A Late Phoenix (11 page)

He led the way across, glass in hand. The attractive youngish woman with him came too. “The wife,” he said.

She smiled.

“Sit down here, Inspector,” said Waite. “You did say you were an inspector, didn't you?”

“I did.”

“And you've come over from Berebury to see me?”

“That's right, sir. About a strange discovery in Lamb Lane.”

“Something nasty in the woodshed?”

“In the cellar, sir.” Sloan looked round. The whole place was full of sailors and fishermen and their wives.

“Don't worry, Inspector. A crowd's the best place for a quiet chat.” Leslie jerked his shoulder towards the bar. “Fellow over there thought he'd have a private row with his wife out in their boat. The whole mooring heard every word. Better than a play actually …”

“Sound does travel over open water,” agreed Sloan.

“Tell me, Inspector,” said Mrs. Waite, “what was in the cellar?”

Sloan told her, omitting the pregnancy and the bullet. Leslie Waite plunged his face into his beer mug.

“And you've got no shortage of bodies on the books so to speak?”

“No, sir. As it happens we haven't.”

“A skeleton, eh? Well, well …”

“A woman's skeleton …”

Leslie Waite sat back on the pub bench, quite relaxed. “I was at sea when the house was bombed.”

“I'll make a note of that”

“Came home on leave to find the place a shambles. First thing I knew was when I got one of my own letters back marked Gone Away.” He gave a short laugh. “It was the address that had gone away.”

“Your father,” said Sloan, “appears to have been quite unaware of the skeleton when he willed the house to your brother …”

Leslie Waite's face changed. It was no longer quite so relaxed. “You've looked that up, have you?”

“Yes, sir. A skeleton—er—requires investigation.”

“Harold was always the white-haired boy. I was always the black sheep.” He swept up the glasses from the table. “Quite sure you're not drinking, Inspector?”

“Quite sure, sir, thank you,” said Sloan.

Crosby said nothing.

“I'm afraid I sowed a few wild oats too many for the old man.”

“I see, sir.” In Sloan's opinion Hasse's rule was measuring someone's wild oat all right but he didn't know if it was Leslie Waite's or not.

Yet.

Certainly there had been no visible pricking of the ears by Leslie Waite at the mention of missing persons as there had been with Harold. But that might be because Harold had already warned him. He'd had several hours in which to do it and families were funny things. However divisive among themselves they were usually united against the police.

“He thought I was never going to make a go of anything when I came out of the Navy.” Leslie pointed a thumb towards the sea. “As the only thing I wanted to do was mess about in boats perhaps the old chap was right.”

There was a sudden burst of laughter from the bar. Leslie edged his way into the barman's ambit and came back with another beer.

“Do you go over to Luston much?” asked Sloan casually.

“And run the risk of conversion by my sanctimonious sister-in-law, Inspector? Not on your life!”

“Or Berebury?”

He shook his head. “No. No point in going to Berebury when you can have days like today in Kinnisport, eh, Doreen?”

“None.”

“Wind right. Tide right. Heaven.”

Doreen Waite smiled. “Couldn't have been better.”

“You do a lot of sailing, sir?”

Leslie Waite nodded vigorously. “Every day if I can. Not like the poor Saturday and Sunday blokes.”

“And the rest of the time?”

“When I'm not sailing? I work in a boat builder's yard. Unskilled. I'm not very good. Doreen's the one that keeps us going.”

“Nonsense.” Doreen Waite flushed. “I'm only a secretary, Inspector.”

“Anyway, it's better than slaving away in a factory like old Harold. And hog-tied to a religious maniac into the bargain. He never got anywhere at all—for all that he got shot of Corton's like the others.”

“What's that got to do with it?”

“His pals Reddley and Hodge did pretty well for themselves by clearing out when they did. All Harold did was change one bench for another.” Leslie Waite ran his eyes lazily round the cozy little pub and put his free arm round his wife. He lifted his glass with his other arm. “But in the end I reckon I've done best of all.”

“Really, sir?”

“Really, Inspector. I've got what I want without working. You can't beat that.”

Detective Constable Crosby, once more behind the driving wheel, inclined his head to indicate Kinnisport fast receding behind him. “If that's failure, sir, I'll have it every time, thank you very much.”

“His father cut him out of his will,” said Sloan.

That was a fact.

A demonstrable fact.

Demonstrable facts were a little on the short side in the case at the moment and those that existed were mostly with the pathologist.

A body.

An unborn baby.

And a bullet.

Sloan stared out of the window without seeing anything: and decided he'd got the order wrong.

An unborn baby, a bullet, and a body.

That was more like it.

The skeleton was there—on the post-mortem bench—but so far was unrelated to evidence in the police sense of that much misused word.

“Sons don't get left out of their father's wills for nothing,” persisted Sloan.

If you listened to the politicians it was this obstinate determination of citizens to leave their worldly goods to their biological—not their social—heirs that caused half the taxation problems in the country.

Sloan didn't listen to the politicians, of course. He was a policeman and nearer to life as it was lived.

“That sort of failure'd suit me down to the ground.” Crosby changed down a gear for a bad bend.

“Failure's a relative thing …” That was something else you only learned as the years went by. Crosby wasn't old enough yet, hadn't been frustrated enough yet, hadn't been disappointed enough yet …

“Sails every day,” said Crosby, “works with boats, nice young wife. I shouldn't mind …”

“In the morning,” said Sloan, “you can check that she is his wife.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We will also check on whatever it was that made Leslie Waite a black sheep twenty-five years ago. Though,” he added morosely, “with the permissive society being what it is, I don't suppose it's even in the book any more.” He hunched his shoulders. “Still less anyone minding.”

Not with Dick's Dive clientele setting the pace.

“No, sir. Shall we,” suggested Crosby sedulously, “be calling it a day now, sir?”

“No, we will not, Crosby.”

“But we'll be coming to the Berebury junction in a tick, sir.”

“Take the Luston Road.”

“The Luston Road?”

“What we want,” said Sloan flatly, “is a quiet word with Harold Waite without his wife being there.”

“That's not going to be easy, sir. Don't suppose he ever nips out for a quick one. Not with a wife like that.”

“You can bet your life he does,” said Sloan who was older and wiser. “He couldn't manage without. Not with a wife like that.”

“But must we go now, sir? After all,” he added unwisely, “it's not as if it's an important job.”

“Not important, Constable?”

“Not urgent then, sir,” amended Crosby. “It wasn't as if all this was yesterday, is it?”

“And what,” enquired Sloan majestically, “has time to do with crime?”

Crush the shell

C
HAPTER
N
INE

Dr. William Latimer was getting ready to leave the Feathers Hotel in Berebury. He had enjoyed his first meeting of the Caduceus Club more than he had expected he would.

The hotel itself looked as if it had come straight out of an old-fashioned Christmas card, and he had parked his car in a quaint cobbled yard built long ago for horses.

Before going inside he had straightened his tie, pulled down his waistcoat and braced himself for his first meeting with his fellow doctors—but there had been no need. The first club member he had met wasn't even wearing a waistcoat. The second looked like a prosperous farmer in from the country and the third was dressed more like a bookie than a general practitioner.

They had all been very friendly.

“You must be Latimer.”

William agreed that he was.

“What are you drinking?”

This dialogue was repeated up and down the room. By the end of the evening William decided he had met almost everyone present except a lanky chap with a bow tie, who had spent the whole time at the bar deep in converse with the only lady present.

The Caduceus Club was clearly an institution for the relieving of medical feelings. William didn't take long to gather that.

“A typical appendix …”

“I told the Out Patient Department …”

“Filthy throat …”

“I said to Casualty …”

“Biggest gallstone I've ever seen …”

“Four late calls …”

“I wrote the Executive Council …”

“Breech …”

It was almost time to go before William fetched up against the lanky fellow with the bow tie who had by now said goodnight to the lady and left the bar. He shook William's hand.

“I'm Waineton. You must be Latimer.”

William agreed he was.

“What are you drinking?”

William said he thought he'd had enough.

Waineton nodded in the direction of a corner table.

“You're all right, old chap. The police surgeon's over there and he isn't ready to go home yet.”

William changed his tactics. “Still got some, thank you,” he said, waving his glass.

“Waistcoat killers,” said Waineton indistinctly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Waistcoat killers,” repeated Waineton. “That's what evenings like this are. We all eat and drink too much. Everybody.”

“Er—yes. You may be right.”

“And how are you enjoying St. Luke's, eh?”

“I'm just settling in, you know.”

“A bit difficult, of course …”

“Not particularly.”

“Bound to be after what happened.”

William looked up. “What happened?”

“You know. To old Tarde.”

“I don't know.”

Dr. Waineton's face changed from the convivial to the melancholy as if it was the indiarubber mask of a disappointed clown. “Poor old Tarde.”

“What happened to him?” said William.

“Knew him well,” muttered Waineton unsteadily. “Been in St. Luke's for years and years.”

“I know that,” said William, “but what happened to him?” The evening at the bar had obviously made Dr. Waineton quite maudlin.

“Didn't you know, old chap?”

“Know what?” demanded William firmly.

“I thought you'd have heard …”

“Heard what?”

“He committed suicide.”

The Two Doves in Luston was moderately full despite the lateness of the hour.

Men in working clothes, faces none too clean, kept on slipping in through the swing doors. It wasn't a dressy pub. It was a place where a hard-working man could quench his thirst before going home through the silent streets. Silent, that is, save for the heavy throbbing of mill machinery. That never stopped.

The twilight shift, it seemed, was succeeded by the night shift proper. Men on that had presumably dropped in to slake their thirsts earlier.

Sloan and Crosby were settled at a small table in a corner, conspicuous as strangers. The rest of the clientele were clearly all known to each other and to the landlord.

There was no sign of Harold Waite.

The two policemen watched the swing doors from where they sat. This was Harold Waite's pub, all right. The man on the Bean Street beat had told them that. But though a great many men came in and out Harold Waite was not among them. Neither were any women. It got later and later.

Towards half-past the hour the landlord began to ask for the last orders.

Sloan told him he had been hoping to see Waite.

“The number two shop foreman? No”—the landlord shook his head—“he hasn't been in tonight. George! George, there's a bloke here asking for Harold Waite.”

The burly fellow half-turned. “Evening, mate … Friend of yours, is he, then?”

“In a manner of speaking,” said Sloan diplomatically. “A chap said I might find him here.”

“Usually,” agreed the man called George, “but he wasn't in to work this evening.”

“Wasn't he?”

“Try tomorrow,” advised George. “He wasn't ill or anything. Just said he had somebody to see, special like.”

“Oh, dear …”

George misinterpreted Sloan's disappointed expression and said, “I expect he'll be in tomorrow, all right.”

“If he's spared,” said a wag standing somewhere behind him.

“Your friend,” pronounced George with dignity, “has wife trouble.”

“I know,” said Sloan. “That's why I thought I'd have a word with him here.”

This display of finer feeling on Sloan's part made an immediate appeal to George who insisted that the next round was his.

Even though the round after that was Sloan's he still could not extract from George who it was that Harold Waite had taken time off from work to go see.

He just didn't know.

A little later still a strange beep-beep started up in Dr. William Latimer's bedroom in Field House, Berebury. Dr. Latimer, pleasantly refreshed by his evening out, happened to be dreaming happily at the same time about a girl who happened to look just like Jane Appleby.