I shook off the memories as the automobile gained the main road and we made for the outskirts of Kintbury, passing the Avington School, where Diana was paying her social call, or conducting an interrogation, depending on how you viewed things. The driver slowed as we approached Hedley’s Sweet Shop, and I could see a horse cart halted at the side of the shop.
“That’s our man,” I said to Payne, pointing out Ernest Bone. He was unloading lumber from the cart and stacking it at the rear of the store. His shop adjoined a bakery on one side, but on the other there was nothing but a large shed, a fence, and open fields.
“Good morning, Mr. Bone,” I said as we approached the store owner. He dropped the planks of lumber he’d carried on his shoulder from the cart onto sawhorses set up by the shed. For a paunchy older guy, he had some strength to him. A pony in traces whinnied as we walked by.
“Captain Boyle,” he said. “Come back for more humbugs, have you?” He gave a nervous glance in Payne’s direction, and then spotted the uniformed constable in the car. “Did I break a law giving them out like that?”
“As strict as the rationing laws are, Mr. Bone, I doubt a few humbugs would amount to a crime,” Payne said, showing his warrant card to indicate the formality of the visit. “We wanted to ask you a few more questions about the gentleman from the Newbury Building Society who came to see you about your loan.”
“My loan? What about it?”
“Does this man look familiar?” I said, holding out the picture of Stuart Neville at the Kennet Arms.
“Yes, indeed it does. That’s the fellow from the Building Society. Wasn’t very pleased with his report, I can tell you that.”
“Really? Do you remember when I asked if you knew a man by the name of Stuart Neville? Well, this is Neville, murdered shortly after visiting with you.”
“What?” Bone looked shocked, his eyes wide. “But I didn’t recall his name, honestly. I had no idea it was the same man.”
“Why weren’t you pleased with his report?” Payne asked.
“Well, he didn’t approve the loan,” Bone said, “and I needed it for my kitchen and storage. There’s hardly enough room to make my boiled sweets, and I need a cool place to keep them. I make them all here, the old-fashioned way, Inspector. Over copper pans, you know.” Bone’s face brightened up as he spoke of his candy, which evidently was his passion.
“Yes, you told me when I was last here. Did Neville tell you why he turned your application down?” Payne asked.
“Not in so many words, but I got the impression he thought that with the war and rationing, I couldn’t make enough money to pay the loan back. He said that perhaps I should wait until peace had come, and people would have more time and money to buy sweets.”
“Were you officially turned down?” I asked.
“Yes, the Building Society sent a letter saying it hadn’t been approved.”
“Did you ever see Neville again?” Payne asked.
“No, never.” I watched for any sign of nervousness or deception, and saw only the gentle smile of a candy maker.
“Did you have building plans drawn up?” I asked.
“Nothing so fancy as that,” Bone said. “The society didn’t require it, and I figured why spend the money until I get the loan, right? But I wrote out everything I wanted to do and had a rough sketch I drew myself. The plan was to expand the kitchen, and build a storage area in the basement where it’s cool.”
“Are you going to do the work yourself?” I asked, pointing to the lumber.
“Oh, no, that’s too big a project for me. Just a bit of fixing up to hold things together. I’m glad I have Sally here to fetch the lumber for me.” He patted the pony and brushed her black mane. “A Dartmoor pony, she is. Children love her, which helps when we sell at fetes and the like. I put baskets of sweets in the cart and Sally draws them in, adults and kids alike. Everyone loves a pony, don’t they?”
“Sounds like you have a good business for yourself, Mr. Bone,” I said.
“Good enough. Someday better, I hope. Sorry I couldn’t help you, gentlemen. Inspector, do stop by again when I’m open, won’t you? There are all sorts of new temptations inside.” He waved us off, smiling as he caressed the mane on his Dartmoor pony.
We left the temptations behind, driving to the Three Crowns to meet Tree.
“Interesting that the society doesn’t require plans,” Payne said. “It fits my theory that Razor is funneling his illegal gains into a legitimate business.”
“He probably paid Harrison Joinery a pretty penny for those drawings,” I said.
“Yes. I think I’ll look into who does own that firm. Not that it will help us much, but at least it will make me feel like a policeman with a clue.”
I knew the feeling.
CHAPTER TWENTY
We waited for Tree for an hour at the Three Crowns. We’d eaten our rabbit-meat pasties and finished our pints. We went outside and took a seat on the bench-the same one that Tree, Kaz and I had sat on a few days ago-and let the warmth of the spring sun wash over us. The constable leaned against the automobile and lit a cigarette. It was quiet and peaceful, but I felt something was wrong. It wasn’t like Tree to let anyone down. Not Angry, not me, not his unit.
“He probably couldn’t get away,” Payne said. “New orders or something. It is the army, after all.”
“Maybe. But he said he was scouting sites for maneuvers this morning, and from what we saw today they’re about to start up. He should be done by now.”
“Well, I hope they don’t ruin too many plowed fields,” Payne said. “I know they have to train, but some of your chaps-and ours too-get carried away. Stone walls knocked down, crops ruined, and who gets a call? The police, that’s who, and there’s damn little we can do about it.”
“How about you drop me back at the inn so I can take a ride up to Chilton Foliat?” I said, hardly listening to Payne’s complaints. “I’ll look around and then head to the bivouac if I don’t find Tree there.”
“If you’d like. I’ll be at the station later today if you want to come round,” Payne said. “Perhaps we should have another go with Flowers at the building society.”
I agreed, and thirty minutes later I was negotiating the curves on my way into Chilton Foliat. I parked by the church, and walked through the graveyard where Constable Eastman’s body had been found. I followed the wide path we’d spotted in the woods, figuring I might as well check it out as a potential route for bringing a corpse to the cemetery.
It would do fine. Wide, a bit rough in spots, but obviously a farm track a jeep could easily handle. Or a tractor, maybe a car, or a big strong guy carrying a body. I spotted Quonset huts through the trees, rows of them on a wide lawn sloping down from a large house with columns fronting it. The track merged with a paved lane that curved around a stand of fir trees and continued up to the house. Along the lane stood a row of sheds, a horse barn, and finally a thatched cottage, larger than my house back in Southie, probably originally lodgings for the manager of the estate. Whoever lived there now might have seen something that night, but it was hard to believe they would have stayed silent about it.
Horses neighed from inside the barn as I passed, and I remembered that Constable Tom Eastman’s head had been bashed in. An accident, perhaps? A horse kicking and killing him, a nervous groom looking to hide his involvement? The cemetery was close, so why not leave Eastman on the family plot? Maybe, but maybes were as common as crows.
I left the lane with its centuries-old stone-and-thatch buildings and walked between rows of that ubiquitous invention of the twentieth, the Quonset hut. Curved galvanized steel roofs over ends of plywood, they housed tens of thousands of GIs all over this island. The paths between the huts were covered with wood planks, like the sidewalks in an old western movie. I heard the rumble of boots stomping on wood, and caught a glimpse of men running toward the road that went up to the main house. Agitated shouts came from the road, and I double-timed it to see what was going on.