She had been seduced.
“A message for you, Mr. Kincaid,” Tony called out cheerfully from the bar as Kincaid entered the Chequers. “And your room’s ready for you.” Tony seemed to do everything around the place, and all with the same unflagging good nature. Now he fished a message slip from beneath the bar and handed it to Kincaid.
“Jack Makepeace called?”
“You’ve just missed him by a few minutes. Use the phone in the lounge if you like.” Tony gestured toward the small sitting area opposite the bar.
Kincaid rang High Wycombe CID and shortly Makepeace came on the line. “We’ve run down a possible lead on your Kenneth Hicks, Superintendent. Rumor from some racing sources has it that he does his drinking in a pub in Henley called the Fox and Hounds. It’s on the far side of town, off the Reading Road.”
Kincaid had just come through Henley on his way from Reading, and would now have to turn right around and backtrack. He swore under his breath but didn’t criticize Makepeace for not contacting him by bleeper or car phone—it wasn’t worth the loss of good will. “Anything known about him?”
“No record to speak of—a few juvenile offenses. He’s a petty villain from the sound of it, not a serious one. Hand in the till here and there, that sort of thing.”
“Description?”
“Five foot eight or nine, nine stone, fairish hair, blue eyes. No available address. If you want to talk to him I guess you’ll have to do a spot of drinking at the Fox and Hounds.”
Kincaid sighed with resignation at the prospect. “Thanks, Sergeant.”
Unlike the pub where he’d lunched in Reading, the Fox and Hounds turned out to be every bit as dreary as he’d imagined. The sparse late afternoon activity centered around the snooker table in the back room, but Kincaid chose the public bar, seating himself at an inadequately wiped plastic-topped table with his back against the wall. Compared to the other customers, he felt conspicuously well groomed in jeans and a fisherman’s knit jersey. He sipped the foam from his pint of Brakspear’s bitter and settled back to wait.
He’d killed half the pint as slowly as he could when a man came in who fitted Kenneth Hicks’s general description. Kincaid watched as he leaned on the bar and said a few low words to the barman, then accepted a pint of lager. He wore expensive-looking clothes badly on his slight frame, and his narrow face had a pinched look that spoke of a malnourished childhood. Kincaid watched over the rim of his pint as the man glanced nervously around the bar, then took a seat at a table near the door.
“What if I do?” the man answered, shrinking back and holding his glass before his body like a shield.
Kincaid could see specks of dandruff mixed with the styling cream that darkened the fair hair. “If you’re Kenneth Hicks, you’re out of luck, because I want a word with you.”
“What if I am? Why should I talk to you?” His eyes shifted from one side of Kincaid’s body to the other, but Kincaid had sat between him and the door. The gray light from the front windows illuminated the imperfections of Hicks’s face—a patch of pale stubble missed, the dark spot of a shaving cut on his chin.
“Because I asked you nicely,” Kincaid said as he pulled his warrant card from his hip pocket and held it open in front of Hicks’s face. “Let me see some identification, if you don’t mind.”
A sheen of perspiration appeared on Hicks’s upper lip. “Don’t have to. Harassment, that’s what that is.”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s harassment at all,” Kincaid said softly, “but if you like we’ll call in the local lads and have our little chat in the Henley nick.”
For a moment he thought Hicks would bolt, and he balanced himself a little better on the stool, his muscles tensing. Then Hicks set his glass down on the plastic table with a thump and wordlessly handed Kincaid his driving license.
“A Clapham address?” Kincaid asked after he had examined it for a moment.
“It’s me mum’s,” Hicks said sullenly.
“But you stay here in Henley, don’t you?” Kincaid shook his head. “You really should keep these things current, you know. We like to know where to find you when we want you.” He pulled a notebook and pen from his pocket and slid them across the table. “Why don’t you write down your address for me before we forget. Make sure you get it right, now,” he added as Hicks reluctantly picked up the pen.
“What’s it to you?” Hicks asked as he scribbled a few lines on the paper and shoved it back.
Kincaid held his hand out for the pen. “Well, I have a vested interest in staying in touch with you. I’m looking into Connor Swann’s death, and I think you know a good deal about Connor Swann. It would be very odd if you didn’t, considering the amount of money he paid you every month.” Kincaid drank off another half-inch of his pint and smiled at Hicks, whose sallow skin had faded almost to green at the mention of Connor’s name.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hicks managed to squeak, and now Kincaid could smell his fear.
“Oh, I think you do. The way I heard it is that you do some unofficial collecting for a bookie here in town, and that Connor was in over his head—”
“Who told you that? If it was that little tart of his, I’ll fix her—”
“You’ll not touch Sharon Doyle.” Kincaid leaned forward, abandoning his amiable pretense. “And you’d better hope she’s not accident prone, because I’ll hold you responsible if she so much as breaks a little finger. Have you got that, sunshine?” He waited until Hicks nodded, then said, “Good. I knew you were a bright boy. Now unfortunately, Connor didn’t discuss his financial problems with Sharon, so you’re going to have to help me out. If Connor owed money to your boss, why did he pay you directly?”
Hicks took a long pull on his lager and fumbled in his jacket pocket until he found a crumpled packet of Benson & Hedges. He lit one with a book of matches bearing the pub’s name, and seemed to gather courage as he drew in the smoke. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, and you can’t—”
