The Second Jeopardy Read online

  ‘No. We know he didn’t do that because she put in a 999-call, after he’d left her.’

  ‘So she did. I was forgetting.’ She moved a hand negligently. They both knew she had not forgotten one detail.

  ‘He was believed to have driven away, thought better of it, driven back, and then killed her.’

  ‘Would he have done that?’

  Tranter lifted his shoulders. ‘I never believed it, but that was how he was charged. It just doesn’t sound like Harry. I didn’t go for it.’

  ‘And neither did the jury,’ she reminded him, reaching for the dog’s lead and getting to her feet. ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘I’ll take you…’

  ‘No. It’s got to be alone. Where, Paul?’

  ‘You won’t like it.’

  ‘Do talk sense, please. What does it matter whether or not I like it? The address, please, or I’ll have to waste time searching the pubs.’

  Paul Tranter gave her the address, and watched her walk away. There was now nothing provocative about her stride. It indicated clearly that Virginia Brent had a new purpose in her life.

  He hoped she would take the Alsatian with her, but doubted it. She was a proud and independent woman, and would consider that to walk dark and dangerous streets with a dog at her side would indicate a need for protection. She might even feel that she was putting the dog at risk. No, she would walk alone. Her confidence would be her protection. She would probably feel afraid, because she possessed abundant imagination, but it would not be evident. She would rely on her intuition, her alertness, her reactions.

  All the same, he decided to put a tail on her. No…he changed his mind. He would do it himself. Her father would kill him if anything happened to her.

  But in the event, he lost her. In those poor streets she was invisible. She became part of them.

  It was just as well he knew where she was heading.

  Chapter Two

  It was late September, but autumn did not burnish Hanger Lane. No sered leaves rustled in the gutters; no copper glinted in the sun. Rumour had it that on one midsummer day a ray of sunlight had reached as far as the wharf, but no natural growth had reflected its warmth, so it had never since ventured there. Now any remaining light from the depressed sun was absorbed by the soot-encrusted high wall on one side of the lane, and was lost in the eyeless shell of the derelict warehouse on the other side. A gentle breeze drifted dust between the grey cobblestones of the wharf, and a sour green glow was reflected from the surface of the turgid canal. It was sufficient to outline the shadows of the old, rotted narrowboats, lying half-submerged, and the only one still on an even keel.

  On the deck of this narrowboat Harry Hodnutt was engaged in evicting half a dozen hippies, who’d taken possession in his absence. He was doing this with good humour, standing in the bow where only one at a time could get at him. He was hurling them into the water, shouting out encouragement.

  ‘That’s it, laddie. Your arm…whoops!’ Splash. The algae split open. ‘A lady! Naughty, naughty. There we go!’ Splash. ‘Next please. Ah, feet is it? Watch yourself!’ Splash.

  The locals had a fear of the canal. One immersion, it was believed, could bring on the most terrible diseases. In practice, the submerged cycles and prams and old bedsteads were the greater hazard. You could almost walk across on them.

  Virginia was watching from a deep doorway, her back pressed hard against an ancient, heavy door. She wondered, vaguely, whilst watching Harry’s performance with critical approval, what might be behind that door. She was wearing a man’s shirt, suitably dirty and too big for her, and a drab, brown skirt, once pleated, now merely crumpled. Her legs were bare, her feet in sandals, one of which had a broken strap, producing an awkward shuffle when she moved. One hand held a beer can and a smouldering cigarette, the other scrabbled at the wall, partly in response to the action on the boat, partly because she’d forgotten the detail of dirt behind the fingernails. Her shoulder bag was canvas, one corner torn.

  High up, and opposite to her, Sergeant Tranter stood on the only piece of solid floor he could find, and peered anxiously through an empty window frame of the warehouse. He couldn’t make up his mind. Was that really Virginia?

  Harry completed his operation and hitched his jeans. Green-coated shadows were crawling on to the towpath opposite. ‘An’ don’t come back,’ he shouted. One of the two ladies of the group, the one with God Is Love across her scrawny chest, called back: ‘Get stuffed,’ and gave him the finger. Harry laughed, wiped blood from his chin, and turned.

  A woman was slopping towards him across the cobbles, one hip slightly forward from the other, gesturing with a beer can.

  ‘Not another!’ said Harry, sighing. ‘No room at the inn, love.’

  ‘It’s you I want.’

  ‘Can’t afford it. Bugger off, eh?’

  ‘I want a word with you, Harry. Sergeant Tranter sent me.’

  He stood, looking down at her. It was just possible to detect the mass of untidy and greasy blonde hair, from which a headscarf had slipped to her shoulders, the red slash that was her mouth, the dashes of mauve-pink across her cheekbones. It seemed unlikely that Sergeant Tranter had sent this woman, and yet…she knew Tranter, she knew Harry’s name.

  ‘Permission to come aboard, skipper?’

  It was an original canal narrowboat, which had been converted. The difficulty was to decide to what it had been converted. The only real change was that it was lower in the water than when it had travelled with a full load. This was because there were multiple holes in its bottom, and it had triumphed over the other rotting wrecks only because it had settled on something solid and level. The water was a mere six inches beneath the floor inside.

  Harry laughed. ‘Aw…come on then.’

  The floor, at least, was more recent, but nevertheless it creaked beneath Harry’s feet as he led the way down the six steps into his living quarters.

  ‘Hold on, I’ll light up,’ he called back.

  He was fitted out with propane gas. A mantle popped and spread mellow light into far corners of his meagre cabin. It was singular — a living quarter. It was all in there, a chair and a table and a bunk bed at the narrow end. The smell of rotting wood was overwhelming, and the tattered curtains must have been launched with the vessel.

  Harry moved to the far end, keeping his head low, and sat on the edge of the bunk, knees sticking up like steeples. He was wordlessly offering her a retreat behind her, should she need it. She came down the steps, one sandal flopping, drew the chair away from the table, banged her beer can on the surface, and sat with her knees spread, the skirt hanging down between them. Now, once he’d got past the heavy blue eye-shadow and the curtains of mascara, Harry could detect the colour of her eyes. Grey. Fixed on him.

  ‘Brought your own beer?’ he asked.

  She made a gesture, palm lifted from the table surface then flapped down again. ‘It’s full of sand. I might have needed something heavy.’

  Nothing changed on Harry’s face. There was a certain charm about his rugged ugliness, she decided, and the line of his mouth indicated no cruelty. His eyes were brown, deeply-set beneath heavy bushes of eyebrows. And they were looking right through her.

  ‘Who are you?’ he asked quietly. ‘What d’you want?’

  ‘I think perhaps it’s what you want, Harry. May I call you Harry?’

  ‘If you like.’ He didn’t ask what he should call her. The implication was that the meeting might be too short to make it a necessity.

  ‘What’s this about Sergeant Tranter?’ he asked.

  ‘He told me you need help. The Angela Reed murder. I’ve got a similar interest.’

  ‘Help from a woman?’ It was a polite question.

  ‘You’d have to pay a man. I’m free.’

  His eyebrows moved. ‘What similar interest?’

  She sighed. He was inflexible, not to be drawn out by pleasantries.

  ‘You did a snatch job,’ she said. ‘A jeweller’
s shop. You had a companion, who was not arrested, and you’ve never given his name. I’m interested in the jewellery. It wasn’t recovered and it’s not come on the market. If I can find it, then I get ten per cent of the insurable value. If we can find it, Harry, we might also find the person who killed Angela Reed.’

  He was silent. He reached up and pulled his nose, scratched his ear. He detected a creak beneath his right foot and thumped the deck with his boot, to see whether it would go through. She watched him working it out, and gave him time, trying not to imagine what might be floating a few inches beneath her own feet, and gradually, as she relaxed, the assumed character flowed away. Her shoulders straightened, her legs came together and stretched out, crossed at the ankles, her mouth, which had seemed hard, softened.

  ‘Can’t offer you a drink,’ he said at last. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘No cocktails or gin and tonics.’

  She raised her eyebrows. ‘And I thought I did it well.’

  He shook his head. ‘Round here, at your age, it’s all jeans and spike heels. Disco wear.’

  ‘Spike heels,’ she whispered.

  ‘You’re dressed like an old woman with make-up like a teenager. You were right about the beer can, though. Could’ve needed somethin’ heavy. I’d keep hold of it if I was you.’

  ‘For the trip back?’

  ‘In case I decide to toss you out on your ear. Now…what the bloody hell’s the game?’

  There had been no change in the pitch of his voice. It was low and steady. But an edge had crept in. The wooden walls tingled with danger. Harry, she reminded herself, could be a very aggressive man. She managed to keep her eyes on his, and shrugged.

  ‘All right, I made a mistake. You don’t need anybody’s help. You’re just a big, independent slob, with only one use for a woman.’

  ‘So now we know.’

  Still not taking her eyes from him she swung the tatty canvas shoulder bag round and prodded her left hand inside it, produced her pack of brown cigarettes, and her dainty automatic pistol lighter.

  Harry laughed. ‘A pea shooter! You’re frightenin’ me.’

  ‘A lighter,’ she said, flicking it. ‘You mind if I smoke?’

  He made a gesture, his huge hand flitting like a bat in front of her. ‘Can’t get it outa the curtains, though.’

  ‘You’re lovely, Harry,’ she said. ‘Why the hell’re you living here? Tell me that.’

  ‘D’you know how much I get from the Social Security?’

  ‘Nevertheless…’

  ‘Tell me what you’re after?’ he demanded in a flat voice, and she felt that this was a turning point. A reasonable response, and he’d accept her, might even confide in her. But he went on before she could say anything. ‘And don’t tell me it’s the jewellery snatch, ’cause I’m not a complete fool. That was nothin’. A few thousand in it. Ten per cent of nowt, that’s what you’d be on. Not come on the market, you said. Load of cr…rubbish. Quartz watches and cheap jewellery…don’t kid me. So let’s have it, Miss Whatever-you-are. What’s the game?’

  ‘They said you weren’t too bright, Harry. They said you were an ugly tough. You’re not ugly, Harry, and you’re not dim.’

  He eyed her steadily for a moment, then stared down at his feet. She’d spoken with sincerity, with an air of pleased discovery. He could get to like her, he decided, a heavy decision because Harry was wary in matters of trust and friendship. He looked up. She was speaking again.

  ‘That day you were arrested…remember it? From then on, you were on remand in custody until your trial came on, then in prison for four years. So you wouldn’t know what was going on. Right?’

  ‘It’s right that I don’t know what you’re on about.’

  ‘The same day that you did the jeweller’s in the High Street, at about the same time, in Trinity Street, which crosses the High Street…’

  ‘I know the town.’

  ‘In Trinity Street three men, plus a driver, pulled a bank job. A good day for it — the tills were full of wages money. They cleared a hundred and twenty thousand pounds, Harry. In cash. Ten per cent of that is twelve thousand. I’ve waited four years for you to come out, and now I’ve got a chance. I think those two robberies were connected, and in some way connected with Angela Reed’s death. So we team up, Harry. You find your murderer, and I find the money.’

  He brooded on it. Harry, brooding, was like a giant bullfrog, all set to pounce. He raised his eyes, staring at her through the fringe of his bushy eyebrows.

  ‘You know too much about it. Who are you? Insurance…’

  ‘I’m on my own. My name is Virginia Brent. I was at your trial, Harry, in the balcony. I’ve read your trial transcript, to refresh my memory. I’ve read your statement.’

  ‘You’re police.’ His eyes glinted.

  ‘No. My father’s the Assistant Chief Constable…’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘And Paul Tranter’s my godfather.’

  ‘Ohoh!’ He tossed it back at her with scorn.

  ‘So I’ve got access…’

  ‘That money,’ he cut in. ‘It’ll have gone by now. Spent. Salted away. No…spent, you can bet. Not a chance, and if you know so much, you oughta know that.’

  ‘Harry,’ she said, ‘don’t you think the police know what they’re doing? They had ideas about who’d been on the job. They put in undercover men, used every informant they knew, and nobody, just nobody, started spending money freely.’

  ‘An out-of-town team…’

  ‘But no.’ She smiled. ‘That’s the point, you see. If, as I believe, the two jobs were linked, the jeweller’s and the bank robbery, then it was local. Because you’re local, Harry. You’ve come back here, to this town, because this is where you belong. And there’s just a possibility that your mate on the jewellery job was local, too, and the whisper around was that he could’ve been the bossman for both jobs…’

  ‘What!’ he almost burst out. ‘Charlie…’

  He got to his feet abruptly, forgot to duck, and banged his head. He sat down again. She was smiling.

  ‘You tricked me into that,’ he grumbled.

  ‘Not tricked. But it’s a start. Charlie, you say?’

  ‘You are police. You’ll go dashin’ off to the sergeant…’

  ‘No, Harry. He agreed to put me in touch with you. He knows I’ll tell him nothing. He might help us, or he might not.’

  ‘Why should I trust you?’

  ‘I’m trusting you.’

  ‘I don’t see that.’

  ‘Harry, don’t be slow. It’s obvious. Angela Reed was killed at that lay-by, and there was only one person who could’ve known she was there. You. You said you left her alive. But she was killed with violence — she had a half inch hole in her forehead. You can be violent. So I’m trusting you not to kill me. Would it be so very difficult, Harry? Here and now! And if we work together, at any moment — any time you feel I’ve let you down — you could pick me up with one hand and break me into little pieces. So I’m trusting you. I propose to spend a lot of time with you, Harry, and I don’t want to be on edge every second.’

  He was watching her with what might have been a smile, but if so it was too shy to break free. His head was shaking, dark and floppy hair flying, dispersing his thoughts.

  ‘I don’t know what to make of you,’ he admitted.

  ‘What’ve you got to lose?’ She leaned forward encouragingly. ‘You’ve served a sentence for the jeweller’s shop job, and you were found not guilty of murder. You’ve got Vic Fletcher at your back. Why not give it a try?’

  He jutted his lower lip, and showed his teeth in a wry grin. ‘And tell you personal secrets that nobody else knows? That’s what you’re after, I reckon.’

  ‘This loyalty of yours, Harry! It’s splendid. But people take advantage of loyalty — you owe them nothing.’

  ‘Friends,’ he murmured.

  She thought, then, that she had perhaps made a mistake.
Had Harry, with an outward appearance that would not be seen as attractive by most women, ever found a relationship with any deep meaning to it? Friendship, then, would have been his ultimate experience, and he’d treasured his friendships, nurtured them. How sad, then, that these had so often been abused. It had been too easy to take advantage of a trust he squandered so selflessly. And she had denigrated his friendships! He would now have every reason to reject her.

  ‘The police know about Charlie Braine,’ she said quietly.

  ‘If you know…’

  ‘Your contacts were investigated. No, not by me, Harry. I told you, I’ve got access to inside information.’

  ‘Not that again!’

  ‘That again. And it seems to me I know more than you do.’

  ‘Not about Charlie, you don’t.’ He was fierce in his claim.

  ‘One thing,’ she told him gently. ‘There’s one thing you obviously don’t know. You haven’t been to see him? At his place?’

  ‘No. Kind of…you know…embarrassin’.’

  She didn’t understand what he meant by that. ‘Then you can’t know that Charlie Braine went missing on that day, the day you did the jeweller’s. Missing and never heard of since. Alive or dead.’

  His eyes looked startled, and something moved ponderously behind the battered façade of his face. He took a whole minute to absorb the information, to lay it beside the presence of Charlie Braine in his memory, to assess it, to accept it.

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ he mumbled.

  ‘So there’s more to it than you thought,’ she pointed out, leaning back to make it casual and in no way a victory. ‘Why don’t you tell me all about it, Harry?’

  The gas mantle was roaring. He half rose, reaching forward to adjust it down, flapped his palms on his flanks, said: ‘Have a job getting the mantles.’ Then he sat down again and rubbed his face vigorously with his rough palms. Eventually, his eyes once more met hers. He said nothing, simply stared at her.

  ‘Trust me, Harry,’ she said.

  With those words she realized she was not committing him, but herself. If he trusted her and offered his friendship, he would be presenting her with the full extent of his emotional wealth. It was a responsibility she hadn’t expected to encounter. The thought warmed her. Impulsively she leaned forward, not aware that her face was glowing, her eyes revealing her eagerness.