The Gateway Motel had been open for about six months. The owner was a sprightly little Scotsman called Angus Lomax. He had made his money by following the principle that what happens in America happens five years later in England, but the principle hadn’t operated for motels. He came into the restaurant and looked at the sparse crowd with some apprehension.
Paul saw him ask the young manageress whom the Rolls outside belonged to. She nodded towards their table in the corner and added something which Paul couldn’t read from her lip movements. Mr Lomax came hurrying across to them.
The menu had a tendency towards the barbecue, with hot dogs and hamburgers featuring prominently, words like french fries and apple pie, but the waitress had looked relieved when Paul had ordered a rare steak with mashed potatoes. It was all a façade. When Steve had put on the juke box everybody had looked up in astonishment, including Paul.
‘I only do it to keep you young,’ she explained to Paul. But she knew the records had been out of the hit parade since the motel opened.
There was one advantage to the place. If it were a meeting place for bank robbers Angus Lomax wouldn’t be able to claim that he hadn’t noticed them.
‘Good evening, Mr Temple. My daughter tells me you’d like a word.’
Paul shook hands with him and invited him to sit down. He could hardly say he was busy. ‘This is Steve, my wife.’ The man sat down.
‘You have a very pleasant motel, Mr Lomax,’ said Steve. ‘And a good chef. I’m surprised you aren’t crowded tonight.’
Those were the words to start Lomax talking. He relaxed into a long description of his troubles.
‘Why don’t you call this a hotel with ample parking accommodation?’ Paul asked. ‘Then at least people would come for the food.’
He shrugged. ‘We wouldn’t attract the American visitors.’
‘I don’t see any American visitors.’
‘It’s a slack period,’ Lomax confessed unhappily. ‘But you didn’t ask me across to hear about my problems. How can I help you, Mr Temple?’
‘I’m trying to trace the movements of a friend of mine,’ said Paul. ‘I think she stayed here the night before last.’
‘What’s the name of your friend?’
Paul described Betty Stanway and explained that he thought the girl was probably in trouble. He could see from the way Angus Lomax was reacting that he was sympathetic, but he was no help.
‘I’m absolutely sure she didn’t stay here on Friday night.’ He smiled wryly. ‘I’m positive, because there wasn’t a single member of the fair sex staying in the house on Friday. There were only three men.’
Paul believed him. ‘Thank you, Mr Lomax,’ he said quietly.
The man shook hands and went away with apologies for not being more help, hoping to see him at the Gateway again. Paul nodded and picked up another book of matches to remind himself.
‘You’re disappointed,’ Steve murmured.
He nodded. ‘I thought we had a lead.’
‘So what happens now?’
Paul put the matches in his pocket. ‘Let’s go home.’ He signalled to the waitress and paid the bill.
They were in the hall when Steve remembered her handbag. She laughed and went back to fetch it. Paul waited, deep in thought. He watched his wife walk across the restaurant with the black patent leather handbag. He had an idea.
‘Is Mr Lomax still in the building?’ he asked the young manageress.
‘I believe so.’ She knocked on one of the doors off the hall and poked her head into the office. ‘Hello, Daddy. Will you have another word with Mr Temple?’
Steve came into the hall in time to be left behind. ‘I shan’t be a minute, darling. I’ll see you in the car.’ She looked surprised, but she went out to the car park.
Paul explained to Angus Lomax that he had probably been too specific in his enquiry. Maybe Betty Stanway hadn’t spent the night there – motels weren’t only for sleeping, were they? He described Desmond Blane, and for good measure he mentioned the sixty-year old northerner called Arnold. This time he was lucky.
‘I know Arnold Cookson,’ said Lomax. ‘He’s been here for lunch half a dozen times in the past six months. There is usually a man of about thirty, a big smartly dressed man, he could be Desmond what’s-his-name. But he isn’t local. Anyway, what is this? What are they supposed to have done? Shipped unsuspecting Midlands girls to London?’
While Paul explained that a series of bank robberies had taken place and, as the formula had it, the police wanted to interview these men in connection with their enquiries, Angus Lomax swung round to look out of the window. He was looking at the row of sleeping cabins.
‘The big one,’ said Paul, ‘the one we’re assuming to have been Desmond Blane. Did he ever come here with anyone else apart from Cookson?’
‘Only once. And I’m pretty hopeless with descriptions of people.’
It was a delicate situation, and Paul could sympathise with the man; he had invested a lot of money and most of his life in this motel; and already, without any scandal attaching to the place, it was failing. Mr Lomax had his own problems with the banks.
‘In your experience, Mr Temple, does a reputation for running the ideal meeting ground for bank robbers lead to increased business or ruin?’
Paul laughed. ‘All publicity is good publicity. Where do I find Arnold Cookson?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lomax. ‘He’s disappeared. Rumour has it he went broke and he’s hiding from his creditors, but I don’t believe it. He was a very rich man.’ Lomax spoke with the instinctive bitterness of a man who has very little.
‘When did he disappear?’ asked Paul.
‘About three weeks ago, but people claim to have seen him around since then. He hasn’t gone far.’ Lomax looked suddenly worried. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t be telling you all this. I wouldn’t want to shop a man for robbing a bank.’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Paul. ‘He isn’t Robin Hood. A number of people have died because of those bank robberies.’
Paul decided that Steve deserved a new handbag. Crocodile, of course, that was what she had hinted she needed for her birthday. Paul decided to buy her a crocodile un-birthday present as soon as the case was over.
‘Why are you looking so pleased with yourself?’ Steve asked as he climbed into the car.
‘I’ve decided to buy you a new handbag.’
Paul even made the cocoa when they got back to the cottage. He knew how she hated her plans for a peaceful holiday to go chaotically adrift. But she was bearing up remarkably well. Tonight indeed she had been inadvertently very helpful. When Paul arrived with the cocoa she was already in bed.
‘Are you fed up?’ he asked her.
‘I’ve been married to you for a long time,’ she said with a laugh.
There was a screeching sound from the depths of the garden, a barn owl or perhaps a frightened badger. Paul listened as he sipped his cocoa. He wondered what noises a badger makes.
‘Come to bed,’ Steve murmured.
‘Do you think my villains are dislikeable?’ he asked her.
‘Darling, it’s nearly one o’clock.’
He had decided to lecture the open prisoners on Criminals and the Myth of the Outsider. It sounded suitably academic and yet trendy, the kind of thing the colour supplements might like. Perhaps he would repeat it to those Townswomen who kept pestering him to address their Guild. In his experience most criminals tended to be unintelligent and conformist, which was a shame because it made them less interesting than they sounded. They were hostile to authority, of course –
‘Steve!’
She had thrown a pillow at him.
‘I nearly spilled my cocoa.’
She sat up in bed and tossed her hair temperamentally. ‘This is a new and very sexy nightdress, and you haven’t even noticed it! I’ve been lying demurely in bed for fifteen minutes and you haven’t even looked at me! I’m going to sleep!’ She lay down again and simultaneously turned off the light. ‘And if you don’t stop laughing I’ll throw the other pillow at you.’
Paul climbed happily into bed beside her.