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 liters 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-balls, but sometimes you gotta go with the garbage.
At the moment, iced coffee on the terrace (the Hoo equivalent of high life and high-balls) 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, toward the service area behind the kitchen where the garbage was.
Though Endo Venera gave many graphic and often unsavory 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 he realized who it was addressing him, he relaxed once more and the half-smoked fag 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 membership."
"That's it. Don't take it personal. I mean, they're so bloody 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 learned 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 hell 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 cozy- ing up to someone's wife or something like that." "No," said Bert very firmly. "Not that there aren't plenty would like to cozy 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 butt 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 finishing 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 laborer 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 fag 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 bugger'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 bummed 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 Cockernhoe 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 bastards 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 grass against the rear wall.
Before he could examine it closer, a voice grated, "Help you?"
Joe turned to find himself the object of a suspicious gaze.
As the gaze was emanating from the sun-ravaged features of Davie Davie, and as Joe was poking around behind the building in which presumably the head greenkeeper kept all that was most precious to him, he couldn't blame the guy for being suspicious.
Joe had to make a decision. Did Davie, like Bert, know he was a PI? Or was he still under the impression he was a chum of the YFG's?
He made his choice and said, "Oh hello, Davie. Just having a look around while I'm waiting for Mr. Porphyry and I seem to have got a bit lost."
It sounded pretty stilted to Joe, but most of what Da- vie heard at the Hoo must sound pretty stilted to his Caledonian ears.
He said, "If it's the clubhouse ye're wanting, ye'll need to walk back along the track a ways."
"Thanks. Some places I've been, this would have done for the clubhouse, yeah?"
"Aye, well, it does the job, sir," said Davie with the modest pride of a man who knew his worth.
The sir confirmed to Joe that his cover remained in place here at least.
As the Scot turned away, Joe took a pound coin out of his pocket, palmed it, then stooped and said, "Hey, it's my lucky day. Oh shoot, it's a bit oily."
He held the coin up and ostentatiously began to wipe it with his handkerchief. Davie again was regarding him suspiciously, but this time it was the suspicion of a Scot who knew it was written somewhere in the Old Testament that he would be able to spot lost money in his backyard long before any poncy Anglo of no matter what shade.
Joe quickly moved from the coin to the oil which he was sure the greenkeeper would have spotted.
"Seems to be a patch of the stuff down there," he said indicating the area he'd been examining when interrupted. "One of your mowers must be leaking or something."
"No way!" Davie snorted indignantly. "One of my lads parks his bike there and that's what's got the leak. When I was his age I'd have had it sorted in two jinks of a cat's tale, but nowadays they've nae pride in what they possess. It all comes too easy, that's my way of thinking."
"But I bet you don't let him get away with anything when he's working on the course," said Joe. "From what I've seen, it's immaculate."
"Aye, they leave their standards behind and work to mine once they're out there," said Davie. "To give him his due, this laddie did a fair day's work when I made him put his mind to it."
"Did? He's gone, has he? I only ask 'cos the oil seems quite fresh."
This was pushing it a bit, but golf club greenkeepers have to get used to vacuous waffle from their members and Davie replied, "Aye, he took off a few days back, but his machine was around till yesterday, I'm sure. He must have snuck in to collect it, scairt of running into me likely, the way he let me down. I'll be hard put to get a decent replacement this time of year."
"Plenty of lads out of work would surely jump at the chance," said Joe.
"You'd think so, but most of them are likely sunning themselves on a holiday beach, and those that aren't don't like to get their hands dirty," said Davie sourly. "Good day to ye."
Joe walked away, his mind buzzing like the mysterious scooter and probably making as much smoke.
Exactly a week ago, the morning after Porphyry's disputed victory in his Vardon Cup match, Waring had risen, eaten a hearty breakfast, walked out of No. 15 Lock-keeper's Lane and vanished off the face of the earth.
The night before, he had been given a lift home by someone driving a silver Audi 8, almost certainly Colin Rowe.
His motor scooter had remained here behind the greenkeeper's shed till yesterday or maybe early this morning when someone had removed it. Also this morning someone had turned up at Lock-keeper's Lane to collect Waring's belongings from his lodgings, and pay his rent up to date. That person, or rather those persons, had also been in a silver Audi 8 identified by young Liam Tremayne as the same in which he'd seen Waring traveling the evening before his disappearance.
And Colin Rowe's Audi was presently standing in the Hoo car park with mud on its tires and an oil stain on its boot carpet.
This needed a bit of thinking about.
He glanced at his watch, and realized that he'd need to do his thinking on the way to the airport.
His phone rang. The display read Butcher. He looked around guiltily, wondering if the Hoo embargo on mobiles extended here. But no one came running out of the trees shaking their fists and brandishing their niblicks, so he put it to his ear and said, "Hi, Butcher."
"Sixsmith, what are you doing? Basking by the hotel pool, charging your pint glasses of sangria to King Rat's account?"
"No. I'm still here."
"Still in Luton? Oh, Joe, Joe, you do like living dangerously. His Majesty won't like you changing his plans." "It's just the timetable I've changed. I'm catching a later plane. Just setting out for the airport." "Oh good. Then call in here as you're passing. Something I want to show you." "What is it? I'm a bit pushed. Couldn't you just-" "Got to go now, Sixsmith. See you soon." She switched off. "Oh shoot," said Joe. There had to be a trick to ignoring bossy women, but Aunt Mirabelle hadn't taught him it. He hurried back to the car park.