How the Dead Live (Factory 3)

by Raymond, Derek

  ‘I don’t think it will either,’ the manager said.

  ‘That’s it,’ I said, ‘there’s no stopping me once I feel lucky.’

  Nothing to speak of was happening on Janine’s baize; three punters, one of them new to me, were playing a desultory game of five card for low stakes. When the girl saw me she gave me a look and said: ‘Back to play?’ In profile her lipless face was as sharp as a meat-cutter.

  I said: ‘Well, I’m not here to talk about the weather.’ I counted two hundred pounds and said to her: ‘Chips for that.’ I said to the others: ‘Do you lot want a real game or are we just going to play fairies?’

  ‘Why not just you and I for a hand?’ said the new punter.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘My money’s on the table, let’s see yours.’

  The girl said frigidly: ‘The house will vouch for Mr Earle; he can play for what he likes.’

  ‘Good,’ I said, ‘because you never know, he might need to.’

  Behind me the manager made a noise.

  ‘I’ll take three ton of chips,’ said Earle.

  ‘No problem, Mr Earle,’ Janine said, and pushed them over to him.

  ‘Well, well,’ I said to Earle, ‘just you and me.’

  ‘Why not?’ he said.

  ‘No reason,’ I said. ‘Cosy.’ He had a thick mouth in a thin face; neither of them liked me. His clothes were expensive but had been on him for a while and could have gone to the cleaners.

  But he had no limit with the house.

  I said to the girl: ‘I believe your name’s Janine.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said, ‘what about it?’

  ‘Let’s have fresh packs about it,’ I said. ‘I don’t like putting new money on used cards.’

  Her lips, never obvious, got lost in her distaste, but she got two sealed packs out. She was about to cut them open with that sickle-shaped thumbnail of hers only I reached over and said: ‘I’ll have a look at those if you don’t mind.’

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ said Earle.

  ‘You can see for yourself,’ I said, ‘I’m risking my money with folk I don’t know, and I’m no Santa Claus.’ All the time I spoke I was feeling the seals, passing the ball of my thumb and index gently over them, to see if they had been steamed off and replaced. I hadn’t done a year on bent Soho gambling clubs for nothing, and in fact I was nearly certain that—

  ‘You want to watch your manners,’ Earle said.

  ‘Don’t we all?’ I answered, ‘only mine are like yours, the kind I can’t help.’

  ‘Try to help it,’ said Earle softly.

  I let that one strain its greens and said to Janine: ‘House sitting in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Just you and me, then,’ I said to Earle. ‘Cut for deal. Aces high or low?’

  ‘High.’

  He cut a nine; I cut an ace, one feel of the pack and I knew how to. ‘Wasn’t that lucky you called aces high?’ I said cheerfully. ‘OK, then, a nice little game of seven card with a wild five.’

  ‘We don’t much go for wild cards in this club,’ said Earle. ‘We’re country people.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘it’s dealer’s choice, let’s see if the city can’t make some sparks.’ I dealt us two cards down and one up and watched Earle pick up his hidden ones. I watched how he handled them and remarked to Charlie without looking behind at him, without taking my eyes off Earle’s hands: ‘Do you see how Mr Earle actually feels those cards, Charlie? Look at his fingers really caressing them.’

  The manager stirred. The girl’s face was blank. Earle stopped his fingers on his cards.

  I said to Earle: ‘Do you feel them bringing you luck when you brush them with your fingers like that? Maybe your old granny was a witch.’

  ‘Just play your hand,’ he said, ‘and stop the chat.’ He had an eight showing; I had a seven.

  ‘Go on, then,’ I said, ‘it’s you to bet.’

  ‘I’ll go a score.’

  I’d nothing in the hole – that didn’t surprise me at all. I said: ‘Your score and raise you a score.’

  The manager coughed. He had no means of knowing yet that I was playing with the taxpayer’s money. They none of them in that room realized that I was playing cards to prove a point that would end better than winning any hand. I dealt us another card – I knew his was a king by feeling it and sure enough, up it came on the table. By chance I dealt myself a five – not that, with what I knew about the packs, it would have mattered if I hadn’t. ‘Ah,’ I said, smiling round the table, ‘that makes it all more equal, doesn’t it?’ The girl gave me a look like an unripe plum. I said to Earle: ‘Well, on the strength of it I’ll go fifty.’

  ‘Your fifty and raise you fifty.’

  ‘I’ll raise you fifty over that,’ I said, ‘a ton if you like.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘just the half ton.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll let you down gently till the next card if you don’t stack.’ His face had begun to glisten like a hundred-day egg. I dealt the next cards; his was only a two, mine another five. ‘Oh, well fancy that,’ I said, ‘three sevens I’m showing, must be my bet.’ I was enjoying myself.

  ‘You going high?’ said Earle.

  ‘Couple of ton,’ I said, ‘if you like.’

  ‘I don’t like.’

  ‘Well, I’m doing it all the same,’ I said, ‘I don’t give a fuck about your likes and dislikes. If you choke on it, darling, I remind you you can stack.’ I said to Charlie: ‘You still there?’

  He was there. I said: ‘How much credit did you say I had? Two long ones?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Go and get it all,’ I said, ‘in cash. Do it now. I’m going to play this man under the table.’

  ‘Your signature will be enough.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘but I shall need to see this punter’s money.’

  ‘You’ll see it,’ said Earle, ‘but not to go into your pocket, now deal.’

  So I dealt myself a seven, which gave me four of them showing – Earle was beaten on the table. ‘Make that last remark again,’ I said, ‘I didn’t quite hear it just now.’ Even if Earle had two fives in the hole, which I was sure he didn’t, I could see from his face that I couldn’t be beat. I said to the manager, still without taking my eyes off Earle: ‘You know, I find this game dull, Charlie.’

  ‘Dull?’ he mumbled, ‘what, with money like that out in front?’

  I said to Earle: ‘All you can do now is stack, that’s the logic of the game.’

  The little bat said: ‘You mean to say you find this boring?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘because it’s bent. Blokey here has two aces in the hole.’

  ‘How do you know?’ she shouted.

  ‘Because I dealt them to him,’ I said. ‘All the cards are marked from ace down to ten, pinpricks at the top left-hand corner.’ I reached over and flipped Earle’s hole cards up. ‘There you are, see? Two aces. And the card he was about to get would have been a king, which would have given him full house aces and kings, but not enough to beat four sevens, you see them?’

  I scooped up all the cards and all the money, the chips, the packs, the seals; I stowed it all away in my pockets. ‘It’s pitiful,’ I said, ‘it died out in cities years ago – did nobody ever tell you that sharp poker players often come on as drunks? And didn’t you ever hear what a wild card’s known as in the cardsharper’s trade? It’s called the mug punter’s insurance policy, because no one can tell which card in the pack the punter’s going to choose. But dealer’s choice is dealer’s choice, and Earle here, who works for you lot, never should have said he didn’t like a wild card – that marked my card – my Christ, what a load of amateurs. Here, while I’m about it, let’s have a look at that roulette wheel you’ve got over there, and I’ll show you where that’s bent as well, if you like. Do you want me to speak louder so that your miserable losers can hear, or would the rest of you like to say something?’


  The manager said to me: ‘Let’s keep calm, shall we? Why don’t you just take all that gear back out of your pockets? House’ll make it worth your while.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, not a chance.’

  ‘Then we might just have to take it off you,’ said Earle, starting to get up. ‘Rough, like.’

  I said to him: ‘In your place, I should be very very careful what you say and do.’

  Earle turned to his audience and sneered: ‘Oh look, the little man’s coming on very strong.’

  I said: ‘And I can afford to, I’m a police officer.’ Silence fell suddenly throughout the room; those were two words that were instinctively heard at every table, and every punter, herding his bird by the waist, began drifting urgently towards the doors. I flipped my warrant card out and said: ‘I am now going to caution you.’ I did that and added: ‘The property I have in my possession, together with my report, will be forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions and may be used in evidence.’

  ‘On what charge?’ said the manager.

  I said: ‘You’ll be told, don’t worry. Now get Miss Baddeley, also known as Mrs Anne Kedward, in here, I’ve a word to say in her ear.’

  But she was already there, a big woman in her forties with a drooping lower lip and eyes as inscrutable as a banknote. I said to her: ‘I don’t know how long you’ve been listening to this, but probably long enough to realize that you’ve said goodbye to your licence and probably your freedom for a longish time.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ she said, ‘the counsel I can afford.’

  I said: ‘You’re going to need the very best there is, by the time we’ve finished with you.’

  She said to Earle: ‘You and Charlie, pick him up and throw him to the wolves on the door. I’ll give you a hand.’

  I said: ‘You’re completely out of date, love, you’re not helping yourself at all.’

  ‘I’d willingly do ten,’ she said, ‘for the pleasure of doing you, you cunt. Where do you spawn in the dark anyway? Vice squad?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘Unexplained Deaths. I’m here to investigate the disappearance of a Mrs Marianne Mardy and I will say this – that in addition to the trouble you are already in, which will serve as a holding charge if need be, if ever I trace a connection between the Mardys, you, your brother and your husband, you will all three of you be staring at a concrete wall for a very long time.’

  Earle had turned the colour of frozen pastry; the little bat burst into tears. The manager groaned: ‘I thought he was just a punter,’ and the woman said to him: ‘You are just a cunt and you have got us all done brown.’

  ‘The less you say in front of me,’ I said, going to the door, ‘the better for you. I should save it all for your lawyers, not that it’ll make any difference, you’ll find. Meantime, the session’s closed.’

  I added as an afterthought: ‘The place also.’

  14

  When I got back to the hotel there was a man waiting for me. I knew him and said: ‘Christ, what are you doing here?’

  It was Tom Cryer from the Recorder. ‘Found you,’ he said, ‘but it took some doing.’

  ‘What’s the flap?’ I said. ‘What are you wandering around here for?’

  ‘I got a hint it was worth making the trip.’

  ‘I don’t need you over this, Tom,’ I said, ‘I could well do without you. I don’t need the press in on this at all.’

  ‘Something’s blowing up,’ he said, ‘something always does where you’re involved. However, if you’re going to be like that about it, it’s not far to go from here back to London.’

  ‘Do it,’ I said. ‘Just do a quick burn back to town. I tell you, I want to be by myself on this.’

  ‘I hear it’s a disappearance case. A woman where people who ought to have cared don’t seem to have.’

  ‘I’m saying nothing,’ I said, ‘except fuck off, Tom.’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s gone too far,’ he said, ‘it’s leaked. If you won’t wear me you’ll have the rest of Fleet Street on your back.’

  ‘Don’t talk downstairs here,’ I said, ‘come up to my room.’ I got the key. When we were in there I said: ‘At least the short time you’re here, Tom, the taxpayer’ll buy you a drink before you go.’

  ‘Isn’t hubby old and mad and a struck-off quack?’

  ‘Let it drop, will you?’ I said. ‘What are you drinking, whisky?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Cryer. ‘It’s no more poisonous than the world we live in.’

  I gave him his drink and said: ‘How’s Angela?’

  ‘She’s fine,’ he said, ‘she’s very fond of you, you know. Christ, I don’t always know why. I wish you’d come over and have supper with us one night.’

  ‘If only I could,’ I said, ‘when I’ve got the time, if I ever get the time.’

  ‘None of us do,’ said Cryer. ‘So, back to work, tell me how far you’ve gone on this Mardy woman.’

  ‘I can’t and I won’t.’

  ‘At least give me some reason why I’m not welcome,’ Cryer said.

  ‘All I can say is I’m worried what the papers would do with it,’ I said. ‘I don’t want a tragedy dismissed as a death on page three in the rags.’

  ‘The Recorder’s not a rag. There’d be no cheapjack stuff. If it’s a tragedy we’ll treat it as a tragedy.’

  ‘That’s not really the point, Tom,’ I said. ‘What do newspaper sales managers know or care about tragedy?’

  ‘You could say the same about the police.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘and I do, and that keeps me down in the ranks where I belong.’

  ‘You’re really strange,’ said Cryer.

  ‘Why strange?’ I said. ‘It seems obvious to me, the difference between what’s straight and bent. At least it does now, though I had to work for it to understand.’ I said to him: ‘All right, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you’ll be patient for a day or so, long before any other paper gets here I’ll give you a story on this case and this town that’ll make everyone sit up – but it’s going to be done my way because I know it’s the only real way; try and understand what neither of us yet knows.’

  In the night I went out on an impulse and was walking swiftly towards the edge of town when a man ran at me out of a sidestreet and seized my arm.

  ‘Who are you?’ I said. ‘Let me go.’

  ‘My name’s Brad,’ he said, ‘I’m Dick Sanders’ brother.’

  ‘Come out under this street light where I can see you.’

  He edged out from the wall – a sallow individual in his late twenties whose hands dangled without apparent purpose on his wrists. He wore a black plastic jacket and torn jeans that told of much rough work done for not much money.

  ‘You the copper from the smoke? You on the Mardy case? I want to talk about them.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘but not out here in the street.’

  ‘We’ll take a walk, then,’ he said, ‘not far, down past the sewage farm where there’s an unfinished estate, that’s where I squat.’

  I followed him into the dark through ruined places and puddles left by the tracks of earth-shifting machines. Projects that had been started by bureaucrats in the wrong area had been abandoned for as little reason; we plodded through rutted clay that splashed with the activities of rats and night creatures.

  At last we got to a block of concrete that had been left roofless.

  ‘Basement we want,’ he muttered, ‘I’ll get a light, we got a stove and wood. Wait there, give me the torch, I’ll not be a minute.’ In that time he was back again with his arms full of oak billets sawn small; I watched as he placed them patiently in and then saw the fire spark between his hands and the paper catch. ‘Can’t get dry newspapers in February,’ he muttered, blowing on the flame, ‘not really dry.’ Men like him had been part of our protection once. They were the descendants of men who had sat still, stroking their horses’ necks as they waited for the cannon to open up across ravines very far f
rom Thornhill but whose spirit, still the same, was now unneeded and abandoned. Next he got a camping gaslight going so that I could see the cement room as it was, damp, the windows left blank and unglazed by the builders when the money for the project ran out. Rags had been nailed up across them to cut the draught, and in a corner lay two old torn mattresses with sleeping bags slung on them.

  ‘It’s just a squat,’ he said, standing up from the fire once he had got it going, ‘but the point is we can’t be seen. You want a drink?’

  I said yes and he said, it’s just home-made but none the worse for that, and reached into a cupboard, emerging with a gallon bottle. ‘By the neck,’ he said, handing it to me, ‘we’ve no glasses.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ I said, and drank. I added: ‘Does Dick live here with you?’

  ‘When he can. But we’re in bother.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He talked to me after you saw him,’ said Brad, ‘and that’s why I wanted to find you. You know how it is, he’s doubtless told you, we’ve none of us fuck all to lose. If we got sent up for twenty years we’d be no worse off than we are at Lakes Mill.’ He put his hands to the blaze and sang:

  ‘Over the hills and a long way off,

  This wind will blow our topknot off.

  Over the hills and far away,

  Here’s a wind will snatch my head away.’

  That was a song the British line regiments sang as they received French artillery in the Peninsula and at Waterloo. We stood against the Tyrant with Polish lancers and German dragoons believing we were saving Europe, and now here the rest of us were in a ruined unfinished building with nothing proved.

  I said: ‘Did you know about this trip with dry ice up to the Mardys?’

  ‘We’re always pushed for money.’

  I said: ‘Just tell me if you knew about it.’

  ‘Well of course I did,’ he said. ‘It was heavy gear, it needed several men. Dick rowed me in and gave me a whack of the money, only natural, but we’re spent out again now.’

  ‘You know where that dry ice came from?’

  ‘Yes, and so do you.’