Let Sleeping Dogs Die (The Simon Bognor Mysteries) Page 16

  He telephoned to Ramble and told him of the afternoon’s development. Ramble listened in silence.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Bognor. ‘I’ve done what I could.’

  ‘I see that,’ said Ramble. ‘I’m sorry too.’

  ‘Will you write to them?’

  ‘I suppose I have to.’

  ‘Just say, “Delighted, accept kind suggestion, please supply further details”. Something like that. How long will it take to get the dog tattooed?’

  ‘My vet will have a clip. I can do it tonight if you think it’s wise.’

  ‘It could be as well. I expect they move fast once they get a go-ahead.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Just let me know as soon as anything happens.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Then he telephoned Watherspoon of the Kennel Club, and asked him to find out what shows Percy Pocklington was judging during the next month. Watherspoon asked no questions and promised to reply in the morning. When he’d replaced the receiver Bognor sat for several minutes sucking the end of his pencil. Then he decided against making a list. It seemed to him that all was about to be revealed. It was uncommonly careless of them to approach such a pillar of honesty as Ramble but presumably it was always a risk. Besides it was unlikely that anyone else would do what Ramble had done. Much more likely to throw the letter away and pretend it had never happened. He wondered if that was what Mrs Potts had done. If the old fatty had refused to deal with them it was at least conceivable that they’d tried to twist her arm, and that as the threats had increased so they’d finally had a bluff called and been compelled to kill her prize poodle. Since Bognor was convinced that there was a psychopath involved he felt that was a probable answer.

  He wondered if he should tell Parkinson now, but guessed that his superior would categorize his scheme as ‘gallivanting’, calculated to bring the Board and Department into disrepute. He would leave it as long as he could and present Parkinson with a fait accompli—well, nearly accompli.

  That night he told Monica his scheme over dinner at the Barque and Bite, a floating restaurant on the canal past the zoo. It was close enough to walk to and they enjoyed the gentle though occasional undulations of the deck beneath them and the shriek of some exotic bird or animal which sometimes punctuated the meal.

  ‘Awfully dangerous,’ said Monica, sipping sherry and fiddling with a bowl of nuts.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You were hit on the head in the Duchess’s park. Rose has been murdered, they’ve done a remarkable sleight of hand with the chewing gum dog, Mr Sparks has died mysteriously of acquired rabies Whately Wonderful was murdered as well. They’ve made a perfect fool of you wherever you’ve been and you ask why I think it’s dangerous. Honestly.’

  ‘My theory is that they’ve been lulled …’

  ‘Into a sense of false security,’ she chorused. ‘I know. It’s always your theory when you’ve ballsed things up. But this time I think you’re being ridiculous. There’s a whole gang of them and only one of you, and they’re extremely accomplished and ruthless and you’re, well …’ She put out a hand to touch his and smiled sweetly but patronizingly. ‘Well, you aren’t really cut out for this sort of thing, are you? Really?’

  Bognor bridled. The waiter brought palm hearts for two.

  ‘I shall have a back-up squad. Police. All I’ll do is to follow them until they commit an offence.’

  ‘When’s that?’

  ‘The minute the dog leaves port or airport without an export licence.’

  ‘Oh. Have you told Parkinson?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you?’

  ‘I have a feeling that he’d veto it or take the operation over for himself.’

  ‘I think he’d be right.’

  They dropped the subject after that and alternated between discussion of the food and the art gallery. In the silences they listened to their neighbours who were gossiping dangerously about cabinet ministers. They evidently had privileged information.

  There was no news from Albert Ramble next day, though Watherspoon rang to say that in a week’s time Pocklington was off on another transatlantic jaunt. The next day produced nothing from Ramble either but oddly there was an invitation to drinks from Coriander Cordingley. It was for that same evening and he accepted. Later she rang again to say that something had cropped up and she’d had to cancel the party, which was, in any case, just a few friends. However she was going to be in the Westminster area. Why didn’t they meet? Say the American bar at the Savoy? Again Bognor accepted.

  ‘Haven’t seen you for ages,’ she said, arriving ten minutes late and ordering a dry martini. ‘I’m beginning to be afraid you’ve lost interest in dogdom.’

  ‘No,’ said Bognor, aroused as before by her painted and scented and suggestively diaphanous appearance. ‘Just stuck, that’s all.’

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Have you heard anything suspicious?’ he asked.

  ‘Not so much as a whisper,’ she simpered. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve scared them off.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your smugglers.’

  ‘Yes, but who are they?’ asked Bognor. ‘You must have an idea. As you must have realized, I have my suspicions.’

  ‘But you can’t prove anything?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘But whom do you suspect?’

  ‘Everyone I’ve met.’ He went through the list, then chancing his arm a little, told her the story of his trip to Copenhagen. He said nothing about his latest plan.

  ‘What dreadful cheek,’ she said, ‘sending you chewing gum. That doesn’t sound like Percy Pocklington. He doesn’t have that much sense of humour. And the note? What did it say?’

  ‘Something about wafers and honey.’

  She frowned, puzzled. ‘What exactly? What does it mean?’

  ‘I really don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Too cryptic for me. I don’t think it’s that important. Another drink?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ve got some sketches to do this evening. I’m late with them already. Have you made any contact with Mr Eagerly?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Oh,’ she smiled again, tantalizingly. ‘I just thought he was one of your original suspects. And if you suspect everybody … I think he’s worth your time. Fascinating man. The Dog Centre’s a wonderful place. Right away in the hills, tucked into a valley. Beautiful. You should go just for the experience.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ he said.

  Later that night he got the call he’d been waiting for.

  ‘I’m to have the dog ready tomorrow evening at eight sharp,’ said Mr Ramble. ‘They take 50 per cent of the first £1000, and 25 after that.’

  ‘How did they contact you?’

  ‘Telephone. It was a man.’

  ‘Did you recognize the voice?’

  ‘No. But it sounded disguised. He was talking with a sort of foreign, German accent. Not a very good one. He sounded muffled too, as though he was talking through a handkerchief.’

  ‘And that was all he said?’

  ‘Yes. He didn’t take long.’

  ‘O.K.,’ said Bognor. ‘Do as he says. Get the dog ready and I’ll be with you tomorrow afternoon. How do I get there?’

  Ramble gave the directions—a complex series of manoeuvres in the more rural parts of Hertfordshire—and Bognor promised to be there by five.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Monica, afterwards.

  ‘Ramble. My plan’s going into operation.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Monica was plainly disturbed. ‘What does Parkinson say?’

  ‘He doesn’t,’ said Bognor. ‘He won’t even know until I call him from Ramble’s kennels.’ He watched Monica’s face fall and gave her a comforting embrace. ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘He can’t not support me at that stage.’

  The Ramble kennels took some finding; they were at the end of a track leading nowhere, three miles out of the t
iny village of Tuck Baldring, a small complex of sheds and huts clustered round a black and white timbered farmhouse. Bognor arrived just after five to find Ramble in a state of advanced neurosis.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ he said, sitting over strong coffee in the kitchen. ‘Seems to me that I’m aiding and abetting a felony. In any cause I’m likely to lose the dog and it’s irreplaceable. I won’t have another like him in my lifetime.’

  Bognor tried to transmit a confidence he was far from feeling. What worried him even more than the impending escapade was the conversation with Parkinson in which he was going to have to reveal his deception.

  ‘It’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘Remember the dog’s tattooed. He can’t be stolen property. We’re bound to get him back. America’s law abiding.’

  ‘Supposing he ends up in Brazil,’ said Ramble bitterly. ‘Can’t even get bloody Ronald Biggs out of Brazil. Not much chance of getting poor old Prettyboy out.’

  ‘They’re not going to Brazil.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  Bognor didn’t, so he countered by saying that there was no reason for them to go to Brazil, and asked to see the dog. Ramble led him outside to a lean-to at the side of the house. Inside there were bales of straw, sacks of dogmeal, a collection of rusty oil drums and, on a heavy wooden work bench, a small wire cage with a leather handle attached to the top. Inside lay a small black bundle in tartan wrapping. The bundle moved rhythmically and emitted a sound uncannily like that of the human snore.

  ‘There he is,’ said Ramble unnecessarily. ‘Poor little chap.’

  ‘He’s very small,’ said Bognor, unable to think of anything more intelligent.

  ‘Seven inches high,’ said his owner, ‘like I told you, but perfectly sound.’

  They stared at him for a few moments and then went back into the house. Bognor asked to use the phone which was in the living room. This, like its owner, was very masculine and slightly worn at the edges. There was no sign of Mrs Protheroe’s influence nor that of any other female, and the pervading atmosphere was one, not so much of dirt, as of mess.

  ‘Progress?’ asked Parkinson, when they’d made contact. ‘Haven’t seen you since you were in the hall with that dogged looking fellow the other day. He looked like something to do with dogs. Was he?’

  ‘Yes. I’m with him now.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  Bognor told him, and was rewarded with a long, heavily charged silence.

  ‘How long have you known all this?’

  ‘Only since yesterday,’ Bognor lied.

  ‘I’m going to have words with you, my son,’ said Parkinson, ‘but not now. You’ve been your usual idiotic self, but your thinking is sound in one respect. It’s too late to call you off. I’ll do the necessary. Ring me the minute you have enough and I’ll put an emergency call straight through to the nearest police. I’ll alert Heathrow now. They seem most likely.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘You won’t thank me by the time I’ve finished with you,’ said Parkinson. ‘All I ask now is that you don’t attempt any more of your single-handed heroics. They scare me. Just watch and see who picks up the dog, then follow at a safe distance but for God’s sake don’t lose them. And, quite as important, don’t let them see you.’

  ‘Right.’

  He hung up and went back into the kitchen, where Ramble was boiling the kettle for more coffee.

  ‘I’ll hide the car in the garage,’ he said, ‘and I’d better sit in it while they’re here. I’ll want to make a quick getaway if I’m not going to lose them.’

  Ramble said nothing, just poured water into their mugs, which already contained heaped spoonfuls of powdered instant coffee.

  ‘Is that all right?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  They drank another half mug of coffee then went outside again and squeezed the car into the garage alongside Ramble’s elderly Land Rover. The door was wooden and there were cracks both in it and around it. He would be able to watch from there in safety. Indoors again they drank yet more coffee and listened to the radio. From time to time Ramble would stand up and move over to the window, peering out as if he were expecting his visitors early. Shortly after seven he announced that he was going to walk round to check that everything was as it should be. He would also bring Perfect Prettyboy into the kitchen ready for delivery.

  ‘Best if you go and hide now, isn’t it?’ he asked nervously.

  Bognor didn’t much relish the thought of a whole hour alone in a draughty garage. There’d be bound to be rats and he had a horror of rodents which almost matched his dislike of dogs. Still, he recognized that it would be more tactful as well as safer to agree.

  As he sat in the driving seat he wondered if it was going to be over and done with as easily as he hoped. The plan seemed almost too simple. It was quite light in the garage since there were not only cracks in and around the doors but between the corrugated iron roof and the walls, in the walls themselves and from around another small door at the back. Presently he got out of the Mini and found a good vantage point at the right of the door. From it he could see the yard and the whole area at the front of the house. He stood there for a moment, one eye screwed to the crack, then straightened and went back to the car. He’d filled up with petrol and checked the oil in the village. That meant he had enough for two hundred miles, which wouldn’t be necessary if his quarry only went as far as Heathrow airport. His watch said 7.30. Half an hour to wait. He contemplated a cheroot and decided against it, then sat still and listened. Somewhere behind him there was, as he’d feared, a scuttling of small animals. He gritted his teeth and wondered what to expect.

  The garage was cold and by the time the half hour had elapsed he was shivering. It was still light outside but the sun had lost its warmth. He screwed his eye up to his viewing slit and waited. There wasn’t a sound anywhere, and even the garage mice or rats were resting. He strained to listen for the sound of a car and then realized that straining was unnecessary. Any car coming down the lane would be for Ramble. It had to be. There was nowhere else.

  At three minutes past eight the front door opened and Ramble came out, a glass in one hand. He stood for a moment sniffing the evening air, as nervous and apprehensive as Bognor, then turned and went back in. Five minutes later, Bognor heard the vehicle. It came slowly down the lane, turned carefully into the yard, sidelights on, and stopped immediately before the front door about thirty yards from Bognor’s straining eye. It was still light enough to see that it was a van, and to make out the lettering on the side. Bognor sucked in his breath sharply in a mixture of triumph and excitement. The sign on the side said ‘Animal Transport Ltd. Prop. C. Handyside’. A second later he sucked in his breath even more sharply when the door of the van opened and a trim figure in a trouser suit and costermonger’s cap stepped out. It wasn’t, as he’d expected, Cecil Handyside, but Coriander Cordingley. She walked purposefully to the front door, rang the bell and was instantly admitted. Bognor remained at his post. He had, of course, realized that Coriander was implicated, but somehow he had not expected her to be involved in quite this way. He had sensed that her artistry might have been instrumental in disguising Raffles and his counterfeit namesake. He had seen her conferring in the bright night of the Duchess of Dorset’s park. He had, for heaven’s sake, woken, innocent, in her bed. All the same, absurd though it might seem, he had not been expecting her; and he had hoped that when the time came for a heavy hand to be laid on a miscreant shoulder that the shoulder would be Handyside’s or Pocklington’s, or perhaps even the Duchess’s.

  ‘Blast,’ he said.

  She was inside for just over five minutes, then just as Bognor was becoming suspicious about the length of her stay, she bustled out of the house carrying the cage in her right hand. She went straight to the rear of the vehicle; opened the doors; deposited her prize, which still appeared to be asleep; slammed the doors to; waved gaily to Ramble who stood, fidgeting, in the porch; climbed into t
he driving seat, revved the engine and was away almost before Bognor realized what had happened. He stood for a moment watching the disappearing tail lights, then saw that Ramble was already hurrying towards the garage, and himself climbed into his car and switched on the ignition.

  ‘Miss Cordingley, the painter,’ said Ramble, breathlessly after he’d opened the garage.

  ‘So I saw,’ said Bognor. ‘Did she say anything?’

  ‘Nothing worth repeating. Mentioned something about the States, that was all. Nothing more specific than that.’

  ‘Didn’t you press her?’

  ‘It would have looked peculiar,’ said Ramble. He was still, Bognor realized, extremely nervous. His colour was very poor and he was shaking.

  ‘I must hurry,’ said Bognor, ‘or I’ll lose her. Did she say if she was going to the airport?’

  ‘No. Nothing. You’d better go.’ Ramble stood to one side, and Bognor depressed the clutch. ‘Don’t let anything happen to Prettyboy,’ shouted the breeder above the noise of the engine. Bognor smiled, waved and gave a V for victory sign. He didn’t feel at all happy now but there was no point in showing it.

  He turned left out of the gate and sped down the lane. It was three miles to Tuck Baldring and that was the best way back to civilization. However after only half a mile there was a T-junction and when he reached it there was no sign of the van. Bognor took a calculated risk and headed towards the village. After another mile he came round a bend and almost went into the back of ‘Animal Transport’s’ machine. He braked and slowed, hoping that Coriander wouldn’t recognize his car. She had a close enough view of it the other day when Monica had given chase but it was getting dark now and the colours were barely discernible. He put on dipped headlights and fell back.