Thief Taker

by Alan Scholefield

  “Who?” Silver said.

  “Prisoners. Some of them don’t like to write personal messages to their wives or girlfriends knowing the censors are going to read the letters. So they put it on the envelopes. Zoe’s was probably a joke. Come on, let’s go and see Charles Harris Esquire.”

  As they drove back along the M4, Silver comforted himself with the thought that if the envelope had come from Purvis then it meant he was still in prison and had got someone who’d served his sentence to push it through his letter-flap. But he’d check anyway.

  CHAPTER XII

  “Luncheon is served,” Ronnie said with a flourish, bringing the tray into the bedroom.

  He was feeling chipper. He’d learnt that from old Crowhurst. The old sod often said he was feeling chipper. God knew why since he was in the bleedin’ nick.

  His mother was facing away from the door. When she turned he saw that her eyes were red.

  Bloody waterworks. If it wasn’t one end it was the other. “You all right?” he asked.

  “’Course I’m not all right!”

  This was an old scene.

  “It’s all that sherry.”

  “All that what!”

  “Alcoholic remorse. That’s what it is. Makes you feel rotten and brings on the old tears.”

  “That’s what you think, is it?”

  “It’s what I know.”

  He remembered old Crowhurst brewing hooch in the nick out of potato peelings and anything else he could steal from the kitchen. He used to drink a half a gallon of the stuff at a time. It’s a wonder it hadn’t killed him. Then the whining and the crying and the feeling sorry for himself.

  She asked for a little pink bed-jacket and he settled the tray on her lap.

  “What’s that?” she said.

  “Luncheon meat.”

  “I don’t want luncheon meat.”

  “What d’you want then?”

  “I want proper meals! It’s bad enough being where I am without having to eat this muck!”

  “You expecting me to cook?”

  “Why not? You don’t do anything else.”

  “I’m not bloody cooking.”

  “And watch your tongue.” She moved the luncheon meat about on the plate. “You never give me a hot meal.”

  “You get Meals-on-Wheels.”

  “Ugh! They smell of those aluminium dishes they keep them warm in. Horrible.”

  “You’re lucky. Years ago you wouldn’t have got someone bringing you in a meal.”

  “Years ago children looked after their parents and cooked for them properly.”

  “You got a house, a roof over your head, you got a telly, you got a car — ”

  “And that’s another thing! Did you take my car last night?”

  “Only for a while.”

  “I’ve told you before. If you want to use the car you ask me. Where are the keys? Bring me the keys! I’ll keep the keys and if you want to use it you ask.”

  “Why? It’s no good to you.”

  “Because it’s my car, that’s why.”

  “You’re never gonna drive the bloody thing again.”

  “Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. It’s no business of yours.”

  “You won’t! Face it!”

  She threw her head to one side as though to reject such an idea then said, “You got a girl? Is that why you want it? You doing things to girls in my car?”

  He opened his mouth to deny it, then turned away and looked into the street.

  “You have, haven’t you? Answer me!”

  There was a trace of panic in her voice.

  He smiled to himself. “All right, what if I have?”

  “Ronald! Are you telling me the truth? Have you got someone?”

  “Name’s Barbara.”

  “Barbara? Barbara who?”

  “Never mind who, you wouldn’t know the name anyway.”

  “Don’t talk to your mother like that. If you’re going out with young ladies I’ve a right to know. What does she do anyway?”

  “She’s a therapist.”

  “A what? What sort of therapist?”

  “Counsellor.”

  “That’s what you need, young man. Counselling.”

  “For Christ’s sake, stop calling me “young man”. I’m twenty-nine.”

  “Therapist! What would a therapist want going round with you?”

  “What all girls want.”

  “Don’t be filthy. You bring her round here and let me meet her. Where did you find her anyway?”

  “Wimbledon Common.”

  “What were you doing on Wimbledon Common? Does your parole officer know you go to Wimbledon Common?”

  “It’s got nothing to do with him. So long as I report in once a week that’s all he’s got to worry about. Anyway, I was bird-watching.”

  “Liar. You wouldn’t know a budgerigar from a Canada goose.”

  “Yes I would. There’re lots of things I know that you don’t know I know.”

  “You’re a rotten little liar. Just like your father. Weak and rotten.”

  She said it with such vehemence that she was momentarily exhausted. It was a signal. They both drew back.

  “Eat your lunch,” he said. “I’ll fetch the tray later.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere.”

  The word, or the way he said it, seemed to get through to her, for she turned to him and said, “Don’t listen to me. I don’t really mean it. You’re a good boy. Remember what you used to say to me when you were a little boy?”

  He knew but stuck to the ritual. “What?”

  “I used to say to you, “Who’re you going to marry when you grow up?” And you know what you used to say?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You used to say, “I’m going to marry you. You’re my best girl.””

  The expression on her face was pleading.

  Bloody old cow.

  “You still are,” he said. “You’re my best girl.”

  He went to his bedroom, picked up a martial arts magazine and lay down. Soon his mother would call. He would fetch the tray. He would take her to the bathroom. He would make her bed…

  “This is what the rest of your life will be,” the Prison psychiatrist had said. “Prison. Freedom for a short time. And prison again.”

  “I’m never coming back,” Ronnie had said.

  “I’m glad to hear it, but it’s what everyone says. You’re in with Crowhurst, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You don’t want to end up like him, he’s been in more than he’s been out. He’s what we call a "lazy paedophile". He interferes with his own family because they’re around and he’s too lazy to go and interfere with someone else’s. You’ve never been in trouble before, have you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Is that where the policeman hit you?”

  Ronnie flinched and jerked his head back as the psychiatrist seemed about to touch his cheek.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It’s left quite a scar. Is that why you’ve grown your hair? To hide it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And that’s why they call you Veronica Lake? Because of the hair?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you mind being called that?”

  “No, sir. Not if it makes them happy.”

  The psychiatrist looked at Ronnie closely, shifted a number of papers on his desk, picked one up, put it down, glanced at another.

  “We’re going to give you a chance, Purvis. An experiment’s been set up at a prison in Hampshire. Have you heard of Granton?”

  “No, sir.”

  “It’s one of the new prisons. There’s a therapy unit. A self-help unit for people like you and some of the other Rule 43 prisoners. I’m not saying it’ll be easy. Some of the group sessions are pretty tough. The other inmates will make you face up to things you don’t want to face up to. Things you’ve forgotten or hidden away inside yourself. You und
erstand what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “At least it’ll give you a chance.” He sat back. “More than six thousand sexual offenders are convicted every year in Britain, Purvis, and we can treat less than seven per cent of them. Most choose as you’ve done to be segregated from the others under Rule 43.

  “I’m not saying I blame you. Up to now the theory’s been that ordinary prisoners will assault sex offenders, make your lives hell. At Granton there are no Rule 43 prisoners; no “nonces" no “wrong’uns". You’ll all be together; sex offenders, murderers, robbers. So far not a single sex offender has been attacked. But there’s always a first time. It’s up to you, Purvis. You’ll have to make a decision.”

  At first Granton had been tough, but at least he wasn’t a paedophile. In the hierarchy of sexual offenders he was a would-be rapist with a knife. It gave him a kind of standing among the wet-mouthed nonces who’d interfered with defenceless little girls and boys.

  He learned to play the system. The name of the game was sincerity. So when they’d questioned him about his background he’d been explicit. He’d told them of his father who had died when he was a teenager, but not what his mother thought of him or how she had acted towards him.

  He told them about watching his mother in the bath. That had made a deep impression. It was something most of them had done yet no one had mentioned it until he did.

  He told them of the day he’d had a bitter row with his mother and gone out by himself and had wandered about north London and had fetched up in a deserted garden and a young woman had come jogging by…

  After a few months he became a leader in discussion groups. He spoke about good and evil and drew an analogy between the white and the black knights.

  The woman psychiatrist had been particularly interested in that. And when she asked him how he saw himself he said he was a mixture of the two. And one of the other prisoners had said, “Aren’t we all?” She had nodded and smiled to herself and written something down. “Can you define normality?” The group had thought for a long time. Ronnie had read something in a novel about the subject and said, “I don’t think there is a state of normality. None of us is absolutely normal. It’s just that some people make better adjustments than others.”

  “That’s good, Ronnie,” she’d said. “That’s very good.”

  Another time, in what they called “one-to-one”, she’d said to him, “What do you think of yourself Ronnie?”

  “I’m devious, snidey. I’m a nasty person.”

  “Don’t you think that’s an adjustment too?”

  “What, Doctor?”

  “Just being able to say that.”

  Then there was a visit from an Oxford University criminologist who had helped to set up the experiment and he’d had a long interview with Ronnie and then he’d said to him.”

  “Part of the experiment is placing you hack in society. Do you think you’re ready for that?”

  “Yes, sir. Pm not coming back, sir.”

  The criminologist looked at Ronnie’s papers. “They all say that, but I think you might be one of the exceptions…”

  In her caravan deep in the Forest of Dean, Rachel Nihill had stopped sorting her paintings. She was tense and uneasy. She had thought that the process of sorting might help her. She had not expected the opposite reaction. It had come when she had found the very first painting in the rabbit series. It had been done at school and then hidden away. The shock of seeing it again was like a physical blow. The rabbit was huge, red, and menacing. She couldn’t look at it. It seemed, in its aggressive way, to want to come off the canvas and attack her.

  She found a kitchen knife. She drove it into the rabbit, slashing and slashing until the canvas was ripped to pieces. Then she collected the pieces and took them to the old mine workings and threw them on the rubbish pile which she and Chris had started.

  CHAPTER XIII

  The river Wey, which flows through Surrey, isn’t much more than thirty miles long from start to finish, and what is rather grandly called the Wey Navigation is only about half that distance.

  Eddie Twyford, after the third argument that day with Macrae, found Weyford Marina in mid-afternoon. It was tucked away in a basin off the main river and surrounded by trees. A sign at the gate said, “Narrow Boats for Hire”.

  Macrae and Silver walked along the edge of the basin. It was packed with boats, each around forty feet long but only six feet wide. They were of a type that had been specially designed for Britain’s narrow canals as far back as the nineteenth century. They were moored tightly against each other in rows and reminded Silver of sardines in a can. A large wooden hut, on which was painted: “OFFICE. s. STAPLETON, PROP.”, stood at the far end where a bantam of a man was washing the deck of one of the boats.

  “You the boss?” Macrae said.

  The man was in his fifties, bald, with a sunburnt skull that shone in the sunlight.

  “You looking for a boat, sir? Take your pick. This here’s a Windrush Class IV. Sleeps six. Lister diesel. Take you anywhere. Absolute comfort and safety. You’re going to tell me that you’ve never been in a narrow boat before and I’m going to tell you, sir, that driving one of these is as easy as pushing a pram. Half an hour’s instruction is all you need, sir. You thinking of it for yourself and the family? Couldn’t make a better choice. All centrally heated. I been in this business thirty-one years and never had a dud boat.” He banged the hull. “British steel. You won’t find better — ” Macrae held up his hand. “I asked if you were the boss.”

  “Sole proprietor. Sammy Stapleton. Yes, sir, best time of the year. Too early in the season for the crowds. River’s clear. No queueing at the locks.”

  Macrae held up his warrant card. The man squinted at it and said, “Oh Christ!” He put down the long-handled mop and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. “It’s about time.” His tone was aggrieved. “I phoned yesterday.”

  “What about?” Silver said.

  “What about? About the break-in, of course. What else? They smashed the windows on two of the boats this time. Took mattresses, blankets, a whole list of stuff.”

  “We’re not the Surrey police,” Macrae said. “We’re from London. Is there a Charles Harris here?”

  “Charlie?”

  Macrae stared at him. “If that’s what you call him?”

  “What’s he done then?”

  Macrae said, “Please don’t make me repeat everything.”

  “We want to ask him a few questions,” Silver said.

  “He ain’t done nothin’ wrong then?”

  “Not that we know of.”

  “He’s at Benstead Lock. Or should be by now. Testin’ his engines. He’s always testin’ his engines.”

  “He works here?”

  “You could say that. Some would say that. I know I pay him to work here.”

  Sammy Stapleton began to wash the deck vigorously. “This is what he should be at. We got the season starting next week. All these boats to clean out. Christ…I dunno…”

  “Where’s Benstead Lock?” Macrae asked. He was beginning to lose patience.

  “See the railway line?” Stapleton pointed to a viaduct about two miles downstream. “Lock’s just this side of it.”

  “How do we get there?” Macrae said. “Is there a road?”

  “This is a river, mate. If it was a road we’d be hiring out cars.”

  The two detectives went back to the car.

  “See if you can find a way along the bank,” Macrae said to Eddie Twyford.

  “Along there?” Eddie’s voice was shrill with indignation. “You got to be joking, guv’nor.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Eddie, just do it!”

  Keeping one wheel on the towpath and the other on the grass bank, Eddie gingerly took the Ford along the water’s edge. Silver hung on to the grab-handle above the rear seat. Macrae sat upright hanging on to nothing, pretending the violent bumps weren’t happening.

  They came to Ben
stead Lock.

  They were only about thirty-five miles from London yet they might have been in the wilds of Devon. They were surrounded by lush water meadows where a few surprised cows paused in their feeding to watch them. In the distance a train pulled out of Weyford station, but it seemed to belong to another world. A narrow boat was moored a few yards downstream of Benstead Lock from which emerged the sounds of loud rock music. Macrae’s granitic expression changed to one of distaste.

  The boat was smaller than the ones at the boatyard but very smart in its dark-blue and gold livery. All the fittings were of highly polished brass. Painted on the bows were the Words PASSION PALACE.

  “Anyone at home?” Macrae called. They stepped aboard. The radio was on deck and Macrae switched it off. The silence was startling.

  “What the hell’s going on?” a voice shouted from the engine compartment.

  “Charles Harris?” Macrae called.

  “Who wants him?”

  They let themselves down into the saloon. It occupied the entire forward area of the boat. There were two easy chairs, a television set and a large unmade double bed. Silver saw a couple of empty champagne bottles on a low table and an ashtray filled with butts.

  “What the hell do you want?” a voice said behind them. They turned and Silver saw a man of about thirty, big and powerful, with curly hair and blue eyes. His shirt was unbuttoned to the navel and his jeans, like his hands, were covered in grease. He exuded a kind of animal vigour, a maleness that Silver would have liked to possess himself.

  “I asked you what you wanted.” Harris said.

  Macrae said, “I get bloody tired of people always asking what I want. Are you Charles Harris?”

  “You deaf or something?”

  “Please,” Macrae said. “I’ve had a hard day.” He examined the nearest chair for dirt or foreign objects and then sat down. “Tell him who we are, laddie.”

  Silver told him.

  “So?” Harris said.

  “So are you Charles Harris?” Macrae said.

  “Yes. Is this about the break-in?”

  “No, it isn’t about the break-in.”

  Harris’ eyes shifted quickly around the saloon, seeing what they were seeing.

  “Well, what d’you want with me then?”