Читать книгу The Returned Dead - Rafe Kronos - Страница 5

We signed two copies of the contract after I’d insert his name: Roderick Baxendale for this purpose. That name seemed best to me especially since R. Baxendale had just shown that he was happy to hand over a big bag of money. I doubted if the dead Jack Rankin could do that.

My newly accepted client tucked his copy away in his briefcase. I put mine in the safe with the fifteen grand he’d spilled on my desk. He didn’t ask for a receipt so I didn’t offer him one. I didn’t bother to count the notes; I didn’t want him to think I didn’t trust him. I didn’t, of course, no more than I trusted any new client, but there was no point in showing it.

The press cutting he’d filched from the library also went into the safe. He didn’t object to me keeping it even though I half expected him to. Perhaps telling his tale had given him confidence to manage without its reassurance.

Then I started extracting the information I needed to start my inquiries: the details of his old house, his current address, the house in Neston, about twenty miles away, the whereabouts of his old business, the full names and dates of birth of himself, Felicity, Debby, the names and addresses of the cleaning lady and the other two people who’d identified the body and so on. It turned into a very long list but the more facts I had the more things I could test. In any case, he was owed a lot of investigating in return for the fifteen grand – the initial fifteen grand, I told myself.

He answered all my questions without hesitation. That worried me. His story couldn’t be true yet here he was, giving me fact after fact which I could use to punch great holes right through it. He was being far too compliant, far too eager to help. Alarm bells rang loud and clear. What the hell was going on?

When I had finished making my notes I asked, “So what made you come to me rather than to another inquiry agent?”

“I read about what you did in that Dutchman case.”

The complex Dutchman case had brought me a fair amount of publicity. I’d hoped it would attract more high value clients. It seemed to be working.

“The Van Maanen business was all about the identities he stole.” I said. And also the large sums of money he’d lifted, I added silently. ‘Never forget the money’ is a useful motto and I wasn’t going to forget it when my new client seemed to have such a lot of the stuff.

“But don’t you think my case is a bit like the Dutchman’s case? he asked. “I need you to sort out my identity or identities – and find out why I’m dead and not dead.” He was speaking almost cheerfully, clearly relieved that I had taken the job.

We talked a little more then, as he prepared to leave, I asked, “How’d you get here?”

“I drove, I managed to grab a parking place a few streets away.”

“You were lucky, parking’s awful around here.” I glanced at my watch. “I could do with a breath of fresh air. I’ll walk with you to your car if you don’t mind.”

I didn’t need fresh air but I did want to observe how he behaved away from my office. You can learn a lot about a man by observing how he behaves in the street, seeing if he avoids eye contact with passers-by, if he dislikes it when people walk close behind him, watching how he checks where he is, which shops attract his attention or even how he crosses the road.

That’s the theory but in this instance, as we walked along together, all I managed to learn was that Baxendale seemed to be a more or less normal human being -- apart from being two people at once, of course -- there was that. He walked steadily, crossed the road with the normal amount of care and occasionally glanced sideways to look in a variety of shop windows. None of it was very informative. Still, I consoled myself, it was early days yet. Tomorrow I’d start digging and find out what all this was about.

It took us about ten minutes to get to his car. When I saw it, I was both surprised and impressed. I like cars and this one was a classic, a 1950s Bristol 403. Aluminium bodied, I recalled, and powered by a superb high performance engine based on one that BMW had created just before the Second World War. In 1945 the victorious British grabbed the BMW engine blueprints and machine tools and gave them to Bristol, a firm that had spent the war making aero-engines and planes to destroy the Third Reich. It was a nice reward for all their patriotic efforts. It was a wonderful engine; the great Mike Hawthorn had raced a Bristol-powered Cooper on his way to becoming a Ferrari works driver and 1958 World Champion.

I gazed at Baxendale’s car with admiration and envy. The body was beautifully streamlined, a product of Bristol’s aircraft designing experience and their wind-tunnel testing. It was painted an immaculate dark blue, a colour that emphasised its sleek lines. Dark blue: there was blue again, I thought. The inside of the vehicle was like a gentleman’s club: all red leather and polished wood. Superb.

Although it was about sixty years old the car looked as if it had just rolled off the production line. It must have been restored recently; the restorer had done a wonderful job.

“That’s a lovely machine,” I commented. I felt another twinge of envy as I gazed at it. Then I reminded myself one of the reasons why I like cars: if they are wrecked you can rebuild them – unlike people. I suppose liking machines is a sort of escape from the burdens of responsibility we take for other humans.

He smiled at the car and then at me. “It was a gift from Debby, a lovely, lovely gift.” His smile broadened and then he chuckled; he was almost hugging himself with pleasure. “A gift, it was a lovely gift from Debby” he repeated.

My God, I thought, they are rich. Some gift: the car must have cost more than thirty- grand. Lucky for some. I wondered what it would be like to have a beautiful wife who gave such magnificent presents. I’ll never know since I’ll never have a wife, not now.

“Right,” I said, “I’ll start on your investigation as soon as I’ve tidied up what I’m currently working on. Once I’ve got through my preliminary inquiries I’ll need to ask you a lot more questions. How are you fixed the day after tomorrow? Can you come in at about two?”

I smiled innocently at him as though I had no suspicion that he had just sat in my office telling me a mountain of lies.

“Sure, two it is.” He sounded pleased. “You’ve no idea how relieved I am that you’ve taken the job, Mr Dawson. I feel I’ve actually started to do something about all this. Thanks, eh?”

I looked into his face and saw the sweat on his forehead and hair had gone. He held out his hand and I shook it.

He nodded at me and got into the car. The engine started with a deep growl. As he drove away it grew harsher, a spine-tingling sound that someone had once describes as a lion’s roar filtered through silk -- which shows that even petrol heads can produce touches of poetry.

I watched till he was out of sight, memorised the registration number, and started back towards the office, deeply troubled.

It was obvious that there was something very wrong here. Baxendale’s story was unbelievable. Yet the newspaper photo seemed to prove he was Jack Rankin and he had seemed completely sincere when he told his preposterous story. If he was lying he had done a first rate job. But then, I asked myself, why would a liar give me fifteen thousand pounds to investigate -- and almost certainly to disprove -- his fantastic story? It made no sense; that worried the hell out of me.

Well, I told myself, no doubt everything would become much clearer once I started to investigate. I was sure I would be able to disprove his tale pretty quickly and then I could concentrate on solving the real mystery: why had he spun this fantastic yarn and given me fifteen thousand pounds?

I sometimes have very stupid ideas. Looking back I can see this was one of my very worst.