A Traitor's Crime

by Roderic Jeffries

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘You’ve got to believe me, it’s nothing to do with my job as a police officer.’

  ‘I’ll believe you — when you’ve told me the truth.’

  Astey was sweating slightly.

  ‘Come on, lad.’

  Astey hesitated, then spoke. ‘It’s a woman.’

  ‘Her name?’

  ‘I can’t give you it.’

  ‘You can’t not give it.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘Explain. I’m broad-minded.’

  ‘But she’s married.’

  ‘Aren’t you?’

  Astey’s face twisted in an expression that was almost one of pain. ‘All right, I’m married. You saw her last night. You saw the house. Everything has to be exactly right. There’s never a speck of dust anywhere in the house. There’s never a hair out of place on her head or a smut on the end of her nose. It’s like living with a … a goddamn marble statue. If you talked to her about emotion, she’d wonder what you meant. She’s fastidious: she’s so fastidious that she thinks sex is something only the lower classes enjoy.’ His voice rose. ‘She’ll walk around naked in the bedroom and after I’ve watched, seen her body move about, I make a grab and … I’ll get lectured on being so crude.’

  ‘It’s a rough world. So you looked round for home comforts elsewhere?’

  ‘I met someone who was emotional, sometimes untidy, had smuts on the end of her nose, and thought making love was a hell of a good way of passing the time.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘I’m not saying.’

  ‘Do I have to ask for it in front of your wife?’

  ‘You bastard!’

  ‘Her name?’

  Astey shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of defeat. ‘Will you … Will you keep everything quiet?’

  ‘You know well enough how we work. If it doesn’t matter to the investigation, we keep it quiet.’

  ‘Scott.’

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘The Old Vicarage, Highton Lees.’

  ‘Right.’ Barnard wrote on a sheet of paper in front of him.

  ‘Her husband … He’s cold, emotionless. She … she was alone, like me.’

  ‘No need to make excuses to me, lad. I’m not your father confessor.’

  Astey stared with hatred at Barnard, then left.

  Barnard leaned back in his chair. Mistresses were said to be expensive luxuries.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Elwick jumped off the bus before it had come to a stop and he walked briskly along the pavement to the central police station. He went in through the main entrance, into the information room.

  ‘ ’Morning, Sarge,’ he said to the duty sergeant.

  ‘ ’Morning,’ replied the other.

  ‘Good day for the beaches and the bikinis, eh?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Elwick went through to the corridor and the stairs, his temporary sense of well-being gone. Perhaps he’d been a fool to find any joy in the world, he thought bitterly. Joanna knew the worst about him and it made no difference to their relationship, but that in turn made no difference to the facts. It was still his souvenir which had been found in the bedroom of the house in Jamaica Road. The duty sergeant reckoned that was enough.

  As he climbed the stairs, Elwick cursed the world. Why should he be persecuted for something he’d done years ago, before he’d been offered the choice between right and wrong? Why were the innocent so blindly pious? What did they think of the starving man who stole a loaf of bread? Did they call him a criminal and condemn him as such? Why couldn’t people understand that he, Robert Elwick, would never, no matter what the pressures, betray the force which had given him his self-respect?

  Larksfray was in the C.I.D general room, sorting out the daily crime sheets, including the lists of stolen vehicles. He looked up, but did not speak.

  Elwick went over to his desk and sat down. ‘All right,’ he said roughly, ‘let’s have it out in the open. I don’t care what was found where, I didn’t tell the villains. Did you?’

  ‘Of course I bloody didn’t.’

  ‘Then maybe we can stop looking at each other and wondering.’

  ‘Sure.’

  But the other wasn’t sure, not by a long chalk, thought Elwick. His had been a childish gesture, an entirely meaningless one. Yet it was impossible to imagine Larksfray as the traitor. It was impossible to imagine Praden, Simlex, or Astey as the traitor. That left only himself. But he wasn’t the traitor. ‘Anything special on the books?’

  ‘The skipper says someone’s to go out to Christenley Road where a young girl of eight was attacked last night.’

  ‘Hasn’t anyone been out yet?’

  ‘The mother didn’t report it until just now — for fear of the neighbours talking.’

  How the hell did you understand the human mind, Elwick thought? A mother had her daughter attacked, but worried about the neighbours rather than the child.

  Larksfray fiddled with his pencil. ‘I saw the D.I coming out of Barnard’s room just now. He looked like someone had just kicked him somewhere painful.’

  It wouldn’t hurt Astey to get roughed up over something, thought Elwick spitefully. Astey was too damned smooth.

  ‘Miles phoned through just now,’ said Larksfray. ‘He’s sick again with migraine.’

  The telephone rang. Elwick picked up the receiver. ‘Elwick speaking.’

  ‘There’s an outside call for you,’ said the civilian telephonist, who suffered from a very strong Kensington accent.

  ‘Is that you, Bob?’ asked a man.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ve news, Bob. You’ll want to hear it, but it ain’t no good anyone else comin’. The Mermaid, nine tonight.’ The connexion was cut.

  He slowly replaced the receiver. Police relied very heavily on informers: every detective cultivated as many informers as possible and there was a fund from which came some of the money that was paid them — other money came out of the detectives’ own pockets. He had contact with several men and, surprisingly, one woman, but he was certain the voice he had just heard had not belonged to any of them. Yet the man had known his Christian name. What was the news he’d want to hear? The name of the detective who was the traitor? God knows, that was the only news which interested him right now. Barnard had given orders that any information was immediately to be passed on to him. But he, Elwick, wasn’t going to be fool enough to carry out that order.

  The door opened and Astey hurried in. ‘Who’s gone out to Christenley Road?’

  The two detectives constables were silent.

  ‘Why the bloody hell can’t you do as you’re told? Elwick, get on out.’

  Elwick stood up and stared at the D.I with open resentment. Astey left and slammed the door shut after himself.

  ***

  Joanna, when asked by Basil to have lunch with him in the basement canteen of the art school, curtly refused. She found Basil a pain in the neck, yet not so long ago he had amused her.

  She left the building and walked in the hot sunshine along to the public gardens, a quarter of a mile away. The gardens were a memorial to the dead of the two World Wars and by some lucky chance they had escaped the enervating planning so common to similar gardens. Along the north side were four retreats, separated by creeper-covered walls of Kentish rag-stone, each with a miniature fountain splashing endlessly into a small pool in which goldfish lazily swam. One of these retreats was empty and she sat down on the wooden seat.

  She stared at the fountain and wished, with an angry sense of frustration, that she could look at the facts logically and unemotionally. But how could she be unemotional? She loved her parents, yet she could not forget what her father had done. He had betrayed a confidence. Then her mind insisted on asking whether this was really true? Her father was an honourable man — in the old-fashioned and uncynical sense — and it was almost impossible to believe he would do something that he must know t
o be dishonourable. How could this inconsistency be resolved? But then how could Bob have been a member of one of those awful gangs when he was young? They beat up people, enjoyed bringing fear and terrorising the weak. How could anyone as fine as he have belonged to such a gang? How much did she really like him and why did that question frighten her? Why did she like him at all? He was — by the standards she had always known — rough in manner and rough in thought: in the company of other men she knew, he would be a fish out of water. Yet he had taught her the elementary truth that many of the things she had always believed important were really of no importance at all. Some half-remembered lines of poetry came back to her. ‘ … No matter what he isn’t, just ponder what he is.’ Ponder how he could have belonged to one of those gangs?

  The only certainty was that when he swore he’d never passed any information to the crooks, that was the truth. No matter how many more questions poured over her, that was the truth.

  ***

  Barnard spoke to the caretaker in the police hostel — a huge old Victorian house that had been converted to accommodate thirty policemen — and then found Praden’s room. He went in without bothering to knock.

  The curtains were still drawn and the room smelled stale. Praden was in bed.

  Barnard pulled back the curtains and sunlight streamed over the bed. Praden turned away from the light. Barnard visually searched the room, then opened the door of the built-in cupboard. An empty bottle of whisky was on the floor, between two pairs of shoes.

  He moved the battered chair close to the bed and sat down. ‘They tell me you call it migraine?’

  Praden struggled up to a sitting position and reached across to the bedside table for the glass of water on it. His hand was shaking and he knocked the glass over. Water spilled across the top of the table and down on to the floor.

  ‘Some migraine!’ said Barnard, with heavy sarcasm.

  Praden climbed out of bed. For a few seconds he held on to the bedside table, then he picked up the glass and carried it out of the room. He returned, with the glass refilled. He opened the top drawer of the table, took out a capsule containing four Codis, and tore out two of the tablets. After he had swallowed them, he sat down on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Called the doctor in, I suppose?’ said Barnard.

  Praden stared with dislike at the large, beefy detective chief inspector. ‘I was pissed, blind pissed and you can shove that down in the books if you want. Just add it was outside working hours.’

  ‘We’re in working hours now.’

  ‘So? Going to run along and tell the chief constable to show what a smart little detective you are?’

  ‘Remember who you’re talking to,’ said Barnard furiously.

  ‘I’ve not much chance of forgetting that.’

  ‘I’ll make certain you’ve even less cause in the future.’

  ‘Look, Mr Barnard … ’ Praden managed to make the words sound insulting. ‘You do just what you like. But to spoil your pleasure, I’ll tell you something. I don’t goddamn care if the chief constable kicks me right out of the force.’

  ‘You’ll care.’

  ‘You don’t begin to understand. You’re like all the other senior officers who think every man they give their orders to lives in fear and trembling. You can’t conceive someone who mightn’t be. You must have checked my background?’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Then you discovered I was married, but my wife got killed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you discover how she was killed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She was driving the van I’d just bought her. I saved every penny I could and when I’d enough for the down payment I gave her that van to help her with the shopping and for her to see her mother. She could hardly believe it. Ever done anything half as human as that?’

  Barnard said nothing.

  ‘She went shopping one day. She was driving on her side of the road, at a reasonable speed, when a large on-coming car hit the van head-on. The driver of the large car was a rich businessman who’d been on the midday piss. His car was so big, it didn’t crumple too much. The van was small — it crumpled. I was out on a job, in one of the patrol cars. The message came through on the blower, “Detective Constable Praden to go to the general hospital.” Something to do with a case, I thought. At the hospital, they directed me to the casualty ward. That’s where I discovered I’d arrived just in time to see my wife die. That’s quite an experience — seeing your wife die.’

  Barnard lit a cigarette.

  ‘Most of the time,’ said Praden, ‘I get by. But sometimes, memories get a bit strong. Then I drink. I drink until I pass out. Shove that down in your report and then stuff it.’

  Barnard put the spent match in the ash-tray, already over-full, that was on the floor. ‘What happened to the driver of the other car?’

  ‘Didn’t you hear me say he was rich? He hired a couple of smart, pricey lawyers and they proved he was as sober as the judge trying the case. The crash wasn’t his fault, oh no! He got fined a few quid in order to make things look a bit straight. He lives out at Patcherton. I’ve gone by his large house and seen his large wife, weeding the rose beds. I hate that bitch of a wife more than any other woman in this world.’

  Barnard stood up.

  ‘Going to make out a full report?’ jeered Praden.

  ‘If necessary.’

  ‘Got a wife?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t give her a car as a present.’

  Barnard left. He went down the stairs and out on to the pavement and was thankful to be standing in the sunshine. He suffered a tremendous desire to telephone Doris to see that she was all right.

  He was not a man to spend time wondering about other people’s feelings, and in any case every detective soon became hardened to other people’s miseries out of sheer necessity, but he could not stop thinking about the hell Praden had suffered and was suffering.

  For once, he wondered whether there need be a full report: could Praden’s drunkenness have any bearing on the case? Then he cursed himself. Of course it could have a bearing. There had to be a full report.

  ***

  Mary and Joanna sat on one side of the table and Keelton on the other, a seating arrangement to which, for no particular reason, they always adhered for supper.

  Mary cut a portion of steak and kidney pie, put it on a plate which she passed to Joanna.

  ‘Dad,’ said Joanna. She hesitated, then spoke in a rush. ‘I want to say I’m sorry.’

  He looked across the table and suddenly there was a lump in his throat. She looked so much like her mother had looked, many years ago. There was the same warmth of character, the same direct honesty, the same capacity for love. ‘Thanks,’ he said, a trifle huskily.

  ‘I said an awful lot of things I wish I hadn’t.’

  ‘They’re all forgotten.’

  ‘Dad, I’ve got to know Bob well. Whether you like him or not, he’s … Well he’s just not the kind of person to do such a dreadful thing as you think.’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘Won’t you try to understand?’

  ‘Joanna, dear,’ said Mary, ‘it was very nice of you to apologise to your father, but you must understand that he’s a job to do and … ’

  ‘But surely what I’ve got to say is of some importance? I know Bob.’

  He cut a piece of kidney in half and ate it. Did one person every really know another? A few days ago, he would have claimed to know his own detectives, to be able to sum up their characters, name their good points and their bad, and to suggest fairly accurately their futures in the force. Yet within the past few days, he had learned that Astey had a mistress and Praden was occasionally a drunkard. He thought about the Asteys. He’d met Mrs Astey several times and always found her an attractive woman with an easy social manner and a natural grace and a cool elegance: it had never crossed his mind that she might be so coolly elegant that she denied Astey her bed. Indeed, he had th
ought Astey a man who would never allow himself to be denied anything he reasonably believed to be his due. Then there was Praden. On the face of it, cold and unemotional. He had been off duty for two days after the death of his wife and had then returned, before there was any need to. His unnecessary return had caused a lot of comment amongst the men, none of it flattering. But underneath that coldness there had been all the time a sense of emotional tragedy which repeatedly drove him to try to gain forgetfulness from alcohol when he must know there could be no such forgetfulness.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Joanna.

  ‘Dad, you’re not listening.’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ he admitted.

  ‘I said, would you come to the exhibition next week?’

  ‘What exhibition?’

  She sighed extravagantly. ‘The Summer Exhibition of the Flecton Cross Art College.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘You don’t have to stay very long: it’s just to make an appearance.’

  ‘He’ll come,’ said Mary, ‘and stay long enough to show he’s reasonably civilised. I ought to have trained him better whilst you were at school, Jo, but he’s always had such good excuses for not turning up at the school concerts.’

  Joanna looked quickly at her mother. ‘I’m … I’m not certain I want to carry on there after the end of this term.’

  Mary shook her head quickly. ‘Perhaps that’s something we’ll discuss some time.’

  Joanna accepted the hint. Her mother was expert at knowing when was the right time to tackle her father about something over which he could be expected to raise trouble.

  ‘Which day is the exhibition, Jo?’ asked Mary.

  ‘Wednesday afternoon.’

  Keelton, who was quite ready to admit that his taste in art was of a square but not cube nature, thought with resignation that this was going to be one afternoon that was going to be a hell of a bore. His mind returned to Barnard and what the other was probably doing. Was Astey’s mistress young and ripe? Was she the kind of woman who was for ever demanding little tokens of love — such as diamond watches and mink coats?

  ***

  Barnard drove through the countryside to Highton Lees, an overgrown village that straggled alongside the road for almost a mile and a half, just off the main Flecton Cross/Maidstone Road. The Church and tithe barn were half a mile from the village centre, which consisted of two general stores, a butcher’s, a garage, and a growing huddle of houses.