The Bad Detective

by H. R. F. Keating

  They entered the deserted, echoing building and made their way to the canteen. There Mrs Alexander hung her coat over the back of a chair at the table nearest the kitchen entrance and opened up her umbrella to dry.

  ‘Now you sit there, Mr Stallworth. Take the weight off. I won’t be no longer than five minutes ‘fore we have that cuppa.’

  Jack sat himself down, thinking what a nice old lady Ma Alexander was.

  How fair on her was it to trick her into letting him into the Fraud Investigation offices? She’d know it was something she shouldn’t do. Still, they were friends, and he ought to be able to blarney her into turning a blind eye for once.

  What a curse, when she’d asked him why he needed to be up here so early, he had produced that stupid story about having to see Doc Smith. If he’d told her he’d left something important in Mac MacAllister’s office the day before, she’d probably have happily handed him the key.

  Or would she have insisted on going up there with him? Perhaps she would. She was a conscientious old duck. He remembered, from her canteen days, how she had once got into a heck of a state because her till was eightpence short at the end of the day and she had no money on her to put it right.

  Luckily he had heard her moaning and complaining and had lent her a ten-pence. Ever afterwards he had been well in her good books.

  She seemed to be taking her time out there in the kitchen, though. Probably found some washing-up not done, or something.

  And then the thought of her coat, folded across the back of the chair opposite, suddenly tapped at his mind. What had he seen the morning before, watching her at the bus-stop? Nothing else than her tugging her fat purse out of her coat pocket while she waited for the bus to arrive.

  What was more likely than the purse was in the pocket of that coat now? With in it, besides her money, the bunch of keys she had as head cleaner?

  He got up carefully, lifting his tubular chair so that it made no scraping sound on the tiled floor. Noiselessly as he could he crept over to the archway leading into the kitchens.

  And, yes, as he had guessed, from inside came the clatter of dishes being washed up.

  Should be good for a minute or two more, and, if she found he wasn’t there when she came back, she’d think he’d gone to the bog or something.

  A dart into the uppermost pocket of the worn beige coat. Nothing. Twist the coat over and wriggle a hand into the other pocket.

  Pay dirt. His fingers closed round the heavy weight of an old leather purse. Pull it out. Click it open.

  Pay dirt. Pay dirt. Pay dirt. A big, big bunch of keys.

  Snitch the keys. Click the purse closed. Shove it into the pocket again. Turn the coat back over. Just as it was? Hard to say. But no time in any case for the niceties.

  Bloody pity I got nothing on me, take an impression of whichever key it is. Still there ought to be time, if I’m quickish, get up to that office, use the key itself. Could be all done in five minutes. With luck.

  He left the canteen at a trot.

  Thunder up the broad stairs to the first floor. And there it was in front of him. The locked door with on it the sign Fraud Investigation Branch. Just as soon as he had it open and had nipped through the outer office - no lock on Mac’s own door – there would be that old cupboard, all the seized documents from the Fisheries Development Authority crammed into it. With well to the fore, plain to see, easy to snatch, a slim blue-coloured folder.

  But first find the key for this door here.

  My God, how many are there? All Yales, all the bloody same. And half of ‘em without even a label. Plus, most of the others with the labels looking halfrubbed out.

  He sorted through fast as he could, peering hard at each rubbed tag as he came to it.

  Fuck. No Fraud Investigation Branch. Definitely. Only one thing, then—try all the unmarked ones. I suppose old Ma Alexander knows which is which. By the feel. Some little blotch or other. But no way I can tell. Just trial and error.

  Ram each one in turn into the lock, try to twist it, yank it out. Lot of trials. As many bloody errors.

  Still, only three to go. So in a sec—

  ‘Mr Stallworth! What you doing?’

  He jerked round, the big bunch of keys still in his hand.

  Must look like a kid in school, caught smoking.

  Bloody feel like one, too.

  ‘Oh, it’s you. I—er—’

  ‘You took those keys out of my purse, Mr Stallworth. Somehow another, I knew something wasn’t right with my coat. An’ then I remember. Heard footsteps goin’ out, run-running. Thought you mus’ be short taken.’

  ‘Yes. Well, you’re right that’s what—’

  Mrs Alexander shook her head underneath her jammed-on old red hat.

  ‘No, you was not,’ she said. ‘You was taking them keys entrusted to me. En-trusted.’

  What could he say? That En-trusted showed just how strongly she must feel about her keys. The keys for office after office in Police Headquarters put into her trust.

  So what would she do now? She could easily feel she should report me. To, say, bloody Noble Cutts in Admin. And then …? Then will it all come out? Emslie Warnaby, and what I agreed to do so’s to be given that hotel on Ko Samui?

  And who’ll get the sticky end of it all, when it comes down to it? Not Emslie Warnaby, friend of the Chief, and CI Parkinson, staff officer, in his pocket. Cottage down at the bottom of his garden. His grounds. No, it’ll be stupid old Jack Stallworthy. No time at all, drawing a helmet from stores and pounding the streets again. If not worse.

  ‘Look,’ he said, trying for some sort of a smile. ‘Look, I know I didn’t ought to have done it. But no harm’s done, eh? I mean, I never even got into this office, did I?’

  She looked back at him, unbendingly.

  ‘But you come up here to do jus’ that. You had it in your head to do it the whole time. If I hadn’t of heard you running out like that, if I hadn’t notice’ that coat of mine all in a mess, then you’d of gone into that office, done whatever it was you want. Something you sure didn’t ought. That for certain.’

  ‘No. No, look, I wasn’t really going to do anything wrong. Listen, I’ll tell you what it was. I left something in there by mistake when I dropped in for a chat with Mac MacAllister yesterday. Something I wanted urgent. That’s all it was.’

  ‘Mr Stallworth, it weren’t no such thing, an’ don’t you try to tell me no different. Why you say you was coming here to see Doc Smith, if that was the true reason? When you was saying that, I thought you was choosing a funny time come see the doc. No, no. You was lying, Mr Stallworth. You was lying to Grace Alexander. If you was wanting something you lef in that office, why, thing to do was up an’ ask me let you in. I might of done that, too. Go in with you, see you weren’t up to no naughty business. But, yes, I’d of let you in.’

  He licked his lips.

  ‘But couldn’t you … Listen, we’ve been friends a long time, ain’t we? So couldn’t you just let me in there now? I—’ He felt the tiniest snicker of hope. ‘I could just pick up that file I left in there, blue folder sort of thing, and no one need know no more about it.’

  ‘Mr Stallworth.’

  It was a blank dismissal.

  A sudden memory of his teacher in infants’ class came back to him. She had had just such a way of putting a stop to nonsense. Then it had been John! not Mr Stallworth! but it had been just as definite.

  ‘Yeah, well, sorry I asked. Shouldn’t of done, I know.’

  Again under her squashed red hat she shook her head sadly.

  ‘But what’m I gonna do? That’s the question I’m asking. You know, I did ought to report this, Mr Stallworth. You know that for sure.’

  ‘But - but - Mrs Alexander—’

  For a moment he wondered whether it would be any good offering her money. How much would do it? Should it be enough really to stun her? Hundred quid, say? She had a whole string of kids and no husband about, he knew that. She could do with some ex
tra cash. Couple of hundred?

  But he knew, too, that not even two hundred quid would influence her. Not the lady who thought the end of the world had come because she was eight pence short in her till.

  And then … Then a glimmer of a thought came to him. Could it be? Would it …?’

  ‘Mrs Alexander,’ he said. ‘Look, I’m truly sorry for what I did. I know it was wrong. It was just one stupid moment. So can’t you forget it? Forget it ever happened? Look, I’d like to do something for you. For you and the kids. Show I’m really sorry. Listen, will you let me bring you round a big, big box of chocs? Bring it round tonight?’

  Would she? Wouldn’t she?

  It hung in the balance. He could see the doubts on her face. The slight frown on the broad forehead under her hat. Big thick lips pursed in thought.

  Then …

  ‘Okay, Mr Stallworth. You say you’re sorry, I forget all about it—soon as me an’ the kids have finished them chocs. But mind you make that box one really really big one.’

  Chapter Eight

  Ringing the doorbell of Mrs Alexander’s flat that evening, really-really big box of chocolates precariously balanced on his other hand, Jack heard from inside two young, angry male voices hard at it in a shouting match plus what sounded like three small girls squealing in shared laughter over whatever was on TV. He wondered whether Ma Alexander would even know he had rung the bell.

  But it seemed she was used to the noise because in half a minute the door was opened.

  Wordlessly Jack pushed the big, glossy box forward.

  Mrs Alexander took it, and shook her head sadly.

  ‘Mr Stallworth,’ she said, ‘you never did ought to have done that this morning.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I know. But …’

  ‘Now, you be a good boy after this, long as you live.’

  ‘Okay. Yes, yes. I’ll try.’

  But, making his way down the stone steps to the street, he hardly thought of the feeble promise he had made. There was no question of keeping it, of even trying to see how he could keep it. He was committed to being a bad boy. By what Emslie Warnaby had pressured him into. By what now after so many tight for-cash years he could do for Lily. He was committed into being more of a bad boy than he had ever been. Than he had ever thought of himself as being.

  And all he could think of, as he tramped across the concrete wasteland outside Mrs Alexander’s block, was that he had got away with it. Got away with that terrible bungled attempt on the blue folder.

  Got away with it, that was, in so far as he had dealt with the threat of exposure Mrs Alexander held over him. What he had not done, he admitted sourly, was to get away with the blue folder. He had no hope now of ever wheedling his way to his goal through Mrs Alexander and her bunch of keys. No hope of persuading her. No hope of tricking her. She knew he had wanted, for some reason he was not going to tell her, to get inside the Fraud Investigation offices. Nothing now would persuade her to help him. Nothing would stop her, whenever the two of them happened to meet, guarding like a lioness those keys she had been entrusted with.

  If he was to earn that paradise for Lily, so near and so immovably far away, he would have to think of some other method of doing it altogether. And there was no method he had been able to think of in all the days earlier when he had tussled and tussled with the problem.

  Then, plodding wearily in at his own door, he was greeted by Lily calling out from the sitting-room, ‘Phone went for you, love, bout ten minutes ago.’

  ‘Not bloody Mr Detch sending me out to some tuppenny-ha’penny break-in again?’ he asked, still too heavy with depression to go over and give her his customary peck of a kiss.

  ‘No, it was a lady. Wouldn’t give her name. Said she’d ring back shortly.’

  She took a chocolate from the box he had bought for her earlier, a box not really-really big, but not exactly small either.

  ‘Funny,’ she said, tongue thick with sweet stickiness, ‘thought the voice was familiar. Couldn’t place it though. Kept thinking. Quite spoilt Holiday Time on telly.’

  ‘Sorry about that.’

  But he knew now - never mind hard evidence - just whose that voice had been. Familiar to Lily from, of course, the hairdresser’s. The nice lady in the next chair. Bloody Anna Foxton. Anna, who looked so like his own little Lily, or, dark and different as she was, somehow so like the way Lily had looked in their first days together.

  The phone rang again just as they were opening up the pizzas Lily had bought for their supper in front of the TV. One of her favourite films was on the Movie Channel, Dangerous Moonlight. But he was not ready with anything to say in answer to the query he knew Anna Foxton would face him with.

  ‘Mr Stallworthy?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘It’s Anna Foxton. I’m calling to ask what progress you’re making. He would like a report.’

  He. He. Bloody Emslie Warnaby. Wanting whatever he decides he wants now, this minute if not sooner. Well, too bad. Let him wait. Let him bloody wait. For once in his life.

  ‘Well, there ain’t been no progress. It’s not as easy as kiss-my-arse, you know.’

  ‘All right, I dare say there are certain difficulties. But Em—But he needs to know that you are taking steps. Active steps.’

  ‘I’m doing what I can. Can’t do more than that.’

  ‘That’s all very well, but we must be sure something’s happening. Or we may have to—Is your wife in the room, Mr Stallworthy?’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Well, perhaps I needn’t say any more. I’ll ring again shortly and hope you’ll have something definite to tell me then. Don’t forget, July the sixteenth’s the very last day we’re willing to wait until.’

  ‘All right.’

  He slammed the phone down.

  It was not all right. It was far from all right. If svelte little Anna Foxton was going to sit herself down next to Lily in the hairdresser’s once again and tell her how Ko Samui and all its fancy pleasures was in his power to give her, he would be done for twice over. Bad enough to have Anna, and bloody Emslie Warnaby, on his back. If that was all, he could still tell himself it was possible to call the whole thing off. Just. Do what he could to dive from under. But if Lily knew … If Lily knew that heart’s desire of hers was there, almost in touching distance, then there would be no rest for him till he had done what he had to do to earn it.

  And, if he was ever to get hold of that sodding blue folder - if he could ever think of how it could be done - there was only one way to go about it. Carefully.

  He’d learnt that in CID if he’d learnt nothing else. Think things out before you go leaping in. Make sure of everything it’s possible to make sure of. After that don’t hang about. But, beforehand, plan. Think. Work out where the snags are. Otherwise nine times out of ten you go off at half-cock.

  It worked over feeling a collar. And, come to that, it worked when what you wanted to do was let someone know their collar was going to be felt, unless … But go about things all in a bloody rush and, often as not, you came unstuck. Fast.

  He went back to his chair muttering, ‘Some nutter of a woman,’ in case Lil’s attention had been distracted from the TV. His cooling pizza had got leathery as a shoe sole. After one mouthful he pushed the plate aside.

  So in the days that followed he was back once more to thinking and thinking. July the sixteenth, July the sixteenth. The date hammered at his mind. Far enough away just now. But all too soon it would be rushing towards him.

  July the sixteenth, when, with Warnaby’s wife safely installed at her parents’ in the south, Emslie and his little mistress could go gallivanting off on holiday. Where to? The Far East? Singapore, just as it was shown on the telly, all dazzling sights, fantastic food, Raffles Hotel and God knows what else? Wherever. South of France. West Indies. That fat cat could go anywhere. Anywhere, as soon as he was safe in the knowledge that those letters Arthur Symes had put into that special blue file were in his hands. The
letters that must give away whatever dirty business Symes and he had agreed on when Symes had been taken yachting in the sun, living the high life Singapore way. Ko Samui way.

  And, before even the faintest hint of an answer to his problem had come to him, going into work on the next Monday, he realized it was 24 June. He had used up a week, more than a week, of the month Emslie Warnaby had allowed. And had got bloody nowhere.

  Slouching despondently to his desk, he was conscious that at the far end of the room the Guv’nor was giving him a look of scowling displeasure.

  All right, he pretty well deserved it. The whole of the past week he had done damn all, nothing he hadn’t been specifically tasked with. Always, in the ordinary way, if there was no particular crime down to him to detect he’d be out and about himself. Nothing he liked better than sniffing round Abbotsport’s criminals, drinking with one lot in some pub or club and getting the dope on what a rival firm was up to. And then going to the second mob and learning about the ill-doings of the first. Either to add to his record of arrests, or, if that was the way it panned out, to add a little something to the nest-egg under the aubrietia. Flowers beginning to be past their best now.

  But there should be no need for any more little somethings, he thought, to add dribs and drabs to the Cadbury’s Roses tin.

  Make up your mind to it. You’re going to get what’ll make that tin totally useless. More than you ever in your wildest dreams hoped for. Those notes-rustling thank-yous for turning the blind eye, for putting in a cooked-up good word to the magistrates when someone who’s been ‘good’ to you is hovering on the brink of a tough sentence.

  Except I’m not going to be getting that big - no point in ducking the word - that big bribe. Not unless somehow I can get into Mac MacAllister’s office.

  He sat at his desk staring unseeingly at the notice-board opposite with its pinned-up instructions, yellowed with age or white and fresh, plus the odd bright-coloured postcard from someone off on holiday and the cartoons cut from the newspapers, the point of their joke long forgotten. Vaguely in the background he was aware of the Guv’nor’s phone ringing, even of his voice barking questions down the line. But now suddenly he realized his own name was being shouted out.