‘I understand that. Eventually, however, you will wish that you hadn’t helped to do it.’
He said smoothly, ‘A number of other people have said much the same, though few, I must confess, as quietly as you.’
It occurred to me suddenly that he must be quite used to the sort of enraged onslaught I’d thrown at the Wests, and that perhaps that was why his office... Didi caught my wandering glance and cynically nodded.
‘That’s right. Too many people tried to smash the place up. So we keep the damage to a minimum.’
‘How wise.’
‘I’m afraid I really do have another appointment now,’ Oakley said. ‘So if you’ll excuse me...?’
I stood up. There was nothing to stay for.
‘It surprises me,’ I remarked, ‘That you’re not in jail.’
‘I am clever,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘My clients are satisfied, and people like you... impotent.’
‘Someone will kill you, one day.’
‘Will you?’
I shook my head. ‘Not worth it.’
‘Exactly,’ he said calmly. ‘The jobs I accept are never what the victims would actually kill me for. I really am not a fool.’
‘No,’ I said.
I walked across to the door and Didi made room for me to pass. She put the pistol down on her desk in the outer office and switched off a red bulb which glowed brightly in a small switchboard.
‘Emergency signal?’ I enquired. ‘Under his desk.’
‘You could say so.’
‘Is that gun loaded?’
Her eyebrows rose. ‘Naturally.’
‘I see.’ I opened the outer door. She walked over to close it behind me as I went towards the stairs.
‘Nice to have met you, Mr Hughes,’ she said unemotionally. ‘Don’t come back.’
I walked along to my car in some depression. From none of the three damaging witnesses at the Enquiry had I got any change at all, and what David Oakley had said about me being impotent looked all too true.
There seemed to be no way of proving that he had simply brought with him the money he had photographed in my flat. No one at Corrie had seen him come or go: Tony had asked all the lads, and none of them had seen him. And Oakley would have found it easy enough to be unobserved. He had only had to arrive early, while everyone was out riding on the Downs at morning exercise. From seven thirty to eight thirty the stable yard would be deserted. Letting himself in through my unlocked door, setting up his props, loosing off a flash or two, and quietly retreating... The whole process would have taken him no more than ten minutes.
It was possible he had kept a record of his shady transactions. Possible, not probable. He might need to keep some hold over his clients, to prevent their later denouncing him in fits of resurgent civic conscience. If he did keep such records, it might account for the multiplicity of locks. Or maybe the locks were simply to discourage people from breaking in to search for records, as they were certainly discouraging me.
Would Oakley, I wondered, have done what Charlie West had done, and produced his lying testimony for a voice on the telephone? On the whole, I decided not. Oakley had brains where Charlie had vanity, and Oakley would not involve himself without tying his clients up tight too. Oakley had to know who had done the engineering.
But stealing that information... or beating it out of him... or tricking him into giving it... as well as buying it from him... every course looked as hopeless as the next. I could only ride horses. I couldn’t pick locks, fights or pockets. Certainly not Oakley’s.
Oakley and Didi. They were old at the game. They’d invented the rules. Oakley and Didi were senior league.
How did anyone get in touch with Oakley, if they needed his brand of service?
He could scarcely advertise.
Someone had to know about him.
I thought it over for a while, sitting in my car in the car park wondering what to do next. There was only one person I knew who could put his finger on the pulse of Birmingham if he wanted to, and the likelihood was that in my present circumstances he wouldn’t want to.
However...
I started the car, threaded a way through the one way streets, and found a slot in the crowded park behind the Great Stag Hotel. Inside, the ritual of Business Lunch was warming up, the atmosphere thickening nicely with the smell of alcohol, the resonance of fruity voices, the haze of cigars. The Great Stag Hotel attracted almost exclusively a certain grade of wary, prosperous, level-headed businessmen needing a soft background for hard options, and it attracted them because the landlord, Teddy Dewar, was the sort of man himself.
I found him in the bar, talking to two others almost indistinguishable from him in their dark grey suits, white shirts, neat maroon ties, seventeen-inch necks and thirty-eight-inch waists.
A faint glaze came over his professionally noncommittal expression when he caught sight of me over their shoulders. A warned off jockey didn’t rate too high with him. Lowered the tone of the place, no doubt.
I edged through to the bar on one side of him and ordered whisky.
‘I’d be grateful for a word with you,’ I said.
He turned his head a fraction in my direction, and without looking at me directly answered, ‘Very well. In a few minutes.’
No warmth in the words. No ducking of the unwelcome situation, either. He went on talking to the two men about the dicky state of oil shares, and eventually smoothly disengaged himself and turned to me.
‘Well, Kelly...’ His eyes were cool and distant, waiting to see what I wanted before showing any real feeling.
‘Will you lunch with me?’ I made it casual.
His surprise was controlled. ‘I thought...’
‘I may be banned,’ I said, ‘But I still eat.’
He studied my face. ‘You mind.’
‘What do you expect...? I’m sorry it shows.’
He said neutrally, ‘There’s a muscle in your jaw... Very welclass="underline" if you don’t mind going in straightaway.’
We sat against the wall at an inconspicuous table and chose beef cut from a roast on a trolley. While he ate his eyes checked the running of the dining-room, missing nothing. I waited until he was satisfied that all was well and then came briefly to the point.
‘Do you know anything about a man called David Oakley? He’s an enquiry agent. Operates from an office about half a mile from here.’
‘David Oakley? I can’t say I’ve ever heard of him.’
‘He manufactured some evidence which swung things against me at the Stewards’ Enquiry on Monday.’
‘Manufactured?’ There was delicate doubt in his voice.
‘Oh yes,’ I sighed. ‘I suppose it sounds corny, but I really was not guilty as charged. But someone made sure it looked like it.’ I told him about the photograph of money in my bedroom.
‘And you never had this money?’
‘I did not. And the note supposed to be from Cranfield was a forgery. But how could we prove it?’
He thought it over.
‘You can’t.’
‘Exactly,’ I agreed.
‘This David Oakley who took the photograph... I suppose you got no joy from him.’
‘No joy is right.’
‘I don’t understand precisely why you’ve come to me.’ He finished his beef and laid his knife and fork tidily together. Waiters appeared like genii to clear the table and bring coffee. He waited still noncommittally while I paid the bill.
‘I expect it is too much to ask,’ I said finally. ‘After all, I’ve only stayed here three or four times, I have no claim on you personally for friendship or help... and yet, there’s no one else I know who could even begin to do what you could... if you will.’
‘What?’ he said succinctly.