Very little of the old village life remained now in Overmead. Too small and scattered ever to have been a very close-knit community, its proximity to Cannonbridge, coupled with the ever-increasing ownership of private transport, had seen it begin to slide over the last twenty years towards the day when it would be little more than a pleasantly rural dormitory suburb of the town.
The tiny school had closed some time ago and it was many years since there had been a resident vicar, the living having been united in successive amalgamations with those of neighbouring parishes. There was still a sub post-office, combined with a small general store, run by a cheerful, gossipy woman now over seventy; she had operated the dual business for the last forty years.
Early on Sunday evening Chief Inspector Kelsey sat at his desk studying the results of the investigation so far.
The detailed search of the area had continued until the light failed, an hour or so earlier; it had thrown up nothing fresh. He had checked if there had been a road accident at the time and place mentioned by Victor Lorimer. There had indeed been such an accident, between a Volvo estate car and a Ford Cortina. And yes, the Cortina was grey.
A police appeal had gone out earlier in the day over the local radio, asking for anyone to come forward who had been in or near the wood during Friday afternoon or evening, or any motorist who might have noticed something unusual or suspicious. The appeal had so far produced no result.
The police had also asked any passenger to come forward who had travelled on the bus Karen was most likely to have boarded if she had left college after her last lesson and gone straight home–the bus leaving the centre of Cannonbridge at twelve minutes past six, The driver had already been contacted; he had done his best to be helpful but without conclusive result. He was not a regular driver on the route. He was suffering from a cold in the head and had been concerned with that–and the heavy rain–during the journey. To the best of his recollection he had not been required to stop at the halt by Overmead Wood but he couldn’t take his oath on it.
A couple of hours after the police broadcast a woman called in at the station, a sensible, middle-aged woman who struck Kelsey as a reliable witness. She lived in a cottage on the main road, two miles beyond Overmead Wood. She worked in Cannonbridge and always caught the same bus home, the six-twelve from the town centre.
She wasn’t acquainted with Karen Boland but recognized the girl from the police description on the radio. She had seen her on the bus on several occasions, knew that she always got off at the stop by the wood. She was unshakably certain that Karen had not been on the bus on Friday evening, equally positive that no one had left or boarded the bus at that point; the bus had definitely not halted there. She clearly recalled looking out at the windswept, rain-drenched expanses of the wood as the bus drove past. She had seen no one in or anywhere near the wood, no vehicle parked in the vicinity.
One report in the account of the house-to-house visits carried out in the Overmead area struck the Chief as especially interesting. There had been no answer to an officer’s ring at the doorbell of one of the dwellings, a detached house by the name of Hawthorn Lodge, on Saturday afternoon or evening, no reply to further rings on Sunday morning. The officer slipped a note through the letter-box asking the householder to contact the police as soon as possible.
The lodge was a substantial villa not far from Overmead Wood, half a mile from Jubilee Cottage. There were no near neighbours; the nearest was able to tell the police the name of the owner of the lodge: a Mr Desmond Hallam, a bachelor in his forties, no longer employed, made redundant some little time ago, apparently comfortably off. He was not a native of the village, he had lived with his mother at the lodge for some ten years until her death earlier in the year. He didn’t mix much locally, either before or after his mother’s death, though always civil and pleasant enough if casually encountered. He now had an aunt staying at the lodge, whether permanently or not the neighbour couldn’t say, nor did the neighbour know the aunt’s name.
But the Overmead postmistress was able to supply this detail: the aunt was a Miss Ivy Jebb, a spry lady in her sixties, a retired assistant nurse, elder sister of the late Mrs Hallam, come to the lodge in the spring to nurse her sister during what turned out to be Mrs Hallam’s last illness. The postmistress had enjoyed a number of interesting chats with Miss Jebb when the good lady had called into the post-office or shop. She was able to tell the police that Miss Jebb hailed from a town some distance away to the north, that her visit to Hawthorn Lodge had started out as a temporary one but now gave every indication of becoming a permanency.
Miss Jebb hadn’t actually said that she and her nephew would be going away this last weekend but the postmistress wouldn’t be surprised if the two of them hadn’t gone off to the town Miss Jebb had left in the spring–she had mentioned the name but the postmistress couldn’t recall it. Miss Jebb had said more than once lately that she ought to be thinking of getting her warmer things, now that the weather would be turning colder. Yes, Mr Hallam did have a car, they had in all probability gone off in that.
It was the last note in the report that particularly caught the Chief’s attention, caused him to go back through the report again, sit for some time afterwards staring thoughtfully ahead, tapping his fingers on the desk. ‘Wherever they’ve gone,’ the postmistress had ended by saying, ‘I’m sure they’ll be back in a day or two. Mr Hallam won’t want to miss his classes at the Cannonbridge college. He’s been going there regularly over the last month or two. Ever since he came out of hospital, poor man, after that nervous breakdown he had when his mother died.’
The atmosphere among the students at the Cannonbridge College of Further Education on Monday morning was both tense and subdued. They stood about in little groups before and between classes, shocked, nervous, upset–but also absorbed and excited, talking in low voices. Everyone anxious to be helpful, to tell anything they knew; with the majority of them this was very little indeed. Karen had been only a short time at the college, wasn’t a native of the town, had been quiet and unobtrusive in manner and behaviour. Many students hadn’t even known of her existence, let alone anything of the circumstances of her death.
The Principal confirmed what the Wilmots had told the Chief about Karen’s record at the college: she was a very satisfactory student, hard-working, cooperative, well-behaved, anxious to succeed in life. He had known that her parents were dead, that she was in the care of the Social Services, that she was living with a cousin, but he had known nothing of the original reasons for her being taken into care, nothing of the case involving Victor Lorimer.
The lecturer in charge of Karen’s last class on Friday afternoon told the Chief that she had behaved as usual. The only incident which had in any way drawn his attention to her was that she had been summoned to the office to take a phone call. While personal calls to the students were in no way encouraged they were permitted, as there was always the chance of a domestic or other emergency arising. The privilege was not in general abused and it was accepted that such calls must be kept as short as possible. Karen had been briefly absent from the class, had returned to her work with no sign of agitation or anxiety.
The woman clerk who had summoned Karen to the phone couldn’t remember if the caller had been male or female, nor if the call had come from a public kiosk or a private phone. When she took the call she had been on the point of leaving the office with a batch of papers to return to a member of staff. After looking in at Karen’s class to deliver the message she had continued on her way. By the time she got back to the office Karen had already left. She had the impression that there had been one or two previous calls for Karen but she couldn’t be precise.
The Chief asked the Principal what he could tell him about a mature student named Desmond Hallam, living at Hawthorn Lodge, in Overmead.
‘There’s been a letter from him this morning,’ the Principal said. The letter had been delivered by hand, bore no date. He produced it and showed it to the Chief. A brief note to say that Hallam had been called away on family business, apologized for missing classes. He couldn’t say exactly how long he’d be away; he would return as soon as possible. The Principal had no idea where this family business might have taken Hallam, nor in what town Hallam’s aunt might have been living before she came to Hawthorn Lodge.
Hallam was a quiet, studious man, the Principal added. An inoffensive, courteous man, concerned with developing new interests after painful upheavals in his personal and business life. He had one class in common with Karen Boland, a play-reading class; the full-time students were encouraged to add one or two of these recreational classes to the more demanding timetable of their regular course.
The Principal consulted the records and told the Chief that Hallam had attended all his usual classes on Friday; his last class had ended at five. The Principal promised that if Hallam wrote again he would at once inform the police. And if Hallam made contact with the college by phone, he would be asked to contact the Chief without delay.
Kelsey then spoke to Karen’s friend on the same course, Lynn Musgrove. Lynn was an intelligent, serious girl, very neat and clean, with no extravagances of dress or looks. Her manner was quiet and controlled though she was still clearly shocked and deeply upset by Karen’s death.
She had sat beside Karen during the final class on Friday afternoon. There had been nothing unusual about Karen’s behaviour that day or during recent days. In the afternoon break she and Karen had discussed their weekend homework. Karen said she would go home with Lynn at six so that they could work on it together.
When Karen came back to the class after the phone call she hadn’t appeared in any way agitated, excited, anxious or overjoyed; she had seemed her normal self. She had scribbled a couple of lines on a scrap of paper and slipped it across to Lynn. Lynn still had the note, she produced it for the Chief. It read: ‘Can’t come home with you this evening. I’ve got to meet someone.’
Karen had worked the rest of the grammar test with her usual attention. A few moments before the lesson ended she gathered her belongings together. As the college clock struck six she stood up and handed in her paper. She was the first to leave the classroom, turning in the doorway to flash Lynn a smile of farewell.
Lynn didn’t leave the building till some minutes later; she had stayed behind to speak to the lecturer. When she got outside there was no sign of Karen. Not that Lynn had spent much time looking about. It was raining heavily. She had merely glanced casually round the car park, turned up the hood of her jacket and plunged off home.
Kelsey asked if she had seen Karen eat any chocolate on Friday afternoon. ‘I gave her some chocolate,’ Lynn answered at once. It was during the couple of minutes’ break between the last two lessons. As she and Karen were walking along the corridor towards their final class Karen had suddenly said she was very hungry, she’d had little lunch. ‘I’d bought a bar of chocolate during morning break,’ Lynn told the Chief. ‘I still had some left. I gave it to Karen and she ate it at once.’ Four small squares of hazelnut milk chocolate. Lynn was able to be precise about the time Karen had eaten the chocolate; it was almost five o’clock, no more than a minute or two either way.
She knew very little of Karen’s past, merely that her parents were dead, that she was in the care of the Social Services, that she had recently lived at Wychford and now lived with her cousin at Jubilee Cottage; she had made no mention of the town of Okeshot. Lynn had heard nothing of any court case and Karen never spoke of anyone by the name of Lorimer. Her manner had never invited personal questions and Lynn wasn’t the type to ask them.
She confirmed the Wilmots’ notions of the household of which she herself formed a part. Her mother had no romantic attachments, there was no regular male visitor to the house. Lynn was positive that Karen had no boyfriend at the college, no involvement with any member of staff or adult pupil. She had been friendly in a slight, mild fashion with one of the mature students, Desmond Hallam, but there was no question of any romance. Hallam had never struck Lynn as being in that way interested in Karen, and nothing in the way Karen treated him or spoke of him ever in the remotest degree suggested such an interest on her part. Karen occasionally got a lift home from Hallam when their times coincided, and he sometimes bought her a cup of coffee in the canteen, sat chatting with her during break. Lynn had the feeling that Karen was rather sorry for him. No, she had no idea where Hallam’s aunt might have lived before she went to stay at Hawthorn Lodge.
When the Chief asked if she knew of any boyfriend or man friend outside the college, Lynn hesitated before answering that she wasn’t sure. Kelsey pressed her to say what she knew or guessed, however little that might be.
‘It was something she said one evening at my house when we were preparing essays on Jane Eyre,’ Lynn told him. ‘It’s one of the set books on the literature course. I was talking about the way Jane reacted when she discovered that Rochester was a married man. I remarked how very different attitudes were today.’ Karen had suddenly asked her: ‘What would you think if I told you I was involved with a married man?’
‘I just stared at her,’ Lynn continued. ‘She said, “That’s the reason I left Wychford.” I asked her if it was all finished with now. She just shrugged and said, “Not exactly.” She never mentioned it again, and I didn’t either. I had the impression she was sorry she’d said it the moment she’d spoken.’ The exchange had taken place some ten days earlier. Lynn did recall one or two previous phone calls Karen had received at the college. There could have been others she didn’t know about; she wasn’t in every class with Karen. She didn’t know who the calls were from, nor could she remember Karen making any comment about any of the calls.
A few minutes after ten-thirty a canteen assistant who had just come on duty asked if she could speak to the Chief. She was a big, fat woman in her fifties, usually of a cheerful disposition, but showing today a strong tendency to lapse into tears.
She told the Chief that she normally left work at six in the evening. She was always very sharp about getting off promptly on Fridays as she liked to catch the market stalls. Last Friday it had begun to rain heavily as she came out of the college. She paused to open her umbrella and glanced round the car park, pretty empty at that time of day.
‘I saw Karen Boland over on the right,’ she asserted. ‘She was hurrying–because of the rain, it seemed to me.’ Karen had halted beside a car, on the passenger side. No, she hadn’t seen Karen get into the car. She hadn’t seen her place her hand on the door, hadn’t seen her stop to talk to anyone inside. She had glimpsed Karen for only a moment, then she opened her umbrella, turned and set off for the market.
‘Are you quite certain it was Karen Boland you saw?’ Kelsey asked.
Yes, she was absolutely certain. She wouldn’t go so far as to take her oath on it in court but in her own mind she had no doubt. ‘She was wearing that yellow cap and scarf, and she had that pale-coloured shoulder-bag she always carried. When she stopped by the car she turned sideways on to me. I saw her face. It was Karen all right.’
Kelsey asked how well she had known the girl.
‘Well enough,’ she answered with spirit. ‘I always have a chat with the students while I’m serving, particularly with anyone new or shy. I noticed Karen when she first started at the college. She looked a bit lost, she seemed pleased when I spoke to her.’ Tears threatened. ‘She was a lovely girl, beautiful manners, always so nicely spoken. One day last month I scalded my hand in the kitchen here, I was off work more than a week. Karen took the trouble to find out my address. She called round at my place one lunchtime to ask how I was, if there was anything she could do for me, any shopping or cleaning. Could she make me something to eat? Had I got anyone to look after me? She could come round in the evening if I wanted, it would be no trouble.’
She dabbed at her eyes. ‘I was really touched. I told her I wouldn’t need to trouble her, I’ve got my sister living in the next street, she always gives me a hand if I need it.’
She looked up at the Chief with swimming eyes. ‘To go to all that trouble on my account—’ She sighed and shook her head. ‘To tell the truth, I always thought she looked as if she could do with a bit of mothering herself.’
Kelsey asked if she had seen anyone with Karen in the car park. No, she couldn’t actually say she had seen anyone, but when she glanced over she had the impression there had been someone just ahead, someone who turned the corner of the building at the instant she glanced that way. Yes, possibly someone going round to the other side of the car. No, she couldn’t make any guess as to whether it had been a man or a woman, the glimpse had been too slight, too fleeting.
Could she describe the car? She was very anxious to be of help but all she could tell them was that she had seen only the edge of the vehicle, which was parked by the end of the building, in a dimly-lit area. The most she could add after racking her brains was that the vehicle could have been largish and darkish. She had glimpsed nothing to indicate any agitation or upset on Karen’s part, no suggestion that Karen might have been in any way forced into going wherever it was she was going.
When the woman had gone off to the canteen a constable on the Chief Inspector’s team came along to say that he had succeeded in locating a student who had seen Desmond Hallam leave the college on Friday. Kelsey questioned the student closely. He had been sitting in the common room towards the end of Friday afternoon. Hallam came into the room after his last class and sat reading newspapers and magazines, chatting to the student with whom he had occasionally exchanged a few words before.
At about a quarter to six Hallam stood up to leave. He asked if he could give the student a lift, he was going back to Overmead. The student thanked him but said he lived out in another direction, he always got a bus. They left the common room together, still chatting. Hallam walked across to his car which was parked to the left of the front entrance. As the student went out through the gates Hallam drove past him, alone in his car. He gave the student a wave and turned off in the direction of Overmead. It was then seven or eight minutes to six. The student walked to his bus stop, had a brief time to wait, caught his bus as usual at two minutes to six.
‘That phone call for Karen at twenty minutes to six,’ Kelsey said to Sergeant Lambert as they came out of the college. ‘And the canteen woman’s story of seeing Karen over by the car. What do those two things suggest to you?’
‘They suggest Paul Clayton,’ Lambert answered at once.
‘And to me,’ Kelsey said as they reached their car.
‘But I don’t see how he could have done it,’ Lambert added. It was certain that Karen had eaten the chocolate more or less spot on at five o’clock; therefore, according to the pathologist’s calculations, she had been killed between six and six-thirty. She had clearly been done to death at the spot where her body was found, a spot several minutes’ drive from the car park where the canteen assistant had seen her at a few minutes past six. That left a crucial period of twenty minutes or so. At some time between six-ten and six-thirty Karen was plunging through the undergrowth in Overmead Wood with her attacker on her heels. ‘And if Paul Clayton was sitting talking to that customer of his from ten minutes to six until six-thirty, a good hour’s drive from Overmead Wood at that time of day, then there’s no way he could possibly have done it.’
Kelsey got into the car. ‘We’ve only Clayton’s word he was with his customer.’
‘And presumably Braithwaite’s word too,’ Lambert pointed out. Braithwaite was the customer’s name.
Kelsey grunted. ‘That’s presuming one hell of a lot. We’ll get over there now and talk to Braithwaite.’
‘And his secretary,’ Lambert reminded him. ‘She was there too.’
Kelsey settled back in his seat. ‘I’ve no intention of forgetting Braithwaite’s secretary.’
Lambert switched on the ignition. He was just about to pull out when a thought struck him. ‘Clayton’s car,’ he said suddenly.
‘What about it?’
‘It’s three or four years old.’
‘What of it?’
‘Clayton may not actually have owned it for three or four years. He may have bought it second-hand.’ Clayton had come up the hard way. He struck Lambert as a man keenly aware of the value of money, not likely to go chucking it round unnecessarily, however successful the years had made him.
Kelsey chewed his lip. ‘It’s certainly a thought. We’ll find out when he bought it. We’ll do it now, before we talk to Braithwaite.’ Lambert headed the car back to the station.
A few minutes later while Lambert was chasing up the details Kelsey sat at his desk studying under a magnifying-glass every last detail of the snapshot they had found in Karen’s bedroom, showing Clayton standing beside the car in a country lay-by. He scrutinized the foliage of trees and hedging, the growth of grass and weeds, the angle of sunlight and shadow, the way Clayton was dressed.
He glanced up as Lambert came into the room and laid a piece of paper on the desk before him. ‘That’s the date,’ Lambert said. ‘When Clayton bought the car.’
They were coming down the front steps on their way out again when a car drove on to the forecourt and a couple of men from the team Kelsey had left at the college got out. The Chief went over to ask if they had turned up anything fresh.
Yes, there had been one interesting piece of information. A member of the office staff, a young married woman who worked part time, had come on duty shortly after the Chief left. When the detectives spoke to her she believed at first she could be of no help in the inquiries but a few minutes later she returned to say she had now remembered something.
There had been a phone call to the office at lunchtime on Friday; the time, as near as she could recall it, was about five or ten past one. The caller was a man, asking to speak to Karen Boland. He didn’t give his name, nor did she ask for it. She told him she couldn’t go looking for Karen, she was alone in the office. All the classes were over for the morning, she would have no idea where to begin to look, or even if Karen was still in the building.
He hadn’t appeared in any way upset or agitated at this response, he had made no attempt to press her to go searching for Karen. He asked if she could tell him what time Karen’s last class finished in the afternoon. She was able to supply the information after consulting the list of students–which gave her the course Karen Boland was taking–and then the large timetable sheet pinned up on the office wall. The caller left no message for Karen, he merely thanked her and rang off. She had no knowledge of the second call that had come for Karen at twenty minutes to six on Friday evening. She had by then finished her stint and gone home.