Duffy

by Dan Kavanagh

The phone went dead. McKechnie took a deep breath, put on his jacket, told Belinda he was going out for a few minutes, and walked round to West Central police station.

  West Central was one of those stations which they kept on not getting around to modernising. Ten years ago they took away the blue lamp mounted on its wall bracket, and five years after that they put up a new sign, a long thin white one, lit by a neon tube, which said WEST CENTRAL POLICE STATION. But then things slowed down considerably: the grey paint inside got blacker; the canteen plates got more chipped by the year; tempers got shorter.

  Shaw was still on holiday, and instead McKechnie was shown in to see Superintendent Ernest Sullivan, twenty-five years in the force, ten on this patch, a surly, fleshy man unimpressed by all forms of crime and by most forms of complainant. McKechnie told his story – the assault on his wife, the spitting of his cat, the phone calls, the demand for money – while Sullivan shuffled some papers round his desk and occasionally picked his ears with a matchstick.

  When he’d finished, Sullivan merely said,

  ‘Never heard the cat thing before. Heard the rest before. Must take quite a bit of strength to push a spit through a cat. Probably get scratched, wouldn’t you?’

  McKechnie was impatient with the amount of interest shown by the police in the death of his cat.

  ‘What about the wounding of my wife and the blackmail?’

  ‘How do you know it is blackmail?’

  ‘Well of course it’s blackmail.’

  ‘Did the man say what he’d do if you didn’t pay?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then maybe he’s just trying it on. Maybe the two things aren’t connected. Maybe he just read your local paper and thought he’d try his luck.’

  That couldn’t be the case, McKechnie thought, as the Salvatore fellow had known about Barbara, and nothing of that had been in the paper. But all he said was, ‘Not very likely, is it?’

  ‘It’s possible.’ Sullivan seemed keen for the case to give him the minimum trouble. McKechnie waited. Eventually, Sullivan shifted in his seat, picked his ear again, and said, ‘I suppose I could get the case transferred up here.’ He showed little sign of enthusiasm. ‘Shall I do that?’

  ‘If you think that’s best. Whatever’s happening, it’s obviously got nothing to do with where I live.’

  Sullivan nodded, got slowly to his feet, and disappeared. When he came back, he seemed, if possible, even less keen on McKechnie’s presence in his office. If only McKechnie would go away, his look implied, he could get on and give his ears a real cleaning out.

  ‘Well, they’re sending me the file,’ he said. ‘Chap named Bayliss. Said that forensics reported the cat had been on the spit for about three hours. Nasty smell, was there?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Come, come, Mr McKechnie, I’m sure you do. And, er, while we’re on the subject of nasty smells, there’s a bit of a one in here, isn’t there?’

  McKechnie looked round.

  ‘No, you don’t need to look round. I mean, there’s a bit of a nasty smell coming from your chair, isn’t there, Mr McKechnie? Not always kept our own nose exactly clean, have we? Bit of a fiddler, really, aren’t you, Mr McKechnie? It is going to be McKechnie for a bit longer, isn’t it? Because if you’re thinking of changing again, I’d better nip out and update our file.’

  ‘That was all years ago.’

  It had also been two hundred miles away. A bit of bad company, temptation, it could happen to anybody. You can’t run a business without being tempted occasionally. But how had Sullivan got hold of his record?

  ‘It’s all years ago,’ he repeated. ‘I thought there was a Rehabilitation of Offenders Act or something.’

  ‘There is, Mr McKechnie, there is.’ Sullivan was livening up. He seemed to be enjoying this part of the conversation. ‘But it doesn’t apply to us, now, does it? Or not the way they meant it to. And when someone moves into our patch, in however small a way, we like to know just a little about him.’

  ‘Well, you know, Superintendent, you can’t run a business without being tempted occasionally.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure, Mr McKechnie. I’m just surprised, reading our little file on you, that there weren’t more road accidents up in Leeds.’ He chuckled. ‘What with all this stuff falling off the backs of lorries.’

  McKechnie was silent.

  ‘Still, I suppose we’d better let bygones be bygones.’ Sullivan sounded as if he didn’t hope to convince even himself of this principle, let alone anyone else.

  ‘Turning to my current problem, Superintendent.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’

  ‘What should I do about the twenty-five quid?’

  ‘Pay it and write it off against tax as a bad debt.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Completely. Isn’t that what your natural instinct would be to do? Isn’t that what any self-respecting fiddler would do?’

  ‘You’re telling me to piss off, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, I’m not, I’m merely saying Business is business. Your business involves writing off small amounts of money every so often. My business involves not wasting the time of my men if some local villain reads a Guildford newspaper and squeezes a pony out of another local fiddler. Funny how private enterprise springs up, isn’t it, Mr McKechnie? We had a villain once, he used to read the deaths column in the Telegraph, and send out small bills for tailoring alterations addressed to the dead man. The deceased’s family used to get the bill – it was only four or five quid, he wasn’t greedy – and most of the time they paid up. Natural instinct, really. Mean not to pay your dearly beloved’s bills, isn’t it?’

  ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘Ah, yes, something always goes wrong, doesn’t it? Except that sometimes nothing goes wrong, and then there’s no story at all. What went wrong was as simple as what went right: he made the mistake of sending in a bill to a deceased member of a family tailoring business. Everyone was quite amused really. No one was hurt, I suppose. He only did a couple of years.’

  ‘Have you heard of this man called Salvatore?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve heard of Salvatore. Big local villain. Girls, smokes, bit of smack, mossing, tweedling; a very democratic villain, Mr Salvatore.’

  McKechnie was surprised; and cross. ‘Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Now you can tap his phone when he calls me tomorrow.’

  ‘Patience, Mr McKechnie.’ Sullivan seemed to be enjoying himself again; he’d even forgotten about his ears. ‘We can’t tap phones like that, you know. All sorts of red tape involved. Have to get Home Office permission; Home Secretary’s signature. Now he wouldn’t give his signature for a pony’s worth of squeeze, would he?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you why not, Mr McKechnie. Because Mr Salvatore no speaka da English, only speaka da Eyetalian. Tutto his life. And in the second place, he isn’t with us any more. He died about five years ago. Nice old fellow. All the boys here chipped in for a wreath.’

  ‘So who did I talk to?’

  ‘Well, there aren’t any other Salvatores around. So I reckon you’ve got yourself a joker, Mr McKechnie, that’s what I reckon you’ve got.’

  ‘So what do I do?’

  ‘You do what you like, Mr McKechnie. You pay up if you want to, you tell him to fuck off if you want to.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t fuck off?’

  ‘Well, put it this way. If he carries on and gets up to a ton, you come back and see me. Under a ton, it’s just not worth our while.’ There was a meaningful look in Sullivan’s eye as he said this. Was he giving McKechnie a price?

  The next morning, Brian took Rosie breakfast in bed, as he had done every morning since the attack, and sat downstairs with his paper and the letters. They had always opened each other’s letters; it seemed a sign of how close they were. There were a couple of business letters for Brian, some circulars, and a small brown envelope addressed to Mrs B. McKechnie. It felt fatter in one cor
ner than elsewhere, and the envelope seemed a little stained. He opened it carefully, looked inside, and then glanced quickly towards the stairs in case Rosie might be coming down.

  The first thing he withdrew from the envelope was a photo of Barbara. It wasn’t one he’d seen before. She was walking down a street, somewhere in London by the looks of it; to judge from the angle of the photograph, it might have been taken from a passing car. It was a good likeness, but he couldn’t tell quite how pretty she was looking because the photograph was stained. Half her face had been smudged where the emulsion had run. He looked in the envelope again and saw why: a used condom was slowly leaking its contents. He screwed the envelope up and pushed it into his pocket. Then he turned over the photograph. Typed on the back, in capitals, he read:

  DEAR MRS MCKECHNIE WE THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE TO SEE A SNAP OF BARBARA

  McKechnie looked back at the photo. He gradually made out one or two of the out-of-focus street signs – a clothes shop, a bank, a theatre. It had been taken in Shaftesbury Avenue, just round the corner from his office.

  On his way to work he threw away the envelope with the condom in it. At his desk, he tried to think about that morning’s orders, but instead found himself waiting all the time for the phone to go. Eventually, of course, it did.

  ‘Mr McKechnie, and how are you today? As well as always, I trust?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Your wife well?’

  ‘Yes, why shouldn’t she be?’

  ‘Why indeed. Unless, of course, she didn’t enjoy opening her letters this morning.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know – I left before the post came.’ He wasn’t quite sure why he lied; he was just fed up with being outguessed all the time.

  ‘Anyway, to business. We’re a little displeased with you, Mr McKechnie. You’ll understand why, of course.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come, come, it really was very silly of you to go to the police. What makes you think that one branch of the police force is likely to be any more efficient than another? I’m sure they can’t have been much help to you.’ (He didn’t know how right he was) ‘Anyway, since you seem interested in raising the risk, I’m afraid I’m going to have to raise the stakes. The twenty-five goes up to fifty because of your little indiscretion. But, just to show you that you’re dealing with businessmen, you can have another day to pay. Fifty by tomorrow, and I’ll ring you in the morning about delivery.’

  ‘How do I know you’re serious?’

  ‘Suck it and see, Mr McKechnie, suck it and see.’ The phone went dead.

  He rang Sullivan and explained what had happened; Sullivan didn’t seem at all pleased to be hearing from him so soon. He grunted once, said ‘Pay it’, and put the phone down.

  After a night’s reflection, McKechnie went to the bank early the next day and withdrew fifty pounds. It was just possible that Sullivan was right; that it was a one-off job. But the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed. He had a very unpleasant feeling that this was the start of something which could go on a long time. But he thought he’d take it gently to start with. At eleven o’clock the phone went again. This time the voice was brusquer.

  ‘Brown envelope, please, Mr McKechnie. Two rubber bands round it, one in each direction. If by any foolish plan you asked the bank for new notes, go back and change them. Drop the envelope in the middle dustbin by the back entrance to the Columbia cinema at one o’clock.

  McKechnie did exactly as he was told. He got to the middle dustbin on time, lifted the lid, dropped the envelope into the half-filled bin, turned, squinted round a bit to see if he could catch anyone spying on him, then marched off purposefully. He walked west along Shaftesbury Avenue, turned down the lower stub of Wardour Street, doubled back along Gerrard Street and stopped by an advertising hoarding. From here he could just make out, when traffic and pedestrians allowed, the three dustbins by the back entrance to the cinema. He’d been there twenty minutes or so, worrying each time a bus blocked his line of sight, when he gradually became conscious of a man watching him from a distance of about ten feet. A broad-faced, gingery, fleshy man with glasses and a slightly wild look in his eye. When he saw that McKechnie’s attention was on him, he walked slowly towards him, then round behind him, then laid his chubby chin on McKechnie’s shoulder so that they were now both looking across towards the dustbins, then turned sideways and grinned straight into McKechnie’s face, then came round the front again, then took a big freckled thumb and forefinger and playfully grabbed a stretch of McKechnie’s cheek, then said, with a friendly, slightly mad smile,

  ‘Scram.’

  McKechnie scrammed back to his office, his heart beating too fast for its own good.

  Two weeks later ‘Salvatore’ called again.

  ‘My dear Mr McKechnie, how nice to be talking to you again. It was so kind of you to help me out the other week when I was short. I’m sure the Revenue will understand when you put it through your books. Now, I do seem to be having a bit of a cash-flow problem again. I wonder if you could possibly help me out. I’m afraid I need just a little more this time, though. I think we’d better settle for a hundred.’

  ‘I don’t do that sort of business.’

  ‘Well, Mr McKechnie, I don’t happen to believe you. I’m sure a man with two warehouses and an office, however meagre they are, can find a hundred pounds to help out a friend.’ McKechnie paused. He was wondering why Salvatore, who had had a fairly strong foreign accent during his first call, now seemed to be speaking almost standard English. He answered,

  ‘All right.’

  Secretly McKechnie was pleased. Now the police would have to act. He rang Sullivan and told him the demand had gone up to the level which justified his interest. The next day he did as instructed, made the drop at one o’clock in a litter bin strapped to a lamp-post in Frith Street, went back to his office and waited for Sullivan to call. When he did, the news wasn’t good.

  ‘Lost them, I’m afraid.’

  ‘What do you mean, lost them?’

  ‘Well, we covered the place with a couple of men, watched you make the drop, but by the end of a couple of hours when nothing had happened they checked out the litter bin. The cupboard was bare.’

  ‘Your men must have been incompetent.’

  ‘Now, now, Mr McKechnie, that’s a very slanderous thing to say. The streets were very busy – that’s why the fellow chooses one o’clock – and my men can’t exactly stand around in blue uniforms, you know. And I can’t put my most experienced men on the job – their faces are too well known. That’s the trouble with this patch.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘We try again.’

  ‘What about my hundred quid?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll find a way to write that off, Mr McKechnie.’ Why did everyone seem so certain that his losses were tax deductible? Were they trying to make it easier for him – or for themselves?

  A fortnight later Salvatore called again; another drop was made, and another hundred lost as Sullivan’s men failed to spot the pick-up, or were distracted for a few vital seconds, or, as McKechnie suggested down the phone, fell asleep.

  ‘Now these slanderous suggestions won’t help anyone, you know,’ Sullivan said. He sounded formally apologetic about his men’s failure, but not deeply unhappy.

  McKechnie was deeply unhappy. He’d agreed to let Sullivan take over the case in the hope of getting some action. Since then, the file on the cutting of his wife had been moved from Guildford to West Central, and that was about all the action he’d had. He’d lost £250 in four weeks, no one knew who had attacked his wife, and Sullivan didn’t seem to care. He couldn’t even go and visit Sullivan because Salvatore or his mates were obviously following him, or had a spy somewhere; so all he could do was sit in his office by the telephone and wait for Sullivan to report the bad news to him.

  It was when Sullivan lost him the third hundred that McKechnie decided on a new initiative. He called West Central and asked
for Det-Sgt Shaw. He explained that he needed to see him urgently and privately; could they meet for a drink in the next day or two, but well away from their normal stamping ground? Shaw agreed.

  They met at a drinkers’ pub near Baker Street Station, a large, cheerless place where they never bothered to get rid of the fog of cigarette smoke between shifts; the drinkers relished it mainly because it was so murkily different from what they were going home to. They were going home to wives and children and cleanliness and their favourite dinner, so they valued the pub for its dirt and its smell and its maleness and its churlish refusal to go in for peanuts or crisps or new types of mixers or anything which might attract gaggles of typists after work and disturb their serious masculine drinking. Shaw often stopped off on his way home up the Metropolitan Line; McKechnie had never been here before.

  ‘I want advice,’ said McKechnie. ‘I want you to listen to me while I talk. I’ll tell you everything that’s happened to me, and if at the end you think you can’t say anything without compromising yourself or your job, then I’ll quite understand if you just down your drink and head for the door. All I ask is that you don’t pass on what I tell you. Is that a deal?’

  Shaw nodded. He was a small, foxy man, always too worried to smile. McKechnie told his story. When the name of Sullivan first cropped up, he thought he saw a slight twitch of a muscle on Shaw’s face, but no more. When he had finished, Shaw lit a cigarette to add to the general fug, drew on it a few times, and then spoke without looking at McKechnie. It was as if he were avoiding responsibility for his words, as if McKechnie were simply overhearing him in a pub.

  ‘Let’s say that I appreciate your problem. Let’s say that it could have happened before. Let’s say that once a case is with an officer of a certain rank, it’s not easy to get that case transferred except at the officer’s own request. As a general rule. I’m naturally speaking in very general terms,’ Shaw drew in another lungful, ‘and it would be more than my job is worth to speculate on motives in individual cases.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And nothing I say must be read as criticism of any officer.’