The Bad Detective

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘Well, you never know, you know. Be nice if he did convey his thanks.’

  ‘Thanks but no thanks. I’d be happy if I never heard another word about that stuck-up bastard.’

  But Jack did hear another word about Councillor Symes. It was something over a month later, just after Jinkie Morrison had been sent down for an eighteen month stretch. And it was a word that astonished him.

  Coming into the CID Room on the Wednesday morning he saw on his desk a big, stiff-paper white envelope with his name Detective Sergeant J. W. Stallworthy neatly typed on it. Wondering what the hell it could be, he slit it open, pulled out the sheet of thick white paper inside.

  Abbotsport City Police

  From the Chief Constable’s Staff Officer

  Dear DS Stallworthy, I am directed by the Chief

  Constable to convey to you the earnest thanks of

  Councillor Arthur Symes, of Abbotsport City Council,

  for your good work in swiftly recovering the personal

  property stolen from his residence on the night of 31

  March last. Councillor Symes particularly praised

  your work in conversation with the Chief Constable

  at yesterday’s meeting of the Police Committee. I am

  happy to inform you that, although the Chief

  Constable feels that Councillor Symes’s request that

  you receive a Commendation at a public ceremony at

  which he would be present is one that he cannot

  pursue in justice to other officers, Councillor Symes’s

  praise for your work on the case is being entered on

  your Record of Service.

  Yours faithfully,

  R. J. Parkinson, Chief Inspector

  He almost laughed aloud.

  Councillor Arthur Symes. Pompous git. Still, do no harm having that on his record. Might come in handy one day, if ever he found a Misconduct Form on his desk rather than a fancy notepaper letter from the Chief Constable’s Staff Officer. Allegation of something like improperly receiving financial reward in consideration of failing to carry out an investigation to its fullest extent.

  And the letter’ll be something to tell my Lil about when I get home tonight. Always likes hearing about any bits of good come my way.

  Sometimes, he added to himself gloomily, things like that help when she gets to feeling, if she did have to have married anyone in the police, she ought to have fixed on someone who’d go shooting up higher than I ever will. What she’d like, perhaps, would be to be someone like Mrs Chief Constable’s Staff Officer. Or, maybe not married to a high flyer like that—just come from the Met, hadn’t he, CI Parkinson? - but at least to be the wife of someone taking home an inspector’s pay. She might have some hope then of retirement days on her Pacific island.

  Well, she ain’t never going to get to anywhere like that with Detective Sergeant Stallworthy. Not when about the best I can do is take a thousand quid off a shitbag like Norman Teggs, Video Magic. Christ, wouldn’t it be good to have a nasty piece of work like him bang to rights one day, with maybe a whole firm along with him, and not to feel then I’d got to lay my hands on whatever I could squeeze out of the sod. Just for once to carry out a major investigation right to the end. No mucking about. Put Norman Teggs and all his mates, whoever they might be, where they deserve.

  And—if you’re going to have a nice pipe-dream, have a good one—at the same time, in some mysterious way, I could find coming down from heaven the really big sum I need. Real Pacific island stuff.

  Only, that’d more likely be coming up from hell.

  And now there’s poor old Jinkie Morrison doing time once again. And smug bugger Symes particularly praising what I got tricked into doing for him.

  It was thoughts like those that made it all the sweeter when, just a fortnight later, he heard that the big boss, Detective Superintendent Detch himself, had gone to arrest Councillor Arthur Symes and had charged him with a long list of financial irregularities at the Abbotsport headquarters of the Fisheries Development Authority where he held the post of Chief Purchasing Officer.

  This time, when always-joking DC Hoskins told him the news, he did laugh aloud.

  Chapter Five

  Jack had thought such dealings as he had had with Councillor Arthur Symes must now be at an end. But, a few weeks later, he found he was wrong.

  It was the evening of 15 June, his twenty-ninth wedding anniversary. Rather than dipping into his nest-egg to pay for a night out, he had persuaded Lily to agree to a special supper at home, bottle of champagne, supremo pizzas from the take-away plus big sticky frozen dessert, candles on the table. He found, however, when he reached home that the economy nature of the celebration had not stopped Lily making a special visit to her new hairdresser’s. ‘Very nice lady in the next chair, knew all about Ko Samui.’

  His heart sank. Bloody Ko Sammy. That sodding island paradise would come up now. When this was at last going to be the time, soon as the bubbly had softened Lily up, to mention what, week after week, he had not found the right moment for. That he’d paid the deposit - have to confess to that seven-to-one bet - on April Cottage.

  But he couldn’t put off telling her much longer. Wouldn’t be an opportunity as good as this for weeks to come.

  So, as they ate, he chatted cheerfully about this and that. And all the time watched the reactions on the opposite side of the table as sharply as if his English rose was an Interview Room suspect.

  At last he judged the champagne had done the trick. Lily was a mass of giggles over his tale of how the night before, driving home, his eye had been caught by a row taking place outside one of the city’s smarter restaurants. He had pulled over and gone across. From all the yelling and swearing he’d pretty soon grasped that a yuppie-looking type, who’d obviously had more to drink over his meal with his girlfriend than he could take, had objected to another man and his wife staring at his table. In the end all four had been put out on to the pavement.

  ‘Just up my street,’ he said to Lily. ‘Section Five, Public Order Act, Abusive behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace. You can pile anything you like on to that, case comes to court. Young rich git likely to be sent down for fifteen days. Maybe more. Not at all what Mummy and Daddy would like. So it’s quieten them down a bit and lead little yuppie round the corner on his ownio. Put the facts to him. Facts plus, really. And then it’s Look, Officer-time, and fifty notes for the old nes—for Cadbury’s Roses under the aubrietia.’

  ‘Oh, Jack, you are a one.’

  And then the phone rang.

  He went over to it cautiously. Call to some urgent case? Murder, even? At just this of all moments.

  ‘Hello?’ He fought back a champagne belch.

  ‘Detective Sergeant Stallworthy?’

  A woman’s voice. Not one he recognized. Young, but no schoolgirl. Definite hint of seductiveness there.

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘I understand you were the officer who investigated a burglary at the home of Councillor Arthur Symes recently. Am I right?’

  ‘Who are you? What’s all this about?’

  ‘Nothing to be worried over, Sergeant. All perfectly simple. I have got some information about that business I think you would find of interest.’

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Could you drop in on me? Say, tomorrow evening? And I’ll tell you about it.’

  This has gone too bloody far.

  ‘Madam, if you have information concerning a criminal act you should report it to Abbotsport Central Police Station.’

  ‘But it’s not really as important as that, you see. Just something I think the detective who went to Councillor Symes’s house might be interested to learn. Couldn’t you really just drop by for a few minutes tomorrow evening?’

  What is this? Can’t really be a woman wanting a bit of off-the-ration how’s-your-father, even if it sounds like it. Certainly not if she’s got any idea what I look like, sight fatter than I ought
to be, permanently red in the bloody face, puff and pant at the least effort.

  But she does know I’m a detective sergeant, and that I went out to old Symes’s place that time. So she must know a bit about me. Must have got to know something about me, though God knows why she’d want to.

  ‘Look, madam, what is this?’

  ‘But I told you, Mr Stallworthy. It’s just the most trifling thing. But I think you’d be interested. Please, just pop in tomorrow. It’s a flat in a block called Seaview. Number fifteen. That’s on North Esplanade.’

  ‘Yeah, know it.’

  ‘Then I’ll see you tomorrow. Any time after six.’

  ‘Wait. Wait. What’s your name?’

  ‘Oh, you won’t know me, Sergeant. But it’s Foxton. Anna Foxton.’

  And the phone was put down.

  ‘What was all that?’ Lily asked.

  ‘Oh, just something. Informant. Sort of.’

  ‘You haven’t got to go out, have you, Jackie? Not tonight?’

  ‘No, no. No, let’s finish the bubbly, enjoy ourselves.’

  But, he saw, the bubbly was finished already. And somehow the atmosphere had changed.

  It no longer seemed anything like the right time to tell Lily that after retirement it would never be far away, exotic, financially out-of-reach Ko Whatsit. Just a new-built bungalow in a cluster of others on the edge of Torquay. For all that it went by the name of April Cottage.

  *

  All next day he was in two minds about going to see this mysterious and mystery-making Anna Foxton. How could she know anything worth hearing about Jinkie Morrison’s break-in at Symes’s place? Or was it that she knew something about Symes and the business at the Fisheries. Development Authority? About what had led to his arrest? Well, if she did, it was Detective Chief Superintendent Detch she should be trying to contact. None of that was anything to do with him. And she had asked if he was the one who investigated the Symes burglary. No, she must just be some sort of a nutter, little though she’d sounded like it.

  If something comes up and I’m busy, he told himself eventually, I’ll forget all about going to see her. Silly cow. Almost for a cert there’s nothing in it. If anyone says Come for a pint at five o’clock, that’ll be it definitely.

  But no one did and he was tasked with nothing all afternoon. So, just after six, he was ringing the bell of Flat 15 in Seaview Mansions, North Esplanade, perched up above the port. A reasonably well-kept block, if not exactly the peak of luxury. Strip of carpet along the corridor. Lift had been in order, thank goodness. Even climbing a couple of flights of stairs was more than he liked these days. One-bedroom flats, from the look of it. Doors along the passage pretty close together.

  So what’s this Anna Foxton going to turn out to be? Secretary somewhere? Able to support herself, if not in much style. Almost for a cert unmarried, small flat like this. So probably that voice on the phone last night sounded more sexy than the woman I’ll get to see in just a moment.

  He was on the point of putting his finger on the bellpush once more when the door opened. He saw at once he had been wrong. The woman who stood there, an enigmatic smile on her face, was dead sexy.

  Although she was a brunette with a cloud of loose hair surrounding an ivory pale, pointed-chin face, she reminded him instantly of Lily as she had been when he first knew her. Not at all like her, really. She was somehow more together than bubbly, don’t-give-a-damn Lily had ever managed to be. Svelte, that was the word for this lady. No golden curls like Lily’s, of course. No coconut-icing complexion either. Not much in the way of any likeness in the face, come to that. But small-built. Petite. If not quite the same build as Lily, but—this was it, this was what made him think of Lil - giving out from every inch of her the feeling Woman.

  He felt a rush of sweat spring up.

  Was this going to be some sort of seduction scene after all? But why? What had he got, what could he possibly have, that could have made a woman like this determined to get him into bed?

  ‘Mr Stallworthy, I presume.’

  A hint of laughter in that. Somehow he knew then that the seduction of Jack Stallworthy was not what was on the agenda.

  ‘Yep. I’m Detective Sergeant Stallworthy.’

  Make it plain he was police. That there was going to be no mucking about.

  ‘Well, come in, then. It’s good of you to have made the time.’

  She stepped back and preceded him through a tiny patch of hallway with closed doors to either side and on into the flat’s sitting-room.

  He took in the furniture. Nothing very much, but reasonably decent. Sofa and two smallish armchairs in some sort of brown velvety material. A table, presumably to eat at, up against one wall. A matching sideboard, with on it, he was glad to see, an array of bottles on a tray. Low tables beside the armchairs. Nice big picture window with a view out across the sea.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now what’s all this about Councillor Symes?’

  She smiled. More warmly than before.

  ‘Sergeant,’ she said, ‘I’m afraid I’ve brought you here on false pretences. The fact is that there’s someone waiting who particularly wants to meet you.’

  He felt a prickle of something between suspicion and fear.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Mr Warnaby, Emslie Warnaby. I dare say you know him. Know of him.’

  Of course he did. Something about Emslie Warnaby almost every day in the Argus. The boss of Abbotputers plc, the enormous outfit that twenty years before had rescued the city from dying on its feet when the fisheries began to fail. The personal computers it churned out by the thousand now gave employment, one way and another, to half the town. With yet more to come when the firm launched some big new system it had been going on about in the press for the past year or so.

  And it came to him abruptly what Anna Foxton must be. Of course. Emslie Warnaby’s mistress. This was why she was living in a flat in this particular, anonymous block. And, yes, mistress was the exact word for her. Not girl-friend, not secretary having it off twice a week, but mistress. Substitute wife.

  ‘Emslie,’ she called. ‘Come through.’

  Behind him, the door on the right of the minihallway opened and Emslie Warnaby stepped out and came into the room.

  He looked no different from the photos in the Argus. Heavily built. A dark suit that shouted out to the last stitch: tailor-made, best cloth only. A sombre-looking face, dark with good living. Every one of its thickly blunt features, short nose, jutting chin, touring black eyebrows, saying power. A presence.

  Easy to see how someone like this would have pushed and fought his way to success. Pushed and fought Abbotputers to its commanding share of the market for small computers, in Britain, in Europe.

  ‘Good evening, Sergeant. I expect you’re wondering what all this is about. How I got to know your name? How I knew you had been the investigating officer when Councillor Symes’s house was burgled?’

  He stopped, indicated the bottles on the sideboard.

  ‘But won’t you sit down? Can Anna get you a drink?’

  For an instant Jack was undecided.

  Something odd here. Best just to say I’m sorry but I’ve got to go? Fuck the drink.

  But at once he knew he would stay. For all that instinctively he distrusted everything about the Abbotputers boss, he could not leave without hearing the answers to the questions Emslie Warnaby had put into his mouth.

  ‘Thanks very much,’ he said, taking the nearer of the two armchairs. ‘I wouldn’t mind a whisky. Small one.’

  He looked at little Anna Foxton as she hurried over to the sideboard - plain that Emslie Warnaby gave the orders, and expected them to be instantly obeyed - and poured the whisky, just turning to him as she did so with another of her edge-of-mocking smiles.

  J&B Rare, he noticed.

  ‘Emslie?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Not for me. Not just yet. You pour yourself something.’

  ‘No, I’ll wait too.’

 
Emslie Warnaby did not sit down.

  ‘Let me get the matter of knowing you out of the way first,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll see more clearly why I wanted you here.’

  So this was a summons from the big boss. However eager to get him Anna Foxton had made herself sound.

  Emslie Warnaby pursed his heavy lips for an instant.

  ‘I first happened to hear about you,’ he said, ‘from Chief Inspector Parkinson, your Chief Constable’s staff officer. It so happens that Richard Parkinson has the cottage at the end of the grounds out at my place in Chillingford. I was dining your Chief a few months ago and he told me that Parkinson, who’d just come up from London, was having some difficulty finding somewhere decent to live. So we offered him the cottage.’

  Another bloody world, Jack thought. What if old Lil had managed, after all, to marry some high-flyer like CI Parkinson? Being talked about at dinner by the Chief and this top dog? Having a cottage in his grounds - grounds, for God’s sake - offered to her? She wouldn’t have lasted six months, poor Lil.

  But he said nothing.

  Emslie Warnaby went on.

  ‘We’ve had Richard and his wife for a meal once or twice, and on the last occasion I happened to mention that Arthur Symes - this was before he ran into his current piece of trouble - had been telling me how he had secured a commendation or something of the sort for the detective sergeant who, the very next morning after his house had been burgled, had caught the man who did it.’

  A sniggle of puzzlement ran through Jack’s head.

  All right, thanks to bloody Jane Lane’s interference, I did get a quick result on the Symes break-in. But anyone in the police must know that’d be as much by luck as anything. So why all this about telling CI Parkinson about it?

  ‘When I mentioned the matter,’ Emslie Warnaby went on, ‘Richard simply laughed. Oh, yes, he said to me, that idiot Symes made such a fuss about Sergeant Stallworthy that we had to do something. So we sent Stallworthy a nice letter. But the fact of the matter is, that, as I found out as soon as I looked at his record, Stallworthy’s an absolute disgrace to the force. No one’s ever been able to catch him out, but it’s perfectly clear he’s dishonest as the day’s long. As rotten an apple as we’ve got.’