Gently French

by Alan Hunter

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because, Christ alive, he knows what only the chummie could know. He knows where the car was left, how the window was forced, that Bilney was knifed behind the bed. And he would probably have told us a whole lot more if you hadn’t played soft and laid off him.’

  ‘And knowing these things makes him chummie?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Hanson said. ‘It flaming has to. Because we haven’t leaked information at this end, and you’re the tightest-mouthed sod I ever met.’

  I grinned but shook my head. ‘You were right the first time. He’s phoney as hell.’

  ‘But how in blazes can he be, when he sits there coughing up chapter and verse?’

  ‘Simple. He’s been briefed.’

  ‘Briefed—?’ Hanson’s horse-teeth showed in a gape.

  ‘By our ingenious friend, Mimi Deslauriers. He was in conference with her today.’

  Hanson gurgled. ‘But for crying aloud. You’re not saying he would turn himself in for Mimi?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Why not? What good will it do him if he ends up sitting out a lifer?’

  ‘He won’t.’ I feathered smoke. ‘I’m sure that’s not the plot at all. Once Bavents has served his turn we shall find he has alibis a yard long. Mimi can clear him of the Quarles killing whenever her memory starts to improve, and there will be fireproof witnesses around somewhere to place him in Nor-chester yesterday afternoon. All Bavents is risking is a charge of obstruction, for which he’ll probably get off with a wigging. And the possession charge is a first offence. You can guess who’ll be picking up the fine.’

  ‘But for Christ-sake, why?’

  ‘Mimi wants the heat off. Our camping on her doorstep is cramping her style.’

  ‘Like a bear’s backside!’ Hanson snarled. ‘From now on she’ll only draw breath when we do.’

  I gentled smoke at him. ‘No.’

  ‘You aim to let her get away with it?’

  ‘Mimi has made her first mistake. Bavents wasn’t up to the job of conning us.’

  ‘So we give her three cheers?’

  ‘What she has let out is that she’s in touch with the real killer. Before, we suspected it. Now we know it. We are going to play the game from there.’

  ‘Like pulling her in!’

  ‘Not like that. She doesn’t know we’ve seen through Bavents.’

  Hanson spat cheroot. ‘Fine. But I can’t see a sweat-session doing any harm.’

  I aimed more smoke at him. ‘What we’re going to do is withdraw the police presence from Haughton. Bavents can go up on the possession charge, and you’ll see the beak and get a remand. There mustn’t be as much as a traffic cop at Haughton. Mimi will be free to go or stay. Free to meet or contact whom she pleases. Nobody will bother her at all.’

  Hanson traded smoke for smoke. ‘And meanwhile you’ll go chase your tail?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’ll be sitting on it. But on the outside, looking in.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I GAVE HER the key of the Bugatti the next morning, in what turned out to be a touching ceremony. It took place after breakfast, in the hall, where Dutt’s bag and mine were already waiting. Mimi dropped a tear and pressed the key to her bosom. The gesture was so natural that one could almost believe it. Then she stood by sadly, the key in her hand, while I wrote out a chit for Frayling.

  ‘Of course, my friend, I understand what this means. The poor yak didn’t serve at table this morning. And now you are leaving. It is a melancholy moment. I wish I could think that you were wrong.’

  I bowed my regrets.

  ‘Are you so certain?’

  ‘I’m afraid I mustn’t discuss the matter.’

  She nodded. ‘But you have given me the key. You would not do that if there were still doubts.’ She eyed me earnestly. ‘Is that not so?’

  ‘You must draw your own conclusions, Madame. We shall probably need your testimony later. But just now we have no further business with you.’

  She sighed. ‘Yet I wish I could help him.’

  ‘I don’t think you should waste your sympathy.’

  She sighed at this, too. ‘Yet it is so sad. My only consolation is to have met you, Monsieur.’

  I should have kissed her hand, but anyway she waved it as Dutt and I drove off in the Lotus. When I saw in the rear-view mirror that she had gone back into the hotel, I made a left turn and drove round the block. Hanson was waiting at the rear of the bank. He had brought an unmarked Capri, which he had borrowed from Traffic. I parked the Lotus, leaving the engine running, and Hanson slipped me the key of the Capri. ‘Everything fixed?’

  ‘Roger. Now I’m off back to process Bavents.’

  ‘Watch the Lotus. It can go to your head.’

  Hanson grunted, got in and gunned away.

  We entered the bank by a service door and were met inside by the manager. He introduced us to his head cashier, who was the tenant of the flat above. Hanson had done all the explaining. The cashier led us up outside steps. We were admitted to the flat by his wife, a snub-nosed woman with ginger hair.

  ‘Come this way, sir.’

  She showed us into a bedroom furnished with a pleasant-looking teak suite. Venetian blinds were dropped over the two windows, before each of which had been placed a chair. I went to the nearest one. The blind-slats were slanted to give a view across and below; I found myself staring at the blue Bugatti and, behind it, Frayling, sitting in his office.

  ‘Is this how you want it, sir?’

  ‘Exactly right. Have you any objection to our smoking?

  She smiled. ‘No, sir. We’re both of us smokers.’

  She brought us ash-trays. And we sat.

  It was a number of years since I had been on a stake-out, and my ennui-index had risen in the interval. To a certain extent I had lost the faculty of watching while allowing my mind to pursue its courses. Not much was happening down there below. I soon tired of trying to memorize the traffic. The shadow of the bank, tucked in beneath us, seemed never to shorten as the minutes limped by. Three guests fetched their cars, four set out on foot; a butcher, a baker, a green-grocer delivered. Two guests returned, one carrying a parcel. Frayling appeared and disappeared in his office. Out of sight in the kitchen, minus Bavents, they would be busy preparing food for lunch, while maids were hoovering in the bedrooms and barmen washing and stacking glasses. But Mimi? The only token of Mimi was the Bugatti basking in the sun. Was it possible she had left it there for me to gaze at, while she slipped away in a launch?

  ‘Sir!’

  Dutt was poking towards his slats; Mimi had appeared, and I had nearly missed her. She was seated in the office in her usual style, her feet up, the phone in her hand. She was laughing, trilling strings of words; in her other hand a cigarette. Relaxed, unhurried; filling in the small-talk; somebody she liked: somebody she loved.

  ‘What do you make of that, sir?’

  Mimi had hung up and taken some dancing steps from the office.

  ‘It could have been lover boy.’

  ‘It looked like the green light, sir.’

  ‘So let us hope there is nothing holding him back.’

  Time, eleven-twenty-one. I tried to think of some circumstance suggested by the time for lover boy’s availability. I failed, but it didn’t bother me: didn’t spoil the picture of Mimi’s sweet confidence.

  ‘I’d say it was a local call, sir. I was watching her dial. Don’t think it was more than six figures.’

  ‘She might have been gassing to a girl-friend.’

  ‘Not that one, sir. She doesn’t go in for them.’

  We settled again, with renewed alertness. But that was the high spot of the morning. The next excitement was opening time with its quick build-up of male custom. Some of the patrons were familiar to us, regulars from nearby shops and offices; but there was a healthy residuum of casuals, holiday-makers and visiting businessmen. We tried to filter them. Reps you could identify fairly easily by their
cars. Older men were probably out, also men of poor physique and provincial style. What emerged were three possibles, young men with looks, bodies and arguable panache. One arrived on foot, one was driving a Fiat, and one a much-accessoried M.G. Each of them stopped to admire the Bugatti but they were not alone in this; as a custom-maker a Bugatti would be worth its weight to any brewery.

  ‘Any preferences?’ I asked Dutt.

  ‘I like the bloke who walked in, sir. I don’t think chummie would just drive up here. He would want to prowl around first.’

  ‘Did you think the Fiat-driver looked familiar?’

  ‘Bit of the pop-singer about him, sir. Maybe we’ve seen him on the telly.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Speak for yourself.’

  In the event the Fiat-driver had stopped only for a quick one; while the pedestrian, who soon followed him out, was claimed by a girl driving a Volks. The M.G.-decorator was the stayer; he had probably decided to wait for lunch. He was lowest on the list: no vulnerable chummie would have given much time to a comic M.G.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  It was the cashier’s wife, who had come in with a tray of beer and sandwiches. She was smiling embarrassedly: because, after all, she was entertaining two strange men in her bedroom.

  ‘Nobody said anything about your meals . . .’

  They were hefty sandwiches of ham and tomato. I made her an offer of a subsistence payment, which only embarrassed her the more.

  ‘No, we are happy to help the police – my husband being what he is.’

  ‘But we pay for our rations.’

  ‘No – please! We would like to do our bit to help.’

  Strange attitude from a member of the public. We ate her sandwiches and drank her beer. At two-forty the M.G.-driver claimed his car and drove off alone.

  We waited some more.

  Now the sun had worked round to our side of the flat and the Bugatti was inching its way into shade. The bedroom was muggy. We couldn’t open the windows without raising the blinds, which we daren’t risk. The scene below had fallen asleep; no traffic passed for minutes at a time. Frayling visited his office at ten minutes past three, but then was absent for two long hours. Entertainment unlimited; my pipe tasted vile and the beer and close atmosphere made me feel torpid. I kept awake mainly by debating with myself whether it was I or Mimi who was being the smart one.

  Dutt, too, was doing his policeman’s fret.

  ‘Do you think we should have started at the other end, sir?’

  ‘Dainty is on the job. I rang him last night. Any information will come straight here.’

  ‘Has he any ideas?’

  ‘Just Whitey Ferrier.’

  Dutt sniffed. ‘Whitey wouldn’t do the job himself.’

  ‘So we’re watching for who did.’

  Dutt pulled out a sigh. ‘It would still be nice to know who we’re expecting.’

  He didn’t add, or if he is coming: which was what the conversation was really about.

  At four-thirty two guests returned, breaking a dead-spell of fifty minutes. The shadow on the Bugatti had reached the cockpit-cover, which I had buttoned-on last evening. A newsboy pushed his bike along the pavement and stopped to make a delivery at the Barge-House; Fritz, the German waiter, ran after him and returned with a copy of a sporting paper. Life beginning again. By five, an intermittent stream of traffic had developed. Five-ten, Frayling reappeared to talk patiently and lengthily into the telephone. Five-twenty, two more returning guests. Five-thirty, a sudden explosion of giggling shop-girls. It had been a rough afternoon, but the swinging evening was at hand.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’

  Our embarrassed lady was back again with tea and cake. We munched and drank, keeping only half an eye on the glaring slats and the view between them. Were we making fools of ourselves? It had begun to seem like it, after a solid eight hours of sitting and watching. Trying to feel like cops on a job while the working world went on around us. Mimi hadn’t been bluffed. I had taken the bait too easily, hadn’t probed and questioned in the way she had expected. She had borrowed the office, rung her man, but hadn’t signalled him to come running. Non, Monsieur, non. Why had I thought it would be so simple?

  ‘Car pulling on to the apron, sir.’

  I swallowed cake and took a look. The car was a commonplace green 1100, rather dusty, with a J registration. A man got out. He was something of an eyeful, dressed in the full boutique gear: a draping floral shirt-jacket over matching bell-bottom trousers, with suede boots. He had shoulder-length black hair and wore baroque sun-glasses.

  ‘Chelsea, here I come,’ Dutt murmured.

  ‘Know him?’

  ‘No, sir. But he looks a good spec. I could see him stepping out with the lady.’

  We watched. He paused beside the Bugatti. I judged his height at five-eleven; strongly-built, with good shoulders; handsome features, lightly tanned. He glanced around him with quick alertness, then un-buttoned one corner of the Bugatti’s cover. He stared inside, at the dials, the controls; then re-buttoned the cover and went into the Barge-House.

  ‘A bit of a cheeky chummie, sir.’

  I shrugged. ‘I think I would have done the same myself. But the 1100 does have a London area registration. There’ll be no harm in giving it a check.’

  Dutt slipped out to use the cashier’s phone. I drank tea with my eye on the Barge-House. Lucky after all? Or was this one more holiday-maker, ordering dinner, waiting for opening time? The clothes didn’t match what I was expecting, but the clothes could be a clever disguise; nobody would expect a fugitive killer to dress like a Carnaby Street peacock. And there would be Mimi’s brain behind that one: Mimi, who didn’t miss a trick. So why not? What would look more natural than Chelsea Joe turning up at the Barge-House?

  Dutt came back. ‘It’s pinched, sir. On the Met list for last Friday.’

  ‘Friday?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Some time in the P.M. From Norland Road, off Holland Park.’

  The district meant nothing. Dutt’s eye had a gleam in it.

  ‘We could go down there and nab him, sir.’

  ‘For what?’ I said. ‘Stealing a car? That’s all we have on him at the moment.’

  ‘It would make a start, sir.’

  I shook my head. ‘I think we’ll wait a little longer. Just to see if Mimi will tip us her hand. When she does will be the time to move.’

  We stood now at the one window, waiting, willing events to happen. But once more time began to build up, minute laying itself to minute. The bar had opened, a little cluster of custom had formed from leaving-off shop and office staff. The commuter traffic had passed its peak and pedestrians stood chatting on the pavement. Behind us we could hear a faint clinking of dishes as the cashier and his wife ate their evening meal, along with the low monotone of the television rounding up the regional news. The day relaxing. And now the Bugatti was sitting full in the advancing shade.

  Then Frayling backed into view in the office, a slip of paper in his hand. A cheque: and he was chatting animatedly to someone as he unlocked a drawer of the desk and took out a cash-box. He nodded and smiled and nodded again before turning his attention to the cash-box. A few moments later the swing-door opened: and out stepped Mimi and Chelsea Joe.

  He was carrying her luggage: two neat, jazzy suitcases and a coat of featherweight blue mink. Mimi was laughing. She was wearing a dusty pink two-piece, the least casual garb I had seen her in yet. They went to the Bugatti. He stripped off the cover, tilted forward the seats and loaded the suitcases. Then he held the coat for Mimi to slip into, a proceeding which she delayed by giving him a kiss.

  ‘Let’s go!’ Dutt muttered.

  ‘Wait.’

  Now Chelsea Joe had gone to the 1100. He unlocked the boot and took from it a canvas holdall and a black suitcase. The suitcase fitted in with Mimi’s cases, but the holdall was too bulky. He took a spider from the Bugatti’s luggage-hold and secured the holdall to the car’s small grid.

 
‘Right.’

  We hustled out of the bedroom and down the outside stairs to the Capri. I started the engine, drifted the Capri forward, and halted it, still in the cover of the bank.

  ‘Report in.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we grab him now, sir?’

  ‘I want to see which way they are heading.’

  Reluctantly Dutt picked up the transceiver and made contact with HQ. I waited, listening. The roll of the Bugatti’s engine broke in suddenly on the Capri’s murmur. Chelsea Joe gunned it three or four times, then I could hear it shifting in the direction of the junction. I sneaked the Capri out. The Bugatti was turning right towards the bridge and Norchester. I let a couple of cars go by, eased the Capri on to the Bugatti’s tail.

  ‘They’re off back to town, sir.’

  ‘We shall see.’

  We trailed the Bugatti through Wrackstead. But beyond the village his winker went and he turned left into the road to Sallowes. This lost me my cover. I lingered on the turn, letting him go another hundred yards up. He wasn’t racing. I had the impression that the Bugatti was as novel to him as it had been to me.

  ‘They wouldn’t be heading for the chalet, sir?’

  ‘Report his direction.’

  ‘Yes, sir. The patrols are converging.’

  ‘No contact yet. Tell them to stay clear.’

  Dutt spoke his piece and was grittily answered.

  Not the chalet. The Bugatti passed that turning and rumbled on into Sallowes village. There it hesitated at a cross-roads, and eventually turned left. The signpost said: Ockley.

  ‘Check with the map.’

  Dutt took a map from the glove-locker. The road we had joined was some sort of B road, but it was tracking purposefully across the open country. There were fast stretches, tempting Chelsea Joe to get the feel of a vintage sixty. My nose said we were pointing eastwards, and a church across the fields offered confirmation.

  ‘About six to Ockley, sir.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Ockley is on the main Norchester-Starmouth road. So he could go either way there, except it would be a roundabout way to Norchester.’

  ‘But it would be the direct way to Starmouth.’