When the lights changed he kindly allowed me to lead off, and fell in neatly behind me. As a tail he was hopeless. But a man like him doesn’t need to hide his bulk in shady corners, and he wasn’t worrying what I thought about it. He was right behind me when I parked outside my flat, and having done his escorting act he gave me a double pip of the horn—one for each symbolic finger—and blasted off round the corner to the main traffic stream. If I hadn’t still been feeling the pain of his efforts I might have found something to like about him.
There had been time to tidy-up the place. I called it a flat, but it was in effect two rooms, one for sitting in and one for sleeping in. Sometime in the past somebody had opened a cupboard door and decided there was room inside for a tiny sink and a rudimentary cooker, so the whole arrangement got itself called a three-roomed flat. Below and above were similar flats, and as far as I knew the occupants were normal peace-loving citizens. That meant they did nothing if I played my record-player till midnight, and reacted in precisely the same way while I was having the hell beaten out of me. It’s known as minding your own business.
I had an unconventional mix of furnishings, but as long as the cupboards held the necessary support for existence I was happy enough with it. I’d got a few bottles— scotch for me and Hollands and Cointreau for Elsa if she ever decided to pay me a visit, which she hadn’t done. There was a television set I’d bought when I’d come out of hospital, with the prospect in front of me for two months of sitting round, and the pride of my possessions, the Hi-Fi record-player. Fortunately for my friend, it was whole, otherwise I wouldn’t just at the time be thinking of him in a semi-amused way.
I brewed myself a pot of tea and had it with a cigarette, and put a Beethoven trio on the turntable and let it heal some of my discomforts. Then, at around seven, I had a phone call from Eldon Kyle. So the goon had reported I was home.
“Nice to hear from you,” I said with insincerity.
Kyle was one of those people who never seem to get flustered. I had thrown it at him with no attempt to disguise my anger, but when he replied his voice was just as it had always been, not leaking any hint of his mood or intentions. “I hear you’re around again.”
“I’ll be ready next time.”
“Do we really need a next time?” he asked. It was one of those questions with no answer, so I took a breath and waited. “I was wondering what you’re doing this evening.”
“Sitting around. Waiting for more of your toughs.”
“Do you still play snooker?”
I’d been National Police Champion. “A pocket here and there.” Now what was he up to?
“I was just going along to Queens for a few frames. Thought maybe you’d care to meet me there.”
I was frantically trying to work it out. When Geoff and I had finally caught him with the drugs on him he’d been full enough of threats to keep an ordinary maniac busy for the rest of his life. Did this mean it was all to fizzle out with one little roughing up and a conciliatory handshake, clammy though it might be? So much for Geoff’s premonitions.
“I’m not in your class,” I admitted.
“I’m out of practice,” he said blandly.
“I suppose I should apologize for that.” Apologize hell!
“No apologies, sergeant. You gave me time to sit and think.”
And if that wasn’t a threat I don’t know one when it looks me in the eye.
“Pure and wholesome thoughts?”
“Profitable. Can I expect you?”
“After such an open threat?”
“Oh, come sergeant, what have I said?” For one moment a touch of emotion eased its way into his voice. He was—genuinely—sorry to have given me that impression.
“You wouldn’t want to scare me off.”
Then he laughed. Kyle laughing was something deadly. “I’m expecting to take a fiver off you. Does that frighten you?”
But he’d allowed himself the luxury of inference. It had warned me, and he was treading all over his own toes to recapture the mood. It was to be a simple two or three frames. All chummy. Who’d he think he was kidding? Kyle wanted me round at that billiard hall, and so badly that he’d squeezed out a laugh that must have cost him a couple of years of life. So of course I had to go.
He suggested nine o’clock, and it was only after he’d rung off that I realized he might have been more subtle than I’d bargained for. As he had said, he’d had time to sit and think. Maybe he’d come up with something that would make sure I’d go there. He had certainly succeeded.
I rang Geoff again. In the back of my mind was a niggling warning not to go. But what could the man do? Stick a snooker ball down my throat? But Geoff Forbes would be the man to ask. Once again it was Elsa.
“David? I do hope you’re better. Geoffrey told me.”
There was a long time to wait, and I was tempted to chat awhile. But Elsa’s deep, throaty voice sent my blood racing, and I was scrambling for my cigarettes while she went on:
“It’s that man Kyle, isn’t it? Geoffrey wouldn’t tell me much.”
He wouldn’t, of course, so as not to frighten her. I could see her now, at the phone, those dark, anxious eyes wide with concern, her broad brows just gently fluttered with anxiety.
Elsa was the sort of woman for whom all emotions are exaggerated. She seemed to feel more—be more excited, more depressed, and possibly more frightened—than most other women. To me it made her appear too vulnerable, and therefore in need of protection, but Geoff never seemed to notice. I often wondered how much of his attitude was carefully contrived and how much was pure accident. For Geoff was the man for Elsa; somehow he always seemed to do and say the correct thing without thought.
I spoke quickly because I always mess things up when I lay them out and think about them.
“Just getting his own back, Elsa. They all throw their threats around. It’s an occupational disease with crooks.”
But Kyle’s threats had been more explicit, probably because Kyle was more vicious than most. It came of a complete lack of feeling and a self-interest that was utterly over-riding. A drug pusher would have to be like that, but Kyle was a right lulu. He really played his suckers like wretched hooked fish, battening on their overriding necessity and screwing tight for the last ounce of suffering cash. If the odd suicide depleted his clientele, there was always the next initiate waiting in the agony line. So when it came to threats, Kyle had the right viciousness of temperament to sustain it. He had probably sat through his sentence, just savouring his revenge. I only wished I knew what it was to be.
But I still had to go at nine and meet him.
“You don’t have to worry, Elsa, I just wanted Geoff’s advice.”
“I thought he might be with you,” she said. “He told me he was staying in town tonight, and I thought he meant he would look you up.”
“I suppose he’ll be over at the flat in Edgbaston?”
“If he’s not with you.”
“Well, he hasn’t called me, so I reckon he’s getting in late. I’ll phone him before I go out.”
“You do that, David,” she said, and as there didn’t seem any more to say which didn’t verge dangerously on the personal we said the usual pleasantries and rang off.
The difficulty was that I couldn’t afford to let things get too personal with Elsa. I think she felt it too, because our phone conversations were always agonizingly formal, and when we met, which was mighty rare, we never got anywhere past the initial courtesies. I wondered how long it would be before I could learn to relax with Elsa.
It occurred to me as it does at frequent intervals that it must be very pleasant to have money. There was I, grilling the odd bit of cheese, saving up for a tin of spaghetti Bolognese, and Geoff Forbes had not only got a mansion in Shropshire, but also kept a flat for odd nights in town. And not one of your two rooms and a quarter like mine, but a genuine luxury flat in Edgbaston.
At eight-thirty I rang Geoff’s flat and got no reply. It was
raining again when I went to see whether the car and I were still friends. I took two weapons, my cue and the stubby pipe I sometimes smoked. With a cue in its metal case you can clear a fair-sized hall, and if you hold a pipe with its bowl in your palm you can poke hard enough into a soft underbelly to put your man out of action for quite a while.
I always like everything to serve more than one purpose—it’s economical—so I lit the pipe, then drove the two miles to Geoff’s flat in Edgbaston.
In those two miles I drove into a different world. At one time this had been a district of gracious homes set in reasonably large grounds. The homes were still there, converted in most cases to absorb as much of the population as possible, and the grounds had mostly been taken over by new buildings. But here and there is still a solid and stately building, almost quiet, set back behind an impudent wall. Geoff had half of the second floor of what had been a Judge’s residence. It was solid, placid and calm.
I ran up the stairs and pounded his door a little and pressed his bell, but he was not there. His advice would have been welcome. I drove away from there with mixed thoughts about the billiard hall at Queens.
I was wishing I hadn’t promised to go.
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The Weight of Evidence Page 15
