Say Goodbye to the Boys (13 page)

As I went past the Crescent I could hear Emlyn still blowing away. Twice I was pulled up by the police and allowed to go after a few questions and a flash of a torch in my face. When I reached the house and searched for my key I found I had the lighter clenched tight in the palm of my hand.

A bad night. Dreams. Ceri in them, running down dark streets ahead of me. Mash at the gate of the back yard with vipers in his hands.

 

Monday, a morning close and sticky, thunder in the air. Laura had a bad headache, in a depression brought on by more murders, nobody safe any more, nothing certain, like the weather. She was bitten by the cleaning bug, this old house she moaned, this old town, that old shop, these terrible murders. Where was it all going to end? Mrs Palmerstone now. Beyond joking now. Nobody safe any more. People had had enough. Time the whole town joined together and put a stop to it. Hadn't everybody suffered enough in the war? All that killing. And look at us now – was it any better now what with everything still on rations and clothing coupons? There were lights in the street, but that didn't stop these terrible things going on did it? ‘They teached people how to kill,' she said, looking away from me as she did so.... Laura voicing the unease and anger and suspicions of Maelgwyn town. An outrage going on. And I was connected – not responsible of course – but linked to it in Laura's and the town's mind.

‘I'll go and tidy up the shop,' I said, and retreated. I had the feeling that if I had said I was going back to India she wouldn't have minded.

The shop, of course, was long since past any return to order, the stock thick as weeds in a deserted garden. I flung books about, made piles of them, swept shelves clear and stuck the same worthy volumes back again. Only a great burning would bring order. But I worked myself into a sweat, breaking off only when the traders of the Market Hall came for a chat. Mollie Ann with an apple, Nell Crockery with a dirty joke that was old when I was young, Isaac Moss Cobblers who picked nails out of his mouth as he talked. The murders, naturally. I remembered that old lift, didn't I? Well, nobody's heard it, not for years, during the day. Only at night, see. Eyes narrowed, lips pulled in. This Mrs Palmerstone took size five shoes. The birds had been at her. But it was the same man who did it – and the police knew him, could lay their hands on him any time, only there had to be evidence, see.

Without exception they ended with the same remark, followed it with an enquiring look that underlined my involvement. I wasn't a suspect, of course. I was J. Palmer Roberts's son. They had known me since I was knee high to a grasshopper... but they left statements on the air – ‘fancy pushing her out in Tom's boat after' – and watched me keenly through narrowed eyes, as if they knew I could, if I wanted, come up with the answers.

‘What he does,' Nell Crockery explained after giving her breasts a heave, ‘is kill quick. With this strap, see. Then he plonks them somewhere else. And there's no marks on him because he's naked – no hairs or anything like that.' Her voice became spitty with relish. ‘That comes from official sources – top secret as they used to say in the war.'

It was a relief to go back to the books. I had offered no explanations or theories, and that probably made me a more doubtful character than ever. What should I have said? Find Ridetski, I was certain. Alive or dead.

Shortly before Laura arrived to take over I found an old, ink-stained copy of
Tales from Shakespeare
. It had the County School stamp all over it, a real old veteran of many a classroom battle. Inside the front cover there was a string of names. The last one was Ellen Lewis, 1924. I squatted on a pile of books and lit a cigarette.

It was the entry for September 1908 that set the bells ringing. Edward Mortimer, in a rounded, child's handwriting. A name that spelled clashing swords and acts of valour. It recurred on page after page, sometimes as the Honourable Edward Mortimer, sometimes as Sir Edward Mortimer, once as Edward Mortimer, Gent. And on the inside of the back cover five lines that brought me back to Marshall Edmunds once again:

 

Who's left to love?

Only he who rages –

Gone to ashes all the ages.

Summer has a fine warm face,

Winter such a cold embrace.

 

Signed, Edward Mortimer, Poet.

Glanmorfa House

Maelgwyn–on–Sea,

Wales,

Great Britain

The World.

 

I pocketed the book if only to prove to Emlyn that Edward Mortimer, Sir and Honourable and Gent and Poet, hadn't been at school in our time, and that Mash was misquoting the last line.

 

The house in the Crescent was silent, seemingly deserted. It always looked like that – as if the owners had done a flit and weren't expected back. But the front door was wide open, held against the wall by an empty milk bottle. I tapped on the glass of the porch door and went in calling Emlyn. My voice spiralled upwards and died. The kitchen door was open. I heard sounds of retching from the back and went down the passage calling ‘Mr Morton – are you all right?'

Hot as a boiler house in the kitchen, the remains of a meal on the table. What a day to have the fire banked up. There was a large brown paper envelope on it, edges curling in the smoke. The toilet in the yard flushed and Idwal came in. He was unsteady on his legs, his face drawn and shiny with sweat, white froth at the corners of his mouth, red on his chin. He saw me and turned quickly and I knew he was replacing his teeth, then he slumped on a chair at the table. It was blood on his chin.

‘Never heard you come in,' he said. Then ‘Philip...' – as if he had forgotten my name.

‘I'll get you a drink of water...'

‘Perish the thought.' He smiled. ‘A bit of morning sickness.' The blood on his chin fascinated me. I wanted to wipe it off for him. ‘Must have been the heat...'

‘I'll open a window.'

He shook a hand at me. ‘No, no. I might catch pneumonia... My God, I could catch anything.'

I could smell sick from him. ‘D'you want me to get a doctor or something?'

He forced another smile. ‘No, no. It was just those bloody powdered eggs we had. In the piping days of peace, Philip – and still powdered eggs! A fag would be useful.' I held one out to him and flicked my lighter. He inhaled deeply and sat back in the chair. ‘That's better. Keep up the level of the poison.' His hands were trembling. ‘Life savers these – can't have doctors, Philip – they'd make me give them up!'

‘I'll make you a cup of tea.'

‘Philip – don't fuss. You don't have to stay. I'm all right. Emlyn's over at the boat.' There's blood on your chin, I wanted to tell him. ‘Look – just one thing you can do for me. Just keep it to yourself, OK? Emlyn – such a bloody hypochondriac. He was moaning about his indigestion last night. Just – well – don't tell him.' Then he brought out his army officer's voice, like his son a good mimic. ‘I must absolutely insist, Roberts, actually. Mum's the jolly old word, what?'

‘Fair enough,' I said. We smiled at each other. The colour returning to his cheeks now.

‘You're a good chap. Emlyn always said you were. When he was little he used to copy you.'

‘Poor sod! I'll have to be going...'

‘What's the reading matter in your pocket? Can I have a look?'

I gave him the book and he laid it flat on the table so that he could hide the trembling in his hands. A crooked vein throbbed in his forehead. ‘Found it in the shop this morning.' He was examining the names at the front. ‘There's a bit of a poem in the back. Mash is always quoting it.' He turned the pages over slowly. He was a long time reading the poem. Behind him the fire hissed in the grate.

‘Philip,' he said at last, ‘I don't think Marshall killed these women. Do you?'

‘Well, good God, of course he didn't!'

He was still staring at the poem as he spoke. ‘It's what they're saying. The consensus of opinion. Get the brain doctors in. Break him down. Philip...' it was an effort for him to say it. ‘You don't think Marshall's insane, do you?'

‘To hell with that,' I said firmly. ‘He's... Well, not right, but he's not a loony.'

‘I had a row with Emlyn about it.' He was staring at me now. ‘Didn't mean to – but it came to that.' I could sense the power in him still. A hell of a man, this one – wild and daring so they said. And there was some of it left, even now. ‘But – he's violent, Philip. In some kind of blackout, maybe?'

‘Four blackouts?' He nodded. ‘Pointless – you've got to have a motive. What about this Ridetski?'

‘Yes, pointless. Most things are pointless, aren't they? In the long run.' He closed the book. ‘Andy Ridetski? The cops asked me about Andy. I sold him a camera once. Very artistic bloke. Very highly strung. Bit of a crook.' He was calm again now, back to bantering. ‘What a bloody situation. Ridetski come back – is that what old Mr Ellyott thinks? Oh – I have my doubts.' He flipped open the cover of the book. ‘Mind if I have a read of this? Might not be too late to learn something. Improve my mind. But – well, if you want it for something it's all right.' He pushed the book along the table towards me.

‘You keep it,' I said. ‘What about Ridetski, though?'

He picked up the book and held it against his chest. ‘I'll be sure to let you have it back – give it to Emlyn, OK?' I nodded. ‘Ridetski? Well, the last time I knew him he was scared of his own shadow. Did a bunk, you know. He was running away from his missus – so why come back and kill her?'

‘And he might be dead....'

Idwal Morton flashed a white smile. ‘Then he'd have some difficulty in killing anybody wouldn't he?' We laughed. ‘All right if I have a read of this?'

‘Fine,' I said. Subject closed. I left him there in that oven of a room. Outside, although the air was heavy and oppressive, it was, for a while, like a spring day.

 

As I turned a corner on to the promenade I came face to face with Amos Ellyott. ‘I have been looking for you all morning,' he greeted me accusingly. ‘Come quickly to my chambers.' And he turned on his heel and went stumping back to Ocean View. He was nimble that day, joints functioning, and was close to a trot on the stairs.

‘You've been at the vitamins,' I told him.

‘Do please refrain from witticisms,' he replied as he flung back the door. ‘The first break has occurred. Come in.'

Laura wasn't the only one in the town with the tidy bug. Amos Ellyott's rooms, considering my last look at them, were neat, orderly, the books on their shelves, the bottles gone, a smell of polish on the air.

‘You must come and tidy our shop,' I said.

He had the lid of a small bureau open. ‘Keep your remarks to yourself,' he snapped back, then beckoned me to the desk. ‘Now – tell me please – why should someone decide to send me this?' He pulled a photograph from a large envelope and placed it on a square of blotting paper. An enlargement. Ten by twelve at the least. Of a car burning in the night. Of a man with a white bag clutched to his chest, his face clearly defined in the light from the blaze. MT Edmunds. Emtee by name, but not empty by nature.

 

XIII

 

 

 

 

‘Well?' he said. ‘What do you think? Be kind enough to give me the benefit of your powers of observation.'

He was wearing a white linen jacket over a waistcoat and cardigan and he smelled strongly of mothballs and old dust. ‘I'd say you had this photograph when we were messing about in that tower.'

‘Not at all, not at all. Do not presume. Observe the near professionalism of our friend Ridetski. Such gloss, such clarity. Use the magnifying glass. Observe.' There were two other figures on either side of MT. Two darker shapes that had to be men. They came up clearly under the magnifying glass. Two headless men. Three men at a burning.

‘Well? Well?' He growled impatiently. ‘Your comments, please.'

Guess who? I thought. Had George Garston cast his photograph into a grate, as that sick man in an oven of a room had done? Idwal Morton in the back doorway, blood on his chin, trembling hands fumbling at his buttons, the brown paper curling in the smoke above the hissing fire. Three men at a burning.

‘Oh – Philip!' How silently she moved. Such a big, angular heavy-footed woman. To come up the creaking staircase so lightly, make so quiet an entrance through the open door. ‘I see you've got it, Mr Ellyott,' she said, and Amos and I bumped each other as we turned, and she was standing there – such a drab dress, so many wrinkles in her stockings – the broad, strong hands as if working the needles, her glasses down on her nose.

‘Dear lady,' Amos said ‘Mrs Edmunds – you startled me. Do please be seated.' He moved like an elderly waiter around her, first to draw up a chair, then to close the door.

Laura always referred to her as Miss Lloyd – and the name of her house – always with respect. A lady. Her father a big man in shipping. A family to be classed among the gentry, Maelgwyn being short on dukes and lords and squires. Miss Lloyd Glanmorfa House for identification. Glanmorfa House – which MT had changed to the Grange. I remembered the book and the poem. Was this Edward Mortimer, honourable and sir and gent and poet, Form 1A, September 1908? ‘Who's left to love? Only he who rages...' The neat, rounded handwriting, a little girl's voice at a time of sadness... I looked at her hollowed, bony face, her sparse hair and felt as if I had solved something.

Then she spoke. ‘It was I who sent you that photograph, Mr Ellyott.' A plain statement, delivered at speed: a driven woman.

‘You, madam? I don't understand. Why to me? May I offer you a glass...'

‘Nothing.' An emphatic shake of the head. ‘I sent it to you because you are my only hope. The police are persecuting my son.' Even Amos had no immediate reply for that one. ‘They questioned him for the better part of the morning. He cannot remember, Mr Ellyott. He doesn't know what they are talking about. Yesterday afternoon he had a breakdown. A nervous collapse. The doctor gave him a sedative. He slept. Then when I went up to see him in the evening he'd gone – out through the window; climbed down the drainpipe.' I stared at one of Amos's muddy pictures on the wall above her head. ‘When he came back he said he was running away! He said he'd been with you, Philip.'

‘That's right, Mrs Edmunds.'

She was surprised and grateful. Her face softened. ‘Honestly, Philip?' She held back from touching me.

‘I met him on the prom. We had a walk together on the beach...'

‘But he said he was running away.' She appealed to Amos. ‘That's what he said.'

‘In jest, surely?'

‘Jest, Mr Ellyott? We are all past jesting. Are you aware what they are doing to him? These continual questions, day in day out?' She turned to me. ‘Was Emlyn with you?'

‘Just the two of us. Emlyn was at home.'

‘He's been very good. Both of you have. You met him on the prom, honestly?' I nodded. ‘Emlyn went with him this morning to the Police Station. That Inspector Marks! Why doesn't he leave the boy alone?' She sat on the edge of the chair, both feet planted firmly on the floor, and there should have been knitting needles in her hands. ‘But you boys have been through it, haven't you? Fought for your country. Fought to free the world from tyrants.' I looked at my shoes, embarrassed and surprised – Sylvia Edmunds waving the flag. ‘But what was he doing? Dubious business deals with the like of George Garston. Traitor is too good a word to use.' She choked on the words and removed a handkerchief from up her sleeve and held it to her mouth.

‘You say you sent me this photograph?' Amos enquired in a low voice.

‘I did.' She dabbed at her upper lip. ‘It came through the post. I thought it was an advert or something and I opened it.'

‘Addressed to your husband? A picture of a man standing near a vehicle in flames.'

She flared up at that. ‘His picture – stealing that money. Didn't I tell you he was nearly bust? Well – that is where he got the money from...'

‘Did you show it – to Mr Edmunds?'

She got to her feet and shook her head. ‘For some more fancy stories? More lies? The truth has got to come out. From the beginning...'

‘Then – can you suggest who might have sent you this photograph?'

‘They were all in on it,' she said flatly. ‘A terrible war for our survival going on and they were thieving. Probably the least of their crimes. He's afraid of it coming out. Of course he is. Prepared to sacrifice anybody to save his own skin. I've got my boy to protect.'

‘George Garston, perhaps?' Amos suggested.

‘I am not prepared to speculate, Mr Ellyott. But – you've got to begin there. With that picture.' In a couple of long, smooth strides she was at the door. ‘I sent it to you because you have the expertise in these matters. I have no faith whatsoever in the police.' She pulled the door open.

‘Madam, please,' Amos appealed to her.

‘What I am telling you is the truth. You start there. With that picture.' She turned to face us. ‘That is what is being covered up. Good morning to you. Good morning, Philip.' She went out, closed the door softly, and there wasn't a sound as she descended the stairs.

I went to the window. She had a car out there. I heard it start, a grind of gears as it pulled away but I couldn't see it. Across the road, on the promenade, leaning against the railings, MT alone, staring out at the grey ships in the estuary.

 

‘Let us write down a few names, metaphorically speaking,' Amos said. ‘Let us write down Mr MT Edmunds. Let us write Mr George Garston. Let us write...' And he came up close and stared at me over his glasses, made his cigarette flip against his nose. ‘Let us write Mr Idwal Morton.'

‘Oh, bollocks,' I said.

He cackled at me. ‘It depends on what you're looking for, Philip. Truth is a dreadfully distasteful dish. Let us add another name. Mrs Sylvia Edmunds. Don't make that dreadful, uncouth remark. I saw you shiver as she went out. Doesn't she move quickly, silent as an animal? What lady would suspect another at the dead of night? A lady soured and desperate, ready to do anything to protect her offspring. A lady stunted by so much bitterness...'

‘You're out of your mind. Mrs Edmunds? Knocking off all these old women? Good God – you might as well put me on your list, metaphorically speaking.'

He went
tk
,
tk
,
tk
. ‘You are on it already. You and Emlyn Morton and Marshall Edmunds. But set that aside...”

‘Thank you very much.'

‘Let us consider this extraordinary visit.' I went over to the window. Ceri Price rode past on the promenade, skirt riding high over brown legs, her dog in the bicycle basket. She looked great, and oh God, playing the field. My breath caught in my throat. ‘Philip,' came the nagging old voice behind me. ‘The picture is important not because of what it says but because of what it implies. The first murder is the one – she fits, Philip, she fits. The others are a blind. A false trail.' I laughed at him and he trembled with rage. ‘Why should she kill Mrs Ridetski you ask? For Marshall's sake – that's why. The lady's out for vengeance. She has been wronged.'

‘Oh, balls, balls, balls,' I said.

We were silent for a long time after that. Ever since Mrs Edmunds had gone we'd been arguing, and I realised suddenly that I didn't want this old man to come up with a solution, and that was why I stayed while the sun broke through outside and the day brightened. I wanted a solution, of course I did, but it had to be acceptable.

‘What about Ridetski?' I started up again. ‘If he isn't in that Tower then why can't he be knocking around the town wearing a beard, or something?'

‘A possibility,' he conceded. ‘Ridetski holds everything together, doesn't he? You have come round to it at last...'

‘Now – just a minute – it was all Mrs Edmunds...'

He rose stiffly from his chair and came to join me at the window. ‘Philip – I will come clean, as they say. In a game of cards you offer one sometimes in order to make your opponent commit himself...'

‘Do you, really? I never knew that.'

He grated his teeth and made his ticking noise, but controlled himself sufficiently to say, ‘It was I who sent Mrs Edmunds a photograph!'

‘You did? Where the hell did you get if from?' Then I was pointing at him, saying, ‘It was you who stripped the wallpaper in Lilian's place, wasn't it?'

‘It was never orthodox,' he said defensively. ‘I must insist on your total discretion.'

‘You bloody old burglar! You've been keeping them from the police, haven't you? Withholding evidence.'

But he came back fighting. ‘And I had every right! After that boy scout Inspector ordered me off. Every right in the world.' Old fox, I thought. No wonder the bloody police weren't making any progress. ‘This may be Ellyott's last case,' he added, placing his hand on his heart to see if it was still pumping.

‘Don't give me that! You found that picture, didn't you? And you sent it to her in the post?'

‘No, no, no. You must not anticipate. Do not presume. I did not send her that photograph.'

Senile decay, I thought. ‘Look – you just told me...'

‘I sent her another photograph – and she sent me this one in return.'

I gaped at him, which was what he had wanted me to do all along. ‘So she's got some pictures, too?'

He eased his glasses a little further down his nose. ‘Mrs Ridetski's rooms, you will remember, were broken into and left in some disorder on the night she died...'

‘Mrs Edmunds?'

‘Why not? The night of Mrs Ridetski's death – might Mrs Edmunds not have gone there to talk, to persuade, to beg perhaps that the association with Marshall end? And might she not have found a door ajar, Mrs Ridetski having left in a hurry to keep a fatal appointment?' He made his ticking noises, his sharp, youthful eyes on me all the time. ‘Mrs E goes up the stairs. Might she not have found the photograph in some drawer perhaps? A photograph like that one and its variations – other faces in view, perhaps? Stretching coincidence to its limits, might not Mrs Ridetski have been inspecting the photographs that evening, in preparation for a little blackmail herself? Who knows? Mrs E, we now know, took the photographs, searched for more and failed to find any. Home she went – and may well have sent them out appropriately.' He did his grating laugh then. ‘Your face, Philip. My word, what naive young men came off the battlefields!'

‘You're just supposing. Somebody else might have sent her the photo – and why should she want to send them out, anyway?' I could hear the fire hissing in that kitchen in the Crescent, see the brown paper envelope curling in the heat.

‘What young men you are. So much experience to so little effect. Do you remember the wreath in the Tower?'

‘What's that got to do with it?'

‘What did it say? “To a brave warrior”?'

‘Something like that. What's a wreath got to do with it? We were talking about photographs.'

‘Would you care to look closer?' He went over to the bureau and took the photograph out. ‘Come,' he said, ‘come closer. You can't possibly examine it from that distance.' I went over to him. ‘Observe. The photograph which the lady has admitted sending to me. Now – are you observing – the quality of the picture? The technique is called montage – but the head rests uneasily on the shoulders, surely? Not quite in place?' His finger pointed urgently. ‘What do you say?
Tk, tk, tk
.'

‘A fake?'

‘A not entirely successful first attempt, I deduce. Mr Ridetski at the bonfire clicked his camera, but the results were short on clarity. Help was required. A little montage in the dark room. Our friend Ridetski would not have used this one. No – I am prepared to wager that his skill improved, and that he threatened our friends with more accomplished versions; Mr MT's head on this one, Messrs Garston and Morton on the others. Three men at a bonfire, each clutching a bag of gold. The lady decided it was time for me to see it.' His mottled hand trembled as he opened a small drawer in the bureau and removed another photograph, no more than postcard size, blank side uppermost. ‘Now – so that you may have a complete picture! This is the one I sent to the lady, the card I preferred. I had copies made.' He looked up at me, then examined the photograph, hiding it from me before he handed it over. ‘How long ago, Philip? Five years? Six? Perhaps more?'

It was a sunny day. Perhaps they were out on bikes, the edge of a wheel on the grass by her leg. And the way I saw it he had a camera on a tripod and he had set the time exposure and had run back to her before the shutter opened... A tall, slim man, dark and with a thin, sensitive face. In Royal Air Force uniform, with Poland above his badge of rank. And she had removed her glasses, and the wind had swept back her hair, a blouse open at her throat, and she was looking up at him, as pretty as she would ever be, perhaps as happy. Sylvia Edmunds for sure. Andrei Ridetski it had to be.