An Act of Evil Read online

  “Are you awake?” Tess’s arm stretched across his body.

  “I can’t remember being asleep. There’s something Hardy wrote — in The Mayor of Casterbridge I think — about there being an outer compartment to the mind into which terrible thoughts come uninvited. Mine’s very over-occupied at the moment.”

  “I know. I keep trying to tell myself the reality won’t be as bad. But I don’t believe myself.”

  “I’m going to Belsthwaite,” he said.

  Tess raised her head. “Belsthwaite? Why?”

  “Because I might find something out. Because it’s something to do.”

  “The police are doing everything they can.”

  “I know that, but I just might…I don’t know…I might find something they’ve missed. Perhaps someone will talk to me because I’m not a policeman. Perhaps…I can’t just stay here and do nothing.”

  Tess looked at him for a moment. “All right. But I’m coming with you. Don’t argue. You’re not the only one who needs something to do.”

  Maltravers did not argue or even reply but put his arm around Tess and pulled her closer to him. They lay in silence until they heard the sound of the morning paper arriving through the letter box.

  Arthur Powell’s thin face, slightly blurred after being enlarged from the original photograph, stared impassively from the grey columns of the Daily Telegraph. Maltravers stood in the hall reading the accompanying story, a cold informative narrative, inevitably detached from the reality of the experience. There was a description of Powell’s vehicle — like himself it was nondescript — and a warning from the police that he should not be approached. The story added that he had been seen in Vercaster at the weekend but the official position was still that he was wanted for nothing more specific than to assist with police inquiries. Maltravers suddenly found the iron laws which curtailed reporting in such circumstances slightly absurd. The suspicions against Powell were overwhelming and his disappearance a tacit confirmation of his guilt, which would be increasingly reinforced the longer he failed to come forward. At the end of the story about Powell was a separate short piece about the Latimer Mercy which included a quote by Madden that the police were not connecting the incidents.

  Over breakfast Maltravers told Melissa what he and Tess planned to do.

  “I can’t see what you’ll achieve,” she said. “But I can’t see what anything will achieve. Michael’s taking Rebecca to his parents in Sussex for a few days and will stay overnight but I’ll be here to take any messages.”

  “You’ll be all right on your own?”

  “Yes. Don’t worry. I’ve got people coming round. You’ll be back tonight?”

  “Of course, but it might be late. We’ll call you before we set off. And we’d better get going now.”

  Their departure was delayed by a telephone call from Joe Goldman.

  “Have they found this bastard yet?” he demanded.

  “Not as far as we know and I’m sure they’d be in touch with us if they had. How are things with you?”

  “You wouldn’t believe it, Gus. It’s death in the family time. I’ve had grown men crying on the phone.”

  “Joe, there’s no proof Diana’s dead.”

  “You said that before but what comfort is it that she might be alive with her godammed hand cut off? Sorry, Gus, I know it must be worse for you but this is getting to a lot of people here. Anyway, that’s not why I called. There’s something worrying me and I wanted to talk to you about it.”

  “About Powell?”

  “No something else. It doesn’t make much sense but I can’t stop thinking about it. Do you remember Peter Sinclair? He was in Success City.”

  Maltravers had to think a moment before Sinclair, an actor with the facial looks of an Action Man toy whose conceit far outweighed his talent, came back to him. His part in the trilogy had been a minor one; he died halfway through the first episode.

  “What about him?”

  “You know he and Diana had an affair? Nothing serious for her, she was just playing the field, but he really got in deep. When she finished it he became the classic rejected lover, flowers, phone calls, the lot. If you met him all he talked about was Diana. Anyway, the next thing is he’s going into hate, stupid threats that he’ll get even. You wouldn’t believe what he was like. You remember that cat Diana had?”

  “Who doesn’t? She was besotted with the thing. It disappeared, didn’t it?”

  “Yes…and a couple of days later its tail was pushed through her letter box. Next thing is Sinclair’s saying he’s had his revenge. The guy’s a weirdo, Gus.”

  “Did she ask him about the cat?”

  “He just laughed it off. But you see what I’m thinking? There’s only one problem. He’s in California.”

  “California! Since when?”

  “About three months ago. He landed a part as an English chauffeur in some new American TV soap opera.”

  “Come on, Joe, you know what those shooting schedules are like. How does he find time to get back to England?”

  “I don’t know. It just keeps nagging me. If he did cut up the cat he’s nutty enough for anything.”

  “Just a minute. When was this affair? When did it end?”

  “It started when they were shooting Success City.”

  “When was that?”

  “Just over a year ago. It lasted about three months. Why?”

  “It’s all right, it doesn’t fit. You knew Diana was pregnant?”

  “Yes, I read it in the paper…Oh, I see what you’re driving at. No, it can’t have been him. She’d have had it by now.”

  “Any idea who it might have been? The father?”

  Goldman grunted down the phone. “No one comes to mind. She was kicking around with two or three guys but there was nothing serious as far as I know.”

  “OK, Joe, thanks for telling me about Sinclair. I’ll keep in touch.”

  “Do that, Gus. Love to Tess, you know? A lot of people have asked me to say that.”

  Maltravers thought over what Joe had told him as they prepared to leave for Belsthwaite. The continuous pattern of rehearsals and shooting for a long-running series left nobody any time to get away and there would probably be contractual limitations on Sinclair’s movements as well. But he still decided the police should know. He called Goldman back to ask the name of the studios, then called Jackson.

  “I take your point that it seems highly unlikely,” Jackson said when he had finished. “But we’ll check it out just in case. Incidentally, we’ve had the usual crop of reported sightings of Powell since his picture appeared but none has turned out to be him so far. It always happens. If he does turn up I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

  “Thanks. Actually I won’t be here for the rest of the day but my sister will be at home,” Maltravers replied. “Tess and I are going to London.”

  *

  Maltravers felt ridiculously guilty as they left Vercaster heading north, imagining that Jackson would see them and stop the car. He had no rational explanation for what they were doing; his reasons for going to Belsthwaite were deep, personal and irrelevant to everybody and everything except himself.

  Belsthwaite lay in the remains of what must have been a beautiful Yorkshire dale, its lower reaches now savagely scarred by the merciless urban development spawned by the industrial explosion which had supported the world’s last and greatest Empire. As they crested a hill it appeared below them, a dark sluggish river coiling out of its unlovely brickwork which climbed unevenly towards the tops of the valley ridges. A silent mill dominated one side of the town, long disused and with windows like tombstones staring blankly across the cramped back yards and alleyways of what had been the homes of its workers. On the opposite side of the river, post-war development had planted some newer industries and brighter houses scattered amid worn, patches of green. Sebastopol Terrace, with its parallel companions of Inkerman, Balaclava and Crimea itself, instantly admitted its origins in far-away battlefie
lds. The houses stood in long, stark rows like the very brigades they silently commemorated and the brilliant sun only served to exaggerate their bleakness.

  Number twenty-seven was one of many which had been converted into upper and lower, obviously cramped, flats. There were no front gardens. The step up from the pavement was of porous sandstone, now leprous with age, and the narrow strip of diamond-shaped black and white tiles beyond it was cracked and discoloured. There were two doorbells, one unmarked and the other with a yellowing strip of paper beneath it, in a dirty clear plastic holder, bearing the name Powell.

  “Not much point in trying that,” said Maltravers and pressed the alternative. There was no sound.

  “Does it work?” asked Tess.

  “Who knows? Bells that you can’t hear from outside are always infuriating.”

  They had discussed where they would start as they drove north, deciding that gossip of their visit would spread more quickly from the supermarket and might provoke police interest, which could interfere with calling in Powell’s neighbourhood.

  “Although asking questions is no offence in law,” Maltravers had remarked.

  “But it’s not advisable when the police are involved,” Tess had replied.

  Maltravers peered through one of the matching mottled-glass panes in the front door, his hand cupped above his eyes.

  “I think there’s someone coming,” he said and moments later the blurred outline of a figure became visible on the inside. After a fumbling of lock the door opened slightly and a face peered out suspiciously.

  The resulting conversation became so bizarre that Maltravers later regretted that he did not have the opportunity to record it. Having established that they were not from the landlord, the council, or any one of several hire-purchase companies; were not social workers, Jehovah’s Witnesses or itinerant sellers of any manner of goods; did not want to lend or borrow money; had no intention of offering cut-price decorating; did not wish to discuss the purchase of unwanted jewellery or other valuables; were not conducting any form of consumer survey; had no connection with Authority (particularly the police) in any way, shape or form; and meant, in short, no harm, expense or embarrassment, the occupier opened the door more fully to reveal himself as a man of advanced years and sullen manner with braces and a shirt without a collar.

  “What do you want then?” he demanded.

  “Well, actually, we’re inquiring about your neighbour, Mr Powell,” said Maltravers with the greatest amiability he could manage after so relentless a grilling.

  “Don’t know ‘im,” said the man and closed the door before even the fleetest foot could have stopped it. Maltravers, his mouth still open to continue what he had to say, stared in amazement and Tess suddenly giggled.

  “We’re not very good at this,” she said.

  “I’ve always thought they were mad in Yorkshire,” said Maltravers. “This never happened to Lord Peter Wimsey.”

  “Perhaps not. But he never came to Belsthwaite.”

  Calls at the immediately adjacent houses were equally unprofitable. Nobody was at home in one case and at the other house there was a lady of remarkable deafness, a handicap made more difficult by the fact that she carried a perpetually yapping Yorkshire terrier. Gesturing meaninglessly at her, Tess and Maltravers admitted defeat and returned to the car.

  They were about to drive away when Tess pointed out a small corner shop at the end of the terrace, a surprising survivor of changing shopping habits. Maltravers said it would be little use as Powell would obviously buy his groceries at the supermarket where he was employed but Tess said she would try it.

  “It’s an obvious gossip mine,” she said. “Since the publicity in the papers and on television everybody will be talking about Powell. You stay here and I’ll go and have a chat.”

  “And what makes you think they’ll talk to a complete stranger?” he asked.

  “They’ll talk to anybody. Particularly someone who talks broad Yorksheer. Rest thissen here lad, and I’ll see what’s oop.” She stepped out of the car.

  Maltravers watched her disappear into the shop, its tinny bell sounding outside in the street, and admiringly noticed that her long-legged walk gave the indefinable impression of being a Yorkshirewoman; good acting always starts with the feet. While he waited, he looked through all the morning papers they had bought on the motorway during the journey, following the irresistible urge to read again and again in print what they knew so well. The tabloid front pages contained little else but Powell’s face, combining journalistic high drama and the desired effect of making it familiar to millions of readers. They also had pictures of Diana — showing some sense of restraint by not using the nude one — and had all reached for their most spectacular typefaces and emotive language. “Is this Diana’s butcher?” screamed one headline, with cavalier disregard for possible libel actions should Powell unexpectedly turn out to be innocent, and all included excitable prose padded out with such strange irrelevances as the Vercaster District Council motto — “Serve God and people” — and the date of the Chapter House, variously given between eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Maltravers read them all, his occasional twitches of distaste counterbalanced by the awareness that they should hasten the discovery and arrest of Arthur Powell and, hopefully, the rescue of Diana; he clung, limpet-like, to the belief that she was still alive.

  Tess returned after about twenty minutes carrying chocolate and crisps.

  “I had to buy something,” she said as she got back into the car. “And the only problem was stopping her talking. Powell bought his papers there and she’s the sort who would make a Trappist monk speak. Most of it was just chit-chat but she’s obviously been searching her memory since the police called. I had the feeling that she wasn’t very happy about telling them too much. Apparently he always called in on Friday to pay his bill and last week said he was going on holiday. We know that, of course, but old Mrs Whatever-her-name-is asked him where he was going and he said he was off to spend a couple of days in London and then to the mountains.”

  “Just the mountains?”

  “Unfortunately yes. Wales?”

  Maltravers frowned. “Or the Lake District. Or Scotland. Or even abroad. Jackson told us they couldn’t find his passport. Still it rules out some places like Devon and Cornwall which is something. I’ll tell Jackson when we get back. Come on, let’s try the supermarket.”

  They decided the only thing they could do was admit they were friends of Diana and hope for the best. As it turned out the new manager, eager and trying to hide his youth behind an immature moustache, was quite unconcerned that their inquiries were not official and took them straight through to his office, hauling assorted boxes off chairs so they could sit down.

  “We still can’t believe it,” he said. “Nobody was really a friend of Arthur but nobody disliked him. He’s the sort who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Nobody here can ever remember him even losing his temper.”

  “Do you know anything about him? He seems indefinable.”

  Their conversation was interrupted by the manager being called to sort out a dispute on a check-out. When he returned he was accompanied by a stout, jolly woman whom he introduced as one of his supervisors. He explained the reason for Maltravers and Tess’s visit.

  “How would you describe Arthur, Mildred?” he asked her.

  “Very close. Always polite, mind, but never used two words where one were enough. Never gave change in conversation. Mind, you could say nowt against him. Only thing that sticks in my mind is he were faddy with his food.”

  “Faddy? What do you mean?”

  “One of them vegetarians. I told ‘im there were nowt worth eatin’ in rabbit fodder but he were very particular. Wouldn’t even eat a boiled egg sandwich and where’s the harm in that?”

  “Did you ever see him with a Commando knife?” asked Maltravers. Sudden recollection broke over Mildred’s face.

  “Ay, I’d forgotten that. One of them big things in a leather sheat
h. Now that were his pride and joy. Always had it with him and had one of those stone things for sharpening it on. He used to cut up the boxes in the storeroom with it.” She frowned as she thought back. “Now I think about it, he seemed…I don’t know…happy somehow when he were doing that.”

  Maltravers and Tess exchanged disturbed glances. After a few more minutes’ conversation it became clear that neither Mildred nor the manager would recall anything else; Powell had kept himself to his secret self very carefully, even among the people with whom he worked.

  As they were about to drive out of the car park, they heard a shout and saw the manager running towards them carrying something.

  “I just remembered,” he said as Maltravers wound down the car window. “Arthur always changed into these when he came to work. He kept them in the storeroom.”

  He held up a pair of cheap plastic sandals, cracked and worn with use.

  “I suddenly thought, perhaps the police ought to have them.” He looked at Maltravers, illogically seeking his approval.

  “I expect it would be best,” he replied. “Although I don’t see how they can help. They’ve been through his flat. I suggest you give them a call. Thanks again for your help.”

  He pulled away and turned towards the town centre.

  “Is there anywhere else we can try?” asked Tess.

  “Not that I can think of. Oh, Christ, what a bloody waste of time! What on earth did we come for?”

  “Because you needed to,” said Tess quietly. “It has occupied your mind. Come on, let’s find somewhere for lunch.”

  They found a town centre pub which served food and, while Tess was ordering at the bar, Maltravers rang Melissa.

  “Augustus! Thank God you’ve called! How soon can you be back? Diana’s other hand has been sent to the Dean through the post.”