Dying to Tell (6 page)

"Rupe's little joke," he said when I'd finished. "He's chairman, managing director, secretary, treasurer and bloody tea-boy of the Pomparles Trading Company. He knows the tricks of the trade as well as anyone. He issued multiple Eurybia bills of lading to his own company for a cargo of aluminium leaving Yokohama, bound for Tilbury. He used those bills of lading to raise loans. Then he resigned from Eurybia, took the money .. . and ran."

"I don't believe it."

"I wish you didn't have to. But it's true. And damned embarrassing for Eurybia."

"Rupe's no con artist."

"You don't think so?"

"Of course not." (Rupe had always been honest to a fault in my experience, pathetically obedient to drugs legislation and parking regulations.) "He just isn't the type."

"Everyone's the type. If they need to be. And that's what I'm wondering. Did Rupe need to be?"

"Why should he?"

"You tell me, Lance."

"I can't. Anyway, like I said, I don't believe it. Besides .. ."

"What?" Hoare looked at me enquiringly as my mind tried to make a series of connections. What the bloody hell was Rupe up to? And why, if he was suddenly awash with ill-gotten cash, should he stop subsidizing life at Penfrith?

"How much is this fraud likely to have netted?"

"Well, banks tend to be coy about losses, of course, but eighteen tons of high-grade aluminium at today's prices' he unfolded his FT - 'equates to about .. . twenty thousand pounds. Multiply that by six bills of lading and you have ... well, you can work it out."

"How much were Eurybia paying Rupe?"

"You wouldn't expect '

"Come on. Give me some idea."

"About sixty thousand. Plus bonuses and expenses."

"And set to rise given how well he was doing?"

"In all probability."

"Then surely it was never worth it."

"Not in the long run. But something obviously focused Rupe on the short run. That's my point. And I think I can prove it."

"How?"

"I'm going out to Tilbury tomorrow. Why don't you join me?" He lowered his voice mysteriously. There's someone I'd like you to meet."

"Who?"

"Someone I reckon can convince you that Rupe really has put his straight-dealing days behind him. For good and all."

I didn't buy Charlie Hoare's version of Rupe as arch-fraudster for a minute. But I wasn't about to tell him that. Yes, I'd go out to Tilbury if he wanted me to. But I had no intention of letting myself be turned against a friend by whatever I was told when I got there. Bills of lading and the price of aluminium didn't turn Rupe into a villain overnight. Not in my eyes, anyway.

Still, there was no denying that a lot of people were on Rupe's trail, maybe all for the same reason. From St. James's Square I walked up to Park Lane and dropped into the Hilton. Mr. Hashimoto was still staying there, but he was out. I left a message asking him to call me 'in connection with Mr. Alder' and caught the bus back to Kennington.

Echo had gone out, leaving me free to search Rupe's sitting room and bedroom for clues to his whereabouts. Naturally, there weren't any. If Rupe was in hiding, he was clever enough to cover his tracks. And if he wasn't .. . then he was probably in even worse trouble than Hoare seemed to think.

I soon gave up and concentrated on putting together a sardine sandwich instead (hoping Echo wouldn't mind me raiding the cupboard). I called my parents to let them know where I was staying.

After writing down the address and phone number, Mum put Dad on, saying he was keen to speak to me, which had to be some kind of a first.

"I visited the library today, son."

"Oh yeh?"

"Reminding myself of those farming deaths round here back in 'sixty-three. You said you'd like to know what I found out, so I photocopied some of the Gazette articles. Do you want me to send them on to you there?"

"Is there anything interesting in them?!

"Oh yes. I think you could say that."

"Such as what?"

"Best you read them for yourself. I don't want to be accused of colouring your judgement."

"Give me a break, Dad."

"Well, let's just say there's a surprising connection between two of the cases."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning Howard Alder. He found his father drowned in the Brue near Cow Bridge, not the Sedgemoor Drain, as I'd always understood." (Dad and me both. The Brue was the river spanned by Pomparles Bridge. Cow Bridge was the next crossing upstream, a favourite fishing spot for boys like Rupe and me. It was much closer to home than the Sedgemoor Drain. But nobody had ever said that was where Rupe's father had met his end, least of all Howard.) "And he was the first to come across a farmer called Dalton after the poor fellow shot himself."

This really was surprising. There was no denying it. "Could you send the articles on to me, Dad?"

"I thought you'd want me to. Your mother has the address?"

"Yeh."

"I'll put them in the post first thing tomorrow."

Thanks. One other thing..." I hesitated. He wasn't going to like this. "Could you do me another favour?"

"What is it?"

"Call in at Penfrith and tell the Alders how they can contact me."

"For God's sake."

"They don't have a phone, Dad. It's either this or I send them a postcard. And they're anxious for news."

"Maybe, but.. ." A slowly yielding silence settled on the line. "All right. I'll, er .. . send your mother."

Echo still wasn't back by half eight, when I headed round to the Pole Star. The lights were turned down, the music up. The place had slipped into evening mode, with a football match playing on a big-screen telly and lots of drinking straight from the bottle.

One piece of good news was that Carl wasn't the barman sporting a tattooed mass of muscles, but his lanky, pasty-faced, hair-gelled colleague. "I'm Carl Madron," he said to me as he prised the bottle-tops off a multiple order of Mexican beer. "You the guy who was in earlier?"

"Yeh. Lance Bradley. I'm a friend of Rupe Alder's."

That a fact?"

"They tell me you know Rupe quite well."

"A bit."

"Any idea where he might be these days?"

"No." He broke off to take some money, then gave me a fraction more of his attention. "If you're a friend of his, why don't you know where he is?"

"I thought I did. But he seems to have '

"Disappeared?"

"That's right."

"Anyway, I'm not a mate of the guy. He used to come in here quite a lot. Early evening, mostly. We'd chat a bit. That's about it."

"I had the impression it was, well, more than that."

"Did you?"

"Just an impression."

"As it happens, I'm getting some grief over your friend. He's let someone down."

"Oh yeh?"

"Not a nice thing to do."

"Who is this "someone"?"

"What's it matter to you?"

"I'm trying to find Rupe. His family are worried about him."

"They probably ought to be."

"You think so?"

"You let people down, you get into trouble."

"Look, Carl.. ."

"Tell you what." He fixed me with a dead-fish stare. "I could call that someone I mentioned. See if he wants to meet you."

"That'd be great."

"OK. When I get a chance. You'll hang around?"

"Yeh. "Course. Thanks."

"Don't overdo the thanks." His smile was no livelier than his stare. "You'll be getting me off a hook."

And myself onto one? The question hung in the noise and smoke around me. And it didn't go away.

But it did get decidedly blurry. Two idle hours in a pub aren't exactly good for my clarity of thought. By closing time, I was having trouble hanging on, never mind hanging around. That early start was still gouging away at me. Carl, on the other hand, was getting sharper all the time. He'd made the promised phone call, with favourable results.

"Bill' the someone had half a name now 'says he'd like to see you." (Strangely, I'd thought it was me expressing a wish to see him, but never mind.) "Wait while we close up and I'll take you round there."

"Is it far?"

"Far enough. But I've got wheels."

"Chauffeur service, then?"

"That's right, Lance." Carl grinned at me. As a chauffeur, he was well short on deference. "Door to fucking door."

The car wasn't the sort of thing you saw being lovingly buffed outside a Mayfair casino. It was a cramped rust-bucket, with sour-smelling blankets covering the seats. For a barman, though, I suppose it had the advantage that you could always be sure, come closing time, it would still be where you'd parked it.

We headed east, aiming, so Carl told me, for the Rotherhithe Tunnel. Bill Prettyman his surname was casually donated somewhere along the way lived in West Ham. "An old East End boy," according to Carl. "He can tell a few tales, can Bill."

"Tales about what?"

"Vintage villainy. My dad knows him from way back. Famous as a hard man in his day. And famous as more than that to a few."

"Are you going to let me in on the secret?"

"I'll let Bill do that. He didn't like me giving Rupe the lowdown on him, so I'd better mind my manners this time."

"What did Rupe want with him?"

"Different question, same answer. Don't worry." Carl winked at me, which was about as worrying as it could be. "He sounded as if he was in a talkative mood."

I fell asleep before we'd plunged under the Thames and was woken, seemingly no more than a few seconds later, by the car spluttering into silence. We'd arrived at the foot of some shabby stump of high-rise housing called Gauntlet Point. (Actually, the L had dropped off the sign, but even in my far from fully alert condition it seemed obvious what the missing letter was.)

The night air was a shock to the system, I don't mind admitting. A badly needed one, in fact. Carl led me in by a heavily reinforced side-door, pausing to press a button on the bell-panel. "Just to let him know we're here," he explained, before starting up the urinal-scented stairs. "It's only the third floor. And I wouldn't recommend the lifts."

Bill Prettyman's residence lay at the far end of a concrete-parapeted landing. Halfway along, Carl paused for a word to the wise. "Watch what you say to Bill. He can be a bit touchy."

"But not feely, I hope."

"That's another thing. Sense of humour. He hasn't got one. Not a fucking trace."

"I'll try to remember that."

"You won't have to try very hard. He's not been in the best of moods lately. Thanks to Rupe."

"What did Rupe do to him?"

But the only answer I got was Carl's sodium-lit grin. Clearly, he just didn't have the heart to spoil the suspense.

"This him, is it?" were Prettyman's welcoming words as the door opened to our knock and his gaze slid past Carl and onto me. He was a short, pigeon-chested little man with a round, frowning face and pale blue eyes that sparkled like two beads of water amidst the arid creases of his skin. His head was shaven as closely as his jaw, doing nothing to soften the mangled jut of his sometime-broken nose. He was wearing a grubby vest and even grubbier tracksuit bottoms. I briefly considered reassuring him that there'd been no need to dress up for my visit.

"I'm Lance Bradley," was actually my opener. "Pleased to meet you."

"Carl said you're a friend of Alder."

"Rupe, yes." (Rupe and Bill not on first-name terms, it seemed. Was that good news or bad?) "I'm trying to find him."

"Better come in, then."

We stepped inside and Carl closed the door. A smell hit me as he did so that I'd call a stench if I wanted to be unkind. As to its origins, my suspicions centred on the large, lank-furred dog eyeing me from the kitchen doorway at the end of the passage. I couldn't have named the breed, but I reckoned I knew what it was bred for. God help any uninvited visitors to chez Prettyman.

It was just as well for my peace of mind that the dog didn't follow us into the lounge. Not that he was missing much. Bill Prettyman lived with bare walls, cheap furniture and a huge wide-screen TV. Homely wasn't the description that sprang to mind. At least the lounge smelled better than the passage, thanks mainly to a haze of cigar smoke. I'd have taken Bill for a roll-up man, but it was a panatella he'd left smouldering in a giant onyx ashtray on top of the TV. He picked it up and took a puff. "You boys want a drink?"

The choice looked to be Scotch or Scotch. We both chose Scotch. "Been up to anything exciting, Bill?" Carl enquired as he sat down on the sofa and sipped his whisky.

"I'm too old for excitement. All I want is a bit of comfort. Not too much to ask, is it?"

"No," I chipped in. "Not at all."

"Looks like you've got plenty already." Bill glared at me. "The younger generation .. ." He shook his head in despair at us. "What a fucking washout."

"Except for me, hey?" said Carl. "Didn't I say I was your best hope of news of Rupe?"

Bill's expression suggested the point was moot. "What are you after Alder for?" he fired at me.

"His family are worried about him. I'm trying to track him down."

"Purely out of the goodness of your heart?"

"Something like that."

"And where is this .. . family?"

"Street, in Somerset."

"Street? You'd have thought I'd said Baghdad by his reaction. The frown knotted itself into a scowl. "He grew up there?"

"Him and me both."

That's how he knew, then. Fucking hell. I thought he was too young. He was, by rights. But he knew. He knew a sight more than he was telling."

"I'm not sure I '

"Where is he? Bill's shout raised a bark from the kitchen. "Shut up' he bellowed. And the dog obeyed. Bill returned his attention to me. "What did you say your name was?"

"Lance."

"Well, where is he, Lance? That's what I want to know. Where is he and what's he up to?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out."

"You've come to the wrong place, then, haven't you?"

"Why don't you let Lance in on what this is about, Bill?" put in Carl.

"To save you the trouble later, you mean? I sometimes wish your dad had taken my advice and drowned you in a sack the day you were born."