“How could he have told me?” demanded Ralph.
“This afternoon, he walked up to May House and spoke to one of my men. I presumed, from the report of this meeting, that your brother had correctly judged what was going on.” He stood. “May we have the keys to the Mercedes?”
Sterne handed them over to Meacher.
“We’ll return the car to you just as soon as we’re satisfied it’s clean… Thank you both for your cooperation.” The words could have been ironic, but Young’s expression remained bland.
Five minutes later, after the detectives had driven off in the two cars, Ralph said: “What the hell’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on,” replied Sterne.
“Don’t be so goddamn stupid. Christ! It’s like when you were a kid and you’d go on and on denying something when it was obvious… Why didn’t you tell me you’d been up to May House and found the police were keeping watch?”
Sterne shrugged his shoulders.
“You told us you came over on the Monday, now I learn it was on the Sunday. You told us the car isn’t yours, you tell the police it is. Why all the lies? How could you afford a car like that when you’d gambled everything away? The police don’t keep watch on someone just because they think he’s smuggled in a couple of bottles of whisky extra. What the hell have you been up to?”
“I need a drink,” said Sterne thickly. He went into the small passage, opened the cocktail cabinet and poured out two whiskies. He returned and handed one glass to Ralph.
“Well?”
“I drove the car back from Spain, not France.”
“Where’s the significance in that?”
He explained.
Ralph said, in a tone of amazement: “Didn’t you realise what you were doing?”
“Of course I did.”
“You knew you were breaking the law?”
“Come off it. All I was doing was helping avoid a ridiculous tax that should never have been imposed in the first case.”
“But the law’s the law, whatever you think of it.”
“Not when the law’s a bloody ass.”
As he drank, Ralph wondered, with something akin to hurt, how his brother could regard the law with such contempt.
*
Ralph climbed into the right-hand side of the king-size bed, placed a pillow for support, then leaned back and began to read a paperback.
“Ralph.”
He looked up. Angela had fixed her frock on a hanger and she was now putting the hanger in the cupboard which had been fashioned out of the space between the rising chimneys and the outside wall.
“What did those policemen want?”
“I told you.”
She closed the cupboard door, returned to her side of the bed, unzipped a flowered case to bring out a nightdress. “You’re worried stiff about something. I’m sure you’ve not told me everything that happened.”
He wondered why it was that his emotions were always an open book to her, but hers were mostly an enciphered mystery to him.
She finished undressing with economical ease, slipped the nightdress over her head. She walked up to the side of the bed, stared at him, and said: “What really happened?”
“Angus… He may be in a spot of trouble.”
“Police trouble?”
Her voice had risen and her expression had become strained; she reacted immediately, some would add excessively, to anything which threatened her world of husband and child. Speaking easily, trying to make light of what he was saying, he told her.
“Does that mean he’ll be taken to court?”
“If the police should uncover proof of the attempted evasion of taxes, yes.”
“And then it’ll be in all the papers?”
“It may be, it may not be. If things should go that far, it would all depend on how much novelty news value the editor reckons the story has.”
“Novelty?” she said bitterly. “Everyone will know your brother’s a crook.”
“There’s every chance it won’t come to that. If the car documents are sufficiently good, the police may suspect yet not be able to prove the facts sufficiently to take the case to court.”
“Why did he do it?”
“God knows.”
“After all you’ve done for him, he repays you by dragging you into trouble. He doesn’t give a damn about hurting us.”
She sounded completely selfish, but he knew that, in fact, it was not selfishness which made her speak like that: it was fear. Not only fear that her family might directly suffer, but also fear that the badge of respectability might be torn from them. He reached out and put his hand lightly on her arm. “Don’t get too upset, love. As I said, maybe the police won’t be able to prove anything. And in any case, it’s not a serious matter.” He didn’t believe that and she knew that he didn’t. For him, the slightest criminal offence was a serious one. A free and democratic society, gift of the ancient Greeks, depended in the final analysis not so much on the moral standards of its people or the quality of its leaders, but on just laws being rigorously observed. So that each time any law, however minor, was broken, democracy was put at risk.
She climbed into bed and they both read. Fifteen minutes later he closed his paperback, put it down on the small bedside table, switched off the light, and settled for sleep.
“Ralph, just now you told me it wasn’t a serious matter?”
“That’s right.”
“Yet this afternoon you said that the police would only maintain a serious watch on anywhere if something very serious were wrong.”
Chapter 9
On Sunday morning Angela went to church, as she did every alternate week: services were held every other Sunday in Rackington parish church. She was always slightly hurt that she could so seldom persuade Ralph to accompany her: in the country, the conduct of the few were still of interest and concern to the many.
At eleven forty-five, Ralph left Parsonage Farm to drive Penelope to friends who had a daughter of the same age with whom Penelope would, provided open warfare did not break out, have lunch and spend the afternoon.
Sterne, who’d offered to mow the lawn — Ralph was far from a keen gardener — wheeled the mower out from the shed next to the garage and then spent the next quarter of an hour coaxing it into life. He’d cut no more than a dozen swaths when a car drove in. He looked up, surprised that Ralph had returned so soon and saw over the hedge not the Jaguar but a red Metro. As he watched, Young and Meacher climbed out of the car and once again he knew an icy fear.
“I was hoping we’d find you in,” said Young. “Is your brother here as well?”
“Not at the moment.”
Young’s expression didn’t alter, but Meacher looked as if he’d just heard some good news.
Sterne spoke challengingly. “I thought you promised to bring my car back this morning?”
“True enough,” replied Young. “But something’s cropped up and we’ve come to talk about it.”
In the sitting room, Young settled in one of the armchairs with the air of a man who might be staying quite a while. “How did you hear about the Mercedes being for sale?”
Sterne remembered a drunken Irishman, in a bar in San Remo, who’d insisted on advising everyone on how to avoid being arrested. ‘Never tell the bastards anything for certain: then they can’t prove you’re a bleeding liar.’ “I don’t remember now.”
“Where were you?”
“In France.”
“France is quite a big country.”
He noticed that Meacher was writing in a notebook. “I was on the move — Menton, Nice, Cannes, St Tropez — and it’s difficult to pin anything like that down.”
“The owner lived where?”
“Cagnes. It’s in the car papers somewhere.”
“What did you pay for it?”
“A hundred and ten thousand francs: that’s also in them.”
“You had quite a lot of money?”
“I had a win at the
casino.”
“How much?”
“Near a hundred and fifty thousand francs.”
“That’s quite an impressive win.”
“I was impressed.”
“The man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.”
“It wasn’t Monte Carlo and in these days it would take very much more than that to break any bank. I’ve seen one man put on two hundred thousand francs every turn of the wheel.”
“You heard of this car, you had the money to buy it, and you bought it. Why?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
“If it was, I wouldn’t ask the question.”
“I’d decided to return home and I’d got to make the journey somehow and here was the chance to make it a profitable journey.”
“Why profitable?”
“The car’s worth more here than I paid for it there because it’s right-hand drive.”
“Then you’re not thinking of keeping it?”
“I’m not in that sort of tax bracket.”
“What route did you take through France on your way back to this country?”
“A slow one, roughly up through the Tarn, Dordogne, and châteaux district.”
“My geography’s weak, but that wasn’t a very direct route, was it?”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
“Then you weren’t in a hurry?”
“I had a little time to spare.”
“Would you detail your route more exactly?”
“Why?”
Before Young could reply, they heard a car stop and the slam of a door. Sterne stood and through the window saw Ralph walking quickly up the drive. “It’s my brother.”
“Wouldn’t be complete without him,” said Meacher, to Young’s evident annoyance.
When Ralph entered the room, he was breathing heavily. Young stood and Meacher, reluctantly, did the same. “What are you doing here on a Sunday?” Ralph asked, his voice clipped.
“We’ve come to ask your brother a few more questions.”
“Have you returned the Mercedes?”
“Not yet.”
“Have you found anything?”
Young did not answer. He sat once more.
“If you’ve not found anything, there’s no point to your questioning my brother again.”
“He can help me with my inquiries.”
“What inquiries — if there was nothing?”
Young spoke to Ralph, but he studied Sterne. “Hidden in one of the side members of the Mercedes was a metal container.”
“That’s impossible,” said Sterne immediately.
“Why?”
“Because…” He stopped.
“What was in the container?” demanded Ralph.
“Traces.”
“Of what?”
“The container has been sent to the forensic laboratory and until they’ve identified the traces I won’t be able to answer you.”
“What did they look like?”
“They were a fine white powder.”
Ralph’s expression was shocked and his voice had lost much of its belligerence. “Even if you don’t know for certain, you must have some idea what that powder is?”
“Possibly. But I am not prepared to put a name to it now.”
“There couldn’t have been any container,” said Sterne.
“Why not?”
“I had a mechanic check the car.”
“Where?”
“In… in Cagnes.”
Ralph said quickly: “If the traces turn out to be innocuous, no offence has been committed. Therefore at this stage you are not in a position to say whether or not you’re investigating a criminal matter.”
“So?”
“You have no right to question my brother on the assumption that the contents are not innocuous.”
“You’re the lawyer, not me,” said Young mildly, “but I’d have said that my questions were aimed merely at finding out if your brother knew about the container.”
“He’s answered you. He didn’t.”
Young spoke to Sterne. “You are quite certain you knew nothing about it?”
“Of course I am.”
Young came to his feet with an easy speed which was unusual for a man of his age and size. His expression remained pleasant, but his voice had hardened. “We’ll leave now. No doubt we’ll meet again.”
As the Metro drove on to the road, Ralph turned round from the window of the sitting room. “You understand, don’t you?” he said thickly.
“He thinks it’s hard drugs,” replied Sterne.
“He knows it is. But until he has the laboratory proof, he can’t do anything. Christ! Dope-running.”
“You think I’ve been running drugs?”
“There’s no argument. The container was on the Mercedes when it came into this country so you’ve been running them… Obviously, there was a tip-off. The Customs at Dover didn’t know which car, so they checked the lot and found the container on yours, but said nothing to you. The police kept watch on you to try and discover who your contacts were who’d take delivery. But you blew their cover…”
“You’re talking as if I knew all the time. D’you think I’d knowingly run drugs into this country?”
“No.”
“From the way you’ve just been talking, you do.”
“I’m trying to make you understand the way things are.”
“I can prove I didn’t know about the container.”
“How?”
“I got a mechanic in Cala Survas to check the car was clean.”
“Why?”
“For God’s sake, I’ve just told you.”
“And you’ve also told me, through inference, that you knew then that you were being offered too much for just driving a car back with false papers.”
“It wasn’t that certain. I mean, the money was more, but not crazy. I just wanted to be certain.”
“Or did you want something to fall back on if you were caught?”
“Goddamn it, whose side are you on?”
“Yours,” said Ralph, with bitter weariness.
“You could have fooled me.”
“I have to try and visualise things as the police see them if I’m to know what to do that’ll help you the most.”
Sterne jammed his hands in his trouser pockets. “I didn’t know about the container.”
“Circumstances say you did.”
“Then the circumstances are bloody liars.”
“You’re forgetting all about the car, aren’t you?”
“I thought that’s what we’d just been talking about.”
“It’s worth what — fifteen thousand, maybe more. And it’s in your name.”
“They were supposed to collect it at Newingreen.”
“There’s only your word for that.”
“The police can’t claim the car was part of the price.”
“In the circumstances, they’re hardly likely to say anything else.”
“But…”
“Angus, don’t you still understand the picture? They’re tipped off that someone’s running drugs by car. You arrive in a Mercedes and you’re in a nervous sweat. They find the container, but don’t do anything immediately because you’re the runner and they want the principals. In the end, you blow their cover and so they have to move. Then they discover that the heroin’s already gone, right from under their noses. They’re bitter and angry so now they’re determined to land you. And they know that you brought the stuff in and you’ve a nearly new Mercedes in payment for the run.”
“It’s not like that at all,” said Sterne desperately.
“But that’s how it looks to the police.”
“How do I prove they’re wrong?”
Ralph walked over to the large inglenook fireplace and stood with his back to it. When he spoke, his voice was tired. “You’ve only one course left open. You’ll have to admit that you were trying to carry out a tax swindle.”
*
At four, Angela said it was time to fetch Penelope and Sterne offered to go if he could borrow a car. Later, when her Datsun had driven out, Angela, sitting very upright in one of the armchairs, said: “What’s happened?”
“Nothing in particular,” Ralph replied.
“Please don’t be so stupid. I can always tell when you’re worried and ever since I got back you’ve been terribly worried.”
Just for a moment, Ralph hated his brother for bringing such trouble to their home.
“Well — are you going to tell me?”
He cleared his throat. “While you were out, the police called again. When they searched the Mercedes, they found… a container in which were traces of a white powder. The container’s been sent off for tests and until he gets the results the detective-superintendent won’t say what he reckons the traces are. But there’s no doubt. Heroin.”
“Oh my God! …What are you going to do?”
“I’ve told Angus he’s got to admit to the police that he was trying a tax swindle.”
“How can that help?”
“It explains why he was nervous at the Customs search and why it’s not true that he was being paid too much merely for driving the Mercedes into this country. It’ll help him to show he’d no idea drugs had been planted on the car or that the real mission of his journey was drug-smuggling.”
“You’re saying he’s got to prove all that?”
“Yes. But once he tells them the full truth, they’ll realise what happened.” He was trying to convince not only her but himself.
Chapter 10
Divisional HQ was in south Fording Cross, six miles from Rackington. Once a pleasant, in parts historical, market town, the electrification of the main railway line had brought Fording Cross within commuting distance of London so that before long its population had doubled. Left to cope with this increase by the well-tried precedent of trial and error, the town would almost certainly have managed to retain at least some of its character, but it had been held that only expert planning could or would solve the problems. Within fifteen years, careful and expert planning managed to turn the town into one more dreary example of municipal bad taste.
Divisional HQ was a ten-storey concrete and glass block, just north of the railway. It had won an architectural competition. It was that sort of a building. It stood one road back from the parish church, a seventeenth-century picture of quiet harmony, and the contrast could not have been more marked. As one defeated and bitter conservationist had remarked, it was a wonder that the church had not been knocked down since it was so obviously a visual anomaly.
Presumption of Guilt Page 7
