‘This afternoon the C.C. was here.’
‘Tell them to send me up some coffee and sandwiches, will you?’
Superintendent Stock had followed the current fashion of undress. He was sitting in his shirtsleeves and had removed both shoes and socks. An electric fan buzzed at the corner of his desk; he was nursing, with little enthusiasm, a glass of canteen lemonade.
‘My God, what a scorcher it’s been!’
There were times when even homicide had to take second place.
‘You’d think, out there at the coast…’
‘It couldn’t have been hotter than it’s been in Wendham.’
Dyson sat, spreading his legs. Perhaps it was a shower he needed most! He felt in his pocket for his cigarettes, then changed his mind in a wave of loathing. The super waited patiently, tipping his glass now and then.
‘I can’t see us making an early arrest.’
‘That’s what I was afraid of… I had to admit it to the C.C.’
‘Her boss, or whatever he is, he seems the best bet. But there’s nothing to tie him in, nor the young fellow either. Or six or seven others who had been making passes at her.’
‘Like that, was it?’
‘She was a pin-up all right.’
‘Let’s go over the ground carefully.’
Dyson nodded, raking at his sodden shirt.
‘Rachel Campion, single, age twenty-eight, resident at West Hampstead for the past two years. According to this Mixer, she’d been his private secretary, but he doesn’t seem to know a lot about her antecedents. They arrived at the Bel-Air guest house last Saturday week. They had adjacent rooms and were staying a fortnight. Campion made a big splash with all the males in the place, and she was seen in the company of a young fellow called Simmonds. He calls himself a painter and is camping on the marrams.
‘Last night there was a filmshow at the next village, Hamby. Most of the guests went to it in transport provided by the guest house. They left at six-thirty and arrived back at about eleven-fifteen, but Mixer didn’t go with them and neither did Campion. Mixer says he went to Starmouth to see a show on the pier. He was driving his own car and left the guest house at six-twenty. They’d given him a door key so that he could let himself in, and the bartender vouches that he was back soon after midnight.
‘Campion, on the other hand, spent the evening at the guest house. She was there for dinner and had a drink at half past nine. After that nobody saw her again, but the impression is that she went to her room. During the evening she was wearing the beach-pyjamas in which she was found later.
‘At midnight the fishing boats put out, and returned at around four a.m. The men were busy unloading and getting their nets out until approximately five-thirty. At just after seven the local poacher found Campion’s body. It was lying partly hidden between two of the boats. Mears, the village constable, saw it at seven-thirty-five: he made a note of the fact that the pyjamas were damp, which suggests that the body had been exposed all night.
‘The medical report-’ Dyson paused. ‘I expect you’ve seen it. She probably wasn’t raped, though she’d been with a man not long before. Death was effected by strangulation. The strangulation was violent. She was killed around midnight, roughly between eleven p.m. and one a.m. Some of the nails are bent back but nothing useful has been recovered from them.
‘Those are the principal facts that have come to light today. As I said, an early arrest doesn’t seem very likely.’
‘Hmm.’
The super twisted his empty glass between his fingers. In spite of the fan, there was a gleam of sweat on his forehead. A constable with his collar undone brought in a tray with Dyson’s sandwiches. Through the open window came the noise of traffic in the High Street.
‘There’s a number of interesting points there, Dyson.’
Dyson ate without appetite, grunting when he tasted the coffee.
‘In the first place, where was the body all night? and why did someone get up early to put it where it was found?’
‘I’ve been thinking about that.’
‘Then this other point… about the man.’
‘It struck me directly I saw the report.’
‘Perhaps you’d better give me your ideas.’
Illogically, it seemed to Dyson that the fan was stealing his air. He got up and took his tray to the illusive relief of the thrown-up window. Outside it was nearly dark. A violet tint had deepened the sky. The super had switched on his desk lamp soon after Dyson had entered the office.
‘Doesn’t it look like a crime passionel? All the makings are there, I’d say! An attractive woman — her jealous boss — several interested males — and now this medical evidence. Mixer found her with a bloke when he came back from Starmouth… and there you are. That’s how I see it.’
‘He admits she was his mistress?’
‘Naturally not! But he’s lying his head off. A business man doesn’t take a poppet like that on vacation for nothing.’
‘What’s he like, this Mixer chap?’
‘A flashy type; a bit of a spiv.’
‘What’s his business?’
‘Company promoting — which could mean anything under the sun. He gives a business address in the City… possibly Records could tell us something.’
The super nodded sagely.
‘He seems to fit the bill. What about the bloke she was with — any idea who he might have been?’
‘That’s the trouble. It might have been anyone.’
‘What about Simmonds?’
‘I gave him a grilling. He admitted he’d spoken to her on the beach once or twice, but I’d heard that up at the guest house already.’
‘Was he lying, do you think?’
‘He was nervous. I couldn’t tell.’
‘And you questioned some of the others?’
‘Four or five of them at the guest house. But it adds up the same way — none of them will admit anything. And you can’t narrow it down to Simmonds and the guest house.’
Dyson gulped some of his vile coffee and reached for another sandwich. Only one thing mattered in this business, he knew. He had put it first: no arrest was imminent. Once you’d said that the rest was very largely…
‘Well, I suppose it’s not important, though it might have helped the case. What was your idea about the body being left outside all night?’
‘It’s to do with the tide, I think. He was going to dump it in the sea.’
‘How did the tide affect that?’
‘It was flooding when he got down there. As I see it he made his first attempt soon after he did the murder. He drove the body down to the beach but found the fishermen there launching their boats. So he parked it somewhere handy — that accounts for the damp pyjamas. Later on, when he tried again, the tide was flooding and he’d lost his chance.’
‘So he left it by the boats.’
‘You have to remember that it was daylight. He probably came on foot, and a body is heavy in any case.’
The super massaged his chin with fingers that were moist.
His beard, he noticed, felt scruffier in hot weather than at other times.
‘You checked his car, I suppose?’
‘It’s a Citroen. It was clean enough.’
‘Anyone see it or hear it at the relevant times?’
‘Nobody I’ve questioned yet.’
