Линда Ла Плант - Framed

“We’re on our way,” he said, and switched off the phone.

He went to the sofa, circling around Lola, trying to make her look at him. She went on rolling bandages, looking moody. He sat down and put his arm around her.

“What’s the matter, my baby?”

“What’ll happen to him?” She looked up. “To Lawrence?”

“Ah...” Von Joel smiled broadly. “You care? My, my, my — you do, don’t you?” He laughed, hugging her. “Maybe there’s more to him than I thought.”

At first light on Thursday morning, two days after the bank robbery, Von Joel’s powerful sea yacht edged through the dispersing mist in Jersey harbor and bumped gently against the moorings. Minutes later a taxi drew up alongside. A stooped, elderly-looking man got out of the rear seat. He wore a wide-brimmed hat and cowboy-style boots, and he moved slowly with a stiff, ungainly walk. Lola, wearing a blond wig, got out of the other side of the cab. Charlotte had come up on deck. “This is what I call perfect timing!” she shouted. Lola ran to the boat and Charlotte came to meet her. They collided and hugged by the rail outside the saloon. The old man watched them for a moment and then, astonishingly, he began to sing and do a stiff-legged dance. “Bless your beautiful hide...” The voice was unmistakably Von Joel’s. The girls ran to him. He waddled forward and put his arms around them both as they kissed and hugged him.

Up close, even though the makeup and the false moustache were effective, it was possible to see that this was not an old man. They went back to the boat together, hugging and laughing, Von Joel still walking stiffly and with obvious difficulty.

As soon as they were in the saloon the girls began stripping off his clothes. When his shirt was opened dozens of stacks of bank notes showered out on the floor. Bandages on his arms and legs were unwound and more bundles of money fell out.

“Did you have any trouble with customs?” Charlotte said, pulling away the final bandage.

“Did I have any trouble with customs?” Von Joel whipped off the false moustache and started to laugh, shaking loose a final torrent of money. He turned to Lola. “Baby, did we have any trouble with customs?”

The roar of engine throttles drowned their laughter. The boat rocked, shuddered, and began easing out of the harbor. When it was twenty yards from the moorings there was a bang like a pistol shot, then Von Joel appeared on deck carrying a frothing botde of champagne. Standing in the stern, watching Jersey recede in their wake, he raised the bottle to his lips and drank deeply, letting the champagne overflow his mouth and trickle freely down his chin.

Larry was called before Commander Havergill at noon on Thursday. He sat stiffly in a chair opposite the Commander’s desk while his immediate professional future was explained to him.

“No criminal charges will be brought against you, Sergeant Jackson,” the Commander said. “You will remain on full pay and suspended from duty until you have been before the disciplinary board. If you wish to be represented, that is your prerogative. You will be informed of the date of the hearing in due course. That’s all. You may go.”

Four days later he was told the date of the hearing; it was to be in two weeks’ time, and he was advised that he should prepare an adequate defense, with the assistance of a lawyer if necessary, since the case against him, if it went unopposed, could be severely damaging to his career. Larry’s response was to go out and buy clothes, and have himself measured for more.

At eight o’clock on the morning of the hearing he stood before the mirror in the bedroom, immaculate in a gray checked wool suit and a white batiste shirt. The square edge of a white lawn handkerchief protruded an inch above the outer breast pocket of his jacket. Lying behind him, on the bed, were several other suits and a number of shirts. As he studied the line of his jacket Susan stood by the door watching, her arms folded.

“I don’t know if you were aware of it,” Larry said, “but Fred the Stitch makes clothes for the Royals too.” He flexed his shoulders. “Great fit. I’m just not sure about this tie.”

“I think you’re crazy,” Susan told him. “You know what they’ll all be saying.”

“They can say what they like.” He centered the knot of the tie, making a face as he tried to decide. “I never instigated that robbery. If they want to treat me like a leper it’s fine by me.” He glanced momentarily at Susan. “Frisby been feeding you all the info, has he?”

She didn’t respond to that. Since their domestic estrangement — no more intimacies, not even the superficial kind, and Larry sleeping every night in the spare room — she had avoided confrontations involving Frisby, or her infidelity in general. Larry believed she was hoping that matters between them would heal, if only the wounds were left alone for long enough.

“Why go in front of them like a tailor’s dummy?” she said, looking genuinely concerned. “If you didn’t get paid off, why look as if you did?”

“Looking is not the same as doing.” He took a step back from the mirror and appraised the total effect. “Maybe not this tie, huh?”

He turned. Susan had gone. For a single unguarded moment, his nervousness was visible.

The disciplinary board, made up principally of senior officers from St. John’s Row and Scotland Yard, convened in the conference room at St. John’s Row station. They sat around the large conference table, Commander Havergill occupying the senior position at one end. In neat piles along the table were thick files relating to the Myers case and associated matters. DCI McKinnes sat at one side of the table. He listened impassively as DI Shrapnel delivered his testimony about what happened at the moment the police car with Von Joel in the back was rammed by the Transit van. A dummy was handcuffed to Shrapnel and seated in the adjacent chair for purposes of demonstration.

“I saw Edward Myers try to get out. He went for the door, but it was over in a second. The truck came from this direction” — he pointed to the right — “straight at the car. Jackson put up his hands to protect himself, and Myers was drawn across his body. Like this.” Shrapnel demonstrated, drawing the dummy across him as he raised his arm. “That’s how he saved Jackson and nearly got himself killed.”

Commander Havergill looked at McKinnes. “Would you say that Sergeant Jackson felt in any way indebted to Myers?”

“I think he felt he saved his life,” McKinnes said. “Unintentionally, of course, he did.” The matter of Larry’s indebtedness to Myers seemed to figure importantly with the members of the board. They made notes and conferred among themselves in barely audible murmurs. The Commander waited until the discussion petered out before he carried the investigation forward. It was important to be fair, he had said at the outset, and he did not care how long it might take to get at the essential truth of the business.

Larry was not called to testify until half past three. By that time the conference room was crammed with officers — those on the board, and those already questioned and therefore permitted to remain. Among the faces watching him as he stood at the end of the table was Colin Frisby’s. Larry threw him a look that said complex things, none of them clear — or comforting — to Frisby.

The Commander conducted a line of questioning that took Larry right from the time he saw Von Joel in the speedboat in Marbella, up to the time of the robbery at the Millways Merchant Bank. The questions became sticky as Larry tried to explain his motives and movements prior to the robbery taking place.

“Sir, at every possible opportunity I tried in some way to leave clues for DCI McKinnes.”