Thief Taker

by Alan Scholefield

  “That’s not a nice way to speak to me.”

  The television was on. She was watching some dreary game show.

  “Look, Ronald.” She pointed to the sherry bottle on the bedside table. It was empty.

  “There was half a bottle there a little while ago!”

  “Never.”

  “There was, I’m telling you.”

  “Couldn’t have been.”

  “You’re becoming an alcoholic.”

  “That’s just nonsense. And don’t you use that word!”

  “You lie in bed and soak it up like blotting paper.”

  “So would you,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. “So would you if you were lying here. You’re an ungrateful little — ”

  “Sod?”

  “I broke my back for you. I went from door to door. Summer and winter. My God. I must have walked a million miles — ”

  “For one of my smiles? M-a-a-a-a-m-e-e-e…”

  “Don’t be so silly! And carrying my cosmetics sample case. And ringing a million doorbells. All for what? Look at you now. Hair down to your shoulders. An earring like a ponce. If you weren’t my son, do you think I’d stay here with you?”

  “With me! I like that. That’s something, that is. It’s the other bloody way round.”

  “There you go again, bloody this and bloody that.”

  He turned as though to leave the bedroom and she said, “Ronald.”

  “What?”

  “You know what time of day this is, don’t you, darling?” She was smiling at him.

  “Yes, I know. It’s sundowner time.”

  “And your mother hasn’t got a sundowner.”

  “OK,” he said. “I’ll get you a bottle.”

  “You’re a good boy.”

  CHAPTER XXIII

  “It wasn’t a case of me having an affair or Jill having an affair,” David Leitman said. “Neither of us had anyone else. It was a marriage that had run its course.”

  They were in an Italian restaurant in Wandsworth. They’d both had steaks pizzaola, shared a bottle of Montepulciano, and were now drinking their coffee.

  “We talked endlessly. We were going to turn over new leaves, we were going to do this and that, we were going to see a marriage guidance counsellor, a psychiatrist. In the end we didn’t.

  “You see, there was nothing under the leaves we were going to turn over. We’d just grown tired of each other. I remember I used to lie in bed and think: I can’t go on with this. I’m not going to be lying in this bed in this room with this woman this time next year. And I think Jill was feeling the same.

  “And that’s the story of my life.” He lit a panatella. “My God, I’ve been talking without a break. You should have stopped me.”

  “Why?” Linda said. “Other peoples’ lives are the most fascinating things on earth.”

  She had heard him talk of his past: his growing up in what was then Rhodesia where his father had been a lecturer, then university in England, journalism, a spell of living in southern Spain — “Before it became the world’s greatest tourist trap” — writing short stories and a novel that wasn’t published. Back to journalism. Marriage. Then finally the break with newspapers.

  “That’s what bothered her,” he said. “The insecurity. The fact that there wasn’t a guaranteed cheque coming in each month. I’d waited until the kids were old enough to look after themselves, but she still couldn’t accept it. I think she just couldn’t believe that the young reporter she’d married all those years ago could make it on his own as a writer.”

  “But you did,” Linda said.

  “Only after we’d split up. That was what made the difference. I wasn’t living with someone who didn’t believe in me.”

  He paid the bill and they drove back slowly through the dark streets. He opened the front door of the house and said, “It seems odd going out to dinner with someone and then coming back to the same house.”

  She smiled and said, “Would you like to come in for a nightcap?”

  “It’s my turn. I’ve a bottle of Calvados. What about a glass?”

  His apartment was…just that, she thought. It had everything apartments should have but…

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said, as he looked about with her eyes.

  The sitting room was monochromatic; a light brown carpet, with darker brown furniture. The room was full of autumn tints but the season was spring.

  “You’re thinking it needs a woman’s touch,” he said.

  “Well…some flowers wouldn’t be a bad thing. And a pot plant or two.”

  “I’d actually thought along those lines myself. I mean the pot plants. I thought how attractive yours were.”

  “They make a difference.”

  He gave her a Calvados and she said what a lovely evening she’d had.

  “Me, too,” he said.

  He seemed nervous. He walked to the windows, stood for a moment, then crossed to the fireplace and leaned against the wall. He was all sharp angles.

  He said, “I haven’t been to that restaurant in years.”

  “Did you take Jill there?”

  “No.”

  “Why did you never marry again? Men seem to.”

  “I thought about it. I wanted to. But…anyone interesting was — ”

  “Married!” They said it in unison.

  “True,” she said.

  She heard a noise in the street below and crossed quickly to the windows. She pulled the edge of the curtains aside and looked out. The street was empty.

  “What’s wrong?” he said.

  “I thought I heard someone on the front steps.”

  He looked at his watch. “At half past eleven?”

  “George — ” She stopped herself. The earlier phone call was too much of a giveaway. “You can never tell with George. He works odd hours.”

  “I didn’t know he was a regular visitor.”

  “He’s not. I hadn’t see him for a long time…years…then Susan wanted to do this trip and I couldn’t manage it. I had to go to George for money. Since then he’s been keeping contact.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “Not the odd phone call. That’s how it’s always been because of Susan. She’s been the link. But I don’t want him on the front doorstep.”

  “I mentioned him to Norman Paston on the Chronicle. He told me that George has a big reputation as a thief taker.”

  “You can get away with anything in the police as long as you’re a good thief taker. But they don’t necessarily make good husbands.”

  He held the bottle up. “Just a drop,” she said, passing him the small liqueur glass.

  “You were going to tell me something the other day, I think, about George, but you weren’t sure if we knew each other well enough.”

  “I’m probably being silly. Making too much of it. But it’ll give you an indication of what George is like. It’s just that…when we were first married he always thought of me as little Linda Brown. And he still does. And…well…what he meant was that…I wasn’t the kind of woman who was supposed to enjoy sex the way a man was…You see, it’s embarrassing talking about it…”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s almost exactly what Jill once said to me. I wasn’t to worry if she didn’t enjoy it. I was just to ignore her. It implied a kind of duty.”

  “That’s what George thought. He seemed to think I was someone who was supposed to lack…I suppose you could call it…passion. But you see I didn’t. And that shocked him a bit.”

  David uncurled himself from the wall, sat in one of the easy chairs and stretched his long legs into the middle of the floor.

  “Look,” he said, “I think you have the same hang-up as I have. We’re being nervous and strained with each other. You’re worried about the two of us getting close, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So am I. Or I was. Not now. The point is I think we like each other and there’s a certain logical progression, isn’t there? Or
not?”

  “I suppose there is.”

  “The problem is, no matter what we do now, circumstances have changed. If we do nothing our relationship will harden into an artificial one. We’ll listen behind our doors to see if it’s all clear before coming out. So we won’t have to meet.”

  “But the same applies if, well…”

  “If things broke down afterwards?”

  “That’s what worries me. I’ve seen it happen to friends of mine. They become close to people in their own block of flats and then when it’s over they can’t break up naturally. And it took me a long time to find this place. It suits me. I don’t want to throw it away.” Even as she was saying it she knew it was wrong.

  He smiled crookedly at her and said, “This is all a bit cold-blooded, isn’t it? We never spoke like this when we were young.”

  “When we were young we didn’t have so much to lose.”

  “It isn’t really bricks and mortar at all, is it? It’s not really your nice flat. If I thought it was I’d have misjudged you badly. They’re only symbols, aren’t they? You’re using them as an excuse.”

  She paused. “You’re right. It isn’t bricks and mortar.”

  “It’s emotions. Feelings. Being strung-out if something goes wrong.”

  “I’m not sure I could cope with it again.”

  “There is another way. Two adults giving each other pleasure. No strings. No one else getting hurt.”

  She rose. “I won’t lie to you. I won’t say I’ve never gone in for one-night stands. But I’m not a one-night-stand person.” David pushed himself on to his feet. “Nor am I really.”

  At his front door she took his shoulders in her hands, rose on her tiptoes and kissed him on his cheek. “Thank you for a lovely evening.”

  He put his hand under her chin and turned her face so that he could kiss her on the mouth. She resisted for a second then she kissed him properly. She could feel a sudden jolt in his body as though she’d struck him. It communicated itself instantly to her. Rationale…good intentions…all exploded in a hunger so great she felt her legs begin to tremble. She pulled his head down keeping his mouth on hers. As they broke away they turned, arms still around each other and moved towards his bedroom. Then she heard the sound of her phone coming up the stairwell of the house. “Don’t answer it,” he said.

  “I can’t just let it ring.”

  “Of course you can!”

  “It might be Susan. She’s in Australia now. It’s morning there.”

  They came apart and she ran down the stairs. She flung open her door and picked up the receiver.

  “Linda,” a thick voice said.

  “What do you want, George?”

  “I just wanted…” He was very drunk. “I just wanted to say goo…goodnight…”

  “You bastard! Leave me alone!”

  She slammed down the receiver. She knew that David would be standing by his open door on the floor above. All she had to do was to walk up the stairs. But the moment had passed. She felt angry and upset. The fear that something might have happened to Susan had been real.

  She went to her door and called, “It wasn’t Susan. It was a wrong number. Goodnight, David. And thanks again.”

  The lights were on in the building which had once housed MR MAGIC. It was midnight and Barbara’s shift had just finished. She collected her coat and went downstairs into the bleak industrial street. In the small car park the lights of a car flicked on and off. She crossed, opened the door and slid into the front seat next to Brian.

  He kissed her and at the same time slipped his hand into her blouse and covered her breast.

  “Not here!” she said, pulling away.

  “Why not?”

  “The others will see us.”

  He was thin-faced, in his early thirties, with thick dark hair that smelled of machine oil. He was a printer and worked the early night-shift. He came to see her straight from work and she had never smelled anything other than machine oil. To her it was his natural smell.

  He kissed her again and said, “I been thinking of this all day.”

  “This? Or me?”

  “You, of course. Goes without saying.”

  “No it doesn’t. I like you to say it.”

  He drove to an isolated area behind a building at the far end of the industrial park. Here the lights were dim and the chain-link fence was festooned with paper and cardboard.

  He unzipped his trousers and placed her hand inside.

  “Don’t you even want to talk for a while?” she said, irritated. “I haven’t seen you for a few days.”

  “What’s there to talk about?”

  “Why can’t you be civilised? Why can’t we go into the West End? Why can’t we have a drink or a meal? Things don’t shut down in London just because it’s midnight.”

  “You know why.”

  “Because you’ve got to get home to Tracy!”

  “She’s expecting me. She’ll have made food.”

  Barbara withdrew her hand and leant back. She liked Brian. Well, quite liked him. She was afraid of losing him. He was all she had. He was important to her, especially when she was with her friends. She could talk about him. My boyfriend, Brian. And when they said when are we going to meet this famous Brian she would be able to say, “He’s a married man,” and it gave her a kind of dangerous glamour that the other women, with ordinary boyfriends, did not have.

  But there wasn’t much glamour about Brian now as he fumbled with her bra.

  She said, “You said you and Tracy were finished.”

  “We are. It’s not gonna be like this all the time. Don’t be so — ”

  “So what?”

  “Sitting there like a puddin’.”

  “I like a little affection, a little talk. All you want to do is get it over and go back to your wife.”

  “I can’t help it if I met you after I was married.”

  “But you could be a little more…romantic.”

  “Don’t you feel like it?”

  “I would if you — ”

  “I thought it turned you on.”

  “What?”

  “These blokes that ring you.”

  “Turn me on?”

  “You once said it was like watching a porno film.”

  “I don’t like watching porno films. Anyway, this is just filth.”

  “What do they say?” There was a sudden interest in his voice. He was always trying to get her to tell him.

  “They say…well…what they want to do to you.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s sick. They want to use bottles…things like that…”

  “Like what?”

  “Is that what you want to do? Use a bottle?”

  “Don’t be silly!”

  “Well, then don’t go on about it. I hear enough on my shift without talking about it now.”

  “OK.”

  He tried to pull down her pants.

  She felt his fingers tugging at the material. “You’ll tear them!”

  “Take them off then.”

  “Let’s get in the back. It’s too uncomfortable here.”

  They got in the back and immediately he was all over her. “Put your leg up there,” he said urgently, grabbing the ankle of one leg and putting it on the back of the front seat.

  “You’re hurting me!” she said.

  It was all over in a matter of seconds. She put her legs down and straightened her clothing and thought, “God, this is what they talk about. This is what everyone wants.”

  He zipped up his trousers and lit a cigarette.

  She knew what the next thing would be. He’d tell her how tired he was. He’d begin to yawn. Then he’d be off and she wouldn’t see him again for a night or two.

  She really felt like saying, “I don’t want to see you again,” but then when she looked at herself in the mirror and saw the pitting of her skin she realised she couldn’t. At least someone wanted her.
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  “Brian.”

  “Yeah?”

  “One of my clients — ”

  “Clients! I like that.”

  She ignored him. “He sounds OK one minute and crazy the next.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Brian had lost interest.

  “Calls himself funny names. Darth Vader. Black Knight. And he says he’s got a gun.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Brian, he says he’s going to kill a policeman.”

  Brian laughed and flicked the cigarette out of the window. “And you believe him?”

  “I don’t know. I was wondering. Should I go to the police and tell them?”

  “Tell them what?”

  “What I’ve just told you.”

  “What’s there to tell. People say anything. Anyway it’s probably illegal.”

  “’Course it’s illegal!”

  “I don’t mean shooting coppers. I mean what you’re doing. This sex chatline thing. The papers made a fuss about it. They said they were going to have the law changed or something.”

  “We’re not a sex chatline. We’re supposed to be there for lonely people. Like the Samaritans.”

  “Oh yeah? I bet sex is all they talk about though.”

  She thought of her supervisor, Lex. “I suppose it is, really. Even so. You think I should? Maybe I could phone them. Anonymously.”

  “What are you going to say? That someone phoned you and told you he was going to kill a copper? You don’t know his name, where he’s phoning from. How’re they going to do anything? Anyway, if you want to get mixed up in something like this that’s your business. Don’t ask me.”

  “I don’t want to get mixed up in anything.”

  “Listen, he’s a loony. They’re all loonies. Darth Vader! Christ!”

  He yawned.

  “You better go,” she said.

  “Yeah. I better.”

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Ronnie woke early. He had set the alarm but did not need it. He felt a contraction of his stomach muscles as memory reminded him what day this was. This was the day. Der Tag, as old Daddy Crowhurst had called it when anyone was being released from the nick.

  He was full of nervous energy, part anticipatory, part apprehensive. If there was ever a time it was now. London was too difficult and anyway he couldn’t go on following them. They’d rumble him sooner or later. It had to be now. The sooner the better as far as he was concerned. It would complete the circle that had begun in the garden shed in north London.