Hanging in her rear window was a sign that said ‘Baby on board’, and I could see the top of the child’s head over the seat. The poster might have been more effective pinned to her steering wheel.
I parked on the south promenade, about half a mile from the town centre. It was pay and display down one side, so I left the car on the other, with everybody else’s. Bridlington was much as I remembered it, but huge signs and a compound filled with earth-moving plant indicated that changes were coming in the off-season. Bringing the place into the twentieth century would be a good idea, before the rest of us hit the twenty-first. Unless, of course, that meant more fast food outlets, amusement arcades and soopa-loopa rides. On second thoughts, leave it as it is.
The place was busy. The boarding houses and hotels extend the season by offering ridiculously cheap rates, and senior citizens take advantage of them. They wandered along the prom in couples and little groups, raincoats buttoned against the breeze, waiting for the next mealtime or cup of tea to come around. I looked for a suitable pub and memorised its name. The gulls hovering over the harbour or perching on the masts of the fishing boats were enormous. These were proper seagulls.
Jimmy the Fish’s lock-up was in the harbour wall, along from the museum, the candyfloss stall and the fishing tackle shop. I knew it was his, because it said ‘Jimmy the Fish’ in big letters over the open front. It’s in the training.
He specialised in little packets of shellfish and dressed crabs, with white fish available from a cold cabinet at the back of the shop. The man himself was small and wiry, with a weatherbeaten face and tiny, twinkling eyes. A woman was behind him, her back to me, busy at some task that involved running water and a big knife.
I eat mussels occasionally, so I opted for a change. ‘Winkles, please,’ I said, after making an inspection of his wares.
He said, ‘Well blow me darn wiv a fevver duster, me old cock sparrer. One tennis racket of all that twinkles coming up. Get them darn yer hat an’ coat, mister. They’ll put rabbits on yer shirt an’ vest, no tin-lidding.’
No he didn’t. He said, ‘Certainly, sir. Help yourself to vinegar.’
I gave him a pound coin and the winkles a quick squirt of acetic acid. None of them cringed in agony, so they must have been dead. Vinegar apart, it was a bit like eating the contents of a puncture outfit. I threw the paper bag into his bin and wiped my hands and mouth on serviettes from the dispenser he had thoughtfully provided. Mrs McAnally was hacking at something with a hatchet. McAnally served a tall elderly gent with ‘his usual’, and when we were as alone as we’d ever be I flashed my ID at him and said, in a low voice, ‘I want a word.’
‘Jesus Christ, I knew it!’ he hissed and dropped the tray of crab sticks he was fitting into his display.
I leant across his counter. ‘The Marquis,’ I told him, ‘in twenty minutes.’
His eyes had lost their sparkle. ‘Right,’ he croaked, with all the resignation of a man whose past had caught up with him.
I was halfway down my orange juice and soda before the taste of vinegar went away. The Marquis is the type of pub I prefer to avoid: all pool tables, slot machines and loud music. The only consolation was that they were playing Hendrix’s ‘Hey Joe’. There was a small snug, just inside the front door, so I settled in a corner and waited.
I didn’t recognise him in his cap, without the white coat. He poked his head furtively round the corner, then limped over and sat opposite me. I’d forgotten about his leg.
‘Jimmy McAnally, I presume?’ I said.
‘Yeah, that’s right.’ His hands were shaking.
‘DI Charlie Priest, East Pennine CID. Want a drink?’
‘No fanks. I’ve told the wife I’m putting a bet on. Best not go back smelling o’ beer, know what I mean?’
‘Fair enough.’ I decided to go for the jugular, pretend we knew he’d liaised between Childs and K. Tom Davis. If I’d asked him and he denied it, I was wasting my time. If we were wrong, then we’d lost nothing. I said, ‘I’ve been doing some work on the Hartog-Praat bullion robbery, in conjunction with the National Criminal Intelligence Service. They have a file on you thicker than prison gravy.’ Might as well remind him of what he was missing. ‘They tell me that you carried messages between Cliff Childs and a man in Yorkshire called K. Tom Davis. I want you, Jimmy, to tell me all about those messages.’
I could almost see the cogs going round. He’d come prepared to deny everything, but I’d jumped in first with half the story. ‘I d-don’t know no T-Tom Davis,’ he blustered.
‘You mean you don’t know the name of the man you carried the messages to? One about eighteen months ago, two more not long after Childs was sentenced? I’ve got the dates, if that would help.’
‘No, yeah. I mean, I don’t know.’
‘You’ve got me confused, there, Jimmy. Are you saying you didn’t know Davis’s name?’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘So how did you contact him?’
‘I had a telephone number. I’d to ring him, local call, and we met at a pub. That’s all’
‘Can you remember the number?’
‘Nah. It was a long time ago.’
‘So what did he look like?’
He looked around for inspiration. ‘Big feller. Prosperous, if you know what I mean. Bit similar to the landlord here.’
‘That sounds like Davis,’ I admitted. He was carrying a rolled-up copy of one of the tabloids, racing page outermost.
‘Read the headlines, Jimmy?’ I asked, nodding towards it.
‘Headlines?’ he repeated unfolding the paper. There was a photo of Lisa there, in a bikini and a professional pose. ‘Yeah. What about it?’
‘That’s Davis’s daughter-in-law,’ I said. ‘She was found with her throat cut. Some of us are wondering if it was a warning to him. We reckon he’s looking after the Hartog-Praat gold for Cliff Childs. Maybe he’s been dipping his fingers in. What do you think?’
The paper was shaking as he read it, amplifying his nervousness. ‘Mother o’ Mary,’ he whispered, turning to page two for the rest of the story. ‘I don’t fink noffing, Mr Priest,’ he replied, clumsily refolding the pages.
‘Well, I do, Jimmy. I think plenty. First of all, I think you’d better tell me the contents of the messages you carried between Childs and Davis. So let’s have it.’
He stared at the Formica table top for a while, then said, ‘I’d like that drink now, if you don’t mind.’
He was playing for time, trying to calculate how much would satisfy me, how much he could keep concealed.
‘Uh uh,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Later. You’ll enjoy it a lot more.’ I drained my glass and pushed it to one side, waiting.
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ he conceded. ‘I was inside, got a message from Childs to come up to Yorkshire as soon as I was free and ring this number. Somewhere near Wakefield, he said it was. Told me there might be a bob or two in it for me, one day. So I did.’
‘And what was the message?’
‘Noffing much. Davis had to ’ide the stuff somewhere-’
The stuff?’ I interrupted.
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘Did he say what it was?’
‘No. Just the stuff.’
‘But you had a good idea what he meant?’
‘I knew what ’e was inside for, Mr Priest.’
‘OK. Davis hides the stuff. Then what?’
‘He’d to give me half of the ’iding place. Childs was scared that Davis might snuff it while he was inside, but he didn’t want anybody else to know where it was. I took ’im half of it, someone else took ’im the other half.’
‘Who was the someone else, Jimmy?’
‘Lord ’elp me, Mr Priest, I don’t know.’
So that was it. McAnally only knew half of the story, so there was no harm in stringing me along. And the other guardian of the holy grail — Morgan — was already safely dead. McAnally had nothing to lose. I picked up my glass, realised it was still empty and pushed it away again. ‘I’m not interested in you, Jimmy,’ I told him. ‘I knew
