The Dobie Paradox: british mystery novel: where nothing is as it seems Read online

  ‘But …’ The Director peered towards her puzzledly. ‘She was here with us until a moment ago. She only just left.’

  Box went to the door and summoned Wallace.

  ‘That the blonde lady, sir? The one with the …? Just this minute gone out. With Mr Dobie.’

  ‘Gone out?’

  And Kate, ‘With Dobie?’

  ‘Just went off, they did. In Mr Dobie’s car.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Kate said. ‘They’ve eloped.’

  ‘Didn’t ought to have done that,’ Foxy said. ‘Against the Inspector’s orders. Ought to know a whole lot better, Mr Dobie did.’

  ‘He was always a fool,’ Kate said, ‘for a pretty face.’

  ‘I’ll have to tell Mr Jackson about this.’

  ‘And don’t waste any time about it, either.’

  Dobie didn’t doubt that the person sitting next to him in the passenger seat of his car was – whatever Carter and his other colleagues might have to say on the subject – more than slightly bonkers. Madness doesn’t after all manifest itself in so conveniently obvious a way as in the case of Captain Scott, who in comparison with Dobie’s present companion might well pass as a model of gracefully balanced behaviour. Miss Daly had already killed two people this week and if she felt she had to kill a third clearly wouldn’t hesitate to do so. One had to say ‘felt’ rather than ‘thought’ because thinking didn’t really come into it – that was the trouble.

  Dobie had just spent half an hour talking to a pseudo-intellectual nitwit whose brains had, over some considerable spell, been addled by some strange kind of sexual compulsion. If he’d never met Beverley Sutro, Carter might have been all right – whatever that means. Perhaps if she’d never met Ivor Halliday, Miss Daly would have been all right. She and Carter, in other words, would have been enabled to carry on their respective social duties efficiently and effectively, making – as was the common belief – the world a better place. But perhaps there was something fundamentally wrong, either with the way in which they carried out their duties or, much more probably, with the common belief itself. It’s dangerous, Dobie thought, to ignore the presence of evil in the world, to play with the gypsies in the wood. Play with people like Big Ivor and Beverley Sutro. Because that way you can end up more dangerous than either.

  Miss Daly didn’t look dangerous, of course. Right now she looked obstinate and sullen, staring out through the rain-splashed windscreen of the car. Seeing – as Dobie already had seen – that the main gate of the Centre had been left open, no doubt to facilitate the recent sudden influx of lamp-flashing police cars. ‘Go on driving,’ Miss Daly said tightly. ‘I wouldn’t even think about stopping if I were you. Drive straight out and then turn right, there’s a good boy.’ Dobie was fully prepared to be a good boy. Miss Daly still had the gun and it didn’t even have to be accurate, the way she was holding it, which was with the end with the hole in it pressed firmly into Dobie’s side, just above the hipbone. It was rather a chilly morning, but Dobie’s ungloved hands were already leaving slippery sweat marks on the steering-wheel. ‘Tell me,’ Miss Daly said, showing no perceptible signs of relaxation as Dobie obeyed her instructions and urged the Fiesta onwards down the road, ‘I can’t get away with it.’

  ‘G-g-get away with what?’

  ‘Getting away with murder, isn’t that the cant expression? And on second thoughts, don’t tell me anything. Just keep on driving. Rather faster, though, if you please.’

  ‘You won’t get away with it,’ Dobie said. ‘Not in this car, you won’t. It won’t do much over sixty. And anyway we’re driving in the wrong direction.’ Though possibly they weren’t. This wasn’t the direction, after all, in which anyone would have expected them to go. ‘People do get away with it sometimes, I’ve no doubt. But not often enough to make it a really profitable practice. And certainly not in your case. You screwed it up right from the start, if I may say so.’

  ‘I enjoyed it, anyway,’ Miss Daly said. ‘I enjoyed screwing her up. That nasty little bitch. A couple of minutes with that fucking hockey stick of hers, you could say that made the whole thing worth while. It really made my day, as Clint would put it.’

  Or Ivor Halliday. Ivor had liked hurting people. And Kathleen Daly had to have caught the habit. Not, Dobie thought, that it’s really Kathleen Daly who’s sitting beside me, the Kathleen Daly they all know at the Centre. It’s someone different. The difference is hardly visible, but it’s there. Drugs aren’t the only things you can get yourself hooked on.

  ‘Yes, but you didn’t do it properly. You thought she was dead. But she wasn’t.’

  ‘And so,’ the different Kathleen Daly said, ‘what?’

  ‘A doctor knows when someone’s dead and someone isn’t. A doctor would have made quite sure she was dead … and couldn’t tell anyone what had happened when she came to. So it wasn’t any of the doctors who duffed her up. But what confused the issue—’

  ‘Just keep driving,’ Miss Daly said, ‘and shut your trap. I don’t want to talk about it, not any more.’

  ‘But we’re supposed to talk about it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well … It’s the tradition.’

  ‘Fuck the tradition,’ Miss Daly said.

  ‘Oh yes. By all means. If you say so. By the way, that gun …’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you could, er … You see, the way you’re holding it, it could go off by accident.’

  ‘It could also go off on purpose, if I get annoyed with you. And I’m prone to fits of very naughty temper.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Dobie said. ‘A little faster, you said?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  Unquestionably, this was a very awkward situation. But that was the real trouble with murderers, he thought sadly; in the last resort, they’re not very reasonable people. They don’t seem to be able to follow through, somehow, in matters of cause and effect. ‘That’s not why you make mistakes, though. It’s nothing to do with fits of temper. You kill the wrong people. That’s all.’

  ‘Look, they force me into it. They don’t give me any choice. They’re the ones who make the bloody mistakes.’

  ‘What mistake did Ivor make?’

  ‘Screwing me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. Just a business discussion it was supposed to be. Money. That was all I wanted. But then he has to pull me into the bedroom and tear all my clothes off and screw me and show me that I … wanted that as well … Damned right I did. How was I to know that bloody kid was his daughter? He’d’ve killed me if he’d found out … and he was bound to. I knew he’d kill me … after he’d shot that other one … so I killed him first, the bastard. Oh my God … what a bastard … and so was that Bev kid, really. That’s going to be my mission in life – to kill all the bastards I can find. Starting with the clever ones, like you. I knew you’d be a bastard, soon as I saw you. I was right.’

  One moment, seemingly almost normal. The next, right over the top. But the tone of her voice still casual, relaxed, unexcited. I’ve got a right one here, Dobie thought.

  ‘You know,’ he said, trying his best to maintain the conversational tone while steering an uneven course past the Dame Margaret School, ‘there are things that are called recurring ciphers. Some people are like that. There’ll always be girls around like Beverley Sutro. There’ll always be men around like whats-his-name. His name doesn’t matter because there are others in Cardiff exactly like him, and one of those others is going to take his place. Only he won’t be looking for a boy in a Rehabilitation Centre. He’ll be looking for you. Surely you realize that, don’t you?’

  ‘He’ll have to find me, though,’ Miss Daly said.

  ‘Oh, they’ll find you. Even if the police don’t find you, the other lot will. You let the boys down and they don’t like that. There’s nothing personal about it. From now on, you’re a number on a contract. Another recurring cipher. That’s all.’

  ‘No. They won’t find me. I�
�m going to Italy. I always wanted to see Italy and now I’ve got the money … Two thousand he gave me. In advance. I insisted on that as part of the deal. Clever of me, wasn’t it?’

  ‘As things have turned out, yes. But even so—’

  ‘How would you fancy going to Italy, Dobie? Don’t you ever hanker after a bit of southern romance?’

  ‘Romance? Well, I, I—’

  ‘You’re a clever bastard, too. We clever people ought to stick together. And that way I’d stand a better chance of getting through at the airport.’ No longer casual and relaxed. Not the least bit. ‘Honeymoon couple sort of thing. Weekend returns to Como. Only of course we wouldn’t use the returns.’ Incredible, Dobie thought. She was quite serious.

  ‘I mightn’t use the return. That’s what worries me.’

  Miss Daly surprised him again. She giggled.

  ‘You might do better to worry about what’s going to happen when I tell you to stop the car. In five minutes’ time. My way, you go on worrying a while longer.’

  ‘I see your point,’ Dobie said. ‘The trouble is I’m not very quick on the uptake. In fact I’m not very clever at all. Not really.’ Clever enough, however, to realize that however sick she might be feeling she wasn’t about to press that trigger while the car was cavorting along at its best speed of just on seventy miles an hour. They’d both be killed if she did that. ‘So why—’

  ‘Why not?’ Miss Daly giggled again. ‘The ship … The ship …’

  ‘What ship?’

  ‘The ship’s gone down … And everybody’s drowned …’ She stopped giggling. Something had happened to her breathing. It had gone all jerky. Dobie didn’t like the sound of it. He glanced down towards the speedometer, which … yes … showed sixty-five. She wouldn’t … Surely? At sixty-five? Would she?

  ‘Sunk with all hands …’

  Dobie had often felt that if called upon to meet his Creator he would like best to be engaged at the time in some rather tricky mental mathematical calculation, so that God could at once tell him where he’d gone wrong. And something had gone wrong. That was obvious.

  ‘I didn’t need him. And I don’t need you. Stop the car.’ Dobie did no such thing. Careering downhill at, if anything, a slightly increased velocity he began to work out the equation that would adequately demonstrate the margin of safety factor applicable to a speed of 70 m.p.h. in a dilapidated Ford Fiesta, given a tangential equivalent not in excess of 15 degrees … this to an accuracy of within four decimal places, which would surely be sufficient …

  Or anyway would have been surely sufficient if he hadn’t in the stress of the moment very understandably forgotten all about the watersplash still covering the escape road to a depth of just over two feet and seven inches … and which of course he failed to see until it was eighty-five hundredths of a second too late …

  ‘It was like this, Your Worship,’ Dobie said, sailing inelegantly towards the windscreen.

  But Kate merely snorted.

  ‘There you go,’ she said. ‘Typical, really.’

  10

  Dobie was really quite comfortable in the Royal Infirmary, though a difference of opinion arose almost at once as to how his condition should be treated. The consultant physician was firmly convinced that his patient was suffering from the after-effects of a nasty concussion, while Dobie no less emphatically maintained that his behaviour and manner of speech were perfectly normal. Kate could see that a great deal could be said for both points of view but agreed that it would certainly be prudent to keep Dobie under observation for a few days, partly to be on the safe side but chiefly to ensure that over that period of time he’d be prevented from scaling (and destroying) valuable trees, driving to the public danger, escaping from the police with generously-proportioned murderesses, and generally making an idiot of himself. Though you could never be completely sure of that. Not with Dobie.

  As soon as the news of his latest escapade had reached the general public, the usual fan mail began to arrive. Among the get well cards was a carefully indited missive from Elspeth, bearing a spirited depiction of a pussy-cat with enormous whiskers and with several large X’s scrawled on the back. This, and a few others, Kate allowed to stand on Dobie’s night table. She gave strict instructions to the ward sister, however, to discourage all female visitors. Especially that Mrs Train.

  Here, again, she considered she was being prudent, since – as the police and civic authorities had decided to issue the most determinedly noncommittal of official statements to the media the gentlemen of the local press had drawn their own conclusions and had treated the whole affair with unusual discretion, the Sneak (for instance) merely offering its eager readers the banner headline across three columns:

  COLLEGE PROFESSOR’S

  WHIRLWIND ROMANCE

  ENDS IN TRAGEDY

  Cardiff Romeo Survives

  Secret Suicide Pact

  With Sexy Secretary

  ‘I’ll say one thing for Mr Dobie,’ Foxy said, tossing the Sneak into the receptacle conveniently placed to the right of his office desk. ‘No murderers are safe when he’s around. He makes a tidy job of it while he’s at it.’

  ‘Not many policemen are safe when he’s around, either,’ Jackson said. With feeling.

  However, he toddled round to the Infirmary that evening and, having shown his identicky dottyments to the ward sister, was permitted to enter the inner sanctum where Kate was rearranging Dobie’s collection of memorabilia (observing in so doing that not many of the get well cards had emanated from his colleagues, and none at all from the members of the University Senate) and the Man Himself was leaning back on an imposing pile of pillows, looking as pale and interesting as he could with a thick roll of bandages circumscribing his jawline.

  ‘Oh h’ho,’ Dobie said, sounding like something recently thrown out of Sandhurst.

  ‘Great,’ Kate said. ‘Now Jacko’s here, maybe someone can tell me what really happened.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s been croaked in porridge,’ Jackson said. ‘There’s always limits to the amount of protection we can give these people. Even in flowery there’ll always be a few hard boys around who’re ready to do the Man a favour, especially when there’s something in it for them. We reckoned there wouldn’t be anyone like that in the Rehabilitation Centre and we were right – there wasn’t. So if they wanted to get to the Haining boy they had to put someone in. So they did.’

  ‘Harriday.’

  Dobie, determined to make effective contribution. But it wasn’t very. Kate shushed him with an impatient flap of her hand.

  ‘Halliday. He took on the contract. Only of course he couldn’t have gone in as Ivor Halliday, with a record like he’s got he’d have been rumbled from the start. He had to find another identity for himself. Well, we’ve traced this Cooper geezer, he’s an authentic drug addict with a six-year medical sheet – a genuine case for treatment. But he’s only twenty-two years old and physically he hardly resembles Halliday at all. So Halliday had to switch the record sheet to make it agree with his own age and overall appearance. Or more exactly he had to find someone to do that for him.’

  Dobie nodded. ‘Yes. Kathreen Dary.’

  ‘Kathreen … Yes, her. I had your chap Merrick on the blower for all of fifteen minutes explaining how she did it but I must say I still don’t … But apparently she had to erase the Cooper record sheet and type in a description of Halliday, so that when the doctors checked on the record—’

  ‘Except,’ Dobie said, ‘she made a mesh of the erasure and cut off part of the accesh code ash well. Thereby incapatitashing—’

  ‘Yes, but then some cluck went and put that right for her. Free of charge. While she expected to make five thousand nicker on the deal. Not bad for ten minutes’ work on the q.t. And of course Halliday … No denying it, he always had a way with the ladies. She had to have been under the influence, so to speak. That’s the trouble with working with drug addicts. You make undesirable contacts.’
>
  ‘She was an undeshirable—’

  ‘Mind you, once he’d had his spot of bed fun with her he’d have wanted to keep his contacts with her to a minimum, for obvious reasons. In the end he’d have confirmed the details of the deal over the telephone. A bit of a risk, you might have thought, but safer than arranging any more meetings … and in the ordinary way it would have been secure enough, with no one around to overhear the conversation. But,’ Jackson said, lowering his voice impressively, ‘it just so happened there was someone around who shouldn’t have been around, who’d just left Carter’s office next door, who was nosy enough to listen to what the Daly was saying and clever enough to realize what it was all about. After all she’d heard a name mentioned she knew something about … Well, hell, she must’ve known that Halliday was reckoned to be her father, she’d only have been a kid when her mother was shacking up with him but she’d have remembered him well enough. Not the sort of character it’d be easy to forget, I can tell you. And she wouldn’t have had very tender memories.’

  ‘Sho she shought she’d try a bit of brackmail.’

  ‘Right. Maybe she had the idea of paying off an old score or two on her mum’s behalf, maybe she thought she saw a way to some easy pickings … But either way she picked the wrong person. When she showed up for the meeting next week hoping for the pay-off, that’s just what she got. And badly beaten up into the bargain, partly because Daly really was the wrong sort of person and also because Daly knew what the kid had been up to and reckoned she could make it look like a rapist’s killing. Which would naturally divert any suspicion away from her. By the same token she didn’t want the kid’s body to be found in the Centre, so she put what she thought was the corpse in the boot of her car, drove out through the gate, and unloaded it a little way down the road. She had a perfectly good excuse for leaving the Centre at that time as she had to report the computer failure so she drove on into Cardiff and that’s what she did. As is a matter of record.’