Wycliffe and the Guilt-Edged Alibi

Book 0: The Cornish Detective

by W.J. Burley

Genres: Mystery; Cozy Mystery; Hard-Boiled; Police Procedurals; Traditional Mysteries; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

A family feud leads to murder - and Superintendent Wycliffe is on the case... Caroline Bryce came from the top of the social register in the tranquil town of Treen. So it was quite a scandal when her body was dragged from the bottom of the river. As Superintendent Wycliffe investigates, he is faced with a number of questions: who would want to kill the beautiful Mrs Bryce? Was it a lover's quarrel? Or a family feud? Or a long-held resentment which had suddenly exploded in a moment of madness? As Wycliffe begins to unravel an intricate tangle of love and hate, he finds himself on the trail of a psychotic killer who feels no guilt - and will not hesitate to strike again... Why readers love W.J. Burley: 'First-class, old-time, hyper-ingenious whodunit.' Observer 'You can always count on Wycliffe ... he inevitably guarantees a good story, convincing characters and appealing landscape ' Financial Times 'Wycliffe teases out the truth with delicate skill that leaves the reader intrigued and convinced.' Mail on Sunday 'Gripping.' The Times Fans of Ruth Rendell, Val McDermid and Peter Robinson will love W.J. Burley: 1. Wycliffe and the Three-Toed Pussy 2. Wycliffe and How to Kill a Cat 3. Wycliffe and the Guilt Edged Alibi 4. Wycliffe and Death in a Salubrious Place 5. Wycliffe and Death in Stanley Street 6. Wycliffe and the Pea-Green Boat 7. Wycliffe and the School Bullies 8. Wycliffe and the Scapegoat 9. Wycliffe in Paul's Court 10. Wycliffe's Wild Goose Chase 11. Wycliffe and the Beales 12. Wycliffe and the Four Jacks 13. Wycliffe and the Quiet Virgin 14. Wycliffe and the Winsor Blue 15. Wycliffe and the Tangled Web 16. Wycliffe and the Cycle of Death 17. Wycliffe and the Dead Flautist 18. Wycliffe and the Last Rites 19. Wycliffe and the Dunes Mystery 20. Wycliffe and the House of Fear 21. Wycliffe and the Redhead 22. Wycliffe and the Guild of Nine * Each Inspector Wycliffe novel can be read as part of a series or as a standalone*

Release date: December 16, 2010

Publisher: Orion

Print pages: 224

Sample

The estuary of the Treen River divides East from West Treen, but the two are linked by a car and passenger ferry, a floating platform with a ramp at each end and a hut-like superstructure on each side. The hut on one side houses the diesel engine and the one on the other provides shelter for foot passengers when it rains. The engine drives sprocket wheels which, as they rotate, pick up a pair of chains from the bed of the river and haul the craft from shore to shore and back again. Sailings are at half-hour intervals from June to August inclusive, but less frequent at other times. By the third week in September business was already slack, and at ten-thirty on Tuesday morning the skipper and his mate had made only two return trips, one for the workers at seven-thirty and one for the white-collars at eight-thirty. Now they were taking aboard the milk lorry on its way back to the factory after the morning collection from farms on the east side. Apart from the lorry there was a private car, a Cortina 1600, driven by a smooth-faced young fellow who probably sold soap. The lorry clanked up the ramp, rattling the timber treads, lurched along the length of the deck and came to a halt, its near-side wing almost touching the steel plates of the chain-chute and its radiator an inch or two from the safety gates. The driver, like all regulars, prided himself on occupying the minimum of space even though at this time of year he usually had the ferry to himself. The Cortina revved and skidded on the slimy ramp, ending up in the middle of the deck space where there should have been room for a dozen like him. The driver looked bored and lit a cigarette.

Dickie Bray, mate on the ferry for thirty-eight years, was a hunch-back with spindly bowed legs, but agile as an ape so that the economy of his movement was a joy to watch. He did everything except drive the engine, which was the job of the skipper who rarely left his noisy, smelly little hut. Dickie closed the landward gates, operated the great spoked wheel which raised the ramp, then with a desultory wave of the hand, gave the skipper ‘the off’. The ferry drew smoothly, almost imperceptibly away from the shore. Dickie collected a fare from the soap salesman then joined his friend the lorry driver at the seaward gates. The milk factory paid by the month. The two men filled and lit their pipes and stood, arms on the gates, staring at the silver grey water just ahead of where the chains broke surface. The tide was flowing strongly, eddying round the clumsy craft and pushing her broadside upstream against the chains. The shiny peak of Dickie’s cap seemed to obscure his vision but he was the first to spot the body bobbing about in the track of the port chain. Often the chains disturbed mysterious debris on the bottom, sending it up for a few seconds of turbulent surface life, but this was different: a brown bundle of clothes, the material bellied out by water like a parachute. Dickie gave a screech like a startled gull, the signal for an emergency stop; the engine died at once and the chains ceased to rattle through the chute. The bundle bobbed alongside, kept there by the flow of the tide. Dickie went over the gate on to the ramp and began fishing with a boathook; the skipper came out of his cabin and lowered the ramp until it was awash and Dickie could land his catch. A smooth operation, all over in less than a minute. The soap salesman got out of his car and joined the little group around the bundle which proved to be the body of a woman.

She lay on the boards in a pool of water. Her posture was stiff though credibly life-like, but her face was pallid, gnawed and leprous. The salesman went quickly back to the deck leaving the other three staring down at her. The ferrymen had fished several out of the estuary, dead or alive but mostly dead, and the lorry driver had a strong stomach. It was impossible to tell from her face but her figure was that of a young woman, small and well proportioned. She wore a brown two-piece with what seemed to be a pink blouse. Her shoes were dainty and fashionable. Her hair was black like a Spaniard’s but in whatever style she had worn it, now it splayed lankly on the timbers. There was a necklace of amber beads round her throat and she wore a wedding ring, half buried in the sodden flesh of her finger.

The skipper, a little man with shiny brown cheeks like a hazel-nut, was sparing of words. He looked at his mate and a silent message must have passed. Dickie nodded, ‘I thought so too.’

The lorry driver looked at both of them. ‘Who is she?’

Dickie straightened himself and glanced vaguely in the direction of the west bank where the other half of the town sprawled raggedly up the hillside. ‘I reckon it’s Mrs Bryce – Matt’s wife.’

The lorry driver whistled.

Dickie took his pipe, half smoked, from his pocket, looked at it and put it away again. The skipper said unexpectedly, ‘Death is no respecter of persons.’ He was a chapel man.

Without another word, as though working to a well rehearsed drill, the skipper and Dickie lifted the body and carried it into the passenger hut where they laid it on the slatted wooden seat and covered it with a tarpaulin. Water dripped through the slats to form a pool on the floor. Then they got moving again and in a few minutes the ferry was nudging the cobbled slipway on the western side. Dickie lowered the ramp while the skipper went over to the soap salesman. ‘You’d best wait …’ He nodded towards the little hut where the body was. ‘I expect they’ll want a word …’

Dickie was off up over the cobbles on to the wharf, lolloping along close to the houses, like a chimpanzee. The lorry driver climbed back into his cab and re-lit his pipe.

The slipway cut into the wharf at a steep angle so that the ferry was largely hidden except to anyone actually passing by; but there was nobody about. A few yards upstream was the boatyard, dominated by a huge corrugated iron shed, rusting in attractive browns and oranges and reds, like encrusted lichens. Just downstream was the car-park, given over for the week to a fair with dodgems, roundabouts, booths and stalls. But at this time of day it was shrouded in striped canvas.

The sun shone out of a watery blue sky, the breeze was fresh and the tide lapped and chuckled round the ferry. A baker’s van cruised slowly along the wharf but the driver appeared to notice nothing. The church clock chimed and struck eleven.

Another ten minutes went by before a small blue and white police car came down the slipway and pulled up just short of the ramp. A uniformed constable got out, followed by Dickie Bray. The constable came aboard, walked over to the entrance to the passenger hut, peered inside, then placed himself on guard at the door. Dickie joined the skipper in the engine room to share a flask of lukewarm black tea. ‘The sergeant’s fetching Dr Greenly.’

The skipper nodded.

It was a quarter of an hour later that Sergeant Penrose and Dr Greenly arrived and by that time a few quay loafers had gathered at the top of the slipway. Dr Greenly, the police surgeon, was self-important, red-haired, red-faced, and irritated by this interruption to his rounds. The sergeant came across to the engine house, leaving the doctor with the body. ‘Just the bare facts; there’ll be statements later.’

The salesman got out of his car and came over. ‘Is it all right for me to shove off? I’m losing business.’

‘That will be in order, sir. Just identify yourself to the constable and tell him where you can be reached.’

The lorry driver, too, was sent on his way.

When Dr Greenly came out of the passenger hut he seemed worried rather than irritated. ‘You know who you’ve got in there?’

The sergeant nodded. ‘Apparently it’s Mrs Bryce.’

‘It is.’

‘The point is, Doctor …’

‘The point is, Sergeant, that I’m not satisfied Mrs Bryce’s death was due to drowning.’

‘You don’t think … ?’

Greenly cut him short. ‘I don’t think anything at the moment except that you should get in touch with your inspector. In cases of prolonged immersion speed is important if the cause of death is to be correctly determined.’

Pompous old fool! But Penrose knew the signs; this was going to be one of those cases where everybody is anxious to get out from under. The sister of a former cabinet minister and prominent front bench politician. ‘I’ll radio Information room at once, Doctor.’

He had to drive his car up on to the wharf before he could raise Information Room on his radio but when he succeeded their response was prompt. In five minutes he had his instructions. Inspector Harker of Divisional CID was on his way. He would notify relatives and make arrangements for formal identification. No room for blundering sergeants in this exercise! And a suitable vehicle would be sent to transport the body to the pathologist’s laboratory at the county hospital. The goods to be delivered in a plain van.

All the same it was after midday before Detective Superintendent Wycliffe, head of Area CID, heard of the crime.

The Area Crime Squad is not housed in the new police headquarters on the outskirts of the city but tucked away in a Queen Anne house in a secluded crescent near the cathedral. The other houses in the crescent are used as offices by the diocesan authorities who, nearly thirty years ago, had leased one of their houses to the now extinct city force as temporary premises after the bombing. The chief superintendent’s offices on the first floor include a large, finely proportioned room with a heavily decorated plaster ceiling which catches dust and houses spiders. The two tall sash-windows overlook a small public garden laid out round a fragment of the old city wall and, beyond that, a modern shopping precinct.

Wycliffe was sitting at his desk reading and making notes from a book entitled Psychopathic Aggression written by a gentleman with an unpronounceable Polish name. He had had time for such things recently for business was slack. The notes on his pad were cryptic but, as he would probably never look at them again, this scarcely mattered.

‘The psychopath is never a depressive; his hatred is always untroubled by feelings of guilt …

‘The psychopath appears to be wholly indifferent to the opinions of others, even to their manifest and threatening hostility …’

The page was covered by his ragged and rather clumsy script and there were half-a-dozen such mutilated extracts. During every slack period he promised himself that he would catch up on his reading and he would accumulate a little sheaf of notes which would go into a drawer at the first telephone call and into the waste paper basket when he came across them a month later. The present lull had lasted longer than usual and it seemed that, with the tourist season over, crooks as well as landladies and hotel keepers had gone to Majorca for their holidays. But for him it ended with a call on his private line from headquarters. He picked up the telephone.

‘Wycliffe.’

‘Ah, Charles! I wondered if I might catch you.’ It was Bellings, the assistant chief, suave and a master of double talk. No love lost between the two men. ‘This is a delicate matter, Charles, probably a mare’s nest but there has to be an investigation. We must try not to tread on anybody’s toes.’

Wycliffe let him run on. It was the sort of situation Bellings enjoyed: at heart he was a politician rather than a policeman.

‘You know Treen? A little watering place and a bit of a port … The Bryces are big people there, they own the harbour installations, the timber-yard, the canning factory, the coal-yard and half the town … Clement Morley, the former Minister of State, is a brother-in-law … You see … ? What?’ A cultured laugh.

Wycliffe had not spoken a word; he was trying to light his pipe while holding the telephone to his ear with his shoulder.

‘There’s nobody with you?’

‘No.’

‘Good! His wife has been found drowned.’

‘Whose wife? Morley’s?’

‘No, my dear chap, Bryce’s. Actually there are three brothers and this is the wife of the eldest – Matthew, the head of the clan. She is Clement Morley’s sister.’

‘And it’s a job for us?’

‘Well, that’s the point. The police surgeon isn’t too happy and the body has been sent to Franks, the pathologist … We shall know better how to proceed when we have his report … On the other hand …’ Bellings left the unfinished sentence hanging in the air. Unfinished sentences were part of his stock-in-trade. ‘My wife and I have met the lady socially. Unstable, neurotic … One wouldn’t be too surprised to hear that she had … You get my meaning … ? And Charles, there’s quite a bit of gossip about another man, but we don’t want to make too much of it unless it’s strictly relevant …’ Bellings’ voice drifted away into silence but he hadn’t yet made his point to his entire satisfaction. ‘You appreciate, Charles, that she is Morley’s sister, so we can’t afford to have a … a cock-up.’ The vulgarity was exquisitely enunciated. One had the impression that he had learned a certain number of such expressions for use in dealing with his social inferiors although, as Wycliffe knew, his father had been a taxi driver. ‘The Chief feels that your experience and tact … This fellow Morley has a reputation as a head hunter …’

‘I know him,’ Wycliffe growled, and immediately regretted it.

‘Socially?’

‘You could say that.’

Bellings purred. ‘Well, that’s splendid! A weight off my mind. By the way, Charles, Treen is not a bad little place – book in at the Manor Park; they do you very well there …’

When Bellings rang off, Wycliffe asked to be put through to Franks, the County Pathologist. They had worked together before. But, as he expected, it was much too early for any news. Franks promised to ring the police station at Treen as soon as he was ready with a preliminary report. As there was no point in starting a full scale investigation without more to go on, Wycliffe felt justified in taking a look round on his own.

At one o’clock he was joining the west bound traffic out of the city at the start of his seventy mile drive to Treen. As though to mark the end of his inaction the weather had undergone an abrupt change. Blue-black clouds which had swiftly climbed up the sky from the south east now blotted out the sun, and it was raining. By the time he had cleared the suburbs he seemed to be in the middle of a cloud-burst. All the cars had their lights on and they were swishing through a surface film of water which could not drain away fast enough, sending up bow waves of muddy spray. The windscreen wipers thudded monotonously and inadequately.

Wycliffe, a cautious, perhaps a nervous driver, knew that he would hate every mile of the journey. Although the first fury of the rain storm soon spent itself there was no sign of it stopping and it was almost three o’clock before he could leave the grey stream of lorries and cars on the main road for the eight miles of country lanes which led to Treen. The final approach to the town is down a one-in-six hill with cunning twists, except for the last quarter-of-a-mile which runs straight and steep between two rows of terraced houses propping each other up against the slope.

The principal shops of the town are grouped round a cobbled square with the war memorial in the middle, but the life of West Treen is on its waterfront, strung out along half-a-mile of the west bank of the estuary from the railway station to the harbour. The timber-yard, the coal-yard, the fish canning factory on the site of the old ice works, a boatyard, the ferry slipway, then the slipway, then the harbour with its pubs, cafés and souvenir shops. Beyond the harbour a few bungalows, then National Trust property to Trecarne Head.

Wycliffe parked in the square which was almost deserted. The rain had eased to a drizzle but the cobbles were still running with water and a drain at the lower side of the square was choked so that a pool of brown, muddy water had formed, covering the pavement and threatening nearby shops. A man, his head and shoulders draped with a sack, stood, up to his ankles in the water, prodding listlessly with a stick.

A short, narrow street opened on to the harbour and Wycliffe had his first view of the estuary. There was little colour . . .