A Dip Into Murder (David Mallin Detective series Book 10)

by Roger Ormerod

  “But one day, alone an individual ... ” His eyes danced. “ ... I witnessed a bank robbery. Quite by chance. But I knew the gang ... it was Mace’s lot from Leeds. I recognised them in spite of the nylon stockings. So I hung around, and got picked up by the police as a witness. A star witness I was, because when it came to it I was the only one with a positive identification to give.”

  “This Mace gentleman must have been pleased. It’s a wonder he let you go on living.”

  “On the contrary, he paid me well. Two hundred it was. You see, their getaway car was a black Jag, so I said it’d been a maroon Zodiac. There were six of them, so I said nine. There was one with a limp, so I gave him one arm. And I mentioned Glaswegian accents. They got clear away.”

  I said nothing.

  “So I did it again,” he said placidly. “This time in Crewe. You see I’d made it my business to smell out all the big jobs that were coming off, and I knew everybody. They were pleased with the result. I called myself their personal witness. Then I did it in Manchester and Derby, and so on. It always worked fine. I was building up a nice line in observation, and as nothing ever got to court, my name didn’t go into any court records as a witness.”

  A shadow crossed his eyes. I said: “You must have been very proud.”

  “I was working on my own. It was my idea, and I’d developed it. Of course I was proud. But that very first job, there’d been a detective sergeant on it. Name of Ian Carefree, and it so happened he was a great reader of police reports, and he started noticing things. So he got the go-ahead, and all of a sudden, no matter where the job was pulled, there was this Sergeant Carefree to cross-question me.”

  “So that ended that,” I said with satisfaction.

  “Well ... ” he scratched behind his ear and looked embarrassed. “Not quite. You see, we found we had the same sort of mind, me and Ian. He knew I was leading him on, and I knew he knew. So it was kind of a battle of wits. He had to make up his mind when I was deliberately misleading him, and when I was slipping in a bit of truth to confuse the issue. It was quite interesting while it lasted, but in the end he got so good at it that I might just as well have been an ordinary witness, because he’d get the truth before I’d even polished up my best lies.”

  “So that ended it,” I said.

  “No. Well, not exactly. You see, by that time I’d got well dug in. Everybody in the country knew me, because they’d got in the habit, when they planned a job, of sending for me as a false witness. It was my profession, you see, and no good job was ever planned without me. But by that time I knew really too much of what was going on, and then the word went round that I couldn’t be used any more as a witness. So ... ” He grinned with the boyish charm that always took my breath away. “So, I started going around and offering my services as a non-witness. I mean, they all knew that if I actually witnessed a job, it was the kiss of death, and although they could hardly blame me for Carefree’s cleverness, they still didn’t want me around to witness anything. So they were willing to pay me to keep away.”

  “Wasn’t that dangerous?”

  “There were moments, I must admit, when I first put it to them. A few people thought I’d become superfluous to their plans. But I was able to persuade them that I knew so much, already, about their plans that they were safer if I had a solid alibi, at the other end of the country, for their next job. And alibis are expensive.”

  “I’m surprised you weren’t forcibly removed from the scene.”

  “Ah yes. But you see, Ian Carefree had got a personal interest in me by that time. After all, he’d got his promotion out of it. He knew my movements, more or less, so I was just as dangerous dead or alive. So now — and we’re coming up to date now — I have to have an alibi for every job that’s pulled. Even if I’m no longer interested, and even if I haven’t been paid off. But you see, Elsa, I’m known now and trusted by both sides ... ”

  “Trusted?” I asked disbelievingly.

  “They know where I stand. I know so much of what goes on, but I’ve never deliberately shopped anybody. Oh I know, Ian’s prised information out of me from time to time, but only in an inverted kind of way. And now I always have alibis. Ian checks them, then leaves me alone. He’s in a tricky position, is Ian. I’ve trumped his ace.”

  “You mean … Frances?”

  “He can’t believe I intend to marry her and go straight.”

  “Neither can I. If you’re using her simply to confuse him — ”

  Then I stopped. His eyes had gone cold and bleak.

  “I met her,” he said. “It was almost inevitable, associating so much with her father. And she knows about me, and about this link I have with Ian. And she trusts me,” he said, frowning to express how serious this was to him. “She knows that it’s all been professional, so I daren’t use any deception in my personal life. With her, she knows I can’t use one hint of insincerity. Therefore she knows she’ll have the must trustworthy husband in the world.”

  I could have laughed at his innocence. He’d been preening himself on his subtlety, when actually he knew nothing about life that counted.

  “So at last your sins have found you out.”

  He was puzzled. I’d shaken his confidence. “I don’t get that.”

  “She’ll take advantage of it. She’ll demand the truth over every detail in your life, and you daren’t ever tell her a lie.”

  “Is that so terrible?”

  “It is, unless she’s an angel.” I had my suspicions that she was far from angelic. “What woman could resist power like that?”

  “But I trust her not to do so.”

  “Then you’re taking her for granted. She’ll resent that. You’ve led yourself into a trap with your cleverness.”

  “Don’t keep harping on cleverness,” he said irritably. “I love her.”

  “Then in that case you’re too late. The trap’s already been sprung.”

  “I wish I’d never brought you into this,” he said with disgust.

  “Have you brought me into it? I had the impression you were scaring me away.”

  “No. I told you. I need somebody. Hell, Elsa, I’m cold on this one. The robbery itself caught me on the hop. Oh, I’d heard hints ... But Rimlock! He’s a bit too much for me, Elsa. And now — now you’ve heard how things are — please tell me how the hell I can warn Ian, when he automatically inverts everything I tell him.”

  I remembered, then, the peculiar conversation there had been between the two of them about an alibi.

  “Caught on the hop or not,” I said severely, “you nevertheless had an alibi.”

  “Well yes. A real one, as it happens.”

  “Then why weren’t you willing to tell Ian what it was?”

  He looked like an embarrassed child. “Ask yourself, Elsa. At the time he mentioned ... oh Lord, how could I tell him that at that time I was in bed with his daughter under his own roof? How could I?”

  I couldn’t help laughing. The first genuine alibi he’d ever had, and he couldn’t produce it. Then I stopped laughing.

  “But he asked you for an alibi for the murder, not the robbery.”

  “Well yes. He would, wouldn’t he! It was a waste of time asking me for an alibi for something that’d been planned, because I was sure to have one. But the murder wasn’t planned. It couldn’t have been. So he had to ask about that.”

  He was so secure in his understanding of how it all went together that I could have wept for him. Always he’d hovered on the fringe of a crime, but Ian had been allowing him a free run, aware that he was more useful outside than inside prison. But Ian did not trust him and never would. And this, for once, was a murder.

  “But I can’t understand what you want of me,” I said. “To help you, you said. Surely you can’t expect me to persuade Ian not to leave his office, and to run the whole thing from the safety of his desk.”

  “No. He wouldn’t agree to that.”

  “Then what do you want from me?”

  �
��Two things.” He looked sheepish. “One really. The other ... ” He shrugged. “Elsa, there’s got to be a handover. Money against information about where the steel is. People that both sides can trust. I’ve been asked to act for them — ”

  “You’ve what!”

  “I thought I’d explained ... ”

  “You’re telling me you’d help them get hold of the money, when it could be used to pay Rimlock!” I was appalled.

  He gestured irritably. “Somebody’s got to do it. And at least I can conduct the business without things getting rough.”

  “No wonder Ian found you fascinating to interrogate.”

  “Will you listen! Or would you rather hand it over to some cold-blooded killer ... ”

  “Me? Now wait — ”

  “It has to be you, Elsa. Don’t you see? Somebody representing the company. On the board. Somebody they can trust. And,” he went on shyly, “now that I’ve explained how things are, somebody who knows they can trust me.”

  “By heaven, but you’re wonderful. When you’ve just been telling me what a lying rogue you are!”

  “Then you’ll agree?”

  He was childishly eager, so very pleased with my response.

  “I wish I’d gone home,” I said. He laughed. It was all arranged. Now it was too late to go home. “You said two things,” I reminded him suspiciously.

  “I hardly like to ask.”

  “From you, that sounds serious.”

  “I did think ... if Rimlock asks again, you might well say yes, that you’d like to see his gun.”

  Over his shoulder I could see Frances returning. She hadn’t really given us enough time. I would have liked another few seconds in which to reach over and slap that ridiculous and confident smile from Peter’s face.

  “I mean,” he said, nodding down at me significantly as he stood at Frances’s chair, “you might learn what he’s got in mind.”

  I thought: and tell you? Then I was startled to realised that I had accepted the proposal as a possibility. But anyway, it was at least a change from etchings.

  I can only plead that I was tired and lightheaded. We danced. We drank a little. I was not intoxicated, but in the mood of the moment I could not help glancing, from time to time, at the lonely murderer at his corner table, sipping ginger ale and pretending he was remaining deliberately aloof. Bernie’s mob did not approach him. Their attention never wavered towards him. Gradually — one by one I think, though I didn’t see it actually happen — they slid away to whatever rooms they were occupying temporarily.

  Larry was paying attention to the patrons, and there was now a little colour to his cheeks. As it happened, I was watching him at the time, which is the reason I did not see Rimlock approaching our table again. Otherwise I would perhaps have turned and run.

  He was clearly embarrassed but determined, standing with his ankles neatly together, his right hand playing with the cuff-link at his left wrist.

  “Dear lady ... ” As though he had only just asked me.

  Oh David, what shall I do? And it was no good looking to Peter for guidance.

  “I should love to,” I said, and then, because he had offered it in a stately gesture, I put my hand on his arm, and found myself chattering, no doubt with nerves, as we walked away. “Of course, I’m no expert on guns. You’ll have to take that into account. But my husband will be interested, when I tell him ... ”

  Ian Carefree stood firmly in front of us just inside the door. He was not in uniform, but wore a smoothly-tailored grey suit and a light blue shirt and a tie just a little too narrow, and because of this I realised he had come for me. That, of course, would explain the dark look in his eyes. He was not annoyed that Rimlock was Rimlock, but that he was another man, and leading me away from under Ian’s nose.

  I had to be kind to him. It wouldn’t do for his inadequate ego to be further undermined.

  “Mr. Rimlock,” I explained, giving my behaviour a cold and impersonal slant, “has promised to show me his gun.”

  I think it was the shock that delayed Ian, otherwise he’d have been on our tail all the way to Rimlock’s hotel.

  I had left the Dolomite at Ian’s, so there was no delay arguing about whose car. Rimlock was using a hired Escort. It was now raining steadily, but the visibility was reasonable and there was no excuse; yet Rimlock was lethal with that car. I wondered why he couldn’t aim it with the same accuracy as a bullet.

  I am afraid I didn’t notice the route we took.

  It was an old, withered hotel, converted from a pair of solid Victorian semi-detached houses. Three floors, an abundance of ghostly silence, and polished brass at every door. He drew me inside his room with an air of conspiracy.

  He had it on the bed in a long black case which looked as though it could hold nothing else but a rifle. He unlocked it with a tiny key, and then, catching his eagerness and squeezing it into submission, he recalled his manners.

  “Can I offer you a drink?”

  I shook my head. “I’m getting the impression I’ve drunk too much already.”

  He was delighted that there was to be no delay, and opened the gun case.

  I had always had the impression that these things were carried broken down, then snapped together with a slapping of metal; lock stock and barrel. This was just a rifle, with no telescopic sight fixed, no gleaming metal, no cunningly shaped walnut stock. It was a soldier’s rifle, not built for murder, only for killing. But he handled it with tender reverence.

  “This,” he said, “is a military weapon made in Germany by Heckler and Koch. They call it a G3SG stroke one. They’re turned out in their thousands, but every now and then there’s a specially good one turns up, so they change it into a sniper’s rifle. They put a Hersoldt variable power sight on it, and trim the trigger to one pound pressure. Then, out of those thousands of sniper’s rifles there appears one that is perfection, and they say: send for Rimlock, he’d like to see this. I have fired this one three times,” he said dreamily. “Three split seconds of fulfilment in two years.”

  He was holding it close enough for me to reach out and touch it, probably aware that I would be unable to do so.

  “It must be very boring,” I said in sympathy.

  He glanced at me quickly. “The breech — have you ever seen ... ” Then he paused, his beautiful hands lightly caressing the stock. “Why do you say that?”

  “Oh, just that it seems to me ... well, most craftsmen devote all their existence to what they discover to be the meaning to their lives. You devote three split seconds in two years.”

  “You’re very discerning.” And he looked away.

  “But it does make it easier to retire from.”

  “Retire?” His voice was sharp.

  “Your eyes,” I said softly, “are not what they were. You’ll have to resort to the telescopic sight, when I’m sure you prefer the open sight for moving targets.” He was silent, distress around his firm mouth. “And they do move, don’t they?”

  “Who taught you about sights?”

  “I’ve learned a lot of strange things from my husband.” I hurried on, not wishing to lose the trend. “And you have thought of retirement, I’m sure.”

  “Perhaps ... ” He shook his head. He was a tired and lonely old man. “After this one.”

  “Why not before?” I suggested, so gently as not to bruise the mood. “If, perhaps, you received the same fee for retiring now as you’d receive for retiring after Friday.”

  Then he shook his shaggy head in a rejection much more violent than I’d expected.

  “No. It’s a matter of honour. The word is out that Rimlock is in town.”

  “So somebody has to die?”

  He was beyond pretence. “Once, only once, have I accepted a contract such as you are suggesting. I was tricked into it.” He was putting the gun away, as though the memory shook him. “An African state, governed by a General who was hated. A dozen factions wished him dead, and I was sent for to bring that about. I was un
aware of the identity of my client, and when I arrived in the city I was led by rear alleys to a building ... ” He made a noise of disgust with his tongue. “My client was the General himself. He wished to hire me not to shoot him, realising that if he did not hire me, one of the factions would. He offered me one tenth of my fee for each day I allowed him to remain alive, and on the eleventh a bonus. Like a fool, I accepted. I was young and inexperienced.”

  “But you’d get your money.”

  “Money?” he said with disgust. “But what of my reputation? The word was around that Capital that Rimlock was in town. An execution was awaited, and they held their breaths, held back their bombs and their knives, while the General flaunted himself openly in the city streets. Defying Rimlock! He was hailed by his supporters as a man of great courage. On the tenth day I went for my full fee. He told me I should get it on the eleventh. After my bonus! And can you guess what my bonus was to be?”

  I said I could not.

  The memory had provoked him into a restless, angular pacing. “I was to be allowed a near miss,” he said with disgust. “I, Rimlock, was to be allowed to shoot the epaulette from his shoulder while he was hypnotising the crowd in the square, with his wild ranting from the balcony. He challenged me with his courage, looking me in the eyes. Then, later, I was to receive my money. He was a fool. He equated a stupid lack of imagination with courage. So ... in the middle of his speech, during his most grotesque self-indulgence, I shot him between the eyes.”

  “And never got your money?” I asked in sympathy.

  “I merely wanted to impress on you its lack of importance to me,” he said severely. “But I did in fact receive my full fee from the faction that assumed power.”

  “But you still regret it?”

  He looked at me sharply. “Why do you say that?”

  “It was the only time it became personal. I think you’d find it intolerable, now, to kill unless it was completely impersonal, and unless it was someone you’d never met and never knew ... ”

  “Are you sure you would not like a drink?” He was completely cold, I think afraid that he had allowed me to understand too much.

  “Thank you, no.”