“Very well,” he said, “we’ll disregard the part about arrears of payment. You say there have been no loans, no favours, no promises. Perhaps the idea was a blind of some kind, an attempt to obscure the writer’s motives.”
Hatch gravely conceded that possibility. Purbright continued:
“So we must try and think of somebody who might want to harm you for reasons other than financial ones. Revenge, perhaps. Jealousy. There aren’t all that many, sir, once money is excluded.”
Hatch pretended to consider while he looked round Purbright’s office. It was quite a big room but apart from the desk it was furnished with only a couple of chairs, two filing cabinets and a cheap-looking table against the wall opposite the window. The carpet was much worn, of an indeterminate colour and pattern, and so economical in area that the comfort of standing on it could be enjoyed by only one person at a time. The walls were painted in a cream gloss and were bare except for a large, age-yellowed poster setting out the regulations and tolls applicable to Flaxborough market in 1947.
Hatch completed his survey of the office with a speculative stare at its central occupant. A long-legged, easy-going fellow who probably had never scraped more than fifty quid into one pile in his life. Likeable enough, perhaps, but no drive. With that funny flax-coloured hair, he looked like some big Viking who’d missed the boat home and gone soft.
“Any ideas?” prompted the Viking.
Hatch massaged a bony thumb and pouted in shrewd thought. “We’ve all given offence to somebody or other at some time in our lives. I can’t think of any particular person, though.”
“An American, perhaps?”
“No. Not an American. I don’t know any bloody Americans.”
“You sound cross, Mr Hatch. I’m sorry, but you really must try and be patient for your own sake.”
A sigh, a gesture at once perplexed yet conciliatory. “I didn’t want to make a fuss in the first place. We’re just wasting our time with this.”
“I hope we are, sir. And we must try and minimise the waste by being absolutely frank.”
Hatch worked this out. Then he said:
“You’re taking this seriously—this stupid letter? All right, I can see you are. Then can we start the frankness by you telling me what you know and I don’t?”
After brief consideration, Purbright nodded.
“Very well, sir. We’ve already had a warning from the New York police that someone over there might be planning to come to England—to Flaxborough specifically—in order to attack a person living here.”
“Me, you mean?”
“No details were given. The only name mentioned was that of the town itself. I’m relieved in one sense that you’ve been threatened directly. At least we know whom to protect.”
“Are you confident you can protect me? That’s the point, isn’t it?”
“Very much so. We’ll do everything we can, naturally, in a general sense. But the job would be a hundred times simpler if we knew who would want to attack you. Surely, Mr Hatch, this must be a case of personal vindictiveness, personal vengeance. I am not going to ask you again if money is involved. You say not. So the man we must watch for is either someone who considers himself mortally offended by something you have done or failed to do—someone of your acquaintance, in fact—or else a wandering maniac who happens to have picked your name out of his loonie hat. Once again I must ask you to try and recall any incident, however unsavoury or personally embarrassing, and irrespective of what you might consider calls on your loyalty, which could account for this threat.”
“How do you mean, calls on my loyalty?” asked Hatch at once. He had been listening sullenly but, Purbright supposed, with clear enough understanding. His challenge of this one phrase suggested apprehensiveness rather than doubt of its meaning.
“Loyalty, for example, to a married woman whom one happens to have seduced.”
Hatch slowly leaned back in his chair. His mouth, tightening, grew pale, bloodless.
“Or an unmarried one, for that matter, sir,” persisted Purbright, with matter-of-fact cheeriness.
There was silence for several seconds. Then Hatch’s voice, very quiet but harsh, a scratchy nib of a voice.
“You’d better be able to offer proof of that suggestion, inspector. I’m warning you.”
“Oh, come now, sir. One warning at a time. You must not take personally these little guide lines I am trying to give you. Wronged husbands can be very dangerous—more dangerous, probably, than thwarted creditors, even. With respect, I think I would rather sacrifice—and in confidence, at that—some small part of the blamelessness of my reputation, than put at risk a large part of my expectation of life.”
The inspector met levelly the cold glare of Hatch’s half-closed eyes.
“Do you go to church, inspector?”
“Not habitually, sir. No.”
“I thought not.”
Hatch stood. His face was grave. With meticulous dignity, he put on the black banker’s hat. In that moment, Purbright thought, he looked like the late Mr Justice Avory, about to curl his lizard’s tongue around his favourite food, a nice death sentence.
But all Hatch said, before he turned curtly and left the office, was: “Good afternoon.”
On the next occasion of Purbright’s seeing him, he was to say even less.
Chapter Fourteen
The Medieval Banquet was due to begin at half-past eight. The Mackintosh-Brooke team had decided that it should be their targeted dig for that day; banquet-viability was clearly an important ingredient of the profit mix of Floradora Enterprises.
Peter had zeroed in on the catering situation. Julian tackled costings. Bernard prepared to compile a time and motion profile.
In the club kitchen, Peter inspected the arrangements which were already well in hand. The main feature of the meal had been thawing out since the previous day. It was a great tray of deep-frozen battery chickens. These were “ye Capons”. They would be sprayed with a brown crisp-from-the-oven aerosol stain and given fifteen minutes’ cooking in a pressurised steam tank before being placed on individual platters of simulated pewter, stuck with a dagger apiece, and borne on rough-hewn timber trolleys into the Wassail Hall.
A busy, beady-eyed little man in a white coat was supervising the cutting of thirty or forty loaves into three-inch hunks. Peter addressed him.
“One whole chicken each. Is that right? A whole chicken?”
“Oh, aye. They get a good go at the grub. Well, that’s what they pay for, isn’t it?” The man cuffed the ear of a youth who, staring at the stranger, had dropped some bread. The boy scampered after the rolling loaf and stopped it with a deftly extended boot.
“Anyway,” the man added, “it wouldn’t be medieval if it wasn’t whole, would it?”