Death in Desolation (An Inspector Littlejohn Mystery) Page 14

  ‘He left Rosie, travelling as usual, in his eccentric way, on his old farm tractor. He drove it somewhere. We think it might have been to Longton Curlieu to see his aunt, Mrs. Clara Quill. The Chief Superintendent is on his way there now to see her and enquire if he turned up there. Have you any idea where Harry Quill spent the time last Tuesday after he left Rose Coggins’s place?’

  Bilbow blinked and made a show of thinking hard.

  ‘Tuesday afternoon, eh?’

  ‘Yes. Where were you then?’

  ‘Am I supposed to provide an alibi, Cromwell?’

  ‘Yes. It’s routine, as you well know.’

  ‘I was, as you already know, at Great Lands until after two o’clock, returning with Evelyn to whom I gave a lift in my taxi. I returned to my office where members of the staff came in and out and I saw two clients. I can produce all of them if you insist.’

  He still didn’t seem in any way put out. If Cromwell thought to surprise him or intimidate him into a confession or unwary remark, he knew such tactics were of no use. Bilbow had, by his training, learned all there was to know about that technique.

  ‘And after five o’clock, I took some work home and after having tea at a local café – they’ll remember me there – I went to my flat and worked till nearly midnight. A lawsuit about land which is a bit involved. I was alone. I occupy one of a block of non-service flats and I look after myself. So, I can’t verify that for you.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Dead certain. Do you doubt me?’

  ‘I don’t understand that. We’ve been told on good authority that you were out on the back road between Longton Curlieu and Sprawle at around ten o’clock on Tuesday night. You called for drinks at two inns on the way.’

  ‘Is that so? I must have forgotten …’

  He said it as though he’d neglected to bring home the joint for the week-end or the bacon for breakfast. He got up and took another drink.

  ‘Sure you won’t?’

  ‘No, thanks. Is that true?’

  ‘Yes. I’d forgotten. I did take a stroll for a drink in a fresh place. I thought it would do me good after an evening’s work.’

  Now he was shaken. Fumbling about in his addled brain for a way out.

  ‘A stroll did you say? I don’t know the distances around here, but you must have covered more than twenty miles.’

  Bilbow actually lit a cigarette and smiled broadly, baring his tobacco-stained teeth through his beard.

  ‘I’m quite up to walking that distance when I feel inclined.’

  ‘But you didn’t. You travelled on Harry Quill’s tractor.’

  Bilbow pondered. He might have been making up his mind to accept or decline some offer Cromwell was proposing.

  ‘That’s right. I don’t know who your witnesses are, but I guess it has something to do with an insurance claim. Am I right?’

  ‘That does arise, but it’s not the main proof. You were seen by several people.’

  Bilbow nodded.

  ‘I slipped up by risking taking a drink to cheer me on my way. Well, what about it?’

  ‘Where did you come upon Harry Quill’s tractor?’

  ‘I’m not going to tell you that, Cromwell. I’m going to reserve my defence. I’m not obliged to give you information that concerns a client. That’s a matter for the courts.’

  Cromwell looked at his watch. Quarter to five. Littlejohn must be with Mrs. Clara Quill now. In fact, if their calculations were correct, he’d have enjoyed quite a little chat with Aunt Clara already.

  ‘Hadn’t we better call and consult your client then?’

  ‘I think not. Not for the present.’

  Bilbow must have had to keep sober spells whenever he had any close work or tricky cases to handle, for now, half intoxicated, he seemed to be fumbling in his mind for his next move. Finally, he decided.

  ‘It seems to me that you are trying to find me guilty of some crime or other …’

  ‘In the first place, for the removal of the tractor without the authority of the owner. Don’t interrupt me, please. You hadn’t got his authority. Harry Quill was either dead or dying when you took his tractor and drove it to Great Lands and left it in the shed. You also carried freight … dangerous freight. The dead body of Harry Quill, which you deposited on his own threshold.’

  Bilbow giggled.

  ‘By God! You’ve constructed a very good circumstantial case, but you can’t prove it. I could soon drive a carriage and pair through that effort.’

  ‘You’ll be a wizard if you do. Don’t forget, we have witnesses who saw you. Do you know that at the Dick Turpin, where you took your final drink and stove-in a Jaguar car in your fumblings to get out of the car park, you and the tractor were seen as plain as in daylight by a man, canoodling with a girl, sitting in an unilluminated car a few yards away?’

  ‘I know a Q.C. who could soon demolish that. A pair of lovers, engrossed in their own passions, watching goings-on in the car park outside! The whole sorry frame-up would vanish in smoke at the hands of a skilled cross-examiner.’

  ‘You seem to forget that you roused the whole neighbourhood when you hit a massive car such a blow that it crumpled up one of the wings like paper. But let’s leave legal arguments out of it. You look like facing a more serious charge than hit-and-run in a car park.’

  Bilbow took another drink and then slouched back to his seat.

  ‘Look, Cromwell. Do you mind outlining the case for the prosecution as you’ve already built it up? It will be a great help to me in defending myself, if you do.’

  The cheek of the man! He was treating the whole business as a theoretical exercise in law, just as though when it was over, he would stroll out and do the rounds of his bars, as usual.

  ‘Certainly, I’ll tell you. You were short of money. You always are.’

  ‘Granted. I’m always short of money. The pittance I earn here doesn’t square at all with my tastes and wishes. But I don’t go and kill the first man I come upon who has a bit of money of his own. If I were desperate, I could borrow it.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I have clients who’d help me.’

  ‘Much easier to take it when it’s easy to do it.’

  ‘In that case, I could do a smash and grab at the local jewellers. Anything rather than kill a man and spend the rest of my life in gaol if I were caught …’

  ‘I thought I was presenting the case for the prosecution. In court, you don’t have both sides shouting one another down at the same time. Will you listen? You can defend yourself after.’

  ‘Fair enough. Carry on. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You were short of money. You admit it. Last Tuesday afternoon Rosie Coggins called on you. She wanted advice on what she calls buying a little business. She mentioned a figure which you knew was the amount Mrs. Clara Quill had arranged to lend Harry on mortgage. You decided from what Rosie said that Harry was on his way, even then, to collect the cash from his aunt. After she’d told you that, you were in a very great hurry to dispose of Rosie. You almost pushed her into the street. You were eager to get away yourself and intercept Quill and his money. He resisted, and you struck him. He died from the blow later.’

  Bilbow almost pounced on Cromwell across the table.

  ‘Stop! You can’t prove a word of that. I wanted to be rid of Rose because she was wasting my time. I’d a client waiting for me.’

  ‘Very convenient.’

  ‘I told Rose that, didn’t she tell you?’

  ‘You went out to Longton Curlieu and found Harry Quill there. You got your money at the expense of Quill’s life. You were left with the body and the tractor. You’d a problem on your hands. Should you bury it? Or throw it in a pond?’

  Bilbow laughed outright.

  ‘I am enjoying this. You’ve a very fertile imagination, Cromwell. Good job you’re on the right side of the law. Go on. Tell me what I did next.’

  ‘You remembered the case which was in all the newspaper headlines.
The black gang, robbing farmhouses in lonely places and not stopping at violence. You decided that would suit you very well. Harry Quill wasn’t dead, however. Just unconscious. But he wouldn’t recover consciousness. And then, before it grew dark enough for you to take the tremendous risk of moving him to his lonely farm, Harry died. You’d murdered him.’

  ‘Just one word, if you please, Cromwell. That kind of forensic skill in court is quite out of date. Went out with Marshall Hall. You’d have to do better than that. Juries won’t stand for illuminated and fancy appeals to their emotions. The summary court would throw that out in the street right away. I won’t even defend it. It’s just a lot of imaginary twaddle.’

  ‘Twaddle or not, sir, you were seen transporting the body of Harry Quill on his own tractor from Longton Curlieu to Great Lands farm last Tuesday night …’

  ‘Assuming that I did move the tractor, as you say, and witnesses saw me doing it, how do you know that I had the body of Quill with me? Have you witnesses of that?’

  The telephone at Bilbow’s elbow suddenly rang. They had been so immersed in argument that it made them both jump. Bilbow took up the instrument with a look of relief. It gave him a bit more time to think.

  ‘It’s for you. Your boss, Chief Superintendent Littlejohn.’ He passed over the instrument.

  ‘Would you like me to leave you alone with him?’

  ‘No thanks. Stay where you are.’

  Not on your life, thought Cromwell. Henceforth, he wasn’t going to let the wily Bilbow out of his sight.

  ‘I’m just ringing you from Mrs. Clara Quill’s home at Longton Curlieu. Mrs. Quill has been giving me some information which will help us very much. I’d like you to come over here right away and we’ll have it in writing. Is everything all right with you?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ll tell him and bring him with me.’

  Bilbow must have wished he’d been able to listen in to the conversation. He fumbled in a drawer as Cromwell received the message, but that was an obvious blind as he strained his ears to catch what was going on.

  ‘Good-bye, sir.’

  Cromwell hung up and sat back with a sigh.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Bilbow, but that puts an end to our arguments for the time being. We’ll resume later.’

  ‘Yes. And I’m afraid when we do, I must have Mr. Nunn in with us to hear the direction the matter is taking. I didn’t kill Quill, which is the way your arguments were leading. I didn’t kill him and you can’t prove I did.’

  ‘That will have to wait. The Chief Superintendent wants me to go to Longton Curlieu right away. He’s with Mrs. Clara Quill and she’s made a statement which involves you. The Chief wants you to accompany me.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘You are Mrs. Quill’s lawyer, aren’t you? That’s a second reason why you should be there. She’s going to sign the statement which concerns you. You’d better be there.’

  ‘I don’t see why. Mr. Nunn could go …’

  ‘The Chief said you were the one who was required.’

  ‘And if I say I still won’t go?’

  ‘Then I shall take you to the police station and Chief Superintendent Littlejohn and Mrs. Quill will have to join us there.’

  ‘Take me? What right have you …?’

  ‘Under arrest. You’ll be required, for the time being, to explain what you were doing with a murdered man’s tractor on the night of Tuesday last. I said, for the time being. When the Chief arrives with the statement from Mrs. Quill, it will be a more serious charge … Much more serious.’

  For the first time Bilbow showed emotion. He sprang to his feet and leaned across to Cromwell in fury. Froth appeared at the corners of his mouth which he opened wide as he shouted.

  ‘We’ll see about that. So Clara has made a statement, has she? I wonder what she’s said. We’ll go and find out and see if it’s legal and proper. Have you got a car? We’re going to Longton Curlieu to find out what’s been going on and if there’s been any hanky-bloody-panky the police had better look out …’

  And with that, all the fizz seemed to leave him. He shuffled about quietly, without saying anything more, put away all his papers and slipped on an old soiled raincoat.

  ‘Ready?’

  Before they left and he locked the last drawer of his metal filing cabinet, he found the bottle and took a good drink.

  ‘You won’t want a drink to sustain you, Cromwell,’ he said as he put the bottle away and snapped the lock to. ‘You’re on the winning side just at present. But we’ll see. We’ll see.’

  The market outside was just closing up and on the way across the square to Cromwell’s car, a man with an almost empty stall accosted Bilbow and offered to sell him a codfish cheap. ‘It’s the last of the lot.’

  Bilbow told him to go to hell.

  12

  Trial and Error

  LONGTON CURLIEU was a small village about nine miles from Marcroft. It had remained unspoiled, perhaps because it lay about half a mile from the main road or, most probably, because it hadn’t, as yet, struck any enterprising builder to develop and ruin it.

  Littlejohn called at the village inn to ask the way to Longton Lodge. There were a few locals around the bar, including a man he’d seen before. It was the chauffeur, who looked like a jockey, who had driven Aunt Clara’s old car at the funeral. His name was Lingard. He looked different, more dilapidated without his uniform. He wore corduroy trousers and an old coat, his grey hair was dishevelled and he hadn’t had a shave.

  The landlord of the Longton Arms, of whom Littlejohn had enquired the way, pointed to Lingard.

  ‘He’s the gardener there. He’ll show you the way. He’s just here for his afternoon pint, as usual. Hasn’t much use for five o’clock tea.’

  Lingard didn’t seem amused.

  ‘I’m not goin’ back. I’ve done my whack for today. But I’ll show you where it is.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ll have another pint with me, Mr. Lingard. It’s a thirsty day.’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  There was a wooden seat outside. The weather was hot and it was quiet there and out of the way of the ears of the rest.

  ‘Let’s drink it on the seat by the door.’

  The bench was usually occupied by old men in the evening and the rest of the time by walkers with their sandwiches. It was obvious the idea didn’t appeal to an able-bodied, seasoned drinker like Lingard, whose natural habitat was as near the bar as he could get. All the same, as Littlejohn was paying, he was ready to satisfy his whim. He lit his burned out old pipe and shambled out.

  Littlejohn ordered two pints of the beer advertised by a card on the counter. Saint Matthew’s Extra Strong Ale. The church, visible through the trees, was dedicated to that fortunate apostle and every year the brewers made a specially strong drink for his festival.

  Lingard was a bit shifty. Littlejohn had found him that way when first he’d met him. Among his own companions he was relaxed enough. His shyness with the police was perhaps because he was faced with a problem.

  ‘I promised Mrs. Quill I’d call on her and here I am. Are you her full-time gardener?’

  ‘Aye. Sometimes I drive the car when she wants it. I dig graves at the church, too, when they’re needed. I’m one of the bell-ringers.’

  He was already thawing under the strong ale, which he’d almost drunk already. Littlejohn ordered him another.

  ‘You seem to be quite a busy man.’

  ‘Every little helps.’

  He wiped the froth of the second pint off his lips with the back of his hand.

  ‘I saw you at the funeral. Pity about Harry Quill. Did you know him well?’

  Lingard hesitated and contemplated his almost empty glass.

  ‘Can’t say I did. I seen him once or twice and just passed the time of day with him. He wasn’t a reg’lar caller at the Lodge. Mrs. Quill hadn’t got much time for him.’

  A pause whilst they drank again. Lingard ruminated awkwardly, his large dirty hands
on his knees.

  ‘They tell me he called to see Mrs. Quill on the day he died.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘You were there, gardening?’

  ‘Aye.’

  The laconic replies were perhaps something to do with the shifty manner.

  ‘What time did he arrive?’

  The man looked at a large silver watch which he took from the side pocket of his trousers, as though it had registered the time in question.

  ‘Mid afternoon. Around four o’clock.’

  ‘What time did you finish that day?’

  ‘Six o’clock. I was late. I was diggin’ up the sparagrass bed. It took longer than it should have done. Couch grass in it. That’s why I’m off early today. Work late one day in the week, leave early another. Mrs. Quill won’t pay no overtime.’

  ‘How did Harry Quill seem?’

  ‘All right. Smilin’ and happy, he seemed to be. Little did he think that he’d meet his Maker that night, you can be sure o’ that.’

  ‘What time did he leave?’

  ‘I don’t know. He hadn’t gone when I went at six. His tractor was still there.’

  ‘Did he arrive, as usual, then, on his tractor?’

  ‘Yes. Mrs. Quill got wild about it. “Take that ugly thing off my front drive,” she says, “an’ put it in the back stables. I won’t have it disfiggerin’ my garden.” So he had to shift it.’

  ‘He was there when you left?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Having his tea?’

  ‘Not likely. Havin’ a row, more like.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  He hesitated again.

  ‘I shouldn’t talk about what goes on at the house, but as Harry Quill’s dead and past harmin’, I can just say that he seemed to be there on business and Mrs. Quill didn’t agree at all with what he told her. Hit him, she did. That must be on her conscience to her dying day. To have struck a man with her stick and him to die later that night. We ought to be more careful, oughtn’t we? We never know what’s in store for anybody and to let the sun go down on our wrath might make us regret it ever after.’