‘You’d better get off to work then,’ Viner said. ‘Both of you. Wouldn’t do to keep your bosses waiting.’ He caught sight of Inspector Bennett. ‘These young ladies have come across – or fancy they’ve come across – our phantom prowler,’ he said as Bennett came over. ‘Most upset,’ Viner added with unsubtle irony. ‘So upset they didn’t notice anything about him.’
Bennett ran his eye over the girls, the short one like a terrier with her fringe of fawn-coloured hair, and the taller one, not bad-looking in her dreamy way. He frowned. Hadn’t the tall one been into the station only a week or two back on some pretext or other? He flicked a sour-grape look at Viner’s smooth tanned skin and thick dark hair; a pity the sergeant had nothing better to do than stand around encouraging silly girls to run in and out making eyes at him.
‘You might explain to these young ladies,’ Bennett said with threatening jocularity, ‘that there’s such a thing as being charged with wasting police time.’ The tall girl gave him a look of faint alarm, the other lowered her eyes with an expression of contempt.
‘Foolish girls,’ Bennett said, gazing idly about, ‘are inclined to pick up snippets of rumour.’ His glance rested on James Ottaway still peering resolutely into vacancy; at least it wasn’t one of the old fellow’s noisily obstreperous days, something to be thankful for. ‘Frivolous minds seize on a titbit,’ Bennett said. ‘They touch it up, embroider it.’ He jerked his head round, frowned at the girls with a look from which jocularity had abruptly vanished. ‘Then they come in here with their daft tales, trying it on, looking for a bit of importance.’ He nodded over towards the door. ‘Go on, scarper. Go and waste your bosses’ time.’ When they had taken themselves off a few yards, pink-cheeked and bridling, Bennett said loudly, ‘The tall one, Miss Droopy Drawers—’
‘Tessa Drake,’ Viner said, unwilling to play along any further with the inspector’s needling game.
‘Miss Droopy Drawers,’ Bennett repeated more loudly. ‘She fancies you. That’s what all this is in aid of.’ His eyes held no amusement. ‘Don’t encourage her. Gives the station an untidy look.’
‘I most certainly never—’ Viner began with angry protest but Bennett held up a hand.
‘Just a joke,’ he said smoothly. ‘Got to be able to take a joke.’ Over by the door Tessa Drake turned her head and glanced back at Viner. She gave him an amused smile.
Beneath the graceful leaves of a vast green plant set on a ledge, old Ottaway rose suddenly from his bench and said in a high clear voice, ‘I come not to bring you peace but a sword.’
‘He’s off again,’ Bennett said with weary irritation. A constable, coming up from the canteen, caught the tail end of Ottaway’s utterance and quickened his pace along the corridor.
‘Now Jezebel was a whore,’ Ottaway said on a half-singing note. The constable reached him as he raised his right arm and cried, ‘A painted whore of Babylon.’
‘That’s all right then,’ the constable said, firmly soothing. He slipped a steely hand under the old man’s elbow. ‘Come along.’ He began to propel his captive towards the door. ‘Nobody worries about Jezebel any more.’ Ottaway was well known in the station; he had long been a widower, lived alone, had grown increasingly eccentric.
A few yards from the door Ottaway halted. ‘I want to register a complaint,’ he said suddenly in a normal voice. ‘About the posters outside the cinema. Most indecent. Not at all the thing for women and children to be faced with.’
‘We’ll see to it,’ the constable said. ‘Leave it to us. No need for you to worry.’ He steered Ottaway out on to the steps, pointed him in the direction of home.
Certainly not the liveliest of mornings. Viner glanced at his watch. Might as well go and see that woman about the furnished house dispute. Probably not theft at all, simple carelessness most likely. He crossed over to the window and looked out. The mist was beginning to lift, it might turn out to be one of those softly golden October days. He wouldn’t bother with a car. It was no distance, he’d enjoy the walk. He turned from the window and met Inspector Bennett’s questioning frown.
‘I’m just off to talk to the furnished-house woman,’ Viner said.
Bennett slid him a sly, teasing look edged with malice. ‘Don’t go chatting her up, then. She struck me as a bit of a man-eater.’
‘I can take care of myself.’ Viner added a half smile to the end of his words, to neutralize the irritation showing in his tone. He’d recently got himself transferred to Barbourne after the girl he’d been engaged to had suddenly married someone else. Bennett had ferreted about till he’d uncovered the story. He’d found several opportunities to flick at Viner barbed little remarks about women in general and Viner’s relationship with them – or what the inspector apparently fancied might be Viner’s relationship with them – in particular.
The air was fresh and sweet when Viner came out of the station into the grey and gold morning. A few minutes later, as he walked up the High Street, he noticed for the first time a grey stone building standing between a bookshop and a bank. A fair-sized building, solid, prosperous-looking, with the name painted on a board in elegant gilt lettering: The Kingfisher Secretarial Agency.
He halted on the edge of the pavement, gazing across at the premises. Through the ground-floor windows he could see girls moving about. He felt a sharp surge of loneliness. Barbourne was barely twenty miles from his native town of Chaddesley but he had set foot in it perhaps only half-a-dozen times before his official transfer a few weeks before; the very unfamiliarity of the place was the main reason he had chosen it.
At the centre window on the first floor a girl leaned forward, lifted a hand in greeting, smiled down at him. Colin recognized her at once; Tessa Drake, eighteen years old. For several seconds he continued to look up at her with an expressionless face; she remained smiling down at him. Then he turned and walked rapidly away up the High Street.
THE INTERIOR of the Kingfisher Agency was pleasantly warm. Hazel Ratcliff pulled off her coat as she came into the first-floor office. ‘That wretched bus,’ she said in a voice of habitual grievance. ‘It gets later every morning.’ She went over to the window and stood beside Tessa Drake who was looking down into the street. ‘What’s so interesting out there?’ she asked. Her eyes followed Tessa’s gaze, lighted on a tall broad-shouldered man walking swiftly up the road. Still an eye for a well-built man, Hazel Ratcliff, in spite of the years slipping well past thirty; still hopeful in spite of precious little encouragement.
She turned from the window. ‘Come on, we can’t stand here all day,’ she said forcefully. ‘To work!’ She dealt Tessa a would-be playful blow on the shoulder with twelve solid stones behind the punch. ‘If we don’t get started we’ll have Mrs Rolt after us.’
‘You ought to find somewhere to live in Barbourne,’ Tessa said idly. ‘Then you wouldn’t have this fuss about being late. I can’t think why you want to live in the country.’
‘I don’t want to,’ Hazel said with energy. ‘Not now.’ She was one of the staff who had come over in the summer from Tyler’s. Her widowed mother had died shortly afterwards, leaving Hazel bereft of immediate family. ‘There’s nothing I’d like better than to give up the cottage and move right into town,’ she said. ‘But you tell me where I can get a decent flat at a reasonable rent.’
The office manager put his head round the door. ‘Come along, ladies,’ he said in his precise way. ‘Mustn’t get the week off to a bad start.’ He gave Miss Ratcliff a speculative glance; he had caught the tail end of the conversation. A flat … just possible that he might be able to help her. A heavily built woman, Miss Ratcliff, unpleasingly wide in the hips. But a good skin, all that country air.