‘There was plenty of time to work things out,’ said Osmond indifferently. ‘Several hours. Knapper had to be dead by one o’clock in the morning and the removal of the body was scheduled to start at two, by which time it would have been stripped and the false teeth removed. There was to be a large sheet of plastic to wrap the body in and transport was laid on. I told you all our car keys had been confiscated when we arrived? Well, they were now going to be left out on the table, all labelled with the number and make of the car they belonged to. The “King of Spades” character could use whichever car he wanted to ship the body out in. Yet another way of tying us all in, you see. Even if, like me, you didn’t draw either of the vital cards, you could still find yourself in it up to your neck because it was your car that had been used.’
MacGregor stared. ‘You were already in it up to your neck,’ he pointed out severely.
Osmond flicked a glance across at Sven. ‘Well, yes, I suppose so,’ he admitted. ‘Sort of. Anyhow, I gave my car a damned good clean, inside and out, when I got home. And I’ll bet everybody else did the same.’
MacGregor was horrified. ‘You might have destroyed some vital evidence!’
Osmond shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, it’s done now, sarge. Anyhow, I’ve told you about all I know. When Pettitt had finished, we all went off and had supper. I brought some food back for Knapper again, but the poor sod seemed to have lost his appetite. Then we all retired to our rooms. Oh, by the way, Mrs Hall moved into Knappers old room. This meant that the hut where Knapper was being held prisoner had nobody sleeping in it.’
‘I shouldn’t have thought anybody was bloody sleeping anywhere,’ observed Dover, although his own Churchillian ability to cat nap at the drop of a hat was never impaired by anything much, other than a bout of acute indigestion.
‘What about this man Ruscoe who was guarding Knapper?’ asked MacGregor.
‘He stayed on duty till eleven o’clock. Then he went to bed, having first ensured that there was no way Knapper could escape. The killing was to take place between midnight and one a.m. and, when the body had been stripped, the murderer was to return to his own room. Between two and three, the other chap had to come along and do his stuff. Well, say he got back to the Holiday Ranch by seven o’clock – that’d give him something like five hours. Ample time to drive to Muncaster and back – and in winter the gates of the holiday camp are left open all night, and unguarded. It was a piece of cake. When the chap got back, all he had to do was drop the borrowed car keys back in the pile and go to bed.’
‘You make it sound very easy,’ said MacGregor uncomfortably.
‘It was,’ said Osmond shortly. ‘Proof of the pudding, sarge. I reckon the whole thing went off like clockwork – which is why I can’t tell you who killed Knapper and who dumped his body in the rubbish tip. Sorry, but I just don’t have the faintest.’
‘Stuff that for a lark, laddie!’ Dover rose to a half-sitting position in his indignation. ‘You’re supposed to be a trained detective! You must have spotted something.’
‘Well, I didn’t.’
‘Look, don’t mess me about, laddie!’
‘I tell you, I didn’t see anything.’
Dover’s face blackened. ‘Try pulling the other one!’ he invited threateningly.
‘I went to bed and stayed there. With my head under the blankets.’
Dover appealed to Sven. ‘Did you hear that? This bloody young whippersnapper of yours claims he went to bed and stayed there while somebody was committing murder not a dozen yards away!’
‘I daren’t risk blowing my cover,’ insisted Osmond. ‘Not for somebody like Knapper. Guilty or innocent, he was of no great loss either way. It’s a question of priorities. I saw it as my duty to put the welfare of the country as a whole first.’
‘Jesus!’ exploded Dover. ‘Look, we’re not talking about being a bloody hero, laddie. Anybody can see you’re not the type to go sticking your neck out to save somebody else’s life, but you could show a bit of common or garden curiosity, for God’s sake! What was to stop you taking a peep through the bloody curtains?’
‘I had to behave just like any other loyal and devoted member of the Steel Band,’ said Osmond, his face pale and his jaw clenched. ‘We were told to go to bed and stay there, and that’s precisely what I did. That’s what everybody did. Bloody hell, we’d just seen what had happened to Knapper! We had a demonstration of what the movement was likely to do to anybody who didn’t toe the line.’
‘A peep out of the bloody window!’ repeated Dover stubbornly.
Osmond gestured irritably. ‘You’ve seen the layout of those huts at the Holiday Ranch,’ he said. ‘The only window in my room looked straight out across Barbara Castle Prospect to the sea. I couldn’t have seen anything in the vicinity of the common room where Knapper was if I’d wanted to. And as for slipping outside – not a hope! I shared a hut with Pettitt, for God’s sake! I could hardly risk him, of all people, catching me snooping around, could I? And everybody else was in much the same boat. What with the verandahs and the way the bedroom windows were located and the angle at which the huts were placed – nobody in Shinwell Square could possibly have kept Hut Number Twelve under surveillance. Nobody. Not without going outside in the open. Look, I didn’t like the idea of letting a chap get rubbed out like that, but I’d no choice. I
