sir. That's the subject of our enquiry.'

Councillor Kenward looked in horror from the chief inspector to his son. ‘He didn't do it,' he said flatly. ‘He didn't do it.' He glared at Dale, his reddened watery eyes suddenly bulging: ‘
Did
you do it? Because by God if you did—'

He was out of his chair and had seized his son by the suede lapels before Quantrill could stop him. Dale turned his head aside, but made no attempt to break his father's grip. ‘Oh, for heaven's sake …' he said weakly, ‘of
course
I didn't. I
loved
her—can't any of you get that into your thick heads?'

His father released him abruptly and shook a stubby, sandy-haired finger in the boy's face. ‘Now, less of that,' he said. ‘Less of your lip. Come on, you're coming home.'

Dale Kenward turned to Quantrill. His face was still pale, and he had begun to shiver. ‘How did it happen?' he whispered. ‘Please tell me, I've got to know.'

Quantrill looked at him impassively. ‘I told you,' he said. ‘She was held under water until she drowned.'

Dale Kenward swallowed. ‘She wasn't—I mean …'

‘No,' said Quantrill.

He could swear that the look of relief on young Kenward's face was genuine. ‘But you still haven't told me,' he added sternly, ‘what you were doing last night. Your son,' he informed Councillor Kenward, ‘lied to me. He said at first that he was bird-watching with a friend all night. Now he's admitted that it's not true. So where were you, Dale? Who were you with?'

The boy lifted his head proudly. The colour had begun to return to his face. ‘I can't tell you,' he said. ‘I was doing nothing illegal, but I can't tell you what it was. I swear, though, that I wasn't with Mary and that I know nothing about her death.'

His father stared at him, simmering; Quantrill stared at him, rubbing his chin. There were tears in the boy's eyes but his look was stubborn, unwavering.

‘All right,' said the chief inspector eventually. He turned away. ‘All right, go on home.'

‘You've finished with him?' Councillor Kenward demanded.

‘For the moment. I shall probably want to see him again.'

‘Then you'll see my solicitor an'all.
And
I shall be ringing the chief constable about this in the morning, don't you worry!'

‘All that worries me, sir,' retorted Quantrill, ‘is finding the killer of Mary Gedge. Now if you'll wait by the desk for a moment, I'll send a car to take you both home.'

‘I don't want your car,' Kenward snapped. ‘I've got the Merc.'

Quantrill smiled at him politely. ‘I wouldn't advise you to drive it, sir, not in your condition … Excuse me, please, I have a lot to do.'

Sergeant Tait joined the chief inspector in his office.

‘The first of the house-to-house reports, sir. Nothing really significant, though one of them is interesting.' He riffled through the papers he had brought. ‘A Mrs Daphne Bullock, of Back Street—I rather think that she's the woman who came barging into the shop when we were talking to Mr Gedge this morning. She told Pc Bedford that she went into the shop yesterday evening just after six; Mary was serving Mr Miller, the teacher. They were laughing about something, and Mrs Bullock heard him ask Mary if she'd like a lift into Breckham this morning. She refused.'

‘Hmm. Do you know if she gave any reason—said what she intended to do instead?'

‘I asked Bedford the same question, and he'd already put it to Mrs Bullock. A bright boy, that. But unfortunately Mary hadn't given a reason for refusing the lift. Just thanked Miller, and said that she didn't think she would.'

‘I see … Well, if Mrs Daphne Bullock
is
the faggot we met this morning, I'm not surprised that Mary didn't want to discuss any arrangements in her hearing. Miller knew the girl pretty well, obviously, and liked her … but with all her private correspondence destroyed, it's going to be a devil of a job pinning down her friends and finding out what her plans were.'

‘I did try Mary's other Breckham friends earlier this evening,' said Tait, ‘but none of them saw her yesterday. So Denning, the head master, is still the last person who saw her alive.'

‘Yes, but that was at least eight hours before her death, and six miles from where the body was found. No one else in Ashthorpe saw her yesterday?'

‘Half a dozen people saw her in the shop, but no one after about six-thirty. Have you seen the boy-friend yet, sir?'

‘About half an hour ago.' Quantrill took a cigar from his tin, looked at it, tasted the staleness of his mouth, and put it back. ‘He's denied it, of course. Mind, he admitted that he still loved Mary, that he was out all last night, that he wasn't bird-watching and that he wasn't with his friend Colin.'

Tait sat up, astonished. ‘Well—great! What more do you want?'

Quantrill shrugged. ‘I felt that he was genuine. I'm sure he wasn't putting on an act. Whatever he was up to last night, I'm prepared to believe—at the moment—that it wasn't connected with Mary's death. And I had no reason at all to hold him.'

For his part, Tait had no reason at all to encourage the chief inspector to wrap up the case unaided. ‘The path, report doesn't give us much to go on, I agree,' he said. ‘By attacking her from behind, her assailant made it impossible for her to mark him. All she had under her finger nails was gravel and shreds of river weed.'

Quantrill looked again at the report. ‘She'd have put up quite a struggle,' he said. ‘The damage to her finger nails bears that out. The murderer would have had a job to hold her head under water—he'd have been soaked in the process. That means he would have returned home sodden and muddy, and possibly trailing river weed. I think I'll send a Wpc round for a cosy chat with Dale Kenward's mother in the morning, to check.'

‘I doubt whether Derek Gedge's womenfolk would even see him in the mornings, let alone notice his condition,' said Tait. ‘They probably aren't up before he goes to work. He was being taken into an interview room just as I came in, by the way. Do you mind if I have a go at him, sir?'

The chief inspector looked at Tait's sharp features. ‘As long as you're not over-influenced by the man's job,' he said firmly. ‘All right, so Derek Gedge is hardened to killing. It's his trade now. But remember, his sister wasn't butchered. She must have been killed quite … well, it's a stupid thing to say, knowing how she would have struggled, but quite mercifully when you think what happens to most girls who are murdered … Come on, then, I'll sit in with you, I'd like to hear what young Gedge has to say for himself.'

The chief inspector preceded Tait through the door, and the sergeant scowled at his broad back. Was the old man never going to learn to delegate?

Derek Gedge, in reasonably clean jeans and a PVC jacket that gave a poor imitation of leather, was sprawled on a chair in the interview room. He looked better than he had looked in the morning. The unhealthy pallor had gone from his face, but his eyes were heavy. He glanced up as the detectives entered the room, and made no attempt to hide his dislike when he saw Sergeant Tait.

Quantrill sat unobtrusively at the back of the room. Tait stood at the table, opposite Derek Gedge. ‘Detective Sergeant Tait,' he announced crisply. ‘We met this morning.'

Gedge tipped his chair back. ‘So?'

‘At the time,' said Tait, ‘Chief Inspector Quantrill and I were making enquiries into the circumstances of your sister Mary's death.' He sat down. ‘We are now investigating her murder.'

The front legs of Gedge's chair returned to the floor with a crash. He was jolted, literally. ‘Oh my God,' he said softly, ‘oh no …' His fair skin reddened to the roots of his blond hair. ‘But it doesn't make sense … why should anyone want to kill
Mary
—?'

Tait sat back, arms folded. ‘With girls,' he said, ‘the reason's usually obvious. A stranger attempts rape, the girl struggles, the man loses his head and hits her, or chokes her to stop her from screaming. But as far as Mary is concerned, the pathologist rules out any sexual motive.'

‘Glad to hear it,' muttered Gedge. He looked up at Tait. ‘But what other motive could there possibly be for killing Mary?'

The sergeant unfolded his arms and leaned across the table. ‘Well … there's jealousy,' he said softly. ‘Plain, old-fashioned jealousy …'

For a few seconds the two young men stared at each other from a distance of a couple of feet. Derek Gedge's high colour had been fading, but it returned in a swoop of scarlet. He looked away.

‘I don't know what you're getting at,' he said.

‘Yes you do. You were all set for Cambridge, eighteen months ago, weren't you? All set for a bright career. Now look at you: married to a slovenly piece, living in a pig-sty, working in a stinking chicken factory, saddled with a kid that's probably another man's—'

Derek Gedge jumped to his feet, clenching his fists.

‘Sit down!' Tait snarled.

Gedge sat.

‘And as if that wasn't bad enough,' Tait needled on, ‘your young sister Mary goes and gets a place at Cambridge. Well, no wonder you were jealous.'

‘I wasn't jealous!' Gedge muttered. ‘Mary was welcome to Cambridge—I didn't want it any more.'

‘No?' Tait pursed his lips. ‘Well, that's understandable, really. After all, you were only going to Selwyn, weren't you? I mean,' he taunted, ‘who ever heard of Selwyn? It's hardly the sort of college you'd mention in the same breath as King's, where Mary was going, is it?'

‘Selwyn's a perfectly good college. No, it hasn't got the same reputation that King's used to have, and that's no bad thing either! Selwyn's a decent, straight college—I was proud to be going there.'

‘You were? And yet you've just tried to tell me that you didn't want it any more. Oh, come on, stop fooling yourself because you don't fool me. You were jealous of Mary, jealous as hell!'

Derek Gedge shook his head wearily and slumped back in his chair. ‘I wasn't,' he mumbled. He looked up. ‘Well, all right, I was, a bit; but if you think that means that I'd do anything to harm Mary, you must be out of your mind.'

Sergeant Tait tried to recall the dead girl's features. She and her brother must have looked very much alike. Would he have done anything to harm Mary? Tait couldn't be sure.

‘What were you doing at nine o'clock yesterday evening?' he asked.

‘Same as usual—working in the garden.'

Tait gave an abrupt laugh of contempt. ‘The garden at Jubilee Crescent? That rubbish dump!'

‘It's not a rubbish dump,' said Gedge indignantly. ‘At least, not round the back. I grow vegetables there, to help with the food bills. I stayed out there yesterday evening as long as it was light, earthing up my potatoes. Some of the neighbours saw me, you can ask them.'

‘I shall. What did you do then?'

‘Went in and had my supper, watched a late film on television, went to bed.'

‘Did you sleep well?'

‘What?'

‘You heard what I asked. Did you sleep well?'

Gedge shifted in his chair. ‘Not really. They will fry everything. I had a stomach upset.'

‘So you got up? What time?'

‘Some time in the early hours—three-ish, I think, it was just beginning to get light.'

‘And did you go out of the house?'

‘No.'

Chief Inspector Quantrill, who had been listening quietly, suddenly interrupted. ‘Hold hard—there's no sewer in Ashthorpe yet, and I know for a fact that those council houses haven't been modernised. If you went to the lavatory, you must have gone outside.'

Gedge shrugged impatiently. ‘All right, then, I went out to the backyard! And I took a breath of air while I was at it, but I didn't leave the garden. I went back indoors after about ten minutes.'

‘To bed?' Quantrill asked.

‘No, the kid was howling. I stayed downstairs, made myself a cup of tea, read a bit.'

‘How long for?' asked Tait.

‘Until it was time to get up anyway. We start work at half-seven, so I'm usually up an hour before. I took my wife and her mother a cup of tea just before I got my bike out to go to work.'

Sergeant Tait told Gedge to stand up. ‘Are those the clothes you put on first thing this morning?'

‘To kill chickens in!' retorted Gedge sourly. ‘No, I wore my filthy old working jeans.'

‘I see. And did you happen to get your filthy old working jeans wet this morning?'

‘No.'

‘If I ask to see them, you'll have no objection to showing them to me?'

‘Any time. You'll find them soaking in a bucket of detergent in the middle of the kitchen floor. That's what I do with my working jeans every Friday night—that way, there's a chance that one of the women will get them washed and dried by Monday morning.'