Never Go Back (10 page)

‘Harry,’ said Chipchase in a hoarse whisper. ‘Christ Al-bloody-mighty, you nearly gave me a heart attack.’

‘Sorry about that, Barry. I know how it feels. I’ve had one or two nasty shocks myself recently.’

‘What the bloody hell are you doing here?’

‘I could ask you the same question.’

‘Will you keep your voice down, for God’s sake. I don’t want Shona knowing you’ve rumbled us.’

‘Hard to see how we can avoid that. Aren’t you going to show me in?’

‘No, I’m bloody not.’

‘We have to talk, Barry. Seriously.’

‘All right, all right.’ Chipchase considered the problem, then proposed a solution that, given the many hours they had spent together on licensed premises over the years, hardly counted as original. ‘There’s a pub round the corner. We can talk there.’

—«»—«»—«»—

Cameron’s Bar was a comfortless harbourside den dedicated to the consumption of strong lager, high-tar cigarettes and deep-fried snacks. Custom was slack, the atmosphere chill. Chipchase bought a couple of large Scotches, then steered Harry to a window table, as far as possible from eavesdropping bar-proppers. The ten years and a bit that had passed since their last encounter had left their mark on Harry’s old partner. He looked grey and weary. The luxuriant hair of his youth had grown thin and lank. His shoulders had acquired a despondent slump. Even his clothes were cheaper and shabbier than they would once have been. The hat and raincoat dated from happier, wealthier days, but were overdue for replacement. And the cracked leather of his shoes told its own sad story.

‘How did you find me?’ growled Chipchase, dispensing with a toast as he started on his Scotch.

‘Spotted Shona buying your favourite cigars.’

‘Bugger. It’s always your vices that trip you up in the end.’

‘How did you persuade her to take you in?’

‘She’s a sucker for a hard-luck story. Especially the kind that’s true. Thanks to all the scrapes her worthless junkie of a son’s got into, she’s quite sympathetic to, er… what you might call…’

‘Ex-cons?’

Chipchase scowled. ‘Go on. Rub salt into the wound. I suppose Plod were bound to slip that juicy little morsel your way. Chokey’s where you’d have predicted poor old Chipchase would end up eventually, anyway, isn’t it? Does Danger know about this?’

‘Everyone knows, as far as I can tell. It’s just that some knew sooner than others. I was one of the last.’

‘Sorry about that.’ An expression close to genuine regret flickered across Chipchase’s face. ‘Look, Harry, if I’d had any idea Plod were going to come up with the crazy notion that we’d become partners in crime just because one of our old Clean Sheet buddies does himself in and another dies in a car crash, I’d… well, I’d have…’

‘Yeah? What would you have done, Barry? I’d really like to know.’

‘I’d have warned you off, wouldn’t I? What do you take me for?’

‘You didn’t give me any warning when you and Jackie ran off to Spain and left me to face the music at Barnchase Motors.’

‘Christ, Harry, that was more than thirty years ago. Can’t we forgive and forget?’

‘I’d like to. But leopards don’t change their spots. As your recent foray into the nursing-home business clearly shows.’

‘That wasn’t my fault. It could have worked if I’d been given more time. I was badly let down.’

‘Not as badly as your investors. And the jury were convinced it was your fault.’

‘Bleeding-heart liberals, the lot of them. They call anything fraud these days. Let me tell you, Harry, we’d never have had an Industrial Revolution — we’d never have had an Empire — if we’d dragged all those thrusting entrepreneurs into court every time they cut the odd corner.’

Chipchase leaned back in his chair, took the telltale pack of Villiger’s cigars from his pocket and lit one, his self-esteem briefly boosted by the belief that he was somehow making common cause with legendary titans of Britain’s imperial past.

Harry allowed him one long, savoured puff, then asked, ‘How was prison?’

The next puff was more of a sigh — and a heartfelt one at that. ‘Bloody awful,’ he murmured. Then he added, ‘I can’t go back inside, Harry. I just can’t.’ And it was quite clearly the truest thing he had so far said.

‘That bad?’

‘I’m a free spirit. You know me. I can’t be… confined. I still catch the smell of the place in my nostrils. This godawful, sour reek. It’s just a memory, of course. A rotten bloody memory. But I can’t forget it.’ He summoned a grin. ‘The cigars help.’

‘Going to ground when the police want to speak to you isn’t the smartest way to avoid another spell inside, Barry. Surely you realize that.’

‘I didn’t go to ground to avoid them, did I?’

‘Who, then? Peter Askew and Neville Wiseman? Them and however many other of our old buddies you swindled in the nursing-home racket.’

‘I didn’t swindle them. It wasn’t a racket.’ Chipchase propped the cigar in the ashtray and slouched forward, elbows on the table. ‘OK. Yes, I did a runner to avoid a face-to-face with some of my aggrieved investors. My unjustifiably aggrieved investors. What else was I supposed to do?’

‘Why did you accept Danger’s invitation in the first place? You must have known they were likely to turn up.’

‘Why? Because I was down on my bloody uppers, Harry, that’s why. I’d never even have got the invitation otherwise. My half-brother lives in the house I grew up in. That’s where the MoD sent the—’

‘Hold on. Half-brother? You always said you were an only child.’

‘I thought I was. But it seems my mother had an illegitimate child before she married my father. Gave him up for adoption. He tracked her down about twenty years ago and weeviled his way into her affections. A real snake. An out-and-out bloody schemer. Managed to persuade her to leave the house and everything to him. I was… abroad at the time. Out of touch. Only heard my mother had died and he’d cheated me out of my inheritance when it was too late to do anything about it.’

‘Of course, if you’d been a more attentive—’

‘Don’t start, Harry. Just don’t start. OK? The point is I went to see him a month or so back, hoping I could talk him into buying me out of the half-share of the house I’m morally entitled to. No such luck. He’s a stone-hearted bastard. And I choose my words carefully. Anyway, he’d just received Danger’s letter. That’s all I got out of the visit and it wasn’t much. But I was desperate. Down to my last few rolls of the dice. So, I spun Danger the story that I’d sold my house and was about to quit these shores for good, but could stay on for the reunion if only I had somewhere to rest my weary bones in the meantime. Generous sod that he is, he asked me up here. Well, Sweet Gale Lodge is a cushy billet, as you know. I wasn’t complaining. I knew I’d have to do a vanishing act if Judd, Tancred and Wiseman came to the reunion, but what the hell? The state my finances are in, I don’t look much further ahead than—’

‘Just a minute. Judd, Tancred and Wiseman. They all invested in Chipchase Sheltered Holdings?’

‘Only Judd and Wiseman, actually. Tancred turned me down. But all three knew about it, so—’

‘Plus Peter Askew?’

‘No, no. Askew had nothing to do with it. I hadn’t a clue where he was, anyway, even if I’d wanted to try and sell the idea to him. I only went after those I knew I could find and who might have some spare cash I could separate them from. I’d seen Judd’s name on builders’ hoardings around London and I’d come across Wiseman during my brief but lucrative phase as middleman for a dealer in Middle Eastern antiquities. He put me onto Tancred, much good that it did me. I tried Maynard as well, but he turned out to be dead. As for Askew, no. Absolutely one hundred per cent not.’

‘That doesn’t make sense. The police found an ad for a meeting of your creditors in his pocket. That’s what pointed them towards…’ Harry’s words faltered as his thoughts raced ahead. ‘It was planted on him. Which means he was murdered. And Wiseman’s car was sabotaged. With you and me lined up to take the blame.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘The police think I hid some of the proceeds of the nursing-home scam for you. They think we knocked off Askew — and tried to knock off Wiseman — to stop them finding out about it. They’ve taken my fingerprints and a DNA sample. I suppose they’ve already got yours. They’re trying to tie us to two murders, Barry. And an attempted murder.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘Can Shona supply you with an alibi for Friday afternoon?’

‘No. She was out cleaning most of the day. Danger’s not her only client. I was lying low. Not much choice, really. I didn’t want to risk bumping into Danger after telling him I had to fly to Manchester. Benjy saw me. That’s the son. But I doubt he’d remember. Especially if he knew it’d help me if he did.’

‘And Saturday night, which is probably when Wiseman’s car was got at?’

‘Shona was out with her sister till late. I can’t prove I didn’t borrow her motor and drive to Kilveen under cover of darkness, if that’s what you mean.’

‘I suppose it is.’

‘So, where does that leave us?’

‘Well, it leaves me reporting to Police HQ at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, accompanied by a solicitor.’

‘For your sake, I hope he’s a good one.’

‘It’s a she, actually. And it’s our sake you should be concerned about, Barry. Yours and mine. Because you’ll be coming with me.’

In the end, Harry left Chipchase no choice in the matter. His hideout with Shona was going to be made known to the police next morning for the simple reason that Harry had no other way to prove they were not partners in crime. Words like treachery and blackmail were briefly bandied, but Chipchase soon ran out of bluster. He had the theoretical option of leaving Aberdeen before the police came looking for him, but he had nowhere to go and, as he admitted over his third double Scotch, he was too old to go on the run.

‘Don’t worry,’ Harry consoled him. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks.’

‘I don’t rightly see how it could be.’

‘I mean they have no evidence against us. They won’t find our fingerprints on Wiseman’s car for the simple reason that neither of us has been near it. And you can prove Askew wasn’t one of your investors. They’ll give us the third degree, but in the end they’ll have to face it. We didn’t do it. Danger will back us up. We’ll go and see him tonight. Together. Explain why you went into hiding. He’ll understand.’

‘Yeah. All too bloody well.’

‘It’ll be OK, Barry. Trust me.’

Chipchase looked at Harry with barely concealed astonishment. Trust was perhaps a strange concept to introduce at this late and unexpected stage of their long acquaintance, but ultimately it was all Harry had to offer.

‘Are we agreed, then?’

‘No.’ Chipchase stared lugubriously into his whisky. And gave a heavy sigh. ‘But I’ll do it anyway.’

—«»—«»—«»—

They caught the bus back into the centre, a recourse that moved Chipchase to cast a leery eye over their fellow passengers and confide to Harry: ‘I never thought I’d end up travelling on corporation omnibuses with the dregs and dross of humanity, you know. We used to sell sports cars, let me remind you. Leather-upholstered bloody limousines. And I’ve hobnobbed with the great and good on five continents. How’s it come down to this, I should like to know. Poor old Chipchase on public bloody transport.’

‘Between cars at the moment, are you, Barry?’

‘Between bloody everything. Since getting out of clink, I’ve gone from bad to worse. Every time I’ve hit bottom, it’s turned out there’s a basement under it I’ve yet to visit.’

‘What happened to that wealthy undertaker’s widow you were sizing up for matrimony when we last met?’

‘Some lounge lizard in New Orleans stole her from under my nose.’

‘Bad luck.’

‘Yeah. I’ve had more than my share of that over the past decade, Harry old cock, let me tell you.’

‘Sorry to hear that.’

‘It’s been a different story for you, though, hasn’t it? Marriage to some curvaceous Canadian blue stocking, so a little bird told me, with a young daughter to dandle on your arthritic knee.’

‘Who was this little bird?’

‘Jackie.’

‘Ah. I might have guessed.’

Jackie Fleetwood, their not so dizzy blonde secretary at Barnchase Motors, later Jackie Chipchase and later still Jackie Oliver, owned Jacaranda Styling, a hairdressing salon in Swindon where Harry’s mother had been given free perms in recent years for old times’ sake — and where, no doubt, news of Harry had occasionally been dispensed. ‘Oh yes,’ a voice sounded in his mind’s ear. ‘That boy of mine’s finally settled down, I’m glad to say.’

‘Why were you in touch with her, Barry? Or is that a stupid question? Offering her an investment opportunity, were you?’

‘She turned me down flat.’

‘Surprise, surprise.’

‘But not before telling me how your slice of life had landed butter side up again.’

‘For the record, Donna’s American. So’s Daisy. We just live in Canada. And my knees are working perfectly.’

‘I hope that’s not all that’s working perfectly. Must be quite a strain for an old fellow like you, keeping a young wife happy. How much younger is she, exactly?’

‘Why don’t we change the subject?’

‘Have you got one to offer that’ll take my mind off the fix we’re in?’

Harry considered the point for a few moments — to no avail.

Then Chipchase sighed. ‘I thought not,’ he said gloomily.

—«»—«»—«»—

They soon reverted to subjects very much related to the fix they were in. Upon arrival in the city centre, Chipchase insisted he needed another drink before facing Dangerfield. He took Harry into his current Aberdonian watering hole of choice, the Prince of Wales, and ordered a couple of pints. His debatable contention that it was Harry’s round again led back to a question he had so far dodged.

‘The police seem to think you squirrelled away some Chipchase Sheltered Holdings money they never found.’

‘Pure bloody fantasy. The receiver cleaned me out. There was nothing left. Not a bean.’

‘What makes them think there was, then?’

‘Their suspicious bloody natures, that’s what. If I had a nest egg somewhere, do you seriously suppose I’d be kipping in Shona’s attic?’

‘No, I suppose—’

‘If you ask me, your murder theory’s fantasy as well.’

‘How do you account for that notice about Chipchase Sheltered Holdings finding its way into Peter Askew’s pocket, then?’

‘I don’t. But unlike you, Harry old cock, I don’t feel the need to account for anything. I’ll leave that to the so-called professionals. Tell you what, though. You’d better hope I’m right and you’re wrong and that there isn’t someone systematically knocking off members of Operation Clean Sheet, just in case we’re next on the list.’

It had not occurred to Harry until then that the murder plot, if there was one, might not have run its course. It was a disquieting thought, which he pretended to dismiss but in truth could not. It niggled away at the back of his mind as they left the pub, walked down to the railway station and jumped into a cab.

—«»—«»—«»—

There were lights blazing at Sweet Gale Lodge, reassuring Harry that Dangerfield was back from his dinner with Lloyd’s widow and daughter. He paid off the taxi driver and led the way to the door, Chipchase trailing a few yards behind and clearly not relishing the encounter that was shortly to follow.

Harry took a few stabs at the bell and stepped back. ‘Come on, Barry. Best foot forward.’

‘I’m not good at apologies.’

‘Only because of lack of practice. Get up here.’

Chipchase joined him on the doorstep as he prodded the bell another few times and peered through the frosted porch window into the hall. There was no sign of movement.

‘Where is he?’

‘Asleep in front of the telly, like as not.’

‘It’s freezing out here.’

‘Welcome to Aberdeen.’

‘Surely he can hear the bell.’ Harry left his finger on the button for several seconds. But still there was no response.

‘Try this,’ said Chipchase.

Turning, Harry saw a key nestling in his palm. ‘Thank you.’

He opened the door, calling Dangerfield’s name as they advanced along the hall. The lounge to their left was filled with light. But the television was silent. And there was no recumbent figure on the sofa.

‘Danger? It’s Harry. I’ve—’

He saw the blood first, a spotlight shimmering on its dark-red surface. One further step into the lounge revealed the rest.

Dangerfield was sprawled face down on the parquet floor directly beneath the balustrade of the galleried landing. His head, round which the blood had pooled, was twisted, like a broken doll’s, his eyes wide, staring… and sightless.