Hammond Innes: The Doomed Oasis

He was probably right there. ‘I’ll ask Captain Griffiths about him.’ A man who spent his life taking his ship in and out of Arabian ports should know, and he was due in the office at five-thirty., ‘Is the conveyance on that property of his ready now?’

Andrews produced it from the bottom of the pile, a bulky package that looked as though it contained enough deeds to cover a twenty thousand acre estate instead of a little cottage on the Gower Peninsula. There’s still a map to be inserted in the conveyance. Otherwise it’s all there, title deeds, searches, everything.’

I told him to get on to the man who was doing the map right away. ‘Griffiths wants all the documents before he sails tonight.’ The phone rang. It was Mrs Thomas and I knew by the tone of her voice that something had happened. They came just after you left and I’m so worried, Mr Grant, I don’t know what to do. And now Sue has got back and she said to ring you. I’m very sorry to trouble you when you were so kind and came out here all for nothing, but you did say to telephone you if I needed any help and so I thought perhaps-’

‘Just tell me what’s happened, Mrs Thomas,’ I said.

‘Well, you see, they’ve taken Dafydd away and-’ Her voice broke down then. ‘I’m so terribly worried about him, Mr Grant. I don’t know what’s going to happen. So determined he is, you see. Once he’s got an idea into his head … always been like that he has ever since he was little, you know. Nothing would ever make him change his mind once he had made it up.’

‘Never mind about what’s in your son’s mind. What happened when the police arrived?’

They just said he was to go with them.’

To the police station?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘For questioning, was it?’

They didn’t say. I asked them why they were arresting him, but they wouldn’t tell me. Been in trouble he has, you know, and them behaving as though-’

‘Did Sergeant Mathieson say he was arresting him?’

‘No, he didn’t say that exactly. He just said he was to come along with them. But it’s the same thing, Mr Grant, isn’t it?’

‘Did he charge him?’

‘No. No, I don’t think so. He just said he was to come along, and he went. He didn’t try to resist or anything. They just took him and now I don’t know what is going to happen to him.’

‘Mrs Thomas,’ I said. ‘There’s something I want to ask you. Can you tell me where Colonel Whitaker is now?’

The quick gasp of her breath and then a long pause. ‘No. No, I don’t know. But somewhere in Arabia it will be.’

‘He’s still alive then?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘You’ve heard from him?’

Again the pause. ‘No. No, I never heard from him. Never.’ And she added quickly. ‘Only the allowance. Very good he was about the allowance.’ She sighed. ‘Never a penny I took for myself, but spent it on Dafydd. Clever he is, you know — a quick brain and good with his hands. I thought perhaps he would become an engineer.’ Her quick tongue ran on, about the books she’d bought him and how she’d sent him to night school, and I let her talk because it seemed to help her. ‘He couldn’t understand it when the money ceased. It was then he began to run wild, you see; down in the docks all the time and his heart set on getting to Arabia. Speaks Arabic you know.’ She said it with pride, and in the same breath added, ‘I tried to discourage him, but it was no good. He had books, you see, and all those Arabs down in the Tiger Bay district. In the blood it is, I suppose — in the blood and in their stars. And that book of cuttings. I should never have let him see it.’ And then she added, ‘A pity you weren’t here when they came for him. I know it would never have happened if you’d been here.’

‘Well, don’t worry about it any more,’ I said. ‘I’ll phone them and find out what it’s all about. Have you heard how your husband is?’ But she’d received no word from the hospital. ‘Well, that’s good,’ I said. They’d have been in touch with you if they were worried about his condition. I’ll phone you if I’ve any news about your son.’ I put the phone down. ‘First thing tomorrow, Andrews,’ I said, ‘get on to the newspapers and see if they’ve anything on their files about Whitaker. What that boy needs right now is a father, the sort of father he can look up to.’

I hurried through the rest of the business and as soon as Andrews had gone, I phoned Dr Harvey’s surgery. ‘George Grant here,’ I said when he came on the line. ‘Any news of Thomas?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and it’s bad, I’m afraid. I’ve just had a call from the matron. He died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.’

‘I see.’

‘Did the police pick that boy up?’

‘Yes.’ It could well mean a charge of manslaughter. ‘Has anybody thought of notifying Mrs Thomas that her husband is dead?’

The matron is telephoning her right away.’

‘About time, too,’ I said. Incredible how soulless an institution can be. But, in fact, it was the boy I was worrying about more than the mother. ‘They’ve taken David Thomas into custody,’ I said.

‘Good.’

His comment angered me. ‘Why did you consider it your duty to notify the police? Did you know the man was going to die?’

‘I thought it likely.’ And then, after a pause, he added, ‘He was a bookie, you know. Greyhounds mostly. Heavy drinker, heavy smoker, immoderate in everything, if you get me. That type goes quick. But I couldn’t be certain, of course.’ And he added, ‘Frankly, I wouldn’t have expected the boy to stay there till the police arrived. I’d have thought he’d clear out. Probably would have done if you hadn’t been there.’

‘I wasn’t there,’ I told him. ‘I’d left before they arrived.’

‘Oh well, doesn’t make any odds. He’s no good, that boy.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Oddly enough,’ he said on a note of asperity, ‘I don’t hold with boys hitting their fathers. Far too much licence allowed this new generation. He’s a street arab, that boy — dock arab rather.’ He gave a quick, awkward laugh. ‘It’s the war, of course, but that doesn’t excuse them entirely.’

I asked him then to tell me what he knew about the boy. But he couldn’t tell me much. The Thomases had only been going to him since the start of the National Health Service, and he hadn’t set eyes on the boy more than once or twice. He’d grown up with the dock gangs, he said, mixing too much with the Arabs, had been in and out of a number of jobs and had finally been sentenced for his part in the beating up of a rival gang leader. ‘I imagine he’s only just been released from Borstal,’ he said. ‘Dockside toughs like that are the devil in my parish.’

‘And that’s why you called the police?’

‘Well, he killed his father, didn’t he?’ His voice sounded on the defensive.

‘You don’t make much allowance for human nature,’ I said.

‘No. Not with boys like that. You try stitching a few flick-knife wounds and bicycle chain gashes; you’d soon see it my way.’

‘All right,’ I said, and left it at that. He didn’t know Thomas wasn’t the boy’s father or what had caused the row between them. ‘Life’s not all as straightforward as you chaps see it in your clinics,’ I said and put the phone down.

By then it was five-thirty and Captain Griffiths had arrived. He was a small man with a pointed beard and a high, cackling laugh, and he wore a tweed suit which was a little too large for him. This, and his scrawny, wrinkled skin gave him a shrivelled look. But though he was not an impressive figure, long years of command had given him the knack of making his displeasure felt. ‘You promised me the documents before I sailed, man.’ He thrust his beard at me accusingly.