warm the image her words had created.
“Did he tell you where he went, or anything about the people he met?”
“Well, he didn’t actually mention places or names. He’d just say something about having to meet a contact, or what he called ‘one of our people’. Then at night—all night, quite often—he kept a watch on houses of people he’d been tipped off about...that’s what he said, wasn’t it, Gordon?”
Periam murmured: “That’s right, darl.” He appeared to be more interested in the next course, which was just then arriving. Purbright glanced without elation at the slices of de-natured chicken, awash in suspiciously brown and copious gravy; then involuntarily drew back as the waiter performed manual pirouettes in the process of depositing upon his plate portions of dropsical potato and tinned peas.
“Everything to your satisfaction, madam?” Bending low over Doreen’s shoulder, his face as stiff as a dead deacon’s, the waiter delivered the question into the top of her dress. Echo-sounding, thought Purbright idly.
“I’m afraid,” the inspector said a little later, “that I’m going to have to deprive you of Mr Hopjoy’s car.”
The honeymooners simultaneously stopped eating. “Oh, no!” Doreen’s fleshy little mouth tightened. “That’s not fair; Brian lent it to us specially.”
“I’m terribly sorry, but there it is. We’ll not keep it longer than is absolutely necessary.”
“But what’s the car to do with...with all this?”
“Perhaps nothing, Mr Periam. It’s just that policemen have no choice in the matter of leaving stones unturned.”
Doreen impatiently stabbed a piece of chicken. “You won’t find Brian in the boot, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Purbright looked at her and sighed. “You know, Mrs Periam, I hate to be solemn at meal times, but I feel it’s only proper to tell you—as I told your husband this morning—that we are quite seriously concerned with the possibility that Mr Hopjoy’s disappearance will prove permanent.”
The admonition produced no reaction beyond a quick little shake of the head. “He’ll turn up: don’t you worry.” If this girl had been consciously party to a crime, Purbright reflected, it was clearly of no use hoping that she would be harrowed into acknowledging it.
When he arrived back at the police station, Purbright found his desk neatly stacked with Sergeant Love’s gleanings from 14 Beatrice Avenue. He sought Love out.
“Righto, Sid; astound me.”
Love looked doubtfully at the pile of papers. “I collected everything I could find. There’s nothing very exciting, though.”
“Never mind. Let’s have a look.”
The sergeant picked up the first few sheets. “Letters to Periam. Either he didn’t get many or he didn’t keep them. There’s nothing recent.”
Three of the letters appeared to be from female relatives. They offered condolence on the death of Periam’s mother. ‘She was a beautiful soul,’ ran one, written in a wavery but florid hand, ‘and I know that no one can ever take her place. But, Gordon dear, you must not let your grief be a door closed against all other affection. Dear Mackie—and I’m sure you won’t mind me mentioning her at this time—has been so patient and loyal, and what could never be so long as your duty lay with your poor mother is now quite possible and right.’ The signature was ‘Auntie B’.
A fourth letter was from a solicitor and enumerated final details of the administration of Mrs Periam’s will. The other two were formal acknowledgements of a transfer of deeds and a small quantity of stock.
“This,” said Love, handing over a second, thicker sheaf, “is just shop stuff—you know, his tobacco business.”
Purbright glanced quickly through the invoices, delivery notes and receipts, and put them aside. Love picked up his next selection. “Periam again. Certificates, documents and all that.”
“You should have been an archivist, Sid.” The sergeant, suspecting an ironic indecency, grinned to show his broadness of mind.
The third batch of papers was unproductive of anything more exciting than a faded copy of Mrs Periam’s marriage lines, her son’s birth certificate, and, crispest and most blackly inked of all, that of her death. There were several bank statements, showing Periam’s credit standing at around ?2,500; a couple of insurance policies; National Health Insurance cards, one in the name of Joan Peters, the shop assistant; some rates receipts and a card of membership of the Flaxborough Chamber of Trade.
Finally in the Periam collection came a miscellany topped by two years’ back numbers of
Love licked a finger. “Now for Hopjoy,” he announced. “I didn’t have such a job rooting these out. They were all stuffed into this writing case thing. I found it under his bed.”
“By the way, what did you make of that big bedroom at the back; I can’t imagine who uses it.”
Love shook his head. “Nobody does. It was the old lady’s.”
Purbright looked up from his examination of the writing case. “But it’s cluttered up with all manner of things. Shoes, gewgaws, medicine bottles, hair nets. I noticed the bed was still made up, too. A bit odd, isn’t it?”
“I saw a film once,” said Love, his face brightening, “where a bloke kept a room like that for years after his mother was supposed to have been buried. She was in the wardrobe, actually, all shrivelled, and he used to plonk her down in a chair at teatime and talk to her. It turned out that...”
