“I told you I wanted to talk to your Eric, didn’t I? And I said I wouldn’t mind if you were present. So now I’ve found him I’ve brought him home. I want a word with Ted, too, so I thought you wouldn’t mind if I did it all together while you listen and make us a pot of tea or a mug of Nescaff.”
“Come in. If that’s what you want . . .”
“To get it all over and done with, love.”
They trooped in, and she sat them round her dining table. Eric had to fetch two stools from the kitchen to accommodate them.
“Now,” said Green, offering his packet of Kensitas to Mrs Lawson, “what we’ve got to do is to discover exactly where young Boyce went last Tuesday after leaving the court; and we want to know every word he said, as well.”
“May I know why those two things are so important?”
“He got hold of a bottle of wine that contained poison. He drank it. It killed him. I want to know where he got it from. And these two young men are going to tell me, even though it means they have to admit to another crime.”
“I’m saying nothing,” said Mobb, reverting to his previous obstinacy.
“Oh yes you are, lad, or the night in the cells is on without any hesitation. I’m not going to run around trying to get information from people who don’t know it, while all the time you have the answers. So, let’s get on with it. You left the court by soon after eleven in the morning of Tuesday. What happened? Where did you go?”
“To a café,” mumbled Eric. “For a coffee.”
“Which one?”
“It’s opposite the court. Across the road. You go down some steps into it.”
“The Basement,” said Sutcliffe. “I know it. It’s not bad. A sort of transport place, but used mostly by council manual workers and the like. They wouldn’t get any booze there. And they wouldn’t be allowed to act the fool, either. There’s always enough strong arm talent in there to stop any youngsters trying to cause trouble.”
“What did you talk about?” asked Green.
“Him mostly,” said Mobb, nodding at Sutcliffe. “How he hadn’t managed to get us.”
“So it was a self-congratulatory session, was it? Then what?”
“When we came out of there it was nearly dinnertime,” said Eric.
“Go on.”
“We didn’t want to stay in that Basement place, so we came out and walked up the road.”
“Where to?”
“Well, we went round that crescent place and along the road that runs into Albert Street.”
“That’s near the railway station,” said Sutcliffe.
“Then what?”
“There’s a pie place there.”
“Where?”
“At the bottom of the station approach. You can eat them inside or take them away.”
“You bought pies?”
“And chips. We had them there. Norm liked it because they cook curry and fry onions and it always smelt good to him.”
“But you didn’t like it?”
“Not much. It’s only about as big as this room and there’s about six rows of tables—like planks—running across it and down the sides. Everybody crowds in and when it’s hot it stinks of food and frying.”
“But Boyce liked it, so you all went?”
“Yeah,” said Mobb. “Because the pies was good, too. And they was cheap.”
“I see. What did you talk about?”
“In there? You couldn’t get a word in edgeways.”
“And you couldn’t hear if you did,” said Eric.
“Right. What next?”
“We went to the park, didn’t we?”
“You’re telling me, lad, not asking me.”
“That’s where we went.”
“To do what? Sprawl on the grass?”
“Yes,” said Eric. “There wasn’t many people about. The office workers who’d been sitting on the benches eating sandwiches had gone back to work, and the mothers with kids weren’t out yet. There were a few people with dogs, that’s all.”
“I can picture the scene,” said Green. “With you three lying about on the grass, smoking fags and talking.”
“That’s right.”
“So what was said? And tell me exactly, because that’s when the real talking was done, wasn’t it? When you were alone in the middle of a great playing field?”
Eric nodded glumly.
“Speak up, Eric,” said his mother sharply.
He looked at her. “Norman said no bloody woman was going to treat him like that and get away with it.”
“What woman was that?” asked Mrs Lawson.
“The woman magistrate,” replied her son.
“Miss Foulger?” asked Green.
“That’s her.”
“What happened?”
“Ted asked him what he was going to do about it.”
“You asked him, too,” said Mobb.
“And what was his answer?”
“He said, ‘We’re gunna do’er, aren’t we?’”
“Did he, now?”
“Yeah! He did.”
“And what did you say?”
“We both told him he couldn’t because the fuzz would know who’d done it straight away if he broke in there and smeared walls and things. He asked who was going to do that, and when we said he’d said he was, he said no, he’d simply said we’d do’er. And we would, but we were going to be very clever about it.”
“What did he propose to do?”
Mobb replied. “Norm asked me if I ever watched telly and when I said of course I did he said then I’d know how the fuzz works. They look at what they call the M.O. of every crime—he said that meant method of operating.”
“It does—more or less.”
“He said if we altered our M.O., you’d never get on to us. We wouldn’t break anything or wreck the place and the fuzz would think it wasn’t us.”
“Why should they do that?” asked Green. “Seeing that as far as the police know you haven’t committed any crime except the one you were up for last Tuesday, and on that occasion you didn’t do any damage in the house, did you?”
“You dropped us right in it there,” said Lawson to Mobb.
“I certainly think you tricked them,” said Mrs Lawson.
“How, madam?”
“You got them to talk.”
“Only to report on their conversation in the park. And be fair, I’ve just said that as far as the police know—and by that, I mean can prove—they are responsible for no other crimes.”
“You mean you’re not taking what has just been said as a confession?”
“I’m not taking any notes. Nor is anybody else. And what is more, love, I think you’ll see the value of what this lad said just now. You see, there’ll be no more crime from these two, because if there is, then what has just been said could be given in evidence. But as from now, these two are going to tread the straight and narrow. They’ve too much at stake to do anything else, and now Norman Boyce isn’t here to suggest further break-ins . . .” Green didn’t finish. He paused to let the warning sink in and for Mrs Lawson to appreciate that Mobb’s words had put the two youths in a position from which there would be no escape in further crime.
After a long moment of silence, Mrs Lawson said: “I think you deserve that coffee now.” She got to her feet. “I’ll leave the kitchen door open so I can hear what goes on.”
“You do that, love. We don’t want to leave you out of anything. That’s why we’re here.”
Green took out his battered cigarette packet. “Any of you jokers want a fag? Nobody? Good.”
“You didn’t give us a chance to answer,” said Reed.
“You have to learn to be opportunist, Sergeant. Now, back to cases. Young Boyce said that you three had to alter your M.O. so that the police would be fooled into thinking that some other group had done your jobs. Did he say how he was going to change it?”
“Yes,” replied Eric. “We weren’t going to muck things up, but w
e were going to nick a few things.”
“You’d never nicked anything before?”
“No.”
“Why start now?”
“Norm said it was time we got ourselves a bit of bread. We needed more than the Social Security gave us.”
Green turned to Sutcliffe. “Is it right they didn’t steal anything?”
The constable nodded. “No reports of theft, sir. Just vandalism.”
“Which is, if anything, worse than theft. Busting up everything people had worked for. Theft is greed, but vandalism is envy, and they’re both deadly sins.”
Mobb and Lawson looked abashed. Green said: “So what did Boyce say you were going to nick?”
“Mostly money if there was any. Then trannies and that sort of thing.”
“Good,” said Green. “But changing your M.O. wouldn’t just mean nicking stuff instead of vandalising. You’d have had to change lots of things to fool the police. Like how you broke in, for instance.”
Lawson looked at Mobb. “I told him that, didn’t I?” He turned back to Green. “We’d never broken in. We’d only gone in where we found an open window.”
“So?”
“I asked Norm how we were going to get in, seeing he’d said we’d have to change the methods. I told him that if we had to break windows there’d be a row to attract attention.”
“And what had Boyce to say to that?”
“He said, ‘Use your bonces, you two. I don’t know how we’re going to get in—yet. We’ll have to do what all the big boys do. We’ll have to case it.’”
“It?”
“He meant we’d go along to Miss Foulger’s house and look it over. He said we’d plan it and then keep our eyes open to see when she wasn’t there. Then we’d get in by the way we reckoned best.”
Mobb added: “He said we were going to make her pay for what she’d said. We’ll give her idle good-for-nothings. We’ll show her we’re good enough to make her feel sorry for herself.”
“That’s right,” said Lawson. “I pointed out to him that she wouldn’t know it was us, but he said, maybe not, but she’d know it was somebody and that would make her think twice before running off at the mouth. In fact, he said we’d probably do her more than once. Let her get over the first time and then go in again. It’d cost her, he said.”
“Did he say how?”
“He said all nobs like her had insurance and every time they got done the insurance cost more.”
“He seems to have thought of everything.”
“I know. I said I hadn’t thought of that insurance business and he asked me if I ever thought of anything.” He turned to face Mobb. “And you! You said all I could think about was my bird. ‘Call me Coral, Eric, I like it better than Carol.’”
“To which, no doubt, your friend Boyce had a suitable reply?”
“He said it wasn’t the only thing she liked . . .”
“Eric!” Mrs Lawson stood in the doorway with a tray of mugs of coffee.
“It’s what he said, mum. And Ted here said, ‘Hark who’s talking. You and Pam Watson. What are you going to do about her, Norm? She’s a cop’s daughter.’”
“Oh yes,” said Sutcliffe menacingly. “And what had your pal to say to that?”
“Nothing much. He said we’d go and look at Miss Foulger’s house. It’s out of town, a bit, and stands on its own. A sort of cottage.”
“I know it,” said Sutcliffe.
“What happened?” asked Green, acknowledging the receipt of a mug of coffee with a raised hand.
“Well, we went there, didn’t we? If you go out of the park at the far corner—through the hedge—you come to the river . . .”
“River?” said Berger. “I didn’t know Colesworth was on a river.”
“Stream, Sarge,” said Sutcliffe. “About four feet wide. Pretty though. It runs through a sort of shallow valley with a good few trees and bushes about.”
“In other words, a good, covered approach route,” said Green.
“For most of the way,” admitted Lawson. “Then you have to go through a hedge into a big field where there was a herd of cows. We followed the hedge round . . .”
“Why? In case there was a bull there?”
“For cover,” said Mobb. “We had to go round and then through the side hedge. That brought us out just near the end of the Foulger dame’s garden.”
“Go on.”
“Well, we went in, didn’t we? It’s all fruit trees and currant bushes . . .”
“Plenty of cover, in fact.”
“Yeah! And then we came to this little brick shed behind the house.”
“The one Miss Foulger uses for wine making.”
“We didn’t know that then. It looked just like a little outhouse.”
“So you broke in.”
“No, we didn’t. The door was open a bit.”
“Are you trying to tell me anybody leaves an outhouse—with wine in it—unlocked, with people like you about?”
“It was open, honest,” said Lawson. “It was an old green door, and it had a key in the lock. I remember that.”
“I’ll believe you—thousands wouldn’t. So you went in. What happened?”
“Well . . . there was a row of bottles of wine on a sort of work bench under the window.”
“And?”
“Norm grabbed the one nearest the door. He said he’d have it because it was fullest. He was going to put it in the stream to cool it.”
“Go on.”
“I didn’t want one. Ted didn’t either.”
“Don’t like wine,” said Mobb, “and it was too hot to carry a heavy bottle around.”
“So what happened?”
“Norm got angry because we wouldn’t take our bottles. He had his in his hand. He just stepped inside the shed and swept the others off the bench with the back of his other arm. He was really uptight about it.”
“Go on.”
“Well, it made a hell of a row, all those bottles breaking, so we scarpered.”
“Back the way you came?”
“Down to the river. Norm put the bottle in the water for a bit then he took it out and started to drink the wine.”
“How did he get the cork out?”
“Wasn’t a cork. It was a white plastic thing. You could pull it out and put it back as often as you wanted.”
Green glanced at Berger, who asked: “Did either of you have any of his wine?”
“He wouldn’t give us any,” said Mobb.
“You asked for some?”
“Well, it was bloody hot. I could have done with a swig. But he said we’d been too chicken to get bottles for ourselves so he wasn’t going to share his.”
“Lucky for you,” said Berger. “Carry on with the story.”
“Nothing else. It was getting on for tea-time, so we all came home.”
“Each to his own home?”
“Where else?”
“But you met later? In the evening?”
“Ted and I met and went looking for Norm. He was still angry when we found him because his bird—Pam Watson, that is—hadn’t turned up. We wandered about a bit, then Norm said he was very thirsty, like, and he was going into the pub for a drink.”
“A pub where he was known?”
“Yeah! The Flag. We go there because they know we’re over eighteen. Some of the other landlords won’t serve us. Say we’re not old enough.”
Green privately thought that the said landlords were using lack of years as an excuse for not serving yobs, but he said nothing.
Berger continued the questioning.
“You went with him?”
“Yeah.”
“How much did you have?”
“We had half each. Norm had two halves.”
“When did you leave The Flag?”
“Just before closing time. Before half-ten.”
“Was Boyce sober?”
“Well . . .”
“Was he?”
Lawson and
Mobb looked at each other, both obviously disinclined to reply. Berger wasn’t letting them off the hook, however. “Now listen to me, you two. You shot your mouths off to that reporter. You told him Boyce had only had two halves to drink. You didn’t mention that he’d had a full bottle of probably very potent home-made wine before that. Why not?”
“Tell Mr Berger what he wants to know,” said Mrs Lawson emphatically. “Go on, Eric, tell him.”
“Don’t bother,” said Green. “We can guess. By the time you two got Boyce out of The Flag he was showing signs of being shot at, wasn’t he? And you two bright Herberts, his pals, couldn’t manage to get him home before he flaked out in front of Burton’s, where Constable Sutcliffe found him. Right?”
“Yes,” murmured Lawson.
“And you know what that means, don’t you? It means that you hadn’t enough nous to get help for him. If you had called for an ambulance, the hospital might have done something.”
“How were we to know he’d been poisoned?”
“You weren’t to know, lad, and that’s the only thing you can congratulate yourselves on, because you hadn’t the guts to stay with him when he crashed. You scarpered, leaving him alone to be found by Constable Sutcliffe, who could only assume he was drunk. But why didn’t you stay? I’ll tell you why. You’d been let off only a few hours before with a strong warning not to get into trouble again, or else. And you thought that if you were caught with Boyce in that state, the fact that you’d been up to Miss Foulger’s house with him would somehow leak out and you’d be nicked again, with every chance of being sent to Borstal.”
Mobb, surprisingly, admitted the charge. “Only it wasn’t quite like that,” he said. “It was Norm who had pinched the wine; it was Norm who had broken the other bottles; it was Norm who had got drunk. We reckoned there was no sense in getting done for what we hadn’t done. If we’d known he was ill—really sick instead of being just boozed-up, I mean—we’d have got him to the hospital. We would, straight up.”
“That’s right,” added Lawson.
“Right. I’ll believe you. But I’ve one last question to ask you.”
“What’s that?”
“Could Miss Foulger have got to know in any way whatsoever that you were going to visit her house?”
“No chance,” said Mobb.
“You’re sure you didn’t talk about it in the Basement Café or the pie shop? That somebody didn’t overhear you?”
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