A Dip Into Murder (David Mallin Detective series Book 10)

by Roger Ormerod

  “Two?”

  “The one in the paint dip, and Arthur Groves. He’s the guard who should have been on this gate last night.”

  “And what happened to him?” I asked, rather persistently, because his attention seemed to be wandering.

  “What? Oh, he was run down by a car. On his way to work. Night shift, see, and it was dark along the by-pass. Look ... I was wondering ... shall we eat with the scrubbers, or shall we get the same stuff dearer with tablecloths and a waitress in the executive dining room?”

  I hadn’t realised we were so close to the canteen, and that it was lunchtime. I considered him carefully, but his face was bland.

  So we queued with the scrubbers. Rogers considerately wiped the Formica table with a paper serviette. We had to keep talking so as not to notice the food.

  “You spoke with contempt when you mentioned computers,” I said, though it had been only in his tone of voice.

  “So I did.” He was suspiciously raising the lid of a meat pie.

  “Do you distrust them?”

  “You can get anything onto that print-out, depending on what you put in.

  “By mistake, did you mean — or deliberately?”

  “If you mean ... well yes, Jeff Palfrey and Tony Newman could play hell with the figures if they really wanted to.”

  “Could they make it show that the steel had arrived, if it hadn’t?”

  “Even that. But it has. I’ve seen it.”

  “Have you, Mr. Rogers?”

  Then he laughed and said: “But it’ll drive Goodliffe mad. You see. He’ll just go crazy paying all that money over, when he thinks the steel never arrived.”

  “But you won’t tell him, because it’s not part of your job?”

  He raised his eyes. “The cook must’ve been run over, too.”

  “You didn’t answer me.”

  “I haven’t got the slightest intention of telling him. The cook, I said ... ”

  “How do you know?”

  “No lumps in the custard.”

  “Oh ... a joke. I didn’t realise you were programmed for jokes, too.”

  “Too?”

  “As well as disloyalty.”

  “You take things too seriously, Mrs. Mallin. This is heavy industry. You fight for yourself ... ”

  “And to hell with everybody else? The murder of a guard — the deaths of two guards — seems to mean nothing to you.”

  “It’s not your world,” he said with a touch of anger. “We get accidents here. You don’t have to be put off.”

  “This Arthur Groves ... ”

  “I’m not going to get upset about him.”

  “What was the matter with him?” He looked round impatiently. “We should be going.”

  “A coffee?” I suggested.

  “Here? No thanks. We’ll make one back at the office.”

  We walked back to the office, Rogers briskly, no doubt to rob me of breath. But I’m reasonably fit.

  “Why didn’t you like Arthur Groves?”

  He shrugged, looking ahead. “Big fat slob. Called himself a works policeman. I wouldn’t have trusted him with ... the computer print-out.”

  “You mean he was dishonest?”

  He glared at me. “I don’t know anything. But when he was knocked down, he was crossing the road to the pub. On his way to his night shift! He’d get six or seven pints in him, the stupid git, and he was supposed to be on a diet. No potatoes, no sugar, the insincere bugger, but he’d get his beer down him, guard or no guard.”

  “So you blame him for disloyalty? You’re quite amusing, Mr. Rogers.”

  “Come and have that coffee,” he said shortly. Then he was suddenly angry. “If Goodliffe doesn’t want to use the computer, why can’t he say so, and have done with it. He’s the manager.”

  I knew then why Rogers hated him. Rogers held positive views, and he’d have nothing but contempt for indecisiveness.

  It turned out to be quite a good cup of coffee. They ceremoniously scoured the stain from a mug, and I sat and sipped it, whilst the battle of the print-out continued in Goodliffe’s office.

  Then, after half an hour, I noticed that nobody was speaking to me. Second stage. Freeze her out. I thanked them, collectively, for the coffee, and prepared to leave.

  “Has anybody tried to prove the steel arrived?” I asked, listening to the muted sounds of Goodliffe and Newman in combat. The faces turned to me were cold and unresponsive. “Invoices, bills of lading, or whatever,” I explained.

  Palfrey stared at me angrily. “You’d better leave us to handle our manger, I think.”

  “But have they ... ” I shrugged. Their faces were blank.

  I left. I was making myself unpopular, I realised. Rogers now ignored me, so I made the journey through the factory alone, and the cat-calls were louder and more suggestive.

  Ian Carefree was standing by the paint-dip, looking thoughtful. The area was roped off, and a uniformed constable, obviously dying for a smoke, stood on guard. The paint smell was still intense.

  “Still here?” he asked. He sounded depressed.

  “I’ve been getting a conducted tour. Any progress?”

  “I could’ve sworn it was hidden somewhere in the grounds, but apparently it’s not.” He was deflated. His efficient gloss was dulled.

  I offered it as a suggestion, something to perhaps lighten his gloom. “Goodliffe reckons it didn’t even arrive.”

  He grunted. “Well, for £10,000 he can find out.”

  “But you think it did?”

  “Damn it, Elsa, there’s all sorts of indications. The fork-lift trucks had definitely been used, and we found a tractor unit that the motor pool says has been moved. Something went on.”

  “Perhaps it was something deliberately intended to make everybody believe there was a robbery.”

  “No. There are details, here and there, that they wouldn’t have thought to add. Bits of banding strip that they clipped off the bundles. And it’s possible to prove by the charge in the battery-operated trucks that they were used for at least an hour, and not just shifted for effect.”

  “Then you thought of it,” I accused him gently.

  “Of course I did, Elsa. It was about all there was left, after we’d searched the grounds. Don’t take any notice of Goodliffe. He’s obsessed with his paltry hatred of computers.”

  Ian was too angry, too bitter.

  “Then they must have got it out, some way or other. Have you found out if any of the guards could have been bribed?”

  “Lord, Elsa, I know my job.”

  I’d only been trying to be helpful. “Sorry.”

  “I mean, of course I’ve found out. They’re all long-service men, all loyal to the company. There was only one you could cast any doubt on at all, because nobody seemed to trust him. But he wasn’t on duty that night.”

  I touched his arm. “Because he’d been run down by a car?”

  “You’ve heard about it, then? Yes. That was Arthur Groves. Though it doesn’t help us, because he was dead long before the robbery took place. But Elsa, the indications show that they tried to get the stuff out of the factory. Tried and failed. And if they failed, where the hell is it?”

  I smiled at him and risked another suggestion. “Have you thought about the canal?”

  He grimaced. “Yes, I thought of that. I reckoned they might have got a barge from somewhere, and loaded that. It’s possible, and they could have towed it themselves, under the bridge at one end or the other. But ... ” He shrugged. “There’s a layer of undisturbed algae each end of the canal, where it goes out of the grounds. There’s been no barge through there.”

  “I didn’t mean that.” I met his lifted eyebrows with a smile. “I mean in it, Ian. Why couldn’t they simply have dumped it in the water? I mean, for their purposes of demanding ransom, they didn’t need to have taken it away. After all, for the money they’ll say where it is, and leave the company to fetch it back. So ... why not in the canal?”

&n
bsp; I had made his day. He glowed. And then he frowned. “I’d need HQ’s go-ahead for frogmen. And I’d need to prove that I’d explored every other possibility.”

  I detected a hint of his celebrated lack of confidence. “It seems to me that you have.”

  And then his attitude changed. He was talking, now, to the wife of an ex-mate. He might have been confiding in David himself.

  “I’m getting nowhere in tracing the gang, that’s the trouble. You’d imagine a bunch of young hooligans, with that dipping of the guard business, and especially the wiping of the nose. But there’s no young gang like that operating in the district, and the whole thing would’ve needed local knowledge. I’m at a dead-end, and they won’t like that at all at HQ. Come to think of it, they’ll laugh their heads off. Thirty-seven tons of steel! You can see, I’ve got to play it carefully. And I need time to do that. But what’s going on in the background! This blasted ransom business. I hear they’re raising the money — in used ones of all things. They take no notice of me. They give me no time, Elsa.”

  I think that what really hurt him was the taking no notice bit. He should have been running the show, but people were ignoring him. He had lost control.

  “It’s a rush job for BHV,” I said soothingly. “There’s no time for sitting around and discussing tactics.”

  “Then why,” he asked sourly, “haven’t they fixed a handover? It’s nothing but waiting for the next phone call.”

  I put a hand on his arm and managed a weak smile.

  “And Elsa,” he added, “the guard didn’t die of hanging, as you might have thought. I’ve had a preliminary report from the path lab, and they say he was not hanged, in spite of the noose, and he was not drowned, in spite of the paint. There was none in his air passage or nostrils.”

  “And that worries you?”

  He straightened his shoulders. “I’ll start worrying when they’ve finished the autopsy, then I’ll know how he died.”

  I left him, then, and went to my car. The guard at No. 3 gate was still asleep. No, I saw, it was another guard, dozing with half a cup of coffee at his right hand. It was clear that this gate at No. 3 was very rarely used.

  I wondered if they’d unearthed a duplicate key.

  I was left with only one thing to do; go home. Home, that is, to Ian Carefree’s, with the hope that there would be someone there to welcome me with perhaps a hint of warmth.

  Peter Clarke endeared me to him for life, just from the way he flung open the door and beamed. He was in slacks and a shirt and no shoes, and seemed to have been doing something very relaxing with Frances. But nevertheless, his attitude suggested that he had been waiting anxiously for my arrival. Frances, too. She rose from the cushion on the floor, all lithe grace, with an open and pleasant smile.

  “You must be exhausted,” she said, turning off the hi-fi.

  “Does it show?” I asked wearily.

  They laughed. With me, not at me. I loved those people.

  I stretched out in a chair luxuriously, and Peter got me a drink. How did he know I liked Dubonnet? But of course, I’d been drinking it at the Domino. I smiled up at him, guessing he’d bought it specially, and he said:

  “We’re dining at the club.”

  For a moment I felt a shadow of depression at the thought of being left alone, but Frances must have noticed it.

  “I can lend you a dress,” she said quickly. “But I think the trouser suit is absolutely smashing.”

  And really, I was home.

  There was no hurry. Everything went smoothly, geared to my relaxation, and I had time for another call to David.

  “I don’t know why you’re hanging on there,” he said.

  “Because I feel I can help, David.” But he had found time to make some enquiries, and ask around. “Ian’s got it in hand.”

  “He hasn’t asked me to leave.”

  “Perhaps he hasn’t heard ... ” He paused. “Is Ian there, Elsa?”

  “Not at the moment. What hasn’t he heard?”

  “That Rimlock’s in town.”

  It meant nothing to me. “Oh?”

  “I wish you’d come home, Elsa.”

  “If you’re worried, David, then come and fetch me.”

  But he detected the teasing laughter in my voice. “Oh ... hell!”

  “Really, I’m being very well looked after.”

  He didn’t believe it, but after a lot of grumbling he hung up. David can be very fussy, but if he’d hung on a minute longer he could have spoken to Ian himself, and confirmed I was in good hands.

  Poor Ian was tired and irritable as he let himself in.

  “I’ve just been speaking to David,” I said.

  He looked at me absently. “Good old David.”

  “He said he’s heard you’ve got it in hand.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Where’s he heard that?”

  “And he’s heard that Rimlock’s in town.” He was looking at me strangely. “Who or what is Rimlock, Ian?”

  “Rimlock,” he said, his voice tight, “is an international celebrity. He’s a man with a gun, a killer, an assassin. He kills people for money, Presidents, Kings, Trades Union Congressmen. The top people for top money. That’s what Rimlock is.”

  But now his eyes were wild and his voice was uncertain. “And if David knows so much,” he complained, “perhaps he can tell me what such a man as Rimlock, who usually stays in the grandest hotels in the finest of cities, is doing in the heart of the Black Country. And what the hell,” he cried, “he’s doing in a situation like this.”

  I thought it was a good time to go and press my trouser suit. Women’s work, women’s conversation. It kept Ian away from me, and gave me time to forget the desperation in his voice. Frances chattered happily. Peter, who couldn’t be kept away, picked the swarf from my shoes with a penknife.

  But it was to Peter alone that I wished to speak, and it took a lot of patience to get him alone. I cornered him eventually in his favourite chair, savouring the memory of a short, sharp encounter with Ian.

  “You know that Rimlock’s in town,” I said, assuming his awareness of everything. He inclined his head in a gesture too old for him. Suddenly his eyes were wary. “And I’m sure you know who Rimlock is.”

  “Oh, I do. To both your questions.”

  “But he’s a big man, this Rimlock,” I probed. “Big in reputation, I mean.” It was difficult to go on, with Peter’s eyes boring into me, and not a hint of encouragement. “Important.”

  “To his intended victim, yes.”

  So Ian had been right about Rimlock being an assassin. “And you know who that is?” I asked. Even my own voice had taken on an edge.

  “Yes, I know.” Then he went on quickly, before I could ask. “I can make a damn good guess, anyway. You see, there’s a crook called Bernie Fitch coming out on Friday. Out of Winson Green Prison, that is. He’s been in a long time, has Bernie, so his friends are throwing a coming out party at his club. That’s the Domino, and Bernie used to own it, and Bernie’s coming out, so there’s going to be a big party.”

  “You’re talking all round it, Peter.”

  “No I’m not, Elsa, this isn’t your scene. This is big stuff, and big money. Rimlock’s an expensive luxury, and it can’t be a coincidence that he’s come on the scene a day or two before Bernie’s due out. A party, Elsa — so why not a special coming-out present? In which case, what better present could there be for Bernie than the man who sent him down, delivered neat and dead with a hole in his forehead? I mean, wouldn’t Bernie be pleased!”

  His voice had been light, but something about his eyes troubled me. There was nothing flippant there now.

  “The man who sent him down?”

  “Ian Carefree. Then Inspector, now, Chief Inspector. Who else?”

  “But you’ll have to warn him.”

  “Do you think so? You know he’d never accept it. Even from Rimlock himself, Ian wouldn’t accept it. You know Ian. He sees himself as small-fry. No, he
wouldn’t believe, and from me ... ” He gave a throaty laugh of pure derision. “He’d claim I’d finally flipped and lost touch with all reality.”

  “Then I’ll tell him.”

  “You could try.” He sounded disillusioned at such a poor suggestion.

  “Sometimes you infuriate me,” I said angrily, and ran out of the room. But I’d missed Ian by a few seconds, and all I saw from the front door was the back end of his Datsun disappearing down the drive, with the two headrests sticking up against the light of the street.

  I realised it was raining.

  It occurred to me that Peter had not said it all. If there was to be an expensive coming-out present for Bernie Fitch — and Rimlock was sure to be expensive — then it was clearly another coincidence that £10,000 ransom was demanded just at that time. And in singles, too, so very convenient to hand over.

  While I was considering this rather chilling thought, which linked our robbery with an assassin, another point occurred to me. The crime itself would draw Ian into the open and away from the comparative safety of his office. It was doing so. The crime, the ransom, and Rimlock’s intended killing were all coming together.

  But Ian, stubborn and rigid idiot that he was, would probably not accept my reasoning, unless he first accepted the basic principle on which it was based — that he was important enough to be assassinated.

  5

  Here was some confirmation of what Peter had told me in the form of a notice outside the Domino Club.

  CLOSED FRIDAY.

  RE-OPEN SATURDAY.

  I was beyond surprise at that time, so took it in my stride when the Domino welcomed us like royalty. Or rather, welcomed Peter, we ladies having to be grateful we were with him. A man’s world, still. A man’s club.

  While I was wondering about that (it had belonged to Bernie Fitch, but whose was it now?) I realised that the slim young man in the tails, whom I’d taken to be a rather immature head waiter, was in fact the present owner.

  He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five, and yet he carried himself with a confident grace and a sense of self-importance which were quite impressive. His face showed the strain, though, and his eyes were unsteady.