‘It is indeed. And you summarize our major problem. We have to find someone who didn’t just dislike the man but who hated or feared him enough to kill him. Who do you think that someone might be, Mrs Charles?’
She tried not to be shocked by the suddenness of the question. It was a query she had expected, after all, so she shouldn’t be put out by the manner of its arrival. ‘I’ve given it some thought, as you no doubt would expect me to, but I haven’t solved that conundrum. Everyone on the literature festival committee found Peter irritating, because he so patently wanted to be in charge of things and wasn’t. I’m sure all of us rejoiced when his pretensions were exposed and he was put in his place, usually by Marjorie Dooks from the chair. But I can’t think that any of us could have killed the man, annoying as he was.’
‘Everyone we’ve seen so far has said something similar. But as yet we haven’t found any recent contacts with people who might have been enemies of his in the past.’
‘I’m sure he made some very serious enemies when he was producing for the BBC and ITV. Rich and powerful people, some of them — people with the money and the contacts to employ a hitman to do their work for them.’
She tried to make the suggestion without a smile. She had used the term occasionally in her books, but she was not sure she had ever produced the word in conversation before. Lambert didn’t smile. He said, ‘It’s a possibility we have to explore. We are checking on the activities of known professional killers. So far we have not been able to establish the presence of any of them in our area on Tuesday evening. What car do you drive, Mrs Charles?’
Again the question was thrown in suddenly, almost brutally, on the back of a completely different train of thought. It was as if they were trying to catch her out. Sue found it was quite exciting, really, being involved in a real murder enquiry. ‘It’s a Fiesta. Two years old.’
‘Colour?’
‘Dark blue.’ She watched Hook recording this in his notebook and then reeled off the registration number with a mischievous ease. Her husband had never known the numbers of his cars; she had made a point of learning hers, as a small assertion of female competence.
Lambert stood and said, ‘I accept that your experience of crime is largely or wholly fictional, Mrs Charles. But please do not let that inhibit you from making suggestions. If you think of even the smallest detail which you think might have a bearing on this death, please ring this number.’
Sue Charles looked at the card and nodded. Then she looked up into the long, grave face and smiled. ‘I think you should call me Sue, Chief Superintendent. Particularly as I understand from Marjorie Dooks that I am to share the pleasure of your company on a platform at the literary festival in ten days time.’
Hook contained his merriment until they were safely out of the presence of Sue Charles. He gazed solemnly at the road ahead of him as he said, ‘You’ve accepted the role of real-life crime authority at the festival, then.’
‘Not accepted. It was somehow conferred upon me. I don’t quite understand how it happened,’ said Lambert sourly.
Poetry worked well with girls. It gave you an exotic appeal; it offered something outside the normal range of a young man’s attractions. It was, let’s face it, a powerful aid in getting girls into bed.
Sam Hilton was quite prepared to face it. He was in bed with a girl by nine o’clock in the evening. The last of the daylight still showed beyond the threadbare curtains he had drawn before leaping eagerly between the sheets. He lay comfortably in that post-coital tristesse, which was still quite novel to him, and considered serious issues. The most disturbing and powerful things were the feelings stirring within his breast. Poetry was all very well as a means to an end, but what did you do if the unforeseen happened?
Sam thought he was getting serious about Amy Proctor. But he had no idea how serious she was about him.
They had been at school together, but they had been just mates in the sixth form then, members of a group that went around together. Since then, Amy had spent three years at Cambridge and he had spent three years acquiring experience in the university of life. Time seemed to have altered things; everything between them was more personal and serious now, rather than part of that glorious fun of their last year at school, when everything had been a laugh and the whole world had been there to amuse them and their peers. Sam gazed up at the high ceiling of his bedsit and reflected on the mysteries of love and life. Beside him, Amy Proctor stretched her delightful limbs and yawned luxuriously. She stroked Sam’s thigh to show that her yawn was a symptom not of boredom but of delicious content. She said, ‘Have you any readings lined up?’
For once, Sam Hilton did not want to talk about poetry and its important position in the scheme of life. But you couldn’t let yourself down when you feared that the only reason this delectable girl was lying beside you was because of your verse. He said, ‘One in Hereford at the end of the month. One in Oxford early in June. And of course, there’s the literature festival in Oldford coming up.’
‘Yes. You’re on the organising committee for that, aren’t you?’
The assignment he had tried hard to be rid off suddenly seemed important. Men of twenty-two lack gravitas, so that anything which seems to offer it must be seized. ‘Yes. They seemed to think I had something to offer, that my views on poetry and literature in general might be worth having. Just as part of a larger whole, of course.’ It was difficult to balance gravitas with modesty, but you had to try. In his so far limited experience, girls didn’t like blokes who took themselves too seriously.
‘Will you be reading your own poetry?’
‘Not at the festival, no. I’ll be chairing one of the sessions. My friend Bob Crompton is coming down from Lancashire. I expect we’ll have a bit of fun stirring up the Oldford middle classes.’
‘I mustn’t miss that.’ Amy put her arms above her head and stretched again, touching the impressionable young man beside her from shoulder to calf, twitching her hip in a movement he was not sure was reflex or invitation.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ He wasn’t quite sure why he had said that. It came from some vague, unformulated compulsion to detach himself, to look at his relationship with Amy Proctor from beyond the limits of her highly desirable flesh.
She shifted her position and looked at him, her very blue eyes no more than six inches from his. ‘Tea was the last thing I had in mind, Sam Hilton. What happened to the view that
“In the spring a young man’s fancy
Lightly turns to thoughts of love”?’
Sam smiled back into the pretty, amused face. How red and moist her lips were, how wonderful her mouth was, when it rose at the corners like that. He said, ‘Old Browning knew a thing or two, didn’t he?’
She giggled outright now, a movement which made her body tremble against his at all the important points and caused him to forget about tea. Then she said, ‘It’s Tennyson, actually. Locksley Hall, I think.’
‘Just testing.’ Then they both dissolved into brief, helpless laughter and moved seamlessly into a renewal of their passion, which was intense enough to drive out all thoughts save gratification.
They had been lying sated and soundless for perhaps ten minutes and he was thinking that she might have fallen into a doze when she said, ‘Did you know this Peter Preston who’s been killed?’
Sam was suddenly wide awake, though he tried to keep his body motionless to disguise it. ‘Yes. He was on the festival committee with me. Annoying man, but I didn’t think anyone would want to bump him off.’ That curious, dated phrase seemed somehow to detach him from this death.