Thief Taker

by Alan Scholefield

  “Fractured,” Dr Willey said, pointing to the skull. “Probably a hair-line crack. Which explains the spray. Been hit half a dozen times at least. But even that didn’t kill him immediately. That’s why there’s all the blood.”

  "How long could he have lived?” Macrae said.

  “Difficult to say. Some people…” he glanced at Silver, “have thicker skulls than others. But he was probably brain dead some time before his heart stopped.”

  One of the Forensic team came into the room with a monkey wrench in a protective plastic bag. “Found it in the garden.”

  Macrae pointed to it and Dr Willey shrugged. “The pathologist will tell you. It looks heavy enough.”

  Macrae said, “All right, laddie, tag it.” Then, “You traced the wife yet?”

  “Still not back,” Silver said. “At least that’s what her maid says.”

  There was a commotion downstairs, voices were raised. Macrae and Silver moved towards the bedroom door. A man was climbing the staircase as though it was the north face of the Eiger. He climbed very slowly, one step after another. He was dressed in a black suit and waistcoat with a white shirt and black tie. He was one of the oldest human beings Silver had ever seen and the effort of climbing was taking all his strength and concentration. He was painfully thin and his skin had shrunk on to his bald skull as though he had been set out in a desert sun to dry.

  Two large policemen were moving around him like sheepdogs trying to turn him back. He simply ignored them and came implacably on. Finally, his breath rustling in his chest like leaves, he stopped in front of Macrae.

  “You in charge?” he said, wheezily.

  “Yes.”

  “Name?”

  “I’m Detective Superintendent Macrae. Who are you?”

  “Her ladyship has asked me to inform you that she will see you now.”

  Macrae looked at one of the uniformed PCs. “What’s he talking about?”

  “Across the square, sir. Lady something — ”

  “Lady Hickson,” the old man said.

  “Well…anyway…” the policeman said. “She’s the one who phoned.”

  “This way, sir,” the old man said.

  Silver watched wide-eyed as the old man turned and went very slowly down the stairs again.

  “Come on, laddie,” Macrae said to Silver.

  They followed him out into the chilly night and across the short stretch of gravel which was all the square really was and found themselves being ushered into a house opposite.

  “Kindly follow me,” the old gentleman said.

  They followed him up an uncarpeted staircase to a sitting room on the first floor, their steps echoing hollowly through the house. As Silver trailed after them he noticed that the downstairs rooms were bare.

  The old man paused and said to Macrae, “Please bear in mind, sir, that her ladyship is no longer young.” He opened the door and announced: “Detective Superintendent Macrae…and…assistant.”

  Macrae and Silver found themselves in a room that might have been a film set for a house in the nineteen fifties. It was L-shaped and elegant with beautiful ceiling mouldings and had two long windows overlooking the square. At one end was a fireplace in which burned the kind of feeble, single-bar electric fire that was now only to be found on junk stalls in street markets. There was a bed in one corner, and a scrap-screen hiding a washbasin. There was a large Zenith radio-gram with automatic record changer which dominated one wall and next to it a small 12-inch TV set which might have been built by James Logie Baird himself.

  There were piles of newspapers and magazines. Silver thought they must run into thousands. They covered tables and chairs and stood in neat piles on the floor reaching to knee-height. As he picked his way through this maze he noticed that the top copy of The Times on one pile was dated 1973.

  By the window was a large chair under a reading lamp. In the chair was a woman so tiny that her feet did not touch the ground. She was dressed in a black, high-necked frock and had a worn rug of Black Watch tartan wrapped around her legs. Her grey hair was so thin that her pink scalp showed through it and her eyes had taken on the blue-mauve colour of extreme age. But they were bright and set in a heavily made-up face. Silver was reminded instantly of a bird. Beside her was a pair of powerful Zeiss binoculars on a mahogany stand.

  Lady Hickson raised a small beringed hand in greeting. “Would you gentlemen like a glass of whisky and a biscuit?” Her voice was surprisingly strong for such a frail body. When they refused she said, Thank you, Hay, you may go to bed now. I shan’t want you again tonight.”

  “Thank you, madam. Good-night, madam.” Hay gave a short bow and closed the door behind him.

  She turned to Macrae and said in a chirpy voice, “He won’t, you know. Not until you’ve gone. Always the same. He’s getting on a bit but a stickler for form. Now, what can I do for you?”

  Silver had never seen Macrae deal with the aristocracy before and wondered how his anarchic character would display itself.

  “You can tell us why you wanted to see us, your ladyship.” His voice was not disrespectful, it was not anything. Just neutral.

  “You first,” Lady Hickson said, as though they were telling stories in the dorm at night. “What’s happened over there? A murder?” Her eyes glittered and the years suddenly seemed to fall away.

  “I’m afraid that’s right, ma’am,” Macrae said.

  “Good. Excellent. I said that to Hay but he gave me one of his looks. He doesn’t approve of these, you know.” She indicated the binoculars. They were Dommie’s. Dominic. My son. He died in the D-Day landings. They found these among his things.

  “Hay thinks only the lower classes stick their noses into other people’s business. It’s the same with the furniture. We’ve sold it room by room. No retirement plan, you see. Beating the Retreat, so to speak, to the first floor. I say, what does it matter? I can’t use all the rooms anyway. But he hates to talk about it. He’s a terrible snob. I’ve told him so a hundred times. Butlers always are. Not that he’s a real butler, of course. Not properly trained. He was Daddy’s servant in the war. After Daddy was killed at Ypres he came to us. I was only a little girl at the time.”

  For a moment Silver was too nonplussed to take in what the old lady was saying. When she had said the war he had instantly thought of World War II. But it wasn’t. It was the Great War. His mind made a quick calculation: if Mr Hay had been sixteen or so when the war started he would now be over ninety. Which made Lady Hickson over eighty. Silver tucked away the phrase “getting on a bit” — which she had applied to Hay — for Zoe. She’d love it.

  “People watch ships through telescopes,” Lady Hickson was saying. “I watch people through these. I watch life. I can remember this square after the war. There was a pub on the corner. Now it’s all changed. I’ve seen it change. Watched it all these years. Then my eyes grew a bit weak so I made Hay look for these binoculars. Can’t tell you what a difference they’ve made. I like to look at the cars too. Lots of Porsches in the square. They say they’re a frightful price. I had a sports car once. My husband Bertie gave it to me. Christmas nineteen thirty-eight. All wrapped up in Christmas paper with a big red Santa on the engine. MG. They don’t make them anymore. Not proper ones, anyway. So there was a murder? That man Healey?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I thought he’d come to a sticky end.”

  “Why?”

  “Too much money. Too many girls.”

  “May I ask how you know that, your ladyship?” Silver said, hearing himself adopt a kind of whining bended-knee tone and hating himself.

  “I’ve watched him. Drives a pink Rolls Royce with his initials on the number plate. I think the Americans call them vanity plates. That’s what he was, I should think. Rather vain. And insecure. I always say if you know who you are you don’t need your initials on the car. You know them, don’t you?”

  She laughed brightly and Macrae nodded. Tell us about the girls,” he said.
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  “Rather young, if you ask me.”

  “School-girls? That young?”

  “Well — ”

  “He could have daughters,” Silver said.

  She gave a contemptuous snort. “And they could be nieces or cousins or family friends. Only I don’t think so. D’you know what I think, Superintendent?”

  “What do you think, ma’am?”

  “Hanky panky.”

  “Hanky panky?”

  “You’re a grown man, you know what I mean.”

  “Have you any evidence for that, your ladyship?” Silver said. “I mean did you see any…hanky panky through the binoculars.”

  She gave him a withering look. “I don’t watch that sort of thing. Even if I’d seen it I wouldn’t have watched it, if you know what I mean.”

  “So there were girls,” Macrae said. “What about today?”

  “Well, it was earlier. I suppose between six and seven. I’d had a little sleep. You’ll find that as you get less young you need a little nap every now and then. And Hay had brought me an egg. He doesn’t have to, you know. I have biscuits and things and Meals-on-Wheels comes every other day. And there isn’t really very much of me to — ”

  “Today,” Macrae said. “Were there girls?”

  “Just one. I’d had my egg. Hay knows just how I like them. Soft but not runny — ”

  “And you saw this girl…” Macrae said, gently.

  This was something else he’d have for Zoe, Silver thought: Macrae the gentle giant. He’d never seen him play this role before.

  “Yes, she came running out of the house and forgot to close the door. She ran off down to the King’s Road and went round the corner.”

  “And this was sometime between six and seven?” Macrae said.

  “About then. Just after I’d had my egg.”

  Silver noted it in his book.

  “What was she like, this girl?” Macrae said. “Very young?”

  “Well, everyone seems rather young to me now, don’t you know. But not a school-girl. Not that young. Not a pigtail or anything like that.”

  Silver wondered how many schoolgirls wore pigtails these days. He’d have to ask Zoe.

  “How was she dressed?” Macrae said.

  “In slacks and a blouse and high-heeled shoes. Very high-heeled. Not much good for running in, I shouldn’t have thought. And blonde hair. I noticed that first. Blonde hair and a black blouse and white slacks. Oh, and carrying a bag.”

  “What sort of bag?”

  “It looked like one of those you get at airports only bigger.”

  “Shoulder bag?”

  “She was carrying it in her hand and when she ran she was all lopsided.”

  “The bag.”

  “That’s right. It made her lopsided. Well, I suppose it would, wouldn’t it?”

  “What made you phone for the police?” Silver said.

  “The door, of course.”

  “The door?”

  “Young man, I don’t know if you can leave doors open in your neighbourhood but we can’t here. You’ve seen the bars on the windows. Highest robbery area in London. You should read the papers. Anyway, I watched the door. No one came out. It stood open and I thought: that’s strange, we don’t leave our doors open in this square. And after half an hour some youths came and stood there and looked in the door. I don’t have to tell you what the young are like today, Superintendent.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Not all of them, of course. But the football supporters!”

  “Were these football supporters?” Silver asked.

  She gave him another of her looks and ignored the question.

  “They hung about the door for a while and then went away. Not far away. Just to the end of the square. I watched them. They stood talking and looking at the house. You could see what was in their minds. So I called Hay and told him to telephone the police.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Macrae said. “If everyone was like you there’d be a drop in the crime rate.”

  “That’s what I said to Hay. But he thinks it’s poking my nose in.”

  After half an hour they left. Hay was asleep in a chair on the landing, head against the wall, mouth open. They tiptoed past so as not to wake him but he must have heard, for he stood up with a movement that sent the chair scraping backwards on the boards. He pushed past them and led them from the house, his old legs going stiffly down the stairs.

  At the door, Macrae said, “Her ladyship’s husband, who was he?”

  Mr Hay looked at him in surprise. “General Sir Albert Hickson,” he said.

  Silver realised the butler felt they should have known that.

  CHAPTER VI

  The building still had an old sign on it: MR MAGIC — GAMES. But no games had been made in it or sold from it for many years. It was in an industrial park on the edge of London and had been vacant for a long time.

  The area was called an industrial park because “park” was a buzz-word but this one was an old-style industrial estate, with slab-sided brick buildings and ill-lit streets, graffiti and used condoms.

  Seedy. Run-down.

  Now, at just after midnight, lights were on in the upper windows of MR MAGIC. The top floor was a single large room. In it was a glass cubicle where a foreman had once sat. Against one wall were six wooden stalls. In each stall was a desk. On each desk was a telephone. At each telephone was a girl in her late teens or early twenties.

  This was the office of the Xxxtasy chatline. In the glassed-in cubicle sat the supervisor, a tacky blonde called Lex. She was in her thirties with a face like plastic and a skinny body.

  The uncarpeted, uncurtained, unswept room hummed with the noise of low voices in conversation. In the last stall sat a girl named Barbara. She was twenty-one, dark, and would have been attractive but for a bad skin. She had started work at Xxxtasy three days before and had still not got used to the stream of low-voiced filth that came out of the ear-piece of her phone.

  It rang now.

  She said: “Hello, Xxxtasy. This call is costing 44p a minute, and 33p a minute off-peak. My name is Barbara. What would you like to talk about?”

  There was a long silence.

  “Hello, caller? Are you there?”

  The voice was low and scarcely audible at first. “Barbara?”

  “This is Barbara. What would you like to talk about?”

  “You don’t sound like Barbara.”

  “Oh?”

  “I talked to Barbara yesterday.”

  She felt her stomach clench.

  “Who is that?” she said.

  “You’d know if you were Barbara.”

  “Is that Darth Vader?”

  She heard a soft giggle.

  “If you are Darth Vader then I remember you from yesterday.”

  “Black Knight,” he said.

  “Sorry?”

  “My name is Black Knight.”

  “I see…All right, Black Knight, what would you like to talk about?”

  “You know what I want to talk about.”

  “We are not permitted to talk about sex.”

  “Oh yeah? I know you have to say that. But let’s not bullshit about. OK?”

  Barbara turned and signalled to Lex in the office. Lex picked up her phone and plugged straight into Barbara’s conversation.

  “What are you wearing, Barbara?” the voice said.

  Barbara was wearing jeans, a T-shirt and trainers on her feet, but all the girls had been told what to say when they started work. She said, “I’m wearing a see-through blouse and a G-string. Black fishnet stockings. Spike-heel pumps.”

  “I’m wearing a shirt,” the voice said. “Nothing else. You know what I’ve got in my hand?”

  “I’m sorry but we can’t…”

  Lex was standing over her and hissed into her free ear.

  “You’ll bloody well talk about anything he wants, you silly little bitch. You keep him talking or you don’t get your wages.”
r />   “It’s not what you think,” Black Knight said. “I’ll get to that later. I’m not forgetting that. No, it’s something else. Something hard but cold. Something black and shiny. Something that smells of oil. I’m rubbing it up and down…up and down…”

  Lex whispered fiercely, Talk to him. Tell him to enjoy himself. Tell him this is what you’re here for. To help him enjoy himself!”

  “Are you having a good time?” Barbara said, her voice wavering slightly.

  “Yeah. A good time. You know what the Black Knight does?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “He’s a symbol, see. Just like the White Knight. For forces. Forces inside everyone. People think the White Knight rights wrongs. But there’re all kinds of wrongs. There ain’t only one justice. You still there, Barbara?”

  “Yes, Black Knight. Tell me about yourself. What turns you on?”

  “You turn me on, sweetheart. Your voice turns me on. Your see-through blouse turns me on. Talking on this telephone turns me on. This thing in my hand turns me on. I’m going to use it, Barbara. I told you, didn’t I?”

  “Yes. You told me.”

  She closed the mouthpiece and said to Lex, “He’s talking about it again! I’m scared.”

  “They never mean it. It’s only their fantasies. Don’t let him hang up! Talk to him!”

  When she’d got the job they’d told Barbara that Xxxtasy got 60 per cent of all the money from the calls so the longer they spoke the better.

  “It’s a gun, isn’t it, Black Knight? The one you were telling me about yesterday.”

  “Yes, Barbara. It’s a gun. You know how I got it?”

  Tell me how you got it, Black Knight.”

  “I found it.”

  “Where?”

  “On Wimbledon Common. You know why I was on Wimbledon Common?”

  “Tell me, Black Knight.”

  ““Cause that’s where women walk their dogs. Housewives. You know about housewives?”

  “What about them?”

  “They’re frustrated, aren’t they?” His voice was getting stronger now and he was talking more quickly. “Stands to reason. Their husbands go off to work. No time in the morning, too tired of an evening when they get home. Don’t you think?”