‘Tell that to some sailor on a horse!’ Munro laughed. ‘You’re all business, Denton — I’ve watched you. Don’t tell me you’ve got another corpse for me.’
‘Only a letter. Maybe a missing girl.’
Munro slapped the desk. ‘How do you do it? Twenty-four hours home and you’re making trouble for me! Look, we don’t do missing girls here. We investigate. We-’
‘She sent me a letter just after I left. Months ago.’
‘And she’s actually missing?’
‘She said somebody was trying to harm her.’
‘And she’s missing?’
‘I don’t know.’ Denton leaned forward to cut off Munro’s response. ‘The letter reached me kind of roundabout. I don’t want to make a lot out of it.’
‘Good. Don’t. Drop it.’
‘I thought you’d know how to find if anything bad had happened to her.’
Munro stared at him. His jaws bulged even more. He said, ‘Do you know what “gall” means?’
‘I thought maybe you thought you owed me a favour.’
Munro tipped his head back so he could study Denton down the length of his fleshy nose. He stuck his lips out. He pushed out his chin. ‘You got a name?’
‘Mary Thomason.’
‘What division?’
‘She didn’t give an address.’
Munro made it clear he thought that that was the last straw. He muttered that Denton was going to give him heart failure one day. He gulped down his tea and stamped off through the room to a bank of three telephones on the wall at the far end. When he came back, he seemed better humoured.
‘Two days,’ Munro said. ‘Hope you can wait two days.’
‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’
Munro began to fill a pipe. ‘Beggars, my arse! Well, you’re right I owe you one — wouldn’t be back here if not for you. I’ve put a query in train at the divisions, anything they have on Mary Thomason, same at the coroner’s. If she’s made a complaint or died, you’ll hear of it.’
‘I don’t remember you smoking.’
‘Self-defence in this place. Go home stinking of it, anyway; the wife complains. You don’t have a wife.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Thought there might be something with the lady whose ear you almost shot off. Mmm?’
‘Unlikely.’
‘Oh, well, take that line if you must. How’d you like prison?’
‘I’m taking up your time.’
‘Slack hour. The prison?’
So Denton gave him a sketch of life as a political prisoner in a country that was still squirming out of the mire of the Middle Ages. Munro filled out paperwork and grunted. When Denton was done, Munro said, ‘Been in prison before?’
‘I was a guard once.’
‘Dear heaven. Almost as bad.’ He pushed his papers aside and laid both forearms on the desk. ‘Ever think about joining the police again? I could use a partner with some brains.’
Denton smiled. He liked Munro. ‘I write books,’ he said.
‘A waste and a shame.’
‘Get Guillam.’
Munro made a face. George Guillam was a Detective Sergeant who had accepted a false confession in the crime that had led to Denton’s shooting the real criminal; Guillam and Denton had started off on the wrong foot and got worse. Munro said, ‘Georgie’s in a bit of a funk just now. Not saying much to me.’
‘The business last spring?’
‘Aye, that and me getting some credit. And there’s you.’
‘I didn’t strike on his box.’
‘You might say you weren’t his favourite fella.’
‘He still want to be a superintendent?’
‘In a funny kind of way, he is — acting like a super, anyway, but without the title. They kicked him sideways after the business with you. He’s “on leave” from CID and acting as super of a division of odds and sods — Domestic, Missing Persons, Juvenile, a lot of stuff. Georgie has pals upstairs, but he put his foot in the dog’s mess with that false confession he accepted. There’s some talk it was got with some physical persuasion, too. Georgie did what was right for him, not for the law, and he’s going to be in bad odour for a while. Serves him right, although I don’t say that to his face.’
‘Maybe I should have a word with him.’
‘Maybe you should and maybe you shouldn’t. Georgie don’t forgive easily.’ Munro dropped his voice to an almost inaudible rumble and leaned closer. ‘Georgie piles up grudges like bricks. Says all’s forgiven and then can’t resist the knife when you turn your back.’ He raised his voice to its normal boom. ‘Mind what I say.’ He put a finger next to his nose, an antiquated and strange gesture that made him seem like an actor playing Father Christmas. ‘Now I’ve got work to do.’
Denton found his way back to the lobby and was about to leave the building when he realized that postponing a meeting with Guillam was stupid. Denton didn’t mind being disliked, didn’t mind even being hated if the hater was of the right contemptible kind, but he had once wanted Guillam’s respect and he didn’t see that things had much changed. If Guillam had a bean up his nose, better to face him than skulk away.
The porter led him to where Guillam could be found. Denton climbed the stairs again, went up a second flight this time, followed the man into more barren corridors and stopped by a door that the porter held open. Inside were four men, each at a desk, electric lights burning overhead, a smell like burnt toast mingling with the tobacco and wet wool. All four looked up. Three swept their eyes over him and went back to their work. The fourth stared at him, frowned, got up as if he were in pain and came around the desk.
‘I thought we’d let bygones be bygones,’ Denton said. ‘I was in the building.’ He put out his hand.
‘What bygones are those?’ Guillam ignored the hand.
‘We had some differences a while back.’
‘News to me.’
‘I thought there might be some — feeling — over — you know.’
‘Can’t say I do. No idea what you’re getting at. I got work to do.’
And he turned his back and headed for his desk.
Denton tried to find his way out, got lost, felt the sting of Guillam’s rejection turn to rage. Where was the buoyant mood of the morning? He wanted to kick something. Somebody. A young constable finally had to lead him down to the lobby. Denton steamed through it and aimed himself at the door.
A bench stood next to the porter’s lodge. Several sorry specimens were sitting on the bench. Denton merely glanced at them, details in the landscape to be forgotten, until one detail caught his eye: a raised newspaper, folded almost to the size of a book, the newspaper lowered to show a pair of eyes. And then a hairless face, no red moustache, although his upper lip had a gleam that could have been gum arabic. The newspaper was raised again. On the bench, upside down, a black bowler.
‘The moustache could be false! But who’d be stupid enough to put on a red moustache if he was going to follow somebody, unless he wanted to call attention to himself?’
‘You’ve lost me.’ Atkins put on his deliberately stupid look.
‘Wear the thing, you’re the most memorable man on the street!’
‘Yes, but take it off, the most memorable thing about you is gone, you’re nobody!’
Denton had started in on it as soon as he had come through his front door. ‘He could have been following me all day. Probably was!’
‘Master of disguise, you mean? Popping in and out of beards and Inverness capes? Bit
‘You’re the one who said he was a rum one!’
