Silver City Scandal

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘Before we let anything distract us,’ Keith said, ‘let’s look for the answer to your problem.’

  ‘All right,’ she said.

  ‘Show me her part of the house.’

  She led him through into a large room, evidently made by throwing two rooms together, and closed the curtains. It had been furnished as a combined bedroom, sitting room and office, all in a severely masculine style. At the far end from the bed, a whole wall had been given over to a large desk and fitted cupboards. On the desk sat a small computer flanked by a disc drive, printer and video screen all linked by flat multiple cables.

  ‘Knowing her as you did,’ Keith said, ‘would she be more likely to keep her confidential records on paper or on the computer?’

  ‘She never trusted anything to paper,’ Jenny said. ‘She always destroyed any notes as she went along.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. I’d guess on disc. Your visitors thought so too if they took her gramophone records. Did she have any cassettes of music?’

  ‘They took those too.’

  ‘And still they came back. They must have listened to a hell of a lot of music before they found that there wasn’t any electronic blippery there.’ Keith thought for a moment. Jenny was darting little glances at him. It distracted him. He sucked in his stomach. A large bookcase held a mixture of novels and textbooks. They looked too neat. ‘Did they go through her books?’ he asked.

  ‘They were all tumbled on the floor. I put them back.’

  ‘If she was going to hide away her records,’ Keith said, ‘she’d surely have left you some clue. Did she ever say anything about it which sounded in the least bit off-beat?’

  ‘Not that I remember.’

  She was giving her attention to him but not to the problem.

  Keith, while admitting to a wild and rakish past, considered himself now to be a reformed character. Indeed, ever since the birth of his daughter had forced him to review his moral values, he felt that he had been a model of marital fidelity. But it would have been against his nature and his inclination to allow new-found scruples to interfere with his much older enthusiasm for the pursuit of truth. He wondered whether he could coax Jenny Carlogie a little further without quite surrendering his precarious virtue.

  He assessed her out of the corner of his eye. Had he misread her? Perhaps a little flirtatious and suggestive badinage would satisfy her for the moment. ‘Fully dressed like that,’ he said, ‘you make me feel naked.’

  He expected her to bridle, but she leaped at the suggestion. ‘I wouldn’t want that,’ she said. With the faintest pretence of modesty she slipped out of her dress and dropped it over a chair. In seconds, her state of undress matched his own. Her figure was good but not, he thought, a patch on Molly’s. She came and leaned against him. He was left in no doubt that she expected him to take her then and there, but he guessed that once love-making began her attention would be bespoken indefinitely.

  He patted her haunch in what he hoped was a brotherly way. ‘Think hard,’ he said. ‘What did she say?’

  She rubbed herself against him in silence for a few distracting seconds. Just when he thought that her mind was away, she proved him wrong. Evidently the pull of money was as strong as the pull of sex. ‘There was only one thing she ever said and I don’t think it’ll be much help. Just after she told me that she’d made a will in my favour, she said that the money had my name on it. She seemed to want to laugh about it. I thought that she was just saying the same thing again in a different way, but now I’m not so sure.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Keith said. ‘That may not be much help until after we’ve found it.’ During his preoccupation, his hand had become more affectionate. He pulled it up to the small of her back and then pushed her gently away. ‘We’d better take a look around,’ he said.

  ‘If we must,’ she said. ‘Let’s get it over and done with. What are we looking for? One of her floppy discs?’

  ‘That’s my guess, if it’s not on a cassette. Probably in a thin envelope about four inches square. It’ll be carefully hidden, but not anywhere it could get damaged. It could be taped to the underside of a drawer or shelf, or under the lining paper or the clothes in a drawer. Would it be in this room?’

  ‘I’m sure it would,’ she said. ‘I did all the housekeeping, but this was her own place.’

  ‘Let’s make a start, then.’

  They searched. Once or twice Keith went through to the living room to look out at McHenge, but the man was only sitting and glowering out, just able to see over the dashboard.

  Concentration was difficult. Wherever he turned Keith found that he was aware, through the corner of his eye, of a well-rounded and silk-girt buttock or a bobbing breast and he knew that she was equally aware of him. She seemed content for the moment, and he thought that she was finding her own erotic stimulus in moving around, provocatively short of naked, in the presence of a man whose arousal must be almost painfully obvious.

  After half an hour, much discouraged, Keith stood looking at the bookcase. ‘Did it seem that they’d given all the books a shake?’ he asked.

  She looked round from examining the backs of pictures. ‘That’s just how it seemed.’

  ‘Then they wouldn’t have missed—’ Keith stopped dead.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath, but I think I’m looking at it.’ He reached up and took down a novel. Poor Jenny said the title. At each end, the bright dust jacket had been taped. He ripped the tape off one end. A recess had been cut into the outside of the back cover. It held a black envelope about four inches square.

  She looked at it in excitement. ‘Can we try it in the computer?’ she asked.

  ‘Better not. I don’t know much about these things, but I do know that confidential material can be protected. We might wipe off exactly what we want to know. I’ll get an expert onto it tomorrow.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’ She was laying conscious emphasis on her own meekness.

  Keith went once more to look out at McHenge. She followed him.

  ‘He’ll see you,’ Keith warned.

  ‘Let him,’ she said. ‘He can’t be getting much other fun. Who is he? Do you think he killed Mary?’ She sounded no more than mildly interested.

  ‘It seems possible.’ Keith pulled her away from the window before McHenge’s furious eyes could pop right out of his head. ‘He was certainly ready to kill me. I’ll take him into Aberdeen and see how much of it we can prove.’

  It had been Keith’s intention, in keeping with the virtue which nowadays clung about him, to make his escape as soon as he had Mary Spalding’s secrets in his hands. But just as his mind decided that the time had come for his departure he found that his body had reached quite a different decision. They had come too far to turn back. Besides, he felt that he owed it to her. Putting aside all thought of McHenge’s uncomfortable vigil, he pulled Miss Carlogie to her late friend’s bed.

  He told himself that Molly would understand. The thought was less than comforting.

  Chapter Eight

  She managed to be voracious and demanding without forsaking her subservient role, but they went well together. Jenny made breakfast for him in the morning. His clothes had dried, so he dressed before sitting down to her eggs in a blue and white kitchen.

  ‘One thing,’ he said. ‘If anyone ever asks, I caught that man this morning, not last night. I wouldn’t want it known that I kept him prisoner in the car while you and I . . .’

  She looked up from her cornflakes and blushed, but there was the shadow of a complacent smile. ‘I understand,’ she said.

  ‘And you’ll remember?’

  She nodded and turned her eyes away to the snowbound scenery beyond the window. ‘If we can find the money,’ she said dreamily, ‘I’d still like to get away. Somewhere warm, with somebody loving.’

  Keith jumped. ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘I’m a happily married man.’

  ‘Bless us, I wasn’t meaning you,’ s
he said, laughing. ‘I don’t think I’d like a man around all the time. Ladies are gentler. Should I take that man out a cup of tea?’

  ‘I don’t think he could face it,’ Keith said. He was nettled. He thought that he had been wonderfully gentle. ‘Use my car to get to your work, if you can drive. And may I use your phone before I go? It’s a local call.’

  He made his phone call and then came back to her. ‘Will you be coming back for your car?’ she asked.

  ‘Assume not. But I’ll be in touch when I’ve done what I can about the information on the disc.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  She was not his sort of woman but it was impossible not to feel some tenderness. ‘Goodbye, little female person,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps it would be better if you didn’t come back yourself,’ she said in a very small voice. ‘I don’t want to be the sort of person who does that sort of thing. You understand?’

  ‘I understand,’ Keith said, knowing that it was only too true.

  ‘Then goodbye, large male person.’ She turned away.

  McHenge was still squatting, helpless and sullen, glowering out with difficulty at an equally sullen morning. He made noises through his nose which Keith did not bother to try to interpret. The car’s engine was still running but there was enough fuel left to take them where they were going.

  At first, Keith drove in silence, depressed by his own frailty. He could forgive himself for his infidelity which had, after all, been in the line of duty. But he should not have enjoyed it. The change had been refreshing. This had not been his first infidelity to Molly, but the others had been with ladies whose favours he had known before his marriage so that no new precedent had been established. This time, he felt almost criminal.

  But even a criminal gets time off for good behaviour. That was a cheering thought. Regarded in that light, his little lapse was no more than his just reward, a parole after years of faithful service. He brightened up and even told McHenge one or two mildly blue stories as they went along.

  They headed towards Aberdeen over the Tyrebagger. As Hugh Donald had warned, the traffic was heavy around Bucksburn and, when he turned off to the left, Keith found himself following a column to Dyce.

  Hugh was waiting near the main gate of the airport. He slipped out of his coat and dropped it over the hunched figure of McHenge as he squeezed himself into the back seat.

  ‘Drive on,’ he said. He directed Keith through a secondary gate and onto a perimeter road. Muffled noises came from under the tweed coat.

  A small helicopter was tucked away behind a hangar and here Keith halted the car. The pilot remained in his seat and stared blandly at the hangar wall.

  ‘Too luxurious for this lout,’ Keith said.

  ‘We only keep a couple of executive choppers,’ Hugh said. ‘Our commercial flying’s done by one of the big charter outfits.’ He pulled the coat off McHenge. ‘You think this is the hired killer?’

  ‘I’m sure of it, but we can’t prove it yet. What’s the plan?’

  ‘You said you wanted him salted away for a while. So we’ll send him out to one of our rigs. The Operations Manager on Marina Beta is an Australian. His top crew have been with him for years and they’re all intensely loyal. They’ll keep him under wraps until we say otherwise. If we wanted, they’d lose him permanently.’

  McHenge made honking sounds.

  ‘He’ll have to go on trial,’ Keith said. ‘We may not get as far as his client, but a prosecution of this animal for Mary Spalding’s murder might get you off the hook.’

  A rusty and battered Cortina pulled up behind them. Jeremy Prather got out and came to their nearside. ‘So this is our killer,’ he said. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

  Keith would have liked to say that McHenge was a little stuck up, but he decided that the solicitor was in no mood for feeble puns. ‘Superglue,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about him. He’s immobilised until I use the solvent on him.’

  Jeremy looked closely at McHenge. ‘I go along – reluctantly – with your idea of stowing him away on a rig,’ he said. ‘But you can’t keep him like this. It isn’t human.’

  ‘Nor is he,’ Keith said.

  ‘At least unglue his mouth.’

  ‘You may regret it, but all right. Although what I think he wants most is a pee. If we lift him into the bushes, you can give him a little help.’

  Jeremy looked at McHenge’s useless hands. ‘Let him burst,’ he said. ‘But open his mouth.’

  ‘OK. But I think it’s a waste of our time and his breath.’

  Keith applied the solvent, using a rag from the car’s glove compartment. As McHenge’s lips came free, he was already speaking to Jeremy Prather. ‘Hey, is it right you’re the lawyer? Tak’ me on. I’m suing this bogger. Kept me like this, shut in a car all night while he had it awa’ wi’ the Carlogie wumman.’

  ‘He’s a liar,’ Keith said. ‘I only caught him an hour ago.’

  ‘He’s the yin’s the leear,’ McHenge squawked. ‘An’ Harry Snide’ll gie youse a thousand quid if you’ll phone him an’ say where they’re sending me.’

  ‘Tell me who your client is and I may be able to help you.’

  McHenge shook his head violently. ‘My orders came from Harry,’ he said. ‘D’you want my case, or will you get me someone else?’

  ‘You’re right, it’s a waste of time,’ Jeremy said. ‘If he knows he won’t tell us. Glue him up again.’

  ‘I’ve used all the glue,’ Keith said. ‘And most of the solvent.’

  ‘There’s a dozen chemists on the rig,’ Hugh said. ‘They can figure out how to unglue him. Let’s load him up.’

  ‘Right,’ said Keith. ‘You two take an ear each and I’ll grab his balls.’

  *

  With a car apiece to be taken back to Aberdeen, there was no opportunity for discussion during the journey. Keith, less familiar with routes and lanes, lost time on the trip but managed to park the car near Jeremy’s office. The other two, walking up from some remoter car-park, met him as he was locking up the car.

  ‘You’re on a yellow line,’ Jeremy said. ‘They’ll tow it away.’

  ‘Who cares?’ Keith said. ‘It’s not my car and I’ve cleaned out any debris belonging to McHenge.’ He was holding another of his polythene bags in one hand. From the other dangled McHenge’s boots and socks. ‘I forgot about these.’

  Jeremy sighed. ‘I’ll see that they get out to him,’ he said. ‘You can give them to me . . . after we get back to my office.’

  They fell into step.

  ‘Did you manage what I wanted?’ Keith asked.

  ‘Sergeant Tooker should be here in a few minutes,’ Jeremy said. ‘You can say what you like to him. He won’t report back until we tell him to. They’re still searching for your rabbit.’

  ‘If they decide to find it,’ Keith said, ‘get a tame pathologist to collect it from them.’

  ‘I phoned your wife’s cousin before I left for Dyce,’ said Hugh. ‘She’s going to buy the computer you wanted.’

  ‘With a bit of luck, I’ll get to keep it,’ the solicitor said.

  ‘With a bit of money, you can buy it,’ Hugh said. ‘Bloody scrounger! And an expert from Shennilco will be on his way soon. Why did you want him? What other little treasures have you brought us?’

  Keith glanced around. An old lady with a shopping bag might have been within earshot. ‘You’ll be amazed,’ he said.

  ‘Miss Carlogie co-operated? As if McHenge hadn’t told us,’ Hugh added. ‘Greater love hath no man.’

  ‘You don’t want to believe all that bastard says, except when he thinks you’ll kill him if he doesn’t tell the truth. We know everything he knows, for what little it’s worth. And we know what Miss Carlogie knows.’

  ‘The bitch!’ Jeremy said. ‘She won’t tell the defence solicitor a damn thing, and then she spills it all to the next man to come along.’

  ‘If you’ve got it, you may as well use it,’ Keith said. ‘You should hav
e changed your shirt and smiled.’

  ‘I know what it was,’ the solicitor said. ‘She was hostile to me because I was defending the man she thought killed her friend.’

  ‘She was very nice to me the other day,’ Hugh said, grinning.

  Jeremy sulked all the way up the stairs to his office.

  They had hardly settled in Jeremy’s outer office when there came a knock at the door, so casual that it might have been accidental, and Sergeant Tooker floundered into the room. He was, as Sheila had suggested, an unusual policeman and a good match for Jeremy Prather.

  Tooker was tall, thin but pot-bellied, in a shabby and ill-fitting uniform. His hair was grey and the creases in his worn face were lined with silver stubble. He was not wearing socks. Keith learned later that, although the sergeant’s lack of polish was a thorn in the flesh of his superiors, he was a valued member of the city police and was frequently drafted onto CID work because of his inquisitive nose and an extraordinary affinity for gossip. Tooker could turn an interrogation into a cosy chat during which his victim would find himself divulging fragments of information which he had not even known that he knew.

  Jeremy performed introductions and the sergeant shook Keith’s hand firmly. ‘Aye, man,’ he said. ‘I’ve been hearing a lot about you lately and no doubt I’ll hear more. But, for the now, you’d best gie’s your crack.’ The three chairs being bespoken, he settled himself on the window sill and assumed that air of admiring attention with which he so often lulled the unwary into saying too much.

  To an audience of three – four if the tape-recorder were included – Keith gave a neatly tabulated summary of his theory of Mary Spalding’s murder and an expurgated account of recent events, truthful except that he allowed the search for the missing disc to occupy the whole night and transferred the attempt on his life and the capture of McHenge to the morning.