'Tell them about the phone box. Don't expect much back, it's just background information. It may help them they're having near gang warfare between the taxi companies.'
Nigel turned to go back to his desk, then changed his mind. 'Mr.
Priest, er, do you think I ought to do anything about the chocolate rolls? Maybe buy a new box?'
I hated being called sir and Mr. Priest. It made me feel old. Worse, it made me feel my age. We were expected to stick to the formalities, though, when we were in the station. I rocked back in my chair and put one foot on the desk. If I'd been a hat man I would have pushed it to the back of my head with a forefinger. I smiled at him and told him he had been set up.
'The woman is Riley's sister,' I said. 'She's the manageress of the confectionery shop on the corner. The chocolate rolls weren't lost. I have every confidence that she put the money for them in the till.
Sometime this morning Sergeant Jenks will request an audience with you and give you a bollocking. Tell him to get stuffed, but politely, of course.'
When Nigel was summoned to Sergeant Jenks's office he was met by a tableau reminiscent of curtain-rise on the second act of one of Agatha Christie's lesser works. Jenks was standing with a small carton containing four chocolate rolls held in front of him. Riley was standing to attention with his nose up at a ridiculous angle.
'Come in, Newley,' said Jenks. 'Riley was just telling me about this lost property. Now then, Riley, what 'appened to the other two chocolate rolls?'
Riley stood stock-still and silent.
'I demand an answer, Constable Riley!' shouted Jenks.
'Constable Newley ate them both,' he blurted out.
'Is that so?' hissed Jenks, turning to Nigel.
It was cruel, it was vicious. Lifetime enmities could be created by this well-rehearsed scenario, but he would meet a lot worse on the streets.
'Yes sir!' said Nigel, without hesitation. 'I ate them both.' He couldn't resist adding, 'They were excellent.'
Jenks tried valiantly to rescue the situation. 'Then what do you suggest we do when somebody comes in to claim them?'
'Two possible approaches occur to me, sir. We can either nip out and buy a new packet, or alternatively deny all knowledge and tell them to piss off.'
Jenks paused for a second as the feeling of defeat registered, then said: 'In that case we may as well eat the rest. Have a chocolate roll.'
Meanwhile Helen Chatterton was having her initiation ceremony in the town mortuary, where she had been taken on the pretext of an identification. When a white-sheeted corpse sat up she collapsed in a gibbering heap. Halitosis that can move the dead is not to be sniffed at.
Eventually Nigel returned to the office and filled me in on the Cakebread saga. Cakebread was now a pillar of Oldfield society, after a shaky start involving a GBH and extortion charge. Now heavily into property and road haulage. Seen at all the posh charity dos. Married to an ex-beauty queen. His pride and joy, though, was his taxi firm, ABC Taxis. He had started out with them they were his ticket to legitimacy. In return, I told Nigel that as long as he was with me he was a detective. He didn't take orders from uniformed constables, no matter how senior, unless I okayed it. He was as green as a seasick tree frog, but he'd learn if the sadists didn't get to him first. He seemed grateful for the clarification.
Just before lunchtime I received a call from the DI at Oldfield. 'We decided to lean on Mr. Cakebread a little,' he told me, 'let him know we have long memories. He took great pleasure in telling us his exact whereabouts on Friday evening. He and his lady wife were slumming it on your side of the continental divide, at a charity bash in the Heckley Dining Club, as the personal guests of Chief Constable Ernest Hilditch and his delightful wife, Nora.'
'Bloody Nora!' I said.
'Shit!' said Nigel when I told him. After a while he asked: 'Why does a successful businessman like him prat about making stupid phone calls in the middle of the night? There's no sense to it.'
'He's a crook,' I answered, 'a bower boy who never grew up. He has a criminal mind. Can't get it out of his system. Hassan's are an irritation and he wants rid of them. We'll get him one day, as sure as God made little, nasty French apples.'
'What do we do with it?' he asked.
'Nothing. Just put it in a box at the back of your mind, marked For Future Reference. That's where I'm putting it.'
And that's where it stayed for the next three years.
Chapter Two
The Cortina is long gone but unlamented, replaced by one of General Motors' later models. Not one that Nigel would regard as flash, though. Financially I was on an even keel, but if I'd been able to turn the clock back to the days when I was broke, I would have done. My mother had died, and I had inherited the family house. I guess she had missed Dad more than I realised, and I hadn't spent as much time with her as I ought. More guilt to put on the not inconsiderable pile that was there already. Having two policemen in her life caused her more worry than I knew. Before I was married, when I came home in the middle of the night after a long stint on duty, I would hear the bed creak as she relaxed and finally dropped off to sleep.
My modest semi had been sold and I was now master of the house I had grown up in. No mortgage to pay, so I could afford a reasonable car.
I'd spent a small fortune on restoring the Jaguar that my father had bought to keep him busy during his retirement. He had died before he could finish it. It had always been his ambition to own a Jag. I like to think that just seeing it in his garage and working on it and sitting in the leather seats was the realisation of that ambition, even though he never did get to drive it. That was going to be my pleasure, in the near future, when the wheels came back from the specialist who was rebuilding them. It was a relief, though, to be out of the woods money- wise. A police officer with financial problems is open to suspicion. And temptation.
Meanwhile, I had just taken the workaday car into the garage for its first annual service. It was a pleasant spring Monday morning. I had worked most of the weekend and the sun was shining. I left the car at nine a.m.' as arranged, and started the leisurely stroll to the police station about a mile away. Sod 'em, I thought if anybody wanted me they would just have to wait.
Through the town centre I studied the faces on the businessmen and office girls hurrying to their posts. I studied the legs on the office girls, too. I occasionally cast an appraising glance at the fronts of their blouses. It was that time of year when they were beginning to discard their coats. The experience made me feel slightly faint. The old worry came back that I was turning into a dirty old man.
Fortunately I had discussed it with Gilbert Wood and he said it was perfectly natural he had always felt this way. I confessed that I had, too. It just seemed worse these days. Walking across town made a pleasant start to the week, even if it did upset my emotional equilibrium. Don't think I could stand it every day, though.
Going up the hill out of the centre I remembered I needed some postage stamps. The post office was in a parade of shops on the other side of the road. A wide grass verge graced the front of it, and three youths were riding round in circles on mountain bikes. There was something aimless, unnatural, about their restless motion. Why didn't they stop and talk, or ride with some purpose? What were they doing up at this ungodly hour? Any self- respecting layabout should still be in bed after watching snuff videos until five o' clock.
There was just one other customer in the shop: a small Chinese man. He kept me waiting quite a long time. The postmaster was counting a pile of money the Chinaman had brought in, ticking off the amounts against the entries in his paying-in book. There were neat bundles of fivers, tenners and twenties, plus bags of coins. We were talking about thousands rather than hundreds. When he left I followed him to the door and noted which car he got into. A shiny new BMW. He drove off and the youths on the bikes meandered off in the same direction. I went back to the counter and showed the postmaster my ID card.
'How often does he come in with money like that?' I asked him.
'Every morning, but on Mondays he has all the weekend's takings.'
