He darted back, scooped up the two pieces of his once trusty companion, shoved them into his pocket, went haring along the corridor towards the toilets and escape.
Would Herbie have gone swinging hand over hand down the ladder to the ground, have jerked the grapnel free, gone off into the moonlit night with ropes, rope-ladder, everything?
But, no.
No, thank God, the ladder was still there, hanging down from the wide open window, reaching almost to the ground.
Thrusting his head further out, he saw, below, Herbie hurriedly stuffing things into his leather bag. His tools. The tools of his trade. Which had not let him down. Which he was saving. For another day.
Quickly he knelt up on the window sill, managed to swing himself round - Christ, but it was a tight fit - and putting his legs over the side he felt and felt for the first of the ladder rungs.
Would Herbie flick at the grapnel rope now? Bring the whole lot down to the ground, himself with it? Or leave him grabbing at the window sill above and hanging there? Could he?
With his foot more or less on the rung he had felt, he let his whole body drop and then clutched hard with one hand at the ladder’s side-rope.
The ladder was holding.
Safe. Safe so far.
But what if that car, siren still shrieking, was heading directly for the back of the building?
For a brief instant he imagined its occupants leaping out, sprinting towards Herbie across the twenty yards or so of well-kept lawn between the building and the tall surrounding wall. Sprinting as, in the past, he had done himself more times than he could count in pursuit of some suspect. And in the end, with a bite of savage joy, had collared his target. Would the car’s crew now, in a minute’s time or more, go sprinting towards Herbie, collar him? And then turn to the pathetic figure dangling up above.
No. Not in sight yet.
He let himself fall again. Grabbed for an arm-tearing moment at the ladder once more. Let himself fall again.
And at last, every nerve screaming, every muscle shooting with pain, he found he was on the ground. He forced himself to look round.
Herbie at the boundary wall was just throwing his bag of tools over. A squat distorted moonlit dwarf.
Putting his head down, propelled as much by the prospect of falling flat on his face as by anything he was able to force his legs to do, he set off towards him.
Herbie, he realized as he came panting and gasping up, had failed to climb the wall. Without any convenient tree growing close by as on the far side, he had not succeeded in jumping up high enough to get a grip on the coping.
For one past-looking flash of time he saw fat little ten-year-old Herbie trying in just the same way to scale the dingier brick wall of the school playground, his own gang running towards him yelling, Thief. Get him! Thief!
Then Herbie, landing at the foot of the wall again after another unsuccessful jump, must have heard him coming up. He turned, round face glistening with sweat in the cool moonlight.
‘Christ, give me a back, quick.’
For a moment he did not understand.
‘Make a back. Make a back. Christ, you dumb fucker.’ He saw then what he had to do. And never mind if, scrambling up on him, Herbie got over, dropped down on the other side, left him to the mercy of that car crew.
He bent down, pressed one shoulder hard against the wall, braced his legs.
Herbie was on top of his back in an instant. He felt the boots inside the protecting socks dig hard into his flesh. Then they were there no longer.
He pushed himself straight, looked upwards.
Herbie was sitting astride the wall, and, yes, lowering an arm for him to take.
Good for Herbie. When it came to it…
He reached up. Grasped Herbie’s hand.
‘Sod it, don’t pull me off, you fucker.’
He put his other hand on the harsh brick as high as he could reach, hoped for some tiny bit of purchase, flung himself upwards, scrabbling with his feet at the wall’s surface. He felt Herbie, their hands entwined, heave his weight on to the far side as a counterbalance. He was off the ground. He reached up with his free arm.
And grasped the edge of the top of the wall. Herbie changed his grip, held him under the armpits.
A few seconds of confused struggling, and, the next thing he knew, he was on the ground at the far side. Shocked and winded. But safe.
‘Come on then, come on,’ Herbie yelled. ‘They’ll take it into their heads to drive round this way in a minute.’
Feeling totally devoid of any energy at all, he made himself set off behind Herbie across the field towards the gate they had climbed over on their way in.
Above, the big moon shone implacably down.
Lily, coming sleepily into the room when the row he made stumbling in had woken her, was at her best the moment she saw him.
‘Oh, Jack, what a mess you’re in. Look at your face. That’s a terrible bruise. They try to give you a pasting?’
For an instant he could not think what she was talking about. Then his brain began to work. He had told her the evening before he had to go out with a team dawn-raiding a crack house.
‘Certainly feel I’ve had a pasting. Pasting and a half.’
Let her believe the places where he had bruised himself getting down that bloody rope-ladder, scrambling over that wall, the bang he had given himself on Mac’s old cupboard when the trowel broke, were the result of a ruck with some criminals. The last thing to tell her now was how the crazy attempt to get at the blue folder had gone so horribly wrong. Christ, if she started asking questions …
But she seemed to be satisfied with what he had said.
‘Here, let me get those clothes off you. What you want is a nice hot bath. I’ll run it, soon as I’ve got you undressed. And then it’ll be out with the old bottle of witch hazel. Been a long time since you needed that.’
‘Thanks, love. You’re right. That’s what I do need. Bath, bit of tender loving care with that bottle of stuff, and then sleep.’
‘And that’s what you’re going to get, you poor old thing.’
Lying in the hot water, feeling his bruises and scratches becoming minute by minute less painful, he thought that it was at times like this, and not the times under the duvet however well they went, when he felt closest to his English rose.
But in the morning - another bloody Monday - he was still feeling the bruises and his hands were still rawly tender. His mental state was, if anything, even worse.
Much though he had longed to stay wrapped up in bed thinking of nothing, he had forced himself to get up, get into work on time. Turning up late would only draw attention to himself. The Guv’nor might start to wonder why he had given himself a lie-in. Head filled with the news about the break-in at Headquarters he might, just, just possibly, put two and two together … Especially if he happened to notice the bruises and sore hands.
In the CID Room the gossip, naturally, was all about the daring raid.
‘Ransacked the place, the cheeky fucking sods. Thousands of quids’ worth just bloody disappeared.’
‘Yeah, but they had to scarper. Left a lot of their gear behind. Some sort of ladder, I heard. Something like a firemen’s one. Great big affair.’
‘Well, it’ll be covered in dabs any road. Happy hunting ground for Fingerprints. The lads’ll be there for a week.’ Christ, he thought, the idea entering his head for the first time, Herbie’s prints on that grapnel they’d had to leave behind, or the pulley. Jesus, if they find anything, who’s most likely to be sent out to bring Herbie in? Fellow who knows most about him. Fucking Jack Stallworthy. And who won’t dare bring in someone who’d blow the gaff soon as he’d put one foot inside the Custody Area? Jack Stallworthy, that’s who.
Jesus, it could all blow up in my face any second.
He sat at his desk, pretending to be doing his expenses - the one sacrosanct activity that almost guaranteed him no interruptions - and let the misery soak into every corner
of his mind. He had totally banjaxed everything now. He was never going to get the folder. He was never going to be able to get near that cupboard again. He was never ever going to have the satisfaction of handing that little bitch Anna Foxton the papers sodding Warnaby had been ready to give him so much to get hold of.
Warnaby, when that second deadline had come and gone, would find someone else to get him out of his trouble, whatever it was. You were rich enough, and ruthless enough, you could always find someone to do the dirty work for you. If you were ready to give them something like a whole sodding hotel on some poncy tourist isle. Something he would never get now. Something Lil had set her heart on. Something she thought was going to come her way at last. A jackpot. A lifetime’s secret hope suddenly in sight.
Well, it was in sight no more.
‘Stallworthy! What you sitting there for like a pile of damp shit?’
The Guv’nor. Christ. Was this it?
No, he’d been noticed sitting slumped where he was, and was going to be found some tuppenny-ha’penny task. Cyclist reported riding without lights, tobacconist selling ten fags to a kid, offence of operating a loudspeaker contrary to Section something-or-other of the Control of Pollution Act 1974.
He pushed himself to his feet.
‘Just going out on inquiries, guv. Was sorting meself out.’
So long as the bugger doesn’t want to know what inquiries.
But his record came to his rescue. Detective Sergeant Stallworthy had gone out on inquiries so many times and brought back the bacon. No one was going to want precise details. Especially as the details were often the sort people with noses to keep clean preferred not to hear about.
He shambled from the room.
What to do? Where to keep his head down till he felt more able to cope? If ever he would.
He went to his car. Sat in a huddle in front of the wheel, not even able to think about his predicament. Lily. What would she say? Warnaby. What might he do? If he wanted to, there’d be ways of making life hell for him. Spend a few quid, get a few lies told and he could end up off the force. No bloody pension. Nothing. What about April Cottage, then? Never mind the Calm Seas Hotel, Ko Samui.
And, God, if he sat here much longer some inquisitive sod would come up and ask if he was all right.
All right? He was fucking all wrong. That was what.
He started the engine, drove out into the street.
A van he had nearly put his bonnet in front of hooted angrily.
Fuck you.
But it did come over him that he ought to pay a little attention to what he was doing. Even if he was paying no attention to where he was going.
Which is how, he thought fifteen minutes later, I come to be sitting here in the car park up at fucking Headquarters. The last place on earth I want to be. The last place I ought to be. The murderer revisits the scene of the crime.
What if some nosey sod here - they’re all over the place, count on it - comes up and asks once more if I’m all right?
Could say I’ve come to see the doc. As per usual.
And, truth to tell, it’d probably be no bad thing if I did go and see him. I feel totally rotten.
Worse even than last night’s caper entitles me to feel.
But, likely as not, that’s just because I’m in such deep shit. Enough to make anybody feel bloody ill.
Should I start up again, drive away somewhere? God, but I haven’t even got the energy for that. Still, p’raps I ought to get out of the motor. Make a show of going somewhere. Suppose, in fact, this is the best place I could be, up here. Murderer revisits the scene of the crime. Nobody believes that in real life. So being here’s going to be an alibi for me, if anything.
So … Well, could I actually go and have a look at the Fraud office? That door broken open … What if I find I can just stroll in there, and that cupboard’s been unlocked, and …
Christ, don’t be more of a silly bugger than you can help, Jack Stallworthy. Do you really think old Mac MacAllister’s going to leave all his precious confidential files unguarded? God, he’ll have a couple of wooden-tops sitting there twenty-four hours a day till the lock on his door is hundred percent back in place.
No, just head for the canteen here - fuck the doc - and be grateful you’re well out of the way. No chance of the Guv’nor finding me stupid things to do. Or, worse, seeing that bruise on my forehead and taking it into his head to start asking fucking awkward questions.
Jesus, what I wouldn’t give to be shot of the whole bleeding lot. Retired. With the sodding pension, however little it is. Feet up for ever. Unless every now and again I go for a trot out into the garden. Spread a bit of mulch under the lilies.
Not that I’m ever going to have a garden with lilies now. Can even see myself not having my Lil any more. When she hears the full tale.
He heaved himself out of the car, made his way into the building, flicking open his warrant card for the benefit of the constable on security duty.
God, and the trouble I had last night getting inside here.
But the canteen. Can I really show my face there? Will I run straight into old Ma Alexander? Mr Stallworth, what you doing here? You ain’t come to steal my keys again? No, she’ll be gone long ago now, early start she has. But Mac? What about Mac? His time for his Petticoat Tail shortbreads?
He looked up at the big clock with the golden hands at the far end of the marble-pillared entrance hall.
No, okay again there. Mac’ll never enter the canteen till the stroke of eleven, however much his sacred office was broken into in the middle of last night.
If just one day Mac’d let himself go, order chocolate digestives instead of shortbreads.
But if Mac was capable of that, he’d have been the sort to take the bait of fouling up Detective Chief Superintendent Detch’s onwards and upwards career. And have let me slip that blue folder under my coat and walk out with it.
In the canteen he ordered a tea, grabbed two packets of sugar and half a dozen little plastic stirrers with it. Never mind he hadn’t put sugar in his tea for years. He’d take the buggers here for every penny they’d got.
Or, anyhow, every sodding plastic stirrer.
He slumped down at the nearest table.
Oh, God, who had he plonked himself next to but bloody Horatio Bottomley.
That talk in the rain in the motor. Those two stubby-fingered brown hands coming down on to his shoulders as he had knelt in front of that cupboard that time when its doors had still been tantalizingly open, the crammed files and boxes bulging on its shelves.
Get up? Run out?
He hadn’t the energy to run a single step. Not even enough to hoist himself to his feet.
And it was in that way that his troubles, all within ten minutes, came to an end.
Chapter Eighteen
‘Mr Stallworthy. Funny you should sit here. I was jus’ thinking ‘bout you this very minute.’
Oh, yes, and I know what you were thinking, you old idiot. How there are detectives in the force with tiptop reputations as thief-takers who yet aren’t to be trusted one inch. Or how there’s one like that in particular.
Only, if you are thinking along those lines, old chap, why is it you’re looking at me as if I was the answer to all your prayers?
‘Oh, yes, mate? And what was it you were busy thinking?’
‘Mr Stallworthy, you tell me please: is it right there are times when what you got to do is put your own feelings before your duty?’
What is this? Doesn’t quite sound like Horatio in the motor, not even understanding how he could make a decent few quid by turning a blind eye when asked.
Play for time. See what the hell he’s on about. If he even knows himself.
‘Now you’re asking, old son. Now you’re asking.’ ‘Yes, Mr Stallworthy, I am asking. I am asking you.’
‘Me, matey? You’re asking me? Why me?’
Horatio shifted round in his chair and gave him a long searching look, big brown eyes somb
re beneath his scanty fuzz of grey hair.
‘I’m asking you ‘cos I got to thinking you was one who did put hisself before what they call duty. Or you done that sometimes, ‘cordin’ to what Mr Mac tol’ me. An’, Mr Stallworthy, I’m wondering if this is one time I gotta do jus’ that.’
More bloody puzzling remarks. What the hell is he on about?
‘Oh, yes? How’s that, then?’
‘Mr Stallworthy, it’s like this. You know Mr Mac just gone on holiday? Went Saturday, ‘cept he came in for an hour just now when they told him ‘bout the break-in.’
He was so astonished to hear Mac had gone on leave that he hardly gave a thought to him standing there by the wrecked door of his office, and perhaps connecting that splintered jamb with what Horatio must have told him about his own attempt to take something from the Symes case papers.
‘On holiday?’ he spluttered with laughter. ‘Mac? Gone on holiday?’
He had thought he would never laugh again. But the idea that Mac MacAllister, who not so long ago had said that going on holiday was the last thing he wanted to do, had now suddenly agreed to go was such a surprise that laughter had burst out of him.
‘Oh, yes, Mr Mac’s gone all right. It was the big joke all over Headquarters. The big, big joke. Only for old Horatio it ain’t no joke at all.’
‘Oh, go on, matey, it is funny. It’s dead funny. Mac off to sunny Spain or somewhere. It’s unbelievable.’
‘Oh, he ain’t gone to no Spain or nowhere. He told me he’d go an’ sit in his flat and count the days till he could get back. But Mr Cutts said he mus’ go. Mr Cutts said he couldn’t run the admin here if people would never take no leave they was entitled to.’
‘And so poor old Mac had to obey orders, eh?’
Well, serve the starchy bloody Scotchman right.
‘Yes, sir. But it’s poor old Horatio I’m thinking of, Mr Stallworthy.’ Cos I’m in big, big trouble.’
‘And you think, somehow, there’s something I can do about it? Well, what’s it all to do with anyhow?’
The Bad Detective Page 17