Last Detective (12 page)

‘If you want to hold 'ands or whisper sweet bleedin' nothings go and do it in the park,' the spokesman went on. ‘If you don't pack it up we'll set on you.'

‘Set on them!' quivered a voice.

‘I think we'd better move, angel,' said Davies.

‘Funny bugger,' glowered Norris. He got up and pushed his way past the elderly. Davies did likewise. The old people pummelled them and struck them with sticks and umbrellas as they went by.

‘Nancies!'

The old fashioned taunts pursued them up the central aisle. Davies put his arm affectionately around Norris's waist. Norris shook him off and they made their exit to a wild chorus of raspberries.

They walked, a yard apart like friends who have recently quarreled, along the towpath of the canal. The afternoon had become dimmer and on either side the houses and the backs of shops and small factories stood in a cold frieze.

‘Where's Ramscar?' asked Davies.

‘How in the 'ell do I know?' returned Norris. Davies decided that all Josie had inherited from her father was her smallness. His eyes were hard-bright.

Davies watched the aimless water of the canal. Norris said, ‘If you don't pack up bothering me and my missus and my daughter I'm going to complain. Even a copper can't keep 'arassing you, or didn't they ever tell you?'

‘Harassing?' said Davies heavily. ‘Harassing? This is the first time I've had the pleasure of your company, Mr Norris.'

‘But you been at the wife and Josie,' argued Norris. ‘I hear what's going on. And I don't bloody like it. I'm clean. I 'aven't done anything in two years. No, my mistake, four years. So you got no reason.'

‘You know why I'm checking, then, I take it?'

‘Our Celia, so you reckon,' said Norris. His hard small face turned to Davies. ‘She's dead and nobody knows who done it. So don't give
me
all this crap about digging the whole bloody thing up again. It's bleedin' cruel, disgusting, the way you coppers go about things sometimes.'

‘Did Ramscar do it?' inquired Davies quietly.

‘Oh Christ! No, no, no, he didn't do it.' Norris stopped on the towpath. He caught Davies's sleeve fiercely. ‘Listen, mate,' he said firmly. ‘Ramscar
didn't
do it. Let me tell you that for gospel. He was at Newmarket. Do you think I would have kept it quiet? She was my girl, you know.'

Davies stared at the bitter face. ‘Where's Ramscar now?' he said.

Norris began to walk on angrily. ‘I told you, I don't know. He cleared off abroad years ago. I thought even the police knew that.'

‘I've heard he is back,' replied Davies. A duck moved unemotionally along the canal and was followed by its mate, cruising under the bridge. Davies wondered if their feet ever got cold.

‘Well you know more than I do,' said Norris. ‘I ain't seen anything of 'im. You'd better ask somebody else.'

‘What happened to his wife?' asked Davies. He could see that Norris was genuinely astounded.

‘Wife! Christ almighty, that only lasted a month. Fuck me—his wife! I'd forgot all about her. God only knows where she's gone. I don't.'

‘What was her name?'

Norris stopped and spread his sharp hands. ‘I don't know, Mr Davies, I don't know. Straight up. Elsie or Mary or something, I don't know. I hardly knew her. It was bloody years ago.'

‘May fourteenth, nineteen sixty-five,' recited Davies. He was disappointed that his incisive knowledge had no effect on Norris. All Norris said was, ‘Very likely was.'

‘What did she do, this Elsie or Mary? For a living.'

‘Oh, Christ. I don't know. If I knew I've forgot.'

‘Was she on the game, perhaps?'

Norris considered it. ‘No, not that. Cecil was very particular.'

He pulled up short as if he realized he was talking too much. They had reached the part of the towpath where the humped bridge with its lamp intervened across the canal and the tight lane ran up to the pawnshops and the massage parlour in the High Street.

It was a natural place to pause and they stood on the rise of the bridge, looking down at the inclement water.

‘Why did Cecil Ramscar send a wreath?' asked Davies.

Norris nodded in a dull movement. ‘My missus, I suppose, or Josie. One of them told you.'

‘Why did he?'

‘You're so fucking clever,' said Norris nastily. ‘With your questions and bloody answers. Cecil didn't mean to send a wreath. He's not thick. He asked another bloke, a dopey bugger called Rickett, to send some flowers. Sort of sympathy, just like you'd send flowers to somebody if they wanted cheering up. Cecil reckoned it would nice and he got stupid bloody Rickett to send them. And Rickett got pissed at the pub and sent a wreath instead. Cecil got narked and had Rickett seen to.'

‘Seen to?

‘Sorted out. He don't walk proper now.'

‘Mr Norris,' said Davies. ‘Could you just run through the events of the day that Celia vanished.'

Norris looked deflated. ‘Oh bloody Christ,' he moaned.' Do I have to? You've heard it all from my missus. I wouldn't mind if it was really Celia you was trying to sort out. But you're just having a sniff around for other things. I know, mate, I know.'

Davies dismissed it. ‘I'm investigating the disappearance and presumed death of Celia Norris,' he said formally. ‘Will you tell me what the events of that day were.'

Norris leaned on the bridge and gaped at the unremarkable canal.

‘What happened that day?'

‘It was when I was working for a car firm. In the West End,' said Norris patiently. ‘I saw her in the morning just before I went to work and I didn't see her again. That's all. I told the coppers everything at the time. But they've never done nothing, have they?'

His voice had subsided and the final words came out wistfully. Davies said: ‘We're still trying. That's why I want to see Ramscar.'

‘Back to him,' said Norris, his suspicion returning at once. ‘You'd rather see Cecil than anything, wouldn't you? This whole thing wouldn't be some copper's plan to get at Cecil, would it? You wouldn't be using our Celia to try and get him, by any chance?'

To his amazement Davies saw that Norris's small frame was flooding with emotion. His face shook. Suddenly he turned away and leaned on the parapet of the bridge, put his head in his elbows and wept. Embarrassed, Davies stood back. He pushed out a tentative hand and then withdrew it. Norris continued to sob.

A small girl and an older boy appeared on the towpath and began to walk across the bridge. When they saw Norris they stopped and regarded him with huge interest. Davies made ineffectual movements with his hands.

‘What's the matter wiv 'im then, mister?' asked the boy. The little girl had curved over and was now arched under Norris's bent body attempting to look up into his face. It was as though she were peering up a chimney.

‘He's upset,' mumbled Davies. ‘You two run along.'

‘What's he upset for?' inquired the girl. She was smaller than the boy, but she had jam on her face and she looked determined.

Davies shrugged. ‘He's lost something precious in the canal,' he said unthinkingly.

Norris looked up slowly. His eyes were blood red, his skin puffed and wet. ‘I suppose you think that's bloody funny, don't you?' he said. ‘Copper.'

G
ladstone Heights was a vantage point above a stiff hill at the back of the town. The council flats at its brow had a view and, as though to celebrate their prestige, the housewives had washing hanging like banners and bunting high up there, exalted, where the air was almost clear.

Arrayed below were all the streets, curving like fan vaulting, the dull blade of the canal cut through the hunched houses, the factories making plastics, steels and alloys, paint and fertilizer, cosmetics and baked beans. Each added its own puff of smoke to the congested sky, each ground relentlessly grafting and grubby. Particles of grit performed a saraband above it all.

The flats—for some environmental reason—could only be reached by a steep footpath, the road terminating far below. Davies left the Lagonda and Kitty on the lower slope and began to walk. He bent like a large sherpa as he tackled the tarmac hill. The view expanded with every pace. It was said that Mr Gladstone, when Prime Minister, used to come to this spot for solace and rural refreshment. Now the fields and country trees did not begin for another ten miles.

Ena and William Lind lived on the crown of Gladstone Heights. It was Davies's second ascent. The first time there had been no one in their flat and he descended disconsolately on the steep road, thinking that a watchman's hut in telephone communication with the summit might be a reasonable expense upon the ratepayers.

This time he had, at least, the assurance that there was someone at home because he had carefully calculated the location of their flat among the piled windows and he saw now that, like a welcome lighthouse, there was illumination in the window. Davies thought how useful the situation would be for anyone wishing to send signals down into the town.

As a compensation for the gradient walk, each block of flats had its lift and Davies waited gratefully on the bottom landing for it to descend. Also waiting was a man who complained of the wind that rifled through the concrete doors and corridors.

‘Sometimes up here,' moaned the man, ‘you can actually 'ear it whining through your trousers. Whistles everywhere. What a place to put human beings, I ask you.'

‘It's a long way,' agreed Davies.

‘Stand up on this hill,' the man pursued. ‘Face east and the wind blows straight from Russia and up your legs. There's not another higher hill between here and the Ural Mountains. And this is where they put us.'

The lift, like a biscuit tin, came down and opened. A woman got out with a shopping bag and pulled her collar up around her face before launching herself outside. She emitted a muffled reply to the old man's greeting

‘That's not, by any chance, Mrs Lind, is it?' asked Davies halfway in the lift.

‘Mrs Lind? No, that's Mrs Cotter. Mrs Lind's better than that.' The resident eyed him with fractionally more interest. ‘Going to call on Mrs Lind, are you?'

‘Yes.'

‘Fourth floor, Number thirty-six,' he said.

Davies thanked him and got out at the fourth landing. As he left the lift the man muttered enigmatically: ‘Very nice too.'

Nevertheless Davies was surprised when his doorbell ring was answered by a woman in a leopard-skin playsuit. Her face was carefully put together and her blonde hair assembled like a creamy confection. She idly held a large glass of crème de menthe in one hand and a copy of
Vogue
was tucked under her opposite arm. From the flat's interior came a full, but not indelicate perfume, and the sound of Elgar. It was eleven o'clock on a Monday morning.

‘Oh, hello,' she said. ‘Can I help you?' The tone was modulated cockney.

‘It is possible you may,' replied Davies, straightening his own voice. ‘I am Detective Constable Davies. I wondered if I might take a little of your time.'

‘A detective!' She coincided a purr and an exclamation. ‘How terrifically thrilling.'

She performed a quick, practised sequence. She let him in, poked her face out of the door, looked once each way and withdrew. She saw that he had seen her.

‘Am I being followed?' he inquired to relieve her embarrassment. She laughed throatfully. ‘You never know who's poking their nose in your business around here,' she answered. ‘Council places.'

She led him into the room. It astonished him. Everywhere was lime green. The walls, the tons of curtains, the undulating three-piece suites, the carpet. On the settee was a green cat. ‘We call this the green room,' she explained seriously. ‘Would you like a crème de menthe?'

‘Er,' Davies hesitated. ‘Yes, yes. Thank you. It's a bit early in the week but I will.'

‘It's never too early,' she smiled, going to a cocktail cabinet with a maw that lit musically when it was opened. ‘I love the Green Goddess.'

‘Yes, it's nice,' agreed Davies lamely.

There was a colour television in a green casing in one corner and a stereo deck next to the cocktail cabinet. He looked around for the speakers but they were well concealed. ‘I think Elgar's such an enigma,' she said, returning with the drinks and jerking her head in the direction of the music.

‘Yes, I suppose he is. Was.'

‘Is,' she said. ‘I sit here, listening, just listening, wondering what he is trying to say.'

‘My whole life's like that,' agreed Davies.

‘Ah yes, your police life.' She moved closer and handed him the green glass. He could feel a warmth from her.

‘Let me take your coat,' she said. ‘I'm afraid I like a bit of fug in here. And you have to turn council heating right up before you can even feel it.' He rolled off his great ungainly overcoat and she almost fell forward with the weight of it. She carried it to a bedroom that glowed pink as she entered it. ‘Did anyone see you come up?' she called.