McLoughlin nodded. "Sounds like it. Can you describe him?"
Wally's brow wrinkled. "Five tennish, fat, grey 'air. E'ad nancy feet for a man. The shoes they gave me didn't 'alf pinch."
"What did the woman look like?"
"Mousey little fing, sorrowful eyes, but Gawd she 'ad a temper. Lammed into me and 'er old man somefink rotten for making a noise." He looked suddenly thoughtful. "Not that we was, mind you. Froughout the 'ole fing, we spoke in whispers." He shook his head. "Bats the pair of 'em."
McLoughlin was jubilant. Got you, Mrs. T, he thought. "Where did you go then?"
A thoughtful expression crossed Wally's face. "There's a saying, son. A bird in the 'and is worf two in the bush. It had stopped raining but I 'ad this feeling we was in for anover funder storm. I fought to meself I've a bottle o' whisky and nowhere cosy to drink it. If I push on, 'oo's to say if I'll find a dry place for the night. So I 'ightailed it back to the cave at the big 'ouse and passed a 'alfway decent night." He considered McLoughlin out of the corner of his eyes. "The next day, I finks to myself, I've a few quid in me pocket and I've 'ad nuffink decent to eat for days, so I 'eaded off towards Silverborne. There's a nice cafe on the road-"
"Did you leave anything behind?" McLoughlin cut in.
"Like what?" asked the old man sharply.
"Like the shoes?"
"Dumped 'em in the woods," said Wally scornfully. "Damn fings gave me corns a right drubbing. That's where experience comes in. A young bloke would've chucked the old pair out before 'e'd properly tried the new. Then 'e'd've been in agony till 'e found some more."
McLoughlin tucked his notebook into his pocket. "You've been a great help, Wally."
"That it?"
McLoughlin nodded.
"Where's my tenner?"
McLoughlin took a ten-pound note out of his wallet and stretched it between his fingers. "Listen to me, Wally. I'm going to give you ten pounds now as a token of good faith, but I want you to stay here another night because I may want to talk to you again. If you do, I'll come back tomorrow morning with another ten, making twenty in all." He held out the tenner. "Is it a deal?"
Wally got up and pounced on the note, secreting it in the depths of his shirt. "Are you on the level, son?"
"I'll give you an IOU if you like."
Wally made as if to spit on the carpet, then thought better of it. "Be about as much use to me as a mug of water," he said. "OK, son, it's a deal. But if you don't come back first fing, I'm off." His eyes narrowed. "Don't you go telling the lady of the 'ouse, mind. I've 'ad my fill of good works this week. They don't know when to leave a bloke alone in this place."
McLoughlin chuckled. "Your secret's safe with me, Wally."
"I spotted the pattern," said McLoughlin to Walsh, with a tinge of irony which brought a glitter to the older man's eyes, "when I marked the houses which reported seeing the tramp." He pointed to small red crosses on the map in front of them. "If you remember, Nick Robinson had two reports. One from a woman in Clementine Cottage who said the tramp passed her house and went into the pub, which meant he was coming from the direction of Winchester. The next from the landlord at the pub who said he stayed until closing time then ambled off in the lee of the wall round the Grange estate, in other words heading towards East Deller." He traced his finger along the printed road. "The next reports we had of him were PC Williams's. He said an elderly woman had given the tramp a sandwich and a young woman had turned him away because it was her son's birthday. They both live on the council estate which is to the west of Streech and on the East Deller road. The date the young woman gave was May twenty-seventh. But when we spoke to Mrs. Thompson she told us he'd visited them in East Deller on the twenty-fourth. That would have meant he had doubled back on himself for some reason to come through Streech three days later from the direction of Winchester."
Walsh gathered together the remnants of his authority and buttoned them about himself with as much dignity as he could muster. "I went into all this myself," he lied. "The fact that we found the shoes at the Grange implies he did just that."
"I agree, so we needed another sighting in East Deller, with a date, if possible. Jonesy went out there to see what he could dig up. He had a chat with our friend the Vicar who told Jonesy he was writing a sermon when the tramp called at the vicarage. The Vicar couldn't give a date but he always writes his sermons on a Saturday. OK, now only two people have offered a definite date, May twenty-fourth, supplied by Mrs. Thompson, a Wednesday, and May twenty-seventh, the day of the birthday party, a Saturday. Wally is adamant he went from the council estate in Streech to the vicarage and the Thompsons at East Deller which puts him there on Saturday, May twenty-seventh. So why did Mrs. T. lie about the date?"
"Get on with it," ordered Walsh impatiently.
"Because, in face of her blatant lie, we had proved the shoes were her husband's and she had to explain why they were no longer in her possession. She opted for the truth this time, or as near the truth as damn it, and invited us to corroborate the story by giving us a description of the tramp. Remember, we never told her where we found the shoes. For all she knew we got them from the tramp himself." He collected his thoughts. "Now she could be sure, if we had the tramp, that he would say he'd seen her husband. So to give us the actual day of his visit would be tantamount to telling us her husband was alive and well and living in East Deller after she'd reported him missing. Bang would go her alibi. So she advanced the tramp's visit by three days. It was a gamble but it damn nearly paid off. Wally hasn't a clue when he went through, and if it wasn't for the child's birthday, neither would we. No one else can remember the date." He paused for a moment. "It's going to come as a nasty shock when we tell her where Wally dumped the shoes. In her wildest nightmares she couldn't believe it would be at the scene of her proposed crime."
Walsh stood up. "Poetic justice, I say. But I'd like to know how she persuaded him to lie low and how she got him to the ice house."
"Use your charm and she'll probably tell us," said McLoughlin.
20
Mrs. Thompson opened the door with a smile of welcome. She was dressed to go out in a neat blue suit and white gloves but there was a sad, rather dated air about her as if her fashion sense had expired with the '50s. Two suitcases stood behind her in the hall. Splashes of rouge on her cheeks and a touch of lipstick gave her face a bogus gaiety but when she saw the gathered policemen her mouth drooped tragically.
"O-oh." She breathed her disappointment. "I thought it was the Vicar."
"May we come in?" asked Walsh. Her inadequacies repulsed as effectively as cheap perfume.
"So many of you," she whispered. "Has the devil sent you?"
Walsh took her arm and eased her backwards, allowing his men in behind. "Shall we go into the sitting-room, Mrs. Thompson? No point in standing around on the doorstep."
She put up a feeble resistance. "What is this?" she beseeched, eyes welling, little heels digging into the hall carpet. "Please don't touch me."
McLoughlin slipped his hand under her other arm and, together, they whisked her through the sitting-room door and into a chair. While McLoughlin kept her seated with a firm hand on her shoulder, Walsh directed his men to a thorough search of the house and garden. He flashed the warrant under her eyes before tucking it back into his jacket pocket and sitting in the chair opposite her.
"Well, now, Mrs. Thompson," he said genially. "Off for your little rest by the sea?"