Learning Curve Page 13

  ‘About half past nine. We – that is, I – don’t do late nights these days.’

  ‘Pull the other one,’ said Crosby, this time getting the words out before he could be diverted.

  Detective Inspector Sloan pushed his notebook firmly forward. ‘Can we please have the name and address of the friend with whom you said you spent the evening?’

  ‘Not unless you charge me with something,’ said Skewis sturdily.

  At his most formal, Sloan said, ‘I must remind you that obstructing the police in the course of their enquiries can constitute a serious offence.’

  There was a long pause and then Trevor Skewis said suddenly, ‘You won’t worry her, will you? She’s gone through so much.’

  Then it came to Sloan. He had the policeman’s trained memory for faces and remembered now where it was he had seen Trevor Skewis before. He was the man who had slipped so unobtrusively out of Elizabeth Shelford’s house as he and Crosby had arrived there.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘Where to now, sir?’ asked Crosby as they left the chemist’s premises and a still militant Trevor Skewis.

  Sloan read out an address from his notebook. ‘The Almstone Towers Hotel, Crosby. We need to see the last man known to be both at the funeral and in that car accident and, if you remember, Tim Cullen is an under-manager there.’

  ‘I’d forgotten him,’ admitted Crosby. ‘Still, there were rather a lot of them in that smash.’

  ‘Too many,’ agreed Sloan gravely, adding, ‘And while we’re out there at Almstone we’ll take a look at Trevor Skewis’s father’s gatepost in Larking.’

  Enjoying as ever a trip out into the countryside, Crosby soon swept the unmarked police car up to the front of a very grand hotel indeed. Too overawed to come to a halt with his usual flourish, instead the constable brought the car to a gentle sliding halt in front of a colonnaded entrance lined with bay trees in green wooden tubs, a striped green and white awning stretching out before it. He switched off the engine and started to open the driver’s door but, struck by a sudden misgiving, he stilled the action.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Sloan.

  ‘Ought we to have gone round the back, sir?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘To the servants’ entrance, you mean? I wonder, Crosby.’ Detective Inspector Sloan, eyebrows raised, shot the constable a quizzical glance and said, ‘We are, of course, undoubtedly servants of the public …’

  The constable sank back into the driver’s seat and put his hand on the car’s starter just as a uniformed minion opened the front door of the hotel and came out towards them.

  ‘On the other hand,’ went on Sloan bracingly, ‘we represent law and order and there’s nothing backstairs about that. Come along, Crosby, the front door. We are warranted officers of the Crown and you should never ever forget it.’

  It was the minion, wearing a black waistcoat edged in green, who opened the inspector’s door. ‘Welcome to the Almstone Towers Hotel, sir. Would there be any luggage?’

  Afraid that Crosby might be mistaken for his chauffeur, Sloan said hastily, ‘No, thank you. We’re not residents.’

  Crosby clambered out of the driving seat and stood at a respectful distance behind Sloan.

  ‘Then come this way please, gentlemen.’ He led the way through the generous portico and escorted them to a polished walnut desk in the marbled entrance hall. This was presided over by a receptionist of so sophisticated an appearance as guaranteed to pierce the amour-propre of any but the most self-confident arrival. She arched her eyebrows when Sloan asked to speak to Tim Cullen but all she did was reach for a hand microphone and announce over it that Mr Cullen was wanted at reception.

  A young man, soberly dressed according to the requirements of an aspirant employee of a five-star hotel, appeared without delay. When Sloan said that they wanted a word with him he swiftly led the way across a vast entrance hall to some chairs in a secluded corner, skirting a great copper tub in which rested the largest floral display Sloan had ever seen. Since the flowers were all hothouse ones, Sloan, a hardy plant gardener if ever there was one, gave them only a cursory glance. Costly blooms were not for him.

  ‘We’re police officers …’ started Detective Inspector Sloan, once established in an Empire style chair and taking breath.

  ‘I know,’ interrupted Tim Cullen.

  Crosby bristled. ‘How?’

  ‘Your shoes,’ explained Cullen. ‘In this job you learn about shoes early on.’

  While Detective Constable Crosby stared down at his own pair, Tim Cullen went on, ‘Besides, I saw you both at that funeral the other day. Paul Tridgell’s dad’s. Checking on some funny business, were you?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ asked Sloan at once.

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t have been there otherwise, would you? Stands to reason.’ He sniffed. ‘I can’t imagine it’s because of Paul’s dad having done anything he shouldn’t for you to be at his funeral – he wasn’t that sort of a man – so it must have been someone else.’

  ‘Really?’ The settled view of Detective Inspector Sloan was that in the first instance in an investigation any information might be useful. It was usually too soon to say whether this particular piece was helpful or not.

  ‘Sure,’ said Cullen. ‘Paul’s dad was a good guy. Did you know that he gave Paul the money for that trip out to Brazil? Made him promise not to tell his mum that he had, though.’

  ‘Why not?’ asked Crosby, who was not married.

  Tim Cullen stared at him. ‘Work it out for yourself, mate.’

  Detective Inspector Sloan, who was married, made a mental note. He thought he could work it out all right.

  ‘Besides,’ went on Cullen, ‘you didn’t even know his dad. It was Paul who told us that about Brazil, not him. Until that stupid sister of his sent for you the police had never been in the house.’ A cloud passed over his face. ‘Except after the accident, of course. I expect they went round then.’

  ‘I think you may be mistaken about the nature of our enquiries,’ said Sloan, starting again. ‘We are seeking information about a road traffic accident last night.’

  ‘Not guilty,’ responded Tim Cullen promptly. ‘Haven’t got a car any more.’

  ‘Over at Friar’s Flensant.’

  ‘Like I said, not guilty. I use a bus and a bicycle these days. Or walk.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Crosby simply.

  A shadow passed over Cullen’s face again. ‘Driving’s not much fun any more. I didn’t enjoy it at all after the smash.’ He waved an arm to encompass the building they were in. ‘Besides, the job here’s residential.’

  ‘What exactly do you do?’ asked Crosby, clearly fascinated by his surroundings.

  ‘In the business they call it being a cadre stagiaire,’ Cullen sniffed, ‘but if you ask me it’s a posh name for being a dogsbody.’

  The detective constable nodded, exuding fellow feeling. ‘Somebody has to do it,’ he said.

  Detective Inspector Sloan got back to the business in hand. ‘So someone will presumably be able to vouch for your being here all last evening.’ It was a statement by the policeman, not a question.

  ‘I’ll say. They watch you like hawks at the Almstone Towers and call it training,’ said Cullen bitterly. ‘It’s unsocial hours, too. I worked all yesterday evening and the manager was around until I went off duty.’

  ‘And when would that have been?’ asked Sloan.

  ‘Midnight,’ said Cullen. ‘And the blighter sees to it that it’s not a minute before. Doesn’t miss a blooming thing.’ He looked curiously at the two policemen. ‘That lets me off the hook, does it?’

  ‘Paul Tridgell and his sister, Jane, were knocked down last night by a hit-and-run driver on their way home from the Lamb and Flag,’ said Sloan.

  ‘Ah, so that’s the name of the game, is it?’ said Tim Cullen, relaxing back in his chair and looking at them both. It was impossible to tell if he was surprised by the news or not.

  ‘The driver did
n’t stop,’ amplified Crosby.

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t, would he?’ said Cullen unexpectedly. ‘I mean, if he meant to do it.’

  ‘We don’t think it was an accident either,’ agreed Detective Inspector Sloan, getting up to go. ‘If you have any idea who it might have been at the wheel, would you let us know?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Tim Cullen at once.

  ‘Or know of anyone with a bashed nearside wing,’ added Crosby.

  ‘That too,’ promised Cullen.

  ‘Or know why someone would want to knock Paul Tridgell to the ground and drive on,’ added Sloan for good measure. ‘Perhaps you know that already and could tell us?’

  But Tim Cullen made no answer to this rather different question, deferentially accompanying the two policemen to the hotel door without saying anything more at all.

  In law, silence could be taken for consent. As far as Sloan was concerned, this didn’t apply in detection. Nor, either, come to that, in his opinion did the continued reiteration of the words ‘No Comment’ amount to consent. He deemed that response to be the same as silence – an unwillingness to put anything into speech that could be examined, quoted, and re-examined afterwards. By either side, he reminded himself. Something from Kipling’s poem ‘If’ drifted into his mind: ‘If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken/ Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools …’ In his book that went for prosecution and defence.

  But Tim Cullen didn’t say another word as he accompanied the two policemen to the doors of the hotel, instead politely bowing them out after the manner born as they stepped back out under the colonnade and walked towards their car between the bay trees in their little green wooden tubs.

  In Sloan’s view Tim Cullen might really not know who had knocked Paul Tridgell and his sister down, but on the other hand he certainly gave all the signs of having a very good idea of who the driver might have been.

  Trevor Skewis’s parents’ house was on the farther side of the village of Larking, the downside. Armed with its address, Crosby drove the police car down one of the small streets well beyond the church, bringing the car to a halt outside a post-war semi-detached building of little architectural merit. More to the point it had a narrow drive, flanked by a pair of brick gateposts.

  Both policemen got out of the car to examine these. The left-hand one bore distinct signs of having been hit by something about two feet above ground level. These signs included some flakes of black paint. Chips of broken brick were clearly visible on the ground, too.

  ‘He’s not much of a driver,’ said Crosby patronisingly. ‘Although,’ he conceded, ‘if he was coming in from the nearside in the dark, it would have been a tight turn.’

  ‘If he hit it himself with his own car to fool us,’ observed Sloan, ‘then he remembered to make sure that the flakes of paint stuck to the brickwork.’ He peered at the gatepost closely. ‘And not with glue.’

  He decided he would get Inspector Harpe’s traffic team to confirm that the paint on the gatepost and the paint on Trevor Skewis’s car matched. It was what their forensic friends did very well and since Superintendent Leeyes was hot on having every detail of an investigation checked out it would do no harm. That there didn’t appear to be anything else that could be checked forensically Sloan knew only too well, even if the superintendent didn’t.

  So far, that is.

  As Crosby drove back into the police station yard Detective Inspector Sloan put up his hand to stop the constable leaving the car. ‘There are a few more jobs for you to get going on, Crosby, while I start writing up my report.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘First of all, you can check exactly what time it was that Trevor Skewis left Elizabeth Shelford’s house last night. He says half past nine – see what she says.’

  ‘They’ll have colluded already, sir,’ he pointed out reasonably enough.

  ‘Very probably but you need to be able to tell that for sure. Listen carefully to what she says. And how.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And you can also go over to Luston and check up on the head honcho at Luston Chemicals – him with the Rolls-Royce …’

  Crosby brightened ‘A Roller?’

  ‘Don’t you remember Tod telling us that he turned up at Michael Linane’s funeral in it?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Pity, that. A good memory makes a good policeman.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’

  ‘And while you’re about it you might as well check up on Simon Thornycroft’s car, too. Best to be on the safe side.’ He didn’t explain that the safe side he wanted to be on was one that could not be open to any accusation of neglect by Superintendent Leeyes. His superior officer expected every avenue to be fully explored and said so. Often.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Crosby obediently made a note.

  ‘But leave Jonathon Sharp out of the picture for the time being. I’m waiting until I’ve had a phone call about him before we interview him again.’

  Sloan watched the constable drive out of the police car park and then retreated to his own office, confident that these three simple – but distant – tasks would ensure that Crosby was out of his hair for long enough for he himself to sit back quietly and consider the problem.

  Cradling his hands round a large mug of tea at his desk, Sloan did just that. His wife, Margaret, called it being ‘thinkative’. When he protested that this wasn’t a word, she only smiled and said it was now. He would have been hard put to put into words what he was hoping to come to mind when he sat there but he always thought of doing so as a sort of mental ‘alpenglow’. The alpenglow was something he had seen on his first never-to-be-forgotten trip to Switzerland – a rosy hue, back-lighting the mountains long after the sun had gone down.

  That’s what he needed now – just that same latent illumination, throwing a special extra light on what he had gleaned so far just when the darkness all around was deepening.

  Setting down his mug of tea, he drew his notebook towards him and, as he had been taught, started again at the beginning. It had all seemed quite simple to start with: a patient had died of undoubtedly natural causes – the doctor had confirmed that – but using his last breath to accuse another man of a killing. Sloan was human enough to wish that that accusation had been just a little bit more specific but it hadn’t been and that was all there was to it.

  Except, of course, that it wasn’t all there was to it. There was also the fact that the man’s son, Paul Tridgell, would appear to know who had done the killing – and in Sloan’s opinion had been unwise enough to make this obvious at his father’s funeral. And there was now also the fact that last night someone unknown had tried to mow him down: someone unknown to the police, that is, but not to Paul Tridgell, if that young man’s demeanour was anything to go on. He would dearly have liked to know why he was keeping silent.

  And, perhaps, known to Tim Cullen, too. That is, if that other young man’s dedicated silence was anything to go on. It was difficult to say.

  He wasn’t sure either about Trevor Skewis and his attentive relationship with the half-paralysed Elizabeth Shelford. Did guilt come into that, he asked himself, but answer came there none. The young man said he had left her side early enough to have got to the pub in Friar’s Flensant at the right time. And his car had a damaged nearside front wing.

  And he still didn’t know where someone called the wrong remainderman came into the picture.

  If he did, that is.

  Sloan took another mouthful of tea and decided that the police now had two quite separate aims – to find out who had killed whom and to avert any attempt by whoever it was also to kill Paul Tridgell. He immediately scribbled down another objective that had also occurred to him – to stop the aforementioned Paul Tridgell proceeding with his own investigations – and perhaps, exacting revenge – all on his own. Keeping that tiresome young man out of harm’s way was going to be quite a problem.

  Otherwise it seemed to him to be not so much a three pipe prob
lem as a three possibilities problem – unfortunately it was the precise nature of the problem that was not yet obvious. That there had been three involvements with death by the late Derek Tridgell was not in question. Admittedly he hadn’t been present at that fatal road accident last Christmas but it wasn’t unreasonable for him to be concerned as his son had been one of those involved in that murky and unresolved event. Moreover, that same young man had taken off for foreign parts almost immediately afterwards – and, it would seem – with his father’s sub rosa financial help.

  Sloan pulled his thoughts up with a jerk. Flight – even when it was assisted – was not automatically a sign of guilt and like all right-thinking policemen he must remember that. Nevertheless he knew many a father would gladly pay to save a son from a long prison sentence.

  Then there was the dreadful death of Michael Linane over at Luston Chemicals. A tragic accident, according to the relevant authorities after a full investigation but, coincidence or not, Derek Tridgell had been in their chemical works on the day with his boss, Jonathon Sharp, both with time unaccounted for. And on a failed mission that had involved Michael Linane.

  And although Ralph Iddon, Chairman of that firm, had not been at the funeral to see Derek Tridgell’s son’s unmistakeable emphasis on the word ‘kill’ in his reading at the church, Jonathon Sharp had definitely been there. Simon Thornycroft, he remembered, had actually nodded in Sharp’s direction when he mentioned him in his eulogy, something that Sloan had seen for himself.

  He had already been determined to have yet another chat with Jonathon Sharp, the chairman of Berebury Pharmaceuticals. After all, he was a man who after Derek Tridgell’s death had not scrupled to poach a former employee from his deadly rival, Luston Chemicals. That was why he was now waiting for a telephone call from the City of London.

  And the dead man, Michael Linane, Head of Sales, must have been a thorn in the flesh of the manufacturer of Ameliorite, Sharp’s firm, in fact just as much a threat as Ralph Iddon was. Predatory pricing might be illegal but it was a commercial crime and would take its time to work its way through the courts, much too late to stop the rot in the losing side. It wasn’t cricket either but then he knew already that business was not cricket. Everybody did. He would have to think about this. Cricket and illegality were two different things – just like sin and crime – and he would have to remember that, too.