But it did have its uses sometimes. Like now, for instance, he thought, as he opened the door of the telephone-box and stepped inside, pinning the slightly built middle-aged man in the ill-fitting suit against the coin box.
'Right now,' said Dalziel. 'Who the hell are you?'
Even as he spoke he recognized the man. On the night he had been assaulted by Louisa in the Lady Hamilton it was this fellow who had come into the bar, asking about the disturbance. He had placed him then as a journalist. Whatever he was, it was probably this brief encounter which had made him familiar enough to stick out when Dalziel had got out of Bonnie's car in the square. Dalziel did not believe in coincidence and when the same man had been hanging around near the police station and subsequently near the builders yard, it bore investigation.
'What the blazes are you doing?' demanded the man. 'Let me out at once, or I'll call the police.'
'I am the police,' said Dalziel. 'So you needn't call too loud. Why're you following me? Come on, quick as you can!'
'The police? So it's you. I didn't realize. My name's Spinx. Hold on.'
Spinx tried to reach into his top pocket but Dalziel never took chances and his great paw closed firmly on the man's wrist.
'What've you got there?'
'Just a card,' said Spinx, very frightened now.
Dalziel reached into the pocket, took out a business card and sighed. It was a sad business, this suspicion. But it might have been a razor.
Alfred Spinx said the card. Claims Department. Anchor Insurance.
'Come on, Alfred,' said Dalziel, stepping out of the box. 'Let's walk and talk.'
The open air seemed to make Spinx garrulous. He spoke in a strange not-quite-right accent and idiom as though he had learned English through a correspondence course with some minor public school in the thirties.
'I'm an insurance investigator,' he said. 'I used to be freelance, doing general work, you know. But the bottom's falling out of divorce now. Who needs evidence? Like a lot of dratted gypsies, break a pot and shout I divorce thee thrice, and that's it. I've thought seriously of emigrating, you know. By George, I have. To somewhere where they still have standards.'
'Flags, you mean?' said Dalziel wondering whether to take this sodding little twerp for real. 'Try Russia. They like flags there, so they tell me. But before you buy your ticket, why were you following me, Alfred?'
Spinx stopped and stared with nervous resolution at Dalziel.
'Excuse me, Mr… er…?''Dalziel. Superintendent.'
'Superintendent. I'd rather you didn't use my Christian name. I've studied a bit of criminology and I know it helps to establish a proper subordinate and familiar relationship with a suspect, but you know who I am now and I'd prefer to talk at the level of equals. We're colleagues in a sense after all, don't you know, you in the public, me in the private sector.'
The words came at a rush and Dalziel's first impulse was to laugh. But the man's attempt at dignity was not merely comic. In any case Dalziel wanted information and wanted it fast. He should be in the coffee shop now.
'I'm sorry, Mr Spinx. It is Mister? Good. But just a few questions if you'd be so kind. What precisely is the case you're working on at this moment.'
'The same as you, I imagine, Superintendent,' said Spinx. 'Mr Conrad Fielding's death.'
'Why should that interest you?'
'Any insurance company looks closely at any large claim on it, you must know that. We're probably even more suspicious than the police.' He spoke with pride.
'And there was the phone call,' prompted Dalziel.
'Yes. You'd know all about that, of course. Such things cannot be ignored, you understand.'
'Tell me about it again,' commanded Dalziel.
'Certainly. Wait a moment. Here we are. My book of words.'
He produced a plastic-covered notebook from his inside pocket, thumbed through it, his lips pattering together in time to the riffled pages, finally pursing in a reluctantly proffered kiss as he found his place.
'Here we are. It was a woman who phoned. Or so the oral evidence suggests. Hello.''
'What?' said Dalziel.
That's me,' explained Spinx. 'I've got the whole conversation. Hello! Then she said, You thinking of paying any insurance money on Conrad Fielding? Well, I wouldn't. Then I said, Hello! I was playing for time, you understand. Who's that speaking? She said, Never mind that. Just ask yourself what a man like that would be doing up a ladder in his condition. I said Hello! and she rang off.'
He shut the book and looked hopefully at Dalziel like a dog waiting to be patted. The fat man reached forward and plucked the book from his hands.
'Let's have a look,' he said opening it. 'Christ! What's this? Egyptian?'
'No,' said Spinx with pride, peering at the line of minute matchstick men which marched over the paper. 'My own shorthand code. A method I devised to preserve confidentiality, you understand.'
'It does that, right enough,' said Dalziel returning the book. 'So you told the police like a good citizen and did a bit of looking round yourself. That's what you were doing at the Lady Hamilton, was it? Keeping tabs on the family?'
'It was a last fling. I thought a little close observation might lead me to something,' admitted Spinx. 'It didn't and I'm having terrible trouble with my expenses. I only had an omelette, but the prices there are really shocking.'
'So you found nowt,' said Dalziel, impatiently glancing at his watch again. He was late. They were at the corner of the square in which the car was parked and he halted there, restraining Spinx with one brutish paw. 'The inquest said accident. So now you pay?'
'Well, we would have done,' said Spinx. 'Indeed the letter had been written and was ready for dispatch yesterday. Then I heard about you.'
'About me?' said Dalziel in surprise. He recalled
Spinx's reaction in the phone-box. So it's you he had said when Dalziel identified himself. Which must mean…
'She phoned again, yesterday afternoon.'
The book was opened once more.
'Hello /' said Spinx.
'Just the gist,' growled Dalziel. 'Forget the witty interchange.'
'She said that if we were thinking of paying the money, we ought to know that the police were still looking into the business. There was one actually staying in the house at present. That was all. So we decided to bide our time again, you understand.'
'Well bloody well,' said Dalziel. 'It was the same woman?'
'I believe so.'
'Right,' said Dalziel. 'Listen, Mr Spinx, I've got to go now but I may want to talk to you again.'
'If you ring the number on my card, they'll find me,' said Spinx. 'Before you go, Superintendent, without breaching professional ethics, can you give me any hint of how your investigations are going?'
Dalziel examined the eager face before him. He didn't like small men and he didn't like private investigation and he didn't like the assumption that he had anything in common with this pathetic shadow. On the other hand Spinx wouldn't believe the truth and there was no point in antagonizing him by the rude rejoinder which was ever ready to leap from his tongue.
'Can't say,' said Dalziel. 'You understand?'
'Yes, of course.'
'Good. Now we mustn't be seen together. Cheerio!'
He stepped smartly into the square and strode towards the baker's shop. As he approached Bonnie emerged from the doorway with Tillotson and Mavis close behind.
'Hello,' said Bonnie. 'We thought you must have got lost, though God knows how in this place!'
'No, I just went a bit farther than I thought,' said Dalziel. 'Got your shopping?'
'Yes. We're ready for off, if you don't mind missing your coffee.'
They moved towards the car.
