Neither Gerard nor I offered solutions. Quigley gloomily set about double-double-locking his treasure house and switching on the alarm, and we made the final reverse trip to the outer world.
‘What should I do?’ Quigley asked, fastening the green door ‘I mean... about that murder?’
Gerard said, ‘Vernon told you his version of what Paul Young told him, which was itself no doubt only a version of the facts. That’s a long way from first-hand knowledge.’
‘You mean... I could do nothing?’
‘Act as your judgment dictates,’ Gerard said pleasantly and unhelpfully, and for once in his life I guessed Quigley was searching his self-importance and finding only doubt and irresolution.
Gerard said, ‘Tony and I will tell the police that Paul Young may arrive here at any time from now on. After that, it’s up to them.’
‘He said he was coming at two o’clock,’ Quigley corrected.
‘Mm. But he might suspect Vernon would do what Vernon did mean to do, in other words clear off with the loot before Paul Young got here. Paul Young could be here at any minute.’ Gerard seemed unconcerned but he was alone in that. Quigley made his mind up to leave us as soon as possible and I felt very much like following.
‘He won’t be able to get in as I have all the keys,’ Quigley said. ‘I suppose I must thank you, Mr McGregor. I don’t like any of this. I can only hope that with Vernon gone we’ll have no more trouble.’
‘Certainly hope not,’ Gerard said blandly, and we both watched Quigley drive away with hope already straightening the shoulders and throwing forward the chin. ‘He might be lucky, he might not,’ Gerard said.
‘I don’t want to be here when Paul Young gets here,’ I said.
He half smiled. ‘More prudent not. Get in my car and we’ll fetch your car first and then find a telephone box.’
We both drove for five miles and stopped in a small village where he made the call from the public telephone outside the post office. I gave him the priority number Ridger had told me, and I listened to his brief message.
‘It’s possible,’ he said to the police, ‘that the man known as Paul Young may arrive at the caterers’ entrance in the grandstands of Martineau Park racecourse at any time today from now onwards.’ He listened to a reply and said, ‘No. No names. Goodbye.’
Smiling, he replaced the receiver. ‘O.K.,’ he said. ‘Duty done.’
‘To some extent,’ I said.
‘Everything’s relative.’ He was cheerful although still looking far from well. ‘We know where Kenneth Charter’s scotch is.’
‘Some of it,’ I said.
‘Enough.’
‘But not where it went between the tanker and the Vintners Incorporated deliveries.’
‘To a bottling plant, as you said.’
He was leaning against his car, arm in sling, looking frail, a recuperating English gentleman out for a harmless Sunday morning drive in the country. There was also a glimmer of humour about him and the steel core looking out of the eyes, and I said abruptly, ‘You know something you haven’t told me.’
‘Do you think so? What about?’
‘You’ve found the bottling plant!’
‘Found a bottling plant, yes. Somewhere to start from anyway. I thought I’d go and take a look this afternoon. Preliminary recce.’
‘But it’s Sunday. There’ll be no one there.’
‘That’s sometimes an advantage.’
‘You don’t mean... break in?’
‘We’ll see,’ he said. ‘It depends. Sometimes there’s a caretaker. I’m good at government inspectors, even on Sundays.’
Slightly aghast I said, ‘Well... where is it?’
‘Roughly twenty-five miles this side of Kenneth Charter’s headquarters.’ He smiled slightly. ‘By Friday afternoon we had concluded in the office that your idea of looking first at the plants to which Charter’s tankers took wine had been good but wrong. There were five of them. We screened them all first, and all of them were rock-solid businesses. Then some time during last night... you know how things float into your head while you’re half asleep... I remembered that one of them had had two links with Charter, not just one, and that maybe, just maybe, that second link is more important than we thought.’
‘Tell me,’ I said.
‘Mm. I don’t want to be too positive.’
‘For heaven’s sake...’
‘All right then. We established right at the beginning of our bottle-plant enquiries that one of the plants is owned by a man called Stewart Naylor. It was at the top of the list that Charter gave us, and the first we checked.’
‘Stewart Naylor?’ I thought. ‘He’s... he’s... um... isn’t he mentioned in Kenneth Junior’s notebook? Oh, yes... the father who plays war games... David Naylor’s father.’
‘Top of the class. Stewart Naylor owns Bernard Naylor Bottling. Started by his grandfather. Old respectable firm. I woke up with that word Naylor fizzing like a sparkler in my head. I telephoned Kenneth Charter himself early this morning and asked him about his son’s friendship with David Naylor. He says he’s known the father, Stewart Naylor, for years: they’re not close friends but they know each other quite well because of their business connection and because their sons like each other’s company. Kenneth Charter says David Naylor is the only good thing in Kenneth Junior’s lazy life, he keeps Kenneth Junior off the streets. War games, Kenneth Charter thinks, are a waste of time, but better than glue-sniffing.’
‘His words?’ I asked amused.
‘Aye, laddie.’
‘Do you really think...’
‘Kenneth Charter doesn’t. Grasping at straws, he thinks it. He says Bernard Naylor Bottling is twenty-four carat. But we’ve found no other leads at all, and we’ve been checking bottling plants up and down the country until the entire staff are sick at the sound of the words. Three days’ concentrated work, fruitless. A lot of them have gone out of business. One’s a library now. Another’s a boot and shoe warehouse.’
‘Mm,’ I said. ‘Could Stewart Naylor have an illegitimate half-brother?’
‘Anyone can have an illegitimate half-brother. It happens to the best.’
‘I mean...’
‘I know what you mean. Kenneth Charter didn’t know of one.’ He shrugged. ‘Naylor’s plant’s a long shot. Either a bullseye or a case for apology. I’ll go and find out.’
‘Right now?’
‘Absolutely right now. If Stewart Naylor is by any chance also Paul Young, he should be going to or from Martineau Park this afternoon, not stalking about among his bottles.’
‘Did you ask Kenneth Charter what he looked like?’
‘Yes... ordinary, he said.’
All these ordinary men... ‘Is he deaf?’ I asked.
Gerald blinked. ‘I forgot about that.’
‘Ask him,’ I said. ‘Telephone now, before you go.’
‘And if Stewart Naylor is deaf... don’t go?’
‘Quite right. Don’t go.’
Gerard shook his head. ‘All the more reason to go.’
‘It’s flinging oneself into the Limpopo,’ I said.
‘Perhaps. Only perhaps. Nothing’s certain.’ He returned to the telephone, however, and dialled Kenneth Charter’s house and then his office, and to neither attempt was there a reply.
‘That’s it, then,’ he said calmly. ‘I’ll be off.’
‘Have you ever been in a bottling plant?’ I said despairingly. ‘I mean... do you know what to look for?’
‘No.’
I stared at him. He stared right back. In the end I said, ‘I spent a year in and out of bottling plants in Bordeaux.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me, then, what to look for.’