Shelf Life

by Douglas Clark

  “I think old Joe wouldn’t go into the front shop, Chief.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “There’s a preparation shed at the back. I think that’s where he’d go, because that is where he sometimes worked.”

  “Take us that way, please.”

  They followed Joe Howlett’s route exactly, and came to the wide open garage doors in the back street. A massive woman was standing by the sink, cutting up fillets of white fish on a board and throwing them into a bath of water. She looked up as Masters approached her.

  “Excuse me, could you tell me if Mr Berry is about?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “It depends who’s asking.”

  She turned to face Masters with the filleting knife she had been using still grasped in her great right hand. The blade had been almost honed away with years of use. It was pointed, looked razor-sharp and glistened with fish scales dotted about it like silver sequins.

  “I’m asking.”

  “In that case perhaps you could tell me what right you have to ask. Mr Berry’s shop assistant, perhaps?”

  The growl of wrath that came from the woman’s throat caused Reed, who was standing a few feet away, to move nearer to Masters either to protect him or forestall any attack with the knife.

  “I’m Mrs Edna Corby. Mr Berry’s my father.”

  “Then would you mind telling me if your father is at home?”

  “No he flaming isn’t. I’m looking after things here for him.”

  “Good.”

  “What’s good about it?”

  “You’ll be able to answer my questions.”

  “An’ just what makes you think I’m going to answer anybody’s flaming questions?”

  “Your commonsense, I hope. I’m a police officer . . .”

  “At bloody last! It’s only taken you two flaming days to get here and the nick’s not a quarter of a mile away.” She looked about her. “An’ when you do flaming-well come, there’s five of you. What’s up? Too flaming frightened to come on your own to say you haven’t got the bastard that did it?”

  Masters let her finish.

  “Mrs Corby, I haven’t any idea what you’re talking about.”

  “What I’m talking about? My flaming complaint, of course.”

  “What complaint was that?”

  “The one I phoned the nick about on Tuesday night.”

  “Tuesday night?”

  “Yes. Tuesday night. The night before flaming last if you haven’t got enough gump to know today’s Thursday.”

  Green grinned. He knew Masters wouldn’t like that remark from this hoyden. She really was the most repulsive, domineering, asexual female he could ever recall seeing—with the exception of some of Disney’s characters like the witch and Cruella. For her to get across Masters just had to be good for a laugh.

  “What was the gist of your complaint?”

  “Gist? Is that what you call it? I phoned the nick to tell them that some bastard had put dog muck in both my flaming wellies. I’d left them here, beside the sink, and when I came back and put them on . . . and you say you flaming-well don’t know anything about it.” She waved the knife, menacingly. “You useless great lumps of . . . you’re worse than the stuff in my wellies. Get out of here you good-for-nothing bastards.”

  Masters stood his ground.

  “Actually, I’m not from the local police station, so I couldn’t be expected to know about your complaint. But now I do know, I shall see that it is looked into. In fact, Mrs Corby, I’m from Scotland Yard, and I’m here about an entirely different matter.”

  “And what may that be?”

  “I’m tracing the movements, on Tuesday, of a Mr Joe Howlett . . .”

  “That filthy old bastard!”

  “Yes. Did he call on you about lunchtime on Tuesday?”

  “Yes, he flaming-well did.”

  “For some scraps from the pans, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s what he came for, but he didn’t get any.”

  “There were none?”

  “There was plenty, but I wasn’t giving them to that mucky old tramp. Makes me sick just to look at him, he does. I told him to be on his way or I’d turn the hose on him.”

  “And did you?”

  “What?”

  “Turn the hose on him?”

  “Yes I flaming-well did. On his back.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he wasn’t for moving.”

  “No? And yet you put the hose on his back. That suggests that he had at least turned to go, even if he hadn’t actually started away.”

  “He was flaming cheeky, the old bastard.”

  “In what way?”

  “He called me a fat bitch, that’s what. And he said I’d have been put in a circus if they could have found a tent big enough. So I let him have it, right between the flaming shoulder blades. Do him no harm, either, a bath wouldn’t, the filthy old ragamuffin.”

  “I see. And which way did he go then?”

  “To the left.”

  “Thank you, Mrs Corby. I’ll look into your complaint, but I think I should warn you against using your hose on anybody else. It is an assault, and you could be jailed for it.”

  “Jailed? Get out! For giving that dirty old tramp a wetting? They’d give me a medal.”

  Masters turned and made his way to the pavement where Berger and Betty Prior had stayed throughout the encounter.

  “I think we should go back to the station,” said Masters quietly.

  “You’re not going on, Chief?” asked the W.P.C.

  “Not for the moment. We’ll call at the station and then have lunch. We shall probably be coming back this way this afternoon.”

  “In that case, would you excuse me for a moment?”

  “Of course . . . why?”

  She turned and nodded along the street. A bank of clouds of smoke had begun to roll over the back wall of a building forty or fifty yards further down the street. “I’d better see what all that’s about.”

  “Go with her, Berger. We’ll wait.”

  As Berger and the W.P.C. hurried along, Masters, Green and Reed strolled behind them.

  “She was a bit of a ripe one, Chief. Mrs Corby, I mean. She looked like a woman blacksmith to me.”

  “More like one of the avenging furies,” said Masters. “I wasn’t too sure of that knife.”

  “She could have spitted you with it,” agreed Green. “But I think Reed and I would have got her before she’d done more damage than that.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Not at all. It’s what we aim for on these occasions—the least damage to the fewest number . . . ah, I see those two are having trouble getting in.”

  The gate to the back garden in which the bonfire had been lit was wedged at the bottom with a piece of wood. Betty Prior used her weight against it, but though it gave at the top, the bottom remained solid.

  “Here, let me have a go.” Berger was a big young man. He put his shoulder firmly against the sagging, wooden gate and, by putting his finger into the round latchpole, tried to get enough lift to clear the obstacle. He was partially successful, and opened up a gap a couple of inches wide at his first attempt. He was preparing for a further onslaught when a man’s voice asked querulously: “What are you doing?”

  “Open up,” commanded Berger. “You’re smoking out the whole neighbourhood.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Police.”

  “Stop pushing, then. I had to wedge it to stop people coming in to scrounge. I had one on Tuesday at lunchtime, snooping around.”

  Berger stood away, the gate was forced back into its normal position and the wedge kicked out by the man inside.

  When the gate was opened, a small, bespectacled man in late middle age, dressed in dirty slacks and an old shirt, confronted them. His voice when he addressed them was courteous enough. “Police, you say? What do you want?”

  “It is an offence,” said W.P.C. Prior, �
�to build any form of bonfire within thirty feet of a public highway. This one is less than six feet away from the road, and look at the size of it.”

  Berger was already trying to dismantle the huge heap of cartons, boxes, paper and cardboard. “What the hell have you got here, mate?”

  “I have just finished trading from my shop—after over thirty years. As I hope to let the premises, I decided I had to clean them up.”

  “And this is the accumulated junk of thirty years?” Berger kicked a flaming carton into a clear area and stamped on it. “Get some buckets of water or a hose, man, and put it out. Then hire a refuse skip and get it carted away.” He looked round the yard. “You’ve got enough old bottles and junk here to fill a skip.” He pointed to a carboy in a wickerwork basket. “I hope things like that are empty.”

  “It’s been empty for twenty years. I don’t know why I kept it.”

  “To make a bottle garden, perhaps. Come on, now, friend, get that water before the whole shooting match goes up.”

  “Having trouble?” asked Green, appearing at the gate.

  “Nothing a few buckets of water won’t put right.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” said Green. “Tell your friend to nip down the road to the chippie and ask Mrs Corby if she’ll lend him her hosepipe.”

  “You’re joking, of course,” grunted Berger, using a piece of wood to drag the ignited material out of the heap.

  “Not at all. If the excursion doesn’t result in putting his fire out, it’s guaranteed to cool his ardour.”

  The shopkeeper returned carrying a plastic bucket of water.

  “It’s all yours now,” said Berger. “Make sure you finish it off properly. And for heaven’s sake don’t wedge that gate again. If there’d been an emergency in here we’d have had a hell of a job getting in.”

  “Sorry about that. But you know how it is. When you’ve got a heap of junk like this, some people can’t resist coming in to pick it over. I didn’t want the rubbish strewn from here to kingdom come, so I tried to keep them out.”

  Betty Prior slung her bag over her shoulder, opened it and took out a packet of finger wipes. As she handed Berger a sachet, she said: “I shan’t be reporting this, but make sure it doesn’t happen again. It’s both dangerous and unhygienic.”

  “That’s telling him, lass,” said Green as he escorted her away from the shopkeeper who stood open-mouthed watching her go.

  “More water, dad,” said Berger as he followed. “Get the bucket chain going.” Berger smelt his fingers, then the damp tissue with which he had been cleansing them. “Good lord, I smell like the Queen of Sheba’s armpit.” Disgustedly he threw the little square of paper on to the rubbish pile.

  Chapter Four

  Masters made straight for the desk when he reached the station.

  “Are you Sergeant Watson?”

  “Sir.”

  “How d’you do. We haven’t met, but my name is Masters and this is D.C.I. Green.”

  “Sir,” said Watson again.

  “There’s something I would like to see, Sergeant.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The Incident Book with all Tuesday night’s occurrences.”

  Watson pushed the heavy ledger across to Masters. “It’s all there, sir. Thankfully I was very careful to log all that business to the minute. I suppose you could say I had a feeling about it. At any rate you could say my head was more than full of the name Boyce that night.”

  “I’m sure it was. Are you going home to lunch?”

  Watson shook his head. “I’m staying out of the way as much as I can, sir. Just for a bit. The wife is calming the girl down gradually, and I don’t want to interfere, like.”

  “Stay if you wish, of course, Sergeant,” said Masters. “But don’t distance yourself from your daughter. I think she must be in great need of her father’s friendship just now, and if you stay away, she could think you are deliberately withdrawing your love.”

  “I’d never do that, sir.”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t, but you mustn’t give your daughter a chance to think you would.”

  “I hadn’t looked at it like that, Mr Masters. Thanks for the advice. I reckon I will go home after all.”

  “Good. But before you go, would you mind coming down to the recreation room? W.P.C. Prior can relieve you at the desk for a few minutes.”

  “Now, sir?”

  “Give me five minutes and then come along. It will give me time to fill my pipe and just glance at these timings.”

  “Right, sir.”

  As Masters moved away, he called: “Betty, I’d like you to come down now, with us.”

  Green grinned. He knew Masters wanted to keep the W.P.C. away from Watson so that she could not warn him about the Corby complaint. He wondered what excuse Masters would give the girl. He was soon to know.

  “Do you know Boyce’s two friends, Betty?”

  “Lawson and Mobb, Chief? Yes, by sight.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “It’s the usual story, Chief. They left school a year ago and have never had a job. So they congregate and drift.”

  “They break into houses and vandalise them?”

  “We think they’ve struck five times, Chief, but nobody could get the necessary evidence. That’s why Inspector Snell told off P.C. Sutcliffe to keep an eye on them.”

  “As a sort of special project?”

  “Yes, Chief. But Len Sutcliffe pounced too soon. He caught them in the act of breaking in and before they did any damage.”

  “I see. They damaged property. Did they ever harm people—physically, I mean?”

  “Not that we know of, Chief.”

  “Did they ever play vicious practical jokes?”

  “Like lacing that woman’s gumboots with dog droppings, you mean?”

  “That sort of thing.”

  “Not that I know of, Chief.”

  Masters sat back. “Thank you. Stay where you are for a moment while I look at the book, then you can take it back to the desk when you go to lunch.”

  He opened the ledger and found the correct page. For perhaps a minute he read it, absorbed by what was there. Then he raised his eyes to look at Green. The D.C.I., divining this as an unspoken request to step forward and see for himself, did so, and remained silent after reading over Masters’ shoulder.

  “Is . . . is it there, Chief, Mrs Corby’s complaint?” asked W.P.C. Prior.

  “Yes, Betty. Entered by Sergeant Watson at nine-seventeen on Tuesday night.”

  “Oh! Then he’ll have told somebody to look into it.”

  “I don’t think he did. Wouldn’t you have heard if he did? Wouldn’t your colleagues here have talked about being asked to investigate such an unusual and bizarre happening?”

  “Perhaps he forgot because of what happened soon after that,” suggested Betty.

  “Probably, although . . .” Masters was interrupted by a knock on the door and the entrance of Sergeant Watson.

  “Ah! There you are, Sergeant. Right, Betty, scoot. Look after the desk until the relief comes on, then have your lunch and be ready at two o’clock.”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “Sit down, Tom,” said Green when the girl had gone. “We want a quick word with you.”

  “About Tuesday night’s timings? They’re all there.”

  Masters said: “Not the timings, Tom. I’ll let Mr Green deal with it.” He made a great play of lighting the already packed pipe while Green, who understood that Masters felt that Watson would be more comfortable talking to him than to a Chief Superintendent, drew the ledger towards him.

  “Tom, we’ve got to enquire about comings and goings in the nick on Tuesday night while you were on the desk. Just in case there were any witnesses to any part of it. People you’ve all forgotten about because of Boyce’s death.”

  “Understood, sir. It was a quiet night at the desk. Until after we’d discovered Boyce was dead, that is, then it started going like a fair.” />
  “I’m sure it did. But cast your mind back. You came on at eight, didn’t you? Now, who came in from the outside world after that?”

  “Well, sir . . . there was one party of three—a man, woman and child who came to ask the way to the Earlsfield Estate—that’s a new lot of houses just been built on the edge of the town.”

  “What time?”

  “About eight-thirty, I’d say, sir. Then there was a bit of a lull until a man called Gillingham came in.”

  “What did he want?”

  “He’s the father-in-law of one of our young constables. His wife wanted to leave a book for her daughter and didn’t want to travel right across Colesworth with it. The young copper was to pick it up.”

  “Time?”

  “Well after nine. I know that, because Gillingham said he’d got less than an hour’s drinking time left.”

  “Who next?”

  “I don’t think there was anybody else. Oh, yes, a chap came in to show his vehicle documents after a routine road check.”

  “So you weren’t exactly run off your feet that night?”

  “No, sir. It was very quiet.”

  “Plenty of time to think about things?”

  Watson grimaced. “I’d got plenty to think about, sir. I only wish I had been busier.”

  “Then why didn’t you think about the phone calls you received?”

  “Phone calls, sir?”

  “Yes. Complaints.”

  Watson shrugged. “There were only two came in that night from the public. There was a bit of radio traffic but not much . . .”

  “The public calls.”

  “What about them, sir? I know one was from one of our women magistrates. She’d had a few bottles of home-made wine knocked off a shelf in an outhouse. Probably a cat had walked along behind them and edged them off. But seeing who she was, I sent a P.C. to investigate.”

  “Quite right,” agreed Green, consulting the book. “That was at three minutes past nine.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And at seventeen minutes past nine, there was another complaint.”

  “That’s right, sir. From a woman who had found dog muck in her boots.”

  “What did you do about it?”

  “Nothing, sir. You surely wouldn’t expect me to send a constable to look into something like that, would you?”