Old Flames (Frederick Troy 2)

by Lawton, John

  Without doubt he was going to have to spend another night in this one-horse town, sampling the delights of the Kedleston. He looked at the row of books again, and, preferring what he knew to what he didn’t, stuffed Casino Royale, the one Fleming he had read, into his coat pocket. It would pass a dull night in a small town.

  Railway Cuttings was almost opposite the railway station, an alley of soot-blackened Victorian cottages running along the edge of the deep cutting that carried the tracks through the middle of the town. At best it was eight feet wide, and one side of it was made up of the thick granite restraining wall that topped off the cutting. The tracks were visible over the low wall, gleaming off to meet at infinity, polished like stainless steel with constant use.

  Number 23 was some sort of lapsed warehouse. He could just make out the faded, cusped lettering of an old sign for a Seed Merchant and Nursery, high on the wall facing the tracks, but down at eye level were two small rectangular plates—new and painted, ‘Belper Urban District Council Refuse Disposal’; old and brass, ‘George G. Jessel, Chartered Accountant. 2nd Flr’.

  The staircase had no carpet. Bits of old linoleum tacked onto the worn treads. Flakes of ancient off-white distemper floating down from the ceiling. The hand rail worn into deep curves by the passing of many hands. At the top were two doors. One half-open, marked ‘G. Jessel’. The other, closed, marked ‘Private’. Behind the first was a small, square office, packed with filing cabinets, with a small desk at the centre, overburdened with a huge manual typewriter sitting under its nightly plastic dust cover, its shift arm sticking out like a splint. He turned to the other door, heard the sound of papers rustling, and tapped gently. The door opened. Jessel’s head appeared in the space. Dark brown cow eyes peering out at him.

  ‘You found it, then?’

  ‘Yes. I found it.’

  Jessel backed away, ushered him into a room scarcely bigger than Cockerell’s office. Tiny, triangular, but a complete contrast. It was a model of neatness. Everything shipshape and orderly. Not a speck of dust to be seen or a paperclip out of place. Although Jessel had a cigarette glued to his bottom lip, and had developed the knack of talking without dislodging it, the ashtray was wiped clean, as though he tipped it out and dusted it after every couple of fags. It startled Troy, but he could see the logic behind it. He had expected a reflection of the physical man, a man who, it seemed, kept a record of most recent meals on his shirtfront and lapels, stained from collar-stud to fly-buttons. Of course, the room reflected the mind of the man, the ordered categories of the accountant mind.

  Jessel pulled an upright chair away from its place against the wall and set it in front of the desk for Troy. He sat on the other side, across the narrow strip of shiny oak and worn red leather—a small silver fob watch, a row of freshly sharpened pencils, a cut glass inkwell, and two marble-finish Waterman fountain pens laid out like toy soldiers in battle formation.

  Jessel opened his mouth to speak and the roar of a train in the cutting made him think better of it. The room shook, the pens and pencils danced a jig across the desktop, a whiff of steam-laden smoke rolled in through the open window and Jessel picked up the fob watch and tapped the face.

  ‘The five-fifteen out of Derby. St Pancras to Sheffield. Same time every day. Three minutes later on Saturdays, and never on a Sunday.’

  ‘You’ve seen Mrs Cockerell, you say, and she—’

  ‘No,’ Jessel cut in. ‘Not seen. On the phone. I’ve talked her on the phone.’

  ‘And she won’t let you see the books?’

  Jessel detached the cigarette from his lower lip, the lip puckered and gave up its spittle adhesion reluctantly. How often, Troy thought, did the man skin himself doing that? Jessel picked a fleck of tobacco from his mouth—the hard stuff, no filter tips—drew on the fag, managed not to cough and flicked the ash into the otherwise pristine ashtray.

  ‘Right. I don’t blame her. She says Arnold will tackle it when he gets back and it should all just wait. I suppose it’s important to her to believe he will come back. But the figures are piling up, even without all the foreign trade, and besides, it’s not legal is it?’

  ‘Quite,’ said Troy. ‘It’s a matter of the law that brings me here.’

  From the look in his eyes Troy knew that Jessel was instantly regretting having introduced the notion of law.

  ‘Arnold’s death.’

  ‘Arnold’s disappearance.’

  ‘He’s not dead then?’

  ‘Mrs Cockerell is unwilling to confirm that the body is his.’

  Another deep drag on the weed, a cloudy breathing out of noxious, high-strength tobacco smoke.

  ‘If he’s not dead, what’s the problem?’

  ‘Money,’ said Troy simply.

  ‘Money?’

  ‘Lots of money.’

  Jessel sucked his cigarette down to the knuckle, lit up another from the stub and bought himself as much time as he could.

  ‘Nothing illegal about money,’ he fluffed, and Troy knew he was on the defensive, knew down to his copper’s toes that Janet Cockerell was right. And if she was, he would leave this man no stone under which to hide.

  ‘How long have you been covering up for him?’

  Jessel coughed, retched and looked to die. Troy sat impassively, watching the sweat beads form high up at the hairline and head slowly south across the reddening face to be mopped up by the frayed shirt collar. It was theatrical. Dragged out as long as he could muster phlegm, heaving till his ribs ached—and it wasn’t going to work.

  When he raised his head above the desktop, Troy was staring at him.

  ‘Is . . . is . . . herrummmphhickerrwyerch . . . is that what she told you?’

  ‘Is that what you’re doing?’

  ‘You don’t want to believe everything Janet Cockerell tells you. They didn’t exactly get on like a house on fire, you know. She’s had it in for Arnold for years.’

  ‘There’s an awful lot of money passing through Cockerell Ltd. A small fortune for three small shops in the Pennines.’

  ‘It’s all legitimate. You’re forgetting the foreign trade.’

  ‘Goods that never enter England, but show up via his bank account in Stockholm?’

  ‘Exactly. But you make it sound sinister. It’s not. It’s all above board. Declared and taxed. Perfectly legal. Men like Arnold Cockerell—the backbone of Britain. Expanding into Europe. Pioneers.’

  He was beginning to sound like one of those dreadful Party Political Broadcasts that television had made into a form of boredom unique to the medium. It was a hangover from the war, when Churchill and Roosevelt felt obliged to chat to their people over the airwaves. In peacetime it was an’ anachronistic bore. A prominent politician would address the nation, pompous and pretentious, and reading the stuff very badly from cards. Worse still the next night, the other side would talk you silly with their right of reply. Export—that was one of their favourite ways to bore for Britain.

  Troy had too little to go on. Jessel could refute him step by step. But, where was the man’s sense of outrage? Troy had called him a crook to his face, and now he sat there reasonably defending himself and Cockerell, when, Troy felt, an honest man would have shown him the door and told him to come back with a warrant.

  ‘There don’t appear to be copies of Cockerell’s tax returns among the papers at the shop,’ he said.

  Jessel’s cigarette had gone out. In the effort to be reasonable in the face of Troy’s accusations he had forgotten to smoke. He rummaged in his pocket for matches.

  Troy gambled.

  ‘You have them, don’t you?’

  Jessel had just got a light to the nud end. His hand shook furiously. Cigarette and flame refused utterly to meet. The match burnt down to his fingers. He winced and struck another.

  ‘I’d like to see them.’

  This, above all, was the point at which outraged citizenry told him to come back when he’d got a warrant. Even if they did not know what it meant—and a chartere
d accountant surely did?—they’d all seen it at the pictures. Coppers sent packing by the right phrases in the right tones, as though they were unsolicited carpet sellers. Just short of a second singeing, Jessel managed to light up. Neither the gesture nor the tobacco brought him any relief. He was trembling and sweating worse than ever.

  ‘I . . . er . . . can’t put my hands on them right now. My . . . er my secretary . . . goes home at five.’

  This was fine by Troy. He was happy to sweat Jessel overnight. He could hardly be so stupid as to destroy papers that were already a matter of record. And if he were, it was tantamount to a confession.

  ‘Very well,’ he smiled at Jessel. ‘I’ll see you first thing in the morning.’

  From the look on Jessel’s face Troy might just as well have suggested an appointment in Samara. But, he roused himself. Enough energy for the semblance of normality. He bustled past Troy, opened the door for him, put the chair back against the wall, where it came from, and, in a gesture Troy found curiously fastidious, whipped out his handkerchief and quickly dusted the seat, waving at it with an airy motion, the linen barely glancing off the oilcloth.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, the cigarette flapping from his lower lip once more. ‘Tomorrow it is.’

  §44

  He made his way back up the hill in the cool of the evening, his briefcase bulging with the collected papers of Cockerell Ltd. Janet Cockerell was still in the garden, the painting pretty well finished, a few more dabs and shades added to the motley of her boiler suit. But the working day was done. She was sipping white wine and staring off into the redness of the evening sky. She fetched a second glass and the bottle. A well-chilled hock, flowery and not too sweet.

  ‘Why didn’t you mention George Jessel to me?’

  ‘I can’t think of everything.’

  ‘No more than I can believe everything.’

  She was far too smart not to know when she’d been called a liar.

  ‘I suppose the real reason is that I don’t want to have to think about him at all. I’d rather not give a man like Jessel head room. He’s a toad. I don’t like him and I don’t much like Arnold when the two of them are together. He’s the most unsavoury of Arnold’s cronies.’

  ‘Cronies? Why cronies? Why not just say friends?’

  ‘I haven’t looked it up in the dictionary, but I would hardly be surprised to find that the definition of “crony” was “disreputable friend”.’

  The next time Rod referred to Driberg or Fermanagh as being ‘one of your cronies’, he would have to remember to feel insulted.

  ‘Or,’ she went on, ‘were you thinking of a more conspiratorial meaning?’

  ‘I think perhaps I was.’

  ‘Then I’m sorry to have kept him from you. But now you’ve met him I think you’ll see my point. If Arnold was up to something, George Jessel is the sort of chap would lie through his teeth for him, and think it nothing more than matey loyalty, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, I rather think he would.’

  ‘Are you planning to see him again?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He can marinade overnight and I’ll roast him tomorrow.’

  Back in the joyless Kedleston, he spread Cockerell’s records out across the bed and found he had no heart for such joyless reading. He skimmed the headlines in the Manchester Guardian. Read another lengthy piece on the burgeoning crisis in Suez, and fell asleep without even opening the Ian Fleming.

  §45

  He breakfasted among the brown suits. Something hot, something tasteless, washed down with something lukewarm. He gave Jessel the best part of half an hour to gather himself, a safe margin to let the anxiety build in him, stuffed all Cockerell’s papers back into his briefcase, and on the dot of ten climbed the staircase to his office. In the first room, the typewriter stood unused under its plastic cover. He had expected to find some young woman filing papers or her nails.

  The door to Jessel’s office was ajar. He pushed gently at it without knocking. Jessel was sprawled in his chair, head back, eyes open, dead.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ Troy said.

  He put his fingertips to the side of Jessel’s neck. Warm, but definitely dead. He stood by the corpse, slowly turning his head to take in as much as he could. He had just as much time as it took till the next person, whoever that might be, arrived.

  He heard a rustle from the outer office, across the landing.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  A young woman was lifting the cover from the typewriter. As she raised her face to him, he could see the side of her cheek was badly swollen.

  ‘Are you Mr Jessel’s secretary?’

  She mmmed at him and nodded vigorously.

  ‘Call the police,’ he said. ‘The local station, not 999.’

  She froze. Stared anxiously at him.

  ‘You have the number?’

  She nodded again, fumbled at the telephone pad and dialled. He could hear the ringing tone. She pointed to her cheek. The police station answered.

  ‘Awo,’ she said. ‘Poweese?’

  There was a pause. Troy could hear the plod on the other end saying, ‘What?’

  ‘Poweese. Ish Bwenda Bwock. Geosh Jeshll’s Shecetwy.’

  She held the phone out to Troy.

  ‘They can’t unnershtann me. Bin to dennish.’

  He took it from her.

  ‘This is Chief Inspector Troy of Scotland Yard. Get over to 23 Railway Cuttings at once. I’ve just found George Jessel dead.’

  There was a whumphf as Brenda Brock fell into her chair. Troy slammed the phone down, took her head and pressed it down between her knees. At least, thank God, she wasn’t screaming. In less than a minute she raised her head, pale and tearful, looked him in the eyes and said, ‘No kiddin’?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No kidding.’

  He left her. Went back into Jessel’s office. The top drawer on Jessel’s side of the desk was open a couple of inches. A sheaf of papers peeped out invitingly at him. He pulled them out. A couple of dozen pages stapled together in two lots—Cockerell’s tax returns for the last five years. So, he meant to show them to him after all. He stuffed them into his inside pocket, and looked around. There was no sign of violence. Jessel was slumped, as though he had suddenly snapped at the shoulders and the knees like a puppet whose strings had been cut. There were five nud ends in the ashtray. Having seen the way the man chainsmoked, that was probably representative of the first half-hour of the working day. He was kicking himself hard. The arrogance of ‘letting him marinade overnight’ came home to him. He’d had his chance and he’d lost it. The cheap detective’s ploy of waiting half an hour before showing up, just to string him out. He’d had a second chance and he’d lost it. All in all he’d made an utter balls-up of the business, and any minute now he’d have to face the local plod and pretend he was playing by the book. It would not be pleasant.

  He heard footsteps on the stairs, took a last look around the room and darted back into the outer office.

  Brenda Brock was staring down into the cutting, crying silently, her mascara dribbling across her swollen, hamster cheeks.

  A burly man, overdressed for the weather in a mackintosh and trilby, appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Warriss, Station Inspector,’ he said bluntly, staring hard at Troy. ‘Now—who the bloody hell are you?’

  Troy recited name and rank and produced his warrant card.

  ‘Don’t be going anywhere,’ Warriss said. ‘I’ll be wanting to talk to you, sir.’

  The inflection on the ‘sir’ safely expressed a mixture of anger and contempt. A younger man, in his late twenties, appeared on the landing.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Godbehere,’ said Warriss. ‘My scene-of-crime man. We’ve the big boys with us today, Raymond. Chief Inspector Troy of the Yard, would you believe?’

  He turned to Troy, utterly unintimidated by rank.

  ‘In there, is he?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Troy.

  Warriss and Godbehere left him with Bren
da. Five minutes later, Warriss came back alone.

  ‘You’ve touched nothing?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course not,’ Troy lied.

  ‘And the lass?’

  ‘She hasn’t been in there.’

  Another clumping on the stairs produced another large man in mackintosh and trilby. This one clutched a doctor’s bag. Obviously the County Police Surgeon.

  He nodded in Troy’s direction, and greeted Warriss with a simple ‘Harold.’

  ‘In there, is he? Grim reaper finally got ’im? Silly bugger.’

  He lumbered off across the landing.

  Troy heard him say, ‘Well now, Ray me lad, what have we got here? Oh dearie, dearie me.’

  Troy’s eyes were on the door, following the doctor, in his mind’s eye following the routine he would now go through. Warriss’s voice cut through, pulled him sharply back.

  ‘A word with you, Mr Troy. Outside, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  He led off down the stairs. Troy looked at Brenda Brock. Beautiful green eyes looked pleadingly back at him, but whatever the plea, he could not meet it. He followed Warriss. At the turn in the stairs he passed an elderly woman in a flowered bri-nylon overall, dusting the landing windowsill.

  Outside Warriss waited, an elbow propped on the embankment wall—a presumptive posture of might and right. Troy was about to be bollocked by a man ten years his elder, a rank his junior, and he hadn’t a leg to stand on.

  ‘Tell me,’ Warriss began, ‘does the word protocol mean anything to you, or are all you young buggers down in London ignorant clever dicks?’

  ‘I’m sorry—’

  ‘You’d bloody well better be. How long have you been on my patch?’

  ‘Only since yesterday morning.’

  ‘And what interest does the Yard have in George Jessel that it did not see fit to share with the local force?’

  ‘Nothing. Jessel was not the object of my investigation.’

  A light of sheer pleasure came into Warriss’s bloodshot eyes. The glint of revelation.

  ‘My God. My God! You’re here for Arnold Cockerell, aren’t you?’