Gently French Read online

  ‘What about phone calls?’

  ‘He didn’t make any here.’

  ‘Did he receive any?’

  Silkin shook his head. ‘But there’s a phone-box a few yards up the road. He could have used that if he wanted to be private.’

  For out-going calls . . . but the others?

  ‘What did he do with himself all day?’

  Silkin puffed his cheeks. ‘I reckon you’ll have to tell me, sir. He was out of here each day after he’d had his breakfast.’

  ‘He went out in his car?’

  ‘He did if he had one.’

  ‘But surely you know if he had a car?’

  ‘The guests park over the way, sir,’ Inspector Breckles put in. ‘There’s no room this side. I’ve sent a man to make enquiries.’

  ‘They leave their cars on the staithe?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Silkin said. ‘And that’s where this man would’ve left his. But there’s always a dozen or more left across there, so whether he had one I couldn’t say.’

  ‘A blue Viva,’ Hanson said. ‘Of course the bloody car was across there.’

  Silkin stuck out his chin mulishly. Hanson never had charm to spare for the natives.

  ‘Let’s go back to Friday,’ I said hastily. ‘When did this fellow arrive here?’

  ‘It was three to three-thirty,’ Silkin said grumpily. ‘We were having a bite after the bar closed. He came through the yard and knocked on the door. Asked if we could put him up for a few days.’

  ‘A few days?’

  ‘Those were his words. Told me he was here on a bit of business. He offered to pay me in advance, but like a fool I didn’t accept it.’

  ‘Did he have his case with him?’ Hanson snapped.

  Silkin sniffed. ‘He fetched it afterwards.’

  ‘So like that wouldn’t he have had a car outside?’

  Silkin humped his shoulders. ‘It must have been my dull day.’

  Hanson snorted: I shot him a quick look.

  ‘What happened after you had booked him in?’

  Silkin sniffed again. ‘He went out, didn’t he? Said he’d see us later, then he went out.’

  ‘When did he come back?’

  ‘Well, it was latish. He came into the bar near closing-time. He had his couple, the way I told you, and went up while I was still doing the till.’

  I paused. ‘You are sure you didn’t see him earlier?’

  His eye met mine. ‘Quite sure of it, sir.’

  ‘Your wife?’

  ‘She wouldn’t have seen him till closing. She was in the back when he came in.’

  ‘You understand what these questions are about. That you may have to repeat what you’re telling me on oath?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Inspector Breckles informed me. But that fellow wasn’t back here till turned ten.’

  So there it was: barring an alibi, which Bilney wouldn’t find easy in a strange manor.

  ‘Did you notice anything special about him that night?’

  Silkin hesitated. ‘He may have looked a bit untidy.’

  ‘How, untidy?’

  ‘Well, his hair was ruffled, and maybe his clothes a bit creased.’

  ‘No blood on his sleeve?’ Hanson cut in.

  Silkin looked shocked. ‘I didn’t see blood. I’m trying to tell you what I can remember. I can’t do better for you than that.’

  ‘What about his manner?’ I asked.

  Silkin blew into his cheeks. ‘I just served him. I didn’t notice.’

  ‘Was his hand trembling?’

  ‘I didn’t notice. When I think of any more, I’ll tell you.’ I silently cursed Hanson.

  ‘Now I’d like you to tell me about yesterday. What time did Bilney go out?’

  Silkin’s eyes were sullen. ‘His usual time. After breakfast.’

  ‘Wasn’t it a little later yesterday?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. It was how I said.’

  ‘Didn’t he receive a phone call?’

  ‘I told you he didn’t. Now I want to go through there and help the missus.’

  ‘You’d better go then.’

  Silkin hesitated briefly before hauling himself up and clumping out. Hanson stared after him evilly. Breckles gave me a quizzical glance.

  We went up to the bedroom by a crooked stair that had a rope for a hand-rail. A different dabs-team was at work there, and this time no check-printing was necessary. On the door, the tooth-glass and Bilney’s Remington razor were prints matching those that had come over the wire. Bilney was in. Hanson had already sent out a general W.F.Q. alert.

  We turned over Bilney’s gear, which suggested that he hadn’t anticipated a lengthy stay out of town. In a squash-top suitcase were a soiled change of underwear, a screw of bennies and two pornographic paperbacks. No spare shoes, ties or socks. A raincoat he might have kept in the car. His toilet stuff was the bare minimum and didn’t run to talcum or after-shave.

  Hanson sprawled gracelessly on the bed. ‘What does Scotland Yard make of it?’

  I shrugged and fed Erinmore into my pipe. I wasn’t quite sure what I was making of it: my intuition was failing to click. But I had a feeling of sadness about that little room, about the paltry possessions Bilney had abandoned there. Almost feeling sorry for the stupid jerk: an emotion he wouldn’t have wasted on me.

  Hanson lit a cheroot. ‘Do you want my opinion?’

  I borrowed his matches. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’d say chummie came out here to do a quick job, but then he got hooked with a different angle.’

  Hanson and Dutt, both.

  ‘Of course, you mean blackmail.’

  Hanson horsed smoke. ‘What’s wrong with that? Deslauriers has money. She ordered a killing. Which left her wide open for a big touch.’

  I tossed back the matches. ‘No touch is worth a lifer. Bilney could only shop her by shopping himself.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s how you think, that’s how I think. But we’re talking of a buster with his brains in his knuckles.’ He spat some cheroot. ‘Look, chummie does his job, but he doesn’t go home the way he planned to. Then what’s holding him here? What’s the attraction? With the police busting a gut all around?’

  I puffed twice. ‘Say he’s sweet on the lady.’

  ‘Ha bloody ha,’ Hanson jeered. ‘You know there’s only one attraction for a louse like Bilney, and that’s the stuff that comes out of banks. He’s putting the black on, and this is the place for it, where the lady has to act all sweet and innocent. She’s wanting him gone and long gone. Every day he stops here is a boost to the pressure.’

  ‘It fits some of the facts.’

  ‘You bet it fits them. Bilney wasn’t risking any lifer. She had to pay him to go away, to stop giving us notions. That was the deal he was sitting in with.’

  ‘And now he’s gone.’

  ‘Yeah, now he’s gone.’ Hanson sucked and spat out more leaf. ‘So either the lady paid him off, or more likely your coming on the scene scared him.’

  ‘You’re saying she warned him.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How?’

  Hanson stared. ‘How should I know how? You let her go back to the hotel before you. She would have had time to put in a call.’

  I shook my head decidedly. ‘It can’t be that simple. Bilney didn’t return to base after meeting her. And he wouldn’t spend his days camping-out in a call-box, waiting for the lady to ring him warnings.’

  ‘Then she used a messenger. Maybe that long-hair.’

  ‘Bavents?’

  ‘Yeah. Didn’t I hear he was wet on her?’

  I sieved a puff; Bavents was a possible. I wasn’t at all sure of my ranking of Bavents.

  ‘It would mean letting someone else into the know, and the lady is too intelligent to want that to happen. In fact, the lady is too intelligent, period. She would never let Bilney get away with blacking her.’

  ‘Balls. She would be in a cleft stick.’

  ‘So she would get on the phon
e. But not to Bilney.’

  Hanson smoked ferociously, but it was a point. Cheaper to buy muscle than pay black.

  ‘All right, then. Suppose I’m wrong. You tell me why chummie hangs on here.’

  I launched smoke at the small lattice window that overlooked the road, the jammed staithe, the jammed broad.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve been wrong too. Deslauriers didn’t send Bilney to Freddy’s hideaway. And according to Silkin Bilney received no phone calls, yet Deslauriers must have phoned him at least once. That could have been a call by appointment, but if so the timing was strangely felicitous. And if it happened again yesterday, after she met me, then felicitous stops describing it.’

  Hanson wriggled. ‘So what’s the next move?’

  ‘Bilney hadn’t returned to town this morning.’

  ‘Meaning he’s still here?’

  ‘We had better assume that. And assume also that he’s still in touch with the lady.’ I puffed. ‘What would you do in her place?’

  ‘Me?’ Hanson champed on the cheroot. ‘I’d get him out of circulation fast. It’s too late in the game to leave him around loose.’

  ‘And where would you put him?’

  He sighed smoke. ‘This time it has to be Hernando’s Hideaway. But for crying out loud, we’ve been doing our nuts over it. Maybe you’d better call in the Army.’

  We went back down into the parlour. Hanson had a map fetched from the car. We spread it out on Silkin’s great mahogany dining-table and clustered round it in a hopeful seance. Breckles, the local man, pointed out the venues of holiday-bungalow development. They peppered the river-banks for miles and choked minor backwaters and tributaries. Then there were boatyards and mooring dykes where house-boats were lodged in their dozens. The Army wasn’t such a bad idea; a thorough check of the riverside might take weeks.

  ‘Have you been in touch with the rating department?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Breckles said. ‘They are getting out lists for us, all the properties with registered owners in the London district.’

  ‘Roughly how many?’

  ‘Over two thousand, sir. And we’re getting lists of house-boat owners from the River Commissioners. But it’s all taking a bit of time. I reckon the men on the spot have got the best chance.’

  Perhaps.

  ‘You’re a native here, aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. Born in Haughton.’

  ‘Right. Now forget the map. Just close your eyes and think of the river. The quiet, hidden places. Places that for some reason missed being devel- oped. Maybe ruinous, ramshackle places. Silted-up dykes, too shallow to navigate. Lonely; poor access; barely good enough to get a car down. Are you doing that?’

  ‘I’m trying, sir.’

  ‘Then make me a list of all those places.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ll certainly try.’

  Hanson’s expression said I’d never rated lower.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SILKIN’S WIFE SUPPLIED us with sandwiches and we took them, with bottles, to a bench across the road; not on the staithe, but beside a mooring cut used by the trip-boats to decant their pay-load. A path led to the cut through a grove of alders, and the bench stood in the shade of the grove. Except for a mound of dredged mud that lay steaming on the bank the spot was pleasant, being screened from the broad.

  We ate and drank silently. Hanson had a dreamy expression. He was beginning to see the end of this case. Our discoveries at Raynham had reduced it to a routine-matter – time-wasting, of course, but no longer speculative. Sooner or later, most probably sooner, we would have Bilney tucked away in the cooler; and with any sort of policeman’s luck, enough hard evidence for a copper-bottomed case. Like the knife, like blood on sleeves. Bilney would be fortunate if we didn’t find something. And with Bilney in the cooler we could play him against Deslauriers, and Deslauriers against him – routine, routine!

  Then why wasn’t I feeling happy too, who didn’t have to bother even with the routine? A few loose ends? But every case has them. Otherwise defence counsels would go out of business. So I didn’t know how Deslauriers communicated with Bilney – well, no doubt I would know, later. And I didn’t know why Bilney stayed around after the job – well, there were a couple of theories covering that. Then there was the right-hand, left-hand business: wasn’t I attaching too much importance to it? If it wouldn’t throw a jury (and it wouldn’t), had I any right to let it throw me? No: when you added it all together, I had no grounds for feeling so pensive over my sandwiches. From the moment we had tied Bilney into the case its main outlines were cut and dried.

  I finished my bottle, and Hanson offered me one of his sin-black Burmese cheroots. While I was lighting it we were joined by the man who had been sent to make enquiries at the staithe. He had had no luck. About twenty cars were left parked on the staithe every night, some from the guest-house up the road, some belonging to vacationists who rented the cottages. Nobody specifically remembered a blue Viva, though some remembered cars that were blue. Among them Bilney’s, without doubt. Only a Viva-driver notices another Viva.

  ‘Did anyone remember seeing Bilney himself?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He used the shop on the staithe a few times. He bought his fags and newspapers there. The lady who runs it gave a good description.’

  ‘At what times was he in there?’

  ‘In the morning, sir. And it was the local paper he bought.’

  Naturally. ‘Did she notice his hand?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Also his scar.’

  I ran it through my mind: Bilney buying a paper, feeling in his pocket for a coin. If he had felt with his right hand, holding the paper in his left, would the lady have been able to see that finger? But he had bought cigarettes there, too, putting out his left hand as he tended with his right – or vice versa: and either way, giving her a sight of the finger.

  ‘Is there a garage in Raynham?’

  ‘No, sir. The nearest is in Sallowes.’

  ‘Call in and enquire if he bought petrol there. With special reference to Friday evening.’

  The man ducked and went; Hanson dragged smoke; a trip-boat came nosing up the cut. We watched her naval-suited crew moor her to two posts, then got out ahead of the crowd.

  In Silkin’s parlour Breckles was still sitting with the map spread out before him, but now a number of red ball-pen carrots had been neatly marked upon it. Breckles rose as we entered.

  ‘I’ve had a shot at your idea, sir.’

  ‘Are these your probables?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to say that, sir. But there’s a couple we could take a look at. I’ve just been checking with the Rates Department and two of these places have London-registered owners. One is a private person with a Kensington address, the other is a holding company in Balham.’

  ‘And where are those places?’

  ‘Both near here, sir. This one is Blackdyke Fen, at Beastwick. Then there’s Turnpudden Hole, between Sallowes and Wrackstead. Both of them are pretty well off the map.’

  ‘Which is your choice?’

  Breckles shrugged embarrassedly. ‘I’d say it was all a bit of guess-work, sir. Turnpudden Hole is nearest to Wrackstead, but I can’t think how a Londoner would get to know about it.’

  ‘It’s part of the old Gifford estate,’ Hanson said. ‘The estate was sold up after the war. A development company bought a lot of it, all the fens down that side.’

  ‘What about the other place?’

  ‘Perhaps more likely,’ Breckles said. ‘But I wouldn’t care to bet on that, either. It’s a converted mill right out on the marshes. As far as I know it isn’t being lived in.’

  ‘But that one is privately owned?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Breckles took out a notebook and flipped the pages. ‘E. V. Selkirk, 73 Glebe Road, Kensington. He’s been the owner since ’68.’

  I looked at Hanson. ‘Any preference?’

  Hanson chewed his cheroot unhelpfully.

  ‘Right then,’ I said. ‘We’l
l try the mill.’

  Hanson opened and closed his bony hand.

  We collected a fourth man and drove to Beastwick, a pretty village with its back to the river. The cottages were styled in Art Nouveau rustic, but grouped with a keen eye for effect. We entered a skein of jumbled lanes, with the marsh and carr hazy below us, and came at last to a humpy marsh track, where marl combined with flints and brickbats.

  ‘How much further?’ I asked Breckles.

  ‘It’ll be about another quarter of a mile, sir.’

  ‘Any cover?’

  ‘There’s alder carrs, sir. But you’ll maybe go in up to your backside.’

  ‘Is there any other way out besides this?’

  ‘No sir, unless chummie has got a boat. But I passed by on a River Patrol launch last week, and the cut was empty then.’

  ‘Suppose he is a swimmer?’

  Breckles shook his head. ‘It’s all carrs and marshes, both sides. He might lose himself in there for a couple of days, but he would be damned glad to come out after that. If he takes to the marshes, we’ll have him.’

  ‘Unless he steps into a mud-hole,’ Hanson said.

  We bumbled on a short way further, then I halted and parked to block the track. Just there it was running through thick groves of alder in-filled with willow brush and sedge. Off the track it was sloughy black peat-mud; the air was sweatily humid and smelling of mint. The four of us alighting disturbed a jay, which blundered off through the twigs with klaxon-like cries.

  ‘Christ,’ Hanson muttered. ‘That should tell him!’

  We waited by the car for a couple of minutes. Once the jay had settled the carrs fell silent: just the murmur of mosquitoes that had come to inspect us.

  ‘You lead,’ I said to Breckles.

  We followed him down the track at twenty yards distance. The track made a slow turn through the alders and brought into view the tops of giant willows. Breckles signalled us to wait. He edged cautiously forward, was lost to sight behind a screen of scrub willow. We stood moistly flipping at the mosquitoes for what seemed an unnecessary interval. Then Breckles reappeared, waving to us. We joined him beside the scrub willow. Peering round it, we could see the brick mill-tower standing among the tall willows, with the river beyond.