Death in Cold Print Page 9

  ‘I can certainly try,’ said Gordon, and then he put a hand on Rose’s arm. ‘Will you forgive me if I speak frankly, Miss Rose?’

  ‘I want you to.’

  ‘You’d get far better results if you asked the shop managers, the foremen, and the chargehands yourself. They all trust you. If anyone knows anything he’s more likely to tell you than to tell me – be more likely to tell me to mind my own business!’

  ‘You may be right,’ said Rose thoughtfully. ‘I’ll make some inquiries – both about my father and the damage to the spools.’ She looked towards the window of her father’s office, and went on: ‘I hope nothing else goes wrong. He won’t be able to stand it.’

  ‘I shouldn’t go looking for trouble,’ Gordon advised. ‘There’s no reason to expect anything else will go wrong, is there?’

  ‘I suppose not, really,’ Rose smiled, much more freely. ‘Thank you, Mr Gordon, I feel much better for this talk.’

  She turned, and went back into the offices.

  Rose talked to every departmental manager, every chargehand and foreman, and to several of the older members of the works staff. Did any of them know anyone with a spite against the company, spite enough to damage all those spools? And had anyone noticed how ill her father looked?

  They all said the same: that he had started to look ill about the time of the strike.

  Chapter Eleven

  Home After Dark

  That was Tuesday.

  Every Tuesday, Rose Richardson spent the evening at a Tennis and Social Club, playing a little table tennis, chatting over a drink, and making tentative plans for the club’s part in the Corby Summer Fête – an open-air play. This year, after a lot of argument, the committee had decided on A School for Scandal. Rose had little enthusiasm for it, nor had Margaret Tenterden, who had been outvoted on the committee, and was always willing to accept a majority vote cheerfully. Rose didn’t know her well, liked and admired what she did know of her, but this evening felt a little aloof, chiefly because of Tenterden’s activities at the works. She knew that the policeman couldn’t help it, and even if he had been difficult it was hardly fair to take it out on his wife, but they exchanged only a word that evening.

  Rose couldn’t keep her thoughts off her father.

  He had come home for dinner, said very little, pleaded a severe headache, and planned to go to bed early. He hadn’t said a word to her mother – he seemed never to confide in her. Rose had hesitated about going out, but her mother had told her there was no need to stay in, and she felt a certain relief at having been away from the works and the home atmosphere. But she left early – a little before ten o’clock. As she went out to her car, Margaret Tenterden appeared from the shadows of the car park outside the clubhouse.

  Rose started.

  ‘Sorry if I scared you, Rose,’ Tenterden’s wife said, ‘but I wanted a word with you without the others hearing.’ She smiled faintly, and her teeth showed up in the light of the street outside.

  ‘I’m a bit too jumpy,’ Rose said.

  ‘I can see you are,’ said Mrs Tenterden, and seemed to sense that the remark put Rose’s back up, for she went on quickly: ‘I didn’t mean that critically, and I’d really like to help.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, but I don’t see how you can,’ said Rose, still stiffly.

  ‘Wives do have a little influence with husbands,’ Mrs Tenterden remarked, ‘and I don’t think I’m any exception. Is there anything I can say to Arthur that might help? Is there any particular line of inquiry, for instance, that you would like him to follow? He told me this evening that what he really needs is a new angle, so he would be quite willing to try anything.’

  Rose said more warmly: ‘I’m honestly not sure. He must know about the way my father’s changed, and—’

  ‘Oh, he does.’

  ‘Does he put it down to the strike, too?’

  ‘Arthur is a very cautious man,’ answered the detective’s wife, ‘and I think he regards that as a coincidence, dear. All I really want to say is that if I can help at all, I would like to.’

  ‘You’re very good, and I won’t forget,’ Rose said.

  When she drove off she felt better, but still annoyed with herself for her early antagonism to Margaret Tenterden. She drove along the main street at about forty miles an hour, and as she left the town and switched on her headlights, put her foot down. A cyclist loomed out of the gloom, front wheel wobbling. Rose slackened speed, remembered Gordon’s rebuke, and actually laughed aloud. She slowed down to thirty-five until she was out of the restricted area, then kept her speed to forty-five. It was less than five minutes’ drive to the house, and she saw the lights there, as well as the lights at Soley’s Farm on her left. Just beyond the turning which led to Soley’s Farm and the works gates there was a sharp right turn and a steep climb, and she slowed down to take this.

  As she did so, two men jumped out of the side of the road, and stood in front of the car.

  Rose jammed on her brakes, her heart leaping to her throat, then thumping.

  The car jolted to a standstill, the engine stalled, and she found herself breathing heavily. Then suddenly she realised that the men had scarves over their faces.

  That brought vivid fear.

  She stabbed at the self-starter, but the engine didn’t start. The men moved towards her, one each side of the car. Two masked men, holding her up on a narrow country lane; it was terrifying. She pressed the self-starter again, and prayed that it would work; the engine roared. She rammed the gear into bottom and put her foot down, but the climb was so steep that the car only crawled forward. The men disappeared from the headlamp beams, but she could see them vaguely, knew they were stretching out for the door handles. Then the door on her side was wrenched open, and a man shouted: ‘Stop the engine!’

  She struck out at him wildly, and thrust her foot down harder; the car jerked forward, jolting half a dozen times and throwing her backwards and forwards. The other door was wrenched open, a man clambered in beside her, stretched across her and pulled on the hand-brake.

  ‘Get out of my car,’ Rose said gaspingly. ‘What do you mean by—’

  The man sitting by her slid an arm round her and held her tightly, squashing one arm against his body, gripping the other so that she couldn’t move. The only light came from the glow of the headlamps. She could see the men vaguely, could see the movements of the hands of the man she had struck. She was in a turmoil of fear when he raised his hand to her face. She tried to strain away, but he put his other arm at the back of her head, and held it upright; all she could do was to twist her head round from side to side, trying to free herself.

  She felt something cold and sticky slap against her lips.

  She heard the man say: ‘You bitch,’ as he let her head go. There was a sharp jolt at the back of her neck, as he struck her; it felt as if her neck was broken. She tried to open her mouth to cry out, but couldn’t. She realised that the man had dabbed on adhesive plaster. She tried to bite it, but it slid off her teeth and closed on her lips and the skin about them. The man cupped his hands over her mouth with rough, painful pressure. His fingers pressed against her nostrils, so that she could hardly breathe. She fought too, her breast heaving, her whole body writhing. Then the pressure at her nostrils eased, and she heard one of the men speak.

  She felt movement, and was pushed to one side. She thought that she was going to be lifted out of the MG, but instead the doors slammed and the engine started; so one of the men was at the wheel. She felt his elbow poke into her. All this time she had to fight to breathe evenly through her nostrils, a task more difficult because in the struggle she had lost so much breath. She tried to steady her thumping heart, and to understand what was happening.

  The car went into reverse; so the man was taking her back from the road leading to her home. He swung round too fast; too fast. He jammed on the brakes and jolted her forward, but although she bumped her forehead, she was not hurt.

  Her hands w
ere free.

  She knew exactly where the gear lever was, and could drive this car blindfolded; she had only to stretch out her right hand and touch the key, turn it and pull it out of the ignition, and the car would have to stop. Fear of what they planned to do with her eased away in the desperate hope of doing something to save herself. She sat a little more erect. She did not know whether the man guessed what she was going to do, but he was driving much too fast along the road to the works – past Soley’s Farm and past Soley’s silo.

  Doris Blake had been strangled and carried up to the top of that silo and tossed down to rot.

  It could happen to her!

  She darted forward with her right hand, missed, and felt her fingers jab painfully against the windscreen. The driver muttered a filthy word, and brought his elbow round, jabbing her in the stomach and driving the breath out of her body. She began that awful struggle to breathe through her nostrils all over again. This time it seemed as if her lungs would burst, as if she had no chance at all; it drove away even the fear of the silo, but as she recovered, she thought of that with awful vividness. They must be near the silo, perhaps only a few hundred yards away.

  She saw lights; the lights of Soley’s Farm.

  They dropped away behind the car. Ahead was the silo, and she pictured its round shape against the starlit sky, told herself that she could make out the height of it, then began to picture a body, her body, lying crumpled up on the silage.

  The driver put on the brakes.

  A scream rose up inside Rose, but the adhesive plaster held her lips fast, she could not make a sound.

  The car was slowing down, and she thought, God, she thought, dear God don’t let this happen to me, don’t let it happen. Then there were other lights, bright lights straight ahead of her, and she realised that another car was coming this way, its headlights on. They dazzled her, but she could pick up the great round tower of the silo, they had been near it. The driver of the other vehicle dimmed his headlights, this driver did not dim his. The car slowed down and pulled into the side, because the road was narrow; the other ‘car’ was a van, she saw as it passed, but then they turned another bend, and she saw the lights of the works gate.

  The car slowed down again. She sensed that it was going to turn round, and almost at once the driver swung as far to the left as he could, pulled out into the road, and reversed. He handled the car as if he was as familiar with it as she. They were headed in the other direction, back towards the silo, and the fear which had been quelled for a few minutes blazed up again.

  This time, the driver did not slow down. They passed the silo. They put on speed. Rose tried to judge from the twists and turns their position on the road, but had to give it up until the engine began to roar and the car shot forward; the only part of the road straight enough for this speed was east of Corby, heading for the coast; there were about three miles of it, almost straight; she had often touched seventy along this stretch before now.

  Then she was aware of light in the driving mirror, and knew that another car was coming from behind them. For a wild moment, she thought that it was a police car. It seemed to leap forward, for a second or two the cars were neck-and-neck, and she heard a man shouting. Her driver didn’t call back. The other shouted again, and then swept past. She saw the tunnel of light made by its lamps, and then the bright red glow at the back of it. It swung straight in front of the MG’s bonnet and stayed there, only a few yards ahead. She caught a glimpse of the radiator, but her driver said nothing, just began to put on his brakes. So did the other car driver. Both stopped, doors opened, and then footsteps sounded on the road. A man called: ‘I thought I told you to make her talk.’

  ‘You bloody fool,’ said the driver of the MG, ‘what good would that do? We’ve got to make sure she can’t talk.’

  ‘Listen! We only wanted to find out if she’s discovered what—’

  ‘That’s what you said,’ the driver interrupted. ‘We can’t take any chances, or she’ll kill the goose that lays our golden eggs, won’t she?’

  ‘If you hurt her—’

  ‘He’ll be right where we want him,’ the driver said confidently. ‘After this he won’t have a leg to stand on. What’s the matter—you chicken?’

  ‘I’m not chicken, but—’ The man broke off, and then muttered: ‘I suppose you’re right, she’d recognise our voices, anyway.’

  They were talking about her, as if she didn’t exist, as if she couldn’t hear the horror they were plotting.

  Chapter Twelve

  Blood Group

  Roger West stretched himself as he got out of his car outside the Corby Police Station that Wednesday, five hours after he had been told that Rose Richardson was missing. The streets were almost empty, and no one took any notice of him. It was about half past three, a dead hour, and he was not sorry that there was no crowd to worry about. A uniformed policeman at the foot of the shallow flight of steps saluted, and said: ‘Mr Tenterden asked you to go straight up, sir.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Roger said.

  He slipped along to the cloakroom on the ground floor. He washed in cold water, combed his hair, shrugged his coat into position, and went out feeling much fresher, but still tense and on edge. He blamed himself for lost time, and felt that fierce desire to go twice as fast, because of it. He ran up the single flight of stairs to Tenterden’s office, tapped, and opened the door on ‘come in’. Tenterden was at his unexpectedly small, old-fashioned leather-topped desk, and Brown was at a smaller one, opposite the local man; Brown looked as if he would overlap on either side as he struggled to get up.

  ‘Sit down,’ Roger said, and shook hands briskly. ‘Any news of the girl?’

  ‘No,’ said Tenterden gloomily.

  ‘And don’t ask him if he’s looked in the silo,’ Brown said. ‘We’ve had twenty-seven telephone calls advising us to.’

  ‘… y fools,’ Tenterden muttered.

  The few days had put years on him. Lines at the corners of his eyes and his lips which had not shown before now seemed deeply etched. He had a frown which pulled his lips down, and also wrinkled the skin above his nose. A lot of the stuffing seemed to have been knocked out of Arthur Tenterden.

  ‘How about the car?’ Roger asked, and sat on a corner of a typist’s desk, with his back to the wall.

  ‘Hasn’t turned up,’ Tenterden answered. ‘But some funny things have.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘We found a lot of footprints on the road leading to Richardson’s house,’ said Tenterden. ‘Same kind of thing as there were near the works gates, and two of the same prints. So whoever hung about the works gates the night that Jensen and Doris Blake were murdered, probably knows something about Rose Richardson.’

  ‘Photographs of the prints?’ asked Roger.

  ‘Plenty. Took some casts, but they’re overshoes.’ Tenterden said.

  ‘And we’ve checked the man Ragg,’ Brown put in. ‘We’ve not found any trace of overshoes or the shoes which made those prints.’

  ‘Checked Ragg’s movements last night?’

  ‘It’s being done,’ Brown answered.

  ‘Then there’s another thing,’ Tenterden went on. ‘The last time the MG—you remember that car?’ Roger nodded. ‘The last time it was seen, it was coming towards the works from Soley’s Farm and the silo,’ went on Tenterden. There was a special delivery job last night, and a young van driver named Cousins was belting along the road when the car came towards him. He says that Miss Rose had told him off for speeding yesterday morning, and the minute he realised whose car it was he slowed down. But he doesn’t think she was driving. He thinks it was a man.’

  ‘Alone?’

  ‘He wasn’t sure. The headlights had dazzled him, the chap didn’t dip them.’

  Roger made no comment, and Tenterden touched a notepad on his desk, and went on: ‘Here’s a full report, and I’m having copies made. I’m just giving you the gist of it now. Anyhow, Cousins finished his run – had to catch a train fro
m Cranston, on the coast, to London. There’s a ten o’clock train, and he made it all right. He was allowed to park the van outside his house during the night, and reported for work as usual this morning.’

  ‘Did he recognise the driver?’

  ‘Couldn’t even be absolutely sure it was a man, but he thought so. He says he felt sure it wasn’t Miss Rose, anyhow – she would have dipped her lights.’

  ‘Good point,’ Roger said. The detail was so vital, but he was on edge to get on more quickly, to do something himself.

  ‘Then our chaps on the gate of the works said they saw a car coming along, thought it was coming straight up to the works, but it turned round some distance away, and followed the van. That was almost certainly the MG. But after that there isn’t a trace.’

  ‘What kind of search is being laid on?’

  ‘I talked to Colchester, and they’re doing everything they can. I’ve got every man on the force out searching in possible places – quarries, cliffs, one or two caves, woods, everywhere. And three parties of men from the works are out looking up in the rivers.’

  ‘Dragging them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Roger said: ‘What about boy friends?’

  ‘She hadn’t a steady,’ answered Tenterden, ‘and I’ve questioned everyone she’s danced or played tennis with lately. She’s not all that man conscious, and I think her father put her off romance when he stopped the affair between her and Paul Key.’

  ‘Checked Key?’

  ‘He’s in London.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Tenterden said, and added gruffly: ‘No one’s reported that he’s been down here, anyhow, and I’m sure that Rose Richardson’s had nothing to do with him for at least a year.’