“Can I do something for you?” she asked.
That was a leading question! There wasn’t much she couldn’t do for him. “I’m from the borough C.I.D. Detective Constable Kerr.” Her dress was fashionably short. Her legs, visible over the top of the counter, were very shapely. If he weren’t an engaged man, he’d really appreciate them. “I’d like a word with Mr. Sharman, if that’s possible?”
“You want to see my husband?” She smiled. “What’s he been up to now?”
He smiled back. “Nothing that I know of. I’m only here for some information.”
She rested her elbows on the counter. Her dress had an interesting divide and Kerr automatically checked on how interesting it became when she leaned forward, before he remembered and jerked his gaze away.
“My husband’s in the warehouse. I’ll give him a ring. There’s one thing — he never objects to stopping work to talk!” She stood upright, turned, and pressed one of the bars at the base of the telephone to call an extension.
She was a lulu, no mucking around on that score, thought Kerr. And from the way she had smiled at him and leaned over, careless about the front of her dress… Physical attraction was the most devastating of emotions. Married and reasonably happy, everything had gone smoothly until there stepped into her life a curly-headed, good-looking, carefree man, tough yet in no way brutal, who set alight the wild passions in her. Irresistibly swept onwards, tormented by her desires, she struggled to resist him and could not. She demanded a meeting. Seconds after they met, she kissed him with a volcanic… “He’ll be here in a minute,” she said.
It was a good thing, thought Kerr a trifle guiltily, that Helen didn’t have a private line to his thoughts. He comforted his conscience. If Mrs. Sharman were twice as passionate as Cleopatra, he wouldn’t be interested.
The outer door opened and a man came into the reception area. He was large and heavy, in the region of fifteen stone, but was in no way gross: he moved with the casual ease of someone in first-class physical condition. He had a round, even face, a neat mouth, a ready smile, and a square, strong chin. Although dressed in dirtied green overalls and open shirt, there was no mistaking his position of authority. “I gather you’re from the police?” he said, in a deep, baritone voice.
“Detective Constable Kerr, sir.”
“Glad to meet you.” Sharman shook hands with a grip so firm that Kerr had to exercise considerable pressure to counter it. “What’s the panic, then?” He sat down on the edge of the counter, took a silver cigar case from the pocket of his overalls, and offered it. “D’you use these?”
Kerr momentarily hesitated, then accepted one. It was not very often the chance came his way.
“D’you prefer to pierce or cut the end?” asked Sharman.
“I don’t mind,” replied Kerr, a shade uneasy at being presented with a problem that was beyond him.
“I always cut — seems better. Borrow my cutter.”
There was something about Sharman’s tone of voice which worried Kerr, but when he took the cutter the other’s expression was merely one of good humour.
Mrs. Sharman said she must get on with the work and returned to the inside office. It was only after the door shut that Kerr realised how closely he’d watched her.
Sharman said: “Can’t beat Havana leaf, can you? Nothing else comes so smooth.”
He’d smoked so few cigars, thought Kerr, he wouldn’t know whether this one came from Havana or Timbuktu.
“However,” said Sharman, “I’m sure you haven’t come here to discuss the merits or demerits of cigars?”
Once again, Kerr thought he noticed an odd note to the other’s voice, yet once again Sharman’s expression remained blandly good-humoured. “We’re trying,” said Kerr, “to trace some stolen whisky and wondered whether anyone had been along to offer you some cheaply?”
Sharman shook his head. “No one. In any case, we only buy from wholesalers, distillers, or importers. Is this on account of the whisky robbery?”
“That’s right.”
“And you think the thieves would already have been trying to sell the whisky?” Sharman suddenly laughed. “Still, that’s trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs. Now why suck eggs? Why should anyone want to suck an egg?”
“I’ve no idea,” muttered Kerr. “D’you handle a lot of MacLaren whisky?”
“We do. Thanks to the T.V. advertising campaign, it’s become really popular. I’ll tell you something.” Sharman drew on his cigar, then exhaled slowly, savouring the smoke. “When we started here from nothing, my wife and me, we shopped around for who’d give us the best credit — needed credit, we did. MacLaren offered two months and better terms for bulk ordering than anyone else. It wasn’t all that popular, then, but the T.V. advertising had started and I’d a feeling. So I took a gamble and stocked up. Best thing I ever did. We’re now selling over forty thousand bottles a year and that’s still rising. Represents a turnover, that does. It’s big money — for a man in a very small way of business like me,” he ended.
Small way of business, hell! Thought Kerr. An Aston Martin and a wife who dressed like a million and looked the hottest thing since chilli con carne — nothing small there.
Sharman spoke in an off-handed manner. “There seems to have been quite a few whisky thefts recently?”
“This is the fourth in two years,” replied Kerr reluctantly.
“Someone’s making some profit, then. And you’re not doing too well at catching them?”
“It always takes time,” said Kerr quickly.
“Of course.” Sharman slipped off the counter and patted Kerr familiarly on the shoulder. “I’m sure you and everyone else is doing everything possible to catch the thieves. You’d better succeed, you know, or businessmen like me will see crime does pay and we’ll have a stab at it.” He laughed loudly.
People often seemed to think crime was funny, thought Kerr sourly. That was unless and until they became caught up in it.
Sharman jabbed the air with his cigar. “Well, glad to help you. Any time, just come and ask.” He shook hands forcefully, then left.
Feeling disgruntled, but not yet certain why, Kerr returned to the car. He drew on the cigar, inhaled, and coughed violently. Camel, not Havana, he thought with uncharacteristic spitefulness. He suddenly realised why he felt disgruntled. Sharman had ended the interview rather as if he were an elderly schoolmaster dismissing a very young schoolboy.
*
Fusil was inside Verlay’s Wine Store when he was called to the courtyard at the rear. A uniformed P.C. pointed behind a wooden tub in which grew a tired-looking shrub. “There’s a car jack behind there, sir.”
Fusil peered round the shrub and visually examined the jack and the long handle by its side. “Why the hell wasn’t this found earlier?”
“Couldn’t say, sir,” answered the P.C. stolidly.
“Tell whoever made the search to report to me.” Fusil studied the jack as well as he could. It lay on its side with the base towards him: the base was an eighth of an inch thick, semi-circular at the top, straight at the bottom, and along the bottom a piece of metal had been nicked out. Without a doubt, this jack matched the marks on the bar across the cellar window.
When there was only a single item to be photographed and the quality of the print would be relatively unimportant, someone from the station took the photo rather than calling Walsh down from county H.Q. Fusil gave orders for the jack to be photographed in position, then to be removed for finger-print testing. He returned to the shop, walked forward to the jagged hole in the floor, and looked below. The extremities of the body had been tied up in plastic bags and two assistants from an undertaker’s firm were gently easing the body on to a plastic sheet which would then be put on a stretcher and hoisted up.
Fusil put his pipe in his mouth but did not light up. If this fire had been deliberately started, why? An insurance swindle, the protection-racket, straight revenge, a fire to cover up theft, pyromania? Enquiries wou
ld have to be made into what sort of insurance cover there was on the place, but it was difficult to imagine that the well-known company which owned this store and many others in the south had set up in the swindling business. The protection racket? There’d been no reports of any movements in this field and surely he’d have received some before a shop was actually fired? Theft? How could the theft be concealed when the iron bars were bent? Pyromania — pyromaniacs usually chose much easier targets.
Could there be any connection between this fire and the theft of the whisky, other than the tenuous one that both concerned liquor?
He left the shattered building and pushed past some sightseers. As he climbed into his car, a local reporter tried to question him, but he gave the time of the press conference and then slammed the door and drove off.
Once back at the station, he sat down at the desk in his office, yawned, took off his coat, and wondered whether he ought to ring Josephine to warn her he might be pretty late back home?
Welland came into the room, radiating boisterous good cheer. Fusil trusted him to do most routine work, but tried to avoid sending him out on a job which demanded too much intelligence and imagination.
“H.Q. was on the blower, sir, with the dope from the C.R.O. I’ve made notes.” He passed across a foolscap page of typing.
As always, Welland’s typing contained a large number of mis-hit keys, but it was readable. Little was known about the whisky thefts. It was obvious that professionals had carried out the hijackings, but no word had come through on who they might be or how the stolen whisky was being disposed of. Fusil looked up. “Did Records add anything to this over the phone?”
“No, sir.”
Welland left. Wearily, Fusil picked up the latest crime reports from this desk: two cars stolen, a fight down by the docks, broached cargo at Elwick Dock, a mugged Japanese sailor, an attempted hold-up at a bank in Ribstowe. He sighed. There was little time available to investigate much of the less serious crime, but today’s big villain was yesterday’s little villain who’d decided crime did pay. Both divisions of the Fortrow C.I.D. needed more men to operate really efficiently, but there were not the funds available. Undoubtedly, it would have been a good thing for the borough force to have been merged into the county force, as the county force had for a long time wanted, but the local citizens still fought the merger — on the grounds of pride, not police efficiency.
Braddon came into the room. Fusil began to scrape out the bowl of his pipe. “Well — what’s the news?”
“Practically no joy at all, sir.”
Fusil’s voice sharpened. “Hell, there must be something.”
“Everywhere was searched over and over, I had a dog working a couple of hours, and Dabs checked that lorry as if he was looking for gold dust.”
Fusil swore.
Braddon spoke lugubriously. “How’s the fire look, sir?”
“It’s a mess.” He tapped out his pipe into the half-filled ashtray, then pushed across the latest crime reports. “These have just come in. We’ll have to check what we can, but don’t waste much time on them we’ve too much on our plate.”
Braddon picked up the crime reports and read quickly through them.
Fusil leaned back in his chair until it was resting against the wall. “Pete — if you’d nicked ten thousand quid’s worth of whisky, how would you go about flogging it?”
“I’d take it straight up to London.”
It was the obvious answer, thought Fusil. Up there, ten thousand pounds’ worth of stolen whisky was nothing: pubs could buy a few bottles each and never be found out and there were so many of them that they could take the whole consignment. “We may learn something from a grasser, but nothing’s looking too hopeful at the moment.”
Things, thought Braddon, seldom did look hopeful. He gained some comfort from that fact.
*
Kerr reported to Fusil as the D.I. was preparing to leave for home. “I saw Sharman, sir: tried to report earlier but you weren’t in. Sharman says he hasn’t been approached by anyone over cheap whisky and in any case he only buys from distillers, wholesalers, or importers. His yearly turnover of MacLaren whisky is around forty thousand bottles.”
“That sounds a hell of a lot of whisky. All right, thanks.” Fusil shuffled some papers together, then realised Kerr was not moving. “Is there something more?”
“In a way, yes, sir.”
“In what way?”
“Well, it’s very difficult to put a name to it.”
“Can you, or can’t you? If you can, get on with it.”
“It’s just… Well, Sharman’s manner.” Kerr spoke with very unusual diffidence. “He seemed… He seemed to be laughing at me part of the time.”
“Is that so very surprising?” asked Fusil, with mild sarcasm. “What kind of laughing?”
Kerr spoke in a rush. “It may be a load of old cod’s wallop, but it seemed he was secretly jeering at me.”
Kerr waited a moment, but when no more was said, he left. Fusil picked up a pencil and played with it. Kerr was intelligent and perceptive of others’ emotions, but it was so easy to be mistaken. In any case, perhaps he’d acted in his most slap-happy manner and Sharman, known in Fortrow as a very shrewd businessman, had found him extremely gauche.
*
Helen met Kerr in the hall of her parents’ home and kissed him quickly. She was not beautiful by conventional standards, yet the warmth in her eyes when she looked at him gave her a very special kind of beauty. “Well, darling,” she said softly, “what’s it like to have been engaged for a whole twenty-four hours?”
“I haven’t really given it a thought.”
“You what?” Then she saw his grin. “Pig! Just for that, you can have bread and butter for supper, and nothing more.”
He spoke hastily. “I promise you I woke up singing, I’ve been singing all day, and I’ve been so happy that the sight of old Bob Fusil looking like Methuselah with the toothache hasn’t meant a thing.”
She kissed him again. “Just think, before too long we’ll have our own place and when you come home it’ll be just you and me.” She linked her arm with his. “It’s so odd, John, the idea of us living together. One moment I have to remind myself it’s really going to happen, the next I can’t think why we aren’t already doing it.”
“Nor can I!”
She giggled. “You’ve got a one-track mind, darling.”
“Try walking down it — it’s a hell of an interesting track.”
“Norah said how terribly sexy you looked.”
“Who’s she?”
“You know perfectly well. That friend of mine with red hair.”
“Her! She’s no beginner.”
“John, take that wolfish expression off your face. As from last night, you don’t have such thoughts.”
“No, ma’am.”
There was the sound of a door being opened as noisily as possible, a heavy cough, and then Mr. Barley stepped out into the hall. “’Evening, John. Come on in and have a beer.”
Helen and Kerr went into the front room. Mrs. Barley was sitting down, but she got up and kissed him on both cheeks and fussed over him as if he were her own son returned after a long time away from home.
*
Fusil stared at the empty fireplace in the sitting room and ignored the T.V., even though it was showing a current affairs programme that usually interested him. “Bob,” said Josephine. He looked up. “Why not go to bed? You look so tired and you’re not watching the programme.”
“I was thinking.”
She put down the stitching she had been doing. “Do you have to work so hard?” she asked softly. “Are you certain you couldn’t delegate some of your work?” She spoke more quickly. “You can’t do everything yourself, Bob.”
He smiled briefly. “What are you really saying? That I’m not nearly so indispensable as I’d like to think myself?”
“You’re quite indispensable to me and that’s why I get concerned.”
He reached over and took her hand. “Don’t worry, Jo, thinking never killed anyone.”
“What’s the trouble?”
He sighed as he released her. “This fourth hijacking of whisky. Each hijacking has been of MacLaren whisky and on the face of it that suggests a leakage up north at the distillery. But the reports on previous hijackings make it clear that the most extensive enquiries at the distillery turned up nothing.” He took the pipe from his pocket and rubbed the bowl against the palm of his left hand. “I’ve been working on the theory that a fourth set of enquiries up there won’t do any better. I’ve an idea.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s based on the fact that a hell of a lot of loads of MacLaren whisky have come south of London in the past two years, a number of them bigger than the ones that have been pinched. If the leak was at the distillery, I’d expect the thefts to be of the largest loads. Therefore, I think the leak is down here, in Fortrow. I’ve made a quick check and the fact the whisky is labelled export doesn’t necessarily mean it’s cargo being exported. It can be whisky going aboard a ship as part of the ship’s stores for passenger consumption. The information of a coming load could be fed to the villains by someone aboard who knows when it’s due.”
“How will you find out if that’s how they’re doing it?”
“List the ships that were in port for the other thefts and the ones in port now: if there’s a ship that turns up each time, things will begin to look interesting.”
She folded up her sewing. “Sometimes, Bob, you frighten me a little.”
“Good God! Why?”
“When you were talking, you looked almost cruelly pleased that you might have thought up a way of discovering who was selling the information.”
“Stop imagining things.”
She shook her head. It was not her imagination. There were times when his sharp hatred for criminals made it seem as if he were engaged on a personal crusade.
Chapter 5
Fusil had checked the morning’s mail and reports and was about to leave for the mortuary when the internal telephone rang. The desk sergeant told him Kywood was on his way up. After replacing the receiver, Fusil swore.
Guilt Without Proof (C.I.D. Room Book 4) Page 4
