The Killing of Katie Steelstock (18 page)

“That wasn’t something I could overlook. And it was the culmination of a number of smaller instances of this sort of disloyalty.”

“Sticking up for the boys against the staff?”

“Trahison des clercs,”
said Mr. Ferris. “Uncommon in schools, but the bane of our newer universities.”

Knott thought about it as he drove back into Reading. He could subpoena Mr. Ferris and despite any promises would have done so without scruple if he thought it would assist the Crown’s case. But he had had some unhappy experiences with witnesses dragged into court against their will. They might not tamper with facts, but they managed somehow to put a different slant on them.

What did it demonstrate, anyway? That Limbery had a violent and uncontrolled temper. They knew that already.

“Frankly,” said Arnold Cowie, news editor of the Reading
Sun,
“it just wasn’t good enough. A lot of descriptive stuff. Flames leaping sky-high. Smoke billowing. Readers don’t want that sort of thing. They can imagine it for themselves. They want
facts.”

“And Limbery’s account was a bit thin on facts?”

“I could have done it without leaving my house.”

“You mean that, literally?”

Cowie thought about it. It had suddenly occurred to him where the questions were leading.

“No,” he said. “Perhaps not literally. He reported something the skipper of the local fire brigade said to him. That could have been checked, so he wouldn’t have made it up. He was there, all right. But I don’t think he stayed very long.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Did you read our account – the one we did publish?”

“No. But I’d like to.”

“I’ll get you a copy.” Cowie spoke into the telephone. “It’s good stuff. It was sent in by a local stringer. The roof of part of the factory collapsed and trapped two of the firemen inside. The brigade lowered one of their ladders down to horizontal and used it as a battering ram. Smashed a way in through the side of the building. Just got them out in time.”

“And none of this was in Limbery’s account?”

“Not a word. Nothing but flames and sparks and hot air.”

“I see. I wonder if you could give me a few timings. For instance - when did the fire start?”

“I don’t know when it started. We heard about it around a quarter to ten. I’d just got back from dinner and the news was on the blower as I got here.”

“And you telephoned Limbery at once?”

“Right.”

“And he answered the telephone at once?”

“Not at once. He was in his bath.”

“But within a few minutes?”

“Right. He said he’d finish getting dressed and go straight out.”

“Let’s say he left at ten o’clock. How long would it take him to get to Goring?”

“Twenty minutes, if he hurried. A few minutes to get over the bridge and through Goring. The paper factory’s half a mile out, on the Oxford road.”

“I suppose you don’t know exactly when the roof collapsed?”

“I might be able to tell you that.” Cowie had the stringer’s report in front of him by now, three sheets of foolscap slashed by the editorial blue pencil. He said, “We didn’t use it all, of course. But I’m sure there was something. Yes. That’s right. The rescue effort I was talking about was put on by the Streatley and Goring brigade. Here’s what I was looking for. The Wallingford contingent, who must have turned out with remarkable speed to be there on the stroke of eleven, were able to help with the latter stages of this courageous rescue.’”

“Then we can place the collapse of the roof at some minutes before eleven. Say between ten and five to eleven.”

“That’s a fair assumption.”

“In other words, Limbery must have left the scene by a quarter to eleven. Having arrived at about a quarter past ten.”

“It certainly looks like it.”

“And when did he let you have his report? I gather he dictated it over the telephone.”

“That’s correct. We got it sometime after midnight. We were going to set it up when this other chap steamed up on his motorbike with his much better account. So we scrapped Limbery’s.” Mr. Cowie smiled thinly. “He still wants us to pay for it.”

“Did he say where he was speaking from?”

“From a public call box. It cost him fifty pence. That’s one of the things he was complaining about.”

Knott thought about it. It was clear that Limbery had told him less than the whole truth. But a man could lie about some things and tell the truth about others.

The news editor was looking at him curiously. He said, “I hope what I’ve told you has helped.”

“It’s been most helpful.”

“Then if you could—”

“All right,” said Knott with a grin which showed all his teeth. “When I’m ready to charge someone you shall hear about it first.”

Back at the Reading police station he told Farr what he had found out, skipping most of what Mr. Ferris had told him and concentrating on the timings.

Farr said, “It was a fluke, of course, the fire happening when it did, but he grabbed the chance to give himself an alibi. He could have been back in Hannington by eleven. Easily. The difficulty’s going to be to prove it. Everyone round that factory would have been too bloody busy to notice when people came and went.”

“I thought about that,” said Knott. “And here’s where I’ll want a bit of help. Limbery told me he phoned in his story from a public call box on the Oxford road. We know he was telling the truth about it being a call box. I had a word with the shorthand typist at the paper who took it down. She heard the tenpenny pieces going in and Limbery cursing every time he had to find another one. At night you get four minutes for tenpence. So we know he was in that box more than sixteen minutes, maybe twenty.”

“If his account was any length he’d need all of twenty minutes. You know what these girls are. He’d have to spell all the names for her.”

“I’m not questioning the length of time he took,” said Knott. “What I was wondering was just where he found a public call box on that bit of the Oxford road. I know it quite well. There are two A.A. boxes, but he’s not a member of the A.A. and anyway he said quite clearly a
public
call box. So what I’d like you to do for me is this. Find out from the Post Office what public call boxes there are between, say, Streatley on the east and Pangbourne on the west.” Farr got out a map and they studied it. “No. Spread it a little further. Make it a square. Moulsford, Yattendon, Pangbourne, Whitchurch. Then take those two men of yours off the house-to-house inquiry they’ve been doing at Hannington and put them onto the call boxes.”

“Hoping,” said Farr, “to find an indignant member of the public who wanted to use a particular box and was kept waiting for twenty minutes.”

“Right,” said Knott. “The
Sun
can provide you with a photograph. They had one in connection with a personality piece they did about that song he wrote. And I’ll bet you a level quid that if we locate that call box it’ll be a damned sight nearer Hannington than away out on the Oxford road.”

“I don’t bet on certainties,” said Farr. He said it with such conviction that Knott’s head jerked up. He said, “Come on, Dennis. You’ve got something for me.”

“Maybe,” said Farr. “Maybe not. I won’t know for sure unless you happen to know the make and number of Limbery’s car.”

Knott thought for a moment and then said, “It’s an old Morris Traveller. And the number is ABB 9190 G.”

“What a memory!”

“It’s not a question of memory,” said Knott. He was watching Farr turning over the pages of a police logbook and thinking, I wonder if he really has got something. He’s looking very pleased with himself. He said, “Whenever I’ve got my eye on someone, someone I may want to pull in, I naturally get the number and description of his car. If he makes a break for it, ten to one he’ll take his car.”

Farr had found the page he wanted and was running his finger down it. He had stopped listening to Knott, who continued placidly. “Then I can put out an all-stations call without wasting any time. Minutes can be precious at a moment like that.”

“ABB 9190 G, you said?”

“Right.”

“And Limbery drove back across the Pangboume bridge at some time between twelve and one?”

“Right.”

“You’re sure about the time?”

“He said he noticed the time on the Town Hall clock.”

“Then he’s a liar.”

Knott said, “Ah—h—h.” It was like a letting out of long-held breath.

“That was the night we had a dragnet out to try and pull up the villains who did Yattendon House. Remember? We had blocks on every bridge over that stretch of the Thames. They went on at eleven and didn’t come off until three. Here’s a list of the cars they checked, Pangbourne bridge. Makes. Registration numbers and times. No ABB 9190 G. No Morris Travellers either.”

“Beautiful,” said Knott softly.

The Coroner said, “You are Charles Knott of 56 Albany Street, St. John’s Wood, N.W.8, a Detective Superintendent in the Metropolitan Police Force, and you are in charge of the police inquiries into this case?”

“I am, sir.”

“Have you concluded your inquiries?”

“No, sir.”

“I understand it will assist your inquiries if I adjourn the case.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Coroner directed his gaze on the five men and four women in the jury box and said, “This is an inquiry into the death of Kate Louise Steelstock at a point adjacent to the West Hannington Boat Club premises on the night of Friday, August fifteenth, in circumstances suggesting murder. I shall adjourn the inquest for fourteen days, that is to say until Tuesday September second.”

“Witnesses in this case may leave the court,” said the Coroner’s officer.

The jury, and the members of the public who had packed the room to suffocation, looked baffled. The press, who had expected nothing more, looked bored. A reporter caught Knott as he was making his way out and said, “How’s it going, Superintendent?”

“Not too bad, son.”

“An arrest imminent?”

“Well now, you’d hardly expect me to be as definite as that, would you?”

This was accompanied by what could have been a wink. The hint could hardly have been more deliberate. The reporter, who had been a long time at the game, said, “Knott’s got his teeth into someone. Won’t be long now.”

Back at the operations room Knott settled into his chair and started to leaf through the brown-covered green-laced folder that Sergeant Esdaile had strung together for him. From his smaller table, Shilling looked across at him. He was remembering like moments in other cases.

“Well,” said Knott at last, “so what have we got? We know that Limbery and Katie used the boathouse as a rendezvous for lovemaking. We know that the note found in Katie’s bag probably came from him. There’s no direct evidence. We haven’t traced the typewriter. But there’s evidence in the wording of the note itself. We know it was sent by the man who killed her, because he searched for it. First, in her bag. Then, when he couldn’t find it there, at her house.”

“Sound nerve,” said Shilling.

Knott accepted this remark as a criticism. He said, “All right. I agree. It doesn’t fit in with the picture we’ve got of Limbery. But remember he was desperate. He had to have that note. If it was found, he was finished. Next point, he lied about where he was and what he did that night. Why?”

“Obvious answer, because the whole trip was set up to give him an alibi.”

“Obvious answers can be right.”

Shilling knew what his job was. He was critic. He was council for the defence. He said, “You’re building up two quite different characters, aren’t you? One’s a man with no control over his temper who flies off the reel because of something spiteful Katie says to him, hits her on the head too hard and finds himself with a corpse on his hands. The other’s the sort of man who could make a plan to get her to that particular spot, taking care to fix himself up with an elaborate alibi first. They don’t match.”

“I think there’s an answer to that,” said Knott. “We know, now, that Katie had another side to her character. She liked to have people on the end of a string. So that she could give it a twitch from time to time and watch them dance. There are women like that. Remember Mrs. Huntingdon?”

“Yes,” said Shilling with a grimace, “and I remember what her husband did to her when she twitched it once too often.”

“Right. Now suppose Katie had something on Limbery.”

“What sort of thing?”

“Anything. Going too far with a boy, most likely. Her brother was at Coverdales. He could have known about it. And told Katie. She’d have enjoyed tweaking Limbery.”

“All right,” said Shilling. “But here’s another point. If he did send her that note, just how and when did he get it to her? It wasn’t sent through the post. And it had to reach her late in the day, or there was no chance she’d bring it with her to the dance. There’s only one way he could have done that—”

The telephone interrupted him.

Knott picked up the receiver and listened, with no more than an occasional grunt. At the end he said, “Thank you, Dennis. That sounds very promising. I’ll send someone from here to take a statement.”

He replaced the receiver carefully and said, “How do you explain this one away? At ten past twelve, when Limbery, according to his statement, was having a snack in that motel on the Oxford road, preparatory to crossing the river at Pangbourne – in an invisible car – he was also occupying a public telephone box on Streatley Common,
south
of the river. To the growing fury of a Mrs. Mason, who wanted to use the phone. She recognised Limbery at once from the photograph. No hesitation. She said, ‘When you’ve watched someone for twenty minutes preventing you from using a telephone, his face gets sort of fixed in your mind.’”

“She sounds a useful sort of witness,” agreed Shilling.

Knott had closed the folder and was holding it in one hand. He seemed to be weighing it. He said, “I’d like you to take this lot up to the D.P.P.’s office. You can strip it down a bit. Leave out the photographs and maps, but see that you’ve got all the statements. Including Mrs. Mason’s, as soon as we’ve got hers. And Dr. Farmiloe’s report. And my daily summaries. And a copy of the note we found in Katie’s bag. Ask for the Principal Assistant Director in Charge of Southern Region. He’s a man called Adlington. He’s got three chins and stutters like a machine gun, but he’s very sound. I’ll tell him you’re coming. Give him the file to read and ask if he or the Deputy Director can see me at nine o’clock tomorrow. Understood?”