Despite the Evidence

by Roderic Jeffries

  It was typical of the D.I., thought Kerr, not to give him the opportunity to say he was still pretty rotten and only a tremendous sense of duty had brought him to work today.

  Fusil initialled the top report, then pushed them all to one side. He sat back in his chair. ‘Sergeant Braddon tells me your version of what happened on Tuesday is quite a bit different from the one we’ve heard so far? To begin with, you don’t believe it was a branch that knocked you out?’

  ‘No, I don’t, sir.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘The noise I heard just beforehand made me think someone was behind me and I began to turn.’

  ‘There was a high wind. Any noise would be distorted.’

  ‘From the way the man in the car was sprawled out, the twist in his head, and the injuries to his face and head, I’m sure he’d been catapulted forwards and upwards. He was either dead or dying.’

  ‘Was he bleeding badly?’

  ‘I don’t think so, but the only light I had to see by was from the Hillman . . . and one of its headlights wasn’t working,’ ended Kerr, wishing he’d not mentioned the Hillman.

  Fusil picked up his pipe from the desk. ‘I gather you’d had a beer or two?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘So your memory could be distorted?’

  ‘No, sir. I didn’t have enough for that.’

  ‘Didn’t you? We know for a fact that the driver wasn’t dead or dying. Further, it’s clear the noise you heard, if you heard one, was the branch being ripped off by the tree.’

  ‘I can only tell you what happened, sir.’

  ‘Or what you think you remember happening?’

  Kerr was silent.

  Fusil put down his pipe. ‘Very well. You’ll go now and see Mr. Tarbard and thank him for calling the ambulance, ostensibly as a small P.R. exercise. You’ll see if he can tell you anything. He runs the White Angel Club. If he isn’t there, someone will tell you where to find him.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And play it cool, d’you understand? None of your bull-in-a-china-shop tactics.’

  ‘Of course not, sir.’

  ‘There’s no of course not about it,’ snapped Fusil nastily.

  Kerr turned and began to walk towards the door. Fusil’s next question abruptly stopped him.

  ‘Why were you out in the Hillman?’

  The bastard, thought Kerr. Especially as it had seemed as if this problem had been forgotten.

  ‘You knew my orders,’ went on Fusil, ‘and what I promised to anyone who ignored them.’

  ‘I was on duty, sir. I’d arranged to meet a grasser at the pub. He’s always given me very good information.’

  ‘And did you meet him?’

  Kerr was about to answer in the affirmative when he remembered that the D.I. was so sharp he might just speak to the landlord to check the story. ‘Unfortunately, no. He never turned up, but I’ve no idea why not.’

  ‘Was there anyone else at the pub you knew?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, yes. P.C. Templeton.’

  ‘Would you have any idea how he came to be there?’

  Kerr stared blankly into space. ‘Just a coincidence, sir.’

  ‘Then it was a night of coincidences. After all, you and he just happen to be old friends who went through training college together.’

  How had Fusil ferreted out that bit of information? wondered Kerr bitterly. Surely Braddon hadn’t been traitorous enough to pass it on?

  ‘I wonder,’ went on Fusil smoothly, ‘if by a further coincidence——’ The telephone rang to interrupt what he’d been going to say.

  Kerr tried to think how to wriggle out of trouble, but his brain seemed to have gone on strike. In desperation he wondered if he could plead a sudden return of concussion.

  Fusil spoke quickly to his caller as he made some notes on a pad. As soon as he’d replaced the receiver, he looked up. ‘Find Rowan and tell him to report to me at once.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Go on, then: what the hell are you waiting for?’

  Kerr hurriedly left. No crime report had ever arrived at a more opportune moment.

  Rowan was in the general room and Kerr passed on the message, then he went downstairs and along to the duty sergeant. ‘Sarge, d’you know where the White Angel Club is?’

  ‘In Salter Street. Thinking of a night out to watch the lovely ladies strip?’

  ‘I’ve got to have a word with the owner.’

  The sergeant chuckled. ‘Then with any luck, lad, you may run into an undress rehearsal.’

  Kerr caught a bus into the centre of the town. Fortrow was a mixture of seaport, market town, and growing industrial centre, of ancient and modern, of rare beauty and much thoughtless ugliness. He had come to like it, although originally he’d found it a cold, bleak, untidy place, neither one thing nor the other. The shops were good, the old part of the town with crooked black-and-white houses was pleasantly picturesque, the port was a constant reminder that the world was a very large place indeed, and there was a lot to do when one was young and energetic. He agreed with Helen that it would be wonderful to live in the hills, in their own private little world, but as far as he was concerned this could only remain wonderful if they were able to come into town whenever they wanted a night out. Too much solitude would worry him. He liked the lights.

  The bus stopped at the top of Salter Street, which led off High Street. It had some of the more expensive shops in it and he spent several minutes looking through the windows of a large delicatessen at the wide variety of special tinned foods and cheeses. There was no doubt whatsoever, he thought, if he were rich he’d eat so much he’d be grossly overweight. This reflection reminded him of supper. Perhaps Mrs. Barley was even now preparing her truly marvellous stuffed loin of pork?

  The White Angel Club was not a strip joint. It was an expensive restaurant which in the evenings offered a floor show of much elegance and during which a few of the beautiful ladies took off their clothes in a most pleasing manner. Before its opening a year ago, people had said it must fail within weeks because Fortrow wasn’t Paris and this wasn’t the thirties. But the food was excellent and the floor show was presented with such taste that whilst the men could enjoy the nudity, the women could talk about the costumes. Now, it was necessary to book a table on Fridays and Saturdays and quite often even on other days of the week.

  Kerr pushed open the swing doors and went in. The restaurant was beyond the bar and the staff were already preparing the tables for luncheon — many businessmen dined here. The stage, also the dance floor, was empty. No rehearsals to gladden Kerr, whose eternal optimism had made him wonder if the duty sergeant could be right.

  A man in waistcoat and shirt sleeves, with a waiter’s air of deference-or-hostility, came across. He visually studied Kerr’s battered suit and his attitude became hostile. The tradesmen’s entrance, his tone of voice suggested, was round at the back. Kerr asked to speak to Mr. Tarbard. The waiter, in phoney accents, said that Monsieur Tarbard was very busy and never saw people except by appointment. Kerr had pleasure in flashing his rank.

  Tarbard was a tall, well-built man who moved with the grace of someone in very good physical condition. Wavy black hair topped a face that was long and thin — there was a plaster over his cheek-bone — and his nose was a trifle too long in proportion. His mouth was firm almost to the point of hardness and the slight downward twist to his lips added to this suggestion. He remained seated behind his desk, obviously an expensive piece of furniture, and looked up at Kerr. ‘Glad to see you on your feet,’ he said, without any real warmth.

  Kerr studied him. Tarbard’s face could surely never have been as badly battered as Kerr remembered the face of the man in the crashed Jensen — nor was there any similarity between his profile and the other’s. Yet by how much had his powers of observation and memory been disturbed by the beer?

  ‘Is something wrong?’ asked Tarbard casually.

  Fusil had said to play it cool, bu
t Kerr decided not to let things get too cold. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t recognise you, sir.’

  ‘It was a hell of a night, wasn’t it?’ His tone of voice said the matter was not of any consequence.

  ‘The funny thing is, though, I could have sworn your face was badly crushed.’

  ‘It certainly felt like it — and for that much, still does!’ Tarbard briefly touched the plaster on his cheek-bone with his left hand.

  ‘But you don’t even seem to be bruised.’

  ‘Should I be?’ Tarbard now sounded bored by so fruitless a conversation.

  Kerr began to accept the fact that his addled memory must be at fault. ‘I’ve come to thank you very much for what you did, sir.’

  ‘Did I do anything?’ he asked, and as he spoke he reached over and pulled a sheet of paper in front of himself.

  Kerr knew that that had been intended as a dismissal, but he said: ‘You called the ambulance and had me taken off to hospital.’

  ‘I could hardly do anything else after I’d come to myself and discovered you stretched out under the branch of that tree.’

  ‘No matter, sir, I’d like to thank you on behalf of myself and the borough police force.’

  ‘Very kind of you,’ murmured Tarbard, and he picked up the paper and began to read.

  Kerr was annoyed by so supercilious a reception of his thanks, but could think of no safe way in which to express that annoyance. He turned to go, infuriated by the thought that he must appear rather like a schoolboy dismissed by the headmaster, when a memory suddenly halted him. He turned back. Tarbard was holding the piece of paper in his right hand. Although the heavy gold ring on his little finger was exactly like the ring on the little finger of the man in the Jensen, the tip of his middle finger was not missing.

  Tarbard looked at him over the paper and saw where his gaze was directed. He put the paper down. ‘I’m sorry I had to read through that, but I’m always having to cram two hours’ work into one. Now how about a drink to celebrate the fact we’re both still alive, or is it too early for you?’

  Chapter Four

  Kerr said: ‘The moment he saw I’d noticed he wasn’t missing the tip of his finger, his manner changed. Until then, he’d been pretty supercilious about the whole affair.’

  Fusil, sitting behind his desk, stretched his arms and yawned. ‘No doubt you’d managed to upset him in your usual inimitable manner.’

  ‘I made a point of being exceedingly polite. What turned him all friendly was knowing I knew.’

  Kerr’s character, thought Fusil, still tended to be slapdash happy and he seldom took life at all seriously, so that he was more than likely to have given offence to someone — and there were still such people — who expected a policeman to be obsequiously deferential. But he was certainly no fool. If he had noticed a change of attitude, this was fact. But an obvious explanation was that Tarbard, a very busy man, had suddenly realised that he must appear to be behaving boorishly towards the detective who had made a special journey to thank him. Fusil took his pipe from his pocket and slowly rubbed the bowl on the palm of his hand, as he often did when thinking deeply.

  ‘The face of the man in the Jensen didn’t begin to resemble Tarbard’s,’ said Kerr.

  ‘You told me before that the injured man’s face was badly damaged, you only saw it in profile, and in any case you only had the indirect light from the headlight of your own car to see by.’

  ‘It wasn’t Tarbard,’ said Kerr stubbornly. ‘In any case, although Tarbard had a plaster on his cheek, his face couldn’t have received the injuries the man in the Jensen had.’

  Fusil suddenly spoke sharply. ‘Let’s just get down to brass tacks. How many beers did you have at that pub?’

  ‘A couple or so, sir.’

  ‘How long were you there?’

  ‘I suppose about two hours.’

  ‘And you’re trying to make out you only drank one beer per hour. Come on, man, I want the truth, not a load of old flannel.’

  Reluctantly, Kerr said: ‘Four or five pints, sir.’

  ‘That means five rather than four. You were half-cut when you left the pub, weren’t you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘And when you arrived at the scene of the crash you were too befuddled to observe anything correctly. Tarbard ought to know whether or not he was driving it when it crashed. If he wasn’t, why in the hell should he say he was?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘And where’s the corpse you claim to have seen?’

  ‘I don’t know that either.’

  ‘Have you bothered to speak to the ambulance men who picked you up and asked them what they saw?’

  ‘Since I was very ill all yesterday . . .’

  Fusil waved aside all excuses. ‘Talk to them and to the people in the house from which Tarbard is supposed to have made the telephone call. And while you’re about it, get on to Records and see if by any chance he’s known.’

  Kerr waited.

  ‘Well? Is there something more?’

  ‘He invited me to go along with a companion and have a meal at his club with everything on the house. Ought I to do that, sir?’

  Fusil took his tobacco pouch from his pocket and began to fill his pipe. His tone of voice became slightly sardonic. ‘Unless you win the pools, you’ll never be able to afford to go there on your own account. Take him up on it — and choose the most expensive meal you think you dare.’

  Kerr showed his pleased surprise, then turned and left.

  Fusil lit his pipe. A man with several pints of beer inside him was not, no matter what he believed, in a fit state accurately to observe all that was happening. Even though Kerr was trained, this training must to some degree have broken down under the influence of alcohol. That would explain why he now failed to recognise Tarbard and also why he had been certain that the injuries to the driver of the Jensen had been so severe as to be fatal or, at the very least, far, far greater than anything Tarbard had suffered. But wouldn’t he have had to be drunk to mistake something so definite as the missing top of a finger? And wasn’t it a significant coincidence that Tarbard’s attitude had changed so completely immediately after Kerr had noticed, and presumably made it clear that he’d noticed, that none of Tarbard’s fingers lacked a tip?

  *

  Rowan was in the general room, searching through a six-inch pile of files from Records and muttering angrily as he did so. Kerr had a quick look in the personal message book to see if anything had come in for him, flipped through the memo sheets but no new ones were pinned up on the board, and then went over to his table. Braddon had put two crime reports there for him, both minor crimes, and a request from county police to check out an alibi.

  Rowan looked up. ‘Have you seen the Craster file?’

  ‘Never laid eyes on it.’

  ‘One of you two’s been at my desk and chucked it around somewhere.’

  ‘Not guilty, my lord.’

  ‘Then give me a hand to find it.’

  ‘Sorry, Fred, I’m in a rush.’

  ‘Don’t you rush off with the car. I’m telling you straight, I want it just as soon as I can find this goddamn file.’

  Kerr left the room, hurried downstairs and out to the courtyard and the Hillman.

  The ambulance station was next to Fortrow General Hospital, on a hill to the north-east of the town. It was an ugly, strictly functional building, but it was warm inside and the duty crews had a comfortable room in which to wait.

  Riggs was the driver who’d brought Kerr to the hospital on Tuesday night. He was a thin man with a face that made him appear heir to all the miseries of the world, but his manner was, in fact, a cheerful one.

  ‘Hello, mate,’ he greeted Kerr, recognising him immediately. ‘So you’ve recovered from your night out?’

  Kerr rubbed the back of his head. ‘It’s still pretty tender.’

  ‘It will be. Nothing like a belt on the napper to make one sore. So sit down and have a cup of char?’ Rigg
s went over to the small bottled gas stove in the corner of the room and poured out a mug from the newly made pot of tea. He returned with mug, a cracked bowl of sugar, and a half-filled milk jug. ‘Have you come for any particular reason?’ he asked, as he put the things down on a bare, well-scrubbed table.

  ‘I’d like to hear exactly how things were when you collected me?’

  Riggs looked quickly at him, then sat down. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘We’re only making routine checks.’ He added sugar and milk to the tea and stirred.

  Riggs had a very quick, abrupt manner of speaking, as if he were always in a rush. ‘We got the call and drove straight out. It was a wild night, all right, with the wind really pushing the ambulance around at Evensbridge. When we got to the crash there were you, stretched out in the road. The driver said he hadn’t moved you on purpose.’ Riggs chuckled. ‘He was quite right, but it left you getting wet! It was obvious you’d had a pretty good belt, but there wasn’t much blood so we left well alone. After stowing you aboard I had a word with the driver of the car and suggested he came back with us for a check-up, but he said he was quite all right to return home. Bloody fool, really, but if a bloke wants to act like that, you can’t stop him.’

  ‘What state did he appear to be in?’

  ‘He’d blood on his face, but he said it wasn’t nothing much and from the way he was acting it couldn’t have been.’

  ‘Did his face seem badly messed up on the right-hand side?’

  ‘Like I said, there was this blood and because of it you couldn’t see much else.’

  ‘Was he badly dazed?’

  ‘Not him! When I tried to argue with him about coming back to the hospital, he started talking to me like he was an admiral and I was a scruffy A.B.’

  ‘Didn’t you think that odd, seeing he’d been laid out in the crash?’

  ‘Most people would’ve had a lot less to say for ’emselves, that’s for sure.’

  ‘Then d’you think he had recently been knocked unconscious?’

  Riggs pursed his mouth and drew in his breath with an audible hiss. ‘People do funny things after getting laid out. I even knew one old bloke who started shouting from some Shakespeare play when he came to and didn’t stop all the time we was getting back.’