DI Moxon is one of that new breed of CID coppers who have pissed from a great height on the old Inspector Morse types. He’s too serious. His parents managed to find a grammar school to send him to, and he has a degree from Nottingham University in some really handy subject — Anglo Saxon Poetry or Nineteenth Century Russian Trade Union Reform, or I don’t know what. Something useful enough, anyway, to get him on the fast track to promotion, leapfrogging the more mundane blokes on the way — the ones, that is, who wouldn’t know their Beowulf from their Bolsheviks, but only know about catching crooks, the poor sods.
Moxon wears gold-rimmed glasses. He has a neat little blond moustache and a nasty habit of turning up in snappy suits and bright ties. He doesn’t drink, not even off duty, and he doesn’t smoke either. He plays squash to keep fit, but hasn’t managed to keep his balls in play long enough to give his wife any kids. His manners leave something to be desired, but then I suppose I never see him at his best. His bosses at Sherwood Lodge seem to love him. As for Wally Stubbs, he tries to copy his boss’s style, but he hasn’t got the build for it — or the will power to keep off the fags and booze.
When Moxon and Stubbs came in, a sort of self-conscious hush fell over the bar of the Cow, as if three quarters of the people in the place knew exactly who these two were. I could see Baggy Prentiss sigh at the damage to his custom.
Moxon and Stubbs paused in the doorway, surveying the room. They wanted everybody to know they were there. But you could hardly miss them in those shiny jackets and ties like smears of technicolor vomit. Their hands were shoved casually into their trouser pockets and their eyes were everywhere, like maggots on a fresh corpse.
We all sat very still, like a roomful of schoolkids willing the teacher to pick on someone else to read the next page of Jude the Obscure out loud. The only sound from our table was the continual slow munching of Doncaster Dave’s jaws. His mouth doesn’t have any gears, it’s on automatic. You put food in, engage ‘drive’, and it won’t slip into neutral until the plate is empty.
But it looked as though we were about to get something else on our plate. It was definitely our table that Moxon and Stubbs were wandering towards. Behind them, there were smiles of relief. Three or four customers took the opportunity to slip casually out of the pub, hoping they hadn’t been noticed. This was just what Baggy was afraid of. There went the blokes whose bail conditions said they had to stay away from licensed premises, the ones who didn’t want to be seen in the wrong company, the ones who simply weren’t supposed to be in the area just now.
But the deserters were too late, of course. In those first moments, as he and his sidekick stood in the doorway, Moxon had no doubt logged the identity of every single customer, his evil little eyes sending a stream of messages to his evil little brain.
I’ve seen him do this before. I reckon he uses one of those ‘pegging’ techniques they teach you on management courses. You know the sort of thing — every number from one to ten has a peg, and you hang a mental picture on it. So it’s ‘two — zoo’ and you imagine a picture of Stones McClure swinging from a rope next to an orang-utan. Not difficult. Then ‘three — key’ and there’s a picture of Slow Kid Thompson with a bunch of skeleton keys in his hand.
Moxon could remember all of our names that way, plus what we were wearing and exactly what order we were sitting in at the table. He probably downloads the contents of his brain onto a computer when he gets back to his office. Maybe he slips a floppy disc out of his ear and logs onto the mainframe for a quick virus check. Let’s have Inspector Morse back, that’s what I say. That lad would have been too busy weighing up what beer was on draft behind the bar and whether Joanne the barmaid was the type who fancies older men.
“McClure.” Ah, here was Moxon himself practising his pronunciation. They hadn’t given him elocution lessons at his grammar school, so he had to keep trying to get it right. “Underwood.” He swivelled his head slowly. “And Thompson.”
Full marks, three out of three. This bloke was good. Only Donc acknowledged his name. Or maybe he was just belching.
“Nice to find the three of you together. Saves a bit of trouble,” said Moxon. “We can kill three birds with one stone, eh, Wally?”
Wally Stubbs laughed. This might suggest he has no sense of humour. But we know he must have, to be wearing a tie like that.
“Are you buying the drinks then, Inspector? Baggy knows our order.”
“Hey, get me a packet of those spicy nut things while you’re at the bar, man.”
Dave chortled, rattling his fork on his plate,
“Yes, you might be able to help me,” said Moxon, just as if someone had been stupid enough to make the offer. He pulled over a chair that someone on the next table had suddenly vacated and sat down between me and Slow Kid. Stubbs hovered in the background, blocking out the sunlight — presumably so that it didn’t fall on his boss and turn him into dust.
Moxon looked from one to the other of us, amending his mental identikit pictures slightly where he found that Slow’s hair had been shaved a bit shorter at the sides, or Donc had put on an extra six pounds since he’d last seen him. I knew Moxon couldn’t have anything on us, because I’m very careful, like my mother always told me to be. But his presence made me a bit uncomfortable, like I was sharing a table with Mussolini — after he’d been hanged from the lamp post, that is.
“We were wondering, you see, whether any of you gentlemen could assist us with a little bit of information.”
Moxon said ‘information’ precisely and carefully, pronouncing each syllable distinctly, as if he thought it was a word we might not have heard before. The flickering lights of the Trivial Pursuit game were glinting off his glasses, and I couldn’t see his eyes.
“We’re always glad to help,” I said, smiling genially into the glare of his spectacles. Notice that I didn’t specify who we were glad to help.
“Delighted to hear it, McClure. So tell me where you were last night at around, say, eight o’clock.”
“Oh. That sort of information.”
“Yes, please. What else did you think?”
“I thought you might have wanted to have a go at Trivial Pursuit. I’m really hot on Countries of the World. Just ask me the currency of Brazil.”
“Eight o’clock last night.”
“It’s the real. And did you know the capital was only built in the 1960s? And Dave here — he’s our expert in foreign languages, I think. I can’t tell what he’s on about half the time anyway.”
“It’s much pleasanter asking you here. But if you want to play Mastermind, I’m sure we could find a chair and some nice spotlights back at the nick.”
He waited expectantly while I thought about this. “I believe I was out with a couple of mates. Had a meal, a few drinks, a bit of a chat, you know the sort of thing mates do. Or perhaps you don’t.”
“What mates?”
“Ah. I thought you wouldn’t.”
Moxon looked at Slow Kid and Doncaster Dave. They looked at me.
“Was there a point to these questions?” I asked. “Were you getting round to asking me to lend you a quid for the machine?”
“I’d like to know whether you had any dealings with somebody called Les Rawlings.”