The Thread of Evidence Read online

  ‘Then, of course, there’s this sister. The one mentioned in the station report book.’ The colonel deftly removed Pacey’s trump card before he could play it.

  ‘Yes, sir, I’ve already telexed the Liverpool police to see if she’s still alive and at the same address,’ said the detective, being determined to win the trick.

  ‘We’ll be lucky to find her after all this time – she must be getting on now.’ Willie Rees diffidently threw his voice into the duet between Pacey and the chief.

  Pacey shrugged his bull shoulders.

  ‘It’s still possible. Her age wasn’t mentioned anywhere. But she sounds like an elder sister, judging by the way she was acting.’

  The colonel carefully brushed up the ends of his military moustache. ‘Then, of course, you’ll have to get around the village people pretty thoroughly tomorrow.’

  Pacey groaned silently. His chief was a good scout in that he would always back any of his men up to the hilt against outsiders; but he had this annoying habit of stating the obvious as if it were a stroke of his own genius.

  ‘Er, yes, sir,’ replied Pacey. ‘I’ll work them over first thing in the morning. I’ll take Sergeant Mostyn with me as there’s not much else doing to keep him here.’

  ‘When will the scientific people be able to give you some really detailed information?’

  ‘Professor Powell is taking all the bones to his anatomy department in the morning and he hopes to be able to let me know something over the phone later in the day. I expect that the Forensic Lab will be longer than that with the stuff they’ve got, though.’

  ‘What did Morris’s diggers unearth this afternoon – you said you collected some more things from him?’

  ‘A few more beads, two teeth and some more hair – again definitely reddish in colour. There were a few scraps of cloth and a bit more shoe, as well.’

  ‘So there’s plenty for the boffins to work on?’ observed Barton, fiddling with his moustache again.

  ‘Yes, sir, I’ve already sent it down to the Swansea lab.’

  The colonel delicately adjusted the position of his inkstand and straightened up the already faultless blotting pad.

  ‘The question is now, how much proof do we need before we tackle this chap Hewitt?’

  Pacey scratched his thick red neck.

  ‘It all hangs on the identity, doesn’t it? If we can’t get anywhere near showing that this heap of bones is Mavis, we can’t even contemplate charging him. In fact, all we’ve got to go on, so far, is a load of village gossip.’

  The chief frowned.

  ‘The dates of those coins, and the type of clothing, are very suggestive, especially in a sparsely populated district such as this. It’s not like London, thank God, where people are disappearing every few hours, you know.’

  Pacey throttled back an impertinent answer. ‘Yes, sir, I know that. But the slightest bit of contrary evidence will blow that one coincidence wide open. Someone might come along tomorrow and say that Mavis Hewitt was six foot tall, had blonde hair and a wooden leg!’

  The chief constable gave Pacey a withering look of disapproval.

  ‘That’s hardly likely, is it, Superintendent?’ he snapped.

  The detective had a sudden mental flashback to his army days and for a brief moment felt as if he were standing between two redcaps in front of his CO.

  ‘A bit overstated, perhaps,’ he admitted. ‘But the slightest variation between the skeleton and the real Mavis’s description will be enough to flatten the whole theory. And that’s all it is, so far – a tentative theory.’

  ‘Are you going to have a talk with Hewitt tomorrow?’

  ‘I certainly am. This is the sort of situation where a bit of shaking up can lead to a confession and save a hell of a lot of work. Especially with old jossers like Hewitt. Let him think we know everything – instead of damn all – and he might crumple up for us. That’s if he knows anything at all about it, of course.’

  The colonel looked uneasy.

  ‘I hope you’ll use your discretion, Pacey. You know how things are between the police and the public these days. Not that I’m trying to tell you your business. You know that I never interfere in my officers’ work. All I want is to be kept in the picture.’

  Charles Pacey sighed again. This was another well-known ploy of the chief’s, declaring how he never meddled in the routine but just sat in the background like a benign father confessor.

  ‘Is there anything else you’d like to discuss, sir?’ Pacey looked pointedly at his watch.

  ‘There’s one thing, Pacey. You didn’t tell me exactly what was in that report from the old station Occurrences book – it’s the only written evidence we have so far.’

  ‘It’s in the file, sir – on the last page.’

  The colonel opened the folder again and read aloud the copy that Rees had taken in Aberystwyth a few hours before.

  ‘“October the eighth, nineteen twenty-nine … Mrs Jessie Randall, 14 Speke Street, Liverpool, reported her sister, Mavis Hewitt, missing from Bryn Glas farm, Tremabon. Also made allegations against brother-in-law, Roland Hewitt of same address. Alleged missing woman is Mavis Cecily Hewitt, age twenty-six years. Case referred to Inspector Williams”.’

  The chief constable dropped the sheet and looked up at Pacey.

  ‘Doesn’t help much, does it?’ he concluded.

  ‘A case like that would be handled by the inspector from the start,’ commented Pacey. ‘He probably interviewed the sister and opened a special file – so there wouldn’t be any more details in the Occurrences book.’

  ‘And this Inspector Williams – what happened to him?’

  ‘Retired and dead this many years, so I discovered.’

  Barton pondered this for a moment. ‘So, now, we have to wait to see what the pathologist, the “lab” and Hewitt have got to tell us, eh?’

  ‘And check on all the missing persons around the late twenties and early thirties,’ said Pacey, getting in ahead of the chief with the suggestion. ‘As I said, this yarn about Mavis Hewitt may be scotched first thing in the morning, for all I know. So I’ll have to get down to the usual routine of checking the local disappearances.’

  ‘I hope, for your sake, that the laboratory can narrow down the time range for you,’ said the colonel. ‘You’ll have the devil of a job as it is, in following up all the missing persons for even a ten-year period.’

  There was a tap at the door. A constable from the charge room downstairs brought in a large envelope and laid it on the desk in front of the colonel.

  ‘A patrol car has just brought this from Aber, sir,’ he said, before saluting and marching out. Again Pacey had a slight military hallucination.

  ‘It’s addressed to you, Superintendent,’ said Barton. He waited intently while the detective tore the package open to take out a folded newspaper and a sheet of paper.

  ‘From Sergeant Evans – he’s on the ball all right.’ Pacey read from the note. ‘He says he met the editor of the Cardigan Voice on the street just after I’d left, and asked him to open up the office. He got the copy of the paper for the week after the date on the police report and has sent it down. It saves us a few hours.’

  ‘I hope the sergeant didn’t let on to the man what it was all about,’ fretted the colonel, holding his hand out for the note.

  ‘No, Evans is all there, sir. He knows the ropes all right.’ Pacey offered the newspaper to the colonel, but Barton waved it back.

  ‘No, no, Pacey. This is your affair. You read it first.’

  Willie Rees, sitting silently watching the play, knew that this was another bit of the chief’s gamesmanship.

  The paper, which had probably been lying untouched for the last thirty-three years, was slightly yellow and brittle, but otherwise perfect.

  The style of the layout and printing was strange to Pacey’s eyes as he opened the pages; and the quality of the photographs was poor by modern standards.

  One of these pictures on an inside
page caught his eye.

  ‘Here it is; a photo of her – that’s damn useful. There’s a short column below it about her, too.’

  ‘Read it out, there’s a good chap,’ asked the colonel, fairly bristling with interest now.

  Pacey folded the paper across his knee and recited the passage for the benefit of the others.

  ‘“Tremabon farmer’s wife missing. Sister asks for help in tracing woman … Mrs Jessie Randall of Liverpool, is anxious to discover the whereabouts of her sister, Mrs Mavis Hewitt, pictured above.”

  “Mrs Randall told our reporter that she had not heard from her sister for almost two months and, on coming to the district today to make inquiries, had been told by neighbours that Mrs Hewitt had not been seen for some weeks. When our reporter visited her home at Bryn Glas Farm, Tremabon, he was told by her husband, Mr Roland Hewitt that his wife had gone away and that he refused to discuss the matter.”

  “Mrs Randall has sought the aid of the police. Anyone having any information as to the whereabouts of the lady is asked to contact either their local police station or the editor of this paper.”.’

  Pacey stopped reading but did not raise his eyes from the paper.

  ‘Is that all it says, Superintendent?’ Barton asked impatiently.

  Pacey gave a low whistle.

  ‘No, there’s a bit more. A very interesting bit, too. “The missing woman is twenty-six years of age, of slight build, about five foot four inches in height, with a fresh complexion and auburn hair. When last seen she was wearing a green linen suit with black shoes and hat.”.’

  Pacey laid the paper carefully on the desk.

  ‘Twenty-six, five foot four and auburn hair,’ he repeated, smoothing the newspaper with a big hand. ‘We’re getting warm, sir, aren’t we?’

  Chapter Seven

  Things moved quickly on the following morning, the Tuesday after the bones were discovered.

  Overnight, a message had arrived from Liverpool by telex, informing the Cardigan police that a Mrs Jessie Randall, late of 14 Speke Street, was alive and living nearby, at 24 Glebe Terrace.

  ‘You’d better get up there straight away, Willie,’ ordered Pacey. ‘Take some of those pictures of the jewellery with you. You might strike lucky with something.’

  The first albums of photographs had been delivered already – thanks to some overtime put in by the detective-constable who had taken them – and Rees left in a car for Liverpool with a bundle of pictures to show to the sister.

  Pacey skipped through some other work in his office, then collected Detective Sergeant Mostyn from the CID office next to his own room.

  ‘We’re going up to Tremabon to use the rubber hosepipes on a few of those characters in the village,’ he said cheerfully as they made their way down to his car. ‘It’s about time some of these bloody scandalmongers were sorted out. They get on my wick, the nasty old devils. But I must admit that they seem to have found something juicy to gnash their gums on this time.’

  Mostyn was an aloof young man, only condescending to speak when he had something important to say.

  Charles Pacey, with his gruff good humour, was a bit suspicious of the sergeant’s manner; but he recognized the ability and good record of the younger man. Pacey was also doubtful of the sergeant’s dandyish clothes, waved hair and dapper, fair moustache. Only the previous week, he had growled to Willie Rees, ‘I never know what to make of these blokes who wear suede shoes and use aftershave lotion.’

  On the trip to Tremabon, Mostyn was a little more talkative than usual – perhaps to offset the shock which Pacey had experienced in seeing him wearing a short camel-hair coat and American-style felt hat.

  He listened carefully to Pacey’s account of the case so far and showed the superintendent that he had already a good grasp of the affair by making some sensible comments.

  ‘I wonder if Hewitt knows that we’re interested in him. No chance of him skipping, I suppose.’

  Pacey, looking like an unemployed labourer alongside his immaculate sergeant, wrinkled up his fat nose.

  ‘I should think he’s got wind of the local gossip by now – it’s impossible not to in a small place like Tremabon. But, even assuming that he does know something about his wife’s disappearance, I’m sure he wouldn’t bolt. That would cook his goose straight away. And he doesn’t know how much we know, does he?’

  Mostyn didn’t consider this bit of rhetoric worth an answer and stared out of the window at the rain-soaked hedges flashing past. ‘Odd that his nephew should be in at the finding of these flaming bones.’

  Pacey spoke reflectively – not expecting, nor getting, an answer from the sergeant. ‘Nothing sinister in it, I know – seems a nice young chap. I’m sorry that he might have a bit of a shock coming his way.’

  The logic of this pricked Mostyn into speech.

  ‘From what you’ve told me, Super, you’re going to need a devil of a lot of corroboration before you can slap anything on this man Hewitt.’

  Pacey laughed shortly.

  ‘There’s a world of difference between charging a man and asking him questions, sonny. I’m going to start rubbing his nose in it as soon as we see him. You may know all the bookwork, lad, but you’ve still got a lot to learn. Grind ’em down fine in the beginning, that’s the secret. If they’ve got nothing to hide, then no harm’s done. But, if they have, either fright or anger will shake it out of ’em. Hammer them right from the start, that’s the thing to do!’

  Mostyn shot him a sideways glance containing all the finer shades of disapproval and disdain, but he said nothing.

  Pacey was driving the police Austin himself and was blithely ignoring the few speed limits between Cardigan and their destination. They arrived at Tremabon at ten o’clock and Pacey inquired at once for the location of Roland Hewitt’s cottage.

  ‘We’ll go and see the old boy first,’ he said, swinging the car into the narrow lane that led up to the house. ‘Then we can come back later, if need be, and rattle him again.’

  As they reached the yard in front of the blue cottage, the old man appeared from the barn with two empty buckets. He stood as if frozen, gazing at the black car with the prominent ‘Police’ sign on the radiator.

  Pacey stopped the car and walked with Mostyn across the cobbles towards Roland, who still stood petrified.

  ‘Would you happen to be Mr Hewitt – Mr Roland Hewitt?’ Pacey’s voice was flat, neither pleasant, nor menacing.

  No sign of the rubber truncheon yet, Mostyn thought cynically.

  The old man came to life again and the buckets swung gently as he said that he was Roland Hewitt.

  ‘We’re police officers,’ explained Pacey.

  ‘Aye, I didn’t think you were firemen,’ said Roland dryly, swinging a bucket in the direction of the radiator sign. His face looked grey to Mostyn, but he seemed quite in control of himself. Pacey, with his many years’ experience of interrogation, sensed that the old man was half-afraid, half-defiant.

  ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions, Mr Hewitt,’ said Pacey.

  Roland sighed and dropped his buckets with a clatter.

  ‘I thought you would, sooner or later. Come on in.’ He slouched in front of them towards the front door, back bent, his whole attitude one of resigned apathy.

  ‘All right, Twm.’ He patted the dog who growled suspiciously at the two men who followed him into the kitchen.

  Roland shuffled to his chair at the hearth and waved them to two others, opposite.

  He looked older than Pacey had expected. He saw a lean, leathery caricature of a man, his cropped white hair bristling incongruously above his watery pale eyes. His sunken cheeks framed a sad mouth and Pacey felt that here was a man patiently waiting for a sad life to drag to its close. The detective almost ashamedly found that he already felt sorry for the man he had come to browbeat, even before he had asked a single question.

  ‘I’ve got an idea that you already know why we’ve called,’ he began quietly. ‘By the way,
I’m Superintendent Pacey and this is Sergeant Mostyn.’

  Roland avoided his gaze and stared into the grate.

  ‘Ay, those busybodies down in the village set you on to me, no doubt.’

  ‘Your nephew, Mr Adams, isn’t at home, then?’

  ‘No, he’s down with his young lady – Miss Ellis-Morgan.’

  Pacey was strangely thankful for that. He liked Peter and now, almost against his will, he found himself sorry for his uncle. He began his questioning by jumping in with both feet.

  ‘Mr Hewitt – I’d like you to tell me what happened to your wife in nineteen twenty-nine.’

  Roland began rocking backwards and forwards on his seat, hands clasped on his lap.

  ‘You know as much as I do, mister.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Mr Hewitt. Come on now, let’s hear your version of it.’

  ‘She just went out from the farm one day and never came back – that’s the whole story, you can take it or leave it.’ Roland’s voice held a quavering defiance.

  ‘I see. She just walked out and “never came back”.’ Pacey sounded professionally disbelieving. ‘And what about all these fights and quarrels I’ve been hearing about, eh?’ Pacey omitted to mention that, so far, all he’d heard was third-hand rumour from the village constable.

  Roland glared at him. ‘You’ve been listening to that damn man down in the Lamb and Flag. He’s the one who caused most of this trouble, that Ceri Lloyd – carrying on with her and encouraging her in her badness.’

  ‘So you admit that you were on bad terms with your wife?’

  Roland peered over his glasses. His agitation seemed to have given way to suspicion for the moment.

  ‘Of course I do – I’ve admitted it before, haven’t I? You should know. You’ve got all the papers and forms I had to sign all them years ago. It was you police and those damn reporters that drove me away from here in the first place.’

  He paused and looked keenly at the detectives, first at Pacey and then at the silent Mostyn.

  ‘What’s the idea of pestering me all over again, eh? You don’t seem to know much about the affair. If you think I’ve got anything to do with that body up on the cliff, as you obviously do think, then you can go away and stop bothering me right now. Having a few words and a slap with a wife is one thing, but doing away with her is quite another.’