Duffy

by Dan Kavanagh

  Mr McKechnie sat over a bowl of Heinz oxtail soup wondering why anyone should want to attack his wife and tell her the name of his mistress at the same time. He wasn’t aware of having any particular enemies. His mistress, who doubled as his secretary, wasn’t married; and though she wore her hair prettily coiled up on the top of her head, smiled at strangers and waggled her bottom more than she needed to when she walked, he wasn’t aware of having any rivals for her affections. Besides, if a rival did come along, Brian wasn’t that attached to her: if she wanted to go, she could. His days of fighting to keep a woman were over. Not, for that matter, that he was in any state to fight. The only exercise he ever took was with a knife and fork; he panted after climbing stairs, sweated a great deal, was moderately overweight, and only the previous year had had a minor, admonitory heart attack.

  The next day a detective-sergeant from the Guildford C.I.D. sat on Rosie McKechnie’s bed with a colleague. Gradually they pieced together what she knew; though mostly it was what she didn’t know. A tall man with a roughish Cockney accent and a brown pullover; a short man with a possibly Irish accent who had ‘passed a remark’, as Rosie delicately put it, about Godfrey. The short man might have been called Stanley. There had been two – almost three – deliberate mentions of someone called Barbara. There had been mentions of someone called the Boss.

  ‘Had any quarrels, Mrs McKechnie?’

  ‘No – I don’t quarrel. Except with the char. What sort of quarrels?’

  ‘Oh, arguments, disagreements, you know, words, that sort of thing.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Know anyone called Stanley?’

  ‘Well, there’s Brian’s uncle, but…’

  ‘We understand, madam. What about Barbara?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to think. No, no one, absolutely no one.’

  ‘Well, looks like we’ll have to rely on forensics. Unless your husband can give us any assistance, of course.’

  The two policemen walked slowly downstairs with Mr McKechnie.

  ‘Problems, sir,’ said Bayliss, the detective-sergeant, a sandy-haired, slightly truculent man in a blue suit. ‘Problems. No identification; or none that doesn’t leave us with most of the population of England under suspicion. No dabs, according to my colleague. No theft. No obvious motive, you’ll agree?’

  ‘None that I can see.’

  ‘And a particularly vicious crime. Not forgetting the cat, of course. Now the problem is, work of a maniac, pair of maniacs, or not? If it were just the cat, I’d say yes. There are some pretty sick people about. I’ve known maniacs toss cats off high buildings, just for kicks. But spitting and roasting, that’s something new to me. What about you, Willett?’

  His colleague thought for a bit about the crimes against felines that he’d come across. ‘I’ve had drownings, and I’ve had, you know, mutilations,’ he replied. ‘I’ve heard about a jerry-can job, but that was some time ago. Nothing like this.’

  ‘But then you see, sir,’ went on Bayliss, ‘the injury to your wife seemed planned, didn’t it? I mean, they knew her name, they seemed to know when she’d be in, and, if you’ll excuse me, they knew exactly what they intended to do to her. Didn’t they?’

  ‘You’re the experts.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose we are. Kind of you to say so, sir. So what I’m driving at, sir, is motive. Now, Willett, what did Mrs McKechnie say they said about this Stanley fellow?’

  Willett opened his notebook and turned back a few pages. ‘Something like, “Time for Stanley”, she said she thought the tall one said.’

  ‘“Time for Stanley”. Almost sounds as if he was letting the other one loose. Sort of letting him off the leash, almost. Know any Stanleys, sir?’

  ‘My uncle, but…’

  ‘No, quite. No one else?’

  ‘Afraid not.’

  ‘All right. Now, let’s turn to the easy one. Who’s Barbara?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘You a bit of a ladies’ man, are you, sir?’

  ‘What do you mean? Certainly not.’

  ‘Never played around at all, sir? You must have had your chances, if you don’t mind the phrase. Never stepped out of line?’

  ‘Certainly not. I’m fifty-five. I had a heart attack last year. I should think the exercise would kill me.’ (It was true, Barbara and he did have to take it a bit easy every so often; it would be a great way to go, he used to think, if only he were able to face the embarrassment. Though of course, he probably wouldn’t be there to face it.)

  ‘So you and Mrs McKechnie…?’ Bayliss was doubtless referring to the fact that Rosie had her own bedroom.

  ‘Since you seem to get a kick out of knowing that sort of thing, the answer’s no, actually, we don’t any more. We’re still great friends, though.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it sir, not for a minute. Now what about your wife? Does she…have any callers?’

  ‘What the hell makes you think you’ve got the right to ask that sort of question? My wife’s been knifed, she hasn’t been raped. Why don’t you look for the weapon or something? What on earth is the point of this sort of questioning?’

  ‘Well, you don’t always know that till you get the answers. So, no Stanley, no Barbara; no fannying about; and what about this person called the Boss?’

  ‘Could be anyone. Everyone’s got a boss.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true, Mr McKechnie. It’s a funny tale though, isn’t it? I mean, here are these two people who break into your house, assault your wife, kill your cat, and mention three people’s names, and nobody seems to know anything about any of them. Who’s your boss, Mr McKechnie?’ Bayliss didn’t seem particularly friendly.

  ‘I’m my own boss.’

  ‘Tell us about what you’re boss of, Mr McKechnie.’

  McKechnie and Co Ltd. Registered company. Trading head office Rupert Street, W. 1. Importers and distributors of toys, jokes, novelties, disguises, indoor fireworks, magic kits and funny masks. Policemen’s helmets for sale, though strictly in junior sizes. Trade a bit seasonal, low in summer, high towards Christmas, naturally. No business difficulties. Turnover in six figures. Stock in trade held in two small warehouses, one in Lexington Street and one in a little courtyard off Greek Street. A small, profitable, honest business. That was McKechnie’s story.

  ‘Sounds almost too good to be true, sir. You wouldn’t mind if we came up one day and talked to you at your office?’

  ‘Of course not. I’m going to stay at home and look after my wife for the rest of the week. You can come and see me, if there’s any point in it, early next week.’

  ‘That’s very co-operative of you, sir. Now about this end of things. I’ll be sending the police surgeon round tomorrow to have a look at your wife’s wound – see if he’s got any sort of an idea what the weapon was. We’ll take away the cat, if that’s all right with you; and we’d like the dress your wife was wearing too. And if you do remember about any of those names, you’ll let us know, won’t you, sir?’

  ‘Of course.’

  As soon as the police had left, McKechnie called his office. Barbara answered the phone; she was bound to – she was the only person there. He asked her if he hadn’t always been nice to her, and she said he had. He asked her if she’d do him a favour and she said she hoped it was the same one as usual because she enjoyed it. He said no, not this time, you little temptress, it was a bit different. He’d had a few problems which he’d explain to her some other time. He wanted her to close down the office and take three weeks’ paid holiday. No, she could still have her annual three weeks as well, at a later date. No, he wasn’t trying to tell her she was being sacked. Yes, he was still very fond of her. Yes, they’d do that again soon too. Soon, soon. And he’d send a cheque for a month’s salary to her home address.

  He made a second phone call, to a temp agency in Shaftesbury Avenue, and asked for a secretary for a couple of weeks, starting the following Monday. Then he sat down and wondered whether he was doing the right thing.r />
  This was on a Tuesday. On the Wednesday the police surgeon came, examined Mrs McKechnie, offered his condolences about Godfrey, and left, muttering about Islamic methods of punishment.

  On the Thursday two things happened. The Guildford Advertiser came out, with a headline halfway down Page Seven reading: BIZARRE PET DEATH IN MYSTERY BREAK-IN: MANIACS HUNTED. And Det-Sgt Bayliss turned up again with Willett in tow.

  ‘We’ve had the surgeon’s report,’ said Bayliss, ‘and I think we can rule out your Uncle Stanley.’ McKechnie looked puzzled. Bayliss pulled out a short, typed document from his briefcase and read from it: ‘“Victim…Wound…Surrounding Area…” Ah, here we are, “Possible Instrument: medium to heavy knife with fine blade. Small area of blade used, so probably not flick-knife type of instrument, or sharpened domestic knife. Some sort of modelling knife, perhaps, or specialist woodcutting instrument. No evidence of previous usage of the instrument was obtainable, since the wound had already been thoroughly cleansed by time of police examination; but possibly some specialist instrument, like a Stanley knife.”’

  Bayliss looked up and smiled in a self-satisfied way; then he nodded to Willett, who dug in his notebook and quoted back Mrs McKechnie’s words: ‘“Something like ‘Time for Stanley’”.’

  Bayliss still looked pleased with himself. McKechnie couldn’t imagine why the neutralisation of one of the very few clues Bayliss had should afford him any pleasure. Bayliss explained,

  ‘Well, before we were looking for everyone called Stanley. Now we’re only looking for people with Stanley knives. It must increase our chances a little.’

  McKechnie didn’t know if he was being flippant or simply foolish.

  The following week Bayliss and Willett came up to McKechnie’s Rupert Street office. They were shown in by his new secretary, Belinda. He’d deliberately told the agency that he wanted a really efficient girl because he was fed up with tarts in short skirts who doubled the size of his Tipp-Ex bill and tried to make up for it by flashing their panties at him when they were filing. The agency understood what he was saying, wrote ‘Religious’ on the back of his card in their private shorthand, and sent him Belinda, a girl with a slight limp who wore a huge silver cross between her breasts as if to ward off sweaty male hands. McKechnie was happy with her, even though she wasn’t noticeably more efficient than the girls who cutely pointed their gussets at him on their first afternoon.

  As Bayliss arrived, he asked casually how long Belinda had worked there; but McKechnie was already prepared for that. He always had temps, he said, because he found them more reliable, and it wasn’t hard to master the work, and he sometimes closed down the office for a few weeks, and anyway, the office was too small to risk getting stuck with a secretary you didn’t get along with. Oh, he got them from all sorts of temp agencies – sometimes one, sometimes another; he couldn’t even remember where he’d got Belinda from – they could ask her if they wanted to. His previous secretary’s name? Oh, Sheila, and before that, Tracy, and before that, oh, Millie or something.

  When Bayliss and Willett left, McKechnie felt as if he had just pulled off a deal. He walked up to Bianchi’s and treated himself to the best the kitchen could offer, just to show how pleased he was with himself.

  The next week he got the first phone call. Belinda told him that there was a Mr Salvatore on the line.

  ‘Mr McKechnie?

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And how are you today?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Quite sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Yes, quite. What can I do for you?’ These immigrants did go on a bit – thought it was all part of British civility. McKechnie knew one Greek retailer who, by the time he got to the end of all his preliminary bowing and scraping, had usually forgotten what he was ringing about. Then he had to ring back with his order later.

  ‘And your wife, Mr McKechnie, is she well?’

  McKechnie bridled, though the man’s tone hadn’t changed. ‘She’s fine. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Because where I come from, we have a saying – a man’s wife is the centrepiece of his table. Don’t you think that is a pretty phrase, a gallant phrase?’

  McKechnie hung up. Whoever the man was, he could either come to the point or bugger off. Besides, McKechnie wanted a little time to think what might be going on.

  He didn’t get it. The phone went again almost at once, and Belinda said apologetically,

  ‘You’re reconnected, Mr McKechnie. Sorry you got cut off, one of mythats must have slipped.’ That was the sort of secretary you got nowadays – the old sort, and even some of the gusset-flashers, at least knew when they’d cut you off. This lot didn’t know whether they had or not; they merely assumed – and it was a correct assumption – that they had.

  ‘Terrible, this telephone system of yours, Mr McKechnie,’ said the voice. ‘They tell me it all went wrong with nationalisation, but of course I do not remember that myself.’

  ‘Are you calling me on business, Mr…’

  ‘Salvatore. Well, yes and no, as you say. I am not in the business of ringing up strangers simply to reduce the Post Office’s deficit, anyway. So, I tell you why I am ringing. I am ringing to say that I am sorry about the cat.’

  ‘The…’

  ‘Yes, Mr McKechnie, it was, how shall I say, you understand French, Mr McKechnie, it showed un peu trop d’enthousiasme. In simple language, the lads got carried away.’

  ‘You…fucker.’ McKechnie didn’t really know what to say; he didn’t in fact care much about the cat; it had always been, as she herself put it, Rosie’s baby.

  ‘Well, I accept your rebuke. Now, the second thing I have to say is, I hope very much that your lady wife is recovering from her unpleasant ordeal. And I suggest that you do not hang up.’ The tone had hardened. McKechnie did not reply. The voice went on. ‘Well, I take the liberty of inferring from your silence that she is, as you put it, on the mend.’

  Again, McKechnie did not reply.

  ‘And the third thing I have to say to you is this. Don’t you think it is extraordinary that the police have no idea what might have happened, or why, or who would have done such a thing? By the way, I assume you did not tell them about your pretty secretary who seems not to be working for you any more?’

  McKechnie still did not reply. He was trying to write down on his telephone pad as much as possible of the conversation.

  ‘No, you did not. I think I can tell that. So, if I may sum up, Mr McKechnie, what I am saying to you is this. Isn’t it extraordinary, and isn’t it a little frightening, that two such unpleasant things could happen in your very own home, and that the police, after full investigation, have found no clues that are of any use to them? Is it not ironic that the one clue which might have been of use was denied to them by you? It is not a pretty situation, is it, Mr McKechnie, at least not for you? I mean, the point is, isn’t it, that something similar, or even, though I do hesitate to say so, something quite a lot worse, could happen, and you would be fairly certain that once again the police would not be able to be of any assistance? What do you say to that, Mr McKechnie?’

  ‘I say, you never can tell.’

  ‘And I say to you, Mr McKechnie, that some of us can, some of us can tell. I mean, take the present case. Say you go back to your police. Say you tell them you’re sorry, you lied, you didn’t tell them about Barbara. Do you think that would make them redouble their energies, if you went and told them you had been lying to them? They are only human, after all, Mr McKechnie, they would merely think you had been telling more lies, they would probably say to each other, as you put it, “Stuff him”. And then, if they did take you seriously, where has this new piece of information taken them? How much nearer are they to their quarry? There are other crimes every day, even in your neck of the woods.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Ah, I am happy that you asked me that, Mr McKechnie. It shows at least that you are not a stupid man. What I want you to do is to think
. What I want you to think about is what people call the angles. That is all that I want you to do, for the moment. And now I will get off this line and let you go about your lawful business.’

  The phone was put down.

  McKechnie dutifully started to think about the angles. Was he being preshed? Not yet, anyway. Was he being softened up for being preshed? If so, they were going about it in a pretty extreme manner. Was his wife safe at home? Was he safe? Should he go back to the Guildford police? Should he go along to the station here, West Central, up in Broadwick Street? Should he perhaps try and get the investigation transferred to West Central, and hope that the bit about Barbara would get dropped on the way? But what did he really have to tell them here? One thing he could do was go and have a chat to Shaw, the detective-sergeant at West Central he’d had a few drinks with now and then. Maybe he’d do that.

  He rang West Central, and was told that Shaw was on holiday for a week. Did he want to talk to anyone else? No, he didn’t.

  Two days later Belinda buzzed him and said she had Mr Salvatore on the line again.

  ‘Mr McKechnie, still well? Good. I won’t take up all that much of your time. I take it you’ve had your think. You haven’t been back and made your little confession, of course.’

  McKechnie was silent.

  ‘No, of course you haven’t. Now, I’ll tell you what you’re going to do for me. You’re going to give me some money. Not very much money. Very little money, really. Twenty pounds. No, let’s say twenty-five. Now, you go to your bank in the morning – or you take it from your float, I really don’t mind which – and you wait for me to ring again and tell you what I want you to do with it. It’s quite straightforward, Mr McKechnie. Oh, and you can be assured that even if you haven’t done this before, I have.’