Haggard Hawk: A Nathan Hawk Crime Mystery (The Nathan Hawk Crtime Mysteries)

by Douglas Watkinson

  I decided on a long walk beside the river, maybe to reconsider the McSweeney Spice offer. After all, I hadn't yet turned the job down officially. Perhaps I should write to them now, I thought, accept their offer in principle and post the letter at the end of the walk in Nether Winchendon.

  I nipped into the cabin and began typing the letter without internal argument. Best do it quickly, I thought, as I’d done most things as a young man. When I was young I wasn't troubled by alternative thinking: I leaped in and if I started going under I swam all the faster. You do when you're young. Funny word, young. If you say it often enough it loses all meaning, if you take it to bits it becomes unpronounceable, but the world still pays homage to it.

  “Dear Mr. McSweeney,” I began. “Thank you for your kind offer of a position with your company as Head of Security...” I paused in a moment of mature reflection and allowed the wisdom and experience of my years to take over. “You can stuff it. Yours sincerely.”

  I signed it, addressed the envelope and stamped it with a resounding fist and set off.

  Down at the river, Dogge set off in pursuit of a bumble bee and surprised a young couple in the long grass at the first bend. They sat up and the girl tried to pretend that her blouse had come unfastened while she’d been reading her book. The boy was equally shamefaced about his pleasure. He too reached for a book and fumbled his way to a central page, feigning total absorption in its contents. I wanted to go over and tell them I'd been their age myself once but it sounded so patronising in my head and when verbalised would doubtless have been cringe-making for all concerned. I made my own pretence, of being deep in thought about the state of the river and called Dogge absent-mindedly to heel. As we rounded the bend I heard the kids giggle and, no doubt, return to their reading.

  Ahead of me on the long stretch I could see two fishermen, perched like garden gnomes ready to answer the call of a daft little bell on the end of their rods. As I got nearer, so Dogge tore off to greet Stefan Merriman with her usual delight and, after he'd given her a chunk of whatever sandwich Bella had made him, she settled. The person sitting with Stefan was Tom Templeman.

  Stefan was a man in his late thirties, a disturbing figure to some who knew him, refusing as he did to endorse their preconceptions of cleverness. Back in the Spring I'd met a man who'd known him at Cambridge. He told me about their graduation photo, re-distributed at five yearly intervals with labels above the smiling faces telling how each had progressed. Such-a-body was now in the Foreign Office, so-and-so was president of a certain company, the blonde haired girl had become a Member of Parliament. Above Stefan's head was a single word. Unknown. I was able to reveal that he had reached dizzy heights, albeit on a real ladder. He was a window cleaner.

  He came towards me, tall and angular in his perpetual denim, a fresh cigarette between his lips.

  “Long time no see, Nathan,” he said, shielding his match as he lit up.

  He gestured to Tom who had raised a hand in greeting.

  “Tommy and I thought we'd get some air.” He lowered his voice to a whisper and added: “He's doing well, better than I expected. Any news?”

  “On the murder? Not that I know of. Nice of you to take him under your wing, Stef.”

  He smiled, slowly, easily and went to heed a call on his line. It was a false alarm. The breeze had ruffled the water here in this becalmed inlet, the float had dipped, the bell had tinkled. I watched him re-bait the hook, wanting to say that it didn't matter to me that he was stoned, that I'd seen him chuck the spliff he was smoking into the river as I approached. But I couldn't bring myself to say it, not just then, because his action meant that he still thought of me as a copper, someone to be reckoned with.

  I sat down on the grass beside Tom who was gazing into the water.

  “Anything happening?”

  “Fishwise?” he said. He shook his head. Then, as if the gesture had reminded him of his head's existence, he tapped his temple. “Plenty going on up here.”

  “Such as?”

  “Aunt Julie,” he said. “She don't seem to improve none, Nathan.”

  “What do the doctors say?”

  “I don't ask. Gizzy does, but they don't tell her much. Stable, they say. That's doctor speak for ‘we’re as much in the dark as you are’.”

  Stefan handed me a beer from his coolbox and opened one for Tommy who drank from it, mechanically, for a few moments. Then he turned to look at me again with pale blue eyes, so pale one might almost believe a light behind them had been dimmed.

  “I didn't like him much,” he said. “Jim, I mean.”

  “You're not alone.”

  He smiled, faintly. “You reckon that counts? I can say all this to you Nathan, you're a friend but I can't say it to the cops, that Charnley. In fact I thought he was an arsehole.”

  “Charnley?”

  “No Jim, you daft bugger...” He smiled for a split second. “Charnley too, I expect.”

  “You can say whatever you like, Tommy. To me, Charnley, anyone. Are there other things you want to say?”

  “That's about it. I didn't like him. Now I've got to do his funeral. I've never done that before. How does that work?”

  “Well, first, you dig a bloody great hole, then you put ‘em in it.”

  Stefan chuckled and Tom wondered why but he didn't question it. He was used to being left behind.

  “Have you made arrangements?” I asked.

  “Well, I got this bit of paper from the Coroner's Officer bloke.”

  He shook his head wearily and his mind drifted away on the tail end of whatever the doctor had given him on Saturday night.

  “You want me to see to it? The funeral?”

  He drifted back to us. “Kind of you, mate. I know I should be able to, at my age I should be able to do these things. I mean death or no death, says Gizzy, life has to go on.”

  “No 'should' about it.”

  He nodded. Stefan and I waited. “I'd like to talk to you sometime, Nathan.”

  “Yeah? What about?”

  “Just ... things.” His eyes flicked away to Stefan and back again. “Private stuff. Me and Gizzy stuff. Not the obvious but the not obvious... Jesus, this has been a bloody week, ain't it. I've to open the pub next Monday and here I am, sitting here by the river, gassing to you blokes.”

  He made to stand up, I pushed him down again.

  “Finish your day. It'll do you good.”

  He shrugged. “Never catch anything, do we, Stef?”

  Stefan was miles away by then, probably wondering about the private stuff Tom wanted to talk to me about. Just as I was.

  

  My letter to McSweeney Spice having been posted I'd reduced my chances of future employment to two: lecturing at Bramshill and The Book. It may have been that narrowing of options which sent me up to the cabin early next morning to make a start on “The History of the Hamford Crime Squad: a Memoir”. If I was going to tackle this thing like a pro, people had said, I should get myself into a routine, do things in a certain, ritualistic order. Start by turning the computer on.

  As it booted up my mind wandered off in other directions without so much as a by your leave. That's the trouble with writing, there are too many distractions and at the flick of a synapse they become reasons for not getting down to the job. The excuses range from the pencil not being sharp enough (not that I use one) through to the deeper, darker problems involving inspiration. Or lack of it.

  A beep took me back to the screen and I wondered if the title was absolutely right. Wouldn't “A History.” be better, less dogmatic than “The History?” The latter had an official ring to it, a hint of government approval whereas “A History” would be more my own point of view.

  I checked my e-mail while I thought about it. There were three. One from the on-line gas company, another from the bank and the third from Con, who was still in New Zealand.

  “Dad, Hi! E-mailing rather than phoning because it's two in the morning where you are and well, guess
you might be asleep. Or something...”

  Or something? What did he mean, for God's sake? That I might be up to something nocturnal - burglary perhaps, grave robbing, a passionate foray with a new love? Or was the “or something” merely verbal punctuation? And was there nervousness there, almost certainly heralding a request? For money.

  “...anyway, having a great time and as much as I could stay here longer well, you know, promised Fee that we'd go and see her next month...”

  There it was. He needed the onward fare to Japan.

  “...only the old finances. Ouch! Know what I mean?”

  Well, yes, mate, I do know. I also know that the classics degree from Cambridge had a purpose. When you finally got into the big world you'd be able to earn a good living doing something really, really interesting. Remember?

  “Started the book yet?”

  I smiled and wrote a return e-mail.

  “Yes I have. How much?”

  Was that a kind of admission, as good as saying no I haven't written a word but here's the money to keep you quiet?

  I needed a diversion, not too far removed from the police work of my past life but enough to steer my thoughts towards what was essentially an autobiography. Maybe if I wrote my thoughts on Jim's murder down, I could put it out of my mind and really get down to “A History of the Hamford Crime Squad: a Memoir”?

  Jim and Julie had been shot, they'd been lured out of the car by two people, each with a shotgun. The two strangers in the pub earlier, maybe? Were they operating off their own backs or on behalf of someone else? Gizzy and Tom stood to inherit The Plough, according to Kate. Tom wanted to talk to me about private stuff. Would he soon be telling me that he and Gizzy had hired two professional hit men to...?

  “Jesus Christ!” I said out loud, rising from the desk. The harder I try to leave this murder alone the more it keeps tapping me on the shoulder. The noisy heartbeat was there again, drumming away in my ears. There was even a sprouting of sweat, just below where my hair line used to be. I sat down again, unclenching fists, teeth, stomach, toes, shoulders. I took a few deep breaths.

  “A History...” mocked me from the screen, blank and white, a vicious little box asking if I'd like to save the non-existent document. Yes, I answered, with a jab at the keyboard. It taunted me further. What did I want to save it as? I turned and picked up the old flat iron I used as a doorstop, weighed it in my hand like a knuckle-duster and just as I was about to narrow my options even further by punching the computer's lights out, an unexpected visitor came to my rescue.

  The knock on the window was from a hand used to getting its own way. It belonged to Petra Wyeth, disguised as a Zulu Queen, in traditional African wrap whose theme was large vegetables, turban and all. The latter was to hide the lank, greasy hair I'd noticed at Angie's last weekend, the frizz at the end betraying an ancient perm.

  “Come in, Petty,” I said.

  She may have got a double first at Somerville but the catch on the cabin door stumped her.

  “Lift it,” I said.

  She lifted it and entered.

  “Nathan, wasn’t that a super...” She broke off, startled by the surroundings. “Good God, you don't work in here, do you?”

  “I try to.”

  “It’s like being a woodworm. You're surrounded by timber - ceiling, floors, walls.”

  “I like it,” I said. “You were saying?”

  “Yes, super evening up at Angie Mitchell’s, don’t you think?

  I agreed that it was.

  “And the new doctor. Charming, I thought.”

  She wanted a response to that but didn’t get one.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “how are the kids?”

  There hadn’t been much talk of offspring up at Angie’s the other night, Laura Peterson and the Mitchells not having any, so I filled her in at length and she gave a pretty good impression of someone listening, even caring. When I’d finished I asked how Daisy and Digby were. There’d been even less mention of them on Friday. Diggers and Daze were fine, she assured me, but in truth she didn’t know what they were up to, barring essentials. Daisy worked in advertising and Digby was a ski instructor in St. Moritz.

  “They won’t be joining you at ... Eruditio, then?” I said.

  “No, they’re not academically inclined, that’s the polite way of putting it. All the same, poor old Al and his pals could do with some cranial input right now. Negotiations are at a delicate stage. Wealthy benefactors and institutions are being relieved of their money as we speak.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we start, buying up, re-furbishing, kitting out those big country houses people can’t afford to live in anymore! Turning them into proper schools, Nathan, where kids will get a real education, from qualified teachers, not these oiks who leave university unable to spell their own name. And all will be done in an atmosphere of dedication, discernment and discipline.”

  “I feel as if I’ve just read the brochure.”

  “Oh, there’s a lot more to it than a few slogans, I can assure you, and market research proves that Mr. and Mrs. Jones will pay good money to have the little Joneses properly taught.”

  “And you and Allan will be there to collect?”

  “Not as much as you think. Some people still put ideals ahead of material gain. I’m sure you’re one of them.”

  The lesson over, she turned to the main purpose of her visit. She leaned forward on the wicker chair, knees together, hands resting nervously on a cabbage and a head of broccoli respectively.

  “Nathan, this murder,” she began. “The police have been to see us.”

  “Nothing unusual about that.”

  “Yes, but they wanted to know if we'd seen anything on The Ridge Road. Seen what, for Heaven's sake? These people who shot poor Jim and Julie, perchance, strolling along, rifles over their shoulders? Did we stop and take photos of them, maybe?”

  “Did you?”

  “No!”

  “Then there's an end of it,” I said. “Coffee?”

  She looked at her watch.

  “Thanks, no, I'm off to give Sharon Falconer a shoulder to cry on.” That'll be either on the turnip or the tomatoes, I thought, depending on which shoulder Sharon chooses. “You heard Martin had left her, I suppose?”

  “No, I didn't.”

  “Been on the cards for years, of course, but he's shillied and shallied. Men can be such thorough going cunts, don't you agree? Well, no, I suppose you'd feel obliged to argue the point. Hardly the language of a teacher, I know, so do forgive my Anglo-Saxon and, more so, the use of a female body part as an expletive, but sometimes it's the only word that'll do.” She paused to draw breath. “Detective Chief Inspector Charnley, his name was.”

  “Speaking of Anglo-Saxon, you mean?”

  “I'm sure he didn't believe us. He asked if he could see the car and was most put out when I told him it was in for repair.”

  “The exhaust?” I asked.

  “The dreadful noise coming out of the back. Do you think you could have a word with him? Better still his superiors. You must have left Angie's just after us, you can vouch for us not speaking to any murderers on The Ridge Road. I'd be so grateful.”

  Grateful or not, she clearly believed that her wish would be my command. She turned, fought briefly with the door and hurried off to enjoy the tragedy of Martin Falconer ditching his awful wife.

  It was habit again. The need to check her story, prompted by the fact that she clearly had something to hide or why else had she come to see me? There were thirty-four car body shops in Aylesbury, according to Yellow Pages and I started to ring them in the name of Allan Wyeth, asking when my wife's Volkswagen would be ready. Nine of them, not surprisingly, told me that I must have the wrong garage. The tenth said it was a bigger job than they'd first realised. The front panel was badly buckled, the fender twisted. My missus must've given it a real hammering the other night. I thanked the voice and put the phone down.

  So, the African Que
en and erudite Al had had a prang last Friday, up on The Ridge Road. Why had Petra just played it down? With the implications of that troubling me I could hardly have been expected to go back to The Book. I just wouldn't have been able to give it my best.

  -4-

  I was still puzzling over the lie Petra Wyeth had told me when I took Hideki to the station for the 11.10.

  “Have a good day,” I said to him, as we pulled onto the forecourt.

  He gave his usual response. “I will have great day.”

  He was going to Abbey Road, with the sole purpose of having a photo of himself taken on The Zebra Crossing made famous by The Fab Four. In Asahikawa he would be king.

  “You will catch murderer?” he asked.

  I laughed. “No, no, as I told you the other day, someone else will do that. Mr. Charnley.”

  As he got out of the car he was smiling. Had we been earlier I would have called him back and asked him why. Instead I put it down to oriental inscrutability.

  I arrived home to find John Faraday seated on the garden bench, smoking a cigarette. He rose to greet me and appeared to have grown taller since our last meeting. No doubt because he wasn't with Charnley who had a knack of reducing those around him in order to give himself stature. He stretched out his hand.

  “Sergeant Faraday, guvnor.”

  “Yes. I remember, “ I said. “You want a beer or something?”

  “Be nice, thanks.”

  We went into the house where Faraday folded his jacket over the back of a chair with feminine precision. He picked a couple of seeds off the sleeve and sprinkled them into the ashtray. He wasn't just taller, he was more himself in other ways: easy, vulnerable, likeable.