After an awkward exchange of luggage, padding to and fro along carpeted corridors, Joe took off his shoes and slumped, head spinning, onto his narrow bed. He glared, confused and resentful, at a painting some clown had fixed on the wall opposite the foot of the bed. It was a gilt-framed portrait of the sixteenth century royal courtesan herself, by someone trying for the style of François Clouet. A well-known tribute to the lady, making play with the name she shared with the goddess of the hunt. The eternally virginal and vengeful Diana. Naked save for a pearl necklace round her throat and the oddly erotically placed leather thong of an archer’s quiver across one white shoulder, the lovely woman, caught like the goddess Diana at her toilet, stared down at him with hauteur. Tempting, knowing and unattainable, the divine huntress made no attempt to join him. Not even in his dreams.
CHAPTER 20
The station house was tidy, well-ordered and welcoming when Joe arrived with Dorcas at the appointed time. The small number of holding cells—three, and of those, only one occupied—said much for the general peaceableness of the town, Joe calculated.
Before they took a look at the prisoner, Dorcas asked if she could see his belongings. The constable on duty, after a swift exchange of looks with Inspector Martin, pulled down a cardboard storage box from a shelf.
“He’s known hereabouts as ‘Old Rory.’ No one knows his surname. Not much to take the fancy in here, I’m afraid, miss. We removed everything removable including his belt and shoelaces. Well, you never know—wouldn’t be the first time.”
Dorcas looked quietly at the meagre collection. “No money?”
“Two shillings and threepence, miss. That’s kept locked in the duty sergeant’s drawer.”
“Nothing written. No photos. Nothing personal. Just an old hanky.”
“Been tested for blood. It’s clean. Well, of blood anyway.”
“A half-whittled wooden bird … and a blackened old cherry briar pipe. Ah, our bloke’s a pipe smoker. He must be missing it.”
“He hadn’t any baccy left, miss. There’s a leather pouch in there … shouldn’t touch it … we’ve inspected it, and it’s empty.”
Dorcas held out a hand. “Inspector, hand me the packet of St. Bruno I see bulging your right pocket.”
Narrowing his eyes, Martin did as she asked and was rewarded by a dazzling smile of complicity. “This’ll do it.” She picked up the pipe and the empty pouch and headed towards the cells.
The accompanying constable returned with the keys, shrugging. “She told me to push off. Seems to know what she’s doing, sir.”
A rattle of language no one understood followed. An exchange of greetings very likely. Then, surprisingly, exclamations, laughter and chatter.
Joe looked back apologetically at the two Sussex men. “She has the same effect on dogs. Seen it myself,” he said, and the three men listened and waited.
“Perhaps I should warn you, Inspector,” Joe murmured, “in case you’re planning future encounters with Miss Joliffe, that a largely unsupervised upbringing by a bohemian father has equipped the girl with an eccentric view of the world. Not only that, she swears like a trooper. In several languages.”
“Sounds like a stimulating companion, sir,” Martin replied diplomatically.
“WELL, THERE WE are.” Dorcas rejoined them, pulling on her gloves. “Charming man! Irish. Gaelic speaker. Lucky I knew a bit. And he had a bit of Romany, so we managed. He’d like bacon and eggs for breakfast and fish and chips for lunch, and he’ll be off at noon which he calculates is the longest time he can manage to stay out of the weather as a guest of the Suffolk Constabulary.”
“He spoke willingly, miss?” Martin started to enquire.
“Oh, yes. A man who’s gone without his baccy for two days will tell you whatever you want to know. He was using you, Inspector. Nice warm, quiet billet, cooked food served up at regular intervals, and nothing at all on his conscience to worry him. Well a bit of poaching perhaps. I said you wouldn’t hold it against him.”
“Did you get him to make a statement?”
“Nothing so formal. If I’d taken a pencil from behind my ear, licked it, and proceeded to make notes he’d have clammed up. But he told me exactly what his movements were on the days you’re interested in.”
Dorcas listed from memory the clients Old Rory had serviced with the donkey cart mounted grinding stone he lumbered with from village to village. “At the school, he sharpened the six scythes and the grass cutting machine blades and the pruning knives for the gardeners, oiled them, and left them ready for spring, then he did his usual consignment of kitchen knives. He never touched the rest of the cutlery. Two dozen knives ranging from small three-inch vegetable peelers to twelve-inch bread knives. There were four six-inch knives in the bundle. He returned every one to the kitchens.
“After that he again went on his usual rounds and presented himself at the back door of Ma Bellefoy’s cottage. At lunch time on the afternoon of Rapson’s death, this was. It was just starting to snow, so he put his grinder in the shelter of the old cow sheds. He did her knives twice a year. She has six. Odd ones. None of them a set. Two of them are six-inch meat knives. Both very worn. Getting like tissue paper. Only one more season left in them, Rory says. They’re old friends—he knew her when she was up at the school, and he likes to deliver news and gossip as he works. He usually gives her a wooden toy he’s made himself—for her little boy. It wasn’t the only thing he delivered. He gave her—or sold her—a rabbit. One he’d poached? He claims it was a wild one from up on the heath. That’s what made him unwilling to talk to you. A nasty magistrate could send him to Australia for poaching, to join his Uncle Tom, who suffered that fate twenty years ago.”
Martin shook his head in irritation. “He’s living in the past, miss. No one’s bothering him for a bit of poaching. There’s families around here couldn’t keep their ribs apart if they didn’t break a few daft rules.”
“Then, with the snow threatening, he went off with his donkey into town, where he could shelter and pick up the hotel business the next day. That’s where you caught up with him. He hopes you’ve taken care of his donkey.”
“He’s all right. Well, that gets us nowhere,” Martin grumbled. “Everything agrees with Ma Bellefoy’s account. She has a full complement of knives—they’re all present and correct. But there’s only three six-inch knives in the school kitchens. One missing. And then my constable picks one up out of the snow melt. Two questions: Who took the knife out of the kitchen? And why wasn’t it in Rapson’s ribs? Well, the weapon’s in the labs by now, and we’ll have to wait and see what the lads in white coats can come up with. Meanwhile, there’s a bit of honest-to-goodness police work the local plod can do.”
Martin detained Joe as he was about to start off back for the school. “A moment, sir. Your colleague, Miss Joliffe.… I was wondering if she’s as good at getting words out of small boys. Ma Bellefoy’s little lad is who I have in mind. I’m sure there’s things he knows that he’s too scared to tell to a big policeman.”
“Martin, you must ask her yourself. I’m not her boss.”
“I’ll do that. It could give us just the leg-up we need.”
He smiled at Joe and smoothed his mustache in a comic-opera gesture. “Watch it, Commissioner! We’ll be up that staircase while the Yard’s still feeling for the light switch.”
THERE WERE TWO eager faces waiting for him when Joe reached Rapson’s study: Gosling and Godwit.