‘What the hell’re you talking about?’
‘Reuben Goldwater, slipped his guard. He’s gone out of the side door.’
‘Not coming to us, then.’
‘I’m disappointed. Maybe he thinks I killed Collis, too, and he only wants to say how happy he is, and could he have my autograph.’
‘It’s not funny.’
‘You’re changing, Dave. You used to like a good laugh.’
‘I don’t understand you anymore.’
‘Then you see where that gets us? You lie to me, you don’t trust me, you don’t understand me, and you can’t laugh at me. I could sell the Renault. She’s still unmarked.’
‘She, George?’
‘Sell the car and plough the money back, and I’ll go my own way. Elsa would understand.’
‘Elsa would kill me if I let you go. She loves you, George.’
He laughed easily. ‘That’s more like it.’
‘She’d kill me if I let you go to prison.’
‘Let’s go and see where they’ve gone.’
‘For God’s sake!’
‘Fletcher went after him.’
We went to look. Goldwater’s bike was in the side yard, leaning against the outside gents that wasn’t used any more. Goldwater was using it now, though. He was sprawled inside, his face mashed, his body twisted in a nasty way, and barely managing those rasping, raking breaths a man takes when his ribs have been broken in and they’re as near as damnit piercing his lungs.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I was in front. ‘Get to a phone, George.’
‘Don’t move him.’
‘Of course not. Where’s your coat?’
‘Upstairs drying,’ he said as he left.
I put my jacket under him. Goldwater was attempting to speak.
‘It’s all right. Lie still. Don’t try to say anything.’
He made a tremendous effort. I reached over and held his head.
‘Trying...not to,’ he croaked.
I didn’t think I’d heard him correctly. ‘Nothing you need to say, old chap. There’s nobody here but me. Now just lie quiet. My mate’s gone to get an ambulance.’
‘Gone and come back,’ said George, dropping on his knee beside me. ‘How is he?’
‘I wish to God he wouldn’t keep trying to say something.’
Goldwater was fighting the pain, but every breath he took was agony, and he was continuously licking his lips.
‘Not saying...anything,’ he managed to get out.
‘No need to,’ I assured him.
The face twisted. He heaved, and managed to say:
‘I’m not tellin’...you...a thing.’
‘Of course you’re not. We’re not even listening. Are we, George?’
‘I’m not, anyway.’
‘My friend’s not listening,’ I said in a comforting tone.
‘You do what...what you like, I ain’t going to say...’
The eyes were vague, glazed, staring beyond me and seeing something I wasn’t aware of. Blood from his nose dripped off his cheek.
‘We know you’re not. Now Mr. Goldwater...Reuben...it’s really much better if you just wait quietly.’
Much better for us, too. The sweat was soaking my shirt, crouching down there so intimately close to his suffering.
‘You tell him then.’
‘Sure I will.’
‘Tell him...tell him I wouldn’t say.’
‘I’ll do that. We’ll both do that. Won’t we, George?’ I asked desperately.
‘We’ll both tell him,’ George promised. ‘We’ll tell him you wouldn’t say.’
‘Promise.’
‘We have promised.’
‘Tell...him.’ It was important to him. He reached towards me for absolute assurance. What could I say but:
‘Tell who, Reuben? How can I tell him, if I don’t know who?’
‘Easy, Dave,’ George whispered.
‘Quiet!’ I put my head closer. ‘My friend’s listening again, Reuben. You whisper to me. Who do I have to tell that you wouldn’t say anything?’
It’s difficult to whisper when your breathing control is restricted. It came out in a great gasp of pain.
‘Jonas...Jo...’
He lay back. I thought for one moment that we had lost him. I put my ear close to his lips, but all I heard was a frightening gurgle.
‘It’s all right, Reuben,’ I told him. ‘All right now. I’ve got it. It’s clear. I don’t have to tell Jonas Fletcher anything, but if I do speak to him...Reuben, you hear me, I’m saying that if I do speak to him, casual like, and if he asks, I’ll say you wouldn’t tell me. There, isn’t that what you wanted!’
I was so close to him that I could feel his fear. There was panic in the movement of his eyes. His tongue made small clicking noises. I knew that the effort was killing him, and that I had to calm his efforts. There was perhaps one word left in him, if I could find it, if I could coax out the right one to set him at rest.
‘But Reuben...Reuben, listen carefully to me. If I talk to him...if I talk to Jonas and I have to tell him that you said nothing...Please, Reuben, try to understand. If I say you would tell me nothing, I’ve got to know what it was you said nothing about. Otherwise it might slip out. I’ve got to know what it is I must avoid saying. Reuben...if I speak to Jonas, what is it you haven’t told me that I musn’t mention?’
His brain clawed for it. I couldn’t think of any other way to put it, and help him get it down to one word.
He strained his neck. I put a hand on his forehead.
‘Case...’ he groaned. ‘Case…es.’
‘That’s it,’ I crooned. ‘That’s a good lad, then. Now you can go to sleep. I understand. Not ever, Reuben, never will I tell Jonas that you mentioned cases. I will say you refused to say anything about them. I will. I promise.’
He sighed. George said: ‘They’re here.’ I hadn’t heard the ambulance. I straightened, standing aside, leaning against the foul wall. The cubicle was suddenly flooded with light and two ambulance men took over efficiently. George seized my arm, rather too roughly I thought, and drew me aside.
‘Dave,’ he said warmly, ‘I must congratulate you. You can be as big a bastard as anybody when you try.’
‘I got it out of him.’
‘You must be proud.’
‘I don’t feel too good.’
I went and got a brandy at the bar. We both had a brandy. When I looked round, I saw that the room was empty.
‘Outside,’ George explained. ‘They’ve got to see him carried inside the ambulance. It makes them feel good. Good that it ain’t them.’ He poured the rest of his brandy down his throat. ‘So what did your hard-earned information mean, Dave?’
My jacket was probably being trampled into the floor of that noisome old gents. The brandy helped, but still I was chilled and empty, and I wasn’t going to be wearing that jacket again. I was trying to remember what I’d done to feel so exhausted.
‘I get awfully tired of you playing dumb, George. You know as well as I do that Reuben Goldwater has been hanging around Collis’s place, trying to work up the nerve to tell Delia something. Tonight he tried to come across to tell us something, only Fletcher stopped him. And earlier on, when Goldwater fell in the ditch, why was Fletcher so mad, unless he thought we were getting some information out of him? But it wasn’t going to be long, George. Before very long, Coldwater would’ve bust at the seams if he didn’t tell somebody. So he’s been persuaded to keep his mouth shut. The persuasion went a bit far, but it doesn’t alter a thing. Goldwater was beaten up to persuade him not to tell anybody about the cases.’
There was a bustle of movement outside, and a burst of voices as the bar door swung open. From the back, out in the street, a voice shouted: ‘They got Andy Partridge for it,’ and already the assault on Goldwater was a thing of the past. The throng that surged into the bar was chattering excitedly about the arrest of Andy for Collis’s murder.
The side doo
r, behind me, opened. ‘Excuse me, sir, is this your jacket?’
Ambulance men are wonderful. Like nurses, who’re angels; gnarled, lumpy angels insulated with some sort of distress-proof coating, otherwise they’d surely go insane.
He said: ‘Sorry about the...’ and coughed apologetically. He put it on the bar.
‘Goldwater?’
He grimaced. ‘Getting him in now. I wouldn’t like to say.’
I tried to extract the essentials of my life from the pockets without touching it. George hoped I wasn’t going to put it on, and I assured him there was no chance of that.
There was a steady exodus from the bar. I watched them leave.
‘He’ll have gone off home,’ George decided. When I stared, he added: ‘Jonas Fletcher.’
‘Gone to hide his head. There’s no direct evidence,’ I warned him.
‘But we should go and talk to him. It’s our bounden duty. And if it becomes necessary to encourage him...’
‘No, George!’
‘All right. We’ll just ask him, gently, about cases.’
‘I promised Reuben.’
‘Now Dave, that was just...’
‘I gave him a promise!’
‘No need to get upset. You are getting touchy. Then I’ll ask him. I didn’t do any promising. I didn’t even hear what you promised you wouldn’t do when you didn’t meet Fletcher.’
I could not respond to the twinkle in his eye. ‘I’ll go and get another suit on. George...can you do something with the jacket?’
‘I can face emergencies,’ he said with dignity.
I went up and washed my face and looked at my eyes in the mirror because I didn’t seem to be focusing too well, and slipped into my Westmoreland tweed and the motoring coat that by then seemed about dry. And then, because I remembered a yearning for it, I dug out my pipe and pouch, and went down to pick up George.
No matter what he said and however he objected, I was determined that we were going in the Porsche.
He was talking to Williamson at the bar. Apart from those two, it was empty.
‘The word goes around,’ said the sergeant sadly. ‘It’s all over town that we’ve charged Andy Partridge. I wonder how it could’ve leaked out.’
‘Then he has been charged?’
‘As a matter of fact, Mr. Mallin, no. But that’s the news that’s flying around. I’ve been out and about. Everywhere I’ve been, I’ve heard it. Rumour is a vicious thing.’
‘And now it’s our turn to be told?’
He raised his eyebrows at me. ‘Your turn to be asked. I’ve already questioned your friend. Now...what do you know about the Goldwater business?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You found him.’
‘We were searching for the gents.’
‘You’re staying here. You’d know where to go. That hole out there hasn’t been used in years.’
‘You know how it is...ex-coppers. It’s instinct. You have to know all the outside stalls in town.’
‘Very good,’ he approved. He looked from one to the other of us. ‘Don’t I rate the truth? Or have I got to assume that you two got him in there and tried to get information out of him?’
‘We’re ex-coppers all right,’ George agreed, grinning so close to his face that the sergeant recoiled. ‘We’d know how — as I’m sure you do, friend — without breaking things, without even a mark.’
‘I’m warning you, Coe! I’ve heard things about you from the Super. He says he knows you.’
‘Dear old Arthur. I didn’t think he’d remembered. I’d marked him down as an eternal constable. I wonder how he made it.’
‘So we play it the hard way?’ said Williamson.
‘You play it how you damned well please,’ said George. ‘Me’n Dave are going out. And just so you don’t imagine you can keep a tail on us, we’re using his Porsche. Isn’t that so, Dave?’
‘What? Oh yes...sure.’
He watched us leave. Theoretically, he could have taken us in for questioning. But I thought he looked relieved. Perhaps he only wanted us out of the way for a while.
The Porsche started at a touch. I eased myself down into the seat, re-establishing the intimacy. George was miserable beside me, his head against the roof lining.
‘Get moving, Dave. Don’t give him time to get a car round.’
‘He won’t be doing that. Anyway, I could drop him. We’ll go the wrong way out of town.’
‘We don’t want a tour of the countryside.’
‘It’d be nice if Fletcher was home. So we’ll give him time.’
‘I don’t know about that.’
I took it steadily the wrong way out of town, then gradually opened out as the streetlamps fell behind and the dark, comforting night closed round us. We drove clear of the mist in five minutes. Up there, we had a moon. I was feeling good, for the first time in days, with the wheel alive under my hands.
‘Left here,’ said George. ‘Cut through Boreton Wood.’
George can visually memorise a map. The realisation jolted me from my complacency. George had said, from Filsby 73 — if I was to accept that — that he was lost. George is never lost.
‘Right at the fork ahead,’ he said.
‘I saw the sign.’
‘And perhaps a bit slower.’
We came down towards Fletcher’s place from the direction of Firbelow instead of from the town. Because of this, we saw the outline of the row of four terraces from the end occupied by Fletcher. There were no lights visible. I drew in where they had found the shotgun.
Now, with the sky brittle white and the moon only a few degrees to one side of the building, we could see the awkward shape of Fletcher’s chimney, silhouetted clearly.
‘Isn’t that good enough for you, George?’ Not really. Drive on to his gate.’
I braked to a halt outside Fletcher’s house. The gate was open. George got out and stretched himself. I think it’s exhibitionism, myself.
‘Better back her up and turn round, Dave.’
I got his point, and did so. Then we left the car and walked up to the harsh and unwelcoming block of buildings. The silence caught my breath.
As I had guessed, the other three houses in the block were unoccupied. Window sills crumbled at the touch, and any of the doors could have been leaned-in. Fletcher’s was a little more secure, and was one paint coat ahead of the others, but not much more than paint was preventing his glass from falling out.
George put his hand against the front door. ‘One decent shove...’
But there’s a difference between breaking and entering and unlawful entry. I knew there was no restraining George in his present mood, and in fact I had no wish to, but I preferred a more delicate approach.
‘Let’s try the back.’
The rise of the knoll continued behind.
There had been a feeble attempt at cutting back the earth, but the small space that remained level behind the back door was no more than four feet wide. During periods of heavy rain the mud would soak down and lie against the door. Because of this it had been permanently sealed. George prodded light from his penlight. We could see the nail heads.
‘The window?’
It was shut, but the catch had rusted away. George’s penknife eased through the pulpy wood and persuaded it open with a creak.
‘I could get in there and go through and unbolt the front door,’ I said, being as he was just about to suggest it.
‘There won’t be any bolts, or he couldn’t fasten it when he went out.’
‘I didn’t see any lock.’
We glanced at each other, then went back to the front and had another look. There was a hole you stuck your finger through, with a latch inside. The door opened. We walked in.
Technically, we had broken and we had entered. An interesting point — had we broken and entered?
George said not to worry about that now, and was this all the furniture he’d got, and suggested he should go up to that end bedroom and se
e what there was to be seen from its window.
By that time I was losing my enthusiasm for the gun in the ditch. Thwaites had said there had been two barrels fired at Collis, and though it might have been a try-on, George wasn’t going to convince me that anybody could have used Fletcher’s gun but himself. But he gave me strict instructions. Drive to where they’d found the gun, and flash the tail-lights. Then come back.
I did. Then I backed up, swung round, and returned to Fletcher’s. An ambulance was just driving away.
When I got up to the house the front door was wide open.
‘Oh come in,’ said Fletcher sarcastically. ‘Help yourself.’
George was standing with his shoulder against the mantel of one of those old iron ranges, and Fletcher was trying to light the gas under a kettle on his black cooker with only one serviceable hand, his left.
George met my eye and nodded slightly. I said: ‘Had some trouble?’
‘He’s broken his hand,’ George explained. ‘You tell him, Fletcher. I’m too ashamed to repeat it.’
The plaster cast, for a broken hand, was extensive, right up to the elbow. Fletcher looked sullen, and did not talk directly to me.
‘These two blokes...could’ve been three, they got Goldwater in the pub yard. Me — I give it a try, but they was big buggers. Busted me ‘and on one of ‘em, though.’
‘And promptly disappeared?’
He flashed a look of hatred at me. ‘I wasn’t gonna hang around there, mate.’
‘But Goldwater was hurt.’
‘I was runnin’ to a phone box.’
‘He’s like as not going to die.’
He looked beyond me. ‘That so?’
‘You can’t hit a man when he’s only got one arm, Dave,’ said George fairly. ‘Take a look up the stairs. On the right at the top.’
‘Heh, you look here...’
But Fletcher wisely made no move towards me. The stairs creaked horribly. They opened directly from a corner of the room, and proceeded upwards through a narrow cleft in the ceiling. There was no landing apart from a three foot by two foot level surface, with a door each side. The one on the right was open.
The light switch was hanging loose from the wall, where the plaster had broken away. The light, when I got it, was poor, from a naked bulb. The ceiling was open joists, with plasterboard laid upon them inside the loft. There had been some attempt to brighten the walls with pop star posters, and the curtains were a bit of rescued chintz with a blue and white stripe. The bed looked thin and discouraging, its top cover a brown army blanket. There was one cupboard — a kind of chest of drawers — in the room, but no wardrobe. A length of rope across one corner could well have been used to hang clothes. There were none on it now.
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