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

by Douglas Watkinson

  “Elvis, home to mother, mate. Give her my disregards.”

  I'd always thought of him as easy going but he shrugged my hand from his shoulder and pointed at Charnley and his people.

  “They're still here,” he said in a strop. “Why shouldn't I...”

  “They're just going,” I told him. I turned to the coppers. “Gentlemen, Mrs. Ryder asked me to convey her special thanks to you but Gizzy and Tom have a busy evening ahead, I think we should call it a day.”

  Charnley looked at me down the broken nose, as if taking aim with a fairground rifle.

  “Got yourself a nice little job, then, guvnor? Bouncer in this place?”

  His people laughed. They knew better than to do otherwise.

  “Not at all,” I said, “but unless you've got other business...”

  “We have.”. He set down his glass, leaned back on the bar and said to Faraday: “See to our other business, John.”

  Faraday looked at me, a mite sheepishly I thought, then walked over to Tom and stood in front of him. “Thomas Malcolm Templeman,” he began. “I'm arresting you in connection with the murder of James Anthony Charles Ryder...”

  Tom frowned, as if he'd been told a joke he didn't understand. Charnley turned to the W.D.C. “Jenny, do the girl...”

  Drew went over to Gizzy but she wasn't the pushover Tommy had been. She started to back away, planning to make for the door and run like hell but Quilter was there before her, slamming it shut, leaning back on it. Gizzy looked round, picked up the nearest weapon, one of the vases on a table. Rose and water slid out as she raised her arm only for it to be held aloft by Bailey. He took the vase from her and set it down. Drew led off over a stream of Gizzy invective:

  “Giselle Anne Whitely...”

  Any plans I'd had to stay calm must have nipped out through the door before Quilter got to it.

  “What the bloody hell is this?” I asked Charnley.

  “What's it look like? We're arresting them.”

  “What happened to the two jokers I saw the other day, Evans and Jackson?”

  “They were just the muscle.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see Laura, coming towards me. If she'd had trouble getting to her feet, it didn't show.

  “Keep out of this, guvnor,” said John Faraday, handcuffing Tom. “We tried to do the right thing today, get Jim buried and his missus on her way back to Oxford.”

  Quilter and Drew had cuffs on Gizzy by now and were dragging her closer to the main action, where she carried on effing and blinding. Laura reached for my arm. I shrugged her off.

  “So what's your case against these two?” I wanted to know. “Two lines in a fucking Will?”

  As I took a step towards Charnley, McKinnon was there in a flash, right between us.

  “I'm talking to your boss,” I said. “You're in my way.”

  Bailey caught me by the left arm and, as I reached out to grab his head, McKinnon delivered the punch he'd wanted to throw at The Radcliffe the other night. Laura was yelling at them to stop. As McKinnon went to have a second dig at my stomach Faraday caught him by the shoulder, turned him and grabbed him by the lapels. He shouted in his face:

  “Enough! You too, Bailey!”

  Charnley slapped the bar a couple of times and a kind of order descended.

  “When you're all quite done,” he said, “there’s work to do. Get this place locked up and the kids down to The Box Room.”

  Five minutes later, with Tom gazing at me out of the back window of Faraday's car, like a calf going to slaughter, and Giselle in Drew's car, yelling and spitting at her captors, Charnley and his mob sped away.

  It had started to drizzle, that fine misty rain you get in the first weeks of autumn, letting you know there'll be worse to come. Laura and I stood in it. Half a minute must have gone by before I asked:

  “What happened to Elvis?”

  I'd no memory of seeing him leave.

  “He high-tailed it through the back door as soon as the trouble started. Are you alright?” I nodded. “That was quite a blow he struck you. Do you want me to take a look?”

  “Not right now. Not here.” She understood completely. “But I'll have that fucker McKinnon if it's the last thing I do.”

  -12-

  Laura came back to Beech Tree with me and while I made sandwiches she sat in Maggie's Dad's rocker and dropped off to sleep, courtesy the wine she'd had down at The Plough. Head down on her chest, lips not puckered, mouth closed, no snoring. All of them plus points. I left a note by her sandwich, saying: “Cabin”.

  I hadn't checked my e-mail for days and needed to touch base with my own kids before I tried to rescue somebody else's. There were thirty nine messages from people I'd never heard of, most of them offering me mortgages and viagra, and four from people I had: Fee, Con, Ellie, Jaikie. They were all well and, from what they'd written, each was reassuringly the son or daughter I knew.

  “Dad,” said Fee, clearly hysterical. “Bad news about Enrique, Ellie’s new bloke. He's in his second year at bloody bull-fighting school, for God's sake! This family does not sanction cruelty to animals of any kind, Ellie knows that, and has put two fingers up at it. Write to her. Tell her to stop seeing him...”

  Yes, my darling, and while I'm about it I'll tell the rain not to fall.

  “...Glad to hear the book's going well. Love, Fee.”

  Who told you the book was going well? Ah, yes, that was probably me.

  “Dear Dad,” said Ellie. “Can you tell Fee to get off my back about Enrique. Love yer loads. Ellie.”

  Yes, I'm fine, thanks, Ellie. Bit of a sore gut at the moment but that'll pass.

  “Dad, Hi!” said Jaikie. “Weirdest thing. Remember Sophie Jenkins, went to Central with me? Well, she's Sophie Kent now, changed her name so as not to be cast as a Taffy all the time. She's out here in L.A. and she's got a part in All Good Men And True. We've been seeing quite a bit of each other, lately...”

  Say no more. But he did, of course. Screeds about himself, the film, himself again, then Sophie Kent, once Jenkins, and finally about himself, just in case I hadn't got it the ten other times.

  The message from Con was, predictably, about money.

  “Dad, wouldn't do this to you if you weren't my father...”

  Oh, no? Somewhere down the lengthy explanation about a deposit being needed for a car, which he and redhead Rosie could sell before they left New Zealand, were the words: “A hundred quid should cover it.”

  I should hope so too. A hundred quid covers most things in my life.

  “And don't worry about how we're keeping body and soul together. We've got jobs. You want me to repeat that? Jobs! We're pruning apple trees, in an orchard. Rosie wants to be an orchardist now, not a lawyer. Women, eh!”

  As if on cue, one tapped on the cabin door and Laura entered.

  “Sorry, fell asleep,” she said. “This is good.”

  She was referring to the sandwich which she'd brought with her. She stooped down and kissed me on the cheek. She must've forgotten, what with the wine and the sleep, that we'd never kissed before.

  “Kids?” she asked, glancing at the screen.

  “Yes, I've got a bit of calming down, praising up and forking out to do, then I'll be with you. Have a seat.”

  

  When I'd finished with my children I switched off the computer and turned back to Laura.

  “So what now?” she asked.

  I tried a full body stretch, in so far as you can in a computer chair. My stomach muscles weren't too keen on the idea.

  “I'm going to see Jean Langan. Last time I was round there I never got to ask her what I wanted to. It all went a bit pear-shaped. Tom and Gizzy were there, then we found that Kate had done a bunk. Maybe Charnley’s right. The whole thing is a family affair, though I don’t know where that leaves old Jack.” I gestured vaguely in the direction of Maple Cottage. “Kate’s still not back and it was her loft the guns were on.”

  Laura nodded,
reached out and patted my knee. The wine had really loosened her up. Worth bearing in mind.

  “And that bloody Stella Taplin is bugging me.”

  “Because she came to the funeral?”

  I nodded. “Why was she there? Why was she crying? Why was she on her own?”

  Laura didn't know, anymore than I did.

  

  The unofficial guide to being a copper tells you that bereavement loosens the tongue. Catch someone on the raw, after a personal tragedy, they'll tell you everything you need to know. Unless the bereaved is Jean Langan.

  When she opened the door to me it was clear she'd expected to see someone else standing there. She immediately checked her watch. I did the same. It was half seven and Jean was definitely dressed up for something and it wasn't mourning her husband. The grief damage to her face had been repaired. The freshly streaked blond hair, the smart shoes, the crisp outfit and protective bubble of Calvin Klein's Eternity had assignation written all over them. And why not, I immediately started saying to myself. Why shouldn't she make up for lost time? Good looks like hers, there'd be plenty of men willing to set her clock running again.

  She beckoned me in, not because she wanted my company, but because she didn't want the neighbours to see her dressed for a new life.

  We stood in the main room, me cramped by the low central beam, Jean near the front door as if inviting me to leave as soon as possible.

  “You were just off out,” I said.

  “Yes ... yes.”

  “To see Gizzy? I take it you've been informed. Have you heard from Kate?”

  She hesitated, wondering which question to answer first. “I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of Kate. Gizzy's being held at Chesham, I’m going over to see her later.”

  “Well, I won’t keep you but there is something I need to know. Did Kate ever own a motor-bike?”

  She frowned, wondering where the question had come from. “Yes, she had one for a while, terrified us all to death, but...”

  “What about Tom? Does he ride one?”

  “I've no idea.”

  And with that she clearly expected me to leave.

  “Where are your other kids, Jean? I'd want mine here, time like this.”

  “Well, I didn't. I'd rather cope on my own.”

  I looked her up and down. “Not all on your own, though.”

  “Nathan I don't know what gives you the right to question me like I’m some shoplifter you’ve dragged in...”

  “You mean my curiosity puzzles you? Well, your behaviour does the same to me. Your old man was killed five days ago, one niece has been arrested for murder, the other’s nowhere to be found and you’re off out on the razzle.”

  She looked at me, scared of where I might go next. The phone rang and she gestured for me to go through to the kitchen and I obliged. I eavesdropped on the conversation. Make what you will of her side of it:

  “No, yes ... Yes ... Five minutes? ... No, Village Hall, yes ... Right.”

  “Sorry about that,” she said, coming to join me in the kitchen.

  I'd settled on one of the wrought iron stools

  “You should've seen him,” I said. “Jack, I mean, lying across that saw. I've seen bodies chopped up before but none was a patch on your old man.” She shuddered, closing her eyes. “How long were you married, I forget?”

  She held her hands together, pleading. A bit too melodramatic to be convincing. “Nathan, you have to let me deal with this business in my own way.”

  “But I can help, Jean. I've been through the sudden death thing. Different to you, of course, but then I was never married to the wrong person.”

  With that low blow I conceded the moral high ground, always assuming I'd held it in the first place. She looked at me with steady, intelligent eyes.

  “Yes, I'm sorry I confided in you that evening at The Plough. Jack and I were badly matched, certainly, but it doesn't mean I'm happy that he's dead. And it certainly doesn't mean I have to account to a sanctimonious old copper for my actions.”

  “You will, if I find out you're in any way connected to his death.”

  “That is a terrible thing to say, Nathan!”

  “Till you've done my job, Jean, you don't know what people are capable of. They'll do anything if the price is right, the urge compelling enough.”

  She cocked her head, facetiously. “Well, I'm glad we've such an authority on evil, living in the village. Makes me feel a whole lot safer.”

  “Got bored with him? Chucked him away?”

  She stared at me for a moment, then said quietly:

  “I have to go now.”

  I made to leave, turned back at the door.

  “I like the hair, by the way. And the new outfit. Anyone I know?”

  “Different league,” she said.

  I didn't go straight home, of course, I took a detour up Backwater Lane to the village hall. It was dusk and a few kids were skate-boarding in the road. Learners. One of them fell off and was up on his feet in a flash, back on the board.

  A car was parked outside the village hall. It was a powder blue Jaguar, same registration as the one Stella Taplin had driven to Jim's funeral in. The bloke at the wheel was fifty-ish with dubious fair hair, the colour almost certainly out of a bottle. He also had a sun-tan like nobody ever gets, so presumably that was out of a bottle too. He was talking on a mobile and tried not to look at me as I walked past. I tapped on the window, he finished the call and the window slid down.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Freddie Taplin. And you?”

  “Nathan Hawk. We must have a chat sometime. Jim Ryder and all things deriving therefrom.”

  He smiled and reached into the glove compartment for a business card, handed it to me.

  “Drop in, any time you're passing.”

  “I’ll do that.” I nodded back the way I'd come. “She won't be a minute.”

  

  I didn't bother going to bed, I sat up watching a film instead, one I'd seen so many times before I was virtually singing along. As a little kid Jaikie used to do a lot of that and it annoyed the beJesus out of the rest of us. Not only would he say the lines, he'd tell you what was going to happen ten seconds before it did. Throw what we could at him, cushions, food, soft toys, we never stopped him. I’m not sure if we really wanted to.

  The film ended in the same way that it had every other time I'd seen it. It was two thirty, time to set off for Chesham. The police station there had the only provision for women within twenty miles, that's why Gizzy had been taken to it.

  Am I kidding myself, or was there a time, not so long ago, when night was night? Most people went indoors when it got dark, by midnight most of them were in bed. Those still walking about a town like Aylesbury at two thirty in the morning were either coppers or up to no good. Nowadays there's a whole civilisation strutting its stuff all through the night. Hundreds of people walking about, kids gathered under the perpetual daylight of street lamps, adults moving from all-night shop, to bar, to party. I read somewhere that we sleep two hours less a night than we did in 1950. That's an awful lot of time in which to break the law. And not a copper to be seen.

  The road to Chesham was off the dual carriageway out of Aylesbury. You took a left and climbed up the scarp, the countrified road lit only by security lights on the front of people's houses, tripped as you passed by. In the rear view mirror I could see cars below me, making the same twists and turns as I had, headlights sweeping the side of the hill as if looking for me.

  That was another thing. Cars at night. It wasn't that long ago that someone driving after midnight was either a long-distance lorry driver or a villain. Or maybe I'm remembering it all wrong.

  I turned right, by the Old Priory at Lee Haven, a short cut Jack Langan had once shown me. The road takes you through beech woods for about three miles and lands you on the outskirts of Chesham. I took it carefully, mindful of the deer Terry Quilter had killed. It would've been on a road like this, unfence
d with the trees skeletal against the moonlit sky. Roots ran the length of the high banks, like pipe work through some ancient building, twisted and of many sizes, but somehow doing the job.

  I'm not sure what it was that alerted me. I think it must've been the contradiction of a motor-bike, keeping its distance behind any car, especially one going at no more than thirty-five miles an hour. But there he was, two hundred yards behind me. At first I thought it was a car with a duff headlight. I wound down the window and accelerated. I heard the bike accelerate too. He, or she, was following me.

  If it was the same bike I'd tussled with at The Radcliffe, then the rider wasn't here for the good of his health. Or mine. I tried not to put myself centre stage, I didn't like the role I'd been offered, but on past performance this bastard had come to kill me. What had I found out that was so crucial? What did I know that I didn't know I knew?

  I drove on for another mile. The biker kept his distance, two hundred yards. And then I came to my senses. The guy behind me was one of a million bikers, taking it easy on a winding road. If he'd been after me I'd have seen him earlier, right back at Winchendon. He'd have seen me leave, I'd have heard him, seen him, especially on the dark stretch out of the village, by the church.

  There was a row of cottages round the next bend, seven or eight in all. Sixties farm cottages, now owner occupied. I remember seeing one for sale last year and choking at the price. I signalled left, pulled into the lay-by behind a row of parked cars.

  The motor-cycle slowed down. When the rider drew level he stopped, turned and looked at me, through black visor in black helmet. The creature of the night Allan Wyeth had described. He was five feet away from me and I'd made a mistake. He'd been following me and now he'd caught up with me. We must have gazed at each other for another ten seconds, which is a long time when you think the other bloke's got a handgun somewhere. All the time I was thinking: I know one thing about you, much good it'll do me. You aren't Beanpole Tommy. He's in a police cell in Aylesbury. The thought made me feel better. I put my foot right down to the floor, turned the wheel towards the biker and the Landrover leaped the distance between us. It caught the bike on the back wheel. The bike almost came away from beneath the rider. He held it, just, revved the engine and screeched off towards Chesham. I took a deep breath.