The Devil's Home on Leave (Factory 2) (16 page)

‘It’s a silly question,’ I said, ‘when I’m in the middle of a real murder.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said the other uniformed man. He was sitting in the middle, and was therefore plainly the chairman. ‘Would you repeat that?’

I did repeat it, louder than before.

‘You’re not doing yourself any good, you know,’ said the chairman, ‘taking that attitude.’

‘No, I know I’m not,’ I said. I didn’t say anything else. There was a silence which I was evidently expected to fill. But I didn’t fill it, so the chairman, after fidgeting in his chair, finally said: ‘You must say something, now.’

‘I’m afraid mythical situations don’t stimulate me,’ I said.

‘Even so.’

I yawned. ‘Well, I’d do what anyone else would do – assemble a
squad, men I knew well, draw the weapons we needed, and get in there any way we could.’

‘East–West relations mustn’t—’

‘Fuck that,’ I said. ‘You’ve got to get in there fast. It’s people’s lives that matter, not East–West relations. Then, when you’ve done all that, some tweedy individual from the PM’s office wanders along and tells you you’ve done it all wrong, so you don’t get promoted, just bollocked, and that’s it.’ I looked at my watch and said: ‘I’d like to get out of here now, if you don’t mind; I’ve got a lot on.’

The chairman glared icily at me. Something more seemed to be expected of me so I said: ‘And East–West relations? Don’t make me laugh. I read the papers thoroughly enough to know that they only exist in people’s minds, unless you call a nuclear arms race East–West relations.’

‘You seem to see the future pretty black,’ said the other uniformed man.

‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said, ‘and the longer I sit here answering a lot of idiotic questions, the blacker it’ll get.’

‘You’re verging on insubordination,’ said the chairman. He was a grey-faced, grey-souled man; I could tell he loathed me. Various hairs which he evidently couldn’t get at with his electric razor grew in the furrows that obstinacy and capitulation to routine had long ago carved between his nose and chin.

‘This is a police force,’ I said, ‘not an army. If nobody said what they thought for fear of offending their superiors, it wouldn’t work. It doesn’t work that well as it is,’ I added.

I could see that Reid had a hard time not laughing; but then he was the only intelligent man there. He had quick, dark eyes that missed nothing, and wore a cheap suit with cigarette ash down the front because he chain-smoked.

‘And I’ve been a copper long enough to know that if I tell a killer he’s verging on insubordination, they’ll likely be the last words I speak,’ I said.

The psychiatrist poked his nose up like a ferret. ‘Tell me, what sort of childhood did you have, sergeant?’

‘Rotten,’ I said. ‘A lot of my family were killed in the last war, in action, and my father bored my mother to death.’ I stared at him; he looked at least sixty. ‘As for yourself, you seem about the age where you could have been treating war wounded. But I’ll bet you weren’t; I’ll bet you were too busy examining pilots for signs of lack of moral fibre.’

There was another long silence. ‘You don’t seem anxious to pass this board, sergeant,’ said the second uniformed man at last.

‘That’s right,’ I said, ‘I’m on a case – a little matter of a man found boiled and stapled up in a warehouse in five shopping bags, I expect you’ve read about it. I’m not interested in boards.’

After a pause the chairman said: ‘You might well hear more about this.’

‘Well, as long as I don’t have to go through all this again,’ I said, ‘it’ll be worth it.’

‘It’s a good thing you don’t care about boards,’ said the chairman, ‘because I can tell you you’ve failed this one.’

‘Fine,’ I said. I stood up. Nobody said anything more, so I left.

I started walking; I felt better than I had done for weeks. I was glad I had failed the board – I had now proved to everybody, I hoped, once and for all, that I wasn’t inspector material, or Branch material, but just Unexplained Deaths material. I took a bus up to Soho and bought myself an expensive pint of beer in the French pub. I watched three men in video nasties gnawing at their glasses of Aligoté and a black beauty queen refusing to give a grafter five pounds.

I finished my pint, had another and left, feeling not bad.

But in the night I dreamed that two figures appeared at the foot of my bed in Earlsfield. The one in front was a thickset, middle-aged man, heavy-featured and dressed in a cap and thick grey coat. He made as if to chop at me with his hand. Black matter seeped out of his mouth and nose and he had been dead for years. The
figure behind was so evil that one glance was all I could stomach. It was very small, a collection of what looked like old peeled sticks wrapped in a sack; it radiated hell’s own malice and groaned to get at me.

I put the light on and started to read an introduction to pathology.

‘The minister of defence has contacted us,’ said the voice. ‘He’s had a worrying note; someone’s threatening to kill him. This is confidential, of course.’

‘Worries like that usually are,’ I said, ‘but why tell me about it?’

‘Because you’re always nosing about in the dirt, and you might have heard something about the ministry of defence. Have you?’

‘Well, this is confidential too,’ I said, after thinking about it. ‘I protect my sources, that’s why; I wouldn’t get any information if I didn’t.’ I told the voice what Cryer had told me about the rumours in Fleet Street over the ministry of defence, and the possibility that the recent massive expulsion of Soviets was connected with it. I didn’t name Cryer, though the voice tried to get me to.

‘What we’ve got to do,’ I said, ‘is find out what Hadrill knew about Hawes that was so big that it earned Hadrill a topping. I’ve been over to see Hawes at Wandsworth. I couldn’t get the meat out of the whelk, but I’m convinced Pat got word out that Hadrill had to be done. I’m equally convinced that Pat’s brother-in-law, a man called Tony Williams who runs a villains’ pub in Hammersmith, made all the arrangements, gave the job to McGruder and a hood called Merrill Edwardes, and that the two of them carried it out. Well, Pat led the wages snatch at that factory up north and killed the guard – OK, that’s what he’s doing porridge for. Now I’m not sure yet, but I believe something else went missing besides the money. Something big – something Hadrill knew all about, that’s why he was able to steam into Hawes so hard. So, two questions – you might know the answers. One, is that factory really a shoe factory?’

‘Of course it is! Why shouldn’t it be? What do you mean?’

‘I was hoping you were going to tell me what I meant. All right, second question. You know Hadrill was gay?’

‘You keep going back to that,’ said the voice irritably. ‘What difference does it make?’

‘Maybe a lot,’ I said. ‘Look, if I were you, I’d grip Hawes and give him a bloody good grilling, the works, say two teams of three. Because after all, if I can trace a connection between Hawes and McGruder as I mean to try and do, that makes Hawes an accessory to murder yet again. But we need all the facts we can get, and in your place I’d get Hawes right by the goolies and squeeze him till he splits, while I get on with McGruder.’

‘Well, McGruder’s still a theory,’ said the voice, ‘but pursue it, quite right. Meantime, I think I’ll send the Hawes angle back to the Yard; it’s out of our line and I haven’t the manpower for it right now.’

‘OK,’ I said, ‘why not give it to Bowman? It’s right up his street. God help Hawes by the time Bowman’s finished with him; you won’t even be able to find the pieces.’

‘Yes, I’ll tell Chief Inspector Bowman what you’ve just told me, and he can take it from there.’

My life, I thought, it looks as if the voice is actually going to have to do some work. ‘That’s fine,’ I said, ‘brief him like that; I’ve told you everything I know. Meanwhile I’ll try and crack McGruder, but it’ll probably take time. Did you know he was married, by the way?’

No, the voice hadn’t known that.

‘Well, he was, I haven’t traced her yet, but I will. Klara McGruder.’

‘Anything known?’

‘She was treated for alcoholism a couple of years back. I’ve got lines out for her.’

‘You going to see her?’

‘When I’ve found her,’ I said, ‘I most certainly am. But I can’t question her till I know where she is; that’s the sort of thing that
only happens in films. You know – cut to the next scene and there she is by magic.’

‘Never mind films, sergeant. But this business about the note the minister’s had is most worrying.’

‘I’ll bet it is,’ I said, ‘for him.’

‘It must be a nut that sent it,’ said the voice.

‘I’d like to think so,’ I said, ‘but you never know. He may be a minister but that’s not to say he hasn’t been a naughty boy; it wouldn’t be the first time.’

‘I wonder if we ought to pull McGruder in now?’

‘What’s the charge?’

‘No charge, just for questioning.’

‘I’m not going to take him in for questioning,’ I said, ‘it would be crazy at this stage. McGruder really is a hard man, and you’ll never crack him like Bowman might crack Hawes. Besides,’ I added, ‘I think if we let McGruder run about a bit, who knows, he might lead us to something.’

‘He’s dangerous to have running around, though.’

‘I reckon he’ll think hard before he kills anyone else at the moment,’ I said. ‘There’s too much brimstone in the atmosphere.’ I added: ‘That is, anyone except me, if he thought he could get away with it. You’ve got to bear in mind, the whole of this is deeper than it looks; when a grass is topped for money by a professional it always is. Two grasses, as a matter of fact, because I’m pretty sure Edwardes was planning to grass as well, or had perhaps even tried to – that’s why he was done on the hurry-up.’

‘You’re starting to get a picture?’

‘Some sort of a picture, yes.’

‘Well, let’s make some more assumptions.’

‘There are enough of them around as it is,’ I said.

‘We’ll make them just the same. Names in a hat: Hadrill. Edwardes. McGruder. The Soviets up at Highgate. The defence minister. Pat Hawes.’

‘Yes, OK,’ I said, ‘but you’ve missed one out – what’s the name
of that bloke who runs that factory up at York? I don’t mean the front man who knows about shoes; I mean the brainy individual who heads whatever it is they really do up there.’

‘What, Martin Phillips, you mean? Him?’ It was one of the few times I had ever heard the voice lose its cool. ‘Christ! Don’t go anywhere near him. He’s spotless; he’s got top security clearance.’

‘All right, all right,’ I said, ‘I was only asking what his name was.’

‘What are you driving at?’

‘Well, what I’m wondering,’ I said, ‘is if anyone up there was gay by any chance. We know Hadrill was. I wonder if Hadrill ever knew anyone on Phillips’s staff, er, in a carnal sense. Anyone really responsible.’

‘Impossible. Look, I’ve told you, don’t start messing about up there, you’ve got no authority. The entire staff there has been cleared by the Branch.’

‘Nothing’s impossible,’ I said, ‘and our security record’s terrible – ask any American.’ I went on: ‘Hadrill was a cunning sod; he had that nose for information that makes a supergrass – not that it did him any good in the end.’

‘Sergeant,’ said the voice, ‘I am giving you a direct order; you are to have nothing to do with that factory or with anyone employed there, do you understand?’

‘What I understand is that this case has got to be solved. If there’s any connection between Hadrill and that factory that we don’t know about, we’ve got to find out what it is. It’s not only useless sweeping everything under the carpet, it might be bloody dangerous. I do admit one thing, though; it’s right outside the scope of A14.’

‘You will obey my order,’ said the voice, ‘and that’s the end of it. You are authorized to continue your investigation into McGruder, and that’s all.’

I knocked on McGruder’s door and said: ‘I’m back.’

‘This is getting very monotonous.’

I said musingly: ‘You do make the perfect hit man.’

‘I’ve never done any hit jobs,’ he lilted, smiling.

I suddenly lost my temper. ‘Look,’ I shouted, ‘don’t take me for a cunt! Hit jobs? The only reason we dropped the Wetherby case against you was lack of evidence. You had an alibi we couldn’t crack, and the barman and the governor of The Case Is Altered were too scared to come forward, otherwise you’d be doing life right now. But this time it isn’t the same. I told you about the witness I’ve got who’s ready to swear he saw you over at Williams’s pub while Hadrill and Edwardes were there.’

‘The witness you had, you mean,’ said McGruder. ‘That was no witness, just a little grass on the make. Anyhow, he’s had a bad accident, I heard in a pub.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Yes,’ said McGruder. ‘Why don’t you take a run over and have a look? I believe he’s in Bart’s. Sorry if he was a mate of yours, but he’s in a coma. It seems he may live, only he’ll never get his brains in straight again. Wasn’t his name Smitty, something like that?’

‘What happened to him?’

‘Well, as I say,’ McGruder smiled, ‘it’s only what I’ve heard, but it seems he unfortunately tripped and his face hit a wall with a terrible great bang. He can’t hear or speak or see anything.’

I said: ‘It was the Grossmans.’

‘Well, of course, I wouldn’t know anything about that,’ said McGruder easily.

‘It’s not going to make any difference to you anyway, Billy,’ I
said, ‘not in the long run. I’m going to get you one way or another, you’ll see. But that’s three men dead or as good as dead in as many days – you mob have really got your seven-league boots on, haven’t you?’

‘ “Sail on, silver girl”,’ murmured McGruder, gazing at the ceiling, ‘ “sail on through the night.” I do like Simon and Garfunkel. Reminds me of the time I had to top a feller while I was in Africa; I’d been listening to S and G that day. Bloke who’d cheeked me.’

I nodded absently to show I was listening; naturally I was concentrating on the loss of my witness and kicking myself for it. The voice would spread me right over the wall for that, and serve me right. I said: ‘It’s a dangerous thing to do with you, isn’t it, Billy, giving you a bit of cheek.’