Murder is Suspected (C.I.D. Room Book 10)

  Murder Is Suspected

  Roderic Jeffries

  © Roderic Jeffries 1977

  Roderic Jeffries has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1977 by Walker Publishing Company Inc.

  This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 1

  To begin with, the hit-and-run case seemed no different from all the other tragic hit-and-run cases where the chances of identifying the guilty driver were seldom better than fifty-fifty.

  The suburb of South Flecton stretched out in two arcs, enclosing a ‘bay’ of countryside. Ted Evans, not quite steady since he’d stayed at the White Swan until closing time, cycled along the country road which joined these two arcs. A car, coming in the opposite direction, failed to dip and the headlights blinded him, causing him to swerve towards the grass verge and he only pulled away at the last moment. He swore, with a fluency which came from ten years at sea, regained his balance, and as he pedalled on he heard the rising noise of more than one car coming up behind him.

  Headlights cut past him to illuminate the road ahead up to the bend. His shadow, at first so stretched out as to make him grotesquely tall and thin, began to shorten. He cycled on, noticing how his shadow suddenly flicked over to the right, but not bothering to work out how odd this was since the car should be drawing out to overtake him and therefore his shadow should swing to the left. He heard the thump of tyres on the grass verge and he did begin to worry then, but his mind was working too slowly for him to react.

  The nearside of the car hit the back wheel and then his right leg and he was slammed forwards and sideways. He knew a flash of shocked astonishment, but no pain, before he hit the verge and was blasted into unconsciousness.

  The car swerved back into the middle of the road, braked briefly, then accelerated away. A second car, which had been three hundred yards behind, slowed to a halt. A middle-aged man and his wife climbed out and stared with sick horror at Evans, who lay face downwards, spread-eagled over the verge, seven feet from his buckled bicycle.

  *

  The white and blue Panda car was doing sixty before the de-restricted sign was passed. As P.C. Spicer turned left on to the country road which ran north to the other arm of South Flecton he accelerated, rightly confident in his skill as a driver. The radio message from borough H.Q. had said the cyclist was reported dead, but Spicer knew from experience that most injured people were initially reported as dead because those first on the scene were so shocked by the sight of torn and bleeding flesh. It was his fourth traffic accident that week.

  He rounded the corner and saw several sets of rear lights to his left and sidelights to his right. At least half a dozen cars must have stopped to see what had happened. What made people stop and stare at accidents when it was odds on they’d feel sick at the sight of what they saw?

  He stopped and called borough H.Q. over the radio to say he’d arrived at the scene of the accident. He picked up the two red warning triangles from the passenger seat and then hurried along to where the knot of people were looking down at the man on the verge. He pushed his way through. A quick glance at the victim failed to show whether he were alive or dead, but since there was no arterial bleeding needing immediate attention Spicer turned and addressed the onlookers. “Which one of you is Mr Parsons?”

  “That’s me,” muttered someone on his right.

  He saw a middle-aged man. “Did anyone else see the accident or know who the man is?”

  No one answered.

  “O.K. You…” He held out the warning triangles to a man of about his own age. “Put them up either side of here, a hundred yards out. The rest of you will help most by leaving.”

  “Has anyone called the ambulance?” someone asked.

  “There’s one on its way,” he answered.

  They slowly and reluctantly left and returned to their cars and drove off. Spicer checked that the warning triangles were being placed as he wanted them, then he switched on a torch and knelt down by the side of the man. The right leg was obviously badly crushed and the torn trousers were bloodstained: the man’s left profile showed a time-worn face, with cheeks sunken, chin stubbled white, and a top denture half out of the mouth. Spicer thought the man was just breathing, but could not be certain.

  He stood up. Mrs Parsons — her identity was obvious since she was clutching Parsons’s arm — said in a voice which shook: “Is he dead?”

  “Can’t rightly say, but there’s a chance he isn’t. Meantime, I’m going to put a rug over him to keep him warm.”

  He returned to the Panda car, from the boot of which he brought out a rug. The man who’d been putting out the signs came up and he thanked him and made it pleasantly clear there was no further point in his hanging around. The man left.

  Spicer spread the rug out over Evans. That done, he questioned the Parsons. “I think you saw the accident?”

  “It… it was terrible. We were following this car which was swerving all over the place. I said to the wife — didn’t I, dear? — that bloke’s tight. Out into the middle of the road, right over to the verge. Why d’you let drunks drive around?”

  “We stop ’em all we can,” said Spicer, with quiet patience.

  Parsons was about to speak again when they heard the raucous notes of a two-tone siren. Spicer took his torch from his pocket and switched it on, playing the beam on to the road. The ambulance drove up to where they stood.

  A doctor had come in the ambulance and he examined Evans, first as he lay, then gently rolling him on to his other side. The doctor gave orders for Evans to be moved and the driver and his mate eased Evans on to a stretcher and loaded this into the ambulance.

  “He’s alive,” the doctor said to Spicer, “and the leg’s a mess. But no one can say anything more until his head’s been cleaned up and properly examined.” He looked down at the grass verge. “I reckon he’s probably been lucky — that heavy rain the other day really softened the ground so even though he must have hit it with a hell of a force, he may not have damaged his head too seriously.”

  “Is he going to the Central, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “How soon d’you reckon before someone can check up on his condition?”

  “Certainly not before eight in the morning… Well, good night.”

  As the ambulance drove off, Spicer made an entry in his notebook, noting the time and recording the fact he had been on the scene for about five minutes but that it had not been practicable to write anything earlier.

  He shut the notebook and spoke to Parsons and his wife. “I’m sorry to keep holding you, but now the ambulance’s been I’d like to take a quick look around.” He smiled. “I’ll make it as quick as I can.”

  He placed a rock in the position where the injured man’s head had been and another where the shoes reached. He examined the bicycle in the torchlight. The back wheel was heavily buckled and many of the spokes were broken; the right pedal was twisted; the handlebars were badly out of line. The bike must be carefully checked in a good light to se
e if any meaningful traces from the car had been left on it. The grass verge was low for a foot or so, and then it sloped up to a height of about eighteen inches; a hundred and fifty yards back from the accident he found the impression of a tyre. It was not a good impression since it was on the edge of the verge and therefore there was no depth to it and there clearly could be no certainty that this was an impression made by the hit-and-run car, but Spicer remembered that Parsons had described the car as having lurched from the middle of the road to the side and back. He moved the warning triangle back along the road so that this impression was protected by it. Finally, as he walked past the Parsons’ Austin, he casually checked that the nearside was undamaged.

  He returned to the Parsons. “How about going over to my car and sitting down in it? It’ll be a sight more comfortable than standing here.” He spoke casually to help chase away some of their shock. “I’ll tell you one thing. I’d go a bundle on a hot coffee.”

  She spoke eagerly. “Why not come home and I’ll make us all some?”

  “That’s a great idea, Mrs Parsons, but I’ve a load of work to finish here before I can go anywhere.” He opened the back door of the car for them.

  He sat down in the driving seat, switched on the radio, and called up borough H.Q. to report that the victim had been taken to hospital and to ask that someone from C.I.D. be sent out.

  He questioned the Parsons. What had been the make of the vehicle which had run the cyclist down, type of body, colour; had they been able to read its registration number; had it any special features or defects; how many occupants had been in it; what kind of speed had it been doing on impact? When they’d helped him as far as they could, and had given him their telephone number and address, he thanked them for all their help and accompanied them along to their car.

  As they drove away, he lit a cigarette. He was due off duty very soon, but he’d be lucky if he got off within the next four hours. Someone from C.I.D. would be out, probably photographs would be taken, the road and verge would have to be searched for traces…

  Chapter 2

  Detective Inspector Fusil picked up his pipe and rubbed the bowl against the palm of his left hand as he read through the report. The reading finished, he put down the pipe on the desk, scratched his forehead at the point where his black hair was just beginning to thin, and looked out through the window. Like so many hit-and-runs, there just wasn’t enough evidence. The car was probably white, possibly a hatchback, its registration letters were PU M or N, and its rear nearside brake light was defective. But, beyond that, nothing.

  He used the internal telephone to tell Detective Constable Kerr to come along to his office, then studied the next report which dealt with a breaking and entering.

  There was a knock on the door. “Morning, sir,” said Kerr, as he entered.

  “I suppose it could be,” said Fusil wearily. “Did you get some sleep?”

  “A couple of hours in the end.”

  He looked as if he’d enjoyed a full night’s sleep. You could take it when you were young, thought Fusil, with the resentful feelings of someone who could see his middle age creeping up faster and faster. “Grab a seat and tell me how you reckon the hit-and-run case looks now.”

  Kerr sat and took from his pocket a notebook which he opened but did not often refer to. “When I got to the point of the incident in Fetch Road — it’s just before the bend where…”

  “Yeah. I’ve placed it from the sketch.”

  “P.C. Spicer and I checked the area. He’d found a tyre print a hundred and fifty yards back from the collision point. There’s no certainty it’s relevant, but I had it photographed. Near the bike — which is down in the vehicle search bay: they’ve found some foreign paint flecks on it — were several slithers of glass. They look like headlight glass. There weren’t any skid marks, so the driver can’t have panic-braked — the Parsons say he didn’t brake at all until after the accident.”

  “Probably drunk,” said Fusil, with contempt.

  “I’ve been on to Central and they say Evans suffered no serious damage to his head. His leg’s been operated on and his condition this morning is satisfactory.”

  “Satisfactory for whom?” muttered Fusil. “I often wonder. So what’s the prognosis?”

  “Barring unforeseen complications, he should recover.”

  “Then it’s not a homicide.” Although he would never have put it in such bald terms, the case was now far less important. Had all other things been equal, Fusil would have pursued this investigation with the same sharp intensity of effort as any other because he saw no difference in criminals: only degrees in their criminality. But all other things never were equal. Many more crimes were committed than there was time available fully to investigate them and so there had to be priorities. Often these priorities — the police were more and more being forced to be seen to succeed — were pragmatically assessed, being based on the probabilities of solving the crimes concerned. Hit-and-run cases, where the eyewitness evidence was poor, were notoriously difficult to solve,

  “I’ve drawn up a V.R.N. for you to O.K.,” said Kerr. He passed a half-sheet of paper to Fusil.

  Fusil quickly checked the Vehicle Repair Notice, which would be copied and sent out to all known vehicle-repair shops and garages in the borough. (The county would be asked to circulate the same notice if there were no results from borough.) The police were interested in a small saloon, possibly a hatchback, white, registration letters PU M or N, nearside brake light possibly inoperative, headlight believed broken. “That’s all right. As far as it goes.” He wasn’t criticising the notice, but complaining about the fact that so many repairs could now be carried out on a D.I.Y. basis.

  “We may be lucky enough to have the driver going to a local garage for the headlight unit.”

  Did it worry Kerr that the odds were against this? wondered Fusil. Kerr had matured since joining the Fortrow police, yet he was still rather happy-go-lucky in character and didn’t work with a really sharp edge. Though perhaps he was lucky in that. A sharp edge made a detective good at his work, but it could also make him bad because when a case aroused personal emotions he might go beyond his brief in trying to solve it, even being ready to bend the facts to meet what he believed to be the truth. “Keep in touch with the hospital. Their prognosis could be wrong and this could turn into manslaughter.”

  Kerr left. Fusil picked up his pipe and filled it with tobacco from the battered and stained pouch. He pictured a man in hospital, tortured by pain, who was suffering because someone had drunk too much. Then his mind switched tracks. A nearby supermarket reported it was losing a small fortune every week and nothing the senior staff could think of doing pinpointed the source of the loss. Start by questioning the manager, thought Fusil sardonically.

  *

  By Wednesday of the following week, Evans, considering his right leg was in traction, was feeling reasonably cheerful and the Parsons would have been astonished to see him since their memories were of a corpse-like figure stretched out on the grass verge.

  Kerr arrived at the hospital at ten in the morning and went up to the main men’s surgical ward. The ward sister tried to make it clear she did not welcome visits, even by the police, outside regular visiting hours, but Kerr was far too ebullient a character to worry about her professional feelings.

  “Sorry to bother you again,” said Kerr breezily, as he sat at Evans’s bedside.

  “That’s all right, mister. Matter of fact, it’s nice to have someone to come in and talk. Since the missus died I’ve not been seeing many people and it’s only Mrs Barlowe comes here to see me.” He chuckled. “And I don’t know whether it wouldn’t be easier entirely on me own. She’d talk all the legs off a donkey.” Evans shifted his position and there was a creak from the pulleys above his leg. “Gawd! I’ll treat myself to a pint or two when they let me out of this contraption.”

  “Is the leg still hurting a lot?”

  “It gives me a kick now and then to remind m
e, but it could be worse.”

  “Let’s hope it soon calms right down… Mr Evans, I want to know if you’ve been able to remember anything more about the accident?”

  “No. How can I? Like I told you, one minute I was riding me bike, the next I was flying, then I woke up in this hospital feeling like I’d just died.”

  “You haven’t any memories at all of the car?”

  “Didn’t see it, did I?”

  “But did it make any sort of special noise, like it was really hotted up, or did it squeak and groan as if about to fall apart?”

  “I’d be lying, mister, if I said I heard anything but just a car.”

  Kerr, who’d not expected to learn anything fresh, looked at his watch. “That’s it, then. Still, it was worth the asking. Hope you get better fast, Mr Evans, and have an extra pint for me when they let you out of the rack.” He stood up.

  “Not going to nab the bloke what did this to me, are you?”

  “It’s far too early to say that. Not that it’s an easy one. The Parsons, who were behind the other car and stopped and got someone to telephone the police, haven’t been able to tell us very much more than you. But one never knows… We may still strike lucky.”

  Kerr said goodbye and left. Back in his car, he lit a cigarette. It was going to be an unsolved case. Unlike Fusil, he accepted that fact without any sense of bitter frustration. By the law of averages, a proportion of all cases must remain unsolved. And never having been one to butt his head against a brick wall, he did not waste time vainly wishing the world was other than it was.

  *

  The forensic laboratory, in the county capital of Barstone, telephoned on Friday. Detective Sergeant Braddon took the call.

  Braddon, at forty-six, was nearing the end of his police career. He didn’t resent that fact, any more than he resented the fact that he’d never gained further promotion. Completely honest even about himself, he was able to judge that although he made a good detective sergeant, he would have made a bad detective inspector. He was the solid plodder, prepared to take endless pains, not the man of drive and original ideas: he had initiative, else he would never have joined the C.I.D., but it was rather pedestrian in quality.