stairs when I’m good and ready. You talk and when you’ve told me where McCloy is and what he paid you, then you can go downstairs and hide your head.’
Still on his feet, Cullam leant on the desk, his head hanging. ‘It’s a lie,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t know McCloy and I never touched Hatton.’
‘Where did the money come from then? Oh, sit down, Cullam. What sort of man are you, anyway, scared of a bit of thunder? It’s laughable, afraid of a storm but brave enough to wait in the dark down by the river and bash your friend over the head. Come on now, you may as well tell us. You’ll have to sooner or later and I reckon this storm’s set in for hours. Hatton had fallen foul of McCloy, hadn’t he? So McCloy greased your palm a bit to walk home with Hatton and catch him unawares. The weapon and the method were left to you. Curious, you were so mean, you even grudged him a proper cosh.’
Cullam said again, ‘It’s all a lie.’ He twisted down into the chair, holding his head and keeping it averted from the window. ‘Me bash Charlie on the head with one of them stones? I wouldn’t have thought of it… I wouldn’t…’
‘Then how did you know it was a river stone that killed him?’ Wexford pounced triumphantly. Slowly Cullam raised his head and the sweat glistened on his skin. ‘I didn’t tell you.’
‘Nor me, sir,’ said the sergeant.
‘Jesus,’ Cullam said, his voice uneven and low.
The black clouds had parted to show between them shreds of summer sky turned sickly green. Against the glass the unremitting rain pounded.
Stamford police knew nothing of Alexander James McCloy. His name was on the voters’ list as occupying Moat Hall, the small mansion Burden had found deserted, but plainly he had left it months before. Burden plodded through the rain from estate agent to estate agent and he at last found Moat Hall, listed in the books of a small firm on the outskirts of the town. It had been sold in December by McCloy to an American widow who, having changed her mind without ever living in the place, had returned it to the agent’s hands and departed to spend the summer in Sweden.
Mr McCloy had left them no address. Why should he? His business with them had been satisfactorily completed; he had taken his money from the American lady and disappeared.
No, there had never really been anything in Mr McCloy’s behaviour to make them believe he wasn’t a man of integrity.
‘What do you mean, “really”?’ Burden asked.
‘Only that the place was never kept decently as far as I could see, not the way a gentleman’s house should be. It was a crying shame to see those grounds neglected. Still, he was a bachelor and he’d no staff as far as I know.’
Moat Hall lay in a fold of the hills perhaps a mile from the A.1. ‘Was he always alone when you saw him at the house?’ Burden asked.
‘Once he had a couple of chaps with him. Not quite up to his class I thought.’
‘Tell me, were you taken all over the house and grounds to make your survey or whatever you do?’
‘Certainly. It was all quite above board – none too clean, but that’s by the way. Mr McCloy gave me a free hand to go where I chose, bar the two big outhouses. They were used for stores he said, so there was no point in me looking. The doors were padlocked anyway and I got what I wanted for my purpose from looking at the outside.’
‘No stray lorries knocking about, I daresay?’
‘None that I saw.’
‘But there might have been in the outhouses?’
‘There might at that,’ said the agent doubtfully. ‘One of them’s near as big as a hangar.’
‘So I noticed.’ And Burden thanked him grimly. He was almost certain that he had found him, that he could say, ‘Our McCloy was here,’ and yet what had he achieved but dredge up a tiny segment of McCloy’s life? The man had been here and had gone. All they could do now was to turn Moat Hall upside down in the forlorn hope something remained in the near-derelict place to hint at its erstwhile owner’s present refuge.
‘Are you going to charge me with murdering him?’ Cullam said hollowly.
‘You and McCloy and maybe a couple of others when you’ve told us who they are. Conspiracy to murder, the charge’ll be. Not that it makes much difference.’
‘But I’ve got five kids!’
‘Paternity never kept anyone out of jail yet, Cullam. Come now, you wouldn’t want to go inside alone, would you? You wouldn’t want to think of McCloy laughing, going scotfree, while you’re doing fifteen years? It’ll be the same sentence for him, you know. He doesn’t get off any lighter just because he only told you to kill Hatton.’
‘He never did,’ Cullam said wildly. ‘How many times do I have to tell you I don’t know this McCloy?’
‘A good many times before I’d believe you. Why would you kill Hatton on your own? You don’t have to kill a man because he’s got more money and a nicer home than you have.’
‘I didn’t kill him!’ Cullam’s voice came dangerously near a sob.
Wexford switched off the light and for a moment the room seemed very dark. Then, as his eyes grew accustomed, he saw that it was no darker than on any summer evening after heavy rain. The light had a cold bluish tinge and the air was cooler too. He opened the window and a light fresh breeze clutched at the curtains. Down below on the forecourt the tub flowers had been flattened into a sodden pink mush.
‘Listen, Cullam,’ he said, ‘you were there. You left the bridge ten minutes before Hatton started. It was twenty to eleven when you said goodbye to Hatton and Pertwee and even walking none too fast you should have been indoors at home by eleven. But you didn’t get in till a quarter past. The following morning you washed the shirt you’d been wearing, the pullover and the trousers. You knew a river stone had been used to kill Hatton and today you, who get twenty pounds a week and never have a penny to bless yourself with, spent a hundred and twenty quid on luxury equipment. Explain it away, Cullam, explain it away. The storm’s blowing over and you’ve nothing to worry about except fifteen years inside.’
Cullam opened his big ill-made hands, clenched them and leant forward. The sweat had dried on his face. He seemed to be having difficulty in controlling the muscles which worked in his forehead and at the corners of his mouth. Wexford waited patiently, for he guessed that for a moment the man was totally unable to speak. Terror had dried and paralysed his vocal chords. He waited patiently, but without a vestige of sympathy.
‘The hundred quid and his pay packet,’ Cullam said at last. His tone was hoarse and terrified. ‘I… I took it off his body.’
Chapter 12
‘What did he want it for, Charlie-bloody-Hatton? I’ve been in his place, I’ve seen what he’d got. You ever seen his wife, have you? Got up like a tart with her new frocks and her jewellery and all that muck on her face, and not a bleeding thing to do all day long but watch that colour telly and ring up her pals. They hadn’t got no kids, yelling and nagging at you the minute you get in, crawling all over you in the night because they’re cutting their bloody teeth. You want to know when my missus last had a new frock? You want to know when we last had a night out? The answer’s never, not since the first baby come. My missus has to buy the kids’ clothes down at the jumble sale and if she wants a pair of nylons they come off the Green Shield stamps. Bloody marvellous, isn’t it? Lilian Hatton’s got more coats than a perishing film star but she has to go and spend thirty quid on a new outfit for Pertwee’s wedding. A hundred pounds? She wouldn’t even miss it. She could use it for spills to light her fags.’
The flood-gates had opened and now Cullam, the reticent, the truculent, was speaking without restraint and from a full heart. Wexford was listening with concentration, but he did not appear to be listening at all. If Cullam had been in a fit state to observe behaviour he might have thought the chief inspector bored or preoccupied. But Cullam only wanted to talk. He was indifferent to listeners. All he required was the luxury of silence and a nearly empty room.
‘I could have stuck it all,’ he said, ‘but for the bragging. “Put it away, Maurice,” he’d say. “Your need’s greater
