‘But it was him…’
‘All the more reason to apologize. You really must bring him for me to see.’ He left it at that. He didn’t want to say: to see the first person he’d ever known to unsettle her.
‘There’s another way to go at it, if you won’t do the dragging of the quarry.’
‘Take it that I’m reluctant.’
‘That bank job. May the seventeenth, four years ago. And it’s no good you saying which bank job, because I’m sure you’re following this, through Paul. I want to know who did it, fixed it, planned it, master-minded it. Call it what you like.’
‘Why?’ He bit the word into the pipe stem.
‘I want to speak to him.’
‘Oh dear Lord!’ he said. ‘The answer, my dear, is no. A firm and categorical no.’
‘Now daddy…’
‘Not your little girl act, please. And anyway, if we knew, we’d have him inside.’
‘You know that’s not true. You know who it was. You always do, you or your supers and your inspectors and sergeants. You know, but can’t touch him because there’s no evidence. Don’t deny it, because I know your job inside and out. There’ll be a name somewhere in the file. All I want is that name.’
‘Not under any circumstances. For you to see and speak to him…’
‘So you do know.’
‘Whatever him it might be — they’re all the same. For you to meet him and expect to walk away again, I’d have to send you in with a couple of armoured cars and a team of marksmen. And how would that look in the Sunday papers?’
‘Daddy…’
‘No.’
‘Then I’ll have to ask Paul.’
‘If he told you, I’d have him back in uniform walking the streets.’
‘I’ll get it out of him if I have to go to bed with him.’
‘If you did that, my dear, he wouldn’t have the breath left…’
They burst out laughing together, and he was well satisfied that he’d heard the last of that ridiculous idea.
But he hadn’t.
***
Harry combed the town, exploring all the back street corners and the dives only he knew fully. He tried first the junk shops, which had once called themselves pawnbrokers, but no one admitted having handled the jewellery. He tried the fences, even the ones the police knew and had questioned, climbing concrete stairs in high-rise council flats, floating silently to penthouses in big-money blocks. No one had fenced the proceeds of the jewellery shop job.
He then switched to the money from the bank job, exploring cellars where poker games had to be waited through, but no one admitted unloading any of it on a straight flush. He explored sleazy clubs that were new enough to have been financed by questionable cash. All he got was thrown out. He mounted wooden stairs to harsh, hollow rooms where money was loaned on no security other than your lifeblood, progressed as far as the rear interview rooms of finance houses where rates were high but the loans were in straight cash, but no one admitted laundering over a hundred grand. Not even after persuasion. He trailed down alleys to itinerant jewellers, gave passwords to burly guards of semi-legal diamond merchants, but no one knew of cash being converted into gem stones. Nothing.
Then he looked for anyone who might have been involved in the bank job, had to fight his way out of Clancy’s night spot, was invited into a pub yard gents, where Big Henry Brown showed him an open razor and lost an earlobe for his trouble, was kicked out of a gay bar by two ladies who might well have been female, and got nowhere.
Until he was joined at a table in the Mute Swan by Evan Williams, a police informer who obliged his friends by sometimes selling false information to the police, and therefore remained whole.
‘What you drinkin’, Evan?’
‘Just a quick word, Harry.’
‘I’ll get ’em in.’
‘Can’t stop. The word’s around you’ve bin asking questions.’
‘I wonder how that got about.’
‘Concernin’ the bank job.’
‘You know something?’
‘I know you’d stay alive if you stop askin’.’
‘I’ll do that when I’ve got a name.’
‘A tenner’ll save your life, Harry.’
‘How so?’
‘Save you askin’ any more.’
Harry had got a tenner. Ten pounds and forty-seven pence to be exact, to last him to
next Tuesday, his Social Security pay-day. Still…might not see Tuesday, and die with it in his pocket. He slipped it under the table and felt it whipped away.
Evan Williams leaned forward and whispered an Irish name, which sounded strange in a Welsh accent.
***
She had Tara with her again when Sergeant Paul Tranter jogged to the park bench and sat panting beside her. Tara gave a low, soft growl, sensing the determined opposition Paul had brought with him. Or the sweat.
‘I want a name, Paul.’ She was in no mood for time-wasting chat.
‘So I heard. Your father’s been on the line.’
‘Called you in? On the mat?’
‘He doesn’t call mere sergeants into his office.’
‘Oh Paul, poor you.’
‘And the answer’s no.’
She lifted her chin, staring straight ahead. ‘I thought I might tell him about the time you tricked him into going alone into that bar…we laughed about it then, you and I. I wonder whether he’d laugh now.’
‘You were only twelve!’
‘Or that time when you both went to arrest Molly Durkins…’
Tranter had thought he was right out of sweat, but a fresh flood ran down his back. ‘Whatever I say, I’m caught. So it’s still no.’
She thought about that for a few moments, producing her brown cigarettes and her pistol lighter. She blew out smoke. ‘Can you get me a gun licence, Paul?’
He coughed — or laughed — and choked into his fist. ‘In no way.’
‘I need a pistol like this.’ She opened her palm and showed him the lighter. He got to his feet.
‘I’ll tell your father what it is you need. I’m in no doubt, myself, but I think he’ll settle for putting you in protective custody.’
‘Paul, you’re forcing my hand. There’s something I don’t want to do…’
‘But you’ll do it.’ He forced his legs into a jog on the spot. ‘You always did, always will.’ He let in his mental clutch, and trotted away.
Tara looked up at her, the end of his tail twitching.
‘This time,’ she said, ‘you can come with me.’
Together they went to apologize to Harry.
Chapter Eight
Hanger Lane and the wharf presented a different face in the daylight, a dirty, dilapidated and depressed face. She felt only sadness. Here, at one time, there must have been an unbroken bustle of activity, of life and the pursuit of continuing existence. But the world had turned its back on it, did not reach it with any distant sound of traffic, not even a stench of fumes. The canal presented a flat, undisturbed sheet of green, a lawn that could be walked across. The decrepit barges seemed to grow from the depths instead of sinking into them. There was no sound or movement from Harry’s.
Virginia had scorned any sort of disguise. She was in slacks and shirt, with a grey blouson, her hair neat and her cheeks flushed.
‘Harry! Are you home?’
He came up on the deck with a wet undervest dripping from his hand, stripped to the waist so that he revealed further scars from past adventures.
‘I came to tell you…’
‘There’s something I’ve gotta tell you…’
They spoke together and laughed at the same time. She cut into it by saying: ‘I was wrong about Cynthia. I wanted to say I’m sorry, Harry.’
He made a gesture with his vest, spraying her with detergent water, and jumped across to the wharf.
‘It was all crazy, anyway. Angela…on her way t’ meet Charlie…the last place she’d phone would be his home.’
<
br /> ‘Clever Harry.’
They looked at each other. He shrugged. Her lips quivered. She said: ‘Meet Tara. Tara, this is Harry.’
Harry crouched, glad of the chance not to look too deeply into her eyes. These two knew each other at once for what they were, recognized each other. Tara, who didn’t know he bore a feminine name, would flare into fury at the first threat to his mistress. Offer friendship, and he was a sloppy mess of a dog. They knew each other. Tara licked Harry’s nose, so like a piece of steak. Harry straightened.
‘I know who master-minded the bank job,’ he said.
‘Good.’ She was being very calm and sensible. ‘So we’ll go and see him.’ Yet her heart raced.
‘Not easy.’
‘It’s the only direction we can go now. Don’t you see that, Harry? Charlie disappeared, and we’ll have to find out where.’
‘Nobody gets to see Sean O’Loughlin,’ he assured her. ‘I won’t ask you aboard, it’s chaos in there.’
‘Laundry day, Harry?’
‘Another ten minutes and I’d’ve been washing me jeans.’ He glanced down at them.
She considered this phenomenon, a man with only one pair of pants. ‘You can get to see him, Harry. You know everybody.’
‘I know him. Met him in Pentonville, the one time they got anything on him, an’ that was only wrongful diversion.’
‘Conversion. Well, there you are. You met him inside. Old mates.’
‘He was the only con nobody’d talk to. Little chap, nothing to him, an’ nobody dared talk to him.’
‘Scares you, does he?’
‘Scares me,’ he agreed. ‘Look…can I meet you…’
‘I’ll wait.’
It was not as she had expected it to be, this reunion. She had imagined everything from a solemn and brusque handshake to a wild swoop into each other’s arms. She could not know that for Harry their disagreement had ceased to exist. He had satisfied himself, by way of deep pondering, that his harsh thoughts about her professional position and her motivations had been false. This had been simple, because he’d wanted to persuade himself. But his almost savage desire — determination — to go on with it had been difficult to sort out. Somewhere in there was the awareness that he’d left Angela, whom he’d quietly liked, to be killed at the lay-by, so that he owed her the truth. Somewhere was a dogged loyalty to Virginia, in spite of the fact that she was not one of his own people, in his own world. But the most important was his eventual rejection of any impelling force inspired by Vic Fletcher’s threats. He could not have gone on, he knew, if the main reason for continuing was fear.
So his welcome for Virginia was casual. They had not met for three days, because each had had work to do on it. His work, the persistent search for a name, he even felt to be on Virginia’s instructions. He had an idea she would need this name. They would.
None of this could Virginia be expected to understand. There was simply in her a sense of relief, of a warm feeling that she was no longer alone. This was strange; she had coveted her independence. But in the past three days she had been desperately lonely. It had taken a determined emotional effort to consider continuing alone.
‘I’ll wait,’ she repeated, because Harry was staring at her in embarrassment.
‘I’ve gotta wash all me things,’ he said at last. ‘And wait for ’em to dry.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ she declared, standing with her feet apart. ‘How can you live with only one outfit?’
‘I didn’t wanta dirty your seats.’
‘I shall be,’ she said flatly, ‘in the bar at the Crown Hotel…’
‘Posh.’
‘At seven this evening. And seeing that you’ll be clean and sweet-smelling, you’ll be welcome there.’
‘I couldn’t…’ He stopped.
‘What?’
‘Couldn’t buy a tonic water at their prices.’ He plunged on. ‘I spent my last tenner getting that name.’
‘You got it for ten pounds?’
He nodded.
‘Then we go dutch on it, Harry. With my fiver I’ll buy you a pint of bitter and a steak in the restaurant. No…I’m not having any argument. And we’ll discuss clothes for you.’
‘I’m not letting you…’
‘I’m warning you, Harry Hodnutt. Any more opposition, and I’m going to go on with this without you. Sean O’Loughlin, did you say?’ She nodded, seeing she had him. ‘I’m just not going to have you wasting hours of good time whenever you need a clean shirt. Whatever next!’
He watched her humbly as she whirled round and walked away. It occurred to him that the dog’s rump moved in rhythm with hers.
At seven on the dot he presented himself at the bar of the Crown Hotel, the town’s most respectable hotel, boasting two and a half stars. He was wearing dark grey slacks which might have been tailored for him, a blue shirt, and an anorak that probably boasted a French name tag. No tie. A snow-white vest peeped above the V of the shirt.
‘Whatever’s happened?’ She slid from the bar stool. ‘Where did…?’
‘I looked for a pensioner my size and beat him up.’
‘Seriously.’
‘Toby Trent, the fence, owed me a favour, and I called it in. This is part of a warehouse job…’
‘Harry!’ she said warningly.
He shrugged. ‘It’s true.’
‘Couldn’t he find you a tie?’
‘Half a dozen. But I couldn’t do the knot. Never owned a tie before.’
‘Lord, Harry, what you’ve missed.’
They drank, they went in to eat, and took long enough over the meal to make their plans.
‘He owns a lake in Shropshire,’ he said. ‘Sean Lake, he calls it. Got a house on the island in the middle. We can’t just knock on his door. We wouldn’t even reach the island.’
‘So how do we do it?’
‘We ask. If he’ll see us, then he sends a boat over. If not, we’re out of luck, short of hiring a helicopter and going in with guns blazing.’
‘Then we’d better think of a good excuse for seeing him.’
He looked past a chunk of steak at her, waving the fork. ‘You still haven’t got it, have you? I bin asking around. The word would get back to him. Evan Williams was told to give me the name. Otherwise he wouldn’t have dared. A tenner? He wouldn’t have opened his mouth for a thousand and a one-way ticket to Brazil. It means O’Loughlin wants to see us. It was what I was bankin’ on when I started askin’.’
He bit on the steak and munched complacently. She eyed him with wonder.
‘You’re not stupid, are you Harry?’
‘No ma’am. And I was born in this town. The slums’re my home.’
‘So what we do,’ she said, refilling his glass with a Piesporter he didn’t realize was absorbing the fiver, ‘is keep him waiting. If he wants to see us, we don’t rush it.’
‘Not too long, though.’
‘Just while we look into something else. I’ve been thinking. Don’t frown, it’s insulting. We know Angela had a tenpence coin for one phone call, and probably used it. The most obvious person she’d try to call would be Charlie Braine, because she was stranded. But Charlie’s the last person who’d have killed her, if they were going away together. So perhaps it’s entirely wrong to connect her one phone call with the person who killed her.’
Harry picked up his napkin, stared at it, and decided it was permissible to dab his lips with it. ‘That leaves nobody, and we’d be back to a casual passer-by.’
‘Not necessarily. There was one person who knew where she was, apart from you. Officer Graham, who was instructed to go and pick her up.’
‘But that’s just about as crazy. He’d be casual, the copper who just happened to be on duty in a car in that area.’
‘So we go and check that.’
‘But she wasn’t raped. Nothing like that.’
‘I know that. But Officer Graham is Woman Police Constable Freda Graham. So rape doesn’t arise, does it? What’
re you having for afters?’
‘What’s tropical fruit sorbett?’
‘It’s sorbay, and you’ll like it. I’ve got daddy to arrange for us to meet her. She’s off-duty at ten.’
WPC Freda Graham had a neat and tidy second floor flat in a recently completed private ownership block. It stood in a squat U on the western outskirts of town, and had an air of quiet dignity. The centre of the U constituted parking space, and was plentifully scattered with cars in the young executive range.
She opened the door. They had watched her drive up in her own Volkswagen Golf, and given her time to change out of uniform. What she had changed into was lounging pyjamas with a wrap over them. Nothing about this outfit disguised her physical size, but whether she intended to deplete or accentuate it was uncertain. She had a plump, almost expressionless face, unless the flush was of anger. Her figure was full, her lips large, her stance aggressive. She was nervous and annoyed.
‘Virginia Brent,’ said Virginia.
‘I suppose you’d better come in.’ Freda Graham stood back, her movements light for her size.
The door opened directly into her living room. It was furnished as though she’d ordered it for this visit, and seemed to stand where it had been placed, still waiting for organization. The room did not give an impression of comfort, though each individual item was comfortable. There was nothing to indicate an interest or occupation in Freda Graham’s private life.
She gestured to a chair, and sat opposite to it on a two-seater settee that seemed to have been woven rather than built. Harry, ignored, slid round the wall and found an upright chair, sat, remembered he now possessed creases, and eased his slacks at the knees.
‘I was told to expect you.’ It was grudging. ‘Are you anything to do with the old man…?’
‘ACC Brent is my father, and I’m sorry it was put to you like that.’
‘I was told to answer questions.’
‘Or like that.’ Virginia smiled. Harry moved uneasily. The two women had nothing in common. They were already striking sparks. ‘This has no connection with my father, and I wanted it to be informal. I’m interested in the death of Angela Reed.’
The Second Jeopardy Page 9