Fatal Quest (15 page)

With a great show of reluctance, ‘Smith' did as he had been ordered, but when he was halfway between the bar and Woodend, he came to a sudden halt.

‘Look … er … ain't there nuffink we can do to make this bit o' unpleasantness just go away?' he asked.

‘Nothin' that
I
can I think of,' Woodend said.

‘Smith' reached into his pocket. ‘It's like this, Sergeant,' he said, ‘I've 'ad a bit of luck at the dog track, which means that I just 'appen to 'ave a few quid on me, and …'

Woodend shook his head. ‘Careful,' he warned. ‘You don't want to go addin' attempted bribery to the charges, now do you?'

The next few moments passed in a blur.

One second, ‘Smith' was standing perfectly still. The next he was lunging towards Woodend, and screaming, ‘Bastard!' at the top of his voice. His hand, now clear of his pocket again, was holding not the promised cash but a very unpromising cosh, and as he got within striking range, he swung it at the sergeant's head.

Woodend did his best to feint to the side but he was not quite fast enough. The cosh failed to strike its intended target, but it did land heavily on his shoulder, and a pain shot along his arm right to his fingertips.

‘Smith' took one step backwards, to give himself more space for a second assault. Woodend, his head swimming and his eyes refusing to focus properly, lashed out blindly with his right foot.

The boot connected with something solid. Smith let out a loud ‘oof', then sank to his knees – almost in slow motion – moaning, ‘Ohmygod, ohmygod,' softly to himself.

For an instant, Woodend contemplated following through with a second kick – to the other man's chest, this time – but then he realized there was no need, because it was clear that ‘Smith', who was gingerly, and experimentally, touching his genitals, would be in no position to cause any more trouble for quite a while.

Woodend flexed the fingers of his right hand, and was surprised at how a movement in one part of his body could cause so much pain in so many other parts. But though it hurt like hell, he was almost sure that nothing was broken.

‘Smith' looked up at him, his eyes filled with agony.

‘Yer've … yer've bloody well gone and castrified me,' he complained, through clenched teeth.

‘The word you want is
castrated
, you ignorant bastard,' Woodend said, and then, as a new wave of pain shot along the length of his arm, he added, ‘An', if I have done, it's no more than you bloody deserve.'

He walked around the still kneeling man, carefully bent his own knees, and pulled ‘Smith's' arms behind his back.

‘Listen, there's still a chance that we can work somefink out between us,' the other man gasped, as Woodend slipped the handcuffs over his wrists. ‘I'm sorry that I 'urt yer, and I'm more the willing to pay for it. Suppose I was to offer yer fifty quid, all in used oncers? What would yer say to that?'

‘I'd say I've met any number of hopeless optimists in my time, but you really take the biscuit,' Woodend replied, as he clicked the cuffs in place.

‘What d'yer mean?'

‘I mean you've got about as much chance of me takin' your offer as a dog turd has of bein' crowned Queen of the May.'

‘I might be able to stretch to an 'undred quid,' ‘Smith' said hopefully.

Woodend rose to his feet, and then grasped ‘Smith' by the arms and assisted him into a standing position. His own arm, he noted as he did so, still hurt like buggery.

He transferred his hands to ‘Smith's' shoulders, and turned the other man around, so that they were facing each other.

‘John Smith, I am arrestin' you on the suspicion that you were engaged in an act of burglary on these premises, an' on the bloody
certainty
that you have attacked a police officer in the course of his lawful duty,' he said. ‘Or to put it in the vernacular – you're well an' truly nicked, my son.'

T
he man who was still insisting on calling himself John Smith leaned heavily – and somewhat theatrically – on the interview-room table and said, ‘My knackers are on fire. I need medical attention.'

‘Aye, I know how you feel,' Woodend said, with mock sympathy. ‘I've got this throbbing pain in my shoulder that I wouldn't mind the quack givin' the once-over, an' all. So it's a real pity, isn't it, that neither of us have time to go an' see a doctor at the moment?' He slid his packet of Capstan Full Strength across the table. ‘Why don't you stop complainin' an' have one of these? It'll help to ease the pain.'

‘Smith' took one of the cigarettes, and Woodend lit it for him.

‘Name?' the sergeant asked.

‘I've already told yer, it's John Smiff.'

Woodend shook his head. ‘No, it isn't,' he said. He lit up a cigarette himself, and gulped down the acrid smoke greedily. ‘Listen,' he continued, ‘since we both know that the criminal-records department is goin' to match your fingerprints up to your real name sooner or later, why not save some time, an' tell me now?'

The prisoner gave the matter some thought – it seemed to be a painful process.

‘All right,' he said finally. ‘The name's Machin. Jimmy Machin.'

‘That's very good, Jimmy,' Woodend said encouragingly. ‘Now, the next step is for you to tell me exactly what you were doin' in the Waterman's Arms.'

‘What do yer fink I was doing? I'm a tea leaf, ain't I? The reason I went into the pub was to pinch somefink.'

‘Somethin'?' Woodend repeated, rolling the word around in his mouth thoughtfully. ‘Like what, for example?'

Machin shrugged. ‘Well, yer know …'

‘No, that's the point, I
don't
know,' Woodend replied. ‘That's why I'm askin' you to tell me.'

‘I fort there might be some cash lying around.'

‘Really?'

‘Yeah.'

‘You saw the notice on the door … you can read, can't you?'

‘Course I can bleeding read!'

‘You saw a notice sayin' that the police had closed the place until further notice, an' you seriously thought there was a chance that the brewery would have been stupid enough to leave
money
inside?'

‘Well, I didn't fink there was
too much
of a chance of it,' Machin admitted. ‘But there's uvver fings yer can nick from pubs, as well as gelt.'

‘True,' Woodend agreed. ‘But you'd have looked a right bloody idiot walkin' down that passageway with a piano on your back, now wouldn't you?'

‘There was booze!' Machin said.

‘Yes, there was. Pubs are famous for havin' booze in them. If you wanted a bottle of whisky, an' you had to decide between goin' to a pub an' a furniture store for it, you'd choose a pub every time.'

‘There's no need to be sarcastic,' Machin said sulkily.

‘Why wouldn't I be sarcastic, when all you're doin' is feedin' me a load of old cobblers?' Woodend asked. ‘An' before you start tellin' me any more of your lies, just remember one thing – I've seen your skeleton keys.'

‘What's that supposed ter mean?'

‘They're works of art, are them keys. A beauty to behold. Only a real artist would have a set of keys like that.'

Machin's chest swelled with pride.

‘They are good, ain't they?' he said. ‘I made them myself, yer know.' Then, growing wary again, he added, ‘But wot does that prove?'

‘It proves you weren't after booze.'

‘Come again?'

‘Most of your common-or-garden toe-rag criminals will turn their hands to anythin' when the need arises. But you're an artist – an' artists are different. You wouldn't catch Leonardo da Vinci whitewashin' a shithouse wall – an' you wouldn't catch a good keyman like you breakin' and enterin' when all he could expect to come out with is a bottle or two of whisky. It's a question of pride an' professional standards, isn't it?'

‘Oo's this da Vinci bloke wot yer talkin' about?' Machin asked. ‘'E's not that Wop wot runs the rackets down in Limehouse, is 'e?'

‘How long have you been workin' for Greyhound Ron Smithers?' Woodend asked, out of the blue.

‘Yer wot?'

‘It's a simple enough question, I would have thought, but there's no real need for you to answer it. An' shall I tell you
why
there's no real need?'

‘If yer like.'

‘You see, I've already figured out that if you
weren't
workin' for Ron Smithers, there's no way that you would have been in the Waterman's Arms when Wally Booth got killed.'

‘Oo says I
was
in the Waterman's then?'

‘Nobody says it
directly
. But they don't need to – because your own actions give you away.'

‘'Ow do yer mean?'

‘Maybe I should explain the lines I'm thinkin' along,' Woodend suggested. ‘The way I see it is that ever since the murder occurred, you've been tellin' yourself there was absolutely nothin' in the pub to connect you with it. Tellin' yourself – but not really
believin
' it. An', in the end, you were worryin' so much that you decided you had to do somethin' to resolve your doubts once an' for all. So you went back to the pub, to check. You'd probably convinced yourself that there was no risk in doin' that – an' there wouldn't have been, if I hadn't walked through the door at just the wrong time.'

Machin folded his arms. ‘I ain't got nuffink more to say.'

‘You didn't mean to kill Wally Booth. I know that,' Woodend said coaxingly. ‘When you lost your temper with him, all you
meant
to do was knock him down. It was pure chance that he fell the way he did, an' died as a result. An' believe me, the Director of Public Prosecutions will understand that just as clearly as I do. You'll go down for manslaughter, not murder, an' with any luck, you'll be out again in three years.'

Machin uncoiled his arms, and stared down at his hands.

‘If I …' he began.

Then his mouth snapped shut, as it were on a spring.

He was fighting the impulse to confess, Woodend thought – but it was a losing battle. And tottering on the brink as he was, it would only take the very gentlest of pushes to make him come clean.

‘You could get at least
five
years simply for attackin' me, Jimmy,' he said. ‘Just think of that. Five long years! But if you're prepared to put your hands up for Wally Booth's death, I'll see to it that the other charges are dropped.'

The door to the interview room suddenly swung open, and a young uniformed constable entered.

‘Yes, what is it?' Woodend said irritably, as he silently cursed the constable's timing.

The constable nodded in the direction of the prisoner. ‘His solicitor's here, and is asking to see him.'

‘You've made a mistake, you bloody idiot!' Woodend said angrily. ‘It can't be
his
solicitor.
His
solicitor doesn't even know he's here, because he hasn't spoken to anybody but me since I arrested him.'

The constable glanced across at the prisoner again. ‘Are you James Archibald Machin?' he asked.

‘That's me,' Machin confirmed.

‘Sorry about that, Sarge,' the constable said, ‘but this is the bloke the solicitor wants to see, all right.'

‘Just because he's asked to see you, it doesn't mean that you have to agree to it if you don't want to,' Woodend told his prisoner. ‘An' really, under the circumstances, it might be best
not
to see him. Because once a lawyer's involved – makin' trouble left, right, and centre, as they do – the DPP might decide to go for a murder charge after all. On the other hand, if we can get this whole business neatly wrapped up between the two of us …'

Machin folded his arms across his chest again. ‘I demand to see my solicitor,' he said firmly.

Well, shit! Woodend thought.

The solicitors who made a precarious living out of defending petty criminals like Jimmy Machin were easily identifiable as a group. They could be picked out, even from a distance, by the shabby suits they wore, and the yoke of bitterness and cynicism which seemed to weigh them down. They had all but failed in their chosen profession, and showed, by their every action and every word, that they were well aware of the fact.

The man standing in the corridor at that moment was of an entirely different breed – not a legal rat scuttling around in the bowels of the judicial system, but a proud lion sitting atop it.
His
suit had been made by one of the more expensive tailors on Savile Row, and the watch that he was gazing at so pointedly would have cost a detective sergeant at least six months' pay.

Woodend held out his hand to the solicitor.

‘I'm DS Woodend, sir,' he said. ‘I'm the officer who arrested – an' who's been questionin' – your client.'

The other man nodded brusquely, but ignored the proffered hand.

‘And I'm Edward Tongue,' he said. ‘I'm the solicitor whose job it will be to unscramble the mess that you've undoubtedly left my client's mind in.'

Woodend did his best to avoid disliking people at the first meeting under normal circumstances – but in Tongue's case he was more than willing to make an exception.

‘Jimmy must have been doin' a
lot
of breakin' and enterin' recently, if he can afford to hire a feller like you,' he said.

Tongue gave him a fishlike stare. ‘I will not even dignify that comment with an answer,' he said.

‘An' even if he
has
got the money to pay you, I'm still surprised that you'd lower yourself to defend a guttersnipe like him.'