Body of a Girl (6 page)

“What do you mean? I've done nothing wrong.”

“No? What about all that filth—?”

“Like I told you. I bought 'em for myself. There's no law against that.”

“Try and get the court to believe you. I'll put up half a dozen witnesses who'll say you charged them to look at it. Young boys, some of them. There'll be other charges, too. Indecent behaviour—”

The old man opened his mouth to say something, and then shut it again. He seemed to be fascinated by Mercer's leg swinging within inches of his face.

“There's a lot of people in this town have been waiting a chance to run you out. You'll get four years I'd guess. Maybe seven, when all the charges have been added up. And as soon as you're safe inside we'll get a clearance order and burn this place down. I'll be happy to light the first match. I don't like people like you. Not one little tiny bit, I don't. And I think it's time someone taught you a lesson.”

He slid further round the edge of the table, until he was sitting almost on top of the old man, who cringed back in his chair.

Mercer said to Massey, “I think you'd better step outside, son, and keep your eyes open. We don't want anyone butting in.”

“Don't you go. Don't leave me alone with him.”

Massey hesitated.

Mercer said, “Outside, son. I'm not going to touch him.”

“Anything you say, Skipper,” said Massey. He went out, and they heard the gangplank creaking as he went down it. Then silence. Mercer let it hang for a full ten seconds whilst Sowthistle crouched in his chair, his eyes ablink.

Then Mercer leaned forward, crooked a hand into the old man's coat, pulled him forward until their heads were no more than a few inches apart and spoke, very quietly.

“You're in bad trouble, grandpa.” He gave the coat a little shake and Sowthistle's head seemed to nod in agreement. “And a sensible man, when he sees trouble coming, the first thing he thinks about is how he can side-step it. Right?” Again a little shake. “And I'm going to show you how to do it. I'll let you buy your way out of this, if you like.”

“Buy?”

“Not with money. With a piece of information. Just one piece.”

“Anything I can do to help, Inspector. You know I'd do it.”

“Fine. Then here's what I want to know. During the last month of her life your girl had picked up a new boyfriend. She was meeting him secretly. No one seems to know who he was. But you'd know, wouldn't you?”

“She never told me anything, Inspector.”

“You're lying. There's nothing she did you wouldn't know about, or could find out.”

“I swear to God—”

“Just the name. That's all I want.”

There was a moment's silence. Then Sowthistle said, in a different, sharper voice. “There's someone outside, I heard him.”

“It's only Massey.”

“There's someone out there, listening. I can't talk to you.”

“You've got to talk. You've got no option.”

“Not now.”

“What are you frightened of?”

With a sudden jerk the old man freed himself, tearing the lapel of the coat right off. He wriggled out of the chair, and scuttled round to the end of the bed.

Then he started to scream.

“Stop that,” said Mercer. “It won't do you any good.”

Massey came back through the opening. He looked curiously at the old man, who was holding onto the end of the bed. He had stopped screaming, and was shaking violently.

“Anything I can do, Skipper?”

“Not just now,” said Mercer. He put down the torn piece of coat on the table and led the way out. They made their way back to the car in silence.

When they got back into the town, Mercer said, “Who's the next man on your list?”

It took Massey, whose mind was on other things, a moment to work this out. Then he said, “It's Henniker. He's a bookie. Betting shop at the top of the High Street.”

“I'll drop you there. I've got another visit to make.”

Massey said, “O.K., Skipper,” got out and stood on the pavement looking down at the car. There was clearly something he wanted to say and Mercer waited for him to say it.

“Did you get anything out of the old coot?”

“It depends what you mean by anything. Information, no. One fact, yes. He does know something, and he's frightened to talk.”

“Frightened of who?”

“If we knew that, son,” said Mercer, “we'd be a long way on.”

Chapter Six

The notice, in sun-blistered white letters on a black board, read: ‘Brattle's Boat House. Punts Dinghies Skiffs Canoes. By Hour Day Week or Month.'

Mr. Brattle was at work on the sloping plank-way in front of his boat-house. He had a punt upside down on two wooden trestles, and was replacing a cracked bottom plank.

“How did that happen?” said Mercer.

“Some silly kids, skylarking,” said Mr. Brattle. “Ran her onto the footing of the bridge.” He didn't sound upset about it. He didn't look the sort of man who would upset easily. His thick bare forearms were almost as brown as the teak he was shaping. Mercer had been watching him with pleasure for some minutes before he spoke to him. He thought that he had rarely seen a more relaxed character.

“You were asking about Mr. Prior,” said Mr. Brattle. He held the plank up, decided that it could do with a fraction more off the left-hand side, and walked over with it to his workbench to position it in the vice. Mercer followed him.

“There's two different ways you could get to his place. One is, you could go right back into the town, cross the bridge, take the turning to the left – not the first one, the second – go as far as the cemetery, and turn down the small road opposite the cemetery gate. That'd bring you back, you see—to there.”

Mr. Brattle pointed with his spokeshave across the river.

“You mean, that's his bungalow I can see.”

“That's right.”

“And I'm on the wrong bank.”

“That's right.”

“Damn,” said Mercer.

Mr. Brattle removed a sliver of wood from the plank, and said, “The second way is, I could run you across in the boat.”

“Well,” said Mercer. “If it isn't taking up too much of your time.”

“Time,” said Mr. Brattle, “is meant to be took up.”

He led the way down to the landing stage, unhitched the chain with one large hand, picked up the pole with the other, motioned Mercer aboard, and drove the punt out into the river, performing every action with an economy of movement and effort that was poetry in action.

It was very peaceful on the river. The weir lay downstream, hidden by a bend, and they could hear it grumbling to itself. The water slapped against the bow of the punt. A moorhen scuttled out of one patch of reeds and disappeared into another.

“There you are, Inspector. If you're not going to be too long I'll wait for you.”

“Might be ten minutes.”

“Time for a pipe,” said Mr. Brattle.

Mercer walked up the path between two gardens. The bungalow on the left belonged to the Priors. The one on the right looked empty. There was no other building in sight. The service road seemed to have been built for them alone.

Henry Prior answered the door bell. He was a thin man with a lot of untidy grey hair and glasses. He seemed surprised. He said, “I didn't hear anyone drive up.”

“That's because I didn't drive,” said Mercer. “I was ferried.” He showed him his card.

“Police?” said Mr. Prior. “Not Mabel—”

“Your wife?”

“She's in town, shopping. She hasn't—”

“Nothing to do with your wife, sir.”

“Silly of me. Every time she takes the car out I think something's going to happen to her. Actually she's a much better driver than I am. Come in.”

A room with French windows opening onto a strip of lawn which dipped down to the river. Shabby furniture, which had been good once. Photographs of children and grandchildren. A lot of books. If you had to sit down somewhere and wait for death, it wasn't a bad spot to sit in.

“It's about your garage,” said Mercer.

“Oh, that.” Mr. Prior made a face. “That's over and done with, or so I'd hoped.”

“As far as you're concerned, sir, that's right. Not an agreeable topic, I expect, and I apologise for raising it. The fact is, we're interested in that mechanic. The one who caused all the trouble.”

“Taylor.”

“Was that his name?”

“That was the name he gave. I understand now that it wasn't his real name. He was a shocking mechanic. I ought to have checked up on him, I suppose. But mechanics are very hard to get.”

“I don't think he was just a bad mechanic. I think he was a crook.”

“Whatever makes you think that, Inspector?”

“Bad mechanics don't operate under false names. And when they get into trouble they don't disappear. They haven't got the facilities.”

“I see,” said Mr. Prior. He didn't sound very interested. “Well, if he was a criminal, and has got into more trouble, I can't be expected to have much sympathy for him.”

“Naturally not,” said Mercer. “Did it ever occur to you that he might have been planted on you?”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Deliberately planted on you. With the idea of running you out of business.”

Mr. Prior sat very still. Then he said, “Who would have done such a thing? And why? I haven't got any enemies that I know of.”

“It would have been to Jack Bull's advantage to have you out of business.”

“I'm quite certain he wouldn't do a thing like that. Besides—”

He stopped. Then added. “This didn't come out at the time, but he was very good to me. When a business goes bust you usually have to sell the fixed equipment at scrap prices. He bought it all from me at its full balance-sheet value. But as for someone planting that mechanic on me—I did think about it. But it didn't seem possible to prove anything. It'd be more difficult still by now.”

“If we could find him, we might prove it.”

“My solicitors tried to find him. That was three years ago. If they couldn't do it—”

“We're better than solicitors at finding people. If we give our minds to it. What I was wondering was whether you had any old records. For instance, Taylor could change his name, but he couldn't change his National Insurance number.”

“The solicitors thought of that. The cards had gone. He must have taken them out of the office.”

“Were there any other sort of papers? Did he give any references? Or mention any other job he'd been in?”

“References? No. I'm pretty certain there was nothing in writing. My wife looked after all that sort of thing—and here she is.”

There was a sound of badly adjusted brakes squeaking and of a car door slamming. Mr. Prior trotted out of the room and came back, shepherding in his wife, and looking like a dog who has done something rather clever.

Mrs. Prior had grey hair like her husband, but there the resemblance ceased. She was a rounded cheerful person and was clearly the driving end of the Prior axis. She listened carefully to what Mercer had to say, and shook her head.

“The lawyers went over all that. There wasn't a scrap of paper in the office belonging to him or referring to him.”

“When you sign on a new man and take over his National Insurance cards there's a form which gives the name of his last employer. You couldn't possibly remember what the name was?”

“I could, and do. It was the Crescent Garage, at an address in Southwark.”

“Which was duly investigated, I imagine, and found to be nonexistent?”

“Correct.”

“I see,” said Mercer, and was silent for a moment, staring out of the window. A launch went slowly past upstream. A man in a Panama hat was seated at the wheel. He was smoking a cigar.

Mrs. Prior said, “I did think of one thing. After it was all over. Too late to be any use. Taylor was very thick with our other mechanic, Beardoe. They used to go out drinking in the evenings. He might have let slip something, talking to Len.”

“It's a possibility,” said Mercer. “Where's Beardoe now?”

“What brought it into my mind was that I ran into him in Staines a few weeks ago. He's got a job there. It's not a garage. It's a light engineering works. Carcroft was the name.”

“My wife has a marvellous memory,” said Mr. Prior. “I'm getting terrible. Not long ago, I woke up in the night, and I couldn't remember my own middle name.”

Mercer found Mr. Brattle knocking out his pipe. He offered Mercer the punt pole. He said, “Like to try your hand on the way back?”

“I'll have a shot.”

“Can you swim?”

“Well enough,” said Mercer. “But I hope it won't come to that.”

He didn't fall overboard, but it was almost the only mistake he didn't make. He put the pole in too far back, and got no propulsion. He put it in too far ahead, and stopped the boat altogether. He put it too far out, and turned in a solemn circle, until he was facing the landing stage again.

“Want to give up?” said Mr. Brattle.

“I'm going to get this bloody thing across if it kills me,” said Mercer.

“You don't want to lift the pole quite so high,” said Mr. Brattle. “When you raise it up like that the water runs down your sleeve.”

“I had noticed.”

In midstream he turned another complete circle, nearly running down a canoe. The girl who was in it took prompt evasive action, shouted, “Port to port, you oaf,” and shot off upstream. Mercer gritted his teeth.

Five minutes later, damp but exhilarated, he rammed the bank only a yard above the landing stage, and Mr. Brattle, who had been watching his moment, jumped nimbly ashore with the painter.

“I hope I haven't damaged her.”

“A well-built punt,” said Mr. Brattle, “will stand up to almost anything. You didn't do too bad. A few years' practice, and you might be good. You've got the shoulders for it.”

“I'll bear it in mind,” said Mercer.

“You want someone to teach you, you could do a lot worse than take lessons from that girl in the canoe you nearly hit. Miss Slade, her name is.”

“I recognised her,” said Mercer.

“You know them, perhaps.”

“I know of them.”

“Her brother now, he thinks he's good. But he's all brawn and no brain. She's got the better head of the two. Handle any sort of craft. The only thing I've never seen her bother with is one of them things.”

He jerked a contemptuous thumb at the motor launch which was coming downstream. Mercer noticed that it was being steered by a man wearing a Panama hat and smoking a cigar.

Mr. Brattle refused to take any payment for the trip. Mercer drove home, changed his shirt, and made his way back to the station, where he found an air of subdued excitement in the C.I.D. room.

“Guess what?” said Rye. “Tell him, Bob.”

Massey said, “I talked to that Henniker. He was one of Sweetie's real steadies. He recognised the bits and pieces. But that's not all. He said there was one missing. It sounded like the only really valuable piece. A twisted gold filigree ring with three small but quite nice diamonds in it.”

“Is he sure about that?”

“He gave it to her himself. He says it set him back sixty quid.”

“It looks as though Mr. Jeejeeboy must have flogged it.”

“Which raises a question, dunnit?” said Mercer. “How did he know Sweetie wasn't coming back to claim it? Get a proper description of the ring from the shop that sold it to Henniker and put it on the pawnbroker's list. I'll go and have a word with that Pakistani prune-pedlar.”