At the entrance gates, Ralph came to a stop. “Don’t elaborate. Whatever happens, don’t elaborate. Just give them the plain facts.”
Ironically, Sterne thought, that was the same advice as the drunken Irishman in the bar in San Remo had given.
The ground floor of the building was a car park and a spiral ramp led from the entrance to the front room on the first floor. Long and narrow, the desk was at the far end. Ralph went across and spoke to the duty sergeant, who telephoned the office Detective-Superintendent Young was using while working from the building. After replacing the receiver, he said to Ralph that Mr Young would be with him as soon as possible.
It was ten minutes before a uniform PC came across to the table at which they were both sitting, leafing through some out-of-date magazines, and said: “Mr Sterne? Would you come this way, please?”
They followed him along one passage and down another to an interview room. This was square, functional, painted in two shades of institutional brown, and it contained only a wooden table, four chairs, and a framed list of the rights of witnesses. There was one small window and this was set high up and barred.
Young entered, followed by a second man whom he introduced as DC Best. They sat at the table and Best opened a notebook and prepared to write.
“Well, how can I help you?” asked Young.
Ralph spoke with careful slowness. “After you left my house yesterday, I talked over certain matters with my brother. In consequence of what he told me, I decided it would be best if he came here and made a statement to you.”
“Presumably, in connection with the Mercedes and the container we found in it?”
“Yes.”
Young turned to Sterne. “Would you like to make that statement now? And I would add the customary advice that what you say will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence.”
Sterne explained what had happened in Spain and France.
Young said: “In whose name was the car when you left Spain?”
“Brian Ridgeway.”
“Do you have papers to confirm that?”
“They were taken from me when I was given the fresh ones in Lençon.”
“If you’d been stopped at the French border, how would you have explained the fact that the car wasn’t yours?”
“I’d have said I’d been asked to drive it back to the UK by a friend.”
“Which would have been an equally satisfactory reason to give, had the same question been put to you on your arrival in England?”
Ralph said: “That situation didn’t arise. It would be better if we stick to the facts.”
Young smiled, with brief, ironic amusement. He said to Sterne: “Were you at all surprised when the woman handed you a new set of papers in Lençon and you found that the car was now in your name?”
“Yes, I was: very.”
“Did you ask her why this was?”
“No. I just presumed it was better if it was in my name when I entered England, in case any questions were asked.”
“But you’d been quite happy to cross from Spain into France with the car registered in the name of Ridgeway?”
“I’d have been equally happy to continue on to this country. But if they wanted to do it another way, I wasn’t going to argue.”
“Did it occur to you that with the car in your name you’d be in a position to sell it, if you wished?”
“I didn’t wish.”
“Or you could just keep it.”
“I wasn’t going to keep it either. I intended to hand it over to whoever came to collect it.”
“But no one came?”
“I expected someone to meet me at Newingreen.”
“What did you do on your arrival at the motel?”
“Had a meal, watched the television for a little, and then, because I was tired, went to bed.”
“No one came to your cabin at any time during the night?”
“No.”
“And in the morning, what did you do?”
“Had breakfast, waited around until lunch, and then drove to my brother’s.”
“Are you surprised that no one’s attempted to collect so valuable a car?”
“Yes.”
“Since the quicker they got their hands on it, the quicker they could sell it and realise the profit, you’d have expected them to have collected it at the first possible moment?”
Ralph interrupted. “My brother’s already answered that.”
“Has he?” said Young blandly. He asked Sterne: “While you’ve been staying with your brother, you’ve heard nothing?”
“No.”
“You’ve not tried to get in touch with anyone to find out why they haven’t collected the car?”
“I’ve no way of doing that.”
“You couldn’t, for instance, have had a word with Evans in Cala Survas?”
It had never occurred to Sterne to do that: he realised how damaging such an admission might appear to be. Young waited, then said: “What’s his address?”
“Seventeen, Calle Primo de Rivera.”
“We’ll see if the Spanish police can have a talk with him… You say you were paid five hundred dollars for expenses and a hundred and fifty pounds more were to be paid on delivery?”
“Yes.”
Young scratched his strong, square chin with his thumb and forefinger. “That seems to have covered everything for the moment.”
Ralph said: “My brother had the car checked for any extraneous objects in Spain.”
“So he mentioned.”
“That shows he’d no intention of smuggling.”
“I suppose that’s one interpretation of the facts.”
*
They returned to the Jaguar, in the municipal car park. “Well?” said Sterne, as he settled in the front passenger seat. “Did he believe me?”
“He’ll check up on your story as far as possible.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“You must remember, policemen are professional cynics.”
“Likewise solicitors?”
Chapter 11
Sterne was outside in the garden of Parsonage Farm when the phone rang. Through one of the hall windows he saw Angela walk up to the corner cupboard and pick up the receiver. She continued talking and it became obvious the call was not for him. He knew fresh despair. It was now nearly a fortnight since he’d landed at Dover and still no one had contacted him about the Mercedes: until someone did his story must, at best, look weak: at worst, a feeble lie.
He’d known nothing about the container, yet how was he to prove his innocence? How did one prove that one hadn’t known something when all the surrounding circumstances suggested that one must have done? How could he convince the detective-superintendent that he’d told the truth when all the time no one tried to claim the Mercedes? …Until now, he’d always assumed that truth was objective and certain. Now, he was learning differently. Truth was how the other person subjectively viewed the facts.
He crossed the lawn to the old apple tree which each year produced a crop of rosy-streaked Bramleys, some as large as grapefruit, and stared out at the woods which lay beyond a dip in the land. Unless he could find a way to prove the truth, the woods, the garden, the apple tree, the mellowed farmhouse, might all retreat until they became no more than a bitter, painful memory, haunting him in prison…
He heard Angela approach and turned.
“That was the Watsons on the phone. We’re invited to a meal on Tuesday evening.”
“Fine. I’ll babysit.”
“All three of us. When I told them you were staying, they immediately said you were to go as well.”
“That’s very kind, but it might be best if I remain behind.”
She bent down and began to search amongst the grass.
“Have you lost something?” he asked.
“I’m looking for a four-leaf clover because I found one around here last year. Perhaps if I could find another…” She tailed
off into silence, embarrassed by her childish longing to find something magical which would immediately set the world right. She came upright and smoothed down her printed linen skirt.
“It looks like I’ll need a whole armful of four-leaf clovers,” he said bitterly.
She stared out at the woods and the sun underlined the strength of character in her face.
“I’m terribly sorry,” he said quietly.
“For what?”
“For involving you in a situation where I’m likely to cause a stink.”
“Angus. Did you know about the heroin?”
“No.”
“You never began to wonder if it might be something like that?”
“Only at the very beginning, which is why I had the car searched. It never occurred to me to have the same thing done after Lençon. Christ! How can anyone think I’d willingly smuggle drugs? And could I have stayed with you if I had, knowing you could become implicated?”
She turned and stared intently at him. After a while she said: “No, you could never have done a thing like that. You’d have stayed right away from us… Ralph’s doing everything he can.”
“I know he is.”
“He’ll find a way of helping you.”
“I’m sure he will.” Only he wasn’t.
*
Young telephoned on the following Monday morning, just as the rain began to fall to make a mockery of the weather forecast. Could Angus Sterne come to the station, please.
Ralph, who’d been about to leave to go to the office, stood in the hall and tried to keep the fresh fear from his face — when the police started asking someone to go to the station instead of their coming to his house it meant that in their eyes he’d made the final and irrevocable change from witness to suspect… He said to Sterne: “Say we’ll be there at ten.”
Sterne rang off.
“Maybe they’ve at last found out something,” said Angela.
“Who’s found out?” asked Penelope.
“Don’t listen in to other people’s conversations.”
“You were listening in to Uncle Angus.”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
Angela abruptly changed the conversation. “Why have you got up from the table?”
“’Cause I’ve eaten enough.”
“Then kindly go and clear your place.”
Reluctantly, Penelope left the kitchen to go into the dining room, closely followed by Lu, sniffing energetically and hoping for a titbit despite the house rules.
“Perhaps they’ve traced whoever it was who was meant to collect the car?” suggested Angela.
“It could be,” replied Ralph. She had a sharp intelligence, yet experience had taught him that when faced with something unpleasant she often seemed to bury her head in the sands of ignorance.
“Keep looking for that four-leaf clover,” said Sterne.
“I’ll find one,” she said, with hard determination.
*
They spoke to Young in the same interview room as before: this time, Meacher was the second detective.
Young had carried in a folder and he opened this and brought out a sheet of paper. “Mr Sterne, do you know how much tax should have been paid on the Mercedes on its re-importation into this country?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Would you like to hazard a figure?”
“If he’s no idea,” objected Ralph, “he’s not in a position to make any estimate whatsoever.”
Young read what was written on the sheet of paper, looked up. “I have been given the figure of two hundred and thirty pounds. You said previously you were paid five hundred dollars in expenses. Taking the exchange rate in today’s paper, that’s three hundred and thirty pounds. I’ve spoken to a colleague who’s very recently driven up from Barcelona and his estimate is that the one-way journey from Cala Survas in a Mercedes would cost about a hundred and eighty pounds, remembering that the motel room was paid for. Would you agree?”
“It’s impossible to agree or disagree without a careful study of the facts,” said Ralph.
“For the moment, we’ll assume the figure is about right. That means you received one hundred and fifty pounds over and above the expenses reasonably likely to be involved — or, to put it another way, a hundred and fifty more than one of the organisers would have needed if he’d been making the journey. On top of that, you’d been promised a hundred and fifty pounds on delivery. That makes a total of three hundred pounds or seventy pounds more than if the car had been declared as coming from Spain.”
“That figure has no direct relevance,” snapped Ralph. “The car in England is worth considerably more than the car in Spain.”
“Of course. But I think you’ve missed my point which is that — whatever the relative values — to drive the car back and declare it, rather than paying your brother to smuggle it through, would have saved them money.”
“You have obviously only been able to reach that figure after considerable research. If you couldn’t work it out without that, how was my brother to do so without the means to make any research?”
Young ignored the questions. “Mr Sterne, didn’t it strike you as a lot of money if the job was merely to consist in driving the car back to this country?”
“No, it didn’t.”
“Not? Then why did you have the car searched in Cala Survas?”
Ralph looked at Sterne, worried that he should have fallen in to so obvious a trap.
“Did you know that two cabins were booked at the motel near Lençon by the same person at the same time — yours and cabin number fifty-two?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Who made the booking? The woman who spoke to you at breakfast?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“No one visited you in your cabin?”
“No.”
“But surely someone must have done? You said the container was planted on the Mercedes after Cala Survas. Where else do you suggest it happened if not at the motel?”
“What I mean is, I slept like a log.”
“You’re now suggesting that someone entered the garage attached to your cabin when you were fast asleep?”
“All I’m saying is, I was tired and I slept heavily.”
“In the morning, the woman met you in the restaurant and gave you your orders — which were to drive to Calais, cross the Channel on the seven-thirty boat on the Sunday, and stay the night at the motel in Newingreen? She also said that someone would meet you at the motel and collect the car?”
“Yes.”
“She gave you fresh papers for the car, made out in your name?”
“Yes.”
“One last thing. Who are Mr and Mrs K. Smith of seventeen, Riceborough Avenue, Putney?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“They booked in at the motel in Newingreen on the same night you did.”
Ralph said: “Why should that fact be of the slightest significance?”
“Because their room was booked at the same time as your brother’s and they’re the only guests on the night of the fourteenth who gave a false address.”
“That doesn’t mean you’re entitled to draw a conclusion which involves my brother.”
“Did I forget to mention it?” Young looked surprised. “The receptionist remembers that at some time Mr Smith asked if your brother had arrived.” Young turned to Sterne. “Did anyone visit you in your cabin?”
“No.”
“Did anyone go into the garage attached to your cabin?”
“No one came near the cabin or the garage.”
“Your brother will be the first to point out that I can offer you no inducement and can promise you nothing for your full cooperation in this case, but you may like to reflect on the effect that such cooperation could have on the court should the case go to trial.”
“You’re inferring…” began Ralph.
“I’m inferring nothing. I am saying that it is entire
ly up to your brother to decide whether he thinks his cooperation will benefit himself.”
Sterne said wildly: “Cooperate? How the hell can I cooperate more than by telling the truth?”
Ralph leaned forward slightly. “Who tipped off the police and Customs that an attempt would be made to smuggle drugs through on the night of the fourteenth?”
“I am not aware that I have said there was any such tip-off,” replied Young.
“It wasn’t just by chance that all the cars were being searched on arrival at Dover.”
Young made no comment.
“In fact, the container was found in Dover, wasn’t it?”
Again, Young remained silent.
“And the Mercedes was followed because you wanted to identify whoever took delivery of the contents of that container. And all the time Angus was at the motel in Newingreen, he was under surveillance?”
Young was a long time in answering, “Yes.”
“His cabin was being watched?”
“Yes.”
“Did the watchers see someone visit him at the cabin?”
“No.”
“Then no one contacted him at the motel.”
“That doesn’t follow.”
“It does, unless the watch was inefficient.”
Young’s voice became hard. “When it became obvious that the contents of the container had been passed on, there was an internal investigation to discover whether a good watch had been maintained. It was discovered that there was a period when it probably had not been.”
“When was this?”
“Roughly between two and four in the morning.”
“When Angus was fast asleep.”
“I can’t answer as to that.”
“Are you now suggesting that not only was he wide awake, he was also able to judge that the watchers temporarily weren’t doing their job so that it was safe for someone to collect something from the container in the car?”
“It’s not my job at this stage to suggest anything.”
Presumption of Guilt Page 8
