Gently Sahib (20 page)

‘At first we didn’t know about each other, but then one of us, Groton, decided to hit back. He had it in mind to murder Shimpling and his plan required accomplices. He knew that Shimpling would have other victims. He hired a detective to run them down. He got on to Sayers and the three others and put up the tiger plot to them.’

Hastings hesitated awkwardly.

‘Well, it was a good plot!’ he said. We didn’t like it, but it was a way out, and one of us was getting desperate.

‘The objection made was about the woman, but just at that time she left Shimpling. So we agreed – two to do it, two to give them an alibi. Groton couldn’t be in it, of course, he’d be the first person the police would check.

‘Groton briefed us about the tiger and the way to release it from the truck. Sayers was one of the two who were to do it – he knew judo, he could tackle Shimpling. He wasn’t keen, but he was the obvious choice . . . and he was the other man’s friend.’

Gently said: ‘You’d know him well, of course.’

Hastings jerked: ‘None of that! What you guess is your affair, but I won’t be cross-questioned.’

Gently shrugged. ‘Sayers no doubt had a number of friends in Abbotsham . . .’

Hastings looked at him, was silent a moment. Then he went on flatly:

‘We set it up for a night when Groton had a meeting in London. Sayers and the others were ostensibly spending a weekend in the country. At half past ten Sayers and the other man drove to Groton’s farm to pick up the truck. Groton had left the tiger loaded in it and the doors of the body taken off.

‘They drove it by back ways to Shimpling’s bungalow. They arrived there at twenty past eleven. They stopped short of the bungalow and Sayers went ahead to reconnoitre. He opened the gates and signalled to the truck. The truck was driven on the verge, then backed to the gates. Sayers gave a thumbs-up sign to the driver, went up the drive, knocked, got set . . .’

Hastings screwed his eyes shut.

‘Ted,’ he said, ‘fill my glass for me.’

Cockfield scrambled up, took the glass to the cabinet, brought it back full of whisky. Hastings drank.

He said: ‘I wasn’t watching. I was all tensed up with what I had to do. Sammy was fast, a black-belt man, he was going to chop him, get clear . . .

‘When I saw the light showing I was to back in, raise the grille. I did that.’

He took a great throatful of whisky.

‘God,’ he said, ‘it was fiendish! Groton had starved the bloody tiger. It was out in a flash, roaring and tearing.

‘I could see it holding the bloke down and ripping away at his shoulder, blood spewing in all directions . . . then its head was raised, chewing.

‘Oh God, the sound of that flesh being torn . . .

‘And Sammy, he should have been back in the truck.

‘Then I looked again, it was at his throat . . . the head came up.

‘Sammy!’

Hastings sobbed, crammed the glass to his mouth.

‘That’s enough, Dave!’ Cockfield cried. ‘We can pick it up from there.’

‘No.’ Hastings shook his head. ‘Let me finish.’

He sat holding the glass in both hands, holding it high, near his mouth.

‘I deserve it,’ he said. ‘I bloody deserve it. I was the one who talked you over.

‘But it was inhuman . . . terrible! When I think of it I want to scream. And I’ve seen some grim things . . . every doctor has his scars.

‘What sort of a devil can Groton be? He knew. He knew!’

Hastings tipped the glass again.

‘My nerve went,’ he said. ‘I had a blackout, something like that, I can’t remember things till I got back here. I must have driven the truck to the farm, picked up my car, driven to Weston. But the next I remembered is being back here, trying to tell them, drinking.

‘If anyone claims they’ve done things during a blackout, remember that. It can happen.’

He sat back, resting the now-empty glass against his chest. His eyes were slitted, as though seeing something they craved to shut out.

‘He put the wind up us,’ Cockfield said. ‘Just to see him gave you a scare.’

Ashfield said: ‘His hair was lifting – not on end: simply lifting.’

‘I take it he didn’t go back,’ Gently said.

Cockfield said: ‘Not so likely! We poured a bottle of Scotch into him and left him blotto on the sofa.’

‘Then it was you two.’

Cockfield nodded.

‘Did you . . . take a gun with you?’

‘A four-ten. It’s all I keep here. It wouldn’t have made the brute sneeze.’

Gently said: ‘It would have needed guts.’

Cockfield looked at him owlishly.

‘When there’s only one thing to do you bloody do it,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘What for? You know what happened as well as I do.’

‘Tell me about it,’ Gently said.

Cockfield sat looking at him.

Ashfield said: ‘You don’t rattle me. We went to the bungalow and buried Sammy. It was bloody as hell, blood everywhere, soaking in blood, like a slaughterhouse. The bones were sticking out of his legs, half his face was eaten off . . .’

Ashfield stopped. He’d gone grey.

‘I’m going to be sick,’ he said weakly.

He got to his feet, stumbled out, and they could hear him retching in the toilet.

‘Satisfied?’ Cockfield said.

Gently hunched a shoulder. ‘Was he sick that night?’

‘You bloody swine,’ Cockfield said. ‘He was sick as a dog. And so was I.’

‘Who carried the body to the wheelbarrow?’

‘Me. He was outside with the gun.’

‘What did you do about your clothes?’

‘Burned them. Then we got as drunk as David.’

‘Why didn’t you go back and clean up properly?’

Cockfield shuddered. ‘We always meant to. But we put it off, kept putting it off. I’ll be sick too if you don’t shut up.’

‘What did you find when you searched the place?’

‘Nothing. He must have taken it with him.’

Cockfield gulped, put a hand to his mouth. But he didn’t follow Ashfield to the toilet. Hastings, looking at nobody, rose and went to fill his glass.

Outside, the moon was clear of the trees but was still a medallion of angry red.

Ashfield came back and drank some soda water, sat down, looked very unwell.

Hastings said through his teeth: ‘Is that everything – have we done enough confessing?’

Gently drank a little, said: ‘There’s a matter of twenty thousand pounds . . .’

Cockfield said: ‘Forget about it. Sammy left his money to Dave. Sammy didn’t have any relatives. We’ve seen the will. It’s pukka.’

‘You’ve seen a will?’

Hastings said: ‘There was a copy in Sammy’s box. It was drawn by Dale and Perks. It’s at the office. I can show it you.’

‘But . . . it will hardly have gone for probate?’

‘How the devil could it have done?’

‘And you have the money?’

‘We couldn’t leave it there. The bank would have started investigations.’

Gently nodded. ‘A problem, admittedly! And the Inland Revenue . . . what about them?’

‘Look,’ Hastings said, ‘I haven’t touched the money, and the Inland Revenue can stick itself.

‘Sammy was concerned with famine relief, he used to make donations to Oxfam. At Christmas last year they collected a bonus – an anonymous twenty-one thousand pounds. Tax, death duties unpaid. And to hell with the whole bag of them!

‘Are you a friend of the Inland Revenue?’

Gently shook his head. ‘Not my department.’

‘Well, that’s where Sammy’s money has gone.’

Gently stared at his glass, said nothing.

Cockfield said: ‘So where do we stand now?’

Gently sighed, rose, held out his glass. He touched Hastings’s, touched Cockfield’s, made a token wave towards the chemist.

‘What’s this?’ Cockfield demanded.

‘A toast – to the guardian angel of Abbotsham.’

‘To who?’

‘Drink your whisky.’

Over his glass, Cockfield watched Gently suspiciously.

* * *

Dutt was still in the lounge when Gently returned to the Angel, but now he was watching a TV sportsflash of James Greaves getting a hat-trick. Perkins was with him. Perkins was showing no outward interest in James Greaves. He was sitting bolt upright in an easy chair and murmuring soundlessly, it may have been prayers.

When Gently approached he leaped up, but all he could blurt was:

‘You’ve got back, then . . . !’

After which he stood pitifully, mouth gaping, eyes pleading.

Dutt, who’d also looked round, contented himself with a quick nod, then jerked his eyes back to the screen before he could miss half a pass.

Gently’s pipe was going. He puffed affably. He glanced at the screen for a moment.

He said: ‘One day you’ll have to pull in friend Cockfield for drunken driving.’

‘D-drunken driving?’

‘I watched him this evening. He was all over the road.’

‘But just . . . driving . . . ?’

‘That’s enough, isn’t it? He’s had one bad accident already.’

Really it was too bad! Perkins was almost wringing his hands. He jiffled and gaped and rolled his eyes, began a dozen sentences that never came out. Then he managed to stammer:

‘And the inquest . . . Monday . . . ?’

‘Put in evidence of how it was done.’

‘That Sayers—’

‘Not Sayers, you ass! Do you want to give the game away?’

‘Then who – how . . . ?’

Gently closed his eyes. Did he have to teach them how to cover up? Here he was handing it to them on a plate, and still it didn’t seem enough . . .

He drew Perkins aside.

‘First, show the remains aren’t Shimpling’s! If you as much as whisper “Sayers” I’ll come back here and strangle you personally. Then show that a crime was attempted against Shimpling by the deceased and persons unknown, and offer your opinion that the deceased met his death while committing that attempt. That’s all. Nothing else! Let the coroner vapour about Groton if he wants to.

‘Privately you can tell him you’ve no proved evidence of the identity of the deceased, and that offering an opinion on it might injure innocent people.

‘Which it may – hard fact! Stick to that, and you’re home.’

For a moment Perkins gaped glass-eyed at nothing. Then he swung round, grabbed Gently’s hand and began to pump it with fervent violence.

‘I can’t tell you . . . we’re all grateful . . . I . . .’

‘Here . . . watch my hand!’

‘. . . how much it means . . . us . . . Abbotsham . . .’

‘Turn it up! People are looking.’

The damned idiot! For over a minute he was shaking away and blubbering thanks, while half the guests and Barnes, the pressman, were peering curiously in their direction.

‘And if you’re ever this way again . . .’

At last Gently managed to rescue his hand.

‘Myself . . . my wife . . .’

‘Put a cork in, will you? I missed my dinner, I’m blasted hungry.’

Dutt, his sportsflash ended, looked round perplexedly, and Barnes was beginning to sidle over.

But still that idiot burbled away, trembling with gratitude, almost weeping.

GROTON CHARGED WITH
SHIMPLING MURDER
Bungalow Body Unidentified

Tiger: Attempt That Misfired

Hugh Groton, 52, an animal dealer from South Africa, was charged yesterday with the murder of Peter Shimpling
.

But police failed to identify the tiger-victim at the resumed inquest at Abbotsham. They think now he was an accessory in a previous attempt on Shimpling
.

Chief Superintendent Gently of the Yard, who has been assisting the local police, admitted to our reporter he thought identification unlikely . . .

A long way from Abbotsham, a long way from London. Two men sitting in a boat on a grey lake under slate mountains.

Superintendent Evans says: ‘That’s a bite, man! Why, you’ll never catch a gwyniad.’

Gently shrugs, makes a strike, reels in an unbelievable depth of line. The freshwater shrimp is gone from his hook. He feels about the bait-can, finds a replacement.

Evans says sternly: ‘You must be more alert, man. The gwyniad is a very delicate feeder. Catching the gwyniad is a great art. Very few are the anglers who catch a gwyniad.’

‘Have you ever caught one?’ Gently asks.

‘No, I can’t say I have,’ Evans says. ‘But I tell you, I know what I’m talking about. And there are surely gwyniad in Bala lake.’

Gently patiently rebaits his hook and lowers away many fathoms. At the other end of the boat Evans sits like a crouching griffin.

‘That was a peculiar case of yours, man,’ he says. ‘What with tigers and leopards and that sort of animal. I’m glad we haven’t the like in Wales. No, not even badgers we have.’ A little silence, then Gently said:

‘I don’t believe that about the badgers.’

‘No?’ Evans says. ‘Would you call me a liar – apart from being Welsh, and a liar by nature?’

A little more silence, where all is silence.

A long way from Abbotsham, a long way from London.

Two men sitting in a boat on a grey lake under slate mountains.