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

by Douglas Watkinson

  We went into the trees at a cracking pace. Jerome Mayhew skipped ahead, like a child, then stopped and peered back at me round tree trunks, pulling a face, then flitting away again with athletic ease. At one point he stopped, then came towards me treading softly on the dead twigs beneath his feet as if trying not to disturb them. He came right up to me, looked in my face as if searching it for answers to his predicament. He said, softly:

  “I wasn't always like this, you know.”

  “Like what?”

  “Stuck.”

  It was a handsome face. It had all the signs of having once ruled the roost. The set of his head, tilted back and looking down on lesser mortals, was that of a leader not a follower. The hands were strong and cared for, by his wife and not him, I imagine. His face was closely shaved, again her doing, not his. The eyebrows were trim, there were no rogue hairs befuddling his ears or nose. He was ... of film star quality. Yet the eyes, for all their startling blueness, were as dead as glass beads. Behind them a fine mind was disintegrating and, in occasional moments of lucidity, knew that it was doing so.

  Had he once been a man who would have killed for two million pounds? I couldn't see it.

  From high in the branches I could hear the gentle coo-ing of a couple of wood-pigeons. I pointed up at them.

  “Damn things,” I said.

  “Ah, yes.”

  “Need shooting...”

  Whether he swerved away knowingly, or was simply led by the word's alternative meaning, I've no idea.

  “Well, you're the man with the camera crew,” he said. “Not me.”

  “Yes, and I think we should start the interview right now.” I turned to where he'd addressed my imaginary crew. “Are we ready?”

  Jerome held his hand up to them, saying: “Take five. I've a little something to ask Mr. Hawk.”

  He nodded as they apparently stomped off through the trees, back to the house.

  He looked down at the ground and seemed to grip the air close to him, in an effort to seize reality. Getting a loose hold on it, he asked:

  “Can you get me out of here?”

  “I'm not sure,” I said. “Where would you go?”

  “Anywhere. Doesn't matter. But if I stay here, it's the end. I know that.”

  “Catherine would be sorry.”

  He suddenly snapped. “Don't start all that, how she'd miss me. Jesus, you've seen the woman, there's another thirty years in her. Are you saying that she should ... that she should...”

  He paused, still struggling to hang onto the thread of reason he'd found.

  “Are you saying that it's the end for her too?”

  “No such thing.”

  “I'm dragging her down. Any fool can see that.”

  “I don't know many fools,” I said. “I knew Jim Ryder, of course. Remember him?”

  “Old Jim? Well, I'm damned. It must be ... did he say how long it was, since we last met?”

  “Couple of years.”

  He'd never heard the name in his life and shrugged, like a child, shoulders high into the air.

  “Oh, well, I can't remember what I did yesterday, let alone two years ago.”

  “Yesterday,” I said. “We went shooting.”

  He pretended to remember, out of courtesy.

  “So we did. What did we bag?”

  “Well, you did most of the bagging.”

  He suddenly gripped my forearm and looked at me.

  “That isn't why you're here, is it? I didn't shoot the old bagging, did I?”

  “Catherine? No. Why do you ask such a thing?”

  He let go of my arm. The fear of what he might have done, without knowing, had led him down some tortuous path in his buckled memory. He confided quietly:

  “I wanted to. Wanted to get shot of her. Bloody woman does nothing but carp and criticise. It’ll be physical abuse next!” He pulled a comical face. “Still, if you say you've been sleeping with her I obviously missed my target. Better make sure, though.”

  He hurried off, back towards the house to check that he hadn't shot his wife. Feeling a touch loopy myself, by now, I followed him.

  

  After tea and egg sandwiches, Jerome nodded off in an armchair and I explained to Catherine the full purpose of my visit. She was gracious about my white lies and sympathetic to their purpose. Nevertheless, when it came to it, she'd no more idea about how two Purdeys might have got from Claybury Court to Kate Whitely's loft than I had.

  She asked if I'd like more tea and I said I would. She went to make some and I closed the French windows, bolting them top and bottom.

  When I turned back into the room, Jerome was right beside me. He'd risen noiselessly and now put a forefinger to his lips. The eyes had a look in them I can only describe as madness and sanity at loggerheads. By dint of his nap, maybe, sanity had the edge.

  “Wasn't sleeping. Just pretending. You won't tell her, will you. Promise me, there's a good chap.”

  “Tell her what?”

  “That I thought about ... you know, shooting her and all that. Relieving her of the burden.”

  “No, of course not.”

  Then he looked at me, truth rising, and for just a few moments it restored him to the man he'd once been.

  “I knew it would be the wrong thing to do but I was beginning to lose the battle.” He pointed to his head, the place where the ongoing war was taking place. “So I got rid of them. The guns. For safety. There was an amnesty.”

  It took me a moment or two to remember but he was right, there'd been a firearms amnesty two years previously. Hand in your illegal arms at the local nick and no questions would be asked.

  “Was that a good idea?” he asked.

  “One of your best,” I assured him.

  -21-

  I got back to Beech Tree Cottage at about eight o'clock that evening. Hideki was out and had left one of his messages by the kettle: “Gone Crown. Maybe you come? H.”

  I telephoned Penman Stables and Drew answered the phone.

  “Working late?” I said to her.

  “As usual. What can I do for you?”

  “Is your skipper there?”

  She put a hand over the receiver and called out: “Sarge, Mr. Hawk, line four.”

  Faraday picked up the phone.

  “No we haven't, guvnor.”

  “What?”

  “We haven't caught up with Grogan and MacAteer.” He paused. “Isn't that what you phoned about?”

  “Not really, no. John listen ... I don't want to raise your hopes, and I’m certainly not trying to play the big I am, but I think I know who did it.”

  Faraday chuckled. He thought I was kidding.

  “I mean it, John. I think I know who killed Jim Ryder and Jack Langan. Is Charnley there? Maybe I should speak to him.”

  “No, no. H.Q for a bollocking. You know the sort of thing. Time and money, where's the result?”

  I glanced across at Hawthorn Cottage. I could see Stef and Bella in the kitchen. She was sipping wine from a tall glass and as Stef passed by he kissed her on the neck. Minds were meeting, maybe. Long journey.

  “John, why don't you come over?”

  “What's the time?”

  “Eight.”

  “Yeah, alright, only I've promised my sister's boy...”

  Stef had turned Bella round and was kissing her properly now.

  “Won't keep you long, I promise.”

  

  It was almost dark by the time John Faraday pulled up in Morton Lane. He knocked on the door and Dogge went mad. He knew her well enough by now to calm her with his voice.

  “Good girl,” he said. “Good girl, quiet now.”

  Her ears went back and he let her out into the garden.

  He looked all in. The strain of the case and the uncertainty of working for an alcoholic boss were showing in his face. He slumped into Maggie's Dad's rocker and let his head fall back against the top curve. He smiled at me, with a precocious glance at the fridge. I took o
ut a beer and slid it across the table to him.

  “Where's Hideki?” he asked, looking round.

  “The Crown. He likes it there better than The Plough. Younger customers. More talent.”

  “He's right.”

  I went over to the window, sipping my own beer. The light had gone on upstairs in Hawthorn Cottage, the bedroom curtains had been drawn.

  “You know, when I first started looking into this, these two... well...”

  I nodded across at Stef and Bella's. Faraday wrenched himself out of the rocker and came and stood beside me.

  “Stef and Bella, you mean?”

  “Yeah, they'd have been the last people I'd have said had anything to do with Jim's murder, let alone Jack's.”

  “And now you aren't so sure?”

  “Didn't I tell you?” I tried to think back. “It wasn't Kate who put the guns up there on the loft, it was Stef.”

  “You should've told me,” he said, with a shrug. “We had an agreement. Any bits and pieces...”

  He'd wanted to be fierce and critical about my oversight but he was too tired for that. Or too interested in what else I might have to say.

  “Sorry, I must be getting old, John. Memory going. Or maybe I was too embarrassed.”

  He chuckled and looked away.

  “Yeah, you're a regular shrinking violet, guvnor.”

  “I made a mistake, you see. Jack was so convinced that his niece was tied into all this, I just took his word for it...”

  “Bang went the first rule, eh?” he said. “Never believe anyone. What's Stef been saying to shine a light? The guns are his?”

  “Stef isn't really talking. Too scared.”

  “With just cause, by the sound of it.”

  “He's not scared of the law, John, that doesn't seem to bother him. The people who killed Jim Ryder do, however.”

  “Grogan and MacAteer? Well, unless he's got them on his loft as well...”

  “By which he means whoever paid the Paddies to kill Jim and Julie. They used Stef as a kind of staging post, you see, a place to keep the guns, return them to after the job was done.”

  I'd captured his real interest at last.

  “I'm not excusing his behaviour,” I went on, “but they had him over a barrel.”

  “How?”

  “He deals drugs from his bedroom.”

  He chuckled again, shaking his head. “Jesus Christ, guvnor, something else you've kept to yourself? I mean what about the satanic rituals and the attic full of asylum seekers? When do I hear about them?”

  “He's been inside for it. Dealing. Not that it shows on his record, you told me that yourself.”

  “I didn't tell you, guvnor. The best computer money can buy told you.”

  I shrugged. “Then all I can say is that someone's been messing with the records. I got it from the man himself, or at least his partner, Bella. He did three months and she doesn't want him doing any more. It's made him vulnerable. Open to all kinds of pressure. Blackmail.”

  Faraday nodded, went back to the rocker and stretched out in it, full length, joints cracking.

  “Okay,” he said with a gentle yawn. “I'll see to it. I'll go have a word with Stef.” He held up a hand, as if I'd made a protest, which I hadn't. “No hassle, don't worry. Won't use anything against him, but if he knows where the bodies are buried, so to speak.”

  “You don't have to ask him, John. You can ask me.”

  He looked at me, over the top of his beer. He played it as if worried that I'd picked up something he'd missed.

  “Okay, then, I'm asking.”

  “Guns, for example. I know who J.A.M. is. I had an old friend in the job run a check for me.”

  “Terry Quilter did that. No joy.”

  He tried to make it sound as if the two of us were on the same side, heading for the same goal.

  “No, the check he ran was for J.A.N. That isn't what was on the gun case. That was J.A.M. Quilter misheard.”

  He puffed out his cheeks, blew away his irritation at having the likes of Quilter on his team.

  “I'll fucking kill him,” he said, lightly. “Does that sound reasonable?”

  “The man's full name is Jerome Arthur Mayhew. Juliet Alpha Mike.”

  Faraday seemed to repent a little, with regard to Quilter and pulled a face.

  “Oh, well, Jam, Jan, I guess it's an easy slip...”

  “Not the way we do it. We use the UN code. M for Mike, N for November. You can mistake Jam for Jan over the phone but not Mike for November.”

  There was a pause this time before he laughed out loud and sat up straight. “Okay, so we're fucking idiots, you're a genius. You came up with the right guy.”

  “It's not quite as simple as that. Somebody gave Quilter the wrong initials to check in the first place. I made a point of spelling it out: Jam today, Jam today.”

  He thought for a moment before squeezing his beer can, watching it deform slowly as he did so.

  “I've got a nasty feeling this is going to get ... personal? Am I right?”

  “You made it personal, right from the start, by being on my back every five minutes. You weren't delivering Charnley's rebukes, or picking my brains, like I thought. You were seeing how close I'd come to the truth. Not very far, as it happens, until I asked myself this question: Why, if the object of the whole game was the two million pounds Jim Ryder had salted away ... why kill him? How can he tell you where the money is from grave 47B Aylesbury Cemetery?”

  “Well, since you're full of it tonight, guvnor, keep going.”

  “When someone dies, especially if they're murdered, it gives certain other people access to the entirety of the victim's life. I'm talking about their bank accounts, insurance policies, credit details, safe deposits, medical records, in fact every sodding detail about them. They get tossed around by the likes of solicitors, coroners, inland revenue ... and right up front coppers. I reckon someone went through Julie's house, several times, top to bottom, when Jim was inside, but they couldn't find any hint of the money. So they decided to go into more detail by killing her and Jim.”

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It hadn't needed it. He tried to smile and failed. I said:

  “How about this, though, for real shitty luck? They were on a wild goose chase from day one. Jim never stole that money from Taplin Seafoods.”

  “Then who the fuck did?”

  “Stella Taplin. And that's straight from the horse's mouth.” I smiled at him, about as condescendingly as I could. “You pinned the tail on the wrong donkey, John.”

  He looked at me and for a few moments held his emotions completely in check. I'd never seen him do it before. Then he lowered his voice and said:

  “Any second now you'll whip out the murder weapons, will you? My fingerprints all over them?”

  “I've no idea where the guns are, John, but I know how you came by them.”

  “I'm listening.”

  “Mayhew handed them in to his local nick, Bibury, in a firearms amnesty. Two years ago two, just before you transferred here. You were stationed at Cirencester at the time, stone’s throw away, and when the day's collection was brought in to be rendered down for scrap, you helped yourself to the Purdeys.”

  He drummed his fingers on the table, then pointed to the crushed can.

  “Do you think I could have another?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He walked over to the fridge, opened it and took out two more cans. He pushed one across to me as if nothing had happened, as if it had all been a game and we were simply chewing it over in the dressing room. Tactics, manoeuvres, winners and losers. After a few moments deliberation he said:

  “There isn't much ... bulk to it, guvnor. In the way of hard evidence, I mean. That's my first thought.”

  “Oh, I don't know. There'll be bits of you on Jack Langan's body, I'm sure. It's still down at the mortuary. That's the one sensible thing your boss has done: kept him on ice. What will be difficult, I grant you, is c
onnecting you to the motorbike.”

  He laughed. “Proving that I'm this 'third person' you refer to? This creature of the night, male or female...”

  “Who I chased through The Radcliffe, who stuck a gun in Allan Wyeth's ear, who followed me to Chesham in the middle of the night. It would've been nice to have Tommy and Gizzy take the rap for Jim's murder, wouldn't it?”

  I waited for him to respond to that. He didn't, merely gestured for me to continue.

  “You're a bit reserved on that subject, are you? Yeah, well, innocent kids, easily stitched up? Maybe you draw the line?”

  Again I waited. He sipped his beer.

  “Well, leave it to me to try thinking the best of you, John. That's why you got these Irish boys to do your killing for you. I mean fear of blood on your favourite jacket would be one reason but... the other is you're not quite the hard bastard you'd like to be. Or need to be. On that back road to Chesham, for example ... and I'm sure you followed me to kill me, we were as close to one another as we are now and you did nothing. I guess in the great scheme of things it means there's a slither of hope for you, though I wouldn't suggest that you banked on it...”

  He held the gaze again only this time his eyes began to water, ever so slightly, with malignant sentimentality. He looked away and it was gone but he said:

  “I'd grown to like you too much. That's the trouble with these things, you never take into account the personal side.”

  He took a small bundle from his pocket and removing the protective cloth revealed a small gun, the like of which I'd never seen before. A small weapon, such as might go into a lady's handbag. He let it drop to the table, six inches to the North of the map of Australia.

  “I guess I should’ve learned to climb over my own feelings by now,” he went on. “As a copper you’re meant to choke it all back at least enough to, well... who do you think killed Jack Langan? Irishmen? Fairies?”

  “The Irishmen were well away by then, that's why you didn't mind taking me to Wheatley to ask Birch about them. Where are they now by the way?”

  He smiled. “Unreachable.”

  “So how did you kill Jack?”