Dishonour Among Thieves

by James Pattinson

  ‘Then why do you talk of going away?’

  ‘Because it may come to that, whether I wish it or not. Because it may be best for you.’

  ‘Your going away could never be best for me. How long would it be?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ If the police caught him it would be for years. How many years would depend on the judge.

  ‘When were you thinking of leaving?’

  ‘Soon. It might be as well if I went tomorrow.’

  ‘No! Oh, not so soon as that!’ Again she clutched him, and he could feel her nails digging into his skin. ‘Stay for a few more days at least. A week. Two weeks. Perhaps when it comes to the point you won’t need to go at all. Promise you won’t go tomorrow. Or the day after.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave it for a few days.’

  He knew he was giving way to temptation; he would postpone his departure for a day, and then another day, and another; and it might all end in disaster. But that was the way of things.

  She kissed him passionately. ‘It will be all right, Tom darling. Everything will be all right.’

  He did not believe it; not now they knew his name; but he let her have her way. And maybe when it came to the crunch it wouldn’t make a grain of difference whether he stayed or went.

  14

  Something Odd

  ‘There’s something happened down in Suffolk that might have some connection with the supermarket case,’ Detective Sergeant Peters said. ‘Place called Upmarket.’

  Peters had accompanied Superintendent Garner on the visit to Jackie Fulton’s flat when the arrest had been made. He was a smart young officer with plenty of brains and would certainly go higher in his chosen profession.

  ‘Oh?’ Garner said, and waited.

  Peters consulted a sheet of paper in his hand. ‘Robbery at a general stores carried out by a man armed with a pistol. Robber just walked into the office where the woman cashier was counting out some money ready to take to the bank, pointed the gun at her and made her put the banknotes into a polythene bag. Then he walked off with about sixteen hundred pounds. The store manager, a man named Watson, chased him to where his car was parked in the market square, but the man threatened him with the gun and got away. Car was a green Vauxhall Cavalier. Watson couldn’t remember the registration number.’

  Garner sighed. ‘They never can. You think the man may have been Benton?’

  ‘Seems a possibility, sir. Green Vauxhall like Miss Fulton said, and Suffolk is in East Anglia.’

  ‘Hardly his style, robbing shops, is it?’

  ‘Could be pushed for money after the failure at the supermarket. Had to try something on his own.’

  ‘It certainly is a possibility,’ Garner admitted. ‘Might be worth looking into. You fancy a trip to the country?’

  ‘It’d make a change,’ Peters said.

  ‘Right. I’ll get in touch with the locals and arrange it.’

  Peters went to see Mr Watson in company with a Detective Sergeant Stone, who was handling the shop robbery investigation. He did not expect to get a lot of help from the store manager; it was a bit of a long shot but long shots sometimes hit the mark. He gathered that Stone had not had much luck in tracing the green Vauxhall.

  ‘If only we had the number it’d be a different kettle of fish,’ Stone said. ‘But people just don’t take car numbers, or if they do they get them wrong or forget them altogether.’

  ‘They’re not easy to memorise at a glance,’ Peters said.

  ‘That’s true.’

  They found Watson at the store and he took the two detectives into the office where the robbery had taken place. The cashier who had been forced to hand over the money to the robber was there doing some paperwork, and Peters asked her to stay and tell her version of the affair. The woman, whose name was Mrs Seakin, gave a succinct account of her encounter with the armed robber, leaving out nothing of importance but putting in nothing that was superfluous. Peters thought she would make a good witness in court.

  Then Mr Watson gave his story, which gave Peters very little more information than he had already.

  ‘And that’s the lot, is it?’

  ‘Well, not quite,’ Watson said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. You see, this morning something odd occurred; something very odd indeed.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘The man brought the money back.’

  Peters and Stone both stared at him.

  ‘If this is some kind of a joke – ’ Peters said.

  ‘Oh, no; it’s not a joke; it’s the plain truth. Ask Mrs Seakin.’

  Peters looked at the cashier.

  ‘Oh, it’s the truth.’ She pointed at a dilapidated canvas holdall lying on the floor. ‘There’s the bag he brought the money in.’

  Stone spoke severely to Watson. ‘You should have reported this to us.’

  ‘I was going to,’ Watson said, ‘but I’ve been very busy and it slipped my mind. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Does it matter now?’ Mrs Seakin asked. ‘We’ve got our money back and nobody was hurt. And really he did seem quite a nice young man.’

  ‘He committed a crime all the same,’ Stone said. He had been in the police force for a good many years and no one could have described him as a nice young man, so he might have been a trifle disgruntled by Mrs Seakin’s apparent partiality for the robber. ‘And he threatened you with a gun, didn’t he?’

  ‘But I’m sure he would never have used it. It was just bluff, you know. It may not even have been a real one.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about the bluff,’ Peters said. ‘And I doubt very much if the weapon was a toy.’

  Sergeant Stone turned to the store manager. ‘How did he give you the money back? Did he just walk in and hand it over?’

  ‘Well, no; he put the bag down in the passage. I saw him do it and I thought he was a customer just leaving it there while he got something off the shelves. Then I saw him walking away and I ran after him with the bag because it seemed as if he’d forgotten it.’

  ‘Didn’t you recognise him?’

  ‘No. He was wearing dark glasses and a cap. It wasn’t until I caught up with him as he was getting into his car that I realised it was the same man.’

  ‘Did he say anything to you?’

  ‘Yes. He said: “Keep the bag. You’ll like what’s inside.” Then he drove off.’

  ‘In the same green Vauxhall?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you get the number this time?’

  ‘No. I was far too surprised to give it a thought.’

  Stone and Peters exchanged glances that spoke volumes.

  ‘Mr Watson brought the bag in here,’ Mrs Seakin said, ‘and we opened it and there was the money. You could have knocked me down with a feather.’

  ‘I can believe it,’ Peters said drily. He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and flattened it on the table. ‘Is this the man?’

  It was an identikit picture of Benton made up from the description given by Jackie Fulton.

  Mr Watson and Mrs Seakin looked at it.

  ‘It could be,’ Watson said. ‘I wouldn’t definitely say it is, but it could be.’

  Peters turned to Mrs Seakin. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘He looked a lot nicer than that,’ she said.

  Peters spoke with admirable restraint. ‘This is not a photograph, you know, and it’s not designed to flatter the subject. All I want to know is whether you can see any resemblance between this and the man who robbed you.’

  ‘Oh, yes; there’s a resemblance. It might very well be him.’

  ‘Do you think it’s your man?’ Stone asked when he and Peters had left the shop. He had taken the holdall in which the money had been returned, though neither of the detectives expected to get much help from it. The handles were canvas and would be useless for supplying fingerprints.

  ‘I feel pretty sure of it,’ Peters said. ‘But why in heaven’s name did he bring the money back
?’

  ‘A change of heart? Uneasy conscience?’

  ‘Do you believe that?’

  ‘Frankly, no,’ Stone said.

  ‘Neither do I.’

  Detective Superintendent Garner did not believe it either when Peters informed him of what happened.

  ‘Took the money back? Has he gone crazy?’

  ‘Maybe he’s seen the light.’

  ‘Bullshit!’

  ‘Well, it happened.’

  ‘Yes, it happened; so he must have had some motive.’

  But neither Garner nor Peters, though they cudgelled their brains, could come up with a likely suggestion as to what that motive might have been.

  ‘I suppose it really was Benton?’ Garner said. ‘You’re convinced of that?’

  ‘Practically. Everything fits. And both witnesses thought the identikit picture was a likeness. And incidentally, Mrs Seakin thought he seemed quite a nice young man.’

  Garner snorted. ‘Nice young man, my foot! Try telling that to Miss Jacqueline Fulton.’

  ‘I think I’d rather not,’ Peters said.

  Benton was working outside in the fields with Joe for company when the representative for a firm of double-glazing manufacturers called at Pear Tree Farm. His name was Proctor, and like most representatives he was a fluent and persuasive talker. He had to be, because he made his living by selling people merchandise which they were very often reluctant to buy.

  Jean Mace, who was alone in the house, found herself having to stand up to the full impact of Mr Proctor’s salesman’s technique with no moral support from anyone. She wished that Tom had been there, because he was so much more wordly-wise than she was and would have been better able to deal with the blandishments of the suave and well-dressed Arnold Proctor.

  But he was not there, and having allowed Proctor to ease his way over the doorstep, she found it difficult to get rid of him. He had a briefcase full of glossy double-glazing literature and figures came tripping off his tongue concerning the saving in fuel bills that would follow the installation of new windows and doors. He was prepared to take a tape-measure to the frames and make an estimate of the cost if Mrs Mace would just give the word.

  Mrs Mace did not give the word. ‘I really don’t want double-glazing,’ she said. ‘I can’t afford it.’

  ‘Can you afford not to have it?’ Proctor replied. ‘That’s the question.’

  Mrs Mace thought she could very well afford not to.

  ‘Think of the added comfort in the cold winter months,’ Proctor said. ‘Just imagine never again being plagued with draughts. An old house like this, I’d say it’s horribly draughty. Now isn’t it?’

  She had to admit that it was.

  ‘So you see you really can’t do without D.G. It’s flying in the face of progress.’

  Whether it was flying in the face of progress or not, Jean Mace felt that, having managed without double-glazing up to the present time, she could go on living a little longer without it in spite of the draughts. And even without any moral support she remained firm in her refusal to place an order.

  Mr Proctor finally admitted defeat and began to put the literature back in his briefcase. But before he left he felt compelled to tell Mrs Mace about a curious occurrence in a small town where he had been doing some business the previous day.

  ‘Perhaps you read about the robbery in a self-service store in Upmarket?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? Well, it seems this man walked in, threatened the cashier with a pistol and walked out again with more than a thousand pounds in cash. He was chased by the manager but got away in his car.’

  Mr Proctor paused, rather surprised at the effect this story was having on the listener. Mrs Mace was giving him more attention now than she had done during the whole of his extolment of the advantages of double-glazing. She was staring at him wide-eyed and had turned quite pale.

  ‘Are you feeling all right, Mrs Mace?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Do go on. There’s more, isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes, there’s more. Yesterday morning the man went back and returned the money. Left it there in a holdall without a word of explanation and went away again. Curious, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Yes,’ she breathed. ‘Very curious.’

  He picked up his briefcase. ‘You don’t look at all well, Mrs Mace. Are you quite sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Yes. Don’t worry about me. A slight headache, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, I’ll find my own way out. Take an aspirin. Nothing like aspirin when you’re feeling out of sorts. Goodbye, Mrs Mace.’

  She stayed where she was after he had gone, sitting at the table on which the glossy brochures had been spread, motionless, thinking. She had had suspicions before; vague feelings of uneasiness concerning Tom Lain’s past, of which he had told her so little, and that little perhaps not the truth. But she had always managed to suppress those suspicions, believing what she wanted to believe. Now she could blind herself no longer to the ugly facts.

  Those hints which he had given that he was in some kind of security business; they had been nothing but lies, a screen for the truth which he dared not tell her. And the pistol which he had used on the night of the attack on her by the two thugs; he had not carried it for security but for quite a different purpose.

  ‘Oh God!’ she murmured. ‘What do I do now?’

  She felt as if her whole world were tumbling around her, crashing in ruins, and that she was powerless to do a thing about it.

  She began to weep silently, the tears trickling down her cheeks and falling on to the table. But after a while she dried her eyes and went into the kitchen and began to prepare the midday meal. Though the world was in ruins the petty routine of life had to go on.

  Benton came in from the fields and washed his hands at the sink. She waited until he had finished his meal before saying anything of the revelation that had come to her during his absence. She looked at him, trying to see him in this new light of her knowledge of what he really was.

  And yet she could see no difference in him; he was still the same man who had walked out of the house earlier in the day; there had been no sudden change in him in the interval; the change had all been in her, in her understanding of the true nature of the predicament in which the two of them were involved. And she knew that whatever he was, whatever he had done, she loved him and would continue to love him as much as ever.

  He would have had to be very unobservant not to notice the nervous state she was in.

  He said: ‘You’ve been eating hardly anything. Aren’t you feeling well?’

  ‘I’m not hungry,’ she said. ‘I haven’t any appetite for food just now.’

  ‘Is this because of what we talked about last night?’

  ‘It’s more than that. Much more.’

  He had a flash of intuition. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it? While I’ve been out working. Has somebody been to the house?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A man named Proctor.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘To sell me double-glazing.’

  Benton had a sense of bathos. Double-glazing at a time like this!

  ‘You didn’t give him an order?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But that’s not all of it?’

  ‘No. He told me a story.’

  Benton gave an uneasy laugh. ‘A rep’s story! I hope it was decent.’

  Her expression remained sombre; no answering smile touched her face. ‘It was about something that happened in a small town in Suffolk.’

  ‘Ah!’

  ‘The town was Upmarket.’

  Benton said nothing. Both of them were silent, gazing at each other, waiting.

  Then she said: ‘You lied to me, Tom. You’ve been lying to me all along.’

  He made no attempt to deny it. There would have been no point in doing so; she would not have believed him.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth about yourself?’
/>   ‘Because I was afraid.’

  ‘Afraid? Of what?’

  ‘Of what your reaction would be.’

  ‘You’ve just been making use of me, haven’t you? You wanted a place where you could hide, and this seemed convenient.’

  ‘How can you believe that? If I’d been looking only to my own advantage would I have done what I have to help you? Would I have let myself become involved in your problems? I could have just walked away.’

  ‘You’re proposing to do that now.’

  ‘Only because I think it would be better for you. I can feel the net closing round me and I don’t want you to be caught in it with me.’

  ‘Why is the net closing on you? Not because of that business in Upmarket?’

  ‘No; there’s more than that; the devil of a lot more.’

  ‘You’d better tell me now,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to know it all. You can’t leave me in the dark any longer.’

  He gave a sigh. ‘Very well, I’ll tell you everything, every last damned thing. But you’re not going to like it. And for a start, my name isn’t Lain; it’s Benton.’

  After that he told it and she listened, staring fixedly at him and not saying a word, just taking it in, the whole damned sordid lot of it: the robberies, the killings, even that escapade with the tank in West Germany.

  When he had finished he waited for her to say something, and at last she did; though it was not what he was expecting.

  ‘That woman you were living with in London,’ she said. ‘Were you in love with her?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not like I’m in love with you.’

  ‘Is she pretty?’

  The time for lies was past and he answered truthfully: ‘Yes, she’s pretty.’

  ‘But you walked out on her all the same?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And now she’s in prison?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Again she was silent for a while, and he guessed that she was thinking it all over, trying to get used to it.

  He said: ‘You’re hating me now, aren’t you?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m not hating you, Tom.’

  ‘But you want me to go? Now that you’ve heard it all and know what sort of a bastard I am, you don’t want me around any more?’

  ‘That’s plain stupid,’ she said.