Die-Cast (A Peter Marklin Mystery)

by Neville Steed

  *

  ‘Come on out, Mr Marklin, there’s not enough room for two down there.’

  There was little else for me to do. I came on out, and prayed Gus had seen Wall’s figure approaching the gun emplacement. For Wall was dressed from head to toe in white in the surplice and hood I had seen in the work-room in his garden, and could have easily merged with the swirls of mist. I knew I had to play for time.

  ‘You feel above all human laws, don’t you, Wall, when you’re in God’s fancy dress?’

  ‘Is it a sin to obey God’s laws, Mr Marklin? If only the world obeyed the teachings of the scriptures, sentence by sentence, word by word, then we would have a glimpse of heaven upon this earth, rather than the hell we have now.’

  He wagged his gun at me, which I saw was an army issue .38 pistol, similar to Gus’s, which, no doubt, Wall had retained legally or illegally from his army days.

  ‘You’re wasting time, Marklin. I want you to take a little walk over this way.’ He wagged the pistol once more, and I got the message. I was to have an unfortunate accident whilst out walking. That’s the trouble with cliffs — it’s quite a way down to the rock-strewn sea below. I knew I would have to start moving, if only as slowly as he would allow.

  ‘Before you push me over the edge, Wall, can I have the privilege given to all men under sentence of execution?’

  He prodded me forward, his close-set eyes seeming the more deranged, isolated in the small round cut-outs in his hood.

  ‘Last request?’

  ‘Just a few questions, that’s all.’

  He prodded me again. ‘You will not have time for too many. But may I ask you one first? How did you find out about the pillbox? From the blotter? I noticed the top sheet that was not on the second sheet. I remember everything, Mr Marklin, everything.’

  I turned my head back towards him as I plodded inexorably towards the edge of the cliff, now only some hundred feet away. ‘Yes, it was the blotter. But now let me start my questions. It was you who anonymously rang Lavinia Saunders about her husband being involved in drug smuggling, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Marklin. Question number two?’

  ‘How did you find out about the drugs?’

  ‘I overheard Maxwell and Saunders discussing it when they thought they were alone in the Manor grounds.’

  ‘A ghost with big ears?’

  ‘Precisely, Mr Marklin. It was a pure coincidence, not part of my original plan, I can assure you.’

  ‘Why did you tell Lavinia Saunders?’

  ‘Because I thought if Saunders knew the cover was blown, he might pull out of the scheme.’

  ‘Leaving Maxwell up a gum-tree.’ I stopped for a second, and turned around. ‘You intended to plague and torment Maxwell, didn’t you? Let me guess for how long — the exact number of days your daughter survived in a coma?’

  Wall pointed the Colt at my belly button. ‘Right again, Mr Marklin.’ His voice hardened. ‘Now turn around and keep walking.’

  As I did so, my eyes scanned the mist for any sign of Gus, or anyone — Superman, Spiderman, Supergran or even Lassie.

  ‘And Lavinia spoilt it for you, didn’t she? Were you plaguing Maxwell that night, too?’

  ‘That was my intention. I was on my way to the Manor, when I saw Lavinia Saunders wave Maxwell’s car down. I followed them down to the beach.’

  ‘So you were the figure Lavinia claimed she saw.’

  ‘Was I? I thought she hadn’t seen me.’

  I stopped once more, as the cliff was now clearly visible, and horribly near, about fifteen feet away.

  ‘Look, Wall, Lavinia may have robbed you of the pleasure of killing Maxwell, but she also saved you from committing murder, because that’s what it would have been, Wall — murder. Not God’s divine and, oh so just vengeance. And Tara-Lee is still alive, isn’t she? I know you checked this morning. Did I interrupt you?’

  ‘God will take her life, Mr Marklin, in His own good time. I’m surprised He has not already. More air must be filtering into that old ammunition space I excavated than I’d imagined. Now walk on. You have not far to go now. God is awaiting you too.’

  I turned and took three slow paces towards the edge, and had to shout over the noise of the waves breaking on the jagged rocks beneath the cliff.

  ‘You haven’t murdered anyone yet, Wall — except perhaps your wife.’

  I heard the squelch of his footsteps cease. I turned around.

  ‘I didn’t murder my wife. I could never have murdered my wife.’

  ‘Maybe not directly,’ I said, ‘but indirectly. She took her life, didn’t she, because you’d not been satisfied with mutilating the body of Maxwell? You had to take his daughter, as he had taken yours. But Maxwell was dead by then. The only person you were hurting was Tara-Lee’s innocent mother.’

  He laughed out loud and it seemed to echo across the void ahead of me.

  ‘No woman of the screen can be innocent, Mr Marklin. They were all evil — Miss Claudell, Mr Longhurst, the Saunderses, all evil in their own ways.’

  He came right up to me and I felt the pressure of the pistol in the small of my back. ‘Now, only three more steps, Mr Marklin, if you would...’

  I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and threw myself down sideways on to the ground. As I did so, I heard a deafening report but was amazed to feel no pain. I rolled over and got on my knees. Muir was now facing away from me, gun still in hand, but with his arms raised on high, the sleeves of his surplice billowing out like great, white wings. Behind him, through the swirling mist, came the unmistakable silhouette of the most wonderful pain in the arse this world has ever seen, and behind him again, some six silhouettes that could only be Dorset’s daring constabulary.

  A voice shouted, ‘We’ll take over now, thanks, Mr Tribble.’ And from the voice, I recognised one of the plumper silhouettes as Digby Whetstone. I rose slowly to my feet. And as I did so, the white figure turned, his arms still held high and wide, and taking two quick steps forward, leapt into space off the edge of the cliff. He seemed to soar, as the thermals caught him, filling out the loose white folds, and I watched his free flight for what seemed like an eternity, until the rocks and the sea claimed the fallen angel as their own.

  *

  ‘It was quite a cute trick of yours to get Sebastian Lynch to phone Whetstone,’ Blake observed smiling, ‘with all that guff that you had found Tara-Lee’s hiding-place but were anxious to keep the police out of it so you could get all the kudos for yourself.’

  ‘Well, I knew Whetstone was likely to poo-poo almost anything I reported to him, if it were person to person, but he could hardly ignore a legal beagle.’

  ‘How did you persuade Lynch?’

  I grinned. ‘He sort of owed me a favour, that’s all.’

  Arabella came and sat on the arm of my chair. ‘He’s not exactly alone, is he? But, my darling, you still took a terrible risk going up to that pillbox alone.’

  ‘I wasn’t alone,’ I corrected her. ‘I had Gus.’

  ‘Better than the US cavalry, wasn’t it, old dear?’ Gus sniffed and held out his glass. I rose and refreshed it.

  ‘Wouldn’t say better, Gus. Equal, maybe. But to be honest, you needn’t have left it so bloody late.’

  ‘That was Whetstone’s idea. He wanted me to overhear more of Wall’s confession, before he charged in. Don’t forget, we only picked up the last few exchanges between you and him anyway, so we didn’t know what had gone before. And you told me to keep out of it until you had wormed some kind of confession out of him.’

  ‘The mist probably saved my life. And I bet Whetstone was enjoying seeing me in a cliff-hanger situation so much, he didn’t really want to end it too quickly.’

  ‘He’s not that bad,’ Blake said. ‘He’s a pretty professional officer with a reasonable track record, you know.’

  ‘I bet that track runs in a straight line,’ I muttered. ‘He seems to me to be painfully lacking in lateral vision, if you’ll excuse
the jargon.’

  ‘Policemen, by nature, normally have tidy minds, Peter,’ Blake continued, ‘so they tend not to like untidy cases with loose ends. And what’s more, they don’t feed into the computers quite as easily. So they...’

  ‘...cut off the ends to make them neat. So Wall was a Caucasian male around thirty-five with a cockney accent.’

  Blake didn’t need to comment, so changed the subject. ‘By the way, I heard tonight, just as I was leaving to come to you, that Whetstone has recovered Mrs Wall’s last note. It was in Wall’s wallet and was recovered with his body. He must have found her just before you arrived at the house, pocketed the note, then perhaps, seen you go into the shed in his garden.’

  Gus shivered. ‘I wonder if that vicar is ever going to get that God-awful angel now.’

  ‘Let himself out of the house,’ I continued, ‘hid somewhere, watched me break in, then, let himself in the front door. He could have killed me any time he wanted to.’

  ‘I guess he didn’t want to, because he reckoned there wasn’t any need. After all, he did not really know the purpose of your visit, and once he had pinched the note, your finding his wife’s body, in a way, was no bad thing.’

  I sat back and savoured my Johnnie Walker, for Arabella’s arm had now crept round my shoulders, and I liked its warmth.

  ‘Tell me, Inspector,’ she asked, ‘how did he get Tara-Lee to that gun emplacement without anyone seeing?’

  ‘Apparently, he and his wife kept her in the house for some time after Wall had enticed her away that morning. We’ve found evidence of that upstairs. It seems she was kept strapped to a bed. They kept her drugged most of the time; Mrs Wall used to be an army nurse. But, I’m told, Tara-Lee does dimly recall being bound hand and foot in a car in the middle of the night.’

  ‘I suppose, in the wee small hours, they could get away with it,’ Arabella admitted.

  ‘Especially if he drove down to Ringstead Bay, and carried her up the route you took, Peter. The police search would have been called off for the night, and Ringstead is dead from October to Easter, I would imagine.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, and that’s in the daytime. At dead of night, it would have been a doddle.’ I stopped, for I suddenly felt very tired. Then I said quietly. ‘Anyway, let’s stop talking about the poor, crazed, fanatical Walls. I just hope they’re at peace now, wherever they are, and that they’re reunited with their beloved daughter.’

  ‘Talking of beloved daughters,’ Arabella beautifully picked up my mood, ‘it’s good news from the hospital. Lana-Lee phoned us just before you arrived, Inspector. Tara-Lee seems to have come to no real harm from her ordeal, although they are keeping her in overnight, just for observation.’

  ‘More for mental reasons than physical, I suspect. Almost thirty-six hours tied up and gagged in total darkness in that small ammunition pit that Wall had half excavated would be enough to unnerve an adult, let alone a child.’

  ‘Don’t forget, children are more resilient,’ Arabella smiled and patted me on the head. ‘Just like Peter, here. He’s looking a bit like death warmed up at the moment, and I’m not at all surprised, but by tomorrow...’

  ‘...he’ll be playing with his toys again, just like normal,’ Gus grinned, and raised his glass. ‘Here’s to you, old lad, and never grow up. For remember, it’s the sodding adults who are always screwing up this wonderful world.’

  Blake raised his own glass. ‘Can I join in? We’ve talked so much about the case since I arrived that I haven’t really got around to the purpose of my visit.’

  ‘Which is to see if I have any Schucos in stock for you,’ I interrupted, laughing.

  ‘That, of course,’ he smiled, ‘but also, unofficially, to express the relief of, first and foremost, Scotland Yard and the Dorset Constabulary for...’

  ‘...us solving their bloody cases for them,’ Gus interjected, but Blake shook his head.

  ‘No, Mr Tribble. Not so much for solving our external problems, perhaps, as helping solve our internal ones, and without too much bloodshed.’

  ‘You’re all one big happy family again,’ I remarked, rather irritably, ‘to all intents and purposes. And, what’s probably more important — appearances: Whetstone’s mistake over Longhurst corrected without any internecine warfare, or even a dirty memo to go on any police records, and Tara-Lee found alive by a posse, led by the same dear old Whetstone storming the hill. What’s he going to get now, bless his cotton socks — promotion? You know, I’m beginning to suspect, Sexton, that every branch of government, and that includes law and order, is more obsessed with the peaceful resolution and hushing up of its internal politics than solving any external problem, however grave. Come to think of it, someone should write a new television series to follow up on Yes, Prime Minister called Yes, Commissioner. It would be a riot.’

  ‘Yes, Peter Marklin,’ Blake laughed and saluted, then looked at his watch. ‘Meantime, if you’re not all too tired, would you care to pick up that rain check of the other day? We could almost write the first episode while we’re eating.’

  I thought for a second, then said, ‘Great, thanks, but only if you are willing to drive us all to the restaurant and drive us back, in your glossy white car.’

  Arabella looked at me in surprise, but Blake got the message immediately. ‘Can I use your phone?’ he smiled. ‘It sounds as if I’d better order up the first round of drinks right now.’

  *

  And so life slowly started to return to what I call normal. (Loads of others, I’m sure, term it downright eccentric.) That is, the Toy Emporium opened more or less on time on more or less its designated days, my mail orders were wrapped and despatched, and Bing saw much more of me (and stopped having his breakfast at sparrowfart), and I also, at last, sorted out what I could afford to keep of the tinplate collection I had bought, and set the rest aside for the next big Sotheby’s or Phillips’ auction — or, maybe, for sale in Hollywood on our trip. Americans are as crazy about old toys as us Europeans. Arabella was getting the cream of the reporting tasks on the Western Gazette since her graphic piece on the Maxwell affair, written, as you may imagine, beautifully, but with the utmost discretion, so as to leave no after-taste in any participant’s mouth, particularly those mouths below which chin-straps often go.

  By special request, notably his and mine, Sebastian Lynch’s role was flatteringly re-written, and mine was watered down to almost that of a helpful friend of Miss Lana-Lee Claudell who happened to be around now and again when trouble brewed. I really didn’t want any of that kind of publicity.

  A month after Tara-Lee was restored to her loving mother, Digby Whetstone actually caught the thirty-five-year-old Caucasian with whom he had been obsessed. He proved to be a mobile-home minder, Durdle Dor way, and had been apprehended in Swanage offering sweets to, would you believe, a local policeman’s six-year-old daughter, as she was playing in her garden. So all Dorset (or rather, all Dorset’s mums and dads) has breathed a sigh of relief, and gone back to preparing the county for the next onslaught of other people’s children, buckets and spades akimbo, this coming spring and summer.

  There was also a curious little item in a national paper the other day, that caught my eye. It was at the end of a news report on the latest terrorist outrage in Beirut. It read, ‘The only one so far identified amongst the British dead is G. M. Truscott of Windlemere Manor, Windlemere, near Salisbury, Wiltshire, a well known international arms dealer. He leaves a wife and two children.’ I guessed he’d never found that original Dinky Flamingo for which he had offered me fifteen thousand pounds. And even if he had, and tried to take it with him, where he had now gone, the metal would have melted in the heat.

  As for my reproduction of the Flamingo aircraft, the boxes for it duly arrived from the printer and box maker the day after our rather riotous evening out with Blake — a hundred of them, matt blue and wonderful. I have them still stacked in the attic, but as far as I am concerned, they will never have any contents. For, to me, the joy
of toys, modern, antique or reproduction, is their very innocence, their freedom from taint and the often twisted values and desires of the so-called grown-up world.

  So, one afternoon, after Arabella and I had spent another wonderful morning at Osmington with an ever adoring Tara-Lee, and her now sublimely happy mother and prospective stepfather (the only embarrassment of our mutual visits is their ceaseless display of gratitude towards us), we beetled on down the coast to Charmouth, where so many of my childhood dreams had been formed. The day was, as my mother used to term it, ‘bracing’ (in others’ parlance, ‘cold and windy’), but our walk up the cliff paths to the towering Golden Cap warmed us sufficiently to make the trek very pleasurable. At the very top, Arabella and I inched our way as near to the edge as we dared, and then I reached in my pocket for the object of our mission. It felt cold as death to the touch. As I withdrew it, a shaft of wintry sun caught the golden surface of a wing, and flared back into my eyes. I must have reacted in some way, for I suddenly felt Arabella’s steadying hand on my arm.

  ‘Do you really want to do it?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘I have to. It’s where it belongs now.’

  She put her arms around my waist and I could feel her lean backwards, her heels dug into the turf ‘Just don’t forget to let go,’ she breathed.

  I held the brass Flamingo in my right hand and looked at its fineness of detail and purity of line for the last time. Then I swept my hand back slowly behind my head, holding the fuselage of the plane with my thumb and forefinger, just as I had with so many flying model aeroplanes in my youth. I held it there for a moment, then projected it sharply forward and opened my hand. The tiny golden airliner seemed, at first, to defy gravity, and held its outward course in straight and level flight. Then, as natural forces caught up with its attempt to cheat them, the shape started tumbling, downward and outward, betraying its imbalance and reverting to its base reality.