Charters and Caldicott (20 page)

‘Not on your nelly. I want to do some girl friday recruiting in Leeds.'

‘Is that near Manchester?'

‘A mere tram ride away. Shall we go – like now?'

‘But see here, I haven't so much as a toothbrush with me,' Charters objected.

‘They do have toothbrushes in Lancashire, Charters,' said Caldicott.

‘I should think they also have them in the New Scotland Yard lock-up,' said Margaret impatiently. ‘Is there a back way out of these flats, Caldicott?'

‘What?' Caldicott joined her at the window and looked down. ‘Oh, my golly.' Inspector Snow was just entering the block. ‘Hello, he's got his sergeant with him this time.'

‘What does that signify?' Charters asked.

‘It signifies that if you don't leave now, you won't be leaving until you've told him everything he needs to know,' said Margaret.

 

Caldicott pushed up the trapdoor, peered cautiously out and turned back to signal the all-clear to Charters and Margaret The three of them climbed through and, crouching down to avoid being seen, picked their way gingerly across the rooftop and down the fire escape to the railings at street level. Only a gate stood between them, Margaret's car, Watford and the North and they scurried towards it. The gate was locked and Grimes stood on the other side of it, smirking.

‘
Good
evening, sir, Mr Charters, sir, madam.'

Caldicott glared at him through the bars. ‘This is a fire escape, Grimes.'

‘It most certainly is, Mr Caldicott. Any conflagration at this moment in time, or was you taking a short cut?'

‘It's locked, Grimes.'

‘I know, sir. It's a constant what's-it-called – dilemma, for me, this gate is. Do I keep it locked, thus creating a safety hazard style of thing, or do I leave it open and encourage the criminal element?' Grime's folded his arms, prepared to debate the issue all night. ‘Either way, if the dog-dirt hits the fan, excuse me madam, it comes back to me.'

‘Let me out, Grimes.'

‘More than my job's worth, Mr Caldicott.'

‘Doesn't he have superiors you can report him to, Caldicott?' Charters demanded.

‘Do I not, Mr Charters. And if they thought I was letting the residents use the emergency exit for their own convenience I'd be for the high jump. I kid you not.'

‘You'll be for the high jump, laddie, if you don't unlock this gate. I kid
you
not,' Caldicott raged, shaking the spearhead railings.

‘It's the security angle that bothers them, see, sir. Only with my bad back I can't do my rounds as often as I'd like to.'

‘Give him a fiver for some liniment,' Margaret muttered, fearing the imminent arrival of Snow.

‘Take more than that, Madam. Only I'm going to a private osteopath now, see, and honestly, what he has the nerve to charge, it ought to be exposed.'

Caldicott produced his wallet and took out a £10 note. ‘The key, Grimes.'

‘Not sure if I have it on me, tell the truth.'

‘Give me a tenner, Charters, there's a good fellow.' Charters took out his own wallet.

‘Very kind of you, sir. Only I expect you have your own reasons for coming out down the fire escape, so it's a case of I do you a favour and you do me one style of thing.'

Grimes unlocked the gate and took a tenner each off Charters and Caldicott as they passed through, with the aplomb of a steward at Lord's.

‘Thank you Grimes.'

‘Thank you, Mr Caldicott.'

Free at last, Margaret and Charters were eager to be off but Caldicott lingered. ‘And Grimes, I'm going away for a few days. When I get back I look forward to hearing all about your new job.'

‘What job would that be, sir?'

‘The job you'll be applying for in my absence. Will you break the news to the agents or shall I?'

Grimes shrugged philosophically and pocketed the money. Charters, Caldicott and Margaret crammed themselves into Margaret's vintage open-topped MG and headed up the Ml with as much speed as they could reconcile with the law. As they passed a police lay-by, a patrolman made a note of the car's number and reached for his radio.

Grimes let Inspector Snow and Sergeant Tipper into Caldicott's flat and stood outside, his ear pressed to the door until Snow, displaying psychic powers, said conversationally, ‘All right, Mr Grimes, I shan't need you any more.'

The inspector had been pacing the living-room, deep in thought. ‘You see, it doesn't make sense,' he said finally to Tipper.

‘What's that, guv?'

‘You are Helen Appleyard, looking for whatever it is you're looking for. I'm the girl calling herself Jenny Beevers. I say calling herself – it could still turn out she
is
Jenny Beevers and that's why they're shielding her. I let myself in with the key I nicked downstairs – now you found that chip of nail varnish by the front door, correct?'

‘One point two metres into the living-room, guv.'

‘So that's where the struggle must have started.' Snow positioned himself to re-enact the scene as it might have happened. ‘I let myself in, you come forward to stop me getting any further, and I force you all the way back to the bedroom without knocking anything down or even rocking the carpet.' Snow shook his head. ‘It's not possible.'

‘Oh, I don't know, guv. If you took me by surprise?'

‘If
I
took
you
by surprise, yes, but you see we're talking about two slips of young women, by all accounts about the same height and the same weight. They'd have been all over the shop. No, I'll tell you what – she was propelled across this room by a man.'

‘Our friend?'

‘If we could prove it.'

‘How did he get in?'

‘He didn't come in with Jenny so-called Beevers, because she was seen by number thirty-two coming along the corridor by herself. Maybe Helen Appleyard let her in. The short answer is, I don't know.' Snow looked at his watch. ‘You'd better be ringing in, hadn't you?' While Tipper dialled, Snow looked disapprovingly at a set of carelessly stacked encyclopaedias. ‘Just look at that. How can anyone live with that kind of mess?'

‘They leave it all to the charwoman in that class, don't they, guv?... Sergeant Tipper here. Anything?'

Unable to bear the sight, Inspector Snow began to straighten the volumes. As he did so, a tiny object fell from one of them. He closed his hand on it.

‘They're on their way north, with that Mrs Mottram,' Tipper reported.

‘She's a sensible woman. If they're going where I think they're going, let's hope she keeps them out of mischief till we get there. I thought you'd been over this room with a vacuum cleaner?' Snow opened his hand and showed Tipper a small blazer button. ‘Lodged down the spine of that volume there.'

‘Must have flown through the air while they were struggling.'

‘Very likely.' Snow took an envelope from Caldicott's desk, dropped the button into it and held out the flap to Tipper. ‘Just lick that, would you? It
still
doesn't make sense but I'll tell you what, Sergeant Tipper. We've nabbed him.'

Margaret deposited Charters and Caldicott at a sprawling, concrete, neon-lit hotel that might have sprung up as a conference venue on any ringroad of any town. As they checked in, they noted with distaste the muzak, the garish furnishing and the lop-sided noticeboard directing computer games salesmen to the Oak Suite and meat traders' reception guests to the Princess Room. The hotel operated a do-it­yourself system of customer service and Charters and Caldicott had to carry their own suitcases, bought and filled with socks, shaving-soap and other emergency rations, on the journey north. While they waited for the lift to take them to their anonymous rooms, they looked down at the matching cases at their feet, then at each other. Uncertainly, they switched the cases over.

Two substantial figures seated in the lobby had noted their arrival. When the lift doors had closed on Charters and Caldicott, one of Josh Darrell's minders put down his newspaper and headed for the house phones.

After enduring a Surf 'n Turf dinner in the Cape Cod Restaurant, Charters and Caldicott decided to call it a day. Five minutes later, Charters, fuming with impatience as he waited for someone to answer his phone call to reception, turned to find Caldicott had come into his room. ‘Why can't I get room service?'

‘Did you dial 526?'

‘I haven't dialled anything.'

‘Then you won't get room service.' Charters began to dial. ‘And that gets you a recorded message advising that for the convenience of guests there
isn't
any room service at this hour, but for your further convenience please make use of your mini-bar.'

Charters banged down the phone. ‘What the blazes is a mini-bar.'

‘This contraption,' said Caldicott, opening the door. ‘Mine's empty so I thought I'd join you for a nightcap.'

Charters relaxed a little. ‘Large brandy and soda for me, if you please, old fellow.' Caldicott held up a miniature bottle of brandy daintily. ‘Confounded place. And have you seen the size of the soap tablets they give you? It's more like Lilliput.'

‘Well, what's our programme for tomorrow, old man?' asked Caldicott, mixing Charters' drink on the plastic oak­finish desk-cum-dressing table.

‘Play commences at eleven-thirty. Norton and West presumably start business at nine. I propose we get there on the dot.'

‘Yes, but what do we do when we get there?'

‘Only one thing
to
do. Re-introduce ourselves to Gordon Wrigley and hope to bluff him into telling us what we want to know. Whatever that may be.'

‘When we did that before, at Josh Darrell's house-party, we made complete twerps of ourselves.' Caldicott passed Charters his drink.

‘Yes, well this time better leave the talking to me. No offence, old fellow.'

‘None taken,' said Caldicott huffily, peering into the mini­bar. ‘However, there's no reason to suppose your wits are sharper than – I say! I've given you the only brandy!'

‘Chin chin,' said Charters, downing it in one.

Charters and Caldicott fiddled uncomfortably with their shirt collars as they picked their way between stacks of lemonade crates. Caldicott glanced up and drew Charters' attention to a large sign that read, ‘Norton and West Mineral Waters. Mfrs of Birdade. “First for Thirst since 1891”.' A grimace of acute embarrassment crossed their faces as they remembered their previous encounter with Gordon Wrigley. It seemed he didn't need a slogan after all.

The factory's enquiry office housed a commissionaire doing his football pools and a receptionist chatting to a friend on the switchboard. Neither paid any attention to Charters and Caldicott.

‘No, I wouldn't mind, Sharon, but I don't even like fried bread,' the receptionist was saying. ‘All right, so you don't expect a cordon blue meal when there's only the one gas ring, but you'd think he'd've made some kind of effort, wouldn't you? So I said, ooh, for goodness sake, Brian, where's your tin-opener?' Charters had had enough of this. He banged peremptorily on the old-fashioned bell. ‘Just a minute, Sharon. Can I help you?'

‘Mr Caldicott and Mr Charters to see Mr Wrigley.'

‘Did you have an appointment?'

‘I think he'll see us. We met at a house party.'

‘Mr Who, did you say?'

‘Caldicott and Charters.'

‘Charters and Caldicott,' said Caldicott.

‘Sharon. There's a Mr Charters and a Mr Caldicott to see Mr Wrigley... no, but they say they know him – they met at a party.' The receptionist turned back to Charters and Caldicott. ‘She's just off to see if he's in.'

‘Damned uncomfortable, these ready-made shirts, don't you find, Caldicott?' said Charters, tugging at his collar. The receptionist glanced up curiously from painting her nails.

‘Yes. It could be that they have different sizes in the North,' said Caldicott, running his fingers inside the collar of his own shirt, as if to take up the slack.

‘Very likely. This sixteen-and-a-half collar feels like a fifteen-and-a-half.'

‘My fifteen-and-a-half feels like a sixteen-and-a-half.'

The switchboard buzzed. ‘Yes, Sharon? And you don't know when he'll be back?... All right – oh, and I'll tell you the rest of the saga at lunchtime.' The receptionist glanced up to relay the information that Mr Wrigley was down in London at the present.

‘We may as well go to the fountainhead, since we're here, Caldicott,' said Charters. ‘Mr Norton or Mr West?'

‘I'm afraid Mr West's dead at the moment. And I don't think Mr Norton'll see you, if you don't have an appointment.'

‘We'll leave that to the judgement of others, shall we?'

The receptionist sighed and plugged into another extension. ‘Debra? No, dead loss – I might as well have stayed in and washed my hair. I'll tell you the gory details later. Listen, there's two gentlemen asking for Mr Norton. Mr Charters and Mr Caldicott.' She turned to Charters. ‘Could you give me some idea of what it's in connection with?'

‘It's a private matter.'

‘Wait,' said Caldicott. ‘Say it's to do with the affairs of the late Colonel Beevers of Hong Kong.'

‘They say it's about a Colonel Beevers from Hong Kong. I don't know, Debra, do I?' The receptionist lowered her voice. ‘No, definitely not reps. She's seeing if he'll see you,' she said to Charters and Caldicott.

‘I have a question for you, Caldicott,' said Charters as they waited.

‘Fire away.'

‘What colour's your toothbrush?'

‘My bathroom toothbrush or my travelling toothbrush?'

‘The toothbrush you acquired last evening along with shirt, socks, etc.'

‘Oh that toothbrush. Green.'