Peter Lovesey - Wobble to Death

Thackeray, stiff after his exercise, took the vacant chair. Cribb sat on the bed, removing his boots.

‘How’s the time?’

There was a music hall joke that constables on the beat, used to dealing with drunks in dark streets, acquired hand-some watches early in their careers. Thackeray referred to his gold half-hunter.

‘Three o’clock near enough, Sarge.’

‘Good. There’s time to write the statement before you take this lot away for testing. I saw pen and ink in the police office. You can check that the man there’s awake.’ He raised his legs on to the bed and yawned. ‘Turn out the lamp before you go.’

Thackeray, wrestling with his private thoughts about a policeman’s lot, extinguished the flame. Before leaving, he addressed Cribb again.

‘In the morning, Sarge, when I’m back from the lab- who do we see next?’

‘Depends on the results. We have to find how he took the strychnine. Anyway, I must look up the man’s widow. I’ll do that before you get back.’

‘She’s been told?’

‘Oh yes. Told he’s dead. Thinks it was tetanus. Poor woman’s got a shock coming.’ He turned over in bed, yawn-ing again. ‘Wake me at four. I’ll have a coffee. For God’s sake watch what goes into it.’

At four on Wednesday morning the lights were turned up and a bell was rung. This reveille had been arranged by Sol Herriott, before leaving for ‘a decent eight hours’ in a hotel nearby. Already, in near-darkness at the Liverpool Road end, loyal friends and trainers were moving about the area of the huts, rousing their inhabitants. Their method of restoring consciousness had been well proved in other insti-tutions. The door was thrust open. Blankets were yanked from resisting hands. In hard cases the dripping cold sponge was employed. Soon, to a chorus of protesting obscenities, the huts themselves were illuminated. The ministering angels flitted among them, bearing away buckets that steamed in the night air, returning for milk from the com-munal churn, igniting the gas-rings, and all the time growl-ing deterrents to further sleep.

After clearing their tins of groats and broth, and submit-ting to painful reunions with their boots, the slit-eyed champions hobbled, stiff and shivering, towards the arena. Billy Reid led the parade; his brother made sure of that. Gaffney and Lawton, two silent northerners who had sur-vived so far, but without threatening the others, followed. Reid’s wily co-tenant, looking the freshest of the bunch, was just ahead of the final trio, Chalk, Williams and O’Flaherty, who were discussing tactics.

‘Chadwick wants nobblin’,’ Williams was suggesting, ‘and it wants to be when there ain’t no crowd about. ’E’s on our bloody track now. We’re soft as cheese if we don’t fix the bugger.’

‘You can’t,’ O’Flaherty told him. ‘There’s too many eyes on him all the time, mate. You’d be out of the race before you’d lifted your boot. That trainer of his never moves from the track. And there’s too many of the Fancy with a good book on Chadwick now that Darrell’s gone. They’d do bloody murder to you.’

‘Not if we got ’im now, before first light.’

‘No chance. I tell you the trainer sees everything. Now look at the crowd there already-dockers, lapmen, bloody Jacobson. We’d best keep it straight, I say. Warm it up for him. He might strain a sinew.’

The Half-breed spat contemptuously.

‘That bugger ain’t crackin’ unless we stop ’im.’

Chalk now intervened.

‘Yes, you fix ’im this mornin’ and what bloody ’appens? I’ll tell you. They call off the bloody show, and you and me get blistered dogs for nothing. Don’t be so soft. They’d never keep the race going another four days for us to scoop the bloody pool. If Chadwick goes before Saturday so do the rest of us.’

There was a convincing ring to this argument, and Williams lapsed into gloomy silence.

‘Good sleep, Feargus?’ Chalk airily continued.

‘Better than the first night. The smell of carbolic gets into me, though. Stops me breathing right.’

‘Did you see Double-barrel?’

‘Not at all. I don’t think he’d dare come near while I’m there. I’m going to pole-axe the little devil when I catch him. What sort of doctor is he, anyway? Tetanus, says he and gets every hut scrubbed so’s you can’t exercise your nos-trils decently. Then when it’s all done and stinking like the workhouse they tell us Darrell died of the poison. Doctor? I shouldn’t wonder if he dosed the man with strychnine himself. Look at him there now. Can you see that in frock-coat and spats?’

They watched Mostyn-Smith, red-faced and shaggy-bearded, complete another circuit in his eccentric style. It was indeed difficult to visualise him sitting dignified in a doctor’s gig, visiting the sick.

As the pedestrians reached the track they signalled to the lap-takers that they were ready. Erskine Chadwick left his tent suitably groomed (he was the one man in the race who was shaved each morning) and looking deceptively alert in freshly laundered kit. Only when he took up his starting stance automatically on the inner track was his tiredness betrayed. Raucous reminders from his fellow-travellers caused Harvey, who was also yawning, to re-route the Captain. By the time he had caught a lap-taker’s eye he was the last to get away.

Sergeant Cribb at about this time fell victim to his own efficiency. He had been awakened at four exactly by Thackeray, bearing a coffee made as he liked it, with a mere trace of milk and sugar. It was his plan to spend an hour in bed reviewing Monk’s statement and deciding how the investigation should proceed. But Thackeray returned with a crate from the police office and began noisily packing it with the contents of the food cupboard. When the job was completed, Cribb’s concentration was shattered. Resignedly, he reached for his boots.

‘Finished, then? Hump the stuff back to the office. We’ll get some breakfast if they serve it here. Restaurant’s near the office.’

‘I’ve got to get to the lab at Saville Street, Sarge.’

‘That’s easily done. I’ve to see the widow. Drop you off on the way.’

Cribb was obliged to wait in the hall of the Darrell res-idence at Finsbury Park. Mrs Darrell, the servant told him, would not be a few moments. Twelve minutes later (he cyn-ically tested her estimate on the watch) he was shown into the morning-room. Cora Darrell was seated in an upright armchair, sewing a black veil on to a hat. Formalities were exchanged. Cribb expressed his sympathy.

‘Sorry to disturb you, too. Visitors aren’t wanted at these times. However-’

As though she shared his wish to get to the point, Cora interrupted:

‘It’s that man Monk, isn’t it? He has been to you, has he? I thought he might, when he heard I was taking a lawyer’s advice. Well it makes no difference, no difference at all. We shall prepare a case and sue for negligence. It isn’t only the loss of my husband, tragic as that is. There is money-a great deal of money-involved. Except for Monk and his disgusting carelessness, we should have been richer by almost a thousand pounds. What does he hope to gain by speaking to you people? I shan’t say any-thing, you know.’

A comment crossed Cribb’s mind. In other circumstances he might have made it. Before the thought shifted, Cora began again.

‘It isn’t a police matter, anyway. The man failed in his duty as a trainer. Have you seen the newspapers? He allowed my Charles to run barefoot around that disgraceful track. That was inviting tetanus. How could Charles have realised the danger, after twenty-four hours of running? It was Monk’s job, and he failed. If I get nothing back in com-pensation I’ll still see that he never works as trainer again. Do they have licences, that can be taken away?’