Spy Story

identity photo.

'So nothing,' I said, but he was unappeased. He pushed aside heaps of dead paperwork, reshuffling bits of it almost without noticing. The Bentley.' He found a sheet of paper and read from it. 'Two forty-five ack-emma?' He was that Mud of policeman. Not only ack-emma, but skull-close haircut, and shoes polished on the sole.

'That's it.'

'And you are acting…?'

'For the driver — Toliver.'

'Unconscious.'

'Yes.'

He read his papers carefully and looked up. 'All that…' he screwed up his face trying to think of a word. 'All that… spy-now-pay-later, credit cards…' he flicked a finger at my pocket where I'd put the card. 'That cuts no ice with me. Nor does it being a Bentley.' He waved a hand, to tell me he hadn't finished. 'I'll tell you as much as I'd tell the kid on the local rag. No more, no less.'

A policewoman came into the room. She brought two mugs of tepid tea. His mug had a coloured photo of the Queen, mine had Peter Rabbit. 'Thanks, Mary.' He shuffled the papers again, hiding behind them coyly, like a flirtatious Edwardian opera-goer. 'Container lorry in collision with green Bentley…' He stopped reading and looked up. 'There's no mystery story. Traffic signals, hydraulic brakes, car driving too close — it happens a dozen times a day, and night.'

'You are not making it a police job?'

He looked at his watch. 'You people really earn your money, don't you. It's only ten past eight. I thought coppers and burglars were the only people up this early.'

'Are you?'

His voice rose a fraction. 'A police job? How could we? The breathalyser was O.K., licence, insurance, hours on duty, all. O.K. The lorry was halted at the red light, the damage to the Bentley was the offside front wing. Front wing speaks for itself, doesn't it? If your boss Toliver sent you down here to save his no-claim bonus he's unlucky, forget it.'

'Toliver is unconscious.

That's right, I forgot. Well, the answer's still the same.' He read a little more from his script and broke it down into baby-talk for me. 'The constable took the names of the lorry drivers but you can tell your boss he's wasting his time. The court will always take the policemen's evidence in a case like this, and they'll say your boy was following too close. If there was a careless driving charge to be made, he'd get it.'

'This could be more serious than just a traffic accident,' I said.

He whistled softly — to feign amazement. 'Are you trying to tell us something, Mr Armstrong?' The way he said 'us', it meant the police forces of the Western world.

'I'm trying to ask you something.'

'And I'm not getting it. Yes, I'm very dense this early on a Thursday morning.'

'But this is Tuesday.'

'No, it's not, it's… ah, I thought, you'd turn out to be a comedian.'

'Sergeant, a ten-ton truck stopping hard in front of a car would be a good way of killing a man, wouldn't it?'

'It would be a risky way of killing a man, Mr Armstrong, for a number of reasons. Motive, for a start: a fatality like that attracts enough paperwork for the connection to be noticed. Hell, we get enough allegations from strangers in collision.' He grabbed his thumb to tell me that was his first reason. 'I won't mention the traffic lights again but I will remind you that your boss is not dead…'

'He's not my boss.'

'Whoever he is, he's not dead. That's what proves it wasn't some maniac trying to kill him. They must have put the brakes on carefully enough or he would have been buried somewhere inside the mesh of the lorry's differential. So don't tell me murder.'

Davis had mentioned the same flaw in Ferdy's allegation that I'd seen. There was no arguing it. Attempted murder was a possibility but a damned slim one. 'There was a Humber Estate just behind him.'

'Yes a whole procession of people driving up and down… Half the bloody world drives round London all night, didn't you know that? Beats me why they don't want to go home and get some sleep, but there they are every night. Anyway, all this lot arrived too late to see anything.'

'Did they?'

'What am I supposed to do, give them the water torture?'

'But if anything new turns up, you'll phone me?'

'O.K., Philip Marlowe, leave your name and phone number with the desk sergeant.'

'You are going to make it a traffic statistic, come what may, aren't you?' I said.

He looked through all his pockets for a cigarette but I failed to respond to my cue. Finally he had to walk across the room and get his own packet from his raincoat. He didn't offer them. He took one out and lit it carefully, held up his gold-plated Dunhill and snapped the top closed at arm's length. Then he sat down and almost smiled. 'We have a witness, that's why, Mr Armstrong. Fair enough? Can I get on with my work now?'

'What witness?'

'There was a lady in the car with Toliver. She signed a statement for us before the doctor gave her a sedative, It was an accident-no panic, no murder, just one of those traf Sc statistics you mentioned.'

'Who?'

He took out a little black book. 'Miss Sara Shaw, The Terrine du Chef — a French restaurant, sounds like, eh? You go and put your foot in her door but watch out that she doesn't send for the police.' He smiled. 'Put your foot in it but don't put your foot in it, if you see what I mean.'

I got to my feet and waved goodbye. 'You didn't finish your tea,' he said.

He'd pulled that damned witness out of Ids helmet and now he was very pleased with himself. I said, 'Can I have the names and addresses of the lorry drivers?'

'Now, you know I'm not supposed to do that,' but he turned the sheets of paper over to find it. Then he twisted the page round so that it faced my side of the desk and got up and walked away so that I could read it.

They were catching the boat,' he said from behind me. 'You wouldn't think it would pay a Polish meat-canning firm to send truck and drivers all the way here and return empty, but I suppose they know what they are doing.'

'Maybe it's a nationalized industry,' I said. It was a long Polish name with an address in London Wall.

'You didn't drink the tea,' he said again.

'I'm trying to give it up,' I said.

'Stick with the tea,' he advised. 'Give up playing copper.'

Chapter Eleven

Intelligence and espionage (in plus and minus categories) are programmed according to Section 9 of the stucen Programming Manual. Commanders are solely responsible for information, false or otherwise, collected outside game time, i.e. in off-duty hours.

RULES. ALL GAMES. STUDIES CENTRE. LONDON

I WAS half inclined to give the sedated Miss Shaw a miss, but it would only give Ferdy another excuse for a long whine. The Terrine du Chef was a converted shop in Marylebone. 'Restaurant Franchise' had been gilt-lettered across the old. shop window and the interior obscured with a large net curtain.

A menu was jammed into an illuminated holder in the doorway. It was handwritten, in the crabbed calligraphy that the English believe to be a hallmark of the French restaurateur. There was a 'Closed' sign behind