The Key to the Case Read online

  It was different. But the same basic evidence might provide an answer to both questions.

  But I hated her to be wading through uncharted emotional floods. She could be swept under instead of being buoyed to a secure haven.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The following morning, Amelia phoned Poppy, and was invited to visit. ‘And bring Sheba with you,’ was Poppy’s instruction. Or so Amelia told me, but I could see through that one. Sheba was going to be invited to choose a friend. I’d known Amelia had been thinking on those lines ever since our previous visit.

  So I watched them leave, Sheba on the seat beside her, then I got out my Stag and set off to find Willenhall, and hopefully to catch Ronnie Cope at home. He was on the phone, but there was no point in warning him of my visit in case he decided it was best to avoid me. It would have to be left to chance, with possibly a search for him round the local pubs.

  I had found Willenhall on my map. It was on the road to Walsall from Wolverhampton, so it didn’t seem that it would be difficult to find. As it turned out, my map had been printed before they’d put in the ring road around Wolverhampton, so I was thrown completely into disarray. But what you do in practice is continue to circle the town until an indication of what you want is signposted. And there it was. Walsall was indicated.

  Eventually I found myself driving deeper and deeper into an industrial area. Or rather, what had been the outer edge of the Black Country, which originally stretched from here to Birmingham. But now it was all fading away. Factories had been demolished in all directions and housing or small industrial estates were replacing them. No more the boom of the die-stampers and the shudder beneath your feet a quarter of a mile away. No longer the acrid tingle in the throat from the foundries. No longer the night flare from the blast furnaces, and the blue flashes, seen through open steel doors, of the welders. I was, I discovered suddenly, in Willenhall, and when I stopped and got out the skyline had been so destroyed that several high-rise blocks of flats were visible within the next half-mile, in all directions, reaching up in naked splendour like passively rotting teeth.

  All I had to do was find Manson Towers, and as I stood beside my car, wondering which direction to try first, I recalled that I’d intended to visit Major Farrington on the way, so that I could perhaps have had something to offer Ronnie—and get something back. Now I’d come empty-handed. Empty-headed would be more correct.

  This was infuriating. It meant my brain was becoming addled, as I’d always had the ability to organize my actions and take incidents in a logical sequence. I’d even taken the trouble to look up the Major’s address in the phone book. He lived only a mile from Milo’s Aces High, and I could reasonably, in the general order of my life, have expected to drive directly there without giving it a thought. Instead, I’d driven twenty miles out of my way for nothing.

  It shows how a residual worry can put you off. Amelia had departed in a seemingly happy mood to lay the groundwork for her intended interviews. She had also—which was a good idea—laid on the possible joy of a new puppy in our lives, on the principle, even if she’d not troubled to reason it out, that a bout of distress might be alleviated a little by a shot of joy. But her carefree exterior only cloaked her concern, like a veneer to cover the scarred surface of a table. Worrying subconsciously had led to this futile journey of mine. It was useless to consider seeing Ronnie before I had sufficient background detail with which to trip him up. Or help him, I reminded myself.

  Resigned to a return trip, and the diversion to my former district in order to visit the Major, I turned back to my car, and my eyes fell on a nameplate beside the unwelcoming entrance to a high-rise block of flats behind me, set back beyond a littered forecourt. Manson Towers. That was truly piling on the irony. Could I really turn away from it when I was so close?

  I walked across the forecourt meditatively. Three ancient cars were parked there, one of them so decrepit that it looked as though it’d been dumped, and a dirty red van, a reject from the Post Office pool, with the title blanked out inadequately. There was no sign of Ronnie’s Citroën. This wasn’t the sort of place I would have expected Ronnie to call home. It was obviously a council block, and it was a long way from his usual operating area, even further from the Ace Of Clubs. Surely he’d have had difficulty renting it, unless people who’d been on a waiting list for years refused to live there. Why would he have come here, from his cosy little cottage at Darnley?

  Curiosity lured me on. The entrance hall was bare brick and masonry, with the expected graffiti splashed around. It was old stuff, faded, the slogans outdated. Concrete stairs mounted on each side between iron railings and small windows cast very little light on the half-landings at the turns. Two battered doors to two cranky lifts faced me. Floor G, Ronnie’s would be, floor seven. I pressed the button, expecting nothing. The door jerked and squealed open. I stepped inside and pushed for G. I would at least be able to stare at his door and absorb the atmosphere. Already I could do that, to far too effective levels. The lift interior was revolting. The stench caught at my throat, and the lift was mounting far too slowly, grumbling and groaning in its halting progress.

  By the time we reached floor D, I had had enough. I was about to be marooned, I felt, between floors, and would slowly pass out from lack of air or be violently sick. It had happened before, to others, and far too plainly. At E, I pushed for stop and scrambled out. The door wouldn’t shut after me, but shuddered and jerked. I kicked it, and it managed to complete its journey.

  I stood on the landing. The stairs mounted at one end and descended at the other. Or the other way round. It could not have been called a corridor because of these stark openings, lit poorly at each end by grimy windows. Echoes throbbed through the building. It was impossible to detect from where, or the basics of their origins. I decided that if I ever found myself bereft and on the streets, I would rather live in a cardboard box than here.

  I walked up the crumbling concrete stairs to F and to G, unable to understand why Ronnie, who had his standards if not his social morals, could force himself to stay here, and so far from his former patch—my own former patch—which he was still apparently plundering.

  My head reached floor G when I was still several steps short of the landing, and there he was. At least, my mind jumped to that conclusion, as a man of about his size and build was just closing a door further along, his back to me, with a suitcase that looked like genuine leather in his left hand. It was tied around with a length of rope. The fact that he was extracting the key from the lock, along with the rest of a slim bunch, indicated he’d left the key in because the visit had been intended as a short one, probably involving no more than the picking up of the suitcase.

  The obvious assumption was that Ronnie had spotted me, perhaps from one of the windows on the landings on his way down the stairs, had run back up, and left in a hurry. Yet he’d asked for my help, so why run away? But his attitude was not furtive, and when he began to walk away I saw that it was not Ronnie’s confident and soft stride, and a reefer jacket and jeans were not Ronnie’s usual garb. Ronnie was a two-piece suit man; at his most casual, slacks and a hacking jacket. My mind, once again I had to warn myself, was leaping around and out of control.

  When the man was clear, I walked along the corridor, looking for number 7. It was the same door. Just to check, I pressed the buzzer and heard it sound inside. But there was no response.

  My visit had not, then, been a complete waste of time. I didn’t know what it meant, but it meant something. Perhaps Ronnie himself had been burgled. A good laugh, that would be. But the means of entry had been the simple use of a key, which had lived on a key-ring.

  I paused at the head of the landing. The view from the window facing me was across the forecourt. I waited for the man with the suitcase to appear, interested in whether one of the cars was his. Then he was below me. I could recognize the reefer jacket and the black, tight mass of hair. From above, it was clear that this man, though Ronnie’s general sh
ape, was in fact much more stalwart, with wider shoulders. He turned towards the van as Ronnie, on foot, walked into the forecourt. He was wearing a smart, short Crombie coat of camelhair, and a tweed hat, hands deep in his pockets and his head lowered. His visitor saw him first and put down the suitcase, standing waiting with his fists on his hips, challenging.

  Pensive Ronnie lifted his head. It was perhaps the suitcase he saw first, and he stopped in mid-stride, nearly tripping over his own feet. I saw his mouth open, but I couldn’t hear what he was shouting, then he advanced at full charge. I had never seen this Ronnie. He surprised me, there was such a force of rage driving him, such a fury distorting his usually placid and calm face.

  The other one, poised, moved one leg sideways to spread the load. His left arm came up to ward off Ronnie’s wild and ineffective swings which glanced off his left forearm. They seemed, from above, to be performing a strange, even amusing, dance. But the free right hand had disappeared into the side pocket of the reefer jacket. It appeared again, and a steel blade flashed into view, became a blur, and Ronnie fell back with both hands over his face. It had been no more than a slash; the blade was still free. Again it moved, stabbing forward and low, for Ronnie’s stomach, but he had staggered, and the blade ran into his side.

  I was already running down the stairs. By far the quickest. It was a long while since I’d done this, three steps at a time in great bounds, and using the rail on corners to whirl myself round for the next flight. There were sixteen steps to each flight. Three at a time didn’t fit, and the odd one at the end of each flight caught me out. Every time my heel thumped down and the jar jumped up my spine into my head. In the entrance hall, I flung myself at the double doors, but they opened inwards. I cursed obscenely and yanked one open.

  It was over. The van was backing up, black smoke throbbing from its exhaust. It stopped and began to move forward as I ran to intercept. There was just a glimpse of set teeth and a distorted face, then I had to spring aside. He tried to include Ronnie in his swerve, but Ronnie had rolled over and was staring in horror at the oncoming van. His roll backward was a fraction slow. The front offside wheel caught the heel of his shoe, and a brogue spun across the forecourt. Then the van was off and away, and I hadn’t noted his number.

  I got on one knee beside Ronnie, panting. There was a long gash from below his left ear down to the jaw, below the corner of his mouth. Blood poured on to the shoulder of his coat. I plunged my hand inside it, knowing Ronnie, and that he usually sported a handkerchief in his breast pocket. Thought himself quite a swell, did Ronnie. I unfolded it into a pad and thrust it in his hand.

  ‘Hold that in place,’ I told him.

  ‘My side...’ he whispered.

  ‘Lie still. I’ll get an ambulance. Where’s your keys?’ I tried the right-hand coat pocket and there they were. I brought them out. ‘Phone, Ronnie. Quicker to go up to your place. Hold on. I’ll get ’em as soon as I can.’

  Then I ran back. The entrance door was easy. The first flight was not too bad; two at a time. The second wasn’t good at all. From then on it was one step at a time, with one hand doing plenty of heaving. By the time I reached floor G, I was using both, panting and gasping, my legs shaking. The hand too was shaking when I fumbled the key into the lock. I fell inside Ronnie’s flat, nearly on my knees, my eyes racing round. Phone, phone. There it was, on a table by the window. I reached it, and dialled 999, supporting myself with my free hand on the table surface. Fit? I was coming within sight of fifty and was out of trim. Way out.

  ‘Which service, please?’

  ‘Ambulance first, then police. Manson Towers. Emergency.’ I hung up.

  I had a few moments to look round. No more. I wanted to get back downstairs. Ronnie kept his flat as neat as himself. Pride. Blanket, I thought, take a blanket down. I went into the bedroom, where it was not so neat. Drawers had been pulled out, their contents dumped on the bed, the empty drawers tossed aside. I reached under it all and drew out a blanket, folded it untidily and stuck it under my arm. Then outside once more to the landing, shut the door, keys into my anorak pocket, and down again. Slower this trip: two at a time.

  Nobody had come anywhere near Ronnie. One or two pedestrians had paused at the forecourt entrance, staring. I bent over Ronnie. My heart had stopped thumping. He was breathing badly, but that could have been panic. He had his knees drawn up. I put the blanket over him.

  ‘They’ll be here in a minute,’ I told him, as he could have heard himself the siren sound rising from the distance. The most beautiful sound in the world when you’re lying in pain. I drew back as the ambulance swung in. A woman and a man jumped down, she slamming open the rear doors and he running over to Ronnie.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked me.

  ‘A knife attack. I saw it from up there.’ I jerked my head. ‘His left cheek, and a stab wound in his left side.’

  Then I stood back and watched them get on with it. They were very gentle, and by the time they had him on a stretcher there was a constable at my elbow.

  ‘Where’re you taking him?’ I asked the ambulance man.

  ‘Wolverhampton Royal. I think the knife slid off a rib. He’ll be all right.’

  But Ronnie would have a terrible scar down his face. The constable asked me, ‘Did you see it, sir?’

  I told him I’d seen it from the window on G floor. I didn’t say I’d been visiting Ronnie. He didn’t ask where the blanket, now bloody and beneath my arm, had come from. I simply told him I had witnessed an attack. He ought to have asked me a number of questions, but he didn’t. He did say he would like a statement, and if I’d come along with him...

  ‘I’ll let you have a statement if you’ll tell me where to send it.’

  ‘I can’t...’

  I was becoming impatient. ‘I’m an ex-DI,’ I informed him. ‘I know how to draw up a statement. If you’ll simply tell me...’ And so on.

  He agreed and he told me where, then he drove away.

  I still had Ronnie’s keys, and I still had those blasted stairs to climb before I could use them. But it would be worth it. This was an unexpected opportunity to search his flat. He wouldn’t be fretting about his keys for quite a while.

  I picked up his fancy brogue and tucked it under one arm with the blanket, took a deep breath, and tackled the stairs again. This time my hand was steady when I slipped in the key. I closed the door behind me, pocketed the keys, then dumped the blanket in a corner and the shoe on a table and began.

  There was no intention of conducting a thorough and detailed search. Call it curiosity. Seizing the chance.

  There was a bedroom, a bathroom, a living-room and a tiny kitchen. The kitchen revealed only that Ronnie’s cooking abilities seemed to encompass no more than brewing a pot of tea and pouring milk over cornflakes. Ronnie would eat out. The living-room was furnished simply with old and battered pieces he’d brought from his cottage. I remembered one or two of them from previous visits on duty. An armchair seemed new, and the television set was bigger than the one he’d had. There was a fancy ormolu clock on a shelf. You couldn’t tell with Ronnie; he might even have bought them. On a sideboard, which looked as though it might be a genuine antique and thus almost certainly nicked, there was a framed head-and-shoulder photograph of a woman. I hadn’t known that Ronnie ever touched large items such as furniture, and there’d never been a whisper of a woman in his life. A loner, that was Ronnie, both in his chosen profession and in his personal life. On your own your secrets are safe, that was his attitude. He was independent and proud of it. You’d find him laughing with a crowd of mates in the White Hart at Darnley, but there’d never been a personal friend. So I was interested in the photograph.

  I picked it up. She was a young woman with copious brown hair and a mischievous smile. Ronnie would appreciate that. There was life and bounce and fun in the face, the eyes bright, cheeks plump, chin small, huge hoops for earrings. ‘Love you, Ronnie’ was written across one corner. But it wasn’t signed.

>   Now I had to search diligently. I felt I ought to discover her identity and I knew what to look for. No letters from her to Ronnie, kept in a pink ribbon for sentiment. Ronnie, I felt, would not be sentimental anyway. He would treat her, if indeed she had lived with him here, with gentlemanly consideration. There was nothing. No letters sent to her either. And in the bedroom nothing left of her presence, in the bathroom no stray hairgrips, no fancy creams and powders, no shower-cap—as it was a shower rather than a bath. I found only one item—a bra. Under the bed, this was. She had been a well-built and busty girl.

  It now seemed clear that this absence of personal items belonging to her had to be linked with the man who’d walked out with the suitcase. And then attacked Ronnie! But, why? Obviously, because Ronnie had lured her away, had seduced her with his casual charm. She would clearly find Ronnie a prize, compared with a man who carried a flick-knife in his pocket. This seemed straightforward enough, but I wished I knew how it concerned me. Ronnie’s life had always been a precarious balance on a tightrope. With a woman to carry along with him, it was inevitable that he would someday fall.

  The knife expert had no doubt persuaded her to return to him—or dragged her back by her luxurious head of hair, and taken her keys from her in order to recover her personal belongings, thus making the situation clear to Ronnie.

  I had been working all this out while continuing to carry out my detailed search. Two jobs at the same time. In the end, I found what I had hoped to find behind a false back in one of the wardrobe shelves. It was Ronnie’s set of burglary instruments. He had them in a woman’s shoulder-bag.

  I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that he’d made most of these himself, but the small and neat hand-drill, for instance, could have been bought by anyone at a handicrafts shop. The actual lock-picking tools and the cylinder lock manipulators must have been home-made, and beautifully done. Anything you locked away, he could pick, probe, slip, or manipulate. Even break it open, if all else failed. There was a slim two-piece jemmy of high-tensile steel, and I particularly admired the small pair of pliers, which had originally been purchased as a legitimate tool, but had had its jaws slimmed down and hollowed, until it resembled a steel tube with thin walls. The operative ends of the pliers were ridged lengthways instead of the usual crossways ridges. These I slipped into my pocket.