FRANCIS DURBRIDGE

Paul Temple and the Harkdale Robbery

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by

Hodder & Stoughton 1970

Copyright © Francis Durbridge 1970

All rights reserved

Francis Durbridge has asserted his right under the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover image © Shutterstock.com

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008125707

Ebook Edition © June 2015 ISBN: 9780008125714

Version: 2015-07-24

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

About the Author

Also in This Series

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Nothing ever happens in Harkdale on a Friday afternoon.

The black Wolseley cruised along the deserted country road because it was part of the schedule. Showing the police car in Harkdale each afternoon was like showing the flag in the outposts of empire, a symbol for the inhabitants that they were being looked after. Police Constable Newby drove through the flat midland countryside without seeing the potato fields or the pine woods; he didn’t speak to PC Felton beside him. Newby was a town man and only the smoke and the factory skyline seven miles behind them was real. He thought of becoming a sergeant and recited pages of Moriarty’s Police Law to himself to pass the time. There was nothing else to do.

‘There’s a lorry over there in the lay-by,’ said Felton.

Lay-by? He made it sound like the motorway to London. Newby reflected that it was odd for a man called Moriarty to write their basic textbook: Moriarty, the archfiend of Sherlock Holmes. For a bored few seconds he pursued the idea that the archfiend had written it all wrong to throw the law into confusion.

‘Pull up, Bob,’ said Felton. ‘He might need help.’

‘Who might?’

‘The lorry driver, of course.’

Harry Felton would think of something like that! He was a born country copper, doomed to remain a PC all his life. He told people the time and helped old ladies across the road. The schoolkids in all these outlying villages called him Harry. He was a little undynamic for Bob Newby’s taste. The police car screeched to a halt.

‘So ask him if he needs help,’ sighed PC Bob Newby.

He watched his colleague go over to the lorry. ‘Joseph Carter & Co.’ the legend on the side of the lorry proclaimed. While somebody underneath it was tinkering with the works a fox terrier guarded the dismantled rear wheel. The hub and various parts of the wheel were scattered over the grass verge.

‘Hello, Jackson,’ said the policeman as he bent down to pat the dog. The dog, Jackson, wagged its tail. ‘Are you having trouble?’ Even the damned dogs, Bob Newby realised, knew Harry Felton. ‘Where’s your villain of a master?’

The dog’s master looked a villain to PC Newby, but then most people did to PC Newby. The lorry driver didn’t look, apart from the way he was dressed, like a lorry driver. He looked an intelligent young man, but he had longish hair; his attitude as he stood up beside the lorry was slightly supercilious. He looked like the kind of student who gets arrested on demonstrations.

‘Hello, Gavin,’ PC Felton said. ‘Fancy seeing you.’

‘Enjoying a spot of lunch,’ said the young man with a glance at his watch. Then he spoke to the dog: ‘We enjoyed our scampi and avocado pear, didn’t we, Jackson?’

The dog leaped up at its master as PC Newby strolled across to join them. ‘You look as if you’re in trouble, mate,’ Newby said, making it sound slightly ambiguous. But Gavin Renson accepted the edge of menace cheerfully.

‘I’m always in trouble, aren’t I, Harry?’

Felton nodded amiably. ‘How long have you been working for Carter’s?’

‘Just over a week.’

‘Ah, temporary, is it?’

‘Yes,’ Gavin Renson agreed with a laugh, ‘bloody temporary. Look at the lorry they gave me.’

Newby sniffed irritably. As a policeman he knew what he liked, and he didn’t like Gavin Renson. ‘Is there anything we can do for you?’ he asked.

‘Well, that’s kind of you. Yes, I think I need a new job. But a nice soft cushy job this time.’

‘A job like mine, I take it?’ Newby snapped.

‘Well, you said it!’

Gavin Renson clearly preferred policemen who gave him the feed lines. He looked disappointed when Harry Felton intervened with a diplomatic, ‘I doubt whether we’ve a uniform that would fit your lanky figure. And Jackson isn’t a standard sized police dog. Too short, and he has small feet.’

Newby watched angrily while Gavin Renson conferred with his dog about mixing with all those undesirable Alsatians.

‘Do Carter’s know about this breakdown?’ he asked sharply.

‘Yes, I’ve been on the blower. They’re sending someone –’

‘Okay, so there’s nothing we can do.’ Newby turned away. ‘Come on, Harry,’ he called.

They drove away through the flat countryside. A Cortina passed them going in the opposite direction and Newby wondered incredulously what business a man could have in Harkdale. The tiny town had gradually appeared on the horizon while Harry Felton was talking. It was a farm town and once a week, on Fridays, it came to something like life, when the farmers brought in their wares to market. Even that was a dying tradition, Newby thought, thank God.

‘It was only boy’s stuff. Stealing lead off a church roof, I think, nothing serious. He got caught because he took the dog with him. But these things stick in a small town, so he never lasts long in a regular job. He’s known as a wide boy. The last job he had was with Kimber’s in Banbury.’

‘The estate agents?’ Newby asked absently.

‘That’s right. He was there nearly six months. I gather he did quite well at the beginning, but eventually they had to get rid of him.’ Harry Felton laughed. ‘It was the usual story. He would insist on having the dog with him all the time!’

Newby grinned. ‘Why does he call it Jackson?’

‘I don’t know.’ Felton shrugged. ‘It’s always been called Jackson.’

They had reached Harkdale and were driving through the main street. There was a Woolworths, a new supermarket, and a number of bay windowed shops selling afternoon tea, women’s clothes, and an old established firm of solicitors. Outside the bank there was a Ford Zephyr and a small knot of people were watching three men coming out of the building. Just as deserted as always, Newby thought, six people and two cars in the whole High Street. The three men coming out of the bank were carrying guns and their faces were covered by nylon stockings.

‘Good God, Harry! Look at that!’

The tallest man was wearing a suede jacket and grey flannel trousers. He was carrying a large leather bag.

‘What’s going on?’ Harry asked in amazement as the bell started ringing inside the bank.

The bell was a signal for the slow motion scene to erupt. The small knot of people watching suddenly scattered. It was real, and they were in danger. A frantic clerk came running, shouting and waving his arms, from the bank. The tall man tossed the bag into the car, then turned and shot the clerk.

‘Let’s move,’ grunted Newby.

Harry Felton accelerated across the street and swung the police car across to block their escape. He came to a halt with his front wheels on the pavement. Newby could hear two women screaming as he reached for his radio telephone, and a man was shouting, ‘Don’t be a fool!’ Felton leaped out of the car.

The three bank robbers were in the Zephyr and it was backing wildly to turn and make its escape. Harry Felton ran into the road but it drove straight at him. He threw himself clear at the last moment. By the time he had regained his feet the Zephyr had finished its three-point turn.

The next two seconds passed very slowly for PC Newby. He watched Harry Felton put out a hand to seize the passenger door, and the tall bank robber leaned out of the window, carefully pointed his gun at Harry’s stomach, and fired three times. Harry Felton toppled balletically onto the road, twitched twice and then lay still. As Newby knelt beside him the Zephyr sped off through the deserted High Street.

Newby wished the bloody alarm bell would stop ringing. But it brought out a few more people as soon as the street was safe. A doctor appeared and pushed his way through the sightseers to attend the bank clerk. Harry Felton was dead. Newby went across to the doctor.

‘Have you radioed for an ambulance?’ the doctor asked.

‘That’s what I was doing while my mate was getting killed.’

The doctor nodded. ‘This one will live.’

The bank clerk was conscious and babbling with the pain from his shoulder. The blood from his clawing hands mingled with tears so that his face became streaked with red and dirt. The manager of the bank had emerged at last to demand that somebody should do something.

‘Get after them,’ he blustered at Newby. ‘They’ve stolen nearly fifty thousand pounds!’

Newby glared. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll get them.’ He turned and went back to Harry Felton’s body, before he could say anything he might regret. He could hear the siren of a police car in the distance, a black Jaguar doing what seemed to be ninety miles an hour. Within seconds it had skidded to a stop beside Newby.

Police Constable Brooks slid from the driving seat as it stopped. ‘How much start have they had?’ he asked.

‘A minute or so,’ murmured Newby.

PC Brooks looked down at the dead policeman. ‘We’ll catch up with them.’ He put a hand on Newby’s shoulder. ‘Harry was a good lad.’

‘Harry Felton was a fool and he got on my nerves but he was the nicest guy in the world.’

‘Leave it to me,’ said Brooks.

He slipped back into the car, slammed the door and turned the ignition key all in the same movement, leaving PC Newby standing forlorn by the dead man. His speedometer was flickering around ninety again within fifteen seconds. He was a fast driver, and Bill Stanton sat next to him with his eyes closed. When they reached the open road and accelerated to a hundred and twenty miles an hour Stanton’s lips began moving in prayer.

‘Harry Felton was a nice bloke,’ Brooks said bitterly. ‘He never harmed anyone.’

‘Concentrate on the road,’ Stanton muttered.

‘I’m going as fast as I can.’

‘I know.’

Constable Horace Brooks was a dark, determined man in his late thirties. He had steel nerves and his list of commendations for bravery was almost as long as the list of cars he had crashed in the line of duty. Promotion had escaped him because he conducted his own one-man crusade against crime and police discipline. Only his charm and an engaging record of success had kept him in the force.

‘There she is,’ he said grimly. ‘About three miles in front.’

Far away in the grey distance a Ford Zephyr was going too fast and throwing up a cloud of dust.

‘We’ll be there before they hit town.’

Brooks glanced out of the corner of his eye at a lorry parked in the lay-by. A man and a dog were standing watching them go by, and then in his driving mirror Brooks saw the man climb with the dog into his driving cabin.

‘Look where you’re going,’ said Stanton. ‘The road starts winding soon.’

‘I can see.’

They were gaining rapidly on the Zephyr but Brooks didn’t dare let up; once the Zephyr reached town it would be a much simpler matter to double back through the busy streets and lose them. The two cars raced along the gradually winding road, tyres screaming and back wheels slithering into the verge.

‘Thank God for the winding road,’ Brooks called. ‘They won’t be able to use their guns on us now.’

‘God help us,’ muttered Stanton.

There was a farm on their right, and several seconds before the crash Brooks saw what was going to happen. A tractor was coming out of the fields; almost immediately he lost sight of it behind the farmhouse, and then as they sped past the farmhouse and round the corner Brooks saw the tractor lurch into the road. The Ford Zephyr skidded nearly twenty yards before hitting the tractor with a bang that sounded like an atomic explosion. The tractor disintegrated and came to rest in a muddle of twisted metal in the opposite ditch. The Ford Zephyr spun on until it hit a tree.

‘God help us.’

Brooks had slowed down. He manoeuvred the car perilously past the moving wreckage and managed to stop a hundred yards further on. Stanton threw open his passenger door and stumbled into the road.

‘Fat lot we can do to help them,’ Brooks said grimly. He picked up the radio telephone to report in. Then he noticed that Stanton was being sick on the grass verge. At that moment the tractor’s petrol tank burst into flames.

PC Horace Brooks walked slowly back to the remains of the Zephyr. He had no real desire to examine the crumpled, broken bodies trapped inside the wreckage. One man was screaming hysterically, screaming that his legs were gone, screaming for quick death. The others seemed to be dead already.

Brooks spent several minutes hunting for the driver of the tractor, and eventually he found the man’s body in the field beyond the ditch. He was still alive, miraculously. To judge from the blood he had crawled about two yards and then lost consciousness.

‘You’ll never believe it,’ Horace Brooks said to a sickly looking PC Stanton, ‘but this is why I hate driving too fast. There are too many people about who should never be allowed behind a wheel.’

Stanton was making soothing noises to the man who had lost his legs, trying to calm him until the ambulance arrived. Horace Brooks shrugged gloomily, lit a cigarette, and sat on the grass to wait.

Half an hour later the scene was crowded. Two ambulances, a breakdown lorry and another police car had arrived to clear the debris. A police photographer and a young reporter from the local press had asked questions of everybody in sight, and a dozen people had materialised on the deserted road to provide an audience. PC Brooks was reporting to his inspector.

‘The tall man’s name is Thorne,’ he explained, ‘Oscar Thorne. They call him Skibby for some reason.’ He led the thick set, morose inspector from the ambulance back to the wrecked car. A man was using an oxyacetylene cutter to free one of the corpses. ‘But all these men are just thugs,’ he said, ‘they’re hoodlums. They wouldn’t know how to plan a bank raid.’

Detective Inspector Manley nodded. He was too busy trying to light his pipe to answer the constable. At last he waved away a cloud of smoke and coughed. ‘They may not have planned it, but they’re ruthlessly efficient. This is the third bank robbery in this part of the county in two weeks.’

‘Well, they didn’t get away with the money this time.’

PC Stanton had retrieved the large black leather bag from the Zephyr. ‘Do you want to take charge of this, sir?’ he asked the inspector.

‘Yes, I’ll take it back to the station.’ Inspector Manley took the bag and returned to his own car. He put the bag on the passenger seat and climbed in behind the wheel. ‘Report back to me as soon as this mess has been cleared up,’ he called to PC Brooks.

‘Aye aye, sir.’

Inspector Manley switched on the ignition and put the car into gear. Then he changed his mind and switched off. Curiosity had got the better of him. He took the black leather bag and applied a small penknife to the lock. It sprang open.

Manley stared in bewilderment at a copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary. That was all the bag contained. The money was gone.

‘Another of the men whom the police wished to question in relation to the bank robbery yesterday afternoon at Harkdale has died, it was reported early this morning. The man was forty-three-year-old Oscar Thorne, described as a garage proprietor from south London. This brings the total number of deaths arising out of the robbery to four, and police sources say that the fifty thousand pound haul has still not been recovered –’

Desmond Blane switched off the radio as he climbed down the steps of the caravan into the field. He could still hear the newsreader’s voice droning in the next caravan. ‘The young widow of PC Harry Felton said last night –’ The heart strings in twenty-four caravans all the way to the edge of the ‘farm’ were probably being pulled by the young girl’s tragic bereavement. Desmond Blane sat on the bottom step and stared aggressively at the frost coloured grass.

Bloody farm indeed, he thought, it’s just a stretch of marsh land where nothing would grow and cows would sink into the ground if they stayed still. The Red Trees Caravan Site! He wondered whether to get dressed. It was cold to be hanging around in pyjamas and a silk dressing gown, and the matching silk scarf wasn’t keeping death from laryngitis at bay.

He looked up as he heard somebody whistling. It was Arnold Cookson, threading his way cheerfully through the neighbouring caravans with two pints of milk in his hands.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ Desmond Blane asked roughly.

‘Up to the farmhouse.’

‘I’ve just heard the radio. Skibby’s dead.’

‘Oh.’ Arnold Cookson pursed his lips in a silent whistle. He was a much older man, in his early sixties perhaps, and he seemed upset by the news. ‘What about Larry and Ray?’ he asked.

‘They weren’t mentioned.’

Arnold Cookson pushed past him into the caravan. He poured some milk into a saucepan and lit the Calor gas ring. He was preparing breakfast.

‘Why does a farm sell milk in milk bottles?’

‘I don’t know.’ Arnold examined the milk bottle. ‘Perhaps it’s a good thing,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Skibby would have talked.’

‘So what makes you think Ray will keep his big mouth shut?’ Blane spoke loudly, blustering with nerves. ‘Once they start asking him awkward questions –’ His voice faded into silence. ‘Who’s this?’

There was a lorry bumping its way noisily down the lane to the caravan site. ‘Joseph Carter & Co.’ it proclaimed on the side. Blane walked suspiciously across to the gate.

‘We weren’t expecting you until this afternoon,’ he called.

Gavin Renson jumped cheerfully from the driving cabin. ‘I know, but we thought we’d come for breakfast.’ He took a large black leather bag from the tool compartment under his seat and strolled past Blane towards the caravan.

‘Come on, Jackson,’ he called to the dog. ‘Come and have your porridge.’

Chapter Two

Paul Temple tried to relax in the tip-up chair; he closed his eyes while the girl clattered her implements about on the ledge by his head. She adjusted the chair slightly and shone the light full in his face. It was like being at the dentists, except that Miss Benson was younger and prettier than any dentist Paul had been treated by. And she made him feel much more nervous. He didn’t feel happy having his face made up.

‘Do I have to be made up like this?’ Paul protested as a matter of form.

‘Oh yes, it’s terribly hot under the lights. You’ll perspire, and we wouldn’t want you to look shiny, would we?’

‘Heaven forbid.’

Miss Benson put the finishing touches to his lips, patted his face with powder and then whipped away the towel from under his chin. ‘There, now you look like an extremely well preserved novelist.’

He rose from the chair and scowled. ‘I am an extremely well preserved novelist.’

‘Exactly.’

Another girl popped her head round the door, exactly on cue, and said, ‘Are you ready for Hospitality now, Mr Temple?’

‘I suppose so.’

Paul waved a resigned farewell to Miss Benson and followed the second girl to a room at the end of the corridor. Four brightly attractive young ladies were chatting up four nervous middle aged men.

‘My name’s Andrea Turberville,’ Paul’s bright young lady told him. ‘I gather you’ve been through all this before.’

‘Yes. What happens next is that you conjure up a very large whisky and ginger wine.’

‘That’s right,’ she said, ‘and a small sherry for me.’ In fact they were conjured up by a chirpy young man. ‘Not nervous, are you?’ Andrea asked.

‘Terrified.’ He wasn’t, but it seemed the right thing to say. Paul didn’t want to appear blasé. ‘I’m always tempted on occasions like these to hire a professional actor, so that he can project his personality and remember all the witty lines I think of afterwards. Do you know any good professional actors?’

She laughed as if it were all part of her job.

‘Don’t worry. Brian’s terribly good at putting people at their ease. He’ll help you out if you forget the title of your latest novel or if you suddenly become convinced that your flies are undone. Brian’s terribly professional.’

Paul glanced cautiously down at his trousers.

‘By the way, have you met your fellow performers? Let me introduce you –’

Brian Clay conducted a chat programme for ITV that aspired to treat serious subjects in a serious way between interludes of pop song and dance. The serious subject this week was crime. Paul Temple had just written a series of newspaper articles in which he claimed that crime was no longer a haphazard collection of underdogs dabbling in a spot of burglary, as it had been, but an organised business with no place for the amateur. So Paul Temple was on the show.

He would be talking to Freddy the Drummer, a man who had spent most of his life in and out of approved schools, borstals and gaol, to a retired agent of MI5 or MI6, nobody seemed sure which, and to an elderly MP who wanted to bring back the birch and arm the police.

Paul said hello to them and mentioned the weather. It would take all of Brian Clay’s well known sincerity and charm to produce brilliant talk from this bunch of egotists, Paul decided. The MP was talking as if he feared that once he paused for breath somebody else might speak, and the braying tones were designed to wake up apathetic voters at the back of the hall.

‘What do you think of this circus?’ Paul asked the MI5 or 6 agent.

‘I think everybody’s terribly talented and sincere,’ he said absently. His brightly attractive young lady was keeping him primed with a continuous supply of whisky. ‘Terribly professional.’

Paul nodded and wondered whether to talk instead to Freddie the Drummer. But Freddie was sprawled in an armchair, sprawling lower and lower in an attempt to get a better view of Andrea’s mini skirt.

‘I think it’s time we went onto the set,’ said Andrea Turberville. ‘It’s a few minutes early, but we ought to see you under the lights. I’ll take you to Richard Cross. He’s the director.’

The set was the usual table surrounded by armchairs. There was water in carafes and there were ashtrays everyone was told not to use while on camera. Andrea sat them all down to face a tiered audience of two hundred people. There was a stage over to the right where the dancers would dance, and behind the stage a dance band was playing to warm up the audience.

‘Paul Temple, eh?’ barked the MP. He had sat in the next armchair. ‘I suppose you writer chaps have been hit by the abolition of capital punishment. No dragging off the villain at the end of the piece. Who cares who dun it when the fellow just goes and spends the rest of his life in comfort at the expense of the ratepayer?’

Richard Cross scurried across the studio to welcome them all. He said that it should be a terribly controversial programme and Brian was thrilled to have them all on the show. ‘I think we’ll start with Paul’s thesis about big business, is that all right, Paul? And then we’ll talk about how the police aren’t really equipped to cope with such streamlined organisation, and we’ll talk about spies and undercover work. It’ll be riveting. The milk will boil over in a million homes. Any questions?’

‘Yes,’ said the man from Intelligence. ‘What happened to that little dolly with the whisky?’

Richard Cross gave a faintly distraught laugh.

The Melody Girls had been rehearsing on the stage to the right, and Paul noticed that one of them had remained on the set. She was a tall redhead with strikingly troubled green eyes. Paul thought that she was coming across to them, but somebody called her, and after a moment’s hesitation she went away. Her green flaired chiffon costume was too brief to be hanging around in draughts.

‘Sir Michael,’ the director said to the MP, ‘I wonder whether you’d change places with Paul? Your spectacles are upsetting camera number two. Miss Benson! Where’s Miss Benson? Freddie the Drummer needs some powder on his bald patch –’

The audience suddenly applauded as a dark, moodily intense young man walked onto the set. He was dressed in a dramatic black suit with white frills, and the one touch of colour was his floppy red bow tie. Without looking across he waved a languid hand in acknowledgment of the clapping. ‘Hi,’ he said to his guests in general. ‘Great to see you, marvellous. It’ll be a great programme.’ He was Brian Clay.

‘We’re on in ninety seconds, Brian,’ said the director.

‘Great.’ The super-cool young man sat in the centre seat behind the desk and smiled dramatically. ‘Hi,’ he said to Freddie the Drummer, ‘great to have you out in time for the programme. Paul! How nice to have you on the show.’ He leaned across and offered a languid hand. ‘I thought your last book was great.’

Paul beamed complacently. The nice thing about being flattered by Brian Clay was that he bothered to do it. Clay had the art of seeming to bestow a royal favour, which was warming for the brief moment it lasted. He was terribly sincere. But while Paul was grinning at the military intelligence agent in private amusement they had gone on the air.

‘Hi,’ Brian Clay was saying, ‘and good evening. Tonight we’re going to discuss one of the central, most real threats to our health and security, one of the most dramatic aspects of the world today. I’m talking about crime, and the way it is likely to touch us all in the next ten years, because it’s the fastest growing disease in our society. It no longer only happens to other people –’

His voice was faintly rasping, as if the menace were there among them. ‘And here to discuss it with us tonight –’ He was a professional. He had all the sensational statistics on cards before him, and his intensity would have quite a few old ladies glancing over their shoulders at the back door. ‘Mr Paul Temple, crime writer and in his own way, criminologist!’

A man over to the right waved and the audience applauded. Paul glanced down in sudden apprehension at his trousers.

‘Paul, tell me what’s so different about this present situation. Is it simply that crime is better organised, or is it different? Change or development?’ He stared so innocently that Paul felt a serious answer was required. ‘Mm?’

‘What is different is that the people who get caught these days are not the real criminals. In the past if you caught a gang of bank robbers and sent them to gaol that was it, those criminals were out of harm’s way for several years. But these days – these days the gang gets caught if you’re lucky, but the brain behind the crime is left free to plan his next big job. The men behind organised crime are never caught. So no matter how many petty villains you send to gaol you don’t improve the situation. You only fill up the gaols with petty villains.’

‘That’s a disturbing thought, Paul.’ He turned dramatically to the MP. ‘Sir Michael, I know you think our present laws make it all too easy for the criminals.’

The MP began with heavy facetiousness about his role as a Clay pigeon, and then he laughed lugubriously. On the stage to their right The Melody Girls were assembling for their routine. Paul found his attention straying. He didn’t think that the fervour with which MPs held their opinions indicated their profundity. Sir Michael was a bore. Yet the red-headed girl was watching them without a thought for the coming dance number.

‘Paul, what do you think about that?’

‘Eh?’ The wretch had sprung it on him deliberately. ‘I think Sir Michael is very sincere,’ Paul said, ‘but he knows very little about criminals.’ He wished he had heard a word Sir Michael had said. ‘A prominent MP’s life may be very worthy, but it doesn’t equip a man to understand what makes a criminal tick. There’s a fantastic difference between the lives of the law givers and the law receivers, and I think Sir Michael personifies that difference.’

Brian Clay perked up at the prospect of some real television, while Sir Michael spluttered with astonishment.

‘I keep in touch with the people,’ he shouted, ‘through my constituents! I know my people and what they think! This weekend I’ll be back there holding my monthly clinic, and what will you be doing, writing a novel?’

Paul nodded happily. ‘I’m going off to the cottage, actually, and I hope to start on my new book –’

‘Cottage? You retreat to a cottage in the country and talk to me about crime? What happens in your part of the country? They probably don’t know what crime is!’

‘Freddie, where do you sit on this fence?’ Brian Clay asked.

‘Yes, well, I mean, they’re right, aren’t they? What happens in country cottages? And how would an MP know about crime?’

‘Does that worry you?’ Brian Clay asked the man from Intelligence. ‘Did you used to feel there was a gulf between the life of the pursuer and the pursued?’

‘Never.’ The impeccably dressed man smiled beatifically. ‘What I always say is that if you’re still alive then you haven’t much to worry about, have you?’

That was a conversation stopper. While Brian Clay worked out how to begin again the director waved to the dancers. They were all in place and the music began its introduction.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Brian murmured into the microphone, ‘we give you The Melody Girls!’

The show went out live at ten o’clock on a Friday evening. Doing it live ensured spontaneity and the extra charge of tension which Brian Clay thought so essential to real television. It also meant it was damned late when Paul left the studios. The clock in the gatekeeper’s lodge showed two minutes past eleven. Paul waved in farewell to the man from Intelligence, who tottered off in search of a drink, and looked about for his car.

‘Paul! Over here!’

His wife waved while the gatekeeper raised the barrier. She was looking brightly enthusiastic, so presumably she had approved of his performance. Paul slipped into the passenger seat and kissed her on the cheek.

‘Was I all right?’ he asked.

‘Marvellous, darling. You were terribly sincere.’

‘Oh my God.’

Steve had insisted on watching the programme in the saloon bar of the pub round the corner from the studio. It was her idea of a public opinion sample. And the pub had a colour set.

‘The people in the saloon bar enjoyed the way you made Sir Michael look ridiculous. But of course they all agreed with him.’

Paul sighed. ‘Well, let’s get moving. We’ve a long way to go tonight.’

Steve pressed the accelerator and they moved out into the traffic. By the main entrance to the studios Paul saw the red headed dancer struggling with her suitcase. As they drove past the girl swung round to look at them, tripped over the case and fell.

‘Pull up!’ Paul exclaimed.

‘I thought,’ Steve said with an ironic glance at the girl, ‘we had a long way to go.’

‘Something’s bothering that girl.’

‘I remember the feeling when I first met you.’

Paul hurried back along the pavement and helped the girl to her feet. She was more embarrassed than hurt. Paul picked up the suitcase and watched while she brushed the dust off her coat.

‘Are you all right now?’

‘No, I’ve laddered my stockings.’

‘Perhaps we can give you a lift somewhere?’

She smiled gratefully. ‘I was hoping to catch the eleven thirty from Paddington. It’s the last train –’

‘We’ll make it.’ Paul put the suitcase in the boot of the Rolls and then held the door while she climbed into the back of the car. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Oxford,’ she said. ‘My parents live near there and I promised to spend the night with them. For a change. I haven’t seen them in months.’

‘This is your lucky night,’ murmured Steve. She drove into the main flow of traffic going out to the Western Avenue. ‘We’re off to the Cotswolds, so we can drop you off at your door. We’ve a house near Broadway.’

‘It’s awfully kind of you.’ The girl relaxed, removed her hat and tossed the red hair free, then she smiled. ‘I’m Betty Stanway, by the way. I’m a dancer.’

‘Steve Temple. And the man with the charming manners is my husband.’

‘I know, I was in the Brian Clay Show with him. I was meaning to talk to him all evening, but my nerve kept failing me. I know it must be tiresome for celebrities to have complete strangers button-holing them; I don’t usually do it.’

‘What did you want to talk to him about?’ Steve asked. ‘Paul enjoys being button-holed by attractive young dancers.’

‘I wanted to ask his advice. Or at least, well, I wanted to give him some information. You know, I just felt I needed to talk to someone, and after I read that series of articles in the newspaper –’ She had become incoherent. ‘I was worried, that’s all.’

‘Have you eaten today, Miss Stanway?’ Steve asked, briskly maternal and down to earth.

The girl was startled. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Neither has Paul. He pretends to be absolutely blasé about his television appearances, but he’s so nervous he doesn’t eat for two days beforehand. We’ll stop at the Coach Club. We can have supper, and they serve drinks there until three in the morning. All right, Paul?’

‘Good idea.’ Paul watched the lights of the oncoming traffic. ‘But I wasn’t nervous. I had two hamburgers at half past seven this evening.’

The Coach House was an eighteenth century building on the outskirts of Oxford. It had its legends as a meeting place for the literary establishment from Byron to Beerbohm, but it was now the haunt of motor car executives and the more pampered undergraduates. Paul led the two women into the dining room. It was only half full, but the aroma of rich food and cigars hung in the air. The oak beams and brass looked decently timeless in the half light. It could have been any time since 1732, apart from the clothes.

‘Good evening, Mr Temple. Will your party stay at the bar while we take your order?’

‘Thank you, Bilson, I think we will.’ He turned to Betty Stanway. ‘What would you like, Miss Stanway?’

‘Oh, Betty, please,’ she gasped. ‘A dry martini, please. Everyone calls me Betty.’

‘Three dry martinis, please, Bilson.’

‘Yes, sir.’

They sat in comfortable leather armchairs. Paul hoped he wouldn’t become too comfortable and fall asleep. It had been a full day, and the mood of the Coach House was calculatedly euphoric.

‘Talk to me, Betty,’ he said. ‘Tell me all your worries.’

As Betty took her drink from the bartender the slightly red light turned her eyes into a dramatic violet colour. ‘I read all those articles you wrote about the recent bank robberies and the way crime has changed. Like you were saying tonight. You said that the people who actually committed the robberies were not the people –’

Paul nodded his encouragement. ‘Not necessarily the people who organised them. That was what I said in the paper, and after this Harkdale affair I’m more than ever convinced that I’m right. Because most of the people who committed that robbery are dead, and the money is still missing.’

‘I know.’ She put her glass down in a sudden, unladylike gesture. ‘I know something about what happened at Harkdale. Not much. It isn’t enough to go to the police with, and I’m not the kind who goes to the police in any case. But I think I heard the robbery being planned.’

‘Go on, Betty.’ He wasn’t tired any more. ‘Start at the beginning.’

‘Well, for the last six months I’ve been working at a club called The Love-Inn. That’s where The Melody Girls were formed. I don’t suppose you would know it –’

‘It’s in Soho; owned by a woman called Rita Fletcher.’

‘That’s right. You are well informed. Although actually it’s run by Rita for the man who really owns it. He’s an American, a horrible little dipso. Rita runs it for him. But anyway, one night, about three months ago, Rita introduced me to a man called Desmond Blane –’

Chapter Three

One night about three months ago Rita Fletcher had introduced her to a man called Desmond Blane. He was a wealthy man, or he lived like one, which amounted to the same thing. Betty had already noticed him in the club several times and she encouraged his friendship. Betty Stanway wasn’t hoping to be a dancer all her life.

Desmond Blane was in his early thirties, a powerfully built dark haired man. He lived in Knightsbridge, which seemed to Betty the height of aristocratic living. He called it a penthouse and it overlooked the park. Betty was too impressed to ask what he did for a living. She assumed it was something in the City.

The third time she spent the night at his penthouse she developed doubts about the City. They had gone to bed rather late even for her, she was exhausted and high on vodka. She scarcely remembered going to bed, and when she woke up it was daylight and Desmond was not beside her.

She lay there for a few minutes trying to piece together what had happened the night before. She was afraid she might have fallen asleep while they were making love. Betty wasn’t terribly good at the fast life. She needed a cup of coffee.

When Desmond appeared in his silk dressing gown and matching silk scarf, looking like a bachelor from a more serious 1920s musical, he was reading the morning’s mail.

‘Good morning,’ she murmured with an anxious smile.

‘Oh, you’re awake.’ He confirmed her worst imaginings; instead of reassuring her Desmond ripped open a letter with obvious displeasure.

‘I’d love some coffee.’

‘I made some,’ he said absent mindedly. ‘It’s in the kitchen.’

When Betty returned with a cup of coffee Desmond was still sitting on the foot of the bed with the letter in his hand.

‘What’s the matter, Des?’ she asked. ‘Bad news?’

‘No, it’s nothing.’ He put the letter in his dressing gown pocket. ‘Just business. Isn’t it time you put some clothes on?’

‘I’m sorry, Des.’ Something told her it was all spoiled. Last night they had talked of going away for the weekend. It was her first long weekend free in ages, and they were going to spend it together. But that had been last night. Betty picked up her clothes and went into the dressing room. Now it was morning.

She was twenty-eight, and she was beginning to dread the mornings. She was too often hung over, and every morning the crow’s feet looked more noticeable around her eyes. She touched her toes twelve times, splashed cold water on her breasts and breathed deeply by the open window. It would be nice to be young again, or middle aged and past all this. It would be nice to be a shorthand typist.

She was massaging her neck with cream when she realised that Desmond was talking in the bedroom. Her natural curiosity triumphed over discretion.

‘I’m not happy about it,’ he was saying. ‘You know damned well why. In my opinion we’re pushing fate.’

Betty crouched and peered through the keyhole but she could only see his feet tapping in agitation on the floor. His large blue slippers looked absurdly like separate beings, dancing together, nothing to do with the man.

‘Have you spoken to Renson? And what about Skibby? What does he think?’ There was a pause. ‘He would, the greedy bastard. But I still think the twenty-third is too soon after the other jobs. And why Harkdale? I don’t even know where Harkdale is!’

Betty went through into the bedroom. Desmond Blane didn’t even look up at her.

‘All right, we’ll talk about it tonight. Yes, yes, we’ll discuss it. I’ll see you about eight o’clock.’

Betty went across to him and put her arms round his neck from behind. ‘Who was that,’ she asked with a laboured attempt at humour, ‘another one of your girlfriends?’

‘Mm?’ He suddenly smiled at her. He was back. ‘Yes, an impatient Spanish bird. I call her my flaming flamingo.’ He kissed her neck. ‘But she can’t dance the way you dance, Elizabeth, and she lacks your stamina.’

Betty laughed delightedly. ‘Do you really love me, Des? You said last night – Well, you said we could go away together for the weekend.’

‘We’ll have the wildest weekend of your life,’ he said deliberately. ‘Be here on Friday morning at ten o’clock sharp, and bring your passport. It will be a weekend to remember.’

Friday mornings in Knightsbridge are pretty crowded and the taxi pulled up outside the block of service flats at four minutes past ten. Betty emerged from the taxi in her smart little powder lemon suit and carrying her weekend case. She paid off the taxi and hurried into the entrance. Desmond Blane’s flat was on the fifth floor and she waited for the lift.

‘Good morning, miss,’ said the porter. ‘Going up?’

‘Fifth floor, please. It’s a beautiful morning. It’s going to be a beautiful weekend.’

‘Yes, miss.’ The old boy slammed the gates and they shot up in a vertical take-off. He clearly enjoyed his work. ‘If you’re wanting Mr Blane I don’t think he’s in.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Betty, ‘he’s expecting me.’ She had received a note from Desmond the day before, urging her to be on time and reminding her to bring her passport.

‘Fifth floor,’ he announced defiantly. ‘But Mr Blane isn’t in.’

Betty went along the corridor to the front door of Desmond’s flat and rang the bell. She rang again almost immediately. The elderly porter had remained with the lift and he was watching with satisfaction. She banged on the door with her fist.

‘He hasn’t been here since Monday night!’ the porter bawled.

Betty walked slowly back to the lift.

‘And he’s not coming back neither,’ the old boy added, ‘not never.’

‘Are you sure?’ She went into the lift; the clang of the gates and then the plunge to the ground seemed absurdly symbolic to her. ‘There must be some mistake.’

‘No, miss. The head porter, he had a note from the agents this morning. We got the keys back, and there’s talk of another tenant moving in on Monday. There isn’t no mistake.’

‘But his clothes – the furniture – I mean, did he move out?’

The old man shrugged. ‘These flats are all let furnished. I suppose he just took his clothes and personal belongings.’ He watched her leave the lift and walk unhappily back to the street and his satisfaction waned. ‘I’m sorry, miss,’ he said finally. ‘It came as a bit of a surprise to us as well. He’d been here three years. It was a bit sudden.’

‘Never mind,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve been stood up before.’ She tried to smile. ‘I suppose you’re working this weekend?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ He grinned. ‘But you’ll have a beautiful weekend.’

During the next three weeks Betty Stanway forgot Desmond Blane. She was a resilient girl and men still noticed her. The shoulder length auburn hair and the lithe dancer’s body attracted enough admiration to make the evenings fun. And then all the girls were going to appear on television, which meant extra rehearsals and a lot of hard work. They had been on television several times in the past five years, but Betty still experienced a naive feeling of excitement: maybe this would be her breakthrough, the girls featured on a regular show each week, eventual main billing, stardom. At one o’clock in the morning the fantasy would take hold, and it did no harm. She even began to feel fit, almost human, when she woke up. Until the morning when she saw a report in the newspaper about a robbery in Harkdale.

Then she remembered the telephone call which Desmond had been making that morning before he disappeared. He hadn’t even known where Harkdale was! Betty glanced at the date on the newspaper. It was the twenty-fourth, and the robbery had been on the twenty-third. She read through the report again. It just couldn’t be coincidence.

While she was dressing she turned on the radio. The rehearsal had been called for ten o’clock so she had no time to worry about ex-boyfriends. She put Harkdale out of her mind until the news came on.

‘Another of the men whom the police wished to question in relation to the bank robbery yesterday afternoon at Harkdale has died, it was reported early this morning. The man was forty-three-year-old Oscar Thorne –’

Betty went to work in a trance. She caught the tube at Belsize Park as usual, accepted a seat with a smile from an elderly business man, and sat staring at the black pipes in the tunnel. She wondered whether to go to the police, but she had nothing to tell them except a name, and that might seem like malice against the man who had jilted her. She lit a cigarette and read unseeingly through the rest of the newspaper. Protest demonstrations, war in Asia, a couple of sexual assaults, politicians denouncing racialism. Nothing to capture the attention. Her mind wandered on to an article about the new brains behind organised crime.

‘What Rothschild did to banking and Woolworth did to shopkeeping Al Capone did to crime, but Al Capone was not a brilliant man. Today the rewards of crime are comparable to those of other big business careers, and a brilliant tycoon might waver before deciding to become a property developer. And at least three tycoons have decided otherwise –’

Betty read with total absorption and almost forgot to change trains at Tottenham Court Road. She knew that Desmond wasn’t a tycoon of crime, because he had been protesting against the instructions he had received from someone. But she was pleased to have it confirmed that he was a business man. The article went on to question the effectiveness of a police force drawn from a basically underprivileged section of society, who could no more cope with modern crime than they could cope with irregularities in high finance.

The author was Paul Temple. In the last few lines of his article he mentioned the Harkdale robbery as proof of his argument. The series of articles had obviously been written well in advance, and the reference to Harkdale would have been a last minute insertion. Betty was impressed, especially when she arrived at the television studios and found that Paul Temple was to be a star guest in the Brian Clay Show that evening. She determined to tell him what had happened.

It would be easier to talk to a stranger than to someone she knew, even someone as close as Rita Fletcher. Rita came to the rehearsal for about an hour in the afternoon, and she sensed that something was wrong. But Betty couldn’t talk to her.

‘I’m depressed, I suppose,’ said Betty. ‘There’s nothing wrong.’

‘You girls are always down about something. Are these men worth it? I wish they didn’t exist!’ Rita was an extrovert woman in her mid-forties, and clearly men never gave her any trouble. She was bosomy and corsetted and her men did as she told them. ‘You need a rest. You ought to go home to mother for the weekend. On Monday you’ll be a new girl.’

‘It’s all right, Rita –’

‘Go home. Mr Coley won’t miss you for two days.’

Betty nodded gratefully. She hadn’t been home since Christmas. Maybe she could leave her problems behind in London. ‘I’ll telephone my mother during the break.’

She almost went home without talking to Paul Temple. He was a debonair type, smoothly relaxed with all the terrifying television people. As the evening wore on Betty’s resolution began to fail. She tried to speak to him twice, but he was always surrounded by producers and people like that. He had an amused manner which helped to make some politician Betty had never heard of look ridiculous. Even though Paul Temple smiled at her rather sweetly the things she had to say about Harkdale seemed too trivial, and she didn’t want to look a fool.

Then as she was leaving the studios she had seen him being driven away by a woman who didn’t look much older than herself. Betty had swung round in indecision and fallen across her suitcase. That was how she came to tell Paul Temple her troubles. [They gave her a lift to Oxford. She told her story over a succulent steak at the Coach House.]

‘Desmond seems to have completely disappeared,’ she concluded. ‘When I read about the robbery in Harkdale, and the man who was killed, the man they called Skibby, I realised what had happened.’

Paul Temple nodded in encouragement. ‘Tell me, Betty, did you ever meet any of Blane’s friends? Renson, or the man called Skibby, for instance?’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’d never heard of them before that phone call.’

His wife, Steve, looked disappointed. ‘But surely you must have met some of his friends?’

‘I know it’s peculiar now that you mention it, but I didn’t. We went out quite a lot, but always it was only the two of us.’ She finished the steak, and felt contentedly full. The club itself impressed her. ‘Actually Rita came with us on one occasion. It was a Sunday and the three of us drove out to Maidenhead for lunch.’

‘When Desmond came to the club, to the Love-Inn, was he always alone?’ Steve asked.

‘Yes, always. Except on New Year’s Eve.’ Betty suddenly remembered the occasion, it was almost the first time she had met Desmond Blane. Most of the members had been drunk and Cynthia Elphinstone had nearly been sacked for doing a strip tease to Auld Lang Syne. ‘He had another man with him that night, a man called Arnold something or other. I didn’t like him very much. He stared at us girls.’

‘What did he look like?’ Paul Temple asked.

Betty closed her eyes in an effort to remember. She wasn’t very good at describing people. ‘He was about sixty, I suppose. Almost as tall as me, and he smiled the whole time. Perhaps he was just good natured. Oh yes, and he had a northern accent.’

When they dropped her off at the end of her road it was gone half past one and Betty Stanway was worried again. Not as worried as she had been, because Paul Temple had promised her there would be no unpleasantness, no publicity. He had a friend at Scotland Yard called Charlie Vosper who was a very nice man, and Charlie Vosper would come and see her on Monday when she was back in London. But it didn’t seem right.

‘I know you’ll probably think I’m crazy,’ she had said as she got out of the car. ‘But in spite of what’s happened, with Des walking out on me, I’m still very fond of him.’

Paul Temple’s smile was warmly reassuring, and then the Rolls drove on. She watched it out of sight before walking the last fifty yards to the house where she had spent her childhood. The semi-detached houses were all in darkness and they all looked strangely the same to her now. She deliberately tried to feel her way back to the girl who had known every kid in the street, who had belonged among these gardens and homes and the footpaths at the back, a securely happy and slightly reckless Betty Stanway.

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