A Glimpse of Death (David Mallin Detective series Book 7)

by Ormerod, Roger

  “Grace,” I said, “this gun has never been fired. I’ll swear.”

  “We’ve got our own lab, George. They’ll say.”

  “And it’s loaded with 7.65 Browning.”

  “They took a 7.65 Browning out of Saturn, and the shell case was the same. You can’t really expect me to fall for this bluff.”

  “See for yourself,” I said angrily.

  “You’re the expert,” she said indifferently. “Besides, there are other things.”

  “Things?”

  And on cue, two detective constables entered with the other things, though why one couldn’t have done it I don’t know. They stood by the door as though the proceedings had now lost all interest.

  “What would you say this is, George?” She glanced towards the door.

  “Prints?”

  “None,” said one of the DCs. “George?” she asked, holding it up. “It looks like a pack of a dozen hypodermics.” It could well have been the same pack that I’d already seen at Antrim’s place.

  “And this?”

  It was a plastic bag containing what seemed to be ten or so slim tea bags. It wasn’t tea.

  “Is it heroin?”

  She again looked beyond me. The ghostly voice said: “It’s heroin.”

  I turned. “How much?” I asked with interest.

  He shrugged. “About 200 milligrams. The man said.”

  “Cut?” He stared at me. I returned to Grace. “Even cut, that’d be Fifty quid’s worth,” I told her.

  “Sit down, George.” I sat. “Relax. We’ve got a lot of talking to do.”

  I relaxed. I was wondering why Sarturo would do this to me. Maybe he intended it as a warning, a brief example of his omnipotence. But he’d spoken of my finding his son’s killer, and this wasn’t exactly helping. And anyway, his abilities were scarcely demonstrated by his having a gunman who’d never even fired his weapon. Perhaps I’d been correct in believing he’d bought a job-lot. Unused. The thugs too.

  “George,” said Grace, “you’ve been seen touring the town this evening. Every club and disco and dive.” She touched the packet of heroin. “Yes, worth fifty pounds around there.”

  I reached over and flipped open my wallet, displaying the two lone oncers. “Two pounds forty-eight, Grace. That’s my complete wealth, so I couldn’t have sold much, could I?”

  “But you were carrying it. And a pack of hypos.”

  “You found it in the car,” I challenged. “Not on me.”

  “Legally, it was in your possession.”

  “Then it’s a damn pity I didn’t know it. I could use fifty quid.”

  She considered me with interest. “Then you would have pushed it?”

  “That’s for you to decide.” I laughed. “But you said ‘would have’. That means you’re accepting that it was planted.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You inferred it.”

  “You were doing the clubs, and carrying heroin and a gun.”

  “It’s not mine. I told you that.”

  “And yet Saturn was killed with a similar weapon.”

  “It’d be too — ”

  “Loaded with similar ammunition.”

  “It’d be too big a coincidence. The way I obtained it.”

  “And how did you obtain it?”

  “I told you.”

  “You took it from a gunman. A trained gunman, George? A loaded weapon?” She gave me a cold smile of disbelief.

  “He hadn’t even got a cartridge in the breech. He’s a slob.”

  “You’ve got so much scorn for anybody with less intelligence than yourself, George. But don’t condescend to me.”

  I realised that it was perhaps best to steer clear of Sarturo if I could. I’d discovered something in that room that I wanted to investigate myself.

  “Besides, it hasn’t been fired.”

  “I’m aware that you were arms and weaponry expert at HQ George, and I’m sure you’d know. But I’m not sure you’d tell me the truth. Now shut up a minute, and allow me to speak. Your tour around the town in your little car…”

  “My car? It’s not mine.”

  “I know it would be ridiculous to think that you’d use such a small car. Yes, George, I’d considered that.”

  I said angrily: “It belongs to a young girl called Carol.”

  “One of your customers?” she asked acidly.

  “No!”

  “It will be traced.”

  “What you ought to be tracing is the girl. Carol’s her name. I can give you a full description…”

  “When we’ve traced the car, we’ll have traced the girl. She’ll no doubt say it was stolen.”

  “Now look here, Grace…”

  “Inspector” she snapped. “You sit there in your complacent self-righteousness and think you can talk your way out of it. But it’s gone too far. You were night guard at that factory, and you hadn’t been there long. Don’t expect me to believe you’d fallen that low. Not the great George Coe. Oh no. That's your coincidence. You were there, and the robbery took place. And now, it seems, you’re handling drugs…”

  “I’m not going to listen to this.”

  “You’re going to listen. You’re deeper in this than I thought at first. There’s a haul of drugs no doubt some local gang — and I’m sure it would’ve been handed over that very night. But something went wrong.”

  “I’ve got my own ideas — ”

  “Shut up!” she shouted. “I said: something went wrong. The handover didn’t take place, and fifty thousand pounds wasn’t paid as it should have been.”

  “Fifty thousand? You know that?”

  “I’m warning you…”

  “How do you know that, Grace?”

  “Inspector!” she snapped.

  “How do you know — ”

  “Who’s questioning whom?” she demanded angrily.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Habit, I suppose. You carry on, Inspector.”

  She breathed deeply. “Fifty thousand pounds never reached the gang…”

  “Because you intercepted it?”

  “No. Because a certain smart alec called Fisher got stopped for speeding, and he’d been drinking.”

  “You put two and two together,” I said encouragingly.

  “He’ll get his summons.” Then a small gleam of pleasure appeared in her eyes. She could not help but share it with me. “But he had a document case with all that money in, and he was driving fast away from town. We had to let him go, with his money, but…” She lifted her shoulders delicately.

  “You were always very quick, Grace. So you reckoned something went wrong and he was getting to hell out of it as fast as he could?”

  “That something perhaps being the murder of Henry Saturn,” she suggested almost coyly.

  “Sharp as a needle,” I said, glancing round to share my approval.

  “And I thought — d’you know what I thought, George?”

  “Go on, try me.”

  “I thought maybe Sarturo had a rival, who also wanted to get his hands on that pile of drugs. I even thought that the same rival might have made it his business to see that something went wrong with the handover. Wasn’t that clever of me?”

  “It’s good thinking,” I said doubtfully.

  “I even thought the rival might be you.” And then a change came over her. She still smiled, but her eyes did not, and her voice went as smooth and hard as polished chrome. “Until we found all that stuff on you. And then I knew.”

  Her voice resounded from those walls a few times before it settled down and the tiles creaked back into position. They’re deceitful, women. It wasn’t fair play.

  “I don’t know how far you intend to take this,” I said coldly.

  “All the way.”

  “But you can’t seriously believe that I’d — ”

  “Can’t I? And why not? Because you’re George Coe, beyond suspicion, so clearly a flame of innocence that even a child — a woman — could detect
it? But you’ve always been unconventional. I thought you aired your views just to shock people into thinking. But I can think without being shocked, and I understand you better now. You’re a cynic, George Coe. You don’t believe in much, and what there’s left you try to break down. And it’s gone a long way from being just a mannerism. It’s become part of you and now you don’t even recognise the difference from right and wrong.”

  I couldn’t believe she was serious.

  “You can sit there and talk about right and wrong!” I protested. “Damn it all, I’ve been your side of the desk, so I know what it’s like. You’ve got books you can consult, Statutory Instruments you can study. And if it’s there it’s wrong; if it’s not it’s right. Doesn’t that make things easy! Only every now and then they slip in a crafty one, and all of a sudden things change. What was wrong suddenly becomes right. Like homos. Upsetting, ain’t it? Makes you wonder. But I don’t wonder. I don’t have to look in rule books any more, I just have to feel it. And big-headed or not, that’s how I’m going on doing it. If it feels rotten, it’s wrong. As easy as that. But don’t tell me that I don’t know one from the other, Grace. Don’t you tell me that.”

  Her voice was quiet. “I didn’t say that. I’m sure you know the difference. It’s a pity that you choose to ignore it.”

  “If we’re just going to sit here bandying words, I might as well go.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’ll leave the hardware and the heroin.”

  “We haven’t finished yet.”

  “Is there more? Something we haven’t discussed?” She was unflustered, though, watching me as though waiting for a trap to spring. “What’ve we missed? I suppose you’ve got on to Antrim?”

  “We’re considering him.” She waited.

  “And Saturn? Did you check on the shoulder holster?”

  It was as though she was treating me as a superior officer, meekly jockeying me into a position where my complacency would betray me. “We did. The evidence is that when he took out his gun — and he only did that when he had work for it — he stuck it in the top of his slacks.” She waited again. She irritated me. I think she intended to.

  “And the cassette in his pocket?”

  “We played it. Recorded one direction only, and that was a performance of Tchaikovsky’s sixth symphony.”

  “Yes.” I nodded. “I expected something loud.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You did?”

  I smiled. “You checked it physically?”

  “We checked the actual tape for markings, messages, anything. It was simply a tape. The recording had been lifted from a BBC Radio 3 transmission a month ago.”

  “Isn’t that interesting?” I asked. Then, because she was so clearly waiting for my opinion, I didn’t offer it. Instead, I made my mistake. I assumed she was deferring to my masculine experience. “But what’s really interesting is why you’re discussing it with a dead-beat like me. I wonder if I dare suggest that you want a man’s opinion! That’d be a shame, Grace. I’m a woman’s libber. I bet you never expected that.”

  Her lips were tight. “It wasn’t the impression you gave.”

  “But I’m sure you’re good. All the right procedures and protocol at your fingertips. Only you’re wondering if it isn’t all too much and too suddenly, and you can’t unload it. And who’s going to take you off it now? Who’d dare? There’d be screams to high heaven about discrimination. So you’re stuck with it, and it frightens you, doesn’t it? I can see it in your eyes. Because a man’s got one advantage, Grace. He’s spent all his life in the force mixing with the criminals, in pubs and dives where a woman couldn’t go alone. I don’t mean wouldn’t dare to, I mean couldn’t. Not and get spoken to, and get close to the scum we’re always dealing with. And in this sort of case the disadvantage can be crucial. But where’re your informers, Grace? Where’s all this mishmash of spies you ought to have built around you? I bet you haven’t got one, because a woman copper’s not going to be able to get close to anybody but another woman. And these are men, Grace. That’s why you’re going to fail. People like Sarturo have never heard of women’s lib.”

  “Finished?” Her lips barely moved.

  “But as I say, I believe in equal opportunity. Well OK, you’ve got it. And how’re you going to manage without picking the brains of people like me, who know so little about right and wrong that they actually speak to all this rubbish we’re trying to swill down the drains? What’re you going to do now?”

  She came to her feet. Politely, I also stood.

  “Anybody seen my stick?” I asked.

  “What I’m going to do right now, George Coe,” she said, her voice trembling with the control she was inflicting on it, “is to charge you with the possession of dangerous drugs under the provisions of section 4 of the Dangerous Drugs Act, 1965…”

  “Now wait a minute!”

  “And with the possession of a firearm and ammunition without having in force a firearms certificate, under the provisions…”

  “I know the provisions!” I shouted.

  “And I must warn you that anything you say…”

  For a few seconds our raised voices competed as she ploughed through it. We became silent at the same moment. The air tingled.

  “Do you wish to make a statement?” she asked. She seemed very pale. “You are entitled…”

  “No, I do not wish to make a statement.”

  “Take him away,” she said.

  “Grace — now listen.”

  “Take him away!” she shouted, and they bounced from the door. Each arm was locked in a double grip, which, at least, I was sure that Grace could match. I didn’t seem to need my stick.

  And that was how I, instead of Sarturo, came to spend the night in their very best cell.

  Every now and then I find myself a little shaken. This was one of those times. I had been annoyed by Grace, by her inability to realise, as a male counterpart would have done, my complete and transparent honesty. Between you and me, I’d been quite certain that she could handle both these cases — and really she’d be sure to have her army of informers — but it isn’t easy to reject an entrenched conception that policewomen are fine for putting your arms round at target practice, and by inference are not very much use otherwise. I hadn’t met any female inspectors before, and my chauvinist principles weren’t likely to be appreciated. But as she said, I’m getting to the age where I’m deliberately provocative, if only to promote ideas. The trouble was, that hers had been the wrong one.

  So I’d provoked her into an action which — lying on my cot and ruminating — I thought she would at that very moment be regretting as much as I did. Or nearly so. Just when I might have been useful to her, here she’d got me shut away.

  Shut away for quite a while, I realised. The maximum penalty on the drugs charge alone was a fine of £1,000 and/or 10 years in the nick, neither of which I would probably be able to provide, even ignoring the ‘and’ bit.

  But at least she got me in front of a magistrate at the earliest possible moment. The court was full that next morning. It seemed to bulge with humanity and flying pencils in the press box. The charges were read. I pleaded not guilty. For some reason I appeared to have legal support — I assumed something in the nature of a dock brief before I’d even got to the dock. My legal advice didn’t take any from me, and we elected to go for trial at the next assizes. My protesting voice was a thin and completely ignored background to the solidity of the law.

  I was allowed bail in the sum of £500. I was told to step down.

  “What now?” I said to Grace, because I’d stepped down on the public side of the box, and nobody had protested.

  “He’s outside.” Her eyes twinkled. I looked again, and she almost seemed to wink.

  “Who’s outside?”

  “The man who put up your bail.”

  I’d been wondering how Sarturo could’ve expected me to find Saturn’s killer if I was put away for ten years, and then suddenly I
realised how clever he had been. In effect, he had scared hell out of me, and then indicated that the answer was worth £500.

  I squared my shoulders and went out. Having now realised how the alibi had been worked, I was prepared, there and then, to tell him who’d murdered his son, and thus clear the decks for an onslaught on the robbery question. But — as happens quite frequently — I was wrong in both my assumptions, because it was David Mallin who had paid the bail.

  And anyway, I hadn’t decided why the light went out.

  CHAPTER VII

  The last time I had seen Dave, I’d been in hospital after the beating-up. He had taken the case over from me, and finished it off by depriving Sarturo of a haul of heroin. So maybe he had more than a passing interest in Sarturo’s present activities. He stood there, beside his big Rover, grinning all over his face as though he’d done something special, when all I could think was that this was my case. Mine!

  He had Elsa in the car with him, behind the wheel. I’d met Elsa a few years before, but she’d been somebody else’s wife then. She hadn’t changed. When I bent my head to say hello she gave me a smile that almost removed the pain from my leg. There was no impression that she was any older. Perhaps she enjoyed living with him.

  Dave himself was brown and fit, though I thought a little slimmer.

  “What’s this?” I demanded. “Was it you?”

  “I owe you five hundred.”

  “What? You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I picked up a thousand for that job, George, and they’d already taken five hundred off you.”

  It was true that I’d received £500 for the job, but I’d failed, so Dave’s argument was invalid.

  “That doesn’t mean you owe it to me,” I protested.

  He laughed and slapped my shoulder. “Well all right. All you’ve got to do is surrender to your bail, then you can do what you like with it.”

  I grunted. There was a lot more to say about that, but I was free, and that was what mattered. “Well…thanks anyway.”

  “Any…” He cocked an eyebrow. “Any room for a helper in this, George?”

  “Not in this. No.”