Buy tank for w.g., Phone D.N.
Get keys of N.T. for duplicates.
Meet R.H. in Diamond’s.
Pay L.S. for abortion.
Deglet’s annotations were:
(1) Clipjoint say Kenneth Junior went there at about ten day intervals for shampoo and styling. He bought expensive products and tipped lavishly.
(2) Kenneth Junior is most unlikely to have been to the town of Halifax. Suggest this reference means Halifax Building Society, though his parents don’t know if he had an account there. Kenneth Charter thought that apart from unemployment benefit his son had no money except what he himself gave him, but this cannot be right as Charter did not give him enough extra for cocaine and abortions.
(3) Tank must be toy tank for war games.
(4) Not traced.
I frowned for a while over the letters N.T. but could make no more of them than Deglet’s had. What did one need keys for? House, car, suitcase, drawer, locker, desk, mail box, deposit box... infinitum. N.T. was perhaps a person. Person unknown.
On the next page there was a single entry, the one which had started the bushfire.
The Reading telephone number followed by:
Tell Z UNP 786Y picks up B’s Gin Mon 10 a.m. approx.
I made a wry face over the bald and still disturbing treachery and turned over to what was left: three more pages very much like the others, with only a few new themes.
Go with D.N. for w.g. with S.N! bore the Deglet explanation: S.N. is Stewart Naylor, David Naylor’s father. Stewart Naylor lives apart after divorce. David Naylor visits his father occasionally. Stewart Naylor is noted for skill in war games, which probably accounts for the exclamation mark.
On the last page of all it said:
Get visa for Australia.
Ask R.H. about pushers in Sydney.
Pay L.S. That’s her lot.
Go to Halifax.
Remember to ask Dad for cash.
Collect keys from Simpers and send them off.
There was a final Deglet explanation: Simpers is a hardware shop which duplicates keys. They have no record of work done for Kenneth Junior or anyone else in the family. They normally cut keys immediately, while you wait, but not if they don’t keep the blanks in stock and have to send away for them. In that case they ask for an address and a deposit. If Kenneth junior obtained keys in that way from Simpers he gave a name and address not his own.
I shuffled the pages together and put them back in the envelope, looking dubiously at the very few thoughts and comments I’d jotted down for Gerard; and half an hour later, when he telephoned, I offered them reluctantly and apologetically.
‘Just say what ocurred to you,’ he said a touch impatiently. ‘Anything at all may be useful.’
‘Well... those keys.’
‘What about them?’
‘Well... what sort of keys do the tankers have?’
There was utter silence from Gerard.
‘Are you still there?’ I asked.
‘Yes, I am.’ Another pause. ‘Go on talking.’
‘Um... I wondered at the beginning about it always being the same tanker which was stolen, and I thought it might be because of something dead simple, like that one being the only tanker the thieves had the keys for. Because they would have needed the keys to unlock the cab door when the driver was in the service stations, in order to put the gas in there, and lock the door again so.the driver found nothing suspicious when he got back.’
‘Hm,’ Gerard said. ‘The police assumed the thieves used lock-pickers.’
‘The right key would be quicker.’
‘I agree.’
‘Kenneth Junior had easy access to Charter’s office and everywhere else in the place before the first theft. You might ask Charter Senior where the tanker keys are kept.’
‘Yes, I will.’
‘It struck me that maybe it was keys to a second tanker that Kenneth Junior was having cut. I mean, N.T. might stand for Next Tanker or New Tanker or something. Anyway, it might be worth taking some tanker keys to Simpers and seeing if they keep those blanks in stock or if they’d need to send away for them. And it might be as well to warn Kenneth Charter that someone, somewhere, might have the keys to another of his tankers... if any of this is right, of course.’
‘Right or wrong, I’ll warn him.’
‘I’m afraid that’s all,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think of much else. Except...’
‘Except?’
‘Except that to himself Kenneth Junior didn’t seem so bad. He sold information for presumably spot cash and he banked it in something ultra-conservative like a building society. He might have enjoyed his snort with the disco doorman but he wasn’t addicted. He paid for the girl’s abortion. That’s none of it heavy villainy.’
‘No. A moderately stable personality. I thought so too. Staying at home, buying a birthday card for his mother, being impressed by his friend’s father... but totally without loyalty to his own.’
‘Teenage rebellion gone a step too far.’
‘Right,’ Gerard said. ‘Untrustworthy little bugger. But there you are, he’s earning us money. Life’s full of such ironies.’
I said with a smile in my voice, ‘Want another? We’re now looking for that scotch courtesy of the police.’
I told him about my day’s journeyings with Ridger and raised a chuckle on account of Mrs Alexis.
‘I wasn’t sure about Mrs Alexis,’ I said. ‘She did have all those wines on her list. She says she’s sold them all. She wears such a knowing expression the whole time that you can’t tell if she knows anything specific. Maybe I’ll go back.’
‘She sounds an utter dragon.’
‘Very good value,’ I said. ‘She likes men who swing from chandeliers.’
‘But you don’t. You’re not the type.’
‘No... I should be safe.’
He laughed. ‘How was your arm? I have to go myself tomorrow.’
‘Not bad. And good luck.’
Ridger returned punctually in the morning and we set off to cover a territory in and around Henley-on-Thames, where in July each year the rowing regatta brought the sleepy town to bulging expensive life. In late October, in a cold drizzle, it was quiet. Ducks swam silently on the grey river and shoppers huddled head-down under umbrellas. Ridger and I went into bar after bar brushing off raindrops and I lost count after a while of the Bell’s.
All of the Bell’s rang true. Not a cracked note among them.
One of the barmen gave us short change, slapping down coins in a handful while sloshing water onto the counter top, so that I should snatch them up without checking, but Ridger said that that didn’t rate a clipboard entry. He produced his badge, however, and warned the barman, who scowled. As the high spot of the morning it didn’t rate much, but one couldn’t expect a Mrs Alexis every day of the week.
Some of the pubs had two bars. One had three. My friend John insisted on making sure of every Bell’s bottle in sight.
Awash with tomato juice he returned me to my shop at two-thirty and I sat heavy-headed in my office regretting the whole enterprise. I would simply have to take something to spit into, I thought, even if spitting alerted the barman and disgusted the other customers. Getting half cut every lunch-time was no joke.
Mrs Palissey drove Brian away with a big load of deliveries and between each sporadic afternoon customer I sat down and felt thick with sleep. When the door buzzer roused me for the fifth time I went into the shop yawning.
‘That’s no way to greet manna from heaven,’ my customer said.