No Place of Safety (24 page)

‘Pint of Tetley's,' he ordered, then looked around him. ‘I expect you can guess who I am.'

‘Oh aye,' came one reply, after a pause. It was not exactly hostile, more suspicious, defensive, emphasizing that they recognized he was different from them, because he was black, a cockney townie, and, above all, represented the law.

‘Pints all round,' said Charlie. ‘And there'll be a second where that came from.'

The fact that he did not make the second round conditional was immediately appreciated. There were gratified murmurs, drainings of glasses and trips to the bar.

‘Now you're talking,' said one.

‘And I hope you will be, too,' said Charlie.

‘Well, we know what you want,' said one of them, a tall, gnarled grey-headed chap, who everyone seemed to look to. ‘'Twas you were out at t'Manor yesterday, warn't it?'

‘Yes,' said Charlie. ‘With my boss.'

‘Boss gone on to t'Heifer, most like?' said the man acutely. Charlie nodded. ‘'E won't get nowt thee-ar.'

‘Oh? Why not?'

‘Gaffers' pub. Gaffers stick together.'

‘And this is for the workers?'

‘Aye, that's reet. You've got a head on thee, lad, even if thee is from town, and looks like thee's come out of t'chimney.'

General throaty, cigarette-coated chuckles.

‘Ask away,' said someone. It was as near as dammit to a welcome.

‘Was Marchant liked around here?' Charlie began with. There was a pause for consideration.

‘Aye, as a bloke,' said his first informant, looking around to get a general confirmation. ‘No quarrel wi' him as a bloke.'

‘As the estate manager?'

‘Middlin'. If 'e'd done all 'e promised, 'e'd've been the best estate manager ever. Only 'e didn't.'

‘Like as not that were Sir George's doin',' hazarded one man.

‘An' more likely still Sir George never 'eard 'alf o' what was promised, because it were forgotten as soon as the words were out o' his mouth,' said his main informant, who obviously prided himself on his plain talking. ‘Fine talk, that were Ben Marchant's line. Only often as not it were never followed up.'

‘What about his love life?'

‘Oh, is that what you call it down in t'big city? ‘Appen we should start talkin' o' the love life o' our cattle.'

‘He was a stud bull, you mean?'

‘Noo-oo,' said the old man judiciously, again looking round at his mates. ‘Fair's fair. But 'e loved 'em an' left 'em.'

‘I heard talk about someone who owned a hat shop.'

‘Oh aye. Mrs Gregson. Husband works at the DSS in Leeds. Well out of the way all day. Not many customers for hats these days. Just put up the “Back in 'alf an hour” sign and you're away.'

‘How long ago was this?'

‘Matter o' two, three year ago.'

‘And the local postmistress?'

‘Sally. Aye, Sally's been reet lonesome since 'er 'usband passed on. Ben were a bit of a godsend to 'er.'

‘Angry when it was broken off?'

The man shrugged.

‘Who can tell? Not so's you'd notice. 'Urt, more like, I'd've said. Any road, it were four yee-ar sin' that they were goin' together. You don't rush out an' carve a bloke up four yee-ar after 'e's ditched you for someone else.'

‘Who did he ditch her for?'

‘Hattie Jenkins. Bob Jenkins is one of Sir George's tenants. Nice bloke – a bit dozy-like. Never caught on what were in the air. But it were never reet serious, that one. Just a bit o' fun now and again, when Bob were safely out on 'is tractor on one o' the far fields.'

‘He could have found out recently.'

‘Bob'd just 'ave scratched 'is ear and said, “Oh aye.” There's nowt worries our Bob.'

‘All this seems to be some time ago,' said Charlie, bringing out something that had been worrying him for a while.

‘Ancient news,' agreed the worthy.

‘Ben Marchant doesn't seem like the type to go in for celibacy all of a sudden.'

There was a chuckle, and several invaded the bar for their second pints.

‘Seems to me we've been fed a lot of stale gossip,' said Charlie looking around. He met some reserved grins.

‘'Appen,' said his informant. ‘And 'appen you're on the wrong scent entirely.'

‘It's been known.'

‘Mind you – us knows nothing.'

‘There's knowing and knowing,' said Charlie. There were several nods and winks.

‘Aye, there is. Us just suspects. Problem is, we're all employed by Sir George, either on 'is farm, or on one of the tenant farms.'

‘He didn't strike me as an unfair man.'

‘Oh, you sit talkin' to 'im for 'alf an hour and think you know your man, do you? Folk from London think they know it all, an' they know
nowt
. Point I'm makin' is: one o' us tells you the gossip that went round, 'e'd want it made worth 'is while.'

‘I thought I had.'

‘What, risk the sack for a couple o' pints o' Tetley's? You're wet behind the ears, young feller, for all you think you're smart . . . Now, for a double whisky an' a little jug o' warm water I'll tell you the talk that's been goin' around.'

Charlie sighed, raised his eyebrows towards the grimy ceiling,
and turned to the bar. The farmworker turned to his fellows and winked. Everyone in the room save Charlie knew that old Harry would turn sixty-five come Friday, and would then leave Sir George's employ.

It was three days before Charlie and Oddie took the road out to Otley again. There was so much to be looked into, so many connections to make. Rumour was not evidence; beguiling conjunctures of timings were possibilities, maybe even probabilities, but only by sightings or other concrete physical evidence could they be hardened into certainties. Some cases presented police detectives with massive, unavoidable definites; others dangled before them an infinite number of suggestive and tantalizing indefinites, and challenged them to form them into a pattern.

Once again they had phoned the Manor in advance to say that they were coming. ‘Just a few small matters that needed to be tied up,' Oddie had said, in his comfortable Yorkshire voice. When they got to the gate and stated their business they got a cheery: ‘Right-ho – you know the way.' They were let in by an amiable but mute Filipino, and in the drawing room they had a sense of seeing an early fifties comedy for the second time. Lady Mallaby was in another of her shapeless gardening garments, and Sir George was doing the country squire for all it was worth – firm handshake, fingering of the moustache, and offering of drinks with an off-hand recognition that they were on duty. The script could have been by William Douglas-Home.

‘Sorry to get you in from your gardening,' said Oddie to Lady Mallaby, as they let Sir George pour them small sherries. ‘Early evening's the nicest time for it, I always think.'

‘Don't mention it,' she said, coming up to stand beside him at the French windows. ‘I'd be coming in anyway to
change and have a sherry before dinner. With a bit of luck you'll stay for a second one and I can eat dinner without changing. I like early evening too. You must have very little time for gardening in your job, though.'

‘Very little, but I enjoy it when I can get out and help the wife. The
Colutea floribunda
doesn't seem to like it out here. Is the soil too clayey?'

‘Much too,' said Lady Mallaby. ‘It was a mistake even trying to grow it. I'll have it out and put an azalea there. Nothing sadder than straggly bushes, is there?'

She led the way back to the sofa, and they all sat down.

‘I've had a talk with Ben Marchant since I saw you both,' said Oddie.

‘Oh, Ben can talk now, can he?' said Sir George. ‘On the mend – that's capital!'

‘
I
talked. Mr Marchant just tapped his replies,' amended Oddie. ‘Not a satisfactory form of interview, I'm afraid. But it does seem that he and the girl – her name is Mehjabean Haldalwa – saw nothing. Or at least, if he saw anything, he's saying nothing.'

‘He would hardly keep quiet if he had anything to offer, would he?' volunteered Sir George. ‘If the man's not caught, Ben will never be able to feel safe again.'

‘So you'd have thought,' agreed Oddie neutrally, intent on keeping the temperature low. ‘Unless he had some reason for keeping shtoom that outweighed the danger.'

‘Difficult to imagine what that might be,' commented Lady Mallaby, her tone as bland as Oddie's.

‘It is, yes. But we have advanced a step or two in a direction that could explain his caginess. We've established, for example, that he never had a National Lottery win.'

‘What!' exclaimed Sir George.

‘No, no biggish sum from Camelot, I'm afraid.'

‘But – I mean, he was so
convincing
! – '

Oddie raised his eyebrows ironically.

‘I think Ben Marchant has spent his life being convincing,' he said drily. ‘So the question arises, where had he got the money to set up the refuge, and where did he get the money to run it week by week?'

‘Some rich relative pegged out?' hazarded Sir George.

‘Did he give the impression of coming from a moneyed background?'

‘Not something you can always tell.'

‘In any case, why would he lie, if that was the source? If he disapproved of inheriting money – and I've no earthly reason for thinking he might – is he likely to approve of a lottery that hands out multiple millions? The likeliest reason for his keeping quiet about who attacked him is that he or she was involved in the financing of the refuge, and the means of getting the money out of them was dubious, or downright crooked.'

‘Doesn't sound like Ben,' said Lady Mallaby. Oddie wasn't going to give the impression he accepted unquestioningly their version of Ben's character.

‘Maybe, maybe not. Certainly I've no evidence at all of any criminal activities by Marchant in the past. He has no record. On the other hand  . . .'

‘Yes?'

‘I have a strong sense of him as a slightly Walter Mitty-like mind, seized by whatever was the fantasy or the project of the moment. I can imagine such a person being quite ruthless about how he got the money to “make his dreams come true”. If the project was clearly a good, a benevolent thing, then I think he could be willing to sail on the windy side of the law. Especially if he could present the process to himself as something the person he was screwing money out of thoroughly deserved.'

Charlie had got a bit tired of his superior's circumlocution.

‘We're talking blackmail,' he said.

‘Yes. Yes, I can see that,' said Sir George, nodding his head in Charlie's direction. ‘Difficult though to see who Ben might blackmail, or what sort of a hold he could have over them.'

He looked up to see two pairs of eyes fixed on him, and began immediately to bluster.

‘I say! This is outrageous! Ben and I were perfectly good friends. You've no cause whatever – '

‘It is awfully unfair,' said Oddie quietly, with an air of agreeing with him entirely. ‘But as soon as the idea of blackmail
came up – and it would have to be blackmail for something more than peanuts – then it did occur to us that probably the only rich man he knew was you, that you were also his employer, and that he lived in your vicinity and was therefore in a position to know something about you that he could use.'

‘If
that's
all you've got to go on,' said Sir George aggressively, ‘then I'd advise you to be very careful what you say or do. Very careful indeed. If you do anything to damage my business I'll have your guts for garters.'

‘There was something that struck both of us as just a little bit odd when we talked to you first,' said Oddie, ignoring his bluster but turning for confirmation in Charlie's direction. ‘When we were talking about your business, Sabre plc, you said, “Ben had nothing to do with that”.'

‘Well, he didn't.'

‘You may have a low opinion of policemen, Sir George – I know you've been a magistrate, and many magistrates do – but I assure you neither of us would have imagined that your estate manager out here was likely to have anything to do with the running of a heavy industry firm like Sabre plc.'

‘Mountain out of a molehill,' said Sir George. ‘Just trying to make the position clear.'

‘It occurred to us, too, later, that you never actually told us what Sabre plc made. No reason why you should, of course, but it was just possible the omission was significant.'

‘We make armaments.'

‘Exactly. Not difficult to find that out. And we found out too that there have been rumours over the years – '