THIRTY-FIVE

Jackie drove them back into Swindon that night in her top-of-the-range BMW. Chipchase, banished to the rear, rapidly fell asleep. But Harry, sitting alongside Jackie in the front, remained wide awake.

'You should have gone straight back to Canada after your mum's funeral, Harry,' she said as they cruised through a sprawl of neon-lit suburbia entirely unknown to him.

'You're right. I should've.'

'Why not go now?'

'It's too late.'

'Because of him?' She flicked her head in the direction from which Chipchase's snores were emanating.

'Not really. For once, this isn't Barry's fault.'

'He looks as if he's had a rough few years since I last saw him.'

'He has.'

'Poor old sod.'

'Feeling sorry for him, Jackie?'

'On a scale of one to ten, it clocks in at two and a half. I've got the sentiment well under control. I hope you have too. Want some advice?'

'Why not?'

'Go it alone. Whatever the problem, the solution isn't teaming up with Barry. I learned that the hard way.'

'If you remember, so did I.'

'So you did.' She gave him a rueful smile. 'Well, then?'

'I've no choice in the matter, Jackie. Barry and I are in this together now. For good or bad.'

—«»—«»—«»—

It seemed clear to Harry that there was really only one course to follow if they were to stand any chance of learning the secret Maynard had entrusted to Askew. The following morning, over a spartan breakfast, he put it to Chipchase.

'You said you'd spoken to Maynard's old boyfriend. That's right, isn't it?'

'Yeah. Pernickety little blighter. Clifford… something.'

'Why don't we renew your acquaintance? Henley's not far. We can go there after registering at the police station. He might be able to tell us the password straight off.'

'Able isn't necessarily willing. News of Maynard's pash for Askew could knock him sideways.'

'We'll have to do what Maynard recommended in that message, then. Tread carefully.' Harry grinned gamely. 'But not too fearfully.'

—«»—«»—«»—

The formalities at the police station were brief and painless, though disagreeable nonetheless. Harry resented having to notify the local constabulary of his presence in his home town, while Chipchase was plunged into sour-faced gloom by every aspect of their visit. His mood picked up quickly when they left, however, and by the time they had reached the railway station he had become, if not cheerful, at least less taciturn.

'Tell me, Harry old cock,' he said as their train pulled out, 'did you have any inkling back when we were all together… about Askew… and Maynard?'

'Not the remotest,' Harry replied, accurately enough. 'You?'

'The same. Despite sharing a Nissen hut with the pair of them. They hid it well. I'll say that.'

'You had to in those days.'

'Even so, I'd have thought we might have… sensed something.'

'Would you? It seems to me, Barry, that there was an awful lot going on then we didn't notice. And most of it we still haven't come close to uncovering.'

'Funny, ain't it? The whole kit and caboodle could be on that tape. The answer to every question, nestling in your inside bloody pocket. But we can't get at it.'

'I've been thinking about that. Why would Askew send it to me unless he thought I could access the information?'

'Maybe he did it on the spur of the moment.'

'Exactly. He must have realized he was in danger. And that means he must have been in danger because of the disk. He was killed for it, Barry. I'm sure of it. But his killer went away empty-handed.'

'What's on it must be dynamite, then.'

'Reckon so.' Harry thought for a moment. 'Let's just hope it doesn't blow up in our faces.'

—«»—«»—«»—

Henley-on-Thames was the end of the branch line from Twyford. The house Lester Maynard had owned until his death was a short walk from the station. His partner Clifford had been living there at the time of Chipchase's futile fund-raising visit. The route took Harry and Barry along the riverside and the finishing stretch of the regatta course. They had attended the regatta once, during Barnchase Motors' sadly brief heyday, as guests of tyre-trade titan Brian Cosway. They had both drunk far too much of the free-flowing Pimm's, of course, and the memory of a stripe-blazered Chipchase falling into the river at a late stage of the proceedings was graphically clear in Harry's mind. Charitably, he refrained from mentioning it. Then Chipchase did it for him.

'Maynard was probably watching the regatta himself that day we were here, Harry. His pad actually overlooks the river. We might have passed him on the towpath without knowing it. He might even have seen me being fished out of the bloody river. Strange, isn't it? The past. And the dead people in it. So near and yet so bloody far.'

'Steady, Barry. That sounds almost philosophical.'

'Don't worry. I'll soon snap out of it.'

—«»—«»—«»—

Belle Rive was an elegant, gabled, brick-and-render villa, boasting, like several of its neighbours, a boathouse and a lawn running down to the river. The Thameside life of Lester Maynard, comedy writer, had clearly been a pleasant one. Belle Rive had been divided into flats since his death. Chip-chase identified the bell labelled C. Enslow as the one they wanted and gave it a good long press.

'Remember,' Harry whispered. 'The disk's hot stuff. We can't risk telling him about it directly.'

'We just ask him the password without explaining what it's the password to. Yeah. Should be a piece of cake.'

—«»—«»—«»—

The practicality or otherwise of this tactic was to go untested in the immediate future, however. There was no response from Clifford Enslow to the repeated ringing of his bell. Eventually, one of the windows in the ground-floor bay opened and a clearly irritated woman leaned out.

'Can I help you?' she enquired snappishly.

'Sorry to disturb you,' said Harry, reprising his multipurpose ingratiating smile. 'We're looking for Clifford Enslow. It's a matter of, well, some importance. I don't suppose you…'

'I believe this is one of his charity-shop mornings. You should find him sifting through holey jumpers and dog-eared paperbacks at Age Concern in Duke Street.'

—«»—«»—«»—

Enslow was in fact sifting through nothing when Harry and Barry entered the Henley branch of Age Concern ten minutes later. A tall, thin, gaunt-featured man with a dusting of white hair on his half-bald, half-shaven head, he was dressed in what might once have been donations to the shop and was standing listlessly behind the counter, sipping from a mug and staring into space. It appeared that they had caught him at a quiet time.

'Remember me, Cliff?' Chipchase launched in. 'Barry Chip-chase. Old friend of Lester's. This is Harry Barnett, ditto.'

'Chipchase?' Enslow frowned. 'Ah yes. I do remember. Two or three years ago.'

'Any chance of a word in private? There are a couple of things we, er…'

'Were you at the reunion in Scotland?'

'Sorry?'

'At Kilveen Castle.' Enslow looked sharply at them. 'I had a letter from a Mr Dangerfield a couple of months ago. Well, it was addressed to Les, but I dealt with it. Then, earlier this week, I saw a small piece in the paper reporting that two people attending the event had died in mysterious circumstances.'

'It's three now,' said Harry.

'What?'

'Johnny Dangerfield's dead too.'

'Good God.'

'We're trying to get to the bottom of it. Making what enquiries we can. We'd really like to talk to you about Lester.'

'What's Les got to do with this? It's eighteen years since…' A shadow of half-buried grief crossed Enslow's face. 'He's been gone a long time.'

'We know, but even so…'

'Well, I can't talk to you now. And frankly I fail to see what I could tell you that would be of the slightest value.'

'Let us be the judge of that, Cliff,' said Chipchase.

'Why don't you allow us to buy you lunch?' Harry suggested, eager to take the edge off Chipchase's faintly threatening tone. 'It's the least we can do. In return for a little information.'

'Lunch?' Enslow's expression brightened. 'Well, I suppose…'

'Excellent. Where and when would suit?'