The Glimpses of the Moon (28 page)

‘Yes, I can imagine it's difficult. Have you identified the body?'

‘No, we haven't.'

‘Oh,' said Fen - and was glad that Widger, looking away from him in the general direction of Burraford, was unable to see the surprise on his face.

And with that, suddenly Widger's tongue was loosened. Driving over, he had planned this interview carefully: he would be casual, confident; above all, he would preserve a decent reticence. But now, all at once, his good resolutions were swept away. His embarrassment dropped from him, and he found

himself talking; and talking; and talking. Sprawled on the grass, he told Fen every detail of the case - everything that he and Ling had seen and heard and done, baulking only at the visit to Sir John Honeybourne and the switching of the sacks. Fen, however, noting his hesitation, at this point interrupted for the first and only time.

‘Yes, I know you lost the head,' he said mildly. ‘Very bad luck. Still, it could have happened to anyone - and I certainly don't see what else you could have done. The Major told me,' he explained. ‘He didn't say where he got it from - but I have an idea that by now it's common knowledge, even if the details are a bit vague.'

For a moment nervous again, Widger lapsed unconsciously into a childhood Devonism. ‘You must,' he said, ‘be thinking we're a pair of girt dawbakes.'

‘I don't think that at all. Please go on.'

And Widger, his conscience relieved of the burden of treachery, did go on. He went on, all told, for over two hours - and because his eyes were averted, missed the one or two occasions when Fen's brows lifted. At the end of his recital he was hoarse, and tireder than ever, but he felt purged; though he hadn't been behaving in the least like a responsible officer of the law, he didn't care a damn. If the Chief didn't sack him on Sunday, he was due to retire soon anyway. And as to Eddie, to hell with Eddie. The probability was that he would never get to hear about this visit, and even if he did, and turned nasty about it, let him do his worst.

Widger stretched luxuriously, and swivelled his head to grin at Fen.

‘Well, that's it, sir,' he said cheerfully if indistinctly. ‘Any comments?'

Fen said, ‘I think that now you
do
need that drink.' He went into the cottage to fetch whisky, and when he returned, the two of them sat sipping for a space in companionable silence. Finally Fen said:

‘You were right. It
is
slippery. For one thing, although it's a very far-out guess, I suspect that you have
two
murderers to look for.'

'Two,
sir?'

'Yes. One for Routh (and I don't mean Hagberd), and another for Mavis Trent and the man in the Botticelli tent.'

‘Any proof of that, sir?'

‘No. As I say, it's a guess. And I don't at all know who killed Routh. But as regards the Botticelli murderer, I can make a rather closer guess.'

‘Again, sir - any proof?'

‘Nothing that would really satisfy you, Inspector.'

Widger swallowed his disappointment, telling himself that he had never really had any great expectations.

‘On the other hand,' said Fen, ‘our Botticelli murderer has been going to a good deal of trouble and risk to muddy the waters. He's been trying to prevent, or at any rate delay, the identification of his second victim.'

‘Agreed, sir.' This was a conclusion Widger had come to himself.

‘Which in turn means that identification would point to him, and to him alone.'

‘Yes, sir. I agree again. But we've tried everything. We've -'

‘No, you haven't Inspector. It ought to be perfectly easy to identify that body.'

Widger stared incredulously. ‘But, sir, how?'

‘Just by making some telephone calls.'

‘I think, sir,' said Widger, ‘that perhaps you'd better explain.'

Fen explained. And Widger scrambled to his feet with as much celerity as if his host had picked up the radio and hurled it at him.

‘But that means - '

‘Yes.'

‘It means that the way the arm was smuggled out of the tent -'

‘Yes.'

In high agitation, Widger said, ‘I must get back to the station, sir. At once. I must - I must make a start on that telephoning you suggested.' Recovering something of his official manner, he said, ‘Well, you've been most helpful, sir. Very helpful indeed. Thank you. And thank you for the whisky.'

‘You haven't finished it.'

Widger picked up his glass, drained it at a gulp, and put it down again. He rushed back to his car, and Fen watched in
some amusement as he turned it in the space in front of the cottage, and headed down the narrow driveway towards the lane. He was still in sight when a slight hitch occurred. For Fen had more visitors, on foot, stumbling excitedly up the driveway towards him. They were Thouless, Padmore and the Major, and they all looked as if they had been drinking. Confronted with Widger's Cortina, they temporarily lost their heads. The Major hobbled rapidly to one side, Padmore and Thouless to the other. It was evident that Widger was not going to be able to squeeze between them, so Thouless caught Padmore by the sleeve and dragged him to where the Major was, while at the same time the Major crossed to join
them;
the situation, though reversed, thus remained as difficult as ever. Padmore now decided to make a rapid traverse and align himself with the Major, but Thouless, while calling out to him irritably, seemed equally firmly determined to remain where he was. So it was still deadlock. Finally, all three of them made up their minds to move simultaneously, and collided in a clump at the centre of the driveway, where they stood irresolutely, blocking Widger's progress altogether.

Widger slowed down. He honked his horn. Eventually, he was compelled to come to a stop. He wound down the driver's window and thrust his face out, saying,
Will
you get out of the way,' and this broke the paralysis. Thouless, Padmore and the Major all huddled themselves into the same side at once, and Widger scraped past them, disappearing into the lane with an irate roar of his exhaust. With him gone, they hurried on up the driveway to where Fen was waiting for them on the lawn, and flung themselves down around him on the green.

‘That was Widger,' said the Major. ‘We ought to have told him.'

‘We phoned the police,' said Padmore, ‘so there was no need.'

‘What's happening?' Fen asked. ‘What is all this about?'

Thouless snorted. ‘You may well ask. Heavens, what an afternoon! I drank too much gin, for one thing, and that never does me any good. It gives me a headache. In fact, I can feel the headache coming on now.' He dredged in a pocket, producing from it a box of non-ethical, and indeed totally inefficacious, tranquillizers, such as could be bought without a prescription across the counter of any chemist's. ‘Here, have a Kwye
Tewd.' He offered the box around, but there were no takers, so he ended by cramming a handful of the small white pills into his own mouth. And the Major, who seemed marginally soberer than the other two, said to Fen:

‘We thought we really must come and tell you, my dear fellow. It's Ortrud Youings. She's bolted.'

All three of them tried to tell the story simultaneously, so that a good deal of confusion and squabbling resulted. In its main outlines, however, it emerged clearly enough.

That afternoon, Padmore and the Major had dropped in on Thouless for a drink and a chat. They had originally had no intention of staying very long, but Thouless had been pleased at having an excuse for not going on composing bugaboo music in his hut in the garden, and the revels had prolonged themselves, as these things will. Then at shortly after four the front door bell had rung, violently and repeatedly, and Thouless - euphoric from gin and from the prospect of expanding the party -had gone to answer it, finding himself confronted on the doorstep with a large, bloodied, bruised, hairy young man, dressed in blue jeans and an imitation leather jerkin, and with great grubby bare feet. This vision was at first so agitated as to be barely articulate, mumbling, ‘Fuzz! Fuzz! Telephone! Ambulance! Help me!' and ‘Oh, my God!' But Thouless nevertheless conducted him into the living-room with its bust of Cumberland, there compelling him to lie down on a sofa while he supplied witch hazel for the bruises, iodine for the cuts and grazes, and brandy for the stomach. Recovering partially, and watched with acute interest by Thouless's other two guests, the young man presently managed to raise himself on one elbow and speak rather more lucidly.

‘Fuzz,' he said. ‘We must telephone for the fuzz. And for an ambulance. Oh, my God, if I'd ever realized what a ghastly bitch she was - '

‘There, there,' Thouless soothed him. ‘You're quite all right here. The danger's over.'

‘No, it's not,' said the young man. ‘Not so long as that dreadful woman's on the loose. I can't think what possessed me. I can't think why I didn't see through her. Oh, my God,'

‘Have some more brandy,' said Thouless, pouring. ‘Why don't you tell us quickly what's happened, and
then
we'll telephone.'

The young man looked at Padmore and the Major. ‘Who
are
these people?' he said suspiciously.

‘Visitors.'

‘And who are you?'

‘My name's Thouless.'

‘You must know her, you live so near. Perhaps you're a friend of hers. Perhaps you're
all
friends of hers. Perhaps you're in league. Perhaps you're hiding her out here. Oh, my God.'

‘We're not hiding anyone out,' said Thouless a shade impatiently. ‘Come on, man, come on. Tell us what's happened. Have you been knocked over by a car?'

‘If only it was just that,' the young man moaned. ‘If only I'd never set eyes on her. Oh, my God.' He mastered himself with an effort, again made an inventory of the room, and apparently concluded, with reluctance, that he'd have to trust them. The whole story - not a very lengthy or complicated one - came pouring out.

He was a student from the University, he said, and had recently been having a bang with Ortrud Youings; his name, aptly enough, was John Thomas. He did not dilate on how and where he had first met Ortrud, but simply said that she had invited him to come and stay. Her husband, she told him, was away, so they could have a delightful,
höchst erfreulich,
time together; and since (his hearers gathered) Thomas had so far made no great mark with his studies, he had felt no compunction about putting the University behind him for a week or two, and accepting the invitation. Though Thomas had had no notion of this, to her meek and doting husband Ortrud had simply said, as on a number of previous occasions, that she was going to move a man into the house; and grief-stricken but obedient as ever, he had taken himself off to the flatlet over Clarence Tully's stables. Thomas had at first been slightly surprised to see a large, blond man drive up to the pig-farm every day in a battered black Volkswagen, and attend lovingly to the pigs. He had concluded, however, that this was an employee, and soon dismissed the matter from his mind.

At first, all had gone well. Ortrud was a good cook, and had had not the slightest objection to her lover's lounging in bed for most of the day, reading light fiction or slumbering. But her sexual demands were heavy, and Thomas, though young and strong, had found it more and more exhausting to keep pace with them: he had begun to pine, to imagine lethal ailments, to find it increasingly difficult to do the simplest thing without getting giddy spells. He had begun to think wistfully that the University syllabus was less demanding than he had previously imagined. On the other hand, he was much too afraid of Ortrud to make a unilateral break. He could only hope that she would quickly get tired of him, and make the break herself; and since he was becoming alarmingly subject to impotence, there did seem to be a very real hope that she would shortly do this.

It was at this stage, on the Friday afternoon, that Youings, who had come as usual to attend to the pigs, made the mistake of entering the house; he had needed a clean shirt, and had thought that he could abstract one from the bedroom without arousing notice. Creeping in at the front door, which gave on a combined entrance hall and parlour, he had discovered Ortrud and Thomas there entangled in an embrace, and for some reason this had proved too much even for his infatuation. He had embarked on a mild remonstrance, but had never had the chance to finish it. For Ortrud was enraged at seeing him. Thrusting Thomas from her arms, she had picked up a heavy poker from among the fire-irons and had hit her husband a colossal blow on the head with it, flooring him.

It had all happened too quickly for Thomas to do anything about it; he had witnessed the assault aghast; all he knew was that he must get away from this terrible woman as rapidly as possible. Moreover, he knew now that this big, blond man was not an employee, but was married to Ortrud. He, Thomas, had been ruthlessly deceived. He stood there paralysed by dread while Ortrud bent over the body on the floor, favoured it with a cursory inspection, and straightened up again, the poker still in her hand.

'Tod,'
said Ortrud sepulchrally. ‘He has gone to his fathers.'

‘Oh, my God,' said John Thomas.

He himself looked at the sprawled figure, and although he
had little experience of such things, it occurred to him, sanguinely, that this victim of Ortrud's impulsiveness, even if very seriously injured, might not actually be dead: for one thing, his head was still bleeding freely. Ortrud, however, had no such
arrière-pensées:
she must clear out of here, and fast. Pausing only a moment to arrive at her decision, she seized John Thomas in an iron grip, propelled him hapless into the small, stone-walled downstairs lavatory, threw down the poker beside him, and before he could collect himself, had locked him in and taken the key away.