Joe Sixsmith: The Roar Of The Butterflies Part 16

He said, 'Hey, how do I get the tile concession?'

Rowe laughed and said, 'That your line of business then, Joe, construction?'

'Sometimes,' said Joe. 'More facilitating, know what I mean?'

'Yes, I see,' said Rowe, nodding vigorously, presumably to indicate he did know what Joe meant, which was good as Joe himself didn't have the faintest idea, but he'd really liked the word when he came across it in his crossword.

Rowe had got most of his kit off by now. A thing Joe had noticed in his admittedly limited dealings with the upper cla.s.ses was the higher you got, the less it bothered them flas.h.i.+ng their flesh. Himself, he'd been brought up so proper by Aunt Mirabelle that he could have changed out of overalls into evening suit under a tea towel without bringing a blush to a maiden cheek.

Feeling rather uncomfortable as Rowe dropped his boxers and started to cram his pretty hefty parts into an athletic support, Joe said, 'Leave you to it, then.'

'Sure. Hope to catch you later. And hey! We haven't forgotten you promised to join us for a round some time.'

In your dreams, thought Joe as he made his escape.

And in my nightmares!.

Go with the Garbage.

To Joe Sixsmith, the detective process was more like an act of creative imagination than a rational process, though of course if you'd suggested this to him in a pub, he'd have advised you went home and drank a couple of litres of water and hoped you'd wake up feeling better in the morning.

Someone, probably Butcher, had once told him he had something called negative capability, which meant he didn't let being surrounded by stuff in a case that made no sense bother him.

Joe had laughed at her joke. Why should he let anything bother him when, like a good pilgrim, he had his own Good Book, Endo Venera's Not So Private Eye? Often when the way forward seemed a bit uncertain, one of Endo's elegantly phrased maxims would float into his mind.

It would be nice, opined Endo, if investigation was all high life and high-b.a.l.l.s, but sometimes you gotta go with the garbage.

At the moment, iced coffee on the terrace (the Hoo equivalent of high life and high-b.a.l.l.s) seemed very attractive, but that would mean maybe running up against the other two corners of the Bermuda Triangle. Just because he was beginning to feel some uneasiness about Colin Rowe didn't mean they were necessarily tarred with the same brush, but at the very least they might start pressing him again to play a few holes with them. Also Butcher had implied Arthur Surtees was a guy to be scared of, and when a lawyer as scary as Butcher told you that about another lawyer, only a fool didn't pay heed.

So when Joe came out of the locker room, instead of heading left round the front of the clubhouse he made his way right round the rear, towards the service area behind the kitchen where the garbage was.

Though Endo Venera gave many graphic and often unsavoury examples of significant finds he'd made among garbage, Joe didn't really have it in mind to start rifling through the rubbish. Not that it would have been all that easy anyway. Normally even behind the most elegant of restaurants, the waste area is unhygienic and squalid. Not at the Royal Hoo. Here there were no loosely tied black plastic bags, easy for PI's and vermin to penetrate, but a neat line of elegant green bins with hinged lids sufficiently tight fitting to contain all but the slightest whiff of decay, even in this hot weather.

Also there was a witness, a figure lounging against the wall alongside the kitchen doorway, a cigarette between his lips.

Joe recognized him as the club steward.

'Morning, Bert,' he called as he drew near.

The man straightened up like a sentry caught lolling against his box and the cigarette vanished as if by magic. But when realized who it was addressing him, he relaxed once more and the half-smoked f.a.g emerged from behind his back.

This told Joe something he was quite glad of. Whoever else he might be fooling at the Hoo, the steward had got him sussed.

'Morning Mr Sixsmith,' said the man politely, which told Joe a little more. Bert might know he was just an employee like himself, but being the YFG's employee still got you a bit of respect.

'Name's Joe,' he said, offering his hand. 'I'm a private investigator.'

'Yeah, I know. Bert Symonds.' They shook hands.

'You knew all the time?' said Joe, curious.

'Wondered when I first saw you. I thought, hasn't Mr Porphyry got enough bother on his hands without ...'

He hesitated and Joe helped him out by saying, 'Without putting up someone like me for members.h.i.+p.'

'That's it. Don't take it personal. I mean, they're so b.l.o.o.d.y choosy here, you wouldn't believe. Even Sir Monty Wright got blackballed.'

'Well, I was way ahead of the field there,' said Joe, who had quickly worked out this was probably a good guy to have on your side. Also he'd learnt early to differentiate between the casual thoughtless racism you met at all levels of English society and the bred-in-the-bone KKK variety. A quiet word often sorted out the former while the latter was usually beyond the reach of anything this side of divine revelation.

Bert said, 'Anyway, the name rang a bell. You played footie in the same works team as my cousin, Alf, right? I remembered him talking about this mate who set up as a gumshoe when they all got made redundant.'

'Alfie Symonds? Hey, man, how's he doing?'

'Moved down to Romford, got a new job there. I gave him a call to check you out. Description fitted and Alfie says you're all right. He sends his regards.'

'Give him mine. So, Bert, you enjoy working here?'

He saw the man's expression shadow into caution and he didn't wait for an answer but plunged straight on, 'Look, what I'm doing here is this. Mr Porphyry's in a spot of trouble well, I don't expect I need to tell you anything about that.'

The man nodded.

'OK. So it looks like he's been cheating, only he says he wasn't, so he asked me to help him find out what's really going on. That's it. I'm working for Mr Porphyry and you work for the club, and I don't want to get anyone into bother. So if you'd rather I didn't ask you any questions, just say so, and I'll be on my way.'

Bert took a long drag at his cigarette then said, 'You ask, and if I don't want to answer, I won't.'

'Fair enough,' said Joe, wondering, What the h.e.l.l is there I can ask this guy? It felt like a golden opportunity, but the trouble with golden opportunities was that, unless you got decent notice, they were often easier to let slip than to grasp.

He said, 'You think he cheated?'

Bert said, 'They all want to win so badly, I'd not trust any of them not to bend the rules a bit.'

This was a bad start. Joe had expected some version of the unequivocal denial of the possibility he'd got from everyone else he'd asked.

He said, 'This sounds a bit more than just bending the rules.'

'It does,' agreed the steward. 'And yes, that would surprise me in Mr Porphyry's case.'

'But not in some of the others'?'

'There's one or two who'd forge their own wills,' said Bert.

This was an interesting concept but Joe decided not to pursue it.

'Such as?' he said.

Bert shook his head and said, 'Next question.'

'Would anyone have any reason you know of for wanting to set Mr Porphyry up?'

'Frame him for cheating, you mean? Well, he's very popular.'

'You mean you can't think of a reason?'

'I mean him being very popular might be a reason to some folk.'

This was the kind of psychological subtlety that made Joe blink.

'You mean, people might not like him 'cos everyone liked him?'

'Something like that.'

'Nothing more definite? I mean like he's been cosying up to someone's wife or something like that.'

'No,' said Bert very firmly. 'Not that there aren't plenty would like to cosy up to him, but he treats 'em all the same.'

'Maybe one of them's been lying about it just to show the others she's ahead of the game, and one of her mates dropped a hint to the husband,' said Joe, who did have some basic grasp of the subtleties of female psychology.

Bert shrugged and lit another cigarette from the b.u.t.t of the old one.

'And he persuaded Jimmy Postgate to lie about the ball dropping into his pool? No way! That old boy loves Mr Porphyry. Wanted to change his story when he realized the trouble it was causing. Anyone else would have said yes, let's brush it under the carpet, but not Mr Porphyry. Look, I really ought to be getting back in. Things will be livening up on the terrace. The members who set out at the crack will be finis.h.i.+ng their round and wanting a drink and there's a lot who just drop in for a coffee mid morning. All right for some, eh? So if there aren't any more questions ...'

Joe raked over the dead leaves in his mind desperately.

'You know Steve Waring?' he said. 'Worked on the greenkeeper's staff.'

'Yeah, I know Steve. Nice lad. Not been around lately. They reckon he's gone on the wander. Ran up a few debts then decided to take a little holiday before the duns came round. That would be Steve!'

He spoke with the baffled admiration of the labourer inextricably tangled in the chains of employment for the layabout who with one not so mighty leap is free.

'So when did you last see him?'

'When? Not sure. But I can tell you where 'cos it was right here. It was late on one night, and I'd slipped out for a quick f.a.g when I saw Steve heading off home ...'

'He worked late evenings then?' interrupted Joe.

Bert laughed.

'This time of year, oh yes. Everything's got to be immaculate at the Hoo. That mad Scots b.u.g.g.e.r's got his lads tidying up behind the last players out on the course and they're still coming in after nine in the summer.'

'Did you talk to him?'

'Yes. He came over and b.u.mmed a ciggy off me. I always told him it was an unhealthy habit for a young man, but he said he'd give it up when I dropped dead.'

'You talk about anything interesting?'

Bert sucked in the remaining inch of his cigarette as though inhaling memory.

'That's right,' he exclaimed. 'Now I think about it, it was that very same night! The one when Mr Postgate came into the bar with the ball just as Syd c.o.c.kernhoe was telling the story of how Mr Porphyry had nicked the match from him. Of course the whole place was buzzing with speculation after that, so naturally I filled young Steve in.'

'How did he take it?'

'He said it had to be a mistake 'cos any story about Mr Porphyry cheating was a load of old cobblers. He really rates Mr Porphyry, does Steve.'

'And then?'

'Then I had to get back inside.'

'And Steve?'

'He went off, I suppose ... no, hang about. He asked me something ... what was it? He asked me if Mr Rowe was still in the bar. I said yes, he was, drinking with Mr Surtees. And then I went in.'

'How did Steve usually get home?'

'He had this scooter thing, one of those that folds up next to nothing. We used to joke you could get close to twenty mph on it, downhill with a following wind, and Steve would say that one day when he'd made it rich, he'd turn up in the car park here with a machine that would make the rest of them there look like old rust-buckets.'

'Did he used to leave it in the car park?'

'Don't be silly! No, he used to stick it round the back of the greenkeeper's shed.'

'Where's that?'

'Carry on down the service road there. It's on the left. That it?'

'Just one thing more. This Rules Committee the Four Just Men, isn't that what they call it? I know Tom Latimer's on it. Who're the other three?'

Bert considered, saw no harm in answering this and said, 'Mr Surtees, Mr Lillihall, and Mr Plimpton.'

'Arthur Surtees, the lawyer, that would be?'

'Right,' said Bert. 'Him and Mr Latimer call the shots, the other two are just there to make up the numbers. At least, that's what I hear. But I've not said anything to you, right?'

'Of course you haven't, Bert. Cheers, mate.'

'You take care now, Joe. One of the things I haven't said to you is, there's some mean b.a.s.t.a.r.ds in this club. Cheers.'

Joe would have liked a list of names, but Bert had vanished into the building and in any case Joe guessed that the only response he would have got would have been, 'Next question.'

He set off down the service road in search of the greenkeeper's shed.

It took some finding, not because it was obscure but because it turned out to be a shed in the same way that Balmoral is a holiday cottage. Originally an old barn in the same creamy stone as the clubhouse, it stood foursquare and solid in a small copse of beech trees. Converted into a country dwelling, it would have made a developer a small fortune. There was no one in sight, so Joe wandered down the side of the building and round the back. No scooter here, but there was a large patch of oily gra.s.s against the rear wall.

Before he could examine it closer, a voice grated, 'Help you?'