‘That’s lucky for her.’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘you’re giving me a right pain in the arse.’
‘OK,’ I said, ‘and now here comes a worse one. I’m taking you down to the Factory with me, McGruder. I’m doing it now. I’m taking you down for questioning in a nice peaceful room I’ve got there. Chief Inspector Bowman’d like a word with you and he doesn’t like to be kept waiting. So get ready, I’m sick of going round the houses with you.’
He started shouting. ‘You can’t take me in! What could you do me for?’
‘If you keep rabbiting on,’ I said, ‘obstructing a police officer would do to begin with.’
He managed to calm down again. ‘Look, I just told you I’d got a lot on right now,’ he said. ‘I’ll not be in the country much longer, and I’ve a lot to arrange. That’s why I’m on edge, see? I’m sorry, really sorry if I come on a bit sharp.’
‘Don’t bother with the soft pedal,’ I said, ‘you’re coming, sport. If it turns out you’ve never had a connection with Pat Hawes, nothing’s changed. But if you have, then a lot has. If it turns out that you did business with Hawes over a period of years, then it could start to rain on you hard, Billy. And if I can establish a definite connection between you and Hadrill last Wednesday evening then it’s going to come pissing down on you. I’m only thinking aloud right now, so I reckon we’ll go on over to the Factory now and get everything in better shape.’
‘I tell you, you must be a maniac coming in here on your own and saying things like that,’ he said, ‘you really must.’
‘But I’m not on my own,’ I said.
‘I tell you I don’t know bloody Hawes!’ he screamed. ‘Nor Hadrill!’
I had a strong feeling he was going to attack me; so I went to the door and banged on it. Immediately a big wooden-top came in. He was young and blond with hair cut short; he was pale and lean with training. He went up to McGruder, whom he topped by three inches, and said: ‘OK. You want this the easy way, son, or the uphill route?’
McGruder stood in the middle of his neat room in a crouch for defence, and the officer said to him: ‘I want you to touch me, son.’ He spoke softly. ‘Go on. Just once. Give me a pat. Go on, then. Just to see what I’m made of.’
The tension in the place was deafening.
‘I hear you think you’re a hard man,’ the officer said. ‘Christ, I’ll have you licking my boots to stop the fucking pain.’ He looked over at me and said: ‘What’s the matter with him? He broken a spring or what?’
McGruder just stood there, motionless.
‘He usually carries a razor,’ I said.
‘Oh really?’ said the officer. ‘God help you if I find one on you, son.’
I said to McGruder: ‘Come on, Billy. Get your coat, you can’t win.’
From his stillness, McGruder did it to me. Moving in a blur of speed, he toppled me with a kick in the left kneecap that struck in a red flash of agony. As I was getting up, not feeling that leg any more, I saw McGruder had his razor out and I yelled at the officer, who took it on the arm, kicked McGruder in the genitals, got his wrist in a judo hold and caught the weapon as McGruder dropped it, doubling up and holding his wrist to his balls.
‘All right,’ I said to the officer, ‘put the cuffs on him.’ I added: ‘That arm of yours really is bleeding.’
‘I know it,’ he said, ‘that’s me out of Saturday’s match. Why I ever joined Special Patrol Group I’m buggered if I know.’ He looked at his cut sleeve: ‘Wrecked my tunic, the bastard has, and it was brand-new.’
30
Back in Room 205 I said: ‘OK, Billy, now talk.’
He shook his head obstinately; I was getting used to it. ‘No.’ His wrist was bandaged, but it wasn’t broken. He still sat hunched over, because of the kick he had had in the balls.
‘I’d rather we sorted this out just between the two of us,’ I said. ‘But of course if we can’t, we can’t, and I’ll have to turn you over to Serious Crimes, and no one seems to care for their methods much. So why don’t you simply tell me all about Pat Hawes – how long you’ve known him, what you used to talk about, everything the pair of you ever got up to together?’
The WPC with the face like a plate sat at the other table with her tape recorder; a uniformed officer stood with his back against the door.
‘I tell you I don’t know this Pat Hawes.’
‘It’s a lovely tune, Billy,’ I said, ‘but you’ll ruin it if you play it too often, also it’s in a key I don’t like. Look, I’m being reasonable, Billy, which isn’t easy for me because I don’t like being consistently lied to, and I know you’ve known Hawes on and off for years. Don’t ask me how I know that because you won’t get an answer; you can just take it that I do.’
He was silent. I thought about Klara McGruder. I had asked the voice for a watch to be put on her; I was sick of people being at risk from men like Pat and Billy. So that when McGruder suddenly said: ‘I’m not telling you anything, you’re just a sergeant,’ I exploded.
‘Now you listen!’ I shouted. ‘You’re a cold-hearted bastard that’s done bird for murder, and who knows but you’re going to do some more – a sergeant’s all you’re fit for!’
He just looked at us. He reminded me of a picture I had seen once of a wolf surrounded by armed men in a forest clearing; his face was white, his eyes red where they should be white, and he seemed to have gone beyond argument but was turning on us because there was nothing else left for him to do. It was also suffocating in 205; everyone was sweating, and I got the constable to open the window.
‘You’ve got to get someone down here that can talk sense,’ he said at last.
‘No, no,’ I said, ‘don’t think I’m going to get my commander out of bed just on your account, Billy. Not at one in the morning.’
‘Well, at least tell her over there to stop that machine, then,’ he said, ‘if it’s you I’ve got to tell I don’t want any of it recorded. Just five minutes or ten with you alone and no witnesses.’
‘Yes, OK,’ I said. I nodded to the others. They packed up and left; it was my bollock. ‘Now,’ I said when they had gone, ‘we’re alone again, isn’t that nice? Now talk. I haven’t got all night.’
‘What are you holding me on?’
‘Committing, or conspiring to commit, a murder.’
He shook his head again; it was a frequent trick with him now. ‘You won’t be holding me long.’
‘You’ve got a bloody nerve, you have,’ I said. ‘You’re right in line for the worst grilling anyone’s ever had at the Factory. I’ve good reason to believe you topped three men, Wetherby, Edwardes and Hadrill, but any one of them will do. You assaulted two police officers this afternoon in the course of their duty, and what with one thing and another, you’re going to look like a blown-out flashbulb by the time we’ve finished with you.’
‘On your bike,’ he sneered. ‘I don’t say I don’t know a few things, but no ordinary sergeant can handle me.’
‘I’ve handled you this far,’ I said, ‘I don’t see any reason to give you up now; you’re like the rest of my bad habits.’
‘No,’ said McGruder, ‘you’re too far down the scale – if I tried to play you as a card you’d make a noise like a mouth organ in a barrel of water. I need to talk to the bosses, people who can make binding promises.’
‘Well, I truly am sorry I’m only a humble sergeant, Mr Bleeding McGruder,’ I said, ‘but all the same you’re going to have to give me some idea what it is you want to talk about before I wake the bosses up at this time of night.’
He did give me some idea of what he was prepared to say if the conditions were right, and when he had finished I had him taken away.
‘Don’t give him cell 3,’ I said to the constable on duty down there. ‘Try and make the miserable bastard a bit more comfortable than that.’
When everyone had gone I sat drawing monkeys for a while on my ageing notepad. Then I finally did what I knew I had to do, and rang the v
oice. The time being what it was, though, I had to ring him at home.
‘I don’t know what the Christ I’ve got into here,’ I said, ‘but what I do know is, this is no more a matter for Unexplained Deaths than it is for Almighty God; it’ll have to go over to the Branch.’ I told him what McGruder had just told me.
‘I don’t believe it,’ said the voice. The voice sounded as if it might have had a heavy evening. ‘That’s staggering, it’s quite impossible.’
‘Well, I know McGruder’s cornered,’ I said, ‘and it’s logical to think that he’ll do anything he can to get himself out of the jam. But we can check a lot of it, or at least the Branch can.’
The voice swallowed. I was sorry for it. I had half a mind to call it sir – but how can you say sir to a voice in pyjamas?
‘It would be a bit embarrassing all round if this information turned out to be straight up,’ I said, ‘impossible or not.’
The voice must have thought the same because it said sharply: ‘OK. You stay right where you are; don’t move out of your office until I call you back.’
‘Not even to go to the karzy?’
‘Toilet.’
‘All right, then, toilet.’
‘I’ve heard there’s a method where you can hold it in, sergeant. Mind over matter. No. Not even to go to the toilet.’
31
The Branch man I had to go and see looked like one of those young majors we sent off to the Falklands who got interviewed on the box. He had two fingers on his left hand missing; he was well turned out, casually relaxed. He looked public school before he had even got his mouth open. Right now, however, he was starting to look less debonair than his turn-out.
‘This is the most extraordinary business I’ve ever heard of,’ he said. His name was Gordon, and we were sitting in his room at the Yard. The Yard again. It was remarkable if I saw the Yard once in five years. This time, counting the board, it was the second time in two days.
‘Surely McGruder’s just putting one over on you to get himself out of his jam,’ said Gordon.
‘That’s what my deputy commander felt,’ I said, ‘but I see he took the trouble to contact you just the same.’
‘Yes, well, because, Christ, if this is true,’ said Gordon, ‘some people could get badly hurt on this one – anything from their kneecaps to their careers. And if it broke in the press, even as a rumour, it could stay on page one of every paper in the land for ever and ever. All right, you know McGruder better than we do. How seriously do you really take it?’
‘Seriously enough to make my call upstairs,’ I said. ‘And McGruder isn’t naive – he knows we can check out most of what he’s said. If we want to,’ I added.
‘That’s the thing,’ said Gordon. He coughed. ‘Look, this is between you and me – it’s embarrassing. It means checking things out that have already been checked out.’
‘Even so,’ I said, ‘if they’ve been checked out wrong for any reason, the knife could go straight through the cheese.’
‘Good image,’ said Gordon. ‘Jolly good. God knows how many maggots there mightn’t be inside.’
‘Well, don’t let’s get too depressed,’ I said, ‘anyway not yet.’
‘What does McGruder actually know?’ said Gordon.
‘He says he knows what Hadrill knew,’ I said, ‘and what’s more, I believe him, to put it crudely.’
‘We’re all of us used to things being crude.’
‘Well, he maintains he choked everything out of Hadrill before he killed him. Grasses are no heroes. I dare say Hadrill thought that by telling McGruder everything he might save his skin. Christ – anybody might think that. But he didn’t know McGruder. Once primed with money, McGruder’s only a computer who works for himself. Getting to know what Hadrill knew was, well, reinsurance for McGruder in case something went wrong. And something did go wrong. And McGruder is reinsured. McGruder’s a psychopath, but psychopaths are no fools; they wouldn’t be so bloody dangerous if they were.’
‘So he bled Hadrill’s knowledge out of him, then killed him as he’d been paid to.’
‘That’s it. and Edwardes too. Because remember that Edwardes heard everything McGruder heard, and McGruder wasn’t prepared to share it with anyone. That’s villains for you.’
‘At least we’ve got McGruder’s confession – he killed Hadrill.’
‘He’d no choice. He was staring ahead into years of bird. He needed his reinsurance, but to operate it he had to talk – something had to give. Mind, I knew he’d done it the moment I got next to a little grass called Smitty.’
‘It’s what Hadrill did know that’s so bloody worrying,’ said Gordon. ‘This has gone right the way up to the top, and you know where the top is. A wrong move here, and heads are going to roll in a way that’s never been seen here before.’
‘Heads are going to roll even if it’s a right move,’ I said. ‘Fewer though, I suppose.’
There was a depressed silence so I said: ‘Well, what are you going to do about McGruder’s proposition? Do we let him go on running about and then give him a ticket out of the country when this is all over? Or do we bury him?’
‘It’s a diabolical decision,’ said Gordon.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but it’s got to be taken.’ I was tired; I yawned. ‘Anyhow, luckily it’s nothing to do with me.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Gordon. ‘What do you mean, it’s nothing to do with you?’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I want to be taken off this. I’ve done what I was told to do; I’ve got a confession out of McGruder and he’s nailed up at the Factory. But espionage is nothing to do with A14 – we only deal with obscure deaths, the murder of people who are never going to make headlines. But now, what started off as a contract to waste a grass in South London turns out to be page one, and it’s got nothing to do with people like me, nothing to do with Unexplained Deaths at all. McGruder’s bottled up now. Anyone can deal with him.’
‘Well, they’re not going to,’ said Gordon. ‘You are.’
‘I haven’t the rank.’
‘Fuck that,’ said Gordon, ‘you’re co-opted on the Branch for this.’ He picked up a phone. When the number answered he said he had to speak to the Commissioner. He got through and spoke for a long time. When he rang off he said: ‘Well, that’s settled, then.’
I got out of the building thinking, what a stupid thing to happen – I fail a board for the Branch deliberately and then within forty-eight hours I’ve got this on my plate, I’m working for them.
Later in the day I had to go back to the Yard again.
‘The minister of defence has had another note threatening his life,’ said Gordon, ‘and we’re taking it really seriously.’
‘How seriously? You’ve got a watch on him?’
‘You bet, round the clock.’
‘What sort of a note?’
‘Typewritten, on one of those old machines villains junk when they’ve done with them, not realizing they’re a collector’s piece.’
‘McGruder knows something we don’t,’ I said, ‘that’s the thing to remember. He either knows who’s got the contract to kill the minister, if there really is one, or he may have got it himself. Anyway, what I do know is, that thanks to what he choked out of Hadrill, he knows things that we need to know badly, very badly. Meanwhile, we’ve got to get Hawes back; he’s the mainspring in the whole works. You take it from there.’
‘I tell you, we’ve got every copper in the country looking for him.’
‘He must know that too,’ I said, ‘and that’s why, wherever he is, he won’t be going anywhere, unless he tries to get out by private aircraft.’
‘Our best bet is to soak McGruder for every bit of information he’s got,’ said Gordon. ‘But how to do it?’
‘We won’t do it by keeping him slammed up in the Factory,’ I said. ‘The murderous little man fancies himself rotten; he reckons he’s better than all of us put together any day; he’s holding some very strong cards, he thinks.�
��
‘How strong do you think they are? You know him, we don’t.’
‘It’s a big case,’ I said. ‘But unless anyone loses their nerve here, a quite feeble card well bluffed could just pull the trick.’
‘Christ,’ said Gordon, ‘I’m beginning to read your mind; you’re not seriously suggesting we let McGruder out, are you? Yes, you are.’
‘Well, I was leading up to it, yes. We’d take precautions like a tart of course. He’d be constantly watched; I’d be spending a lot of time with him myself. I’ve got his passport; it’s an Irish one. I’ve turned his place over, but I didn’t find anything else exciting.’
‘Nothing written at all? No names? No addresses?’
‘McGruder’s a man who keeps everything in his head,’ I said.
‘You’re really suggesting we offer this maniac a deal, are you?’ said Gordon. ‘Offer to let him out of the country in exchange for this information?’
‘Well, I don’t see any harm in just offering him something,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t mean to say we necessarily have to give it to him. It’s a question really of deciding on the easiest way of getting to the bottom of this; but whichever way we play it it’s going to be bloody difficult. Just the same, keeping him at the Factory and grilling him is going to make the job downright impossible. He’s a much tougher man than Hawes; McGruder really is hard.’
‘Also, we may not have much time.’
‘Yes, that’s another thing,’ I said. ‘Certainly not enough time to leave Bowman and Co. pounding away at him and getting nowhere. You could grill McGruder for five years if you wanted to, but you still wouldn’t crack him. You’ve got to know exactly where to hit McGruder to make him react, and I know him better than anyone else here does. I’ve also had a long talk with his ex-wife, which he doesn’t know I’ve had. He’s threatened to kill her,’ I added, ‘to go by her own statement. She ought to have protection if we let McGruder out.’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Gordon, ‘we haven’t time to worry about her problems. Does he know where she is?’
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