house; neither he nor Jill had ever had any. But Jill knew of a key to the back door, kept in the garden shed. ‘Granddad put it there for me,’ she explained in unsteady tones, ‘in case I ever needed it. I hardly ever used it.’
They went along to the shed and Jill indicated a pair of secateurs lying on a corner shelf. The Chief took a pen from his pocket and with the tip raised the end of the secateurs, revealing the key; he left it where it was. Both key and secateurs were of old, dull metal, far from smooth. Neither could be touched before being tested, although there was little hope of useful prints.
With Gareth’s permission they broke a pane in the kitchen window to gain entry. Inside, all was scrupulously neat and tidy, the whole house spotlessly clean. Harry’s private papers were kept in a bureau in the sitting room but the bureau was locked. Gareth was able to supply the name of his grandfather’s bank and the solicitor who had drawn up his will two years ago.
At the Chief’s request Gareth and Jill set about compiling a list of what their grandfather might be expected to have on him. Watch, ring, regimental badge. Pigskin wallet – a present from Jill last Christmas. Zipped coin purse, oldish, of brown leather. Notebook, ballpoint pen, van keys, house keys – including the key to the bureau. A white handkerchief.
When the list was as complete as they could make it, Jill looked up at the Chief, her eyes bright with tears. ‘Is that what Granddad’s life was valued at?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘Is that what some thug thought it worth killing him for?’
The Chief was at the police station early on Monday morning to assess the first results of the house-to-house inquiries before going along to the General Hospital where the postmortem on Harry Lingard was shortly due to begin.
As always with a case of this nature there was no shortage of reports, once the news of the crime had been made public, of unsavoury-looking characters having recently been seen in the area. Vehicles, too; the public could always be relied on to recall strange vehicles parked in out-of-the-way spots, appearing abruptly, vanishing equally suddenly. None of these reports struck the Chief’s practised eye as having any real significance, though all must be scrupulously followed up, however much valuable time and effort was wasted in the process.
One report did briefly arrest the Chief’s attention, that of a householder, a young single mother living in a street off Whitethorn Road. She had got up during Friday night to attend to her crying infant. After she put the baby back in its cot she went down to the kitchen to make herself a hot drink. On her way downstairs she heard screeching sounds from the direction of the common, sufficiently loud and sudden to halt her on the stairs. She stood listening for a minute or so but there were no more screeches. Some freak of the wind, she told herself; it was certainly blowing strongly at the time, with fierce intermittent gusts. Or a fox, perhaps; they were not unknown at night around the common, they were capable of the most eerie, heart-stopping cries. She was able to give the time she had heard the sounds. When she entered the kitchen she had glanced up at the clock, a reliable timekeeper; it had shown twenty minutes past two.
It was when his eye fell upon this statement of the time that the Chief lost interest in the report. However variable the way in which Harry set about his round from one week to the next, it was scarcely conceivable that he could have been crossing the common at twenty past two in the morning. No other householder, the Chief noted, had reported hearing these screeching cries – but then, maybe, none of them had a two-month-old baby to get them out of bed at that time of night.
So far they hadn’t come up with anyone who had actually spotted Harry putting a copy of the Bazaar through a letterbox that evening, nor had they discovered any householder on Harry’s round who could tell them at what precise moment his own copy had dropped on to the mat.
The search of the common was not yet completed. It had yielded a variety of items; none appeared to have any connection with the murder. Nothing approximating to the blunt instrument they were seeking had so far turned up.
In one of the drawers of Harry’s bureau, which had now been opened by a locksmith, they had found Harry’s chequebook and bank card but they had come across nothing that seemed to offer any clue to the crime.
Shortly after eleven the pathologist came out of the mortuary with Chief Inspector Kelsey; they stood talking in the corridor.
Harry Lingard had been in exceptionally good physical condition for his age, he could well have been expected to live an active life into his late eighties.
Four savage blows had been dealt to the back of his head. The blows appeared to have been struck by a right-handed person, with both assailant and victim in an upright position; whether one or both were in motion at the time it was not possible to say. There had been little bleeding; the second blow had in all probability killed him. The assault had not required exceptional strength; it was not, for instance, beyond the power of a fit, strong female.
It wasn’t possible to be more specific about the kind of blunt instrument used; some kind of heavy tool seemed most likely. Nor was it possible to fix the time of death with any certainty; the pathologist put it on Friday evening, between seven and midnight.
Gareth Lingard was not in a position to spend more time away from his business than was absolutely essential. He drove over to Cannonbridge in his lunch-hour to look in at the police station, learn the results of the post-mortem.
In the afternoon the Chief called in at Mansell’s yard. Mansell was expecting them; Sergeant Lambert had phoned in the morning to make an appointment. The moment the police car drove in Mansell came out of the office with Stuart at his side. The Chief had some slight acquaintance with Mansell but he had never met Stuart. His father all over again, the Chief thought as the pair crossed the yard towards him.
‘An appalling business,’ Mansell said as they shook hands; he took them into the inner office. The Chief asked routine questions about the dead man and Mansell answered readily. Lingard had been an excellent worker, willing and obliging, unfailingly punctual, very honest. He had been well liked, had never been in any kind of trouble. Mansell knew of no personal or other difficulties. He seemed to take it for granted that Lingard had been the victim of a mugging.
His manner throughout was helpful and friendly, but from time to time the Chief received a fleeting impression of wariness and tension. Stuart was at no point called upon to speak nor did he volunteer any observation; he held himself alertly interested throughout.
The conversation didn’t take long. As they were about to leave, Lester Holroyd drove into the yard; he walked across to the office, encountering the policemen in the doorway. There was a further brief exchange but Lester could add nothing to what Mansell had told them.
Later in the day the local evening paper came out with a four-page spread on the crime. Photographs of police activities, interviews with residents of the council estate, recounting Harry’s many endeavours on their behalf. Tributes from fellow members of the British Legion.
Mention was made of the fact that it was Harry’s evidence which had been largely responsible on three separate occasions over the past few years for the arrest and sentencing of local youths on charges of vandalism and thefts from cars. What the paper didn’t mention was that Harry had reported yet another such case, lads breaking into cars, only a matter of weeks back; he would have been giving evidence when the case came up. The lads concerned were at present out on bail.
A sizeable section of local opinion laid the murder firmly at the door of some one or more of these tearaway youths, either bent on revenge
