Closed Circle by Robert Goddard

Author:Robert Goddard [Goddard, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical, Mystery, Thriller, Historical Mystery, Early 20th Century, 1930s
ISBN: 9780671890926
Google: 1O4ADBCmvggC
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 137644
Publisher: Corgi Adult
Published: 1993-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

TEN

I drove north all that grey autumn day, through the supine fringes of the fen country and the sluggish heart of the Yorkshire coal field into a part of England I had always done my best to avoid: a raw and uncongenial realm of smoking chimneys and pinched faces, where hardship and the threat of it hung over the towns like an invisible layer of cloud. The light failed early and I abandoned the idea of completing my journey that evening, taking refuge at an hotel in Durham. It was late Saturday morning before I reached my destination, thirty bleak and empty miles beyond Newcastle: the rough-hewn market town of Alnwick, bolt-hole of former Fleet Street foreign correspondent George Duggan. I had waited a long time and come a long way to hear what he had to say. Although I expected and half-hoped it would amount to nothing, I felt curiously nervous now the moment of discovery was near.

The streets were busy, but I had no difficulty finding the offices of the Alnwick Advertiser: cramped first-floor premises which, according to the sign on the door, were also the source of the Morpeth Mercury and the Coquetdale Clarion. It was easy to believe they represented the nadir of a journalist's ambition. Certainly, the duty to inform did not appear to grip the two yawning and scratching members of staff I discovered behind an uneven barricade of piled back copies and paper-strewn desks. The name of George Duggan seemed to cause them considerable amusement.

"He was here earlier, but something urgent cropped up about eleven o'clock."

"Yeh. The pubs opened."

"So," I said when their guffaws had subsided, 'where might I find him?"

"Well, you might find him in the Black Swan."

"Or the Dirty Bottles."

"But my money .. ." He glanced up at the clock. "Would be on the Queen's Head."

Their directions led me across the market place, clogged with bellowing stall-holders and their eager customers. All Northumberland and his wife seemed to have descended upon the town and the bar of the Queen's Head was invisible through a haze of smoke and a phalanx of broad-backed drinkers. Insinuating myself slowly between them, I caught the sound of a familiar cough and followed it round a head-high partition to where George Duggan was propped on a stool, swallowing rum like linctus between sucks at a clumsily rolled cigarette.

"Duggan!" I had to shout to attract his attention. Even then, his rheumy eyes surveyed me for several blank seconds before recognition glimmered. "Guy Horton. Remember?"

"Mr. Horton," he replied. "Well, well, well. I never expected to see you in Alnwick."

"And I never expected to be here. Now I am, can we talk?"

"What about?"

"Fabian Charnwood."

"Not sure I want to." He tossed his head moodily.

"Then why did you give me your card? Why did you urge me to contact you if I uncovered any new information?"

"Because I thought you were helping Wingate. And because I thought Wingate could help me."

"Max Wingate is dead."

"I know. I read about it. He was killed

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