Clubbed to Death (26 page)

‘I’ve got a couple of ideas, sir.’

‘A commodity you’re never short of, Ellis.’ Milton sounded slightly acid. ‘But run with them by all means.’

‘Easiest thing in the world, old man,’ said Pooley’s old school friend.

‘For a geriatric?’

‘Certainly for a geriatric. You have to get them to lean over, then you grab them by the heel, flick of the wrist, Bob’s your late uncle.’

‘Would you be able to do this if you were dependent on a zimmer?’

‘Now that you mention it, Ellis, it’s not a matter I’ve given any thought to. The SAS don’t usually put people into action when they’re crippled, though perhaps with all the defence cuts, that may become necessary. But since you ask me, no. I think the minimum requirements are to be able to stand up steadily on your own two legs and have the use of your arms. If you can manage both those things and you’ve got the know-how, you could probably do it when you’re a hundred.’

‘And the other trick? The one with the magazine?’

‘A doddle, if you know how. Even your zimmered friend might be able to manage that, if he were sitting down at the right angle to his prey.’

He chortled. ‘I must say I’m looking forward to hearing which of our old boys can still do his stuff so efficiently in his twilight years.’

‘Well, it’s not necessarily one of your old boys, Dominic. It looks as if someone might have picked up some tricks from one of them in sessions at the club.’

‘Forget it, Ellis, You don’t pick this sort of thing up. You’ve got to have been trained, and trained, and trained, and done it, been there. Learning it is hard. After that, it’s like riding a bicycle. You don’t forget. If you’re not looking for one of ours and it sounds as if you are, then you’re looking for some other kind of trained killer. Take your choice.’

‘Thanks. You’ve been a big help.’

‘Think nothing of it. I always feel the only justification for sending people to Eton is that they will never have to pay for advice. Good luck.’

‘Cheers.’ Pooley put down the phone, jumped up and began to walk round and round and round the office, oblivious to the sneers and sniggers of his colleagues. Half-way through his sixth tour of the perimeter, eyes focused on the floor, hands in fists, he straightened himself and rushed back to his desk. It took him a couple of minutes to find the file he needed and three more to race through the forensic details. He dropped the papers and made a short and unsatisfactory phone-call. Slamming down the receiver with a curse, he banged his fists together with frustration. Then he thought for a moment, crossed over to Sammy Pike’s desk and began to plead.

‘Dominic. It’s me again, I’m afraid.’

‘Not at all. Delighted to hear from you. Any progress?’

‘I won’t know for another half-hour or so, but I’ve had another thought. You know the bomb I told you about? The straightforward one?’

‘Yes.’

‘Would one of your old boys have easy access to dynamite?’

‘Depends when he left us. You see, lots of them make off with supplies.’

‘What sort of supplies?’

‘Ammunition, detonators, dynamite, firearms. Whatever they can get away with.’

‘What for?’

‘A rainy day. Our chaps tend to be pretty far along the right wing of the political spectrum. Even, dare I say it, paranoid. Bit like your chaps I suppose.’

‘You can say that again.’

‘With ours it takes the form of expecting the IRA to invade the mainland or the proles to riot at any moment. They like to be prepared and they feel a lot more secure if they’ve got a few weapons to hand in their bottom drawer.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t keep dynamite in your bottom drawer, would you?’

‘I think I’d prefer to keep it in my potting shed. But if it’s wrapped up properly, say in tarred oilskin, that kind of thing, you could keep it for a very long time.’

‘How long is very long?’

‘Maybe ten years.’

‘What about topping up supplies?’

‘One ex-SAS man can always get help from another.’

‘Bit like Old Etonians.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Thanks again.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

Milton had just flung himself into his chair and yawned heavily when there was a knock and Pike and Pooley came in. Wearily he noted that Pooley was in eager mode.

‘I think I’ve got it, sir. I mean, got him. Well, nearly.’

‘Sit down. Both of you. Now go gently with me, Ellis. I’ve just had a very, very hard meeting and I don’t want my hopes raised and dashed. Be circumspect and begin at the beginning.’

Pooley took a deep breath and explained about Dominic. Milton listened, first with amusement and then with growing interest.

‘And then?’

‘I saw nobody seemed to have fingerprinted the shoes.’

‘I’m getting a bit dizzy, Ellis. Which shoes?’

‘Trueman’s shoes, sir.’

‘Oh, sorry. Of course.’

‘So I asked Sammy to make them do it immediately. They wouldn’t do it for me.’

Pike smiled that slow, solid smile that always made Milton feel secure. ‘I’m afraid they kicked up a bit of a fuss, sir. Got a lot on. But I thought young Ellis was on to something, so I took your name in vain.’

‘Well, don’t keep me in suspense.’

‘Lovely set of prints around the heel of his right shoe. Glastonbury’s.’

‘Glastonbury’s!’ Milton shook his head. ‘Gimme a break, Ellis. Surely they could have got there innocently, perhaps when he was kneeling by the corpse.’

‘But he didn’t. It was Fagg and Blenkinsop who knelt by the corpse. By the time Glastonbury got downstairs Trueman had been declared dead. Blenkinsop ushered Glastonbury back upstairs to spare him the horrid sight. That’s in Blenkinsop’s and Fagg’s evidence.’

‘This is too much for me. Ellis, are you now going to tell me Glastonbury was a devil of a chap in the SAS?’

‘I don’t know if he was a devil of a chap, sir. But he was in the SAS.’

‘How come we’ve only just found that out?’

Pooley looked at the floor. ‘Er, it was an oversight, sir. It’s entirely my fault.’

‘Oh, come on, Ellis,’ said Pike. ‘It wasn’t your fault at all. I’m afraid DC Pierce mucked it up, sir. He was the one doing the donkey work on Glastonbury. And when he found a B. Glastonbury in the Scots Guards invalided out of North Africa in early forty-one, he thought that was that.’

‘But he’s not B. Glastonbury, is he? Surely Boy has to be a nickname?’

‘That’s right, sir. He’s “C” for Cyril.’ Pooley was at ease now that somebody else had done the sneaking. ‘So when I re-checked this evening, there he was. Transferred to Eleventh Commandos and in there at the formation of the SAS. He was invalided out in December nineteen forty-two.

‘With what?’

‘Seems to have been a nervous breakdown.’

‘Got any details on him yet?’

‘No. We’re hunting down contemporaries.’

‘But I still don’t get it. Surely…’ He looked at his watch. ‘My God!’ he said, ‘It’s half-past nine already. Didn’t we promise to see Robert?’

‘Yes. He’ll be waiting for us.’

‘D’you want to come along, Sammy? We’ll thrash this out.’

‘Only if you need me, sir. Don’t really think it’s my sort of thing. I wouldn’t have anything to contribute. If you don’t mind, I’d rather go home to my wife.’

‘Don’t say such things, Sammy,’ said Milton. ‘Makes me feel nostalgic. I haven’t seen Ann for six weeks. All right, see you tomorrow. Come on, Ellis. Let’s go.’

29

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‘Just a sliver, thank you. I don’t need feeding up any more.’ Amiss accepted the slice of pizza and nibbled on it delicately.

Milton and Pooley, ravenous, got through several mouthfuls before resuming the story. By the time they’d finished their meal, Amiss had been brought up to date.

‘But I cannot seriously begin to regard that gentle old blockhead as a killer.’

‘Like riding a bicycle, remember?’

‘And you don’t know what he was like before the breakdown?’

‘Should know very shortly, ’ said Milton, looking at his watch. His telephone rang seconds later. ‘Yes, right. What’s his number?’ He put the receiver down. ‘They’ve found someone who served with him. I’ll go next door and ring him from your phone, Ellis. I hate these bloody gimcrack things.’

He shut the door behind him, leaving Pooley and Amiss in a fever of speculation. Within five minutes he was back.

‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘Who would have guessed?’ He sat down and poured himself another glass of wine. ‘This fellow I’ve just been talking to, Wilson, was an NCO in training with Glastonbury, first in the Commandos and then in the SAS. Remembers him well because, he said, he was so gentle and yet so lethal. He was a brilliant technician, very attentive, never questioned anything, anxious to please, always did what was required of him.’

‘Just followed orders,’ said Amiss.

‘Exactly.’

‘Did he actually kill people?’ asked Pooley.

‘Yes. He was involved in a number of desert raids. Wilson says he did his job like the rest of them. But he said one thing he did remember clearly about Glastonbury was that one always had the feeling he didn’t quite know what he was doing. He was just doing it.’

‘Sounds a bit like a psychopath,’ said Amiss.

‘No. I asked that. A psychopath wants to kill. Glastonbury didn’t enjoy it. He just did it to oblige his superiors.’

‘And the breakdown?’

‘Back to farce, ’ said Milton. ‘Wilson said he recollected it vividly because of its sheer incongruity. Apparently Glastonbury went to pieces after a letter from home telling him his nanny was dead.’

Amiss reached for the bottle. ‘Invalided out owing to death of nanny? Well, it must have made a first for the SAS. Even a last.’

‘This ties in with what I’d got from his librarian colleague,’ said Pooley.

‘You didn’t tell me about that,’ said Amiss.

‘Well, it wasn’t terribly significant, or didn’t seem so then. He was meticulous, obliging, obedient, pleasant, did any job that was within his capabilities scrupulously and efficiently.’

‘But wasn’t all there,’ offered Milton.

‘What his colleague said, ’said Pooley, ‘was that although he wasn’t in, he was much more useful than most of the people who were, as long as you never expected him to stray beyond his areas of technical expertise. Incapable of thinking for himself.’

‘And if he trusted you?’

‘He would do anything you asked. That’s what his fellow librarian said. That he was so obedient to his superior as to seem like someone who had been brainwashed.’

‘Christ!’ said Amiss. ‘Nanny has a lot to answer for.’

‘So, I expect, has Chatterton,’ said Milton.

Amiss awoke at four in the morning with an idea about which he could do nothing for another three hours. He tossed and turned until after five o’clock when he began to slide into sleep. At that moment Sunil turned on to his back and burst into loud snores. With uncharacteristic venom, Amiss picked up three paperbacks and hurled them hard across the room. Sunil emitted a yelp and turned over, then stayed silent. Amiss fell fast asleep. When his alarm woke him at seven, he greeted Sunil monosyllabically and, pausing only to brush his teeth, leaped into his uniform and ran downstairs to a telephone. It took Pooley a couple of minutes to answer.

‘His mother’s grave,’ said Amiss.

‘His what?’

‘You heard. At Highgate. We couldn’t fathom where the stuff was kept. Must have been befuddled by wine. Don’t you remember Glastonbury’s gardening?’

‘Good Lord, how could we have forgotten? This answers lots of problems.’

‘Storage space.’

‘Privacy.’

‘Probably protective clothing. Since he doesn’t keep any gardening tools at the club, he must keep them at the graveyard.’

‘Thanks, Robert. I expect we’ll see you this morning.’

‘You’d bloody well better. My nerves are in shreds.’

The sun came in through the windows of the Rochester Room, its brightness at odds with the mood of the three men inside.

‘I wish one could get desensitising injections,’ said Milton.

‘Me too,’ said Pooley.

‘At least nobody will hang him,’ said Amiss.

‘No. But he’ll have to end up in Broadmoor or somewhere and he’ll be separated from Chatterton, who is not mad, just wicked.’

‘Well, be that as it may,’ said Milton, ‘we have to get started. Robert, you must leave. Ellis, get Chatterton. He should have reached the saloon by now.’

Chatterton looked perfectly cheerful when Pooley ushered him in. ‘Hello again,’ he said. ‘What a lot we seem to be seeing of each other.’

‘Please sit down, sir. Would you care for some coffee?’

‘No, thank you. I’ve just had some. How may I be of assistance?’

‘You’re a man of considerable intelligence,’ said Milton, ‘so I don’t propose to drag this out or even lead you into it gently. We know that you have run up an enormous debt in Monte Carlo, that you’re smuggling drugs in order to work it off, and that Glastonbury killed Trueman, Meredith-Lee and Blenkinsop at your instigation and using the techniques he learned in the SAS.’

Chatterton placed the tips of his fingers together and rested his chin on them. He looked squarely at Milton. ‘Would you care to produce some evidence for these interesting allegations?’

‘Certainly. Here is a sample. Glastonbury’s fingerprints were around the heel of Trueman’s shoe, something we didn’t know until yesterday, yet he had not been near the corpse. His mother’s grave contains a great deal of weaponry, including dynamite. For your part, we know about your Monte Carlo activities in detail, and on the home front, we have, for instance, a witness who saw you at one o’clock in the morning after Blenkinsop’s death in the library in search of the murder weapon.’

‘QED,’ said Chatterton.

‘QED.’

Chatterton threw his head back and gazed at the ceiling for a couple of moments. ‘It certainly sounds as if you’ve done for poor old Boy. The grave’s a real clincher. You’ve obviously got a lot less on me. However, I was never one of those stolid, dogged mathematicians who was prepared to spend half his life working out proofs. Trouble was, I wasn’t gifted enough to be the other – the intuitive – kind with much success. So I’ll spare all of us the long-drawn-out arguments over evidence. I could deny all knowledge and leave you to interrogate Glastonbury, but well though he’s done so far, he wouldn’t last long in the face of the kind of pressure you’re likely to bring to bear. Therefore I’m prepared to say, “It’s a fair cop, Guv’nor” and fill in the details, if you’ll do me one favour.’