Death of a Bovver Boy

by Bruce, Leo

  ‘Not so salubrious if he was there.’

  ‘He kept a Coffee-House named the Jamaica Inn, and in the words of the parent who told me this and was only just able to snatch her elder son from the man’s clutches, quantities of the drug cannabis resin was obtainable there. He was even suspected—though not, it seems, by the police—of dealing in heroin.’

  ‘Really? I can scarcely believe that a pusher of heroin worked in Brighton without being discovered.’

  ‘You would be right. My informant told me that Swindleton was sentenced to six months imprisonment. It seems that he was treated lightly as a first offender.’

  ‘And now he’s at it again?’

  ‘So it would seem, on information which I, for one, find not lightly to be dismissed.’

  ‘Thank you, Headmaster. I shall certainly keep that in mind.’

  Chapter Eight

  This was more the type he was used to, thought Carolus, as he sat facing Ronald Swindleton across a large ornate ‘Director’s’ desk. This was the kind of creature, in and out of prison for mean and cowardly crimes, shifty-eyed, over-dressed and having an ‘old-chap’ kind of speech which made his conversation sickening. Carolus knew where he was, as the cliche goes, with men of Swindleton’s type, knew that it was only a question of time before the discothecaire would be slapping him on the back or pawing him in some way in an excess of pretended confidence. Carolus meant to avoid such familiarity and so far as he could maintain his role of a private detective employed by persons unknown. It seemed to work wonders with Swindleton.

  ‘I wish I could help you, old man,’ he said offering Carolus a cigarette which was refused. ‘The truth is I didn’t know much about the lad. I believe he used to come to my joint from time to time, but so did a few hundred others.’

  ‘So many? You must be doing very well.’

  ‘Well, you know what I mean,’ smiled Swindleton.

  ‘Yes. I think I do. But it’s not what you say,’ said Carolus. ‘Who were young Carver’s associates?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say, off-hand. I daresay some of the girls would know. I tell you what, I’ll try to find out for you and give you the information in a few days’ time. How would that do?’

  ‘It wouldn’t do at all,’ said Carolus, without giving any explanation of why he was turning down this handsome offer.

  ‘Can’t do more than that,’ Swindleton said, lifting his narrow shoulders in an elaborate shrug. ‘We can’t keep tabs on all our customers. After all, we don’t know they’re going to be murdered, do we? No one could have been more upset than me when I heard about Carver.’

  ‘When did you hear?’

  ‘Must have been the Tuesday or Wednesday after it happened. I was sitting here as I usually am at this time in the morning when young Des Grayne rushed in and asked if I’d heard about Dutch. Of course I asked what about Dutch, and he said “Been done, that’s all. Taken for a ride. Now he’s in the morgue over at Newminster.” I thought he was trying to be funny at first. You know how these kids talk. Half American slang, or what they believe it is. So I told him not to be a bloody little fool.

  ‘He said “Straight up, Ron. Dutch has had it. Stark bollock naked and dead as a door nail.”’

  ‘Are you sure he said “taken for a ride”?’ asked Carolus.

  ‘Yes. But that doesn’t mean anything. Old-fashioned slang from American gangster films of the twenties and thirties. That’s all he meant.’

  ‘You don’t think he was speaking more literally?’

  ‘No. He wouldn’t know anything about that.’

  ‘He called you “Ron”?’

  ‘Yeh. Well they all do. Kids do, nowadays. They all say “Ron”. After all it’s my name.’

  Ts it?’ said Carolus evenly. ‘Was that the name you were convicted under?’

  ‘What are you talking about? You can’t say things like that, you know, whoever you are. I’ve never been convicted.’

  ‘Brighton. 1969,’ said Carolus.

  ‘What do you want to bring that up for?’ said Swindleton. ‘How would you like it if someone raked up your past when you were trying to live it down? And anyhow, what’s it got to do with Carver’s death?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Carolus. ‘What has it?’

  ‘Bloody nothing. And you know it. Carver was a kid like any other who came here some nights. Liked to dance. Talked to a few girls.’

  ‘That’s what I asked you—who were his associates? You said you would have to make enquiries.’

  ‘So I shall. But it just occurs to me. There was one girl he saw a lot of—Jenny Rivers. He used to come in with her and stay with her all the evening. That’s if June didn’t appear.’

  ‘June?’

  ‘June Mockett. One of my hostesses.’

  ‘Oh you have “hostesses”, have you? I shouldn’t have thought you’d have bothered for a few teenagers without much to spend.’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  ‘I daresay I would. I often am by what is called “the youth of today”. You mean they can find money to throw about when they want to?’

  ‘I don’t know about throwing it about. They never seem short of a few bob.’

  ‘How about Carver?’

  Mr Swindleton looked like an insect impaled on a specimen board. His eyes went everywhere except to meet Carolus’s eyes.

  ‘Funny thing about Dutch,’ he said at last. ‘He always seemed able to find a quid or two and yet he never did a stroke of work. His parents were separated and didn’t give him a bean. I never understood it.’

  ‘This is the boy you don’t know much about. You’d have to make enquiries before you could even say who were his associates. Perhaps it has all come back to you?’

  ‘Don’t be sarky, old man. You know how it is when someone asks you something. I just couldn’t call it to mind for the moment. I remember Dutch now. Little peaky fellow…’

  ‘Who was murdered,’ ended Carolus bluntly.

  ‘Yes. That’s right. Or so they say. There doesn’t seem to be much proof. From what I hear he might have had a smash on his bike.’

  ‘Yes. So he might. As he was riding along naked with his bike in the garage.’

  ‘You are a sarcastic bugger!’ said Swindleton. ‘Everything I say you have to be sarky about. What I meant was nobody seems able to account for his death. Unless you can?’

  ‘Oh yes, I can. In several different ways and by a number of different people. But only one of them would be the right one. The trouble is finding that.’

  ‘Must be. Yes,’ said Swindleton who seemed scarcely to have heard what Carolus had said and looked jumpy and upset. ‘Very difficult it must be. With all these teenagers you get nowadays.’

  ‘You think that Dutch Carver was killed by his contemporaries?’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t keep using words I can’t understand. I never went to a university. I mean some of his mates. Teenagers, like him. You know the sort. Any of them might have done it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That I can’t say. Something to do with a girl perhaps. Or the length of his hair. They might have meant only to mug him and went too far. It might be anything. You’ve only got to read the papers.’

  ‘Most of the crimes of violence among the young seem to be connected with drugs,’ said Carolus.

  ‘Don’t you believe it, old man. Pot smokers are the quiet sort usually. Never do anyone any harm. All they want is a smoke and they’re harmless as kittens.’

  ‘Think so?’

  Swindleton seemed to recollect himself.

  ‘So I’ve been told, anyway,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t know from personal experience?’

  ‘Oh don’t keep bringing that up again, old man. I’ve done my bird for that, so now you can surely let me alone. I didn’t do anyone any harm.’

  ‘It depends on what you call harm. And what you call “anyone”.’

  ‘Well, anyone. They’d have found the stuff if I hadn’t
sold them a little. That’s what I told the Law. What d’you want to come down on me for? I said. If I hadn’t sold them a little, someone else would have, I said, and probably much more. I was unlucky, that’s what it was.’

  Just then a good-looking girl, made up rather too noticeably, came into Swindleton’s office.

  ‘ ’Lo darl,’ Swindleton said.

  The girl did not smile.

  ‘I didn’t know you were busy,’ she answered with a glance at Carolus.

  ‘Not really. Meet Mr Carolus Deene. This is June Mockett. How about pouring us a drink, ducks?’

  The girl went to a cabinet obediently.

  ‘What’s yours Mr Deene?’ she asked in a rich contralto voice. When Carolus briefly named a Scotch she said ‘Would you like ice?’ as though it was a matter of importance. Carolus said no, and there was a silence.

  ‘Mr Deene’s been asking about Dutch Carver,’ Swindleton said.

  ‘Poor Dutch!’ said the girl feelingly.

  ‘I believe he was quite a friend of yours,’ Carolus said.

  June smiled.

  ‘I should scarcely say a friend,’ she said. ‘He was about ten years younger than me. I liked him all right.’

  ‘But you knew him?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I knew Dutch,’ smiled June. ‘We all did, didn’t we Ron?’

  ‘Mr Swindleton tells me he scarcely knew him at all,’ put in Carolus quickly.

  June tried to follow him.

  ‘Perhaps not all that well,’ she said. ‘But we knew him. He came here.’

  ‘On business?’ Carolus asked.

  ‘Mr Deene thinks I’m a pusher,’ said Swindleton scornfully. ‘He’s heard all about me in Brighton and thinks every customer of this place only needs to be turned upside down for the pot to drop out of their pockets, don’t you Mr Deene?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Carolus.

  ‘There you are!’ cried Swindleton indignantly. ‘He knows it all. How about heroin? I suppose I traffic in that, too?’

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve got no actual proof of it yet.’ Then Carolus added meaningly—‘Dutch is dead, unfortunately.’

  To Carolus’s embarrassment Swindleton changed his tone of sarcastic indignation for sudden tearfulness.

  ‘You see what he’s doing to me, darl?’ he enquired of June. ‘It’s not fair. It’s not giving anyone a chance. You believe me, don’t you, June?’

  The girl looked at the wretched man and answered calmly—‘Sometimes.’

  ‘What d’you mean “sometimes”?’ Swindleton shouted. ‘You ungrateful bitch. Have I ever told you a lie?’

  ‘Oh yes. Often. But you may not be lying about Dutch. I must say I never knew him to take the hard stuff.’

  ‘Or handle it?’ asked Carolus quietly.

  ‘No,’ said June. ‘But of course I didn’t know all that went on.’

  ‘I’ll say you didn’t!’ said Swindleton, then turning to Carolus he added—‘Nothing went on. Nothing went on, I tell you. The kids came and had a dance in the evening. Didn’t I learn my lesson when I was at Brighton? There was nothing more to it than that.’

  ‘Nothing more except murder,’ said Carolus. ‘Aren’t you forgetting that?’

  ‘Murder? What’s that to do with me? I suppose you’re going to say next that I killed young Dutch?’

  ‘Why should you have done?’

  ‘That’s what I want to know. There’s got to be a reason before you throw accusations about, hasn’t there?’

  ‘Could be several reasons. Someone might have wanted to shut his mouth. Someone who had to hide something.’

  ‘I suppose you’re getting at me again. Well, you say what you like, Mr Deene. Say I murdered him and put his clothes in the furnace of the Sauna…’

  ‘I certainly haven’t said that,’ said Carolus, showing interest. ‘I didn’t even know you had a Sauna bath.’

  Swindleton seemed to grow almost hysterical.

  ‘I haven’t!’ he shouted. ‘I haven’t! I was only showing you how ridiculous it is to connect me with Dutch’s death.’

  ‘Is there a Sauna bath here in Hartington?’

  ‘Yes,’ said June. ‘It’s called the Ringside. For men only.’

  ‘D’you know it Mr Swindleton?’

  ‘No. Yes. I don’t know what I’m saying half the time, the way you carry on at me.’

  ‘But do you?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been to it once or twice.’ His voice rose. ‘I’ve never seen the furnace. I don’t even know that it’s got a furnace. It may be heated by electricity. I wish you’d leave me alone. I’ve got work to do.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Carolus, his manner changing to sudden amiability. ‘I shouldn’t have kept you talking all this time. We’ve all got our work to do, haven’t we?’ Then suddenly he threw out in a cool way which seemed to startle Swindleton more than ever—‘When did you see Dutch last?’

  But this misfired. As though with desperation Swindleton pulled himself together and said—‘A week before he was missed, if you want to know. On the previous Sunday morning.’

  ‘Where?’ asked Carolus.

  Swindleton did not bat an eyelid.

  ‘In church,’ he said. ‘Singing a solo in the choir. He had a beautiful voice.’

  June joined in to repeat her previous expression of sympathy. ‘Poor Dutch!’ she said. ‘Poor little wretch.’

  ‘You know he had two girl friends?’ Carolus asked June.

  ‘I only mentioned one,’ reflected Swindleton, and turning to June, ‘Jenny Rivers,’ he explained.

  ‘What about her friend?’ asked Carolus.

  ‘Which friend?’

  ‘Big busty girl,’ Carolus repeated from the description he had heard. ‘Always got a grin on her face. Works at King’s Supermarket. You’ll nearly always find her on the vegetable counter.’

  ‘He means Lotta,’ said June.

  ‘Oh, Lotta! Why didn’t you say so? Yes, Dutch used to see quite a bit of Lotta. You might ask her if she knows anything.’

  ‘What sort of thing?’

  ‘What you’re looking for. You’ve time to go round to King’s Supermarket now. Just down the road. You’ll nearly always…’

  ‘Yes. On the vegetable counter. But there are still one or two things I want to ask you. For instance, did Dutch push for you?’

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean,’ claimed Swindleton. ‘I told you he just came here for a dance or two.’

  ‘Oh yes. That’s what you said. But if he didn’t, who did, Swindleton?’

  ‘Why d’you keep on at me? I’ve told you that’s all forgotten.’

  ‘By the Law?’

  ‘Well, it ought to be. I’ve got a clean sheet now. It’s only when someone like you comes along and tries to mess it up I get jumpy. June here will tell you…’

  ‘No she won’t,’ said June. ‘You can both leave me out of this.’

  ‘Well, she ought to tell you, after all I’ve done for her, the ungrateful bitch.’

  ‘Actually,’ June said with that infuriating tone that people adopt for the word. ‘Actually I do think you’re wasting your time, Carolus. This one hasn’t the guts to kill a bluebottle, and I don’t mean a policeman.’

  ‘Of course he’s wasting his time. Haven’t I told him so?’

  ‘You’re not very convincing, either of you. Why not suggest another line of enquiry?’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ said Swindleton. ‘Try a woman called Bodmin.’

  It seemed that June was surprised.

  ‘Bodmin? D’you mean little Liz’s mother?’

  ‘Certainly I do. Didn’t Dutch used to run round with the child?’

  ‘Yes. But what…’

  ‘You don’t need to make a show of puzzling your brains—either of you. I know Mrs Bodmin.’

  ‘I suppose it was her sent you to pester me?’

  ‘No. As a matter of fact it wasn’t. She suggested quite a different line of enquiry. But she knows you, I
gather from that?’

  ‘You gather something from everything. I’ve never seen the woman in my life. Not that I know of. I’ve only heard of her as being a fair old cow, letting her child run about the streets all day.’

  Carolus stood up.

  ‘There’s only one more thing,’ he said to Swindleton. ‘Can you ride a motor-bike?’

  ‘Can I? What’s this in aid of? What d’you want to know for?’ asked Swindleton rising to the question as Carolus thought he would. ‘I haven’t had a motorbike for fifteen years or more.’

  ‘I asked you if you could ride one?’

  Swindleton flushed with fury said—‘I don’t bleeding know. I haven’t tried—or not for donkey’s years.’

  ‘It’s not a thing one forgets,’ said Carolus coolly. ‘Goodbye Mr Swindleton. Goodbye … June is it?’

  ‘June Mockett,’ said the girl pronouncing the syllables with decision.

  ‘Of course. That’s it. Goodbye, June.’

  Chapter Nine

  A motor-bike came to a noisy halt in front of Carolus’s house in Newminster and the rider pulled it up on its stand. Then two very strange-looking young men advanced to the front door.

  Uncombed, and it would appear uncombable hair leaked down from under their crash-helmets which were ornamented with skull-and-crossbone designs crudely painted. It was impossible to distinguish their faces behind the eye-shields they wore.

  Carolus heard the front door bell ring and a few minutes later Mrs Stick appeared in a state which might be called ‘put out’ ‘upset’ ‘in a huff’ or simply ‘indignant’.

  ‘I won’t let them in!’ she said. ‘If you could see them, sir!’

  ‘I can. I have,’ said Carolus.

  ‘It’s not their dirty boots I mind, but they shouldn’t be allowed in the house, not whatever you’re trying to find out from them. They’re not fit. I told them, I said, yes, Mr Deene’s in, I said, but I don’t suppose for a minute he’ll see you, I said. They’ve got hair down their backs and I don’t know what to think, whether they’ve come to stick a knife in you or whether they’re what they call impersonators.’

  ‘Surely you’re used to the hair-styles of young men by this time, Mrs Stick?’