The Man Who Killed Himself (16 page)

He took a deep breath. ‘Look, officer, I’m in a desperate hurry, my wife’s ill, and I’ve only got a mile or two to go. This should last out till I get home and I’ll change it then.’

The light moved from the boot to his face, back again, was switched off. ‘Reckon so. Sure I can’t help?’

‘It’s very kind of you, but I can get home.’

‘Right then. Get that rear light seen to, sir, won’t you?’ He moved away, kicked the motorcycle into action and was gone along the Newhaven road, leaving the night still again. Arthur leaned against the car. A spasm of nausea bent him double, then passed. When he began to drive again he felt as if he had suffered some physical attack. At the sign that said
Southease
he turned left past the church, down a narrow road. In less than five minutes he was at Southease Bridge.

There were other bridges in the district, but most of those that crossed fast-flowing rivers, like the bridge at Exceat, were on main roads. Southease Bridge, however, was on a tiny side road joining the main Lewes-Newhaven road from which he had come and a minor road winding from the coast up to the downs through the villages of South Heighton and Tarring Neville, to pass a cement works and rejoin another main road out of Lewes at the hamlet of Beddingham. The side road is little used even in the daytime and the wooden bridge is not constructed for heavy traffic. Beneath it the Ouse flows swiftly down to Newhaven and the sea. He tucked the car in off the road beside the bridge and turned off the lights. A sign beside the point at which he had stopped said: ‘Southease Bridge. Maximum Safe 2 tons, including weight of vehicle.’ There were chalk deposits opposite. He had no flashlight, but he did not need one. He took the suitcase from the boot, walked to the middle of the bridge, dropped it over and heard a splash. Then he put his arm round the body, lifted. It did not move. He pulled at it in panic, felt resistance, pulled again. The strength to lift seemed to have gone out of his arms. He dragged the thing along the road up to the bridge and along its planks. A last effort was needed, and he made it. He lifted, levered. Another splash and it was gone.

With a sensation of total disbelief he heard a vehicle coming towards him from the Tarring Neville road.

He had no time to think, no time even to get back into the car. He ran off the bridge and stood with his back to the road in the attitude of a man relieving himself, as a lorry moved on to the bridge and clattered slowly across. Headlights blazed, he seemed to feel the heat of them on his back. The bridge was so narrow that the lorry almost touched him, and for a moment he feared that it would stop. Then it moved on up to Rodmell, leaving only a tail light which vanished as it turned a curve. He was safe. He got back into the car and drove home by way of Beddingham. He did not change the tyre, and by the time he limped back into the garage it was almost flat.

On the following morning he put the sacks, which were spotted with blood, together with the wig, into the garden incinerator. In the afternoon he had the puncture mended at his local garage. There was no trace left that Clennery Tubbs had paid him a visit.

The disastrous excursion to Brighton had cured him of the desire to discover his true nature by contact with other people. One fine October morning he looked up at the green slope behind the house, seemed to see himself rolling down it as a child and his mother in her floppy hat above, and realised that he wished to paint. Why had he not thought of it before? At school he had painted with enjoyment. Perhaps he had always wished to paint, perhaps Clare’s visits to her art class had involved an unconscious rivalry with him instead of with his mother. He bought an easel and paints and in the mild October days went out and painted the countryside round Plumpton and Ditchling. At first he put awkward blurs on to the paper, but within a week he was producing recognisable shapes, and as he compared his work with his mother’s it seemed to him that he had a delicacy and exactness of touch which she had lacked. He felt also that he was truly emancipating himself for the first time from the feminine influences that had pressed on him throughout his life – his mother, Clare, Joan. He lived frugally, taking date and banana sandwiches on these expeditions and cooking omelettes at night. The sensation of peace was strong. When he met the Brodzkys one day he greeted them smilingly, but they ignored him. This might have upset him in the past, but it did so no longer. He had been living in this way contentedly for two weeks when he returned from a day’s painting to find Inspector Coverdale’s black Humber in front of his gate.

Last Conversation with Coverdale

It was Sergeant Amies, as Coverdale generously admitted, who made the vital discovery in the case, although neither man fully realised its significance at the time. Amies had become really rather obsessed by the affair, and had taken to brooding over the files of statements and documents when he had a spare half-hour. One day he came in with one of the documents and said: ‘Just take a look at that, sir. What do you make of it?’

Coverdale looked and made nothing of what Amies showed him, except that it was certainly odd. ‘There must be some simple explanation.’

‘Nice to know what it was though, eh, sir?’

Coverdale sighed. The case had hardly been a triumph, although he was not inclined to attribute the negative result to his own handling of the investigation. With retirement looming ahead his chief desire was to forget about it. ‘A minor point. It’s difficult to see what bearing it can have.’

‘It may be a minor point, but it’s a discrepancy.’

‘Yes. Well. I don’t feel we should use a day of our time to clear up a discrepancy of that sort.’

Amies’ silence showed disagreement, and indeed Coverdale had the prickly feeling in his fingers that he associated with something left undone. He was not sorry when Amies reopened the matter by coming to him one day and saying: ‘What do you think of
that
, sir?’

That
was a report from the Sussex police that a body, so far unidentified, had been found by some boys in the River Ouse near to its mouth at Newhaven. The body was that of a man about five feet seven inches in height, and he was already dead when he entered the water. Death appeared to have been caused by a blow on the head delivered with some severity, which had caused a skull fracture. He had been in the water for about a week and would not be easily recognisable. He was fully dressed in cheap clothing, with the exception of the fact that he was wearing only one shoe. There was no clue to his identity in his pockets. A cheap suitcase which had been found a couple of miles farther up the river might possibly be connected with him, but in any case its contents were of no help in tracing him. He was fairly well nourished, about forty years of age, with brownish sandy hair and beard, no distinguishing marks. A shoe which appeared to be the fellow to the one he was wearing had been found on the ground just beside a place called Southease Bridge, so there was a strong presumption that he had been thrown into the river at that point.

Coverdale read it and said: ‘Well?’

‘I’ve been in touch with Sussex and made a few inquiries. There’s another little report here.’

The little report was from PC Robertson of the Sussex constabulary, to the effect that on the 30 September he had stopped a Triumph car number 663 ABC near Rodmell on the Lewes-Newhaven road, because it lacked a rear light. The car also had a slow puncture. The driver had seemed agitated and had refused PC Robertson’s offer to help him change the tyre, saying that he only had a mile or so to go to see his wife, who was ill. His driving licence bore the name of Arthur Brownjohn. PC Robertson had returned to Newhaven and had seen no more of the car.

Coverdale tapped the paper. ‘Why did Robertson report an incident like this?’

‘I gather Sussex asked for reports of anything out of the way near the Ouse in the week before they found chummy. It meant nothing much to them but it does to us, wouldn’t you agree, sir? I mean we know he hasn’t got a wife for a start.’

‘We certainly know that,’ Coverdale said cautiously.

‘And the bridge at this place Southease is only about a mile from Rodmell.’

‘It’s all a bit conjectural.’

‘Yes, sir. I wonder, how would it be if I went down and had a look round for a day or two, see what I can dig up. In co-operation with Sussex, of course.’

So that was the way it was done. Amies in fact took a little more than a week, but the result fully justified it, and Coverdale went so far as to congratulate the Sergeant on the skill with which he had followed up the leads he had discovered. It was time for action. Strictly speaking it was a Sussex affair since the body had been found in that county, but the circumstances were exceptional, and co-operation presented no problem. So it was Coverdale and Amies who walked to the garage as Arthur was putting in the Triumph.

He was carrying his easel and paints. He stopped when he saw them. ‘You’ve got some news?’

‘We may have, Sir, and we may not,’ Coverdale said heavily. ‘We thought we’d stop by to have a chat.’

‘I’m sorry if you’ve had to wait. If you’d let me know –’ He opened the front door.

‘Perfectly all right. We’ve been admiring the scenery. As a matter of fact the Sergeant here has spent the last few days in this part of the world.’

Brownjohn led the way into the living-room, where he put down his painting things. ‘Very tidy,’ Coverdale said approvingly. He looked at the pictures. ‘Local scenes. Are they yours?’

‘No. My mother painted them. Years ago. Will you have a drink?’

‘Nothing to drink, thank you.’ Both men sat down, Amies in a circular chair, the Inspector in one of modern design which suddenly tilted back, taking his legs off the ground. Brownjohn gave a giggle bitten off like a hiccup. Neither policeman laughed. Amies looked for somewhere to put his hat and placed it carefully on the floor, then took out notebook and pencil.

‘So sorry, I should have warned you. About the chair I mean.’ He went to a cupboard made in some light wood, opened it. They watched in silence while he poured whisky. ‘Made this myself. Turning into a handyman. Inside compartment too.’ He opened it to show them. ‘Had a faulty catch, but I’ve put it right now.’

He sat down and sipped his whisky. His face and his bald head were shiny, his nostrils twitched. He looked like a rabbit, and about him there was as always the air of being slightly lost, unable to cope with the pace and roughness of life. It was not easy to imagine him hurting anybody.

A great deal might depend on the way in which the interrogation was conducted, the order in which things were said. Coverdale had discussed this at length with Amies, and they had settled both their tactics and their technique. With the most casual possible air like a centre forward beginning a game of football by a pass tapped only inches to his inside left, Coverdale said: ‘I wonder, do you know a man who goes by the name of Clennery Tubbs?’

It was a fine evening. Behind the two policemen little chips of white cloud scudded across a blue sky. Outside there was the garden, beyond the garden a road, a hill, freedom. Inside these walls was the force that threatened freedom. Arthur could feel it emanating from the lumpy Inspector and his sharp-nosed Sergeant. He knew that battle was being joined, and that his fate might depend upon the quickness of his reaction.

First move, time-wasting evasion. ‘Has he something to do with my wife’s death?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

A pause. Amies spoke. ‘Clennery Tubbs, unusual name, you wouldn’t forget it.’

‘I was just trying to – your saying
goes by the name of
, you see, rather – let me think. Yes. I remember. I met him at a demonstration some months ago, when I was showing one of my inventions, a dish washer.’ He was conscious of waffling. ‘He tried to interest me in an invention of his own, a car cream. I looked into it, but it was no good. Why do you ask?’

‘You haven’t seen him recently?’ A shake of the head. ‘He was fished out of the river a few days ago.’

‘I’m sorry. Though I can’t say I cared for him.’ Self-possession recovered.

‘He was a bad boy,’ Coverdale said. ‘Went inside seven years ago for frauds on women. Prints on file, that’s how we traced him.’

‘Our information is that you saw him recently. Just before his death. Which took place on or about September 30th.’ That was the Sergeant, sharpish.

‘Met him?’

‘Perhaps you’d like to tell us what you did on that day. Not so long ago. Just over two weeks.’

‘I’ll need to look at – I’ve got a calendar in my kitchen.’ Amies went to the kitchen door and stood there while he stared at a calendar on the wall. Then he came back and they all sat down again. ‘Of course. I should have remembered, I went to Brighton. Somebody told me about a club called the Robin Hood and I went in there and played roulette. I won some money. Then I left and came home.’

‘You left?’ Amies said. ‘You were thrown out, weren’t you?’

A flicker of alarm stirred in Arthur’s stomach. They had traced his movements in Brighton.

‘My information is that you attacked a Mrs Hester Green, tore off and broke her necklace and had to be escorted out.’

‘I had a little too much to drink.’ He pushed away the whisky glass. ‘I can’t be quite sure about my movements afterwards.’

‘I suggest that you met the man Tubbs.’

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m quite sure I didn’t.’

‘Mrs Green saw you talking to a man resembling him outside the club.’

Just as firmly he said, ‘She’s mistaken. Or telling lies.’

He felt the tension in the other men, and relaxed a little. They were guessing, they only had Hester’s word for it that he had met Tubbs, there could be no proof that he had visited the bungalow.

At the same time Coverdale, in his ridiculous tilting chair, knew that a trick had been lost. Amies should have phrased his questions differently, he had failed to maintain the pressure, they were not exactly back to square one but they would have to approach from a different angle. As Amies began to ask another question the Inspector cut him short.

‘You agree that you attacked Mrs Green?’

‘Oh no, Inspector, of course not.’ Brownjohn laughed, moved his chair nearer to the table in the middle of the room, rested his arm on it. ‘I’d met her – I didn’t even know that was her name – earlier in the day in the antique shop she runs, and when I saw her again in the club it was natural to buy her a drink.’ Amies tried to interrupt and Coverdale checked him, saying that they must let Mr Brownjohn speak. ‘I didn’t attack her – what happened was that I lurched across the table because I’d had one too many, slipped and caught my hand in her necklace. It’s true that she was angry, but I assure you it was an accident.’

‘It’s not important,’ Coverdale said soothingly. ‘And after that you can’t remember driving home?’

‘That’s right. But I did.’

‘You left the club at about nine o’clock, right, Amies?’ The Sergeant nodded sulkily.

‘Did you drive straight back?’

Arthur thought: you’ve telegraphed your punch, my dear Inspector. That damned policeman on the motorbike has reported seeing me. ‘I just don’t know. I know I got home, but I don’t know the time.’

‘Your car was seen near Rodmell, a few miles south of Lewes, by a policeman. He stopped you and talked to you, and you showed him your driving licence. You had a dud rear light. This was just before eleven o’clock. Two hours to get from Brighton to Rodmell, which isn’t more than twelve miles. How, do you explain that?’

‘I can’t. I told you I had too much to drink. I just drove around, or at least I suppose so. I do have a vague recollection of talking to a policeman.’ He actually smiled and asked if they would like a drink now. He was pouring another for himself after they had shaken their heads when the Inspector said that if there was such a thing as a bottle of beer in the house, he did feel thirsty. As Arthur got up to fetch it he saw the surprised, almost hostile glance that Amies gave his superior, and thought:
I’ve convinced the Inspector, he’s on my side now, I just have this surly brute to deal with.
Amies said: ‘He was thrown into the river at Southease Bridge, not far from where the policeman stopped you.’

He did not falter in pouring the beer, but he thought: how can they know that? The Sergeant provided the answer, in his voice that sounded like chalk on a blackboard. ‘You wonder how we know? Because one of his shoes was left beside the bridge, that’s why.’

The tug I felt when I got him out of the car, he thought. Amies went on.

‘You were seen on the bridge. By a lorry driver. You’d just thrown the body over.’

He felt mildly contemptuous. Really, the man’s
modus operandi
was crude. ‘That isn’t true.’

‘If you were so drunk, how do you know? If you were drunk, why didn’t PC Robertson notice it?’

He shrugged and decided that it was time to move on to the attack. ‘I think you’ll agree that I’ve answered your questions patiently, but now I’m going to refuse to say anything more until you tell me why you’re asking them.’

A short silence. Then Coverdale. ‘All right, sir. Tubbs was thrown into the river. He was dead when he went in.’ Another silence. Should he comment? Better not. ‘He had a slight heart condition, but the cause of his death was a blow on the head which fractured his skull.’

‘A blow on the head.’ He wanted to say that Tubbs had hit his head against the table, but of course that wouldn’t do.

‘Might have been from your stick.’ That was Amies, who now fetched the stick from the hall, thwacked his palm with the loaded end, nodded.

Indignation came up like bile. ‘How did you know my stick was there? You’ve been inside this house. Illegal entry.’

‘I happened to notice it as we came in.’ Amies laughed in his face as he spoke, unpleasant. ‘Handy weapon.’

‘Outrageous,’ he said. ‘Outrageous.’

Coverdale finished his beer and said pacifically: ‘Let’s not get heated. Cards on the table is my motto. Your car was stopped a mile away from where Tubbs went into the river, it was identified by a lorry driver beside the actual bridge.’

‘He was mistaken.’

‘I’ll be frank. What he saw was a figure near the bridge and a Triumph Herald car. He didn’t get the number. Cards on the table. We were justified in asking questions, don’t you agree?’

‘And I’ve answered them.’ Clouds were rolling up the sky, darkness softened the outlines of the room. The two figures sat like squat bugs in their chairs. He rose, turned on a standard lamp, drew the curtains across the windows, looked at his watch. ‘If there’s nothing more –’

‘Just another couple of questions,’ Coverdale said apologetically. ‘About Mellon.’