A Long Time Dead Page 14

  Rutter entered the pub. From the doorway, he looked around the lounge – past the fishermen’s nets and the lobster pots – and saw Wright at a table under an artificially aged advertisement for Ogden’s Midnight Flake. Wright saw him, too, though he gave no indication that he had. Which meant, Rutter decided as he bought himself a pint, that this was going to be even more difficult than he’d thought it might be.

  Rutter took his drink over to the table, and sat down opposite his old colleague.

  ‘Let’s make this quick,’ Wright said abruptly.

  ‘“How are you, Bob?”’ Rutter responded, in a tone which was partly sarcastic and but mostly wounded. ‘“I was really sorry to hear that your missus got killed, my old mate.”’

  ‘If you want us to meet up as old mates, then pick up the blower and just tell me that’s what you’d like,’ Wright said brusquely. ‘When you do that, we’ll go out on a bloody good piss up, and I’ll let you cry on my shoulder all night, if it’ll make you feel any better. But this isn’t that kind of meeting at all, is it, Bob? The only reason we’re here is because you want information. And not just any information. You want information on a bloody Cabinet Minister.’

  ‘That’s true enough, but as I explained to you over the phone—’

  ‘What you did over the phone was to feed me some complete cock and bull story which I didn’t believe for a minute,’ Wright said harshly. ‘But, to be honest with you, I prefer it that way. I don’t know why you want information, and I don’t want to know. All I do want is to get this meeting of ours over and done with as soon as possible.’

  ‘You must have got some real dirt on Douglas Coutes if you’re that worried,’ Rutter said wonderingly.

  ‘You couldn’t be wronger,’ Wright told him. ‘The man’s as clean as a whistle.’

  ‘Then why all the drama?’

  ‘Because he’s as clean as a whistle, you bloody fool. Because, if I’m asked to justify giving information on Douglas Coutes to a member of another force, I won’t be able to.’

  ‘But surely, there’s not much chance of that happening, is there?’ Rutter asked.

  ‘You never know.’

  ‘London’s a big city.’

  ‘Yes, but when you’re talking about the people in it who really matter, it’s a very small world indeed. And ministers don’t like it when mere detective inspectors start showin’ interest in them. Especially ministers who hold a defence brief. Especially ministers as full of themselves – and as downright bloody ruthless – as Douglas Coutes is.’

  ‘So what have you got for me?’ Rutter asked.

  ‘Did you know I was on the Burglary Squad now?’ Wright asked, with some hostility. ‘Is that why you rang me, rather than anybody else?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know you were in Burglary,’ Rutter said truthfully. ‘I rang you because we trained together, because we’ve covered each other’s back more than once, and because I thought we were still good friends.’

  ‘I still don’t like it,’ Wright grumbled.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘You wanted to know if anything that’s happened to Coutes recently was of interest to the police. Well, apart from the natural interest shown in him by his own protection unit, there’s only one thing.’

  ‘And that was?’

  ‘His London flat was burgled – and I was the officer who investigated it. How’s that for a coincidence?’

  ‘That’s all it is,’ Rutter promised him. ‘A coincidence. They do happen, you know.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Wright said grudgingly.

  ‘When did this burglary take place?’ Rutter asked.

  ‘A month or so ago.’

  ‘Was he staying in the flat at the time?’

  ‘No, he was abroad. In America, I think. There was only his housekeeper there – and it scared the hell out of her.’

  ‘Why? Did she catch them in the act?’

  ‘Not exactly. It was half-past two in the morning, so, naturally, she was asleep.’

  ‘If she was asleep, how can you be so precise about the time?’

  ‘The burglars managed to circumvent two of the alarm systems, but they were unlucky – or a little bit careless – with the third. The alarm went off, and even given the state she was probably in, it was loud enough to wake the housekeeper up. But by the time she’d forced herself to get out of bed, the burglars were already well away.’

  ‘The state she was probably in?’ Rutter repeated.

  ‘Did I say that?’

  ‘You know you did.’

  ‘Well, I probably shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Give me a break,’ Rutter pleaded. ‘It may turn out not to be relevant, but I’d still like to know.’

  Wright sighed heavily. ‘Her name’s Lily Hanson,’ he said. ‘She was Coutes’s mistress for a long time, but then she started to show her age. When he traded her in for a new model, he gave her two choices: she could collect together her things and get out, or she could stay on in the role of housekeeper. She stayed on, though it’s only fair to say that she’s not exactly over the moon about the new domestic arrangements.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Rutter wondered.

  ‘How do you think I know? She told me herself.’

  ‘She seems to have been remarkably frank.’

  ‘Drink does that to some women. Makes them talk. Makes them say things they’d never say when they were sober. Lily was floating on a cloud for most of the investigation, and I must have heard her whole life story at least three times.’

  ‘So you think that when the burglary took place, she was probably sleeping off a boozing session?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I’m surprised Coutes tolerates it.’

  ‘He doesn’t have to. She might drink like a fish while he’s away, but when he’s in London she somehow manages to keep a lid on it. But that won’t last. It can’t last. Sooner or later, she’ll lose what little self-control she’s still got left, and she’ll be out on the street. Poor bloody woman!’

  ‘What did the burglars take?’ Rutter asked.

  ‘Nothing. Not a blind bloody thing.’

  ‘That’s probably because they were disturbed, is it?’

  ‘Probably.’

  Rutter studied his old friend’s face for some seconds. ‘But you don’t think that was the reason, do you?’ he said, finally.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Wright admitted.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It took the burglars a lot of effort to get into the flat. It’s true that they eventually tripped the third alarm, but before they could even get to that point, they’d already by-passed the other two – and sprung some of the best security locks the Burglary Squad’s ever come across.’

  ‘So they were professionals?’

  ‘They were better than that.’

  ‘Better than professionals?’

  Wright sighed. ‘Look, you know the way we work, Bob,’ he said. ‘When any job’s pulled, one of the first questions that we always ask is who could have pulled it.’

  ‘True,’ Rutter agreed.

  ‘So after that break-in, we put our heads together and tried to come up with a few names. And we couldn’t! Not a single bloody one! As far as the old hands in the Burglary Squad are concerned, there isn’t any villain currently operating in London who could have done that job.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is that if they were that good – and went to that much effort – it’s inconceivable that they would have been willing to leave the flat empty-handed?’

  ‘I’m saying it should be inconceivable, but it seems to have happened.’

  ‘Is this Hanson woman a solitary drinker, or does she like to have people around her when she’s getting smashed out of her head?’ Rutter asked.

  ‘Definitely the latter,’ Wright replied. ‘When Coutes is away, she’s in the Duke of Clarence every night until closing time.’ He frowned. ‘What made you ask that?’

  ‘No real reason at all,’ Rutter
said casually. ‘I was just curious.’

  Seventeen

  ‘You were a US Military Policeman, attached to the unit serving in this camp in 1944?’ Special Agent Grant asked the bald man sitting opposite them in the interrogation chair.

  ‘Yes, sir!’ the man said loudly.

  Woodend winced.

  Why was it that some ex-soldiers – especially ones who’d held posts of some minor responsibility – never quite seemed able to lose the habit of shouting their answers? he wondered. Surely they should have been able to put the war behind them by now.

  Put the war behind them! echoed the malevolent goblin which sometimes seemed to inhabit a dark corner of his brain. How far have you managed to put your war behind you, Charlie?

  Not far enough, Woodend readily accepted. Nowhere near far enough. And since that first phone call from Douglas Coutes, it had become closer than it had been for years.

  ‘When did you first realize that Captain Kineally was missing?’ Grant asked the MP.

  ‘Not until two days after he went AWOL.’

  ‘Two days? Why did it take so long? Surely someone in authority must have noticed he wasn’t going about his normal duties.’

  ‘The Captain didn’t have specific duties at Haverton Camp, sir. He’d been given what they called a “roving brief”, and he reported directly to a colonel in regional headquarters. So since nobody here knew what he was supposed to be doing, nobody here noticed when he wasn’t doing it.’

  ‘I see,’ Special Agent Grant said, nodding his head seriously, as if all was clear now.

  ‘Well, I don’t,’ Woodend admitted. ‘Given what you’ve just told us, why was it only two days before you noticed he was missing? Why not five days? Or a week?’

  ‘It wasn’t Captain Kineally we missed at first, sir,’ the ex-MP said. ‘It was the jeep.’

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘The jeep should gone to the motor pool for routine maintenance, and when it didn’t, the master sergeant in charge of the pool informed us of the fact.’

  ‘So what happened next?’

  ‘The jeep had been made available for the captain’s personal use, but it wasn’t signed out to him.’

  ‘Then who was it signed out to?’

  ‘His driver, Private Birnbaum, was directly responsible for it. When we questioned Birnbaum, he admitted he hadn’t seen the vehicle for two days. We put him on a charge for negligence, and launched a search for the jeep.’

  ‘But you didn’t find it until several days after that, did you?’ Special Agent Grant asked.

  ‘No, sir, we did not.’

  ‘And when you did find it, it was hidden in a wood near the local railway station?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  If Kineally had actually used it to go AWOL, hiding it would have made sense, Woodend thought. But Kineally hadn’t used it – because he was already dead by then.

  ‘It wasn’t just hidden, was it?’ Grant asked.

  ‘No, sir, it had been camouflaged. It was practically invisible from the air, and even personnel on the ground would have missed it unless they were very close to it.’

  It was the murderer who had driven the jeep, as part of his plan to convince the military authorities that Kineally had deserted, Woodend reminded himself. So why would he hide it so well? Why hadn’t he left it out in the open, so that the authorities would be set on the false trail as soon as possible?

  ‘Were you able to establish whether or not Captain Kineally had, in fact, boarded a train at the railway station?’ Special Agent Grant asked.

  ‘No, sir, we were not. There was a great deal of rail traffic around that time, and the situation was very confused.’

  ‘Did you manage to find any witnesses who had seen Captain Kineally – or anyone else – drive the jeep to the woods?’

  ‘No, sir, we didn’t.’

  ‘You didn’t hear a rumour that it wasn’t Kineally who’d left the jeep there, but a British officer?’

  ‘Absolutely not, sir.’

  This was no way to conduct an investigation, Woodend thought.

  You didn’t solve crimes by sitting behind a desk, questioning witness after witness in the hope that the right answers would just magically fall into your lap. You didn’t give witnesses broad hints which just might lead them to confirm your speculations.

  What you did do was get up off your arse and go out looking for people who didn’t want to be witnesses at all. Or for witnesses who didn’t even know they were witnesses – because they had no idea of how significant the information they were holding might be.

  ‘Do you have any questions for this man, Chief Inspector Woodend?’ Grant asked.

  ‘No,’ Woodend replied wearily.

  ‘In that case, you can go,’ Grant told the ex-MP.

  ‘Sir!’ the bald man said, standing up, stamping his foot in the approved manner, and marching out of the trailer.

  Grant consulted his notes. ‘Our next witness is one of the guys who worked in the cookhouse,’ he said.

  ‘An’ what particular shaft of the light do you think he’ll be able to throw on the investigation?’ Woodend wondered.

  ‘We won’t know that until we’ve talked to him, will we?’ Grant replied.

  The man wasn’t a policeman, Woodend thought in disgust – he was a bureaucrat.

  Grant saw no need to tease out solutions to crimes. He probably believed that as long as you filled in the correct forms – preferably in triplicate – the solution would be delivered by special courier the following morning.

  ‘What say we take a short break?’ Grant suggested, noticing Woodend’s lethargic despondency.

  ‘What kind of short break?’

  ‘How about we put on sweats, and do a couple of laps of the camp? That’ll get the heart pumping, the lungs opening up, and blood flowing again!’

  ‘You can do that, if you like,’ Woodend told him, ‘but if I’m goin’ to exercise my lungs, I’d rather do it by pullin’ on a reflective cigarette.’

  Grant clicked his tongue reprovingly. ‘You should get some proper exercise, you know,’ he said. ‘It’s very well known that a healthy body is the key to a healthy mind.’

  ‘Maybe it is,’ Woodend said. ‘But I’ve found that my brain generally works better when it’s not bein’ bounced up and down.’

  ‘The brain doesn’t get bounced up and down when you’re running,’ Grant said, clearly horrified by Woodend’s obvious ignorance of anatomy. ‘It’s held in place by—’

  ‘Paper clips?’ Woodend interrupted.

  ‘No, by—’

  ‘Enjoy your run, lad,’ the Chief Inspector said. ‘An’ when you get back, we’ll see if this army cook can solve our mystery for us.’

  Alone in the interrogation trailer – free at last from Grant’s tidy, mundane thinking – Woodend watched the smoke from his cigarette drift towards the roof, and slowly let his mind drift back in time.

  He was standing on the railway station platform, watching the big station clock jerkily – and noisily – mark off the passing of another minute.

  He was worried about the coming invasion. Not for himself – if he caught a fatal bullet, it would all be over in a second – but for Joan.

  He hoped that if he was killed, she would get over it quickly, find herself another young chap, and settle down to a good marriage and a happy life. But there was also a part of him – a small, unworthy part, he was almost sure – which hoped that she wouldn’t get over it, that though he would be gone physically, he might live on because she still mourned the loss of him.

  His thoughts escaped to the safer subject of Haverton Camp, and he realized, with some surprise, how much he would miss it. Or at least, how much he would miss some of the people he had met there. Robert Kineally, for one. He had grown attached to the American – to his particular brand of idealism which was no doubt naïve and impractical, but was also full of hope and inspiration.

  The world could use a good few more
people like Robert Kineally, he told himself, and it was a pity that Kineally’s briefing session in London had resulted in them being unable to say goodbye properly.

  Woodend looked around at the other people waiting for a train which still might be on time, but – if it was anything like many wartime trains – would probably be several hours late.

  A group of sailors had gathered near the waiting room, and were standing with their legs wide apart, as if expecting the concrete beneath their feet to suddenly lurch under the assault of an unexpected wave.

  Half a dozen Royal Engineers, men who would play an important – and dangerous – part in the coming invasion, were nervously swapping jokes and cigarettes.

  And it was not only the military who were on the move that night.

  Two men with shabby briefcases – obviously minor civil servants – were conferring gravely, probably over the kinds of matters that minor civil servants always conferred gravely over.

  A woman with two small children looked despondently down the track, no doubt wondering how late the train would have to be before the kids grew tired and peevish.

  A trio of land girls sat on their suitcases, passing round a bottle which might have contained cheap wine, but could just as easily have been cold tea.

  They were all the sorts of characters who his literary hero, the great Charles Dickens, could have made much of, Woodend thought. Indeed, he if he were a writer himself …

  He would never be a writer, he admitted – he simply did not have the temperament for it. But people did undoubtedly fascinate him, and after the war was over – if he survived it – he would have to find some other kind of occupation which would justify his study of them.

  He heard a sudden suppressed sob, and turning, saw the woman huddled down on her haunches, in one of the darker corners of the station.

  He walked over to her.

  ‘Is there a problem, Miss?’ he asked awkwardly. ‘I don’t mean to bother you, but if there’s anythin’ I can do to help, then you’ve only to ask.’

  The woman looked up. ‘Charlie?’ she said.

  He recognized the voice as Mary’s. ‘Whatever’s happened to you, lass?’ he asked.