He’d go to the house, wait for Maria, and if she gave him a hard time he’d take her bloody car and to hell with her. He wondered how he should leave. By air or by sea? He’d be easier to trace by air. No one bothered to take the name of a foot passenger on a channel ferry.
He looked once round the room. It gave the appearance of having been left briefly by its occupant who would return. He closed the bathroom door. Then he went out into the corridor put his food tray on the floor and placed a do not disturb sign on the handle of his door. There was nothing more he could do. He was buying time. By tomorrow he could be in any one of five or six European countries.
But which?
He took the lift down to the foyer. A uniformed policeman was talking to the receptionist who looked harassed and upset. An ambulance was standing at the front door and the driver and his assistant were wheeling in a stretcher.
Benson went to the porter’s desk. ‘What’s happened?’ he said.
‘There’s been an accident. One of the chambermaids.’
‘Oh.’ Benson felt himself go cold. ‘Bad?’
The porter looked at Benson with the faint contempt of his calling and said, ‘I wouldn’t know, sir.’
Benson pointed to the bread visible in the top of his plastic bag. ‘I want to go into the park to feed the pigeons. Is there a short way?’
The porter said, ‘If you go past the dining-room, you’ll find an exit there, sir.’
‘Thank you.’
Benson, carrying his duty-free plastic bag, went along the passage, past the dining-room and out into Green Park. He did not look round but ambled west towards Hyde Park Corner, throwing small pieces of bread to the pigeons that clustered round him.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Number forty-three Lighter Lane was a small cottage in a small road that ran down to the Thames at Twickenham. Sheila Gant, who might have been twenty-five or forty-five or anywhere in between, let Macrae and Silver into her sitting-room after they had shown her their warrant cards.
She was small too, a shade under five feet, Silver would have said, and was dressed in a Laura Ashley print, with puffed shoulders and a ribbon at the waist, that came down to her ankles, giving her a Victorian appearance. Her hair was caught in a bun.
The room was also Victorian and so stuffed with knick-knacks that both men stood quite still fearing any sudden movement would send occasional tables crashing to the floor.
‘I know what you’ve come about,’ Miss Gant said, forming her words with exaggerated care. ‘But I can ash . . . assure you that it was not my fault. Assure you of that.’
It was apparent that Miss Gant was very drunk.
‘What wasn’t your fault?’
‘The accident. Isn’t that why you’ve come? It was only a shcrape . . . a little paint. I assure you.’
‘No it’s not about any accident,’ Macrae said. ‘It’s about Henry Foster.’
‘Oh God. Please. I can’t talk about Henry. Don’t you understand? He’s dead!’
‘That’s why we’re here,’ Silver said.
‘But I . . .’
She was swaying lightly and Macrae said, ‘I think you’d better sit down.’
‘I ashure you I am quite cabaple . . .’ She suddenly sat down. Then immediately rose again. ‘May I give you a drink? A little madeira? Some sherry?’
‘It’s a bit early,’ Silver said.
‘Early?’ said Miss Gant vaguely. ‘A glass of wine? Men like whisky and soda.’ She crossed to a small table on which stood a bottle of gin, the only alcohol Silver could see. She poured a good shot into a wine glass and sipped it as though it was Chardonnay.
‘You knew Mr Foster quite well?’ Macrae said.
‘Of course. I worked with him. A drop of port?’
‘As a researcher?’
‘That is correct. Title: Research Assistant. First Grade. Programme: Focus.’ She sat down, rose shakily. ‘A biscuit? Tea? Coffee?’
‘Nothing, thank you,’ Silver said.
Suddenly she said, ‘Don’t you just hate Good Fridays? I do. I hate Christmas Day too. I hate the shops being closed. I hate the trains not working. I hate the offices all still and quiet. I like people, movement. I mean, if you’re not religious Good Friday’s just a desert. Twenty-four hours of absolute hell.’
‘Tell us about Henry Foster,’ Macrae said.
‘What’s there to tell?’
‘We have information that you were often in his company, not just for reasons of work. Were you having an affair with him?’
‘Christ!’ she said. ‘That’s subbley put! An affair?’ Tears began to run gently down her cheeks. ‘How can you ask me that?’
‘We have to be sure,’ Silver said. ‘We’re investigating a murder.’
She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. ‘Of course. I realise that. An affair?’ Abruptly she began to laugh. It was such an emotional change that Silver stared at her in amazement. ‘You think Henry would have an affair with someone like me?’ She held up her left arm. ‘I would have given that for Henry.’
She pushed herself up. ‘Henry was superb.’ She gave herself another neat gin. ‘I once saw him naked, you know. At his flat. He didn’t realise it. I was in the living-room and he walked from the bathroom to the bedroom. Naked black men are the most beautiful things in the world. There is a unity about their bodies which whites don’t have. And he was well hung. He had a cock like a donkey.’
‘You didn’t have an affair, then?’ Macrae said, calmly.
‘I would’ve if he’d wanted me to. But he’d never have been disloyal to that bitch—’ She caught herself. ‘To his wife.’ Then she said passionately, ‘I would’ve walked on broken glass for him.’
‘What was your relationship, then?’ Macrae said.
‘I was teaching him.’
‘What?’
‘Look around you. I’m just a magpie.’
The walls were covered with miniatures and framed samplers. Tables groaned under snuffboxes and paperweights, ivory letter knives. In two display cupboards Silver saw cups and plates and small jugs.
‘Collecting?’ Silver said, and he felt a frisson cause his hair roots to prickle. ‘China?’
She nodded. ‘English china. Spode, Chelsea, early stoneware. Some Doulton. Worcester. He’d begun a collection. Only a few pieces, but quite good.’
Silver was remembering the rubbish bin in the area below Foster’s apartment. The broken pieces in the plastic shopping bag.
‘What was his collection worth?’ Silver said.
‘Difficult to say. Eight or nine thousand, perhaps.’ There was a knock at the door. It was Eddie Twyford. A call had come in on the car phone – which Macrae had bullied Wilson into giving him – for Silver.
It was Laker, who was in charge of the Incident Room. He said the same man had called for Silver three times. The first two calls he had simply asked for ‘the Jewish detective’. When told that Silver wasn’t there he had hung up. The third time, which was now, he had said he had information about a ‘young person in a green woollen hat’ but he would only give it to the Jewish detective.
‘Is he on the line now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you transfer him on to this phone?’
‘Hang on.’
After a few moments a voice said, ‘Is that you Silver?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know who’s speaking?’
The Scottish lilt was unmistakable and Silver’s memory flashed up the picture of the young street kid with the blood running down his nose and Macrae standing over him with a balled fist.
‘Rattray, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah.’
Behind the voice Silver could hear the noise of traffic so he assumed it to be a public phone.
‘Laker said you wanted me.’
‘Yeah.’
‘He said you had information about the youngster we’re looking for.’
‘That all depends.’
/>
‘On what?’
‘On the money. You pay for information.’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Don’t give me that shit. You got a special fund.’ He sounded strung-out.
‘It depends on the strength.’
‘This is top strength. The best.’
‘You tell me and I’ll know if it’s top strength. Everyone thinks they’ve got top strength.’
‘I’m not gonna go on chatting here while you trace the bloody call, Silver. I’m not gonna be taken in and get my head beaten in by that bloody Celt. Just believe me. Top strength. I know where he is ’cause I followed him.’
‘Listen, you tell me and I’ll—’
‘Forget it. I’m going to hang—’
‘All right, hang up!’
‘What?’
Silver wondered if the Rat needed a fix. ‘I’ve got some cash. Not a lot. I could let you have a tenner.’
There was a pause.
‘Can you get to Fulham?’ Silver said. ‘I could meet you there.’
‘If you pay for a taxi.’
‘OK. I’ll pay for the taxi.’ He gave the Rat the address of Henry Foster’s flat. ‘Wait for me outside. I don’t know how long I’ll be, but not too long. OK?’
‘Why there?’
‘Because I’ve got to pick up something. It’s the dead man’s flat.’
‘The black guy’s flat? Hey, that’s terrific!’
As Silver ended the call Macrae came out of the house.
‘Christ, what a stupid cow,’ he said.
‘Listen, guv’nor—’
‘If I was a betting man, I’d say she was halfway round the twist. Just the sort of crazy who’d stick a knife into someone who wouldn’t give her what she wanted. But, and it’s a hell of a but, how did she get him up there on that ledge after she’d killed him?’
‘Fork-lift truck?’ Eddie said.
Macrae ignored him. ‘No, she didn’t kill Henry-bloody-Foster. But I wouldn’t feel safe with her, myself. Well, what’s it all about, laddie?’
‘It was the Scotch kid, Rattray. The one we had in for questioning.’
‘You got a good degree, didn’t you?’
‘A two-one.’
‘That’s good, is it? Well let me teach you something they never taught you. There’s Scotch whisky and Scotch salmon and Scotch broth. But for most of the rest its Scots or Scottish. OK? Now what the hell does he want?’
Silver filled him in quickly.
‘Why at Foster’s flat? Why the hell doesn’t he come into the station?’
Silver forbore to point out that Rattray was unlikely to place himself in a position where he could take another beating. Instead, he told Macrae about the broken china.
‘Christ, why the hell wasn’t that picked up before?’
‘The bin was in a different place from the others. It was easy to miss. The bits may have prints on them. I mean we’re assuming this kid killed him and . . .’
‘We’re not assuming anything of the bloody sort.’
‘OK, sorry.’
‘And don’t be sorry, laddie! Only girls are sorry.’
*
‘Dear Daley Thompson,’ Terry wrote (or rather printed, for he had never mastered looped handwriting) ‘I am writin you becos I want become a great atleet.’
He was lying on his stomach on the bed. It had taken him a long time to work out this first sentence. He had found the paper and pencil in the room downstairs while getting to know his territory. The desk and the filing cabinet and the drawer in the coffee table had all so far been unknown quantities. Now he knew he could not open the filing cabinet, nor the desk. But in the drawer of the coffee table he had found a dozen more sheets of white paper and a propelling pencil. He had never handled a propelling pencil before.
It was then he had decided to write to Daley Thompson. He had never met him, of course, but he had seen him so many times on TV and cheered for him so often and spoken about him to his grandfather so frequently and had thought of him just about every day that he felt a kind of bond between them.
He had heard somewhere that Daley Thompson helped young people to get on in athletics, to become track stars, and that he went to schools and encouraged young athletes.
This was what Terry wanted above everything. He wanted to go to a school where there was proper athletics, where they didn’t give you a cup just for trying. He wanted to run for his school and then for his country and then perhaps in the national junior side. Then one day he wanted to run and jump and vault and throw in the Big One. The Olympics. Huntsman Collins. Number One.
He read the sentence again and struck out the word ‘great’. It just looked too much. But then he thought that Daley Thompson might not be interested in people who wanted to be ordinary athletes, so he put the word ‘star’ above the scratching out.
Then the next sentence formed in his mind. This was meant to reassure Daley about his intentions. He wrote laboriously. ‘I does not take drugs or anythin like that. I am no Ben Johnson.’
He read the two sentences over and was pleased with them. Now came the problem of what to say next. He thought he would tell Daley about how his grandfather had run for Jamaica with Arthur Wint and Herb McKenley and, as he was working out the words in his head, he heard a key in the front door.
For a second he was frozen, then he flung the paper and pencil aside, straightened the counterpane and even before whoever it was had relocked the door Terry had come out on the upstairs landing.
When he had brought the TV set upstairs he had had to push the loft ladder into the roof and the trapdoor had closed. His secret place was unreachable at the moment.
There were only the two rooms upstairs. The bedroom and the bathroom. The bathroom had an airing cupboard which contained the immersion heater. There was just enough room to squeeze in if he did not quite shut the door.
On the ground floor Jack Benson locked the front door and stood for a moment just inside it. Then he released his breath in a shuddering sigh of relief.
He was safe.
For a while anyway.
He looked around the sitting-room/office. It was much the same as when he had last been here. There was a smell of dust and stale cigarette smoke and Richard had clearly given up a maid because there were cigarette butts in the ashtray. Benson lit a cigarette of his own with a shaking hand.
He had made himself walk slowly along Green Park expecting any moment someone, no, not someone, a Chinese person, to step out from behind the trunk of a plane tree, and . . . Well, best not dwell on that.
Then he had crossed Piccadilly near Hyde Park Corner and walked up Park Lane. London was quiet but what traffic there was went up and down this artery and what pedestrians were abroad also seemed to favour Park Lane.
So he had walked towards Oxford Street seeking out other pedestrians and matching his stride to theirs, always trying to keep someone between himself and . . . and what? A bullet probably. They wouldn’t try anything else in a London street.
He’d found himself sweating in spite of the cold and was full of resentful anger. What had the world come to when you could be bloody nearly murdered in your room in one of the best hotels and were in danger on any of the main thoroughfares?
He reached Marble Arch and crossed over to the far side of the Bayswater Road and was soon in Broadhurst Mews. There was not a soul in sight. Even the sounds of London seemed muted.
*
Now he finished his cigarette as he looked out between the slats of the venetian blinds, watching for her. Then with a start he realised he had been so taken with his own safety that he had forgotten the money. He wanted a safe place for it temporarily. He looked around, pulled the drawers of the filing cabinet but found them locked. The desk was locked too. He went into the little kitchen and put the money in the food cupboard.
Then he sat down in the front room and stared at the wall. That’s when the terror really gripped him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
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‘I’m not sayin’ a bloody word,’ the Rat said to Silver. ‘Not while he’s there. That’s not the deal.’
‘What difference does it make? You get the money anyway.’
‘Not him. The bastard! I said you! I said I wasn’t gonna—’
‘All right. Hang on.’
They were arguing in the doorway of Foster’s apartment block in a bitter wind. Macrae was standing by the car. Now Silver went over to him and said, ‘He’s shy in front of you, guv’nor. Says he’s scared of you.’
‘Silly wee boy,’ Macrae said. ‘All right.’ He got back into the car and lit a slim cheroot.
Silver went back to the Rat. ‘He’s not coming. Let’s have it.’
‘Got the money?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well, not here.’
‘Come on, don’t be stupid. There’s nothing there.’
‘He’s famous. I never been inside anyone’s place who’s famous.’
‘You can’t go inside.’
They went out into the rear area and Silver took the broken china in its plastic shopping bag out of the dustbin.
‘Thievin’ from bins? Whatever next?’ the Rat said.
‘Never mind,’ Silver said. ‘Let’s have it.’
‘OK. I saw him last night. He was up the West End. Dunno why or what he was doing, but anyway I followed him back to Bayswater. And he went to a stables.’
‘A what?’
‘Where they keep horses.’
‘I know what stables are.’
‘Well, there’re stables in Broadhurst Mews. That’s where he went. In at a window and he never came out.’
‘Stables? You sure?’
‘’Course I’m sure. Broadhurst Stables. Says so on the door. I bet he’s sleeping on the straw. I know I would.’
Silver gave him the money.
‘Aren’t you even gonna give me a kiss?’
‘Some other time.’
Silver went up the back stairs carrying the plastic bag of china. He unlocked the door and entered the flat. Nothing had changed.
Dirty Weekend Page 18