Field of Fire Read online

  “’Ow d’you mean, Titch?”

  Napier smiled. It still amused him to discover just how slow was Joyce’s mind.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The telephone rang. Matilda Appleton looked across the room. “You’d better answer that, Eric.”

  He wondered whether to point out it was probably for her, since Clara usually rang at about this time, but finally kept silent, as he usually did. Bitter experience had taught him that the easiest way through life was to do as she said.

  He left the sitting-room and went into the hall. The telephone was on a corner shelf, together with a small tank of tropical fish.

  “’Ullo, Eric. Seen any nice photos recent?”

  He stared wildly at the sitting-room door to make certain it was shut. He’d believed the ghastly nightmare was almost over, yet now . . . now the crude, jeering voice told him it wasn’t. “What . . .? Who is it? he asked, his voice thick.

  “The bleeding prime minister.” There was a hoarse chuckle, as if that really had been humorous. “I wants a word with you, Eric boy, so take a walk to the end of your road.”

  “D’you mean now?”

  “Unless you wants them photos on show?”

  He slowly replaced the receiver with shaking hands. What did they want this time? Money? He hadn’t any. Another heart-stopping order to break into a desk?

  He returned to the sitting-room and said he was going out just for a few minutes.

  “Where?” demanded Matilda. Had she married a man of different character, she would probably have made him a warm, loving wife: but early in marriage she’d been disgusted by her husband’s strange sexual appetites and now she seldom missed a chance to humiliate him.

  “I want to post a letter,” he said.

  “You’ve missed the last post.”

  He flapped his arms. “It doesn’t matter. I feel like a bit of exercise.”

  “That’s unusual.” she studied him closely. “Who was that on the phone?”

  “Tom.”

  “Him! I do wish he wouldn’t keep bothering us. You might tell him that.”

  “Yes, dear.” He’d managed to divert her attention by mentioning Tom: she thought the other man a crude fool. He left the room.

  There was little traffic along the road at night and only a couple of cars had passed him by the time he reached the end. Few cars were parked because all the houses had garages and so he immediately identified the waiting Ford. His footsteps dragged. Vainly and stupidly his mind filled with the desperate wish that he’d never gone to Melissa Lockwood’s

  The near-side door of the Ford opened. There was enough light from a nearby street lamp for him to see that the driver was young and smooth and the man in the back seat was large, ugly in a granite-like way, and obviously tough. He was ordered inside.

  The car drove away from the pavement quickly and smoothly. He asked in a quavering voice what they wanted, but the answer he got was an unintelligible grunt from the man by his side. He stared through the windows, very frightened though not for the right reasons, and followed out their route along roads he knew well. They left Fortrow and drove up into the hills and when they reached a small plantation of conifers that bordered the road, they stopped. He was ordered out of the car.

  There was a fire-break running through the centre of the plantation and they went along this for a hundred yards, then stopped.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, yet again. “Why have you brought me here?”

  Joyce grabbed Appleton’s hair and yanked his head back to stretch his throat. He sliced hard and expertly just above the Adam’s apple with a ham knife with a nine-inch-long blade and threw the body sideways before the blood could shower him. Appleton made a curious bubbling noise, which rose and fell with a short rhythm, clawed at his throat, and thrashed his legs. It was a surprisingly long time before he was quite still.

  *

  Matilda Appleton’s feelings for her husband were not exclusively hatred or dislike. A sense of duty and conformity made certain she kept the house running smoothly, but more than that she still sometimes knew a tired, reluctant, affection for him — when not faced with his physical demands — that could have warmed into love as they’d once known if only he’d had the wit to cultivate it. He’d been gone only a quarter of an hour when she started to worry. The post-box was just around the corner and he shouldn’t have been away more than five minutes at the most. Briefly she wondered if he could have gone on to a pub for a drink, but she immediately dismissed the idea: that wasn’t his style.

  With half an hour gone, her mind was filled with pictures of his slipping and breaking a hip and no one around to help. A quarter of an hour after that, she dialled 999 and told the police her husband was missing.

  A uniformed P.C. from a patrol car arrived to learn the full details. He couldn’t quite hide his belief, though he politely did his best, that it was a complete storm in a teacup, since even now it was only just after eleven o’clock. But she knew Eric would never have stayed away that long unless something terrible had happened to him.

  Two local uniformed policemen arrived, made notes, and said all hospitals were being contacted to see if her husband had been admitted and that the constables on patrol in the vicinity were being questioned to discover if they knew of any unusual incident. The P.C. from the car left. The remaining two asked the same questions repeatedly and she began to cry because she became quite certain she’d never convince them how serious it all was.

  A W.P.C. was called and at three in the morning she telephoned for a doctor who came and sedated Matilda. Those who believed her to be a woman incapable of normal emotions would have been astonished to learn how much she was suffering.

  *

  Fusil read through the report at eight-forty-seven the next morning. Eric Appleton, of Kingshorn, South Flecton, had left his house at around ten o’clock the previous night and had not returned.

  He scraped out the bowl of his pipe with the small blade of a penknife. One of two things had happened. Appleton, scared his wife would uncover his relationship with the Lockwood woman, had cleared out from home or the villains had grabbed him because the questioning of Melissa Lockwood by the police had made it clear to them that he’d confessed at least part of what he knew.

  He shredded tobacco and filled the bowl with slow care. The villains were using violence with a frightening frequency: frightening because violence could sometimes only be contained by greater violence and this the police could never employ. Once again, he was depressed by the thought that a mob as vicious and cunning as this one stood every chance of carrying out a successful assassination.

  Kywood telephoned. Fusil mustn’t forget the conference at eleven with the chief constable and Detective Superintendent Dalby, who was coming down from London. Fusil said he hadn’t forgotten but that he didn’t know if he’d be able to attend because Appleton was missing and it was probably best to accept the fact that he’d been killed.

  “You’re saying there’s been another murder?” shouted Kywood.

  Fusil held the earpiece away from his ear. “I’m saying that at the moment it looks likely.”

  “God Almighty! What’s going on in your division?”

  Fusil tamped down the tobacco with his right forefinger.

  “What kind of publicity d’you think we’re going to get from this? Especially after Parsons’ murder. And have you got anywhere at all with that?”

  “I sent you a report last night.”

  “You call that a report when it’s reporting nothing? Why haven’t you hauled in all known villains and questioned ’em? Someone must know something.”

  “Even if that’s true, there’s no pressure that we can apply now that’ll make ’em talk.”

  “Look here, Bob, you’re not going to get anywhere if all you can do is admit defeat. What the hell . . .?”

  Fusil put down the receiver on the desk and lit his pipe. Kywood was panicking, worried stiff he’d be held to blame
as well as his D.I. for lack of any discernible progress.

  *

  Kerr pinned the poster on the notice-board in the general room. Under a poor photo of a girl was her physical description and the information that she’d been missing from her home in Doncaster since January and was possibly in the south. He studied the photo. She had a cheerful face. Was she still cheerful, glad to be away from home? Or had she suffered as so many girls suffered who were wrongly certain they knew all the answers? He remembered the sixteen-year-old they’d rescued two months ago from the clutches of a pimp by the old docks. Earning up to fifty pounds a day for the pimp and terrified and sick. Hooked on heroin before she’d known what was happening.

  He sat down. Sometimes, it was difficult for a detective to remember that he saw a necessarily twisted picture of life and that it was not all crime and suffering. At such times, nothing was more valuable to him than a happy home.

  He looked through the crime reports Braddon had put on his table and decided he’d never cover them all. Yarrow and Rowan came into the room. Yarrow was all smooth confidence, detailing his success of the previous morning in identifying the traitor at the town hall. Rowan was in one of his more sullen moods, saying little except to argue. Braddon, far from his usual even-tempered self through pressure of work, hurried in, looked round, and demanded to know why everyone was loafing. Brusquely, he ordered Kerr to get moving. Kerr said he’d some phone calls to make on Fusil’s orders, then had to detail them to a very suspicious Braddon. When he’d finished, he wondered with some unease whether Braddon would remember to check them out with Fusil.

  Braddon left, closely followed by Rowan and Yarrow. Kerr telephoned Mrs. Sydmonds. She had the kind of voice that immediately brought to mind visions of crooked little fingers at vicars’ tea parties. “You’re telephoning from Fortrow? But why are you interested in my poor husband’s death?”

  “We can’t be certain, Mrs. Sydmonds, but there might just be a connexion between his death and a case down here. I do apologise for troubling you at such an unhappy time . . . Will you tell me — d’you believe he could have been drinking as heavily as the medical tests suggested?”

  “No.” Her voice was very sharp. “I’m quite sure he couldn’t. Paul never drank very much. I . . . I don’t care what they say.” The sharpness had given way to obvious distress.

  “But he did have a bottle of whisky in the car.”

  “Even if he did, he wasn’t the kind of man to sit there and drink it on his own.”

  “Have you any idea why he was driving down Burton Hill? Was he visiting someone in the district?”

  “As I kept telling the police up here, only they wouldn’t listen to me, he’d no reason at all for being there at that time of night.”

  “Mrs. Sydmonds, does the name of Swaithe mean anything to you: Ted Swaithe?”

  “I . . . I’m not certain. It seems vaguely familiar, but I can’t think why. I’m afraid I’m not remembering too well at the moment.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, with obvious sincerity. “You wouldn’t know if your husband received a parcel from Ted Swaithe a little time back?”

  “No.”

  “As your husband was a research chemist, it seems this parcel could have had something to do with his work. Perhaps in connexion with a new drug called D.G.H.”

  There was a long pause. “There was a small parcel with some fine powder in it that Paul talked about going to check. He opened it at the breakfast table and a little spilled out.”

  “What was it like? Do you remember the colour?”

  “No. As I’ve told you, I can’t remember many things: the doctor says it’s maybe the pills he’s giving me.”

  “Your husband didn’t say where the parcel had come from?”

  “I don’t think so. He didn’t often talk about his work to me because I couldn’t understand most of it.”

  “Is there any chance of the powder still being around the house?”

  “I doubt it. Since he . . . Since then, I’ve been cleaning up. You see, I’ve got to sell because I shan’t be able to afford to stay here any longer.”

  As he thanked her and rang off, he thought of her having to clean up the house she knew she could no longer live in. Life could turn very sour, very quickly.

  He dialled the number of the police doctor. Hell, he thought, he needed at least a fortnight’s cruise to the Azores to cheer him up. The police doctor said he was very rushed.

  “Can you tell me anything about the new drug, D.G.H., sir? It’s for bilharzia.”

  “Not much, and not even that without checking because you’re right outside my province. Can’t you worry someone who’s stronger on tropical diseases?”

  “I was told to speak to you about it,” lied Kerr.

  “They seem to think I’ve nothing else to do,” muttered the doctor. “Hang on, then, and I’ll see what I can find out.”

  The wait became a long one. Kerr imagined the Azores, rocky islands girt by sun-drenched sea, offering golden sands . . . ‘Oil my back, all of it. I don’t want any strap marks.’ He unclipped the top of her minimum bikini and the straps fell away on either side of her nut-brown, satin-skinned body. He oiled her back, rubbing his hands gently up and down. Suddenly, she moaned gently and then began to move her body in a rhythm that could not be mistaken . . .

  “Are you there?” demanded the doctor.

  Almost not, thought Kerr regretfully. “Yes, sir.”

  “D.G.H. is a new drug, synthetic, that’s expected to give very good results against vesical schistosomiasis. It’s in field use now. The cure rate in the acute stage of bilharzia is claimed to be three times as good as with any previously known drug and in the chronic stage, twice as good. The main drawback is cost. It’s a long and complicated manufacturing process and follows years of expensive research . . . There was a bit of a row on the international level recently, with the underdeveloped countries who suffer so badly from bilharzia accusing our manufacturers of making vast fortunes out of their sick. That’s not true, of course, but it’s very difficult to explain things to anyone who takes an emotional viewpoint from the beginning.”

  “What’s the drug like?”

  “D’you mean its consistency? It’s a powder, described as fine, that’s mixed into solution before being administered intramuscularly.”

  “Have you any idea what it costs by weight?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  Kerr asked a few more questions, thanked the doctor, and then rang off. A fairly fine white powder . . . Mrs Sydmonds thought she remembered a package which had contained a fine powder of some unknown colour . . . A letter suggesting something had been sent to a man called Sydmonds and that that something was connected with D.G.H. . . . A piece of chewing-gum in Swaithe’s car, a piece of chewing-gum in Sydmond’s car . . . A car that crashed into the dock, a car that crashed on a hill, both drivers very drunk yet in one case almost certainly not a heavy drinker . . . Both front windows of one car down on a night when few would have driven with even one partially open . . .

  Fusil hurried into the room, stopped, and stared at Kerr. “It’s odd, but I thought we were very busy. I must be wrong.”

  When the D.I. bothered to be sarcastic it meant he was in a hell of a mood. Kerr answered hastily. “I was considering the telephone call I’ve just made, sir.”

  “What call?”

  “To Mrs. Sydmonds, up in Lincoln.”

  Fusil had a way of narrowing his eyes when he became really angry: they narrowed now.

  Hastily, Kerr gave him the gist of what Mrs. Sydmonds had said. “I know it still leaves the connexion thin, but . . .”

  “Thin?” It’s so thin you can see right through it.” But Fusil’s eyes had resumed their normal shape and after a moment he sat down on the edge of Rowan’s desk. It was so easy to persuade ambiguous facts to slot into a theory, he thought. From the beginning, Kerr had formed a theory regarding the fatal car accident down at the docks and since then he
’d slotted in numerous facts. Yet instinct had to play a part in detection and Fusil was beginning to experience the instinct that Kerr might be on to something. The D.I. was far more interested in chasing justice than in trying to prove himself right and although he had previously always derided Kerr’s tenuous theory, he now didn’t hesitate to admit he was beginning to believe there might be some truth in it. “Track back through Swaithe’s work and see if you can pick up anything there. Get on to the Lincoln police and ask them to question Mrs. Sydmonds more closely over the powder and to question the people where he worked.”

  “Right sir.”

  “What jobs have you got outstanding?”

  Kerr picked up the pile of crime reports from his table. “These are all the fresh ones.”

  “Tell Sergeant Braddon to detail someone else to handle them.”

  Now he was going to be really popular, thought Kerr.

  *

  The forester came out on to the firebreak and stared up it, to see an untidy bundle in the distance which made him swear because he thought it was rubbish, dumped during the night. He carried his swipe at the trail as he walked towards the road. When halfway to the bundle, he identified it as a body. Since it was absurd to think that in such a place this could be someone sleeping, it had to be someone in grave physical trouble. He knew a sudden tension.

  When he saw the man’s contorted face, and the ghastly wound in the throat, he was sick.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Fusil stared down at Appleton’s body and knew compassion. Appleton hadn’t deserved to die: his only real sin had been his relationship with Melissa Lockwood and everything else had unforeseeably stemmed from that. He must shortly go and tell Mrs. Appleton that her husband had been found, murdered. He could have delegated the job, but wouldn’t.

  They’d murdered unnecessarily, he thought, since even if Appleton had finally confessed to everything, it was unlikely he could have told the police much. But they took no chances, killing with a chilling casualness. A potential danger was best removed, without bothering to check up on the facts.