The Mammoth Book Of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits Part 20

"Have they seen you?"

"Naw. We came over a hill and saw them pushing it. So we turned off before they saw us and Gribby and me followed them on foot. Bleeding miles over the fields."

"Where's Gribby?"

"Keeping watch. Trouble is, they've all gone inside this house at the garage place."

"They'll have to come out sometime."

"Won't be easy, making it look like an accident."

"You could pay a boy to bung a stone at him."

"You joking?"

"With what I'm paying you, don't expect jokes as well. Next news I want to hear is the fight's called off. Understood."

"Understood."

In the parlour, Uncle Enoch was restive.

"I'm going to see how he's doing with the car. You stay here, Sonny. Rooster can have another slice of beef if he likes but no more bread and for heaven's sake don't let him even sniff those pickled onions."

There was a tangle of briars and bushes at the back of the garden, cl.u.s.tering around the small stone building that sheltered the earth closet. Two rowans formed an arch over the pathway between the earth closet and the house. They'd been planted in a time when people still believed they kept away witches, all of fifty years ago, by Davy Davitt's grandfather. Davy kept threatening to cut them down but never got round to it, so they formed a useful screen for Tod and Gribby. Tod came back from making his phone call and found his partner lurking in the bushes.

"They still inside?"

"The Rooster and the tall one are. His trainer's gone inside the forge place. What's that you got?"

Tod held out his hand to show him. It was a rusty horseshoe, worn thin and sharp on one side.

"What's that for then? Bring The Rooster good luck?"

"Some kind of luck."

Molly was in the kitchen, washing up. The Rooster was shifting around on his chair in the parlour. Because they'd started so early he'd missed his training run and his internal system was out of rhythm.

"Where's the little house then, Sonny boy?"

"Down the path, back of the house."

The Rooster went down the path, under the rowan arch and into the stone building, latching the door behind him. Tod, watching from the bushes, gauged exactly the height of The Rooster's left eyebrow against the rough stonework of the door frame. As soon as the latch clicked down he crept out and wedged the horsehoe into place between two blocks of stone, sharp side towards the privy, so that a man coming out couldn't help run into it. The loud sigh of satisfaction that The Rooster gave from the inside when his business was done was echoed more quietly by Tod in the bushes.

The Inspector stared out of the window at Constable Price's potato patch.

"So Tod and Gribby were in one car and the British middleweight champion just happened to be in the other," he said.

"He wasn't that at the time, sir. He didn't take the t.i.tle until the fight in London two days later. But yes, they broke down in the village."

"Going from The Rhondda to London?"

"Yes sir."

"And Tod and his pal were driving from Cardiff to London?"

"Yes sir."

"And the shortest and best way from either place doesn't go within miles of Tadley Gate, does it?"

"No sir."

"So what in the world were both of them doing there?"

"The statement from The Rooster's uncle says he thought a country route might be calming for him."

"And Tod was he doing it to calm his nerves as well?"

"No sir. I'd suggest that the presence of both cars in Tadley Gate was not a coincidence."

"So you've got that far too. Go on."

"We know Tod worked for a bookie. We know there was a great deal of money riding on the outcome of that fight. Wouldn't the bookie want to know how The Rooster was looking, the way they watch race-horses on the gallops?"

"So Tod and Gribby go all the way to South Wales and back to spy on him."

"It's one explanation, sir."

"And not a bad one". The inspector gave him a re-considering look. "You've got a brain, constable. If you solved this one, I'm sure you could expect promotion to somewhere quite a lot livelier than here."

Constable Price tried not to let his alarm show. He liked his garden, his hens, his pig. His wife and children were healthy in the country air. He'd been born in a city and now devoted quite a lot of his considerable intelligence to making sure he wasn't promoted back to one.

"So what goes wrong?" the inspector said. "a.s.sume Tod and Gribby are spying. The Rooster's people might be annoyed about it, but not annoyed enough to beat Tod over the head with an iron bar. And remember the Rooster's lot haven't a trace of a criminal record among the three of them, unless you count Sonny Nelson being fined for doing forty-two miles an hour in Llandaff."

"Yes sir."

"So we come to thieves falling out, then. Gribby's got a record even longer than Tod's and on the evidence you collected, he drove out of the village on his own and he was in a devil of a hurry to get his petrol tank filled."

The Rover was in the yard, with the repaired front axle bolted back in place. Sonny, Davy and Tick were carrying the rear axle from the forge, still warm from its welding. The Rooster had been forbidden to help so was back on the wall chatting to Molly who was sitting beside him but not getting anywhere with her because her attention was on Sonny. All of them were startled by the loud burping of a horn as a black Austin 20 drew up at the pump with a large man in a checked suit at the wheel. After a glance over his shoulder, Davy ignored him.

"He'll have to wait. Get this job seen to first."

They put the axle down by the Rover. Uncle Enoch watched, chest heaving as if the strain of waiting had been too much for him and his face had turned grey. Sonny looked concerned and put a rea.s.suring hand on his shoulder. The horn went on burping.

"Oh, serve him first and get him out of the way," Sonny said. "We can spare a few minutes."

Enoch looked at him doubtfully and Davy hesitated, caught between the allure of repair work and a customer for petrol. An idea struck him.

"Molly, you know how to work the pump. Go over and see to the gentleman."

She got up lightly from the wall and started crossing the yard, pa.s.sing so close to Sonny that he caught a whiff of the perfume she'd bought herself in Birmingham and not used till then. Following his impulse he leaned towards her and said so softly under the noise of the horn that none of the others even knew he'd spoken: "Delay him, long as you can." She gave him a gleaming glance, the slightest of nods and went on across the yard to the pump. The man in the check suit was out of the car by then with the petrol cap off, quivering with impatience. The sharp smell of his sweat mingled with petrol fumes. Molly fumbled with the hinged panel at the front of the pump. The Rooster seemed disposed to go across and help her but Sonny called to him sharply.

"Rooster, I think I left my wallet on the parlour table. Go and see, would you?"

The Rooster obligingly went back into the house. By then Davy and Tick were both under the Rover with spanners. Sonny took Enoch by the elbow and led him back into the shadows of forge.

"Get a move on please, miss," said the man with the Austin 20 to Molly. She'd managed to get the panel open but was staring at the pump mechanism inside as if she'd never seen it before. Eventually she remembered that the little wooden handle unfolded at right angles and began to wind it slowly anti-clockwise to draw up the petrol. The man wanted to do it for her but she wouldn't let him. When she'd got the first gallon pumped up she turned the handle slowly clockwise to let it down into the tank. The bronze indicator needle by the pump mechanism moved to figure one. She looked at the driver of the Austin.

"Is that it?"

"No, of course it's not. Fill her right up, for heaven's sake."

In other circ.u.mstances Gribby would have tried flirting with her because she was undeniably a good-looking girl. Now he could hardly restrain himself from hitting her. Slowly she pumped another gallon up and down, then another, his eyes on her, willing her to hurry. He looked away from her only once and then it was because some movement at the back of his car caught his attention. He swung round and there was Sonny standing there, his hand on the big black luggage trunk. The two men's eyes met. Sonny returned the stare for a few moments then shrugged and moved away, as if he'd been admiring the car. It took Molly the best part of ten minutes to get the indicator to the ten-gallon figure and by that time Gribby was nearly gibbering with anger. He shoved some money at her, not waiting for change, then accelerated out of the yard in a cloud of dust and exhaust. Tick shouted after him as he went, "Hey, your trunk's undone." One of the straps round it was unbuckled and flapping. But the man at the wheel can't have heard because he didn't stop. Forty five minutes later, with Sonny driving, the repaired Rover followed more sedately. Sonny made sure that n.o.body saw him touch Molly's hand or heard his whispered "Thank you."

The Rover turned on to the road past the common. "We'll stop at the phone kiosk," Sonny said. "Let them know we're on our way again."

He slowed down as they came alongside it, almost stopped then accelerated away so clumsily that he almost stalled the engine. From the back the Rooster said, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing wrong, Rooster. Just there's somebody using it already. We'll find another one further along."

Sonny and Enoch exchanged glances and from there on Sonny drove so smoothly that the Rooster slept most of the way to London.

"So Gribby drives off in a hurry," the inspector said. "Less than an hour later Rooster's lot notice a man in a telephone kiosk. An hour or more after that, Miss Davitt finds Tod dead and her father sends the apprentice to tell you."

"And I got there as soon as I could," Constable Price said. When Tick arrived, breathless on an old bicycle, he'd been at a farm on the far side of his own village, investigating a case of ferret stealing. His wife sent his son running for him and he cycled from there as fast as a man could go on a police bike to the telephone kiosk in Tadley Gate.

"And, judging by your report, you decided at once that whoever battered him over the head didn't do it in the kiosk?"

Constable Price regretted giving in to the temptation to be clever in his report, but couldn't go back on it now.

"There'd have been blood splashed all over the place, sir. As it was, he'd just bled down the back of his suit and onto the floor."

"Yes. So our a.s.sumption is that he managed to stagger to the phone kiosk from wherever Gribby hit him with the iron bar, probably intending to call for help."

"You think that's what happened, sir?"

"Speaks for itself. Then there was that trail of blood you noticed from the road to the kiosk, as if he'd dragged himself the last few yards. So they quarrel probably over the money they're getting paid for spying on the Rooster Gribby bashes Tod over the head, leaves him for dead and scuttles back to London as soon as he's got a full tank of petrol. Only Tod comes round and has just enough life left in him to make it as far as the phone kiosk but not enough to pick up the telephone."

Constable Price thought about it in his slow rural way. "So that's it then, sir?"

"Yes, but we're never going to pin it on Gribby unless you turn up a witness. So work on it and keep me informed."

The inspector went back to his car smaller and more battered than either the boxer's or the villain's and headed back thankfully for the town. Constable Price went to feed his hens. But he couldn't stop thinking about the girl watching a dead man in the phone kiosk.

When the Rover left her father's yard Molly was in a world she didn't recognize any more. Her father and Tick were tidying their tools away, pleased with their day, talking about the Rooster. The murmur of their voices, the small metallic clanks, the lingering petrol smell, should have been familiar but she felt as if she'd been put down in a foreign country. Probably a nice enough country if you got to know it, but nothing that had any connection with her. From habit, she went in the kitchen, put a saucepan of water on the stove for her father to wash, boiled a couple of eggs for his tea since their visitors had eaten everything else. But as soon as she'd finished washing up she let her feet take her towards the common and the telephone kiosk. It was the link between herself and Sonny. She didn't believe that the combined magic of her father's motor mania and the telephone kiosk would bring him here and let him go again as if nothing had happened. The squeeze of her hand surely meant he'd be back and how would he let her know that if not by telephone? Her heart gave a jolt when, from a distance, she saw a man in the kiosk. But it wasn't Sonny, nothing like him, just a smaller man in a darker suit. n.o.body she recognized, but on this day of wonders another stranger more or less made no difference. She sat on the steps of the war memorial, thinking about Sonny while the shadows of a summer afternoon grew long on the gra.s.s round her. Then cooling of the air made her realise that time had pa.s.sed and the stranger was still there in the phone kiosk. Curiosity, then increasing alarm, made her hurry towards it.

Once Tadley Gate knew that the body was a stranger's everybody got on with haymaking before the weather broke. When the news got out that the dead man had been a criminal from London some people in the village implied that it was the fault of the phone kiosk and the petrol pump, which would naturally attract people like that. Once the police had finished in the kiosk a woman who usually did the cleaning in chapel took it on herself to scrub and disinfect it and people went back to not using it quite normally. Davy Davitt and Tick were more interested in The Rooster's chances for the Empire and World t.i.tles. Constable Price sometimes discussed it with them. He'd taken to dropping in at the forge quite often these days. One day he had to go to the privy and noticed a rusty horsehoe with a sharp edge lying on the earth outside. It seemed a funny place for a horseshoe, but it was a farrier's after all. Some of the bushes had been pushed back as if something heavy had landed there not long ago, but then you got boys fighting all over the place. Constable Price tried hard, but he couldn't stop thinking. As for Molly, she strolled on the common within earshot of the telephone in the long evenings but apart from that got on with the cooking and accounts like any sensible girl. Then, one day when she was scrubbing a frying pan, two boys arrived running from the common with just enough breath between them to get out the news.

"Miss, you're wanted on the telephone."

She dropped the pan and ran to the kiosk with her ap.r.o.n still on.

"Miss Davitt?" Sonny's voice, distant and metallic but perfectly clear. He had to say it again before she managed to whisper a "yes" into the receiver. He apologized for not telephoning before. He'd had to stay in London with The Rooster and Uncle Enoch but would be driving himself home the next day and wondered if he might call in. "Yes," she said again. For her first telephone call it was hardly a big speaking part, but it seemed to be all that was needed.

When she got back to the yard, Constable Price was there, sitting on a wall in the sun. His bicycle was upside down and her father was doing something to its chain with pliers. He was looking at a magazine, open at an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the Austin 20. He stood up when he saw her.

"h.e.l.lo, Miss Davitt. Will you stay and talk to me?"

Molly didn't want to talk to anyone. She wanted to rush around shouting that Sonny had telephoned, was dropping in. But you couldn't, of course. She sat down on the wall and Constable Price sat back down beside her.

"Nice roomy cars, Austin 20s. s.p.a.ce for a good big trunk at the back."

She nodded, still not concentrating on what he was saying.

"There was a good big trunk on the one the man was driving, the one who filled up with petrol here. Remember? Tick noticed it wasn't properly fastened when the man drove out, only he was in too much of a hurry to stop."

She said nothing, but he felt something change in the air round her, as if it had suddenly gone brittle. "Stop now," he said to himself. But something was throbbing in his brain, like a motor engine with the brake on.

"I suppose n.o.body happened to open the trunk while he was getting his petrol?"

"You wouldn't." She said it to the sparrows pecking in the dust. "Not to put in petrol."

He noticed it wasn't an answer, felt the brake in his mind slipping.

"So if there'd been anything in the trunk, you couldn't have known?"

She shook her head, still looking down.

"Did he go anywhere near his trunk while you were putting in the petrol?"

She murmured, "No".

"Or did anybody else?"

She raised her head and looked at him. Such a look of desperation he'd only seen before in the eyes of a dog run over by a cart that he had to put out of its misery. He pulled on the mental brake, told his brain it couldn't go along that road. If he persisted, she'd break down, tell him something he couldn't ignore. She was a good girl, didn't deserve trouble. He stood up.

"Looks like your dad's finished with my bicycle."

He waved to her over his shoulder as he pedalled away.

Sonny came next day, in the Rover. He asked Davy if he'd be kind enough to have a look at the electrical starter, something not quite right about it. While he was working on it, Sonny and Molly strolled together in the sunshine on the common.

"A promise I made Uncle Enoch," he told her. "I'd never say a word to anybody, long as I lived, just one exception. If there was a girl I liked, I might have to tell her. If I could trust her, that is."

"You can trust me."

"I know. The Rooster matters to Enoch more than all the world. Anything threatening him, he goes mad. And it was my fault, partly. If I'd done what he told me and not let The Rooster out of my sight, they wouldn't have had their chance. When he came back to the parlour and I told him The Rooster was down at the little house on his own he rushed straight down there, just in time. A second later and The Rooster would have walked right into it. The wickedness of it."

"Yes."