Maxim Jakubowski - The Best British Mysteries III

‘Bit of luck. Their car’s broken down.’

‘Have they seen you?’

‘Naw, we came over a hill and saw them pushing it. So we turned off before they saw us and Gribby and me followed them on foot. Bleeding miles over the fields.’

‘Where’s Gribby?’

‘Keeping watch. Trouble is, they’ve all gone inside this house at the garage place.’

‘They’ll have to come out sometime.’

‘Won’t be easy, making it look like an accident.’

‘You could pay a boy to bung a stone at him.’

‘You joking?’

‘With what I’m paying you, don’t expect jokes as well. Next news I want to hear is the fight’s called off. Understood.’

‘Understood.’

In the parlour, Uncle Enoch was restive.

‘I’m going to see how he’s doing with the car. You stay here, Sonny. Rooster can have another slice of beef if he likes but no more bread and for heaven’s sake don’t let him even sniff those pickled onions.’

There was a tangle of briars and bushes at the back of the garden, clustering around the small stone building that sheltered the earth closet. Two rowans formed an arch over the pathway between the earth closet and the house. They’d been planted in a time when people still believed they kept away witches, all of fifty years ago, by Davy Davitt’s grandfather. Davy kept threatening to cut them down but never got round to it, so they formed a useful screen for Tod and Gribby. Tod came back from making his phone call and found his partner lurking in the bushes.

‘They still inside?’

‘The Rooster and the tall one are. His trainer’s gone inside the forge place. What’s that you got?’

Tod held out his hand to show him. It was a rusty horseshoe, worn thin and sharp on one side.

‘What’s that for then? Bring the Rooster good luck?’

‘Some kind of luck.’

Molly was in the kitchen, washing up. The Rooster was shifting around on his chair in the parlour. Because they’d started so early he’d missed his training run and his internal system was out of rhythm.

‘Where’s the little house then, Sonny boy?’

‘Down the path, back of the house.’

The Rooster went down the path, under the rowan arch and into the stone building, latching the door behind him. Tod, watching from the bushes, gauged exactly the height of the Rooster’s left eyebrow against the rough stonework of the door frame. As soon as the latch clicked down he crept out and wedged the horseshoe into place between two blocks of stone, sharp side towards the privy, so that a man coming out couldn’t help but run into it. The loud sigh of satisfaction that the Rooster gave from the inside when his business was done was echoed more quietly by Tod in the bushes.

The inspector stared out of the window at Constable Price’s potato patch.

‘So Tod and Gribby were in one car and the British Middleweight champion just happened to be in the other,’ he said.

‘He wasn’t that at the time, sir. He didn’t take the title until the fight in London two days later. But yes, they broke down in the village.’

‘Going from the Rhondda to London?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And Tod and his pal were driving from Cardiff to London?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And the shortest and best way from either place doesn’t go within miles of Tadley Gate, does it?’

‘No, sir.’

‘So what in the world were both of them doing there?’

‘The statement from the Rooster’s uncle says he thought a country route might be calming for him.’

‘And Tod – was he doing it to calm his nerves as well?’

‘No, sir. I’d suggest that the presence of both cars in Tadley Gate was not a coincidence.’

‘So you’ve got that far too. Go on.’

‘We know Tod worked for a bookie. We know there was a great deal of money riding on the outcome of that fight. Wouldn’t the bookie want to know how the Rooster was looking, the way they watch racehorses on the gallops?’

‘So Tod and Gribby go all the way to south Wales and back to spy on him.’

‘It’s one explanation, sir.’

‘And not a bad one.’ The inspector gave him a reconsidering look. ‘You’ve got a brain, constable. If you solved this one, I’m sure you could expect promotion to somewhere quite a lot livelier than here.’

Constable Price tried not to let his alarm show. He liked his garden, his hens, his pig. His wife and children were healthy in the country air. He’d been born in a city and now devoted quite a lot of his considerable intelligence to making sure he wasn’t promoted back to one.

‘So what goes wrong?’ the inspector said. ‘Assume Tod and Gribby are spying. The Rooster’s people might be annoyed about it, but not annoyed enough to beat Tod over the head with an iron bar. And remember the Rooster’s lot haven’t a trace of a criminal record among the three of them, unless you count Sonny Nelson being fined for doing forty-two miles an hour in Llandaff.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So we come to thieves falling out, then. Gribby’s got a record even longer than Tod’s and on the evidence you collected, he drove out of the village on his own and he was in a devil of a hurry to get his petrol tank filled.’

The Rover was in the yard, with the repaired front axle bolted back in place. Sonny, Davy and Tick were carrying the rear axle from the forge, still warm from its welding. The Rooster had been forbidden to help so was back on the wall chatting to Molly who was sitting beside him but not getting anywhere with her because her attention was on Sonny. All of them were startled by the loud burping of a horn as a black Austin 20 drew up at the pump with a large man in a checked suit at the wheel. After a glance over his shoulder, Davy ignored him.

‘He’ll have to wait. Get this job seen to first.’

They put the axle down by the Rover. Uncle Enoch watched, chest heaving as if the strain of waiting had been too much for him and his face had turned grey. Sonny looked concerned and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. The horn went on burping.

‘Oh, serve him first and get him out of the way,’ Sonny said. ‘We can spare a few minutes.’

Enoch looked at him doubtfully and Davy hesitated, caught between the allure of repair work and a customer for petrol. An idea struck him.

‘Molly, you know how to work the pump. Go over and see to the gentleman.’

She got up lightly from the wall and started crossing the yard, passing so close to Sonny that he caught a whiff of the perfume she’d bought herself in Birmingham and not used till then. Following his impulse he leaned towards her and said so softly under the noise of the horn that none of the others even knew he’d spoken: ‘Delay him, long as you can.’ She gave him a gleaming glance, the slightest of nods and went on across the yard to the pump. The man in the check suit was out of the car by then with the petrol cap off, quivering with impatience. The sharp smell of his sweat mingled with petrol fumes. Molly fumbled with the hinged panel at the front of the pump. The Rooster seemed disposed to go across and help her but Sonny called to him sharply.

‘Rooster, I think I left my wallet on the parlour table. Go and see, would you?’

The Rooster obligingly went back into the house. By then Davy and Tick were both under the Rover with spanners. Sonny took Enoch by the elbow and led him back into the shadows of the forge.

‘Get a move on please, miss,’ said the man with the Austin 20 to Molly. She’d managed to get the panel open but was staring at the pump mechanism inside as if she’d never seen it before. Eventually she remembered that the little wooden handle unfolded at right angles and began to wind it slowly anticlockwise to draw up the petrol. The man wanted to do it for her but she wouldn’t let him. When she’d got the first gallon pumped up she turned the handle slowly clockwise to let it down into the tank. The bronze indicator needle by the pump mechanism moved to figure one. She looked at the driver of the Austin.