‘Mr Melton,’ I said as I took a sip of the cloudy brown liquid in my cup, ‘why, when you must have an incredible amount of work to do, are you spending so much time on someone who can help you as little as I can, who only met the girls for the briefest of moments’ (the distaste again) ‘and who can by no stretch of the imagination be suspect. Please don’t be offended by my bluntness, but I find it curious.’
He smiled.
‘Well, it’s better than being told one should be out catching criminals instead of manning radar traps. But you underestimate your value to us, Mr Bentink. That’s what makes police work so difficult. People don’t know how much they can help. It’s a kind of modesty, I suppose. But something you said there interested me, Mr Bentink. Of course you’re not here as a suspect, except insofar as anyone remotely connected with the case is a suspect. But why are you so certain of your own exemption from suspicion?’
Again I found myself not altogether liking his phraseology, but I could afford to be benevolent.
‘Because, as you must know, Superintendent, I was visibly in the Boot Inn from six-thirty p.m. on.’
He raised his eyebrows.
‘Indeed we do know that, Mr Bentink. But I fear you are labouring under a misconception of some kind. When do you think the girls died?’
‘Between seven and ten, didn’t they?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Why, Detective-Constable Lazonby, I think it was. He implied it anyway.’
‘You must have misinterpreted him. Or he himself is misinformed.’
The fingers were now back in the steeple formation. The eyes fixed firmly on me.
‘The pathologist’s preliminary examination indicates the girls had been dead between eleven and fourteen hours when found. They were found at three a.m. That means, as I am sure you can work out, that they died – were murdered – between one o’clock and four o’clock yesterday afternoon. And you were on the fells then, Mr Bentink. So it’s not quite such an imaginative stretch after all.’
I held the coffee cup steady at my lips for as long as I decently could and cursed the slowness of my wits. I had seen men lose fortunes on the market like this. Not fully understanding what was going on, they had clung all the more tightly to their certainties, only to sink completely when these were snatched away.
Suddenly, from being in possession of a perfect abili, I had been turned adrift on the mountainside with no one except Peter able to vouch for a single second of a single one of the three vital hours. I pulled myself up mentally. There were doubtless hundreds of people in a similar position. The area must have been swarming with walkers on a day like yesterday, I thought. Lone walkers; walkers in pairs, in threes, in fours; groups of walkers, packs of walkers, columns, battalions and regiments of walkers.
‘That surprises me, Superintendent,’ I said easily. ‘How could such a thing happen in broad daylight on such a popular stretch of the fells?’
He looked down at his papers as though at notes. But though I had seen him toy with a pencil for a few seconds at a time, he never appeared to write anything.
‘You say you only saw one group of people yourself, Mr Bentink. That must have been in seven or eight hours up there.’
‘There were others in the distance.’
‘Who may or may not have seen you and almost certainly woudln’t if you sat down. Or lay down. Or were made to lie down.’
‘But noise. Screams. On a clear day.’
‘Muffled by something. A sweater. A jacket. And pressure round the throat. The rape and strangulation were apparently almost simultaneous.’
I felt ill.
‘But what kind of people … in broad daylight … The risk!’
Melton stood up and looked out through the rain-spattered window.
‘What kind of people? No special kind. At least not special in that they are going to stand out to a casual glance. Hotblooded enough to make them ignore the risk. But coldblooded enough I suspect to make them aware how little it was. This was no prolonged passionate love-making, Mr Bentink. This was a one-minute job. And then they lay there panting hard. And the girls not panting at all. All in sixty seconds.’
I sat unable to speak, or smoke, or sip coffee.
He went on.
‘Then they got up. Dragged the bodies ten, fifteen yards to a shallow gully, a dried-up stream bed. And tipped them in. No attempt was made to cover them. They just tipped them in. No one saw anything then, though as you say there were hundreds of people out walking that day. And no one came across the bodies till one of the search party found them early in the morning. No one in the hostel worried till locking-up time. Even then, they did not really start worrying. It was the finest day in living memory. The night was warm and clear. No one could be in trouble on a night like this, everyone thought. But at midnight they started wondering, at twelve-thirty they started worrying. At one they started searching. Two hours later, they found them. Quite easy, really.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘They woke me up at four-thirty.’
He turned round and yawned. I looked at my watch. It was midday.
‘We’ve done a lot since then.’
I decided the time had come to really test the situation.
‘I’m sure you must be very tired and still extremely busy. Do you want me to make any kind of statement? If so, I’ll get on with it. It won’t take long – I mean, there’s not a great deal I can state. But I mustn’t keep you back from the job.’
He looked as if he hadn’t heard a word.
‘Mr Bentink, are you married?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Mr Thorne. Is he married?’
‘No.’
‘Have you been on holiday together before?’
‘Well, yes. When we were undergraduates.’
‘You met at University?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you haven’t been on holiday together since then?’
‘No.’
‘Not, in fact, since you got married?’
‘No.’
‘Any special reason why you came this year?’
Again I was faced with a choice. Again I tried to sidestep it.
‘No, no special reason,’ I said.
If I kept everything as simple as possible perhaps we might rescue the afternoon from this nightmare.
‘Mrs Bentink did not mind, then?’
‘Mind what?’
‘Mind losing you for a week. Or a fortnight. What is it, by the way?’
‘A fortnight. Three weeks. Whatever we decide.’
‘Well, that’s very nice, I must say. You must be self-employed.’
‘Yes.’
‘What?’
‘I own a business.’
‘What