“Inspector Greenleaf?”
“Yes, Chief Inspector. What can I do for you, sir?”
“Might be nothing. We’ve been talking with Mr. Crane’s employees, present and past.”
“Yes?”
“One man, a Mr. McKillip, said something quite interesting. I thought you might like to talk to him yourself...”
It was a slow drive to Folkestone. Road work and holiday caravans. But Trilling had been adamant: Greenleaf should go straightaway. God knew, they’d been moving through treacle these past few days, ever since the original phone call from Michael Barclay.
Mike McKillip wasn’t at the police station. He’d got tired of waiting and had gone home. It took Greenleaf a further twenty minutes to locate McKillip’s house from the directions given him at the police station’s front desk. You take a left here, then a right at the chip shop, then third on the left past the postbox... What chip shop? What postbox? McKillip was watching TV when Greenleaf finally arrived, hungry and parched. McKillip lay slumped along the sagging sofa, guzzling beer from the tin. He did not offer the policeman any, nor did he bother switching off the TV, or even turning the sound down. He just kept complaining about how the firm was going to the wall now that Crane was dead, and what was he supposed to do for work around these parts, and who’d have him at his age anyway when there were younger men out there?
Mike McKillip was thirty-seven. About six foot two tall, Greenleaf would guess, and probably 210 pounds. It wasn’t a fit fifteen stones, but it was weight, weight to be thrown about, imposing weight. Which was why George Crane had paid him twenty quid to drink in a pub one lunchtime.
“What did he tell you, Mr. McKillip?”
“Just that he had to talk business with some geezer, and the geezer might turn nasty. He didn’t say why or anything, just that it might turn nasty. I was supposed to stand at the bar and have a drink, not stare at them or anything, just casual like. But if anything happened...” McKillip punched a meaty fist down into the soft fabric of the sofa.
“And did anything happen?”
“Nah. Soon as I saw the geezer, I thought, He’s not going to give any trouble. Big... tall, I mean. Though I’ve seen more meat on a butcher’s pencil.” Another huge slurp of beer. Christ, Greenleaf would murder for a drink.
“Anything else about the man?”
“Fair hair, I think. Youngish, early thirties. Going a bit thin on top. Seriously thin on top, now that I think about it. They had one drink, bit of a natter. I wasn’t watching particularly. The geezer wasn’t to know I was there. I just did me drinking. Easiest score I’ve ever made, I can tell you.” A low, throaty chuckle. The can was empty. He crushed it and placed it on the carpet beside three other derelict cans, then gave a belch.
“Did Mr. Crane say anything afterwards?”
McKillip shook his head. “Looked pleased as punch, though, so I asked him if it had all gone off all right after all. He said yeah, it was fine. That was the end of it, far as I was concerned.” He shrugged. “That’s all.”
“Which pub was this?”
“The Wheatsheaf.”
“At lunchtime, you say?”
“That’s right.”
“Would you know the man again, Mr. McKillip?”
“No sweat. I’ve got a memory for faces.”
Greenleaf nodded, not that he believed McKillip... not as far as he could throw him. He was desperate to be out of here, desperate to assuage both thirst and hunger. He swallowed drily. “You hadn’t seen him before?”
“Nor since.”
“How was the meeting arranged?”
“I don’t know. Christ, man, I was just the muscle. I wasn’t the boss’s lawyer or anything.”
“And you didn’t see anything change hands between Mr. Crane and this other man?”
“Like what?”
“Anything. A parcel, a bag, some money maybe...?”
“Nah, nothing. They’d cooked something up all right, though. The gaffer was chipper all that afternoon and the next day.”
“When was this meeting exactly, Mr. McKillip?”
“God, now you’re asking... No idea. Weeks ago.”
“Weeks?”
“Well, a couple of weeks anyway, maybe more like a month.”
“Between a fortnight and a month. I see. Thank you.”
“I told them down at the station. I said, it’s not much. Not worth bothering about. But they had to report it, they said. You come down from London?” Greenleaf nodded. McKillip shook his head. “That’s my taxes, you know, paying for all this farting about. Not that I’ll be paying taxes much longer. You’ll be paying my dole instead. That wife of his is winding the company up. Bloody shame that. If there’d been a son... maybe he could have made a go of it, but not her. Bloody women, you can’t trust them. Soon as your pocket’s empty, they’re off. I’m speaking from experience, mind. Wife took the kids with her, back to her mum’s in Croydon. Good luck to her. I like it fine here...”
“Yes,” said Greenleaf, rising from the tactile surface of his armchair, “I’m sure you do, Mr. McKillip.”
McKillip wished him a good drive back as Greenleaf made his exit. He got back in his car but stopped at the first pub he saw and drank several orange juices, using them to wash down a cheese and onion sandwich. Too late, he remembered that Shirley hated it when his mouth tasted of onion. Afterwards, he headed back to the police station, where he made arrangements for an artist to make an appointment with McKillip. They’d get a sketch of the stranger in the pub. It might come in handy. Then again... Still, best to be thorough. Christ knows, if Doyle had come down here, he’d return to London with an oil painting of the man.
In his flat, Michael Barclay was busy packing for the trip to Calais. He’d pack one item, then have to sit for a while to ponder the same question: why me? Those two words bounced around in his brain like cursors gone mad. Why me? He couldn’t figure it out. He tried not to think about it. If he continued to think about it, he’d be sure to forget something. He switched on the radio to take his mind off it. There was music, not very good music, and then there was news. It included a story about some banker murdered in his bed. Barclay caught mentions of handcuffs and glamorous models. Well, you could tell what that particular dirty banker had been up to, couldn’t you? Handcuffs and models... some guys had all the luck.
Michael Barclay went on with his packing. He decided to take his personal cassette player and some opera tapes. It might be a long crossing. And he tried out a few sentences in French, desperately recalling the work he’d done for A Level (C grade pass). Christ, that had been seven years ago. Then he had a brainstorm. On the bookshelves in his study, he eventually tracked down an old French grammar book and a pocket French-English dictionary, both unused since schooldays. They, too, went into his case. He was pausing for coffee when he caught the next lot of news headlines. It seemed the banker had been found handcuffed to the model, that she’d been hysterical and was now under heavy sedation. Michael Barclay whistled.
Then he zipped up his case.
Tuesday 9 June
When Greenleaf arrived in the office that morning, Doyle was waiting to pounce.
“You are not going to believe this,” he said. “I could give you five thousand guesses and you still wouldn’t guess.”
“What?”
Doyle just leered and tapped the side of his nose. “The Commander wants us in his office in five minutes. You’ll find out then.”