Robbery with Malice

by Barrie Roberts

  I thanked him and left. As I walked down his garden I knew I had found another piece that fitted somewhere. Those two detectives were the late Hawkins and his side-kick, Saffary.

  23.

  I told Claude that Miss Callington had left for the Potteries, and I carried on talking to the witnesses. Pretty boring it was too. All of the Belstone Lane residents had been about their various businesses until they heard the gunshots and the screaming. There was nothing they could tell me that wasn’t in their statements to the police.

  In three days I knocked on every door in Belstone Lane and talked to all the surviving witnesses. One had died, two had moved away, but there was no reason to believe that they could help me more than the others, so I ended the operation.

  I sat at home one night, riffling dully through my notes from Belstone Lane.

  ‘Apart from Miss Callington, there’s nothing new at all,’ I remarked to Sheila.

  ‘What’d you expect?’ she said. ‘It was eighteen years ago and, anyway, they didn’t see what really happened. They only saw the end. What were you hoping for?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Better descriptions of the robbers, maybe. Something like that. But by the time they got out of their houses there was blood all over the place and that’s mostly what they remember. That and the fact that blokes in masks and dark jackets were running about waving guns, so they ducked inside again and phoned the police.’

  ‘So what next?’ she asked.

  ‘Back to Wormwood Scrubs, I think. Now I know the evidence in detail, I’d better talk to Walton again.’

  ‘I’ll drive you,’ she volunteered.

  I looked at her, questioningly. ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I’ve bought a car from a mate of Claude’s. After the brawl you got into in your own back yard, I don’t like the idea of you trekking about the country on your own.’

  Her record for rescuing me from potentially fatal situations was played three, won three, so I didn’t argue. Two days later we fought our way through snow and traffic jams into London.

  I had carefully armed myself with a letter on Tyrolls letterhead, explaining that I am who I am and signed it, but there was no occasion to present it. The officers on duty were all good manners and efficiency and soon we were sitting in the same yellow-painted room with Alan Walton.

  I put names to him — a list of the Payday Gang that I’d culled from the newspapers — Truman, Truman and White. They meant nothing to him. Banjo Cook’s name provoked a thoughtful expression.

  ‘Is he black?’ he asked.

  I nodded. He stared at the wall again. ‘And he played the banjo?’ he asked, after a pause.

  ‘So I’m told.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, slowly. ‘I saw him once. Billy knew him. Billy used to go around the folk clubs and I think he knew him from there. When the Bowcotts strike was on, there was a fundraiser for the strike at the Black Horse and Billy got this Cook bloke to play at it. What’s he got to do with it?’

  ‘I hoped you could tell me. Cook’s dead — murdered — but someone told me that Cook might be someone to talk to.’

  He shook his head. ‘Don’t know anything about him,’ he said, ‘except that he played the banjo.’

  I swore silently. For a moment I had hoped that the mystery of Banjo Cook was about to be revealed, but at least two more pieces had moved slightly closer together — Billy Simpson and Cook had been friends.

  I asked him about the Simpsons’ home and the intercom between the spare bedroom and the sitting-room.

  ‘Could you tell when it was switched on at the other end?’

  He shook his head. ‘There was a button on each end that sounded a buzzer at the other end. From Billy’s end you had to sound the buzzer and then she’d switch it on and speak. From downstairs you could switch it on without sounding the buzzer, so I suppose she might have listened to us.’

  ‘But she couldn’t have heard you planning robberies?’

  ‘No, Mr Tyroll, she bloody couldn’t. Because we wasn’t planning any.’

  ‘What was their relationship like — Billy and Glenys? She seems to imply that he ordered her about and treated her like a servant.’

  He laughed. ‘Oh yes! I heard her in court. Proper little mouse she was, all dressed quiet, telling how her husband ordered her about and how she left him because she couldn’t take any more.’

  ‘And that wasn’t true?’

  ‘I knew Billy all his life, Mr Tyroll. We was at school together. He was the brightest of our lot, a real clever lad. They wanted him to go to grammar school but his parents couldn’t afford it. But he was never toffee-nosed about being cleverer than us. He was a really nice bloke with a great sense of humour. When he left school and got a job he used to dress real smart and the girls went for him. He never swanked about it but he could have had any wench in Belston, probably did if the truth was known.’

  He drew on his cigarette. ‘He had a mouth on him, too. When he was in a good mood he could talk the hind leg off a donkey, charm anyone he could. But he couldn’t keep his opinions to himself and he was always losing jobs ‘cause he couldn’t keep his trap shut about something.’

  He smiled reminiscently. ‘I worked with him once. We was both machinists at Wharton Engineering in Darlaston. There was a foreman there who was a real pig, treated everyone like dirt and went about like he was cock of the run. They was all afraid of him there and whatever he said the manager’d always back him up. Well, he was a married man, this foreman, but Billy found out as he was having it off with the manager’s daughter. I said as he should let the manager know but he said no. He said the manager must know already, that was why he put up with the foreman and always backed him ‘cause he day want to upset him and risk it all coming out. Billy says, “What we want to do is make sure everyone knows.” And he did. Every time the foreman started picking on someone or playing his face, Billy’d start quietly singing behind his machine.’

  ‘Singing?’ I said.

  He laughed. ‘That’s right — singing. He used to sing, “Who’s been in bed with the manager’s daughter?” and after a bit some of the others’d pick it up and it’d be a sort of chorus. The foreman he’d get furious, but he could never see who was singing, what with them standing behind their machines.’

  He laughed again. ‘So we had us fun for a few weeks. Then Billy and me got our cards. The foreman said as we hadn’t completed our probationary period satisfactorily. Well, that might have been true where I was concerned, but Billy was tops at anything he turned his hand to. He was the best machinist in the place. The others used to ask him if they got into any difficulty.’

  He drew on his cigarette. ‘I said to him after, I said, “You got us put out of there.” He just laughed. He was a bit mad, I reckon, but he’d never let anyone put on him. He was the same when I lost my licence. He said, “I’ll get them for you, Alan,” and he did.’

  ‘How did he do that?’

  ‘Well, he knew this pub where some coppers drank after hours even when they were on duty. He went there one night with a special camera he had as would take pictures at night without a flash. He got them, all right — three of them coming out the back door and getting into a patrol car. He only sent them pictures to the Chief Constable, dain’t he?’

  He chuckled. ‘Made more trouble for me in the end, though. He sent an anonymous letter with the photos. It said something like, “I see Belston magistrates have disqualified a Mr Walton, a lorry driver. If you’re so concerned about drinking and driving, what about this lot coming out of the Bell and Dragon?” ’

  ‘How did that make it worse for you?’

  ‘Well, you see I’d built up my little bit of business and you know yourself, in a small business you’ve got to do most of the work yourself. So I started with just me and a truck, then I got a van and had another driver then I got another truck and a part-time driver. Well, first of all I lost me licence, that was bad enough, but after Billy sent them photos to the police they
must have reckoned it was me or a friend of mine did it. They never left us alone. Whenever one of my drivers went on the road, they got stopped. Anything at all they stopped them for — unsafe loads, bald tyres, faulty lights — one of them even got done for not having his number plate vertical!’

  He shook his head. ‘Well, the lads wouldn’t stand for it. They wasn’t going to drive for me and get stopped and summonsed all the time, so I couldn’t keep anyone and I couldn’t drive myself, so I had to pack it in. Still, I never really blamed Billy — he was only trying to do a favour for a mate.’

  ‘And he didn’t do you a favour by letting you in on the Belstone Lane job when you were broke?’

  ‘Whose side are you supposed to be on?’ he demanded. ‘I told you — we was never in any robbery.’

  ‘I’m on your side,’ I said, ‘but that means I have to test everything. If you weren’t in it, was Grady?’

  ‘Do you think he was?’

  ‘In his statement he mentioned a woman shouting at the robbery. Well, I’ve just discovered that there was one. Where did he get that, if he wasn’t there?’

  ‘But that ay his statement, Mr Tyroll — the coppers made it up.’

  ‘And they just happened to make up a woman shouting when there was one?’ I said.

  ‘Well, they knew what happened, dain’t they? They’d talked to all the people on Belstone Lane, hadn’t they?’

  I had to admit he was right. ‘So Grady really wasn’t in it?’

  He laughed out loud. ‘Grady? Not him! He was all mouth. In the Bowcotts strike the papers started calling him “Red Grady” as if he was some kind of revolutionary. That was a joke. He was a big man in the union all right, when he’d got the others voting for him and backing him, but on his own he was nothing. If I had been doing a robbery I wouldn’t have had him with me.’

  ‘What about Hughes?’

  He looked thoughtful. ‘He was a fairly hard man and he had some tough pals as used his boozer but I don’t reckon he’d kill for money.’

  ‘Why wasn’t he called at the trial?’

  ‘I wanted him. I wanted him to tell about what happened to him, but my solicitor couldn’t find him.’

  ‘He kept a pub. He should have been easy to locate.’

  ‘Ar, but he disappeared, day he? After they let him out he finished with the pub and vanished.’

  ‘You were in a pub on the evening of the murder. Where was Billy Simpson?’

  ‘He was in the pub with us.’

  ‘All evening?’

  ‘Well, no. He come in later.’

  ‘How much later?’

  ‘I don’t really recall. It dain’t make much odds at the time.’

  ‘So he might have been on the robbery?’

  ‘Give us a break! Billy wasn’t that kind. He hated violence. He was a pacifist.’

  ‘He hated banks, didn’t he?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Didn’t he used to sing a song about the money in banks that belonged to the workers?’

  He chuckled. ‘So he did, but he wasn’t after robbing them. He used to say as we should own the banks and anyway, he was always singing bits of this and that.’

  I changed direction. ‘You were going to tell me about Billy and Glenys,’ I reminded him.

  ‘What’s to tell?’ he asked. ‘I told you — when he was young he was a really smart bloke, and a charmer. Glenys was the same — all the lads was after her and she went through them, one after another. Till she catched up with Billy. She was really set on him. I suppose with his looks and his brains she thought he was going somewhere. He earned good money too. He used to get put out of jobs ‘cause of his mouth and his jokes, but there was jobs for the taking then. The bosses day much care why you left your last place if you could do the job.’

  He pulled another cigarette from my packet on the table and lit it. ‘They got married and she started on him.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Always harping on about money and that. Always wanting more. Well, he give it her at first but she was never satisfied. He reckoned she was going with other blokes. Then they had the kid. He reckoned that’d settle her down. Billy loved that little girl but of course she died, day she. After that there was no holding Glenys. She started treating Billy like dirt and running about everywhere and not taking much trouble to hide it.’

  ‘And it got worse, presumably, when he was out of work?’

  ‘Oh yes. Half the time he day know where she was. We’d go back to Billy’s place from the pub and she wouldn’t be there. Sometimes she was just going out, all dressed up, as we was coming from the pub. God knows where she went. Belston day have any night-clubs back then.’

  ‘Why didn’t she leave him, then?’

  ‘Billy always said as her bloke was married.’

  ‘Did he know who her boyfriend was?’

  ‘He did in the end. He found out. He went out fishing one day, letting on he’d be gone all day. What he did was to wire that microphone thing in their sitting-room on to one of the tape-recorders in his workshop, so as it would switch on if anyone spoke in the sitting-room.’

  ‘So if she brought her boyfriend home, he’d catch them on tape?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Did it work?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He said after that he’d heard him on the tape and he knew who it was.’

  ‘Did he say who it was?’

  He shook his head. ‘He only said as he was sure of the voice.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Not all that long before we was arrested. Some weeks before.’

  ‘Billy was never arrested though. As I understand it, you three were picked up and Billy committed suicide.’

  ‘We three was picked up, that’s right, but Billy day commit suicide.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Billy wasn’t one to top himself, no matter how bad things were. Someone did for him.’

  I was startled. Simpson’s death had been one of the few aspects of the case I had accepted at face value.

  ‘What makes you say that? Do you know something about his death?’

  ‘No. Only as he wouldn’t have killed himself, no matter what. Someone else did it.’

  ‘Why would that be?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe it was because of us being arrested or maybe it was because of that wife of his, but he never topped himself. I’m certain sure of that.’

  Walking back to the car Sheila asked, ‘What next?’

  I groaned. ‘Try and find out if Simpson really committed suicide, I suppose.’

  ‘You were going to knock on every door,’ she said.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, you haven’t. When are you going to see Billy Simpson’s parents?’

  ‘Soon, I suppose, but I don’t want to. Their only son committed suicide — or worse, he may have been killed. All because of their daughter-in-law, and most people think he did himself in to avoid going down for murder and robbery.’

  ‘You’ve got to do it though, haven’t you?’ she said.

  24.

  ‘Do you know,’ Sheila said, ‘I shall never enjoy a cup of coffee here without thinking about whatsisname and whatchermecallim.’

  ‘Who?’ I said.

  ‘You know — the two tramps you said committed murder here.’

  ‘Ah! You mean Moosh and Tiggy.’

  We were at Scratchwood Services taking a break on the way home.

  ‘Do you believe him?’ Sheila asked.

  ‘What? Walton? What about?’

  ‘About Billy Simpson. Do you believe he was done in?’

  ‘Walton believes it.’

  ‘He would,’ she said. ‘They were cobbers. Nobody likes to believe that a mate’s topped himself. How did he die?’

  ‘He hanged himself.’

  ‘Perhaps he hanged himself the way Banjo Cook did — with a little bit of help.’

  ‘We can’t be sure’, I pointed out, ‘t
hat Cook’s death has anything at all to do with it.’

  ‘Don’t come the raw prawn with me,’ she said. ‘John Parry believes it — and so do you.’

  ‘OK. I was just playing devil’s advocate.’ I sipped my coffee. ‘I’ve never known a case like it. I can’t trust anything I read or hear. None of it makes sense and none of it connects.’

  ‘Some of it does,’ she said. ‘What about Billy Simpson knowing Cook?’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘But did he just know him because he was into folk music? And if there’s another connection, what the hell is it? There’s no pattern.’

  ‘What sort of pattern do you want?’

  ‘Any sort. Until I find one, I can’t begin to make sense. The only pattern I can begin to detect is the presence of Hawkins and Watters and Saffary.’

  ‘They were detectives,’ she said. ‘You’d expect to come across them in a robbery and murder, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘They were bent detectives,’ I said, ‘and this case is bent all out of shape.’

  ‘Careful,’ she warned. ‘You don’t like Saffary. You’d love to cut him down. Just because you know he’s crooked doesn’t mean he was crooked here. What did Sherlock Holmes say about misleading yourself? — “insensibly the theory begins to twist the facts”.’

  The facts are already twisted. I’m trying to untangle them. Anyway, why did they tell the insurance bloke not to mention Miss Callington?’

  ‘She was an old lady. She was disabled. Perhaps they thought she’d be a bad witness.’

  ‘Bad witness? She was the only witness they had who actually saw it all from the beginning!’

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Just playing devil’s advocate.’

  I finished my coffee. ‘Take me home to bed,’ I said. ‘My brain’s died.’