Grandma Tring looked away. “Oh, this ’n that.” There was a pause. “About Digger’s dad gettin’ the Victoria Cross, and the time Digger saved the dog meat factory from burnin’ down, and about doctors that measured up ’is brain when ’e was four and sayin’ ’e’d got enough for a vicar an’ a librarian both at one go. Fam’ly things. Jus’ fam’ly.”
“Pity he wasn’t really from the newspaper,” said Purbright, meaning it.
She snorted. “The fleechin’ bugger! If my lads lay daws on ’im, they’ll use ’is eyeballs for bottle stoppers.”
“A short while ago,” said the inspector, when he judged her ire to have subsided, “you said something to the effect that your grandson possessed information that he thought was worth money. People were ‘after him’ I think you said.”
“I might ’ve,” she said, warily.
“Have you any idea who they were, these people?”
No, she hadn’t. God rest his soul, Digger had been a close young sod.
“In that case,” said Purbright, “I suppose you’ll not be able to tell me what the information was that he considered valuable.”
He supposed right. Unless...
“Yes?”
Unless, the old woman said after deliberation, it had something to do with tombstones. She looked up. “R.I.P.—that’s what they put on tombstones, ain’t it?”
Purbright nodded, and she went on:
“Aye, well, I asked ’im what ’e thought ’e was up to with ’is medals and ’is tellyphones and ’is tales about knowin’ this an’ that and the other, and what does ’e do but wink his poor little good eye at his Gran and thump the side of his nose with his finger like that and say ‘R.I.P.’ I says, What? And again ’e says ‘R.I.P.’ And looks pleased as if ’e’s farted in church. But that’s all I could get out of ’im, and now ’e’s gone, poor lad.”
The inspector suggested that Digger had merely intended to reprove her inquisitiveness with a tactfully oblique reference. Had he wanted the matter to be allowed to ‘rest in peace’ in fact?
Grandma Tring scowled dubiously. No, it was that missing medal as she reckoned was at the bottom of it all. A thousand pound was a rare old lot of money to be got by telephone, even in these wicked times. And Digger wasn’t a lad as would lie to his Gran.
Purbright later took up the point with Sergeant Love.
Love confirmed that none of the younger Trings would dare employ at home those imaginative gifts for which they were noted elsewhere.
“In that case, unless the old woman fed me the story for some obscure purpose of her own, we can assume that this medal, or whatever it is, does exist,”
Love thought about that. “There’s no medal on the missing property list.”
“No? Well, in any case I can’t see one fetching any extravagant sum of money, not even for sentimental reasons.”
“Could be blackmail,” suggested the sergeant, incurably optimistic in the matter of High Crime.
“I’ve yet to hear of anybody ready to pay lest the neighbours get to know he’s a hero. Incidentally, since when has Digger’s father been a V.C.?”
“Since when has Digger had a father?”
Purbright knew better than to suspect a witticism. Love was by no means a solemn young man, but he was an essentially serious one. The truth about the Trings was that they had genetic peculiarities similar to those of the hive, in as much as all the fertilising was done by casual, drone-like suitors who were soon driven away again by matriarchal tyranny.
“Perhaps,” said the inspector, “the old woman’s obvious preoccupation with medals has led us up the garden a bit. She didn’t examine the thing closely. It could have been something of high intrinsic value that just looked like a medal.”
“Such as?”
“A slug of platinum, say. Cast in a form that can be called artistic to get round the metal-hoarding regulations.”
Love frowned. “Who’d want to hoard platinum?”
“There are those, Sid, whose gains are so considerable and so ill-gotten that they can’t wait to transmute them into some thing respectable. I believe the Americans call it ‘laundering’. Do you suppose there is such a thing as a Churchill Medallion?”
“Probably. There are Churchill tanks and Churchill cigars and no end of Churchill Avenues.”
Purbright shook his head vaguely. “Just something else Grandma said.”
“Was she on about that photograph again?”
“She was.”
“Fancy Digger having his picture taken.” Love looked almost wistful. “One without a number on it, I mean. They reckon he had a tottie though, so it might have been for her.”
“The old woman spoke of a girl friend—one complete with scent and her own motor car, according to Grandma. Would that not have been out of character?”
Love considered, then suddenly brightened. “Perhaps,” he said, “Digger was a rich woman’s plaything.”
“Perhaps,” murmured the inspector. He looked pained.
A moment later he remembered something else that Grandma Tring had said. About her grandson’s “good eye”.
“Digger wasn’t blind in one eye, was he, Sid?”
“No, not blind. He came off his bike about two years ago, though, and messed one side of his face up a bit. It left a biggish scar under one eye.” Love pointed to his own unblemished cheek in illustration.
“Ah, yes,” said Purbright. “I noticed that when they collected him.”
Chapter Eight
The following morning was Thursday. Mrs Cutlock did not come to work for the Hartons on Thursdays. Thornton had been taken off to his boarding school in Yorkshire the previous day by Julia’s father. David Harton, who was required by the Cultox “My Pal My Boss” code to remain in his office late enough on one evening a week to be available to discuss night shift problems, was now, at half past ten, on his way to the Doggigrub plant. Julia waited a further quarter of an hour, then began to pack a large suitcase.
The task was unexpectedly difficult. There were many clothes from which to choose. Yet again and again a dress or coat or pair of slacks went into the case only to be reconsidered, sighed over, and thrust back. One had to look decent, even in retreat; but any suggestion of deliberate emigration would be dangerous.
One thing was sure. David would not have the slightest idea of what she had taken. He never noticed what she wore and took no interest in her shopping—beyond deploring the fact that it cost money. He certainly would be without a clue when it came to giving the police an inventory.
When? She frowned, suddenly anxious. If it came to that, she had meant. But no, surely to God he wouldn’t prove that bloody stubborn and stupid. Not when his own neck was threatened, he wouldn’t.