A Fairly Dangerous Thing

by Reginald Hill

  ‘I’m sorry. Seriously, what makes you ask, Maggie? I mean, there’s all kinds of trouble. Financial, professional. Emotional.’

  Slight stress on that word. She doesn’t react. Forget it.

  Maggie hesitated, but only a second.

  ‘I’m not sure. Police trouble? I was out last night with Maurice.’

  ‘Maurice?’

  ‘Sergeant Prince.’

  ‘Oh, that Maurice.’

  That was silly. Being clever again. You want to hear this, Askern. This could be bad.

  ‘He mentioned you in passing. Not in confidence, I don’t think. I feel he might even have wanted me to drop a hint to you.’

  Big of him!

  There. You kept it in that time.

  ‘About what, for God’s sake?’

  ‘Well, something to do with what happened at the Golden Calf the other night, I think. You were mentioned in passing, by Maurice not me, I assure you. And he added something about the people you go around with. It was more the way he said it.’

  Joe’s nerves were wearing thin.

  ‘What did he say, Maggie? Just tell me that. Not what you think he meant, not what he indicated by winks, nods and masonic signs. Just what he said!’

  Temperature down to zero now. What the hell!

  ‘He asked if you knew Averingerett well. After I answered, he said, “Not a place he’d get lost in, then?” Naturally I wasn’t greatly interested in talking about you on a pleasant evening out, so I changed the subject. But he did add that you seem to choose your enemies as carelessly as you chose your friends. After that we moved on to pleasant topics.’

  The Hon. Jule! The blue-blood ghoul! It had to be Jule. The chinless bastard hadn’t dared make a formal complaint with Mrs Throgmorton’s charms displayed to all and sundry on the counterpane. But he’d pick up the phone, have a word with Prince (whom he would remember from the Golden Calf. Off the record, Sergeant, old chappie. Thought you ought to know, don’t you know? Twat! And for all I know he’s had a quiet word with the Director of Education, the East Midlands Gas Board, and my credit tailor.

  But Prince was the worst. He remembered the blue Cortina. Could this be the police keeping an eye on him? Though, if it were, why should Prince give this warning through Maggie? A Machiavellian stimulus to action perhaps?

  Suddenly a flash of joy lit up Joe’s mental gloom. If the police were showing an interest, surely this would make a cancellation of the raid absolutely certain!

  Something of his lightening of heart must have shown in his eyes, for Maggie, who had looked as if she might soften again in the face of an unburdening of woes, turned to leave.

  He put out his hand and held her arm. The contact reminded him that in his school-based sexual fantasies the English store-room was nearly always the favoured location for the big scene. In practical terms (and his fantasies were never entirely without hope) it was the only place in the building where he could hope to be alone and unobserved with a woman.

  Play it cool, Askern, he warned himself.

  ‘Thank Maurice, Sergeant Prince,’ he said.

  It was the right formula.

  ‘What’s it all about, Joe?’ she said turning to him, all big worried eyes, soft moist lips and splendid ready-for-mothering bosom.

  Every emotional atom in him cried tell! tell! But his mind knew it was quite impossible. The least he could do was make sure that others were in no way involved in his predicament, until he was sure it was no longer a predicament. Especially not people like Maggie. If he was going to confess all, Sergeant Prince was the man. That would be purposeful. It would mean he had plumped for law and order at the expense of personal safety. Whereas to tell Maggie would mean he had chosen the comfort of the confessional at the expense of making someone he was fond of as much an accessory as himself.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘A misunderstanding. And I’m big enough to choose my own friends.’

  She shrugged and left. He watched her go. She was as lovely in retreat as she was face-on. A tremor compounded of affection and pure lust ran through his body. It would be nice to have a wife like Maggie.

  Nice. But unlikely. Most unlikely. Still, he couldn’t really see her as a copper’s wife either. Even less as a convict’s. Convict. The word, knell-like, tolled him back to all his woes.

  By the time Friday arrived he was feeling optimistic again. He had heard nothing. It must be off. In any case, why was he so bothered? You could make out a good historical case for plundering Averingerett of every last treasure it contained. The Trevigores themselves had little claim on his affection. The Hons. Jule and Helen seemed a revolting pair of upper-class weirdos, while Lord Trevigore, from what he had read of his contributions in the Upper Chamber, sounded like an Anglican Ku-Klux-Clansman.

  It would almost be a pity if nothing came of the plan.

  Halfway through the day he was further cheered by the appearance of Miss Onions, flushed with tremendous indignation. She had been seen from time to time visiting the school in the evening. Questions about the Chubb trial were always met by an indignant refusal to answer on the grounds of civic duty. But she had exuded a smug confidence that things were going as she had foreseen, which boded ill for Chubb. So it had come as a thunderbolt shock to her when at the close of the prosecution’s case, the judge had directed the jury to bring in a verdict of not guilty without letting matters go any further.

  ‘A travesty of justice!’ she cried. ‘He was clearly guilty!’ Joe found himself exchanging smiles with Maggie, which also improved things considerably.

  ‘Poor old Onions!’ he said to her. ‘And lucky old Chubb!’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, a slight frown puckering her exquisitely smooth brow. ‘I don’t think Maurice will be very pleased either.’

  The mention of Sergeant Prince wasn’t very encouraging, but the hint that Maggie didn’t see eye to eye with him on matters criminal more than compensated.

  ‘Will you go out with me again, Maggie?’ he asked on an impulse.

  She eyed him quizzically.

  ‘I might do, Joe. Ask me again some time.’

  Which wasn’t bad in the circumstances.

  On Saturday, the bubble burst. When the phone rang and Jim’s voice said, ‘Seven-thirty. Don’t be late,’ he knew without asking that the raid was on again.

  When he arrived at the meeting it seemed as if everything had been arranged and the discussion was now purely about remuneration.

  Killer and Third Man, it appeared, were on a fixed fee and reckoned that lions were worth a couple of hundred more. The other three were on percentages and Bertie wanted to adjust these in his favour, the strength of his position being his function in the marketing. Cess was not pleased but knew he was in a corner.

  ‘Hello, lad,’ he said, acknowledging Joe’s arrival ten minutes after it had happened. ‘Take a look at that.’

  That was a list, compiled by Bertie with expert advice, of particular items his buyers had asked for and for which a price had been agreed. This ran at between fifty and sixty per cent of their market value where this was known. The grand total was breath-taking.

  ‘You check that, Joe,’ said Cess grimly, with a hard stare at Bertie. ‘See we’re not being fiddled. There’s some dishonest folk about.’

  ‘It’s on then, is it?’ asked Joe hopelessly.

  ‘Bloody right it is!’ said Cess. ‘New date, four weeks on Saturday.’

  ‘That’ll be the first weekend the lions’ park will be opened to the public,’ said Joe.

  Cess laughed.

  ‘So what? We’re not letting a few lions bother us!’ he said, rubbing his hands together as though eager to take on the entire animal kingdom in personal combat. Joe wondered what had happened to make the burglary feasible once more. He held out the list.

  ‘That seems OK.’

  Cess stopped laughing.

  ‘You check it, lad. Carefully. Bit by bit. I want to know everything there is to know about those items. It’s
important. Then make out a list of your own. Anything else worth nicking. As long as it’s easily carried and the kind of stuff people buy. Remember now, whatever’s on your list you get five per cent of what we flog it for. So choose well.’

  He paused, but Joe had the feeling there was still something to come.

  ‘Five per cent?’ he said.

  ‘That’s right. And three thousand anyway, basic. That’s fair, eh,’ Cess said jovially.

  ‘Three thousand?’ said Joe puzzled.

  ‘Aye. Three grand,’ said Cess defensively. ‘It’s what we can afford, Joe. There’s a lot of overheads in a business like this.’

  ‘Pounds?’ said Joe, amazed. ‘You’re going to pay me three thousand pounds?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But why? Look, Cess, you’ve got me by the short hairs. All right. So I’ll give you what information I can about Averingerett. But more than that, I don’t want to be involved. I mean, if anyone pays me three thousand pounds, then that’s for real work, isn’t it? That’s real involvement!’

  He paused and looked defiantly around. Bertie lit a cheroot and coughed phlegmily.

  ‘You haven’t told him, Cess?’ he said.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Cess, just a trifle uneasily. ‘I still don’t see …’

  ‘You tell him. It makes sense. Your new scheme sounds good, but I want all the insurance I can get. You tell him.’

  ‘Tell me what?’ asked Joe with growing unease. ‘What is there to tell me? You ask me about the house. I’ll tell you all I know. That’s your deal. What else is there to it?’

  All the uncertainty left Cess’s face.

  ‘There’s just a bit more, Joe. So listen carefully. I’ll say it once. There’s no point in arguing. With our new plan, speed is of the essence. We need someone who knows his way around so there’s no delay in getting the business done. Bertie’s very keen on the idea, and Bertie’s the big man.’

  A note of irony had come into his voice for a moment, but Joe was not concerned with irony.

  ‘What idea?’ he demanded, an awful suspicion hardening in his mind.

  ‘You’ve been promoted, lad,’ said Cess. ‘That’s why you’re worth three thou. You’re not just adviser any more. You’re coming with us on the job!’

  PART II

  I do not know a pleasure more affecting

  than to range at will over the deserted

  apartments of some fine old family mansion.

  Charles Lamb

  CHAPTER I

  The blood pounded desperately through Joe’s veins, his sight was misted, there was a roaring in his ears and his back was racked with a thin edge of pain. He knew he could not stand much more of this.

  ‘Oh,’ he cried. ‘Oh! Oh! Ohhh!’

  And ‘Ohhhhh!’ sighed Alice.

  She was really very good. In fact superb. All Joe’s former notions about doing her a favour had proved a dreadful misreading of the situation. She was eager, yes; enthusiastically receptive. But she gave a good guinea for every poundsworth she received.

  After all his conscious plans both for avoiding and for receiving her advances, the actual event had taken place with an unforeseeable casualness. In his own case Joe put it down to his new sense of the transience of life, rather like wartime pilots who knew their next sortie might be their last. Three weeks had passed since the last meeting with Cess. His efforts to withdraw from active participation in the robbery had failed miserably. He had taken Cess to one side, in itself a tribute to the depth of his feelings, and pleaded with him. But the ginger man had affected to take this as an effort to get more money.

  ‘I’m not interested in money!’ protested Joe. ‘I don’t want any money.’

  ‘Piss off,’ said Cess, amused. ‘Everyone wants money. You’ll get done like the rest of us if we’re caught. Before or after. I know you a bit better now, Joe. You’re a realist. You’ll take your cut.’

  Reluctantly, even through his fears, Joe had to admit the diagnosis was not altogether inaccurate.

  ‘How much of the last lot have you got left?’ asked Cess, pressing home his advantage. ‘Precious little. Right?’

  ‘Wrong,’ said Joe gloomily. ‘Bugger all.’

  Cess laughed triumphantly.

  ‘Look, Joe,’ he said, confidentially. ‘I’d rather you didn’t come along. Lord Jim’s doubtful, but Bertie’s got this thing about it. So set your mind to it.’

  ‘But how are you going to get in?’ demanded Joe. ‘It’s almost impossible!’

  ‘Never you mind about that,’ said Cess smugly.

  He peeled a few fivers off a roll.

  ‘You push off now, lad. Work on those lists. Here, take these. Enjoy yourself, but don’t make a splash.’

  Suddenly Joe remembered Sergeant Prince’s interest and quickly he related what Maggie had told him, mentioning the blue Cortina, and adding a few extra touches to make it sound really bad.

  ‘I thought I should let you know I might be under surveillance,’ he finished in his best sincerely worried voice.

  Cess had roared with laughter.

  ‘Oh, I like you, Joe, lad! Watching you! Who the hell’s going to waste time watching you! Haven’t you heard? There’s a police shortage? The buggers don’t have enough men to watch me and they know for certain I’m a criminal. Bloody delusions of grandeur, that’s your trouble. Under surveillance!’

  Curiously Joe had felt so hurt by this diminution of his criminal status that his mind had been partly diverted from its concern at his recent promotion in the hierarchy.

  The routine of school life had helped to distance even further his new involvement, though a couple of visits from Lord Jim had ensured it didn’t slip too far out of mind. Jim had been concerned to pick his brains as cleanly as possible of everything he knew about the electrical system in operation in the house, and Joe, conscious now of his own survival needs, co-operated as fully as possible, peering through technical journals in an effort to identify the type of alarm console in use at Averingerett, and answering questions whose significance often entirely escaped him. It was surprising how much he knew. Somehow he had picked up the information that a new sprinkler anti-fire system had been installed throughout the house. And that something called graphite cushions were being used somewhere.

  Lord Jim reacted unemotionally to all information; but a curious kind of rapport was reached between them. Alice had twice run into the little squat man again as Joe was letting him out and regarded him with a fearful fascination which Joe thought he recognized.

  Perhaps it was the feeling that he shared something with the girl; more probably it was the fact that Maggie, though on the surface as easy with him as of old, still refused to let him take her out; but whatever the cause, it had seemed perfectly right and proper to kiss Alice passionately when he bumped into her on the front doorstep one night.

  He had been on his way for a fish-and-chip supper. He dined two hours later on chicken paté and chocolate mousse. Followed by coffee. With another two-hour gap between the mousse and the coffee.

  It was a revelation to him. He only hoped it hadn’t been a disappointment to Alice.

  ‘Why didn’t you ever marry?’ he asked as he sipped his coffee.

  ‘What makes you think I didn’t?’ she answered, enigmatically.

  He considered the question a moment. True. It seemed unlikely that a woman of Alice’s talents would go unasked. Though he had been happy enough to ignore her for long enough. Not any more though.

  Thoughts of Maggie gently nudged his mind and were reluctant to be pushed away. Somehow, despite the last four hours for which he was most grateful, Maggie still seemed more marriable. Not that there was much chance.

  ‘Are you then?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘For the moment. We didn’t suit.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘He was short of … stamina, I suppose.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Joe again, feeling uneasily short of stamina himself. But no
more demands seemed in the immediate offing.

  ‘That friend of yours. Jim? Does he teach?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Joe laughed. ‘In a way.’

  ‘He seems … interesting.’

  ‘He’s certainly that,’ replied Joe.

  Shortly afterwards he made his way back to his own flat, driven partly by fatigue but also by a reluctance to answer any more questions about Lord Jim. It would have been too easy in the comfortable half-awakening of a shared bed to confide more than a good criminal should.

  When he glanced out of his window, smiling at the picture of himself as the master criminal, he was jerked awake by the sight of the blue Cortina parked directly opposite the house. Suddenly angry, he grabbed his dressing-gown round his shoulders, raced back down the stairs and flung open the front door just in time to see the Cortina’s tail-lights disappearing round the corner. He watched them go, his anger subsiding to a cold unease. Who the hell was it? The police? Cess even? And why either?

  They’re not very good at it anyway, he tried to reassure himself. Not very successfully.

  I only know the one I’ve seen, his thoughts went on. And God knows how long it was before I spotted him.

  He shivered, realized it wasn’t just his fear that made him cold, and quickly closed the door.

  Behind him stood Alice.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Joe. ‘Just a car. I thought it was in some kind of trouble, but it’s gone now.’

  ‘I see,’ said Alice. She had put on a plain cotton nightdress with no pretensions to seductiveness, but there was something very alluring about it nonetheless. She went back into her flat.

  ‘Another coffee?’ she asked through the half-open door.

  Joe realized he felt wide awake. At least an hour’s sleepless worrying lay in store for him upstairs.

  ‘All right,’ he said, closing her door behind him.

  ‘God, you look shattered!’ said Vernon the next morning. ‘What’ve you been up to? Trying to break the world record?’

  ‘Insomnia,’ said Joe.