Rage of Battle wi-2

by Ian Slater

  “How do they know that?” said Logan. “Blackout curtains would have been drawn.”

  “Aye,” said Melrose, in his dry Yorkshire accent. “Apparently they were, but our lads could still pick up the TV winking on and off. At least it was a bluish light. They assumed it was the TV. Didn’t want to complain about not having the blackout curtains drawn properly. Tip him off.”

  Logan grunted his assent. “You have the printout from Motor Vehicles?”

  Melrose, on the passenger side, tore off the white slip and handed it to Perkins, who handed it out the window to the inspector. “Speeding ticket on the Ml a few months ago,” said Perkins. “Apart from that — a perfect record.”

  “Phone tap?” asked Logan, his pipe gripped between worn-down teeth, the air rattling around the pipe’s dottle. Melrose punched in the tap code to see if anything had come through since the last computer check-in. The small laser printer slurred. Melrose glanced at it before passing it to Logan. The inspector squinted at it, patting his pocket. To Melrose it looked as if Logan couldn’t decipher the printout.

  “One call in on the last shift,” Melrose told Logan. “After the lines were fixed. A trunk call — reverse charges.”

  “Hmm—” murmured the inspector, the gurgling sound of the spittle in the pipe growing louder. He was frowning, trying to remember what part of the south coast was designated by area code number 703.

  “Southampton,” Melrose told him.

  “I know that, laddie. Where in Southampton?”

  “The docks, sir.”

  “Digest?”

  Melrose took the clipboard from his passenger door latch. “Man called Ron — left a message on the answering machine telling Wilkins a convoy had just come in — a container freighter badly bashed in on the starboard side. Lots of cargo lost.” Here Melrose had difficulty himself interpreting the transcript. “Sounded like Hum-V — anyway, Hum-V spare parts.” It was typical, thought Melrose, the kind of unknown detail that gets even the most ordinary investigation off to a confused start. Never like it was in the cinema.

  “What’s a Hum-V?” asked Logan.

  Melrose looked across at Perkins for help. Perkins shrugged.

  “Well, find out,” said Logan impatiently, taking what looked like a spiked thimble attached to a turnkey from his jacket pocket. He pushed it hard into the briar pipe, turning it, making a crunching-bone sound while PC Melrose called in, asking about a Hum-V. No one at the station seemed to know.

  “Probably a Yank fighter,” said Perkins. “Sounds American, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s Hummer, sir.” Logan had his pipe cleaned now and was scooping the bowl deep into the tobacco pouch, the dark Navy Cut smelling like figs. “Well, we can sort that out later. Probably not important. Any calls out?”

  “One,” answered Melrose, this time reading from his notebook. “Mrs. Wilkins called the school hospital to ask about the boy. Didn’t want to talk to her.”

  “Who?” asked Logan. “The boy or the headmaster?”

  “The boy, sir.”

  The inspector knew that by now, if Wilkins was watching from the house, he’d be worried, which is just what he intended. Let Wilkins see them and the unmarked car.

  “All right,” the inspector said leisurely, sucking hard on the pipe, getting a good fire going. “You stay with the car, Perkins. Moment you see Wilkins’s garage door open, you block the road — and get out of the car.” The pipe was going fiercely now, tiny sparks hitting as Logan continued talking, the stem between his teeth. “You have a shooter?” he asked the two constables.

  “Nothing about shooters, was there, Perkins?”

  “No. Duty sheet just said surveillance. To assist Inspector Logan. Nothing about being armed, sir.”

  A stream of pipe smoke rushed up toward the bare maple. “Damn it! I distinctly told Leatherhead to issue sidearms. If this joker’s a spy, he’ll likely have one stashed in there somewhere.” Melrose suddenly saw a gap in the inspector’s assumption and moved to close it to protect himself and Perkins from the wrath of Leatherhead’s chief constable. “Pardon, sir — but if this Wilkins chap is a spy, he’s hardly going to carry a shooter. Dead giveaway if he’s ever picked—”

  “I ‘m not talking about a pistol, man,” cut in Logan. “How about a bloody shotgun? Bird-hunting license, eh? That wouldn’t be unusual around here. Lot of retired army chaps as well.”

  “No, sir,” said Melrose, deflated.

  Logan looked again at the house, a magpie squawking somewhere nearby. The inspector didn’t particularly like magpies. He felt the vest of his tweed jacket for his own standard issue — a Parabellum nine-millimeter. The holster was ill fitting. Last time he’d signed out a sidearm had been in the late eighties — a mental patient from nearby Holly Road Asylum, or Holly Road Mental Rehabilitation Center, as they called it these days. “All right,” he sighed, taking Melrose’s point, but not entirely satisfied. And keyed-up. “Well, we might as well go in.” He hesitated. “I presume you did remember to bring handcuffs, Melroad?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Melrose.

  “What’s up with you?” Logan asked, turning to Perkins, who sounded as if he was choking. “You all right?”

  “Ah, yessir — something caught in my throat, that’s all.”

  Leaving Perkins at the car, Melrose and Logan started walking toward the house, shoes crunching on the steamy gravel. “Stay on your toes, “Logan told Melrose. “My guess is our Mr. Wilkins is still in the land of Nod. But if not, it’s conceivable he might try to run for it. Don’t want to use the shooter if I don’t have to, so be ready for one of your rugby tackles, Melroad.”

  Melrose was surprised — how did Logan remember he played rugby but couldn’t get his name right?

  “Breakaway, wasn’t it?” asked Logan.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Bit big for that, aren’t you? Must have speed. That it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, let’s hope we don’t need it this morning.”

  “No, sir,” answered Melrose, his sidelong glance at the inspector one infused with newfound respect. “Play yourself, did you, sir?”

  “Yes. Century ago. On the wing.”

  “Faster than me then, sir.”

  “Not now,” said Logan, bending down in front of the house to pick up the morning paper. Telegraph, Melrose noted.

  Logan pressed the doorbell. “You hear it?” he asked after about ten seconds. “Half the damn things don’t work,” Logan continued, this time reaching for the brass knocker. It was a coiled snake. “Must be a bloody lawyer,” said Logan.

  Before Melrose could comment, he saw the change in light on the peephole, heard the rattle of the chain, the door opening to a slit, and behind it he saw an elegant powder-blue housecoat. A middle-aged woman, brown hair and eyes, about five four, Melrose guessed, a little on the plump side, though that was probably the housecoat. Not at all bad-looking, really. Melrose tapped his police cap as Logan doffed his hat. “Morning. Mrs. Wilkins, is it?”

  She took the chain off, her hands quickly moving to her throat, holding the satin lapels of her coat close together. “It’s Graham—”

  “No, no,” the inspector assured her. “Your son’s quite all right, Mrs. Wilkins. School hospital’s taking good care of him. No, it’s another matter, actually. Is Mr. Wilkins home?”

  “Yes-I–I think so.”

  Logan nodded but managed to convey polite surprise.

  “I mean — sometimes he comes home rather late and—” Embarrassed, she turned and called out, “James—”

  There was no answer. She called again.

  “He must be in the shower,” she apologized to the inspector, moving a wisp of hair back away from her face. Logan smiled. It was an awkward moment, her eyes shifting to the constable.

  “I wonder—” began Logan.

  “Won’t you come in? “ she said quickly. “I’ll go and fetch him.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” said Logan, taking off his h
at, Melrose doing likewise, and both of them following her into the spacious, deep-carpeted living room, a large blue Persian rug at one end, Edwardian furniture, immaculate. Some photos on the mantelpiece — everything in its place, the smell of wax polish predominant. The kind of house, thought Melrose, you’re afraid to sit in. Might disturb something. Logan’s eyes lighted on a print that looked vaguely familiar, and on a small, round cedar table, dust-colored but clean figurines of the Chinese warriors dug up in Xi’an.

  “I’ll just be a moment,” she said, starting up the long, curving stairway.

  Logan’s smile was fixed in a practiced graciousness. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “What you think?” said Logan without looking back at Melrose.

  “He might be going out the back.”

  “No — no,” said Logan. “We’ve got the house covered. No, I mean the house. Marine insurance agent? Didn’t know it paid this well.”

  “Maybe mortgaged,” proffered Melrose.

  “Possibly.” Logan nodded, unconsciously patting the pipe in his left top pocket. “Or rented.”

  “Little too neat for renters, I’d say, sir.”

  Logan frowned disapprovingly. “You own your own place, do you?”

  “No, sir — but I meant—”

  “This is a Turner,” said Logan, hands behind his back, looking closer at the painting. “Thought I recognized it— Rain, Steam, Speed.” His attention wandered back up to the mantelpiece — a wedding photo. Mrs. Wilkins was a lot thinner in the photograph, but it was her, all right, Mr. Wilkins in a tuxedo, a sharp dresser, mustache, and, or so it seemed in the photo, straining to appear as tall as his wife. Shifty, thought Logan. He was going on gut instinct, his voice low and unhurried. “Go and ask Perkins if there’s been an out call since we’ve been here.”

  “Right you are, sir,” said Melrose, taking a last glance up the stairs, expecting the woman to reappear at any moment. She’d sounded pleasant enough and totally surprised.

  Logan pulled back from the print, confounded by its lack of definite line, moving left of the fireplace. If Wilkins was at home, and if he did have a gun, Logan was making sure his field of fire was much more advantageous than that of anyone who was coming down the stairs. The front door clicked softly as Melrose left. Then Logan checked to see whether there was another entrance to the living room behind him. There wasn’t, and silently, the sound of an ornate cuckoo clock ticking woodenly behind him, he slid the high-backed Edwardian chair closer to the fireplace and in front of him. It would afford damn all protection, but was the right height to steady arthritic hands. He clenched and flexed his right hand several times to pump up the blood supply into his fingers. He was amazed — there was no pain in his knuckles.

  * * *

  The rear of the two-story house sloped down to a greenhouse, the blurred blobs of several enormous pumpkins and a run of what looked like cucumber barely visible through the steamy greenhouse glass. The two bored constables, watching from the base of the big oak trees seventy yards or so behind the house, saw Melrose, off to their left, heading back toward the car, then returned to their surveillance of the amphitheater of lawn and faded rhododendron bushes behind the house.

  “Well, well!” said one of them. “What’s going on here, then?”

  A man in white shirt and gray trousers was crawling out of one of the upstairs windows and then began to slide down the main drainpipe to the guttering of the first floor, looking alarmed as he shimmied along the guttering just above the greenhouse roof, his left foot leading in a hurried, short shuffling movement to see if the guttering would hold before following with his right.

  “Won’t he be surprised to see us?” said one of the constables. “Didn’t even take time to put on his coat.”

  “Would you?” asked the other constable, but his partner didn’t answer, noticing the big aluminum TV dish, which, mounted on the west end of the house and not visible from the front, had several guy wires down to the guttering. “Be careful, Michael,” he told his colleague. “This bugger might be carryin’.”

  “Yes — wish Melrose was round here with us. Could do one of his flying tackles.”

  “Not to worry, old son — he’s coming right for us. All we have to do is step back and wait. I’ll give him one of my half nelsons. That’ll quieten—”

  There was a yell, a tremendous crash of glass, and before the two constables had time to break cover, running for the house, Melrose was coming around the western corner of the house. Seeing one of the constables slowing, unable to go farther, Melrose assumed he’d been wounded but then realized the constable couldn’t run for laughing.

  “You see this?” he called out to Melrose. “Our boy’s fallen into his ruddy pumpkins!”

  By the time the three of them reached the greenhouse, the jagged edge of the broken glass panel was etched in blood, the man’s face badly lacerated and bleeding as he tried unsuccessfully to extract himself from the pumpkins and kept falling back, each tumble making a bigger and bigger mess. Exhausted by the shock, he finally sat still, gazing up helplessly at the three policemen as Logan arrived on the scene. The constable who had been unable to run for laughing used his handcuffs to smack away a shard of glass that was dangerously close to the man’s throat. “Fancy a little pumpkin pie, then?” said the constable.

  “Be enough of that,” said Logan sternly. “Go on, help him out of it. Melrose, go back in the house. Call an ambulance.” It struck Logan as odd that Mrs. Wilkins hadn’t appeared.

  Staring down at the dejected pile of humanity before him, the inspector felt his pockets for his “rights” card. Fifty years on the force and he still hadn’t memorized it exactly. The fact was that since his retirement, he’d found himself remembering less and less. Still, Logan doubted they’d throw out a spy case because your advisory to the defendant hadn’t been word-perfect. “You are under arrest. I must warn you that anything—”

  “Bloody ‘ell—” The man’s eyes were closed as he winced from pain, his left thigh bleeding badly. Logan saw Melrose coming down the half dozen steps at the rear of the house after checking inside, stepping over the broken glass and the remains of several cucumbers. “Did you call an ambulance?” asked Logan.

  “On its way, sir.” Melrose looked down at the man’s bloody race. “Don’t try to move, Mr. Wilkins. You’d better stay put until—”

  “I’m not Wilkins—” said the man angrily. “Bloody ‘ell.” He grimaced. “Fink my knee’s busted.”

  There was an amazed silence, the three constables looking at one another but carefully avoiding Logan’s startled expression.

  The man was moaning, “Oh, ‘ell, me bloody leg’s broken.”

  “Who are you then?” asked Logan fiercely.

  “Corbett.”

  “Of course,” said Logan sarcastically, thinking of the famous comedy team. “And I’m Ronnie Barker.”

  “Yeah — I get that all the time,” moaned the injured man. “Very funny, I’m sure.”

  “All right then,” said Logan harshly. “Show me your driver’s license.”

  “ ‘Aven’t got it. Didn’t ‘ave time, did I?”

  “Where is it?”

  “In my coat.” He paused. “In ‘ouse.” He looked up in agony at Melrose. “I told you. Name’s Corbett. I’m the—” He hesitated, eyes moving from one constable to another, then wincing. “I’m the bloody milkman. All right? Ask Mary — Mrs. Wilkins.”

  Logan nodded at one of the constables. “Ask Mrs. Wilkins to come out.”

  * * *

  The moment the ambulance arrived and began the tricky business of first getting all the shards of glass out of the way, Logan heard one of the constables still chuckling about the squashed pumpkins. “It’s no bloody joke,” said Logan, upbraiding him. “Now we’ve tipped our hand, God knows where Wilkins’ll be.”

  “Yes, sir,” the offending constable said, and fell silent.

  “You think it amusing,” Logan kept on, filling his pipe
from the pouch, tamping the tobacco in so tightly with his thumb that Melrose knew it would never burn. Logan waved vaguely south with the stem of the briar. “People are dying at sea because bastards like Wilkins are telling the Russians what ships are carrying what — departure times, how many escorts — the bloody lot.”

  “Sorry, sir,” the constable apologized. “I didn’t mean to make light of it.”

  Melrose, seeing the constable was about to burst out laughing again, quickly interjected, “Inspector?”

  “Yes?” growled Logan.

  “Well, sir — I doubt if Mrs. Wilkins’ll tip him off. I mean, she’d have to tell him about Corbett—”

  Logan was thinking about it, too. “Maybe not, but there’s this bloody great shambles…” said Logan, waving back toward the greenhouse debris with his pipe.

  “The storm, sir,” suggested Melrose. “We did have a spot of hail. Anyway, with the greenhouse behind the house, I doubt if it’s the first thing he’ll look at when he comes in. Can’t see it from the cul-de-sac. And if she tries to phone out to tip him off, we’ll know.”

  Logan seized on the idea, stopped for a moment to light his pipe, waving the match’s flame back and forward over the bowl, his teeth sucking furiously, making a whistling noise.

  “We could cut service,” suggested one of the other constables. “Lots of lines went down in the storm. Station couldn’t reach London. That’s why we had to call on you, sir.”

  Logan ignored the unintentional implication that he had been Oxshott’s last choice.

  “No,” said Logan. “We cut the line and he tries to ring in — suspect something straight off.”

  “The boy,” one of the other constables put in. “We could move her out, leave a message on the answering machine saying she’d gone to be with the boy. Only natural the boy’s mum would go to see him.”

  “Does he know yet about the boy trying to do himself in?” asked the policeman who had been laughing before and was now trying for redress.

  “Don’t know,” said Logan, sucking thoughtfully on his pipe. “I don’t think so. She’d hardly risk having him barge in while she was entertaining our flying milkman, would she?” He turned toward Melrose. “Melroad?”