James, P D - Adam Dalgliesh 06 - by Death of an expert witness

Author:Death of an expert witness [Witness, Death of an Expert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Traditional British, Police, Mystery & Detective, Dalgliesh; Adam (Fictitious character), Fiction
ISBN: 9780571111077
Publisher: Faber
Published: 1977-10-31T05:00:00+00:00

"There's a Major Hunt of Messrs Pargeter, Coleby and Hunt of Ely wants to see Mr. Dalgliesh. He'd prefer not to talk over the telephone. He says could you ring and say when it would be convenient for Mr.

Dalgliesh to call. And sir, we've got a witness! He's over at Guy's Marsh police station now. The name's Alfred Goddard. He was a passenger last night passing the Lab in the nine-ten bus."

"Running down drive he were like the devil out of hell."

"Can you describe him, Mr. Goddard?"

"Naw. He weren't old."

"How young?"

"I never said 'e were young. I never seed 'im near enough to tell. But he didn't run like an old 'un."

"Running for the bus, perhaps."

"If 'e were 'e never catched it."

"He wasn't waving?"

""Course he weren't. Driver couldn't see 'im. No point in waving at back of bloody bus."

Guy's Marsh police station was a redbrick Victorian building with a white wooden pediment, which looked so like an early railway station that Dalgliesh suspected that the nineteenth-century police authority had economized by making use of the same architect and the same set of plans.

Mr. Alfred Goddard, waiting comfortably in the interview room with a huge mug of steaming tea before him, looked perfectly at home, neither gratified nor impressed to find himself a key witness in a murder investigation. He was a nut brown, wrinkled, undersized countryman who smelt of strong tobacco, alcohol and cow-dung. Dalgliesh recalled that the early fen settlers had been called "yellow-bellies" by their highland neighbours because they crawled frog-like over their marshy fields or "slodgers," splashing web footed through the mud. Either would have suited Mr. Goddard. Dalgliesh noticed with interest that he was wearing what looked like a leather thong bound round his left wrist, and guessed that this was dried eel-skin, the ancient charm to ward off rheumatism. The misshapen fingers stiffly cradling the mug of tea suggested that the talisman had been less than efficacious.

Dalgliesh doubted whether he would have troubled to come forward if Bill Carney, the conductor of the bus, hadn't known him as a regular on the Wednesday evening service travelling from Ely to Stoney Piggott via Chevisham, and had directed the inquiring police to his remote cottage.

Having been summarily dug out of his lair, however, he displayed no particular resentment against Bill Carney or the police, and announced that he was prepared to answer questions if, as he explained, they were put to him "civil-like." His main grievance in life was the Stoney Piggott bus: its lateness, infrequency, rising fares and, in particular, the stupidity of the recent experiment of using double-deckers on the Stoney Piggott route and his own subsequent banishment each Wednesday to the upper deck because of his pipe.

"But how fortunate for us that you were there," Massingham had pointed out. Mr. Goddard had merely snorted into his tea.

Dalgliesh continued with the questioning: "Is there anything at all you can remember about him, Mr. Goddard? His height, his hair, how he was dressed?"

"Naw. Middling tall and wearing a shortish coat, or mac maybe.

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