Exit lines

'No. We'll step out,' said Wield.

In the smelly entrance hall, the ugly sergeant put his ruin of a face close to the other man's open, honest features and said softly. 'This is an illegal betting shop you've got here, Don. No, listen. It's also a fire risk. You've boarded the windows up, haven't you? Only one door. Bit of panic in there, caused by something like a police raid, say, and there could be a lot of damage. I don't just mean people. I mean, people mend. But fixtures. Furniture trampled, television smashed, bottles broken, bar pulled down; ruined; I've seen it.'

'Oh aye,' said the man. 'But there isn't any panic.'

'No,' said Wield. 'Let's keep it that way shall we? Friday afternoon last. A win-treble. Red Vanessa in the two-ten at Cheltenham, Usherette in the two forty-five…'

'And Polly Styrene in the three fifty-five,' completed Don. 'Aye, I remember that. Three hundred and ninety quid it cost me!'

'Three ninety?' said Wield. 'You remember the punter?'

'An old boy. Calls himself Tap, I don't know his real name. He's in a lot, fifty p. stuff mainly, chances a quid now and then if he feels lucky. He hadn't been in all week, might've been saving up for this one I reckon. He puts a fiver on. Well, they're all fair horses, good on heavy ground, but there's plenty of good competition and over the sticks in the rain's always a bit of a lottery. But it's his lucky day. We all deserve one, don't we? Here, it's not him who's put the bubble in, is it? Why'd he do that, now?'

'No,' said Wield. 'It wasn't him. When you paid him out were there a lot of customers about?'

'A few,' said Don. 'Hold on. He's never been robbed, has he? Is that what this is about?'

'Mebbe,' said Wield. 'Tell me about the other customers.'

'Listen, I'll tell you what I can,' said the man. 'But I'm not daft. An old boy wins that amount, I take a bit of care. If he wants the world to know that he's got it when he's got it, that's his business. But when I saw the bet come up, I got his winnings counted out in tenners and fivers, put 'em in an old envelope. He was fly too; he hung back till the end of the pay-out queue. It was the last race, so most people had drifted off. Then he comes and collects.'

'You mean he didn't count it?' said Wield disbelievingly.

'Oh aye, he stood there and went through it. But still in the envelope, you understand. He was excited, I could see that, but he wasn't going to shout it out from the rooftops.'

'Right,' said Wield. 'But some people have sharp eyes and sharp ears, so we'll need to be knowing who was about.'

'I'll try my best,' said the white-haired man. 'But what does Tap himself say? I mean, it's him that's lost the money, isn't it?'

'More than money,' said Wield quietly. 'He's lost a lot more than money.'

'What? Oh bugger,' said the white-haired man feelingly. 'The poor old sod.'

He fixed Wield with his patriarchal eye and said earnestly, it's not worth it, is it? What's the point of money if it brings you that kind of trouble? It's just not worth it.'

Wield said to Seymour, 'Hark at him, lad! You didn't know you were raiding a charitable institution, did you? Get Hector and take the names and addresses of all them refugees in there.'

And to Don he said, 'You come along with me, Dr Barnardo. You're nicked.'

Chapter 21

'I have opened it.'

Charley Frostick sat in the passenger seat of Pascoe's car and stared morosely out of the window at the passing scene.

'How do you like the Army, Charley?' inquired Pascoe.

'It's all right,' grunted the youth.

Pascoe sighed. He could see that the War Office might well rate the social graces a little way below rifle practice, but surely someone there acknowledged that a young soldier might want to talk to the occasional stranger before shooting him?

But now Charley, who was basically a nice lad and not unappreciative of Pascoe's kindness in rescuing him from the hotted-up emotionalism of his home by his offer to run him round to Welfare Lane, roused himself from his lethargy and resumed, 'It's right enough. I've got some grand mates and you can have a bit of a laugh. It's a bit boring sometimes, some of the things they make us do; but most things are sometimes, I reckon. And it's better than being out of work. I was pig-sick of that. In the end it was either the Police or the Army and I didn't fancy running into bother with my old mates.'

'Rather shoot strangers, eh?' laughed Pascoe.

'I don't want to shoot anyone,' protested Charley with great indignation.

'Sorry,' said Pascoe.

'Except mebbe the bastard who killed my granda. I'd shoot him soon enough, no bother.’

He glared defiantly at Pascoe, who said gently, 'Everyone feels like that when someone they love's been hurt, Charley. But it just means that you get yourself in bother and probably leave someone feeling the same way about you.'

Charley didn't look as if he accepted this argument and said grumblingly, 'Any road, you've got to find the bastard yet, haven't you? Have your mob not found out anything yet?'

Pascoe tried to look as if he were bound by a vow of silence but he was all too conscious that he had very little to be silent about. The possible boot prints were too vague to be a significant clue. Fingerprints abounded, but none that showed up in the records, and the process of elimination of all those whose prints were legitimately in the house was slow and likely to be inconclusive. It was his personal view that their best, if not their only, hope of making an arrest would be if the killer attempted to sell the medals or the watch.

'Charley, I was asking your mam about money. She was able to give us a good idea of what things had been stolen, but money's more difficult. I mean, you've got to have some idea how much there was there for a start.'

'What did Mam say?' asked the youth.

'She didn't know of any cash there might be lying around, any more than what you'd expect, I mean. But someone said something about your grandfather helping you out, when you wanted to buy an engagement ring

…'

'I paid him every penny back after I signed on!' exploded the young soldier angrily. 'Every penny! Anyone who says different is a liar!'

'Yes, I'm sure they are, Charley,' said Pascoe placatingly. 'It's just a matter of where the money came from, that's all.'

'He weren't badly off, my granda,' said Charley. 'He had money in the Building Society, did you know that?'

'Yes. I've seen his book,' said Pascoe. 'That'd be a help too. When was it you got engaged, Charley? There've been a few withdrawals in the past year and it'd be useful to see whether he went along and drew the money out to loan you for the ring, for instance. How much was it, by the way?'

'A hundred quid,' said Charley. 'I were on the dole and there was no way I could manage that amount. But it were the ring that Andrea wanted.'

His voice had the flatness of withheld emotion. Jesus Christ! thought Pascoe angrily as he considered the mentality of a girl who could demand a hundred pound engagement ring from her boyfriend on the dole. He must put it to Ellie, though he could guess her response. It was men who created the marriage-obsessed, pretty-stone-greedy girl; they shouldn't complain when she went over the top. On the other hand, he asked himself, who was it who created this poor lad soft enough to let himself be browbeaten into giving her the ring?

'Your grandad must've thought a lot of you, to lend you that much money, Charley,' he said. 'And he must have thought Andrea was all right too.'

'No,' admitted the young man miserably. 'He only met her a couple of times, didn't like her much at all, I could see that. When I told him I wanted to get engaged before I joined up he laughed and said I'd soon have girls all over the face of the world.'

'But he still made the loan.'

'Yes,' said the young man. Then he added with a rush, 'I never told him it was all for the ring. I let on I wanted some clothes and things so I could smarten myself up for my Army interview. At home I tried to let on it were just a cheap ring but Andrea made sure everyone knew how much it cost, so I had to tell them where I'd borrowed the money else they'd have thought I nicked it!'