by Hunter Alan
‘Also, you can keep an eye on Hastings.’
Dutt went.
Perkins said: ‘That’s Cheyne-Chevington all right, isn’t it?’ Gently nodded. ‘Not much doubt. But we’ll have to pin him down on that. Put a man on checking – tax office, National Insurance, licence office – and borrow specimens of his handwriting. We’ll get witnesses who can identify him if neceessary.’
‘I knew I’d seen the man in that photograph.’
‘Do you remember a blonde from when he lived near you?’
‘I’ll ask the wife. She may remember. What do you think – is he the chummie?’
Gently smiled at the eager local man, began to walk back towards Headquarters. How could it possibly be a coincidence that Cheyne-Chevington was on the spot? And yet . . .
‘I don’t think we’ll find he’s the one who drove the truck. We’ll check his alibi, of course. But I imagine it will stand up.’
‘But if he went to arrange about the tiger . . . !’
‘We’re only guessing it was him. I think it was, but it doesn’t follow he was the chummie in the job.
‘Look at the pattern. Groton has the tiger, so he’s out – he must have an alibi. Cheyne-Chevington sets it up, but he’s vulnerable too – another alibi.
‘What we’re looking for is a third man, one who has no traceable connection with Shimpling – a man who doesn’t need an alibi, because we wouldn’t think to check it. Also, if this third man’s alone in the world and can vanish after the job’s done . . . that’s perfect!
‘The link is missing, and we can never bring it home to them.’
‘And the third man . . . ?’
‘Samuel Sayers. It seems to stick out a mile.’
‘But Sayers . . .’
‘Did you know him?’
‘Yes. I found him a likeable sort of chap.’
‘That’s not the point! Tell me about him. How old was he, for a start?’
‘Oh, he wasn’t so very old – mid-fifties, I’d say; medium height, podgy build, gone bald on top.’
‘Pretty active?’
‘Oh yes. He used to be secretary of the Lads’ Club. Went in for badminton and judo – he could send you sailing over his shoulder. But all the same . . .’
‘He fits the bill. I’d say he was just the man we were looking for. Especially his being a judo expert – he’d probably have needed to lay Shimpling out.’
‘But I rather liked him.’
Gently grinned. ‘We’ll have to dig him up,’ he said. ‘We can start by phoning a description to Bournemouth, though Hastings may have given us that for a blind. Then we can try the post office and the banks . . . perhaps his bank’ll be the best bet.
‘Where a man’s account is transferred to isn’t confidential information.’
‘I don’t know . . .’ Perkins said, wriggling.
‘Remember, the fellow was a queer.’
Perkins’s ears reddened about the lobes. He muttered:
‘That lot happened before I knew him . . .’
They talked on, along Abbeygate Street, filled now with rush-hour traffic. Above ornate, bronze-framed windows a gilded glass panel read: K. Ashfield, MPS.
Gently tried the door, but it was locked, and a card said: ‘Closed Even for Larner’s Liver Pills’. Inside the shop looked cool and tidy. Gently hunched his shoulders. Tomorrow . . .
‘One other thing to bear in mind.’
They were crossing Abbey Plain and could see two reporters.
‘The “black book” – in the last analysis, that may be the key to this business. We’ve already a “G” and an “H” and an “S’, and now an “A” and a “C” from Ashfield and Cockfield. Of course, it needn’t mean a thing – but the right initials keep turning up.
‘Give us just one or two more, and it’ll have to stop being a coincidence.’
Perkins’s unhappy eyes turned on him.
‘You can’t mean you suspect Alderman Cockfield!’
‘Shsh,’ Gently said.
The two reporters were on them.
‘How’s it going, Super?’
Work, it seemed, was over for the day. In Bradfield’s office the chief constable was waiting to sweep Gently off home with him.
His name was Villiers and he had a twist in his nose as though it had once been broken and badly set; also his chin stuck out sharply. Yet he was handsome, in his rough-hewn way.
‘Bradfield’s been telling me you’ve spotted your man – a struck-off medico, isn’t he? Hastings, the fellow who took over Sam Sayers’s. You never can tell in this game, I say . . .’
An ex-army man, as like as not. He probably got that nose boxing. He had a hard, over-riding voice with a touch of Bow Bells in its accent.
No doubt a bastard if you rubbed him the wrong way, and that wouldn’t be difficult. He’d have favourites . . .
‘Not local, of course, that fellow. I meet him on club nights. Don’t like him. Bit of a pansy with that beard, eh . . . easy to spot them. I’m not surprised.’
‘You’ve reason to think he’s a homosexual?’
‘What? No – nothing of that kind! I mean the way he dresses . . . his manner. If I’d known him better I’d have black-balled him.’
‘Was Groton ever put up for the Athenaeum?’
‘No, but I like him. He’s a bit of a card.’
Soon it was evident enough how Villiers had spent his afternoon. He’d been collecting the local notables to meet Gently at dinner.
‘Nothing formal, y’know . . . just a meal with friends . . . the Mayor and one or two others.’
Did it really matter who murdered Shimpling?
They drove to Villiers’s house in Villiers’s Bentley. The house was out of town. Villiers drove fast and well. When they arrived three other cars were already parked on the sweep and through French windows came the sound of laughter and a chink of glasses.
‘You’d like to join them in a drink?’
Gently would rather have had a cup of tea, but soon he had a Scotch grasped in his left hand while he was shaking hands with his right.
‘Alderman Parkins, our present Mayor . . .’
A faded, ascetic-looking man.
‘Geoffrey Traynor . . .’
Of Traynor’s Fine Ales.
‘And here’s the missus, dying to meet you . . .’
And the Chairman of the Bench of Magistrates, the town clerk and the fire chief, all flushed and being familiar and making jokes and shooting questions.
Well, they could have their fun. In another twenty-four hours . . .
But just now his head was swimming and he wished he was safe in the Angel, reading Pickwick.
The room, in spite of open French windows, had the suffocating airlessness that went with the absence of a fireplace.
‘Alderman Cockfield . . .’
Cockfield? Now he was alert again!
A powerful, moon-faced man with thinned grey hair, who stared and shook hands challengingly.
‘How do, Superintendent. What do you think of our little job?’
In his late fifties. The hands, the body of a man who’d worked his way up from the bottom.
‘Nothing special from your point of view, but it makes a stir here in Abbotsham. Not that the fellow was worth making a fuss about. I read in the paper he was a blackmailer.’
‘Does that make a difference?’
‘It would for me, I can tell you. I hate blackmailers. So far as I’m concerned, this Shimpling got what was coming to him.’
‘What do you recommend us to do, then?’
‘What? You’ll have to do your duty, won’t you? A man must always do that, whether he likes it or not. Do your duty. But don’t do a stroke more than that.
‘Work to rule – that’s the ticket! We shan’t mind if you don’t find the fellow.’
‘Old Ted is a Socialist,’ Villiers chipped in.
‘Labour, Bill – I’m not ashamed of it. I’m the biggest employer in Abbotsham – and the biggest red
. Ask anyone.’
‘He’ll talk Marx to you.’
‘And why not? I’ll talk Marx to any intelligent man . . .’
And there he was, setting his drink down, as though about to strip and roll up his sleeves.
But out of the corner of his eye he was watching Gently, playing to him, watching the effect . . .
‘I’ve been talking to David Hastings.’
At once he had Cockfield’s attention.
‘Hastings? He’s all right, Hastings.’
Villiers stood by anxiously, nursing his glass.
‘You’re friendly with him?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. So-so. See him around.’
‘Do you often invite him to your chalet at Weston?’
‘Didn’t know – oh yes! He was there once.’
‘When was that?’
Cockfield hoisted his shoulders like a comic Jewish gentleman.
‘Why you ask me that, huh? Why not ask Dave Hastings?’ Gently matched the shrug.
‘It doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t be the weekend when the tiger escaped.’
Cockfield stared. ‘He says it wasn’t?’
‘What do you say, Mr Cockfield?’
Cockfield didn’t say anything for a moment, then he burst into loud laughter.
‘He knows his business, this one, Bill! No use trying to sell him short. And it’s Old Ted, Mr Superintendent – Ted the Red. Bottoms up!’
A moment later a gong began to sound and Mrs Villiers signalled her husband.
During the meal Gently had Cockfield seated on his left. The big contractor talked ceaselessly, cramming food into his mouth as he did so.
He drank wine as though it were beer, swigging down glassfuls in single gulps; then he’d help himself from the bottle and top up Gently’s glass at the same time.
‘Skaal, Super!’
He grew merry, yet one could swear it was half put on.
Round the table they exchanged glances. Old Ted was on form tonight!
‘D’you think they could use me in Westminster, Super? I’d be a stumbling-block for them, what? A Labour backbencher with seven hundred employees . . . never a strike in twenty years.
‘You want to know why? They can talk to me! We use the same sort of language. I’ll sit on a plank and roll a fag and quote them Lenin by the shovelful . . .
‘Skaal!
‘I’m not a boss, I’m a leader, Super . . .’
While, down his temples, sweat rolled in streams, so that he had to break off to dab with his handkerchief.
Across the table, the ascetic-looking Parkins was eating nut-meat and salad. He was short-sighted and kept squinting at Cockfield as though one of Groton’s animals were sitting opposite him.
On Gently’s right, the Chairman of the Bench tried to begin a legal anecdote; but he was too studied and long-winded to make any headway against Cockfield.
‘Skaal! You’re not drinking, Super. Try some of this . . . what is it? Chablis! I don’t know one wine from another, that’s a job for the wine merchant . . .
‘Look, you’re an intelligent man, Super, you’re a man I can talk to. Nationalization is bunk – I’ll prove it to you. It’s like this.’
‘Spare us Nationalization!’ someone called.
No,’ Cockfield said. ‘No. I know you rabble don’t care a hoot – but the Super, he’s different!
‘Nationalization – what is it? It’s trying to force a natural process. We’ll get it, anyway, that’s my point – it’s an economic inevitability.
‘Take the chemical industry – two big cartels, trying to do each other down – one’ll swallow the other, then what? The last takeover – by the Bank! That’s Nationalization as a natural process, a historic process.
‘Skaal!’
But now he was getting a little fuddled, because he spilled the wine down his shirt front.
‘Mr Cockfield is a character,’ the chairman murmured. ‘He made an excellent Mayor, though . . . which reminds me . . . ?’
‘When was he Mayor?’ Gently asked.
‘He held office last year, before Mr Parkins.’
Parkins heard his name mentioned and squinted severely. He drank a little water from a tumbler.
‘Mr P. is a hotelier,’ the chairman murmured. ‘Which reminds me . . .’
‘Skaal!’
By the end of the meal there was no doubt that Cockfield was squiffy. He had to be assisted into the lounge, and Villiers helped him drink his coffee.
But still he wanted to sit by Gently, still he kept his eye on him, while he rambled on about politics and whatever came into his head.
He’d really taken to Gently! The others couldn’t get a look in. Villiers was mooning around the two of them like an unhappy hen who’d hatched ducklings.
‘I want to see you tomorrow, Super . . . show you round . . . what about it?’
‘Too busy.’
‘Don’t be like that, man! Who cares a damn about . . . what’s his name?’
‘Shimpling.
‘That’s him! Well . . . who cares about him? He’s dead, best thing too . . . I want to show you my sites.’
‘I’ll see.’
‘That’s better. Y’know, I like you, Superintendent . . . who’s driving you back?’
‘Mr Villiers.’
‘Just put me in the car . . . you’ll find I can drive!’
But actually it was Parkins, stone sober, who drove them back in his Daimler, with Gently supporting the snoring Cockfield as they proceeded at a sedate forty.
They dropped Cockfield off at a large house on the outskirts of the town, where he was taken in by his son Tommy, who showed no surprise.
As they drove away, Parkins said:
‘That fellow killed a man, you know.’
Adding, as Gently turned to him:
‘It should have been manslaughter, but of course it passed off as careless driving.’
‘When was this?’
‘When he was in office. Last May twelvemonth, I think. Ask Villiers.’
‘Thanks, I will.’
Parkins went on driving, chin high.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IN THE LOUNGE of the Angel Dutt sat alone, reading the marked copy of Pickwick. It was a thick, early edition with the plates, and Dutt was frowning at it through his reading glasses. When Gently entered he put it down.
‘Hello, chief. Have a good evening?’
Gently grimaced and took a chair. He closed his eyes and leaned backwards.
‘I’ve been having a go at this Dickens bloke . . . they must have been a rum lot in his day! I reckon he overwrote, you know. Blinking great paragraphs and long sentences.’
‘It went down big when he wrote it.’
‘Perhaps we’ve got on a bit since those days. I don’t know, but I’m not with it. I reckon he did things the hard way,’
‘What did you have for tea?’
‘Bangers and chips with an egg.’
‘Any good?’
‘So-so. Bangers don’t vary much, chief.’
Gently opened his eyes slightly.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘What’s her name?’
‘Lady Buxhall.’
‘Who?’
‘Lady Buxhall. Lord Buxhall’s missus.’
Gently opened his eyes wide, then closed them again.
‘Nuts,’ he said. ‘You’ve delusions of grandeur. Keep Debrett out of this one, Dutt.’
‘But it’s right, chief!’
‘Nuts.’
‘I’ve got her description and the lot. Lady Laura Betty Buxhall, née Potter. Used to be a model for Burns and Winsmoore.’
‘A model, was she?’ Gently opened one eye.
‘That’s how old Buxhall picked her up. Before that she might have been something else – someone who had dealings with Cheyne-Chevington.’
Gently nodded. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Though I think you’re ten jumps ahead. But let’s go back to the bangers and chips and what the policeman
saw through the window.’
‘I saw her, chief. No doubt about it. Tall. Ash blonde. Lean build. Driving a light blue Mercedes coupé, licence number B22.
‘I called the waitress over and she confirmed it was the same blonde. This was about ten minutes to six. She was only there a quarter of an hour.’
‘Snogging with Hastings.’
‘Not snogging. They were talking nineteen to the dozen. Hastings was walking up and down. She was smoking a fag in a long holder. Then before she left he did kiss her, but they didn’t make a ball of it. She came out looking rather peevish. He went up into the flat and poured himself a drink.’
‘Then, naturally, you did some research.’
‘What do you think, chief ? The car belongs to Lady Buxhall and the blonde answers her description. The Buxhalls live at Hawley House, about twenty miles from Abbotsham. That’s near Illingford, in the next county, which is perhaps why people don’t know her up this way.
‘Then I rang the Express Building and talked to Stan Taylor, the gossip columnist. She’s Buxhall’s second. He’s pushing seventy and is reckoned to be worth over a million.
‘He has a son and two daughters who are daggers drawn with Lady Laura, but the old man is besotted with her, so they’ve had their noses put out of joint.
‘He met her at a party at Claridges where Burns and Winsmoore put on a show. There was a whirlwind romance. He married her about four years ago. She’s behaved like a model wife, and Taylor says she better had, because if the family catch her slipping it’ll be lights for Lady Laura.
‘That’s the lot, chief. She doesn’t have form. Thought I’d wait up and give it to you.’
‘Hmm,’ Gently said.
He took out a card on which he’d pencilled the ‘black book’ initials. He put a tick against the ‘B’.
Six out of ten . . . four to go!
Enough to rule out coincidence? Now it began to look that way. And here was enough money involved to motivate half a dozen murders . . .
‘She’d be a wide-open touch for Shimpling.’
‘She’d come to hand like a pint pot, chief. If he was keeping tabs on Hastings he’d soon find out about her. Was she in the book for much?’
“‘B” was paying fifty a month.’
‘I’d say that was a pretty reasonable touch.’
‘Shimpling was fly. He was a clever operator.’
Dutt tucked his head on one side. ‘I reckon this is the angle, chief,’ he said. ‘This is where the big money is, where Shimpling might have stepped out of line. There’s Lady Laura, sweating on a million, and Hastings sweating on it with her – and all of it ready to go up the spout at a couple of words from Shimpling.