"Following him."
"I had to. I didn't know what he was going to do, turn himself in, top himself, or—"
"Or do a runner with that. Which is what he was going to do. And which naturally you objected to."
He blew out a long lungful of smoke.
"It was all your fault, Tattersby. Even when you got the push, he couldn't believe you'd kept it to yourself, that you hadn't talked to someone, but he didn't know who. He was a mental case the last three months. He was looking over his shoulder all the time, thought the Serious Crimes lot were going to have him any moment."
Then he threw his cigarette into the hole he'd started. “So,” he said, “I suppose you're going to go running to the law with all this."
"Charlie,” I said, “I'm not a copper any more. I'm not doing their job for them. If they want you, they'll have to do it themselves."
"And I'm supposed to say thank you, is that it?"
"No, what you're supposed to say is night-night. And Charlie, take your spade with you."
I felt a bit sorry for Charlie. Well, as sorry as you can feel for someone like Charlie. The person I felt more sorry for was Eggy, who had to do the digging again.
I have to hand it to him, Uncle Ernie was a real little mole. When someone told him to hide something somewhere safe, he didn't stop till he got to the water table. But it was there, just as I knew it had to be. Like Pluto. Four feet down. Three feet under Tommy.
We filled in the hole, and then we walked through the night to the house, carrying the big sports bag between us. We set it on the sitting room floor, I gave us both a healthy jolt of scotch, and then we opened the bag.
"Blumming heck,” said Eggy, “look at that."
I couldn't have put it better myself. We sat and looked at it for a little while and then Eggy started to count it.
"I think,” he said, “I'm going to put them in different piles. Pounds, dollars, and that."
"Good idea,” I said, “but don't you want to know where it all came from?"
"Oh, sure,” he said, “what are these?"
"Swiss francs,” I said, and I told him about Tommy's scams and how they worked, and how Tommy had a lot of cash, but he was getting nervous and decided to steal four JCBs from himself.
"Cheeky devil,” he said absently. I didn't feel I had his full attention, but I plowed on about Tommy's bag full of cash and how he didn't trust Charlie and he couldn't put it in the bank, and how he gave it to Uncle Ernie, who then died without telling him where it was.
"Poor old Uncle Ernie,” he said, “and what are these?"
I looked at the notes. “Thousand euros. Worth about seven hundred quid. Each."
Eggy started a fresh pile with respect. It was like watching a ten year old set up a game of Monopoly.
This was getting on my wick. This didn't happen to Hercule Poirot. When he got everyone into the library and expounded ("The murderer of Sir Charles Partly-Barmy, chers amis, is someone in this very room."), people damn well listened. When you've solved something, you're allowed to tell people how clever you've been. It's the law. Or it should be.
I persevered. “Didn't you think it was funny how much Tommy was around your auntie's house, helping her clear out?"
"A bit,” he said without much interest.
"Well, he was looking for this. And when he knew it wasn't in the house, he reasoned the only possible place was the allotment. Under the shed. And didn't you think it was a bit odd when he came round to the allotment on Saturday?"
"Not really,” he said, “but I'll tell you what, he was lucky I was out of the way on Sunday. Stroke of luck for him, that."
"Eggy,” I said patiently, “who do you think made the phone call that got you pulled in?"
Bingo. Gotcha. His eyes opened very wide.
"It was him, was it?"
"Think about it, Eggy. Who else would it be? So the coast was clear, and he came up to the allotment with his little bucket and spade. He didn't even change into working clothes, that's how panicky he was. But, woe unto him, Charlie had been following him around for quite some time, and turned up to express his hurt and disappointment. The rest, as they say, is history."
Eggy looked at me with something in his eyes that I wanted to think was hero worship, but which was probably fatigue.
"And Charlie's gone off without it, just like that?"
"I've told Charlie the big lie. As far as he's concerned, the law found the money but the whole thing's been hushed up. I think he half expected that, once he read about the body. And given his situation, Charlie's not going to hang around. How much is there, by the way?"
Quick as a flash, he said, “Two hundred thousand dollars, a hundred and fifty thousand quid, forty thousand Swiss francs, a hundred thousand euro thingies."
"Well done,” I said admiringly, “that was quick of you."
He blushed a bit. “Well, I was always good at mental arithmetic. At school and that."
"Were you really?” I reached over and filled his glass. “Well, here's looking at Euclid."
Then I had to explain that to him, which always takes the shine off a bit.
But I didn't bother explaining how the whole thing was my fault. If I hadn't been sniffing around Tommy, he wouldn't have panicked, Uncle Ernie wouldn't have buried a sports bag, Tommy wouldn't have had his heart attack, Charlie wouldn't have messed around with Eggy's shed, Eggy wouldn't have come to me, and we wouldn't be there in my sitting room looking at an outrageous fortune.
That's Destiny for you, going round in circles, playing silly buggers again. But there was no point in cluttering up Eggy's brain with too many complicated ideas.
He said, “What you going to do with it?"
"Well, we could hand it in at the nearest police station. But that would be the act of a cretin. Anyway, it's what are we going to do with it, you mean."
He straightened up and sat on his heels shaking his head slowly from side to side.
"No, there's too much. I'm not up to it."
I couldn't believe this. I said, “But Eggy, say not the struggle naught availeth. Think what you could do."
"I am. I could splash it around, get noticed, get nicked."
We went on like this for a good half hour, but Eggy was adamant. So, in the end, I at least got him to agree that I'd hold his share in trust, sort of, until he came of an age to handle it sensibly.
"What you going to do with yours?” he said.
"I don't know,” I said. “I'll get the car repaired. I might buy another chair. But I'll have to think a bit more about that. I'm not one to rush into things. I might grow another mustache, come to that."
"And where you going to put it? In a bank?"
"Yes,” I said, “but not here. Somewhere where they welcome money and make no bones about it."
"Isn't it a bit dodgy these days taking a suitcase full of cash through customs?"
"It won't be going through customs,” I said. And it wouldn't. After twenty-five years of coppering, if you haven't made some contacts who can be useful in odd situations, you just haven't been paying attention.
"So where you going then?"
"I don't know. The Channel Islands. Liechtenstein. Luxembourg. Or Andorra, perhaps. I've heard it's very nice there."
His brow creased in effort, then cleared.
"That's Italy, innit?"
That's Italy, innit. God help us all. I blame the parents.
* * * *
But before I went (with the reluctant and rather mystified approval of the Steering Committee), I took Eggy up unto a high place to show him all the kingdoms of the earth. Well, actually, we went up to Shaw Top, and sat on a park bench dedicated to the memory of Alderman Percy Tunnicliffe. Eggy sat swinging his legs, eating a Spam sandwich that he had magicked out of nowhere. He always seems to have something about him to fortify the inner Eggy. I call that resourceful.
We looked across the town and the valley. It was early evening, and there was still some sunlight in
the west, but the town had fallen into purple shadow, and streetlights were already coming on. All we could hear of the town was the hum of traffic going home and the rattle-clank as a train left the station, going somewhere else.
I pointed across to the huge chimney of Crawshaw's Mill, where two thousand people used to work when it was a mill. Now the top floor's inhabited by a software company that employs two hundred, and all imported.
"That's where Tommy Backhouse's dad worked when he first came here,” I said, “when there was still some wool about."
He nodded. We thought about that and the ironies implicit therein and went on watching as the sun went on sinking and the town grew darker. You could barely make out the town hall clock tower. And all that concrete had happily disappeared into the general murk.
"Mucky old place,” I said.
"Well,” he said, “there's mucky and there's mucky, isn't there?"
I looked at him. That, for Eggy, was very profound.
"Quite right,” I said. “Now, what can we learn from the Curious Case of the Shed of the Dead? There must be a moral somewhere, mustn't there? I mean, you can get a moral out of anything if you squeeze it hard enough."
His face wrinkled up in thought.
"What about—the wicked shall perish and the righteous man shall be rewarded?"
"No,” I said, “that's humdrum. Perhaps—listen, this is good—perhaps it proves that when you go digging up the past, you might find you've dug up the future with it."
Eggy said, “That doesn't make any sense."
"No,” I agreed, “it doesn't, but then nothing much does in my experience. Come on, it's getting cold and I want my tea."
There was a mist in the valley, the streetlights were taking on fuzzy halos, and kitchen lights and televisions were going on, as people settled in their nests for the evening.
So we walked down the long hill into town, thinking our own private thoughts, a large ex-copper and his small, fat friend. Piddling, maybe. Inconsequential, certainly. But with a touch of the cosmic too, I like to think, in our own unassuming way.
And as we walked through the dusk it came to me. What this business really proved was that my old dad was half right. Destiny does make a pig's breakfast of things most of the time. But every so often, probably when it's not paying attention, it gets things absolutely spot-on. Don't you think?
Andorra, by the way, is very welcoming.
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Copyright © 2005 by Neil Schofield.
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Informing the Mole by Arthur Porges
The interrogation room was bone-biting cold, intentionally so; a low temperature slows the mind and weakens the will. The suspect wore only a light shirt and summer-weight slacks. He shivered constantly, and often his teeth chattered loudly. He was not an impressive figure, young, very slight, physically weak, one might infer. But his intolerant eyes were dark kettles of fanatical fire, and his inner spirit of rage, hate, and contempt was almost tangible.
The man questioning him, so far in vain, presented quite a contrast, being tall, athletic, and obviously full of angry frustration. Of course, he was warmly clad.
Outside, behind the big one-way mirror, three expert observers, also quite anxious, watched and listened intently. Alvarez, the FBI man, very well trained, had a poker face, but Baker, from the CIA, was clearly less patient. Simpson, who worked for the State Department, seemed more of a detached civilian, disturbed at what might become a scene of illegal violence.
"Pity the little creep's so feeble,” Alvarez said. “If we knocked him about too much, they say he'll croak—bad heart. That makes a big problem, and time may be very short."
"It's clear, at least,” Baker said gravely, “he knows where the dirty bomb is and when it will be detonated. If that happens, goodbye, Chicago."
"What if he's passed that knowledge on already?” Simpson asked. “He claims that for now nobody else knows, but insists he'll pass it on, no matter how well we guard him. Confident little bastard!"
"He can't do it,” the FBI agent said emphatically. “We have two people watching him twenty-four seven. Even if one was corrupt, a mole, say, the other would be watching him."
"Look,” Baker said, “he's actually laughing at Kelly. He really despises us. No sign of fear."
The terrorist pointed at the mirror, grinned derisively, and said, “God is great!"
"He needs a bucket of ice water over his head,” Alvarez said angrily. “We're getting nowhere."
"Hey, I have an idea,” Simpson said. “An old friend of mine, retired Naval Intelligence, will be in town tomorrow. He's an expert interrogator among other things. Let's show him the video, and see if he has a new angle on making this guy talk. We could meet at my apartment tomorrow around four—okay?” The others quickly agreed.
* * * *
The following afternoon the three experts, along with Simpson's friend, Commander Walter Blair, met and began to play the videotape of the previous day's interrogation. They watched with as much interest as if none had been there yesterday. Suddenly Blair's impassive face seemed to erupt into a kind of feverish intensity. The other three, grimly amused by the suspect's chattering teeth, stared at him in wonder.
"Suffering Christ!” Blair exclaimed. “He's outfoxed you. That's not all just random, I know. I learned it as a kid from my uncle—he was a radioman on the old liner, QE2. That's International Morse!” He listened with even greater concentration. “He passed on the information, right under your noses. Where the bomb is in Chicago, and how to detonate it. My God, it's sixty-five hundred pounds of nitrogen fertilizer and six hundred pounds of powdered Plutonium! Do you realize what that will do?"
"B-b-but,” Alvarez stammered, “he hasn't really told anybody. He's never been out of our control."
"You said it,” Blair snapped. “He passed it on, all right—to Kelly, or—” he glared at them “—one of you. One of you four is a mole, and by now he'll have notified the terrorist cell about the bomb."
"But you know now yourself,” Baker pointed out. “We'll call Homeland Security in Chicago. They can get a team out to disarm the bomb."
Blair looked at his wristwatch, and all the color drained from his normally ruddy face. “Oh, no,” he said, full of despair. “It's too late. I..."
The room shuddered slightly in one long tremor, and they heard a faint, deep booming sound. Three hundred miles away, a great city was dying, to be uninhabitable for centuries.
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Copyright © 2005 by Arthur Porges.
[Back to Table of Contents]
The Pullman Case by John M. Floyd
It was almost dark when Scott Varner arrived at the four-storey apartment building on Hamilton. He knew it was the right address: three police cars lined the curb. He found his older brother Mitch waiting at the top of the stairs on the second floor.
He also found a barrier of yellow crime-scene tape stretched across the far end of the corridor. Scott turned and studied his brother. “A locked room mystery, you said."
Mitch nodded and spoke around the stem of the pipe in his mouth. “Looks that way. Thought you'd be interested."
"I'm interested,” Scott said, unbuttoning his overcoat. “I'm also confused. I ran into McDade downstairs—he said the victim was shot through a window. Simple case of murder."
Mitch shook his head. “Nothing simple about it."
Before he could explain, a short man in a plaid sport coat and glasses charged through the doorway of the apartment at the end of the hall. In his hand was an open folder of papers, which he was reading as he walked. He ducked under the police tape and stopped in his tracks when he looked up and saw Scott standing there. His eyes widened behind the glasses.
Both the brothers were used to this. Despite a two-year age difference, they looked almost like twins.
"Walter Biggins,” Mitch said, “this is my brother Scott. He's a detective too."
&nb
sp; The short man looked puzzled. “Here in town?"
"P.I.,” Scott said.
Walter Biggins didn't seem to know how to respond to that. Instead he turned and said to Mitch, “I've been on the phone, Lieutenant. Lab says it was poison. I forget the name, but it was fast. Fifteen seconds max."
Mitch just nodded. He didn't look overly surprised.
"Vanderford's trying to reach the guy's wife. Friends say she's visiting relatives upstate with her kid. And McDade and Parsons are checking out the woods across the street."
"Good.” Mitch pointed his pipe at the sheaf of papers in Biggins's hand. “These the notes?"
"Notes, photos, sketches,” Biggins said, handing them over. “I'm done except for typing it up."
Mitch was already scanning the documents. “I'll get ‘em back to you.” It was clearly a dismissal; Biggins nodded once to Scott and left.
The Varners watched him hurry down the stairs.
"I'm hurt,” Scott said. “No one on the force remembers me."
"Biggins is new. And you weren't exactly famous."
"Sad but true.” Scott peered at the papers, reading upside down. “Poison?"
"It was on the slug we found in his throat. I wondered about that. The wound was shallow—"
"Mitchell,” Scott interrupted, “why, exactly, did you call me?"
The lieutenant looked up from the notes. “I told you. I've got a mystery on my hands. One of your few talents is that you can think logically. I need your advice."
Scott narrowed his eyes. “I know this is April Fool's Day,” he said, “but this ain't funny."
"What do you mean?"
"What you've got here is a murder, Mitchell. The only mystery, seems to me, is finding whoever put a bullet—poisoned or not—through your victim's window."
Mitch nodded. “That's what I thought too. At first."
Scott heard the sound of voices in the lobby below, then the creak and slam of the front door. The other policemen had gone.
"Come on,” Mitch said. “Something I want you to see."
* * * *
The apartment was small but tidy—living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, bath. The broken window was in the living room. A padded green armchair faced the window from a distance of ten feet or so, and in the space between them, a few spots of blood mingled with the broken glass on the floor.
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