‘You’ve got a mind like a…what-d’you-call-’em…a computer.’
‘Thank you, Harry. I’ll take that as a compliment. Where to? Back to town or on to Porchester?’
‘Porchester. I know a little place. Then the industrial estate’ll be on your way home.’
‘So it will.’
‘And I’m sure you won’t be able to digest your evening meal until we’ve had a look at Charlie’s petrol station.’
‘You’re reading my mind.’
‘That’ll be the time.’
Harry’s little place was better than she had expected, and they enjoyed a respectable cheese soufflé. They had a licence, but Harry refused wine. ‘You’ll have me dozing off.’
Then they went to explore the industrial estate.
The experience was depressing. This was the encroachment that Oliver Brent’s neighbours had feared, but it had never bloomed, had never even flaunted more than a few minor buds. The council, bravely facing a hinted depression and ignoring the warnings of closing factories in the region as mere evidence of outdated practices, had requisitioned large expanses of what had been farmland. The excuse had been that farming, too, was declining in that area. They had cleared the site and constructed a lattice of roadways, and between them had thrown up single-storey factory buildings. In practice, they hadn’t finished either the roads or the buildings. Three-quarters of the way through, it was realized that only three of the early constructions had been rented. Industrialists, large or small, were not flocking in and competing for choice lots. The project had failed, and was abandoned.
They drove now along rutted, half-tarmacked roads between row after row of uniform block constructions, some small, some extensive, all grey, and all with every window smashed. The parking lots had never felt a wheel. The flat roofs had never echoed to anything louder than the tinkle of glass. Nothing moved. The plots between were now high with weeds, the signs sagging drunkenly amongst them. To let: 2000 square feet. To let: 200,000 square feet.
The sad folly waited, the winds restless around it. It watched the progress of the Mercedes with blank indifference.
To let: one petrol station.
Charlie had chosen a choice site, a corner plot so that he could lure two streams of traffic. The forecourt was large, encumbered now by six slabs of concrete, destined for pumps, with threaded bolts jutting from them, these bent over and rusted. The shop Cynthia had mentioned was a half-circular kiosk, now a complete wreck, shards of glass still scattered around it. The service bay was one of the standard block constructions — the mini model — though in this case with up-and-over roller-blind doors. Both were up-and-open, revealing a concrete floor scattered with beer cans and chip bags and blown, dead weeds.
They parked on the forecourt. Charlie had chosen his corner with discretion. Their route into the desolation had been from the rear, so that they had now reached the main entrance to the complex, which was visible only a hundred yards away by its large sign raised high in welcome across the wide roadway. The planners had had visions of grandeur, and had named their north-south streets by numbers and their east-west ones by letters. Had they been standing at the welcoming side of the sign, Virginia and Harry could just have read its crumbling information: MANHATTAN INDUSTRIAL ESTATE.
Harry said: ‘Can’t see why Charlie would drive here.’
‘The car wash, obviously. Where else would he be able to drive secretly and check he wasn’t being followed, and be able to convert a two-colour car into a black one?’
‘Yes,’ said Harry. ‘Sure. That building at the side? Would that be it?’
They looked at it. What must have been the car wash was a brick erection built on the side of the service bay. It looked solid and unvandalized, as its steel roller-blind door was down, and obviously locked. Charlie had allowed for the fact that the premises would have had to be left very vulnerable at night.
‘Let’s look round the back,’ she suggested. There was a hint of eagerness in her voice.
They walked through the service bay. It had a rear, wooden door, now hanging from one hinge.
The back of the car wash bay looked the same as the front, solid. This steel door was also locked. When in operation, presumably, both doors would have been left open.
‘Nothing here,’ said Harry.
Virginia stood looking at it. The lock was close to the concrete surface, operating a deadlock into a steel channel. The lower edge of the door showed indentations where the vandals had tried and failed. The finger grip was clogged solid with dirt.
‘Harry,’ she said, ‘there’s a tap dripping. I can hear it.’
He had walked on a few yards, looking round him with boredom. ‘They forgot to disconnect,’ he told her.
‘I think we ought to have the door up.’
He came and stood beside her. ‘To turn off a tap?’
‘Can you break it open?’
He gestured to the bottom edge of the door. ‘There’s been enough people trying. Why worry for a drip?’
‘You could do it. There’re tools in the back of the car.’
He looked at her doubtfully, pulled at his lower lip, then went to see what was inside the Merc’s boot. Probably, he thought, the tool-kit would consist of a set of feeler gauges and an instruction book in German. He was surprised. He could have stripped the engine with that lot. There was even a crowbar with a point at one end, which would probably lock into the socket of the wheel-nut wrench and provide sufficient leverage. It was almost with triumph that he marched through to the rear again.
‘I suppose you know this is breaking and entering.’
‘I shall plead ignorance,’ she assured him.
‘No defence in law,’ he said, from his vast experience.
The tongue of the crowbar just wedged itself beneath the bottom edge of the door. The socket of the wrench just failed to slip from the pointed end. He bore down on it, and the lock went with a crack.
‘Just to turn off a flamin’ tap,’ he said.
He cleared the handgrip with the point of the crowbar, got his fingers in, and heaved. Four years of confined damp from the leak in the car wash sprays had rusted the inside of the door. It did not roll up with a satisfying rumble. It creaked up an inch, so that he could spread his feet, get both hands under the bottom edge, and put the muscles of his back to it. The door groaned to its full lift.
The blue nylon roller brushes dripped mournfully on a black, rusting Escort XR3, its rear to them, its glass smeared and steamed in the confinement. Harry stood, his hands still raised. Behind him, Virginia said in a strange, tight voice: ‘Stay where you are, Harry.’
He didn’t do so. He stepped back. ‘So he did get here,’ he said.
‘But Angela didn’t manage it.’
They stood and stared at it. With the intake of fresh air, the condensation on the outside of the glass was clearing, but inside the car there was another condensation, a finer one, like a thin, grey curtain. This had accumulated over a period of four years, as the car was closed all round.
But it was now possible to see the interior, gradually emerging to become the shapes of the two front seats and their headrests, and the shape of something in the driver’s seat. Not Charlie, thought Harry, his brain sighing with relief. Charlie had been bulkier than that. The impression was of a shrivelled form, held there by its seatbelt. But not Charlie! Good Christ, thought Harry, his brain clutching on to it, it can’t be Charlie!
But he knew it had to be.
Virginia cleared her throat. ‘Can you stay here, Harry?’ Her voice was thin.
He wasn’t sure about that. He wanted to turn and run. ‘Yes.’
‘I’ll drive to a call box. Don’t touch anything.’
He choked. ‘No.’
‘Be as quick as I can.’
He turned his head. ‘I left the boot open.’
‘I’ll shut it.’
Then he was alone.
He heard the clump of the boot lid closing a
nd the car driving away, heading for the main entrance, and then all he had to do was listen to the water drip, and locate its splash on the roof of the car. The voice behind him nearly took the top out of his head.
‘What y’ got here then, Harry?’
He turned to face Vic Fletcher, standing there with his hands on his hips and trying to hold a weak grin, but with his face pale.
‘For Gossake! Where the hell did you come from, blast you?’
‘Been followin’ you. I was that patch o’ dust on the horizon.’
‘Keep y’r distance, Fletcher. I’m warnin’ you.’
Fletcher put up his hand in protest. ‘Take it easy, mate.’ He craned his neck, trying to see past Harry’s bulk. ‘What y’ got…heh, that’s Charlie’s Escort. Well — clever you. Ain’t that just dandy!’
‘If you’ve got any sense you’ll get outa here. She’s gone to get the police.’
Fletcher pursed his lips in a silent whistle. ‘Police, eh? That’s tricky. That sure is a turn-up for the book. You an’ the coppers! I’m off. Take y’ with me, if you like.’
‘You ain’t funny any more,’ Harry told him.
‘Knew you’d get to it some day,’ Fletcher said, expressing pride in Harry’s ability. ‘Y’ crafty devil. This is what you was after, all the while. I knew it. All that money from the bank job! You’ll get ten per cent o’ that, I reckon. Nice goin’, Harry.’
‘Don’t be so damn simple. As though there’d be any money here. Whoever did this will’ve taken it all.’
Fletcher cocked his head. ‘Did this? Did what, Harry?’ His eyes opened wide. ‘Heh! You ain’t tellin’ me Charlie’s in there… Whew-hew! Well now.’
‘I’m not tellin’ you anything. Bugger off, Fletcher, an’ I can pretend you ain’t been here.’
Fletcher shook his head sadly. ‘An’ there was me, gonna offer you another night at my place.’ He brightened. ‘Never mind. You’ll have a roof over y’r head — at the local nick.’ He raised himself on his toes, grinned again, and made a gesture with one hand. ‘Be seein’ you.’
Harry watched him go. He was left alone with his thoughts. There wouldn’t be any money in the car, would there? Nah! Charlie had tried a double-cross on O’Loughlin, but O’Loughlin had been too clever for him. He’d known about this place, and had had a couple of his men waiting for Charlie. So the money had reached O’Loughlin after all. He’d simply been trying a bluff, almost telling Virginia the truth when he flashed his blue diamond under her nose. But admitting nothing. Just laughing to himself.
No, he decided, there couldn’t possibly be any money in the car. He got no further with his ponderous thoughts, because the Mercedes appeared, followed closely by two police cars.
It was too late to turn and run.
Chapter Fifteen
They sat in the Mercedes with the hood down. Lowering it and tucking it away had been something that absorbed time, and they both needed air. Now they merely sat, saying nothing. It was seven-thirty and they’d been there for four hours.
Virginia’s father was somewhere amongst the group at the rear of the premises. His presence was not necessary, but he’d been sent for because Virginia was involved. A detective-superintendent was in charge, supported by an inspector and two sergeants and the teams from the town’s crime squad. Paul Tranter was one of the sergeants.
It was he who walked through the service bay and out to the front to speak to them. He had been instructed what to say and how to say it, so that his approach was formal. He put one hand on the driver’s door and stared at it. After one glance at his expression, Virginia turned her face to the windscreen again.
‘You can both go home now,’ he said. ‘Any questions will be asked in the morning. We’ll see about that.’ The implication was that Oliver Brent would see to it.
Virginia spoke in a lifeless voice. ‘It’s Charlie Braine?’
‘Almost certainly. The press have been informed, so you’d be advised to get moving.’
‘Almost certainly?’ she asked, knowing it could be nobody else.
‘Contents of pockets — a tinge of colour to the hair.’
‘You haven’t sent for Cynthia?’
He did not say that there would have been nothing for her to identify. ‘She’s being informed. They’re sending a policewoman.’
Virginia breathed out through her teeth. There had been a fear that she would have been asked to see Cynthia, a ridiculous fear because now it was all in the hands of the police. She reached forward for the ignition key in its lock. He said quietly:
‘You haven’t asked how he died.’
She raised one shoulder. ‘By violence, it’s not hard to guess.’
‘A bullet through the brain. From behind.’
She glanced at him sharply. ‘The back of his head? He didn’t carry a passenger on that trip, so it’s unlikely he was shot in the car.’
‘The indications are that he wasn’t. Manhandled into the seat after death.’
‘So he had time to wash the car.’ Strangely, she was pleased that he’d made it that far, and had seen the culmination of his plan.
Paul Tranter gave a grimace, something close to humour. ‘You’d have thought he was intending to re-spray it, too.’
‘What does that mean, Paul?’ She tapped the back of his hand. ‘There’d have been no need for that. He only had to wash it clean.’
‘There are eight gallon spray-paint cans in the boot.’
‘Eight?’
‘With no paint in them. Cleaned out, and full of bank notes. We haven’t checked, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they add up to around a hundred and twenty thousand pounds.’
And that, thought Harry, was a right laugh. He couldn’t wait to tell Fletcher that he’d guessed right, after all.
So Charlie, thought Virginia, took time out on the way here to switch the money from the bags to the empty cans he’d supplied himself with. Clever Charlie. What a pity…
‘There was a white plastic bag,’ Tranter said in a neutral voice. ‘The proceeds of the jewellery shop robbery were in it, and a pistol.’
‘Fired?’ she asked quickly.
He shook his head. ‘Not even loaded. By heaven! Two goons, one with an empty pistol and one with a toy. Makes you want to cry.’
Harry said: ‘A policewoman? Where from?’
‘Harry, we were talking about money.’ Virginia was grave.
‘The policewoman who’s gone to tell Cynthia,’ Harry explained.
‘County,’ Tranter told him.
‘About that money, Paul. I’d keep it secret if you can manage it. The fact that it’s there with him in the car, I mean.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh…I don’t know. But people are interested in it. If it’s thought he didn’t have it… Oh, I don’t know.’ She shook her head, annoyed with herself for not being able to clarify the thought.
‘Which policewoman?’ Harry asked.
‘How do I know?’ Tranter said acidly. ‘Not my region. Whoever’s patrolling the Porchester district I’d expect.’
Virginia and Harry glanced at each other. ‘Oh Lord,’ said Harry. ‘Perhaps for the best,’ said Virginia.
She reached forward and switched on the engine. ‘We’ll be off, Paul. Thank you. Tell my father we’ll be at home.’
As they drove off the forecourt she said tersely: ‘Which way’s the quickest, Harry?’
‘Back the way we came. But…Virginia…it’ll be a sea of tears and…and…’
‘We’d better check. Who knows, with your Cynthia?’
‘She is not,’ he said flatly, ‘my Cynthia.’
She drove fast. The wind ruffled her hair and the increased noise made it difficult to speak. Harry sat quietly, trying to work out how Charlie’s death affected the situation. O’Loughlin could well have been responsible, but how could his men have failed to find the money? They’d have torn the car apart before they’d be prepared to return empty-handed to their boss.
&nbs
p; A few spots of rain pattered on the screen. She switched the wipers to intermittent. Harry felt their impact on his forehead. The sky was heavy ahead. He felt that his brain was inert, and the cold air round his face did nothing to provoke it into movement.
The blue police car was parked in the yard, and they drew in behind it. ‘Better put the hood up,’ said Harry, ‘or we’ll be sitting in water.’
‘You do that, then,’ she replied, not looking at him as she climbed out of the car. She walked ahead. The headrests were masking the interior of the police car, and the light sky on the horizon was reflected in the rear screen, clouds racing across the glass. She paused beside the car.
‘Harry,’ she said quietly.
She was standing at the driver’s door with one hand on the handle, but hadn’t opened it. Her tone alerted him. He strode to her side quickly.
Freda Graham was sitting behind the wheel, her hands clasped to it as though about to drive away, though the engine was dead. She was staring directly forward, the checkered cap firm on her hair, her eyes beneath the peak sightless. Her face was set, like hardened wax. She had not noticed their arrival. Harry detached Virginia’s fingers from the handle and opened the door himself. A dash of rain swept his shoulders, and drops fell on Freda’s knees. She did not move.
‘Freda!’ said Virginia sharply.
There was not the slightest response. Virginia thought that if Freda did not blink soon she would scream. Harry touched the fingers gripping the wheel. They were cold, and he couldn’t detach them. For one second he thought she could be dead, but there was a steady, though too slow, rise and fall of the bosom beneath the uniform jacket.
Virginia’s eyes roved wildly. The front door of the bungalow was open, as they’d seen it before, but so too was the side door to the spraying shed.
‘Harry, quickly.’
Leaving the car door swinging, they ran to the side door.
During their previous visit, Virginia had not noticed Cynthia’s shotgun. Perhaps it had been lying on the rear bench. The shoe, which Cynthia must have rescued from where she had thrown it, now stood on the bench, at the position Cynthia had been standing. Perhaps she had been standing there, having just replaced the shoe. It was directly beneath the shoe that she was now lying, face down. The shotgun lay at her side.
The Second Jeopardy Page 17