Ruth Rendell - The Best Man To Die

‘You transport this kind of stuff, don’t you, Mr Bardsley?’ Burden asked. ‘I suppose Mr Hatton got it wholesale.’

‘I daresay,’ Bardsley said cagily.

'Irons, electric fires and so on, was that the load you lost when Mr Hatton’s lorries were hi-jacked?’ Bardsley nodded unhappily. ‘Doubtless you were insured?’

‘Not the second time, not in March when they knocked it off at Stamford. I had to stand the loss myself.’ Bardsley untied his apron and hung up the tea cloth that appropriately enough in this flat, was a large linen facsimile of a pound note. ‘Set me back, I can tell you. I reckon poor old Charlie was glad I hadn’t taken him into partnership. Mind you, they found the lorry both times. It wasn’t damaged, just the stuff gone, that’s all. That second time Charlie’d pulled into a lay-by and gone to sleep at the wheel. The villains didn’t harm him, thank God. Just tied him up and put a gag in his mouth.’

‘But he was injured on the previous occasion?’

‘Had a bit of concussion,’ Bardsley said. ‘There wasn’t any mark to show, bar a bit of a bruise.’

‘Ever heard of the name McCloy,’ Mr Bardsley?’

‘It doesn’t ring a bell,’ said Bardsley and Burden believed him. ‘Mind you,’ he added, ‘I’ve seen my own stuff flogged off in the market here. Known it was mine but couldn’t prove it. You know what them stallholders are, up to all the tricks.’ He scratched his head. ‘I was a bit too nosy that time and I haven’t seen the stall here since.’

‘If you do, Mr Bardsley, come straight to us. Don’t argue about it, come straight to us.’

‘O.K.’ said Bardsley, but without hope. Burden left him contemplating the printed tea cloth as if, were it possible to transmute it to paper, reduce its size and multiply it manifold, he would be a happy man.

‘First of all,’ said Wexford, ‘I’d like to know exactly how much there is in the account.’

The bank manager became pedantic and precise, ‘Exactly six hundred and nine pounds, four and seven-pence.’

‘I take it that’s a current account? He didn’t have anything on deposit, did he?’

‘Unfortunately, no. When Mr Hatton began paying large sums in I did attempt to persuade him to open one, the rate of interest being so desirable, you understand. Five per cent, as you doubtless know. But Mr Hatton wouldn’t. “I’m one for the ready, Mr Five Per Cent”, he said to me in his amusing way.’ The manager sighed. ‘A very likable, amusing man, poor Mr Hatton. One of the best.’

That’s a matter of opinion, Wexford thought. ‘What were these large sums?’

‘Really, it seems most unorthodox, but if you insist.’ A large ledger was opened and horn-rimmed glasses set on the manager’s nose. ‘Mr Hatton opened this account in November of last year,’ he began, ‘with the sum of one hundred pounds.’ Payment for the first lorry hi-jacking, Wexford thought, a nice little bit of compensation for his concussion. ‘Nothing was added to it until January when two separate payments of fifty pounds were made.’ Two more hi-jackings, set up by Hatton, who had kept the drivers occupied at pontoon in a car-men’s café? Wexford felt rather pleased. All the pieces in his puzzle were falling neatly into place. ‘Then in March, March 15th, a further hundred was paid in, but no more after that until May 22nd.’

The manager paused and Wexford made a mental note to find out whether any lorries had been hi-jacked on Hatton’s A.1 route during the penultimate week of May. Evidently Hatton got a hundred when he was personally involved, fifty when it was someone else to be knocked on the head and left in a ditch. Such a likable, amusing man!

‘How much?’ he said coldly.

The manager readjusted his glasses.

‘Er… let me see… Good heavens. No, it isn’t an error. Really, I wasn’t aware… As a matter of fact, Mr Hatton paid five hundred pounds into his current account on May 22nd.’

And what in God’s name, Wexford thought flabbergasted, did Hatton have in his power to do that was worth five hundred pounds? What could a lorry be carrying that its load was so valuable to a thief as to make Hatton’s a feasible reward? There would have to be several men involved in the racket, McCloy himself, two or three men to commandeer the lorry and incapacitate the driver as well as Hatton. McCloy would want the lion’s share of whatever the load realized and if Hatton, a mere decoy, got five hundred, the three henchmen would be worth at least five hundred apiece. Four times five and what for McCloy? A thousand, two thousand? That meant a cargo to the value of four or five thousand pounds. At least. For McCloy wouldn’t get any thing like the cargo’s true value in his underworld market.

Well, it should be easy enough to find out. A hi-jacking of that magnitude wouldn’t be likely to be quickly forgotten by the police in whose district it had occurred. He couldn’t understand why he didn’t recall it himself. It must have made front-page news. The last week but one in May, he repeated to himself. Presumably they’d never done anyone for the job. They certainly hadn’t done Hatton.

‘And after that?’ he said calmly.

‘Regular payments of fifty pounds a week over the past six weeks.’

Wexford checked an explosion of astonishment. ‘But no more large sums?’

‘No more large sums,’ said the bank manager.

It was obvious what had happened. Hatton had done his jobs for McCloy and the last one had been something spectacular. So spectacular – perhaps involving great injury or death. Why the hell couldn’t he remember it? That Hatton, finding some weak spot in McCloy’s armour, had commenced to blackmail him. A lump sum down on May 22nd and then fifty pounds a week.

It must have been nice while it lasted, Wexford reflected amorally. What was more exhilarating to a poor man than a sudden influx of unearned cash, springing from a seemingly limitless fertile source? How could such a one as Hatton restrain himself from making a splash? It came into Wexford’s mind that money metaphors often have to do with water, gushing, springing, and that business men talk of liquidity and cash flow.

He came to the Kingsbrook bridge and paused for a moment on the parapet, listening to the soft suck and chatter of the stream. Everlastingly the Kingsbrook rattled over its stones, hindered here and there by tree roots or a growth of weed, but ultimately unimpeded, always moving, glittering in the sun as if gold pieces gleamed beneath its ripples.

By the water’s edge Hatton had met his death. Because a source less abundant and less generous than this river had dried up?

‘There are only three McCloys in this district,’ Burden said on the following morning. ‘I’ve seen them all and they struck me as perfectly ordinary honest citizens. A couple in Pomfret are brothers. One’s a teacher at the comprehensive school and the other’s lab assistant. James McCloy, who lives here in town, runs a very small unsuccessful sort of decorating business.’

‘Small fry?’ said Wexford, still thinking of his fish and water metaphors.

‘Very small. No sign of any more money than is needed to keep the wolf from the door. Still, I’ve been through the trade directory and come up with something a bit more hopeful. There’s a firm in London, in Deptford, calling them selves McCloy & Son Ltd., and what d’you think their line of business is?’

‘Etonne-moi,’ said Wexford after the manner of Diaghilev to Cocteau. Burden looked at him suspiciously, so he said with amused impatience, ‘I don’t know, Mike, and I’m not in the mood for this suspense stuff.’

‘They spray the laminated surfaces on to small electrical equipment.’