Last Detective (10 page)

Mr Patel smiled agreeably. ‘It is very nice to be in a household where everybody speaks so frankly.'

‘Detective!' snorted Mrs Fulljames, appearing from her kitchen cavern with a cauldron of stew. ‘Detective!' The pot seemed to be pulling her along like a steam engine.

‘Don't tell me you've lost another bed,' observed Davies wearily.

‘No. But the other one hasn't been found either,' she sniffed. ‘Antique. And I suppose you slept all through the racket last night. All the screams and everything. It woke the whole street up but not you.'

‘What did I miss
last
night?'

‘Somebody tied a horse to Mrs Connelly's door knocker. Somebody's idea of a joke.'

A glance each from Mod and Davies crept across the table.

‘A horse?' protested Davies. ‘I'm a policeman, not a groom.'

‘It was a crime,' said Mrs Fulljames firmly, slopping out the lamb stew. Davies saw Mr Patel looking at it doubtfully. So did Mod. ‘It's quite all right, Mr. Patel,' said Mod, his voice booming ghostlike through vapour. ‘It's sheep not sacred cow.'

‘Thank you, thank you,' muttered Mr Patel.

‘The upset!' said Mrs Fulljames, still pursuing the horse. ‘It kept banging on Mrs Connelly's door knocker and neighing or whinnying or whatever they do. And that poor woman came down in her nightdress and the animal walked straight into her front hall. Petrified she was, and who can blame her?'

‘Who indeed,' said Davies, staring into the volcanic stew.

‘Well
you
didn't hear it,' complained Doris. ‘People miles away must have heard it, all that screaming and the horse making a terrible noise. But not you!'

‘It went right in, right in the hall,' said Mrs Fulljames, sitting down with her plate sending its veil to her face. The meal was beginning to resemble a seance. ‘And it trod on Mr Connelly's foot when he came down to see what was going on. He's off work for a month.'

‘A month at least, knowing Mr Connelly,' commented Davies. ‘What did they do with the horse, shoot it?'

‘It belongs to that terrible man down the town, Scribbens isn't it? The rag-and-bone merchant. They got him to come and take it back. Disgusting business altogether. Poor woman.'

They paused to eat and the steam subsided as they emptied their plates. Eventually Mr Patel said: ‘A detective, Mr Davies, most interesting, most. And what, if it is possible to divulge, are you investigating at this moment?'

‘Apart from my stolen bed,' sniffed Mrs Fulljames.

‘Well,' Davies hesitated. ‘A sort of missing person.'

It was early closing day but Antoinette (Paris Switzerland and Hemel Hempstead) Ladies' Hairdressers remained stubbornly open. Davies loitered in the lee of a telephone box across the street until Josie came out for her lunch at two o'clock. He was, as usual, disconcerted when she immediately walked across the road to him.

‘How did you spot me?' he inquired unhappily.

‘Spot you? Blimey, half the shop saw you,' she laughed. ‘You'd be surprised how well-known you are in these parts, Dangerous. Marie—that's my friend in the salon—you nicked her brother for stealing scrap metal a couple of years ago, but he got off because of some technicality. You'd lost your notes or something.'

Davies sighed. ‘I seem to remember that,' he admitted.

‘They do, too. Marie said they still have a good laugh about it.'

‘Thanks.' They had begun to walk apparently aimlessly along the shut street.

‘Then the lady whose perm we were doing said you'd found her front door swinging open one night and you walked in and her old man smashed you over the head with a chair, because he thought you was a burglar.'

‘Yes, I recall that too. He broke the chair.'

‘Bertha—that's Antoinette—and most of the customers and staff knew you in some way or another. Didn't you see them crowding to the windows to look at you trying to hide behind that phone box?'

‘Well, I did think you had rather a big crowd in there for a small place,' admitted Davies. ‘I thought it was your busy morning, that's all.'

‘You talked to my mum, didn't you,' she said.

‘Yes.'

‘She trusts you, she does. Are you still working on the thing about our Celia?'

Davies arched his eyebrows. ‘Of course I am. I've only been on it a few days.'

‘What's that after twenty five years?' shrugged Josie. ‘I've got some sandwiches. I was going to get a bus and sit up by the Welsh Harp. My scooter's got a puncture. I'm going by the reservoir. As it's a decent day.'

It was too. There had been a smattering of October sun through the morning and, miraculously, it now grinned over the entire sky.

‘You can come as well if you like, Dangerous,' said Josie. ‘I won't eat all my sandwiches myself.'

‘All right,' he said. They walked along the closed faces of the shops. The white bodices of the cooling towers looked strangely clean in the sunshine. They were comfortable in each other's company. The bus arrived opportunely and they boarded it, sitting without speaking on the cross-seats on the lower deck. They reached the Welsh Harp, a shapely lake shining benignly beyond the reach of the factory fumes. Three small sailing dinghies, one with red sails, swam across its easy surface. Davies and Josie walked to a seat overlooking the water and sat down. She opened a packet of sandwiches and gave him one. It was cheese and pickle.

‘Your mother,' said Davies through his bread. ‘She's never got over it, has she?'

‘You don't have to be Maigret to see that,' she commented, but not directly at him. ‘She'll never get it off her mind. When the anniversary comes round she's almost mental.' She paused as though weighing up whether to add something. She decided she would. ‘It sounds a silly thing to say, I know,' she ventured. ‘But it's…it's almost, sort of, given her something to live for.'

Davies glanced sideways at her and whistled softly to himself. ‘That's a strange remark,' he said.

‘I said it was, didn't I,' she pointed out. ‘But it has, Dangerous…You don't mind me calling you that, do you? What's your proper first name?'

‘Percival,' he lied.

She regarded him seriously. ‘Dangerous…' she said.

She bit fiercely into her sandwich. She had a sharply pretty face and gentle hair. She had opened her coat and her small breasts just touched the surface of her sweater. The sun blew across her colourless urban face.

‘Yes, Josie?' he said.

‘Dangerous, you really
want
to do this, don't you?'

‘Yes, I do.'

‘Why? I mean, why all of a sudden? I don't believe all that cobblers about some bloke talking in prison, even if my mum does.'

‘I don't like to see something left,' he replied defensively. ‘Just abandoned. Don't you think I ought to find out?' He hesitated. ‘If I can.'

‘Who is it in aid of, Dangerous?' she asked quietly. She opened the top slice of her sandwich and said to herself. ‘No pickle in this one.' She returned her small face to him. ‘Who is it for?' she repeated. ‘Is it for Celia or my mum? Or is it for you?'

He felt a shaft of guilt. ‘It's not
for
anybody,' he protested. ‘All I know is that somebody is walking about free today—with blood on their hands.'

‘Dried blood,' she sniffed. ‘He'll hardly remember it now. Have you ever done a murder case before?'

‘No.' He did not look at her. ‘This is the first.'

‘Did your inspector, or whoever it is, tell you to do it? Or are you just doing it off your own bat?'

‘On my own,' he mumbled. He examined the sandwich in his hand and, carefully selecting a site, bit into it.

‘I thought so,' she said. ‘It's like a hobby, then.'

Father Harvey had said that. The repetition of the word stung him.

‘It's
not
a hobby!' he said angrily. ‘I'm going to find out who killed Celia!'

‘Don't get out of your bloody pram,' said Josie. She was looking at him calmly. ‘I don't know whether it's going to make anyone better off, that's all. I might as well tell you, I'd have nothing to do with it. But my mum seems to think you can do something.' She looked up and then held his sleeve. ‘Christ,' she said. ‘That little boat's turned over, Dangerous. The bloke's in the water.'

‘They do it all the time,' answered Davies, looking up. ‘People ring us and the fire brigade and God knows who else. But we tell them not to worry because it's part of the sport. They enjoy it.'

‘You leave
them
be, then,' she said pointedly.

‘We do,' he said. ‘One day one of them will drown and everybody will moan and say why didn't we do anything.'

She sighed sadly and threw a whole sandwich at a loitering bird. It flew away in fright, but then returned cautiously, hardly able to believe its luck. ‘How far have you got?' she said. ‘Anywhere?'

‘Bits and pieces,' he shrugged. ‘It will take a while. Do you want to help me?'

She eased her eyes. ‘All right. But don't let it bugger up my mother, will you. She's had twenty-five years of it.' She seemed undecided whether to tell him something. ‘Even now, and this sounds mad I know, even now she seems to think that somehow you're going to bring Celia back—alive!'

‘Oh Christ, no.'

‘Oh Christ, yes,' she said. ‘You can see what I'm getting at. I was a sort of replacement for her, you see. I'm a sort of second-hand Celia. They had another baby after she went but it was stillborn. That didn't help.'

‘I bet,' nodded Davies. The man had righted his dinghy and was climbing back aboard. He was wearing yellow oilskins and a life-jacket. Davies said, ‘You said a funny thing about your mother…'

‘About Celia giving her something to live for? Yes, it sounds funny, I know, but that's just how it seems sometimes. If it had not happened, her disappearing, Celia would have grown up like anybody else, got married and cleared off. In a way she's been much more of a daughter for my mum, since she's been dead. If she is dead. No matter what I do, Dangerous, I'll never make up for her.'

He patted her hand with his half-eaten sandwich. ‘I see,' he nodded. She smiled in her young way. The sun was still on them. ‘It's a pity you never knew Celia,' he added.

‘Knew her!' Her laugh came out bitterly. ‘I've spent my whole life with her, mate.'

‘You don't like her very much, do you?'

‘There's nothing to like or dislike. You can't dislike a ghost. I never saw her, did I, or 'eard her speak. She's just a name to me. But it's a name that keeps coming up if you know what I mean. If my mum could do a swop, me for our Celia, she'd have 'er every time. I'm stuck with that, see.'

Davies nodded. ‘I see.' He waited. ‘Do you think your mum knows who did it?'

‘I think she thinks she does,' said Josie wiping a stray bean from her chin.

‘How about Cecil Ramscar, for a start?'

‘She's never said as much.'

‘What do you think?'

‘Christ knows. I wasn't around twenty-five years ago. But he could have. He sent a wreath.'

H
e went back to the police station thinking about Ramscar. When he reached there he discovered that the Ramscar file had been locked in a cupboard with the divisional sporting trophies, the supply of tea bags and the tear-gas canisters. The keys were with an officer who was attending the magistrates' court so Davies walked around there.

It was a busy day in the court and as was usual a lot of ordinary innocent people had come in to sit and watch for a while. There were loaded shopping baskets and loaded expressions in the public seats. He entered as stealthily as he could, falling over a wheelbarrow which was being used as an exhibit in the case being heard. Everyone turned to see him. The public laughed, the police and the magistrates sighed, the man in the dock pointed a stare at him, a look threaded with uncertainty. Davies nervously recognized him as the man he had helped with the sack of vegetables over the allotment hedge a few nights previously. He sidled out of the accused's sight.

The prisoner was being called from the dock to give evidence on his own behalf in the witness box. He dismounted one stand to mount the other, reading the oath in a suitably earthy voice. Davies looked around for the sergeant who had the key to the police station cupboard.

He saw him squatting at the end of a row of policemen waiting to give evidence in the court's crowd of cases. Davies advanced with dainty clumsiness, hunched low in the way of a soldier moving under fire, until squatting in his piled overcoat by the officer he persuaded him to surrender the key. He was aware of the court proceedings freezing all around him. He looked up to see the Godlike faces of the magistrates high on their dais regarding him sourly. The rest of the people were either standing or leaning, trying to get a view of the dwarf in the voluminous raincoat who had wafted so clumsily across the floor.