A Spoonful of Luger Read online

  I got back in the car and drifted along, thinking about it, realizing how useless my contribution would be to such a search. I needed a pointer, an indication.

  And of course I eventually came to Trenchard St, as I’d realized, and as, I suppose, I’d intended. The street rose up from the ring road in a steady hill, curving, and you never approach a house from downhill. I took the next turn, the hill steeper here, breasted the rise, and turned again into the top end of Trenchard St. Then it was a gentle drift down the slope, to draw to a halt a hundred yards short of the bungalow, on the opposite side of the street. It was an ideal point of observation, as I’d discovered ten years before.

  Not that I had any idea of watching the place; it was more a matter of immunisation, exposure to the pain until the effects would be pressed into the back of my mind, where they could no longer intrude.

  I sat and lit my pipe. Of course, she wouldn’t be there now. Whoever owned the place had changed the colour scheme, kept the lawn neat, and trained the climbing roses.

  Then she was tapping at the glass on the passenger’s side, Anne, standing there at the kerb and smiling. I flapped the smouldering ash from my lap.

  “George! It is you, George?”

  I half stood, wedged behind the wheel, fumbling and confused.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” she asked.

  It had become a joke between us, my standard request at her door. I reached over and unlatched the passenger’s side and she slid in, bringing a light perfume with her.

  “It’s warmer in here,” she said, turning to me, smiling brightly. “George, why are you watching the house again?”

  Ten years had played hell with me. They had slid past her gracefully, maturing a little, but not dulling those dancing brown eyes. She was perhaps a little heavier, but not in the gross way that flesh had invaded me.

  “You haven’t changed, Anne.”

  “Nor you, George. Now answer my question.” She still used the same positive manner of speaking.

  I tried some sort of feeble grin. I’d been caught out like a lovesick teenager, watching the house. “I’d rather assumed you wouldn’t be there.” And I realized how awkward it sounded when she glanced away, for one moment catching her lip in her teeth.

  “Were you really so certain?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And for one moment I thought you’d hoped to see me. Why didn’t you come to the house, instead of parking here?”

  “Habit, I suppose.”

  “Observation? What a horrible habit to get into,” she said lightly.

  “I’m not particularly proud of it.”

  There was a lot I wasn’t proud of, and for a moment we were both silent, and it seemed to fill the car. Then she said awkwardly:

  “Then what brings you here?”

  “I’m on a case, Anne.”

  “Another?”

  “I’m not in the police now. Retired.”

  “Yes, of course. They retire you early, don’t they.” So very polite.

  “I’m sort of working on my own. My pension ... ”

  I let it slide, but she did not miss the inference.

  “As a sergeant?” she asked softly.

  “I didn’t make Inspector.”

  “No.” She was looking straight ahead through the wind-screen. “I’m sure you deserved it.”

  “Oh ... I did.”

  And we lapsed into another silence. There was too much we had to avoid mentioning, and it restricted the conversation.

  “What case?” she said abruptly.

  “Don’t imagine I’m happy with it,” I said defensively.

  “You don’t have to say — ”

  “Dulcie Randall.”

  I hadn’t thought it would affect her so strongly. Her eyes abruptly clouded. “That poor child.”

  “It’s hopeless, and I know there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Nothing sitting here, certainly. George, there must be something you can do.”

  “Did you know her?” I asked, prompted by her distress.

  “She’s in my class.”

  Anne had been a part-time teacher. “You’re still teaching?” I said quickly. I had been so certain she’d have had to give it up, move away. I might just as well have slapped her face.

  “Unfit for dealing with children?” she whispered. “Is that what you mean?”

  “Oh no. No, of course not.”

  “But you did. It was there, in your mind.”

  I mumbled something.

  “But they’re sensible people. Reasonable. I still teach. Full time, that’s the only difference.”

  “Yes, full time.”

  She would need to, on her own now.

  “Because I have to,” she said firmly. Then she realized it was a useful lead-in. “George, there are things a person has to do, just got to go ahead with — ”

  “Yes, yes,” I cut in quickly. Not now, I thought, Lord not now.

  “He’s dead,” she said quietly. “You wouldn’t know that.”

  “I knew he’d gone abroad,” I said diplomatically. Interpol had scoured the world for him.

  “He died in Argentina. Five years ago.”

  Did you say you were sorry? Her husband had been a crook, a rotten, low-down, filthy ... “I’m sorry.”

  She smiled weakly. “I’m sure you are, George.” She seemed about to enlarge on it.

  “But you know Dulcie?” I asked desperately.

  Yes, she knew Dulcie, a quiet child, a trusting, beautifully-natured child. There was a lot of that, all confirming what I already knew. She talked too much, trying to concentrate her mind on Dulcie, overdoing the sentiment. “A girl who’d accept a lift from a strange man?” I asked.

  “Oh no, never.”

  Then it had to be from somebody she knew.

  “Did you also know Anabelle Lester?”

  She was startled. “She was at my school. I didn’t teach her.”

  “Fifteen they said. Also someone who’d refuse an offered lift?”

  “George, oh George, you poor idiot. They’re grown-up at fifteen, now. Younger than that.”

  I sighed. “Anne, I don’t know anything about young girls, least of all Annabelle. I don’t even know that it matters to me. I’m groping, and I just have to try every possibility.”

  “She was waiting at the corner of the Markham estate. It’s quiet there. Maybe she was waiting for a boyfriend. They thought she could have been.”

  “Fifteen?”

  “Yes, George. But somebody else came along. Nobody knows. Her body was found several days later in Ringlewood.”

  “That’s the pine stretch I saw?”

  “Yes.” She paused, considering me. “I’ll show you, if it’ll help.”

  I didn’t know what would help. I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t more affected by the swarming personal memories that were haunting me. How could she suggest such a thing? I was aching to get away, to think about it alone. But some people can forget. A good memory can be a lousy asset.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Anything I can do, anything at all. That poor child ... ”

  “I ought to be moving on, getting something done.”

  “Is that all I can do to help, get out of your car?”

  “I’m sorry, Anne. Things are ... You caught me by surprise.”

  She considered me a moment, then she snapped open her bag, scribbled something on a scrap of paper, and stuffed it inside my breast pocket.

  “What’s that?”

  “My phone number. If you think I can help, call me. Promise.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  And I sat while she walked away, waited until she reached her door, so’s not to drive impolitely past her with my attention all for the road, then I headed rapidly for town.

  It had done nothing. The idea had been to dredge my mind of Anne, and then forget Cleave, and get on with the real job. But there I was, the pain hammering in my he
ad, and driving straight back into the Cleave case because a tiny idea had inserted itself.

  Call her? And disturb all those memories, like a brick thrown into a muddy pool? Like hell I would.

  When I braked for the station yard, Bycroft’s Cortina pulled out ahead of me. It looked rather official because Sprague was beside him, so I tagged on behind. Not that I could hold him, because Frank was driving with his usual disregard for human life, but it was soon apparent where they were going so I nursed the unhappy noise my engine was making.

  They were climbing out of the car when I drew into the scrapyard. There was a gang of men with a fork-lift truck turning over the shells.

  “What’s going on?” I called. “What’ve you got?”

  For one stifling moment I thought my case was ended, but they simply turned away and marched towards the office. Sprague’s leg seemed much improved.

  “What is it?” I repeated, but they didn’t look back.

  Bycroft was unsealing the door. There was a suppressed excitement about him. Sprague looked round and chewed a little, scowled emptily.

  “We’ve got one of the keys,” he said. The fact that they’d obtained it without my assistance seemed to give him pleasure.

  Then Bycroft had the door open and the light on. They pushed in and I followed. I saw that they hadn’t opened the box, and hadn’t parted it from the table. Bycroft turned and seemed suddenly aware of my presence, stared stonily, then gave way to triumph. He took his hand from his pocket and held it up.

  “Cleave’s key,” he said. “The one out of the pouch in his pocket.”

  “Where’d you find it?”

  “You’d never guess.” His expression was something between worry and disbelief. “Cleave had swallowed it. They’ve sent it along from the pathologist’s.”

  That he’d been able to swallow it, I could believe — it was such a small key — but that he’d have had need to, I couldn’t understand.

  “So all right,” I said, shrugging. “Then open your bloody box.” And he grinned.

  But there wasn’t much in it, only three items. Two of them were log books. The third was a Luger-Parabellum 7.65 semi-automatic pistol, lying on top. Nobody said anything for a moment. Then I slapped Sprague on the shoulder. “Well, you were right. It is a 7.65 Luger.”

  4

  THEN they threw me out. There was nothing actually physical about it, but they put it in such a way that I could hardly remain, so that all I could do was roam about the yard and watch the men turning the rusty old carcases, and of course finding nothing. Theoretically I shouldn’t have been interested in their Lugers locked in boxes, but the thing was annoying.

  Then they came out and marched stubbornly away, although I called: “Frank!” He obviously wasn’t pleased. No reason to be, I suppose.

  But one thought did occur to me on the way back to the Bedford, and I put it to Bycroft at the first opportunity, which was the following morning.

  “Frank, has it occurred to you — ”

  They were chatting it over at his desk, he and Sprague, and somehow seemed annoyed to see me.

  “Who let you up here?” Bycroft demanded.

  “I came up. Listen, the gun ... ”

  Perhaps he was pleased, at that time, to hear any fresh ideas about the gun. He made a quick gesture to Sprague, who was coming to his feet, and said, “what about the gun?” in a tone that suggested it was all my fault, anyway. Then, for a couple of minutes, he listened.

  The point was that although it might have been possible to swallow that key — obviously it had been — it wouldn’t have been pleasant. So Cleave wouldn’t have done it unless it was all he could think to do. There he’d been, faced by somebody waving a gun, and he’d obviously thought the idea was to get into his box. So he’d got rid of the key the best way he could. But he wouldn’t have gone to such trouble to dispose of the key unless he’d been sure that the person with the gun had no idea where to find the duplicate. In that case, he’d believed wrongly, and the murderer had left the gun in the box to prove it.

  “So ... have you asked him?” I said, assuming Bycroft realized where the argument led.

  He did. “We’ve been asking him all night,” he said wearily.

  “All night?” Tony Finch might have been difficult, but such a simple question wouldn’t take all night to answer, however he twisted it.

  “Finch didn’t strike me as being too helpful,” said Bycroft. “We asked him a number of things while we were at it.”

  “The main one being whether Cleave knew Tony had spotted that pouch under the table?”

  “Haven’t you got anything to do?”

  “Did he?”

  Bycroft grimaced. “Tony Finch didn’t simply notice it, he saw it was coming unstuck, and told Cleave, and Cleave told him to stick it down securely, and Tony went and got some fresh tape, and did.”

  “Proof?”

  “Tony’s prints were on the sticky tape.”

  “As they’d have been — ”

  “I know ... I know. But would he have worn gloves for the gun, then taken them off to get at the duplicate key? Ask yourself. There are no prints on the gun.”

  I asked myself. It came back no. “And Tony didn’t tell anybody else about the duplicate?”

  “Why should he? Look, George, we’re busy.”

  I looked at the map on the wall. There was no noticeable change. “So I see. And the log books?”

  Bycroft was about to tell me to go to hell, but Sprague growled, “you’re in the way,” so Bycroft nodded to his desk and I went over. They’d been lying under the gun, so were possibly of no significance as far as the murder was concerned. But all the same, I looked. Both were for newish cars, so no doubt related to crashed jobs. One was for a blue Austin 1800, the other a primrose Rover 3500. It meant nothing to me.

  “Why’d they be separate from the others?” I asked.

  Bycroft looked up frowning from a report. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “I don’t guess. I get facts and see where they lead me.”

  “Then let ‘em lead you out of here,” Bycroft said, and Sprague gave me a twisted grin.

  “In a minute, Frank. Just one thing. Annabelle Lester ... ”

  “Now what?”

  “Cleave had an alibi.”

  “A good one.”

  “Just tell me who he met and where and I’ll go.”

  They glanced at each other, then Sprague hauled himself to his feet. I’d find out, anyway, from old newspapers. Sprague found a file — by some secret process — in the tumbled cabinet, and flipped it open.

  “Lyle,” he said. “Norman Lyle. Cleave’d gone to see him about a crashed car. It’s a dead end,” he added with satisfaction.

  But all the same he gave me the address and I said thank you very much, and left.

  It was mostly motorway driving, which I do not usually like, and which I liked even less with sleet spatting on the windscreen and a constant pall of spray limiting the visibility. It was colder in Wolverhampton, and snow was beginning to lie on the pavements.

  I found the house about two miles out of town, in a long, solid terrace, all with bay windows and three feet of their front gardens left after the street had been widened. Heavy traffic thundered past constantly. I pulled onto a soggy patch of earth beside a Co-op. The wind was whipping the raincoat against my knees.

  Along the back of the house there was a canal, brown and dismal. A high wall ran along the towpath the other side. A factory was breathing steam, and a red trickle of waste ran into the water, spreading slowly.

  I went round to the narrow porch at the front and pressed the bell push, and because I heard nothing tried the knocker as well. The door was opened by a young woman. She was dark, her hair caught in some sort of a scarf. There was a short apron protecting her slacks, and she was wiping her hands on it, a potato knife in the right one.

  “We don’t want any,” she said, starting the door on its return swing. />
  “Does Norman Lyle live here?” I’d hardly moved, but the door was now firmly against my foot. It was a manoeuvre she apparently knew, recognized, and scorned.

  “What if he does?”

  “I’d like a word with him.”

  “He ain’t here.”

  “Then where is he?”

  She considered me carefully, and I realized that what had seemed to be lovely dark eyes were actually cold and calculating, and I recalled that the female leopard is no more cuddlesome than the male. Abruptly she drew back her head, tilted it, and threw out one word of menace.

  “Mike.”

  Her slight smile, her tiny nod, indicated it was my fault, so there.

  There was a sound down the hall. It was very dark that end, and the impression was that the far wall was moving. It was Mike, advancing in a sullen shamble, six feet two of Mike, most of it muscle and aggression, but, I prayed, atrophied by sloth. He was wearing filthy jeans and an ancient T-shirt, and his face had seen the sort of life he would be expected to see — violence and indifference. Most of the violence had left its mark, a broken nose, a mouth twisted by a scar, an ear that looked like a half-lopped cabbage.

  “Sod off,” he said, I think, something of that general mood.

  “I’m looking for Norman Lyle,” I said in a friendly voice.

  “He ain’t here.”

  “Then where can I find him?”

  “Somewhere else.”

  His voice was deep and controlled, with nothing of the slurred, punchy stupidity that I’d expected. He came closer and I could see his eyes, narrow and deep-set, but with a hint of uneasiness in them.

  “It might be important,” I said. “To him. Does he live here?”

  “You a copper? Let’s see your card.”

  “I’m not a copper. I’m simply looking for Norman.”

  “Whaffor?”