Peter Robinson - Not Safe After Dark

Nobody paid us a second glance, which was all right by me. I bought us both a pint, and we took a quiet table by the empty fireplace. Fingers brought a packet of Woodbines out of his pocket and lit up. His smoke burned my lungs and caused me a minor coughing fit, but he didn’t seem concerned by it.

‘What makes you think you can help me?’ I asked him when I’d recovered.

‘I’ll bet you’re after Mad Maggie’s murderer, aren’t you?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Word gets around. The real police think it was gypsies, you know. They’ve got one of them in the cells right now. Found some silver candlesticks in his possession.’

‘How did they know whether Rose had any silver candlesticks?’

He curled his lip and looked at me as if I were stupid. ‘They don’t, but they don’t know that she didn’t, do they? All they need’s a confession, and he’s a brute in the interrogation room is that short-arse bastard.’

‘Who?’

‘Longbottom. It’s what we call him. Longbottom. Short-arse. Get it?’

‘I’m falling off my chair with laughter. Have you got anything interesting to tell me or haven’t you?’

‘I might have seen someone, mightn’t I?’

‘Seen someone? Who? Where?’

He rattled his empty glass on the table. ‘That’d be telling, wouldn’t it?’

I sighed, pushed back the disgust I felt rising like vomit in my craw and bought him another pint. He was smirking all over his ferret face when I got back.

‘Ta very much, Constable Bascombe. You’re a true gentleman, you are.’

The bugger was enjoying this. ‘Fingers,’ I said, ‘you don’t know how much your praise means to me. Now, to get back to what you were saying.’

‘It’s Michael. I told you. And none of your Micks or Mikes. My name’s Michael.’

‘Right, Michael. You know, I’m a patient man, but I’m beginning to feel just a wee bit let down here. I’m thinking that perhaps it might not be a bad idea for me to take you to Detective Sergeant Longbottom and see if he can’t persuade you to tell him what you know.’

Fingers jerked upright. ‘Hang on a minute. There’s no need for anything drastic like that. I’m just having my little bit of fun, that’s all. You wouldn’t deny a fellow his little bit of fun, would you?’

‘Heaven forbid,’ I muttered. ‘So now you’ve had your fun, Fin- er… Michael, perhaps we can get back to business?’

‘Right… well… theatrically speaking, of course, I might have been in Aston Place on the night you’re talking about.’

Theatrically ? Let it go, Frank. ‘Last Wednesday, during the air raid?’

‘Right. Well I might have been, just, you know, being a concerned citizen and all, going round checking up all the women and kids was in the shelters, like.’

‘And the old people. Don’t forget the old people.’

‘Especially the old people. Anyway, like I said, I just might have been passing down Aston Place during the air raid, seeing that everyone was all right, like, and I might just have seen someone coming out of Mad Maggie’s house.’

‘Did you?’

‘Well, it was dark, and that bloody smoke from the power station doesn’t make things any better. Like a real pea-souper, that is. Anyway, I might just have seen this figure, like, a quick glimpse.’

‘I understand. Any idea who it was?’

‘Not at first I hadn’t, but now I’ve an idea. I just hadn’t seen him for a long time.’

‘Where were you?’

‘Coming out of- Can’t have been more than two or three houses away. When I saw him he gave me a real fright, so I pressed myself back in the doorway, like, so he couldn’t see me.’

‘But you got a look at him?’

‘Not a good one. First thing I noticed, though, is he was wearing a uniform.’

‘What kind of uniform?’

‘I don’t know, do I? Soldier’s, I suppose.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Well, he moved off sort of sideways, like.’

‘Crabwise?’

‘Come again?’

‘Like a crab?’

‘If you say so, Constable Bascombe.’

Something about all this was beginning to make sense, but I wasn’t sure I liked the sense it made. ‘Did you notice anything else?’

‘I saw him go into a house across the street.’

‘Which one?’ I asked, half of me not wanting to know the answer.

‘The milkman’s,’ he said.

I didn’t want to, but I had to see this through. Tommy Markham . My own godson. All afternoon I thought about it, and I could see no way out of confronting Harry and Tommy. No matter how much thinking I did, I couldn’t come up with an explanation, and if Tommy had murdered Rose Faversham, I wanted to know why. He had certainly been acting oddly since he came back from the army hospital, but I had acted rather strangely myself after they released me from the hospital in Manchester in 1918. I knew better than to judge a man by the way he reacts to war.

I consoled myself with the fact that Tommy might not have killed Rose, that she was already dead when he went to see her, but I knew in my heart that didn’t make sense. Nobody just dropped in on Mad Maggie to see how she was doing, and the idea of two people going to see her in one night was absurd. No, I knew that the person Fingers had seen coming out of Rose’s house had to be her killer, and he swore that person was Tommy Markham.

Fingers could have been lying, but that didn’t make sense, either. For a start, he wasn’t that clever. He must also know that I would confront Tommy and that, one way or another, I’d find out the truth. No, if Fingers had killed Mad Maggie and wanted to escape blame, all he had to do was deny that he had been anywhere near her house and let the gypsy take the fall.

I steeled myself with a quick brandy, then I went around to Harry’s house just after eight o’clock. They were all listening to a variety programme on the Home Service, and someone was torturing ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’. As usual, Tommy was wearing his army uniform, even though he was on extended leave. He still looked ill, pale and thin. His mother, Polly, a stout, silent woman I had known ever since she was a little girl, offered to make tea and disappeared into the kitchen.

‘What brings you out at this time of night, then?’ Harry asked. ‘Want some company down at the Prince Albert?’

I shook my head. ‘Actually, it’s your Tommy I came to see.’

A shadow of fear crossed Harry’s face. ‘Tommy? Well, you’d better ask him yourself, then. Best of luck.’

Tommy hadn’t moved yet, but when I addressed him, he slowly turned to face me. There was a look of great disappointment in his eyes, as if he knew he had had something valuable in his grasp only to have it taken from him at the last minute. Harry turned off the radio.

‘Tommy,’ I said, speaking as gently as I could, ‘did you go to visit Mad Maggie last Wednesday night, the night of the air raid?’

Harry was staring at me, disbelief written all over his face. ‘For God’s sake, Frank!’ he began, but I waved him down.

‘Did you, Tommy? Did you visit Mad Maggie?’

Slowly, Tommy nodded.

‘You don’t have to say any more,’ Harry said, getting to his feet. He turned to me as if I were his betrayer. ‘I’ve considered you a good friend for many years, Frank, but you’re pushing me too far.’

Polly came back with the teapot and took in the scene at a glance. ‘What’s up? What’s going on?’

‘Sit down, Polly,’ I said. ‘I’m asking your Tommy a few questions, that’s all.’

Polly sat. Harry remained standing, fists clenched at his sides, then Tommy’s voice broke the deadlock. ‘It’s all right, Mum,’ he said to Polly. ‘I want to tell him. I want to get it off my chest.’