Murder for Treasure Page 5

  ‘Difficult to say, sir.’ The speaker paused either to concentrate on passing the car and caravan ahead or else to avoid answering the question. The driving manoeuvre was accomplished with an astonishing burst of acceleration. Iffley then reduced the speed of the little car in token acknowledgement at entering a built-up area. They were passing through the village of Commercial or Llanddewzvelfey.

  Treasure had already noted that the traditional English place names along the route were everywhere offered on new road signs incorporating Welsh alternatives as well. As a conscientious banker he knew the Welsh for commercial was masnachol, even though he was not quite sure how to pronounce it. There was no evidence of commercial activity save for the sale of petrol. Perhaps the little community had taken the opportunity to acquire a vernacular name more mellifluous and appropriate than the old English one.

  ‘I was interested in your two villains. If we don’t catch ’em straight away, I may be able to identify them, or else get them identified.’

  ‘You mean they’ll belong to your hill people, Inspector?’

  ‘Very possibly, and almost certainly on drugs, sir, both of them fairly high, too, at the time you were dealing with them.’

  Treasure nodded. ‘At the start they were terribly relaxed . . .’

  ‘Paying their excess fare.’ The policeman chuckled. ‘That fits well enough. Either they were working on their own hoping to steal the cost of a few fixes or else they were employed to do a specific job.’

  ‘I think the latter, don’t you? They had a car, a gun, they seemed to know what they were after, and they weren’t a bit keen to let it go.’

  ‘Possibly.’ Iffley seemed to be thinking aloud. ‘I don’t think there was a car. I mean, we believe we accounted for all the cars in the yard. On the other hand, the gun probably doesn’t belong to them. If it did, they’d have sold it rather than use it to frighten people.’

  ‘They did more than frighten the clergyman.’

  ‘But they were using blanks throughout. Of course you can do a lot of superficial damage with a blank cartridge fired close to, especially a .45.’ Iffley paused, clicking his tongue against his lower lip. ‘We know they got on the train at Llanelli because all tickets were inspected earlier between Swansea and Llanelli.’

  ‘I know, I was in the dining car.’

  ‘If they were hired they were probably given the money for the fare.’ The Inspector still appeared to be communing with himself. ‘In which case, having dodged buying tickets in the first place, they’d have been anxious not to have a fuss made when they failed to slip through without paying at Whitland. Could have got them into trouble with whoever’s paying them.’

  ‘Dishonesty’s often a false economy.’ Treasure felt this a suitable reflection to offer a policeman. ‘Anyway, they ended up looking pretty conspicuous. Beats me how they got away with the business on the train. I mean, the clergyman could have recovered enough to raise hell before they were clear, or someone else could have got on. Imagine taking that kind of risk.’

  Iffley shook his head. ‘Nothing out of the way for some of the mindless zombies I consort with, sir. They probably thought they’d done for the parson . . .’

  ‘Killed him, you mean? But . . .’

  ‘It’s quite possible they thought they were using real ammo, and if they were hired for the job, and if the price was high enough, that wouldn’t have bothered them one bit.’

  ‘Good God.’ Treasure had imagined life in rural West Wales to be fairly sheltered compared even to the King’s Road, Chelsea.

  ‘The whole thing would have been a giggle.’

  ‘That’s exactly how they were behaving when I caught up with them.’

  ‘Anyway, it would have taken the parson a bit of time to come round . . . the shock apart from anything else, sir. Would depend on his age, of course.’ There was disappointment in the tone: Treasure had felt unable to guess the victim’s age with real accuracy. ‘As for other passengers, the ticket-collector said there never are any first-class passengers getting on at Whitland for Fishguard. A lot get off—to change trains. Hardly anybody gets on. The only other first-class ticket holders still on the train were you and people in reserved seats in the next carriage.’

  A twinge of pain in the lower stomach reminded Treasure that if he had been prepared to suffer little children he too could have travelled in a reserved seat, untroubled, unmolested and delivered on time to his destination. Instead he was bravely bearing the hurt of behaving like a responsible citizen—far from convinced by the light-hearted assurances of a Whitland doctor that no permanent damage had been done to some of the more delicate parts of his anatomy: time would tell.

  ‘Sad about your little man, sir.’

  The banker, roused from self-pity, was astonished at what seemed a flippant descent into nursery metaphor. But Iffley was snatching a brief glance at the assorted objects in the rear of the car.

  ‘Ah, you mean the ventriloquist’s doll? I don’t suppose the Judge is going to be very pleased about its condition.’

  Iffley smirked. ‘Expect it looked better before the train ran over it, sir.’

  ‘Not much, actually. Gave me a hell of a shock.’ Treasure turned properly to view the casualty where it lay on view in the bottom of its box—the only surviving piece of the original elaborate wrapping. On reflection, perhaps the thing was being maligned.

  Viewed without the drama of its first exposure, the doll was obviously intended to amuse. Far from being a horrifying sort of doll, it bore a marked resemblance to Stan Laurel, the slim member of the old-time film comedy partnership of Laurel and Hardy. Taking its adventures into account, the doll had survived mostly unscathed, it had evidently not been run over: only fought over. A plastic bag of extra properties was attached to its left leg: this included a bowler hat with wire attachments. Treasure had discovered that a ventriloquist’s doll was an altogether more intricate mechanical contrivance than he had conceived before becoming closely involved with one.

  ‘Not something anyone would try stealing. Not knowingly.’ This was the policeman. ‘Might be valuable, but imagine trying to fence it—sell it off as stolen property.’ The last definition had been unnecessary. Not for the first time, Treasure noted a tendency among youngish policemen to treat bankers like members of the judiciary.

  ‘This is Haverfordwest, sir. Old county town.’ The car had crossed a river bridge and with power to spare was effortlessly ascending a monstrously steep hill and still evidently Georgian High Street.

  ‘Named by Danish raiders, settled by Flemish weavers, and held for King Charles for a bit in the Civil War. I expect you know.’ Treasure catechized his last evening’s homework purposefully with an air of easy scholarship. ‘Unless I’m mistaken’ —an unlikely possibility—‘that’s St Mary’s—thirteenth and fifteenth century, and reputed to be the finest church in the whole of southern Wales. Nice clock.’ He was good at churches, and planned to visit the one they had just speeded past as soon as it became convenient. Meantime he recalled: ‘They didn’t steal the clergyman’s watch. I noticed it particularly. Platinum, I think. But it did look as if they’d turned out his pockets, as I told you.’

  The western outskirts of Haverfordwest didn’t merit comment, and Treasure was anxious to spend his remaining time with the policeman to the best purpose. A road-sign announced, ‘Solva 11, Panty 13, St David’s 15’

  ‘They might have thought it was stainless steel, sir.’

  It went through Treasure’s mind that any kind of watch might be acceptable to someone intent on stealing ‘the cost of a few fixes’—fitting one of the Inspector’s own speculations.

  ‘You mean they thought the jackpot would be in the suitcase? Was it?’ The banker put the question casually. In fact, he was very intrigued to know if the contents of the case had proved as curious as their owner.

  ‘Not really, sir.’ Iffley was not to be drawn. The momentary pause in the conversation accentuated the point. ‘Are you sta
ying long with the Judge, sir?’

  ‘A few days only.’ Treasure sensed and respected the professional reticence that had ordered the change of subject. ‘Are you sure I’m not taking you out of your way . . . or blowing your cover?’ He was getting his own back for the definition of ‘fence’.

  ‘The answer’s no in both cases, sir. I have to take this route and we reckon my cover as a not very clewed-up antique-buyer is blown already. Anyway, I’m being withdrawn. Just going down to tidy up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought there were many antiques left for buying in this part of the world.’

  ‘Dead right. The area was picked pretty clean years ago. By professionals, too. I make out I’m after lower grade bric-a-brac.’ Iffley shrugged his ample shoulders. ‘Just so I have, or used to have, excuse to poke round the farms and cottages. Of course,’ he added a shade defensively, ‘you can come across a bit of art nouveau now and again. That’s worth a quid or two these days.’

  It would have been tactless to confirm that the Inspector looked more like a junk merchant than a senior policeman. Treasure concluded also it would be impertinent—if potentially profitable—to enquire whether Iffley had disposed of the better objets d’art that had come his way. Molly Treasure had a nose for acquiring pieces of yesterday’s junk destined to become tomorrow’s four-figure saleroom items: her husband had learned to foster and fuel her enterprise at every opportunity.

  Perhaps Iffley’s purchases were paid for out of public funds and eventually turned over to the funding authority. Treasure’s further speculations on this line were shortlived: too short perhaps. The scenery was to engage both travellers for the remainder of the journey: immediately, a seascape had opened before them. ‘My word, that’s a powerful sight,’ said the banker, and he meant it.

  The road plunged down to Newgale Sands, ran beside the beach, then twisted and turned to higher ground where it remained elevated for some time until it made a mighty genuflection to pass through Solva—a village similar to Panty, but smaller and not so overdeveloped.

  Two miles onwards and the little car was making one of its big-hearted charges up the Panty High Street.

  ‘Turn right off the main road at the top . . . pass the church and vicarage on the right . . . big gates on the left before the road becomes a farm track.’ Having manoeuvered the car according to the directions he was reciting, the Inspector drove it between the tall iron gates on to the wide gravelled drive that encompassed a perfect circle of lawn. ‘That copper in Whitland really knew the way, sir.’

  It seemed the car had scarcely come to rest before its driver had alighted and deposited Treasure’s possessions beside the pointed porch.

  I won’t wait if you don’t mind.’ Iffley was clambering back into the car as Treasure was closing the nearside door. ‘Judges make me nervous.’ The car engine was already throbbing for the off. The policeman leant over to wave through the open passenger window. ‘Glad to have been of service. Take care, sir.’

  The departure was unceremonious in the extreme: perhaps judges made Inspector Iffley feel underdressed. Treasure found an iron bell-pull: it was well fashioned and in splendid working order. In answer to a tug, tollings seemed to echo from every quarter.

  Not fifty yards from where Treasure now stood waiting, but beyond the tall gates, across the road and behind the low, vicarage wall, there crouched two small, excited figures and a large uninterested dog. The animal, an Irish wolf-hound, was not crouching to order but lying down because it was tired.

  ‘It’s him,’ said Emma Wodd, the Vicar’s daughter, aged nine, nearly.

  ‘It’s him all right.’ Nye Evans—eight and a bit—nodded agreement. ‘What do we do, Emma?’

  Devalera (he’s the dog) began to stretch in readiness for standing up. Emma and Nye threw themselves upon him for fear he should do anything so incautious.

  CHAPTER 6

  The clergyman had left Whitland Station unnoticed by anyone who mattered. He had recovered quickly—not quickly enough to have saved Treasure’s involvement, but that had happened so soon after the attack as to have been unavoidable. He had been scarcely conscious, and certainly too dazed to use his quick wits. If it had not been for his invention and resource, he would hardly have gotten to Britain; first class all the way. You had to remember things like that, regularly fortifying yourself with positive thoughts when adversity struck.

  He tended to lead a life where adversity threatened to strike often if left to its own devices. Positive thinking was a present help in any kind of trouble: it was what had got him down that corridor and into that washroom with the door locked behind him before anyone came looking.

  By the time the train had backed up to Whitland he had been mentally composed and physically presentable. His face was washed and the skin abrasions on the forehead were dry enough. The wig could have been arranged to cover the powder burns, but he had decided to pocket it along with the moustache. Those goons had left his Burberry (after checking the pockets), and with this buttoned to the neck and with his crew-cut hair and dark glasses he would hardly have been recognized as the clergyman who boarded at Paddington.

  His attackers had left him his wallet and most everything else on his person while they searched for the only thing they were after: his passport. They wouldn’t take his word for it he didn’t have the passport with him—even when with the gun at his head he was about to tell them the truth: that had been just before the thing went off, probably by mistake.

  The noise of that explosion would go with him to the grave: the force of it had temporarily laid him out so that he could only surmise about what happened next. Chances were those punks had panicked, thinking they had somehow killed him with a blank cartridge: he’d felt dead and probably looked it. They must have grabbed his case and the parcel Treasure had left, hoping the passport was in one of them but with no time left to find out before they had to quit the train. It all fitted—and they surely needed that passport.

  He had crossed the footbridge, walked through the booking office, the station forecourt and on to the main street without restraint or hesitation. It would have paid him to hesitate, to have mingled with the crowd and discovered the villains had failed to make off with their booty—notably his suitcase. He was not to learn this until later and well past the time when he might have risked reassuming his former appearance in order to claim his belongings. As it was, he had determined to get shot of Whitland as well as close contact with policemen.

  He had caught a local bus to Haverfordwest. There he had bought a cheap but presentable overnight bag at one store and filled it with immediate requirements at two others—a chemist and a men’s outfitters. He noticed the third shop sold clerical collars but he had not risked replacing the damaged one hidden by the raincoat: it would have made the sales assistant remember him that much better. In any case there was no purpose now in resurrecting that disguise.

  The few phrases he had uttered during the transactions he had been careful to deliver in his nearly perfect English accent.

  The last thing he bought was a stout walking stick with a heavy rubber tip. He did not intend to do any walking: you could protect yourself with a stick.

  The bus had been the least conspicuous way of leaving Whitland, but he had made the journey from Haverfordwest to St David’s by taxi, keeping his raincoat done up to the neck.

  The taxi-driver, known locally as Castrol Lloyd, would recall more than any counter clerk. He had sized up his passenger as well-built, and athletic with it, mid-thirties, probably foreign judging by the haircut, walked in to a door recently from the look of his forehead.

  Castrol was well up on the variety of local subjects that entranced visitors. He failed to find one that produced more than a monosyllabic response during the whole of a fifteen-mile drive. The man had asked briefly about Panty as they had driven through—about how far it was from St David’s: that was all.

  The driver had his little victory in the end. ‘Drop me in the midd
le of St David’s’ his passenger had ordered abruptly.

  ‘This is the middle. Smallest cathedral city in Britain. Population 1,700. This is the square and that’s the famous stepped Cross.’ Visitors quickly came to think of the place as a village. ‘The magnificent cathedral is in a dip over by there—’

  “Let me out here. How much, and where’s the Post Office?’

  ‘You wouldn’t want a hotel, like?’ Castrol Lloyd’s married sister worked in one. There was no question of commission: just a helpful word. But the passenger did not require anything more than directions to the Post Office which they had passed fifty yards back.

  Some days later it was to go hard with Castrol that he was quite unable to add anything to the information on his fare other than what is set out here.

  For his part, the cleric was well pleased with his progress. You could hardly say it had been uneventful, but he was here in St David’s at 3.30, exactly the time he had aimed to arrive.

  He had travelled with the very person he had been warned to avoid at all costs. He had been assaulted and robbed—he didn’t think because of Treasure although it could have been Treasure who had fingered him without meaning to.

  He had lost his passport along with everything else in his bag: that was a set-back but one that could be overcome. He was not likely to be recognized by Treasure and now that he knew the man, he could surely manage to avoid him for the hours he intended to be in the area. If the police were looking for him, they would only have Treasure’s description to work with.

  He had not expected to be set upon—and by amateurs. So, they had got the passport, but if they were also supposed to put the frighteners on him they had missed by a mile. The whole episode had been tawdry, risky for all concerned, and had made him even more determined to get the money. Now he was on his guard and would trust nobody. The idea of being civilized about this whole thing had been a blind from the beginning: he could see that now. Yet still he found it hard to believe that people who had been so close . . .