Ian Slater - Rage of Battle

The war had also helped Logan, pulling him, like so many others, out of early retirement to replace the younger men who’d been conscripted. He enjoyed the chance to shift his attention away from himself for a change so that now, as he walked toward the tree-wreathed cul-de-sac on the outskirts of Oxshott, there was more vigor in his step, and the smell of his pipe tobacco had seldom seemed so pleasant. He could see the two uniformed constables he had requested from the division over in Leatherhead waiting in an unmarked car parked beneath a large bare sugar maple on the road leading to the cul-de-sac of seven two-story houses. The Wilkins house was the one farthest away in the cul-de-sac, backed by a small meadow and then a dense line of oaks.

“Very quiet,” said Police Constable Perkins, one of the two policemen in the unmarked car.

“Aye,” replied his partner, PG Melrose, who was on the passenger side and who would rather have been home up north in the dales and the rugged wild country of Yorkshire, investigating livestock rustling by black marketeers, than down here in the lush, genteel green belt of stockbrokers and professionals. He didn’t mind the natural surroundings so much, but the upper middle class were a bit too snooty for his liking. And Inspector Logan, whom Melrose now spotted in the rearview mirror, was an unknown quantity. “A little rusty,” they’d said at the station. “Don’t know why he didn’t come in the car,” said Melrose.

“Likes walking,” replied Perkins, without taking his eyes off the Wilkins house. “I hope the other two are behind the house.”

“They will be,” Melrose assured him, “but I’m just thinking that the bastard might get away on us because Logan likes his Sunday morning stroll. See ‘im coming a bloody mile, I could.”

“No,” said Perkins. “Where’s Wilkins to go then? Out the window? Last thing you’d want to do if you were him is try to scarper. If he runs, he’ll only confirm our suspicions. No, mate, I think we’ll find Mr. Wilkins noshing tea and toast, reading the Telegraph.”

The Yorkshireman made a face. “ ‘Twon’t be the Telegraph. More likely be the Sunday bloody Observer.”

“No,” said PC Perkins with an air of unassailable self-confidence in these matters. “If you were a Commie spy, what would you be reading then? The very opposite, that’s what. It’ll be the Telegraph.”

“You wouldn’t like to put a wager on that, would you?” challenged PC Melrose.

“All right then. Ten p.”

“Oh,” grinned the Yorkshireman in mock alarm, “now, don’t you go mad, lad. Come on, then — let’s put a quid on it. And another quid Logan calls me bloody Melroad. He never did get it right.” The truth was that Melrose thought Logan was over the hill; Oxshott should have waited until the storm-downed lines and battered microwave repeater antennae had been repaired and called London to send someone down.

“Not enough time, was there?” countered Perkins.

“Cmon,” said Melrose. “You put a quid on the Telegraph, I’ll put one on Logan calling me Melroad.”

Perkins was about to answer, but now Inspector Logan had drawn level with the car, ruddy face, early sixties, puffing clouds of Erinmore Navy Cut into the car. “All quiet, boys?”

“Yes, sir,” said Perkins. “Milkman’s been and gone apparently.” He nodded toward the house about two hundred yards away. “Bottles are still there.”

Logan glanced at his watch. It was just after seven. “You sure Wilkins is home?”

“No, sir. But it being Sunday and all. Night shift said they saw the TV on late last night — till around eleven — then bed.”

“How do they know that?” said Logan. “Blackout curtains would have been drawn.”

“Aye,” said Melrose, in his dry Yorkshire accent. “Apparently they were, but our lads could still pick up the TV winking on and off. At least it was a bluish light. They assumed it was the TV. Didn’t want to complain about not having the blackout curtains drawn properly. Tip him off.”

Logan grunted his assent. “You have the printout from Motor Vehicles?”

Melrose, on the passenger side, tore off the white slip and handed it to Perkins, who handed it out the window to the inspector. “Speeding ticket on the Ml a few months ago,” said Perkins. “Apart from that — a perfect record.”

“Phone tap?” asked Logan, his pipe gripped between worn-down teeth, the air rattling around the pipe’s dottle. Melrose punched in the tap code to see if anything had come through since the last computer check-in. The small laser printer slurred. Melrose glanced at it before passing it to Logan. The inspector squinted at it, patting his pocket. To Melrose it looked as if Logan couldn’t decipher the printout.

“One call in on the last shift,” Melrose told Logan. “After the lines were fixed. A trunk call — reverse charges.”

“Hmm—” murmured the inspector, the gurgling sound of the spittle in the pipe growing louder. He was frowning, trying to remember what part of the south coast was designated by area code number 703.

“Southampton,” Melrose told him.

“I know that, laddie. Where in Southampton?”

“The docks, sir.”

“Digest?”

Melrose took the clipboard from his passenger door latch. “Man called Ron — left a message on the answering machine telling Wilkins a convoy had just come in — a container freighter badly bashed in on the starboard side. Lots of cargo lost.” Here Melrose had difficulty himself interpreting the transcript. “Sounded like Hum-V — anyway, Hum-V spare parts.” It was typical, thought Melrose, the kind of unknown detail that gets even the most ordinary investigation off to a confused start. Never like it was in the cinema.

“What’s a Hum-V?” asked Logan.

Melrose looked across at Perkins for help. Perkins shrugged.

“Well, find out,” said Logan impatiently, taking what looked like a spiked thimble attached to a turnkey from his jacket pocket. He pushed it hard into the briar pipe, turning it, making a crunching-bone sound while PC Melrose called in, asking about a Hum-V. No one at the station seemed to know.

“Probably a Yank fighter,” said Perkins. “Sounds American, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s Hummer, sir.” Logan had his pipe cleaned now and was scooping the bowl deep into the tobacco pouch, the dark Navy Cut smelling like figs. “Well, we can sort that out later. Probably not important. Any calls out?”

“One,” answered Melrose, this time reading from his notebook. “Mrs. Wilkins called the school hospital to ask about the boy. Didn’t want to talk to her.”

“Who?” asked Logan. “The boy or the headmaster?”

“The boy, sir.”

The inspector knew that by now, if Wilkins was watching from the house, he’d be worried, which is just what he intended. Let Wilkins see them and the unmarked car.

“All right,” the inspector said leisurely, sucking hard on the pipe, getting a good fire going. “You stay with the car, Perkins. Moment you see Wilkins’s garage door open, you block the road — and get out of the car.” The pipe was going fiercely now, tiny sparks hitting as Logan continued talking, the stem between his teeth. “You have a shooter?” he asked the two constables.

“Nothing about shooters, was there, Perkins?”

“No. Duty sheet just said surveillance. To assist Inspector Logan. Nothing about being armed, sir.”

A stream of pipe smoke rushed up toward the bare maple. “Damn it! I distinctly told Leatherhead to issue sidearms. If this joker’s a spy, he’ll likely have one stashed in there somewhere.” Melrose suddenly saw a gap in the inspector’s assumption and moved to close it to protect himself and Perkins from the wrath of Leatherhead’s chief constable. “Pardon, sir — but if this Wilkins chap is a spy, he’s hardly going to carry a shooter. Dead giveaway if he’s ever picked—”