by Hunter Alan
‘I don’t know about the others—’
‘Don’t give me the parrot cry again! We’re combing the country for Shimpling’s girlfriend, and she’ll talk, and that’ll be that.’
‘As a witness in court—’
‘How did Shimpling get on to you?’
‘I never set eyes on the damn fellow!’
‘I think he was clever enough to bluff you. He probably had nothing on you at all.’
‘I tell you I never met him!’
‘This is the way I’d say it happened. Straight after you were charged at the magistrates’ court you received a letter marked “Private and Confidential”. It said the writer had information about where you’d been before the accident, and that if you didn’t want him to go to the police you’d pass him a small sum in notes. What did you do – pay up?’
‘I didn’t—’
‘You hadn’t much option, had you? A squeak of that sort would have finished you – Mayor, bigwig, public benefactor! And the fellow wasn’t asking so much, or so you thought at the time – oh yes, you slipped him the money quick. You were even glad that he was crooked.
‘Then after the case, what happened? Another one of those damned letters! But this time you thought it safe to defy him and you didn’t pass the money. So, he cracked the whip with an anonymous letter that sent Amies’s father on the rampage, and before you knew how it happened you were coughing up a regular monthly payment.
‘And my guess is it was pure bluff. He didn’t know anything – except human nature.’
‘Listen, Superintendent—’
‘Isn’t that how it was?’
Cockfield’s knuckles were pale on the wheel.
‘I don’t say it was, don’t say it wasn’t – but I still say you might make a fool of yourself!’
‘That’s a risk I’ll take. Now tell me – where’s Sayers?’
‘Sayers . . . ?’
‘Yes – and don’t say Bournemouth! My bet is he’s not far away – could be here, in one of your houses.’
‘No – not here.’
‘But you know where he is?’
Suddenly not only Cockfield’s knuckles were pale.
‘Sayers . . . he retired.’
‘Oh yes, I dare say. And oddly enough, soon after the murder.’
‘I – I don’t know.’
He’d gone quite still, staring ahead at the crescents of houses. As with Hastings yesterday, the mention of Sayers seemed to touch a button . . . and wasn’t this one fear? Sweat was misting on his slanted forehead.
‘You’d have known him, of course?’
‘Oh yes, I knew him. In my line of business . . . well, we had several deals.’
‘In fact, you’d known him for a number of years?’
‘Well yes . . . we both belong here.’
‘Yet you’ve not a notion where he’s retired to – he didn’t as much as send you a card?’
Cockfield squirmed. ‘Dave had letters from him – Dave Hastings who bought him out! Dave says he went to Bournemouth. I don’t know any more than that. I wasn’t bosom friends with the man, he didn’t have to tell me anything. If you want him, why not look for him?’
Gently nodded. ‘We’re doing just that.’
The tip-lorry backed out of the site and came up the road towards them. The beefy, blond-haired man who drove it leaned out grinning and made a V-sign. Cockfield lifted a big hand in acknowledgement. The lorry went on towards Abbotsham. A smell of sand, of mortar, drifted momentarily in through the Daimler’s window.
‘They’ll have those houses finished,’ Cockfield said, then, without a change of tone: ‘You’re a bloody devil!’
Gently shrugged. ‘I’m a trier,’ he said. ‘And I don’t like any sort of murderer.’
‘And you’ll go by the book,’ Cockfield said.
Gently nodded. ‘By the book. Though it blasts your crime-free town wide open, I’ll have the man who killed Shimpling.’
‘Even . . . though it does more harm than good?’
Gently looked at him. Cockfield avoided the look.
CHAPTER TWELVE
COCKFIELD DROPPED GENTLY outside Headquarters without having said very much on the return journey. His rather fish-like face had a droop in it, as though that hangover had at last caught up with him. Finally he said, as Gently slammed the door:
‘Will you be around if someone wants to get in touch with you . . . ?’
But somehow it didn’t come out like a question, and when Gently didn’t answer Cockfield drove off immediately.
Obviously, he was going hot-foot to consult someone – which would perhaps take him into Dutt’s sphere of observation! Gently smiled to himself: he hadn’t been wasting his time. He had a comfortable feeling that things were on the move . . .
Two of the reporters’ cars were parked opposite Headquarters and when Gently went in a head popped out of the waiting-room.
‘Anything for the evenings, chiefie?’
Gently strolled over and looked through the door. Three other pressmen sat round a table, each holding a hand of cards. Cigarettes hung angled from their mouths and the air in the room was a haze of smoke. On the table was a kitty of cash which they hadn’t bothered to hide.
‘You’re a cheeky lot of so-and-so’s, aren’t you?’
‘Aw, chiefie – it’s a dog’s life!’
‘At least you could have a paper ready to plonk down on that lolly.’
One of the card-players reached wearily behind him to where his jacket hung over a chair, took out a paper, unfolded it, spread it over the pile of money.
‘OK, chiefie?’
‘Make it show the sports page.’
‘That’s hamming it, chiefie!’
‘Anyway, what are you blokes doing here – why aren’t you setting the cops an example?’
A thin-faced man sucked in air but blew smoke through his nostrils.
‘We’re overhanded,’ he said. ‘There’s half the Street sculling around here. Some of the boys are out digging. Some are out dating blondes. Some are playing peep-bo with Groton. We’re just here waiting for handouts. What have you got, chiefie?’
‘Yes – what have you got?’
‘I’ve a good mind to walk off with the kitty.’
‘Don’t be like that, chiefie!’
Gently sighed. ‘Couldn’t you open just one of those windows?’
He sucked a moment on his dead pipe, then said:
‘So you’re still watching Groton.’
The thin-faced man narrowed his eyes.
‘We’re manning the fox-holes,’ he said.
‘Any more shooting?’
‘Just routine. He likes to fire off a gun. One of the boys picked a shot out of his trousers, but that’d be a richochet. We’re not scoring it.’
‘Anyone know where he went last night?’
‘We were hoping you could tell us. He bashed a headlamp, knocked some glass out. But maybe he didn’t get to reporting it.’
‘Who saw that?’
‘One of the bimbos who was prowling round early this morning. Charlie Slater. Takes pics for the Sun. Then Groton started blasting, Slater started running. Would it be something?’
‘Not unless Charlie Slater got perforated. Did he get a photograph?’
‘Uhuh. We get anything on Groton?’
Gently looked at the thin-faced man curiously.
‘Why are you so set on Groton?’ he asked.
The man nostrilled smoke.
‘Instinct,’ he said. ‘Come rain, come snow, we know he did it. Have you busted his alibi?’
Gently shook his head.
‘One of these days you’ll have to bust it.’
‘It won’t bust.’
‘It has to bust. This job has Groton written all over it.’
Gently hunched a shoulder. ‘I’ll give you that, but don’t let it raise any hopes. Unless the entire Safari Club is underwriting him, Groton was in London when Shimpling bought it. Y
ou know the Safari Club?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Groton was attending their committee meeting on that night. With two peers, a cabinet minister and the MP for Kemptown West.’
‘We still like Groton.’
‘Facts are facts – those things that editors scream for.’
‘So why not give us some facts?’
Gently hunched again. ‘All right. We’re looking for a man called Samuel Sayers . . .’
He grinned at the thin-faced man, who said automatically:
‘You got any pics?’
‘A pic. I’ll swap it with you – for Slater’s pic of the bashed headlamp.’
But when Gently entered Perkins’s office he found the local man at his most lugubrious and was greeted with:
‘Sayers has skipped! He’s cleared his account and gone abroad.’
Gently sighed, sat himself, made a business of filling his pipe. How had Perkins ever got into that habit of expressing vast dismay with his chubby features? Relaxed, they were naturally cheerful, had a rounded, child-like optimism. But at the first sign of a check . . .
Was that what Abbotsham did to a man?
He blew smoke at the ceiling.
‘Sure he’s gone abroad?’ he asked.
‘What else can one think? Bournemouth is checking, but . . . Do you think we should inform Interpol?’
‘Not just yet! What have we got?’
‘Hargrave traced his account to the National and District.’
Hargrave, a square-shouldered, ruddy-faced man, sat glumly to the right of Perkins’s desk.
He said: ‘Sayers had deposit and current accounts, sir. He had over twenty thou in the deposit account. On twentieth September last year he wrote from Bournemouth asking to have his account transferred there.’
‘From what address?’
‘From a hotel, sir, The Stansgate in Marine Parade. He said he proposed to settle in Bournemouth and was looking over some properties.’
‘Have Bournemouth checked?’
‘Yes sir. But he was only at The Stansgate for a weekend. He came back afterwards to ask for letters, but didn’t leave any address.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, the bank rang their Bournemouth branch, sir, and the address they had was in Boscombe. But that was a furnished holiday bungalow which he only took for a month. By that time he’d emptied his accounts by cheques in favour of the Unit Finance Company. It was at one-month call, sir, and he drew it in cash in November. The UFC had an address at Southbourne. It was another furnished property.’
‘Well?’
Hargrave shrugged. ‘I’m afraid that’s it, sir. He left no address with the letting agent.’
‘He’s skipped abroad!’ Perkins moaned. ‘It’s obvious, that’s what it was building up to.’
‘He was covering his tracks,’ Gently said.
‘He didn’t have any connections over here. He’d have changed his name, bought a forged passport . . . probably he’s in the south of France.’
‘But he was at Bournemouth . . .’
‘In November!’
Gently puffed once or twice. He could have sworn that Hastings had lied to them about Sayers . . . in fact, what interest had he in telling them the truth?
If Sayers was the ‘third man’ in the business, the one who’d actually done the job, surely Hastings should have done his best . . . Yet at once he’d mentioned Bournemouth!
‘Let’s go over this again. A month after the tiger business Sayers is in Bournemouth. He appears only just to have arrived there and he stays at a hotel while he makes his arrangements. At once he writes to his bank – without waiting till he has a more permanent address – so that he has to return to the hotel to collect the bank’s reply.
‘Why do that? Presumably on the next day he finds and moves into the holiday bungalow – a project presenting no difficulty at that end of the season. So why not defer his letter till then? What was the hurry about?’
‘If he were short of money . . .’
‘How could that be? He wouldn’t have left Abbotsham empty-handed.’
‘He might have gone somewhere else first . . . perhaps he skipped straight away, in Shimpling’s car.’
‘Still, he’d have his cheque book with him, and his pals here would have slipped him money. And if he was scared of going back to Abbotsham, he should have been just as scared of writing to his bank.
‘But what was he scared of, anyway – when the killing hadn’t come to light?’
Perkins shook his head woefully. ‘It’s a bit of a mystery, that is . . .’
Gently blew a stream of smoke. ‘All right, then a bit of a mystery. It may mean something, may mean nothing. Next, having got his account at Bournemouth, he empties it by cheques made out to a trust company – which he could have done just as easily while the account was still at Abbotsham. Again, why?’
‘Perhaps . . .’
‘Of course – plenty of adventitious reasons! He may not have thought of the trust company dodge until he’d had the account transferred. Or again, the local bank manager would know him, might want to discuss the investment, while to the Bournemouth man he was simply a name and there wouldn’t be that bother. Plenty of reasons. All I’m emphasizing is that we have a need to suppose one.
‘After that it’s straightforward, if Sayers’s motive was to vanish. He’s shifted his capital into an investment which he can cash without questions asked. Once it’s cashed he’s broken the link; we can no longer trace him through his money. He reinvests it in another name, in another place, from another address.
‘Man and money are both gone . . .’
‘Would it matter if we traced him to Bournemouth?’
Perkins heaved a sigh from deep down. ‘He’s our chummie all right,’ he said. ‘He wouldn’t have done all this . . . yet he wasn’t a bad sort of fellow. We’ll have to get him, fetch him back. He’ll be abroad, I’m certain. He took a Lads’ Club party to France one year . . . he’ll know all the ropes.’
‘Did he have a car?’ Gently asked Hargrave.
‘Sorry, sir . . . I haven’t checked yet.’
Gently reached for the phone, asked the board for Hastings’s office. It was the girl who answered.
‘I’m afraid Mr Hastings is out . . .’
‘Never mind, miss. Perhaps you can tell me – what sort of car had Sam Sayers?’
A black Hillman, she told him. Not new, not old. He’d kept it in the garage at the rear of the office. Yes, of course he’d taken it with him when he vacated the flat. How did she know? Because Mr Hastings had moved there and had begun using the garage.
Gently pushed the phone to Hargrave.
‘Get the registration number from the Licence Office, then put out a general call. It may lead us to something. When you’ve done that try the tax people and the National Insurance Office.
‘Probably they won’t know anything – but that’ll tell us something, too.’
Hargrave took the phone, began dialling.
‘Really, he was quite a decent sort . . .’ Perkins groaned.
‘Some murderers are,’ Gently snapped. ‘Anyway, Sayers wasn’t an angel.’
‘Just one slip . . .’
Gently hammered out his pipe, filled it again and relit it. Perkins winced and shut up. At least, he was beginning to know his Gently . . .
But suddenly he flushed crimson and started to forage among the papers on the desk.
‘My God . . . I forgot! Just before Hargrave got back . . . this came for you over the phone . . .’
‘Thanks very much.’
‘It went out of my head . . . all I could think about was Sayers!’
He handed the report to Gently with a pink hand that actually trembled.
It came from Ferrow. He was no farther forward in his attempts to trace Cheyne-Chevington. He recommended sending down Cheyne-Chevington’s ex-housekeeper to make the necessary identification. Nor had they pulled in Shirley Bank
s, but they were on a hot scent. She’d been seen in Fulham as recently as yesterday and Division was making exhaustive inquiries.
‘Did you read this?’ Gently asked.
‘Yes . . . it wasn’t urgent, was it?’
‘Where’s that report about Shimpling’s car?’
‘I had it here . . . there it is!’
‘Where was it sold?’
‘Peckthorne’s Garage—’
‘I know about that! Fulham, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, Fulham.’
‘And now we find Shimpling’s girlfriend turning up there.’
Gently puffed at his pipe fiercely.
‘Look – during all your preliminary fact-gathering – did you turn up any information to show when Banks actually left Shimpling?’
‘We talked to the tradesmen . . .’
‘What did they tell you?’
‘They hadn’t seen her for several weeks. Usually, she took the goods in, paid the bills. Then, afterwards, Shimpling did it.’
‘From which they deduced she wasn’t there?’
‘Well . . . that seemed reasonable.’
‘But it could simply mean she wasn’t there, say, on Saturdays, when the goods were delivered, the bills paid?’
Perkins was going red again.
‘Yes . . . I suppose . . . we’re not certain . . .’
‘And she might have been there all the time – and at last, taken off in Shimpling’s car?’
Perkins gaped at him. ‘Yes . . . of course! There isn’t any reason why not . . . just . . .’
‘Which shortly afterwards was sold in Fulham – where Shirley Banks was seen yesterday.’
‘But how . . . why?’
Gently shook his head. ‘That’s what we’ll find out when we catch up with her. Suddenly, I’d sooner have a talk with Shirley than I would even with Sam Sayers.
‘She’s the key-piece. She may have been an eyewitness to what happened at the bungalow. She may have had a finger in it, too – that’s not beyond credibility.’
‘Not in the murder!’
‘Why not? Who could have helped them plot it better?’
‘But not a woman . . . in that business!’