Paul Temple and the Harkdale Robbery

by Francis Durbridge

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Lomax. ‘He’s disappeared. Rumour has it he went broke and he’s hiding from his creditors, but I don’t believe it. He was a very rich man.’ Lomax spoke with the instinctive bitterness of a man who has very little.

  ‘When did he disappear?’ asked Paul.

  ‘About three weeks ago, but people claim to have seen him around since then. He hasn’t gone far.’ Lomax looked suddenly worried. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be telling you all this. I wouldn’t want to shop a man for robbing a bank.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Paul. ‘He isn’t Robin Hood. A number of people have died because of those bank robberies.’

  Paul decided that Steve deserved a new handbag. Crocodile, of course, that was what she had hinted she needed for her birthday. Paul decided to buy her a crocodile un-birthday present as soon as the case was over.

  ‘Why are you looking so pleased with yourself?’ Steve asked as he climbed into the car.

  ‘I’ve decided to buy you a new handbag.’

  Paul even made the cocoa when they got back to the cottage. He knew how she hated her plans for a peaceful holiday to go chaotically adrift. But she was bearing up remarkably well. Tonight indeed she had been inadvertently very helpful. When Paul arrived with the cocoa she was already in bed.

  ‘Are you fed up?’ he asked her.

  ‘I’ve been married to you for a long time,’ she said with a laugh.

  There was a screeching sound from the depths of the garden, a barn owl or perhaps a frightened badger. Paul listened as he sipped his cocoa. He wondered what noises a badger makes.

  ‘Come to bed,’ Steve murmured.

  ‘Do you think my villains are dislikeable?’ he asked her.

  ‘Darling, it’s nearly one o’clock.’

  He had decided to lecture the open prisoners on Criminals and the Myth of the Outsider. It sounded suitably academic and yet trendy, the kind of thing the colour supplements might like. Perhaps he would repeat it to those Townswomen who kept pestering him to address their Guild. In his experience most criminals tended to be unintelligent and conformist, which was a shame because it made them less interesting than they sounded. They were hostile to authority, of course –

  ‘Steve!’

  She had thrown a pillow at him.

  ‘I nearly spilled my cocoa.’

  She sat up in bed and tossed her hair temperamentally. ‘This is a new and very sexy nightdress, and you haven’t even noticed it! I’ve been lying demurely in bed for fifteen minutes and you haven’t even looked at me! I’m going to sleep!’ She lay down again and simultaneously turned off the light. ‘And if you don’t stop laughing I’ll throw the other pillow at you.’

  Paul climbed happily into bed beside her.

  Chapter Eight

  Steve was not accustomed to spending long periods in the country alone; she was accustomed to the irritation of Paul being constantly about as she tried to finish a design. The clatter of his typewriter overhead, the pause before he came downstairs in search of a particular word or a reference or a cup of coffee, and then at the sight of Mrs O’Hanrahan fleeing back to continue typing: that was the pattern of life in Broadway. She wasn’t used to silence.

  Paul had gone off to see Inspector Manley. He had an idea that Arnold Cookson would be known to the local police since he had local connections. Steve wondered whether to pass the morning in search of Cookson, just to show that she could have been a detective if she had chosen a career instead of a husband. The man from the garage in the village had returned her Hillman Imp that morning. It had been in for a new dynamo since Christmas and the mechanic had been sarcastic about people who forgot where they left their cars. Steve wanted to try the car out.

  ‘I could see he was worried, dear, as soon as he came to the door and asked for Mr Temple. I knew there was something wrong –’

  It was the ninth time of telling and each time the story acquired several additional details, most of which showed an increase in Mrs O’Hanrahan’s intuitive wisdom and natural sympathy.

  ‘I came back when he’d gone to tell the man from the public opinion poll –’

  ‘Who?’ Steve asked with sudden attention.

  ‘The man from the public opinion. He wanted to know how we voted and what we thought of the newspapers.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘I said Paul always took The Times to do the crossword –’

  ‘No, no, Mrs O’Hanrahan, what did you tell him about Gavin Renson?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She smiled benignly at Steve’s thick headedness. ‘He wasn’t here, was he? He’d gone.’

  ‘I don’t know, Mrs O’Hanrahan, you’ve never mentioned this visitor before.’

  ‘Well, he wasn’t important. He went away.’ Mrs O’Hanrahan ran carelessly into the garden calling at Jackson to leave her best gladioli alone! Steve watched in amusement. She was beginning to understand why Paul found the woman difficult.

  ‘I’m going out for a walk,’ Steve announced when Mrs O’Hanrahan returned with the dog. ‘I need a breath of fresh air.’ She patted the dog and asked him whether he wanted to come as well. It appeared that he did.

  Steve had bought him a lead, but whenever she put it on him he sat on his hind legs and sulked. Once more she went through the established ritual of putting on the lead, dragging Jackson into the drive and then releasing him. Mrs O’Hanrahan said something about not teaching old dogs new tricks.

  ‘I think we’ll go into Banbury,’ said Steve.

  ‘You’ll need a heavier pair of shoes than those little slingbacks,’ Mrs O’Hanrahan declared. ‘It’s a long walk.’

  ‘We’ll go by car.’

  Jackson sat in the back seat and barked at all the passing motorists as if he were accustomed to the English traffic. On quieter stretches of the road across to Banbury he sniffed the back of Steve’s neck, and then just as they reached the town he lay down and went to sleep. Steve pulled up outside the public library.

  In the hallowed silence which was the nearest local government aspired to godliness, Steve tried the obvious reference books. The telephone directory, the local chamber of commerce directory and asking the library assistant whether Cookson was in the borrowers’ register.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the librarian said primly, ‘we can’t give you information like that. After all, we don’t know who you are.’

  ‘Mrs Temple,’ said Steve. ‘Do you want to see my driving licence?’

  He stuck to his rectitude. ‘I meant that you might be a debt collector or his ex-wife, something like that.’

  ‘I’m a detective and I suspect Mr Cookson of being a bank robber.’

  ‘Ha ha,’ he brayed in the cathedral hush, ‘Mr Cookson wouldn’t need to rob a bank. His bank manager calls him sir.’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Of course. He owns the estate agents office round the corner.’

  The estate agents round the corner was called Kimber & Sons. When Steve climbed out of the car she realised that Jackson had woken up and was more than usually excited. He jumped across the seat onto the pavement and ran barking to the office door. Steve followed him.

  ‘Oh gawd, look who it is!’ said the receptionist.

  Steve was taken aback. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  But the chemically blonde receptionist had scarcely noticed Steve. ‘Get out, Jackson, before I call the vivisectionists!’ The dog had jumped up at her in recognition. They were clearly old enemies. ‘If you ladder my stockings –’

  ‘Down, Jackson,’ Steve said firmly.

  ‘Now look at my stockings!’ snapped the girl. She glared at Steve, but her voice was precisely correct. ‘I’m sorry, can I help you?’

  ‘I wanted to see Mr Cookson.’

  ‘He isn’t here. Do you know this dog?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Steve hanging on to his collar, ‘I’m looking after him.’

  ‘You aren’t looking after him very well.’ She glanced quickly at Steve t
o see whether it was safe to continue the attack, and obviously she decided it was not. ‘Where’s Gavin then?’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Gavin?’ Her eyes strayed back to the dog in superstitious fear. ‘What happened?’ She backed away from the dog as if he were tainted with death. ‘There was nothing wrong with Gavin.’

  ‘He was murdered,’ Steve said gently. ‘How did you come to know him?’

  ‘He worked here.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Who murdered him?’

  ‘I don’t know. The police are still working on it.’

  The girl talked about Gavin’s charm and how he used to drive the customers out to look at properties for sale. It gave her time to regain her composure. She explained that he had joined the firm soon after Mr Cookson had arrived from Liverpool and bought himself a partnership. She began repainting her fingernails and explained that Gavin had been sacked a month ago for taking the dog everywhere.

  ‘It didn’t look good with the customers, you see.’

  ‘Was business falling off?’ Steve asked.

  ‘You could say that,’ she agreed. ‘This is a bad time for selling property.’ She told Steve about the tragic fate of several speculative builders in that part of the country and the sad lull in the lives of the big developers. ‘Mr Kimber would have gone bankrupt if it hadn’t been for Mr Cookson turning up like that. We were lucky. Mr Cookson has imagination and flair.’ The girl paused suspiciously. ‘Did you say you wanted to see Mr Cookson? ‘’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We don’t know where he is.’ She resumed her professional manner. ‘Can somebody else help?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He’s a personal friend of mine; I live over in Broadway. Last time he came to dinner I lent him my copy of the Chamber of Commerce directory, and I wanted it back. It’s a small blue book –’

  ‘I think I’ve seen it,’ the receptionist said helpfully.

  ‘Do you think perhaps we could –?’

  ‘Why not?’

  Steve followed her into Arnold Cookson’s empty office. She deliberately shut Jackson out, and he howled loudly while the girl flipped through the papers on the desk.

  ‘Shall I look?’ asked Steve, ‘if you could keep Jackson happy. I mean, I know what the directory is like.’

  The telephone was ringing as well. The girl smiled gratefully and left Steve alone in the office.

  Five minutes later Steve went back to the girl and retrieved Jackson. She hadn’t found a blue directory, thank goodness, but she had picked up half a dozen possible ideas. She thanked the receptionist.

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ Steve said by the door, ‘what is so important about Red Trees Farm?’

  ‘Nothing now. Mr Cookson was going to build a housing estate, but it all fell through. It’s used as a caravan site, and Mr Cookson sold it to a customer in London.’

  Steve drove back to Broadway deep in thought. The most baffling thing was why Cookson had bought himself an estate agent’s business, unless he was genuinely an estate agent, in which case why was he robbing banks? She assumed he was not the super-brain because of the way Desmond Blane had referred to him on the telephone. And why had he disappeared? He must have left quite a sum of money tied up in Kimber & Sons.

  The very quick examination of Cookson’s desk had indicated that he had worked busily for the good of the firm. But it was possible that the bank robbers were hiding out in a property that had passed through his hands. Steve tested the car’s newly repaired condition as she sped across the hills, turned into Buckle Street and swooped eventually down to the village.

  She nearly crashed as she reached Random Cottage. Paul was emerging from the drive in the Rolls and he was wearing that don’t-stop-me-I’m-in-a-hurry expression. Steve pressed the horn in exasperation and Jackson began barking again.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Steve called.

  ‘I came back to see whether you were bored,’ he said. ‘The police are probably off to arrest Blane and Cookson. I didn’t want to disappear for hours without letting you know.’

  Steve bent over and kissed him through the car window. ‘Have you ever heard of Red Trees Farm?’ she asked casually.

  ‘Yes. Funnily enough that’s where we’re off to. Bye bye.’

  She watched the Rolls disappear along the road, did not respond to Paul’s cheery wave of farewell, and then turned back to the Hillman and kicked the rear nearside tyre.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘Paul Temple has been asking for me in town,’ said Arnold Cookson.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. We’ll be gone by the time he traces you to this godforsaken place.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter? The police will be on to me!’

  Desmond Blane chuckled to himself. Everywhere you go, for the rest of your life, you’ll be on the run. At any time of the day or night, whenever there’s a knock at the door or a hand falls on your shoulder, it could be the last arrest. You’ll never be able to relax, or allowed to forget. A hunted man with a false identity. That was how the dialogue went, from one of those old Humphrey Bogart films. And all it meant was that Arnold would spend the rest of his life like he’d spent the first sixty years.

  ‘They know your name as well,’ said Arnold.

  ‘That bastard Renson must have talked.’

  ‘Perhaps you were right after all,’ muttered Arnold. ‘Perhaps you did have to kill him.’

  ‘Don’t start on that again!’

  They were getting on each other’s nerves. Desmond had always been a Londoner. He found the old man’s accent jarring, and he certainly didn’t like being cooped up with him. The sight of sheep grazing out of the caravan windows first thing in the mornings was spoiling his taste for mutton. The country was all right for chawbacons like Arnold, but if Desmond never saw another farm he would die happy.

  ‘Are you going to kill Temple?’ asked Arnold.

  ‘Not unless it becomes necessary.’

  Arnold Cookson snorted. ‘You mean not unless you’re told to. I’m glad this is nearly over. I’ve never worked for a boss like ours before.’

  ‘It isn’t the boss’s fault that Renson cracked.’ Desmond shuffled the cards and began another game of patience with himself. ‘Renson was your contact, you said you knew him like your own son.’

  ‘I don’t know why he went to see Paul Temple.’

  I know, thought Desmond Blane. He thought we were double crossing him. He had arrived the morning after the robbery full of boyish glee, the money in his bag and the dog barking behind him. And then he had learnt that the heat was on. The men who had pulled the job smashed up in the car, a policeman dead and a bank clerk injured. There wasn’t much to be gleeful about.

  ‘We’re pulling out on Monday evening,’ Blane had said. ‘It’s been a nice ride, but it’s over.’ He had taken the bag from Gavin Renson and tossed it under the bunk.

  ‘Where will you be going?’

  Cookson had said abroad.

  ‘So what about my cut? We’ve lifted more than a hundred thousand quid and so far I haven’t seen –’

  ‘We’ll settle up, don’t worry.’

  But Renson had eaten his breakfast in gloomy dissatisfaction. ‘I won’t know where to find you. I don’t even know who we’ve been working for.’ He kept tossing pieces of bacon on to the caravan floor for the dog, which had irritated Desmond Blane. ‘Who have we been working for?’

  ‘You don’t need to know.’

  ‘A fellow in the paper this morning calls him a super-brain of crime, a new kind of businessman.’ Renson had pointed to the newspaper article. ‘Paul Temple, you see? He lives over there, across the hills. I’ve read some of his books.’

  ‘Okay, so you can read. You know the arrangement –’

  ‘I know. You owe me ten thousand pounds. Don’t forget that in your panic to escape, or you’ll read all about these robberies in Mr Temple’s next newspaper article.’

  That was his death sentence.

 
He realised he had said too much. Desmond Blane could see the fear in the kid’s eyes, and he left without drinking his coffee.

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ Arnold Cookson had said nervously as they watched the lorry with its authentic load of gravel disappear along the track. ‘I can’t see Gavin shopping us.’

  ‘Neither can I.’ Desmond Blane could imagine vividly what the prospect of death or not receiving his cut could do to a young man like Renson. ‘I won’t let him.’

  It preoccupied him for the rest of the morning, and at lunch time he decided to telephone London. There was a phone box about a mile down the lane which was their link with the world.

  Blane drove a decently anonymous black Triumph 1300; it wasn’t a getaway car or a status symbol. He had built up a resentment against driving it along the track to the caravan farm, but he drove it this time to the public call box.

  He dialled a London telephone number, and while he was waiting to be put through he looked up Paul Temple in the local directory. Random Cottage, it was entered, Broadway. No number or street.

  ‘Okay, Des,’ the voice on the other end instructed, ‘take whatever action you find is necessary. Keep an eye on Paul Temple’s home.’ They discussed the sudden changes in schedule. ‘By the way, there’s a slight problem this end as well. I think you’re the best person to help –’

  He drove over the hills to Broadway. It was a crowded village in the bowl of a valley. The central street was very wide and sloped up through a clutter of houses and shops and gardens, but Blane could not see any sign indicating Random Cottage. Eventually he went into the Lygon Arms and asked the girl behind the reception desk.

  ‘It’s up Fish Hill,’ she said. ‘You’ll see a turning on the right as you leave the village.’

  Blane stayed for a large whisky and watched the village life passing by. There were a couple of farmers in the lounge talking barley; they made him yearn for the racing chat of his own pub in the Brompton Road. But when he found himself wondering whether he would ever see it again he realised he was going soft. He was here to do a job.

  Random Cottage was actually a house, he found. He strode up to the front door and hammered on the knocker. Full frontal assault. He announced that he was engaged in market research, asking questions about the newspapers people read, Mrs Temple.