For a little Horatio seemed unable to answer. He sat on his tubular canteen chair, rocking to and fro as if he had a pain in his belly. At last he spoke.
‘You got any children, Mr Stallworthy? No, I think somehow you ain’t. Well, I got jus’ one. My daughter, Julie May. And she going to be married. An’ that’s jus’ fine by me. He a nice chap. A good man. Young fellow she met at university.’ Cos she’s a very clever little girl, my Julie May. Met her Ian right up in Scotland. Aberdeen University. An’ that’s where the wedding’s going to be. Aberdeen, Scotland. But now there’s one deep, deep problem.’
Silence. And more bellyache rocking.
‘Well, mate, what is it?’
‘Oh, Mr Stallworthy. It’s Mr Mac’s holiday.’
‘Mac’s holiday? I don’t get this at all, Horatio. How’s that give you any sort of a problem?’
‘It’s the cleaner, Mr Stallworthy.’
‘The cleaner? What cleaner? I dunno, mate, you’re making this more and more confusing every minute.’
‘I confused myself, Mr Stallworthy. Right confused, start to finish. An’ that’s why I’m wanting your advice. The best advice you got.’
‘Come to Doctor Stallworthy, mate. Consultations free. But try and make it clear to the poor old fellow. He’s not feeling too good this morning, matter of fact.’
‘Yes. Yes, sir. I will. You see the wedding’s Saturday. Up in Aberdeen. Long, long way away. And Mr Mac…’
‘Back to Mac and his holiday, are we?’
‘That’s it, Mr Stallworthy. You put your finger right on the problem. When Mr Mac went off, he say to me I got one duty I must do. An’ that’s to come in Saturday morning early when the cleaner goes through the office. She a new lady, and Mr Mac he don’t know he can trust her. Mrs Alexander, she gone on holiday too.’
‘I’m there, old son, I’m there now. Mac’s told you you’ve got to be in the office early on Saturday morning, make sure the new cleaner doesn’t pinch his secret packet of shortbread—’
‘No, no, Mr Stallworthy. Mr Mac don’t keep no shortbreads—’
‘Okay, okay. Keep your hair on. Only joking. Let’s put it this way, Mac wants you in that office to make sure the new cleaner don’t go poking about seeing something she shouldn’t.’
‘That it, Mr Stallworthy.’
‘But you, you want to be up in Aberdeen, your daughter’s wedding, on the same day. Got to go by the night train, eh? Yep, see you’ve got a problem. But I was you, I’d forget about looking after that cleaner. Whizz off to bonny Scotland. Have a good time.’
‘Oh, Mr Stallworthy, I jus’ couldn’t do no such thing.’
‘Well then, mate, you’ll have to miss your daughter’s wedding, won’t you? I suppose it can’t be put off or anything?’
‘All the guests is coming. Function room booked an’ all. My missus been up there whole week.’
‘It’s what they call a dilemma then, matey. One way or another you’ve got to let somebody down. Still, I know which one I’d give the go-by to.’
Once more Horatio lapsed into silence. Looking at him, Jack could almost see his mind uselessly working. Churning and churning, and getting nowhere.
If it was figures, he thought, old H would have had the answer in two seconds flat. But this … Well, there wasn’t any answer really, not if you felt about things the way Horatio did.
And suddenly it came to him that it was altogether in his own interests to give old Horatio a push. More of a push than, totally without realizing what all this might mean to himself, he had done already. Tell Horatio one hundred per cent firmly it was okay for him to waltz off to Scotland and he would go without another thought. Then, once again, the Fraud Investigation offices would be there to be entered. Mac away on holiday. Some new cleaner going round the place with her vacuum cleaner, not knowing anything. And nothing easier then - couldn’t be - than to bluff his way in, right up to that cupboard. Deal with that somehow or another, and he’d be neatly in time to give bloody Emslie Warnaby his precious blue folder before the second deadline ran out.
Perfect.
Only it wasn’t. Somehow it wasn’t like that. Somehow it’d be altogether too iffy to take advantage of someone like old Horatio. Figures apart, he was too easy a touch. Innocent as a new-born babe.
So what to do?
For God’s sake, I’ve already told the old fool if I was in his shoes I’d bugger off without a second thought. I keep stumm now, he’ll probably do what I just said’s okay after all.
But…
‘Listen, mate, I don’t think you—’
Then Horatio, with a rush of words that showed how twisted up inside he was, stopped him. Totally ignored the fact that he had begun to speak.
‘Mr Stallworthy,’ he broke out, ‘what I’m needing bad, Mr Stallworthy, is someone who won’t think I is a - who won’t go thinking I is a damn no-good if - if, just this once, I’m not doing my duty.’
And I can guess who that is. See, in fact, what the old fool means. Not exactly a compliment. Jack Stallworthy, the only man in Abbotsport Police villain enough to be let in on the secret that old Horatio Bottomley for once in his life’s going to be a bit naughty. Thank you very much.
‘Well, you’re right, me old mate. I ain’t exactly in any position to yack at someone not being hundred per cent kosher. So, if that’s all you want, you got my vote. All the way.’
‘Mr Stallworthy, it more than that. Mr Stallworthy, if that someone who didn’t think I is wrong was there Saturday morning to look after that new cleaning lady, then I could go to Aberdeen and be happy. Mr Stallworthy, will you be that person?’
Horatio lunged towards him now, big brown eyes moist with feeling.
‘And don’t you worry, Mr Stallworthy, I know it safe to let you in there. Mr Mac, when he went for his holiday, he took the key to that cupboard. You know the cupboard I is talking about, Mr Stallworthy? Jus’ lucky when those fellows broke in here last night, they didn’t touch it, nor nothing else in the whole Fraud office.’
‘Yes, Horatio, I know the cupboard you mean.’
Don’t I just. Christ, was it only eight hours ago, more or less, I was digging that trowel of mine in between its two tight shut doors? And now here’s Horatio thinking, because that time when I had my hands in there he came in and caught me, he’s got a right to ask me to help him cheat old Mac. He’s got a bloody cheek. Still, I’m in no position to complain. I was out of order when he caught me then, right out of order. And we both know it.
And, by God - the blood began suddenly to race in Jack’s veins - by God, I’m going to be out of order again. I’ve been licensed. I’ve been given the bloody freedom of the Fraud Office. Next Saturday I’m going to get that new cleaning lady out of the way somehow and bust that cupboard wide open. Poor old Horatio, I’ll be letting him down. Dropping him right in it. But I can’t pass up this chance. A godsend. A ruddy godsend.
‘Yes, Horatio, old mate, I’ll do that for you. Why not? You go off to your old Aberdeen, get that daughter of yours well married. And I’ll hold the fort Saturday morning. Stand by me.’
Before Saturday came, however, Jack had seen how, with a little bit of luck, he could leave Horatio’s conscience clear. And his own as well, more or less.
All he had to do, he realized, was to get hold of another key that would open the cupboard. Hardly difficult. The key Mac had found or had had made, when he had seen it lying there on the top of the cupboard before those crammed contents had been squeezed in, had looked a simple enough affair. The cupboard was no state-of-the-art security safe, after all. With most of a week to go he could easily get hold of a dozen or more keys like Mac’s. Bound to find one that fitted. And if there wasn’t one when it came to it, well then, he’d have to betray Horatio’s trust after all and break the damn cupboard open for all to see afterwards.
Because this time there were going to be no mistakes. This time he was going to walk out of the building with the blue folder.
> So, very early on the Saturday he presented himself to Mrs Alexander’s deputy as head cleaner, a sour-looking old biddy he had never met before, and, as Horatio had instructed him, told her that for security reasons he had to be present when the Fraud Investigation offices were cleaned.
He met with no objection.
Three minutes later together with the new cleaning lady, or girl rather - she seemed to be only about seventeen and had a trick of sniffing regularly once every five seconds - he was watching old Sour-face putting one of Mrs Alexander’s big bunch of Yale keys into the newly mended door Herbie Cuddy had jemmied open almost a week earlier.
The door he had watched so hungrily through the thick glass window in the waiting-room door opposite. The door he had once almost got open with one of that very bunch of keys before Ma Alexander had pounced on him.
What trick Sour-face had learnt he did not know, but she had had no difficulty selecting from the unmarked keys of that big, jingling bunch the one that straight away turned in the lock.
‘There you are, then,’ she said. ‘And don’t you linger over the job, my girl. There’s plenty more to be done this morning.’
All the answer she got to that was a sniff coming just two seconds after the one before.
Jack walked in, followed by the little sniffer dragging her heavy-duty vacuum cleaner.
So here I am, he said to himself. Inside. With fifteen or sixteen keys, any one of which could get that cupboard open, and a good strong screwdriver tucked in my pocket to use if none of them work. I can’t believe it.
Little Sniffer had plugged in her machine and begun at once to use it on the outer office. It made a deep whiny roaring, enough noise to make any sound elsewhere totally inaudible. Jack, without a word of explanation, simply left her and walked through into Mac’s room.
The only precaution he did take was, with apparent idleness, to push the door almost closed behind him.
Then, in an instant, he was once more down in front of the cupboard. His ring of likely keys was out of his pocket. He pushed the first one that came to hand into the brass-edged keyhole. It slid sweetly home.
He took in a huge gulp of air. Gave the key a turn.
And click.
It was open. The cupboard was open.
He swung the doors wide. And there, there, was that strip of pale blue card he had once had within reach, and infuriatingly not within reach. And now, easily as easily, the folder slipped out from its place and was at last firmly in his grasp.
Yes, on it, in neat black-ink handwriting the single word Maximex. Just as Emslie Warnaby had said it would be so long ago.
Would something catastrophic happen now at the last moment? Little Sniffer come in? Old Sour-puss? Bloody Detective Chief Superintendent Detch?
Nothing happened.
He straightened up, shoved the folder under his jacket, well up to his armpit. Then he stooped again, and, with a word of heartfelt thanks to Horatio Bottomley, pushed the cupboard doors closed and turned his key in the lock.
Click.
Job done. No clues left. No one to be any the wiser. First-class bit of work.
Outside in the marvellously fresh air - it was a perfect summer’s morning: he hadn’t noticed it at all on his way in - he took a long, deep breath. Then he strode over to his car, opened the door, pulled the blue folder from inside his jacket, tossed it on to the seat at the back, got in and drove off.
He could hardly believe it had all happened. As he drove along the still empty road from Palmerston Park he had to twist round more than once to see with his own eyes that clean pale blue folder lying on the scuffed grey of the back seat.
He had done it. Done it. He had done what he had been asked to do by Emslie Warnaby. He had taken from the very heart of Abbotsport Constabulary Headquarters a sheaf of documents that, for some reason he could not even guess at, the all-powerful boss of Abbotputers plc was willing to pay him for. To pay him - yes, yes, yes - with a hotel, the Calm Seas Hotel, on the island called Ko Samui. The one place in all the world where Lil, his English rose, wanted to live till the end of her days. He had done it. Done it, done it.
He drove straight across to the other side of the town to the hill overlooking the port.
If it was too early for Anna Foxton, to hell with her. He’d just have to get her out of bed. And to hell with big man Emslie Warnaby if he happened to be sharing that bed.
His old car went chugging up the hill. The big dark brick block of Seaview Mansions came into sight. He put his foot down and drove up to it in a final burst of shuddering speed. He braked. He reached back and picked up the folder. Without bothering to hide it under his jacket now he ran up the entrance steps to the block, jabbed long and hard at the bellpush for Flat 15 - the number was lodged unbudgeably in his mind - and waited for an answer from the entryphone.
It came quickly enough, though Anna Foxton’s voice was sharp with irritation and unfinished sleep.
‘Who is that?’
He allowed himself a slow smile.
‘It’s Jack Stallworthy. You want me to come up? Or not?’
‘You - you’ve got it?’
‘Wouldn’t be here unless, would I?’
The mechanism of the door-bolt buzzed at once.
He pushed the big door back, and, scorning the lift, marched up to Flat 15.
Little Anna Foxton, dressed only in a sweeping dark orange housecoat, had opened her door as she heard him coming. He saw her eyes dart first to the folder in his hand. When she had satisfied herself it was really there she pulled the door wide back.
‘Well, well, Sergeant. So you’ve managed it at last.’
‘I’ve had my troubles, but I told you you’d get it, and here it is.’
She held out her hand. He put the folder into it. She turned it over till she could see the word Maximex - yes, that was the new big computer system Abbotputers was going into manufacturing, he suddenly remembered - and took a quick checking glance at the papers inside.
Not going to let me get as much as a peep at whatever old Emslie needs so badly. Well, who cares, so long as I get what I’ve come here for?
Satisfied, she gave him a sharp glance.
‘So now you’ll be wanting your reward, yes?’
Being paid off. Like a bloody crim taking his cut from a big blag.
Well, fuck her.
‘Yep. What I’m here for.’
She went to the sideboard, still with its clutch of expensive drinks on their tray, and pulled open one of its two drawers. From it she took another folder, a red one, and from that she pulled a long, stiff-paper, legal-looking document.
‘The deeds of the Calm Seas Hotel, Ko Samui,’ she said. ‘You’d better look them over carefully. We don’t want you coming back saying there’s something wrong.’
‘Dare say you don’t ever want to see me again. Now I’ve done your dirty work for you.’
‘Well, you’re right there, Sergeant, as a matter of fact.’
Once again he was tempted to take the little bitch by the shoulders and shake her silly.
But instead he began reading the neatly typed pages of legal jargon, almost every paragraph meaningless to him. On and on until at last he came to the final flourished signature, Emslie R. Warnaby, Chairman Abbotputers plc, with next to it Anna Foxton as witness. And then he was swept through by a feeling of letdown.
So this was it. It was over. He had got Lily what she wanted. He had got Emslie Warnaby what he wanted. The bugger could go off on holiday with this little bit of his now without a care in the world. And that was all there was to it.
He tried to imagine what Lily’s reaction would be when he showed her this thin sheaf of stiff paper with its endless typed paragraphs. He’d have to explain to her what it was, what it meant. That it was the deeds of the Calm Seas Hotel, made out in his name - he had understood that much - and that, once he had got the air tickets and had gone through the official formalities of handing in his papers, they could be off th
ere. To Ko Samui. That in less than a month they could be there. In the sun. Looked after for life.
But, somehow, he was unable to bring into his mind a picture of Lil’s ecstatic face.
He shrugged.
When it’s happened for real it’ll all be all right. Unless old Lil’s gone off with the postman.
The joke fell flat in his head.
‘They seem okay,’ he said, folding the deeds and stuffing them into his inside pocket. ‘So what about the plane tickets?’
‘You can collect them from the travel agency. They’ll be ready first thing on Monday. It’s a place called Iris Travels in Albert Street. I expect you know it.’
‘Think I may have gone past it, yes. Anyhow, I can find it.’
‘Yes, I imagine your detective skills will stretch to that.’
The bitch.
He looked at her. Yes, she did have a similarity to Lily, despite the difference in hair colour, the different complexions, ivory smoothness instead of Lil’s English rose pink-and-white, changing-every-passing-second skin. Still fresh as ever. Or almost.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’ll be off, then.’
‘Yes.’
Just that.
Well, if she wanted no more to do with him now he had done what her lover wanted from him, then he wanted no more to do with her. To do with either of them. Nothing that would remind him he had at last taken the great fat bribe that had been dangled and dangled in front of him.
Chapter Nineteen
He decided - he didn’t quite know why - he would not, after all, tell Lily straight away. He’d wait till he’d collected the plane tickets from that place, Iris Travels. Then she could see everything all at once.
The tickets would mean something to her. More than incomprehensible legal deeds. Perhaps that was why it had suddenly seemed better to keep it all secret for a little.
Till Monday.
He would go to Iris Travels soon as they opened. Nine o’clock? Well, he’d be there waiting then. And, once he had got the tickets, checked them over, made sure they were all right, then he’d drive back home - to hell with getting in to work on time this Monday of all Mondays - and break the big news to his darling English rose.
The Bad Detective Page 18