The Killing of Katie Steelstock (20 page)

“That was kind of him,” said McCourt and managed to extract himself and the keys.

When he got back he found that the crowd had increased. Knott was sitting on the low front wall of the garden. A number of amateur photographers had already snapped him. He said, “You’ve been long enough. Come on, we’ll go in round the back.”

Although its owner had only been gone for twenty-four hours there was already a feeling of emptiness about the house, an impression of airlessness. No air coming through the windows, no air being breathed in the rooms.

Knott spent a few minutes instructing his assistants in the technique of searching and they then split up, taking a room each. It was Esdaile who unearthed the armoury. No particular attempt had been made to hide the weapons. They were in an unlocked cupboard in the bedroom. A Japanese ceremonial sword, a Gurkha kukri, a German three-edged needle bayonet, a British pattern cavalry sabre, a pair of foils.

“Just a big boy scout,” said Knott. “I wonder where he kept the gun. If he had one.”

The two sergeants resumed their search, but they found no gun. When they got back to the sitting room Knott was staring at a photograph in a leather frame which he had found on the mantelpiece. It was a family group, evidently taken some years ago.

“Do you know who they are?”

McCourt examined the picture and said, “Aye, that’s Limbery on the right. The girls would be his two sisters. I’ve heard him talk of them. And the woman would be his mother. She’s still alive, in a nursing home somewhere.”

Knott pointed to the jagged edge of the photograph. “He’s cut off a piece,” he said. “Why would he do that?”

“That would be where his father was standing, no doubt.”

“Why cut him out of the photograph?”

McCourt thought about it and said, “It might be because he disliked him. If you want something with his dabs on it, best place will be the kitchen.”

The collection of weapons was taken back to the police station and locked in a cupboard. Knott said, “If we’re to be ready for committal by Monday week we’ve got a lot of work to do. When I was talking to the Director I said there were three gaps I’d like to fill in and I’m allotting one to each of you. Bob, I want you to concentrate on Katie’s movements on the Friday. I understand she went up to town by train. When did she go? How did she get to the station? If she took her own car, where did she leave it? Was anyone seen hanging round it?”

“You’re thinking about that note?”

“Right. The likeliest thing is that someone slipped it into her car. Even if it had been left locked it could have been pushed through one of the side flaps, or something like that. Then I want to know who she saw in London. It could have been that photographer chap Ruoff. I can’t see, at the moment, how he fits in.”

“He’s got a guilty conscience about something,” agreed Shilling.

“Eddie, I want you to chase that typewriter. We know the make and year of the machine. Look at all the machines in his office, of course, but it’s too much to hope you’ll find it there. Then ask round the various people he might have borrowed one from. And get an advertisement drafted for the local papers. Any person who possesses or has any knowledge of a Crossfield Electric to communicate with the police. I don’t care how widely it gets known that we’re looking for this particular machine. The wider the better.”

He swung around on Ian. “I want you to concentrate on Limbery’s movements that night. He was out in his car and he must have used it to put him within striking distance of the boathouse. Cars get noticed. So he’d have been careful to keep it some distance away. And he wouldn’t have driven it through the village, that’s certain. He’d have come in from the west.”

McCourt said, “But if it was his car at the end of River Park Avenue—” and stopped. Knott was staring at him.

“What did you say?”

“I said, sir, if it was his car at the end of the avenue, then we
know
where he put it.”

Knott said, “You’re a trained police officer. You’re working on this case. Am I to understand that you haven’t even taken the trouble to read the file?”

“No, sir. I mean, yes, I have read it.”

“Then since you took Mrs. Mason’s statement yourself, you know that Limbery was on Streatley Common at ten past twelve. And since you took the statements of Miss Tress and Mrs. Havelock, you may remember that they both spoke of that car moving away from where it was parked at some time
after
twelve. Good going, don’t you think? Thirteen miles in five minutes.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Having put Sergeant McCourt in his place, Knott relaxed a little. He said, “I’m not talking to Bob, because he knows all this. I’m talking to you two. Forget anything you’ve read about murder investigations and concentrate on this. You make your mind up who did it. You charge them. You put together the case you’re going to set up in court. Then you put yourself into the shoes of the defence. You pick all the holes you can in your own case. Then you set to work and plug those holes. Right?”

“Right,” said Sergeants McCourt and Esdaile in unison.

“Which reminds me. There’s one little job we’ve got to do at once. Get into Reading, Ian, have a word with Farr and get the names of the officers who were on the traffic block on Pangbourne bridge that night. We’ll want statements from them and certified copies of the records they kept.”

As McCourt rode into Reading on his moped he was thinking about Knott. He didn’t like him and was, in fact, afraid of him. But he couldn’t help admiring him. It was the narrowness of his vision combined with the weight of his personality. It had the penetrating power of a thin but rigid blade driven by a massive force. The fact that it was driving at the wrong objective would not deter him for a moment. If he was wrong, it was for the opposition to prove him wrong. That was how justice in England worked.

When McCourt had finished his job in Reading he looked in at the general infirmary. The sister, who knew him well, said, “Not good news, I’m afraid, Sergeant. Inspector Ray had a bad haemorrhage last night. We’ve had to move him into the intensive care unit. No one can talk to him for a bit. Is there some message?”

“Not really,” said McCourt. “Just to wish him luck.”

That evening, a string of coal barges drawn by a tug ploughed its slow way up the river. The first bow wave lifted the body clear of the snag, the next one carried it out of the rushes and started it on its stately progress downstream. Had anyone been there to see it they would have noticed that it floated in an odd manner, almost as though it were wearing an old-fashioned life jacket, which kept the chest clear of the water.

“I must confess,” said Mrs. Havelock, “speaking as a magistrate, that I do get tired of having young tearaways brought up in front of me and someone saying, as though it explained every form of crime and violence, ‘It must be remembered that he came from a broken home.’ Really, I fail to see the connection. If the father pushes off, the mother, with the help of the state, can usually cope perfectly well.”

“Better than if she’s spending all her time fighting with an unsatisfactory husband,” said Georgie Vigors.

“Exactly. Now take Jonathan. Superficially he had a normal family background. His mother was a sweet and loving little woman. The only time I met her she reminded me of an apple dumpling. His father was a schoolmaster. Hearty, genial type. Being wise after the event, one can see that it was totally disastrous for Jonathan. His father bullied him until he was old enough to stand up for himself and hit back. Then he left him alone. I fancy Father was a bit of a coward. After all, he was only twenty-six when war broke out and perfectly fit. First he claimed he was in a reserved occupation. When that wore a bit thin, he scuttled off into the Ministry of Information. I got all this from my second husband, who loathed his guts.”

“I do see,” said Georgie, “that it could be about the most fatal relationship a boy could have with his father. He’d be apt to grow up disliking any form of authority.”

“Not just disliking it. Hating it.”

“It explains a lot.”

“Funking the war didn’t do his old man a lot of good in the end, because he was run over by a drunken lorry driver when Jonathan was starting at Bristol University. Johnno had to come away and get a job. His mother’s still alive. I imagine some of what he makes goes to help her.”

The two ladies paused to consider the unsatisfactory life of young Jonathan Limbery.

“Maybe it
explains
a lot,” said Mrs. Havelock at last. “But it doesn’t add up to an excuse for smashing Katie’s head in.”

Colonel Lyon, the Governor of Reading Jail, was a conscientious man. He made a point of visiting the remand wing every day and speaking to the inmates. “They’re in my prison,” he used to say, “but they’re not prisoners. They haven’t been convicted yet. Until they are convicted, I prefer to regard them as temporary visitors.”

He had kept Limbery to the last. He hoped that his visit was going to be more productive than the two previous ones, during which Limbery had ignored the warder’s order to stand up, had sat on his bed glowering and had refused to do anything but grunt

On this morning he seemed to have recovered his powers of speech. He said, “It’s no good keeping on at me. I’ve made my mind up. The state wants a sacrifice and I’m to be the scapegoat. All right. But if I’m going to be slaughtered, I’m going without bleating. The only thing I regret is the satisfaction my conviction is going to give to that bastard Knott.”

The warder said, “Mind your language.” Jonathan took no notice of him.

The Governor said, “That’s all very well, Limbery. But if you’re innocent—”

“Of course I’m innocent. I’ve said it often enough.”

“You’ve said it often enough,” agreed the Governor. “But if you’re innocent why not give people a chance to prove it? With the attitude you’re adopting you might just as well plead guilty and have done with it.”

“No you don’t,” said Jonathan. “You’re putting words into my mouth. I didn’t say I was going to plead guilty. Why should I plead guilty? I never touched the girl.”

“In that case—”

“What I’m not going to have is a lot of lawyers fighting over my bones like sick jackals.”

“Then do I take it you’re going to conduct your own defence?”

“You’re dead right I am. And I’m going to say exactly what I think of the lousy stinking police and their filthy bullying tactics.”

“It’s your privilege,” said the Governor.

As they walked back toward his office the warder said, “Do you think he’s putting it on?”

“Working up for a plea of insanity, you mean?”

“I thought he might be. You remember that man we had who stood on his head the whole time. Said he couldn’t think unless the blood was running into his brain. He tried to stand on his head in court.”

“It could be a try-on,” said the Governor, “but somehow I don’t think it is. He’s angry and he’s frightened. Like a small boy banging his head against the wall to show he doesn’t care.”

“Maybe the parson will talk some sense into him.”

“I didn’t know Father Michaels was planning to have a word with him.”

“Not our chaplain, sir. The one from his village. The Reverend Bird. He telephoned last night.”

“Well,” said the Governor, “I hope he has more luck with him than I have.”

The main offices of Vigors and Dibden, Solicitors, were in Market Street, Hannington. As the practice expanded, they had opened a branch office in West Hannington village. This was two rooms and an annexe, just large enough for Noel, one managing clerk and one girl who doubled as receptionist and typist. Noel spent most of his time there. He knew that when his father retired he would have to take over the main office. Meanwhile he was enjoying his independent command.

It was six o’clock in the evening and he was finishing the day’s work by signing a batch of letters, when Bird was announced.

“I wonder what he wants,” said Noel.

“He didn’t say,” said the girl. “He just said it was urgent.”

“Ask him in.”

Noel’s first impression was that the rector was ill. His face was drained of colour and there were smudges under his eyes.

He said, “You look as if you could do with a drink.”

“I’m all right. Just tired. Well, thank you. But put plenty of water in it.”

“I often have one myself about this time of day,” said Noel. “Take the comfortable chair. Or I should say the less uncomfortable one. This office really needs total redecoration and refurnishing.” He went on talking about nothing much until his visitor had downed half his drink and was beginning to look a little more comfortable. Then he said, “What can we do for you, Dicky?”

“It’s not me. It’s Limbery.”

“I thought that might be it. You went to see him?”

“I spent the afternoon with him. It was a most unhappy experience.”

“It must have been hellish. Drink that up and have another.”

“Thank you, Noel. But no. I very rarely touch spirits. This will be quite enough.” He took another cautious sip and said, “It wasn’t very pleasant. He didn’t seem able to stop talking. For the first two hours – it seemed like two hours, it might have been longer – he was preaching me a sort of sermon. His text seemed to be that hatred was more vital than love.”

“Poor Dicky.”

“I couldn’t stop him. I don’t know that I even wanted to. I thought it was probably doing him good to get it off his chest. But it was terribly depressing. Like watching a man trying to plough up the sand. Futile, sterile, pointless. In the end some good did come out of it. I managed to make him change his mind about being legally represented at the trial.”

“I wondered what he was planning to do about that.”

“He’d told the Governor that he was determined to conduct his own defence.”

“Good God! Why?”

“I gather it was partly because he doesn’t like lawyers as a class and partly because he wanted to have an opportunity of telling the judge what he thought about the police. However, in the end I persuaded him to hand it all over to you.”