Thief Taker

by Alan Scholefield

  “I think you’re right, Black Knight.”

  “So I go to the Common to watch them. Sometimes I show them, you know?”

  “Show them what?” she said in an unguarded moment. “Guess.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I understand.”

  “I’d like to show you one day.”

  “I’d like you to, Black Knight.” She felt her gorge rise, but Lex was still hovering.

  Now Lex said, “That’s good. Keep him going.” Then she went back to her office to tune into the other conversations, to check that they too were going all right.

  “So anyway, did you know there was a golf course there?”

  “No.”

  “Right on the Common. I used to pick up balls, sell them to the clubhouse. Easy money. All you needed was a stick to poke into the bushes. So one day I saw this box. Cardboard. But inside was a small black plastic bag. And inside that…you guess?”

  “The gun?”

  “That’s right. The gun. Wrapped in a yellow duster. All oily. And another plastic bag with the bullets. Thirty bullets.”

  There was a pause then he said, “Listen…”

  She listened.

  Click…click…

  “You hear that?”

  “Yes, Black Knight.”

  “That was me pulling the trigger. If there had been bullets in it you’d have been dead. Shot down the telephone line. Wouldn’t that be amazing?”

  She felt afraid again.

  “I haven’t killed anyone yet,” he said. “But I’m going to. Two people. I know their names. I know where they live. A man and a woman. They’re not married, but they live together and have sex together and they do things together. I know all about them. And I’m going to do things with them…Oh yes, with them…First I’m going to…going to…”

  She hung up suddenly and sat quite still for a moment.

  Lex was looking the other way, listening to someone else’s call.

  Barbara’s phone rang again. She lifted the receiver. “Hello. Xxxtasy. This call is costing 44p a minute and 33p a minute off-peak. My name is Barbara. What do you want to talk about?”

  A different voice said, “My name is Harry. I’m fifty-two years old and I’d like to take a bottle and — ”

  She put the receiver against her cheek so she could not hear what he wanted to do with the bottle.

  CHAPTER VII

  Silver surreptitiously raised his arm and sniffed at his black leather jacket. He thought he could still smell the sickly sweet odour of the morgue; a mixture of formaldehyde, antiseptic and soap.

  He and Macrae and Mrs Robson Healey had just returned from formally identifying her husband’s body and were in her apartment in a block of flats at the top of Hampstead Heath which, on this clear spring day, gave a view over London.

  The apartment was obviously that of a wealthy woman yet it had no personality. It was the kind you ordered from Harrods, Silver thought. Catalogue number so-and-so. Furniture and fittings for one London apartment. State preferred colour.

  And Mrs Healey herself looked as though she had come out of a catalogue. She was beautifully dressed in black. She might have been a model from the nineteen sixties. And although she must have been in her mid to late forties, she still had the body of a younger woman.

  She had a pale skin, large brown eyes set wide apart and black hair drawn back. She was tall with good legs and she was wearing a pair of black high-heeled patent leather pumps.

  She had a kind of icy remoteness that tantalised Silver and had retained it throughout the ordeal of identifying her husband’s body and in the car coming back.

  Now she said, “I suppose you’ll want to ask me questions.” The voice was hard and the accent patrician.

  “Yes,” Macrae said.

  She indicated a couple of overstuffed button-backed chairs and Macrae and Silver sat down gingerly.

  “First of all,” Macrae said, “I’d like to get a picture of your husband.”

  She had perched on the arm of a chair. Her body-language was telling them to keep it brief.

  “Surely, Inspector, you could get that out of any newspaper library.”

  Macrae’s face darkened. Silver knew he would hate being called Inspector.

  To ease the tension, Silver said, “One doesn’t want to believe everything one reads in the papers.”

  Mrs Healey smiled palely at him. Macrae glared.

  “We’d like you to tell us,” Macrae said.

  “He was in shipping, what more can I say?”

  Macrae swung his heavy head away, then back to look at her and said, “We can take as long as we need. This is what we’re paid to do.”

  She rose and lit a cigarette and walked to the big picture-window.

  “Have you heard from your daughter yet?” Silver said. “Not yet. I told you, Rachel’s practically a hermit. She lives with this…with a young man called Nihill in the middle of nowhere. I have to leave messages at the local post office.”

  “She knows about her father?”

  “Yes, we spoke on the phone.”

  “Were they close? Rachel and her father?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Let’s get back to your husband. When were you married?”

  “In nineteen sixty-five.”

  “How old were you then?”

  She turned and said, in a frozen voice, “Is all this absolutely necessary? I mean these personal details? I think I should have my lawyer with me.”

  “Murder is personal,” Macrae said. “About the most personal thing that can happen to you. And if you want your lawyer why don’t you phone him?”

  She stared at him for a moment but made no move. Then she threw herself down in a chair and said aggressively, “I was twenty at the time, which makes me forty-five now. Is that what you wanted to know?”

  “Only if you think it matters.”

  “We moved in different worlds. He was the son of a widow who worked in a factory. My father was a Crown Court judge.”

  “How did you meet him?” Silver said.

  “He owned a charter yacht in the Med. I went down to Antibes with a group and we hired the yacht. He skippered it. We were at sea for a week.”

  “And?”

  “We had an affair. I stayed down there for a couple of months.”

  “And you were married soon afterwards?”

  “I was pregnant. It was before abortion on demand.”

  “That was Rachel.”

  “Yes.”

  “Any other children?”

  “No.”

  “What happened then?” Macrae asked.

  “He went onwards and upwards. He’d started with dredgers but then he went into tankers and container ships. I can’t tell you much about the business because he never discussed it with me.”

  Macrae suddenly changed the subject. “When were you divorced?”

  “We’ve never been divorced?”

  Macrae frowned and looked at his notes.

  “People think we were. It’s even been in the papers, you know the gossip columns. But we were legally separated. That’s how he wanted it.”

  “When was that?”

  “In nineteen eighty-three. And if you’re going to ask me why, my response is that the marriage had broken down.”

  “Breakdowns are caused by a lot of things,” Macrae said, with feeling. “Other women, drink, money, cruelty…”

  “You sound like something of an expert.”

  Silver waited for Macrae to react but all he said was, “We see a lot of it in our business.”

  She remained silent.

  Macrae suddenly said, “Where were you last night?”

  “I have a cottage in Surrey. I was there.”

  “Whereabouts?” Silver asked, his pen raised.

  She gave him the address.

  “Do you go down every weekend?”

  “Mostly. And sometimes during the week for a night or two.”

  “Is there anyone there who s
aw you?”

  “Why?”

  “To corroborate that you were there.”

  “But I’ve told you I was.”

  “Now we need someone else to tell us.”

  “But for God’s sake, you don’t think…” She did not finish the sentence.

  Macrae smiled at her. It was not a pretty sight.

  “Mrs Healey, a woman was seen running from the house yesterday evening about the time the murder was committed.”

  Her eyes grew wide with apprehension. “Well, it wasn’t me, Inspector. I swear to you it wasn’t me.”

  “I’m sure you mean that, Mrs Healey. But that’s no proof. And by the way I’m a Detective Superintendent not an Inspector. A small thing, but we all have our pride. Now, where were you exactly and do you have anyone who can support your story?”

  Going back to Cannon Row in the car Macrae said to Silver, “Rough trade. That’s what she liked. Only it got complicated. Rough trade allied with money always does.” He looked down at his notebook at the name they had squeezed out of a reluctant Mrs Healey. “Charles Harris,” he read.

  “Weyford Marina, Surrey.” Then, “I’ll want you tomorrow, Eddie.”

  “Come on!” Eddie was shouting through the windscreen at an ancient Austin which was moving sedately down Haverstock Hill at seven miles an hour. “Get over!”

  “Are you listening, Eddie?”

  “I’m listening, guv’nor. Only that new Deputy Commander won’t like it.”

  “Who? Scales? To hell with him. You do as I say.”

  “Right, guv’nor. Absolutely.”

  CHAPTER VIII

  “Nice to see you, George,” the Deputy Commander said as Macrae entered his office. “I’ve been wanting to meet you.”

  He came round his desk and offered his hand. Macrae took it grudgingly.

  “Heard all about you, of course. Who hasn’t? The great thief taker.” He indicated a chair.

  Macrae settled his bulk and the Deputy Commander went back to his own chair. He was of medium height with a narrow face. He was going prematurely bald and his thin hair was combed carefully across his skull. Macrae estimated that he was seven or eight years younger than himself.

  “Your reputation’s gone before you. The Murder Squad. The Flying Squad. The cutting edge, George.”

  Macrae had seen Kenneth Scales for the first time the week before at a do in Scotland Yard, which was just over the road from Cannon Row police station. Freddie Pender, a desk sergeant Macrae had known for many years, was taking early retirement and Scales had made the speech. Scales had never met Pender and his unctuous words — more like a memorial service than a send-off — had embarrassed everyone including Pender himself who had rubbed his hands and shuffled his feet.

  Macrae had had the word down the pipeline that Scales was coming to Cannon Row and had been prepared to hate him sight unseen. The speech had simply confirmed it.

  “Coffee, George?”

  “No thank you — ” There was the slightest hesitation and then Macrae added the word, “Sir”. He took out a packet of thin panatellas and was about to light one when he caught Scale’s look and noticed, for the first time, a no-smoking sign on the wall behind him. He stuffed the packet back into his pocket.

  “How’re things going, George?”

  “All right.”

  “Good. Good.”

  His accent jarred on Macrae. They said he’d been to university. Taken a degree in law. If that was the case, what did he want in the police? Why wasn’t he a lawyer? Macrae had enough to put up with, what with Silver and his bloody university degree.

  “I just wanted a little chat.”

  “What about?”

  “This and that. Get acquainted. I mean we’re going to be working at the sharp end, George. Just as well to know each other.”

  He leaned back in his chair and put his feet on the desk.

  “D’you know why I was sent here?”

  Macrae opened his mouth and closed it. He had taken himself firmly in hand before the interview. No fuck-ups he’d said to himself. No bullshit. He reminded himself of what Wilson was always telling him about promotion. Well, with Susan’s trip to pay off and Mandy yelling for more money he’d have to think about that.

  “I’m the new broom,” Scales said. The narrow face crinkled into a smile but the china blue eyes remained cold. “I’m one of the chaps who has to pull the Met kicking and screaming into the next century.”

  Macrae’s big bull-like head fell forward slightly. “In what way, sir?”

  “I was hoping you’d ask me that.” Scales picked up a ball-point pen and began to click the little button on the side of it. Click…click…

  He began to talk, slowly at first then with growing eloquence. He talked about computers; about computerisation on a vast scale. He used different words like interface and synergy, cost-effectiveness and man management, then went on to the new structure of the Force. He spoke about the eight areas of London — the Area Major Incident Pool — and their organisation and re-organisation and re-re-organisation.

  Click…click…went the pen.

  And as he talked a glow came into his eyes. They shone with boyish sincerity.

  He spoke of new attitudes to the public, of “user friendly” police stations, of waiting rooms with carpets on the floors and pot plants, of being “people-orientated”. He used words like parameter, and extrapolate…until it became obvious to Macrae that the copper on the beat had been replaced on Scales’ mind by mainframes and megabytes and retrieval systems.

  But all the while he nodded and Scales took his nodding for enthusiastic agreement, for he finally said, “You should take a course, George.”

  “In what?”

  “Computer science.”

  Macrae blinked. “I don’t think that’s for me, sir.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself. You’re not too old. And I could help. I mean I could start you off.” Zeal shone from his eyes and Macrae’s mind went back to his childhood on the banks of the Findhorn River in Scotland when a friend of his father’s in the Free Presbyterian Church had spoken to him about God and the after-life. He had looked and sounded like Kenneth Scales.

  “Anyway, think about it,” Scales said, bringing himself up short, as though realising he might have overdone the sincerity.

  He gave the pen a few swift clicks and said, “Now there are one or two other things, George.” But before he could start his wristwatch went “Bleep! Bleep!” He pressed the reset button. “I’ve spoken to Mr Wilson about this but I thought I’d mention it to you too. I want you to watch the DIs and the sergeants. All those boozy lunches. That’s all over, George. And let me know of anyone keeping a bottle in his desk.”

  Scales rose and Macrae rose with him. “Is that all?”

  “Yes, that’s all, George. Except for one thing.”

  Macrae, who had been halfway to the door, stopped and turned.

  “You still use a driver.”

  Macrae did not respond.

  “Twyford, isn’t it?”

  “Aye. Eddie.”

  “I’m sure you’ll understand that’s got to stop. It’s part of the old money-no-object policing. You drive yourself now. Anyway, it’s faster to go by tube and tubes are free for police officers.”

  “Anything else?” Macrae’s voice was dangerously controlled.

  “That’s all for now. Nice to have met the great thief taker at last.”

  He put his hand on Macrae’s shoulder. “Don’t forget about the computer course. It’ll make your record look so much better.”

  Macrae found himself out in the corridor. Silver was coming out of the incident room.

  Macrae snarled, “What’s synergy mean?”

  “Don’t know, guv’nor.”

  “Well go and find out and tell me in the Chief Super’s office…and bring that bottle of Scotch from my desk…and two glasses…”

  Detective Chief Superintendent Leslie Wilson watched Macrae come into
his office and close the door behind him. George always made him feel uneasy. Sometimes worse. “It’s not on, laddie!” Macrae said. “It’s not bloody on!”

  “What’s not on, George?”

  “You know what.”

  “Scales?”

  “Aye, Scales.”

  Wilson had been waiting for this and not with any enthusiasm. Long ago, on a holiday in Spain, he had gone to a bullfight. Now he was reminded of that; putting Macrae into a room with Scales was like putting a bull into the ring with a matador.

  “What’d he say, George?”

  “I couldn’t understand half of it. He’s round the bloody twist. All he thinks about is computers. What he really wants is one bloody great computer with him telling it what to do in Bayswater and Greenwich and God knows where. I tell you, Les, I’m not standing for him.”

  “It isn’t a question of not standing for him. He’s the boss. What he says goes.”

  “You know what he said to me? He said he wanted me to do a course in computers.”

  Wilson, who had earned the nickname “Shifty” because of his habit of never allowing his eyes to rest on anyone or anything for more than a split second, covered the lower part of his foxy face and said, “And what did you say, George?”

  “I said I didn’t think it was quite me.”

  “And what did he say?”

  Macrae gave it in Scales’ accent. “He said, don’t underestimate yourself, George. You’re not too old. Kept on calling me George and clicking his bloody pen!”

  Silver came in carrying a bottle of whisky and two glasses. Wilson’s pale face went paler. “What the hell are you up to, Sergeant?”

  Macrae reached for the bottle and glasses. “I told him to bring them in.” He turned to Silver. “Well?”

  “Combined or co-ordinated action,” Silver said. “As in working together.”

  Macrae turned away and Silver left the room. Wilson was too concerned about the whisky to have registered the exchange. “Christ, George, you must be out of your head. Scales is paranoid about liquor.”

  “Aye, he told me.” Macrae poured two fingers into a glass and was about to pour a second shot when Wilson put his hand up. “Not for me, George.”