I almost lost hold on my life-preserving prow, in my relief at being told off, once again, in the inimitable tones of Gus Tribble Esquire.
*
I prefer not to dwell on our joint struggle to the shore. Even now, I get goose-pimples just thinking about it. It seemed to take an eternity, and agonize what was left of every muscle in our bodies.
When at last I felt something firm beneath my feet, I let go of the section of the boat, which promptly sank like a stone. The table, however, with its decades of elbow grease and beeswax polish, still floated proudly with its cocked leg; and Gus and I half stumbled, half swam, with its aid the last hundred feet or so onto the beach. There we lay, covered in streaks of oil, blood and now, in Gus’s case, vomit.
The first voice we heard through our blitzed ear drums was that of a middle-aged lady asking if we were all right.
‘Get us help, for God’s sake,’ I slurred.
She didn’t move, rooted to the spot as the seriousness of what she had witnessed hit her.
Gus pushed a blood-covered arm forward and grabbed her by the foot. She screamed with alarm.
‘Look, you stupid old cow, get us help and quick,’ he muttered between fits of coughing. ‘We’ve just had a thundering great bomb go off under our arses.’
By now I could see quite a few clusters of feet. Then a man’s face hovered over mine.
‘This man’s bleeding badly,’ he said with the right note of urgency. They both are. And it looks as if his arm is broken.’ His face disappeared, and I heard shouts, and the drumming of running feet on the sand, and then I decided I didn’t care any more. I went out like a light.
*
When I came to again (that is, as distinct from floating in and out of consciousness), it had all been done. I found myself looking into the clear blue eyes of a blonde nurse, who would have done credit (or something) to Doctor Kildare. After telling me where I was — Bournemouth General Hospital — she took me on a guided tour of my own body. She showed me the nice white plaster in which they had hidden my left arm (a clean break in two places), the foot-wide bandage over my right thigh (rather nasty gash), and then she helped me count the individual pieces of Band-Aid plaster that were scattered over my anatomy like sticky confetti. (‘Twenty-eight, Mr Marklin.’ I didn’t agree with her. I counted twenty-nine, but perhaps she did not like to draw attention to where the twenty-ninth was.)
My first question was, of course, where was Gus? She immediately pulled back the curtains at the left side of the bed, and there was an Egyptian mummy with little windows that showed little pieces of Gus. But at least the mummy was sitting upright in bed, and eating grapes, which was more than I was doing.
I whispered to the blonde and white distraction, ‘How is he?’
She whispered back, ‘Fine. Don’t take any notice of the bandages. He’s just more badly cut than you are, that’s all. But no bones broken — just a mass of bruises. You were both lucky, you know, when your engine exploded.’
So that was what they thought, was it? Old boat, old engine, old petrol tank, old owner, another jolly old explosion at sea. I didn’t argue, right then. She was the wrong person to argue with. Instead, I asked, ‘When can I go?’
She pointed to the other end of the ward. ‘Any time. The loo is just up there. You’re fit enough to walk.’
I raised my eyebrows. I’d learnt over the years, it doesn’t pay to get cross with blondes.
‘I didn’t mean that, sweetheart. I meant when can I go home?’
‘Tomorrow, I expect, after the doctors have seen you.’
‘Well, in that case, would you get someone to ring Detective Inspector Trevor Blake — remember that name, I don’t want any other boy in blue — and ask him to come over and see me? Oh, and say he doesn’t need to bring any grapes. Just an assassination-proof suit, and an Insurance Policy for ten million pounds, made out in favour of my cat.’
Her goo-goo eyes double-took and I could see that she wasn’t one of that year’s favourites for the Mastermind title.
However, within the hour, I was wheeled into a little office off Matron’s room. But my nurse had forgotten the bit about the grapes. He had brought some, after all.
*
‘How do you know it was a bomb?’ Blake looked me straight in the eyes. ‘You don’t know really, do you?’
Up to now, he had listened to my story with the utmost attention and seeming sympathy, and in my present condition, I needed his change of tone like a hole in the head.
‘Look, Inspector, I’ve just bloody well had enough of playing patsy for you and the whole damned police force. So fuck you, Inspector. Do your own dirty work.’
I started to get out of the wheel-chair, but then thought better of it. The room had begun to go round.
Blake rose from behind the desk, and pulled a chair up to my aluminium National Health go-kart. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Marklin. I did not mean to upset you — especially after your horrifying ordeal. Maybe we should leave this talk until tomorrow …’
‘No,’ I replied vehemently, ‘we’ve got to have it now. In your clever, insidious way, you’ve got me to do what you can’t authorize your boys to do, without getting into big trouble, haven’t you? You’ve wanted me to uncover the evidence that lets you take the action without risk of opprobrium from any quarter. Well, sod you, Inspector, I’m not playing any more. You’ve done bugger all on your own. You didn’t even discover the skeleton. We did. And it was the forensic boys, not you, who discovered it wasn’t Pilot Officer Redfern, but some woman. And I found my toys by myself.’ I ran out of breath, and began feeling a little faint. It gave time for the Inspector to lean down and pick up a package resting on the floor by the desk. He began unwrapping it.
‘You didn’t recover all of them, I believe, Mr Marklin.’ My mind was fuzzy, but not so bad that I didn’t remember I’d implied to him that I had found the lot.
‘No. How do you know? There was one missing.’
He had finished the unwrapping now, and held up its contents for me to see.
‘Is this the one, Mr Marklin?’
He handed me a P2 Alfa Romeo. I didn’t need to inspect it very long to know it was the one from Monsieur Vincent, for no P2 I had ever seen matched its mint quality.
‘It looks like it. Where did you get it?’
‘The Swiss police found it amongst Mr Vivian Stone’s effects, when they arrested him a couple of days back in Geneva.’
It suddenly made sense. Treasure had said he had sold it to a fellow collector on his trip to Geneva.
‘How did you all trace Stone?’
‘Quite simple really. We thought the international toy auction held there would be too much of a temptation for him to miss. And so it proved. The Swiss police identified him at the auction, and followed him back to where he was living, just outside the city. Got him and his wife — and a Swiss girl he was using as a courier.’
I thought of them both by their baby-blue pool. I guessed that was the last tan either of them would be getting for a few years.
He continued, ‘He only had one vintage toy with him. This one. And because it seemed to answer the description of one from your lost collection, I asked to have it flown over for identification.’ He smiled at me, nicely, not cockily. ‘So you see, Mr Marklin, we do succeed sometimes on our own. Mr Stone is now the subject of extradition proceedings on a charge of illicit trading in diamonds, and being concerned with others in fencing the plunder of various robberies in Hatton Garden.’
I was silent for a bit, and the Inspector picked the P2 Alfa Romeo gently off my lap, and said quietly, ‘I’m afraid I shall have to take this back just for a while until further investigations have taken place. You know how it is.’
I didn’t argue. I was now feeling a lot less strong-minded than when first I’d been wheeled into the room.
‘What are you going to do about Treasure?’ I asked eventually.
Blake sighed. ‘There’s very little we can do at the mo
ment, whatever our, or your, suspicions may be. And don’t jump to conclusions. I’m not implying that our suspicions are the same as yours.’
‘What about the bones? Anything new there?’ I asked, and I knew I’d made a huge mistake. I was getting involved again. Put it down to twenty-nine pieces of Band-Aid, and the effects of being plastered. And, don’t let us forget the insidious timing of Sexton Blake.
‘Woman about five-feet six. Around thirty. Average build, probably. Buried about three to five years. Jaw parts of skull missing, therefore no dental records. No fractures prior to death. Traces of acid, probably due to immersion, to dissolve the flesh faster. That’s about it.’
It didn’t take a genius to ask the next question.
‘How tall was Mrs Veronica Treasure?’
‘Five-feet six and a half. But don’t jump to premature conclusions. We have, on our local files, three women that would fit that description, who disappeared about that same time, and have never been seen since: barmaid from Swanage, a vet’s assistant from Wool, and a farmer’s wife from Blandford Forum. That’s why private eyes can never understand why the police take so long with their enquiries, Mr Marklin. There’s so much information to sift, so many interviews to conduct, and so many paths of enquiry to follow. The modern use of computers is beginning to speed it all up, I’m glad to say. But still …’
I cut in, ‘… You still need mini computers — private eyes, rather than public ones?’
He grinned, and held out his hand. I shook it with my one good one. God knows why.
‘I take it,’ I said slowly, ‘you won’t be tackling Treasure about the toys right now?’
‘I’d rather not, Mr Marklin. I would prefer to have a complete dossier than half or a quarter of one.’
‘And he’s a powerful man?’
He ignored the sally, but I persevered. My dander was rising again.
‘How long will it bloody take you to connect Treasure with the bomb on our boat?’
‘What bomb, Mr Marklin? Old boats have a tendency to catch fire, you know. Rotten electrics can spark an explosion. There only has to be a slight leak of fuel …’
‘And you can catch VD from loo seats, and the kiss of life is how you get Aids, and don’t we all believe in virgin births in Bognor …’ I was starting to get very, very tired.
‘I know how you feel, believe me.’ He got up and looked down at me, in an avuncular fashion. ‘We’ll examine every piece of the wreckage of the boat. And I’m sending some divers down to scour the seabed in the vicinity. We’ve already interviewed a lot of people at Mudeford who may have seen something.’
‘Do you want yet another description of Ken Gates? I’m sure Treasure would not soil his own hands in wiring up a device to an oily engine.’
‘We know Mr Gates, don’t you worry.’
‘Don’t I worry? You must be kidding. He could kill me in hospital. That’s always happening on those TV series. “Excuse me, Nurse, you’re wanted down in surgery.” Crash, bang, wallop, you’re dead. And from a disease you didn’t have when you were admitted. It’s called murder and it’s incurable, I’m told by usually reliable sources.’
He took my hand. ‘We are aware of that, and have taken precautions. You should get back to bed, you know, and try to get a good night’s sleep. It’s very late.’
I sniggered, and withdrew my hand. He made for the door, then looked round.
‘Mr Marklin, I want you to remember this. What you do is your own affair, you know. We’ll get there all on our own, in our own way, and in our police time-scale. There’s no doubt about it. You’ve got your toys back — and I’m privately very delighted about that, as a policeman, and as a toy collector — and you can live your life in peace now, and leave all risks to professional public servants, who are trained and paid to take them.’
I smiled for the first time. Talking of payment, Inspector Trevor Blake, you owe me approximately a million pounds for what Tve done for you already.’
He opened the door, and beckoned to a nurse.
‘I know,’ he said quietly, and waved his hand in a farewell salute.
Twelve
Arabella picked us up just before twelve the next day. Our leaving the hospital did not exactly have the blessing of the medical staff, who wanted to detain us at least for a further twenty-four hours. However, I wanted to get home for a host of reasons, most of which were Arabella. Gus wanted to get back to see about the insurance on his boat, and see if it contained a clause covering ‘detonations caused by hairy-handed, ambidextrous, millionaire landowners’, as he almost put it. (I substituted the word ‘ambidextrous’ for Gus’s more earthy alternative.) So we discharged ourselves after Blondie had raised our temperatures by inspecting all our bandages and plasters.
The Queen of the Mynd, bless her, had rushed to the hospital after she had heard a belated report of our little drama from her car radio, and our reunion in the ward had to be seen to be believed. I think they began considering getting a surgeon in to separate us. Gus was the soul of discretion; he turned the other bandage, and left us to it.
I worried about Arabella on the way home. Firstly, she was in a rather strange mood — her greeting of me in the hospital had been intense to the point of desperation. And, on a lighter note, she must have looked like a chauffeur to The Invisible Man, with Gus sitting there swathed from head to foot. And I wasn’t much better — a kind of mobile (just) advertisement for the Band-Aid company. I even thought of selling space on my plaster.
An emaciated Bing greeted us on arrival with a fine selection of Siamese cat calls, the volume of which was turned down with a tin of Whiskas opened by my lady rescuer. (You try opening a tin with only one arm.) Gus suggested he’d better get off home, and I said he mustn’t, he must stay to lunch, which he did. It was the first time I had ever tasted Arabella’s cooking. Let me tell you, that girl makes a mean stuffed savoury pancake, and her pommes lyonnaise were as mouth watering as the rest of her. As Gus pointed out, ‘They beat potatoes right into the ground.’
Curiously, none of us drank very much at lunch — we didn’t quite finish the second bottle of white wine. I think we were all beginning to feel the second shock wave from our brush with death. And I, for one, could not get Treasure out of my mind for more than a few minutes at a time, which did not help matters.
Soon after we had washed up and packed all the dishes away, Gus fell asleep in his chair and began making noises like a stag at rutting time. Arabella took me by the hand and led me quietly upstairs — but not for what you think. She wanted to talk. She made me rest back on the bed, while she sat on the edge and held my good hand. I felt a hundred and eight years old, and told her so. She kissed me softly between two of the plasters and said she didn’t mind the age gap.
I said, ‘Does that mean … ?’
She smiled and nodded. ‘No, I’m never going to see him again, Mr Peter Marklin. Not now.’
I squeezed her hand. ‘Thank God my darling, thank God.’
Neither of us said anything for a bit, and then she said, ‘What are you going to do now? You must, must let the police handle it from here.’
So I told her all about my session with Trevor Blake the previous evening. She became quite upset.
‘Look, you idiot, he’s getting you to do his dirty work, the way Treasure gets Ken Gates to do his. And what’s worse, you don’t get any reward for what you do — unless you consider all the excitement of two near assassinations some kind of reward. And I don’t think you’re a down-the-line masochist — or are you? Certainly I’m not, and I can’t watch it …’
She got up and walked over to the window. Then she turned and looked at me with the wonderful intensity of her dark eyes.
‘Did you tell Blake about the diaries?’ she asked.
‘No,’ I replied weakly.
‘Why not? They’re probably the key to all of it. Once he has found the diaries …’
‘He’ll never find them.’
She came
back to the bed and looked down at me.
‘Why bloody not?’
‘He won’t know where to look, for one thing,’ I propped myself up on my elbow, ‘any more than we do. And, for another, directly old Treasure hears of a gang of police about to come up to his castle door with a search warrant, he’ll have the diaries spirited away with the speed of light. Don’t forget Blake has intimated pretty clearly that Treasure has friends in the local force.’
‘But not in Scotland Yard?’
‘I hope not, otherwise I’ll never make an honest buck again, even if I survive long enough for money to matter.’
She sat down by me again, and my hand had a visit from a friend. ‘It’s pretty terrifying, isn’t it?’
‘What is?’ I asked, but really knew the answer.
‘To think that the whole country, the whole world even, must be full of people like Treasure who get away with, yes, murder even, and no one can touch them, because there isn’t any proof.’
‘And there isn’t going to be any proof, unless …’
She looked at me hard, then turned away.
‘You’re an idiot, a stark, staring, raving idiot,’ she almost spat out, and it wasn’t hard to detect that note of desperation had returned in full measure.
*
She left soon after, to help her cousin get the nursery produce and bedding plants ready to take to Weymouth the next day. Her mood suddenly switched to one of too careless humour. She stood at my shop door, wearing a ridiculous peaked hat I had never seen before, and gave a General MacArthur salute, swearing, ‘I will return.’ With her in charge of a US army, the Japanese would have capitulated the day after Pearl Harbor.
While missing her like mad, I was glad of a little time on my own. (Gus was still pushing zzs in the sitting-room.) I went into the shop, and opened up for business — a move I regretted in seconds, as my first customer was a local reporter, complete with camera. I gave him just the bare bones of the story, and was careful not even to hint at the likely cause of the explosion. I give him full marks for ferreting, but very few for tact, as he tried to get me to pose for a photograph with my sweater pulled up and my shirt undone to show some of my plasters. I told him firmly, in the end, that I was not that kind of fellow. He blinked, and went away frowning. No wonder reporters are often lousy at writing — they obviously have never read anything.
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