No Human Enemy (Suzie Mountford Mysteries) by John Gardner Page A

want to use the Railton. Got to go to Gloucester.’
    The Railton was the saloon car they had half-inched from the Flying Squad. Dull red and a bit flash.
    ‘And you want Dennis to drive it over to St Martin’s Lane with Shirley Cox. Sort of any time now.’
    ‘You are conversant with all things, Billy.’
    ‘’Course I am. Know a lot an’ all, ’cos I’ve already talked to the chief.’
    ‘Who is also the great, wise and omnipotent…’
    ‘Take it as read.’ Billy, it was said, had known Tommy in another, earlier life, like Brian. For Suzie he was the nearest thing to perfection as far as the job was concerned: even appearing to have a private line into the future.
    ‘I don’t suppose we’ll need them but you’d better tell Shirley and Dennis to bring overnight bags.’
    ‘Just in case.’ Even at a distance, over the telephone, Billy was able to be silent and deadpan at the dreadful pun. ‘I already told them.’ There was a rustling of paper at his end. ‘This John Lees-Duncan,’ he said with great care, reading it off a flimsy. ‘The ADC (Crime) is having a word with him it seems; and Mr Livermore says someone in the stratosphere at Gloucester nick is going to talk to him as well. Make sure he’s not going to be obstructive.’
    ‘Great. Tell Dennis and Shirley we’re going up Silverhurst Road – the convent – first.’ Suzie thanked him, closed the line and dialled the number for the Branch, as they called Special Branch, asking for DCS Bear. Just as Tommy had told her – Talk to Woolly Bear.
    ‘Bear,’ said Bear.
    Suzie introduced herself and mentioned Tommy’s name.
    ‘Ears,’ said DCS Bear which Suzie translated as the way some educated people said, ‘Yes’. ‘Ears. Mr Livermore said you might telephone.’
    ‘About a joker called John Lees-Duncan, sir.’
    ‘Ears. John Reginald Palmer Lees-Duncan, born February 1894.’
    Ten years out, Suzie thought, doing the mental arithmetic. She had put him down as sixty plus. He was barely fifty.
    ‘Mr Livermore says you’re above average and can keep things to yourself so I’ll send a file over.’
    Above average: keep things to yourself. Patronising sod. ‘So you have something, sir?’
    ‘Not a great deal. Straws in the wind sort of thing.’
    ‘I’d be interested in anything, sir.’
    ‘’Course you would, but not on an open line, Mountford.’
    Tommy said that people in the Branch were paranoid ‘because they’re always listening in to people they imagine people’re always listening in to them’.
    ‘Got a couple of pages. Not Charles Dickens, but it has a little flavour. Prefer you keep it to yourself. Mind you do,’ Bear said. ‘I’ll send it right up.’ Pause, little cough. ‘You’re the Montford got in all the papers a few years back, aren’t you?’
    Suzie loathed being called Montford. ‘Ears,’ she said, about to close the line, but Detective Chief Superintendent Bear cleared his throat and asked if Mr Livermore was there.
    ‘On a case, sir.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Sheffield.’
    ‘What case?’
    Suzie didn’t imagine it; Woolly Bear’s tone altered, subtly, nothing dramatic but the words were snapped with an edge, something clouding his query. She told him, Sheffield, murder and Doris Butler, beaten to death in her little kitchen.
    His reaction – she thought of it later – was as though he had gone off the boil. ‘Oh, yes. Right. Right.’ Not with her, taking a couple of steps back from the conversation. Then he again said, ‘Right,’ and wished her good day.
    She dialled Billy to tell him something would be coming up from the Branch and would he send it over with Dennis, presuming that Dennis and Shirley hadn’t yet left.
    ‘You been talking to the Branch, ma’am? Better watch yourself. Chief says the Branch gets in your head and meddles with it: drives you nuts then spits you out piecemeal.’
    ‘The chief thinks that of a lot of things, Billy.’ She sat back and found anger sweeping around