Body of a Girl

by Michael Gilbert

  “He didn’t know what was good for him, then.”

  “If you ever thought of retiring from the Police Force, you might consider it yourself.”

  Mercer said, “Don’t be surprised if I take you up on that,” and got up. Mr. Brattle said, “Damned if I didn’t nearly forget what I got you down here to tell you. Mrs. Prior said you were asking about that boat. Diesel powered twenty-footer. I asked one or two of my friends down the river. She comes from Lock’s at Teddington. One of the residents has her on hire for the season. Man of the name of Fenton.”

  “Mo Fenton,” said Mercer softly. The scar showed red.

  “My friend did say that he’d got a bit of a reputation. Maybe nothing to it. You know the way people talk. Anyway, he didn’t like him much.”

  “If Fenton’s the man I’m thinking of,” said Mercer, “you can tell your friend from me, he’s dead right.”

  The fisherman seemed to have caught something. It looked like a fair-sized chub or dace, maybe a barbel.

  Mr. Nevinson, the manager of the Southern Counties Safe Deposit, received Mercer in his office. ‘Received’ seemed the appropriate word. Mr. Nevinson, in early middle age, had acquired that regal air which comes upon a man who has a job which suits him, is secure in it and can see an untroubled road stretching ahead of him to retirement.

  He invited Mercer to be seated, contemplated offering him a cigarette out of the silver box on his desk, and decided against it. He said, “Well now, Inspector. What can I do for you?”

  “It’s good of you to see me at such short notice,” said Mercer.

  Mr. Nevinson inclined his head. He thought it was good of him, too.

  “I realise that a relationship of confidence exists between you and your clients.” Mercer was choosing his words with care. Clients was a lot more dignified than customers.

  “Certainly,” said Mr. Nevinson. “At Southern Counties we endeavour to observe exactly the same rules that govern our banking institutions.”

  Right, thought Mercer. And those same rules can be a real pain in the neck to hard-working policemen. He said, “I appreciate your position. You look after a lot of money and valuables for people, and they’ve got to have confidence in you. I see that. And that’s why I’m only going to ask you questions it won’t embarrass you to answer. First, can you simply tell me if you have a client of the name of Jack Bull, from Stoneferry?” As Mr. Nevinson hesitated, Mercer said, “I could, of course, find out for myself, by putting a man permanently outside the door to see if Bull or any of his employees turned up, but that’d take time, and I haven’t much time to spare.”

  Mr. Nevinson weighed the possibility of indiscretion against the embarrassment of having a policeman scrutinising his customers and said, “Yes. I don’t think there could be any objection to my answering that question. Mr. Bull of the Stoneferry Garage is one of our oldest clients. When I came here twenty years ago he was renting a strong-box. He now has a small strong-room.”

  “Can you tell me when he changed over?”

  “The exact date you mean?”

  “Approximately.”

  “As I recollect, three or four years ago.”

  “If I were a client, and wanted to rent a safe, how much would it cost me?”

  Mr. Nevinson extracted a brochure from his desk, smoothed the pages, and said, “It would depend on the cubic capacity of the receptacle. A medium-sized strong-box, eighteen inches square by two foot deep would cost you forty-five pounds a year to rent. A strong-room is a good deal more expensive, of course. The smallest would cost you two hundred and fifty pounds a year.”

  “I see,” said Mercer.

  If Bull was renting even a small strong-room it was costing him nearly a fiver a week. It seemed a lot of money for a garage proprietor. A lot of space too.

  He said, “I imagine you keep a duplicate key for each safe and strong-room. Or is it one master key for the lot?”

  “Neither, Inspector.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Each lock is unique. And there is only one key in existence for each. That is held, of course, by the renter. We could not contemplate any other system. If we held a key, the responsibility on us would far outweigh the occasional convenience.”

  “But what happens if the renter loses the key?”

  “It happens very rarely.”

  “But it must happen sometimes.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. Nevinson. “Well—I don’t suppose there’s any harm in your knowing this, but the information is, of course, extremely confidential. I keep, in my safe, a set of templates which can be fixed to the exterior face of the locked door. They enable us to locate, with minute accuracy, the position of the metal rivets on the inside of the door which hold the locking mechanism in position. We can then drill out the rivets from this side. The whole operation costs the renter twenty-five pounds. You’d be surprised how carefully that makes him look after his key.”

  “If you’ve got no key to the safes, how does the night service operate?”

  “Very simply. All depositors have code numbers. They mark night deposits with that number and we keep them for them, in a central strong-room, of which we hold the key. When the depositor pays us his next visit, he can himself transfer his property to his private safe.”

  Mercer thought about it. Then he said, “Could you get one of your staff to show me the strong-rooms? Tell him I’m a prospective customer.”

  “I’ll show you round myself,” said Mr. Nevinson.

  He walked across to the panelling and opened a door. Behind it was a steel grille.

  “You’ve got to realise,” he said, “that above ground everything is quite normal. We have bars on the ground-floor windows and an alarm on the front door, but so do a lot of office buildings.” He pushed the grille, which swung back ponderously on its roller-bearing hinges. “It’s only below ground that we begin to be something out of the ordinary. After you.”

  A flight of stone steps led down into a basement. Mr. Nevinson touched a switch and the neon strip-lighting came on, showing a long line of numbered, green-painted steel boxes on either side of a central corridor. There were further sections of boxes arranged in bays behind the corridor.

  “Fireproof paint,” said Mr. Nevinson, “and the boxes themselves are waterproof. The floor you’re standing on is steel lattice work. There’s a sub-basement below this which holds the strong-rooms. The whole subterranean area is hermetically sealed and surrounded by a water-jacket. In the unlikely event of a fire starting down here, we would shutter off the air conditioning vents and flood the whole place, ceiling-high in five minutes. Just a matter of turning two wheels, in my office.”

  “You mean that we’re in a sealed box, surrounded by water?”

  “That’s right. It really is rather ingenious. The water-jacket stops anyone trying to tunnel in from outside. They could of course try getting through the ceiling, or the floor, but they are alternate steel and specially hardened concrete. I don’t say they couldn’t do it. Modern tools will cut anything. But it would take a very long time. This way.”

  They went down the second flight of stairs into the sub-basement. This was arranged on a similar plan except that the doors were larger, and completely filled the central corridor.

  “Twenty strong-rooms on each side. The two very large ones at the end are used by the banks. They are much more secure than their own.”

  “And the smaller ones belong to private renters?”

  “That’s right.”

  Mercer wondered which of the green-painted doors concealed Jack Bull’s secrets. He would have liked to have asked, but felt that he had trespassed far enough on Mr. Nevinson’s patience. They climbed back to his office.

  “I take it there is another entrance?”

  “Certainly. There is the main entrance to the vaults. That’s the one the renters use. My head commissionaire, Sergeant Beale, has one key, I have another. To open it, you need to use both.”

  �
�And this door?”

  “The same. When it is finally shut for the night you need both our keys to open it.”

  When Mercer got out into the street he made for the nearest telephone box and rang up Stoneferry Station. Tom Rye answered him.

  Mercer said, “In case anyone is wondering where I am, tell them I’ve been having a conducted tour round a safe deposit. It took longer than I anticipated, but it was very interesting. I now propose to have some lunch. After lunch I’ve got a date with a Mr. Michael Robertson.”

  Rye said, “O.K. There’s no particular panic on here at the moment.” And then, “Did you say Michael Robertson?”

  “That’s right,” said Mercer. “Michael Robertson.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The early afternoon post delivered two trade catalogues and a small buff envelope to Bull’s Garage. Jack Bull was alone in the office when they arrived. Vikki had telephoned to say that she was feeling under the weather and wouldn’t be turning up for work that day.

  Opening letters was one of the more difficult jobs for a one-armed man, but Bull managed it, as deftly as he had taught himself to get over most difficulties.

  He read the catalogues first, marking one or two items that interested him. Then he opened the buff envelope.

  Ten minutes later he was storming down the High Street and into Fore Street. The receptionist at Weatherman’s said she wasn’t sure if Mr. Weatherman was free. Had Mr. Bull an appointment?

  “I haven’t got an appointment,” said Bull. “But I’m going to see Mr. Weatherman even if it means turning out the person who’s with him. Tell him that, will you?”

  The receptionist was frightened. She found angry men alarming. She picked up the telephone, and said, as calmly as she could bring herself to do, “Oh, Mr. Weatherman, I have Mr. Bull here for you. He says it’s very urgent.”

  There was a slight pause, and then Mr. Weatherman’s dry voice said, “If it’s very urgent, of course I must see him. Ask him to come up.”

  Mr. Weatherman smoothed out the buff-coloured letter which Bull had slammed down on his desk and read it through carefully. Then he adjusted his glasses and read it again.

  He said, “This is very surprising.”

  “Surprising,” said Bull, in a choked voice. “It’s a bloody impertinence. What the hell does it mean?”

  “It means that the Inland Revenue authorities have come to the conclusion, on the basis of certain evidence which has come into their possession, that you have been underestimating your taxable income for the last six years by approximately three thousand pounds a year. This is, they agree, only a rough estimate. They have accordingly raised a provisional assessment on you, to tax and surtax, based on a figure of eighteen thousand pounds. They invite your comments, and point out the procedure for appeal. I take it you have only just received this?”

  “A quarter of an hour ago.”

  “And that you haven’t done anything about it?”

  “Like hell I haven’t. I rang up the Charlie whose reference is on that letter and told him he could stuff it up his arse.”

  “I don’t think that was wise,” said Mr. Weatherman.

  “What do you mean, wise? What the hell did you expect me to do? Write him out a cheque for the full amount?”

  “The procedures for appeal are well established.”

  Bull, who had been standing, now sat down. He also lowered his voice. He said, “I think we’d better understand one another. You know perfectly well that I’ve been fiddling my tax returns for years. You’ve been helping me to do it. And taking a thick cut for your pains. So don’t start talking about the procedure for appeals. If anything comes out, everything comes out. You’re a professional man. You’ve got a bloody sight more to lose in this case than I have.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Certainly I’m threatening you. And when I said everything, I meant everything. Like that little job you did for me over Prior’s Garage. I expect the Law Society would be interested to know that you acted for the poor old sod, but never told him you were taking money from me, under the counter, to make sure he went down.”

  Mr. Weatherman’s face had been a mottled red when Bull began speaking. By the time he finished it had lost most of its colour. He said, “If you were to say – anything like that – I’d take you through every court in the land for libel.”

  “Even if I could prove it was true?”

  “You couldn’t.”

  “I most certainly could. You remember that girl you had working here. Called Maureen Dyson. She was a smart operator. Did you know she’d tapped your office telephone? And not only tapped it, but recorded some of the interesting conversations we had. And taken a photocopy of that harmless little bit of paper you made me sign and locked away in your safe. Only like the stupid old berk you are, you left the key of the safe in your desk drawer. She had the whole thing lined up. She sent me copies of one or two of the transcriptions and documents. I’ve still got them. They’re very convincing. There was just one thing I couldn’t understand. Why the hell did she try it on me and not you. You’d have paid up. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you?”

  “Please keep your voice down. What did you do?”

  “I told her to take a running jump at herself. The only person who could make trouble for me would be old Henry Prior, and I doubted if he’d have the guts. But you. It’d be different for you, wouldn’t it? You’d be finished. You’d be struck off the whatsits. You’d be flat bust. Why didn’t she put the screws on you?”

  When Mr. Weatherman said nothing he added, thoughtfully, “Or did she?”

  Mr. Weatherman’s face was now an unhealthy greyish white. He said, in a voice which was a parody of his normal pedantic tones, “I can assure you that she never said a word to me about it. I can equally assure you that I shall never repeat a word of what you have just told me.”

  “Right,” said Bull. “Now we understand each other. So perhaps we can get down to business. What does this letter mean? And what do we do about it?”

  “It means that the Revenue have some evidence that you have been understating your income.” Mr. Weatherman was speaking slowly, drawing a breath after every few words, as though he had surfaced after an unexpectedly deep dive. “Very often they take this sort of action because a man is observed to be living beyond the income he has declared. That can hardly be the case here. You have a substantial income, and you have always behaved discreetly.”

  “Right. So what do they mean by ‘evidence’?”

  “It must, I think, be documentary evidence of some kind. I have all the papers here which deal with your declared income—”

  “And I’ve got a few books and papers in my office,” said Bull with a grin, “which deal with my undeclared income.”

  “They’d need a sight of both lots to bring a charge home.” Mr. Weatherman lifted the receiver on his internal telephone and dialled a number. “We’ll go through our records here first. Oh, Miss Atkins, would you ask Mrs. Hall to bring up the folders containing Mr. Bull’s tax returns. She’s what? Oh, I see. Well then, perhaps you could bring them up yourself.” He replaced the receiver and said, “My invaluable Mrs. Hall is away sick this morning. It’s the first day she’s missed since she’s been here. Never mind, Miss Atkins will produce them for us.”

  But that, it appeared, was just what Miss Atkins could not do. When she appeared in the room three minutes later she was flustered, and empty-handed. She said, “I’ve looked in Mrs. Hall’s filing cabinet, Mr. Weatherman. I know she kept Mr. Bull’s tax returns and papers there, in two wallets, because she looked after them herself. They aren’t there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Quite sure, Mr. Weatherman. I know just where she kept them. I saw them there only last week. Do you think she might have taken them home to work on them? She did that sometimes.”

  “It would be against our rules for any member of the staff to remove confidential papers from the office. However, i
t’s a possibility I suppose. Have you her telephone number?”

  Miss Atkins produced the number and Mr. Weatherman dialled it. They could hear the telephone ringing. It rang for a long time. Mr. Weatherman replaced the receiver. He said, “When Mrs. Hall informed the office that she was not coming in today, who took the message?”

  “I did.”

  “How did the message arrive?”

  “She telephoned. Just after I got here. She said she had a bad migraine, was going to take a couple of pills and go to bed.”

  “She has a small furnished flat, I believe.”

  “That’s right.”

  “If the telephone is in the living room, and she is asleep – very fast asleep – in her bedroom, it is, I suppose, possible that she would not hear the telephone.”

  “Would you like me to go round and make sure that she’s all right?”

  “I was just going to suggest it,” said Mr. Weatherman smoothly.

  When Miss Atkins had taken herself off, Bull said, “What’s she playing at? Don’t tell me you’ve got another blackmailer on your staff.”

  “I think it highly unlikely. Mrs. Hall is a most respectable and reliable sort of woman. But even if she has removed the taxation wallets with some ulterior motive it still makes little sense. It’s true that there are working papers there, which we should not normally show to the Inspector. But to make anything out of them he would have to compare them with the records of actual receipts which you maintain.”

  “And if my records didn’t happen to be available—”

  Mr. Weatherman considered the point. He had recovered his self-possession and now seemed to be the dominant partner. He said, “I don’t think it would be convincing to say that there were no records. After all, we would have had to get the figures from you in the first place. And all businesses keep accounts. Cash receipts, expenditure, bank statements and that sort of thing.”

  “My bank statements won’t show them much. I encourage my customers to pay cash. Any spare cash goes into my safe deposit.”