Death of a Bovver Boy (2 page)

Carolus kept his temper.

‘No. He did not notice the number of the car. But he noticed that he had nearly fallen on top of a dead youth who was stiff and huddled up. And he reported it to me.'

‘Why didn't he come to the police?' asked Sergeant Patson.

‘My house was nearer. I told him to get in my car and guide me to the place.'

‘That was very unwise of you, Mr Deene. A discovery of this sort should be reported immediately to the police, not to a private individual, however much he may fancy himself as an investigator. Where did you say the cadaver is to be found?'

‘I didn't say. And if you talk like the
Police Manual
I shan't say. So let's stop all this high horse nonsense and I'll speak to your CID officer, if he's in.'

Sergeant Patson gave Carolus a nasty look. A very nasty look. But he picked up his telephone and spoke to someone whom he addressed as ‘Harold'.

‘Detective Sergeant Grimsby will be here in a few minutes,' he said sulkily.

‘I'll wait for ten,' said Carolus and there was silence between them.

When Grimsby came in, wearing grey flannels and smoking a pipe, Patson nodded towards Carolus but did not find it necessary to say more.

‘Yes, Mr Deene?' said Grimsby.

Noting that Grimsby too was aware of his name, Carolus said—‘A youth is lying dead in a ditch by the Boxley Road.'

‘Accident?'

‘I shouldn't think so. He's stark naked. I'll drive you out there if you like.'

‘I'll follow in my car, if you don't mind. May have to go off somewhere else. Shall we go?'

Carolus led the way and Grimsby kept close behind. Stick was waiting where Carolus had left him and Carolus explained his presence to Grimsby.

Grimsby made a brief businesslike examination then went to the telephone in his car. When he had set in motion what he called ‘all the formalities' Carolus asked him to take statements from himself and Stick so that they could leave for home before all the police palaver began. Grimsby agreed to this.

‘May have to ask you both to give us further details tomorrow,' he warned. ‘But for this evening I can soon get down your statements.'

He proceeded to do so in a smart, almost military fashion. It did not seem that he gave the whole thing any great importance. One would have thought he was accustomed to finding dead young men in a ditch naked every day of the week. There was something rather callous about his handling of the dead limbs, too. Altogether a very unsentimental police officer, Carolus thought.

‘Any idea how long he's been there?' asked Carolus.

‘The doctor will tell us. I should guess about twenty-four hours,' Grimsby said. ‘But it's only a guess.'

‘No idea who he is, I suppose?' persisted Carolus.

‘Never seen him before, but they all look alike nowadays. No need for you to hang about if you don't want to. Nor you Mr Stick.'

‘Good. Then we'll go,' said Carolus. ‘You know where I live if you want me again?'

‘Yes. I know,' said Grimsby. ‘Good night, Mr Deene.'

Mrs Stick was still up when they reached home.

‘I suppose this will start you off again, sir,' she said rather sulkily. ‘If I'd have known what it was Stick had found I shouldn't have said anything about it. Now I suppose we shall have nothing but murders for the next few weeks.'

‘Only one,' Carolus corrected. ‘If it
was
a murder. The police will know that.'

‘So you're leaving it to the police? That's something, anyhow. I shan't have my heart in my mouth twenty times a day wondering who's at the front door. I only hope you mean what you say. It wouldn't be the first time you'd have got mixed up in something after you'd said you'd leave it to the police.'

‘It depends on what they do about it,' said Carolus.

‘There you go!' said Mrs Stick. ‘I knew what it would be as soon as we got back to Newminster. I told Stick, I said, it won't be long before he gets started again on something horrible, I said. But I never thought when Stick came in looking upset it would lead to all this. The young fellow was dead, I suppose?'

‘Quite, quite dead, Mrs Stick.'

‘There you are. One of these long haired ones, sure to be?'

‘No. His hair was short.'

‘They're worse! A skinhead, you mean?'

‘Not exactly. I think he'd had long hair but it had been cut off.'

‘There! It makes you think, doesn't it? I suppose you'll find out all about who did that, won't you? I wonder you don't get tired of it all, I really do. Murder, murder, murder. Anyone would think you had nothing better to do. And Stick's as bad, putting you up to it. I don't know what Mr Gorringer will say when he knows. No sooner do we get back here and settle down when you're off looking for clues.
How did you say they'd killed the poor young fellow?'

‘I didn't. I don't know. Good night, Mrs Stick. Sleep well.'

The little woman gave Carolus her fiercest stare as he left the room.

When Grimsby came to see him a few days later, Carolus realized that it was not so much to obtain the necessary details about finding the body of the dead youth as to consult him as an expert. Not that he said so. A policeman would rather die than admit that he had anything to learn from an amateur dabbler in crime investigation, and in many ways he would be justified in holding Carolus, and his whole tribe, in contempt.

Professionalism in this as in most other ways of life was really to be admired and respected. The gifted amateur sometimes struck lucky but was usually to be dismissed as a nuisance.

But Grimsby was young and, as he admitted to Carolus, had been put in charge of the investigation in this case, given for the first time the responsibility of clearing up what his superiors had called a ‘nasty mess'. He knew the reputation of Carolus and although he would not admit it had a half-mocking hope that Carolus would lean back in his chair, put his fingers together and proceed to solve the entire puzzle.

That there was a puzzle, and that he was baffled by it, Grimsby admitted to himself, adding in his own mind that there could be no harm in hearing what
that chap Deene had to say. Carolus, on his side, knew that only through Grimsby could he learn the essential facts of the case, the identity of the murdered boy and perhaps something of his associates.

‘Oh yes, we know who he was all right,' said Grimsby. ‘There'll be no secret about it by tomorrow because we've given the name to the papers. The London Press aren't interested and even our local newspapers don't show much excitement. There's been so much of this sort of thing lately, you see. The novelty has worn off.'

‘But the puzzles remain?'

‘That's it. They do.'

Carolus was silent for a moment then said, ‘Did you notice the dead boy's wrists?'

Grimsby looked disappointed. If this was all the famous Carolus Deene had to contribute it would not get him much farther.

‘Yes. And his ankles,' he said. ‘Been carried some distance on the pillion seat of a motor-cycle.'

‘Dead or alive?'

‘Either, as I see it. Probably dead. The boy came from Hartington. Father's a foreman in a plastics factory.'

‘So you think the boy was murdered, stripped, and dumped in that ditch?'

‘Or vice versa. No idea yet. The doctor says he'd been dead for at least twenty-four hours when you found him. He could have been killed in Hartington on the Saturday afternoon, in fact, and brought across to Newminster, (that's about thirty miles as you know) during the darkness of Saturday night.'

‘His ankles tied to the footrests of a motor-cycle and his arms round the rider's waist. Wearing a helmet and goggles, perhaps?'

‘Yes. Obviously.'

‘But dead?'

‘Could be.'

‘Why was he stripped then?'

‘Identification, I suppose. Or at least to delay identification. Actually, we knew on the third day that a Hartington youth known as “Dutch” Carver had been missing since Saturday afternoon. So the delay wasn't of much use, was it?'

‘Not unless those two days were important to someone. They could have been.'

Grimsby considered that.

‘Yes. I suppose so. The boy was a greaser. Had hair down to his shoulder blades. That, as you know, had been roughly cut.'

‘I saw that.'

‘And that's about as far as I've got. Obvious suspects are the skinheads of the town, particularly one group. Doesn't it seem a bit fantastic to you in this day and age that our murder suspects are quite often teenagers? It sickens me.'

‘Yes. How many of the group are there?'

‘About a dozen. I've questioned four without much satisfaction. You understand of course, that this conversation is in the strictest confidence, don't you?'

‘Of course. I appreciate that. I'll tell you what I'm considering. The facts begin to interest me and I think I'll run over to Hartington. I don't like the place, but it's there that the core of this case would seem to lie. You needn't be aware I've gone or show that you know me if we meet. I shall work on my own and if I get anything for you I'll phone you here in Newminster.'

‘Fine. I'll expect to hear from you.'

‘Don't be too optimistic. I'm a bit out of my depths with all these young skinheads, greasers, hippies and
muggers. But I shan't keep anything from you. Facts, I mean. Theories are my own affair till they are strong enough to hand over. Agreed?'

‘Agreed. I'd like to see the D.S's face if he heard us exchanging those words. He's a sort of a caricature of a television Super. Has it ever occurred to you that Z
Cars
and the rest have materially influenced the Police Force? Life following Art, if you call them art.'

‘Television policemen are infallible, invariably infallible,' said Carolus.

Grimsby did not rise to that. He pulled out a notebook and began to give Carolus some more detailed and factual information about Hartington and its people. This Carolus noted carefully. Then, after Grimsby had refused a drink, the policeman prepared to leave.

‘I've purposely not given you any theories I may have, or am beginning to form,' said Grimsby. ‘Because they're not worth having yet. You'll know more in an hour than I've been able to conclude in two days. I'm hoping you'll go your own way. But you won't be bored, Mr Deene. I can assure you of that.'

‘My name's Carolus. And I'm not easily bored, especially by murder. It
was
murder, I suppose?'

‘Yes. The boy had been suffocated after being tied up.'

‘I rather thought that was how it was done. Poor little sod.'

‘Don't be too ready with your sympathy till you've learned a bit more about him, Carolus.'

‘I'll repress my kindly instincts.'

‘Until you know there is cause for them.'

Grimsby smiled and left Carolus. His car was started and Carolus looked after its disappearing number plate.

Mrs Stick came in almost at once.

‘I could see he was from the police,' she boasted. ‘You can always tell. I suppose he'd come about the murder?'

‘He wanted some details about the finding of the body.'

‘I hope you told him what a nasty shock it was. Stick hasn't really got over it yet.'

She was stopped by a prolonged ringing of the front door bell. Her hand went to her heart with a rather exaggerated gesture.

‘Whoever can that be?' she asked Carolus rhetorically as she went to the window. ‘Oh. Thank goodness. It's only Mr Hollingbourne,' she added, naming one of Carolus's colleagues on the staff of the Queen's School, Newminster, a philoprogenitive character whose children already numbered seven. ‘He won't have come about anything to do with murders, that's one sure thing.'

But Mrs Stick was wrong, for once. Hollingbourne, tall, humourless and usually somewhat hostile to Carolus whom he regarded as a playboy, sat bolt upright in a chair and announced unnecessarily—‘I wanted to see you, Deene.'

Carolus nodded. There was nothing else to do.

‘The Head tells me you are making enquiries about the young fellow found dead on Sunday night?'

Carolus, who disliked Hollingbourne's way of referring to Mr Gorringer as though he were an earthly deity, like a newspaper proprietor, again nodded.

‘I can tell you something about him,' Hollingbourne said astoundingly.

‘You can? How on earth does that happen?'

Hollingbourne got down to serious narrative.

‘As you may know,' he said. ‘The wife and I are
accustomed to take the children for a summer holiday to the seaside. We choose some place with a sandy beach where they can play cricket and so on. Those that are old enough, that is.'

‘Quite.'

‘Three years ago it was to Kingsgate. Excellent sands and not too far away.'

‘Of course.'

‘But unlike you, Deene, I was not provided by my parents with a large private income and in order to meet the expenses of a summer holiday for us all, I am forced to seek some form of additional remuneration.'

‘Coaching?' suggested Carolus.

‘Not necessarily coaching, but adding to our numbers one or two young paying guests whose parents want to give them a healthy seaside holiday.'

‘Good heavens!' Carolus could not repress the exclamation.

‘We have discovered that catering for increased numbers is comparatively economical. In a word, it pays.'

‘I see.'

‘At first we agreed to limit the scheme to boys at the school whose parents found it inconvenient to keep them during the summer holidays. But lately we have found that parents from what the Head calls more plebeian backgrounds are those most able to afford to take advantage of the scheme. In the year we went to Kingsgate we had as a paying guest the son of a foreman in the All-Purpose Plastics Works at Hartington. His name was Carver.'