NINE

Shock sobered Harry up faster than any amount of strong black coffee. His brain might not have snapped into top gear at Dangerfield's words, but it was at least a forward gear. He listened hard as Dangerfield gave him the few facts he knew on their way to the conference room.

'Crooked's body was found on the railway line near Carnoustie late this afternoon. That's about halfway between Dundee and Arbroath. They traced him here from the copy of my letter he had in his pocket. We've got an inspector and a sergeant here from the Tayside Police. Jabber mentioned you were the last to speak to Crooked, so they insisted I wheel you in. Be careful what you say, Ossie. I'm not sure exactly what they're after.'

'Are you telling me Peter killed himself, Danger?'

'Sounds like it.'

'I can't believe it.'

'Neither can I. But he's dead all right. We have no choice about believing that.'

—«»—«»—«»—

The conference room was a bare, starkly lit space, the chairs that normally filled it stacked at one end. At the other end, by a broad-topped table positioned in front of a projector screen, stood the inspector and sergeant, who introduced themselves as Geddes and Crawford. Lloyd, who had been supplied with a chair, looked up at Harry with wide-eyed bemusement and stroked his chin fretfully.

Geddes was a short, barrel-chested, shaven-headed man in early middle age, with a stubbly beard and a darting gaze. Crawford was a taller, younger man running to fat, with greasy hair and a conspicuous plaster over one eyebrow. They looked tired and bored and faintly hostile.

'Take a seat, Mr Barnett,' said Crawford, pushing a chair into position alongside Lloyd's. 'Sorry to be the bearers of bad news about your old comrade. You want to sit down yourself, Mr Dangerfield?'

'I'll stand, thanks.'

Harry might have preferred to stand as well, but he could not be sure if further shocks were on the way, so he lowered himself cautiously onto the proffered chair.

'We gather you had a conversation with Mr Askew at Waverley station, Mr Barnett,' said Geddes, stifling a smoker's cough. 'The last conversation anyone seems to have had with him.'

'It was a brief chat. Nothing more.'

'What about?'

'The reunion. Has Danger—'

'Aye, aye. We're in the picture about your fiftieth anniversary get-together. Did Mr Askew say he was looking forward to it?'

'Not entirely. He told me he was, well, beginning to regret agreeing to come.'

'That's really why we assumed he'd got off the train and gone back to London,' said Dangerfield.

'Oh, he got off the train, sir,' said Crawford. 'No doubt about that.'

'Do you know… what exactly happened, Inspector?' Harry asked.

'Not exactly, no, sir. That's what we're trying to establish. Mr Askew's body was spotted a mile or so north-east of Carnoustie station, lying between the tracks, by the driver of an Aberdeen to Glasgow train a little after half past four this afternoon. There'd been no report of a previous train hitting a pedestrian and his injuries were more consistent with falling from one, rather than walking into it.'

'What… sort of injuries were they?'

'Oh, the fatal sort. Mostly to the head. Mr Lloyd's generously agreed to come down to Dundee tomorrow morning to identify the body, but judging by the photograph in his passport…'

'He had his passport on him?'

'You'd be surprised how many Englishmen think they need one to travel to Scotland. Not that we're complaining. It makes our job a lot easier. No next of kin, you tell me, Mr Lloyd?'

Lloyd shook his head. 'He said all his family were gone.'

'So, we come back to his state of mind. Did he seem depressed while you were with him?'

'Crooked — Peter — was never what you'd call a barrel of laughs, Inspector. But depressed? No. I don't think so.'

'Mr Barnett?'

'He was a bit down. Probably a bit drunk. We all were. It could have turned him maudlin. You know how it takes some people that way.'

'Aye, I do,' said Geddes with feeling.

'But that's a long way from being… suicidal.'

'Oh, a very long way indeed.' Geddes pushed himself away from the desk, against which he had been leaning, and paced out a slow, deliberative circle. 'And there are other problems with the suicide theory. Practical problems. Throwing yourself from a high-speed train is no easy matter these days. The doors are centrally locked. They can't be opened when the train's moving. That leaves us with the windows. The only ones that open are in the doors. But it'd be quite a scramble to climb out. You'd need to be determined as well as desperate. Is that how Mr Askew seemed to you this afternoon, Mr Barnett?'

'No. He didn't. But I suppose…' Harry shrugged. 'He must have been.'

'Aye. Him… or someone else.'

'Someone else?'

'The inspector means he might have had help,' said Crawford.

'You're not serious?'

'We'll know more after the post mortem,' said Geddes. 'For the present, I'm just turning possibilities over in my mind. Aside from getting cold feet about your carry-on here, did he … do anything strange during the journey?'

'He got het up at one point,' Lloyd responded. 'For the life of me, I can't remember what about. Oh, and, er, didn't you say he seemed out of sorts after taking a phone call during lunch, Ossie?'

Harry nodded. 'A little, yes.'

'He had a mobile?' put in Crawford.

'Yes. He did.'

'Interesting,' murmured Geddes.

'What is?' asked Dangerfield.

'None found on the body, sir,' said Crawford.

'Perhaps it dropped out of his pocket while he was, er…' Dangerfield's line of reasoning petered out. Then he said, 'Or he could have left it in his bag. I forgot to tell you, Inspector. We took his bag with us when we left the train. We expected to hear from him, you see, and—'

'Where is it?' snapped Geddes.

'Er, in the minibus.'

Geddes smiled tolerantly. 'Well, perhaps we could go and take a look at it.'

—«»—«»—«»—

They took the rear exit to the car park. The night was cold and still, though Harry suspected he was shivering for other reasons than the temperature. Dangerfield opened the minibus, turned on the internal light and pulled Askew's bag out from under the seat where he had left it.

It was a small and clearly very old leather suitcase, much scuffed and scratched around the edges. And it was not locked. Dangerfield released the catches and raised the lid. Inside was a humdrum assortment of clothes and toiletries, including the neatly folded suit Askew had presumably been planning to wear that evening. But no mobile phone.

'It doesn't seem to be here, does it?' growled Geddes.

'Perhaps it did fall out of his pocket after all,' said Danger-field. 'Like you said, it must have been a struggle to climb out of the window.'

Geddes gave a sceptical grunt. 'Or it could have been taken. From his pocket. Or, later, from this unlocked case.'

'Now, hold on,' Dangerfield bridled. 'If you're suggesting—'

'I'm suggesting nothing.' Geddes sighed and flicked the lid of the case shut. 'I must thank you all for your co-operation. I may need you to make formal statements about what you know of the circumstances leading up to Mr Askew's death, but that can wait. First things first. I'll send a car for you at eight o'clock tomorrow morning, Mr Lloyd. Is that too early for you?'

'Well…' Lloyd shrugged. 'I suppose not.'

'Good. Let's go, Sergeant. Give Mr Dangerfield a receipt for the bag. Then we can leave these gentlemen to get some sleep. I'm sure they need it.'

—«»—«»—«»—

They watched Geddes and Crawford climb into their car and drive away. The noise of the engine receded into the night and was swallowed by the prevailing silence. None of them said a word for a minute or more. Then Lloyd coughed, his breath pluming in the still, cold air.

'Bloody hell, Danger. What do we do now?'

'Go in and tell the others.'

'Tell them what, exactly? That Crooked's topped himself?'

'Well, he has, hasn't he?'

'Geddes isn't sure,' said Harry with bleak conviction.

Lloyd stared at him incredulously. 'What are you saying?'

'I'm saying Geddes doesn't buy the idea of Peter Askew crawling through a window and jumping to his death from the train. And the missing phone's made him doubly suspicious. It would have revealed where that call Peter took came from. There might have been messages on it as well. Who knows?'

'No-one,' said Dangerfield. 'Now.'

'Exactly.'

'You're the only one who saw the bloody thing, Ossie,' Lloyd said irritably.

'Think I imagined it?'

'No. 'Course not. But… it's bloody odd he never used it while he was with me all yesterday and this morning.'

'You can't have been with him the whole time.'

'No. Obviously. But most of it. Apart from when he was asleep. And, er… a few hours yesterday afternoon and evening.'

Despite lingering shock and the onset of bone-deep fatigue, Harry's curiosity was aroused. 'How'd that come about?'

'Oh, well, when we got to Paddington, after leaving you in Swindon, Crooked said he was going to meet a friend and would join me at my daughter's in Neasden later. He got to her house… about eight o'clock.'

'What friend was this?'

'Somebody he'd worked with at London Zoo, he said.'

'Name?'

'If he told me, I don't remember.'

'And where were they meeting?'

'Somewhere in the centre. I don't know.'

'Did you mention this to Geddes, Jabber?' asked Danger-field.

'No. I… never thought to.'

'Perhaps that's just as well. Some reunion, hey? This is going to knock them all for six. Do you think I should let Barry know what's happened?' (Chipchase's nickname had evidently deserted Dangerfield at this time of stress.)

'Have you got a number for him?' Harry was more than slightly interested in the answer to that question.

'No. He left in such a rush. I… forgot to ask. But I thought you might…'

"Fraid not.'

A few wordless seconds expanded in the darkness around them. Then Lloyd said, 'He did have a sister in Manchester, didn't he, Ossie?'

Harry weighed his answer as carefully as he could. 'I don't know. For sure.'

'A sister anywhere?'

'If you'd asked me before today… I'd have said no.'

'Oh, great. Bloody great.'

Dangerfield cleared his throat. 'Let's go in.'

And in they went.