Night Over Water - Ken Follett [18]
They became quiet and released their unwilling prisoner, who stood there looking sulky. The sergeant pointed at one of the men, a dark-haired fellow of about Margaret’s age. “Right—you. Tell me what all the fuss is about.”
The young man pointed at the prisoner. “This blighter took my sister to a restaurant, then sneaked off without paying!” he said indignantly. He spoke with an upper-class accent, and Margaret realized his face was vaguely familiar. She hoped he would not recognize her: it would be too humiliating for people to know that she had had to be rescued by. a policeman after running away from home.
A younger man in a striped suit added: “His name’s Harry Marks and he ought to be locked up.”
Margaret looked with interest at Harry Marks. He was a strikingly handsome man of twenty-two or twenty-three, with blond hair and regular features. Although he was rather rumpled, he wore his double-breasted dinner jacket with easy elegance. He looked around contemptuously and said: “These fellows are drunk.”
The young man in the striped suit burst out: “We may be drunk but he’s a cad—and a thief. Look what we found in his pocket.” He threw something down on the counter. “These cuff links were stolen earlier in the evening from Sir Simon Monkford.”
“All right,” said the sergeant. “So you’re accusing him of obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception—that’s not paying his restaurant bill—and of stealing. Anything else?”
The boy in the striped suit laughed scornfully and said: “Isn’t that enough for you?”
The sergeant pointed his pencil at the boy. “You remember where you bloody well are, son. You may have been born with a silver spoon in your mouth but this is a police station and if you don’t speak politely you’ll spend the rest of the night in a bleedin’ cell.”
The boy looked foolish and said no more.
The sergeant turned his attention back to the first speaker. “Now can you supply all the details of both accusations? I need the name and address of the restaurant, your sister’s name and address, plus the name and address of the party that owns the cuff links.”
“Yes, I can give you all that. The restaurant—”
“Good. You stay here.” He pointed at the accused man. “You sit down.” He waved his hand at the crowd of young men. “The rest of you can go home.”
They all looked rather nonplussed. Their great adventure had ended in anticlimax. For a moment none of them moved.
The sergeant said: “Go on, bugger off, the lot of you!”
Margaret had never heard so much swearing in one day.
The young men moved off, muttering. The boy in the striped suit said: “You bring a thief to justice and you get treated as if you were a criminal yourself!” But he was passing through the door before he finished the sentence.
The sergeant began to question the dark-haired boy, making notes. Harry Marks stood beside him for a moment, then turned away impatiently. He spotted Margaret, threw her a sunny grin and sat down next to her. He said: “All right, girl? What you doing here, then, this time o’ night?”
Margaret was nonplussed. He was quite transformed. His haughty manner and refined speech had gone, and he spoke with the same accent as the sergeant. For a moment she was too surprised to reply.
Harry threw an appraising glance at the doorway, as if he might be thinking of making a dash for it; then he looked back at the desk and saw the younger policeman, who had not yet said a word, staring at him watchfully. He seemed to give up the idea of escape. He turned back to Margaret. “Who give you that black eye, your old man?”
Margaret found her voice and said: “I got lost in the blackout and bumped into a pillar box.”
It was his turn to be surprised. He had taken her for a working-class girl. Now, hearing her accent, he realized his mistake. Without a blink he reverted to his former persona. “I say, what