‘So Tod and Gribby go all the way to south Wales and back to spy on him.’
‘It’s one explanation, sir.’
‘And not a bad one.’ The inspector gave him a reconsidering look. ‘You’ve got a brain, constable. If you solved this one, I’m sure you could expect promotion to somewhere quite a lot livelier than here.’
Constable Price tried not to let his alarm show. He liked his garden, his hens, his pig. His wife and children were healthy in the country air. He’d been born in a city and now devoted quite a lot of his considerable intelligence to making sure he wasn’t promoted back to one.
‘So what goes wrong?’ the inspector said. ‘Assume Tod and Gribby are spying. The Rooster’s people might be annoyed about it, but not annoyed enough to beat Tod over the head with an iron bar. And remember the Rooster’s lot haven’t a trace of a criminal record among the three of them, unless you count Sonny Nelson being fined for doing forty-two miles an hour in Llandaff.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So we come to thieves falling out, then. Gribby’s got a record even longer than Tod’s and on the evidence you collected, he drove out of the village on his own and he was in a devil of a hurry to get his petrol tank filled.’
The Rover was in the yard, with the repaired front axle bolted back in place. Sonny, Davy and Tick were carrying the rear axle from the forge, still warm from its welding. The Rooster had been forbidden to help so was back on the wall chatting to Molly who was sitting beside him but not getting anywhere with her because her attention was on Sonny. All of them were startled by the loud burping of a horn as a black Austin 20 drew up at the pump with a large man in a checked suit at the wheel. After a glance over his shoulder, Davy ignored him.
‘He’ll have to wait. Get this job seen to first.’
They put the axle down by the Rover. Uncle Enoch watched, chest heaving as if the strain of waiting had been too much for him and his face had turned grey. Sonny looked concerned and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. The horn went on burping.
‘Oh, serve him first and get him out of the way,’ Sonny said. ‘We can spare a few minutes.’
Enoch looked at him doubtfully and Davy hesitated, caught between the allure of repair work and a customer for petrol. An idea struck him.
‘Molly, you know how to work the pump. Go over and see to the gentleman.’
She got up lightly from the wall and started crossing the yard, passing so close to Sonny that he caught a whiff of the perfume she’d bought herself in Birmingham and not used till then. Following his impulse he leaned towards her and said so softly under the noise of the horn that none of the others even knew he’d spoken: ‘Delay him, long as you can.’ She gave him a gleaming glance, the slightest of nods and went on across the yard to the pump. The man in the check suit was out of the car by then with the petrol cap off, quivering with impatience. The sharp smell of his sweat mingled with petrol fumes. Molly fumbled with the hinged panel at the front of the pump. The Rooster seemed disposed to go across and help her but Sonny called to him sharply.
‘Rooster, I think I left my wallet on the parlour table. Go and see, would you?’
The Rooster obligingly went back into the house. By then Davy and Tick were both under the Rover with spanners. Sonny took Enoch by the elbow and led him back into the shadows of the forge.
‘Get a move on please, miss,’ said the man with the Austin 20 to Molly. She’d managed to get the panel open but was staring at the pump mechanism inside as if she’d never seen it before. Eventually she remembered that the little wooden handle unfolded at right angles and began to wind it slowly anticlockwise to draw up the petrol. The man wanted to do it for her but she wouldn’t let him. When she’d got the first gallon pumped up she turned the handle slowly clockwise to let it down into the tank. The bronze indicator needle by the pump mechanism moved to figure one. She looked at the driver of the Austin.
‘Is that it?’
‘No, of course it’s not. Fill her right up, for heaven’s sake.’
In other circumstances Gribby would have tried flirting with her because she was undeniably a good-looking girl. Now he could hardly restrain himself from hitting her. Slowly she pumped another gallon up and down, then another, his eyes on her, willing her to hurry. He looked away from her only once and then it was because some movement at the back of his car caught his attention. He swung round and there was Sonny standing there, his hand on the big black luggage trunk. The two men’s eyes met. Sonny returned the stare for a few moments then shrugged and moved away, as if he’d been admiring the car. It took Molly the best part of ten minutes to get the indicator to the ten-gallon figure and by that time Gribby was nearly gibbering with anger. He shoved some money at her, not waiting for change, then accelerated out of the yard in a cloud of dust and exhaust. Tick shouted after him as he went, ‘Hey, your trunk’s undone.’ One of the straps round it was unbuckled and flapping. But the man at the wheel couldn’t have heard because he didn’t stop. Forty-five minutes later, with Sonny driving, the repaired Rover followed more sedately. Sonny made sure that nobody saw him touch Molly’s hand or heard his whispered ‘Thank you’.
The Rover turned on to the road past the common. ‘We’ll stop at the phone kiosk,’ Sonny said. ‘Let them know we’re on our way again.’
He slowed down as they came alongside it, almost stopped then accelerated away so clumsily that he almost stalled the engine. From the back the Rooster said, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing wrong, Rooster. Just there’s somebody using it already. We’ll find another one further along.’
Sonny and Enoch exchanged glances and from there on Sonny drove so smoothly that the Rooster slept most of the way to London.
‘So Gribby drives off in a hurry,’ the inspector said. ‘Less than an hour later Rooster’s lot notice a man in a telephone kiosk. An hour or more after that, Miss Davitt finds Tod dead and her father sends the apprentice to tell you.’
‘And I got there as soon as I could,’ Constable Price said. When Tick arrived, breathless, on an old bicycle, he’d been at a farm on the far side of his own village, investigating a case of ferret stealing. His wife sent his son running for him and he cycled from there as fast as a man could go on a police bike to the telephone kiosk in Tadley Gate.
‘And judging by your report, you decided at once that whoever battered, him over the head didn’t do it in the kiosk?’
Outside Price regretted giving in to the temptation to be clever in his report, but couldn’t go back on it now.
‘There’d have been blood splashed all over the place, sir. As it was, he’d just bled down the back of his suit and onto the floor.’
‘Yes. So our assumption is that he managed to stagger to the phone kiosk from wherever Gribby hit him with the iron bar, probably intending to call for help.’
‘You think that’s what happened, sir?’
‘Speaks for itself. Then there was that trail of blood you noticed from the road to the kiosk, as if he’d dragged himself the last few yards. So they quarrel – probably over the money they’re getting paid for spying on the Rooster – Gribby bashes Tod over the head, leaves him for dead and scuttles back to London as soon as he’s got a full tank of petrol. Only Tod comes round and has just enough life left in him to make it as far as the phone kiosk but not enough to pick up the telephone.’
Constable Price thought about it in his slow rural way. ‘So that’s it then, sir?’