Paul Temple and the Harkdale Robbery

by Francis Durbridge

  His new novel was going to be a character study of a brilliant scholarship lad from Salford, the same generation as Mary Quant and Jim Slater, an entrepreneur who applies all his originality to a career in crime. Paul was toying with the idea of calling his hero Jonathan Wild.

  ‘She was certainly an attractive girl.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Paul.

  ‘Betty Stanway. I wonder what made him stand her up.’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’

  ‘She seemed a little uncertain of herself, as if she thought being a dancer wasn’t quite respectable. She thought she had thrown herself at Desmond Blane.’ Steve laughed with unladylike glee. ‘She should have seen me hurl myself at you!’

  Paul was hurt. ‘I won you by stealth, madam. You’ve no idea how I plotted –’

  It was a narrow lane and Random Cottage was a hundred yards along, shielded by trees and lying back in the grounds. Paul jumped from the car and opened the gates. He was wondering whether he would find time to clear the undergrowth of what he ironically described as the garden when he realised there was a dog barking nearby.

  ‘What is it?’ Steve called from the car.

  ‘I don’t know. Listen.’

  The dog was barking and howling continuously.

  ‘Perhaps it’s from the farm,’ said Steve. ‘The wind is blowing in this direction.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Steve turned into the driveway and ran the car down to the garage. Paul closed the gates behind her and followed on foot. The barking grew louder.

  ‘Paul! It’s coming from the garage.’

  The dog was obviously hurling itself against the garage door in some distress. Paul unlocked the doors and pulled them open. A wire haired fox terrier hurtled into the drive. Its tone changed to delighted yapping as it jumped up at Paul in friendly welcome.

  ‘Steady boy,’ Paul said cautiously, ‘you’ve got muddy paws.’

  ‘What’s he doing here?’ Steve asked.

  ‘I can’t imagine.’ He tried to hold the dog long enough to examine its collar, but this was taken to be a game and the dog bounded off along the drive, barked happily at the Rolls and scurried round again to Paul. ‘Will you hold him, Steve, while I take a look at his collar?’

  She was laughing so much that the frightened dog vanished beneath the car. Eventually Paul dragged it out in front of the headlights. It had a brass identity disc.

  ‘Well?’ Steve asked.

  ‘It says, Gavin Renson, Harkdale 892304.’

  ‘Renson?’ Steve stood up. ‘That was one of the names Desmond Blane mentioned in his telephone call. Skibby and Renson. I’m certain Betty Stanway said Renson.’

  Paul was looking at his hands. Then he turned the dog round as if he were examining it for injury.

  ‘What is it, Paul?’

  ‘This isn’t mud on the dog, Steve. I think it’s blood. And the dog is not injured.’

  The car’s headlamps were shining directly into the garage, but Paul had been too preoccupied with the dog to notice what looked like a bundle of old clothes in the far corner. He went into the garage and switched on the main lights.

  ‘Stay where you are, Steve.’

  The garage was big enough for two large cars and it also accommodated a work bench and space for engineering feats. Paul went across to the bundle half concealed beneath the work bench. It was the body of a young man. When Paul turned it over he found the side of the young man’s head had been beaten in. A heavy tyre lever beside him looked the obvious murder weapon.

  ‘So this is Gavin Renson,’ he murmured.

  The fox terrier sniffed its master and wagged its tail rather tentatively.

  ‘You’ve no idea who Blane was talking to when he mentioned the name Renson?’

  Paul had sighed wearily. ‘No, I’m sorry, I haven’t, Inspector. I asked Betty who it was and she said she didn’t know.’

  The inspector had puffed with dubious concentration at his pipe. ‘Do you think she was telling the truth, or was she covering up for her boyfriend?’

  ‘I think she was telling the truth.’ Paul had shrugged helplessly. ‘After all, she needn’t have told me the story in the first place if she hadn’t wanted to.’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’

  It had been three o’clock when they got to bed, and Paul slept badly. He felt slightly outraged at finding a corpse in his country retreat. This was the kind of thing which happened to other people, and of his own free will he sometimes became involved in murder cases in London. But Broadway was away from it all. This was an intrusion!

  Twice Paul got up in the night to make a cup of coffee. He could understand the girl coming to him with her story, because he had mentioned Harkdale and they had been on television in the same programme. It was natural. But why had Renson been battered to death in his garage? That was a little calculated of someone. Only why? The second time he got up Paul watched the dawn creep through the valley below the cottage. The cold grey light touched Bredon Hill and then moved visibly across the brown trees and into the fields. There were no greens or yellows in the coming of day, no warmth. Paul went back to bed, huddled against Steve’s soft body and fell deeply asleep.

  ‘You say you’d never heard of Gavin Renson?’

  ‘No,’ said Paul, ‘I hadn’t.’

  ‘You haven’t the slightest idea, in fact, what he was doing here?’

  ‘Not the slightest.’

  The bedroom faced east towards Snowshill and at nine o’clock a low sun was shining through the window into his face. He was half woken by the unfamiliar din of a dog chasing something through the bushes at the side of the house.

  ‘But you’ve seen this before, I take it?’ The police inspector pointed to the tyre lever.

  ‘Of course. It belongs to me.’

  ‘Have you ever used it?’

  ‘Yes, I can change a tyre.’ Paul felt rather defensive about it. ‘I’m an intellectual, Inspector, so I take a pride in my ability to tinker with cars, potter knowledgeably in the garden and do jobs around the house. I enjoy surprising myself.’

  ‘Have you used it recently?’

  Paul tried to shield his eyes from the blinding, interrogating light. ‘No, I’ve been in London.’ He blinked rapidly and realised that he was awake. Steve had drawn the curtains and was standing by the bed with his morning coffee. She had clearly been up some time.

  ‘I’ve been dreaming about that inspector,’ he grumbled. ‘Going over and over in my mind –’

  ‘He’s downstairs again.’

  ‘Oh God.’ He yawned and glanced at the clock by the bed. ‘He only left here six hours ago. Doesn’t he have a home and a loving wife?’

  Steve laughed. ‘Yes, and I think he blames you for keeping him from them.’

  ‘I don’t believe the loving wife part.’

  Paul took his time over coffee, had a leisurely bath and dressed with slow deliberation. It was more like early summer now. The rooks were quarrelling among themselves in the elm trees and across the fields a tractor was chugging about its work. Paul enjoyed the sounds of the country. He opened a window and filled his London lungs with the smell of the Cotswolds. Then he went downstairs to breakfast.

  Luckily Inspector Manley was out in the garage with his squad of investigators; they were looking for fingerprints and searching for things they may have missed in the middle of the night. Paul ate his cornflakes in the two minutes fifty seconds it took to boil his egg.

  ‘What sort of questions has he been asking?’ Paul asked.

  ‘About our country habits,’ Steve laughed. ‘He can’t get it into his head that we aren’t weekenders. I’ve told him that we come down here as and when we feel like it. But he thinks you ought to have a proper job with regular working hours.’

  Paul grunted. ‘I do have. I’m supposed to be starting work on my novel this morning.’

  ‘That doesn’t count with Inspector Manley. He thinks there’s something almost unemployed about you.’

 
The fox terrier bounded into the kitchen to welcome Paul, barked a couple of warning threats at a policeman in the drive and then attacked the chocolate biscuits Steve had put down for him. ‘He wouldn’t eat the digestives,’ she explained.

  Inspector Manley was from Birmingham CID and if there was one thing he distrusted more than a man without a regular job it was a Londoner. He was phlegmatic, smoked a pipe and spoke with an unidentifiable regional accent. A square set man in his late fifties who appeared to work on the principle that if he worried away at a case long enough it would solve itself. His square head was perched neckless on broad shoulders. He came into the kitchen at the marmalade and toast stage.

  ‘Coffee, Inspector?’ Steve asked with natural friendliness.

  ‘Thanks.’ He sat at the table and looked suspiciously at Paul. ‘So you’re up then? I’ve just heard from the doctor. Renson was killed between eight and eleven last night.’

  ‘I was at the television studios.’

  ‘I know.’ He glowered. ‘That’s a funny way to pass the time.’

  Paul agreed. ‘But it’s better than spending the evening watching television.’

  ‘You must have a lot of money,’ he said. ‘A house like this, a mews house in London, running a Rolls.’

  ‘And me,’ Steve said.

  ‘Very expensive.’

  Paul explained that he worked extremely hard, but the inspector looked sceptical. He wasn’t even impressed when Paul said that while he was writing a novel he worked sixteen hours a day.

  ‘I’ve been working sixteen hours a day on this series of bank robberies, Mr Temple.’

  ‘I hope you’re getting somewhere.’

  ‘We have been since the Harkdale robbery. For the past forty-eight hours, believe it or not, we’ve been trying to find this man Gavin Renson. We’ve been trying to find him because it’s our belief the money was handed over to Renson within ten minutes of the raid taking place.’

  ‘What do you mean, handed over?’ Paul asked. ‘Where was Renson?’

  ‘There’s a lay-by this side of Harkdale; quite a large one, near a wood. You’ve probably passed it many times.’

  ‘Between Harkdale and Lower Winfield?’

  ‘That’s right. On the day of the robbery Renson was waiting there with a lorry. Immediately after the raid Skibby and company belted past the lay-by and –’ His square face almost grinned. ‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what happened, Mr Temple.’

  ‘They threw Renson the bag?’

  Inspector Manley nodded.

  ‘Was Renson alone?’

  ‘Yes.’ The inspector glanced down at the dog. ‘Except for Jackson, of course. They sell special biscuits for dogs, you know.’ The dog wagged its tail as it heard its name.

  ‘Is his name Jackson?’ asked Steve. ‘It’s a curious name for a dog.’

  ‘It is indeed, Mrs Temple. According to our reports Renson thought the world of him. Absolutely devoted. But I must say the dog doesn’t look too put out by the death of his master.’

  Paul glanced at his watch. It was gone ten. Time to go upstairs and lock himself in the study before Mrs O’Hanrahan arrived. She was due at ten. The study was one of those attic conversions in pine and glass. Paul claimed a little recklessly that he could see six counties through the huge panoramic window.

  ‘Will you be needing me for a few hours, Inspector?’ he asked. ‘I have work to do.’

  ‘I don’t know. My men are searching just in case Renson brought the money here with him. I’ll be hanging around.’ He puffed gloomily on his pipe. ‘There isn’t much else to do. Renson was our big break, and the trail stops here.’

  ‘What about Desmond Blane? Shouldn’t you be –?’

  ‘We’ve put out a call. But Blane is a London man.’

  Paul laughed. Obviously Inspector Manley had been busily hunting for a gang based in Birmingham which had been making the forays into the surrounding countryside. It was a blow to him that the gang might operate from the smoke.

  ‘I expect my old friend Charlie Vosper of the Yard will be able to help you,’ Paul said cruelly.

  ‘Which yard?’

  He had left it too late. Paul heard the front door slam and a woman’s voice yelled, ‘Yoo hoo! Anyone at home?’ To flee upstairs he would have to pass her in the passage.

  ‘She’s our daily woman,’ Paul told the inspector. ‘Mrs O’Hanrahan.’

  ‘I didn’t know you had a daily woman.’

  Paul nodded, picked up The Times from the floor and tried to become absorbed in it. He looked up the two answers he had failed to get in the crossword yesterday, and found he couldn’t remember the clues.

  ‘Would she have been here yesterday?’ the inspector asked.

  Steve nodded. ‘She would have opened up. You know, cleaned through and made the beds, turned on the heating. Mrs O’Hanrahan is very conscientious.’

  Mrs O’Hanrahan had a heart of gold and a very loud voice. She was a large all-enveloping woman in her fifties. She had survived three husbands and she terrorised the elderly bachelors in the village pub. After three stouts she was anybody’s. When Paul and Steve had bought Random Cottage it had been she, Mrs O’Hanrahan, who had decided they would need someone to keep an eye on the place while they were in London. And Mrs O’Hanrahan had soon afterwards decided that Steve was too much of a lady to cope with all the housework. Actually Steve was very fond of her.

  ‘There you are, the two of you. Have you seen the police outside? Mrs T, you’re looking frail. You need the country air in your lungs. It’s all right, I know that Mr T is fit as a parish priest. I saw you on the telly last night and you looked as real as my late husband.’

  ‘I’m real,’ Paul muttered, ‘and I’m alive.’

  ‘God bless you. I nearly fell off the bar stool when you mentioned Harkdale. You must be psychic after all. We had a man here yesterday wanting to talk to you about the Harkdale robbery. Ever such a nice young man.’ She paused in surprise. ‘That’s his dog under the sink.’

  She went across and made a fuss of the animal. She clearly regarded Random Cottage as hers and Paul and Steve as a couple of her responsibilities. Steve was a sweet and innocent girl who only needed fattening up; Paul was more complex but she understood his funny ways.

  ‘What are all these policemen doing here?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘The nice young man has been murdered,’ Paul said.

  Mrs O’Hanrahan sat quickly in the armchair by the kitchen range. ‘Lord almighty.’ She clutched her bosom and accepted a cup of coffee from Steve.

  ‘I’m Inspector Manley of Birmingham CID and I’m investigating the death of Gavin Renson. Did he say why he wanted to see Mr Temple yesterday?’

  ‘No, he said he had read a series of articles in some newspaper or other. Of course Mr Temple wasn’t due here until midnight –’

  ‘What time did Renson arrive?’

  ‘He came to the front door at about three o’clock. I was just off myself because it had been a busy day –’

  ‘Did you see him leave?’

  ‘Yes. He said he’d come back this morning.’

  Paul folded The Times and tucked it under his arm. He gestured to Steve and the inspector that he was off upstairs to do some work, but they didn’t notice. He went upstairs into the study. It was an imposing room, like the office of an American tycoon, with a luxury desk in the modern idiom, spacious bookshelves, an incomprehensible punched card filing system, chairs and pictures and a battery of gadgets.

  He flicked the switch of his telephone answering gadget and listened to the crop of insignificant messages. While the messages were being played back Paul stared out of the panoramic window. He suspected he used to work better in his tiny basement office ten years or more ago. The rolling English countryside was distracting.

  He sat at the desk and pushed away his electric typewriter. Paul began making notes with a fountain pen on his note pad. What sort of person would be a super-brain of criminal organis
ation? Would it show at school, or at university? Would class enter into it, as a determining factor in the decision between banking and bank robbery? Would age enter into it? Was a criminal’s most creative period finished, like a logician’s, by the time he was thirty? Was crime an art or a craft or a science? Paul stared at the questions before him, and found that he was thinking about something else. Instead of looking for answers he was wondering about Betty Stanway. Oh well, it amounted to the same thing. He might as well find out who was behind the series of bank robberies. See whether he was young or old, grammar school or comprehensive, creative or thorough.

  Paul picked up the telephone, asked for directory enquiries, and gave them the name of Stanway and the street he had left Betty in.

  ‘Hello, caller,’ the operator said impersonally. ‘The subscriber is a Mr Christopher Stanway, he’s listed as a dentist. The number is Oxford 09037.’

  ‘Thank you, operator,’ said Paul.

  He dialled the number.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Stanway. I wonder whether I could speak to your daughter Betty. My name is Temple.’

  ‘Who? Betty? She isn’t here.’ The voice on the other end of the line was triumphant. It was Betty’s younger brother, Pete, and he wanted to know who Temple was. ‘Well, I’m afraid my sister lives in London. We almost never see her.’

  ‘But she is staying with you at the moment,’ Paul said patiently. ‘I dropped her off at the end of your road last night.’

  ‘Sorry, but she didn’t come at the last moment. She rang to say that she’d been held up. Try the Love-Inn, or alternatively try the next name on your list of prospects.’

  The young man hung up. Paul replaced the receiver. He was suddenly worried. He hurried downstairs to find Inspector Manley still in the kitchen.

  ‘Inspector, I’ve just been onto Betty Stanway’s home. She never arrived there last night!’

  ‘I know.’ The inspector puffed at his pipe and sighed. ‘That has been worrying me.’

  ‘But we dropped her at the corner of the street,’ said Steve in amazement, ‘just near her house!’

  Paul nodded. ‘She didn’t make the last fifty yards.’