‘Apart from phone conversations with my daughter and David Knight, the crime novelist, there aren’t many. I attended a meeting of the Oldford Literary Festival Committee five days ago. I’m getting David Knight to speak on crime writing at the festival at the end of May.’
‘Yes, I know about that. Chief Superintendent Lambert asked me to be on the platform with you, but I think he’s the man you need.’
‘Yes. That was the idea of Marjorie Dooks, who chairs our committee, and I think it was a good one.’
Bert stored this up in case he had to argue with Lambert again over the matter. He said with pen poised over his pad, ‘I need to know the names of the other people on that committee.’
‘Yes.’ She realized now that she’d known from the first it would come to this, but she had a curious feeling of sneaking, a notion which came back from her schooldays over half a century ago. ‘Well, there’s Mr Lambert’s wife, of course. But I think we can discount her.’
Bert had a splendid vision of the fun to be had when he warned his wife that her friend Christine was a suspect in this sordid little affair. ‘Nevertheless, we won’t discount her at the moment. Who else, please?’
‘Well, there’s young Sam Hilton. He looks about sixteen to me, but I’m told he’s twenty-two and a poet of some standing. He’s getting the northern poet Bob Crompton to come to the festival. I’m sure this threat wouldn’t have come from Sam.’
‘Even so, we’ll record his name.’
‘And then there’s Ros Barker.’
‘The painter?’
‘Yes, she’s the one.’ Sue could not quite conceal her surprise that a policeman should know who Ros was. ‘But again, I like Ros and I think she quite likes me. I can’t think she would send anything like that.’ For the first time since she had passed it across the desk, she gestured at that sheet with its thick black print.
‘We’ll add her to the list.’ Bert wrote down the name in his large round hand, then looked at her expectantly.
‘And of course there’s Peter Preston. I expect you’ve heard of him.’
‘Most people who live in this area know Mr Preston,’ said DS Hook rather grimly.
‘Peter regards himself as an expert on the arts. That’s a little unfair; I’m quite prepared to accept that he is an expert. The trouble is that he doesn’t think that anyone’s opinion other than his is worth anything.’
Bert realized that like many people, she had left the person she considered the likeliest suspect until the last. He nodded a couple of times and said, ‘Have you had any disagreement with the erudite Mr Preston?’
Sue Charles frowned, trying hard to be fair. ‘He might have seen it as that. I would have said that it was no more than a difference of opinion. He doesn’t think detective fiction should be part of a literary festival.’
‘And his reason for that?’
‘He simply doesn’t consider crime novels to be what he calls “real literature”. He didn’t think I and the rest of the committee should have invited David Knight to speak at the festival, even though he’s a leader in our field. Marjorie Dooks shut Peter up rather effectively from the chair by reminding him that this had already been discussed at length and the matter decided at a previous meeting.’
‘But as you write crime books yourself and were the means of persuading Mr Knight to speak in Oldford, Mr Preston’s discontent focussed upon you.’
‘I suppose it did, yes. Particularly as he hasn’t a high opinion of either Sam Hilton or Ros Barker and I also found myself on their side in the exchanges within the committee.’
‘Mrs Charles, I have to ask you formally whether you think Peter Preston might have sent you this note.’
‘It’s inconceivable, to me. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing he would do. But then it seems even more inconceivable that anyone else would threaten me like this, even as a joke. Unless it was kids, of course, who wouldn’t realize the distress they were causing. Peter’s the only person I’ve had any sort of dispute with over the last two or three months.’
‘It’s important that you don’t try to do anything about this yourself. You could accuse entirely the wrong person and end up at best highly embarrassed and at worst losing a friend. Be assured that we shall follow it up. We can be far more impersonal and we have far more resources than you have.’
‘That’s why I came here, Detective Sergeant Hook. The days of Miss Marple are long gone, if indeed they ever existed!’
‘I don’t wish to be alarmist, but have you anyone who could move into the house with you for a night or two?’
She smiled wanly. ‘I could probably pack up my laptop and go to stay with my daughter for a couple of days. I’m due for a visit.’
‘That would probably be best. If you give me the phone number, I’ll make sure someone contacts you to let you know the outcome of our enquiries.’
‘Thank you again for being so understanding.’
Hook stood up. ‘We always treat these things seriously. As I say, it will probably turn out to be some tasteless hoax, but it needs investigation.’
As he prepared to usher her out, a young woman PC appeared in the doorway, looking a little embarrassed. ‘Sorry to interrupt you, DS Hook, but I thought from what this lady said at the desk that her complaint might be related to what you’re discussing with Mrs Charles.’
Hook saw behind her a diffident young woman, following the officer somewhat reluctantly into the depths of Oldford police station. A fresh-faced woman, with a few freckles still evident in her small, kitten-like features. Older than he’d thought at first; she was probably in her late twenties, he thought. Bert had many years of experience now in assessing ages, a police skill he had found very difficult when he was as young as the officer who had brought in this woman.
He was about to say that he would speak to her after he had seen Sue Charles out when the new entrant spoke, delivering her message hastily and without pause, as if she feared that she might turn tail and flee if she paused for thought. ‘My name is Kate Merrick. My partner is Ros Barker. This threat was to her, not to me, but she wouldn’t take it seriously. I brought it here because I thought you should see it.’
She stood panting, then thrust an envelope towards him with both hands, like a child anxious to be rid of something that frightened her.
Hook looked at her for a second or two without a word as he donned the plastic gloves he had recently discarded to extract the single sheet from within the envelope.
RESIGN NOW FROM THE FESTIVAL COMMITTEE IF YOU WISH TO REMAIN ALIVE
He said tersely, ‘I think Chief Superintendent Lambert should know about this.’
SEVEN
Spring was advancing quickly. The chestnuts were in leaf; even the oak and the ash were swelling their buds. And the daylight was stretching as the year advanced; only eight weeks now until the longest day.
Sam Hilton waited impatiently for the darkness to descend. As usual, his anxiety rose as he prepared himself for the latest episode in this other trade he needed to sustain his status and credibility as a full-time poet. Perhaps he should have accepted the man’s suggestion and met him earlier. He wouldn’t have had the time to get nervous then. But there was no real need to be nervous, was there? Perhaps he just wasn’t a natural lawbreaker. Poets were supposed to make their own rules and go their own way. Yet even at school he hadn’t been as happy as the others had been when breaking the stupid little rules.
He felt better as darkness finally crept in over the Gloucestershire countryside and better still once he was in the city. Here the lighting in the streets seemed to bring the night in so much more swiftly than in the fields and the hedgerows outside. He parked the old Focus some streets away from his rendezvous. A vehicle parked regularly in the same place could excite suspicion. That was the advice he had been given when he started to deal. Perhaps he was, after all, a conformist at heart. Philip Larkin had wrestled with thoughts like that, so he was in good poetic company.