Threats and Menaces (A Macrae and Silver Mystery Book 4)

by Scholefield, Alan

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Oh, Christ!’ Macrae caught himself and said hastily to Adrienne, ‘I beg your pardon. I shouldn’t — ’

  The phone rang. Adrienne spoke briefly then said, ‘It’s for you, Inspector.’

  ‘You’re a superintendent, aren’t you?’ Dory said.

  Macrae nodded. ‘But I’m not proud.’

  ‘Is that Mr Macrae?’ a voice said.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘This is Douglas, sir.’

  ‘Who the hell’s Douglas?’

  ‘The porter at Rosemount, sir.’

  ‘Yes, what d’you want?’

  ‘We think there’s been another murder, sir. Here, in the flats.’

  Macrae turned to Dory, ‘I have to go now. But later on I’d like you to take me up to the roof and show me where you were.’ Adrienne was about to answer for her daughter, but Macrae was already walking out of the door.

  Douglas was standing on his steps; Trevor on his. Leo was reminded of two dogs who couldn’t decide whether to copulate or fight.

  ‘It’s Miss MacKenzie.’ Douglas’s face was knotted with interest, his small eyes like polished flint.

  ‘Someone’s murdered Miss MacKenzie?’

  ‘No, sir, she reported it.’

  They went up in the lift.

  Macrae said, ‘Those flowers in your lobby; are they real?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir.’ Douglas sounded shocked.

  ‘Do you look after them?’

  ‘No, sir, they’re done professionally. Firm called Progardens.’ Miss MacKenzie was waiting for them on the landing. ‘Oh, it’s you, Macrae.’ Her voice was disappointed.

  He thought of telling her that the Commissioner was busy then decided not to waste the irony. ‘You reported a murder.’

  ‘Not reported. No, no, that’s not right. I said maybe. Douglas, what did I say?’

  ‘I thought you said —’

  ‘You said murder.’

  ‘Well…’ He turned apologetically to the detectives. ‘There was the Arab, and I thought —’

  ‘All right.’ Macrae was testy. ‘Where?’

  ‘Here of course,’ said Miss MacKenzie. She pointed at the bishop’s door.

  ‘I didn’t like to open it,’ Douglas said. ‘Not by myself.’

  ‘Open it now.’

  Douglas selected a key from a bunch he wore on his hip and opened the door. ‘Oh, goodness me!’ he said.

  They moved through the rooms. There was no blood, no signs of a struggle. No indication that a murder had taken place in the apartment. In fact the apartment looked empty, naked. Only the immovable pieces remained. The rest had been stripped.

  ‘Oh, sir!’ Douglas’s face was white. ‘It was a rented apartment. Fully furnished. The owners are in France. Whatever am I to tell them?’

  ‘Whatever you like.’ Macrae was unsympathetic.

  Miss MacKenzie planted herself in front of him. ‘I told you there was something going on.’

  ‘You said white slavery, if I recall,’ Macrae said.

  Douglas gave a slight whinny of horror.

  ‘I also said packing cases. And that’s what I saw early this morning. I heard a commotion and looked through my letter flap. I saw him push a packing case into the lift. Then poof! Gone!’

  ‘You saw who?’ Macrae said.

  ‘The black bishop of course. If he’s a bishop I’m —’

  ‘Flora Macdonald?’ Leo said.

  ‘Don’t you be impertinent, young man. My father was an Appeal Court judge. I will not be spoken to like that.’

  On the roof opposite Dory watched Rosemount through her binoculars.

  ‘There they go,’ she said to Alice, as Macrae and Silver walked towards their car. ‘They’ll never find you now. They’ll be looking for Ralph.’

  Alice remembered Ralph. He had been to the house several times.

  She didn’t think the police would give up looking for her.

  Ever.

  The river which had borne her along was still flowing but a thought was gnawing at her; she must leave; swim for the shore; it would be safer there.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘I’d never thought about gardeners, though I should have,’ Leo said. ‘Perfect way of getting into people’s flats and houses.’ Macrae grunted.

  They were driving towards the Thames on their way to Ralph’s address in south London. Macrae was hunched in the front seat of Leo’s car looking broodingly at the passing scene.

  Suddenly Macrae said: ‘Flowers! Indoor plants! Full of insects and that gummy stuff. I prefer artificial flowers. Frenchy won’t have them. Which way are you going?’

  ‘Lambeth Bridge.’

  ‘Why not Westminster Bridge?’

  ‘Parliament Square’s usually blocked.’

  Leo had been expecting an argument but Macrae subsided. Then he said, ‘Why should you?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You said you should have thought about gardeners. Why?’ ‘I’m doing a roof garden. Zoe’s mother said there were professionals in London who’d do it for me and look after it. But they cost a bomb.’

  ‘You’ll be having bloody barbecues next.’

  Leo kept his mouth shut.

  ‘Go left here.’

  ‘It’s one-way.’

  ‘It wasn’t when I used to come this way with Eddie.’ Macrae was annoyed. ‘Anyway it’s too bloody obvious.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘You get a list of the people who come in and out of buildings.

  You check them. One of them’s the gardener. So you check him. And that’s how you find the villain.’

  ‘But only if you can prove it, guv’nor. All crimes are pretty obvious in hindsight.’

  ‘I know all that, laddie.’ Macrae went back into his massive shell. ‘What about the Bishop of Zombo?’ Leo said. ‘He could be involved.’

  ‘With the murder?’

  ‘Maybe. A hit man.’

  ‘You’ve been reading too many comics. Captain Marvel! What’s he want to kill the Arab for? Because he’s a Muslim?’

  ‘Just a thought.’

  ‘No, no, laddie, Zombo’s a one-off. That’s the thing about crime; once you start investigating you never know what other crimes you’ll turn up. It’s like lifting a stone, there’s often more than one worm. I want you to check with Lymans the dealers in Bond Street about the whatsitsname Chalice.’

  ‘Won’t he be afraid to go there?’

  ‘Why? If he wants to sell the chalice that’s his business. Or rather his momma’s business. By the look of her she’s the one he’s got to be afraid of. No, when he goes to Lymans we pick him up for stripping the flat.’

  ‘What about the woman at the Alternative Church?’

  ‘Check her too but it’s my guess he’s walked out on her. And we’ll check Bradford, see what he’s been up to there. And find out who owns the freehold of the church. If it’s his he’ll probably try to flog it.’

  ‘You know, guv’nor, this Ralph —’

  ‘Listen,’ Macrae said, swinging round in his seat. ‘What about the Arab’s garden? Maybe Ralph looked after that one too. I suppose it’s possible Ralph killed him. I know the kid says she saw them having a go at each other. But she’s only a kid. But just suppose he did. And suppose the maid saw the murder. She’s there illegally or without her passport or whatever. Panics. Runs.’ ‘What’s the motive?’

  ‘How should I know? But there could be one, we just don’t know. Maybe the Arab didn’t water the plants like he was told to.’ ‘It was being looked after professionally, but by the same people who look after Rosemount. There were cancelled cheques in the desk drawers.’

  ‘That’s the street,’ Macrae said. ‘We want number forty-two.’

  They were in what had once been a lower-middle class area of small terraced houses. Even when they’d been built before the Great War they were for the grateful underprivileged. Not much had changed except
that now there was an air of decay and hopelessness, and Leo thought there would not be much gratitude to be found among those living there.

  The houses on one side of the street backed on to a railway line. There was a bridge, an old gasometer, rusting and useless. There was a derelict factory of dirty brick, its windows shattered and its roof holed. One wall facing the railway line had been used as an advertising hoarding. Its faded lettering still praised Singer cars, which hadn’t been made for forty years.

  Leo said, ‘You ever see those old black-and-white movies about the fifties, guv’nor? Where the streets are always shiny with rain and the punters are wearing those long Teddy Boy outfits?’

  ‘No,’ said Macrae.

  ‘That’s what this reminds me of.’

  No. 42 was a detached house, a slight cut above the rest. Which wasn’t saying much.

  Leo found parking and they walked back to it. The front garden was small and concreted. Oil spillage showed that a vehicle had stood there. Leo rang the bell a couple of times and when nothing happened he and Macrae went round to the back of the house.

  In the garden, surrounded by weeds and grass, was a large wooden shed from which was coming a whirring, clattering noise. Macrae knocked on the door and when he was not answered, opened it and went in.

  The interior was a dolls’ world built to scale. There was a model village and a model farm with model tractors and model animals grazing in model fields. There was a model railway with a model station and model signal box. There were miniature roads and bridges and canals.

  An elderly man, dressed in the uniform and cap of a British Rail station master, was operating a signal at the far end.

  ‘What d’you want?’ he shouted. ‘This is private.’

  The heat inside the wooden building was fierce and his face was brick-red.

  ‘Looking for Ralph Eames,’ Macrae said.

  ‘Gardens?’

  ‘They come into it.’

  ‘Well, you won’t find him here. Left months ago. I’m his father.’ He limped towards them. The blue eyes glittered angrily in the flushed face. Leo realized the high colour wasn’t only caused by heat and anger. On cold days the skin on his cheeks would be mauve.

  ‘Who are you, anyway?’

  Macrae identified them.

  ‘I might have known it would happen some day.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Whatever’s happened.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘All I meant was him hanging around with that crowd. Anything could happen, couldn’t it.’

  ‘What exactly do you mean?’

  ‘I told him time and time again.’

  ‘Told him what?’

  ‘Get a nice girl, I said. Bring her to the house. Settle down. He said why didn’t I mind my own business. Me! His dad.’

  He swung his arm around. ‘I made all this for him. Took me years. I began when he was a kid, just after his mother died. Started with a train set. Hornby. Clockwork at first and then electric. Marvellous. We had it set up in the attic but that became too small. He loved it then, when he was little.’

  He seemed to be getting upset and Leo said, ‘We all loved trains when we were little.’

  But Mr Eames wasn’t listening. ‘That was when I was still on crutches.’ He pointed to his leg. ‘I had an accident on a motorbike. Young bugger came out of a side street in a sports car and hit me square on. Crushed the bones. Anyway, we used to play for hours. He’d come home from school and do his homework and have his tea and we’d play till bedtime.’

  The two detectives stood silently listening to the angry old man. ‘And then…?’ Macrae prompted.

  ‘I dunno what happened, but when he was fifteen he lost interest. I’d started building this, but he didn’t care. Wanted to be with his friends. Bring them here, I said. He did. They were much older. Didn’t care for the trains…’ He shook his head.

  ‘Yes?’ Leo prompted.

  The old man seemed to have shrunk. He made a bewildered gesture with his arm. ‘It was all for him.’

  ‘We can’t choose for our kids,’ Macrae said.

  ‘How did you get this address? Did Ralph give it to you?’ There was a pathetic eagerness in the question.

  ‘He didn’t say anything about meeting you here, did he? Didn’t say anything about coming to see me?’

  Macrae shook his head. ‘We got the address at one of his work places in Bayswater.’

  ‘Bayswater. That’s posh, isn’t it? He’s not used to that. No, no, he worked from an old lock-up not far from here. Kept his stuff there and his van. I suppose he’s got a place of his own now.’

  ‘A lock-up?’ Macrae said.

  ‘Down at the railway bridge. They were garages once but people use them to store things now. At least they used to.’ He touched his leg. ‘I haven’t been down there for years.’

  Leo caught a glance from Macrae, read it exactly, and said to Mr Eames, ‘I wonder if you’d do me a favour. Start the trains.’ The anger died in the old man’s eyes. ‘You an enthusiast?’ ‘Used to be. Had a Lionel.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘You go ahead,’ Macrae said. ‘I’ll wait in the car.’

  Leo and Mr Eames played with the models for half an hour. ‘Look…’ Mr Eames touched a button. There was a humming noise and the canal turned into a river that flowed through the miniature world and turned a water wheel at a model mill. ‘Pump,’ said Mr Eames. ‘I’ve been written up in the local press.’ ‘It’s brilliant,’ Leo said.

  ‘Tell me why he doesn’t like it, then. Why he doesn’t come here any more.’

  ‘To tell you the truth, Mr Eames, I don’t know.’

  When Leo joined him at the car Macrae said, ‘Nothing. The place is like a midden.’

  ‘I suppose all his energies go into his hobby. Do you think we should get a search warrant?’

  ‘I even went upstairs. Not a sausage. Hardly worth it.’

  ‘What about this lock-up?’

  ‘Drive down and let’s have a look.’ Then, with an edge of bitterness in his voice, Macrae said, ‘You never know with kids. Never know how they’ll turn out.’

  The railway bridge was a series of arches. Years before, each arch had been bricked up and garage doors had been fitted so they were now lock-ups. Some of the doors had panes of glass at the top, many of which had been broken and replaced by hard-board or three-ply, now warped and curling. Everything was dusty and dirty and the grime was so thick Leo realized that much of it went back to the age of steam when coal-burning locomotives had thundered above.

  There were twelve lock-ups in all, six on either side of the bridge. Leo parked on the dirty grass at the end of a cul-de-sac. The area was covered in scrub and weeds and spotted by broken bottles and tins flung from passing trains.

  ‘How’d you like to live down here, guv’nor?’

  Macrae grunted, then said, ‘It gives the phrase “the other side of the tracks” new meaning.’

  A young man outside one of the lock-ups was rubbing down a car panel with wet-and-dry.

  Macrae towered above him but the man, who had black greasy hair and armloads of tattoos, decided to ignore him. He kept on rubbing at the metal.

  ‘Can you hang on a second?’ Macrae said.

  No reaction.

  ‘Pay attention.’

  It made no difference except to Leo who heard something in Macrae’s tone of voice he had not heard for a long time.

  Macrae seemed to go berserk. He grabbed the young man by his shoulders, lifted him bodily, ran four or five steps, and slammed him into the wall of the lock-up.

  Leo ran forward and managed to insert himself between them.

  ‘What’d I do?’ the young man asked.

  ‘You didn’t pay attention,’ Macrae said. His face was the blue-white colour of watered milk and Leo thought he looked ill.

  ‘Who the bloody hell are you, any
way?’

  ‘Police,’ Leo said, pulling him away from the wall.

  ‘I might have known it was the old bill. Well, I ain’t done nothing. I’m just minding my own fucking business and — ’

  ‘Which lock-up belongs to Ralph Eames?’ Leo asked.

  ‘You come down here and — ’

  ‘Which one, laddie?’ Macrae said, and the word ‘laddie’ seemed to Leo to carry quite appalling menace.

  ‘If you’d asked me properly — ’

  ‘Which one?'

  ‘Eleven. On the far side.’

  ‘Try to remember your manners,’ Leo said.

  The two policemen walked to the far side of the bridge and out of sight of the young man’s baleful eyes. Leo cast covert glances at Macrae. The colour was coming back to his face but he was like an unexploded bomb that could go off at any time. Part of him hoped he’d be miles away when it did, another that he’d be there to see Macrae didn’t damage anyone — including himself.

  Number 11 was the same as the others: dusty black paint on the doors, broken windows. It had a Yale lock and a hasp and staple with a padlock. Leo noticed that the wood beneath the hasp had rotted and he could see the screws. He pulled gently and the whole thing, padlock included, came away. He slipped a credit card under the tongue of the Yale and pushed the door open.

  There was nothing much in the lock-up: a piece of old plastic hosepipe, a broken sprinkler, dozens of plastic pots, most of them cracked. At the far end was a shelf with empty styrofoam trays that had once held bedding plants. The floor was a jumble of old newspapers and empty compost bags.

  Macrae stirred the detritus with his foot. ‘Nothing’s been touched for months. What’s that?’ He pointed to a large plastic object.

  ‘Sprayer,’ Leo said. He picked it up. ‘I suppose I’ll need one of these.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve been reading up on aphids.’

  ‘Oh dear.’

  Leo saw an old price ticket on the sprinkler. Then he saw it wasn’t a price ticket but a business card attached with sticky tape. He pulled it off and read it out to Macrae. ‘R. Eames. Professional Garden Services.’ Then the address from which they had just come. ‘What?’ said Macrae. ‘Read it out again.’

  ‘Professional Ga —’

  ‘What was the name of that outfit that looked after the Arab’s garden and Rosemount?’