Dover Three Page 12

  Mrs Poltensky, born and inbred in Thornwich, showed no surprise when she opened her door and found the two detective fellows from London, both breathing heavily, on the step. She lived little more than a stone’s throw from The Jolly Sailor, in a cottage next door but one to Charlie Chettle. The Poltensky- Chettle row of cottages had little gardens in front and were considered vastly superior to those on the other side of the main road which had none. Mrs Poltensky lived at No. 3, Willow View and was proud of it.

  Mrs Poltensky installed her visitors in her front room. Apart from the kitchen, it was the only room on the ground floor, but all the Willow Viewers referred to it as their front room. She was a plump-faced woman with inquisitive brown eyes and a head full of paper curlers. She sat down opposite her interrogators, spread her knees wide apart and clamped two rough, red hands on them. She wiped her eyes on the edge of her apron and, as soon as this token salute to the recently departed had been made, got smartly down to business.

  ‘I’ve lost a good job there,’ she said, looking accusingly at Dover. ‘He won’t stay on in Thornwich, you know. Before the flowers have had time to wither on her grave, he’ll be showing us all a clean pair of heels. This post-mortem they’re all talking about – does that mean they’re going to cut her up? Ooh, what a horrible thought! I hope they’re going to bring her back here before they bury her. I’ve lost a good charring job and I don’t want to lose the laying out as well. Why, I’ve laid out practically all her family what have died in the last twenty years, all except her cousin Fred who went under a landslide up at the quarry. That happened in 1947 and they haven’t found him yet. Now, just you remind Arthur Tompkins that I’m expecting to lay her out. Be a crying shame to let somebody else get the job after all these years. I knew she’d never make old bones, you know,’ she explained quickly as Dover took a deep breath preparatory to stopping the flow. ‘Her sort never do.’

  She dabbed her eyes again and Dover leapt in. ‘Do you know if anything was worrying her recently?’

  ‘Enough to make her do herself in? No, I shouldn’t have thought so. Strong as an ox, you know, she was really. All those headaches and upset stomachs and weak hearts, they were just turned on like a tap to bring young Arthur to heel. She’d have lived to be a hundred as far as her health’s concerned.’

  ‘What about the poison-pen letters? Did they upset her?’

  Mrs Poltensky looked at Dover in some surprise. ‘Not as I ever saw. Why should they? They were only dirty words on bits of paper. I’ve heard worse coming from The Jolly Sailor on a Saturday night in the old days, I can tell you. I’ve had two or three of the nasty things myself and, if it hadn’t been for her ladyship up on the hill there poking her nose in as usual, I’d have thrown ’em on the back of the fire and had done with ’em. Mrs Tompkins felt the same way. She said all this fuss Dame Alice was making, and bringing the police in, was just encouraging the loony who was writing them in the first place. And, if you ask me, she was right. It was her husband who wanted ’em preserved. He said the police would never catch whoever was writing the letters without the evidence. I can’t say as how you’ve done much with it now you’ve got it, to my way of thinking.’

  Dover sniffed and indicated that Sergeant MacGregor could go on with the questioning.

  ‘Mrs Poltensky,’ said MacGregor, ‘you’ve worked for Mrs Tompkins for some time?’

  ‘Four years,’ Mrs Poltensky agreed with no small pride, ‘and never a day off and never no complaints, either.’

  ‘How did Mr and Mrs Tompkins get on together?’

  Mrs Poltensky studied her apron. ‘Well, now,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘that’s a bit of a facer, a question like that. Since you’re asking me, I’d say it was six of one and half a dozen of the other. You see, to my way of thinking, Winifred Bragg-what-was was one of those women who rightly never should have got wed in the first place. I know there’s more to marriage than four naked legs in a bed, if you’ll pardon the expression, but I reckon any man worth his salt wants a bit more than a pair of woolly bedsocks on a cold night. All Winifred Tompkins wanted out of marriage was a wedding ring and the right to call herself Mrs. It was when she found out her husband wanted a bit more, that half these illnesses of hers started. Anyhow, that’s my opinion.’

  ‘Did Mr Tompkins try looking for consolation elsewhere?’ asked MacGregor.

  Mrs Poltensky’s mouth clamped firmly to. ‘I’m not one to gossip,’ she said righteously. ‘What he did was his own affair and I know nothing about it, and don’t want to, either. She thought he did, I don’t mind telling you that. That’s why she started all this baby business, thought it’d give him a bit more interest in staying home at nights. Daft, I call it, and I told her so straight. “Adopting a baby?” I said. “You must be out of your mind! You don’t know where it’s been nor who’s had it.” Anyhow, as things turned out, I could have saved my breath because they told her she couldn’t have one.’

  ‘Did Mr Tompkins want to adopt a baby?’

  ‘He did not and I can’t say as I blame him. Not that he ever came right out and told her so to her face, but I could tell. I wouldn’t want to see his face when he found out it had started up again!’ Mrs Poltensky chuckled reflectively to herself.

  ‘When what had started up again?’ asked MacGregor.

  ‘Why, getting a baby, of course. None of these legal places would help, so Mrs Tompkins got on to the idea of getting hold of some girl who’d got herself in the family way and buying the baby off her. It was all supposed to be very hush-hush – sort of black-market thing, really. And black-market prices, too, from what I heard. She told me a bit about it and swore me to secrecy. Even a worm will turn, and she reckoned if Arthur got wind of it he’d go clean through the roof. Spending a small fortune on buying some tart’s fatherless brat and her nagging him every time he bought himself half a pint at The Jolly Sailor and moaning that they’d finish up in the workhouse!’

  ‘A small fortune?’ said MacGregor with a look of great satisfaction on his face. ‘You don’t happen to know how much, do you?’

  Mrs Poltensky shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t have time to get round to finding that out. It was a tidy sum, that I do know. Eh dear, it’s a rum life! Some people’ll shell out a fistful of pound notes to get rid of a baby and others’ll spend their last farthing trying to get hold of one. It make you wonder, sometimes, doesn’t it?’

  Chapter Nine

  MRS POLTENSKY found that being interviewed, while very enjoyable, was thirsty work. Completely off her own bat she suggested that the three of them might take what she called a natural break while she brewed up a cup of tea. Dover showed immediate signs of returning to life and mentioned that, owing to the nature of their work, detectives were always missing their meals and a bite to eat, if available, would be highly appreciated. Mrs Poltensky smiled approvingly and said she liked a man with a good appetite. Roguishly Dover promised to do his best to earn her affection. Mrs Poltensky giggled and said that he was a one. MacGregor winced and suffered for the frivolity of his elders.

  Mrs Poltensky provided a sumptuous spread. Most of it, including the cake, had come out of the deep freeze in Mr Tompkins’s shop where she was privileged to buy at specially reduced prices.

  ‘I can’t see the point,’ she said as she poured out another cup of tea all round, ‘of wasting time cooking things yourself when you can get ’em ready-made, or almost, in the shops.’ She helped herself to another piece of cake. ‘They say it’s not as good as mother used to make but all I say is, you didn’t know my mother!’ She laughed comfortably.

  MacGregor wiped his fingers daintily on his spare pocket handkerchief and resumed the questioning.

  ‘You don’t know where Mrs Tompkins was going to get this baby from, do you, Mrs Poltensky?’

  ‘What baby?’

  ‘The illegitimate baby she was going to buy.’

  ‘Oh, well, I’ve got an idea something had gone wrong there, too. Funny how some people never seem t
o have any luck, isn’t it? Mind you, she never said anything to me about it – she was never one to admit she’d made a mistake, Winifred wasn’t. It was always somebody else’s fault if anything went wrong. Tuesday, the day before she passed on, she’d been very funny. Angry, you know, but keeping it all bottled up inside her. Picking on you for every little thing just to give herself an excuse to blow off steam. Childish, I call it, but I just got on with my work and waited for it to blow over. I don’t know what made me think it was connected with that baby business, I just did, that’s all.’

  Dover finished up a processed cheese sandwich which seemed to have been overlooked. ‘What about yesterday?’ he asked. ‘Mr Tompkins says that after his wife had gone to lie down he himself never went into the sitting-room.’

  Mrs Poltensky considered this carefully. ‘That’s right,’ she said at last, ‘no more he did. I went in to see she’d got everything she wanted and she said she’d got indigestion and wanted a glass of brandy. I told Mr Tompkins and he gave it to me and I took it back in to her. Then he went upstairs and I got on with what I was doing. When he came downstairs again I took another peep at her. She was fast asleep on the sofa in front of the fire. Then Mr Tompkins and me, we got our hats and coats on and went out of the shop together.’

  ‘Are you sure Mr Tompkins couldn’t have slipped into the room at any time?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. I was doing the passage. He’d have had to climb over me to get to the sitting-room door. Besides,’ – Mrs Poltensky looked puzzled – ‘why should he? You’re not thinking he did her in, are you?’

  ‘Good heavens, no!’ said Dover with total assurance. ‘It’s just that we’ve got to make inquiries in a case like this. Some people have nasty minds, Mrs Poltensky.’ He glared angrily at MacGregor. ‘It’s as well to stop a lot of unfounded rumours and stupid suspicions before they start.’

  ‘Well, you won’t find anybody in Thornwich looking sideways at Arthur Tompkins,’ said Mrs Poltensky rather huffily. ‘There’s plenty that thinks he’s a bit of a cissy and there’s plenty that’s jealous of his money, but never a one that I’ve heard of who’d so much as whisper that he’d been a bad husband. I’m not saying as how it was all cakes and ale but, in their tin-pot way, I reckon they were as happy as most. Maybe things weren’t as wonderful as he thought they were going to be when he married her, but that’s an experience we’ve all had, isn’t it? And I dare say they didn’t see eye to eye over the money they won. But if Winifred had given him his head he’d have frittered away every penny of it – and deep down he knows he would. Expensive cars, a flat in London, a trip round the world – he was always on about something. Somebody had to say no, and Winifred Tompkins said it. With all her faults he could have done a lot worse than marry her. And he thought the world of her, really. There’s many a chap’d have given her a good clip across the jaw for some of the things she did and said, but he never so much as raised his voice to her. He waited on her hand and foot when she was feeling poorly, or said she was. It might have done them both a world of good if he’d stood up to her a bit more and I’m not saying it wouldn’t, but we’d probably all be better off if we weren’t what we are, wouldn’t we?’

  ‘Er – yes,’ said Dover rather inadequately. ‘I suppose we would.’

  He seemed prepared to leave it at that, but MacGregor was determined to press on with his investigation, whatever injury it did to Dover’s finer feelings. He’d put up with the idiosyncrasies of the Chief Inspector for some considerable time now and, after much heart searching and simple cold feet at the very idea, he had decided that their uneasy tandem would have to be steered from behind. It was going to be hard work, pedalling Dover’s excessive and inert bulk up the hill of success, but MacGregor considered himself equal to the task. So far, he congratulated himself, he hadn’t done too badly. At least Dover hadn’t flatly refused to let him investigate the circumstances of Mrs Tompkins’s death or to pursue the line that, if it wasn’t suicide, Mr Tompkins was ex-officio the chief suspect. Usually the Chief Inspector’s mind worked with child-like simplicity along this very track and, when a woman met an unlawful end, he resolutely refused to look further than her husband for the culprit. Had it not been for the special relationship which existed between Dover and Mr Tompkins, the latter would have had a very rough time of it long before now. There was nothing Dover enjoyed more than a bout of bullying and Mr Tompkins, timid, self-effacing, anxious not to give trouble, was tailor-made for one of the Chief Inspector’s more brutal performances. But even MacGregor was forced to admit that things were looking very white for Mr Tompkins. Still, there was this refusal to account for his whereabouts yesterday afternoon, and all a policeman’s worst instincts are aroused when people won’t confide in them. They seem to take it personally.

  There was a dreadful screech of brakes from the road outside but MacGregor ignored it and put his question loudly over the distant shouts and curses.

  ‘Mrs Poltensky,’ he began, making it all very formal and rather pompous, ‘as the Chief Inspector has told you, we are very anxious to clear up any suspicion about the way Mrs Tompkins met her death, especially in connection with her husband. Unfortunately Mr Tompkins refuses to tell us where he was yesterday afternoon. Now, we’re sure that there is some perfectly innocent explanation’ – you could practically see the guile dripping – ‘but Mr Tompkins’s reticence on this point is proving rather embarrassing. I wonder if you could help us?’

  Mrs Poltensky regarded MacGregor doubtfully. With a slovenly lay-about like Dover she felt perfectly at home. After all, she’d married one of the same ilk, though being a Pole, he’d had a bit more surface glamour about him. MacGregor – young, pushing, beautifully dressed – was a horse of quite a different colour. As a little girl Mrs Poltensky had seen innumerable cart-horses struggling with heavy loads up Thornwich’s fiendish hill. She’d never seen a racehorse, except on the telly, and for her money you could keep ’em. Stupid, skinny things they were. Never done an honest day’s work in their lives, nor – by the look of him – had young hopeful here either. You’d only got to look at his hands to see that. Mrs Poltensky moved her gaze to Dover’s enormous fists. She nodded approvingly. Broken nails, dirt-begrimed, yes – that’s what a real man’s hands were like!

  ‘Mrs Poltensky?’ prompted MacGregor sharply.

  Mrs Poltensky had forgotten the question. MacGregor repeated it. Mrs Poltensky scratched her chin.

  ‘Wednesday afternoon?’ she said to herself. ‘Now what is it he’s supposed to be doing Wednesday afternoons? I’ve given up trying to keep track of him,’ she told MacGregor. ‘He gets a new enthusiasm like other people get the colic, and it’s none of my business anyhow what he does with his spare time. Unless it’s like when he started breeding racing-pigeons and I had to do all the clearing up, and bury ’em when they kept dying off because he forgot to feed them. Now, let me think. There was playing with toy soldiers, but I think that was on a Friday and I’m sure he packed that in weeks ago. Then there was pistol-shooting but he did that out in the shed in the yard. Had it made sound-proof to stop the neighbours complaining. He had to do his own cleaning-up in there because I refused to set foot in the place and so did Mrs Tompkins. Anyhow, that particular hobby was at its height this time last year, so it’ll be dead and buried now. You don’t happen to know where he’d been, do you? That might jog my memory.’

  MacGregor looked questioningly at Dover.

  Dover gave a massive yawn. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I remember he did say something about having been doing some shopping.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mrs Poltensky, ‘that’d be Cumberley. Bearle closes Wednesdays, same as we do.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Dover, ‘it was Cumberley. I remember him saying.’

  ‘But it couldn’t have been, sir,’ said MacGregor, sitting bolt upright and quivering like a gun dog. ‘If he’d come from Cumberley his car would have been pointing towards Bearle, wouldn’t it? But it wasn’t. It was pointing
towards Cumberley, which means he’d come from Bearle or from the direction of Bearle, at any rate. I drove Dr Hawnt home in it last night and I remember quite distinctly. I didn’t have to turn round or anything. The car was pointing up the hill towards Dr Hawnt’s house and towards Cumberley. Now that means . . .’

  ‘All right, laddie,’ said Dover sourly, ‘you’ve made your point. One of these days you’ll cut yourself, you’re so bloody sharp.’

  ‘Bearle?’ said Mrs Poltensky who’d been pursuing her own line of thought. ‘Well now, if it’s Bearle, it could be one of a couple of things : Judo or French lessons. No, I’m telling a lie! He gave up Judo when he banged his head that time, and anyhow, that was on Mondays. No, Wednesday afternoon in Bearle, he’ll have been to a French lesson.’

  ‘A French lesson?’ said Dover. ‘What the hell does he want a French lesson for?’

  ‘To learn French, of course,’ said Mrs Poltensky, who had more common sense in her little finger than Dover and MacGregor had in their combined bodies. ‘The Riviera, that’s what he was always dreaming about. He’s got a box full of them little coloured pamphlets telling you all about how wonderful it is. A villa on the Mediterranean, that’s what he’d set his sights on, when it wasn’t a luxury flat in Paris. “You don’t want to go all gooey-eyed abut a bunch of blooming foreigners,” I said. “I know what I’m talking about,” I told him, “after all, I married one.

  You take my word for it, once you get past all that fancy way of talking they’re just the same as the rest of us underneath, only more so.”’

  ‘Do you know where he went to in Bearle?’ asked MacGregor, flourishing pencil and notebook.

  ‘No, I do not,’ said Mrs Poltensky with a plummy chuckle. ‘I’m not likely to start learning French at my age. Anyhow, I only ever heard him mention it casual like. I didn’t pay no more notice to it than all the rest of his fads and fancies.’