Thief Taker

by Alan Scholefield

  “How’s Frenchy?”

  “Taking her mum on a bus tour of Scotland. You want her to come over when she gets back?”

  “I’ll see.”

  “She’s got a soft spot for you, Mr Macrae.”

  “Yeah…well…You’re remembering what I said?”

  “What was that?”

  “Julius, you know bloody well.”

  Macrae was one of the few people who called him Julius and he appreciated it.

  “You mean about underage girls?”

  “Of course I mean that.”

  “I swear on my mother’s grave.”

  “You never had a mother.”

  “Cross my heart.”

  “Just you remember.”

  “On my oath!”

  Macrae said, “Robson Healey. The name mean anything to you?”

  “Only what I read in the papers. Shipping. Deceased.”

  “Deceased is putting it mildly.”

  CHAPTER X

  “Hello…this is Xxxtasy. Your call is costing 44p a minute and 33p a minute off-peak…My name is Barbara. What would you like to talk about?”

  Ronnie kept silent. This was the moment that gave him the initial charge: the little pause before he spoke. It made him feel powerful.

  “Barbara?” he said.

  He could hear a sudden intake of breath. That was good. “Barbara speaking.”

  “Guess,” he said.

  “I recognised your voice.”

  “I’m in a phone booth near Victoria Station. There’s every sort here. Blokes dressed up as girls, girls dressed up as blokes. You can get stoned for a couple of quid. You ever been stoned?”

  She did not reply.

  “I’d like us to get stoned together. I mean out of our skulls. So we were different people.”

  “That’d be great,” Barbara said, trying to express warmth. “Who’d you like to be?”

  “Like to be?”

  “If we were stoned.”

  “I don’t know. Who’d you like to be?”.

  “I am.”

  “You are?”

  “You know bloody well.”

  “Black Knight.”

  “Yeah.”

  Sideways and forward or forward and sideways but never in a straight line…That was old Crowhurst. He’d made a chess board and taught Ronnie. And then at Granton Ronnie had played chess with one of the psychologists. And the guy had asked him why he wanted to play chess — just like they asked him why he wanted to do every bloody thing — and if he said why the fuck do you want to know, they would say why do you think we want to know, Ronnie? And so he’d said he found chess cathartic. Cathartic. That had impressed the bastard. But Barbara wouldn’t know what it meant. Neither would his mother…

  “Are you there, Black Knight?”

  “I’m here. I’ve been watching them.”

  “Who?”

  “The two I told you about. I saw her tits. At the window. She came to the window with nothing on. Exposing herself. Small tits. I like them bigger.”

  Barbara said, “I see.” She still wasn’t expert at this.

  “It’s like a massage.”

  “What?”

  “This conversation.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Massages relax you. I want to be relaxed. Because pretty soon, Barbara, I’m going to…guess…”

  “I can’t, Black Knight.”

  “I want you to call me darling.”

  “I’m sorry I — ”

  “I’ll speak to your bloody supervisor! I’m paying for this, remember!”

  “There’s no need,” she said quickly.

  “Well call me darling then.”

  “All right.”

  “All right, darling.”

  “All right…darling.”

  “OK, so now I’ll tell you. They don’t know I’ve been watching them. She walks around the room without clothes on. I’ve seen that from the other side of the street. She doesn’t care. I don’t care either. Soon I’m going to…going to…Listen to me, Barbara! Soon…I’m going to have her. You know what I mean? And I’m going to make him watch. Then I’m going to take my gun…” -

  He heard the click as she put down the phone.

  He was shaking. He wanted to smash the phone. But it was one of the new vandal-proof models. He pulled and pushed and kicked — but all he did was hurt himself.

  Linda Macrae switched on the outside light and opened the street door. “George!”

  It was raining and George Macrae was wearing an overcoat and hat. The drops bounced off his hat on to his shoulders.

  “I was passing,” he said. It was a lie but it was the best he could do.

  “Well…I…”

  She was looking good, he thought. She wore a yellow silk shirt which showed her still-high breasts to full advantage and wide-legged black crepe trousers. Her feet were in high-heeled strappy sandals and her toenails brightly painted. Her brown hair was caught back in a pony-tail. Somehow she looked younger now in her forties than when they had been married.

  “Did you want something, George?”

  He was looking seedy, she thought. Uncared for. His face was flushed and she guessed he’d been drinking.

  “Just to see you,” he said. “I was passing…thought I’d drop in…I’ve been meaning to…”

  “George, I’m…”

  “You’re not going out, are you?”

  “Of course not. It’s nearly ten. For goodness sake, come in out of the rain.”

  He stood just inside the door. He hadn’t been to her new apartment before but had driven up and down the Clapham street several times thinking he’d pay a call and then postponed it for one reason or another.

  “About Susan,” he said.

  “What about her?”

  The question contained just enough hostility to produce a reaction in Macrae.

  “Well…you know…she’s my daughter too…”

  “Yes, I know, George.”

  “I want to know how she’s getting on.”

  “At ten o’clock at night!”

  “What’s the time matter?”

  “My God! You don’t ask about her from one month to the next…and suddenly — ”

  “Listen, you came to me! You asked for money so she could go swanning round South-East bloody Asia. Three thousand quid and now — !”

  “Keep your voice down! And you might remember, George, I hadn’t asked you for anything for years. Not for Susan or for me. I’ve earned every penny myself! And this trip was important to Susan.”

  A voice from above them said, “Linda? Are you all right?”

  She turned and answered up the stairs. “Yes. I’m fine.” Macrae stepped further into the house and scowled up at the man standing on the first-floor landing. They stared at each other.

  Linda watched Macrae for a moment and then, with a slight shrug, said, “You’d better come up, George — ”

  “Christ no, not if you’ve got company.”

  “Oh, come on. I’d like you to meet David anyway.”

  “Who’s David?” Macrae said, loud enough for the man on the upper landing to hear. She ignored him and led the way up the stairs.

  “David Leitman, this is George. I’ve told you about him.” Macrae reached the top of the stairs and, although he was a good six feet in height, found himself glancing up at someone who was a few inches taller.

  “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” Leitman said, putting out a hand.

  Macrae had no option but to take it.

  “We were just having a cup of coffee, George. Come in and join us.”

  “I don’t want to intrude,” Macrae said, but instantly followed her into the flat.

  The big room had a bay window. The curtains were drawn and the room, with only two spotlights playing on a ficus and a kangaroo vine, was dim and cosy. The predominating colours were white and green. The room cut through the apartment to the rear where there was a pine dining suit
e. From the plates and glasses Macrae realised that they must have just finished dinner.

  “Do you still take it black with sugar?” Linda said, pouring George a cup.

  “Aye. Still the same.”

  “Brandy?”

  There were two large snifters on the coffee table.

  “If you’re having one,” he said.

  She went to fetch a glass and Leitman said, “Not a very nice night.”

  “No.”

  “Won’t you sit down?”

  Macrae didn’t like being asked to sit down by some stranger in his ex-wife’s flat. Instead he walked to the window, touched the dark green velvet curtains then turned and studied Leitman. There was nothing subtle about it, he studied him as though he was a suspect in a police line-up.

  He saw a thin man with dark brown eyes and an aquiline face, greying hair and humour lines incised round his mouth. His accent was neutral. He was wearing a white polo-neck sweater, dark-blue corduroy trousers and white buckskin shoes. Macrae, who dressed formally, thought he looked like an actor and was ready to despise him.

  The only thing going for Macrae was that Leitman was older than he was himself. He guessed he was in his late forties or early fifties.

  As Macrae was examining him, Linda, at the far end of the room, looked over the snifter of brandy she was pouring for Macrae and studied them both.

  David was something new in her life. He had moved into the flat upstairs three months before and they had greeted each other on the communal staircase.

  She was wary about the kind of relationship that arose between people who shared the same building. She had heard several stories of affairs that had started well but then, when over, had not been allowed to die naturally because the lovers lived too close to each other.

  She had searched long and hard for this flat and it suited her. And even though she was lonely now that Susan had left the nest, she thought it a fair price to pay for an uncomplicated life.

  So she had kept to herself. But so had David. He had made no move to expand on “Good morning” or “Good evening”.

  He became something of a mystery to her. She had no idea what he did. He never wore a tie or a suit. And always seemed to be at home.

  Two weeks before she had seen him at the local supermarket staring uncertainly at a shelf of cleansing powders. She greeted him, and he said, “What does an automatic powder look like?”

  “It’s not the powder that’s automatic,” she said, laughing, “it’s the machine.”

  “Aha! They didn’t tell me that.”

  She pointed out a powder and went on her way. Later that Saturday there had been a knock on her door and he had asked for help.

  His kitchen floor was awash with foam and water. “I’m not much good with machines,” he had said, defensively.

  She helped him mop up and had then shown him how to use the machine. He had given her a cup of coffee, they had talked, she had left.

  The greetings on the stairs had been slightly warmer after that but that was all. Then, a few days ago, she had said, “How’s the washing machine?”

  “Fine, if you like washing machines.”

  Before she knew what she was doing she had said, “Would you like to come in and have a meal some time?”

  “I was just about to ask you if you’d come out to dinner with me.”

  She thought his diplomacy was perfect.

  “No truly,” he said, as though to dispel any such idea. “Cross my heart.”

  “Well, I asked you first.”

  “I’d like that very much. On one condition, that you let me bring the wine.”

  And so they had had dinner and he had told her briefly about himself. He had two grown-up children and been divorced for nearly three years. It was a background not unlike her own.

  And then George had arrived.

  Linda brought the brandy to Macrae who took it in his big fist.

  “David’s a writer,” she said. “You may have seen his books.”

  Macrae thought for a moment and then shook his head. “Do you write under your own name?”

  Leitman’s mouth turned up in a small smile. “Strangely enough, I do. It’s L-e-i-t-man. My great-great-grandparents came from Leipzig. When I worked on the Chronicle they made me spell it Lightman. The other was too foreign.”

  “The Chronicle? You’d have known the crime man then.”

  “Norman Paston? I’ve known him for years.”

  “George always likes to check up,” Linda said. “He never takes anything at face value.”

  “What sort of books do you write?” Macrae said.

  “Police procedurals.”

  “Police what?”

  Leitman smiled again, as though he was sharing a joke with himself. “Well, it’s embarrassing to discuss my work with someone like you. Linda told me what and who you are.” Linda thought he did not look embarrassed at all.

  Macrae said, “You mean like what sort of paper-clips we use. And Zebra Bravo calling Base…Roger over and out.”

  “Not quite. I’m more interested in the policeman as a social animal living in an enclosed society.”

  Macrae gave a harsh laugh. “Enclosed society?”

  Linda watched him nervously as he took half his brandy in a single gulp.

  “The police always think they have their backs to the wall. Whatever they do doesn’t seem to be right. It’s given them a kind of inferiority complex.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t mean individually, though one could probably make a case for that. But there’s a kind of corporate personality. The miners have it too. A feeling that no one understands them; that everyone but their own kind is against them.”

  “Where’d you get all this stuff?” Macrae said. “Books?”

  “And newspapers and television and my own observations. And I know a few ex-detectives who guide me.”

  “Oh.”

  “You see, George, he does his homework,” Linda said.

  “You make it sound as though we’re a kind of sub species,” Macrae said.

  “You are in a way. Look at the statistics. A higher divorce rate than average. A higher alcoholism rate than average. A higher stress rate than average. More financial problems than average.”

  Macrae thought for a moment, said nothing, then drained his glass and stood up.

  Linda made no move to stop him.

  “I’ll be getting back to my enclosed society,” Macrae said, and nodded curtly at Leitman.

  Linda came to the street door with him. She sensed that if she let him comment on David they’d have another row. So she quickly said, “I had a letter from Susan last week. From Bali. She’s having a lovely time and it’s doing her good.” She opened the door. “Good-night, George.”

  Before he knew it he was standing on the front step and the door was closing behind him and the rain was coming down on his head.

  When he got back home to Battersea he gave himself a large whisky and phoned Norman Paston on the Chronicle. They spoke briefly about the Healey killing. Paston, who often worked in a symbiotic relationship with George, had no information to offer.

  Macrae said, “Know a bloke called Leitman?”

  “David Leitman? There was a David Leitman on the Chronicle. Nice man. Good writer. Why?”

  “I met him.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t read him. He writes police novels. Good ones too.”

  “Why read about it when you’re doing it all the bloody time?”

  “That’s the spirit, Georgie.”

  He put down the phone, poured himself another whisky, turned on the TV, and watched the late news. There was a picture of Healey’s house in Chelsea with police cars outside it. He saw Silver come out into the square. Then himself. He thought he looked old.

  Police procedural!

  He felt anger take hold of him. He wanted to comfort himself by sneering at Leitman for being a writer. But like all Scots he had respect for the written wor
d and for the people who put it down on paper.

  CHAPTER XI

  Sometimes when the mood took her, or she “had the fever” as Chris had put it, Rachel Nihill would blank out and paint all day and all night. In fine weather she painted outside in the forest; when it was cold or rainy, in the caravan. At night she painted by the light of an oil lamp. She would paint…and paint…in oils or poster paints or acrylic; on canvas or hardboard or paper…anything that came to hand.

  She had just gone through such a spell, a feverish slice of time when days merged into nights and nights into days without her consciously realising the change. She was not even sure how long this “fever” had lasted, nor how many paintings she had made or what their subjects were.

  She stood outside under the grey morning sky and looked at the dense growth of oaks and beech trees and wild elder which surrounded her. This glade was so remote that she could hear no noise of traffic, could see no building or manmade artefact. All she could hear was the bell of Lexton church in the distance.

  When she had first come here with Chris it had been winter and the forest a place of dark magic. She had been frightened.

  Now she had become used to it. She belonged.

  The caravan had once been owned by a real gypsy but it had fallen into decay. It had been Chris’ idea that she should buy it. He had been excited by the prospect, which was not surprising since he was part gypsy himself.

  He had refurbished it, painted the wood a dark reddish brown and had decorated it in true gypsy fashion with curlicues of green and gold. The interior matched. There were two bunks, a little dresser for china and pots and pans and a small wood-burning stove for heating and cooking. Everything was miniature. When it was finished Rachel had never seen anything so beautiful.

  She had named it EREWHON. Chris had wanted to name it WANDERER but it was hers to name. He had made a poker-work nameplate which he had fixed near the door. They had bought a horse which she christened Nemo and they had wandered together along the narrow lanes of Somerset until they came to the Forest of Dean. He had grown up in similar countryside and was immediately at home. But the forest reminded Rachel of Victorian fairy tales about mad giants and witches and lost children.

  Now, standing outside the caravan, as the breeze ruffled her long, flowing dress, she felt, for the first time since Chris had left her, that she could face the day. She told herself that this was a new start. She had her own life to lead, she need not be dependent on him or any man.