Fusil opened the dining room door. “Shall we go in here, sir?”
Kywood walked forward. “I don’t mind telling you, he was in a state. He started off by…”
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” interrupted Fusil. He returned to the sitting room. “It’s the D.C.I., in a panic.”
“Really, Bob, this is the limit,” snapped Josephine. “You didn’t get home until after nine o’clock and now he dares to come bursting in here just as you’re relaxing.” Her indignation was bitter. She was always worrying because Fusil worked so hard.
“Can you rustle up some coffee?”
“No, I damn well can’t,” she answered, even as she stood up. She fought some of his battles harder than he fought them himself. In consequence, some people were convinced she was a prize bitch — yet intrinsically there was nothing hard about her.
He grinned. “Put a good pinch of arsenic in one of the cups, if you like — but remember which one it’s in.”
He went back to the sitting room.
“Bob, what’s going on?” demanded Kywood. “The chief constable says Findren’s complained you went and questioned him earlier today. But you can’t have done, not after what I said to you…”
“I questioned him at his office, yes, sir.”
Kywood rubbed his hand across his forehead. “But didn’t you understand a word of what I said to you the other day?”
“Of course. But I’ve a murder and a hijacking to clear up.”
“You didn’t…” Kywood lowered his voice. “You… didn’t accuse him of being the murderer?”
“No.”
“Thank God for that!” Kywood took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. “Then what exactly did you do?”
“I questioned him to try to discover whether his firm had been selling any of the stolen whisky.”
“But… but why? Why upset him over something that’s impossible?”
“Impossible?”
“His firm couldn’t do such a thing. Damn it, he’s a… a gentleman.”
“Then I’m glad I’m not.”
“You always make things so difficult,” moaned Kywood. “Can’t you appreciate the fact it’s a thousand quid to a penny that all the stolen whisky’s in London?”
“I disagree.”
“You disagree! Ignoring all the probabilities, you disagree! I’m telling you, Bob, that whisky has been flogged in London.”
“No, sir.”
“Why d’you say that? Come on, tell me why?”
“One reason is that the hijacking was carried out by a local mob, Stretley, Playford, and Finnigan. They were paid somewhere around a thousand quid for the job…”
“How d’you know this? You told me nothing about it before. Why do I have…”
“We searched Playford’s house earlier this evening and found two hundred and sixty-three quid in one-pound notes. That’s obviously part of his share of payment. Stretley was boss, so he’d have a bigger cut which makes the total pay-out of the hijacking a thousand, or more. If a local seller from here offers stolen whisky in London, he won’t get more than ten bob a bottle. That would make his haul worth just over seventeen hundred quid. He’s not going to pay out a thousand for the hijacking and leave himself with only seven hundred. So he must be selling locally and getting a good price for each bottle.”
Kywood fingered his bottom lip. “Who says the centre-man has to be local? Most likely, he’s from London. So he sells the whisky in London and can afford a thousand for the hijacking.”
“A London centre-man would bring down a London mob. In any case, Finnigan’s murder proves he’s not a Londoner.”
“How?”
“The fire in Verlay’s Wine Store was started about five in the morning. The candle fuse, judging by the size of the wick that’s left, couldn’t have burned for more than an hour. Finnigan, then, was put in the cellar around four. No London centre-man would have risked hanging around Fortrow after the hijacking just to put Finnigan in the cellar early in the morning. He’d have returned to London as soon as he’d transhipped the whisky and when Finnigan tried to put the black on him he’d have taken Finnigan with him and dumped the body en route or in London.”
“How d’you know Finnigan’s death is connected with the hijacking?”
“Finnigan was…”
Kywood interrupted, speaking pugnaciously. “Have you one atom of proof — proof, mark you — that the two things are directly connected?”
“Finnigan was murdered.”
“Can you prove conclusively it was a murder?”
“It has to be.”
“You’ve no proof.”
“The time fuse…”
“A candle left lying about.”
“The manager says there were none.”
“He’s mistaken.”
“Why should Finnigan break into the cellar?”
“To pinch some booze.”
“But he’d just made himself three hundred quid, or so. Why was the cellar saturated with paraffin?”
“He was setting fire to it to hide the theft.”
“He couldn’t. He was drugged.”
“He was a drug addict, reasonably competent until he was fool enough to have a drink. If his death wasn’t murder, there’s nothing to suggest the centre-man isn’t a Londoner.”
“Finnigan was murdered because he was trying to put the black on the centre-man.”
“Prove it,” demanded Kywood, more pugnaciously than ever.
“When I told Playford that Finnigan had been murdered, just for a second he was too shocked to think what he was saying. He said: ‘When we left him behind…’ Why did Finnigan stay behind unless it was to discover the identity of the centre-man and blackmail him? Because Finnigan was trying to blackmail, he was murdered, because he was murdered, the centre-man has to be local. Because the centre-man’s local, the stolen whisky has to be sold in or around Fortrow.”
Kywood shook his head. “It’s all ifs. If this, if that, if the other. You’ve no proof.”
“I’ve proof enough.”
“You’re twisting facts to suit your theories.”
“I’m using the facts to uncover the truth.”
“Let’s just examine things calmly. You claim the facts prove the whisky’s being sold locally. All right, let’s agree that for the moment. Then how? Through pubs?”
“No. We’ve failed to uncover any approach to a pub and in any case there aren’t nearly enough pubs in the area to handle the numbers involved. The whisky has to be sold through a firm whose turnover of MacLaren whisky is large enough to absorb the thousands of bottles that were stolen this time and on previous occasions.”
“And how many firms in Fortrow are big enough to do that?”
“Only Findren and Sharman.”
“Haven’t you checked their stocks and records and found precisely nothing? Haven’t you had a word with the excise officer and been told he’s never discovered a thing wrong? If a…”
Kywood stopped talking when Josephine came into the room. She put a tray on which was coffee, sugar, and milk, on the table. “You won’t be much longer, will you, Bob?” she said, in a militant tone of voice.
“I wouldn’t think so,” answered Fusil.
She half turned and spoke directly to Kywood. “He’s working much too hard.”
“We all work very hard, Mrs. Fusil,” he answered virtuously.
“Do you?” She left and slammed the door shut behind her.
Fusil rightly decided there was nothing he could say to mitigate the effect of his wife’s words. He passed a cup of coffee across, then the milk and the sugar. “I want to call in the Fraud Squad, to investigate the books of Sharman and Findren.”
“You what?” Kywood, who had been stirring sugar into his coffee, looked at Fusil with an expression of amazement on his face. “Investigate Findren?”
“That’s right.”
“You must be mad!”
“I don�
�t think so.”
“Risk calling in the Fraud Squad because of a load of theories?”
“Because of a number of facts.”
“Don’t you realise that the borough force has to pay for the services of the Fraud Squad? When the account comes through, it has to be passed by the finance subcommittee of the watch committee. You know as well as me that Findren’s chairman of that.”
“So?”
Kywood’s voice rose. “So have you stopped to think what would happen when the account came through if nothing was turned up and it was clear the money was wasted? Take just one factor involved. Our patrolling P.C.s need more pocket radios, but the finance subcommittee is jibbing at the expense. If we upset Findren any further, he’ll see we don’t get those radios.”
“Then he’s no bloody right to be in the position he is,” said Fusil bitterly.
“Rights don’t always count for much in this world.” Kywood’s tone of voice became big-brotherly. “Bob, the more senior you get in the force, the more you have to learn about compromise. If you call in the Fraud Squad without the necessary legal proof…”
“Which I’m not likely to get until they’ve carried out their investigations.”
Kywood drank his coffee in quick, noisy gulps.
“I want an investigation,” said Fusil stubbornly.
“My advice, Bob…”
“It’s my case.”
“I’m trying to help you save yourself from putting your head on the block.”
“It’ll be my head. Will you put in the request, please.”
Kywood did not refuse. If he was careful, all the responsibility for the decision would rest fairly and squarely on Fusil’s shoulders should it prove an abortive investigation.
Chapter 10
A man was mugged just outside a dockside pub and seventy-three pounds were stolen from him; two prostitutes had a savage fight and one was badly injured about the right eye; a gang of thirteen-year-olds wrecked the inside of a kindergarten school; a house was burgled and the two thieves tried vainly to open up the back of a safe with a shutter-cutter — unknown to them, the safe was unlocked; a woman gassed herself because for four years she had had no friends and knew no one in the whole world who gave a damn whether she lived or died; a father had a sudden, wild surge of anger and battered his year-old son because the constant crying scrambled his mind…
Fusil struggled to cope with the flood of work and cursed when he failed, as he had to. How many of the general public, he thought despairingly, were aware that crime was on the rampage? How many cared or had the intelligence to know that crime was the bitter enemy of society and when there was too much of it society in its present form must sicken and die?
He left his desk and crossed to the window and looked out. Gone was all the hot sunshine. Today, unbroken cloud, all the same dreary, sodden shade of grey, stretched from horizon to horizon. This, he thought cynically, was the return of the typical English summer.
As he turned, Rowan knocked and entered the room. “I’m just back from the Red Duster Club, sir.”
“Any luck?”
“Not really. The doorman’s been there for the past eight years. He was telephoned a couple of years back and told there was twenty quid in it for him if he took a message by telephone and passed it on. Since then, he’s taken four messages, passed ’em on, and collected eighty quid. He doesn’t know who telephoned the messages in or who telephoned to collect ’em.
“How did he get the money?”
“By post. Each time a plain envelope was sent to him at the club with twenty one-pound notes inside it.”
“Didn’t he notice the postmark?”
“He knows it was London, but can’t remember anything more than that.”
Fusil tapped on the desk with his fingers. “Obviously, the man has to have visited the club. Can’t the doorman suggest who it can be?”
“He swears he’s no idea. I reckon he was telling the truth.”
After Rowan had gone, Fusil considered what he’d just been told and inevitably came to the conclusion that it didn’t add up to a row of beans. The letter with the money was postmarked London, but was that because it had been posted from there as a blind? Or, as Kywood would undoubtedly point out, simply because the centre-man lived in London?
He sat down on the edge of the desk. Were they making any progress in solving the murder and in finding out how the stolen whisky was disposed of? Would the murder be solved without discovering the identity of the centre-man first and being able to prove the identification, which meant the course of the stolen whisky had to be known? Although he was so certain the two were inextricably mixed up, was there still a possibility Finnigan had not been murdered and that all the theories were so much moonshine…? He thumped his fist into the palm of his hand. He was right. He knew it. Even if the proof was not yet to hand. The investigation by the Fraud Squad would prove he was right.
*
The weather remained wet, windy, and depressing, and the weathermen on television spoke about depressions and cold fronts. Fortrow could become an unfriendly place in summer bad weather. People from nearby coastal resorts came into the town and brought with them an air of bored, resentful aimlessness, shop assistants became bad tempered because customers were so indecisive, the pavements were crowded and the roads became clogged with traffic trying to find parking space. Gangs of youths came down from London and had punch-ups with the locals, seamen became more drunk, more often…
Detective Inspector Melchett and Detective Sergeant Price arrived in Fortrow on the ten o’clock from London and were met by a police car which drove them to borough force H.Q. in western division. There, they saw Kywood. Half an hour later, the same police car drove them to eastern divisional H.Q.
Melchett shook hands with Fusil in the latter’s room and introduced his sergeant. Fusil rang the desk sergeant and asked him to send someone down to the canteen for three coffees.
“You’ve had a word with the D.C.I., haven’t you?” said Fusil, as he sat down. “Can you tell me what he said?”
“He gave us a general run-down.” Melchett was a tall, austere-looking man who spoke with the abrupt manner of someone who never wasted words. “He said there were factors involved here which lay beyond those normally found in a case. I gather the trouble’s local politics?”
“It is. I’d strangle all the bloody politicians,” said Fusil roughly.
“Another lot would merely crawl out from under the stones,” remarked Melchett dryly. “It’s Findren whom we have to handle with kid gloves?”
“He wants checking on just as closely as Sharman.”
“We’ll do our job,” said Melchett.
That was one thing for certain, thought Fusil. Melchett had all the appearance of a dour man of conscience, never swayed from the path of duty.
“Mr. Kywood also said that unfortunately our time was necessarily limited,” went on Melchett.
“What?” snapped Fusil.
“He carefully explained that our services came a little expensive for the borough funds.”
Fusil swore.
“There should be time enough to satisfy ourselves whether anything is not in order. If we uncover something, presumably Mr. Kywood will find it difficult to cut short our further investigations?”
“Never underrate his capabilities,” muttered Fusil. He cheered up. “You’ll uncover something.”
“We will, if it’s there. I gather from Mr. Kywood that it’s far from certain, though, that the stolen whisky is being shifted down here rather than up in London?”
“That’s one of the points on which we differ.”
“I see.” Melchett smiled briefly. “Perhaps you’ll give me a quick run-down on the facts as you know them?”
Fusil, interrupted only when a cadet brought in the coffee, gave a résumé of all the facts regarding the hijacking and the murder.
“I suppose,” said Melchett at the conclusion, “you don’t mind whether we pr
ove Findren or Sharman the villain, just so long as it’s one of them?”
“It’d be worth a month’s pay if you could show they’d worked it in collaboration!” Fusil laughed. He was surprised to discover that Melchett had a sense of humour under that desiccated exterior.
*
The crime figures rose and Fusil worked as hard as he could, sparing neither himself nor those under him. He repeatedly put in requests for help from the uniformed branch and eventually the chief inspector complained to Superintendent Passmore, the divisional superintendent. Passmore was a man of great experience and tact, and he had a courteous manner which masked an inner toughness. He told Fusil that there had never been a D.I. who had as many men as he needed and each D.I. had to work out his own priorities in the light of the man-power available. Fusil accepted the admonition in a reasonably calm manner. He was returning from the superintendent’s room when the desk sergeant called out and said Detective Inspector Melchett and his sergeant were waiting for him upstairs. Fusil ran up the stairs, three at a time, to his office.
Melchett greeted him. “The P.C. brought us up and suggested we wait in here — hope you don’t mind?”
“Of course not. What’s the result?” asked Fusil excitedly.
“Not the one you were hoping for,” replied Melchett. “We’ve discovered nothing suspicious.”
Fusil walked round his desk and sat down. He’d been so certain. Time after time, he’d gone through the evidence, time after time he’d come to the same conclusion: one of the two firms had to be selling the stolen whisky. “Did you check everything?”
“Of course — and we’ve used up every last second of the D.C.I.’s allotted time in order to do so. There are no traces of unexplained whisky in the accounts or the stocks of either firm.”
“Surely Sharman, with all those branches he could use to sell the stuff through…”
“We’ve checked the branch figures and stocks against the warehouse figures and stocks and there are no discrepancies, nor are there any signs of unusual sales of whisky at the time of the thefts.” Melchett motioned to Price, who passed over a briefcase. Melchett took out a thick bundle of papers which he put on the desk. “These are photostat copies of entries in account books, bank statements, invoices, record cards, suppliers’ monthly statements, and so on.”
Guilt Without Proof (C.I.D. Room Book 4) Page 9
