"Fingerprints, now," they said sarcastically.
"And while you're on the subject, you'll also find the fingerprints of my left hand on the telephone. I tried to call you from the office. My left hand prints are on the tap in the washroom… and on the key, and on the door handle, both inside and out. Or at least, they were…"
"All the same, you rode that motor-bike."
"The numbness had gone by then."
"And now?"
"It isn't numb now either."
One of them came round beside me, picked up my right wrist, and pulled my arm up high. The handcuffs jerked and lifted my left arm as well.
The bruises had all stiffened and were very sore. The policeman put my arm down again. There was a short silence.
"That hurt," one of them said at last, grudgingly.
"He's putting it on."
"Maybe…"
They had been drinking endless cups of tea all evening and had not given me any. I asked if I could have some then, and got it; only to find that the difficulty I had in lifting the cup was hardly worth it.
They began again.
"Granted Adams struck your arm, but he did it in self-defence. He saw you throw the paper weight at your employer and realized you were going to attack him next. He was warding you off."
"He had already cut my forehead open… and hit me several times on the body, and once on the head."
"Most of that was yesterday, according to the head lad. That's why you went back and attacked Mr. Humber."
"Humber hit me only twice yesterday. I didn't particularly resent it.
The rest was today, and it was mostly done by Adams. " I remembered something.
"He took my crash helmet off when he had knocked me dizzy.
His fingerprints must be on it. "
"Fingerprints again."
"They spell it out," I said.
"Let's begin at the beginning. How can we believe a yob like you?"
Yob. One of the leather boys. Tearaway. Rocker. I knew all the words.
I knew what I looked like. What a millstone of a handicap.
I said despairingly, "There's no point in pretending to be a disreputable, dishonest lad if you don't look the part."
"You look the part all right," they said offensively.
"Born to it, you were."
I looked at their stony faces, their hard, unimpressed eyes. Tough efficient policemen who were not going to be conned. I could read their thoughts like glass: if I convinced them and they later found out it was all a pack of lies, they'd never live it down. Their instincts were all dead against having to believe. My bad luck.
The room grew stuffy and full of cigarette smoke and I became too hot in my jerseys and jacket. I knew they took the sweat on my forehead to be guilt, not heat, not pain.
I went on answering all their questions. They covered the ground twice more with undiminished zeal, setting traps, sometimes shouting, walking round me, never touching me again, but springing the questions from all directions. I was really much too tired for that sort of thing because apart from the wearing-out effect of the injuries I had not slept for the whole of the previous night. Towards two o'clock I could hardly speak from exhaustion, and after they had woken me from a sort of dazed sleep three times in half an hour, they gave it up.
From the beginning I had known that there was only one logical end to that evening, and I had tried to shut it out of my mind, because I dreaded it. But there you are, you set off on a primrose path and if it leads to hell that's just too bad.
Two uniformed policemen, a sergeant and a constable, were detailed to put me away for the night, which I found involved a form of accommodation to make Humber's dormitory seem a paradise.
The cell was cubic, eight feet by eight by eight, built of glazed bricks, brown to shoulder height and white above that. There was a small barred window too high to see out of, a narrow slab of concrete for a bed, a bucket with a lid on it in a corner, and a printed list of regulations on one wall. Nothing else. Bleak enough to shrink the guts; and I had never much cared for small enclosed spaces.
The two policemen brusquely told me to sit on the concrete. They removed my boots and the belt from my jeans, and also found and unbuckled the money belt underneath. They took off the handcuffs. Then they went out, shut the door with a clang, and locked me in.
The rest of that night was in every way rock bottom.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It was cool and quiet in the corridors of Whitehall. A superbly mannered young man deferentially showed me the way and opened a mahogany door into an empty office.
"Colonel Beckett will not be long, sir. He has just gone to consult a colleague. He said I was to apologize if you arrived before he came back, and to ask if you would like a drink. And cigarettes are in this box, sir."
"Thank you," I smiled.
"Would coffee be a nuisance?"
"By no means. I'll have some sent in straight away. If you'll excuse me?" He went out and quietly closed the door.
It rather amused me to be called 'sir' again, especially by smooth civil servants barely younger than myself. Grinning, I sat down in the leather chair facing Beckett's desk, crossed my elegantly trousered legs, and lazily settled to wait for him.
I was in no hurry. It was eleven o'clock on Tuesday morning, and I had all day and nothing to do but buy a clockwork train for Jerry and book an air ticket back to Australia.
No noise filtered into Beckett's office. The room was square and high, and was painted a restful pale greenish grey colour, walls, door, and ceiling alike. I supposed that here the furnishings went with rank;
but if one were an outsider one would not know how much to be impressed by a large but threadbare carpet, an obviously personal lamp-shade, or leather, brass-studded chairs. One had to belong, for these things to matter.
I wondered about Colonel Beckett's job. He had given me the impression that he was retired, probably on a full disability pension since he looked so frail in health, yet here he was with a well established niche at the Ministry of Defence.
October had told me that in the war Beckett had been the sort of supply officer who never sent all left boots or the wrong ammunition.
Supply Officer. He had supplied me with Sparking Plug and the raw material containing the pointers to Adams and Humber. He'd had enough pull with the Army to dispatch in a hurry eleven young officer cadets to dig up the past history of obscure steeple chasers What, I wondered, did he supply nowadays, in the normal course of events?
I suddenly remembered October saying, "We thought of planting a stable lad…" not "I thought', but " We'. And for some reason I was now sure that it had been Beckett, not October, who had originally suggested the plan; and that explained why October had been relieved when Beckett approved me at our first meeting.
Unexcitedly turning these random thoughts over in my mind I watched two pigeons fluttering round the window sill and tranquilly waited to say goodbye to the man whose staff work had ensured the success of the idea.
A pretty young woman knocked and came in with a tray on which stood a coffee pot, cream jug, and pale green cup and saucer. She smiled, asked if I needed anything else, and when I said not, gracefully went away.
I was getting quite good at left-handedness. I poured the coffee and drank it black, and enjoyed the taste.
Snatches of the past few days drifted idly in and out of my thoughts Four nights and three days in a police cell trying to come to terms with the fact that I had killed Adams. It was odd, but although I had often considered the possibility of being killed, I had never once thought that I myself' might kill. For that, as for so much else, I had been utterly unprepared; and to have caused another man's death, however much he might have asked for it, needed a bit of getting over.
Four nights and three days of gradually finding that even the various ignominies of being locked up were bearable if one took them quietly, and feeling almost like thanking Red-head for his advice.