“You did a certain amount of housekeeping at Beatrice Avenue, didn’t you, Mrs Periam?”
“I popped in occasionally during the week. Since Gordon lost his mother, you know.”
“You cooked, and so forth?”
“That’s right.”
“Tell me: did you have anything to do with the neighbours? You don’t know of any who were especially inquisitive?”
The girl shook her head without interrupting the spooning of her soup.
“Did any friends of Mr Hopjoy ever visit the house?”
“Not while I was there.” She turned to Periam. “I don’t think he ever brought anyone home, did he, Gordon?”
“No, he was always a bit of a dark horse in that respect. Mind you...”—he carefully piloted an undissolved pellet of soup powder to the rim of his plate—“you have to remember the sort of job he does.”
“Do you know what Mr Hopjoy was doing, Mrs Periam?”
The plump shoulders rose slightly. “I suppose I do really. In a way...” Again her eyes consulted Periam’s. “I don’t want to get him into trouble or anything...”
“I fancy that possibility no longer exists,” Purbright said quietly.
Doreen looked mildly puzzled. “Because you think he’s skipped off, you mean? Oh, but he often does that. That’s why he told me just a little bit about his job; he didn’t want me to imagine The Worst, as they say.” There was a flash of tiny, very white teeth. The smile faded slowly; the girl seemed to sustain it deliberately in order to warm the image her words had created.
“Did he tell you where he went, or anything about the people he met?”
“Well, he didn’t actually mention places or names. He’d just say something about having to meet a contact, or what he called ‘one of our people’. Then at night—all night, quite often—he kept a watch on houses of people he’d been tipped off about...that’s what he said, wasn’t it, Gordon?”
Periam murmured: “That’s right, darl.” He appeared to be more interested in the next course, which was just then arriving. Purbright glanced without elation at the slices of de-natured chicken, awash in suspiciously brown and copious gravy; then involuntarily drew back as the waiter performed manual pirouettes in the process of depositing upon his plate portions of dropsical potato and tinned peas.
“Everything to your satisfaction, madam?” Bending low over Doreen’s shoulder, his face as stiff as a dead deacon’s, the waiter delivered the question into the top of her dress. Echo-sounding, thought Purbright idly.
“I’m afraid,” the inspector said a little later, “that I’m going to have to deprive you of Mr Hopjoy’s car.”
The honeymooners simultaneously stopped eating. “Oh, no!” Doreen’s fleshy little mouth tightened. “That’s not fair; Brian lent it to us specially.”
“I’m terribly sorry, but there it is. We’ll not keep it longer than is absolutely necessary.”
“But what’s the car to do with...with all this?”
“Perhaps nothing, Mr Periam. It’s just that policemen have no choice in the matter of leaving stones unturned.”
Doreen impatiently stabbed a piece of chicken. “You won’t find Brian in the boot, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Purbright looked at her and sighed. “You know, Mrs Periam, I hate to be solemn at meal times, but I feel it’s only proper to tell you—as I told your husband this morning—that we are quite seriously concerned with the possibility that Mr Hopjoy’s disappearance will prove permanent.”
The admonition produced no reaction beyond a quick little shake of the head. “He’ll turn up: don’t you worry.” If this girl had been consciously party to a crime, Purbright reflected, it was clearly of no use hoping that she would be harrowed into acknowledging it.
When he arrived back at the police station, Purbright found his desk neatly stacked with Sergeant Love’s gleanings from 14 Beatrice Avenue. He sought Love out.
“Righto, Sid; astound me.”
Love looked doubtfully at the pile of papers. “I collected everything I could find. There’s nothing very exciting, though.”
“Never mind. Let’s have a look.”
The sergeant picked up the first few sheets. “Letters to Periam. Either he didn’t get many or he didn’t keep them. There’s nothing recent.”
Three of the letters appeared to be from female relatives. They offered condolence on the death of Periam’s mother. ‘She was a beautiful soul,’ ran one, written in a wavery but florid hand, ‘and I know that no one can ever take her place. But, Gordon dear, you must not let your grief be a door closed against all other affection. Dear Mackie—and I’m sure you won’t mind me mentioning her at this time—has been so patient and loyal, and what could never be so long as your duty lay with your poor mother is now quite possible and right.’ The signature was ‘Auntie B’.
A fourth letter was from a solicitor and enumerated final details of the administration of Mrs Periam’s will. The other two were formal acknowledgements of a transfer of deeds and a small quantity of stock.
“This,” said Love, handing over a second, thicker sheaf, “is just shop stuff—you know, his tobacco business.”
Purbright glanced quickly through the invoices, delivery notes and receipts, and put them aside. Love picked up his next selection. “Periam again. Certificates, documents and all that.”
“You should have been an archivist, Sid.” The sergeant, suspecting an ironic indecency, grinned to show his broadness of mind.
The third batch of papers was unproductive of anything more exciting than a faded copy of Mrs Periam’s marriage lines, her son’s birth certificate, and, crispest and most blackly inked of all, that of her death. There were several bank statements, showing Periam’s credit standing at around £2,500; a couple of insurance policies; National Health Insurance cards, one in the name of Joan Peters, the shop assistant; some rates receipts and a card of membership of the Flaxborough Chamber of Trade.
Finally in the Periam collection came a miscellany topped by two years’ back numbers of Healthy Living and a number of pamphlets on muscle development ‘in the privacy of your own bedroom’. There were some scrolls commemorative of Gordon Halcyon Periam’s achievements as pupil and teacher in the Carlton Road Methodist Sunday School. A small album of photographs seemed a typical record of family life in back gardens and beach huts; Purbright noticed the consistent role of the young Periam to be that of a frowning, slightly agape custodian of his mother’s arm. An exceptional snapshot, marred by faulty development, showed him at the age of fifteen or sixteen, looking defensively at the camera in the company of a fat girl pouting at an ice cream cornet. Even in this picture, however, a segment efface in the top left corner indicated the fond and watchful presence of the late Mrs Periam.
Love licked a finger. “Now for Hopjoy,” he announced. “I didn’t have such a job rooting these out. They were all stuffed into this writing case thing. I found it under his bed.”
“By the way, what did you make of that big bedroom at the back; I can’t imagine who uses it.”