The Bungalow-6

Continued from Chapter 5: The Bungalow-5 | ABCtales

It was getting on for dusk by the time Hawke gained the end of Church Lane; the session at the Victory Services had gone on longer than he’d planned and it was a long walk up from the station. Still, the time gave him time to reflect. When this nonsense with the dead pikey and the police had been sorted out, he’d get back on the bike again, get into training.

It would be good to have an object in life. Get the flight to Pakistan sorted, and the hotels booked for the first few nights. Plan the ride, stall stages at first, try and get acclimatised to the altitude. That would be his incentive to keep going with the training. Try a few long rides, to North Wales, or the Lake District, up into the hills. He’d make Margorie proud.

The blue and white tape was still across the road at the start of Hilltop Lane. A lone Policeman in a car stood sentry, but he leapt out and lifted the tape to let him through, not even waiting for Hawke’s explanation. He strode the last few hundred yards up the lane and let himself into the bungalow, flipping on the front porch light. He’d scarcely settled down at the computer when the doorbell rang.

 

Detective Sergeant Michael Rees settled into the easy chair; he waved aside Hawke’s offer of a glass of water or soft drink. Young, quite laddish, probably liked a beer or two. Bushy curly red beard and sideburns. “As I said, we need to ask you a few questions. About your movements in the last twenty four hours …thirty six hours, maybe. We haven’t spoken to you before.”

“No - ask away; anything I can do to help and all that.”

“What time did you arrive home last night. Well, I passed that house on Pilgrims Way – you know the one, with the miniature railway track around it; you can check it out, anyway – at seven twenty-three.”

“That’s very precise. How can you be so sure?”

“It’s a game I like to play with myself on walks. If I haven’t checked the time for a while, I try and guess what time it is and then check my phone to see if I’m right.”

“I see. And were you?”

“I guessed seven fifteen; it was actually seven twenty-three.”

“I see. Not bad. So that made the actual time stick in your mind?”

“Exactly. So I guess it would have taken me about another five minutes to get to the end of Pilgrims Way, to where your tape was. About seven twenty-eight would be a fair estimate.”

“Interesting. Not often we get such precision. And what had you been doing all day?”

“I went to Hayley’s – Haley McNally’s at number 49A at around ten thirty am. We went for a walk up Pilgrim’s Way, onto the North Downs Way. Must have left her house at about eleven.”

“And how far did you get. Quite a way, I suppose?”

“Well, Hayley diverted to the Harrow – on Stanstead Road. It was gone one by then. But I carried on, on my own, to the South Hawke car park, over on the other side of the Downs.”

“Took you quite a while to get to the Harrow – two hours?”

“We stopped for a bite to eat in the woods. And a chat. Quite a long chat.”

“And what did Mrs McNally say she was doing?”

“She wanted to go to the Harrow. Have some more cider. She’d already had four cans of Woodpecker in the woods. I think she passed out in one of their armchairs…deckchairs in the garden.”

“A woman after my own heart. So you persevered with the day’s hike?”

 

“You left the house at nine fifteen and went to Mrs McNally’s again.”

“Yes. She gave me a lift to the station – Coulsdon South. My car’s been in the garage, being fixed. Electrics; they can’t find what’s wrong. I told your police lady I’d be going, she said it was fine, just leave the phone on.”

“And you went to London?”

“Yes. Met up with a few old comrades-in-arms at the Victory Services…the Victory Services Club. On Edgware Road.”

“Nice day for a trip on the river, wasn’t it?”

“Sorry? Say again?” He’d heard, perfectly well; he needed a second or two to think.

“I said, it was a nice day for a trip on the river. The Thames Clipper.”

“You followed me, then.”

“Not me personally. But yes, we had you under observation.”

“Which one of you was it? Not the woman in the black-and-white dress? The guy with the pointy beard?”

“Not at liberty to say, sir, and anyway, I really don’t know, sir. Took you a while to get to Blackfriars; didn’t leave yourself that much time to get your boat. Trains were running OK yesterday morning, I think?”

“Oh, that? Yes, I stepped down for a while at London Bridge. You see…I’m a bit of a train spotter. Wanted to let a couple of the Class seven hundreds – the big long Thameslink trains – go past, see if there were any I hadn’t copped yet.”

“And were there? Any uncopped Thameslinks?”

“No. I’ve got most of them. So I got back on, onto the ten twenty-eight, so I could get the boat.”

“Strange you didn’t tell me about the Thameslink – sorry, Thames Clipper trip just now.”

“Slipped my mind, to be honest. It was just to fill in, before I was due to meet the guys at the Victory Services.”

Didn’t get off in Barking, did you sir?”

“No. I stayed on.”

“Any reason why not?”

“Nobody loves Barking.”

“Just before the Clipper docked, you were observed to drop something into the water. Possibly a large white envelope. Like to tell me what that might have been? We’ve put frogmen down; I can assure that, whatever it is, we’ll find it, sooner or later.”

“Oh that. Many, many years ago, we sent some pictures of my late wife, Marjorie to Mayfair magazine, you know, the girlie mag.”

“Only too well…”

“They had a section called ‘Readers’ Wives’. They printed some of the pictures of Marjorie. In the buff and performing … various acts.”

“Why did you drop your wife’s pictures into the River?”

“I figured that, sooner or later, you guys would come and search the house – because of what happened in the field. And I didn’t want you to discover Marjorie … like that.”

“Why not just chuck them in a bin? Seems a hell of a lot of effort to go to, just to get rid of a few family snaps.”

“I dunno. That would seem…disrespectful to Marjorie’s memory, just to dump her like that. And she always loved the River. It seemed…appropriate.”

Continued in Chapter 7: The Bungalow-7 | ABCtales