“Okay, but what’s that got to do with a dishwasher?”
“They’re so clever with forensics these days. I washed and scrubbed that rolling pin. But a dishwasher would really clean it.”
“You’re worrying too much, Maggie. How could they possibly know he was hit with a rolling pin, of all things? And how could it be connected to us?”
“He may have told someone.”
“Let’s hope he didn’t. I don’t even want to consider that,” said Fell. “We can throw out the rolling pin if you’re really worried. Meanwhile, let’s go and see Terry Weal.”
¦
They walked out into a wall of heat. “Shall I get the car?” asked Maggie.
“No, let’s walk. I’m not used to drinking this early and a walk would clear my head.”
They set out in the direction of the station, keeping in the shade of the buildings. But once they crossed the Mayor Bridge which spanned the river, the buildings became low bungalows with long gardens in front, the shade disappeared and the sun struck down fiercely.
“This was a bad idea,” mourned Fell. “I should have let you get the car. Do you think it’s global warming?”
“I sometimes wonder if it’s us, humans, who cause it,” said Maggie, taking out a handkerchief and patting her damp face. “Every year, more and more people, and imagine them all sweating like us.”
“Not far to go now,” said Fell. He remembered walking this way with his mother. That was the time he had been off school with mumps. His mother often took lunch to his father. Sometimes he just ate sandwiches, but mostly he liked hot soup in a thermos flask taken to him. He claimed the thermos never kept the soup hot enough for lunchtime if he took it with him in the morning. Fell wrinkled his brow trying to remember if he and his mother had ever talked about anything on these walks, but all he could remember was her saying, “Don’t scuff your feet. Straighten your jacket. Don’t slouch.” Things like that.
Ahead lay the railway bridge. The day of steam trains was long gone and yet the air around the station always seemed to smell of soot and cinders.
Halfway across the railway bridge, they turned off to the right and down a lane leading to a row of cottages which had been built in the last century for the railway workers. Most of the cottages had been smartened up and the land between the cottages and the railway line turned into extended gardens. But the second cottage, where they had been told Terry Weal lived, had a forlorn air. The window frames had not been painted in years and the garden gate was hanging off its hinges.
Fell hesitated outside the gate. “I wish we had taken the day off from all this, Maggie.”
“May as well go through with it now we’re here. We’ll take tomorrow off.” Maggie held open the gate. “Come on. He can’t eat us.”
Maggie felt a little pang as she said those words. It was so easy for the two of them to be brave, one encouraging the other. If only they could be a
They walked up a short path made of the same red bricks as the house. There wasn’t a bell. The paint on the door was blistered.
Fell knocked at the door. He heard the signal at the station clanking down. A train was coming. It would be the down train to London, he thought, looking at his watch. The signal went down ten minutes before the train arrived.
The door opened and a small bent man who smelt peculiarly of ham soup stared at them. “What d’ye want? I’m not buying anything.”
“We’re not selling anything. I’m Fell Dolphin.”
“Dolphin’s boy? I’ve nothing to say to you.”
“Why?” asked Maggie.
“Because I know Dolphin was in on that robbery, that’s why.”
“But it was a coincidence that you were ill that day,” cried Fell.
“I wasn’t ill. Dolphin says, says he, that he wanted to take the Saturday off instead. They didn’t like us switching shifts unless we were ill. He said he’d give me ten pounds to say I was ill. I told the police that. But he got away with it. Now he’s dead. They didn’t get him.” The old man spat somewhere at the region of Fell’s feet. “Why are you bothering me?”
“I want to clear my father’s name.”
“That’s a joke.”
“I’m writing a book.”
“Well, put this in your book. Your father was a criminal!” He slammed the door in their faces.
They heard the approaching roar of the train. Fell seized Maggie’s hand. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” gasped Maggie as he pulled her down the path.
“London!” cried Fell. “I’m sick of all this and I’ve never been to London. Have you?”
But Maggie’s reply was drowned by the roar of the approaching train. They sprinted to the station and collapsed panting in a first-class compartment.
“Have you been to London before?” demanded Fell again.
“No,” said Maggie. “Never.”
“Isn’t it odd?” said Fell. “Here we are living an hour and a half’s train ride from London and yet none of us has ever seen the place.”
The ticket collector came round and Fell explained they hadn’t had time to buy tickets at the station.
“Have you enough money on you?” asked Maggie.
“Yes, I’ve got plenty. I’ve got this habit of carrying a wad of notes around with me. Damn that horrible old man, Maggie. There was a ring of truth about what he said. And why should he lie?”
“Spite?”
“No, I don’t think so. We must find someone else who might tell us why my father found it so important to get that Saturday off.”
“Surely Inspector Rudfern would remember.”
“We’ll try him again. In the meantime, let’s have a holiday.”
Lunch was announced in the dining car, so they went along and enjoyed the novelty of eating while the sunny countryside slipped smoothly past.
“I’ve just thought of something,” said Maggie.
“What?” asked Fell, turning dreamy eyes from the countryside.
“Those twenty-pound notes in the cash box.”
Fell’s eyes sharpened and focused on her. “What about them?”
“I just remembered. They’re current issue. If they were part of the robbery, then the notes would be old. I mean, I think the twenty-pound note has changed at least a couple of times since the robbery.”
“That would mean,” said Fell slowly, “that the money didn’t come from the robbery.”
“Unless, of course, one of your parents changed the notes. They’re pretty crisp and new.”
Fell shook his head in bewilderment. “This is my parents you’re talking about, Maggie. You have no idea how strict and moralizing they were. I cannot imagine either of them doing anything criminal.”
“If they came by the money honestly but wanted to avoid paying tax on it, your mother, say, might just have gone from bank to bank changing just a certain amount. Did she ever go away?”
Fell was about to shake his head, but then he remembered she had gone away for two weeks just a few years ago. “She went on a bus tour,” he said, “for a fortnight. I remember looking forward to two weeks of freedom.” But she had phoned every day, to the hotel where he was working or to the house, with instructions to do that or clean this, and so he had never enjoyed any of his brief freedom. He had an odd but vivid picture of his mother going from town to town and bank to bank doggedly changing the twenty-pound notes for new ones.
“Let’s stop worrying just for today,” urged Fell. He sank back in his seat and soon there was a dreamy smile on his face. Maggie felt some of her pleasure in the day fading. She was sure Fell was dreaming about their forthcoming visit to Melissa.
They alighted at Paddington Station. “Now where?” asked Maggie.
“We’ll take a taxi and look at the sights.”
They ran up enormous taxi bills going round the sights from Buckingham Palace to the Tower and St. Paul’s
