The Bad Detective

by H. R. F. Keating

  Well, a not-too-bad detective.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was only the next evening when Jack’s world, seemingly - when he had paid the Costa Loadsa’s massive bill - safely set on a secure course, was turned in a moment upside down.

  He had had a day of mixed fortunes. In the morning he had gone out on an aggravated burglary case, a woman battered and tied up while a couple of young tearaways ransacked the house. The place was up near Anna Foxton’s block of flats, and, for a moment, he had considered stopping there and, if Emslie Warnaby’s svelte little mistress was at home, telling her straight out that he was no longer in the business of being bribed. But second thoughts prevailed.

  No, let the little bitch wait. She’ll be ringing up soon enough. He would welcome a full report. Well, he’ll get his report then, and it’ll be a sight fuller than he’ll like.

  At the scene of the burglary, going round talking to the neighbours, he had got from a sleepless old lady not a bad description of two youngsters she had seen running past the lamp-post opposite, lugging between them a big brown holdall. Both white, one dark-haired, the other blond. The dark one, she had said, was wearing a black leather jacket with a word in big white letters on it, a word that looked like Raider. Nothing wrong with the old lady’s eyesight; he’d checked. And one of the skinnier lad’s arms, the one nearer her, had looked as if it was withered.

  Back at the nick, half an hour going through the files had thrown up a neat description of one Mortimer Brown, known as Morty, with a withered arm and a single conviction under the Football (Offences) Act 1991. Not one of the world’s most dangerous criminals. A swift visit to Mortimer Brown’s address - in the crime-rich St Oswald Estate, where else? - had given him a sweet collar. Towered over by his irate mum, naughty Morty almost at once identified his tougher friend, Raider - ‘I told you to have nothing to do with that boy, but you never listen to a word your mother says, do you?’ - and snivellingly claimed it was this mate of his who had kept the loot. Once Morty had been dealt with, slamming the Raider on that black leather jacket against a wall a couple of times had produced the brown holdall from—guess where—the attic of the house. Beginning-in-crime Raider with a lot to learn from Jinkie Morrison.

  And in the holdall, besides all the goods, there was something over two hundred pounds in cash. Half of which there had been no need to hand over as evidence.

  The afternoon had not gone so swimmingly. He had decided to have another go at Herbie Cuddy. Little though he wanted to.

  Tramping up the path to the house - garden wall crudely knocked down to let a wreck of an old van in - he felt his dislike of the fellow redoubled by the sight of the straggle of sour and neglected plants fighting for life in what remained of the garden. But at least when he hammered at the door Herbie opened it.

  He was no naughty Morty to get hauled over the coals by his mum, however, nor was he a Raider to cave in after being slammed against a wall a couple of times. He stood squarely blocking the doorway. Look of disgusted contempt on his round-as-a-football head. A football beginning to lose its pumped-in air, topped by a frizzle of blondish hair. Two little blue squinting eyes. A tiny mouth pinched up in a permanent wet kiss.

  ‘Bloody Jack Stallworthy. What you want?’

  ‘What I always want, Herbie, my friend. Turn over your drum.’

  ‘Well, you can fuck off for a start.’

  ‘Okay. And I’ll come back with a warrant, and plenty of lads in blue.’

  ‘Clever sod, ain’t you?’

  ‘Yep. That about sums me up.’

  ‘All right, then, why you want to go poking your snotty nose in my place?’

  ‘I’m looking for an angel, me old mate.’

  And at once the quick glance to the side told him his guess had been right. It had definitely been Herbie who one night—but which night? Trust the old Vicar not to have noticed for days or even weeks what he’d lost - had got up on to the roof of the Abbey church and prised that angel gargoyle from its base. Then had got down to the ground with it, weighty as it must be. And now, almost for a cert after the days that must have passed, had it safely flogged to some half-bent dealer somewhere miles away.

  Without a precise date for the theft, it would be no use asking Herbie where he had been at such-and-such a time. Not that, when asked, he wouldn’t have lied himself black and blue. But, no genius our Herbie, you could always hope to trip him up on the porkies he was telling. Or he might have something in the house that would be evidence, of a sort.

  ‘What angel? What you bleeding talking about? You always was a prat at school, Jack Stallworthy, and you ain’t no better now.’

  ‘I’ll prat you, Herbie, my friend.’

  ‘Oh, you will, will you? You and who else? And I ain’t no friend of yours neither. I’ll tell you that for nothing. I never much liked you first day we was in Infants together. And after that time you and your poncy mates done me up in the playground I’ve hated your bloody guts. An’ that’s a fac’.’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve exactly loved you, Herbie. But that don’t mean I ain’t going to come in and turn your place over. Looking for an angel, stone, one for the use of.’

  ‘Dunno what you’re on about. But if you want ter look round the place, feel fucking free. No skin off my nose.’ The cockiness had told him that, search as he might, he was not going to find any sort of evidence. No scrawled address of some crafty dealer, no traces of scraped stone somewhere, no wrappings with something on them for Forensic to hop up and down about. So he had given Herbie one final glare and told him he’d come back before long.

  It had been a defeat, and he knew it. But there had been no way to mark up any sort of a victory.

  Parking at home behind Lily’s little bright red Mini, still looking almost as good as when years ago he’d succumbed to the bed strike and got it for her - no wonder, since all she did in it was go to the supermarket - he decided to wait till after supper to put his hundred quid in undeclared evidence into the Cadbury’s Roses tin. He might do it when he went round with the watering-can, and take the chance too to nip off a few dead heads. This time of year it was light till nearly ten.

  So he went straight in to see Lily, ready to give her his customary peck on the cheek and settle down for some chat and a read of the Argus. Only for her to bounce out of her big chair the moment he came through the door.

  ‘Hello, love,’ he said, a flicker of perplexity going through him.

  ‘Jack Stallworthy, let me tell you right out. I’ve had a phone call about you.’

  Even then he failed completely to grasp the situation.

  ‘Phone call? About me? Who …? Hey, what’s up?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s up. It’s all up with you. It’s all up between you and me.’

  ‘Christ, love, what’re you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying that a certain lady I’ve sat next to at the hairdresser’s once or twice got on to me on the phone. God knows how she found out who I was or where I lived, but she did. And she told me something about you, Jack. Something you’ve been taking bloody good care to keep from me for weeks and weeks.’

  Then he knew. He saw it all in a moment. The deadline bloody Emslie Warnaby had given him now only a few days away. Emslie furious with impatience. His pint-sized mistress told the time had come to tell Lily what was on offer. And finally the call to the familiar number when he was bound to be out and Lily likely to be at home.

  So now she knew all about the Calm Seas Hotel on Ko Samui, and how it could be theirs. Once he’d got hold of a blue folder.

  ‘Listen, love,’ he said cautiously. ‘Listen, I know all about that woman, and I’m not saying she was telling you a pack of lies. But I am saying you don’t want to trust her. What exactly did she say to you? How much did she tell you?’

  ‘She told me everything, and don’t you think you can get away with it by trying to blacken Anna. She and I had a good heart-to-heart, and I know a lot of things about you now, Jack Stal
lworthy, things I didn’t know before.’

  ‘Well, all right. So you know there was a chance of us ending up living the life of Riley on your precious Ko Whatsit. But did she tell you what the price of that was? Did she tell you what I had to do? And who I had to do it for?’

  ‘Yes, she did. Just you getting hold of some silly folder belonging to Mr Emslie Warnaby—he’s the boss at Abbotputers, isn’t he? - a folder that got taken away by mistake. Nothing more than that. Dead simple. And don’t you go saying Your precious Ko Whatsit. It’s Ko Samui. Ko Samui. And it may be precious, but it’s not just mine. It’s ours. Our precious Ko Samui. And you were doing damn all about seeing we got there. Damn all.’

  Then he felt the flame of rage.

  It was not often Lily really got under his skin. He knew his English rose had thorns on her - none better - but all during whatever spats they had had, he had always known in the back of his mind that she was his Lily and that he never would willingly hurt her.

  But now he had been hit too hard. All his feeling of being on the right side again—despite the hundred quid bulging his inside pocket—the feelings that had flooded through him from the moment he had definitely decided he was not going to take Emslie Warnaby’s folder, were now being made to crumble like a landslip on a cliff edge.

  ‘Damn all? Damn all?’ he shouted. ‘Christ, I only did a right nasty thing and stole the keys to the Fraud Office where that fucking folder is from that nice old Mrs Alexander. I only had to wriggle and squirm to someone I’d always liked to get out of that, when she found me trying to find the right one. I only tried to bribe the clerk there, and made a right prat of myself doing it. I only got myself thrown out of the place by Mac MacAllister, had my nose bloody rubbed right in it. I was only caught red-handed inside later on, and lucky not to find myself on a Form 163. Let alone put in fucking gaol. And you call that damn all.’

  But he knew, while every word was spilling out, that none of it was what was really getting to him.

  What had in a moment dropped a black bucket of darkness down on to him was that now he would no longer be a not-so-bad detective.

  Because now he was going to have to take Emslie Warnaby’s bribe. He was going to have to - somehow, somehow - get that blue folder.

  He would not be able to resist Lily. In the end.

  He never had been able to when it came to it. All right, when she’d gone on bedroom strike about the car, he’d fought her for more than a month. But she had won in the end. And it had not been just the strike that had done it. It had been because, when all was said and done, he could refuse her nothing. There had been other times too. Not so bad as the car strike. But in the end he had always knuckled under.

  And it was not because she was the tougher one, either. It was because, sod it all, he loved her. Always had. Always would.

  But perhaps if he told her the real truth …?

  If he said now it wasn’t because he’d tried to get Warnaby’s bloody folder and had failed that he had told her last night it was Devon and April Cottage for them? Said that it was because at the last he hadn’t been able to make himself take Warnaby’s fat bribe. Perhaps, if he told her that now, she would relent. See it his way. See he couldn’t do what, under pressure, he’d agreed to in that damn little flat up at Seaview Mansions. Perhaps she would.

  ‘Look, love. I don’t know if you understand all there is to it. That Anna of yours got me up to her flat, flat Emslie Warnaby’s put her into, in fact. And the big boss himself came in and offered me this hotel, exactly where your friend Anna had found out from you was your favourite place in all the world. Right, I said at the time I’d do it. I’d take that fat big bribe he was offering. But I’ve thought about it since, and I can’t do that. Oh, yes, I know, I’ve taken bribes before. Bribes, right. No messing about with pansy words. But they never were for money that really mattered. Otherwise we wouldn’t be keeping it all in a ruddy sweet tin in the garden. No, what I took I only took from criminals who deserved to have something done to them. Or I just snitched some cash that had been snitched by someone else already. None of that was really bad. Because I couldn’t do anything that bad. I’m a detective, love. You know that. You know what the job means to me, always has. Christ, you’ve complained of it often enough. But, you see, I couldn’t ever do nothing that would go against the whole of what I’ve been doing all my life. When it comes down to it I’m on the side of the law. The good side. And taking Emslie Warnaby’s fat bribe would put me on the other side. For ever.’

  At least she isn’t shooting me down straight away. Maybe all that - Christ, I’ve never said anything like it before, hardly really thought it - maybe it’s getting through to her …

  ‘Listen, Lily, love, I know Ko Samui’s been on your mind ever since you saw that programme on the telly. But wasn’t that idea always—Look, wasn’t it always a bit of pie in the sky? I mean, did you ever really believe we’d get there one day?’

  ‘Oh, Jack. Jack, you know I did. You know I did. How can you be so cruel? You don’t care the least bit what I feel, what I want. No, the thought of us going there, living there, it was all just too much trouble for you. Sit back and take it easy, that’s you. No thought for anyone else. Ever. Specially not for me.’

  Unjust though all that was, he kept himself in check. Was she still perhaps thinking at the back of her mind about what he’d said? How there were some things, some offers, some bribes, that in the end he just could not swallow?

  ‘No, come on, love, think,’ he said. ‘How could we ever have got enough together to get ourselves out there? Let alone be able to live there?’

  ‘But that’s it. But that’s just it. Anna told me. We’re going to get given a whole hotel. The Calm Seas Hotel. The Calm Seas. Given it. We’ll live like a - like a duke and duchess. And in the sun. In the sun with, yes, that’s it, calm seas for the rest of our lives.’

  No, she hadn’t understood. But then she never had understood, really. About him and the job. Let alone how he could both want to do the job as well as it could be done, and at the same time was prepared to let a criminal go free every now and again if the money was right and it could be done without come-backs.

  But he must go on. Keep on trying to persuade her to settle for Devon. For April Cottage and what was right at the last.

  ‘Look, love, the sun shines here in England too, you know. Sometimes. And in Devon the weather’s lovely, lots of the time. Nearly all the time. All right, I know you don’t like Abbotsport. Who would? But in Devon, in April Cottage, our very own April Cottage, you’ll be happy. We’ll both be happy together.’

  ‘Not as happy as we’ll be on Ko Samui.’

  ‘Yes, we will. Well, all right, maybe we wouldn’t be. Not as happy. I suppose sunshine all the time’s fine and dandy, if you can get it. And having servants. Not needing to do a hand’s turn. But, all the same, we could be happy down there in Devon. We really could. There’s that garden to make something of. And you’d have me being there all the time. You’re always complaining you never see me, that I’m always on duty. Think of the fuss you made that night I was called out late when Councillor Symes was up in the air because his place’dbeen done.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t be at home there any more than you are now. You wouldn’t. I’ve been thinking about how it would be, living down there, ever since you told me you’d bought that place. You’ve only paid the deposit on it, you know. There’d be a bank loan to be paid off. So you’d have to get a job. Security or something. If you could even get that. And then I wouldn’t see you no more than what I do now.’

  True enough. That was something he’d been dodging. Dodging ever since April. Sort of telling himself that he’d bought April Cottage and all their troubles were over. But, of course, they weren’t. And trust Lily to think of that. She must have begun thinking that way from the moment they’d rolled out of the Costa Loadsa.

  ‘You wouldn’t, would you, Jack?’

  ‘What? Wouldn’t what?’r />
  ‘There you go. You never listen to me. Oh, all right, you pretend you do. You pretend you’re the one who does the looking after round here. But you don’t. All you really think of is Jack Stallworthy. Jack Stallworthy and that garden of yours.’

  ‘But - but you like the garden. You like the flowers I bring in from it.’

  ‘What I’d like a sight more is flowers you’d bring in from the flower shop. As if you ever do, and—’

  ‘That’s not true. Not true.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it is. Or, if it isn’t hundred per cent true, it’s true enough. And what would happen in Devon? Same blinking thing. You’d come in with a pathetic bunch of something-or-other you’d grown all on your own and expect me to say, Thank you, thank you, come to bed, my darling, come to bed. Well, I won’t. I won’t, unless I see you coming in from the hotel garden in Ko Samui with a bloody great bunch of tropical orchids. And then I might think about saying come to bed. But, unless that’s what does happen, you can forget about your nice times under the duvet. Once and for all.’

  ‘But, listen. If we were going to be given that hotel, what I’d still have to do is get hold of that folder of documents that bloody Emslie I-own-half-of-Abbotsport Warnaby doesn’t want anybody to know about. But that’s past hoping for now. Past hoping for. I’ve tried everything I could, and all I’ve done is put myself in a series of bloody hairy situations.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to think of something else, won’t you? It can’t be so difficult. Anna told me it’s only one slim file they want. You could tuck that under your coat easy, and walk right out of that place.’

  ‘Well, I can’t. What the hell does Anna fucking Foxton know about how things are up at Headquarters? I tell you I’ve tried everything, and there’s nothing more left. I can’t get at that folder.’

  ‘So you think, Jack Stallworthy. And, if you ask me, that’s the real reason why you got on your holy high horse and said you didn’t want to take a bribe. As if you haven’t taken bribes for years. As if you haven’t filled that tin out there under that clump of what-you-call-it with all the bribes you’ve taken.’