One Deathless Hour (David Mallin Detective series Book 16) Read online

  One Deathless Hour

  Roger Ormerod

  © Roger Ormerod 1981

  Roger Ormerod has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1981 by Robert Hale Limited

  This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  ONE

  DAVID MALLIN

  When they threw me out of The Swan I decided I’d had enough. By that time I was beginning to wish that George had won the toss and claimed this cushy part of the assignment. The street was dark and deserted. In the far distance traffic was filtering along a main road flooded with orange. I reached for a cigarette and decided to head that way.

  A hand touched my elbow. I turned. He was a slim, youngish man with a naive, open face and an easy smile that contained no humour at all. His nostrils flared at me.

  ‘Getting to be a habit,’ he said.

  ‘It’s only the fourth,’ I said with dignity.

  ‘Four? I must have missed the first. What d’you expect if you go around peering at ear-lobes?’

  Had I been peering? Possibly. You can’t take in a dozen pubs without drinking something at each. I’d stuck to halves, but my eyes weren’t focusing too well and my shoulder ached where I had bounced from a lamppost.

  ‘You pissed?’ he asked.

  ‘Not completely.’ I squinted at him. He had been very polite so far. ‘I’m not driving, anyway.’

  He laughed shortly, scornfully. He was wearing scuffed jeans, and a zipped cardigan with leather inserts over a T-shirt. It was a warm Saturday night.

  ‘Detective Constable Miller,’ he introduced himself. ‘You’d better come along to the station, friend.’

  ‘No … really. I’m OK.’

  ‘Drunk and disorderly,’ he decided. ‘My car’s back there.’

  It was a Ford Escort. I climbed in beside him. ‘And queer,’ he added. ‘You got a thing about ears?’

  ‘Not normally.’

  ‘Mine all right?’ He pointed his dimpled chin at me.

  ‘They’re not pierced, if that’s what you mean.’

  He grunted and started the car.

  The journey took ten minutes. From nowhere in that town could you drive for more than ten minutes from one of their pubs to the police-station. Mind you, the place was growing. You could feel the excitement of expansion everywhere you went. It had probably always been there, dormant, from the time the Romans built Watling Street through it on their way from London to Holyhead. More recently the town had grown gently to own a High Street. They called it Watling Street St. Spelt like that. The main intersecting road they had called Watling Street Rd. Then had arrived the motorways, first the Ml to the north, then the M6 to the south. So Watling Street Rd became too busy and they built a link-road two miles out of town. Then it had been designated a New Town, with housing estates sprouting, small engineering businesses flexing their dividends on the industrial estate, and a brand-new, glowing, imaginative shopping centre. Guess. They called it Watling Centre. Oh, you could smell the progress, feel the tingle of anticipated increased income in the air. That was the town. Watling. Twenty thousand inhabitants — and one police-station that hadn’t changed since the motorways were a twinkle in a Transport Minister’s eye.

  They’d be under pressure. Miller had a twitch in the corner of his left eye and a glove compartment full of empty fag-packets. He reached, fumbled a cigarette to his mouth, snapped a match with his thumbnail. He was good.

  The station had almost been shouldered out of existence by Watling Centre. It hid in its shadows and shared its multi-storey car-park. The police had the basement to themselves. Miller swept us down an underpass marked ‘No Admittance’ and into its bright lights. There was fancy daylight strip all round and, over on the far side, no mistaking the maroon Triumph Dolomite that our client had described.

  He led the way up a run of stairs in a corner. Noise filtered through a solid, closed door ahead of us. To our right there was a plain door with a glass insert and through this we entered a corridor that terminated in the station’s entrance lobby.

  The station sergeant glanced at Miller without enthusiasm.

  ‘Drunk and disorderly,’ said Miller.

  I slapped my credentials on the counter, my authority to operate as a private investigator, my driving licence, our visiting-card in the firm’s name of Mallin & Coe.

  ‘Not exactly drunk, Sergeant. Had a few, but it’s one of the hazards of our profession.’

  I embraced him in the word ‘our’. His face had the red-veined, placid look of a steady drinker. Back a few years he’d have pounded a beat and patted children on the head, beaming, and beamed likewise when he’d kicked the odd yobbo’s knee-cap off-centre … but was still a sergeant.

  ‘You’re on a job?’ But there was no interest in his eyes.

  ‘The Abbott case.’

  He eyed me with distaste, as though I’d said something indecent. Miller, at my shoulder, stared impasively at his latest cigarette. The sergeant reached for his phone and spoke into it, then replaced it firmly. He nodded to Miller.

  ‘Better take him through. Messy wants to see him.’

  Progress! I scooped up my property, pleased, but not showing it, I hoped.

  His name was Messingham, though his nickname could well have derived from his method of work. His office was chaos, his desk disorderly, even his tight-trimmed moustache managing to look untidy. His hair stuck out in all directions. All right, assume he was harassed, the inflow of crime swamping him. But I didn’t think that was the entire explanation. Some people cannot work tidily. They spread disruption around them wherever they go; they just cannot relax in an organized atmosphere. I guessed that this particular detective inspector had a razor-sharp mind, which kept him just ahead of the prevailing disturbances. I was the present one. His exasperation at being interrupted was extreme, but he didn’t have to see me — he wanted to. He held out two fingers, saying nothing, then snapped them with impatience. He lifted the card I offered, considered it and looked past it fiercely.

  ‘And Coe,’ he said. ‘What’s the Coe bit?’

  ‘My partner, George.’

  ‘And where is he at this moment?’

  ‘Oh, miles from here. We don’t have to hold hands.’

  ‘I knew a George Coe. A great, huge oaf … ’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘Hmm!’ He flicked the card and returned it. I backed off and found a chair. ‘On the Abbott thing, I hear.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Why?’

  Before I could think of a good answer — I wasn’t quite sure, myself — his phone rang. He snatched at it and spoke sharply, shuffling through his papers with his free hand. I waited. Miller went to the window and fluttered the aluminium Venetian slats. A WPC burst in and thrust a handful of paperwork into his IN tray, found nothing in the OUT one, tutted, shook her head reprovingly and headed out again. Messingham replaced his phone. He was vague.

  ‘Protecting his interests,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You asked … ’

  ‘Oh yes. What interests? He can have his solicitor … ’

  ‘He feels he needs an alibi.’

  His intercom crackled and a voice croaked something. He snarled into it and snapped it off, turned back and smiled graciously at me.


  ‘Is that what you’ve been looking for?’ He glanced at Miller. ‘Was he looking for an alibi, Miller?’

  ‘Not that I noticed, sir.’

  ‘Something about ears,’ Messingham declared to the ceiling. ‘Staring into ear-holes.’

  ‘Lobes,’ I corrected.

  ‘What in God’s name … ’

  ‘Just identification. My client — Victor Henry Abbott — has a fixation on the time of nine pm on Tuesday last and seems to think it’s critical.’

  Messingham put his fingertips together and placed them against his lips, removed them again and said: ‘You could say that. Yes. Because that was the time the man died.’ He nodded. ‘Go on.’

  ‘There’s nowhere to go,’ I admitted. ‘I’m not even sure that the time of death’s positive.’

  ‘Oh, but it is.’ And his eyes laughed at me above his fingers.

  ‘I mean, Abbott was there, alone in the clubhouse, from eight till ten, and in the middle of it … ’

  ‘A man was shot dead in the car-park. Yes.’

  ‘But times of death are vague. You know that. I’d be wasting my time … ’

  ‘Peering at ear-lobes.’

  ‘ … if the shot was at seven, say, or eleven.’

  ‘I can assure you it was nine.’

  I shrugged, grimaced and said: ‘Oh, in that case, with your assurance, I can go ahead confidently. Nine it is.’

  Then, in delight, he slapped the surface of his desk, sending the basic facts of half a dozen investigations fluttering to the floor. ‘Oh, you’re a tonic. Smooth, Miller, did you get it! He’s lost, groping. So he has to come here and pump me. But does he arrive with his cap in his hand? Most certainly not. He wanders our town, getting thrown out of pubs on some ridiculous pretence — ear-lobes, of all things — so that he can be brought in. And then he thinks he can fool me … ’

  Cigarettes did not meet the situation. I fumbled for my pipe, knocked it out on my heel, filled it carefully and lit it. It all took time, the pause than an entrapped private detective would need in order to recover his equilibrium. When I looked up, he was waiting politely.

  ‘And even,’ he remarked, ‘pretends he’s confused. Come on, Mallin, let’s have it.’

  ‘I’ve been asked to provide an alibi for nine o’clock on Tuesday evening.’ It was not quite true, but it would suffice. ‘But why was he so precise? No medical examiner would tie himself down to an accurate time like that. And I’m told you didn’t even see the body until the next morning. So … why nine?’

  ‘Perhaps Abbott saw the clock.’

  ‘Which clock?’

  ‘The car’s fascia clock. Didn’t he tell you? The man was shot through the back of the neck with a high-velocity twenty-two and the shot went on and wrecked the clock. It stopped at one minute to nine. Now … ain’t that convenient?’ He bared his teeth. It was a challenge.

  Marvellous, isn’t it! A watch stops, a clock stops and everybody has to go jumping to conclusions. You’d think it was wired to a pulse, a pacemaker, packing in when the man died. But the damned things don’t even have to be right. They can be altered, fiddled …

  ‘And you’re accepting that?’ I asked.

  ‘Why not?’

  And yet I knew he wasn’t stupid. So there had to be something else.

  ‘Can I see the car?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m not obliged to extend to you any courtesies at all, Mallin. I’ve already gone too far and wasted too much precious time. In fact, you can leave — as soon as you’ve explained what ear-lobes have got to do with his alibi.’

  I couldn’t help laughing. He was subtle and crafty, and happy with it. I got to my feet. ‘I think I’ll keep that to myself. You could get Abbott inside for that alone and a murder’s enough to contend with at the moment.’

  They allowed me to leave. From behind the closed door there was an explosion of sound that could have been his laughter. The WPC swept past me, arms full of case papers. She opened the door. He bellowed at her, but she sailed in just the same. I shrugged and wandered through into Reception.

  The sergeant indicated the main door. They were making certain I didn’t get a look at that Dolomite. I felt annoyed, robbed.

  I came out down a run of wide steps into an open space with a night view over the valley and down to the far river. It was a little after eleven. I walked round the building and found a short, steep ramp that led up into the precincts of Watling Centre.

  It was unlit and almost deserted. A number of the premises had not yet been occupied, but the rumbling noise I’d heard from the underground car-park turned out to be a bowling-alley. The fish and chip shop was operative but shut. Its papers littered the precinct. I began to walk back for my car, skidding here and there on the odd chip.

  Ten minutes’ drive is quite a distance on foot. It gave me the opportunity for thought. Abbott had not mentioned noticing the fascia clock — so why had he been so obsessed by the time of nine pm … unless he knew when the shot was fired?

  No … be fair. That had been under pressure, both George and me firing questions at him. What Abbott had actually said was:

  ‘I want you to find proof that I did not leave the clubhouse between eight and ten.’

  We had met him that afternoon in the car-park belonging to his club. He was waiting when we arrived.

  Because the police had impounded his Dolomite, he was using his wife’s Morris Minor. We did a complete swing and parked beside it. George was driving; it was his Sceptre we were in at the time.

  We got out and I introduced us. George was looking round casually. Being more direct than I am, he went straight to what was worrying me. Why could we not have seen him at his home?

  ‘Why here?’ said George.

  ‘I wanted you to see the place where he died … you understand?’ He trod a cigarette into the ground, following it down with his eyes.

  Victor Abbott would have been around fifty, a slight man with a shock of completely white hair. His eyes were a clear, cool grey, when you could get a good look at them, but he moved his head constantly, moved his eyes and made gestures of distraction with his hands. He was the personnel manager at one of the new factories on the industrial site, but there was no confidence in him and none of the sure self-approval of the managerial type. His hesitant smile groped for acceptance. He was not certain of his direction in life — or already aware that somewhere he had taken the wrong turn.

  ‘It was not necessary,’ I said, ‘to bring us here first.’

  ‘I didn’t want my wife to be worried.’ A gesture, a pale smile. ‘She lives as though a tragedy could intrude … well, any minute. You’d need to know her.’

  We would certainly have to, and want to see his home, his family if any.

  ‘But it has,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know what has happened.’

  ‘On the phone, you mentioned a shooting.’

  ‘But I don’t know that it’s a tragedy. Oh … for him, of course. But not for Bella. Not for me. But she’d take it as an omen — so close. Her world collapsing … ’ He waved pathetically and subsided. His eyes flicked at me, then at George. ‘I’m talking too much, I’m afraid.’

  He needed soothing. We edged him into the Sceptre, him and George in the back, me twisted round in the front passenger’s seat. George spoke softly.

  ‘It’s what we’re here for, to talk. We’ve got all day.’ He peered out of the window at the low, squat building. ‘What is this place?’

  Abbott was forcing himself to relax. ‘You’re in a private car-park.’ His eyes were closed, his head back. ‘You came in from a private road, which used to lead to the farmhouse. That’s a ruin, now. Where this car is parked — how it’s parked, with the driver’s door looking straight out at the building — is how I parked my car on Tuesday evening. At eight. I’d come to try out my new Ruger. You’ll understand … ’ He opened his eyes briefly. ‘You’re listening?’

  ‘We’re listening,’ I assured him. And
noting how it rolled out of him in a monotone, as though he’d prepared it. ‘Did you say Ruger?’

  ‘A pistol,’ said George, his voice a rumble, the interest there.

  ‘That place you see,’ went on Abbott, refusing to be diverted, ‘is an old barn we converted. We put in a divider partition of glass and a strong-room to satisfy the police. There’s just that one door you see facing you and that one small window beside it. I don’t think it opens. It’s the clubroom and shooting-gallery of the Watling Small Arms Club.’

  ‘So you came here to get off a few rounds with your new Ruger,’ I said, feeling the situation. ‘At eight.’

  ‘I brought my Walther Match with me, too. I can’t resist the feel of it, you know. Both are twenty-twos.’

  ‘You own two pistols?’

  ‘Two target twenty-twos.’ His eyes were open, bright grey now, with life in them. He leaned forward, clasping his hands together, slim but strong hands. ‘I also own a Korth twenty-two revolver. Really beautiful, but not, strictly speaking, a target pistol. I must show you.’

  ‘Not now,’ I put in quickly, because George is a weapons expert and he was close to drooling. ‘You fired off a few rounds … ’

  ‘Close on a hundred, in fact. Mostly with the Ruger. It’s a bit lighter than the Walther, but it’s got … ’ He caught my eye. ‘Yes. I had the place to myself. Mondays and Fridays are club nights. Tuesdays I like to come here alone. I’m the secretary and I’ve got my own key.’

  ‘And so you were here … until when?’

  ‘About ten. Then I … I came out to my car. It was dark by then. You’ll remember — or maybe not — anyway, it was very hot, stifling, so I’d left all the windows open. Quite safe, out here. Usually.’ He grimaced.

  ‘Your car?’ I asked. ‘What is it?’

  ‘A Dolomite. Maroon, 1972. The one with the over-head-cam engine.’

  I nodded. Elsa, my wife, has almost the same car, but the Sprint version. ‘You came out … ’

  ‘My … my gun cases in my hands. Pleased. There’d been some decent shooting … humming to myself, I seem to recall. It would’ve been about ten. A bit after. I don’t know for sure.’