Authors: Hunter Alan
‘What did he look like?’
‘A real creep. I didn’t reckon him for a cop. I saw him around a couple of days before I figured what his game was.’
‘Could he have been a private detective?’
‘That’s what Pete and me thought. Pete was trying for a big dip just then, he reckoned he’d stirred up some opposition.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I wanted to leave – but not Pete. Pete had guts. He reckoned they wouldn’t dare touch him if they couldn’t get hold of the stuff. So we arranged it I went back to London and took the stuff along with me. Then after he’d made his big dip he’d join me there, then we’d work the connection by mail.
‘Two months later he turned up at Fulham at around two in the morning. He was shaking and blubbing like an idiot, and all he could say to me was “the tiger!”’
Shirley Banks laid her head back.
‘Now I know how he felt,’ she said. ‘Maybe I didn’t right then, but I do now. Poor bastard.’
‘But he told you what happened,’ Gently said.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I got it out of him. Not right away. He was shot to bits. Later on I heard the details.
‘Somebody came knocking on his door. He wasn’t expecting any callers. He took a poker down the hall, opened the door and let fly. Then everything happened. A truck backed up. He could see the tiger in the truck. He could see the grille going up. He dived into the bathroom and locked the door.
‘And that’s where he had to stay, listening to the tiger noshing the bloke. He couldn’t leave through the window because it was a bloody silly window. When it was quiet he peeked out and all he could see was the tiger’s leavings. He belted across to the garage, got in the car, got to hell.
‘That’s about it – except he woke up screaming every night for six months.’
‘And the bloke he hit?’ Gently asked.
‘He never saw who it was. The bloke rushed him when he opened the door, he clocked him one, the bloke went down.’
Gently slowly nodded his head. Yes . . . the details all fitted. Even the missing car, and the burial of the remains which were perhaps not beyond identification. But who had been driving Groton’s truck, who had winched up that grille? Who had come back later, while the tiger still roamed, to dig the grave and remove evidence?
Groton knew, no doubt of that. But Groton wasn’t saying a word.
Shirley Banks was watching him anxiously.
‘Have I told you too much, copper?’ she asked.
Gently shrugged. ‘You know what you’ve told me! But proving it is different. I wouldn’t worry.’
‘I’d do a stretch to fix Groton. The pity of it is they won’t hang him.’
‘You’d better relax.’ Gently climbed to his feet. ‘We’ll bring you something to sign later.’
‘Not nothing incriminating I won’t sign!’
‘Nothing incriminating.’
Gently smiled at her.
They drove back to Headquarters. Nothing was said in the car. The crowd from the football had turned out and they were jammed for ten minutes in Abbeygate Street.
In Perkins’s office Gently lit his pipe and stood some moments gazing at the window. Perkins, equally absorbed, lumped down at his desk, and appeared to read doom in the marks on his blotter.
Only Dutt, beginning to type from his notes, seemed exempt from this impulse to silence.
At last Gently turned.
He said: ‘Here’s the problem! We’re in a rather unusual situation. We have to decide whether to declare or to keep playing till stumps.’
Perkins blurted: ‘We can’t go on . . . can’t bring all those people into it.’
‘We might keep it down to one or two.’
‘No . . . you don’t know Abbotsham. It’d come out!’
‘Then let’s take a look at the situation.’ Gently gave several quick puffs. ‘Fast, Groton. He’s off your hands. He’ll go to London. You can forget him. Then there’s a murder that isn’t a murder but an accidental death – a death resulting from the commission of a felony by the deceased and others unknown. Along with which you have a lesser crime, that of concealing the death.
‘Now, do we send it to the coroner like that, on the hard evidence we can offer, or do we ask for another postponement and try to identify the others unknown?’
Perkins groaned. ‘We know who they were.’
Gently shook his head. ‘That won’t do. All we can show is that certain people acted suspiciously, and that a prostitute claims they had a motive. On that evidence we couldn’t proceed. The Public Prosecutor wouldn’t accept it. But we could go on probing and pressuring these people on the chance of getting a confession.’
He blew a heavy gust of smoke.
‘What it really amounts to is this! If I take myself off and go fishing, you can settle this according to Abbotsham.’
‘What . . . what . . . ?’
Perkins’s eyes rolled incredulously.
‘Of course, I’m not putting ideas into your head. But if you said to me these people have suffered enough already, I should probably have to agree with you.
‘They’ve broken the law, but they’ve paid for it. Isn’t that all that justice requires? No point in making them pay twice, and wasting public money into the bargain. Better let them go on being good citizens.
‘Well – I couldn’t argue against that!’
‘B-but . . .’ Perkins stammered.
‘It just leaves two things,’ Gently said. ‘One of them is personal curiosity. The other is what happened to Sayers’s money, if indeed it was Sayers the tiger ate. You’d agree with that, would you? We ought to know?’
‘Y-yes . . . but . . .’
‘Hand me the phone. If I make an early start tomorrow I can be in Wales by teatime.’
A gaping Perkins pushed the phone across. Gently lifted it and dialled.
‘Cockfield? . . . Superintendent Gently. I’d like you to invite me out this evening.’
‘You’d like me to do what?’ Cockfield said.
‘Invite me out to your chalet. With Hastings and Ashfield. Just the four of us. I thought you’d prefer it on your own ground.’
A moment’s silence, then:
‘Why? What’s this supposed to be about?’
‘Oh, Sayers,’ Gently said. ‘We seem to have our hands on him.’
A longer silence!
Cockfield said: ‘Just you – nobody else?’
‘Just me,’ Gently said.
Cockfield sounded as though he’d been drinking.
S
PURS HAD WON
5–2, which was happiness enough for Dutt. After tea he retired to the lounge to read the print off a football special.
During tea Villiers had looked in, but seemingly hadn’t known what to say to them. He congratulated them several times, but kept sheering away from detailed comment.
‘This is another success for you, Superintendent . . . I’m glad our man showed up well in it.’
‘Inspector Perkins showed great courage.’
‘Yes . . . actually, we’ve just been talking . . .’
What he wanted to say was: Let it drop – get to hell out of my manor! But apparently he couldn’t hit on a diplomatic way of phrasing it.
‘You’ll be glad of your leave after this . . .’
‘Are you an angler by any chance?’
‘No, not really . . . I do some fishing . . .’
In the end he gave up.
The sky had clouded over very lightly and the evening was cooler. When Gently set out to Weston-le-Willows the light had a filtered, shadowless radiance.
He drove, pipe in mouth, letting the Rover amble at forty. After Hawkshill, where he left the A-road, he met no traffic other than cyclists.
He arrived at Cockfield’s chalet at seven. Three cars were already parked there. Along with the maroon Daimler and Hastings’s Jaguar stood a spotless Volkswagen . . . Ashfield’s, of course.
Gently parked the Rover beside it, slammed his door loudly, went up the steps.
Before he could ring, Cockfield opened to him.
Cockfield held a glass in his hand.
‘Was there anyone else who ought to have been here?’
Surely it was quite an obvious question! Gently asked it casually while re-lighting his pipe, rather as a chairman might check his committee.
But nobody was rushing to give him an answer, Cockfield, Ashfield or Hastings. Instead they’d drawn together in a group and were eyeing Gently as though he would bite.
Cockfield had changed from his squire-like tweeds into a suit which suggested half-mourning. His moonish face had a droop in it, reminding Gently of Perkins.
Hastings, also holding a drink, had his mouth set sullenly; Ashfield stood with feet planted apart, a short, shiny-pated bulldog.
What did they think? That Gently had brought three warrants in his pocket?
‘Come on . . . no need to be shy. We haven’t been here fitting microphones. I could have hauled you down to Headquarters if I’d wanted to play games.
‘What about Herbert Drinkstone?’
No reaction to Herbert Drinkstone!
‘Or Joe Leyton? Or the ladies?’
Just three defensive stares . . .
‘At least you can offer me a drink. I’ll have a Scotch and soda.’
It was an appeal Cockfield couldn’t resist and he went silently to the drinks cabinet. The other two, as though this were a signal, let their eyes slant away from Gently. Ashfield remained standing. Hastings chose a chair and sat.
Gently took the drink.
‘Skaal!’
Cockfield made a token gesture.
Gently said: ‘Perhaps it’s time I brought you people up to date. Shimpling’s dead. He was killed last night. We’re holding Groton for the murder. Groton destroyed all Shimpling’s material, nobody has anything to fear from that.
‘Also, we’ve a statement from a Miss Banks, sometime known as Mrs Shimpling, in which she names all the people Shimpling was blackmailing in Abbotsham. But, of course, she’s an unreliable witness and her testimony would need holstering.
‘It’s on the cards we wouldn’t waste the ratepayers’ money on that . . .’
He sipped the drink, looked at each of them.
‘Any comment?’ he inquired.
Hastings was gripping his glass tightly. He said: ‘You wouldn’t be kidding us . . . not about Shimpling?’
‘No kidding. He was killed.’
‘Then you know about Sammy?’
Gently nodded. ‘Not to prove, of course. We couldn’t offer evidence of identification. But between you, me and these four walls, it was Sammy the tiger ate – wasn’t it?’
Hastings glanced at Cockfield, who grunted.
He said: ‘Shimpling’s dead, and you’re holding Groton . . . ?’
‘That’s it.’
‘For murdering Shimpling?’
‘We’re holding him on another charge, temporarily.’
‘And he’s made a statement?’
‘No statement.’
‘But he will make a statement!’
Gently shrugged. ‘I don’t think he will, and it’ll only be relevant as it concerns the charge.
‘Obviously, he may talk a lot of stuff about Shimpling and the tiger, and what he says will be passed on to the local police for action. But there again, proof is everything, and where is that proof to come from?
‘I haven’t found any yet, and I doubt whether Abbotsham will be luckier . . .’
They were all staring at him again, but now the stare was rather different!
Hastings said: ‘Are you trying to tell us you intend to drop the case?’
Gently waved his glass. ‘That’s up to the locals. I’m off on a fishing trip tomorrow. Naturally, I’ll leave them certain advice about the conduct of the case.’
‘Then what are you saying?’ Cockfield burst out. ‘Stop bloody well playing at cat-and-mouse with us. I’ve had enough – we all have. This isn’t so damn funny, I can tell you.’
‘What I advise them,’ Gently said, ‘rather depends on you gentlemen.’
‘How on us?’
‘I shall have to be satisfied about the facts of what happened.’
Cockfield glared at him. ‘You mean a confession.’
‘Confirmation, let’s say.’
‘You want us to incriminate ourselves.’
‘It would be your three words against mine.’
‘This is a trap!’ Ashfield snapped. ‘I warned you how it would be. He has his reputation to think of – he’ll stop at nothing to put us inside.’
‘I’m simply making you an offer,’ Gently said. ‘That’s the Abbotsham way, isn’t it? Give me the facts off the record, and perhaps you’ll hear no more about this.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps!’ Ashfield scoffed. ‘You’ve already admitted you’ve no proof.’
‘I didn’t admit I couldn’t get proof . . .’
‘Yes, after we’ve given ourselves away!’
‘Hold it, Ken.’
Hastings laid his hand on Ashfield’s arm.
‘Letting him get your goat is dangerous – and there’s a lot in what he says.’
‘He thinks we’re fools!’
‘No he doesn’t. He’s right about saying we’re three to one. If he tried to use anything we told him we could swear blind he was a liar.’
‘But we might give him a lead—’
‘How should we? Outside our testimony, where is there proof ? He knows that, it’s why he’s here. And if it will stop him digging, I’m for telling him.’
‘Let him dig.’
‘I don’t think he wants to.’
Cockfield said: ‘I don’t know if I trust him. But it’s a fact he’s come here alone. He can’t use what we say as evidence.’
‘Skaal!’ Gently said. ‘Drink up.’
Cockfield’s glass twitched involuntarily.
‘All right,’ Ashfield said. ‘Go ahead. But just remember I warned you when you’re standing in the dock.’
Hastings gave him a wry smile. ‘It’s a place I’ve stood in before,’ he said.
Now they were all sitting down, making a semicircle round the coffee table. Gently had Hastings on his left, between himself and Cockfield.
Through the window in front of them they could see the evening sunlight slanting on the lawn, the boathouse, and across the river, over the trees, hung red and ghostly the harvest moon.
Had there been moonlight a year ago, when three of these men had sat round this table? Had they noticed it, the colour of it, and found it dreadfully apposite?
But by the time the car left, the blood on the moon would have faded away . . .
‘I’m going to tell this in my own way – I’ll only identify Groton and Sammy.’
Hastings looked at Gently questioningly.
Gently nodded. ‘That’ll do.’
‘There were five of us – six of us – being blackmailed by Shimpling. Who else he was biting we don’t know. There were only five of us in the plot.