Chapter 24 - The fat guys

Saturday

It took willpower for Cleo and Gary to call the night a day and exchange their warm duvet for a hot shower followed by a ‘Continental’ breakfast. Then they raced to collect Dorothy for the trip to HQ.

***

Gary was often amused at the way women could take on other people’s tribulations. In this case it was their united concern for Edith Parsnip, whom Gary thought was a rather colourless, uniteresting person and so thin that you could snap her into two if you had a mind to. He would not have been amused to know that he himself had been the subject of much speculation in recent months, especially during the time around PeggySue’s birth when Cleo had sworn to be loyal to Robert, and now here he was, actually planning by default a future for the guy.

“Life is a bit like musical chairs,” Dorothy said when Gary and Cleo had regaled her with their breakfast conversation, which had included complaining about rock-hard boiled eggs and dreadful coffee. Calling the breakfast ‘Continental’ was an insult to the croissants and beautiful pastries you could get across the English Channel.

“Whatever made you think of musical chairs, Dorothy?” said Gary.

***

“We Welsh prefer tea,” the waitress, a pretty girl with an Slavian accent, had told them. “I can get you some and the fried eggs aren’t bad.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Gary had replied. “I don’t eat bad eggs.”

Cleo had been forced to berate Gary for making a pun a foreigner might not understand, and Dorothy had to remind him that if he’d been the foreigner and she had made a stupid joke he didn’t even understand properly, he would be offended.

“The Welsh aren’t foreigners in the true sense, Dorothy.”

“The official language of Wales is English,” she maintained. “Welsh is cultivated out of defiance,” said Dorothy.

“You’d bette not say that out loud among the Welsh. They have a heritage they are proud of,” Gary felt bound to say.

“Can we stop arguing now?” said Cleo. “The waitress was not Welsh. I’d say she came from somewhere like Poland. Her accent had no trace of Welsh in it.”

“We half or even quarter Indians have Welsh accents,” said Gary. “It’s from the lilt of Hindi.”

“You don’t speak Hindi, do you?” said Dorothy.

“I haven’t got a Welsh accent either.”

“Can you guys stop the small talk now?”

***

“Getting back to Beethoven, what about the musical chairs, Dorothy?” said Gary.

“I’m not talking about Beethove,” said Dorothy, and Cleo apologized for him.

“He’s in a strange mood, Dorothy. Take no notice.”

Dorothy took Cleo’s advice.

“The thing is that you go round and round till the music stops and there’s a chair for everyone except one because someone takes one away after each round. The older you get, the fewer chairs there are.”

“That’s depressing,” said Cleo.

“That’s weird,” said Gary. “I’ve never thought of life in that light and I can’t remember ever being compared with a chair.”

***

“Can we please talk about the interviews now, you guys?

“ What  good idea,” said Gary. “I assume you both want to be in the room this time.

“Do we, Dorothy?”

“You bet,” said Dorothy

***

Dr Amar Smith was not amused that he had been in a cell ever since his arrest.

“My wife will leave me,” he whined, “and my job is on the line thanks to your fantasy accusation.”

“As I said before, you should have thought of that before you phoned that hostess agency,” said Gary.

“You can’t keep me here forever.”

“We just want to get at the truth, Dr Smith. We can’t have potential rapists running around free.”

“Then go out and find some. I’m not one of them.”

“You already have two convictions for attempted rape, Dr Smith.”

“Both were unjust. They were women determined to marry a doctor and taking revenge for not landing. Have you never been in that kind of trap?”

“No, Dr Smith. Coppers don’t make eligible bachelors.”

“And women don’t always tell the truth, but get the benefit of the doubt in rape cases.”

“I agree with you, Dr Smith, but Angie’s report of what happened is credible. She’s a young lady with a steady job who wanted to earn some extra money.”

“So she gets a job at an agency that hires out prostituting hostesses,” Dr Smith said. “I doubt if she’s as respectable as you’d like to think.”

“Did you ask her if she was a hooker?” Cleo asked. She had not been planning to join in the questioning, but she had decided that Dr Smith was naïve rather than criminally minded.

“No, but the agency almost said as much.”

“Then you can’t have made it plain enough that you needed someone to take to that official dinner, Dr Smith,” Dorothy said.

“Or you made your inquiries in such a way as to give the impression that you wanted an erotic adventure,” said Cleo. “You could have refused to go along with the hooker alias hostess if you were not in agreement.”

Dr Smith looked started that his unwanted audience was even allowed to ask questions.

“Who are these women?” he asked.

“Miss Hartley is my wife and assistant and Miss Price is her assistant, Dr Smith.”

“Assistant what?”

“Private investigators who are helping to solve the seaside cases.”

“What seaside cases?”

“We’ll come to that presently,” said Gary.

“Well, I swear I didn’t ask for a prostitute, though I was a little surprised that our rendezvous was set in that pub. Then, when I saw how the girl was dressed, I was sure she was a – what did you say? – hooker, so I decided I might as well make the most of it.”

“But you already knew about the beachhut, Dr Smith,” said Dorothy. “That certainly makes it seem that you had planned your date around the idea that the girl would be willing and able.”

“And that would be a positive finding, Dr Smith,” said Cleo. “It would make your story about not having compromised the girl more authentic.”

“You have a point there, Cleo,” said Gary. “You see, Dr Smith, not all women are in the opposition.”

“Miss Ealing claims that she was not hired as a hooker, Dr Smith,” said Cleo. “In fact, that disreputable agency tried to make us believe that it is respectable.”

“What really bothers me is that you believe the Angie person, but you do not believe me,” said Dr Smith.

“I believe you,” said Dorothy. “I believe that this Angie person acted as if she were a hooker. She gave you the impression that she was willing to have sex with you. Is that not so, Dr Smith?”

Dr Smith thought for a moment before answering. He was warming to the two Ladies. That cop seemed determined to put him in the dock.

“It was the way she was dressed that convinced me and she was quite happy to go to that beachhut. In fact I’d say she was flattered.”

“Because you have a doctor title? That’s certainly possible,” said Cleo.

***

Gary was starting to think Smith was a victim of circumstances. If he thought he was hiring a prostitute, he had not overstepped the limits. The girl had reacted immediately and made her escape. Gary could not pin the crime of rape on him, because he hadn’t committed rape. Angie had said so.

***

“If I let you go free, what will you do, Dr Smith?” asked Gary.

“I’ll tell you what I won’t do, and that is ask an agency to fix me another date. I’d rather attend my next conference and go to receptions on my own.”

“Then you’d better get moving, hadn’t you?” said Gary. “You’ve had time to think things through and I’m inclined to believe your story, or at least give you the benefit of the doubt. Go back to your cell and pack your stuff. I’ll see to the paperwork and then you can go.”

Dr Smith was escorted back to his cell by a guard.

***

Gary told everyone present that he could not get the man charged with assault unless he had evidence, and the accusation made by a hysterical woman who dressed like a prostitute and went willingly to a relatively isolated location where she must have known that the guy who hired her would make a pass at her was unconvincing. Her violence did not prove that she was in trouble. In fact, she obviously had the skill to defend herself. The hysteria was faked.

“I’ll take another look at Angie,” said Gary. “Is she really as innocent as she makes out?”

***

“What happens now, Mr Hurley,” O'Reilly wanted to know.

“As a precaution I want Dr Smith trailed until he leaves the district on a fast train.”

“Why? You’ve let him go.”

“If he’s guilty he’ll try to find Angie again,” said Gary. “He did not rape her, but he might be revengeful and try to punish her for contacting the police. Angie might be in danger. If Dr Smith stalks her instead of leaving town on the first train, he’s probably up to something.”

“He should be moving on to his next congress,” remarked Dorothy.

“That would be the wisest thing he could do under the circumstances,” said Gary. “I may be misjudging him, but on the other hand, Dr Smith may be even more keen to lay Angie than he was before.”

“I’ll get him trailed,” said O’Reilly. “Better safe than sorry.”

“And get Angie Ealing observed, O’Reilly. It would be nice to know if she really is as innocent as she makes out.”

***

After a short break, Sergeant Llewellyn was brought in for questioning. He had indeed been in his lodgings and was prepared to come along if did not look like he was being brought compulsorily. Cleo and Dorothy had decided not to be in the interview room, but positioned themselves behind the one-way glass panel. Gary had an ear microphone through which he could hear any comments or suggestions from the listeners. O’Reilly joined Cleo and Dorothy behind the glass. He was surprised that Gary’s professional contact with the two amateur sleuths was so close.

“We have a tremendous working partnership,” Cleo told O’Reilly. “It goes back to long before we started sleeping together.”

“I see,” said O’Reilly. He had had no experience of female sleuths and certainly would never have divulged any of his private life as Miss Hartley had done.

***

Cleo was angry with herself for revealing her intimate relations with Gary. O’Reilly was puzzled. If she and Hurley were married, why did she have to say anything? Then it occurred to him that she must want to be taken seriously as a sleuth by making it clear that she separated business from pleasure. She was a wife and a sleuth, not just one or the other. And she had been a sleuth before her relations with Gary had started, so she was not under his protection or tied to him professionally.

***

Llewellyn was brought in. Cleo wondered how Gary would start off, but she didn’t have long to wait.

“Did you kill Susie Sweet?” Gary asked and Llewellyn looked startled. Gary did not apply any of the warming up chat that in which Llewellyn indulged. There was a moment’s stunned silence before the sergeant replied.

“No. What makes you think I would?”

“You were the last person to see her alive, Sergeant,” said Gary.

“No I wasn’t. The last person to see her alive was the person who killed her.”

***

Dorothy was impressed. She had heard such dialogue in Movies, but the accused had usually been guilty. She must keep fact and fiction separate.

***

“If it wasn’t you, who was it then?” said Gary.

“How should I know? Have you asked those dog fanatics?”

“Which dog fanatics do you mean, Sergeant.”

“The men who prance around with their dogs and call themselves a society.”

“Do you mean ‘Woof’?”

“That’s it. Woof. I’ve had my eye on them for quite a while. A rum lot, if ever there was one. The one named Grant seems to be the leader of the pack. Check him out!”

Cleo remarked to Gary through the ear microphone that Llewellyn was surprisingly astute. Grant should also be questioned about Susan Smart. They had only concentrated on Ivy Frobisher, but what if Grant had also killed Miss Smart? He said he had found religion. Such men often try to stamp out prostitution because according to them it is morally reprehensible. Or they just hate women. Strangely enough, nobody seems to reproach the male clients who keep brothels in business.

Gary nodded his approval in the direction of the mirror.

“Who’s behind that glass?” Llewellyn wanted to know.

“Observers,” said Gary.

“That Lawyer woman? Or is she a prostitute?” said Llewellyn.

“Shall I come in?” Cleo said through the earphone.

“Do you want to talk t Miss Hartley?”

“No,” said Llewellyn. “I’ll bet you were surprised that she’s a part-time prostitute.”

“Not as surprised as you,” Gary replied enigmatically.

O’Reilly looked on puzzled. What wa going on?

***

“You don’t have your eye on anyone at the weekend, Sergeant, I’m sure.”

Sergeant Llewellyn looked puzzled.

Cleo commented through the earphone that the guy was out of his depth.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what I mean, Sergeant?” said Gary, giving the observers a sly wink.

“Well, what do you mean, man?” said Llewellyn.

“Chief Inspector to you, Sergeant.”

“If you expect me to bow and scrape, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“No, but I’d like you to tell the truth.”

“What about? Haven’t I told you that I did not kill Miss Sweet?”

“Why don’t we just go over what happened that night, Llewellyn.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Where did you meet up with her. At the brothel?”

Llewellyn’s pause before answering indicated that he was weighing up his options.

“Yes,” Llewellyn said finally.

“Were you a regular client there?”

“Yes.”

“And a regular client of Miss Sweet?”

“She was partial to me. She said she would marry me one day,” said Llewellyn.

That caused laughter on the other side of the one-way glass. Gary took the sergeant’s statement more seriously.

“So you considered yourself engaged to her, did you?”

“More or less.”

“But you went on paying for sex at the brothel, Sergeant. How do you equate that with being engaged to the girl?”

“She spent much more time with me than I paid for.”

“But that’s hardly a criterion, Sergeant.”

“It was for me.”

“After having sex at the brothel you went with her to the chip shop, did you not?”

“We were hungry. We always went there after…”

“Never mind the intimate details, Sergeant,” said Gary. “You were seen at the chip shop and served with food. What did you do then?”

“We decided to go to the beach and eat our fish and chips there.”

“And then you saw that one of the beachhuts was open, did you?”

“The door was not locked and it was starting to rain.”

“So you didn’t have an arrangement with Ivy Frobisher to use the beachhut. You just went in to shelter from the rain, I take it.”

“Yes. Susie said it would be all right. Ivy lets the girls use the huts.”

“I’m surprised that they are left open.”

“Somebody must have forgotten to lock it,” said Llewellyn.

“What happened then?”

“We didn’t have anything to drink, so I said I would walk round the corner to the coke machine and get us some.”

“Leaving Miss Sweet on her own in the beachhut?”

“Yes.”

***

It was slowly dawning on Llewellyn that he had no witnesses and enough opportunity to kill Susie Sweet, but instead of accusing the Sergeant outright, Gary merely said

“Let’s look back a year or two, Sergeant.”

Sergeant Llewellyn was now  completely out of his depth. Why had the Chief Inspector not pursued his first line of questioning?

“When you were in Ramsgate, did you also visit a brothel, Sergeant?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Well, what about Harrogate, or Weston-super-Mare?”

“Or Brighton,” Cleo chipped in.

“Or Brighton,” Gary echoed. “I’m sure they have excellent brothels.”

“What’s that to me?” said Llewellyn, his little eyes darting above flushed  cheeks.

“It might interest you to know that those are the seaside resorts where girls were killed in beachhuts in exactly the same way as Susie Sweet.”

“Were they? What’s that to me? I was there on my bike for HD meetings.”

“You were employed in Ramsgate, weren’t you?” said Gary, deciding that they had not really done their homework on other reasons for going to those places. “According to my information, you frequented an establishment in Ramsgate called “The Red Herring,” Llewellyn, and that was indubitably a brothel.”

“What if I did?”

“One night you went out of the establishment with one of the girls there and she was found dead next morning.”

“They tried to pin it on me thanks to a description that more or less fitted my stature, but I proved that I was somewhere else when it happened,” said Llewellyn. “I got an official apology for being under suspicion and the job here was offered to me so that I would not encounter any unpleasantness.

***

Gary was uneasy. He did not have enough background information on the sergeant and he was not sure if that information had been blocked. He decided to take a new line. Cleo had already commented that things were getting sticky.

***

“Back to Susie Sweet, Sergeant. Did you find her dead in the beachhut?”

“Yes.”

“I’m finding it hard to believe you.”

“You’d better or you’ll find yourself apologizing.”

“Was Miss Sweet blackmailing you?”

The look on Llewellyn’s face betrayed that Gary might have hit on a reason for the strange relationship between him and the hooker.

“Did she tell you something she knew about you and would make a deal not to tell anyone, Llewellyn?”

“No.”

“Was marriage part of the deal?”

“Susie just wanted to be respectable. There was no deal, Inspector.”

“I’m getting a bit tired of our conversation, Sergeant. I suggest you go back to your cell and think about things. In the meanwhile we will continue our investigations into those other beachhut killings and talk again on Monday or Tuesday.”

“I’ve got a clean slate,” said Llewellyn.

“I hope you have, Sergeant. We’ll also need to look into your involvement with Mr Macpherson and others at the Town Hall,” said Gary. “ After all, the police here seem to  close both eyes to corruption and probably help it along.”

“Clear me on the Susie case and I’ll co-operate on everything else.,” said the sergeant.

“I’m glad you said that, Sergeant, though I don’t go in for such deals. If you are innocent, you have nothing to be nervous about.”

“What I meant was that I know things about the Town Hall that might interest you,” said Llewellyn.

“OK. I can make a deal with you on that, but you will have to tell the truth about what happened with Miss Sweet, Llewellyn.”

***

“I’m sick of the whole business,” said Llewellyn. “I didn’t use to support corruption.”

“I want to tell you what I think actually happened to Susie Sweet,” said Gary.

“I don’t want to know,” the sergeant said.

Gary ignored that remark.

“You got back to the beachhut from getting the coke and found Miss Sweet strangulated but still alive. You whacked her over the head with the cricket bat you saw lying around in the hut. Then you left.”

“No!” said the sergeant. “You’d have to find prints on the bat and I didn’t touch it.”

“But you saw it, didn’t you?”

“So did the person who used it,” said Llewellyn. “And here’s a tip for you, Chief inspector: Dog-owners wear gloves.”

“Why did you say that?”

“Do that research I recommended and you’ll find out.”

“We will. Make no mistake about that, but you could help us along by explaining your role in Miss Sweet’s death.”

“I can’t admit something I did not do,” said the sergeant, who had more than once forced suspects to confess to crimes they had not committed.

“Of course, you might have seen someone leaving the beachhut. It was someone you and Miss Sweet both knew, and that person had decided that Miss Sweet would have to be silenced. Who did you see, Sergeant?”

“No one.”

“Don’t you realize that you will take the rap for the murderer if you don’t talk?”

“I’ll think about it. Take me to my cell,” said Llewellyn.

Gary nodded and the sergeant was led out.

***

The observers trooped back into the office.

“Wow!” said Cleo. “He’s really under pressure now.”

“We still don’t know what happened,” said Dorothy.

“I don’t think he killed Susie Sweet,” said Gary. “I don’t think his motive is strong enough.”

“What about Grant?” Cleo and Dorothy asked together.

“We’ll have to ask him.”

“I have a hunch,” said Dorothy.

“Go on!” said Gary.

“It’s only a hunch, Gary, and I’m not sure I should be mentioning it.”

“Can it wait, Dorothy?” Gary asked.

“Not really.-It’s all those coincidences, Gary. If I were writing a novel, I would avoid them because they are too obvious.”

“Go on!”

“I thought Llewellyn must be the murderer, but now I’m not so sure, and that story about the motorbike meetings is possible. Brass said Llewellyn was a bike fanatic.”

“Let’s give Llewellyn the weekend to think things over, Gary,” Cleo suggested.” If he has anything to say, I think he’ll say it then. Frank Wetherby can pursue the Town Hall business. He he has already done quite a lot of research. He can pull it all together and that will give him the respect he needs to work as a private sleuth in this town, though we can use him in Upper Grumpsfield.”

“OK,” said Gary. “I don’t think the police in this area know how valuable private eyes can be.”

“I think O’Reilly is finding out,” said Dorothy. “I’d like to talk to Vera before we drive back to Upper Grumpsfield if there’s time.”

“First you should tell us about your hunch, Dorothy,” said Gary.

“OK. If Llewellyn was mistaken for a killer  thanks to a description given by a witness or passer-by,  how would that witness have described someone else with a similar stature?”

“Meaning Dr Smith, Dorothy?” said Cleo.

“He might have been at those seaside resorts without a motorbike. I hope you are keeping an eye on him,” said Dorothy. “Remember, people don’t usually remember exactly what strangers looked like if they only saw them once, and all those seaside places have conference centres and other big venues to attract the delegates, who get their meetings with whiff of sea air and freedom.”

“You have me worried, Dorothy,” said Gary. “But now we should get back to the car and talk about the logistics for the rest of the  day. Our stuff is still in the hotel storeroom. We’ll need to collect that, too, Cleo, if we are driving home today. And we should book a room for Monday to Tuesday or Wednesday.”

***

On the way through the central HQ reception area, where O’Reilly was standing around after making sur Llewellan was tucked up safely in his cell, Gary thanked him for his support and said he would be back on Monday . They would discuss the case so far and he would see Llewellyn again on the Tuesday. He also told him that Dr Smith should be kept under observation but should not be aware of it. He would get his assistant to inspect the records of killings in seaside resorts with or without conferences ongoing at the time of each killing and with or without HD and other motorbike rallies.

“Nigel will have his work cut out,” Cleo remarked.

“If you drive I’ll phone him now and get the ball rolling,” said Gary.

“How exciting!” said Dorothy.