“That’s great, sir,” said Braddon lugubriously. “I’ve been wondering how to fill in the rest of the day.”
“I want to trace a car. We know it’s an open two-seater, old-fashioned in looks with separate mudguards, and it’s dark green. It looked new. So either it’s some vintage job just rebuilt, in which case we’ve had it, or it’s a modern Morgan or a special replica and it’s new so if one says it’s from this county it should be traceable since there can’t be many come on to the road in any one year.”
“They aren’t going to be very happy about trying to track that one down.”
“They’re never happy.” Fusil replaced the receiver. It was a long shot, but long shots sometimes brought down their quarry.
*
Students began to leave Fortrow Art College. They walked through the pretentious main entrance, bordered by Ionic columns, past the eight-foot-tall bronze statue of Sir Charles Widowers who had founded and endowed the college, and down the fifteen steps to the pavement, where they fanned out in different directions.
Fusil watched them. Why did they look and dress so bizarrely, even by student standards? To prove to the world and themselves that they were art students? Then he saw Duncan Grant in the company of another man and two women and he left the car and crossed the pavement. Duncan, who was laughing, recognised him and the laugh vanished.
“I want a little of your time,” Fusil said.
“I’m busy,” Duncan replied, trying to sound self-confident, but failing. His companions sensed that there were problems, perhaps trouble, and they hastened to leave.
“I want you to try and identify a man for me,” said Fusil.
“I told you I was busy.”
“My car’s there.” Fusil turned and walked over to the Allegro. Duncan slowly followed him and climbed into the front passenger seat, a look of sullen resentment on his face.
Fusil started the engine, waited for a stream of students to cross the road, then drove off. “We’re going to a morgue. Ever been in one before?”
“Why the hell? I’m not going in anywhere like that. Does my father know about this?”
“No.”
“Then you stop and I’m going to phone him and…”
“Your father no longer commands the force. So there’s no point in phoning him, nor is it necessary since you’re an adult — at least in the eyes of the law,” added Fusil contemptuously.
“You’ve got to let me,” said Duncan weakly.
Fusil drove on.
The P.C. was on duty at the morgue. “Back again, sir. Which customer is it this time?”
“The same as before,” answered Fusil curtly.
The P.C., looking rather disgruntled, led the way inside and through to the cabinet room. He waited in case Fusil was going to warn Duncan, but Fusil remained silent, not too sorry that Duncan was briefly going to discover what the harsher edges of life looked like.
The P.C. pulled out the middle cabinet and drew the sheet back to neck level. Duncan stared at the distorted face and began to breathe noisily through his mouth as sweat formed on his forehead. He jerked his gaze away, looked wildly at Fusil, and then ran.
Fusil said: “You can cover up,” and left. He went through the P.M. room and out to the grassed square where he found Duncan was standing in the sunshine and smoking. Duncan’s face was still white and the cigarette trembled in his fingers, but the look he gave Fusil was one of weak defiance.
“Where and when did you last see him?” asked Fusil.
“I… I’ve never seen him before.”
“Don’t waste my time. I’ve a witness who saw you doing business with him.”
“That’s a lie.”
“He was selling, you were buying. You started flying and like a bloody fool you didn’t hang around until you came back to earth, but drove off home. On the way you hit an old man on a bicycle and sent him crashing into hospital.”
Duncan dropped the cigarette on to the ground and stamped it out.
“What was he selling and what were you buying — poppers, grass, ups and downs?”
“You’ve got to take me back. You can’t make me stay here.”
Fusil silently swore. Duncan had proved tougher than he had expected.
Chapter 12
Fusil was called to borough H.Q. on Friday morning. On his way up the main stairs he met a uniform inspector. “Watch it, Bob. Gale warning flying.”
He continued up to the detective chief inspector’s room, knocked, and entered. The room was empty and he suddenly realised he was being very naïve. The moment Kywood had been appointed temporarily in command of the borough force he would have moved into the chief constable’s office. Fusil went back down one floor and along to the large room, immediately past the conference room.
Kywood, seated behind the large desk, watched him come in and merely nodded in return to Fusil’s, ‘Good morning, sir’. He was silent until Fusil had reached the desk and then he snapped: “What the hell is going on?”
“In respect of what?”
“Don’t try to give me that. In respect of the vehicle accident involving Evans. Did I, or didn’t I, tell you to drop it?”
“Yes, sir, you did.”
“Then why have you deliberately disobeyed my orders? Still trying to create a stink? I’ve a damned good mind to suspend you…”
“I’ve disobeyed no orders,” said Fusil, as Shakespeare’s words about men of brief authority flashed through his mind.
“Then what d’you call taking Duncan Grant down to the morgue yesterday? I’ve had his mother on the phone complaining bitterly and she’d every right to complain. I ordered you to drop the case, but you wanted to shock him into breaking down…”
“I wanted him to look at a floater who was picked up on Monday.”
“Why should Duncan Grant know the first thing about a floater?”
“Because the floater has a scar on his cheek and spent far more money than he made which makes him a candidate for the pusher in Angel’s Discothèque. If he was the pusher, it’s fifty-fifty he didn’t fall out of the boat, he was thrown. I took the bouncer down to the morgue, but he couldn’t make a positive identification. So then I took Duncan Grant to see if he could do better. He swore he’d never clapped eyes on the man, but he was lying.”
Kywood fiddled with his thick lower lip.
“Perhaps,” said Fusil, trying to keep his voice neutral, “if Mrs Grant bothers you again you can explain that we’re only asking her darling son to help us in the same way as we’d ask any other member of the ordinary public.”
Kywood recognised that he could not fault Fusil’s actions. But he knew, beyond any question of doubt, that Fusil had been searching for the proof which would nail Duncan Grant as the driver of the car.
*
Kerr stood on the edge of the dock and briefly stared down at the red and white motor boat, floating amongst the dunnage and the oil slicks, then he climbed down the rusty iron ladder which bent sideways halfway down where something had once struck it. By reaching out with a foot he was able to draw the boat close enough to scramble aboard.
The P.C. had made a list of the contents of the boat, but Kerr drew up another and, since the two fishermen who’d brought the boat in swore they’d moved nothing, sketched in the positions of everything moveable. That done, he began a detailed search.
The lifejacket was aft. He checked the torn, still-tied tab. The stitching of the untorn tab looked perfectly sound, as did the stitching of all the other tabs, but obviously the one might have been faulty. Yet why hadn’t the knot simply been untied? He studied it, to discover it was a granny knot which had been pulled really tight. Had someone tried to untie it in a hurry, failed, and ripped the whole tab free? There was another lifejacket in the second locker aft. Why had one presumably been taken out of the locker, worn, and then removed when the boat was out at sea?
Oil had dripped on to the deck just for’d of the locker and on this was an impression not im
mediately identifiable. He knelt down and studied the impression. It had, he became certain, been made by a shoe. There was no pattern so the sole had probably been leather, but at the edge of the impression were two indentations of unequal length at an angle to each other — evidence of damage to the sole? The shoes the fishermen and the P.C., as well as Finch, had been wearing must be checked.
The ragworms in the bowl were dead and smelling. The worms on the hooks of the rod were air dried and brittle: whilst staring down at them he noticed that something had been caught up on the lowest hook. He looked closer. A thin strand of light blue thread — nylon? — had been caught up in the barb. He removed the strand and put it in a small plastic bag, writing out the details on the tab before putting the bag in his coat pocket.
He searched the remaining deck space and the lockers amidships and for’d, but although he found several rags, none of them was a light blue.
Satisfied he had checked everything from stem to stern, he pulled on the after painter until he could reach the ladder, which he climbed. He crossed to the car, sat behind the wheel, made a brief entry in his notebook, and then drove off, turning right out of the docks to go to the morgue.
“Back again!” said the P.C. “There’s just no keeping you blokes away.”
“I want a quick look at the clothes of the floater,” said Kerr.
There were several lockers in the cabinet room and from one of these the P.C. brought out a large, heavy-gauge plastic bag. He put this down on a working surface. “There you are.”
Kerr emptied out the clothes which were still wet and had begun to smell. There were a pair of white and blue plimsolls with patterned soles which clearly had not made the impression in the oil. There was nothing from which the light blue thread might have come.
*
Perry Welland, now a detective constable after having completed six months as C.I.D. aide, spoke as good-humouredly as ever. “Yeah, maybe. But I don’t really know.”
“You don’t seem to know a thing about women,” said Yarrow scornfully.
The telephone began to ring. Yarrow, who’d been about to pursue the subject of Welland’s ignorance, hurriedly left the room.
Welland crossed to the desk on which was the telephone, pushed aside three C.R.O. files to make room for himself, and sat. He picked up the receiver. “C.I.D.”
“It’s the vehicle licensing authority here. I’m ringing up about your request to trace a new green Morgan or reproduction vintage car. I want to point out that when we receive a request this vague the work…”
Welland wondered what Molly was going to cook him for supper. He was still surprised that anybody could be both a wonderful cook and prettier than any picture.
“…so the search has taken hours. I only trust that the matter is important enough to warrant the work involved.”
“It’s top priority,” he answered, wondering what case this was.
“We drew up a list of possible cars and have extracted those registered from your county. There are five Morgans and one Panther. I suppose you want the registration numbers and names and addresses of registered owners?”
“Yes, please.” Welland reached for a pencil and a sheet of paper. He wrote.
“There you are… Please try to give us fuller information next time.”
Welland, always ready to be pleasant, said that he’d certainly do so, thanked the man for all his help, and rang off. He wondered what to do, decided Braddon would know which case was involved and slid off the desk, crossed to the door, and went out, looking every pound the front-row rugger player he was.
Braddon, bad-temperedly muttering to himself, was checking through some papers. “If it’s bad news, keep it to yourself, if it’s good news, I don’t believe it.”
Welland grinned. “Life can’t be that sad, Sarge… Something’s come through on the blower from the vehicle licensing authority — I don’t understand the reference.”
“It’d only be surprising if you did.”
“They’ve given details of five Morgan cars and a Panther. Isn’t the Panther a kind of one-off job which costs as much as a Ferrari?”
“The only cars I know anything about are fourth-hand Fords.”
“Here’s the dope.” Welland passed across the list of numbers, names, and addresses. “What case is it about?”
“That floater. Seems like he had a girlfriend as well as a wife and she had a car, possibly one of those which are deliberately built to look old-fashioned.”
“I just can’t understand that.”
“Me neither. Why buy a car which looks like it was built before the Ark?”
“I was meaning about getting married and then going off the rails.”
Braddon shook his head. “You’ve an awful lot to learn in life. Perry,” he said sadly.
Chapter 13
The boatyard was situated just past the marina, almost at the first major bend in the river Fort. From it, the new docks could just been seen, marked by the tall, moving cranes.
Kerr spoke to the manager, a short, thin man whose head was almost bald even though he was only in his early fifties.
“The boat was made by us and you’ve got the number?” said the manager, “Then there won’t be any trouble in tracing her. Let’s have the number and I’ll go through the books.”
Kerr gave it to him.
The manager picked up an old-fashioned, leather-bound ledger. As he opened this and began to search, Kerr stared through the nearer window and watched a sailing dinghy tack upstream. That was the life! Out in the open, challenging the winds…
“Here we are.” The manager ran his forefinger along an entry. “Andrew Finch. We supplied the boat and the outboard Mercury and the total bill was just under four thousand, V.A.T. included.”
“Did he buy it on the h.p.?”
“No, it was a cash transaction.” He reached the final entry and then chuckled. “Literally cash — which happens more and more, every time the taxes are increased.”
Was a man like Finch likely to have amassed almost four thousand pounds in cash in any way other than as a drug pusher? wondered Kerr.
*
The third name and address which had been provided by the vehicle licensing authority was that of Miss Kristan, Strayton Place. Fusil parked near the main entrance of the six-storey block of flats. He climbed out of the car, looked at his watch, and sighed. Josephine would have expected him back home more than an hour ago. When he finally did reach home, she’d go on at him for overworking. But with the crime rate rising even faster than inflation, and with the department still understaffed, it was inevitable that everyone was going to have to overwork.
The names of the occupants of the twelve flats were listed on a small panel by the glass swing doors. Penelope Kristan shared flat number four with Susan Lamont. He went inside and, not bothering to call the lift, walked up the uncarpeted stairs to the first floor. Flat number four was on the right. He pressed the doorbell.
A tall woman, only a couple of inches shorter than he, opened the door and her change of expression made it clear that she had been expecting someone. She was strikingly attractive, with long black hair, an oval, peach-complexioned face, vivid blue eyes and a rather thin-lipped mouth expertly made-up to make it appear more generous.
The woman with the car had been a blonde. “Miss Lamont?”
“Yes.” She looked at him with brief, cool interest and he gained the impression that because of his crumpled suit and general air of someone whose salary was strictly limited, she found him uninteresting. “My name’s Detective Inspector Fusil. Is Miss Kristan in?”
She was only casually surprised to learn his identity. “You’d better come in and I’ll call Penny.” She opened the door wide.
The hall was lightly furnished, yet the few pieces were all attractive and together imparted to the area a quiet elegance. Even before meeting Penelope Kristan, he was convinced the choice of furniture had been Susan Lamont’s.
She c
rossed the hall, opened a door, and said: “Penny, there’s a detective wants to talk to you.”
There was an exclamation of surprise and a breathless question, which he was obviously meant to hear, asking what on earth had she done and was she going to be arrested.
Penelope came into the hall. Where Susan was all cool elegance, she was all earthy promise. Her blonde hair was tightly curled — it needed imagination to believe either colour or curls were wholly natural — and her round face was most noticeable for very wide, very full lips which she kept moistening with her tongue. Her figure was rich and her clothes did nothing to obscure that fact. “A real detective! Have I been a very naughty girl?”
Almost certainly, he thought. “I’m making enquiries concerning a man who unfortunately died the other day, Miss Kristan, and it’s possible you may be able to help me.”
“I suppose you mean poor, poor Andy?” She blinked rapidly, yet tears did not seem to be very close.
A long shot which had scored, thought Fusil with satisfaction. “We’re trying to make certain quite how the accident happened.”
Penelope spoke with tragic intensity. “One day we were laughing together, the next I read in the paper’s he’d gone fishing and was missing… I still can’t believe it.” She heaved a deep sigh, then opened the door to the room from which she had just come out.
As he followed her into the sitting room, he was very aware of the way her hips and buttocks moved under the tight yellow trousers: exotically, erotically, erogenous, he thought, remembering something he’d once read.
They sat. She told him what fun it had been going out with Andy. They’d laughed at the same things, loved doing the same things, and life had been bubbly, which was wonderful for him because he was married to a dried-up woman. Penelope clearly suffered no twinges of conscience over the fact that he had been married.
“Did he take you out to the Miramar very often?”
She suddenly became uneasy. “How… how d’you know he ever took me there?”
“We’ve had word.”
She fidgeted with the arm of the chair.
Murder is Suspected (C.I.D. Room Book 10) Page 9
