Fourteen
'Can I help you?' the wiry man in the overalls asked politely as Ryga drew level with him.
'I'm a police officer,' Ryga announced, extracting his identity card. 'I'm trying to trace the movements of a man who I believe passed this way on Saturday 4 November, and I wondered if anyone residing here might have seen him.'
'Now you're asking something,' the man cheerfully replied, glancing briefly at Ryga's warrant card. 'That's quite a while ago and a lot of people pass this way on their route up to the Downs. What's he done? Robbed a bank? Scotland Yard and all that,' he joked. Ryga put him about mid to late thirties. His dark eyes were set deep in a face that was lean and lined and looked as though it had seen some hard times. He was of average height, a little under five feet ten inches.
'No, he was a police officer.'
'Was?'
'George Swinley. His body was found in Newhaven Harbour on the eighteenth of November.'
'I read about that in the paper. And you say he came here?' The man put the wet cloth on the bonnet of the Rolls-Royce and threw a worried glance over his shoulder at the house.
'He came this way. He might have called in here.'
'Why would he do that?'
'Are you the owner of the house?' Ryga asked, sidestepping the question. He could see his action wasn't lost on the man.
He laughed. 'No. I'm just the chauffeur, gardener, handyman, jack of all trades. I live in the flat above the garage. Neil Broxham.' He stretched out his hand. Ryga took it and unlike Dakin's this man's handshake was extremely firm and dry. 'The owners are Major Charles Ashmore and Mrs Valerie Ashmore.'
Immediately Ryga wondered if Valerie Ashmore was his mystery lady. 'How long have the Ashmores lived here?'
'Three years. They also have an apartment in London.'
'Were they at home on Saturday the fourth of November?'
'No. Mrs Ashmore was in the Midlands visiting relatives and Mr Ashmore was in London on business. I drove him there and stayed there. He's a property developer.'
'Is Mrs Ashmore at home now?' Ryga was keen to see her.
'Yes. Mrs Doulton is the cook housekeeper and lives in. She might remember if your police officer called here or walked past.' Ryga removed the photograph of Swinley from his notebook and asked Broxham if he recognized him or had seen him around the area at any time, adding that PC Swinley hadn't been in uniform when he walked this way. Broxham studied it closely.
'No, I don't remember seeing him on any occasion.'
'Thank you. I'll just check with Mrs Doulton and Mrs Ashmore.' Ryga was tempted to give Broxham a description of the mystery woman and gauge his response but he'd see for himself soon enough if it was the mistress of the house.
The brass bell echoed throughout the property and a couple of minutes later a stout, no-nonsense-looking woman in sensible shoes and a plain grey dress and in her late fifties, answered the door with a dour look on her round face.
Ryga removed his hat and showed his warrant card while introducing himself. The woman studied it closely before her shrewd eyes examined Ryga's face as though summing him up. It looked as though he'd passed muster. She curtly introduced herself as Mrs Doulton. He explained the purpose of his visit and showed her the photograph of George Swinley. She stated quite categorically that she had never seen him before, and that he certainly hadn't called at the house on that Saturday, or at any other time. That seemed to be it. Swinley had simply been filling in the time with a walk up to the Downs before collecting his package from Collier. But Ryga had to check if Mrs Ashmore was his lady in the fur coat.
He asked if he could speak to her.
'I'll see if she is at home,' Mrs Dolton replied stiffly and reluctantly, it seemed to Ryga, and invited him to step inside. Asking him to wait in the hall, she disappeared into a room down the passageway on his right. The hall was expensively furnished in a modern style with some nice paintings, some of which to his semi-trained eye looked to be valuable. He crossed to examine one more closely. It was of a wild, stormy seascape with a couple of wavetossed fishing boats and two men looking on concerned from the quay with a hill in the distance. It reminded him of Eva's aunt's paintings in the small stone cottage on the Island of Portland, which in turn made him think of Sonia. But he had no time to dwell on that as Mrs Doulton reappeared and showed him, silently, into the lounge at the rear overlooking an extensive landscaped garden, currently drenched in a damp, drizzling rain. Like the hall, it was expensively furnished and in a modern style that seemed to have come right out of a stand at the Ideal Home Exhibition. There was nothing shabby, second-hand or pre-war here. There were some abstract paintings on the walls and Valerie Ashmore was not his mystery lady. She was blonde, with a narrow face, a petulant, discontented mouth and sharp blue-grey eyes which examined him haughtily. She was smoking, in her mid-thirties and slender to the point of thinness, although the wide-skirted, brightly coloured patterned dress gave the illusion of her having hips.
'I can't think why you want to see me, Inspector,' she said crisply, scrutinizing him in a manner that made him think she was shortsighted but too vain to wear spectacles. She didn't bother to rise from the sofa, in front of which was a low modern coffee table and magazines. And she didn't invite him to sit. 'Mrs Doulton said you're making inquiries about a police constable found dead in Newhaven Harbour. I have no connection with any police officers and I can't spare you much time. I have to go out shortly.' She spoke with a slight lisp.
'I'm sorry to trouble you, Mrs Ashmore, and I won't keep you any longer than necessary,' Ryga politely apologized. He noted that her eyes narrowed as though she was trying to work out if he was being sarcastic. 'I wondered if you might have seen this man in the neighbourhood.'
He again removed the photograph of PC Swinley from his inside coat pocket and handed it to her. 'He wouldn't have been in uniform.'
She took it in her slender, well-manicured fingers as though it might be contaminated and peered at it closely, confirming to him that she was short-sighted. His eyes flicked over the magazines. Vogue was one of them.
'I've never seen him before.' She thrust it back at him.
He noted the Midlands accent, which she tried to disguise by over pronunciation. It reminded him of a stage hall act.
'Well, thank you for your help.' He made to leave but stalled. Mrs Ashmore was clearly a fashionable lady and she read Vogue magazine. That didn't mean she would know the mystery woman but she might recognize the description of the hats. He also wondered if the mystery lady had chosen Seaford as the drop off and collection point because she was a friend of the Ashmores and had visited here on a number of occasions.
He said, 'You might be able to assist me with one more matter, Mrs Ashmore. I'm trying to locate the whereabouts of a fashionable, smartly dressed lady who seems to have a link to Seaford. There is a chance that you might have come across her.' Ryga described the mystery woman in detail, including the striking eyes and the hats. As he did so he watched Valerie Ashmore's reaction carefully and with growing interest. It changed from haughtiness to surprise and then apprehension. It was clear to Ryga that Valerie Ashmore recognized the description and she was bright enough to know that she had betrayed herself.
'She sounds vaguely familiar,' she eventually answered, averting her gaze in order to lean forward to stub out her cigarette in the ashtray. When she looked up her eyes held his only briefly then flitted away. 'I'm not saying it is her, but your description is remarkably like a mannequin I know of.'
Ryga felt his pulse quicken. 'Her name?'
'I'm not in the habit of socializing with mannequins,' she smartly rejoined.
But the faint flush under her skin told him she knew this one. 'Maybe you heard her being addressed by someone,' he prompted.
'If I did I can't remember. It's not something one pays any attention to.'
Ryga's dislike of Valerie Ashmore deepened but he didn't show it. That wouldn't get him anywhere and what he thought of her personally was neither here nor there.
'I've seen her a few times at shows in London,' she elaborated when Ryga didn't speak. 'And her picture has been in fashion magazines. I don't take any notice of who shows the clothes.'
'Has she been in Vogue magazine?' Ryga asked, indicating it on the coffee table.
'I expect so. But why are you interested in her? What's she––'
The door opened and a tall, slender man in his mid-thirties wearing an expensive grey lounge suit and an expression of irritation and unease on his angular face entered. Valerie Ashmore gave a slight start and there was a flash of something between her and the man that Ryga interpreted as a warning of some kind.
'Major Ashmore,' he crisply announced, not offering his hand. 'Broxham tells me you're a police inspector from Scotland Yard enquiring about the constable who was found dead in Newhaven Harbour. I can confirm what Broxham told you: I don't know the man. Neither have I seen him before, nor has my wife.'
Major Ashmore was too defensive and too quick with his denial. He hadn't even seen the photograph yet. Not unless he recalled it from a newspaper article.
'I've already told him that,' Valerie Ashmore quipped. She looked about to say something more, then snapped her lips tight together. Showing nothing of his quickening interest, Ryga went through the ritual of handing Ashmore the photograph of Swinley but he barely looked at it.
Crossly, he said, 'As I've already said, Inspector, I've never seen him before.'
Unlike his wife, Major Ashmore had no discernible accent, although Ryga thought he heard the faint twang of the Londoner in it. Ryga didn't think he was from the upper class but had worked hard to hide his origins, which he suspected were more working class. Perhaps his promotion to major had been earned during the war. 'I'm also enquiring about a woman, dark-haired, about mid-twenties, slightly dusky skin, striking blue eyes, fashionable, wearing a swagger mink coat.'
Ashmore looked stunned, but quickly tried to cover his shock, by saying, with what sounded to Ryga, false indifference, 'Could be any number of women. There are lots like that in London.'
'I didn't say she was from London.'
'I assumed . . .' He floundered and reached for a cigarette from the box on the coffee table. Again that glance between husband and wife. 'Mrs Ashmore thought she might be a mannequin.'
Ashmore froze in the act of retrieving the cigarette. His lips tightened.
Defensively and sulkily, Valerie Ashmore said, 'I only vaguely recognized her. As I said, Inspector, there are lots of mannequins like that.'
That wasn't what she had said but Ryga let it go. 'Of course. If either of you do remember her name or if you see her again, Mrs Ashmore, in a magazine or at a fashion show, or in London, Mr Ashmore, perhaps you could telephone Newhaven police station or Scotland Yard.'
'Why are you interested in her?' Ashmore asked, straightening up and trying to sound unconcerned, but to Ryga's finely tuned senses he heard alarm. It was the question his wife had been about to ask before her husband entered.
'Just routine enquiries,' Ryga answered with a smile, taking a little pleasure in seeing the irritated expression cross Ashmore's face and a worried one on his wife's. 'Thank you for your help, Major Ashmore, Mrs Ashmore.' Ryga made for the door. Ashmore quickly gathered himself together and got there ahead of him.
'I'll see you out, Inspector.'
In the hall as he crossed to the front door, Ashmore said, 'Why are Scotland Yard involved? I understood that the police officer you're asking about fell into the harbour. That's what the newspaper said.'
'They don't always get it right.'
'No, but the coroner's inquest said accidental death. I read that too,' he hastily added.
'New information has come to light.'
'Connected with this woman in the mink coat? But how can she be involved?' he persisted.
'It's too early to say, sir,' Ryga gave another of his stock answers and registered Ashmore's worried and puzzled expression. He paused on the threshold. 'But PC Swinley's wife is missing and we're very concerned about her. The last sighting we have of her is with the woman I described to you.'
'But that's . . . You can't think that . . . How would they know one another?' Ashmore stammered.
'They probably don't, they just happened to be on the same train to Newhaven last Thursday,' Ryga fudged. 'We thought the lady might be able to tell us if Mrs Swinley said anything to her about where she was going or what she was concerned about.'
'Oh, yes, I see, of course . . .' Ashmore's relief was palpable. 'My wife and I will let you know if we come across her but I shouldn't think we will.'
'Is your chauffeur around, sir? I'd like to ask him if he has seen or knows the lady.'
'No, he's taken the Rolls to my boat. I need him to get some provisions for it. I'm hoping to take it out later this week, weather permitting. He won't be back for some hours. I'll ask him and he can contact you if he recognizes the woman's description.'
'Thank you, sir.' Ryga replaced his hat and walked down the driveway knowing that he wouldn't receive any telephone call from Broxham or the Ashmores. Equally he knew that husband and wife had recognized the mystery lady but were too afraid to admit to it.