The Bad Detective

by H. R. F. Keating

  ‘Oh, Jack, you are awful. It’s the Costa Loadsa. Everyone’s going there. Expensive, but dead classy. Sort of Spanish décor and those flamenco singers an’ all.’

  But he had heard of the Costa Loadsa. And the name sent a sudden sinking feeling into his gut.

  The place might be a mecca for the in-crowd, as Lil had said, but the fact was it was owned by Harry Hook. And no detective who’d got his position in CID to think about dare be seen in it. Never mind, however much you made a bloody performance of laying out cash for every penny on the bill, someone was going to hear you’d been there. And decide you were in the pay of Abbotsport’s number one criminal outfit.

  And, come to that, if there was one detective in the whole of Abbotsport Constabulary who couldn’t afford to have the least hint of any more dirt being known about him it was Jack Stallworthy. Detective Sergeant Stallworthy whose evil reputation had produced a nice dinner-party giggle for Mr Emslie Warnaby, head of Abbotputers plc, and his tenant, Chief Inspector Richard Parkinson, Staff Officer to the Chief Constable.

  No, the Costa Loadsa was out. Especially just now when one big piece of dirty business still had to be pulled off.

  Some of his feelings must have shown in his face. A hell of a lot of them, in fact. Because Lily, who never normally took much notice of what he looked like, was giving him a sharp glance.

  ‘What’s up, Jackie? Worried about the prices at the Costa Loadsa? But, cheer up, it’s only the once. And it’ll be a lovely evening. Just right. For whatever you’ve got to tell me, leaning across a candlelit table. Oh, I do think it’s romantic of you. Really. And, if that’s the mood you’re in, perhaps we’d better see right away what we can do about it, eh?’

  Another meaningful look at the foot of the stairs.

  Well, to hell with being linked with Harry Hook’s mob. I’ll bloody take her to the place. Or perhaps in a day or two she’ll have changed her mind…

  He pushed himself, briskly enough, out of his chair, began heading for the stairs.

  And then the phone rang.

  He swung round and went over to it.

  ‘’lo.’

  ‘Mr Stallworthy?’

  That voice. Back again.

  ‘What do you want now? I’ve told you. Told you it’s no use you ringing and ringing. I’m working on it. Working on it. And that’s that.’

  ‘Yes, you did tell me. And I stopped calling. But I haven’t heard anything from you all the same, have I? We aren’t seeing the results of all that working on it you were always talking about, have we? And we’re doing our part, you know. The deeds making you sole proprietor of the Calm Seas Hotel, Ko Samui, are all drawn up. But we’ve heard nothing from you. Not a word. And Mr Warn—And time’s getting short. Very short. I hope you remember the date we gave you.’

  ‘Of course I fuck—Yes, yes. I remember. And you’ll have it by then. I’ve got to get it for you, haven’t I? Got to. So just stop bloody going on at me.’

  He slammed the handset down.

  ‘Whoever was that?’ Lily said. ‘You sounded really fed up.’

  ‘I bloody was.’

  He went back to his chair. Let himself thump down into it.

  ‘Let’s have some supper, love. I don’t feel … Perhaps later on.’

  ‘Just as you like. You men. Never know what you’re feeling one moment to another. Still, we can have supper now if you want. It’s all cold. A couple of those nice Melton Mowbray pies I bought at the supermarket, and a packet of that salad with the red leaves. And there’s some of that nice ice-cream in the fridge, the sort with nuts.’

  Anna Foxton did not call again before Jack took Lily to the Costa Loadsa for her birthday treat. But he had felt the pressure on him every bit as much as if she had rung every evening. Perhaps even more so. Because he knew on Lily’s birthday he was going to tell her - all right, at the Costa Loadsa, if that was what she wanted - that her dream of paradise on Ko Samui would come true.

  And, unless he could get hold of the blue folder in that old cupboard in Mac MacAllister’s room - had Mac locked it? pocketed that new, bright shiny key? - his promise was going to be so much hot air. Drive himself sick worrying away at the problem as he had, the fact still was that he had not come up with any way at all of getting into that room Mac had turned him out of.

  Mad ideas had come into his head. And gone. He could go up to Headquarters very early one day, before even Mrs Alexander and her cleaning ladies had arrived, take with him a crowbar or a sledgehammer - ‘the big key’ as they said when they went to get a real villain out of his bed - and smash his way in.

  Only how could I ever get past the night-duty constable carrying a bloody crowbar? Don’t be stupid.

  He would burgle Headquarters itself. Shin up some drainpipe like poor old Jinkie Morrison, get in at one of the Fraud Investigation Branch windows and force that old cupboard if he had to.

  Christ, don’t be a fucking idiot. You couldn’t climb up anywhere, not in your condition. Think how sodding puffed you got just going up those winding stone stairs in the Abbey church to look at where that bloody ridiculous gargoyle had been yanked off its base. Anything to keep the Vicar half-way happy.

  He would steal a heavy vehicle from somewhere and ram-raid the Headquarters goods entrance, wherever it was round the back of the big building.

  Don’t be a damn fool. You don’t even know if there is a goods entrance.

  Day after day he had sat at his desk, thinking and thinking. If anyone came up and talked he had scowled them into silence. He had totally ceased going out and looking for collars. He had failed to collect a single penny to put in the Cadbury’s Roses tin under the now almost flowerless aubrietia.

  What’s it matter? he had thought. Either I get fucking Emslie Warnaby’s big-big handout, one hotel, island for the living in, or I don’t. If I do, then a few quid extra won’t make a blind bit of difference. And if I don’t, I might as well just forget about the whole thing. Put in my papers and go on living where we are now, scraping by. A pair of sodding old-age pensioners.

  ‘Stallworthy! Get your bloody arse over here.’

  Jesus, the Guv’nor. He been yelling at me for hours?

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Vicar’s just been on the blower. Any progress on that gargoyle?’

  In fact, he had a damn good notion of who had done that job. His old school friend, or enemy, Herbie Cuddy, fat little twig on the ever-spreading Hook family tree. Herbie had done a lot of pinching lead from church roofs just after he’d left school when there’d been money in that. Most likely someone had told him now there was a market for old statues, and he’d gone back to his former ways. No confining Herbie to one well-loved MO like Jinkie Morrison. His line ought to have been anything to do with the shipping. Pirate blood in the Hook tribe still coming out. But he was willing, too, to climb any risky height to help himself to what he thought worthwhile.

  Even back at school, all that long ago, he nearly got away when I had that gang coming to beat him up. Got his paws on to the top of the playground wall before we pulled him down. But why bother chasing old Herbie? There’s other things to think of. Like July the sixteenth and what Emslie Warnaby’s put on offer.

  ‘Progress? Well, ain’t much to make is there, guv?’

  ‘Never mind, is there. Get out there and give me something to tell that bloody vicar next time he’s on at me. Hasn’t Herbie Cuddy got form for something like that? Pinching church-roof lead? Go and chase him up. You never know, that gargoyle may actually be down to him.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  At least out and about - though he hadn’t much intention of actually trying to find Herbie - he’d be out of the way of the Guv’nor. And could think.

  Though neither that day nor any other did any of his thinking produce the slightest sign of an answer.

  In the evenings it was the same. He gave Lily a hard time. He knew he was doing it, and he hated himself for it. But he lacked the will to do anything else.
So he sat staring in silence at whatever she was watching on TV, travel show, nature film - ‘if it’s not one of those nasties, insects, snakes and all that’ - and tried to find some solution to his problem. However fantastic.

  Hire a helicopter, drop down on to Headquarters roof…

  Jesus, I must be going raving bonkers.

  But, on the morning of July the tenth itself, table for two booked at the Costa Loadsa, abruptly for no reason at all a plan that seemed totally reasonable came into his head. Why it had come to him all of a sudden after so much fruitless worrying he was unable to guess. But just a few words Horatio Bottomley had said to him, weeks ago as he had barged his way past to go into Mac’s office the very day he had first seen the blue folder, had suddenly triggered something off.

  When he ever out, Sergeant, ‘cept coffee break an’ tea break?

  At the time he had barely heard what the fellow had said. It had been just an answer to his casually asking if Mac was in. But deep down he must have stored away the words, if only because they had confirmed too bloody well everything he knew about Mac MacAllister, his obsession with his figures, his insistence on security, his damned regular habits.

  But no one, he thought now - he was driving lethargically on his way to work - had habits as absolutely regular as Mac’s in every particular. Even Mac was human. And humans sometimes had to pee. And even occasionally to be away from their desks yet longer.

  So, if he could just contrive to keep watch outside the Fraud Investigation Branch until he could catch Mac leaving, then there would only be Horatio Bottomley to cope with. And, for all the failure of his attempt in the car in the rain to put into the fellow’s head the idea of making a few quid by letting that blue folder walk, he didn’t think he’d have much trouble barging past him and into Mac’s own room.

  Mac with his Get out of this office and never show your face in here again.

  Then, once in there, with the door swung closed behind him and Mac safely out of the way, if only for a few minutes, it’d just be a matter - if that cupboard was open - of stooping down and whipping out the folder. Stuff it under his jacket, and in less than half a minute come out again to say to old Horatio Mac not in, then? I’ll come hack later.

  And if the cupboard was locked, with that shiny new key of Mac’s? Well, it was a bloody decrepit piece of furniture, and surely he could force its doors. Grab something from Mac’s desk top. Even use one of his own keys as a lever. Front door one. Big enough, when all’s said and done.

  Then I’d have it. The blue folder. Straight up to Anna Foxton’s flat, Seaview Mansions, up above the port. And I told you you’d get it and here it sodding well is. Slam it down on the table there and wait for that reward. Jesus, I could actually show those hotel deeds to Lil tonight, over the table at the poncy Costa Loadsa, candle-lit table.

  The reward. All right, the bribe.

  But, sole proprietor of that hotel at last and with the air tickets safely in my pocket, fat lot I’d care if I was seen at a Harry Hook restaurant. It’d be wham in my papers, quick as you like. Take what leave’s due to me. And away. Ko bloody Sammy here we come. April Cottage goodbye. Never mind the lost deposit. Never mind getting hold of that video The Lovely World of Lilies. Lily herself could have all the lilies she wanted out there. Great big blazing tropical ones make whatever I might grow in Devon look like so many little doll’s house lilies-of-the-valley.

  He almost changed direction and drove straight up to Headquarters to begin that crafty watch on the Fraud Investigation Branch door right away. The door he had once, very early one morning, the whole building deserted except for Mrs Alexander, almost got the right key into. Christ, all that seemed years ago now, somehow.

  But caution prevailed.

  No, no. Go into the nick as per usual. Sit there a bit. Smoke a fag. Then sign out ‘on inquiries’ and buzz up to Headquarters. Have to be a bit cunning in working out how to keep watch on that door, of course. Maybe there’d be somewhere between Mac’s office and the nearest toilet where it’d be possible to stay nicely out of sight. Or there could be somewhere any officer in the force had a right to be. Just waiting for something, face to the wall, looking at a notice-board. Anything. But keeping a bloody sharp eye out for Mac MacAllister hurrying along to have a pee.

  *

  Up at Headquarters within an hour of putting himself in position he got his chance. Moseying along towards Fraud Investigation Branch, he had abruptly remembered, as he got near, that precisely opposite there was a door, almost exactly similar to the Branch one, except it had no tight-security lock and the neat perspex plaque beside it said Waiting Room.

  In a second he was inside.

  And - hey, some real luck at last - in the door, precisely opposite the Fraud Investigation office, a nice little glass panel. That reinforced stuff, crisscrossed wire. So I can kick my heels in here for as long as it takes, and, standing well back, have the door opposite under constant obbo.

  All right, if they bring some civilian along to wait here till Mac’s ready to see him, or for them to see someone else in some other nearby office, I’ll maybe have to shove off. But, if I do, there’s always this afternoon when I can come back again. Or, worst come to the worst, tomorrow or the next day. Or the next. Pity I won’t have the hotel deeds, airline tickets, to show Lily tonight. But I’ll be able to make that promise all right, and know it’ll come true. I’ve still got best part of a week before Emslie Warnaby’s ruddy deadline. Even passing up the weekend, that’s plenty of time.

  He leant up against the far wall and settled down to wait. Sooner or later even iron-man Mac’ll need a pee. And then …

  Bloody ridiculous I never properly took in this place was here. Even when I was stood just outside first thing in the morning when I was mad with hurry sorting through Ma Alexander’s big bunch of keys I never looked at the door behind me. Still, no wonder, really, when I was peering like buggery at those tags you could almost but not quite make out. Or trying the blanks one after another… And then Ma Alexander creeping up and Mr Stallworth! What you doing?.

  Christ, the trouble I’ve had over this fucking folder when you think of it. And it should have been dead simple. Sodding Emslie Warnaby thought it’d be. In some ways he was right, too. Provided it was okay for anyone to go about inside Headquarters - dead easy if you had a warrant card to show at the entrance - then the job should have been a doddle. Just find out where the stuff from the Fisheries Development Authority was, suss out the only blue folder in the whole lot. Tuck it under your coat and away. Piece of cake.

  So it seemed, first off, when I spotted the folder there in the cupboard with the doors leaning open like that. And that was when all I’d been hoping for was to get an idea of the lie of the land.

  Jesus, I was within a couple of yards of the damn thing at that moment. But Mac sitting there, looking at me like I was going to snitch his precious Petticoat Tail shortbreads. No go. Not the ghost of a chance.

  And after that it had all been hell. First that sodding fiasco with Ma Alexander - lost a good friend there, too, really-really big box of chocs or no - then that stupid business with woolly-headed old Horatio, sitting there in the motor pretending it was pissing down too hard to drive and getting totally nowhere trying to get the stupid sod to see sense.

  Then, worst of the lot, that idiotic attempt somehow to get at Mac himself. And yet that might have come off. It looked bloody like it would at one moment. Him all of a sudden letting his hair down about Detective Chief Superintendent Detch, sir. If the sodding Scotchman had been any sort of a red-blooded bugger he’d have leapt at the chance of doing Detchie down good and proper. And, instead, it had been that I’ll see you’re kicked out of the force, kicked so hard you’ll never know where you bounced.

  A great jolt of humiliated rage overcame him again at the thought.

  No one should ever have to listen to anything like that. God, how I’d have liked to punch the Scotch sod right in the face. And what I’d had to do
was just turn away and walk out. Out of that fucking office, going right past those shelves of documents. I could have put out a hand and jerked the sodding blue folder out. That near. That fucking far.

  But at least I never gave Mac an idea of exactly what it was that would have kicked Detchie right up his fat arse. Least he don’t know it’s just that one blue folder. So when I snitch it at last - and that’ll be in a few minutes, hour at the most, well, even two - bloody Mac’ll never know anything’s gone. And then Mr Emslie Warnaby’ll make me the sole proprietor the Calm fucking Seas Hotel, Ko fucking Samui.

  And Lily’ll have her heart’s desire.

  Sooner or later, either just now or even on another day before long, Iron Man Mac’ll have to break down and go for a pee like a sodding human being. And when he does …

  Christ, he is. Door opposite opening. It’s him already.

  He ducked down well out of sight. Began counting up to ten. But before he had got to seven heard the Fraud Investigation door thump back closed. He straightened up again. Hurried across to the glass panel. Peered round.

  And, yes, Mac just turning the corner.

  Right. Here we go.

  Two steps across the corridor. Push open the Fraud Investigation door. Old Horatio sitting there at his desk, looking as if he’s been there just like that, stubby brown fingers dipping and darting at the computer keys, since the last time I was in here. Get out of this office and never show your face in here again.

  Just give him a muttered ‘Good morning.’

  Mac’s own door in front of me. Push.

  In, in, in.

  The cupboard. And its doors not locked. Still pushed just a little open by the mass of stuff on the shelves. Boxes, files and whatnot. And, yes, just exactly where it’s always been, the half-inch strip of pale blue card. The folder. The prize.

  It was harder to pull out from between the crammed files than he had expected. He stooped, got a better grip, gave a good hard tug.

  Two hands descended on to his shoulders. Stubby-fingered brown hands.