Wycliffe's Wild-Goose Chase

by W.J. Burley

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

Synopsis

Chief Superintendent Wycliffe comes across evidence on his own doorstep - and it leads him into very deep water . . . Wycliffe's home overlooks a peaceful, West Country estuary - but even here he can't get away from crime. When he is taking a Sunday morning walk along the shore, he comes across a service revolver with one chamber recently fired. In recent years Wycliffe has often regretted the fact that his rank cuts him off from the early stages of an investigation, but here he is, in at the very start. The case takes Wycliffe into the world of art robberies and crooked dealers, to a suicide which may be a murder, and a hunt for a missing yacht. As the investigation escalates, Wycliffe begins to wonder exactly where the clues are leading . . . 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: 208

Sample

Thursday evening. Outside it was raining. The three men sat round the fire in well-worn leather armchairs. Smoke rose from their pipes and drifted along the ceiling between the beams. On the high mantelpiece an alarm clock in a shiny metal case ticked the seconds away, clink-clink, clink-clink … Each man had a glass at hand; the major was drinking whisky, the other two, white wine. The room was clean and warm but bare, like a farm kitchen. Apart from the three armchairs there was a large, square kitchen table and four bentwood chairs; there was fibre matting on the floor and a three-legged crock for a coal-scuttle. On the wall opposite the fireplace tiers of shelves were crammed with a tattered collection of books, many of them lacking a spine and therefore anonymous.

Bunny Lane reached for the bottle of white wine which he had placed behind his chair, away from the heat of the fire. ‘Can I top you up, Joseph?’ Bunny was so called because he had a hare-lip which a black moustache failed to hide and when he spoke his words came with a sibilant whistle.

Joseph, the red-head, held out his glass, ‘Thanks.’

Bunny made his own wine, largely from grapes which he grew in the lean-to greenhouse behind the kitchen. ‘You all right, Major?’

The major sat back in his chair, his legs stretched to the fire. He was massively built with machine-clipped grey hair which accentuated the Teutonic mould of his skull. He looked at the whisky glass in his hand and said in a gravelly voice, ‘I’m well enough.’ He had grey eyes which bulged slightly and a steady disconcerting stare.

The fire glowed orange-red with a flicker of flame whenever the coals settled. The major sipped his whisky and sighed; Joseph, the red-head, re-lit his pipe which had gone out. The alarm clock kept up its insistent clink-clink. It was twenty minutes past eight.

Bunny Lane said, ‘How are things with you, Joseph?’

Joseph did not answer at once, he smoked his pipe and seemed to be considering. In the end he said, ‘I don’t know.’ Then, after a long pause he added, ‘I’m just waiting …’ He made an irritable movement which caused the springs of the old chair to creak. ‘I wish to God I’d never agreed to take him in with me!’

The major turned his grey eyes on Joseph. ‘Ah!’

Joseph stared into the fire. ‘It can’t go on much longer … One way or the other …’

This was followed by a silence which must have lasted all of five minutes. It was as though they felt the need to atone for such prodigality with words. Bunny rose from his chair and with a pair of tongs took several lumps of coal from the crock and placed them carefully on the fire, then he resumed his seat. The major was the first to speak again.

‘What do you say to a game?’ He moved round in his chair so that his gaze rested on the box of dominoes which stood ready in the middle of the wooden table.

Without a word the other two got to their feet and, carrying their glasses, moved to the bentwood chairs. The major joined them, towering over the table for a moment before sitting down. Then came the rattle of the dominoes being tipped from their box, the shuffling, the draw, and the silence while they considered their hands. They played with a minimum of words. From time to time Bunny got up to see to the fire or to recharge their glasses. There was a longer interruption while he opened a fresh bottle of wine. The major continued to drink whisky to which he added very little water and as the evening wore on his movements became slower and more deliberate though no less precise and his eyes lost all trace of expression. The only sounds came from the placing of the dominoes, the clink-clink of the alarm clock and occasional crepitations from the fire.

At twenty minutes to eleven, when they had finished a game, the major stood up and, carefully enunciating his words, said, ‘I must be going; I wish you both good-night.’

Joseph got up from his chair, ‘I’ll come with you, Major.’

Bunny saw them to the door. It was still raining. In the tiny front passage the major struggled into his duffle coat but went bareheaded; Joseph put on his fawn raincoat and tweed hat. They muttered good-nights then set off together, Joseph’s stocky figure dwarfed by the major’s bulk.

Bunny Lane’s little house and his workshop formed part of a square of terraced houses. The two men came out of the square and turned down the hill towards Bear Street with the rain driving in their faces. Bear Street, a narrow, ill-lit shopping street was deserted. Joseph stood by his antique shop and let himself in by the side-door.

‘Good-night, Major.’

‘Good-night! Good-night to you, Joseph.’

The major continued along the street then turned up Dog’s Leg Lane towards Garrison Drive.

Hetty Lloyd Parkyn, the major’s sister, was in her little sitting-room, sandwiched between the drawing-room and the kitchen. It was a long time since they had used the drawing-room – certainly not since the death of their father. Hetty had her sitting-room on one side of the passage, Gavin’s was on the other. Hetty’s would have seemed shabby and bleak to a lonely old maid struggling to survive on her pension. The upholstery of the two armchairs was so worn that no pattern was discernible, the carpet was threadbare and the curtains sagged where hooks had come adrift. She sat in one of the armchairs, reading, and placed near her chair was an old-fashioned oil-stove with a red window and a fretted top which gave off a moist, smelly heat.

Hetty was tall and big-boned like her brother, but lean and gaunt; her hair and eyes were grey and her skin seemed to have been bleached of all natural colour. As she read she reached out from time to time to a paper bag of white peppermints.

Somewhere in the house a clock struck eleven and almost at once her sharp ears caught a sound from the back of the house; she heard a door open and shut, a key turn and a bolt shoot home. A moment or two later there were footsteps in the passage, the door of her room opened, and her brother’s great bulk almost filled the doorway. His grey hair was darkened by rain, droplets of water stood out on the coarse material of his duffle coat and water dripped from his trousers to the floor.

He stood without speaking, gazing at his sister with expressionless eyes.

Hetty scarcely looked up from her book. ‘There’s some soup in the saucepan on the stove if you care to heat it up.’

The major turned away, closing the door behind him. She heard him fumbling about in the hall, removing his coat; then heavy slow footsteps on the stairs; he was on his way to bed.

Two nights later – Saturday evening – Joseph Clement sat at his desk by a first-floor window which overlooked the backyard of his house and shop and the backyards of neighbouring houses in Bear Street. Outside, in the leaden dusk, rain fell vertically, unhurried and unremitting. Joseph’s room had the unmistakable aura of a cell, a place of refuge from the world. It was a bedsitter, not because of a shortage of rooms in the house, but because Joseph chose to spend as much of his time as possible ensconced with his stamps, his albums and catalogues, his books on English furniture and his notes for a projected history of philately.

The yellow light from a naked bulb fell on his red hair and on a little heap of stamps, each in its polythene envelope: a selection from the early issues of Guatemala, sent to him by a correspondent there. He picked up his forceps and magnifier and bent his head to the task of examining them. But the thrill of the chase was lacking for he had not yet succeeded in shutting out his troubles from the little room, they trailed after him as inexorably as Marley’s train of cash-boxes. He persevered because he knew that in the end he would become absorbed; the atmosphere of his burrow would work on him as surely as a sedative drug and he would recapture something of the contentment which, not so long ago, he had accepted as his normal state of being.

He was pleased with two surcharged quetzal stamps of 1881, they were not valuable but they filled a gap in his collection; and by three rarer values in the commemoratives for the Central American Exhibition of 1897, one with an unrecorded flaw in the portrait of Barrios.

His breathing settled to a gentle, regular rhythm, his thick fingers which had red hairs on their backs manipulated the stamps with an acquired skill; the slightly humid stuffiness of the room enveloped him and the little clock on his desk ticked the seconds away. It grew darker outside until the window panes were shining black squares. Fifteen minutes to eight.

A buzzer sounded in the passage, someone at the side-door. Joseph got up with a sigh, pushing back his chair. He moved heavily, ponderously, in the manner of an older, bigger man. He was forty-five and though stockily built, by no means fat. He went out into the passage, down the stairs, and opened the side-door. A man in a mackintosh stood there, clutching a leather bag, his shoulders hunched against the rain.

‘I’m Waddington, I’ve come to see Dave Clement; he’s expecting me.’

The man made a move to come in and Joseph reluctantly stood aside. ‘You’d better come through the shop to the office.’ He closed the side-door and opened another which led into the dark cavern of the shop. ‘This way!’ Without putting on any lights Joseph threaded his way through the stock-in-trade of the antique shop to the office at the back but it was only when he switched on the light there that Waddington was able to follow him.

Waddington came blinking out of the darkness, a weedy specimen, long and lank and sallow as though grown in a poor light. Yet he must have cared for his appearance for the narrow bands of hair which linked sideburns to moustache had been lovingly cultivated. He looked round the office with suspicion. ‘Where’s Dave?’

‘He’s out at the moment but I’m expecting him back.’

David Clement stood naked in the shower, sponging himself. He was as unlike his brother as could be imagined, slight of build, very dark, with small bones and delicate features which were almost feminine. He was on the wrong side of thirty while the girl on the bed had several years to go.

‘What’s the rush tonight?’ She put her legs over the side of the bed and sat watching him, scratching her breasts and yawning.

‘Waddy is coming at eight.’

‘Waddy? What does he want?’

Clement reached for a towel. ‘I don’t know but I can guess.’

‘Can he make trouble?’

‘Only for himself; he’s a stupid bastard.’

‘You won’t let them talk you out of it?’

‘No chance!’ He came over and stood by her, rubbing himself down. ‘I’ve told you, Mo, I’m getting out and there’s nothing they or anybody else can do to stop me now.’

‘How soon?’

‘A month? Six weeks? There’s no great rush, is there? One or two things I’ve got to do – flog Manna for a start, but I’ve already put an advert in next week’s issue of Power Boat and there should be plenty of offers. Boats like Manna don’t hang about this time of year.’

The girl continued to look worried. ‘Is Waddy coming off his own bat or has he been sent?’

Clement shrugged. ‘Probably it’s Chalky’s doing. Chalky is a shit but he knows too well which side his bread is buttered to try anything on.’

Clement pulled on his briefs and reached for his shirt. The girl got off the bed and walked to the shower; she put on a shower cap and tucked in her long, dark hair. ‘Shall I see you tomorrow?’

‘I thought I’d spend the day on the boat, Mo – get her into shape for a possible buyer.’

‘Pick me up, I’ll come with you.’

‘You’re on nights; you need your beauty sleep.’

She paused in the act of reaching for the shower tap. ‘It’s not the boat is it? It’s some bloody girl!’

‘Don’t be stupid, Mo!’

‘Then pick me up like I said.’

‘We’ll see.’

Clement was dressed, he ran a comb through his hair in front of the dressing-table mirror. ‘I must be off; I don’t want Waddy opening his big mouth to brother Joseph.’

Clement left the bedroom, passed through the tiny sitting-room to the box-like hall where his wet mackintosh hung on a peg, put it on and let himself out of the flat.

In Godolphin Street the rain fell steadily. Keeping close to the houses he walked the length of the street then turned left into Bear Street where the narrow roadway gleamed in patches under the street lamps and the only sign of life came from a brightly lit restaurant opposite the antique shop.

Through the windows of the antique shop Clement could see a faint glow of light from the office at the back. He let himself in by the side-door and moved soundlessly through the shop so that he was standing in the doorway of the office before either Joseph or Waddington realized that he was there. Joseph was sitting on one side of the big desk, Waddington on the other and between them, laid out on the blotter, were six paperweights which reflected the light of the lamp in a glowing spectrum of colour.

David said, ‘Hullo, Waddy! Got something pretty to sell?’

Sunday. After a cold, wet and blustery fortnight it seemed quite possible that spring had arrived; the air was soft and the waters of the estuary dazzled the eyes with scintillating reflections of the low sun. Soon, God and weather permitting, the Wycliffes would be having friends out to admire their camellias, magnolias, azaleas and rhododendrons. Then, in a little while, there would be the occasional meal out-of-doors and they would spend long evenings working in the garden and go to bed dog-tired but with the comfortable feeling that they had in some way put themselves right with the world.

There was no other house in sight on their side of the estuary and so they had a hoard of privacy, the real hard currency of the century. In these days a half-acre of shrubs and trees may give one feelings of guilt or delusions of grandeur, either way the Wycliffes had made up their minds not to be over-run by the lemmings if they could help it. Sometimes he experienced a twinge from his socialist, non-conformist conscience but Helen was made of sterner stuff.

Half-past seven. They were early risers even on Sundays for no day was long enough for Helen. In her dressing-gown she turned the pages of a gardening magazine while she nibbled her toast and marmalade. (A fat-free breakfast with black coffee.)

Wycliffe said, ‘I think I’ll walk along the shore and collect the newspapers.’ He usually did on fine Sunday mornings.

There were more and more things which they usually did, for their domestic life was beginning to gel now that child raising was over. He was forty-nine, an age at which a man must admit that, technically at least, he is over the hill. The twins were gone – flown almost literally from the nest. David jetted about on behalf of some quasi-governmental agency dispensing scientific largesse to the Third World: Nepal, Ecuador, Lesotho … not forgetting regular get-togethers in the Eurocaps. Ruth was almost as mobile. As her boss’s personal assistant she regularly trailed him around Europe and to the States; she had been twice to Tokyo and once to the Gulf. And the twins were still only in their middle twenties, about the age at which he had first crossed the channel – by car-ferry – feeling a bit like Captain Cook and wondering if he really could drive on the right.

The upshot of it all was that he and Helen were alone again, and liking it, though mildly disturbed by questions. What had it all been about? Where do we go from here? Why did we …? Perhaps understanding for the first time that this is the real thing – not a dress rehearsal. At any rate he was untroubled by professional ambition; he had climbed as high as he wanted to go – higher, he sometimes thought. The arid plateau of pure administration had no allure; not for him the plush office behind the padded door.

People who knew his background thought he had done well. Son of a Hertfordshire tenant farmer, starting as a trainee copper at nineteen, he had become detective chief superintendent and head of C.I.D. for two counties. Yet he was vaguely dissatisfied; secretly he saw himself as a failure. Where did it all lead? To a pension, an up-market bit of silver and, perhaps, an O.B.E. From one day to the next …

‘See if they’ve got any white-wine vinegar at the shop, I’ve run out.’

The village of St Juliot was a mile or so further up the estuary from the Watch House where the Wycliffes lived; nearer the city. Wycliffe let himself out by a little gate at the bottom of the garden, crossed a rarely used public footpath, and dropped a couple of feet to the shingle beach. At this point the opposite shore of the estuary was only a few hundred yards away and through this bottleneck all the shipping of the busy port had to pass.

Half-an-hour since low water. Oyster catchers explored the muddy margins of the tide and further down the estuary a colony of lesser black-backs, uniformly spaced, faced whatever br. . .