*
Kerr, in the cellar of Verlay’s Wine Store, was no longer bothered by the dead man. The blackened corpse, arm and leg raised, teeth shamming a grin in that ruined face, was just part of the debris.
He had carried down a chair and he stood on this to examine, with the aid of a torch, the iron bars which had been forced. He moved the beam of the torch up and down, to alter the angle at which it struck the metal, and he saw an impression on the left-hand bar. Then, almost immediately, he saw another impression below the first. One had a curved edge, the other a straight one with, in the centre, a small V indented. Assuming the bars had been forced apart with an hydraulic jack, it was reasonable to assume that those marks had been caused by the base of the jack. He took a notebook from his pocket and made a sketch of the impressions.
He climbed down from the chair and looked up through the hole in the ceiling at the uniformed P.C. above. “Isn’t there any sign of anyone yet?”
“Not a sausage, mate.”
“What the hell are they all doing?”
“Resting. It’s only the erks and narks like you and me what have to work.”
“You do what?” asked Kerr jeeringly. “You blokes in blue don’t know what work is — clocking on and off just like an office job.”
“Don’t you start shouting that one at me! I’ve got a sergeant to see I’m doing what I ought to be when I’m on duty, but you blokes just slope off and have a couple of hours in the flics watching a Scandinavian film.”
Kerr chuckled. “Talking about them, did you read about the latest?”
“Is it hot stuff?” asked the P.C. with great interest.
“They say that if you’ve got a weak heart, you’d better stay away.”
“What’s it called?”
“You wouldn’t be eager, would you? What’s the matter? Won’t that blonde of yours play the right games?”
“My…” began the P.C., but stopped abruptly.
Kerr was about to make a ribald comment when he saw the reason for the P.C.’s silence — the pathologist.
The pathologist, dressed in a very smart pin-striped suit, stood by the ladder and looked down. He examined Kerr with an expression that could have been distaste, then studied the body. There was a man, thought Kerr rudely, who wouldn’t know what to do with a blonde on a deserted tropical beach.
The pathologist moved out of sight. Kerr heard him giving peremptory orders to his secretary to pass over boots, gloves, and overalls. Soon after the last of the stream of orders, he climbed down the ladder, followed by his secretary, an elderly man who was remarkably agile for his age.
“Where’s the detective inspector?” asked the pathologist.
“He got called away to another case, sir.”
“That’s no excuse for his not being here when I arrive.”
You two argue that one out, thought Kerr cheerfully.
There was a clump of feet from above and the lugubrious face of Detective Sergeant Walsh peered down. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“Always ready, always willing,” answered Kerr.
Walsh muttered something and then climbed down the ladder with some of his photographic equipment. When he reached the floor, he shouted at the P.C. above to pass him down the rest.
“Sarge,” said Kerr, “there are some impressions on the bent bar at the window which must be photographed.”
“All right, all right, just give me a chance to breathe. Rush, rush, rush!” Walsh carefully put down the tripod at a point where the debris was not too thick. He used a handkerchief to mop his brow. “It’s hot and stuffy here,” he muttered.
“I’ll get some air-conditioning laid on next time.”
The pathologist spoke sharply. “Have you come here to chatter or to work? Photograph the body from over there — and there — and there,” he ordered, stabbing the air with his forefinger. “And will someone please tell me where the detective inspector is?”
Walsh took the photographs and then stepped back. The pathologist moved forward and began to examine the head of the dead man, working with the delicate touch of a surgeon.
Fusil came down the ladder.
The pathologist looked up briefly. “Very kind of you to honour us with your presence,” he said.
Fusil’s expression tightened. He crossed to Kerr. “Have you questioned the manager and his wife?”
“Not yet, sir. I’ve been waiting here…”
“That’s half your trouble — you’re always waiting. Get on and do some work.”
“It seemed to me…”
“Stop arguing.”
Kerr turned and crossed to the ladder, which he climbed. The world was a very unjust place. Still, he’d survive. He went to his car, suddenly remembered the wick of the candle, and returned to tell Walsh to photograph it and detail someone to pack it in a container.
The address to which the manager and his wife had gone was in Farnleigh. Kerr arrived at one o’clock and, mindful of public relations, decided not to interrupt the Jarvises at what might well be their meal time. He was also hungry. He had a sandwich lunch and a pint and then drove on to Kirwood Avenue.
The door of number 34 was opened by a woman in her early twenties who looked thoroughly harassed — sudden shrieks and yells from at least two children explained why. He introduced himself and asked if he could see Mr. Jarvis and she showed him into the front room — a brightly decorated and furnished room that was immediately attractive.
Mr. Jarvis was a tall, thin man, approaching the end of middle age, with a nervous, jerky manner of speaking. “Look — my wife’s proper shocked. Terrible sort of thing to happen. Unless you just have to speak to her…”
“I’m sure you can tell me all I need to know, Mr. Jarvis,” replied Kerr. “What I want to clear up first of all is what was down in the cellar that would burn? You know the kind of stuff — wood, paper, old sacks?”
“I used to keep the cellar very tidy. There was not even any wooden or cardboard boxes — always took them out right away, I did. When Mr. Ball from head office came around, he was always saying what a tidy cellar I kept.” He spoke with a pride that seemed pathetic.
“Then you can’t suggest what could have started the fire?”
“There wasn’t anything. I was always most particular about fire risk. The man what broke in did the fire.” Jarvis’ voice rose. “Who was he? What was he doing in my cellar? He could’ve had us burned to death. My wife’s frightened sick.”
Kerr murmured a few words of sympathy, only too aware that no words of his would bring any comfort. The Jarvises were clearly experiencing the retrospective fear that so often afflicted people after a crime in which they had not been directly injured: for some time, their minds would haunt them with all the terrors they might have suffered. “Have you any idea who the man in the cellar might be?”
Jarvis shook his head. “How could I know that? I didn’t know nothing until my wife shook me awake. If she hadn’t woken me up, we could’ve both been burned to death.”
“You haven’t received any threats from anyone?”
“Why should I receive threats?” he asked plaintively.
“The old protection racket — fork over a hundred quid or we burn your place down.”
“If anything like that ever happened, I’d have told the police immediately.”
Kerr turned over a page in his notebook. “What kind of stock did you have in the place?”
“The same as usual. We never carry extra except for Christmas.” Jarvis began to speak more easily. “It’s a very regular trade, you understand, except when the government shoves on new taxes. In any case, I always keep a very close check and it’s my boast that I’ve never been caught short of stock. Head office has never had cause to complain.” His expression suddenly crumpled.
“What’s up?” asked Kerr, astonished by the abrupt change.
“It’s… it’s the future. Got me worried, it has. Head office has shut down two branches in the last y
ear on account of competition from cut-price stores. The managers were made redundant. I’m getting on a bit. If they was to decide not to rebuild…” He looked a very frightened man.
“They’ll rebuild, twice the size of before,” said Kerr, with false certainty.
Jarvis shook his head. “The firm’s old-fashioned and doesn’t like new ideas. I told ’em to drop their prices to meet the competition from the cut-price places, but they wouldn’t… Said their customers wanted the old kind of service. Customers these days want everything cheap. Things aren’t what they used to be.”
They never were, thought Kerr, and a good job too. In the old days, the average copper was hard put to find the price of half a pint.
*
Detective Sergeant Braddon organised the search of the clearing in the woods with his usual efficiency. This was routine work and he had always been good at that, having the necessary kind of patient mind. What he lacked was ambition and imagination, but he knew he lacked these qualities and yet didn’t give a damn. When he retired, he’d settle down into the kind of life he’d always wanted: a little gardening, a little walking, and a lot of sitting about with nothing much to do.
He called across to one of the two P.C.s who was using a stick to search the thick undergrowth beyond the lorry and he told the other to do a better job. The P.C.’s lips moved, but Braddon heard nothing. The fact that he’d just been cursed failed to worry him in the slightest. All P.C.s had always cursed their sergeants.
The dog handler, dog on a short lead, came up to where he stood. “There’s nothing, Sarge.”
“Are you sure you’ve covered everywhere?”
“Alex has been over everything and everywhere a dozen times.”
Braddon stared down at the panting dog. “Looks like we’ve got an empty plot, then.”
“Nothing in the lorry?”
“Nothing and Dabs says it’s empty of prints except those which must be the driver’s.”
“It’s a slick job.”
“That’s for sure.”
“What was the whisky worth?”
“Something like ten thousand quid at shop prices.”
The dog handler whistled.
Braddon used his handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his brow. Since the rain had stopped, the day had become very sultry.
“Did you cover the woods between here and the road?”
“I told you, Sarge, Alex has been everywhere. There ain’t any traces.” Braddon sighed. Villains were getting too flaming clever.
Chapter 4
Rowan looked at his watch: the time was nearly five-thirty. Was he going to be able to get away at a reasonable hour? Heather had suggested they went to the pictures tonight and he’d promised to take her. He daren’t let her down because it was the first time she’d asked him to take her out for weeks: the first time, in fact, since their last row which had been so bitter that for a while it had seemed they must finally separate. It was strange. Until that moment, he had been able to imagine their separation with equanimity, certain it was he who, from the beginning, had been in the right: but when they’d looked at each other with hate and despair and had realised everything was almost over, they’d suddenly both been swept by a terrible sense of impending loss and hurt. They’d tried everything they could to patch things up and seemed to have succeeded, but he sensed the patching was still thin: it wouldn’t need much to upset everything once more.
He walked up the street and went into the cut-price liquor store run by Sharman & Co. Ltd. Bottles were stored in open shelves and customers entered, picked up a wire basket, went down the left-hand gangway and came back up the right-hand one to the till and the exit door. The woman behind the till was knitting. When he introduced himself, she exclaimed with surprise and put the knitting down by the till.
“We’re trying to trace some whisky that’s just been stolen,” he explained.
She spoke sharply. “You won’t find any here.”
He smiled and for a moment his expression of general discontent was banished. “I’m not suggesting we will. What I’m after finding is whether anyone’s approached you trying to sell whisky on the cheap?”
“All our supplies come from the wholesalers who own the shop.”
“D’you never get any travellers?”
“No. They visit the warehouse, not here.”
A middle-aged, smartly dressed, retired-colonel-type man came in, picked up a wire basket, went straight to the gin, put four bottles in the basket, and paid with a ten-pound note.
Rowan watched him leave with envious dislike. Nobody could try to tell Rowan that money wasn’t all important in life. If he’d had enough money to give Heather the kind of life she’d wanted, she wouldn’t have gone modelling and then he wouldn’t have spent so many agonising hours wondering whether she did something more than model.
“Is there anything else?” demanded the woman.
He jerked his thoughts back to the present. “D’you sell MacLaren Highland Whisky?”
“It’s up there, on the shelves.”
He went back to the whisky shelves. There were over two dozen bottles of MacLaren whisky in one compartment, priced at a shilling a bottle less than other brands. The label was one made familiar by extensive T.V. advertising: there was a poetic scene from the Mull of Kintyre and in the foreground was a stag. Under the stag ran the motto: ‘The malt whisky the connoisseurs have discovered’. Rowan picked up one of the bottles. Fusil said the stolen whisky had ‘Export’ printed across the right-hand corner of the label and three numbers punched in the left-hand corner: this label was unmarked, as were all the others in the rack. He took the bottle to the counter and paid for it.
“D’you find this whisky is popular?” he asked.
“People are drinking it more and more.” Her manner became less frosty. “My husband won’t touch the ordinary grain whiskies these days — and they’re a little bit more expensive.”
This bottle was for Fusil. He was tempted to buy another for Heather, but knew he couldn’t really afford to.
He left the shop and stood to the side of the pavement as he wrote the name of the shop on the label of the bottle. Instead of selling it to the canteen to recoup the cost, Fusil would probably fiddle it for himself. Rank always won. He took the list from his pocket and checked the address of the next drink shop he had to visit, then cut back through a side street to the High Street at a point above the cattle market — which, since it was Tuesday, was open and causing endless traffic jams. Findren and Sons was very old-fashioned in style with a long, mahogany counter, two assistants who wore dark coats, and only a few bottles in sight. The firm was widely noted for the quality of its wines and because its trade was with the wealthier and it still offered considerable credit, its sales had not really been affected by the cut-price stores or the wine clubs. Practically all the good hotels and restaurants in and around Fortrow bought their wines from Findren.
Rowan spoke to the tall and thin assistant — his companion was short and fat — and said he was trying to discover whether anyone was offering stolen whisky for sale.
“We do not,” said the tall and thin assistant, “indulge in that sort of trade.” His tone of voice suggested he would not be astonished to hear that other, much lesser stores, did.
“No one’s come in and sounded you out on buying any MacLaren whisky?”
“Certainly not.”
“D’you sell much of it?”
“More and more,” said the short and fat man, speaking for the first time.
The tall and thin man sniffed. He spoke in a patronising voice. “People are very simple. They actually believe the advertisements on telly. As if drinking MacLaren whisky could begin to make anyone a connoisseur! Another thing, it’s not a pure malt whisky, but a blended one like all the others, only it has a shade less grain whisky. Still, the average whisky drinker hasn’t any palate.”
The manager hurried out of his office to discover what all the talking was abo
ut. He was an over-neat, fussy little man whose manner became peremptory as soon as he had a good look at Rowan and noted the quality of his clothes. “Well — what’s the trouble?”
The tall assistant answered. “He’s a detective, Mr. Pills, and wants to know if we’ve bought any stolen whisky.”
“Of course not,” snapped the manager. “I would have thought that was obvious to anyone of even average intelligence.” He stalked back to his office.
Rowan bought a bottle of MacLaren whisky and left. If ever he won the pools and could afford to drink, he’d go to hell before he bought so much as a bottle of soda water from Findren and Sons.
*
Kerr drove up the centre road that ran through the large industrial estate to the north-west of Fortrow which was on land that six years before had been green fields. A notice directed him down a side road and this brought him to the warehouse which, set behind a ten-foot-high chain-link fence, was rectangular in shape, brick built, and had a thick concrete roof. There were no windows and the doors were of metal with special heavy-duty locks. Immediately to the right of the warehouse was an office, a separate low, wooden building. Kerr parked the Hillman in the road, walked past an Aston Martin that filled him with covetous greed, and went through to the office building which consisted of a front reception area and a single room beyond. He rang the bell on the counter and waited. The reception area was sparsely furnished and purely functional. There was the counter, a small table on which was a telephone that was linked to two extensions and a typewriter, a rush mat on the wooden floor, two uncomfortable wooden chairs, and a picture-less calendar on the near wall.
A woman came out of the office. She was in her middle twenties and Kerr’s automatic reaction was to whistle silently. A blonde, very pretty, with a body that did all the right things at the right places, she wore a dress that looked as if it had been moulded to her. If he weren’t an engaged man, he’d nominate her as one of the people he’d most like to be shipwrecked with.
Guilt Without Proof (C.I.D. Room Book 4) Page 3
