Peter Lovesey - Murder on the Short List

“We were all on his payroll.”

“Do you know where he kept the money?”

“Various accounts under other names.”

“You have the details?”

“I know where to look for them. But Jimmy always collected the cash in person.”

Herbie folded his arms and grinned. “Then it looks as if you’re going to need my help.”

There was a long pause. Chloe’s eyes widened. “Would you?”

“No one else needs to know he’s gone,” Herbie said. “Not even Brady. Let him carry on thinking he murdered me. I’ll feel safer that way.”

“You’ll have to practise the signatures he used.”

“I can do that.”

“And if you’re going to carry this off, you’ll have to take over his life.”

“And all that goes with it,” Herbie said, stretching his limbs.

The police never succeeded in solving the murder of The Weasel, or the disappearance of Herbie Collins. But they earned some praise when the crime rate in West London dipped dramatically. The Calhoun gang seemed to have lost interest in armed robberies and protection rackets. The probation service said it spoke volumes for prison as a instrument of reform.

Herbie moved in with Chloe and found no difficulty adapting to the lifestyle of a millionaire ex-crook. On a Saturday he was often seen in the directors’ box at Chelsea and he’d pass the evenings in the Black Bess with his friends. The nights were always spent with Chloe and the last thing she would whisper to him before falling asleep was always, “You’re the best Suit.”

I laughed when I was told. I took it for a party joke. There was nothing athletic about him. People put on weight when they get older and they shrink a bit, but not a lot. Willy Plumridge was five-two in his shoes and the shape of a barrel. His waistline matched his height. If Sally, my hostess, had told me Willy sang at Covent Garden or swam the Channel, I’d have taken her word for it. Jumped for England ? I couldn’t see it.

“High jump?” I asked Sally with mock seriousness.

She shrugged and spread her hands. She didn’t follow me at all.

“They’re really big men,” I said. “You must have watched them. If you’re seven feet tall, there are two sports open to you — high-jumping and basketball.”

“Maybe it was the long jump.”

“Then you’re dealing in speed as well as size. They’re sprinters with long legs. Look at the length of his. And don’t mention triple jumping or the pole vault.”

“Why don’t you ask him which it was?”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“He’d think I was taking the piss.”

“Well,” she said. “All the time I’ve known him — and that’s ten years at least — people have been telling me he once jumped for England.”

“In the Olympics?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Bunjee-jumping, I could believe.”

“Is that an international sport?”

“Oh, come on!”

Sally said, “Why don’t I introduce you? Then maybe he’ll tell you himself.”

So I met Willy Plumridge, shook the hand of the man who jumped for England. I can’t say his grip impressed me. It was like handling chipolatas. He was friendly, though, and willing to talk. I didn’t ask him straight out. I came at it obliquely.

“Have we met before? I seem to know your face.”

“Don’t know yours, sport,” he said, “and my memory is good.”

“Could be from way back, like school, or college.”

“I doubt it, unless you were in Melbourne.”

“Melbourne, Australia?” My hopes soared. If he was an Aussie, I’d nailed the lie already.

“Yep. That’s where I did my schooling. My Dad worked for an Australian bank. The family moved there when I was nine years old.”

“You’re English?”

“Through and through.”

Not to be daunted, I tried another tack. “They like their sport in Australia.”

“And how,” he said.

“It’s all right if you’re athletic, but it wouldn’t do for me,” I said. “I was always last in the school cross-country.”

“If you were anything like me,” Willy said, “you stopped halfway round for a smoke. Speaking of which, do you have one on you? I left my pack in the car.”

I produced one for him.

“You’re a pal.”

“If I am,” I said, “I’m honoured.”

That first dialogue ended there because someone else needed to be introduced and we were separated. Willy waved goodbye with the fag between his fingers.

“Any clues?” Sally asked me.

“Nothing much. He grew up in Australia, but he’s English all right.”

She laughed. “That’s half of it, then. Next time, ask about the jumping.”

Willy Plumridge and his jumping interrupted my sleep that night. I woke after about an hour and couldn’t get him out of my mind. There had to be some sport that suited a stunted, barrel-like physique. I thought of ski-jumping, an event the English have never excelled at. Years ago there was all that fuss about Eddie the Eagle, that likeable character who tried the jump in Calgary and scored less than half the points of any other competitor. A man of Willy’s stature would surely have attracted some attention if he’d put on skis. The thought of Willy in skintight Lycra wasn’t nice. It was another hour before I got any sleep.

I knew I wouldn’t relax until I’d got the answer. I called Sally next morning. “Is it possible he did winter sports?”

“Who?”

“Willy Plumridge.”

“Are you still on about him? Why don’t you look him up if you’re so bothered about this?”

“Hey, that’s an idea.”

I went to the reference library and started on the sports section, checking the names of international athletes. No Willy Plumridge. I looked at winter sports. Nothing. I tried the internet without result.

“He’s a fraud. He’s got to be,” I told Sally when I phoned her that night. “I’ve checked every source.”

She said, “I thought you were going to look him up.”

“I did, in the library.”

“You great dummy. I meant look him up in person. He’s always in the Nag’s Head lunchtimes.”

“That figures,” I said with sarcasm. “The international athlete, knocking them back in the Nag’s Head every lunch-time.”

But I still turned up at the bar next day. Sally was right. Willy Plumridge was perched on a bar stool. I suppose it made him feel taller.

“Hi, Willy,” I said with as much good humour as I could raise. “We met at Sally’s party.”

“Sure,” he said, “and I bummed a fag off you. Have one of mine.”

“What are you drinking, then?”

The stool next to him was vacant. I stood him a vodka and tonic.

“Do you work locally?” I asked.

“Work?” he said with a wide grin. “I chucked that in a long while ago.”

He was under forty. Of course, professional sportsmen make their money early in life, but they usually go into coaching later, or management. He’d made a packet if he could spend the rest of his life on a bar stool.

I had an inspiration. I pictured him slimmed down and dressed in silks and a jockey cap. “Let me guess,” I said. “You were at the top of your profession. Private jet to get you around the country. Cheltenham, Newbury, Aintree.”

He laughed.

“Am I right?” I said. “Champion of the jumps?”

“Sorry to disappoint,” he said. “You couldn’t be more wrong. I wouldn’t go near a horse.”

Another theory went down the pan.

“Wouldn’t put money on one either,” he said. “I invest in certainties. That’s how I got to retire.”

“I wish I knew your secret,” I said, meaning so much more than he knew.