Hardcastle's Traitors (8 page)

‘What have you come here for if it's not about my husband?' Perfectly relaxed, the woman focused her deep brown eyes on Hardcastle.

‘I understand that a Captain Haydn Villiers spent the night with you on New Year's Eve, Mrs Powell.'

Marriott was astounded by the bluntness of his DDI's assertion, and that he had made it without having the slightest evidence that that was indeed the case.

‘
What?
' Annabel Powell shot forward in her chair, the cool reserve that had possessed her thus far vanishing in an instant. ‘Is that what the damned fellow told you, Inspector?' Clearly outraged, she almost spat the words.

‘So you do know him,' said Hardcastle, allowing the colonel's wife to draw, what to her, must have seemed the only logical conclusion: that Villiers had offered up her name as an alibi.

‘Yes, I do know him. He's in my husband's brigade, but he certainly did not spend the night with me. It's a monstrous thing for him to have said.' Mrs Powell quickly recovered her equanimity, and spoke in matter-of-fact tones. ‘My husband is a regular officer commanding a brigade of the Royal Field Artillery in France, somewhere near Neuve Chapelle, I believe. He's often critical of the quality of young men who are being commissioned today. In fact, he describes them as “oiks”, whatever that may mean, and it would seem that Haydn Villiers is one of them. But, despite that, I found him to be a very personable young man, even if he has turned out to be a bounder.'

‘Would I be right in assuming that Captain Villiers is one of your husband's battery commanders, Mrs Powell?' There was a good reason why Marriott had made it his business to learn about the way in which the British Army was structured. His DDI possessed but a sparse knowledge of it, and displayed no interest in furthering that knowledge, even though being involved often with military matters. Marriott, however, was doubtful that Colonel Powell commanded a brigade; as far as he knew that would be a brigadier general's command.

‘That's correct. However, what has any of this to do with the police?'

Hardcastle explained in some detail about the Vauxhall Bridge Road murder, stressing the fact that Haydn Villiers's father's car was most likely to have been used in its execution. And that it had taken place on New Year's Eve.

‘Captain Villiers has been known to drive the car in the past, Mrs Powell, but he claimed that he had nothing to do with the murder, and told me that he'd spent the night with you.' Hardcastle avoided saying that Villiers had not mentioned her by name, rather than to reveal details of the observation that he had ordered two of his officers to conduct.

‘I'm not denying that Haydn Villiers was here, Inspector, but he certainly did not spend the night with me. The idea is preposterous. He merely called to give me a letter from my husband, and to assure me that he was in good health and safe.' Annabel glanced momentarily at her satin-slippered feet. ‘Mind you, Haydn did make me a gift of some French perfume that it's almost impossible to obtain in England since the war started, so I suppose he's not all bad.'

‘What time did Captain Villiers leave here, madam?' asked Marriott.

Annabel Powell paused, long enough for the detectives to know that whatever she said, it would not be the truth. ‘About nine o'clock, I suppose,' she said eventually, having decided that it was a little later than courtesy demanded, but not too late to raise doubts about her morality.

‘And was that the only occasion Captain Villiers called on you?' asked Hardcastle.

‘Yes, it was.'

‘Thank you, Mrs Powell,' said Hardcastle, as he and Marriott rose to their feet. ‘We'll see ourselves out.'

Leaving the house, the two detectives walked through to King's Road in the hope of finding a rare cab.

‘Well, what d'you think of that, Marriott?'

‘Judging by the way Mrs Powell was dressed, sir, it wouldn't surprise me if young Villiers was upstairs in her bed while we were talking to her.'

‘Nor me, Marriott. She certainly looked as though she'd just tumbled out of her four-poster.' Hardcastle always assumed that the moneyed classes slept in a four-poster bed. ‘But I'll tell you this much: I'd put money on it being the last time the bold captain sees the inside of Annabel Powell's bedroom.'

‘D'you think she was lying, sir?'

‘I'm sure she was, Marriott. It certainly took her long enough to come up with a time that Villiers was supposed to have left her. Mind you, I wouldn't have expected the colonel's lady to admit having had a bit of jig-a-jig with one of her husband's virile young officers. Even so, we'll have another word with Captain Villiers.'

‘Shall I get one of the DCs to send for him, sir?'

‘Yes, and sooner rather than later, Marriott.'

In the event, Marriott's intention to send for the young army captain proved to be unnecessary.

At two o'clock that afternoon, an irate Haydn Villiers was shown into Hardcastle's office. He was red in the face and bore all the signs of being incandescent with rage.

‘I take it that Annabel Powell's been in touch with you, Captain Villiers,' observed Hardcastle mildly, before Villiers had a chance to speak.

‘Damn' right, she has. What the hell d'you think you were doing, going to see her? And how the devil did you know where to find her?'

Hardcastle declined to answer that question. ‘I'm dealing with a vicious murder, Captain Villiers, and I was checking your alibi. Had you furnished me with the lady's name, I would have acted discreetly, and quite possibly accepted your word for it,' he said, not that he would have let it go at that. ‘As it is, you wouldn't name the lady and I suspected that you weren't telling me the truth. And it seems I was right. Mrs Powell denied that you spent the night with her.'

‘Of course she did. She's my colonel's wife for God's sake.'

‘So she said.' Hardcastle spent a few moments filling and lighting his pipe, further frustrating Villiers. ‘Perhaps you'd better give me your side of the story, then,' he said.

‘Colonel Powell granted me leave for Christmas and the New Year,' began Villiers, by now a little calmer than when he had arrived. ‘He asked me to call on his wife, to assure her that he was safe and well, and to give her a letter and some perfume he'd bought for her.'

‘Mrs Powell seemed to be under the impression that the perfume was a gift from you, Captain Villiers,' said Marriott, ‘rather than from her husband.'

Villiers was obviously embarrassed by that revelation. ‘Well, I didn't think there was any harm in letting her think it was from me,' he said. ‘Particularly in view what happened later.'

‘When did you first call on Mrs Powell?' asked Marriott.

‘On Boxing Day, in the evening.' Villiers paused, and then decided to tell the whole story, secure in the knowledge that, thanks to Hardcastle's intervention, he was unlikely ever to enjoy Annabel Powell's favours again. ‘Right from the moment I arrived she made it quite obvious that she wasn't averse to having a little fun, if you know what I mean.'

‘By which you mean she was up for a screwing, I suppose,' said Hardcastle bluntly.

‘That's not quite how I'd've described it,' responded Villiers acidly, irritated by the DDI's description of what Villiers saw as a romantic tryst.

‘Matter of opinion,' commented Hardcastle quietly.

‘However, in no time at all she was telling me how lonely it was for a girl to be left on her own. She actually described herself as “a girl”, despite the fact that she must be at least ten years older than me. What's more, she said her husband was a bully who had no interest in her. I could certainly vouch for Colonel Powell being a strict disciplinarian, but it seems he was when he was at home as well as with the brigade. Annabel made it quite obvious that she was up for a bit of fun and it was too good an offer to refuse. As a result, I've spent every night with her since.'

‘I hope your colonel doesn't find out, Captain Villiers,' said Hardcastle.

‘Ye Gods!' exclaimed Villiers. ‘So do I. I hope you don't propose speaking to him.'

‘I might be a thorough detective, Captain Villiers, but I'm damned if I'm going to France just to shop you to your colonel.'

‘Captain Villiers, is there anyone you've made an enemy of recently? Apart from Colonel Powell, of course,' said Marriott quietly. ‘Not that he knows he's an enemy. Yet.'

Villiers leaned back against the hard chair and lit a cigarette, this time without asking Hardcastle's permission. ‘As a matter of fact there is, although I don't see that it has any bearing on your enquiries. He's a new subaltern in my battery. Soon after his arrival, I learned that he was in debt to quite a substantial amount. Most of the young officers take to the bottle, but Tindall has started gambling. One of the other officers mentioned it to me and said that he'd heard that Tindall owed money all over London. I took him to task and told him to settle up and stop gambling or I'd have him court-martialled and thrown out. As a matter of fact, I gave him a bloody good dressing down and he let fly with a string of abuse, so much so that I threatened to have him up in front of the colonel for insubordination. He even suggested that I shouldn't turn my back on him in the heat of battle. But I put that down to the stress of warfare. People out there often say things they don't mean.'

Hardcastle suddenly realized why Marriott had posed the question. ‘You say this officer's name is Tindall, Captain Villiers, and he's in the Royal Field Artillery?'

‘I'm sorry to say he is, God help us. Second Lieutenant George Tindall, a hostilities-only officer, so I believe. He's in his twenties, I'd think, and with the present drain on subalterns I don't suppose he'll last more than a few weeks, but that's no excuse for his behaviour. Trouble is that new officers these days aren't out of the top drawer, so to speak, and even worse, I'll probably find that he went to a grammar school.'

It was a remark that did little to endear Villiers to Hardcastle who had been the doubtful beneficiary of a London County Council elementary school education.

‘Is this here Tindall still in France?' asked Hardcastle.

‘I imagine so, but there again he might be dead,' commented Villiers, revealing the pessimistic fatalism of those soldiers who prosecuted the war from muddy rat-infested holes in France and Flanders.

‘As a matter of interest, why
didn't
you report any of this to Colonel Powell?' asked Hardcastle.

‘I thought I'd sort it out myself,' said Villiers. ‘As I said just now, if I'd placed the matter before the colonel, he'd have had no alternative but to have a summary of evidence taken, with a view to court-martialling Tindall.'

‘Thank you for calling in again, Captain Villiers. I doubt that I'll need to speak to you again.'

‘I hope not,' said Villiers. He paused at the door. ‘You didn't tell me how you found where Annabel lived, Inspector.'

‘No, I didn't,' said Hardcastle.

L
ater that afternoon, Hardcastle was seated in his office, contentedly smoking his pipe and thinking. Occasionally, he would stand up and pace the office, sometimes stopping to stare unseeing at the Underground station below his window. After fifteen minutes of this deliberation he sent for Marriott.

‘I've been wondering about this here Second Lieutenant George Tindall of the Royal Field Artillery, Marriott.'

‘What about him, sir?'

‘It's possible that he was being a bit clever in getting his own back on Villiers.' Hardcastle had almost convinced himself that Tindall was Reuben Gosling's murderer. Or one of them. ‘Supposing he stole Sinclair Villiers's expensive motor car and carried out the murder to throw suspicion on Captain Villiers?'

‘How would he know where Sinclair Villiers lived, sir?'

‘I'd think he could've got that from the records at the unit where they were both serving?' suggested Hardcastle. ‘But you seem to know more about the army than I do,' he added archly. ‘Is it possible?'

‘I suppose so, sir,' said Marriott, surprised that for once the DDI was deferring to him. ‘But if Tindall had wanted to kill Villiers, it would've been easier for him to do it in Flanders, surely? According to Villiers, Tindall told him never to turn his back on him. My brother-in-law Frank reckons that quite a few sadistic NCOs have got a bullet in the back out there.' Frank Dobson was a sergeant-major in the Middlesex Regiment, and had told Marriott the tale of one or two vindictive sergeants who had met their end at the hands of their own men. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, their deaths were put down as ‘killed in action'. ‘Mind you, sir,' continued Marriott, ‘I don't really see that Tindall would have such an opportunity; RFA officers don't go over the top like the infantry.'

‘Yes, but even so, that wouldn't have paid off his debts, Marriott, would it?' Hardcastle sat back, a satisfied smile on his face. ‘But a handful of tomfoolery might've done. And, like I said, using Sinclair Villiers's car to do it would've thrown suspicion on Haydn Villiers.'

‘But do we know if anyone else knew about the debts, sir? It might just be a tale that Haydn Villiers put about because he didn't like the man.'

‘One way of finding out,' said Hardcastle. ‘First of all we'll have a word with the military police, and maybe have another chat with young Villiers.'

‘But is there any indication that Tindall is our man, sir?' Once again, Marriott thought that the DDI was taking the investigation off at a tangent.

‘If he's not, we'll have eliminated him from the enquiry, Marriott,' said Hardcastle, as if his sergeant should have known that.

Hardcastle and Marriott made their way down Whitehall to Horse Guards Arch.