Sky High

by Michael Gilbert

  ‘Well, yes. I should think I could find that out for you. Is it urgent?’

  ‘If I’m right,’ said Liz in her deep voice, ‘it’s just about the most urgent thing you’ve ever done in your life.’

  On Sunday morning, after breakfast, the General was so far recovered that he insisted on walking to Morning Service. He had a black eye, turning yellow at the edges, and a square of sticking plaster over his forehead, and he created quite a sensation among the congregation in the tiny church in the Park. It was plain to Sue that he would shortly be demanding to go home.

  Just before lunch Tim telephoned. He was speaking from his house.

  ‘How long have you been back?’ said Liz, in some surprise.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Tim, ‘I got back yesterday evening.’ He sounded quite unrepentant and Liz knew, from the tone in which he spoke, that it was not the least use asking him any questions.

  ‘I hope you had a comfortable night,’ she said.

  ‘Not a single gremlin,’ said Tim. ‘I cooked my own breakfast, too. We seem to be a bit short of butter. When are you all coming back?’

  ‘Well,’ said Liz, and stopped. It had been generally accepted that they were to stay at Clamboys until Monday morning at least. She took a sudden decision. ‘After lunch today,’ she said.

  She was alone, at that moment, with the General, who nodded his vigorous approval.

  ‘I’m too old to be quite happy in other people’s houses,’ he said, ‘however comfortable. You’ll have to break it to Sue, though. She likes the riding.’

  However, when the point was put to Sue she proved unexpectedly agreeable. She seemed to have something on her mind, too.

  As the Clamboys car was approaching Brimberley she leaned forward and slid the glass partition across, thus excluding the ancient Clamboys chauffeur from their confidences.

  ‘On Friday night,’ she said, ‘when you asked Bob where Rupert got his voice from – he said – or rather he didn’t say quite what I expected—’

  ‘You spotted that, did you?’ said Liz. ‘I thought you were asleep. You’re quite right, though I don’t think people know it in these parts. Rupert isn’t his son. His father and mother were very old friends of Bob’s. They were killed in one of the London raids. Bob’s treated Rupert as his own son ever since. In fact, I doubt if Rupert knows the difference. He was less than a year old when it all happened.’

  ‘Funny,’ said Sue. ‘I’d always thought of Bob as a widower.’

  ‘Crusted old bachelor,’ said the General. ‘Why? Are you after him for yourself? Very warm man.’

  ‘Try not to be vulgar,’ said Sue coldly. ‘Here we are. We’d better drop you first, Liz.’

  When the car reached Melliker Lane the General and Sue got out. The right-hand gate-post still stood at an odd angle, but otherwise all signs of the accident seemed to have been cleaned up.

  The General waited until the big car had rolled away, then he drew a deep breath.

  ‘I feel,’ he said, ‘just as I used to when I got back to the fighting after a bit of leave. A nice holiday, but I’m glad it’s over.’

  He stumped up the two shallow brick steps and unlocked the door of his house. His granddaughter followed, a good deal more slowly.

  Chapter Twelve

  FALSE POINT: COUNTER-POINT

  Armado:

  ‘For mine own part, I breathe free breath.

  I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and, I will right myself like a soldier.’

  Early next morning the General came to a stop in the middle of his loosening-up exercises and frowned. Facing him was the open window. Something, or someone, was moving in the fields behind the house. Pulling on a jacket, for it was barely eight o’clock, and there was a bite in the morning air, he strode across to his dressing table and reached for his field-glasses. They were a good pair, which he kept for bird watching.

  When he got back to the window the figure had disappeared. The General drew up a chair, rested the heavy Zeiss glasses on the window ledge and waited.

  Presently he caught a glimpse of brown and white, whipped up the glasses and focused them at speed.

  It was Tim. No doubt about it. He was not taking any particular pains to conceal himself. He seemed to be loafing along the hedgerow which divided the big back field, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the ground.

  The General grunted, returned the glasses to their case, took off his jacket and continued his careful routine. Up, down. Steady. Up, down (crack) steady.

  When he felt a light perspiration breaking out all over him, it would be time for his bath.

  Tim was not really loafing. He was walking slowly, certainly, but he was walking carefully.

  He had arrived at the end of Melliker Lane that morning with no very set purpose. His excuse was that he wanted to see for himself the damage to the gate-posts; (and if Sue had happened to look out of the window and wave to him, well, he would have been happy to wave back). Also he wished to test out an idea that had come to him.

  You thought of Melliker Lane as a cul-de-sac. So far as motor-traffic went, this was no doubt correct. The made-up surface stopped opposite the shell of the MacMorris house. It was obvious however that when the road had been laid its planners were prepared, at need, to carry it further. The end had been sealed off temporarily with a line of hurdles and a small quickset hedge which had grown, through neglect and the passage of time, into a formidable obstacle.

  If you squeezed round the end of the fence – there was a sort of established opening used first by cats, then by small boys, and later, apparently, by heavier traffic – you found that the continuation of the metalled road was a cart track, now almost indistinguishable from the field in which it lay,

  ‘Must have led somewhere once,’ observed Tim to a fat thrush who was cracking a snail on a stone. He moved slowly along, his eyes on the ground. The cart track wandered, slow and laborious as the carts that had made it, up the hill at an easy slant, along the crest, and down the reverse slope. Ahead showed a square of alders and brambles. In the middle, an affair of tumbled bricks and rotted timbers, stood the remains of a barn. The track ran up to it and stopped. Beyond the barn was something more ambitious. It was a service road, between high banks, badly made, but practicable in dry weather for most makes of car.

  The intervening crest hid the spot from the Melliker Lane houses. In fact, it was out of sight of any house. A sad, lonely spot. Tim, who had lived in the district, off and on, for most of his life, had never suspected that it existed.

  He squatted. There were tracks of some sort on the rough surface. Tyre tracks, he thought. Impossible to say what type, or how recent. Then, in the dust, something more interesting. A dribble of black oil. A car had stood there, and not too long ago.

  Tim started down the lane. It curved always to the right. Soon it must come out – oh, here it was – as he had thought, on the side road that joined Brimberley to Bramshott.

  The end of the lane was marked by a heavy, padlocked gate. Tim frowned at the padlock. It was unexpected. Then he looked more closely at the gate, and laughed. The cross bar had broken away, and the chain, padlock and all, could be lifted off in one piece.

  ‘That’s the way he came, all right,’ he said softly. ‘Old man dynamite. Knows the district. Runs his car up to the barn. Chance in a million if anyone saw it. Pussyfoots along the cart track and through the hedge into Melliker Lane. Back the same way. Safe as houses.’

  He became aware that a car was approaching. Brakes squealed. It was Sergeant Gattie who looked out, teeth flashing white under the black bar of his moustache.

  There you are,’ he said. ‘Save me a lot of trouble. You’re wanted.’

  ‘Who by?’

  ‘The Inspector wants you. Step in. Mustn’t keep the great man waiting.’

  Tim looked up and down the deserted road. Then he got into the car, fitting his square bulk neatly into the seat.

  ‘Wh
at’s it all about?’ he said.

  ‘Nobody ever tells me anything,’ said Gattie. ‘I’m just the boy round that office. Fetch this, carry that. Drop everything and pick up Mr. Artside.’

  Now that he had got Tim in the car he seemed in less hurry to start.

  ‘You ought to take steps to improve your own prospects,’ said Tim. ‘Catch this blower-up-of-other-people’s-houses and they’ll make you an Inspector.’

  ‘Or the country house joker,’ said Gattie, looking slyly sideways at his passenger.

  ‘Oh, yes. He’d do. Maybe they’re the same person,’ he added helpfully.

  ‘That’s an interesting thought,’ said Gattie. He let in the clutch and they moved slowly off down the road towards Bramshott. The young morning sun was clear of the trees, now. It was going to be a lovely day. They had gone some little way before the sergeant added, ‘Any particular reason?’

  ‘Nothing special,’ said Tim. ‘Economy of effort really. You want a chap for dog-stealing. And another chap for cat-stealing. So artistically satisfactory if they turn out to be the same man. Two birds, one stone.’

  ‘I see,’ said the sergeant.

  ‘I’m full of ideas like that. At one time it did occur to me to wonder if this mightn’t be a Kilmartin case.’

  The car barely slowed.

  ‘What horrible ideas you do get,’ said Gattie at last. ‘Where did this one come from? Your artistic conscience again?’

  ‘No. There was something a little more substantial this time,’ said Tim. ‘Or I thought there was.’ He had slewed round sideways in his seat and was looking at the sergeant. ‘Very possibly I was wrong about it. I don’t know.’

  ‘I surely hope so,’ said Gattie. ‘It’s not a thing we want in this country, is it? Here we are. I’ll just run her into the yard. By the way, I should have asked you. Have you had your breakfast?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ said Tim. ‘Why? Is this going to take a long time? I’m a working man.’

  ‘So’s the Inspector,’ said Gattie. ‘A real hard worker the Inspector.’ They were inside the building now. The charge room was empty. ‘Bit of an awkward mood this morning. I’d mind my step, if I were you. You know the way. Straight along the passage.’

  Tim had been a sort of policeman himself. As soon as he got into the Inspector’s room he realised one thing clearly. The Inspector was on the move. There comes a time in every case when the policeman in charge feels it shift under his hand. It is beginning to crack. All he has to do is to keep hitting, and it will break up into pieces. Pieces small enough to be classified and docketed and tied around with pink tape and served up to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

  Conquering a very slightly cold feeling in the bottom of his stomach Tim seated himself in the chair in front of the desk and said, ‘Good morning, Inspector. How can I help you?’

  ‘You can help me most by answering one or two questions.’

  ‘Is this the sort of interview at which I ought to insist on my legal adviser being with me?’

  ‘That’s up to you, sir.’

  ‘I see. Well. On the whole I think I’ll take a chance on that. Unless you start to savage me.’

  ‘This is just an unofficial inquiry,’ said the Inspector. ‘I want to satisfy myself on one or two points. I shan’t even have a note taken of it.’

  ‘And if you don’t satisfy yourself you can get official later. I know the form, thank you.’

  ‘Of course. Yes. You were in the Palestine police after the war?’

  ‘Not the police. The Gendarmerie.’

  ‘That was an unofficial police force, I believe?’

  ‘Highly unofficial.’

  ‘And before that – during the war – you were a parachutist?’

  ‘I don’t see that it’s relevant, but if we’re going to relive my military past, let’s do it properly. I was never in Airborne Forces. I was a member of a private thuggery called the Special Air Service. I served in it in North Africa, in Greece and, a little, in Italy. I was a temporary acting Major, which means that you have the responsibilities of a Major and the pay of a Captain – and can be sacked as a Lieutenant. If you want a second opinion on my performance as a soldier I can only refer you to General Palling.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Inspector. ‘Many of your missions in Greece were sabotage missions.’

  ‘Don’t let’s beat about the bush,’ said Tim. ‘I had a great deal to do with explosives in the Army. Exceptionally so. During the active part of the war I learned to use them, and in Palestine I learned to dodge them. I’m a little rusty now of course – fashions in explosives change almost as quickly as fashions in dress. But I have ways and means of keeping up to date. For instance, I know Tobias, the top M.I.5 explosives man. I called on him the other day, and he gave me a quick refresher course.’

  ‘The other day?’

  ‘Friday evening, to be exact.’

  ‘I see,’ said the Inspector. ‘It’s good of you to be so frank.’

  ‘Never keep anything from the police,’ said Tim.

  ‘A very sound rule,’ said the Inspector. ‘What do you do for a living now, Mr. Artside?’

  ‘For a living?’

  ‘Your job, I mean.’

  ‘Well now,’ said Tim. ‘I’m not sure that I’m prepared to tell you that. My job has nothing to do with the matter you are investigating. It’s irrelevant. I didn’t undertake to answer irrelevant questions.’

  ‘Then you refuse to say?’

  ‘I just don’t think it has anything to do with the matter in hand,’ said Tim steadily.

  ‘Very well,’ said the Inspector. He sounded ominously pleased with himself. ‘I expect it will come to light sooner or later. Would I be right in saying that it is a job that takes you out into the country a good deal?’

  ‘Well, I expect that’s right,’ said Tim.

  ‘And that you have a car – a small 1940 Austin, that you keep in a garage near King’s Cross, and use for your—–er—your trips into the country.’

  Tim’s eyes flickered for a moment.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ he said.

  ‘The garage, I believe, knows you as Hodges.’

  ‘I don’t think,’ said Tim, ‘that the garage actually knows me as anything. It’s “Hodges’ car” as far as they are concerned. And they know that I have authority to use it.’

  ‘That doesn’t quite tally with my information,’ said the Inspector. ‘Do you mean that the garage man doesn’t call you Mr. Hodges?’

  ‘Certainly not. I call him Ron and he calls me Tim. Very democratic part of London, King’s Cross.’

  ‘All right,’ said the Inspector. ‘Does your job take you into Essex at all?’

  ‘It has done.’

  ‘Belton Park?’

  For the first time Tim really did look surprised. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, ‘that you’ve had a little man in a bowler hat hidden in the dickey. Extraordinary. Yes, I was at Belton about three weeks ago.’

  ‘Not since then?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. It would be a long way to walk in your sleep.’

  ‘You weren’t there by any chance on Friday night – or early on Saturday morning?’

  Tim began to say something. Then stopped. ‘What’s all this about?’ he said abruptly.

  ‘Just answer the questions.’

  ‘Not on your life. As you yourself pointed out, this isn’t an official inquiry. Unless you tell me why you’re asking these questions I shan’t say another word.’

  ‘I’m sorry you’ve adopted this attitude,’ said the Inspector smoothly. He reached out his hand to the bell under his desk.

  ‘Good Lord above,’ said Tim. ‘I remember now. It was in the papers yesterday. Major Lucas. Big robbery. The country house gang suspected.’

  ‘You read about it in the papers?’ said the Inspector in his ominously toneless voice.

  Tim took no notice of him. He was struggling with suppressed emo
tion.

  ‘Look here,’ he said. ‘Just at what time – or between what times – the widest margin possible – was this job done at Belton Park? There can be no harm in telling me that, surely.’

  The Inspector reflected.

  ‘The period we are inquiring about,’ he said cautiously, ‘is between midnight on Friday night and about four o’clock on Saturday morning.’

  ‘All right,’ said Tim. ‘Then if you’ll take the trouble to ring up West End Central Police Station – you might ask for Detective Inspector Bazeley – you’ll find that I spent Friday evening from about eleven o’clock onwards in their hospitable company. Shortly after midnight, I was given a bed in the cell ordinarily reserved for extreme cases of Delirium Tremens. I was not actually locked in, I agree. But at approximately two o’clock in the morning a gentleman was brought in who had celebrated his seventieth birthday by drinking half a pint of methylated spirits and I had to vacate my couch. I spent the rest of the night in the sergeant’s room with three sergeants. Is there anything more I can do for you?’

  ‘If—’ said the Inspector heavily. ‘I mean, I don’t suppose—’

  ‘I’m not making it up, if that’s what you’re hoping,’ said Tim. ‘Why should I? You’ll telephone them as soon as I’m gone. Incidentally, I suppose I can go?’

  ‘Why, yes,’ said the Inspector. ‘Yes, of course. I’m sorry to have detained you.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ said Tim. He got up and was walking towards the door when a thought occurred to him.

  ‘If you’re looking for someone in our circle,’ he said carefully, ‘who hasn’t got a very good alibi at about that time, then perhaps I can help you there, too.’

  Luck looked up. The light was behind him and Tim could make nothing of his expression.

  ‘I telephoned my mother that night,’ went on Tim. ‘After two bad shots I found her with Bob Cleeve out at Clamboys. Sue and the General were with her. She told me about the joker tying the rope across the gate. I was a bit worried. I wondered, you see, if they were taking the thing quite seriously enough, or if they ought to have some sort of protection. So I rang up Queen, at his cottage. His wife said he was out – had been for some time – didn’t know when he’d be back. So I tried Gattie. No answer at all. Then I tried you, Inspector. The station didn’t know where you were. Curious.’