“By catching the ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe? Seems an expensive way to buy a newspaper.”
“Free country,” replied Tompkins, who was worrying about his wife, but not because of what Ingram had just said. He looked around the room and noticed that Spinky had adorned his walls with posters from Modern Art museums including the Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.
“Are you interested in these pieces of paper with your initials on them?” asked Evans looking in Tompkins’s direction.
“Some of my initials, but not all of them, not enough to build a case on, unless you want to build a case that’s going to collapse under the most routine of cross-examinations, a case as flimsy as a cardboard box in a monsoon, a case that has more holes than a large Emmental cheese,” replied Tompkins, edging closer to the table, “where are these initials, I’d like to see them, if they’re so important.”
He stood by the table and saw the timetable of East European exports for the past few weeks staring back at him. Tompkins was distraught. Sure, enough Filly’s initials and his own were against some of the journeys. Tompkins’s poker face, which had won him so much money at cards at school, came to the fore and he betrayed no recognition to either of the policemen present.
What he couldn’t work out was why Spinky Mills had these plans. Spinky had no knowledge of the trips and hadn’t known either when they took place or their start and end points. These were originals too, not photocopies, so where had they come from?
“I see nothing on here that connects me with these scratchings,” said Tompkins, “is there anything on the back of them?” Before the police could stop him, he’d turned over both pieces to find them blank.
Julian Worker Fiction Writing 