Part 2 (1/2)

'Beggars can't be choosers.'

Munro began to fill a pipe. 'Beggars, my a.r.s.e! Well, you're right I owe you one - wouldn't be back here if not for you. I've put a query in train at the divisions, anything they have on Mary Thomason, same at the coroner's. If she's made a complaint or died, you'll hear of it.'

'I don't remember you smoking.'

'Self-defence in this place. Go home stinking of it, anyway; the wife complains. You don't have a wife.'

'Indeed.'

'Thought there might be something with the lady whose ear you almost shot off. Mmm?'

'Unlikely.'

'Oh, well, take that line if you must. How'd you like prison?'

'I'm taking up your time.'

'Slack hour. The prison?'

So Denton gave him a sketch of life as a political prisoner in a country that was still squirming out of the mire of the Middle Ages. Munro filled out paperwork and grunted. When Denton was done, Munro said, 'Been in prison before?'

'I was a guard once.'

'Dear heaven. Almost as bad.' He pushed his papers aside and laid both forearms on the desk. 'Ever think about joining the police again? I could use a partner with some brains.'

Denton smiled. He liked Munro. 'I write books,' he said.

'A waste and a shame.'

'Get Guillam.'

Munro made a face. George Guillam was a Detective Sergeant who had accepted a false confession in the crime that had led to Denton's shooting the real criminal; Guillam and Denton had started off on the wrong foot and got worse. Munro said, 'Georgie's in a bit of a funk just now. Not saying much to me.'

'The business last spring?'

'Aye, that and me getting some credit. And there's you.'

'I didn't strike on his box.'

'You might say you weren't his favourite fella.'

'He still want to be a superintendent?'

'In a funny kind of way, he is - acting like a super, anyway, but without the t.i.tle. They kicked him sideways after the business with you. He's ”on leave” from CID and acting as super of a division of odds and sods - Domestic, Missing Persons, Juvenile, a lot of stuff. Georgie has pals upstairs, but he put his foot in the dog's mess with that false confession he accepted. There's some talk it was got with some physical persuasion, too. Georgie did what was right for him, not for the law, and he's going to be in bad odour for a while. Serves him right, although I don't say that to his face.'

'Maybe I should have a word with him.'

'Maybe you should and maybe you shouldn't. Georgie don't forgive easily.' Munro dropped his voice to an almost inaudible rumble and leaned closer. 'Georgie piles up grudges like bricks. Says all's forgiven and then can't resist the knife when you turn your back.' He raised his voice to its normal boom. 'Mind what I say.' He put a finger next to his nose, an antiquated and strange gesture that made him seem like an actor playing Father Christmas. 'Now I've got work to do.'

Denton found his way back to the lobby and was about to leave the building when he realized that postponing a meeting with Guillam was stupid. Denton didn't mind being disliked, didn't mind even being hated if the hater was of the right contemptible kind, but he had once wanted Guillam's respect and he didn't see that things had much changed. If Guillam had a bean up his nose, better to face him than skulk away.

The porter led him to where Guillam could be found. Denton climbed the stairs again, went up a second flight this time, followed the man into more barren corridors and stopped by a door that the porter held open. Inside were four men, each at a desk, electric lights burning overhead, a smell like burnt toast mingling with the tobacco and wet wool. All four looked up. Three swept their eyes over him and went back to their work. The fourth stared at him, frowned, got up as if he were in pain and came around the desk.

'I thought we'd let bygones be bygones,' Denton said. 'I was in the building.' He put out his hand.

'What bygones are those?' Guillam ignored the hand.

'We had some differences a while back.'

'News to me.'

'I thought there might be some - feeling - over - you know.'

'Can't say I do. No idea what you're getting at. I got work to do.'

And he turned his back and headed for his desk.

Denton tried to find his way out, got lost, felt the sting of Guillam's rejection turn to rage. Where was the buoyant mood of the morning? He wanted to kick something. Somebody. A young constable finally had to lead him down to the lobby. Denton steamed through it and aimed himself at the door.

A bench stood next to the porter's lodge. Several sorry specimens were sitting on the bench. Denton merely glanced at them, details in the landscape to be forgotten, until one detail caught his eye: a raised newspaper, folded almost to the size of a book, the newspaper lowered to show a pair of eyes. And then a hairless face, no red moustache, although his upper lip had a gleam that could have been gum arabic. The newspaper was raised again. On the bench, upside down, a black bowler.

'The moustache could be false! But who'd be stupid enough to put on a red moustache if he was going to follow somebody, unless he wanted to call attention to himself?'

'You've lost me.' Atkins put on his deliberately stupid look.

'Wear the thing, you're the most memorable man on the street!'

'Yes, but take it off, the most memorable thing about you is gone, you're n.o.body!'

Denton had started in on it as soon as he had come through his front door. 'He could have been following me all day. Probably was!'

'Master of disguise, you mean? Popping in and out of beards and Inverness capes? Bit Strand Magazine Strand Magazine, isn't it?'

'You're the one who said he was a rum one!'

'So he was. But like you pointed out, General, black bowlers is tuppence a hundred.'

'Well, red moustaches aren't. And at New Scotland Yard! h.e.l.l's bells, that's brazen.'

He had shouted his way up the stairs and into the sitting room, had shucked himself out of his overcoat and tossed it at Atkins, thrown his hat at a table and flung himself into his armchair before Atkins managed to say, 'You got a telegram. Telegram from her her, eh? On the sideboard.'

'Why the h.e.l.l didn't you say so?'

Atkins muttered something that sounded like 'Just listen to yourself' and wandered away with the coat. Denton tore the telegram apart and read: TOMORROW 5 PM ABC BARBICAN STOP JANET STRIKER.

His heart jumped, even though the message was as impersonal as a military order. He tried to remember his own message to her. Had it been as heartless? Had he started them off wrong? He threw himself down again. He remembered her choice once before of an ABC - a shop of the Aerated Bread Company, cheap and faceless. Five tomorrow - twenty-four hours more, good G.o.d.