by Desmond Cory
“Yessir. Tall dark-haired bird parks her car, comes over here, I got to make sure she hasn’t got a tail and if there’s anyone—”
“Don’t repeat all that stuff, you lummox, just go and do it, having first pulled out your index finger. And I mean out. Out all the way.”
“Yessir. Right, sir. Will do.”
Despite this show of verbal alacrity Guffin descended the stairs at his usual lethargic shamble, humming to himself under his breath. He greatly disliked being sent out on these fatuous and humiliating errands. How could he possibly know if this tall dark-haired bint had a tail or not? What was he supposed to do? Look under her skirt? Not that he had any objection to adopting such a procedure, but she almost certainly would have. Besides, on a stifling hot evening like this, the street would be full of black-haired Welshwomen, all trying to grab for themselves a gasp of fresh air. How could he tell which was the right one? … Though to look on the bright side of things, at least standing by the door he’d be able to get in a gulp or two of fresh air himself.
Only trouble being, there wasn’t any.
Not an awful lot of tall dark-haired ladies strolling down the street, either. He’d been wrong about that. The street was just about empty. After a couple of minutes or so, however, a floozie answering that general description drove slowly past him in a blue Fiesta, the left-hand indicator of which was flashing to signal her intention of turning into the Finlays parking lot. Guffin’s interest didn’t noticeably quicken. Nor did it do so when a dozey-looking geezer in a dark grey suit emerged from the door right behind him and wandered woozily off and away, peering to left and right of him; Melanie’s clients often looked like that when she was in spanking good form, and she was rarely in any other sort of form these days. Old Primrose himself had had that same befuddled appearance earlier that afternoon, if it came to that. And so, though surely not for the same reason, had his present visitor. Indeed they looked a bit alike at a casual glance; Primrose was obviously by a good few years the older of the two, but the other man’s creased and careworn outward aspect did much to minimise the difference and the set of his head and shoulders, as Guffin had noticed at once, resembled quite closely Primrose’s awkward forwards slouch. As Primrose’s secretary, it was Guffin’s business to notice such things. The dark-haired chick, he now observed, had opened the boot of the Fiesta and was taking out a tired-looking travel bag. No sign of anyone in pursuit of her. Or watching her. Except, of course, for that plain-clothes dick in the mechanic’s overalls who’d been cluttering up the place this couple of days past and whose activities could surely be ignored. Guffin, while eyeing Kate’s legs appreciatively, stifled a yawn.
Just another boring old Cardiff evening, really.
Kevin Coyle’s arrival had, needless to say, gone neither unremarked nor unrecorded by the surveillance squad in the adjacent building, diminished now by the departure of Peter Crumb who had gone to take up his own observation position by the garage forecourt. The ineffable Dim Smith, it was to be supposed, had already taken up his station at a convenient nabbing-point by the fire escape, covering any potential attempt at egress by that route. Both were thus well placed to observe Kate Coyle’s appearance upon the scene some seven or eight minutes later, when she slotted her wheels into a vacant space in the garage car park, took (Crumb was satisfied to note) a bulky travel-bag from the boot and then moved off at her usual briskish pace towards the Codron Corp building, taking the path that led through the trees fronting the recreation park. They were also well placed to observe the strange behaviour of Nicholas Guffin – an old friend of the South Wales fuzz, both in Cardiff and elsewhere – who had apparently gone to sleep while leaning against the wall of the block, as also the shortly subsequent departure from the said building of Professor Dobie, who sauntered off, liberally smeared with melted chocolate, in the opposite direction to the garage, heading for the place where he hadn’t in fact left his car but towards where he thought he had (this being the course of action which anyone who knew him and certainly Kate, had she been aware of his nearby though retreating presence, would have expected). Jackson, who also knew him well, noted his withdrawal with considerable relief, as he took it to mean that the trap, such as it was, might now be snapped shut without the intrusion of all those parenthetical qualifications that Dobie seemed invariably and with no apparent effort to impose upon his own surroundings and those who occupied some other part of them. “Thank Gawd,” he said, giving expression to this sense of relief, “he’s scarpered. I dunno why it is—”
At this point there was an unexpected development. Or two, in fact. Well, several. Kevin Coyle featured in the first of these, emerging from the front door and looking cautiously towards that clump of trees through which Kate was at that moment presumably walking, then strolling off at a pace quite as leisurely as Dobie’s but, again, in an opposite direction, on a course seemingly convergent (more or less) with Kate’s. When he had covered some ten paces there came a sharp, splintering crack that echoed bewilderingly from the face of the building and caused him to duck involuntarily, but which didn’t appear to incommode Dobie, deep in thought and by then some sixty paces distant, in any way. Not that the surveillance team at that moment were paying any attention to Dobie. “What the hell was that?” Jackson inquired.
And Wallace,
“Sounded like a backfire, skip. Someone in the garridge—”
“Like hell it was a backfire. That was a gunshot, boyo.”
Peter Crumb seemed to have formed the same impression. Jackson observed his lanky figure tearing across the garage forecourt and down the path, disappearing a moment later into the shade of the trees. Dim Smith was also getting in on the act, emerging from the shadows of the fire escape and dashing round the building towards the front entrance. Faced with this sudden spate of activity on the part of the Specials, Jackson reckoned that his own position and that of Wallace might stand in need of immediate review. “We’d best get down there,” he said. “See what’s up.”
“Sir, our orders was—”
“Never mind all that, Wallace, there’s times when we have to use a spot of initiation. Come on, lad, shake the lead out.”
He descended the stairs at a rattling pace, Wallace’s boots thundering against the treads behind him. When they emerged into the street the scene appeared to have changed significantly. Dim Smith was nowhere in sight. Nor was Kevin Coyle. Kate Coyle, on the other hand, was walking directly towards them, escorted in a most gentlemanly way by Peter Crumb whose hand rested protectively on her elbow.
“What’s going on, Kate?”
“Well may you ask.”
“We’d better find out, then,” Jackson said. “’Cos it begins to look like you may be needed.”
“Needed?” Crumb said. “Wotcher mean, needed? She’s nabbed.”
“Nabbed?”
“Dam’ right. I got her in custody.”
This was ridiculous. “You got her in … Woff for?”
“Breach of the peace, anyway. Didn’t you hear that shot? … She fired it. Blown our whole operation, she has.” Indignation seemed to have rendered Crumb short of breath. “Where’s that husband of hers? Did he get away?”
Jackson peered up and down the street. Certainly, Kevin Coyle was nowhere in evidence. “… But he came out before.”
“Before what?”
“The shot. If that’s what it was.”
“What are you … She’s got the bloody gun in that bag.”
“A gun?”
Kate was also getting indignant. “What is this? I know there’s a gun in my bag. But it’s not my gun.”
“I’m not saying … The point is you just went and fired it.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Oh yes you did. And I have to warn you now that anything you say—”
“Just a minute, just a minute,” Jackson said. “Let’s find out what the hell’s been going on here, shall we? Before we—”
“That’s pretty obvious, in
nit?”
“Not to me it isn’t,” Jackson said.
It became so, however, some minutes later.
It was, in fact, as obvious a corpse as Jackson had ever encountered. It lay before the open window in Primrose’s office and in the midst of a pool of blood that was soaking swiftly into the wall-to-wall carpeting. The hole that the bullet had torn in the side of its head was abnormally large and more than ordinarily messy. It was Kate, curiously enough, who began almost at once to obfuscate the issue. “Oh my God,” she said, in a high, piercing voice. “He meant it. It was true …” Her voice then tailing off into something like a whimper. This reaction was so totally uncharacteristic of an experienced and competent forensic pathologist that Jackson averted his gaze from the corpse to stare at her in amazement, just in time to see her expression of mingled horror and dismay change completely to one of mere perplexity. “But he hasn’t … That’s not Kevin …”
Dim Smith, who had been kneeling beside the corpse and who had just realised that his trendy threads stood in danger of becoming as blood-soaked as the carpet, rose with alacrity and stepped backwards. “Our old pal Rodney, that’s who it is. Not much point in formal introductions, though. We can use the past tense when we speak of old Rodders from now on.”
“Shit,” he added, as an afterthought. This was not an expression of regret but a comment on the whole present situation.
The office, Jackson thought, was becoming unduly cluttered. The whole surveillance team were now gathered in a semi-circle just inside the door; Dim Smith – the first arrival, still breathing heavily in consequence of his stampede up the stairs – Crumb, Wallace, himself and Kate, who had to have come along for the ride but whose appearance on the scene was opportune since it meant that she wouldn’t have to be sent for. Five people, then. Plus the corpse. Too many, Jackson felt, for comfort. “Well now,” he said, teetering back and forth on toes and heels, “I think you’ll agree, sir, that this puts a different perplexion on matters. I mean, we got a deader here by the look of it.”
“No one’s disputing that, old duck.”
“So it’s down to us from now on. Not that I’m throwing the rulebook at anyone—”
“Hang on, hang on,” Crumb said. “That’s all very well but we made the pinch.”
“What pinch?”
“Her,” Crumb said, jerking a thumb in Kate’s direction. “We ought to have the cuffs on her by rights.”
“Cuffs? But that’s …” Jackson shook his head. “How can she examine the body with cuffs on? For Pete’s sake, she’s our—”
“She can’t examine the body.”
“Why not? She’s a qualified—”
“Because she did it. She shot the bugger.”
Kate’s cue for further speech. “You keep saying that. I did no such thing.”
“Fucked it all up, she did. The whole bang shoot. Just when we were all ready—”
“All I was doing was walking along, minding my own business, and then this lout leaps out from behind the bushes—”
“Lout, is it? Well now, you’ve been cautioned—”
“Oh dearie me. What will the Colonel say?” Dim Smith, breaking out into uninhibited lament. And everyone else talking at once. For God’s sake, Jackson thought, it’s not dignified, all this argufying. The whole investigation was getting off on the wrong foot. The best thing would be to let Pontin sort it all out. And that was a counsel of desperation if ever there was one.
Dobie had meantime succeeded in finding his way back to his car, which seemed to be in much the same condition as that in which he had left it, i.e., dilapidated. His mood was much the same, too, as when he had disembarked from it. Preoccupied. The matter of his garbled e-mail missive was still occasioning him concern. How did it go? … Ah yes,
Oh bugger …
He had discovered, while searching for his car keys, that his wallet appeared to have vanished from his pocket. Disconcerting, of course. No, Wittgenstein …
Ah!
And aha!
Yes, yes, now he remembered. Scattering papers at random over that young person’s occasional table, he must have … inadvertently … left his wallet behind when he’d picked them up again. No great matter, of course. Its folding content was of negligible value and the various notes that he had scribbled at various times on the backs of used envelopes were of even less importance, consisting for the most part of outdated shopping lists. But all the same … perhaps he’d do well to go back for it. A little embarrassing, though. Dobie didn’t like giving people the impression that he was in any way absent-minded.
And besides …
Kate. She was supposed to be round here somewhere. Where could she have got to?
Somebody slapped him lightly on the shoulder, catching him in mid-dither. “This your banger, sport?”
“Er,” Dobie said, momentarily under the impression that he had been assailed by a prowling traffic warden. This impression was at once rectified by a swift glance towards his actual assailant, who turned out in fact to be none other than what-name. That geezer. Kate’s ex. Who was, of course, supposed to be round here as well. Meeting Kate, in fact. Yes. But what was the name? Kevin … Kevin … Same name as Kate, of course. Coyle. Right. The guy’s identity having been firmly established, Dobie felt able to conduct a conversation on more normal lines. “Er, yes,” he said.
“You’re sure?”
“Oh yes. Yes. Yes, I am. Perfectly.”
“Then Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Kevin said. “Big trouble brewing in Chinatown and you ’n’ me are best way out of it, dig?”
“Er … No.”
“Then just get in for crissake. There’s been a shooting.”
“A what?”
“Some bastard took a shot at me just now. Missed by a mile but I don’t much rate being shot at. So get me the hell out of here and I’ll take it kindly, tiger, so I will.”
The fellow seemed to have a truly uncouth mode of utterance but the gist of his argument was clear enough to Dobie, who didn’t much fancy being shot at, either. And now that he thought about it, yes, that noise he’d heard a minute or so ago had certainly sounded very like … Good heavens. He heaved himself into the driver’s seat without further ado and turned the ignition key as Kevin Coyle landed heavily in the passenger seat beside him. “Shot at? … You were shot at? … Goodness me.” The car departing from its parking spot with an accompanying smell of burning rubber. “That’s supposed to be illegal.”
“It is, it is,” Kevin agreed. “But I’m not arguing the toss one way or the other. I’m for away and as fast as you like. If you’d care to aim for the city centre I’d be greatly obliged. No doubt there’ll be trains and buses and so forth. Things like that.”
“You’re … leaving town, then?”
“Next one out. For wherever.”
That, in a way – Dobie thought – was good news. He wasn’t normally a very observant man, but he had already noticed that his passenger was showing signs of nervous tension … or was, one might more crudely have put it, in a blue funk. His tan seemed to have bleached out to an unattractive beige and a film of sweat was coating his face and neck. But if this state of mind was indeed conducing to his imminent departure from the scene, Dobie saw no reason to discourage him. “Very wise, very wise,” he said, nodding pontifically.
“Used to be a quiet town, this. Don’t know what things are coming to.”
Dobie was wondering how to pose his next query tactfully. Putting it, in the end, in the most roundabout wa
y he could conceive of,
“… What about Kate?”
“Kate? … Oh, Kate … I’ll give her a ring when I …” But he didn’t seem to be very interested in that subject, either. “Just tell her I’ve had to make tracks for elsewhere. You’ll be seeing her pretty soon, I take it?”
“You’ve had to make a track elsewhere. Okay.”
“Had to shoot off. Well … Shoot is about right.” Coyle glanced downwards towards his bandaged hand, tucked cautiously in between his knees. “Jumped out of my skin, as near as dammit. There I was, just … Banged my hand on the wall, I did. Painful.”
“And alarming, I would imagine.” Dobie was now driving down Western Avenue at a conservative forty miles an hour. The sun was about to set and every now and again the glare, shafting down past the angled roofs of houses, got into his eyes. “Alarming and unexpected.”
“First the whizz. And then the bang. Must have been a ricochet or something like that. Bloody hell.”
“You, er … don’t feel you should inform the police?”
“What could they do about it? I mean … what could I tell them? I didn’t see a thing. And besides …”
Dobie waited politely for him to continue. But he didn’t.
“Don’t you have any idea as to … who would want to shoot you?”
“Quite a few people might. Kate might, for one. No … Okay, I’m joking, Kate wouldn’t do a thing like that … Would she?”
“Kate? Of course not.”
Dobie, scandalised.
“It’s just that I thought I saw … Oh shit, I couldn’t see anything, really. Where those trees were … It was all in the shadows … But that’s where the shot came from all right.”
“How do you know? If you didn’t see anything?”
“It couldn’t have come from anywhere else.”
Dobie, as a logical thinker, had to accept the validity of the argument. “Well, I certainly heard what might well have been a shot, now I think about it. But I didn’t give the matter any attention. I mean I … I was only there myself because of a rather strange coincidence—”