by S. T. Haymon
“If yer want to know—” Joe Fisher spoke with dignity—“the on’y big thing I got on at the moment is politics. An’ fer that, as you know as well as I do, the more publicity the better.”
“Thinking of standing for Parliament, are you? Come to think of it, I heard somewhere you’d joined the League of Patriots.”
The man’s face darkened to purple.
“Tha’s a bloody libel for starters! The English Men, didn’t Mr Batterby tell you? Not that pissy League of Pansies!”
“That’s very interesting.” Jurnet sat back and crossed his legs. “Sergeant Ellers and I have often wanted to know what the English Men stand for, exactly. Now you can tell us.”
“’S not what they stand for,” Joe Fisher pronounced. “ ’S what they’re against. Contamination of our pure English blood, kikes an’ blacks out, an’ so on.”
“Fascinating! Some time we must have a long talk. As time’s a bit short, perhaps you’d tell us this—if you didn’t hand over any payola to Arthur, where d’ you reckon he got the bread to pay for his bike and all that stuff up in his room. Not out of his paper round.”
“Course not! Sandra took that. I asked ’im once why he kept it on at all, seeing he never seemed short of a penny.”
“What did he say?”
“That he liked bein’ out on the streets early when they was quiet an’ nobody about.” Joe Fisher leaned forward confidingly. “Don’t let on to ’is Ma I said so, but the kid was a freak.”
Jurnet persisted. “Where do you think he got the money from, then?”
“Out o’ the cathedral collection, for all I know. Never ’ad two words to say to him myself when one ’d do.”
“Was that a fact?” Jurnet waited a moment before pouncing. “At least you exchanged enough chat to find out where he kept his little nest egg.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Only that when Sergeant Ellers and I were here before, we found that a drawer in Arthur’s room had been forced open.”
“I never—!”
“Can it, Joe. Next time you do a job, don’t leave your tools behind. I’m willing to believe you did it because Sandra asked you. His Ma, after all, and could do with the money. Only I need to know how much you found—the truth, mind!—to get at the proper scale of Arthur’s business activities, whatever they were. Otherwise, I’ll have no alternative than to assume you handed over hush-money after all, and were only taking back what you thought of as yours—” The detective finished, offhandedly, “After you killed him, that is.”
“I—” Joe Fisher began huskily. He cleared his throat and began again. “Four hundred and fifty nicker,” he said. “In fivers.”
Sergeant Ellers said, “And I was beginning to feel sorry for the little runt! Poor little blackmailer, trying so hard to make a dishonest penny, and everyone saying ‘Nothing doing, sonny!’ Pathetic! But four hundred and fifty!”
“Where’d he get it, that’s the question.”
“One of ’em’s bloody well lying. Take your pick.”
“‘What is truth? said jesting Pilate: and would not stay for an answer.’ First sentence of Bacon’s Essays,” said Jurnet, “and don’t ask me what comes next because that’s as far as I got.” After a moment he added, “Far as anyone’s got.”
The two detectives walked on in silence. In the Close, azaleas were taking over from the almond blossom, whose petals lay about in drifts as if a wedding procession had passed that way. Tulips and wallflowers were opening among the tiring daffodils: on the lawns, illicit dandelions flowered like mad while the going was good. An elderly canon had come out daringly in his light clerical grey, and from the Deanery emerged a young priestling full of a seemly joy.
Jurnet said abruptly, “I’m going to pop down to the river.”
“To make sure Willie got the fish and chips?”
“Certainly not. You heard what the Superintendent said. ‘Get on with it.’ I propose to get on with it by proceeding with all haste to the Water Gate to satisfy myself that the PC we stationed there hasn’t fallen in.”
PC Blaker, guarding the Water Gate against all corners, sat on the staithe feeding bread to a cluster of assorted waterfowl. As he scrambled to his feet at the detectives’ approach, a gull, yellow legs dangling, swerved past and snatched the piece of bread he held in his hand.
“Cheeky—” PC Blaker began, and blushed in the presence of his superiors.
“Ah, George!” The young constable blushed redder, gratified to be recognized thus informally. “Making friends with the locals, I see. Very commendable, even if that bloody herring gull has just made off with your dinner.”
“Oh no, sir! My Mum give me a bag for the birds. This is the second day I’ve been down here, an’ I told her—” The red on the downy young cheeks became positively fluorescent as PC Blaker stammered, “And, begging your pardon, Mr Jurnet, it weren’t a herring gull. Lesser Black-backed, sir—”
“You don’t say!”
“Yellow legs, sir—that’s how you can tell. Herring gulls are a dirty pink.”
“You learn something new every day!” Jurnet smiled at the young policeman. “This lot your only callers?”
“Couple of tourists from the cathedral, took a look and went straight back. Courting couple and a young chap on the towpath. Bit early in the year for much to be doing down by the river.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way.”
A smart cabin cruiser, every polyurethaned surface gleaming, came slowly upstream, its engine purring expensively. The elderly couple in the cockpit stared at the three men on the staithe with the undisguised curiosity common to children and the old; the woman letting her knitting drop into her lap as she leaned forward to make some observation to her husband.
“Taking a look at the natives,” said Jurnet, noting that Jack Ellers, aware of being under surveillance, was well up on his toes. The boat went past, and the little Welshman’s feet resumed contact with terra firma. “Didn’t pay for that little toy out of their old-age pensions.”
“They’ll be back in a minute, you’ll see.” PC Blaker predicted confidently. “Couple of ’em yesterday, the same thing. Get round that bend and all of a sudden it isn’t pretty any more, not entertaining. They see those old huts, and the rubbish dumps and they turn back.”
Jurnet said sympathetically, “You’re a bit short on entertainment yourself, down here.”
“Oh no, sir! I quite like it, what with the birds—” PC Blaker stopped, and blushed again.
“Yellow legs, Black-backed. I must remember that.”
“Lesser Black-backed,” was the anxious correction. “The Great Black-backed’s got pink’uns, just like the herring gull.”
“I know when I’m licked!” Jurnet threw up his hands humorously. “From now on, far as I’m concerned, gulls are gulls pure and simple, and to hell with the colour of their socks! Come on. Sarge! Keep on with the good work, Constable.”
“Yes, Mr. Jurnet.” Seeing the direction the two detectives were taking, the young policeman added, “You can’t get far that way, sir. The path stops a little way on.”
“Thought we’d try to get across country.” Jurnet was not anxious to advertise his private back door into Joe Fisher’s estate. He took a few steps, and immediately drew back, his face blank.
Stan Brent came along the river path not at all disconcerted to find himself in the unexpected company of three police officers; at first, or even second, glance a clean-limbed English lad in his uniform of jeans, T-shirt, and anorak, his red hair trimmed to an acceptable shortness, the knapsack on his back khaki and serviceable. A cool customer, Jurnet thought again, feeling his face tighten with an annoyance that was no less strong for the realization that sexual jealousy accounted for a good part of it.
“Well, well!” he greeted the newcomer. “Look who’s here! Gentleman Jim!”
“Don’t shoot!” Stan Brent cried. “I’ll come quietly.” He grinned, completely at ease. “Don’
t tell me the three of you’ve come all this way looking for little me!”
PC Blaker, young enough to resent any detraction from his professional dignity, addressed Jurnet in his most official tone, “Sir, he’s the one come past twenty minutes ago.”
“Oh good show, Watson!” Stan Brent exclaimed; and to Jurnet, “Eagle-eyed, that one. He should go far.”
“It’s a public footpath,” Jurnet pointed out, refusing to be drawn.
“Lonely, though,” the young man rejoined. “Just the spot for a quiet rape.”
At that Sergeant Ellers rose up on his toes and said, “I’m splitting my sides, laddie.”
“Don’t do yourself an injury on my account,” the red-haired young man begged earnestly. “You’ll be glad to know I’ve left some clues. Orange peel, a Coke tin, and the wrapping off a Mars bar. In the waste-paper basket, of course. I wouldn’t want to be run in for something really serious, like litter.” Tiring of the game: “Permission to go, sir?”
Jurnet said, “I was thinking you must be feeling lonely to stay this long.”
Which must have unwittingly touched a chord, for Stan Brent said, with a wistfulness which, except for what had preceded it, would have convinced his hearers utterly, “Maybe I am at that. It’s watching that blasted river. All that water flowing past and you high and dry on the bank, not going anywhere.”
As he spoke, the cabin cruiser came slowly into sight again, as PC Blaker had prophesied. Passing the staithe, the elderly man at the wheel waved shyly, and the woman looked up from her knitting and smiled, as at old friends. Both of them examined the red-haired young man, the addition to the group, with the same inoffensive curiosity they had earlier directed at the three police officers; and again, the woman let her work drop into her lap while she leaned over to speak to her husband.
“Look at that!” Stan Brent exclaimed. “Enough to make you throw up! Beautiful little boat, could cut through the water like a knife, going five miles an hour with a couple of geriatrics!”
“Knots,” PC Blaker, red with earnestness, corrected him. “Boats go in knots, not miles.”
“You don’t say! And you can get knotted too, mate.”
It was suddenly all so young, so schoolboyish, that Jurnet, against his will, nearly laughed aloud. He remarked, “If you’re that fond of boats you could always join the Navy.”
Stan Brent said, “I went on a training cruise on the Winston Churchill. I was sick as a dog the whole week.”
“So was Nelson, and it didn’t stop him winning the Battle of Trafalgar.”
The young man stood watching the cruiser diminishing in the distance. When he spoke again, the yearning was still there; but all the innocence had gone out of his voice.
“I’ll tell you this much—when I go to sea it’ll be as the bloody admiral, not swabbing the decks like some bleeding char.”
“Oh ah,” observed Jurnet, not sorry to be back on the old footing. “Works out a bit pricy that way. Unless, of course, you’ve got plans to marry into the aristocracy.”
“Considering it.” With a last look downstream, Brent turned away from the river. “Look out for the announcement in The Times.”
As he passed Jurnet by, the detective took him suddenly by the wrist, sliding the anorak sleeve up the bared arm. The skin was firm, unbroken. Jurnet let the arm drop.
Stan Brent said, “Sorry to disappoint.”
“A syringe isn’t the only way.”
“Not for me.” The young man spoke in a way that carried conviction. “Filling your body full of dirt like it was a dustbin.” He shook down the sleeve. “Drugs just aren’t my scene.”
“I heard different.”
“Then you heard wrong.” There was no heat in the disclaimer. “The effing Efferstein, I suppose. In trouble himself, tries to get out of it by shopping his mates.”
“Can’t say I got the impression Mr Epperstein counted you among his inner circle. What’s more, so far as I know, he has made no specific allegations of any kind against you.”
“He’d better not! Why don’t you ask him how he tried to get me hooked? Pressing the stuff on me for free—let me roll you a reefer, old pal. Try a snifter of snow, does wonders for the liver. That’s the way pushers work, in case you didn’t know. Get you curious, try it for a laugh, and before you know what’s hit you they’ve got themselves another customer. Nice little operation Mr Mosh Eff’s got going. I don’t suppose he told you about that, either.”
“We’d be glad to hear from you.”
“Split on a friend? Not cricket, by Gad!” Grinning hugely, “Especially as it’s all a load of cock and bullshit anyway.”
“Oh ah? You and Miss Aste have a game on, have you? Which can tell the biggest whopper?”
“Liz? I’m not in her class.” Brent moved away, towards the Lower Close. “I’ll tell her you were asking after her.”
Jurnet let him go a little way. Was it that swagger of hips that made him call out then, “You never told us what you’ve got in that knapsack.”
“Thought you were never going to ask.” The young man turned back at once, and slipped the knapsack straps from off his shoulders.
“I never said take it off,” Jurnet snapped, angry with himself, and aware of Ellers and young Blaker watching. You could hardly demand of others standards you fell short of yourself. “That path seems on the short side for a hike, that’s all.”
“Small walk, large knapsack. My God, Watson, if that isn’t suspicious I don’t know what is!” Stan Brent burst out laughing. “How many miles d’you have to cover, Officer, before it stops being suspicious behaviour and becomes healthy exercise?” He hoisted the knapsack back into place between his shoulderblades. “Since you’ve been such a gent—I’ve been shopping, and a carrier bag just isn’t me. So, there’s some Coke, a couple of bags of crisps, a box of those nasty little cheeses with the silver paper you can never get off—oh, and some baked beans. You’re welcome to look. You’re welcome to a packet of crisps, if you want. I can’t say fairer than that.”
“No thanks.”
“Can’t say I blame you. They’re prawn. Taste like sick. Actually I’m a salt-and-vinegar man, but the prawn were 2p off. Of course, when I marry into the aristocracy—” Stan Brent finished with a broad smile—“I’ll send out the butler.”
Chapter Twenty
Jurnet sat on the leather pouffe, drinking tea angrily out of the dainty china that was part of the late Mrs Schnellman’s immortality. Having driven with all haste to let the Rabbi know that a request had just that afternoon been received from a consortium of Jewish and other organizations for permission to hold a demonstration and a march through the city, it was disconcerting, to say the least, to learn that Leo Schnellman had in fact been approached some days earlier to serve on the committee planning the event.
“You mean, you’ve known about it all the time, and never said a word? As if we haven’t got enough on our plates, here in Angleby as it is, you want to bring in coachloads of outsiders to stir up more trouble!” The detective jumped up and returned his cup and saucer to the table with a thump and a rattle of teaspoon that had the Rabbi rising agitatedly from his chair. “They’re OK. No harm done.” Jurnet calmed down, and his host sank back in relief.
The detective went on, unrepentant however, “And it’s not because I’m a copper, either. Like anybody else with his brains the right way round I’m fed up to here with do-gooders who think they’ve a God-given right to snarl up the traffic, inconvenience citizens going about their lawful business, and leave behind a ton of litter to be paid for out of the rates—to say nothing of damage to property and to people, the police included, likely as not.”
Unperturbed by the outburst, the Rabbi inquired goodhumouredly, “Am I to take this, Inspector, as official notice that our request is turned down?”
“Only wish it were! Let’s hope the Chief has as much sense as me. Blessed ego-trips! By the time they’re actually out on the streets and marching you need a
microscope to make out who it is that’s demonstrating for what—Neo-Nazis, Reds, or Old-Age Pensions for One-Parent Cats. The minute they start chanting those moronic slogans like a lot of ventriloquist’s dummies, they all sound like Sieg Heil to me, whatever they’re saying. I must say, Rabbi—” the detective finished, a little dismayed by his own vehemence—“I never expected to see you taking part in one of those jamborees.”
“Strictly as a backroom boy,” Leo Schnellman assured his guest. The Rabbi leaned back in his chair, taking in the lean height, the dark good looks of the man. “Believe me, Ben, if I looked half as good as you do, I’d be out there, slogans and all, leading the parade. But what kind of advertisement for racial tolerance d’ you think I’d make, a fat slob like me, the prototype of the cartoon Semite? You might as well expect to sell ladies’ tights using a picture of a bowlegged octogenarian with varicose veins! Even tolerance has its limits. One mustn’t expect too much of people, too soon.”
“You couldn’t look worse than some of the types that are bound to be turning up,” responded Jurnet, only partly appeased. “The nuts and the weirdos, all the slimy things that normally stay quiet under their stones—”
“Nothing,” Leo Schnellman pointed out crisply, “that wasn’t there already. You think Angleby was a Garden of Eden before all this happened? As a policeman you know it wasn’t. As a minister of religion I know it wasn’t. Indeed, so long as you won’t pass it on that I said so, I’ll go so far as to say I have my doubts there ever was a Garden of Eden. Without evil I find it hard to conceive a purpose to Creation. If there are no choices to be made, we are nothing.”
Jurnet said wearily, “You’ll have to excuse me, Rabbi. I’m not feeling up to such high-toned metaphysics. Or low-toned ones either. I’m sorry if I went off the deep end. All I can think of, these days, is Arthur Cossey, and how I’d give my eye-teeth to get my hands on the bastard who killed him.”
