Dutch Courage (21 page)

Fox made no comment.

‘Haven't you ever envied Sam, resented his trouble-free golden lifestyle?'

‘No,' It was said pugnaciously.

‘You must be a saint, Ray.'

‘How about Margot Collier?' put in Connie. ‘You wouldn't be normal not to fantasize about her, Living next door you'd see them together in affectionate situations. Do you ever spy on them?'

Fox flushed; gulped more coffee. ‘I'm not into that.'

‘Your wife said she caught you studying Margot's bottom in tight shorts through binoculars. How often do you watch her that way?'

He reacted aggressively. ‘What's this about?' He fixed a glare on Max. ‘You dragged me here because this woman waffled on about mess bills? I paid 'em, so what's the problem?'

‘We checked with the Mess President. Once, before you went to Kandahar, and both months since your return, you've had to be pressured into settling. Spending too much time in the Mess hitting the bottle?'

A curious slyness entered Fox's eyes. ‘You've got the wrong guy.'

‘Have we?'

No response.

‘Some other member drinking too much, is he?'

Fox stood. ‘I've had enough of this. I'm going.'

‘Sit down! We haven't finished yet,' Max told him coldly.

‘
I've
finished. I'm not under arrest, so I'm free to leave.'

‘I'm holding you for questioning about the brutal attack on Sam Collier two nights ago.'

‘
What?
'

‘Sit down, Ray, we've a long way to go yet.'

Fox sobered dramatically. He looked deeply shaken as he sank on the hard chair. ‘I had nothing to do with that, for Christ's sake! You can't bloody tie me in with it.' He looked wildly from Max to Connie and back. ‘What's this woman been saying?'

We've got him
, thought Max with satisfaction. ‘Sergeant Bush visited you to ask your opinion of Sam Collier. You claimed you got on well with him. You said he only had to ask his wife for money and he got any sum he wanted. You said he ought to share it around. When the Sergeant mentioned a loan, you said a
gift
because you knew Sam's secret. Do you deny that? Is it a secret deserving a vicious beating and dumping on the perimeter road?'

‘No. Christ, no! You can't pin that on me.'

‘Can you account for your movements on Monday night, sir?' demanded Connie.

‘I was out. Driving.'

‘Alone?'

‘Yes.'

‘Driving where?'

‘Just around. I needed to think.'

‘Were you in your own car?'

‘Of course.'

‘Have you ever borrowed Lieutenant Maine's Audi?' asked Max.

‘What? No. Why would I?' Fox was getting severely rattled.

‘So you were just driving around thinking. Thinking about what?'

‘The usual things. Work. Money.'

‘Margot Collier?' inserted Connie softly.

‘No.'

Max said, ‘Can anyone substantiate your claim? Did anyone from the base pass you and acknowledge you?'

‘I don't know. Can't remember.'

‘What time did you return home from this random drive?'

‘Late. Sherilie had gone to bed.' His eyes now had a haunted look; he kept licking his lips nervously.

‘So your wife can confirm what time you got in?' asked Connie.

‘Yes . . .
no
. I slept in the spare room.'

‘Why was that?'

‘She'd . . . I didn't want to disturb her.'

‘Not even to tell her the results of all that thinking?'

Max shot a question that took Fox by surprise. ‘Did you call Sam Collier and ask him to meet you to settle some matter between you?'

‘No.' He looked swiftly from one to the other. ‘
I
didn't beat him up. You can't accuse me of something I didn't do. Would
never
do.'

‘We haven't accused you of anything yet, Ray,' Max told him calmly. ‘We're just asking questions you don't seem able to answer satisfactorily. We're investigating a very serious crime against one of your fellow pilots. A man you've claimed to know a secret about. We have evidence from Sherilie that you watch his wife through binoculars. You've just now indicated that you have money worries and you feel Sam Collier could share his wife's wealth around quite easily. You can't account for your whereabouts on the night he was attacked. Add that together and it makes you a suspect.'

Fixing the Welshman with a steady, penetrating stare, Max said, ‘Did you send Sam a series of anonymous threatening letters? Did you subsequently threaten his wife with random acts of harassment, culminating with an attempt to run her car off the road? Did you arrange to meet Collier on Monday night and demand a large payment to cease hounding them and, when he refused, did you call in your heavies to persuade him you meant business?'

Fox physically sagged, wiping sweat from his face with the tail of his T-shirt. ‘You've got it all wrong,' he said wearily. ‘I'd like some more coffee.'

While Connie went to fetch some, Max prompted the nervous man. ‘You're going to tell us why we've misread your behaviour?'

Fox nodded his bent head. ‘I'd never do that to Sam. He's one of us. We stick together. That's why I wouldn't rat on him.'

‘By revealing his secret?'

Fox nodded again, and Max sat without speaking until Connie returned with a mug. She then joined Max in silently watching the young pilot gulping scalding black coffee with a hint of desperation. Fox eventually glanced up to face his unsmiling inquisitors and his body sagged further as the silence continued. Swallowing nervously, he spread his hands palm upwards on the desk in a gesture of appeal.

‘Sherilie thinks money grows on trees. She sees Margot and wants the same things. She spends a fortune on hairdos, manicures and clothes trying to match up. We're always rowing about money. I told her before going to Kandahar she could piss off if she's not happy with what she's got. She stayed, of course.' The two detectives sat motionless and silent, which seemed to unnerve him into continuing in brief, concise sentences. ‘I've always liked women. She knew that when she married me. I happen to need frequent sex. She knew that, too. She's more intent on creating her “image” than pleasing me.'

He waved his hands ineffectually. ‘I met Louise in a bar. She's Dutch. Was staying here with a friend. We hit it off right away. She's everything a man dreams of; everything Sherilie isn't. I've been driving across the border whenever I've had the chance. I was with her on Monday night.'

‘She'll confirm that?' Max asked sharply.

Fox looked alarmed. ‘Do you need to involve her?'

‘Yes, we're investigating a serious crime. You need to prove your non-involvement in it.'

Sitting back in his chair Fox ran a shaking hand over his mouth. ‘Look, I admit I asked Sam for a sub when I discovered what he was doing. Later, I saw I had access to occasional financial supplements, only Sam wouldn't play ball. He said it was a one-off, but I caught him at it again just two days later. I had another go at him. He paid up, but said there'd be no more.' Fox appealed to them. ‘While I was in Kandahar Sherilie ran up huge debts everywhere. No way could I clear them and settle mess bills as well.'

‘So you sent Lieutenant Collier anonymous letters threatening to tell what you knew,' prompted Connie.

Fox studied his hands again. ‘It was sort of jokey.'

‘And when he ignored them, you began to harass his wife. Putting the frighteners on her to persuade him to meet your demands.'

Fox's head jerked up. ‘No. Good God, no! What d'you take me for?'

‘A man prepared to blackmail a colleague for money.'

That really hit home. Fox's mouth tightened. ‘If I'd reported Sam he'd have been grounded indefinitely, and he's a guy who lives for flying. He could get any amount from Margot just for the asking, so he'd simply be protecting his pilot status.' Casting a defiant glare at the two facing him, he added, ‘He's bloody lucky I've kept quiet.'

Max took over. ‘So you are admitting to sending Sam Collier unsigned threatening letters, putting him under duress to give you significant sums of money?' At Fox's silence, he said, ‘Yes or no?'

‘I was doing him a favour by keeping his secret.'

‘
Yes or no?
'

‘That was all. I had no hand in scaring Margot or beating Sam.'

Unwillingly believing him, Max asked the vital question. ‘What was it you were keeping quiet about? Someone decided to beat your neighbour unconscious so the truth would come out, despite your dubious sense of loyalty.'

It was evening before they went to the Medical Centre. The Dutch police had confirmed Fox's meeting with Louise, so he was being charged with blackmailing a fellow officer, with almost certain additional charges for accruing serious debts in local stores and for conducting an illicit affair. Inappropriate behaviour for an officer.

The evening's briefing had been unproductive. Collier's fellow hostages were in the UK, two having left the Army. The four he rescued in Kandahar were also in Britain, not yet having rejoined the Royal Cumberland Rifles here in Germany. Still in a critical condition in hospital was the man who had suffered serious burns, and another with gunshot wounds. The other two remained on convalescent leave.

Only the blue Audi of those vehicles owned by members of 678 Squadron and their families had bloodstains in the boot. Piercey had contacted Lieutenant Maine at the home of his parents in Ipswich, who had confirmed he had been with them all the week.

The two-day task of checking the whereabouts on Monday night of several hundred people had ruled out only a quarter of them. Alibis provided by spouses were considered suspect, and those who had departed very early on Tuesday for the night-flying exercise Ray Fox had been on had only become available for questioning today.

The Audi had been taken into the secure yard behind Headquarters and was undergoing forensic examination.

With patient persistence, Beeny had ascertained that the call which had lured Collier from his house had been made from a public telephone on the base. All this proved was that it had to have been a caller with permission to be on military property. In simple terms, it could have been any one of thousands.

The uniformed boys had identified the spot where the flogging had taken place. Not far from where Piercey had been grabbed by the Duty Officer. No sign of rope or other weapon. It could have been disposed of easily in an establishment like this one and, even if dozens of manpower hours were wasted in a search, the chances of gaining incriminating evidence from it were slim. Their main hope rested on Collier abandoning his determined silence and naming his attackers. Now Fox had revealed the purpose of the letters and the nature of the secret referred to, Collier's stance was surely untenable.

Driving across the base Max apologized for obliging Tom to work late again. ‘I hope you'll not get an earful from Nora, although she must be used to keeping meals hot for you.'

‘She's up to her eyes in bridal stuff. As I'm not decked out in white satin she won't even notice I'm not there.'

‘Like that, is it?' commented Max thoughtfully. ‘The Easter wedding rush'll be over soon, and there's your UK leave to compensate.' Getting no response, he asked, ‘Everything all right at home?'

‘Mmm,' Tom grunted. ‘Could do with a bit of male support. Beth's only eight, but she's as bad as the other two where clothes and pop stars are concerned. When I was that age I was making balsa wood models, collecting brochures of sports cars from showrooms and reading spy yarns. They don't do anything meaningful like that.'

Max laughed. ‘If any of them did you'd worry that they'd turn out butch. They're
girls
, Tom. It's what girls are like. Have you forgotten how ghastly and boring they were when you were a boy?'

That brought a faint smile. ‘I hated one called Freda even more than the rest. Mine aren't like her.' After a pause he added, ‘It was great when they were little. They're trickier to deal with now, especially Maggie. She's turning into someone I don't know . . . or begin to understand.'

‘Par for the course where the fair sex is concerned,' Max stated, pulling up outside the Medical Centre. ‘Take Margot Collier. Obsessively hooked on her valiant husband, yet she's driving him to meet her father's rigid standards and carrying another man's child she means to foist on darling Sam. How do you begin to unravel that woman's reasoning?'

Tom unbuckled his seat belt and opened the car door. ‘I suggest we check Doc Clarkson's estimate of how advanced that pregnancy is while we're here. He could have got it wrong.'

‘Fair enough,' Max agreed, keeping his thoughts to himself. ‘You speak to Culdrow then join me with Collier. If fourteen weeks is correct give me a nod.'

Max entered the small room to find Margot sitting beside the bed drawing designs on a square block of plain paper. Sam lay with closed eyes which flicked open at Max's arrival.

Margot put a finger to her lips. ‘He's asleep,' she whispered.

‘He's just woken,' Max replied, pretty certain the patient had been feigning sleep. Interesting. Why would he ignore the light of his life?

‘How are you feeling, Sam?'

‘I still don't remember anything, if that's what you mean.'

‘I have some news that'll help you get your memory back.'

Sam stared back unblinking. ‘I don't think so.'

‘Must you pester him like this?' demanded Margot, putting aside her drawing and clutching her husband's hand.

Max ignored her. ‘We've just taped a confession by Ray Fox. It's gone some way to helping us find the men who put you in here.'