by Desmond Cory
“Well …”
“Do it,” Crumb said. “First thing tomorrow morning.”
“If you say so.” Jackson scratched his chin dubiously. “But we’re talking about twenty, thirty kilos of number four. No way anyone’s going to be carrying round that much horse in a little holdall.”
“Okay. So what is he carrying? Samples, more likely. We got to take a look-see and give her an official warning, for good measure. Because if she tips him off or even lets something slip next time he’s chatting her up, hell, then we could be sunk.”
“No, she won’t do that,” Jackson said. “I’m quite prepared to pontificate on that issue.”
“Good. I’m relieved to hear it. Because in my experience,” Crumb pontificated, “you never can tell with women. Doctors though they may be. They’re all of them … tricky …”
He wasn’t too worried about it, however. Later that evening when the van arrived, appropriate measures could be taken to deal with Kate. They wouldn’t be exactly legal measures, but that didn’t matter. Who’d be counting?
“We need a new teapot,” Kate said.
She surveyed the thing glumly. As a result of continued maltreatment at the kitchen washbasin (by Dobie, of course), practically nothing was left of it but the spout. Dobie, thus advised, surveyed it also. “Why? What’s the matter with the old one?”
Kate, sighing, picked it up and tilted it, allowing a dribble of obnoxious liquid to trickle downwards into Dobie’s waiting cup.
“There you go,” Dobie said, reassured. “Works a treat.”
“No, it doesn’t. And anyway, it’s a repellent object.”
“And talking about repellent objects …”
“Yes?”
“What are you going to do about him?”
“You’re being a little unfair,” Kate said, pleased nonetheless at this evidence of a becoming male jealousy. It never does to forget, she told herself, that Dobie is human, though appearances might often seem to indicate the contrary. “I wouldn’t call him repellent, exactly.”
“I would.”
“He certainly hasn’t worn well. But I wouldn’t call him altogether unattractive, even now.”
“You mean … You’ve met him before?”
“Before what?”
“Before just now. Today.”
Kate, staring at him, misdirected the trickle into the saucer instead of the cup and clicked her tongue in irritation. “But of course I … Who the hell are we talking about, Dobie?”
“The perambulator chap.”
“What?”
“The one from Heckmondwike. Asking all those questions.”
“Ah.” Kate nodded, having achieved yet another of those telepathic feats which conversation with Dobie so frequently entailed. “He didn’t say Heckmondwike. He said Beccles.”
“No, that was someone else. His grandmother, wasn’t it? I wasn’t talking about his grandmother.”
“No. Nor was I. I was talking about my husband, in fact. Hence my momentary confusion.”
At least she didn’t have to worry about the state of the milk-jug. The milk came straight out of the bottle, as usual. Sometimes she found Dobie’s insensitivity to the finer details of domestic life more than a little trying; he was reasonably well off, after all, and perfectly well able to invest, if he chose, in a set of bone china or in bloody eighteenth century Meissen, for that matter. Tonight, though, she had other matters on her mind. “Come on, Dobie, it’s getting late. Drink that up and let’s go to bed.”
“You won’t go to sleep,” Dobie said. “Not until you do.”
“Do what?”
“You know what.”
“Yes. I know I oughtn’t to. But I’m going to.”
Telepathy, she thought, can work both ways. It didn’t do to under-rate Dobie, just because he was … or anyway could be a teensy-weensy bit distrait on occasion. Or insensitive to … Or whatever. She fetched the bag from the corner of the kitchen and set it down on the table. It seemed to be an inoffensive article enough. A well-worn grey canvas bag, opening at the top with a run-around zip, with carrying handles and a shoulder strap. No labels, but shiny marks here and there to show where airline or possibly hotel stickers had been removed. “I wonder why that cop’s so … interested.”
“I was aware,” Dobie said, “that your own curiosity had been aroused.”
“Well, isn’t yours?”
“Not particularly.”
“It’s not all that heavy.”
“No,” Dobie said.
“And he didn’t strike me as being especially tired.”
“No.”
“So why would he …?”
“I expect Jacko’s asking himself that same question. Or if not Jacko, then the other geezer.”
“Who,” Kate said, “likely as not will be back in the morning. With a warrant. You know, I didn’t take to him, either. Special Branch … They go about things in a rather odd way, sometimes.”
Dobie, who rarely practised any other methodology, sniffed penetratingly and watched her pull the zip back and begin to investigate the bag’s contents, taking out a couple of shirts, a windcheater pullover, another (used) shirt, a red-and-white striped spongebag … “Bloody hell,” Kate said. A gun … Or was it a …? No. Definitely a gun. A nasty-looking sort of gun, at that. Dobie peered down at it cautiously. “What’s that?”
“A gun,” Kate said.
“A gun. Yes. I can see that. But why would—”
“I thought as much. Well, I’m not having guns in my house and that’s flat. Guns he’s lugging around these days. I might have known.”
“How could you have?”
“I mean, I should have guessed something was wrong. There was something about the way that cop—”
“But it may be perfectly legal. He may have a license and all that.”
“Nothing Kev ever does is perfectly legal. Like hell he’s got a license … That’s why he left it here, that’s perfectly obvious. He must have known that Crumb guy was … Oooooooo! … What a shit! …”
Kate was wont to indulge in such unladylike expressions when her dander was aroused. Dobie saw no need to take the matter very seriously. “But it can’t be loaded.”
“Can’t it just. Of course it’s loaded, you can tell by the … weight …” Kate broke the magazine, glanced down at it and quickly replaced it. “What’s more, it’s been fired …”
“Fired?”
“Can’t you smell the cordite or whatever they call it?” Kate sniffed at the barrel, grimaced and tossed the thing back into the bag, thereby causing Dobie noticeably to flinch. “Look, I’m not getting myself into the doggies’ doodoo over having a gun around the place again. Either Kev takes that thing away tomorrow or I’m calling Jacko back and that’s all there is to it. I hate the bloody things. You know I do.”
“Yes.” Dobie did. A couple of years back and at the very outset of their relationship Kate had been called over the coals by the local coroner for failing to report her then lodger for possession of an unlicensed firearm and the incident had … What was that thing that incidents did? … Oh yes. Rankled. As a blot on her thingummyjig. Kate had possibly rather more than her fair share of professional pride. “You know how to handle them, though. Which is more than I do.”
“For crissake, Dobie, I took a course way back, I’m a police pathologist after all. It doesn’t mean to say I—”
“Does Kevin?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t used to. Or I don’t think so. Maybe out in the Middle East they stuff an AK forty-seven up their djellabahs every time they go out for a stroll before breakfast but …” Kate paused for a moment. “Unless he’s got the thing for self-defence. Maybe he was serious after all. About someone wanting to … But then he wouldn’t want to leave it with me, would he? He’d be clutching onto it all the time, just in case …”
“Not much use to him right now, though, is it?”
“Why not?”
“I mean he
can’t very well use it.”
“Why not?”
“Because of his hand.”
Kate, about to do her caged-tigress act of prowling savagely up and down the kitchen floor, stopped and stared wonderingly at Dobie instead. “Good Lord. That’s right. How very … It must be great to be a mathematician and to be able to come up with a reasonable explanation for everything. And a simple one at that.”
“Oh well. Not everything. There are still some aspects of plate tectonics that have come up recently—”
“Dobie.”
“What?”
“Your tea’s getting cold.”
“Oh yes,” Dobie said. “So it is.”
It was, as Jackson had already observed, confoundedly hot that evening. Sipping his lukewarm tea pensively, Dobie moved over to the kitchen window in search of a breath of fresh air. Down in the parking space below, as he observed, a weird-looking bloke in a tartan jacket was clambering out of an equally weird-looking van with a spiky thing on the roof and turning to thump the tyres vindictively with the toe of a trendy calf-length suede leather boot. They, too, presumably needed air. The car park was supposedly reserved for the use of Kate’s patients, but it was frequently employed at night by sundry folks visiting the popular hostelry just round the corner (the Dog & Duck, Jas. Weatherby prop.) and Kate had never found it worth her while to protest against the practice.
Dobie didn’t propose to do so, either.
4
Next morning the telephone rang and Kate went to answer it. Dobie remained seated at the kitchen table, chewing mushy mouthfuls of muesli and wondering vaguely what was the matter with the teapot. It wasn’t like Kate, he thought, to be fussy about teapots. But then the incursion of accident-prone ex-husbands into an otherwise comfortably ordered existence devoted mainly to the care of the sick and the dissection of decomposing cadavers had, he imagined, to be somewhat trying on the nerves. He couldn’t, from where he was sitting, hear what Kate was saying but the more than normally heightened tone of her voice suggested that the said ex-husband was currently on the other end of the line and was getting what Jacko would have called a fly in his ear. This assumption, as it turned out, was perfectly correct.
“But I can’t come round now, Kate, truly I can’t.” Kevin at his most wheedlesome. Kate, unimpressed. “I’ve got business appointments this morning, for heaven’s sake.”
“Yes, I know all about your business appointments, Kev. And by that I mean, I don’t and I don’t want to. The police seem to be interested, though.”
“The police? Indeed?”
“The Specials at that. They were round here last night. Wanting to know what’s in that little bag you left behind.”
“And like as not you wouldn’t have been able to tell them.”
“I didn’t. But I will. Unless you pick the bloody thing up right away.”
Kevin sighed the long, windy sigh of a man perpetually misunderstood. “You’ll have taken a peek inside, then. There’s female curiosity for you. Gone back to your bad old ways, I fear.”
“Now look, Kevin—”
“Don’t see myself stopping by, old dear, if your friends on the force are keeping a watch out. Wouldn’t be wise, now would it? Wouldn’t be prudent.”
“Okay. Then I’ll call them up and hand it in.”
“… No. Tell you what. Why don’t you bring the bag round a bit later, when you’ve finished your clinic, say? Eight o’clock, say? Then I’ll buy you a bit of dinner, like, we can have a bit of a chat together before I shake the dust, see what I mean? Didn’t have too much time yesterday, what with one thing and another, and there’s something I’d like to—”
“I don’t want to have a chat with you. And I don’t want any dinner. All I want—”
“Don’t get nasty with me, Kate. I wouldn’t want to have to get nasty with you.”
Kate said,
“… Where are you staying? I’ll leave the bag at the hotel reception desk, how about that?”
“No, come round to the office, like I said. Eight o’clock. That’ll be best.”
“The office? What office?”
“My office. Or anyway, the company’s office. I’m in business these days, like I told you. The Codron Corp. You know the Wern Goch Park?”
“Yes. Vaguely.”
“Eastern Avenue then left at the Pentwyn Interchange.”
“By the river.” Kate knew it all right. They’d fished a kid from Llanrumney High out of the water there three, no, four years ago. Knocked up on speed behind the bicycle sheds, walked off buzzing like a hornets’ nest, fallen in. Splash. End of story.
“Right. Opposite Finlay’s Garage just by the Leisure Centre. Name’s up outside. You can’t miss it.”
“All right. And after this,” Kate said, “you’re going to leave me alone, right? Stay out of my life, if you’d be so kind. I don’t know what you’re doing with this Codron Corp and that suits me fine because whatever it is, it’s likely to be bad news. I hope you’ve got the message.”
“… A hard woman, Kate. You always were.”
“And you better believe it.”
The hi-tech electronic interceptor that Dim Smith had over-hurriedly set into operation the previous night didn’t seem to be working all that well and the whole of that interchange had been punctuated by strange tummy-rumbling and gurking noises which came through on the auricular like rolls of distant thunder. PC Norsworthy, the Duty Operative, peeled off the earphones and smacked the side of his head gently, attempting thus to shift his eardrums back into place. Maybe the tape had picked it up a little more clearly, but he doubted it. To be on the safe side he picked up his pencil and scribbled on his notepad,
Codron Corp Wern Goch
opp Finlays
8 pm
then picked up the telephone on the console and dialled the internal for the Special Branch’s temporary office. On the second ring,
“Detective-Inspector Crumb …”
— Peter Crumb said.
The M4 was crowded that morning and it occurred to Olly, as she undertook the long descent to the Severn Bridge squeezed between an articulated lorry and a notably noisy ten-year-old TR2, that the motorway was more like a river than a road, its powerful currents carrying along with it a weirdly assorted flotsam of fume-exhaling vehicles, an elemental force to which her own shinily-shammied Honda Accord and all these other grumpily growling machines were of necessity subject, irrespective of the feelings and desires of the all-but-invisible creatures within their glittering carapaces – creatures who were nonetheless kindly granted, presumably by the god in question, the illusion that they were, as their quaint pseudo-religious jargon had it, “driving.” Or it could even be that it was the actual movement of the traffic, rather than the road, that constituted the animating élan vital of the entire phenomenon, all these cars and lorries and articulated pantechnicons being here not because they were here but because they were going somewhere else, so that Einsteinian relativity would have to come into it somewhere.
Interesting.
And not after all, as you might have thought, discouraging. Because you could derive a certain satisfaction from feeling yourself to be part of that inexorable flow, of a life force dependent on the laws of mechanics and of supply and demand and hence a great deal more readily comprehensible than, than … Well, all that outdated Middle Ages stuff that a few of those old wrinklies you ran into still seemed to believe in. ’Slike, you got to be contemporary, right? … Else you might as well pull off the road and send the old wheels to the knackers’ yard to be squashed by another colossal machine into metal plating. And I’m not ready for that yet, Olly thought. Not by a long long chalk.
Yeah, well, these ideas come along out of no place from time to time and you make a note of them from time to time on your pocket recorder only this time you wouldn’t, because it wouldn’t be easy to re-frame it in the staccato, not to say moronic, literary style that readers of the Snipe were held to favour. And
anyway … ideas? … Forget it. The medium is still the massage and, Olly thought, the Snipe has three million readers out there with minds all waiting to be soothed, or otherwise numbed. It was odd, of course, that addled reports of gruesome murders and other revolting atrocities should have that effect, but there it was, the perpetual demand, and Olly Bohun for one was there to meet it.
She was in rather an odd mood that morning. Columbella would at once have recognised it and diagnosed a touch of flatulence; the cure for this ill (according to that silly old berk Rudyard Kipling) is not to sit still. But it’s difficult to adopt any other posture while driving down a motorway and in any case that wasn’t the real problem. No, the trouble was that if the paying public didn’t get their tranquillising morning placebo on the breakfast tray they’d all start yelling for matron, or would turn such limited powers of attention as they possessed toward another tabloid, which was worse. Oh, far far worse. And all the time they got greedier and greedier. Film stars’ divorces and child abuse cases wouldn’t lift an eyebrow nowadays; they’d all been through that themselves. Just a part of life’s unending pageant.
Olly changed down gear and sighed. The bridge was coming up and the queues were forming. You crossed the bridge, you had to pay a toll. That was part of life’s u.p., too. Sometimes she looked back wistfully to the less stressful days when she’d been assistant editor on a pop music mag and a part-time groupie, but she didn’t do that very often. You looked ahead if you wanted to get over that sodding bridge, and she did. Or she thought she did. There was all this movement going on and you simply had to be part of it. Because nothing else made sense.
Or not really.
… But then the other trouble was that anyone working for the Snipe wasn’t really driving a car. It was more like riding a bicycle. You had to keep pedalling, else you’d fall off, and you had to keep pedalling faster and faster, else you’d lose the race, and that’s why you had to … you had to deal with people like Peter Crumb. And screw them, when necessary. Not that he was a bad screw. She just didn’t like him much was all. And anyway it wasn’t enough to have your contacts and get the info right from the horse’s mouth, things had to happen for gossake else you get yourself screwed all over again and this time by the Managing Editor. A right little tyrant, as Columbella had once sagely observed.