Final Account

by Peter Robinson

  Still looking for clues to Clegg’s whereabouts, they had trailed him on his lunch date with Pamela and noted where she was rehearsing. One of them must have found out where she lived. They didn’t know about the Calvert flat until Banks led them there, and they must have thought the place had something to do with Clegg. Finally, when Banks saw them from the window, they ran off, only to come back later and search the place when the coast was clear.

  Where were they now? Already, their descriptions had been sent to other police forces, to the airports and ports. If the men had any sense, they would lie low for a while before trying to leave the country. But criminals don’t always have sense, Banks knew. In fact, more often than not, they were plain stupid.

  And what about Rothwell’s killers? If the man Melissa Clegg remembered was involved—and it was a big if—then he was local. Was he the kind to stay put or run? And what about his partner?

  No-one else was at home in the building, and there was no point looking over the rest of the flat. From the box at the corner of the street, Banks went through the motions of calling the local police to report the break-in, but he knew there was nothing they could do. He had no doubts as to who had done it; he just had to find them. Dirty Dick Burgess knew something, Banks believed, but he would talk only when he wanted and tell only as little as he needed.

  When Banks had finished the call, he took a bus to Millgarth at the bottom of Eastgate. Over the road, on the site of the demolished Quarry Hill flats, stood the new West Yorkshire Playhouse with its “City of Drama” sign. It seemed uncannily appropriate, Banks thought, given the events of the past couple of days. Beyond the theatre, high on a hill, was Quarry House, new home of the Department of Health and Social Security, and already nicknamed “The Kremlin” by locals.

  Ken Blackstone was in his office bent over a stack of paperwork. He pushed the pile aside and gestured for Banks to sit opposite him.

  “No earth-shattering developments to report, before you get your hopes up,” he said. “We’re still no closer to finding Clegg or Rothwell’s killers, but there’s a couple of interesting points. First off, you might like to know that the lab boys say the dirt and gravel on the tires of Ronald Hamilton’s Escort match that around Arkbeck Farm. They said a lot of other things about phosphates and sulphides or whatever, which I didn’t understand, but it looks like the car the killers used. Rest of it was clean as a whistle. And airport security at Heathrow have found Clegg’s red Jag in the long-stay car park.”

  “Surprise, surprise,” said Banks.

  “Indeed. Coffee?”

  Banks’s stomach was already grumbling from too much caffeine, so he declined. Blackstone went and poured himself a mug from a machine in the open-plan office and returned to his screened-off corner. There was a buzz of constant noise around them—telephones, computer printers, fax machines, doors opening and closing and the general banter of a section CID department—but Blackstone seemed to have carved himself a small corner of reasonably quiet calm.

  Banks told him about Calvert’s flat.

  “Interesting,” said Blackstone. “When do you think that happened?”

  “I’d say before they went to Pamela’s,” Banks said. “Finding nothing there would put them in a fine mood for hurting someone. Is there any news from the hospital?”

  Blackstone shook his head. “No change. She’s stable, at least.” He frowned at Banks and touched the side of his own cheek. “What about you? And I noticed you limping a bit when you came in.”

  “Slipped in the shower. Look, Ken, I might have a lead on one of Rothwell’s killers.” He went on quickly to tell Blackstone what Melissa Clegg had said about the mysterious client with the puppy-dog eyes that Clegg had passed on to Harvey Atkins.

  Blackstone put the tip of a yellow pencil to his lower lip. “Hmm …” he said. “We’re already running a check on all Clegg’s contacts and clients. We can certainly check the court records. At least we’ve got the brief’s name, which helps a bit. Harvey Atkins is certainly no stranger around here. He’s not a bad bloke, as lawyers go. It’s a bit vague, though, isn’t it? About two years ago, she says, something to do with assault, maybe? Do we know if the bloke was convicted?”

  Banks shook his head. “I’m afraid we’ll have to depend on the kindness of microchips.”

  Blackstone scowled. “Hang on a minute.” He made a quick phone call and set the inquiry in motion. “They say it could take a while,” he said. “It might be a long list.”

  Banks nodded. “What do you know about Tahiti?” he asked.

  “Tahiti? That’s where Captain Bligh’s men deserted in the film. It’s part of French Polynesia now, isn’t it?”

  “I think so. It’s in the South Pacific at any rate. And Gauguin painted there.”

  “Why are you interested?”

  Banks told him what Melissa Clegg had said.

  “Hmm,” said Blackstone. “It wouldn’t do any harm to put a few inquiries in motion, check on flights, would it? Especially now we’ve found the car at Heathrow. A relative newcomer might stand out there. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Thanks. Anything else?”

  “We finished the house-to-house in Pamela Jeffreys’s street. Nothing really, except I think we’ve fixed the time. One neighbour remembered hearing some noise at about nine-fifteen Monday evening, which fits with what the doc said, and with Mr Judd’s statement.”

  Banks nodded.

  “The people on the other side were out.”

  “These neighbours,” said Banks, “they said they just heard some noise?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ken, imagine how much noise it must have made when they smashed that stuff. Imagine how Pamela Jeffreys must have screamed for help when she realized what was happening.”

  “I know, I know.” Blackstone shook his head and sighed. “I suppose they would have gagged her.”

  “Still …”

  “Look, Alan, according to DC Hyatt, who talked to them, they said they thought it was the television at first. He asked them if she usually played her television set so loud, and they said no. Then they said they thought she was having a fight with her boyfriend. He asked them if that was a regular occurrence, too, and again they said no. Then they said, or implied, that dark-skinned people have odd forms of entertaining themselves and that we white folks had best leave them to it.”

  “They really said that?”

  Blackstone nodded. “Words to that effect. They’re the sort of people who wouldn’t cross the street to piss on an Asian if she was on fire. And they don’t want to get involved.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “Afraid so.” Blackstone looked at his watch. “I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit peckish. What do you say about lunch, on me?”

  Banks didn’t feel especially hungry, but he knew he ought to try to eat something if he were to keep going all day. “All right, you’re on,” he said. “But no curries.”

  III

  The other shops were not much different from the first: usually with the windows barred or covered in mesh, and usually close to dilapidated, graffiti-scarred corporation estates or surviving pre-war terraces of back-to-backs in areas like Hunslet, Holbeck, Beeston and Kirkstall. One moment the sun was out, the next it looked like rain. Around and around they drove, Hatchley flipping through the A to Z, which had now become so well-thumbed that the pages were falling out, missing turnings, looking for obscure streets. It was all depressing enough to Susan, and a far cry from the nice big semi at the top of the hill in Sheffield where she grew up.

  But Hatchley, she noticed, seemed to relish the task, even though after another three visits they had got nowhere. His reputation for laziness, she was beginning to realize, might be unfounded. He certainly didn’t like to waste energy, and usually took the line of least resistance, but he was hardly alone in that.

  Susan had known truly lazy policemen—some of them had even made detective sergeant—but none of them were li
ke Hatchley. They simply put in the time until the end of their shift, generally trying to stay out of the way of any situation that might generate paperwork. Hatchley was determined. When he was after something, he didn’t let go until he got it.

  The fifth shop was larger and more modern than the others, a kind of mini-market-cum-off-licence that sold milk, tinned foods, bread and all sorts of odds and ends as well as booze, newspapers and magazines. It was on Beeston Road, not far from Elland Road, where Leeds United played, and it was run, Hatchley said, by a man called Mario Nelson, who, as his name suggested, had an Italian mother and an English father.

  It was immediately clear to Susan that Mario took after his father. She knew there were blond-haired Italians in the north of the country, but they didn’t look as downright Nordic as Mario. Tall, slim, wearing a white smock, he looked far too elegant to be running a shop. In his early fifties, Susan guessed, he was handsome in a Robert Redford sort of way, and he looked as if he would be more comfortable being interviewed on a film set than unpacking a box of mushroom soup, which is what he was doing when they entered. When he saw Hatchley, a look of caution came to his ice-blue eyes. There was nobody else in the shop.

  “Mario, old mate,” said Hatchley. “Long time no see.”

  “Not long enough for me,” muttered Mario, putting the box aside. “What can I do for you?”

  “No need to be so surly. How’s business?” Hatchley took out a cigarette and lit up.

  “There’s no smoking in here.”

  Hatchley ignored him. “I asked how’s business?”

  Mario stared at him for a moment, then broke off eye contact. “Fair to middling.”

  “Doing much special trade?”

  “Don’t know what you mean. Look, if you’ve just come to chat, I’m a busy man.”

  Hatchley looked exaggeratedly around the shop. “Doesn’t look that way to me, Mario.”

  “There’s more to running a shop than serving customers.”

  “Well, soon as you’ve answered our questions, you can get back to it.” He described the man in the balaclava. “Ever seen anyone like that in here? Is he on your list?”

  “It’s a bit of a vague description.”

  “True, but concentrate on the eyes. They’d just about come up to your chin. Poor misguided bloke has an appetite for shaved pussy magazines, and I know you supply them.”

  “You’ve never proved that.”

  “Come off it! The only reason you’re still in business is that you’ve done me a few favours over the years. Remember that. You’re a filth-peddler. You know I don’t like filth-peddlers, Mario. You know I rank them a bit below a dollop of dog-shit on my shoe.”

  Hatchley made some very interesting distinctions, Susan thought, some delicate moral judgments. Simple display of naked flesh was fine with him, obviously, but anything more was pornographic. Bit of a puritan, really, when it came down to it.

  She watched Mario shift from foot to foot, and she saw something in his eyes other than wariness; she saw that he recognized Hatchley’s description, or thought he did. Hatchley noticed it, too. And she saw fear.

  Hatchley dropped his cigarette on the floor and ground it out. “Susan,” he said, “would you go put up the ‘Closed’ sign, please?”

  “You can’t do that,” said Mario, coming out from behind the counter and moving to stop Susan. Hatchley got in the way. He was about the same height and two stones heavier. Mario stopped. Susan went to the door and turned the sign over.

  “Might as well drop the latch and pull the blinds down, too,” said Hatchley, “seeing as it’s such a quiet time.”

  Susan did as he said.

  “Right.” Hatchley turned to face Mario. “What’s his name?”

  “Whose name? I don’t know what you’re on about.”

  “We’re not gormless, Susan and I. We’re detectives. That means we detect. And I detect that you’re lying. What’s his name?”

  Mario looked pale. Beads of sweat formed on his brow. Susan almost felt sorry for him. Almost. “Honest, Mr Hatchley, I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “I run an honest business here. I—”

  But before he could finish, Hatchley had grabbed him by the lapels of his shop-coat and pushed him against the shelves. A jar of instant coffee fell to the floor and smashed; tins dropped and rolled all over; a packet of spaghetti noodles burst open.

  “Watch what you’re doing!” Mario cried. “That stuff costs money.”

  Hatchley pushed him up harder against the shelving, twisting the lapels. Mario’s face turned red. Susan was worried he was going to have a heart attack or something. She wished she hadn’t become part of this. Gristhorpe would find out, she knew, and she would be thrown off the force in shame. Outside, she heard somebody rattle the door. Do something, her inner voice screamed. “Sir,” she said levelly. “Maybe Mr Nelson wants to tell us something, and he’s having difficulty speaking.”

  Hatchley looked at Nelson and relaxed his grasp. “Is that so, Mario?”

  Mario nodded as best he could under the circumstances. Hatchley let him go. A jar of pickled onions rolled off the shelf and smashed, infusing the air with the acrid smell of vinegar.

  “Who is he?” asked Hatchley.

  Mario massaged his throat and gasped for breath. “You … shouldn’t … have … done … that,” he wheezed. “Could have k-k-killed me. Weak heart. I c-c-could report you.”

  “But we both know you won’t, don’t we? Imagine trying to run an honest business with the local police breathing down your neck day and night. Come on, give us the name, Mario.”

  “I … I don’t know his name. J-just that he’s been in occasionally.”

  “For your under-the-counter stuff? Shaved pussies?”

  Mario nodded.

  Hatchley shook his head. “I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” he said, “but you’re lying again. After all this.” He reached out for Mario’s lapels.

  “No!” Mario jumped back, dislodging a few more tins from the shelf. A bottle of gin fell and smashed. He put his hands out. “No!”

  “Come on, then,” said Hatchley. “Give.”

  “Jameson. Mr Jameson. That’s all I know,” said Mario, still rubbing his throat.

  “I want his address, too. He’s on one of your paper routes, isn’t he? I’ll bet one of your lads delivers his papers, maybe with a special colour supplement on Sundays, eh? Come on.”

  “No. I don’t know.”

  “Be reasonable, Mario. It’s no skin off your nose, is it? And it’ll put you in good stead with the local bobbies. What’s his address?”

  Mario paused a moment, then went behind the counter and looked in the ledger where he kept the addresses for newspaper deliveries. “Forty-seven Bridgeport Road,” he said. “But you won’t find him there.”

  “Oh?”

  “Cancelled his papers.”

  “How long for?”

  “Three weeks.”

  “Since when?”

  “Last Friday.”

  “Where’s he gone?”

  “I’ve no idea, have I? Off on his holidays, maybe.”

  “Don’t come the clever bugger with me.”

  “I’m not. Honest.”

  “Is that all you know?” Hatchley moved forward and Mario backed off.

  “I swear it. We’re not mates or anything. He’s just a customer. And do me a favour—when you do find him, don’t tell him you found out from me.”

  “Scared of him?”

  “He’s got a bit of a reputation for scrapping, that’s all. When he’s had a few, like. I don’t think he’d take kindly.”

  “Aye, all right, then,” said Hatchley. “Susan, would you do the honours?”

  Susan went over and unlocked the door. A red-faced old woman bustled in. “What’s going on here? I’ve been waiting five minutes. My poor Marmaduke is going to starve to death if you—” She stopped talking, looked at the mess on the floor, then back at the th
ree of them.

  “Slight accident, Mrs Bagshot,” said Mario, straightening his tie and smiling. “Nothing serious.”

  Hatchley bent down and grabbed a pickled onion. After a cursory check to make sure there was no broken glass clinging to it, he popped it in his mouth, smiled at Mrs Bagshot and left.

  IV

  After a light lunch in the police canteen with Ken Blackstone—a toasted cheese sandwich and a plastic container of orange juice— Banks set off back to the hotel. The weather was the same, fast-moving cloud on the wind, sun in and out casting shadows over the streets and buildings. He would have to do something about his jacket, he realized as he walked past the Corn Exchange. Maybe he could get it fixed this afternoon. The hotel should be able to help. Or maybe he should buy a new one.

  He wasn’t looking forward to explaining his adventures to Sandra, either. He hadn’t phoned her last night, and she would probably be out until this evening. He could phone the gallery, he knew, but she would be busy. Besides, it would only worry her if he told her about the fight over the telephone. He might get his jacket fixed, but there would be no hiding the skinned knuckles and bruised cheekbone from Sandra, let alone the bruises that would soon show up on his side.

  All he had to say was that two kids had tried to mug him, simple as that. It might not be the complete truth, but it certainly wasn’t a lie. On the other hand, he wondered who he was trying to fool. If he couldn’t talk to Sandra about what had happened, who could he talk to? Right now, he just didn’t know.

  A local train must have just come in, judging from the hordes issuing from the station and heading for the bus stops around City Square and Boar Lane. Banks picked up a Yorkshire Evening Post from the aged vendor, who was shouting out a headline that sounded like “TURKLE AN HONEST LIAR” but which, on reading, turned out to be “TWO KILLED IN HUNSLET FIRE.” Banks refused the free packet of Old El Paso Taco Shells he was offered with his newspaper.