XII

Breakdown

IT WAS INSPECTOR Parsons’ turn to be got out of bed. Twenty-five minutes after Piet’s call he was at Lime Kiln Cottage, accompanied by a constable in uniform and a woman police officer. It was a still morning, not yet beginning to get light. The rather isolated cottage was in total darkness. There was no drive – a biggish garage was built to one side of the place – and a flagged footpath led to the front door. There seemed to be no bell, but there was a heavy wrought-iron knocker. ‘Don’t want to rouse the neighbourhood,’ Inspector Parsons said, ‘but there seems nothing else for it. Anyway, there don’t appear to be many neighbours to be aroused.’ He knocked sharply on the door.

In the still darkness the sound seemed like a thunderclap, but nothing happened. The inspector knocked again. This time an upstairs window was opened and a woman’s voice called down, ‘Who is it, and what do you want?’

‘We are police officers and we need to see you urgently,’ the inspector replied.

‘How do I know you are police?’

‘If you look out of the window I’ll shine my torch and you can see that two of us are in uniform. If you come to the door you can see our warrant cards.’

The inspector duly shone his torch on his companion, and then whispered to the constable, ‘Nip round to the back in case she tries to slip out.’

No light went on in the house and for three or four minutes the police party waited in silence. Then there was a call from the back of the cottage. ‘I’ve got her,’ the constable shouted. ‘She was about to climb over the fence.’

The inspector and the woman officer ran round the cottage and their torches showed a young woman, dressed, and firmly held by the constable. The back door of the cottage was open. ‘We’ll go inside through the back door,’ the inspector said. ‘Come along, Miss. It will be better for you not to struggle.’

The door led directly into the kitchen. The woman officer found the switch for the light and the constable and the inspector brought in the girl, each holding gently one of her arms. The inspector shut the door, and drew the curtain over the window above the kitchen sink. ‘Now why did you want to run away like that?’ he asked.

‘Because I don’t trust you. I’m alone in the house, and you could be burglars dressed up as police for all I know.’

The inspector produced his warrant card, and the constable and the policewoman showed her theirs. She waved them away. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said. ‘Tell me what you want and go away so that I can go back to bed.’ She was still standing, and the inspector moved a kitchen chair for her. She sat down ungraciously. ‘Get on with it,’ she said.

‘I understand you to be Miss Rebecca Wells. Is that your name?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And you are employed by the firm of security printers near here?’

‘Yes, I am the managing director’s secretary.’

‘I have reason to believe that you are concerned in the theft of a quantity of stamp-printing paper from your employers.’

‘Absolute rubbish.’

‘It may be so, Miss, but I have orders to take you into custody.’

‘How dare you do that! Have I no rights in the matter?’

‘Of course you have, Miss. You will be taken to Oxford police station and formally charged with the alleged theft. You may make a statement then if you wish, but I must warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence.’

‘That is preposterous. May I consult my solicitor?’

‘That can be arranged at the police station. And if you want to collect anything in the way of clothes Woman Police Constable Susan Briggs will accompany you while you pack.’

‘Can I make a telephone call first to say what is happening to me?’

‘I’m afraid not, Miss.’

‘What about my house? How long is this ridiculous performance likely to go on?’

‘I can’t say, Miss, but your house will be left secure, and the police will keep an eye on it.’

‘Well, I don’t seem to have much choice.’

The policewoman went upstairs with her, and she was down a few minutes later carrying a small suitcase. ‘You can take her away now,’ the inspector said. ‘The station officer is expecting her, and she will be formally charged and kept in custody. I have a warrant to search these premises and I shall stay here for a bit. When you get to the station, send back a car with a driver, a photographer and a man to take fingerprints. I must ask you to let me have your keys, Miss. I will give you a receipt for them.’

*

Alone in the house, the inspector turned on more lights and had a quick look round. The original cottage consisted of the kitchen and a sitting room on the ground floor, with two bedrooms upstairs. It had been built on to, the extension providing another bedroom and bathroom upstairs, a cloakroom and another room on the ground floor. The door to the ground floor room, opening from the original sitting room, was locked, but one of the keys he had taken from Miss Wells fitted the lock. When he turned on the light inside he thought at first that he was in an artist’s studio. There was a half-finished picture of a boat on an easel, a collection of brushes and tubes of paint on a small table beside it. On looking round he saw a number of other things. One corner was walled off to make a small inner room, and inside it was a sink, and quantities of high grade photographic equipment – it formed a self-contained dark room. On a bench along one wall of the main room was a hand-operated engraving press, old, but in beautiful condition. Beside it was a small reel of perforated, gummed paper. He was making a note of the various contents of the place when the photographer arrived. By this time it was getting light. The inspector felt that there was little more that he could do. Leaving the photographer and the fingerprint expert to their work, he went back to Oxford in the car that had brought them. Before leaving, he said, ‘This whole place is to be kept under police guard. I’ll send back a car and a man to relieve you, but until you are relieved stay in the cottage. It looks as if we’ve uncovered evidence of a major forgery.’

*

At ten o’clock Piet ordered Constable Reece to be brought to him. He had Simon Begbroke with him in his office and they already had a report of the finds at Lime Kiln Cottage. Constable Reece was still in uniform, but unshaven, and somehow looking unkempt. He was accompanied by two other officers, both of whom, of course, knew him. ‘This is distasteful to us all,’ Piet said. ‘I am going to arrange for Constable Reece to be kept in custody in Oxford, where at least he won’t have to be guarded by ex-colleagues. But I need to interview you now, Reece. Do you wish to have a solicitor present?’

‘No, sir. I know about my rights but you have a reputation for being fair. I want to get it over with.’

‘Very well. The chief superintendent will take down your answers to my questions, and you will then be asked to sign a statement. I need scarcely tell you that you are not compelled to say anything, but that anything you do choose to say may be used in evidence.’

‘I understand well enough, sir. I’ve done enough harm, and I want to put right what I can.’

‘Where did you meet Miss Wells?’

‘Does she have to be brought into it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I met her at the dinghy sailing club. You may know that I was last year’s champion in the police sailing association.’

‘When did you meet Miss Wells?’

‘It would be about two years ago. She was short of a crew one day at the club and I crewed for her. After that we sailed together quite a bit, and I became very fond of her. In fact, we were engaged to be married.’

‘And she told you that she’d thought of a way of making money that wasn’t stealing and wouldn’t hurt anybody?’

‘It was more or less like that, sir. We both wanted a big yacht in which we could sail round the world, but we didn’t see any hope of being able to afford one. Becky – that’s Miss Wells, sir – understood the stamp market, and she knew about printing partly because of the firm she worked for, partly because she’d had previous experience in the design department of an advertising agency in London. She’s always been keen on painting, and I think she’s very good. I know quite a lot about photography, so we worked together.’

‘You haven’t said what you worked at.’

Constable Reece swayed slightly. ‘May I sit down, sir?’ he asked.

‘Of course.’

He was given a chair, and Piet asked if he would like a glass of water. ‘Yes, please, sir, I would,’ he said.

Piet let him take several gulps of water, then repeated gently. ‘You haven’t said what you worked together at.’

Constable Reece was silent. Then he said, ‘It’s very difficult for me, sir. I know I’ve got it coming to me, and I reckon I deserve whatever I get, but I don’t want to say anything against Becky. I’ll confess to everything I’ve done, but I want to try to keep her out of it.’

‘She can’t be kept out of it, but I understand your feelings. I have reason to believe that either one or both of you forged a postage stamp on paper taken from the printers where Miss Wells worked, with the position of the Queen’s head reversed. That would make the stamp, or stamps, for I think you printed a whole sheet of them, extremely valuable to collectors. I have further reason to believe that one of you inserted this sheet of forged stamps into the stamp-book at Netherwick Post Office a few minutes before it closed on the evening of April 7. I know this already, so if you are prepared to admit it the admission can’t do any additional harm to Miss Wells, who will, of course, have to answer for her own actions.’

‘What you say is correct, sir.’

‘Where are the stamps now?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You must know. They were worth a great deal of money to you.’

‘That’s the whole trouble, sir. We don’t know what happened to the stamps. I don’t know how you found out about it all, but it was more or less exactly as you said. As you already know about Miss Wells I can’t do any more harm by explaining the arrangement we had. You see, the stamps had to be bought from a Post Office to make them valuable, to make them authentic, sir. So Miss Wells went to Netherwick and put the sheet of stamps in the book while old Mrs Denny was serving another customer. We’d practised doing it with a piece of paper – it was quite easy.’

‘Why did you choose Netherwick?’

‘Because Mrs Denny was so old. I know her and the Post Office from my patrol, and we thought she wouldn’t notice anything. The idea was for Miss Wells to go back early in the morning when the Post Office opened, and buy 200 stamps. She was then going to wait around until someone came in to buy a newspaper, or something, show him the stamps and say “Gosh, look at these! They must be a misprint. I wonder if they’re valuable?” The other customer would then be a witness that she’d actually bought the stamps at the Post Office. But everything went wrong.’

‘You mean, Mrs Denny sold one of the stamps before the Post Office shut.’

‘I don’t know how you know about it, sir, but that’s what did happen. Becky went in about ten minutes before closing time, bought a cake of soap and stayed there looking around. A child came in for some sweets, and while Mrs Denny was serving her Becky slipped the sheet of stamps into the stamp book. Then, a minute or so before the shop closed, a gentleman rushed in and bought a postcard and a stamp for it. Mrs Denny served him, and then put the stamp book away behind the grille at the Post Office end of the counter. Becky said, Could she buy some stamps, but old Mrs Denny said, No, the Post Office was shut. She was very strict like that, sir.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Well, Becky went out to her car and stayed to see whether the gentleman who’d bought the stamp was going to write his postcard and post it in the Netherwick box. If he had, I would have tried to get it out. The afternoon post had gone, and the box wouldn’t be cleared until the morning. The card would probably be on the top of the letters in the box, and a string with a stone covered in glue might get it out. If not, I could have broken the lock of the box. You see, we had to get that stamp back.’

‘But it wasn’t posted in Netherwick.’

‘No, sir, and that’s where everything went wrong. The gentleman got into his car and drove off. Becky tried to follow him, but she lost the car because of some road works with traffic lights. His car got through but she was held up, and by the time she got through he’d disappeared at the crossroads. She gambled on a turn he might have taken, but it was no good. I was on early morning patrol, so I was at home in the evening. Becky came to see me and told me everything. It seemed that the only thing to do was to break into the Post Office and get the stamps from the book.’

‘Why was it so important to recover the stamps?’

‘Because we didn’t know what might happen to the one that had been sold. If the gentleman knew anything about stamps he would notice it, and there would be a fuss about it before we were ready to do anything. And it was possible that the old woman might have realised the peculiarity of the stamp when she sold it. Becky was afraid that she said the Post Office was shut because she didn’t want to sell any more of the stamps. I think it more likely that she was just being strict, but we couldn’t know.’

‘So you broke into the Post Office.’

‘Yes. It was quite easy. I was in uniform and if anyone came I’d say I was investigating an apparent break-in.’

‘I know that Miss Wells was with you.’

‘How can you know that, sir?’

‘Never mind about that. I do. So you can tell me exactly what happened.’

‘Well, Becky did come over early in the morning, and was outside the Post Office when I got there. She didn’t come in with me at first, but stayed outside to keep watch. I said that I broke the lock of the door quite easily, but I hadn’t realised that a shop bell rang when the door was opened. I went inside with my torch and was looking for the stamp book at the Post Office end of the counter when old Mrs Denny came downstairs.’

‘What happened then?’

Constable Reece put his head in his hands. He was trembling, and sobbed rather than said, ‘I can’t go on, sir.’

‘I’m afraid you must,’ Piet said gently. ‘You may even feel relieved when you’ve told the truth. It must have been hell living with that truth.’

The constable seemed to take a new grip on himself. ‘Yes, sir. I don’t know how you can know so much, but you do understand, if I may say so. Mrs Denny switched on the light. “What are you doing behind the counter?” she asked. I told her that I was on patrol, noticed that the Post Office door was open, and had come in to investigate. She didn’t believe me. It was that damned bell. “The bell only rang a minute ago,” she said. “And if you wanted to investigate something, why didn’t you call me? Stay where you are while I ring the police station.” Then I lost my head. She knew me, you see, sir, because I’d called at the shop several times, and discussed security with her, so I couldn’t just run off. There was a big heavy poker in the fireplace. I picked it up and hit her with it, and went on hitting her.

‘Becky must have heard, because she came into the shop. She was shocked. But we still wanted the stamps. The stamp book wasn’t on the counter, so we thought it must be in the safe. I went upstairs and found a bunch of keys under Mrs Denny’s pillow. One of them opened the safe and we found the book. But the stamps weren’t in it. I told Becky to take the money so that it would look like robbery, and we went out of the shop. I had to get on with my patrol and report back to the station. I took the poker and threw it out of the car into a ditch. Becky decided to wait in her car a little way from the shop so that we should know what happened. She saw the black boy come along and go into the shop. Then she saw him running out. Then a man came, and a moment later came to the door and looked up and down the road. He went back into the shop and we know now that he rang the police. A few minutes later the police cars came. Becky saw one of the officers go across the green to the boy’s house. She drove away a little, but she came back, left the car, and hid in some bushes near the church. She still had the money. When she saw the boy taken away she slipped into the house. The door was open because the boy’s mother had been sent for, and she was still in the kitchen. She was sitting on a chair crying. Becky took off her shoes, went upstairs very quietly, and put the money in the first drawer she found. Then she slipped out. The boy’s mother never noticed her.’

‘And you left things at that?’

‘There was nothing else we could do. Of course we were unhappy about the boy and we talked over things time and again to see if there was any way we could help him. What we finally decided was that we would go on with our plans to try to get hold of a boat capable of ocean voyaging, and when we were somewhere safe from extradition we’d write a confession, and send it to you, sir. But we didn’t have the stamps, and without the stamps we didn’t have enough money to sail away. We would have done this in the end, though, sir – please believe me.’

‘Why didn’t you try to recover the poker earlier?’

‘Because it seemed safe enough where it was. And, to be frank, sir, because I’d very little idea where I’d thrown it out of the car. I did look in several places where I might have thrown it. When you caught me, it was the third or fourth place I’d been looking.’

*

Piet made no comment on this dreadful story. ‘The evidence we have suggests that you have told the truth, Reece, and that is to your credit,’ he said. ‘You will now go with the chief superintendent for the formal preparation of your statement. After that you will be charged with the murder of Mrs Denny, and you will appear before the magistrates tomorrow. It will be a brief remand hearing. Whether you will be further charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice in the case of Eric Marshall I do not yet know. You should have a solicitor to represent you when you come before the magistrates. If you have no lawyer of your own, the chief superintendent will help you to arrange for legal representation.’