Do Not Exceed the Stated Dose Page 6

  With screeching tyres the police car turned into the long drive leading up to the Hitchman residence. Macavity met them almost head on. His reaction was swift. He veered left onto the turf to bypass them. His powerful engine roared, he swung onto the road, and accelerated. The police had to turn to give chase, and he got away.

  Bath’s outsize detective, Superintendent Peter Diamond, ambled up the drive next morning and looked at the tracks the car had made.

  “Our mystery cat made a mess on your lawn, I see,” he remarked light-heartedly to John Hitchman, who was unamused.

  Those tracks were useful. The police were able to get a clear tread pattern and establish which tyres had been fitted to the car. Moreover, the driver of the patrol car was convinced that the thief had been driving an Alfa Romeo sports model. The Police National Computer carries records of all registered cars. The Alfa Romeos of that type in the Bath area can be counted on one hand.

  Towards noon, Diamond drove over the cobbles in front of the Royal Crescent and found a space two cars away from a black Alfa Romeo. All other enquiries had proved negative.

  This Easter weekend had turned out fine, but chilly, particularly on the exposed slope where the Crescent is sited. Diamond stood rubbing his arms by the sports car while the sergeant compared the tread pattern on the tyres. “No chance, I’m afraid,” the sergeant said finally.

  “You’re certain?”

  “These are another make altogether, sir. Mind you, they’re new. They’ve still got some shreds of rubber where they were taken from the mould. It’s worth asking when these were fitted.”

  A man in a blue sweatshirt and black jeans answered the door and before Diamond had opened his mouth said, “Piss off, will you? Out of it. Get some fresh air.”

  It was only when Diamond felt some pressure against his leg that he realized the remarks were meant for a cat, a large ginger tom that was trying to return indoors. The man put a foot against its rump and steered it away from the door. “You’ve got to be firm with them,” he said. “I don’t want it cluttering up the flat all day.”

  Diamond explained who he was.

  The young man, whose name was Mark Bonney, invited him in. He introduced Diamond to his partner, a dark-haired woman in a denim suit. She offered to make coffee.

  In the next twenty minutes, Bonney insisted that he had not been out at all the previous evening. He had watched a video with his partner and they had retired early. He had not used his Alfa Romeo since Thursday, two days before.

  “I was looking at the tyres,” said Diamond. “They’re brand new.

  Changed them recently, did you?”

  “Thursday afternoon,” said Bonney. “Want to look at the receipt? It’s right here.”

  It was from Tyrefast in Weston and the date was clearly written as 13/4/95 . Thursday. The robbery had been on Friday evening.

  “That seems to settle it,” Diamond had to concede. “I’ve no further questions, Mr Bonney. Thanks for the coffee.”

  After the door was closed, Bonney and his partner watched discreetly from the window as the portly detective walked across to his colleague, shaking his head.

  “You’re brilliant,” Jenny said. She had taken out the Fabergé egg and was holding it to her chest. “Brilliant! How did you manage it?”

  “Manage what?”

  “The receipt. You had the new tyres fitted only half an hour ago, for God’s sake.”

  “No problem,” said Bonney, putting an arm around her. “I changed the date myself, as soon as I was given the receipt. The lad wrote his 5 like a letter S. All it wanted was an extra stroke across the top. Now they’re convinced I haven’t used the car since Thursday.”

  They watched Diamond return to the police car, still shaking his head. Before getting in, he hesitated.

  “What’s he staring at?” said Jenny.

  “My car,” said Bonney. “Oh, Jesus! That bloody cat!”

  The ginger tom was sitting forlornly on the Alfa Romeo, pressing itself against the still faintly warm bonnet.

  Diamond strolled across and put his hand flat to the bonnet. Then he gestured to the sergeant and they approached the house and knocked again.

  Macavity was about to be nicked.

  DISPOSING OF MRS CRONK

  “Foolproof.”

  Gary shook his head. “Too simple.”

  “The simple ideas are the best.”

  “What if he susses us?”

  And now Jason shook his cropped head. He made you believe in his wild ideas, did Jason. Those pale blue eyes of his, as still as the stones in a mosaic, watching you. The mouth like a crack in the earth.

  “What’s my action, then?” asked Gary, weakening.

  “Collect the readies.”

  “Five grand?”

  “More if we like. We set the fee.”

  “Five is enough,” said Gary with the measured calculation of a young man behind with his rent and trying to subsist on unemployment benefit of forty-two pounds a week. “And all I do is collect?”

  “And look the part.”

  “How?”

  “Suit. Tie. Shades.”

  “What do I say?”

  “Not much. You just collect, I said.”

  “Alone?”

  “I can’t hold your bleeding hand, Gary. I’m doing all the heavy stuff, aren’t I?”

  There was a pause for thought. “All right, Jay. You’re on.”

  * * *

  “How’s it going, Mr Cronk?” Jason asked, grasping the crowbar he used to strip the casing from the frames of the wrecks that were brought in.

  “Same as usual.”

  “Mrs Cronk still giving you grief?”

  “Don’t ask, Jason.”

  Jason hauled on the crowbar and exposed the burnt-out interior of a Vauxhall Cavalier. “Not much here worth keeping.”

  “Pity. Try the engine, son.”

  With two or three expert stabs at the front of the car, Jason forced up the bonnet. “Battery looks all right. I’ll have that out.”

  His employer prepared to watch the swift dissection of the mangled vehicle. In other parts of the yard, other beefy youths were dismantling derelict pieces of machinery, fridges, cookers, lawn-mowers, for scrap metal. It was not a bad living in these grim times. There was money in scrap. Call it waste disposal, recycling, totting, what you like, it paid.

  Not many overheads. Low wages. These were young lads straight from the dole queue, glad of anything. With the basic tools, a breakdown lorry, a second vehicle to cart the good stuff down to the dealer and fly-tip the rest, you were set up. Cash for trash.

  If only his domestic life worked as neatly as his business.

  Jason leaned over the bonnet, peering at the way the hoses were fixed. Then he ripped them out with his large hands. He was the pick of the bunch, in spite of his aggressive looks, the nearest thing to a foreman on the site.

  “I knew a bloke had grief from his old lady,” Jason said, turning to pick up another tool. “Funny business. She couldn’t get enough of it. Know what I mean, Mr. Cronk? Big, healthy woman. Soon as he got into his pit, she was on him, regular, and when I say regular I mean three, four, five times a night and coming from all directions. Too many hormones, I reckon. No bloke could have stood it. Knackered, he was. His work suffered. His pecker was in permanent shock. He gave up going out with his mates. Got the shakes. Anyway, he faced facts in the end. It couldn’t go on. So he went to the Fixer, paid the fee, and slept soundly ever after.”

  Mr Cronk reflected on the matter while Jason lifted out the battery.

  “What do you mean by the Fixer?”

  “I thought you’d know about the Fixer, Mr Cronk.”

  “I don’t mix in your circles, Jason.”

  Jason applied himself to the heavy work, his biceps rippling. “He takes care of problems. This geezer’s problem was his old lady, so the Fixer fixed her.”

  “How?”

  “Disposal.” Jason ripped out the radiator a
nd slung it onto a heap of rusted metal. Unlike the others, Jason never confused ferrous and non-ferrous.

  “You mean he . . . ?”

  “Yup. It wasn’t crude, mind. The Fixer’s a pro. No comeback. This bloke is free now. Free to marry again if he wants, but I don’t think he will. Once bitten . . .” Jason gave a coarse laugh and picked up the bolt-cutter.

  “What happened to the woman?”

  “Accident, they said. She didn’t know nothing about it, that’s for sure. Drove her car off the road. The thing was, this road was next to a two-hundred foot drop. The coroner reckoned she fell asleep at the wheel.”

  “Accidental death?”

  Jason grinned.

  Mr Cronk gaped.

  “The insurance paid up, easily covered the Fixer’s fee.”

  He severed a bunch of cables and wrenched them out. There wasn’t much left of that engine.

  “What sort of fee does he charge?” Mr Cronk eventually asked.

  “Ten grand.”

  “As much as that?”

  “It sounds a lot, but it’s like cars. You pay for a decent motor and you get value. Believe me, he’s the Roller of his profession. He don’t let people down.”

  Towards the end of the afternoon, Mr Cronk passed Jason again.

  The parts worth keeping had been stripped from the car, sorted and stacked neatly nearby. He was already sledgehammering another vehicle. He was a lad you could depend on.

  “Er, Jason.”

  “Mr Cronk?” He rested the sledgehammer on his shoulder.

  “You’re feeling hot, I expect.”

  “What do you expect? I ain’t picking daffodils.”

  “How would you like a cool swim? I’ve watched you working.

  You deserve it. Come home with me. I’ve got a thirty-foot pool.”

  “What, now?”

  “Now’s the right time.”

  “I’m covered in muck.”

  “You can take a shower at my place. We do have soap, you know.”

  * * *

  Mr Cronk’s house and garden were so palatial that Jason wished he had put the Fixer’s price higher than ten grand. The pool had a glass roof that retracted at the push of a button like the sun-roof on a posh car. The bottom of the pool was lined with blue, green and gold tiles. There was money in recycling, more money than Jason had dreamed was possible.

  He took a slow shower, soaping himself thoroughly in the shower-gel Mr Cronk had provided. He watched the grime go down the chromium plughole. Then he dried himself with the huge, pink, fluffy bath-towel and put on the boxer shorts Mr Cronk had lent him.

  “So there you are, clean as a vicar,” Mr. Cronk shouted from across the water. “Come and meet my good lady.”

  Mrs. Cronk. She was reclining on one of those long, padded swing-seats suspended in a large frame. She must have been twenty years younger than Mr Cronk because she looked terrific in a black two-piece. Blonde, bronzed and superbly groomed, she was the biggest surprise yet.

  Friendly, too. “Hi, Jason. Check those tattoos.”

  She didn’t budge from the recliner, so he had to move in, crouch down and show her his biceps. She smelt expensive.

  “Pure art. And on such an expansive canvas. Do you pump iron?”

  “No, I break up cars for your old man.”

  She laughed. “So do I, but it doesn’t give me muscle tone like that.”

  “You don’t want it.”

  Mr. Cronk said, more to himself than the others, “Many a true word.” Then he turned to Jason. “Why don’t you try the water?”

  “Cheers. I will.”

  He wasted no time. He took a header, needing to get submerged fast, and not just because he was coming out in a sweat again. The water was deliciously cool. He was not a bad swimmer and he showed off a bit with his powerful crawl, doing a racing turn at the deep end.

  After six lengths he stopped and stood up in the shallow end. The swing-chair was no longer occupied.

  “She’s getting changed,” her husband said. “She’s got to get to her flamenco class.” Mr Cronk had changed too, into a T-shirt, shorts and sandals.

  “Is she learning flamenco?”

  “She teaches it, four nights a week.”

  Jason swam another four lengths, lazily, on his back, thinking about Mrs Cronk dancing the flamenco. After a bit, he turned over and swam on his front.

  When he got out, there was a fresh towel ready. Mr Cronk handed it to him. Jason sat on the edge of the pool with the towel draped around his shoulders, dangling his feet in the pool.

  Mr Cronk handed him a can of lager, ice-cold. He said, “You look so cool, I think I’ll join you, Jason.” He stepped out of his sandals and sat beside Jason. The light on the water shimmered over the coloured tiles, distorting the shapes.

  “That chap you mentioned today. The, em, Fixer.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You said he was reliable.”

  “Hundred per cent.”

  “Ten thousand pounds, the man paid, for his services?”

  “Ten grand, yes.”

  “Tell me, Jason. How does the money work?”

  “Come again, Mr Cronk?”

  “Well, is he paid by results? Does he get the money after performing the, em . . . ?”

  “I’m with you. No, there’s got to be trust on both sides. Standard terms for that kind of job are half on agreement, half on completion. Five grand down, five at the death, so to speak.”

  After some reflection, Mr Cronk said, “It seems fair enough.”

  “Cash, of course. No point in cheques in a business like his.”

  “Or writing them, if you hire him,” said Mr Cronk, churning the water with his feet, he was so amused by his own remark. “Do you know this fellow personally?”

  “I’ve met him, yeah.”

  “Any chance I could meet him, just out of interest, so to speak?”

  “No chance,” said Jason.

  “Oh.”

  “He doesn’t meet no one on spec. Too risky.”

  “How did he ever meet the man you were telling me about?”

  “It was set up by a third party. The bloke made it known he wanted to hire the Fixer. There was a meeting on neutral ground, the bloke and the Fixer. Five grand was handed over. Nothing spoken. When the job was done, the other five grand had to be left in a case in a left luggage box. The key was handed to the third party, who gave it to the Fixer.”

  “Neat.”

  “That’s the way it’s done the world over, Mr Cronk.” Jason stood up. “I’d better get changed and toddle off. I’m sure you’ve got things to do.”

  “I’ll drive you back. No problem,” said Mr Cronk.

  Towards the end of the drive back to the flat Jason shared with Gary, Mr Cronk said, “I suppose you couldn’t act as third party.”

  “In what way?” Jason tried to sound puzzled.

  “As a contact with the Fixer. You said you met him.”

  “Just the once, a while ago.” He paused. “I suppose I could sniff around, see if he’s about.”

  “I’d make it worth your while—later.”

  “Five hundred?” said Jason.

  “All right. When it’s all over.”

  They drove on for a while in silence.

  “This’ll be all right. Drop me here.”

  Mr Cronk stopped the car. “Don’t think too badly of me, Jason. I’m a deeply wounded man. Mine is nothing like the case you mentioned. Almost the reverse.”

  “I don’t judge no one, Mr Cronk.”

  “You’ll let me know?”

  * * *

  “Get a grip, Gary. He’s the one wearing brown trousers, right?”

  “Right.”

  “You look great. Wear the shades, and your rings. Walk tall. And don’t forget to check the money.”

  “Where will you be, Jay?”

  “Where I said—down the tube with the cases and the tickets. Piccadilly Line to Heathrow, the night flight to Athens and
six weeks bumming around the Greek Islands. Any problem with that?”

  “No problem, Jay.”

  “There’s nothing he can do. I lose my job, and you get the golden handshake, eh, Gary?”

  “Yes, sure.”

  “Try and look the part, then.”

  * * *

  Mr Cronk emerged from a taxi and entered the ticket hall of the tube station at precisely 4 p.m. He was carrying a sportsbag containing five thousand pounds in twenty-pound notes. As instructed, he waited to the left of the news kiosk. He was trembling uncontrollably.

  At 4.03, a tall young man in dark glasses and a black suit and bootlace tie walked right up to Mr Cronk and said, “Is it all there?”

  Mr Cronk fumbled and almost dropped the bag as he handed it over to the Fixer. The young man unzipped the bag and made a quick assessment of the contents.

  Mr Cronk said, “When will you . . . ?”

  “You’ll get a phone call,” the Fixer promised. He zipped the bag up again. Then he turned and walked quickly through the barrier and down the escalator.

  * * *

  Gary was all smiles on the platform. “Dead simple.”

  “Give us the bag,” said Jason. He took it and looked inside.

  “Sorted.”

  The Heathrow train came in. They picked up the cases. On the journey, they opened one of the cases and stuffed the bag inside.

  “It was a dream,” said Gary, his confidence fully restored. “He was dead scared. You know what? If we played it right, we could roll him for the other five grand as well. Have a nice holiday, go back and screw him for the bloody lot. He wouldn’t know it was a con till he got back and found his old lady still breathing.”

  Jason fixed him with those stone eyes and said, “You’re a laugh a minute, Gary.”

  “Am I?”

  “She’s already dead.”

  “What?” Gary went white. “No! Jay, you never?”

  “Couldn’t let my old boss down, could I?” said Jason, enjoying this.

  “For Christ’s sake, mate, are you crazy?”

  “Went for a swim with her this afternoon, didn’t I? Pushed her face under the water and kept it there.” He glanced at his watch. “He’ll be finding her about now. He’ll be saying, ‘Jesus, that Fixer didn’t waste time.’ And when we get back to England, he’ll pay up like a lamb.”