When Powell arrived at the Yard, he had to endure the inevitable cracks about the cane and his general state of decrepitude as he limped to his office. “Bloody touching,” he remarked to Inspector Richards as he slumped into his chair. His desk was uncharacteristically neat and tidy, like a fallow field of simulated wood grain plastic laminate waiting to be sown with paper. He looked around the office. Everything was as he'd left it. Drab metal bookshelves and file cabinets, and in keeping with the Metropolitan Police Green Plan, not a trace of endangered hardwoods anywhere. Another of Sir Henry Merriman's PC. initiatives (Politically Constipated, to the rank and file). Powell grimaced.
“It looks painful, sir,” Richards said eventually.
Powell ignored him. “How's our pigeon?”
“Ready to go whenever you are.”
“Any indications?”
Richards yawned. It wasn't his case so he wasn't particularly interested. “We told him we wanted to question him about the murder of Nick Tebble. He's been cautioned but hasn't shown any interest in calling a lawyer. He seems a bit jumpy. If he's got something to hide, it's my guess he'll sing.”
Do pigeons sing? Powell wondered. “Did he say what he was doing in London?”
“Claims he's been working too hard and needed a break.”
“I don't bloody doubt it. You'd better come along to keep me from throttling the bugger.”
A sudden look of alarm flickered across Richards's face. “Yes, sir.” The young up-and-coming inspector took himself very seriously.
“And I'd like you to take notes.”
“Sir?” An “I don't do windows” sort of expression.
Powell glared at him. “Yes, Richards?”
Inspector Richards sighed. “Very good, sir.”
Rowlands was waiting in the interview room, watched over by a fresh-faced constable. He twisted around awkwardly in his tiny chair as Powell and Inspector Richards walked in. An attempt to suppress the look of alarm on his face failed, but he said nothing.
Not a poker player, Powell thought. He dismissed the constable and pulled up a chair opposite Rowlands, placing his cane carefully on the table. Richards sat in the corner behind Rowlands, fiddling with his notebook.
“Surprised to see me, Tony?” Powell said evenly.
Rowlands's large face was moist with perspiration. He refused to meet Powell's eye. “I heard you had an accident.” His voice brittle.
“Somebody pushed me down a mine shaft, if that's what you're referring to.”
There was panic in Rowlands's eyes. “Pushed? What do you mean? I was at the pub, ask Jenny!” He looked almost comically earnest.
Powell smiled. “Good heavens. I've only asked one question and you've already raised so many interesting points. First off, when did you say you were at the pub?”
“Tuesday afternoon. There were customers that must have seen me.” Rowlands was sweating profusely now.
“Tuesday afternoon?” A pregnant pause.
“Yeah, well I bumped into old George that evening, didn't I? He told me that you'd, er, had an accident at the mine.”
“George?”
“Polfrock.”
“Oh, yes, one of your best customers, I understand.”
Rowlands spoke very carefully. “He comes in for a drink now and then. When the old lady lets him out, that is.”
“Is that where you bumped into old George, at the pub?”
“Yeah, why don't you ask Jenny?” A trace of belligerence in his voice now.
“Ah, yes. Jenny. Her name does seem constantly to come up in relation to your whereabouts.”
“We work together, don't we?”
Powell smirked. “What else do you do together, Tony?”
“That's none of your business.” Rowlands answered indignantly.
“It's your alibi, not mine.”
Powell stared at Rowlands without replying. He had seen and heard enough to come to some conclusions. Thick as a plank but possessed, no doubt, with a certain measure of cunning when it came to preserving his own skin. But a killer? He reached under the table and gently massaged his knee. He was trying to keep an open mind. In any case, he decided that subtlety would be wasted on Rowlands—best to let him have it with both barrels, although it could prove to be a difficult shot. “Tony,” he said suddenly, “what does Linda Porter think about Jenny working under you?”
For a moment Powell was concerned that he'd have to leap over the table and administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Rowlands had turned a ghastly shade of purple and was sputtering apoplectically, his thick lips flecked with spittle.
Powell was mildly relieved a few seconds later when Rowlands motioned frantically for the water pitcher at the far end of the table. “Richards, get Mr. Rowlands a glass of water, would you?”
Richards sauntered over grudgingly, poured a glass from the carafe, and handed it to Rowlands.
Rowlands guzzled it greedily. His demeanor gradually returned to a semblance of normality.
“I know about you and Linda, Tony, so there's no point in denying it. I also know about your little smuggling operation. And finally,” he lied, “I know all about Nick Tebble. Why don't you come clean and save us both a lot of trouble?”
“You can't keep a secret in that sodding town,” Rowlands muttered. Then he was silent for a considerable length of time and one could almost hear the wheels turning. He looked at Powell, eyes narrowing. “What's in it for me?” he asked.
“That depends on what you've done, doesn't it?”
“Well, I never killed anybody—never even tried to.” he added quickly.
“Well, that's a start. You know that you're free to contact a solicitor at any time?” Powell said, crossing his fingers.
Rowlands sighed heavily. “Ask me anything you want. I've got nothing to lose anymore. I just want some bloody peace of mind. You don't know what it's been like living with what I've had to live with all these years.”
Powell pushed off the safety. It was a straightaway shot, after all, but he'd let his bird sing awhile before he pulled the trigger. “Why don't you start at the beginning?”
“It was nineteen-sixty-six and I'd just moved to Pen-rick and set myself up as a publican. I'd, er, made a bit of money in London, small-time stuff, you understand, enough for a down payment on the Head. I was mortgaged up to my balls, but I needed to establish myself as a respectable member of the community and get to know the lay of the land.” He lowered his voice. “I was doing this drug deal. see. Half a ton of cannabis resin. I'd been planning it for years. I had this mate who could get the stuff from Morocco to Gibraltar, load it onto a yacht, then run it into the Channel. Then we'd switch it over to a fishing boat off Land's End and unload it at some secluded cove along the Cornish coast. Penrick seemed like the ideal base of operations.”
Sing, birdie, sing.
“I settled on Mawgawan Beach early on. It was much more private in those days. You'd get the odd adventurous type camping out there in the summer, but that was about it. The thing about Mawgawan Beach is you can get a sizable boat in mere safely at night. But the problem was getting the goods off the beach. There's no way up the cliffs there; the nearest place to get the stuff out is the Old Fish Cellar.”
“That's where Nick Tebble comes into it.” Stating the obvious with a knowing air of nonchalance rarely failed to impress. Merriman had made a career of it.
Rowlands nodded ruefully. “Christ, if I'd only known what I was getting myself into.”
“He was a bit of an eccentric, I understand,” Powell remarked sympathetically.
An edgy laugh. “Eccentric? He was eccentric all right. The thing was, I needed somebody who could handle a small boat and knew the local waters to ferry the goods from Mawgawan Beach to someplace safe. Like I said, the Old Fish Cellar seemed perfect. The place is fairly isolated, and I'd learned that Tebble lived alone and knew his way around boats.”
“How did you approach Tebble in the first place?”
“He came into the Head one night and I started chatting him up, you know how it is. Served him a couple on the house after closing time. He started coming in every night after that. He had a thing about foreigners—anyone not from Cornwall, that is—and was always going on about how hard done by the Cornish were. It was Cousin Jack this and Cousin Jack that. It was enough to make you puke. But I went along with it to get on the right side of him. It wasn't long before I had him eating out of my hand.” He frowned. “Or so I thought. To cut a long story short, I finally put it to him one night: fifty thousand quid, free and clear, if he did his bit and kept his mouth shut.”
That explained the money. “I'm a little puzzled—what made you think he could be trusted?”
“It was obvious that he was a complete nutter. I reckoned if he squealed no one would believe him. It would be his word against mine, me a pillar of the community. It turned out that I underestimated him.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was a raving bloody psychotic, that's what,” Rowlands replied petulantly, as if Tebble's mental condition, whatever it might have been, was a personal affront to himself. An errant comet orbiting around his sun.
“Would you care to elaborate?” Powell held his breath, the gun firmly seated against his shoulder now.
Rowlands's eyes were almost pleading. “If I tell you what happened, will you go easy on me? Like I said, I never hurt anybody …”
“But I think you have, Tony. All the kids who smoked that hash, for instance. Who knows how they all ended up?”
“That was thirty years ago!” Rowlands exclaimed.
Powell regarded him placidly. “If you cooperate, it will be taken into account, I can promise you that. In any case, I think you need to get it off your chest.”
Rowlands took his head in his hands and moaned. “What I wouldn't give for thirty years of peace and quiet to make up for the thirty years of hell I've been through.”
Maybe not thirty years, Powell thought, but we'll do our best. Inspector Richards was yawning in the corner,which was annoyingly distracting under the circumstances. Powell flashed him a withering look. “Well, how about it, Tony?”
Rowlands began to speak in a monotone, like someone had pulled the cord on one of those talking dolls. “It was April eleventh, nineteen-sixty-seven. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a moonless night—overcast, like— and the tides were just right. The whole thing went off without a hitch. The plan was to keep the goods at the Old Fish Cellar for two weeks then transport them by lorry to Birmingham for distribution.” Rowlands shook his head in disgust. “But then Nick started running off at the mouth. He'd get into his cups and go on and on about the good old days—the wrecking and the smuggling. Christ Almighty! I had to shut him up more than once. It got to the point where I could no longer trust him. I mean I didn't think he'd nark on me on purpose—not if he wanted to get paid—I was more afraid he might let something slip that would point the finger to the Old Fish Cellar. To be on the safe side, I decided we'd better move the goods somewhere else until my mate in Birmingham was ready for them. I told Nick about it and gave the impression that it was all part of the plan. Fair-traders like us can't be too careful, nudge, nudge—you get the idea. So we moved the goods up to the mine one night and stashed them down one of the old shafts. I told Nick to keep an eye on the place until we was ready to ship them out.” A strange expression clouded his features. “You don't know how much I've come to regret that decision.”
Powell stared at him. “Not as much as Ruth Trevenney.”