Death Takes the Low Road Read online

  These last caught her eye because of their comparative newness. She looked more closely and found they were all from Enoch Arden’s, the big departmental store in the city centre. The date on them was the day before his departure. And the one or two items she could decipher made her think deeply.

  Nothing else turned up, so she headed for Enoch Arden’s, pausing only to tell Mrs Searle she was finished.

  The old woman, who had accepted Caroline’s lame excuse for wanting to enter the flat with unprotesting incredulity, took back the key in silence.

  ‘You’ve no idea when Mr Hazlitt’s coming back?’ asked Caroline unhopefully.

  ‘None,’ said Mrs Searle, shaking her head emphatically.

  ‘Or where he’s gone?’

  The woman busied herself with rearranging a vase full of long dead chrysanthemums.

  ‘None,’ she repeated with much less emphasis.

  Caroline sensed an evasion, perhaps even a lie, but Mrs Searle retreated to her pop-filled kitchen, bringing the interview to an end. Worth another try later, thought Caroline, after she’d thought out her tactics. Meanwhile there was Enoch Arden’s.

  It was a good store as provincial shops go. Everyone was most helpful, readily accepting her story of wanting to check that all the items her friend had bought had reached home safely. She was amazed to find that some of the clothing items had been purchased in the children’s department. These were clearly advantages in having small feet!

  Most of the stuff, however, came from Sport and Outdoors in the basement. And there was no doubt about the significance of the complete list. Hazlitt had been planning to go on a camping trip. The realisation surprised her. Hazlitt was a keen walker, she knew. And had in the past been a lover of tents and all that went with them. But that was in his youth, he had jokingly told her. He joked rather too frequently about his lost youth.

  She looked at the list again. It was a stocking-up list, not a basic outfitting list. The big items—tent, rucksack, sleeping bag, etc.—were missing. Hazlitt would own these already. But there had been no sign of them in her search of his flat.

  She felt she was getting somewhere, but did not quite know where. At least everything so far pointed to a departure from choice. She glanced at her watch. Time for a cup of tea, then back to see what Mrs Searle really knew. She made for the restaurant.

  A worried-looking young man with flaxen hair crouched in the telephone booth.

  ‘Hello, hello. Is that Superstar? Goblin speaking.’

  ‘Who?’ asked a languid Old Etonian voice.

  ‘Goblin.’

  ‘Yes, I can hear you are. But who are you?’

  ‘Well, its Durban, sir,’ whispered Durban.

  ‘Why are you whispering, man? Speak up.’

  ‘DURBAN!’

  ‘Ah,’ said the Old Etonian. ‘Hold on. There we are.’

  ‘Are you scrambling, sir?’ asked Durban hopefully.

  ‘With you, Durban, who needs a scrambler? No, I’m merely taking one of my pills. What do you want?’

  ‘It’s the girl, sir. She’s been to the registry. Then to the landlady’s. And now she’s been wandering round this shop …’

  ‘Shop? You’re in a shop?’

  ‘Yes. Enoch Arden’s, a big departmental store.’

  ‘I see. Really, Durban, I’m not interested in the minutiae of the girl’s everyday life.’

  ‘No, sir. But she’s been asking about camping gear. Stuff he bought.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Old Etonian slowly. ‘Can hardly mean anything. Still, we don’t want her around, do we?’

  ‘She’s a bright girl, sir.’

  ‘Yes, these Americans have a certain animal instinct for the chase. It’s all this frontier survival thing, I suppose. You say she’s still in the shop?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Drinking tea.’

  ‘Splendid. I think we’d better immobilise her just to be on the safe side. Yes, yes, I think we had better. My dear fellow, if only you knew the decisions I have to make!’

  The Old Etonian replaced the phone, went through into his kitchen and ground some coffee beans. His presentiment seemed to have been justified. It was turning into a terrible week.

  Caroline finished her tea, unhooked her capacious shoulder bag from over the back of her chair and rode the escalator to the ground floor. She was suddenly imbued with confidence that all was going well, discoveries had been and were about to be made. This private-eye business was kid’s play to an intelligent girl. She approached the store’s main exit.

  A tall woman stood between her and the door.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Caroline.

  The woman didn’t move.

  ‘Will you please accompany me to the manager’s office?’ she said.

  ‘Sorry?’ said Caroline, puzzled.

  A rather embarrassed-looking young man joined the woman.

  ‘This way, please,’ he said with a slight stutter.

  Some kind of demonstration? Caroline wondered.

  ‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘Some other time, huh?’

  ‘Let’s not have a public scene, madam,’ said the tall woman patronisingly. ‘Just come this way.’

  She was very efficient. The hand that appeared to light gently on Caroline’s elbow gripped like a vice and she found herself being moved rapidly through Perfumerie and Handbags to a small office by the lift.

  An older man was sitting at a desk. She vaguely recognised him as the store manager from seeing him distantly in the shop.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ she demanded.

  ‘Have you purchased any goods in the shop today, madam?’ he asked.

  ‘No, and I’m not likely to again if I don’t get a pretty fast explanation!’

  ‘Would you please show us what you have in your shoulder bag?’ said the manager.

  Slowly Caroline slid her mini-duffel bag off her shoulder. She was a tidy person and knew exactly the half-dozen or so items it contained.

  But a part of her mind other than the conscious and rational level was beginning to know different.

  And it hardly came as any surprise to her to look down and see the handsome silver bracelet which gleamed accusingly from the depths of her bag.

  It came as a great surprise to Hazlitt that he was still alive half an hour after being caught by the girl. Or rather the woman. Close up, she turned out to be far from the blushing bride of his earlier imaginings. She was in her thirties, rather plain, and exuding a most sinister competence.

  He tried to talk with her as she shepherded him round the loch, but the only reply he got was a painful jab at the base of his spine when he did not move fast enough. By the time they reached the recumbent Tom, Hazlitt was sweating copiously. The only thing which had kept him alive was the desirability of making his death look accidental, of this he was sure. But he felt no urge to take to the water again. Last time, Tom (Mark II) had known he could get him back once the woman was in place. This time, with no back-stop, they might not be so patient but make do with a bullet through his head.

  ‘Welcome back,’ said Tom. ‘Enjoy your swim?’

  He had a line in facetiousness which Hazlitt found particularly distressing. The woman didn’t seem to care for it either.

  ‘Let’s get it done,’ she said sharply. ‘There’s not much time.’

  Suddenly he preferred Tom’s facetiousness.

  ‘Listen,’ he said urgently. ‘Do you know what you’re doing? What have they told you?’

  ‘Will you do it, my dear Cherry, or shall I?’ asked Tom with mock courtesy.

  ‘Just get on with it,’ said the woman.

  If there was any hope, Hazlitt realised, it lay with the woman. Tom was getting kicks out of the situation. Any pleas he could make would merely increase his pleasure. The woman’s cold efficiency was purely professional. There was nothing in it for her personally. And she had a name. Cherry. A nice name. You couldn’t be a killer with a name like Cherry.

  He realised Tom was tryin
g to get behind him and he began to back away. He had to keep both of them in sight as long as possible. His mind desperately sought for something he could say which might at least make the woman hesitate. This was not a moment for truth. Anybody could tell the truth and get killed for it.

  ‘Stand still or I’ll shoot your knee-cap off !’ commanded Tom.

  ‘Can’t we talk this thing out?’ asked Hazlitt, retreating from the loch side and walking backwards up the ghyll in which his tent was pitched. He found it difficult to walk backwards, but he was certainly not going to turn his back on them.

  ‘Do you know what’s going on?’ he demanded of the woman. ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘Hurry up,’ said the woman to Tom. ‘I’d like to get home tonight.’

  ‘I’m a married man,’ proclaimed Hazlitt. ‘I have a wife and several children. What will they do without a father? Surely you can understand that.’

  He looked appealingly at the woman.

  ‘I’m a widow,’ she answered. ‘I manage very well. You’re just dragging things out.’

  ‘Let him talk,’ grinned Tom, producing from his pocket a broad roll of some kind of gauze. What its function was, Hazlitt did not know, but he was not at all eager to find out.

  ‘I’m completely innocent,’ he said. ‘All I want is a chance to state my case. That’s all. You can’t refuse me that.’

  ‘All right,’ said Tom. ‘Come down here and let’s talk it over.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Hazlitt. ‘No. I’ll go back with you on the boat, how about that?’

  ‘Now that would be very nice,’ said Tom. ‘Except that you don’t have a ticket.’

  He jumped forward. Hazlitt scuttled backwards in panic, trod on a jagged edge of rock, jerked his naked foot away and fell.

  Tom was on him like a cat, forcing his arms behind his back with a violence that made him scream. Struggle merely increased the pain, so he lay still, his eyes full of involuntary tears, while the man bound the white gauze round his wrists. It was, he realised, self-adhesive bandage. Its advantages were obvious. His limbs could be bound fast. No matter how hard he struggled, unlike rope the broad binding would leave no telltale burns. And no matter how tight it was applied, unlike tape it would not bring away any skin or hair when removed.

  Tom was now wrapping the bandage round his legs, binding them together the whole length of the calf. Strength seemed to have left his body and the will to resist his mind. He lay still and felt the hands of his murderer move caressingly over his thigh. Now he looked into the man’s face. And what he saw there made him give up hope.

  Now he was over Tom’s shoulders in a fireman’s lift and being borne rapidly back towards the loch. The plan was clear. Drop him in, leave him there for ten minutes, pull him out, remove the bandages, then push him back in and you have your perfect accidental drowning.

  The world spun crazily round his upside-down head, he felt sick, images of his life began to coalesce in his mind. Tom halted on the bank.

  ‘God bless this body,’ he said, ‘and all who sail on it.’

  ‘Please,’ begged Hazlitt. ‘Please. There’s no need for this, I promise you.’

  ‘Wait,’ said the woman.

  A spark of hope glowed bright in Hazlitt’s mind.

  The woman stepped forward, tried the bandage round his wrists and nodded her satisfaction.

  ‘Okay,’ she said.

  Next moment he was hurtling through the air and the brackish waters of the loch stifled back his cry of protest.

  4

  Everyone was being so sympathetic that Caroline felt sick.

  As this was the condition which everyone seemed bent on assuming she was in, all that happened was more sympathy. The store manager fetched glasses of water and the police. The police asked if she had been unwell recently, slanderously hinting at the imminence of her menopause. Her uncle, Professor Nevis, appeared after half an hour and offered to summon her doctor.

  All present nodded their heads sagely at the mention of the doctor.

  ‘I am not ill !’ snapped Caroline. ‘Listen, you Lieutenant or whatever you are …’

  ‘Inspector Servis, miss.’

  ‘… all right, Inspector, I don’t know who and I don’t know why, but someone planted that thing in my bag.’

  She pointed dramatically at the silver bracelet which gleamed accusingly on the manager’s desk.

  ‘You were in the jewellery department?’ said the Inspector.

  ‘No! Well, I may have passed through on my way somewhere else.’

  The tall woman spoke. Her name was Miss Park and she was a store detective.

  ‘A young man informed one of the assistants that he believed he had observed a woman removing a bracelet from a display in Jewellery. The description he gave fitted Miss Nevis, whom I observed sitting at a table in our restaurant. I left someone to watch her and checked her movements in the store. This proved fairly easy, as her behaviour had drawn some attention. She was going around with old receipts checking on the items represented by the stock numbers entered there.’

  ‘So what?’ said Caroline. ‘Why should I draw attention to myself? And where’s this young man who put the finger on me?’

  ‘As you will know from your work, Inspector, witnesses are frequently reluctant to become involved. The young man did not leave his name. However, I felt I had sufficient to work on, a check with Jewellery having revealed a bracelet to be missing, so I went to the main entrance and apprehended Miss Nevis as she tried to leave.’

  ‘Tried to leave!’ exploded Caroline. ‘You make it sound like a break-out!’

  In one corner of the room Professor Nevis was talking persuasively to the manager. Caroline subsided in time to get the tail-end of their conversation.

  ‘It’s not up to me, sir,’ said the manager. ‘Our general policy is to prosecute. I’ll have to consult the chairman.’

  ‘Please do that,’ said Nevis. ‘I’ll have a word with him myself. Now I wonder if I could take my niece home?’

  ‘Well, sir?’ said the inspector to the manager.

  ‘Look, I’m not sure whether we’ll want to prosecute or not. I’d like time to talk to my employers.’

  Servis looked doubtful.

  ‘It’s not usual,’ he mused. ‘Still, in the circumstances, and as Miss Nevis is a foreign national, perhaps we could leave the decision in abeyance for a while. Miss Nevis, you must understand that this investigation is still proceeding and you must make yourself available for further questioning. You will be remaining in Lincoln for the next few days?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll vouch for that,’ answered Nevis, shaking his head sternly at Caroline’s attempted protest.

  ‘In that case,’ said the inspector, opening the door, ‘I would have that word with the young lady’s doctor, sir. A professional opinion’s always worth while.’

  With difficulty Caroline restrained herself from striking him. Shaking with anger, she stuffed her belongings back in her bag.

  ‘I can still walk by myself, James,’ she snapped at the professor, who offered her the support of his arm as they left the shop.

  ‘Of course, my dear,’ he answered. ‘My car’s over the road. Let’s go home and have a couple of stiff ones, shall we?’

  She glared at him in exasperation and wondered if anyone had ever been driven to murder by a surfeit of kindness.

  ‘No, you go on,’ she answered. ‘I’ve got some books to pick up at the university library. I’ll probably work there for a couple of hours.’

  She walked quickly away before he could raise any objections. When she glanced back after fifty yards or so he was still standing on the pavement, tall, distinguished and worried, gazing after her. It made her feel guilty and she almost went back to him. Instead she raised a hand in greeting and went on her way. So busy were her thoughts that it did not occur to her to wonder as she glanced back why the flaxen-haired man with the newspaper protruding from his pocket should have felt it necessary to halt a
nd purchase another from the kerb-side vendor.

  Hazlitt managed to get himself back within a yard of the shore, but with Tom (Mark II) standing there it might as well have been a mile. There is a limit to the amount of time even an expert swimmer can keep afloat with his arms and legs securely bound. Paradoxically the experience of being drowned tends to stretch out this time rather than shorten it. Seconds swell to minutes and a minute can hold enough pain and fear to curdle a lifetime.

  Traditionally a man’s whole past flashes across the inward eye in such circumstances. Hazlitt kept the past out, refused to look, tried instead to reach for a future which included him alive and well and living in Leamington Spa. Or Luton. Or even Llandudno. Yes, he would willingly accept such dreadful exile. But God was in no mood for making bargains and at last the pictures started to flicker. Mercifully they were all good pictures—himself aged nine reading Wind in the Willows for the first time; the letter bearing news of his university scholarship; the exquisite niggle with which he won the JCR shove-half-penny competition; the bottle of Château Pavie ’55 which he had thought of keeping for another year but which, God be praised, he had drunk on his last birthday; and, last of all, the face of a girl, in theory all he hated most in women, young, bright, pert, voluble, American, but now last and best in his mind before the lights went out and all pictures faded into utter darkness.

  Stewart Stuart, the university Registrar, was a large man, quite impassable when he stood as he did now in the centre of one of the aisles in the library.

  Caroline’s claimed destination had merely been a lie to get herself away from Professor Nevis, but on further reflection if had appeared a good place to go and have a quiet brood on recent events.

  ‘Well, Miss Nevis, hello!’

  His voice had the volume of a large man’s but none of the jolliness. The Scottishness suggested by his name was completely absent. Caroline supposed the name itself was some ghastly parental practical joke. A female dwarf librarian appeared at the end of the aisle and looked at them reprovingly.