Hard Evidence

She smiled archly as she approached. ‘I remember you,’ she greeted him before he could open his mouth. ‘You lunched here back in the spring, with Miss Dawson.’ She made an apologetic movement of her head. ‘I’m afraid I don’t remember your name.’ Lambert supplied it.

‘It’s about Miss Dawson that I’m here,’ he told her.

She broke in before he could go further. ‘I thought it might be.’ She explained that after the phone call from the Eardlows she had questioned the hotel staff in a fruitless attempt to discover if anyone could offer a guess as to Miss Dawson’s whereabouts. In the course of her questioning she had unearthed the fact that the lunch guest at Miss Dawson’s table that Friday in the spring had been a policeman, a detective sergeant; Miss Dawson had confided as much to Iris, one of the waitresses.

‘The Eardlows told me they were thinking of going to the police if they had no luck with their own inquiries,’ she added. ‘I take it Miss Dawson hasn’t turned up yet?’

‘No, I’m afraid she hasn’t.’ Mrs Marchant clearly took it for granted he was here on an official visit and he didn’t correct this impression.

She apologized for the absence of her husband who had gone into town on business. She took Lambert into the office and sat him down but she didn’t offer any refreshment. Her manner on the surface was friendly and helpful but on another level he was receiving with unmistakable clarity a totally different message: Say what you have to say and then clear off out of here. This duality in no way surprised him. He well knew that no hotel, guest house or similar establishment encourages the presence of police on its premises; nothing makes the clientele more uneasy.

He set about dispatching his business as speedily as possible. He asked if Mrs Marchant could remember anyone calling at the hotel asking for Miss Dawson during her stay, any phone calls or mail that might have caused Miss Dawson distress.

She shook her head. There had been nothing like that. There had been no trouble with any guest or member of staff, nor was she aware of any friendship Miss Dawson had struck up while she was at the hotel.

Lambert asked if she had mentioned the matter of Miss Dawson’s present whereabouts to any of the guests. She looked horrified at the idea. She fervently hoped the sergeant had no intention of questioning any of the guests. She could assure him there was nothing to be gained by such questioning. The bulk of the guests at this moment were short-stay holiday-makers or overnight bed-and-breakfasters, none of whom had set foot in the hotel while Miss Dawson was there. The long-stay residents who had been at the hotel during Miss Dawson’s stay had either left for good or were currently away on holiday or staying with relatives; one had been taken ill and had gone into hospital.

Lambert assured her he had no intention of even speaking to any of the guests, let alone attempting to question them. She gave a sigh of relief.

He asked if she knew where in Calcott village Miss Dawson had lived before she went to Millbourne but she shook her head. Miss Dawson had mentioned that she used to live in the village but she hadn’t said where. Perhaps Iris, the waitress, might know, Lambert suggested; Miss Dawson might have chatted to her in the dining room. Would it be possible to speak to her?

Mrs Marchant considered. Yes, that would be all right. ‘Iris works 10.30 to 2.30,’ she told him. She glanced at her watch. ‘She’ll be in by now. She’s never late, she lives just down the road. I’ll go and get her for you.’ She paused in the doorway. ‘Was there anything else you wanted to ask me?’

Lambert told her no. ‘Then I’ll leave you to it,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ve a dozen things to attend to. I’m sure you won’t mind seeing yourself out when you’ve spoken to Iris.’

And Iris, when she appeared a few minutes later, was able to give him Julie’s old address in the village. She had not herself known the Dawson family. ‘The cottage is quite some distance from where I live,’ she told Lambert. ‘You have to go right through the village and out the other side.’ She gave him detailed directions.

She could offer no suggestion as to where Julie might be now. Miss Dawson had often chatted to her while a meal was being served but she hadn’t mentioned future plans. When she left the hotel Iris had told her she was welcome to drop in at her house for a cup of tea any afternoon if she found it lonely in the caravan. Miss Dawson did in fact drop in and they had spent a pleasant hour in casual conversation. Miss Dawson had said nothing that might throw any light on her intentions.

‘Did she ever mention anyone she’d met while she was staying at the hotel?’ Lambert asked. ‘Some man who took an interest in her? One of the guests, perhaps? Maybe someone she’d known when she lived in the village? Or someone she chanced to meet while she was going round visiting different places in the area?’

‘If you mean some sort of romantic interest,’ Iris said, ‘she never mentioned anything like that. She didn’t seem much interested in that kind of thing.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘A pretty girl like that, you’d expect her to have boyfriends, wouldn’t you?’ She grinned. ‘I did have a shot at getting her to open up, I’m nosy that way. But I couldn’t get anything out of her. She was quite definite there wasn’t anyone.’ She grinned again. ‘Could be, of course, there’s someone she’s not letting on about – for one reason or another.’

As Lambert came down the hotel steps he heard in the distance the put-put of a motor mower. He set off towards the car park. He didn’t turn his head to look across the wide expanse of lawn to where Luke Marchant on a ride-on machine drove up and down the greensward in a beautiful, precise pattern.

CHAPTER 7

The cottage where the Dawsons had lived was the first of a pair of semi-detached dwellings in a quiet, pleasant lane just outside the village. Lambert rang and knocked but got no reply. He went round to the back, knocked and rang again, without success.

In the adjoining garden a woman was picking peas. She looked across as he went up to the fence to speak to her. A motherly, cheerful-looking woman in her sixties, with an air of capable common sense. She walked over to the fence. She had rosy cheeks, bright blue eyes; thick, wavy hair, a greying chestnut, coiled up on top of her head. Lambert recognized her – and the two gardens – from the snapshots in Julie’s room at Honeysuckle Cottage. She was the woman sitting beside Julie’s mother under the apple tree.

‘You won’t get any answer next door till this evening,’ she told him. ‘They’re both out at work.’

He explained that he was a detective, trying to locate a young woman, a Miss Julie Dawson. She broke in before he could say any more. ‘I know Julie Dawson. I’ve known her since the day she was born.’ She looked up at him with concern. ‘Why are the police trying to find her? Is something wrong?’

He told her briefly about the Eardlows, the police inquiry. ‘I thought Miss Dawson might have called at her old home. She might have mentioned her plans to the people who live there now.’

‘Julie did call here, back in the spring,’ she confirmed. ‘But it was to see me, not the people next door. She never knew them; they wouldn’t be able to tell you anything. They’re not from this village. They moved in next door a month or two after Julie left here, three years ago – these are rented cottages.’

Lambert asked if she could remember exactly when Julie had called to see her.

‘She came more than once,’ she told him. ‘The first time was at the end of April, she was staying at Calcott House for the weekend. Then she called again in May, when she came back to the hotel for a longer stay.’ She paused. ‘You’d better come inside. I’ll make a cup of tea.’ She gave him a friendly smile. ‘My name’s Norbury, by the way. I’ve lived in this cottage over forty years. I came here as a bride.’

He walked back round again and in through Mrs Norbury’s gate. Her front garden spilled over with pinks, sweet william, love-in-a-mist, stocks, lilies; the air was full of perfume. She opened the door and took him along a passage into a comfortable kitchen with its windows open to the breeze.

‘I was always fond of Julie,’ she said as she made the tea. ‘She was in and out of here a lot when she was a child. She was a bright, happy little girl, always lively and imaginative. I was very friendly with her mother, she was the same age as me – Julie’s father was a lot older. He died about ten years ago, he’d been retired five years by then.’

She got out a tin of biscuits. ‘Julie’s mother died three years ago.’ She sighed. ‘I still miss her. Julie was only seventeen at the time. She’d left school a year before, she was halfway through a secretarial course. Her mother wasn’t ill very long. It must have been a terrible shock for Julie when she died, though she seemed to take it quite well.

‘She made up her mind what she was going to do very quickly. I thought she ought to take more time to think it over. My husband was alive then. He tried to advise her; he thought it most unwise to decide in such a hurry.’ She shook her head. ‘But there was no changing her mind. She knew what she wanted to do and she did it. There was no one to stop her, no aunt or uncle, no grandparents.’

She poured the tea and sat down opposite Lambert. ‘She sold the furniture – there wasn’t a great deal but there were some nice pieces. It gave her something in the bank to start her off. And of course she had what money her mother left. It wasn’t a fortune but her parents had always been careful.’

She drank her tea. ‘I suggested she moved in here with us, she could finish her secretarial course at the college.’ She shook her head. ‘She was very polite, very grateful, but she’d come to her own decisions. She was going to make a new start, leave the area, find herself a job, finish her secretarial course at evening classes.’

She pressed Lambert to biscuits. ‘I must say she managed everything very efficiently. My husband tried to help but she would do it all on her own. In no time at all she was off. She told me she’d got a job in Millbourne, on one of those free newspapers.’ She never heard from Julie after she left, never got a letter or a Christmas card. ‘I must admit I was rather hurt by that, but I could understand it in a way. I think she was pretty well knocked sideways when her mother died, however little she tried to show it. I think she felt the only way she could get to grips with things, make a life for herself on her own, was to plunge right in, sink or swim by her own efforts. It was a brave thing to do, when you come to think about it, a girl just seventeen, all on her own. I don’t know if I’d have had the gumption at her age, to do what she did.’

She poured more tea. ‘I was really surprised, I can tell you, that day back in April when there was a ring at the door and there she stood, smiling at me. I’d never expected to see her again; I’d often wondered how she was getting on. I always felt sure she’d make out all right, she’d been so competent and independent after her mother died.’

She sighed. ‘She didn’t know about my husband, of course; she was very upset when I told her he’d passed away. She told me she was here just for the weekend. She said: “You’ll never guess where I’m staying – Calcott House.” I said she must be doing well if she could afford their prices. She laughed and said she’d always dreamed of staying there when she was a child – and she was enjoying it just as much as she’d imagined she would. She liked it so much she’d decided to come back soon for a longer break, a week or two.

‘I told her she was welcome to call at any time and that Simon – he’s my grandson – would be coming in May for two weeks, when the school would be on holiday. Julie had just missed him. He’d been staying with me over Easter; he’d gone back to school a few days earlier. Julie knew Simon from when she lived next door and Simon used to come here on visits with his parents. He’s eleven, my one and only grandchild, my son’s boy. His mother was killed in a road accident four years ago; my son’s never had any thought of marrying again. He’s an engineer. He’s out in Turkey just now, working on a big construction project. He’s got a two-year contract, he went out there six months ago. Simon’s at a prep school. He’s a boarder; he’s very happy there.’

She took another biscuit. ‘Julie did call again when she came back for a longer holiday. She’d left the hotel and moved into a caravan a few days before she called here. Simon had arrived from school the day before. Of course he’d grown a lot since the last time she’d seen him, she hardly knew him for a moment. But they got friendly again very quickly. Simon was laid up when she came.’ She laughed. ‘He’d gone running round the garden just after he got here. He climbed up into a tree and jumped down again.’ She spread her hands. ‘He twisted his ankle. That was a fine start to his holiday. The doctor said it wasn’t a bad sprain but he’d have to rest it for at least a week. It was bandaged up and I put him on the sofa in the sitting room during the day.

‘Fortunately he’s never been a child that’s easily bored so it wasn’t too bad for him, he had his books and his woodcarving. That was my husband’s hobby, woodcarving, he taught Simon a lot. After he died I kept all his tools, all his wood, for Simon. He’s really quite good at it, when you think how young he is.

‘And then, of course, there was Julie. She came to see him a few times. She played chess with him – she used to play chess with her father. I left the two of them while I got on with my chores or popped into the village. I used to hear them laughing together, as if they were both children. Simon really looked forward to seeing her.’

She fell silent for a moment. ‘It made me remember the lad Julie was so friendly with when she was a child. He was the only close playmate she ever had. She didn’t go to the village school; her parents sent her to a private day school in the town. Her father used to take her in every day, he was a clerk in an office. None of the other pupils in her class came from the village. The lad she was so friendly with, he went to the village school but he lived quite near here, and he was an only child too. He was the same age as Julie. They played together from when they were small. They were both full of fun and adventurous, though they never got up to any real mischief.’

She looked across at Lambert. ‘One summer when they were about eleven years old, the lad went off to the seaside with his parents for a holiday. He got carried out to sea on one of those rubber floats and he was drowned. It was a terrible blow for Julie. She couldn’t seem to accept that he was dead. It was quite a time before his body was washed up and she’d half convinced herself he’d turn up again safe and sound, it had all been some silly prank.’ She sighed. ‘She never palled up again with any other youngster, not in the same way.’

She fell silent again, then she said, ‘The second time Julie called here to see Simon – that was the very next day – I could hardly believe my eyes when I opened the door to her. She’d had all her beautiful hair cut off.’ She pulled a little face. ‘I made out I liked it short. I said I thought it suited her, but I didn’t like it at all. I thought it was a terrible shame to cut it off. She was still nice-looking, of course, but nowhere near as pretty. It made her features look very sharp, and she’d left off all her make-up. She’d got jeans and a T-shirt on. She looked just like a mischievous lad or one of those actresses playing Peter Pan. She didn’t say why she’d done it and I didn’t ask her.’ She moved her head. ‘But it did just cross my mind it could have been on account of Simon. He’s the same age now as that other lad was when he was drowned. I did wonder if she was making believe she was a child again, making believe Simon was that other boy come back to life.’

She stood up and began to clear the cups from the table. ‘Julie called again early the next week.’ She cast her mind back. ‘That was on the Tuesday. I remember because I popped into the village while she was here, to go to the butcher’s – I always go to the butcher’s on a Tuesday.’ She consulted a wall calendar. ‘May 23rd, that would be.’ She returned to the sink and began to wash up the cups. ‘That was the last time she called.’

‘Did she say it was going to be the last time?’ Lambert asked.

‘No, she didn’t. I knew she’d have to move out of the caravan on the Saturday. She didn’t actually say she’d be going back to Millbourne, back to her job, after she left the caravan. I just assumed that’s what she’d be doing.’

‘Did Simon expect her to call again?’

‘Yes, he did. When the days went by and she didn’t come, I asked him if she’d said anything definite about calling again. He said no, she hadn’t.’ She consulted the calendar again. ‘He was here another ten days after the last time Julie called. He went back to school on the Friday, June 2nd. His ankle was fine by then.’

Lambert asked if she knew of any boyfriends Julie might have, back in Millbourne, but she shook her head. Julie had said nothing about any boyfriend. She had never had boyfriends as a teenager when she lived next door.

Nor had Julie made any mention of any problem she might be having. She hadn’t appeared in any way worried, she seemed to be enjoying her break.

‘Would you say she’s the type who might decide to take off for somewhere new on the spur of the moment?’ Lambert asked.

‘Yes, I could easily imagine her doing that,’ Mrs Norbury answered without hesitation. ‘If she got bored with her life, wanted something different. I could imagine her just deciding to go, turning her back completely on the old life. After all, that’s more or less what she did after her mother died.’

He asked if she had any objection to his visiting Simon at his boarding school, in case Simon might have any clue to offer.

‘No objection at all,’ she assured him. Would he like her to ring the headmaster now, to explain? To say he would be calling with her agreement.

‘That’s very good of you,’ Lambert said. ‘I’d like to go tomorrow if that’s all right with the school. But I’d rather Simon wasn’t told I’m coming.’

‘Yes, I quite see that,’ she agreed. ‘Better not give him time to start using his imagination, working up some tale that could be half moonshine. And best not give him time to start worrying about it, come to that.’

She took him into the sitting room and rang the school. The headmaster was most cooperative. He would expect the sergeant tomorrow. It would be least interrupting to Simon’s timetable if Lambert could call in the early afternoon.

‘Simon’s flying off to Turkey tomorrow week, to join his father,’ Mrs Norbury said when she had replaced the receiver. ‘He’s spending the whole of the summer holidays out there. He’s looking forward to it tremendously. It’s the first time he’s flown anywhere on his own.’

She walked over to a handsome set of bookshelves, one third filled with books neatly ranged. ‘My husband made this set of shelves as a Christmas present for Simon, the year before he died.’ She ran a hand lovingly along the silky wood. ‘Simon’s always loved books. He goes poking round second-hand shops and market stalls, looking for them.’

Lambert scanned the shelves: Jules Verne, Marryat, Conrad, Jack London, Zane Grey, Edgar Wallace, bound copies of the Rover and the Champion. Shades of his own boyhood returned for a moment. ‘Quite a collection he’s got there,’ he said on a fleeting note of envy.

‘Julie and Simon had a good long natter about books,’ Mrs Norbury said. ‘Julie read a lot as a child – she got that from her father. His hobby was books; he had hundreds of them. Not first editions or anything grand like that, just old books he’d picked up over the years. Most of them went to a dealer after he died. Julie kept the ones she liked best and some of her father’s favourites.’

She picked up some small pieces of carved wood from shelves set in a niche by the fireplace. ‘Simon made these. Not bad, are they, for a young boy?’ She indicated a tiny fieldmouse. ‘He was only nine when he made that.’

She picked up another piece. ‘This is one he made this last time, when he was laid up with his ankle.’ A little retriever puppy, lovingly fashioned, a mellow, golden shade of wood. She passed it to Lambert.

‘He has quite a gift,’ Lambert said.

‘It’s made from pine,’ Mrs Norbury told him. ‘A beautiful piece of wood. It was the colour decided Simon to make the puppy out of it, just right for a golden retriever.’

He handed the puppy back to her and she replaced it on the shelf.

‘He made some lovely little good-luck charms, too, out of the same wood, to take back to school for the boys – and Matron.’ She smiled. ‘Matron’s quite young. And pretty. He made a special one for Julie, a four-leafed sprig of clover. He took tremendous care over the finishing. Julie was delighted with it. She said she’d always carry it, it was certain to bring her luck.’

She came out to the car with Lambert when he left. ‘I really don’t think the Eardlows need worry about Julie,’ she said as he switched on the engine. ‘She left here three years ago and there was never a word from her, then one day she rang my doorbell.’ Her tone was buoyant, confident. ‘I’m sure that will happen again one day, and probably sooner rather than later. The bell will ring and there she’ll be, on the doorstep, smiling at me.’

CHAPTER 8

The preparatory school where Simon Norbury was a boarder lay a good hour’s drive from Cannonbridge. Lambert left his digs shortly after breakfast – and wasn’t at all sorry to leave. His landlady’s eyes constantly searched his face for any sign that he had reached a decision about where he was going for his holiday and when he would be setting off.

It was a warm, sunny day. The grass glittered on the breezy commons, rosebay willowherb flowered along the banks. He enjoyed a leisurely drive, stopping from time to time for a snack, a spot of sightseeing.

It was almost 1.30 as he approached the school, an Edwardian mansion set at the head of a long avenue of lime trees breaking into blossom. Lunch was over. In the relaxed, end-of-term atmosphere, all examinations finished, lessons were confined now to the mornings, the afternoons being devoted to cricket, to a series of house matches.

The headmaster, a young, energetic man, was shut away in his study, composing a moving appeal for funds to be sent out to all the parents, in the hope of raising enough to update all the school’s computer equipment. When Lambert tracked him down he dispatched a passing pupil to the changing rooms to winkle out young Norbury.

Simon came hurrying along a few minutes later. He wore cricketing gear; a dark-haired, athletically built lad with a confident grin, a face plentifully sprinkled with freckles.

The headmaster made the introductions, presenting Lambert as a sergeant with the Cannonbridge police – no mention made of his being a detective – who was here now with the permission of Simon’s grandmother to ask him a few questions, in case he might be able to help them in one of their inquiries.

Simon looked mightily intrigued; his face glowed with pleasurable importance. ‘You can take Sergeant Lambert out into the grounds,’ the head added. ‘Find somewhere quiet to sit down and have your chat, then you can get off to the cricket.’

As they went along the corridor Lambert inquired about Simon’s ankle.

‘It’s fine now, thank you.’ Simon looked up at him with lively curiosity. ‘Are you a friend of Gran’s?’

‘No, I can’t say I am,’ Lambert admitted. ‘I met her yesterday for the first time. We had a good long chat. We’re trying to get in touch with a young woman called Julie Dawson; her relatives are anxious about her. She seems to have gone off somewhere without telling anyone where she was going. Your grandmother tells me you know Julie, she came to see you in May, while you were staying in Calcott.’

Simon nodded. ‘That’s right.’ A question burst from him. ‘Are you a detective?’