by Joe McNally
‘Yes and no.’
I waited.
‘His informant was anonymous. Left a note.’
‘Saying what?’
‘Saying, take a look at Malloy’s back, he’s badly injured and shouldn’t be riding.’
‘Don’t suppose it was hand-written?’
‘You don’t suppose correctly, type-written.’
‘Any clues there?’
‘We’re working on it.’
‘Couldn’t be the same typewriter that produced the Cheltenham threat?’
‘You are very perceptive this evening, Mister Malloy.’
‘It’s the same?’
‘Might be. The jury’s still out.’
‘And if it is?’
‘Another clue, isn’t it? Another piece in the jigsaw, another pattern in the great tapestry of justice.’
‘You been at the cooking sherry again, Kavanagh?’
‘How can you tell?’
‘Sharp perception, like you said. Will you let me know as soon as something’s definite?’
‘You’ll be the first on my list.’
David’s mother lived in a nice big house in Kensington with three Birman cats. She was dark, slim, pale, elegant and much less aggressive than she’d been on the phone. David took his looks from her.
‘Please sit down,’ she said, ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘No, thank you.’ I eased myself into the low chair as she watched.
‘Are you all right, Mister Malloy?’
‘Injured my back a few days ago. It should be better in a week or two.’
‘Did you break it?’
I looked at her, wondering if she was being sarcastic, but she was open-faced and seemed concerned, ‘No, it’s not broken. Skin damage mostly. I’ll try not to be bleed on your furniture.’
She smiled and settled in the chair facing me. She said, ‘I worried about David when he wanted to become a jockey, but I didn’t think he’d last. He’s surprised me.’
‘What about his disappearance, has that surprised you?’
She nodded, almost imperceptibly, as though admitting that I’d hit home, ‘I’m not that surprised, if I’m totally honest, hence my lack of obvious motherly concern. I never believed David would last with his father. Nobody lasts long with Jack Cooper, as you will discover, though I suspect you already know?’
‘We’ve had words. I don’t like him, and he doesn’t like me, but we both know it, and that makes the working relationship about as straightforward as you could get.’
She sighed, ‘I suppose that would be an advantage. Jack dispensed long ago with the notion that any kind of social lubricant was necessary in the conduct of day to day relations with humanity.’
‘David seems very different from his father.’
She seemed suddenly wary and looked at me as though trying to figure out if I was being offensive, and I realized the implications of what I’d just said, ‘I didn’t mean to suggest anything improper. It’s just that David and his father are polar opposites.’
Some warmth returned to her look, ‘David gives the lie to the nurture beats nature theories. If anything, his father’s behaviour has taught him what not to do. The only passion David ever shared with Jack was horses. Jack couldn’t wait for him to graduate, as he put it, from ponies to horses, and David loved those ponies. Anyway, I suspect David’s finally had enough. He’d never have been able to tell Jack to his face that he was leaving.’
‘Has he told you?’
‘David?’
‘Yes. Has David been in touch with you?’
‘No. No he hasn’t. Don’t mistake my less than panicked reaction at David’s disappearance as some sort of collusion with my son. David was always at great pains never to take sides after the separation. But I know my son, Mister Malloy. I’d have bet an awful lot of money that he would do this one day.’
‘Do it like this? Just walk out? Disappear?’
She nodded, ‘He’ll take what time he needs to come to terms with this, then he’ll call me. What happens after that, well, I won’t tempt fate.’
I watched her in her cool composed certainty that David was fine, and had not been abducted, and I subdued an urge to give her the full details about the killings so far.
We talked on, but I learned little more about David than his father had told me, and I left her house with the feeling that either she was holding out on me, and David had been in touch, or that in his parents’ long years of back and forth battles, he’d been of no more notice to them than a net to two tennis players.
I settled beside Lisa in the car. ‘Worthwhile?’ She asked.
I sighed. ‘I don’t know. Time will tell... and other clichés.’
She smiled. ‘You’d have been antsy if you hadn’t come.’
‘You’ve sussed me already.’ I said and leaned against the pillows drained of energy. She said, ‘You’re not fit for this trip home, are you?’
‘A couple of painkillers and I’ll be okay.’
‘You won’t. You’re shattered.’
Pivoting my head against the seat, I looked across at her and managed a weak defeated smile. ‘I’ll find us a hotel,’ she said.
It was a small place, softly lit. Lisa wouldn’t let me carry her bag. I asked at reception for two single rooms. The man behind the desk said, ‘Sorry, only one twin room left.’
I said, ‘Thanks, we’ll find somewhere else.’
Lisa, standing beside me, said, ‘No, we won’t. We’ll take it.’
She wore cream silk pyjamas with teddy bears on. I wore blood-stained bandages.
‘Didn’t you bring fresh dressings?’
I looked at her. ‘Couldn’t have changed them myself.’
‘You knew I’d be with you.’
A tiny shrug was all I could manage. ‘Didn’t want to appear presumptuous.’
She shook her head slowly, but I thought I saw a spark of gratitude in her eyes. She got dressed again, went downstairs and returned with a first-aid kit.
An hour later she was asleep in the bed nearest the window.
34
Next morning, I called Kavanagh. He wasn’t in, nor was Miller. I rang Mac to ask if they’d been in touch with him.
‘Haven’t heard a thing. Not from them anyway...’
‘Meaning?’
‘Are you still on the trail of young Cooper?
‘I saw his mother last night. Didn’t learn much, why?’
‘I just heard the boy was seen with your favourite steward’s secretary early on Monday afternoon.’
‘Claude Beckman?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Where?’
‘At a service station on the M6.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Drinking coffee and chatting amiably, according to what I hear.’
‘So Beckman could have been the last person to talk to the kid?’
‘Very likely.’
‘Any objection to me paying him a visit?’
‘None at all, but the chances of him answering questions from you are about the same as me getting a ride in The Derby.’
‘At least I’ll get the pleasure of being the interrogator for a change. Can I challenge him about being seen with David Cooper?’
‘Sure, just don’t say it was me who told you about it.’
‘Who told you?’
‘Oddly enough, Doctor Donnelly. But don’t mention him either.’
‘I won’t, Mac. Did Donnelly speak to them?’
‘No. He thought it a bit strange so he left it.’
‘Where is Beckman tomorrow, do you know?’
‘He’s on a week’s holiday. Want his phone number?’
‘So he can hang up on me? I’d sooner turn up at his door.’
‘And have it slammed in your face?’
‘I’ll be persistent.’
Mac gave me his address and we set off west. Beckman’s home was an old cottage at the foot of the Black Mountains in Wales. McCart
hy could offer no directions, claiming Beckman always said he lived ‘in the middle of nowhere’.
Two hours later, we pulled in at the Red Lion pub in Llangorse village, the only habitation of any size in Beckman’s postcode. The landlord knew of Beckman, though he’d never met him, but he provided directions which brought us to the bottom of the steep track leading to Beckman’s place. I prepared to get out of the car.
‘Best if you drive a mile up the road out of sight, Lisa. If Beckman hunts me off his property and sees you, the last thing we need is him reporting you to your boss. Give me half an hour.’
‘What if something goes wrong?’ She asked.
‘Like what?’
‘Like you not being here when I come back.’
‘If I’m not here, maybe you could head to the Red Lion. Wait there another hour then phone Mac. Don’t tell him who you are, just say you dropped me off at Beckman’s and I haven’t come back.’
‘How are you going to play it?’
‘Straight. Tell him I’m working for Jack Cooper while I’m laid up and that I heard he’d been seen with David.’
She looked at me. I tried to appear confident and would have been if I wasn’t hurting so much.
‘Eddie, be careful.’
‘Don’t worry. See you in half an hour.’ I stifled a grunt as I lurched out of the car, and started up the path.
The landlord had warned that it would be a wet climb. He said it had been raining heavily for days. Deep ruts in the steep track funnelled noisy streams past my feet. My shoes and trouser bottoms were quickly soaked and the ache in my wounds worsened.
The white-walled red-roofed cottage sat at the end of a drive bordered by young trees. I went through the gate and along the path, but stopped suddenly as a familiar smell reached me. I stood sniffing lightly, trying to place it.
A breeze carried the scent down the narrow tunnel formed by the side of the cottage and a high fence. It came to me: that sweet sickly odour of dying vegetation, all the more pungent now as the sun warmed the rain-sodden ground. I’d last smelt it lying helpless and naked and covered in whip wounds.
That made me reconsider. It could be a complete coincidence; that smell must be rising from a million overgrown gardens, fields and woodlands all over the country. Or it could be that this was the place I’d been held. It wasn’t such a long way from Hereford where I’d been dumped.
If Beckman was the man who’d abducted me, if he was home just now and I walked blithely in not only unarmed but seriously unfit to put up a fight... I looked around for a concealable weapon, a rock, a short heavy stick… but what if he was watching? If he saw me pick anything up, he’d know I knew and that would probably make him a hell of a lot more dangerous. If I lingered much longer, he’d get suspicious too.
Just for show I patted my pockets and looked forgetful, as though I’d left something in the car, then I moved on toward the door.
It was open. Just slightly ajar, maybe an inch. I pressed the big enamel weather-stained bell button, and all I heard was a series of sharp taps as though the bell was made of wood.
I waited a minute. Nothing. I reached forward again, more tentatively now, and gave the button a short stab. Another minute... silence.
Putting my ear to the gap, all I could hear was the faint ticking of a clock. I pushed the door. It swung noiselessly. I went in.
Slowly and quietly down the hall on the worn wrinkled carpet. All the doors wide open: kitchen and toilet on my left, two bedrooms on my right, and the living room at the bottom where I could see the side of the big ticking grandfather clock.
Stopping outside the living-room door, I peered through the narrow gap at the hinge side to make sure nobody stood behind it. I saw only a thin slice of the room: yellowed wallpaper on the ceiling, dark curtains, old brown sofa, mother-of-pearl tiled fireplace over an unlit gas fire, brown carpet...no occupant...silent...not a breath.
Leaning forward I looked in.
Empty.
An old TV on splaying legs in the corner, a wooden magazine rack stuffed untidily full. Three watercolour landscapes on the wall. On the mantelpiece, a brass frame held a black and white photograph of Beckman at his graduation with, alongside him, his mother aged around forty. The resemblance was striking. I also felt that I knew her.
In the kitchen, a shrink-wrapped chicken lay in a glass dish, defrosting instructions uppermost. Beside it a bottle of red wine had been opened.
Wherever Beckman had gone, it looked like he’d intended to return soon.
From the kitchen window I could see a long garden, badly overgrown. At the bottom stood a large shed. A bunch of keys hung from a rusting hook. I took them and went out.
That smell was strong now.
A dirty, beat-up green Land Rover was parked at the far corner. I moved past it to the shed, which rested on railway sleepers. Sackcloth tacked inside covered the windows. The door was padlocked. The smallest key on the ring turned slickly in the lock.
The door creaked open, letting in daylight. Against the rear wall was the heavy bench. On top of it lay the hood with the chain sewn in, and on the floor I saw my bloodstains.
I felt a terrible urge for revenge. No curiosity, no ‘why me?’ just a violent impulse. If I could rescue David Cooper at the same time, all the better, but my main aim was to find Beckman, get him into to this cold wooden torture chamber and give him exactly what he’d given me.
Returning to the house, I searched as neatly and methodically as I could through drawers, in cupboards, even in the hollow body of the grandfather clock. I found nothing to link Beckman to either of the murders. Two scrapbooks filled with press cuttings gave me hope for a while. I was convinced when I opened them I’d find evidence relating to the murder of Gilmour or Donachy, but there was nothing, just press reports and pictures on racing.
One odd item in the scrapbook: a defaced black and white picture of the finish of a race at Sandown where the second horse and jockey had been slashed beyond recognition. Why put a ruined picture in an album? On the table I found a scrap of yellow paper with the words, ‘check Ruger’ and what looked like a phone number. I pocketed it.
Suddenly remembering Lisa, I checked my watch; I’d been here almost half an hour. One job remained, the Land Rover.
Its doors were unlocked. On the passenger seat was an old typewriter without a cover. I opened the glove compartment…just a few odds and ends. I hauled the typewriter out. Someone shouted, ‘Leave it!’
I turned. At the end of the overgrown garden, about a hundred yards away, Claude Beckman was raising a shotgun.
35
I heard a blast, then the hedge to my left being peppered by shot. Back pain forgotten, I raced down the track, clutching the typewriter, scared to look round in case I slipped in one of the watery ruts, I prayed the car would be there.
It was. Lisa saw my panic in and started the engine. I jumped in and she pulled away, my door swinging open. I looked up the track, expecting to see Beckman taking aim, but he’d gone.
We stopped in the car park of the Red Lion. I tried to calm myself. Sweat prickled my scalp. Lisa lit a cigarette. Her brown, almost-oriental eyes looked at me as her cheeks hollowed, sucking in smoke. ‘Think he’d have killed you?’ she asked.
‘Put it this way, I wouldn’t like to give him another shot.’
‘My guess is he’ll be packing his bags and heading in the opposite direction.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
The landlord was in the hall, trundling an old manual carpet sweeper to and fro. He was small and round and his fat shiny face showed no surprise at seeing us for the second time in an hour.
He stopped and leant on the handle of the sweeper and said in his strong accent, ‘Not lost again, are we?’
‘Just want to use the phone.’ I said.
McCarthy listened in silence, broke off to call the cops then phoned me back. He said, ‘So it looks like we might have a little PR problem on top of everything else?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The Jockey Club, I mean, with Beckman being, well, an employee.’
‘Big deal. He’ll need more than a PR man once the police catch him.’
Lisa smiled at me. Mac said, ‘What do you plan to do now?’
‘I plan to ask you to find out as much as you can about Beckman, especially his past, and to get me names of his friends and acquaintances, find out his religious leanings, what he does in his spare time, and who his psychiatrist is.’
‘He’s got a psychiatrist?’
‘He’s a fucking madman, he should have.’
‘Mad men don’t usually know they’re mad, Eddie.’
‘I was kidding, Mac. Just find out what you can, will you? The cops are going to ask for all the info anyway.’
‘When the mess clears from the shit hitting all the fans here in Portman Square, I’ll see what I can do.’
I hung up, and pulled out the slip of paper with the number written on it that I’d taken from Beckman’s telephone table.
It rang six times then an answerphone clicked on and someone thanked me for calling “Sparky’s” apologised for his absence and said that opening hours until April were six until ten weekdays and ten until ten weekends.
Sparky’s. What kind of business were they running? What did Beckman have to do with it and who was Ruger? The landlord was standing by the exit. ‘Does the name Sparky’s mean anything to you?’ I asked.
‘There’s a place on the south side of Llangorse Lake called Sparky’s,’ he said, ‘it’s a gun club.’
On the journey home, Lisa suggested she ought to stay with me for a few days.
‘The Lodge is hardly the safest place for you to be.’ I said.
‘And it’s no safer for you. That’s why you need somebody with you.’
‘The police will give me a bodyguard if I need one’.
‘Good. That’ll make it safe for me to keep you company then, won’t it? Somebody has to change your dressings, and I don’t think that’s in the job description for bodyguards.’
‘Neatly argued.’
She smiled. We called at her house and she packed a few more things. I spent the remainder of the drive home worrying that Jackie would be sitting waiting when we walked in.
