Killer in the Shade (21 page)

‘Thanks, Doctor.'

Hazard glanced at him. Frank Drury looked like a man who had been forced to accept a defeat of sorts. The expression on his face was one his assistant had seen
only rarely in the past.

The local superintendent, whose name was Charcombe, stayed to have a few words with the constable, and then joined the two men from Scotland Yard. On the way back to police headquarters there was little conversation, none of it about the man who had somehow cheated them by dying, as Bill Hazard considered the tragedy. But then, Bill Hazard was still feeling resentment against all criminals who had been associated with Humphrey Peel and the bad taste left by his close encounter with Jackson Rennie still lingered and would for days. He had yet to achieve complete objectivity as a detective.

Drury's mind was elsewhere and ranging widely. It was brought back to the immediate region around the city when, upon arriving at police headquarters, he was informed of the spotting of Rollo Hackley's car and the discovery of the corpses in the rear lounge of the house named Calanque.

The panda patrol car had been called in.

He spoke to the two constables who had witnessed the boat being driven away towards the open water of the harbour.

‘Describe the men you saw,' he told the spokesman of the pair, who had related what had transpired after they had seen the wanted car parked at the end of a private road off the road to Selsey.

The young constable's description was close enough for Drury to recognize. He turned to Bill Hazard, who nodded and said, ‘That's them.'

‘The bloody fools,' growled Drury. ‘If this is a stupid caper just to get a story for the
Gazette
, I'll roast the pair of them.'

Superintendent Charcombe and his two constables stood like graven images, listening without understanding.

‘I don't think that's the answer,' Hazard said carefully. ‘Oh, they came for a story and they were smart enough to do it before there was any embargo from the Yard. But I think they were trying to help when they got in that boat and took off.'

‘Because those sacks were not found in the Viva?'

‘Yes,' Hazard nodded. ‘Those sacks are somewhere. My guess is in the boat.'

‘If you're right, Bill, there's another question.'

‘I know,' Hazard agreed. ‘How did they know anything about the sacks? I think we've got to put one and one together. Hackley could have picked up enough at the Weddons' place to have tumbled to what was going to happen and, again, Murphy has other pals at the Yard and when they got that map out of the bureau and they put their heads together — well, it didn't take long to realize things were moving this way. After all, Peel had almost boasted to Hackley about the raid he had set up.'

‘But neither Hackley nor Joe Murphy knew about our calling on Dick Barrett last night or what I pressured him into agreeing to do.'

Bill Hazard grinned. ‘If they had, would they have bothered to come down here?'

‘Only for the story,' Drury grunted. ‘But I get your point, Bill. It doesn't make them any less bloody fools. Now
we've got to find them. If we wait for them to be picked up, perhaps in Hampshire or even Dorset, this little ripple is going to widen into one damn big wave of adverse publicity.'

Hazard began to look discouraged.

The local superintendent coughed. ‘Perhaps I could help if you put me in the picture,' he told Drury.

‘Very well,' said the Yard man. ‘This is our problem, Charcombe.'

In a few words he explained why he wanted the two men who had been seen disappearing in the
Mudlark
picked up before they landed anywhere outside West Sussex, and why he had no wish for the story about their taking the boat to become public property, as it would if some local reporter got hold of it and sold it to a Fleet Street news agency.

‘I can handle the
Gazette
. I can't do much with the whole of Fleet Street and the local papers throughout the South of England,' he told the local superintendent, who was smiling. ‘You find it amusing. So would the whole damned country. I don't want the funny
side played up. Peel was a killer, and there's too damned much on the record to be sorted out.'

One of the constables coughed, apparently following the example of the senior local man.

They all looked at him and the young constable flushed. But Drury saw the grim look on his face, and realized the other felt he had something to offer and had plucked up enough courage to risk talking out of turn.

‘What is it, constable?' he asked. ‘Anything you can suggest that will help I'm ready to listen to. You saw something you think I should know, that it?'

The constable glanced apologetically at Charcombe, who gave him clearance with a wave of the hand while watching him with narrowed eyes.

‘Well, sir,' said the constable. ‘In the boathouse, when we got to it, there were these petrol cans, all full. Ten cans, making twenty gallons of fuel. The cans were stacked to one side and they weren't dusty, so they were fairly
new — I mean, they'd been stacked recently. But there were no empty cans anywhere and so — '

‘Constable,' said Drury, smiling at the young man, ‘you don't have to go on. I get the point. Very shrewd of you, and thank you for telling me. You mean the boat's fuel tank must be practically empty because the fuel had not been taken on board, and as there was no empty can lying around none had been used since the last time she returned to the boathouse, possibly months ago. And the chances are her fuel tank had only a few pints left.'

‘Well, yes, sir, but that would mean whoever took the boat wouldn't get far, and if they ran out of juice in mid-harbour — '

Drury wasn't listening. He had turned around to face the local superintendent.

‘I think, Charcombe,' he said, ‘if you can fix us up with a harbour patrol craft we might just possibly have a chance of keeping this affair in the family, so to speak.' He turned back to the still flushed constable. ‘Very shrewd indeed,
constable, and thank you for speaking up.'

He glanced inquiringly at Superintendent Charcombe, who was reaching for a phone and looking amused again.

‘This is going to be one to tell when I've retired,' he told Drury, ‘and that won't be so damned long now.'

Rollo was watching the level of water against the reeds of the starboard side. He was convinced the tide had turned, and it would now be only a matter of waiting until they were floated off the sandbank. He was about to draw Joe Murphy's attention to the level against the reeds when the Irishman shouted at him, ‘Will you look at this coming towards us, boy? I'm either dreaming or having hallucinations, and not a drop to drink since we left your place this morning.'

Rollo straightened his back and twisted around. His mouth fell slack.

‘God Almighty!'

‘And well you can say that,' Murphy told him with heavy humour. ‘For this is supernatural for sure. Look at that damned tie, Rollo. What would a nice girl like your Carol be doing escorting a tie like that?'

They stood side by side in the waist of the boat watching the small rowboat coming towards them. Sitting in the stern was Sam Pettifer, velvet jacket wide, his bib-like tie flowing over one shoulder like a pennant in the breeze. He was aiming his Leica fitted with a 1:4 Tessar lens and taking shots of the
Mudlark
while Carol bent her supple shoulders to pulling on a pair of oars.

‘And she's rowing him, Rollo,' Murphy grunted. ‘That damned Sam Pettifer always makes his women slave for him. The man's a bloody Arab. Bedad, this is Dan Simpson's doing. That's why he wanted the address, so's he could have a story with pictures. Ain't he the conniving fox?'

‘You know this character in the pink shirt?' Rollo asked.

‘I don't know him,' Murphy was at
pains to explain. ‘I know of him. I've seen him in pubs. I've seen the way women ogle him and that's enough to make a saint spit.'

He spat over the boat's side in case Rollo should be in any doubt as to the implication of his words.

‘What is he, for God's sake?'

‘A damned free-lance. Probably makes a bomb out of porno pictures and works for kicks, just to keep the Vice Squad off his neck.'

Making due allowance for his companion's exaggeration, Rollo still didn't like this view of his fiancée rowing the other towards
Mudlark
. It made him cringe inside.

‘Here, take the boathook,' he said savagely to Murphy. ‘I'm liable to push it through his neck.'

‘And spoil that sweet shirt with all the blood, Rollo boy?' Murphy grinned with mock chiding. ‘Now if you had a bucket of hot tar and a sackful of feathers I could think of a good use for both.'

But he took the boathook.

Amazingly when Carol was helped
aboard by Sam Pettifer, using both hands, and Joe Murphy using one while he kept the rowboat bobbing close alongside with the other, Rollo's annoyance and resentment evaporated like steam under a hot sun, for Carol threw her arms around his neck, saying, ‘Thank God you're safe, darling!'

Before he could speak there was a click, followed by another from a little lower, and he turned to see the bearded man with the fancy gear stooping low and aiming his Leica.

‘Lovely, lovely,' Sam Pettifer crooned.

It didn't take long for the free-lance to relate what Dan Simpson had told him by way of instructions.

‘I'm under your orders, Murphy. Simpson said you'd tell me what to take, apart from background shots. Those he leaves to my discretion.' He grinned impudently at Carol. ‘I'm well known for that.'

For the next few minutes he was busy taking shots of the
Mudlark
, of the sacks piled on the bed-seats, of Rollo posed at the wheel, Murphy using the boathook,
and Carol pretending to brew tea with an empty kettle and stove without Calor gas. Tiring of the newcomer's performance, Rollo left the wheel and demanded, ‘How the hell did you find us?'

‘Simple, laddie,' beamed the bearded cameraman. ‘Carol spotted your car with a helmeted Robert on guard. Oh, yes, they're scouring the district for you. Probably have tracker dogs and their handlers beating the rushes. Make a good shot that,' he hurriedly inserted in parentheses and then continued. ‘We couldn't come down that private road without being stopped so we drove on to that marina to the south, and I borrowed a rowboat for the price of a few pints, ostensibly to take shots for a nature magazine — and I don't mean the kind you're thinking of, chummie.'

Sam Pettifer leered, but the effect was spoiled by his whiskers, and he shrugged.

‘Naturally, I took the oars at first.'

‘Like hell naturally,' Murphy sneered. ‘It's a wonder you didn't dislocate something.'

‘I did, my temper — when we wasted time reaching open water and saw only a couple of sailing craft. We turned back and just as well, for I'm no damned sailor and the tide was low and there was no point getting out too far to turn round, so you might say we came back on the tide.'

‘Did you think to bring a bottle of beer?' Murphy asked.

The other grinned at him.

‘Now, I knew there was something I'd forgotten, Murphy, besides collecting cash in advance. But then, I don't know what this is about anyway. I've enjoyed a pretty girl's company, but Carol can be terribly discreet on occasion — like this one, for instance — so you might say, in a sense, I'm all at sea.' His teeth showed through the beard. ‘I take it we are floating on seawater?' he added inquiringly.

‘Put your tongue over the side,' Murphy suggested. ‘You'll soon know.'

They were gathered in the cabin, Murphy with his back to the sliding door, which was half open, Carol seated,
and Rollo leaning against the bulkhead that concealed the small lavatory set amidships.

Sam Pettifer had just begun mockingly, ‘Ah, a rude Celt — ' when there was a heavy thump against the bow, the
Mudlark
rocked sufficiently to cause Rollo to fall over his fiancée and Murphy to slide down the bulk-head door that moved away from him and land on his bottom, and a voice shouted, ‘Anyone at home?'

Then heavy feet hit the deck overhead.

‘Bedad, it's Drury!' moaned Murphy. He scrambled to his feet, breathing hard. ‘Now leave this to me. We want a picture of what's inside one of those sacks. And I intend to get it.'

It took him a full quarter of an hour to explain what had happened, and how, and why, and when to a trio of policemen who heard him out in a silence that for the most part could have been described as glowering.

When he had finished Murphy said, ‘So we've really done your work for you, Super, wouldn't you say?' but
his wheedling fell on ears insensitive to blarney.

‘No, I damned well wouldn't,' growled Drury. ‘You've put us to a lot of trouble to find you and prevent your being a nuisance.'