Peter Lovesey: Wobble to Death

Thackeray hurried over to Herriott, who now stood alone.

‘Have you seen Captain Chadwick, sir?’

‘Chadwick? Yes, I saw him late last night, before he went out.’

‘Out?’ repeated Thackeray. ‘Where to?’

‘Didn’t you hear? I thought you detectives knew every-thing that goes on here. He went off in a huff after Harvey failed to turn up to give him his massage last night.’

‘When was this?’

‘After one o’clock, when they all came off the track. There was no sign of Harvey, you see.’

‘But he was here!’ protested Thackeray. ‘We interviewed him not two hours before.’

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ said Herriott. ‘All I know is that he wasn’t about when Chadwick wanted him. The fellow came asking me if I’d seen Harvey. I told him I hadn’t. I could see he was needled all right. Long time since I heard such words from one of the gentry.’

‘Did he say where he was going?’ asked Thackeray, already dreading the prospect of explaining all this to his sergeant.

‘Yes. He was planning to spend the night in the Turkish bath at Islington Green-only ten minutes away. They say it’s a prime livener of the muscles.’

‘And he hasn’t been seen since?’ said Thackeray, more to himself than Herriott. ‘The race has been on an hour, and he hasn’t shown up!’

‘I shouldn’t concern yourself,’ Herriott advised. ‘He’ll be here any minute. He had a few miles in hand and he’s in far better shape than O’Flaherty. I shouldn’t wonder-why, there he is.’

There Chadwick unmistakably was, marching to his tent at the head of a gaggle of reporters. He wore an overcoat and muffler which he was removing even before he reached the tent. There was no sign of Harvey.

‘Where’s the trainer?’ Thackeray asked Herriott.

The promoter shrugged his shoulders.

‘No one’s seen him since last night. Hooked it, I should think, after you grilled him. Your sergeant has a way of put-ting the fear of Old Nick into a man.’

Thackeray needed no reminding of this. His own palms were sweating at the thought of Cribb’s return. Something had to be done. Harvey must be found.

He left Herriott and bore down rapidly on the police office, venting his fury on the duty constable.

‘You let Chadwick leave the Hall last night, and failed to report it to me! He’s been out all night, and only just got back. And Harvey, his trainer, has gone missing. I want him found, at once! Alert every bloody constable in the building. Get everywhere searched. I’m going to question Chadwick.’ He confronted the Captain as he was making his way to the starting line. The exchange was necessarily short.

‘I’ve got to find Mr Harvey, sir. Do you know his where-abouts?’

‘No.’

‘You haven’t seen him since last night?’

‘No. Out of my way, please.’

It was another hour before Harvey was found. The duty constable who brought the news to Thackeray was white-faced.

‘He’s in bad shape. They took him into a store-room by the main entrance and beat him about the head in there. When he fell they must have kicked his ribs for minutes on end.’

‘He’s too weak to talk, I suppose?’ Thackeray asked with-out much sympathy in his tone.

‘Hardly conscious at all. We’re moving him to the infir-mary as a matter of urgency. What bastards would have done this, do you think?’

‘That’s for you to find out,’ Thackeray told him. ‘My ser-geant won’t investigate, I can tell you. We’ve got our hands full enough. Harvey got what he asked for, anyway. You can’t go round nobbling the opposition and expect to get away with it.’

‘You think O’Flaherty’s cronies did him over?’

‘I’d start with them if there’s no other clues,’ suggested Thackeray. ‘But there’s other interests about-punters, book-ies and their mob. I’d try to get Harvey to talk if I was you. If he coughs anything useful to our inquiry you’ll let me know at once, or I’ll get you dismissed for incompetence.’

The news of the attack upon Harvey circulated quickly enough, but nobody except Chadwick seemed at all sur-prised or disturbed by the information. Rough tactics- boring and baulking, elbow-work and ankle-tapping-were accepted among these professionals, but Harvey’s trick offended their code. It was furtive and cowardly. He was a snake in the grass, and when you catch a snake you don’t toy with it.

Chadwick, deprived of his menial, had to adjust to new conditions-not easy in the final stages of a test of endurance. For the first time he appeared on the track unshaven. If he wanted water he would have to get it him-self from the communal tap by the huts. At dawn he had coped without using any, but at mid-day, when he usually stopped for lunch, he would face the fifty yard walk if he wanted refreshment. The position of his tent, for so long an advantage, had become a handicap.

But Chadwick’s visit to the Turkish bath had liberated his muscle-bound legs, and throughout the first two hours he was alternately running and walking, making up valuable yards on O’Flaherty, now reduced to a robot-like march. Although the Dublin Stag had won back nearly six miles during that first hour, and a close finish seemed in prospect, he looked a beaten man now.

The other sprightly performance on the track was Mostyn-Smith’s. He had taken on a positively aggressive gait, with a pronounced forward tilt from the hips, and arms working like piston-rods. His stride gained in speed rather than length, and he was still light of step. As he turned each time into the straight his spectacles flashed in a patch of light, demanding attention to his efforts. Behind them, no doubt, he was not seeing the amused spectators, but a news-paper advertisement for Dr Mostyn-Smith’s Remedy for all Disorders, tested in the Six-Day Endurance Contest at the Agricultural Hall by its Maker.

Billy Reid was ambling towards the end of his stint with the caustic old ped who had shared his hut. The veteran had modified his approach.

‘Take it nice and easy, young’un. No point in pushing it now. Save it up for the last hour or two. If you show you’re nippy on your pins tonight you’ll earn a shower of browns. They like a game fighter.’

Billy’s lacerated feet were dictating his pace. To ease up would be as painful as to accelerate. He smiled in vague appreciation of the advice.

‘There was a time-in the palmy days-when they’d have thrown sovereigns,’ the old man reminisced. ‘No chance of that tonight. They treat you according to pocket possibil-ities these days, and this ain’t the well-greased contingent. Now at Brompton, fifteen years back, they lined up their carriages and pairs along the trackside. They was the gentry then, that watched us-princes and peers. Old Deer-foot got himself invited to the University to dine with the Prince of Wales, did you know that? A bloody Red Indian sitting down with royalty.’

‘Don’t bother me who watches,’ said Reid, ‘long as they let me finish in me own way.’

‘They’ll do that, lad. No one’s going to stop a game boy-’ ‘They tried to stop the Irishman,’ said Reid.

‘O’Flaherty? Yes. The one that did that was paid out, though. Mind you play dumb when the bobbies come round. They’ll find there’s a lot of queer-sightedness among foot-racers. Nobody saw a bloody thing last night.’

IT WAS A harassing morning for Thackeray. Rarely had he felt so ineffectual. Cribb shows confidence in him, gives him a responsible job, and what happens? Chadwick, a prime suspect, walks out of the Hall, out of police surveillance, for four hours, and nobody stops him. Harvey, another key man in the case, is savagely attacked in the building, and nobody knows who is responsible.