How the Dead Live (Factory 3)

by Raymond, Derek

  The night porter hobbled on to the scene and said: ‘Gents, I’m sorry, but you’re making too much noise, folks is trying to sleep. Haven’t you no bleeding beds to go to?’

  I went back upstairs and heard my phone ringing. ‘It’s me,’ said Cryer, ‘I’m in a call-box just outside Thornhill, what do you want me to do?’

  ‘Play this my way, Tom,’ I said, ‘please. I’ve got myself in bother, but never mind that. Go straight back up to Mardy’s place and stick to the man till I can get to you.’

  ‘What’s going on up at Mardy’s?’

  ‘I’ll tell you now what you’d have found out anyway – his wife’s in a deep-freeze in the basement and has been for months. This thing’s all breaking, I just want it to break my way and no other. Now this is your chance for the interview, but I want you to calm the man, not turn him on. I know it’s not your role, but help me and I’ll help you. You just look after the man till I can get up to you there, don’t bully him for the story now.’

  ‘What’s the rush?’

  ‘The rush is that I’m afraid you’ll find him in a terrible state – an interfering jumped-up detective-inspector has had his current at the house disconnected so they can get the body out and take it to the morgue for an autopsy, and if what’s inside the fridge there rises far above minus sixty-five centigrade it’ll start to go bad, and that’s what the rush is, Tom.’

  ‘But what did this man get the current cut for?’

  ‘It was just sadism.’

  ‘Did you get uptight with him? I know you.’

  ‘Yes, I altered his face, and that’s the trouble I’m in.’

  ‘It sounds like trouble for you all right.’

  ‘It does, and it is.’

  ‘I heard Charlie Bowman was down around there somewhere, nosing about.’

  ‘He is,’ I said, ‘I’ve just left him. But until I’m officially suspended I’m still on this case.’

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  ‘Wipe Baddeley up while I’ve the time, plus one or two others. Can you contact me?’

  ‘I’ve got a phone in the car.’

  ‘Give me the number.’

  When I had it I said: ‘You’ll need strong nerves in that house, Tom, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Worse than McGruder?’

  ‘Just as bad,’ I said, ‘but differently.’

  ‘No real story’s ever easy.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘it isn’t. Now for the love of Christ get going.’

  I got through to the emergency service of the electricity board and explained who I was and what I wanted.

  ‘I’ll have to check.’ The man I was talking to was gone a long time, and when he finally came back on the line he said: ‘I’m afraid what you’re asking for’s not possible.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The Mardy electricity supply’s not to be touched; it’s to be left disconnected, and that’s police orders.’

  ‘I am a police officer, and I’m asking you to reconnect it.’

  He took my name and rank and said: ‘This has come down from higher up than you.’

  ‘Can’t you bend the rules just for once? It’s this man I’m worried for.’

  ‘It’d be my job if I did. Anyway, there’s a lot of money owing on that account.’

  ‘There could be a life owing if something isn’t done right away.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What’s the use of that?’ I said bitterly.

  ‘Why don’t you talk to the area manager in the morning?’

  ‘Why don’t I talk to almighty God?’ I said.

  (Mardy had said to me: ‘I take dignity and respect among people to mean everything, honour and mutual trust – nothing else seems to matter. In that belief I find it possible to reach across any barrier and, if only in my dreams, retrieve every thing I have lost. I’m sixty-three now and ruined, but others will take up the great path.

  ‘My life and heart scatter on the wind of broken images. It’s hard for me not knowing why, for I’m sure I don’t understand what’s happened to me. Existence, to me, is so closely associated with experiment and risk that it’s painful for me to be destroyed by a society that understands neither. I can only say that in my heart I belong to a time when all men were free, and that now I grieve how we went down in our innocence.

  ‘However, my dead remarry in the air I breathe, invisible yet solid, reliving their situations in this wet house – a calm, upright spirit is the one response to evil, and that is our fight.

  ‘At least I know now that what I have lost here I can never lose again.

  ‘Oh God, if I had been born stupid I would have gone to my death like an ox and been eaten for my meat by my tormentors without ever knowing or caring why.’)

  26

  When I got into Baddeley’s living-room he was not alone. There was this chunky young sod with him in a white denim jacket and jeans, the latter with some dinner over them. The aggressive stare in his eyes was spoiled by their redness; he was a pisspot to me. You could see he was used to the fighting game by the way he held himself, but I doubted if he had ever seen many rings but stone ones – i.e. a street. When I came in Baddeley said: ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Both of you,’ I said. I said to the young fellow: ‘Who are you? Is your name Prince?’

  ‘That’s right, copper,’ he said, ‘Johnny Prince I call myself, and what is your fucking name?’

  ‘It’s here on my warrant card,’ I said, showing it to him, ‘but that’s not what you really need to bother about. It’s what I’m going to do to you that you need to concern your brains with.’

  ‘Ho, ho, ho,’ he jeered, ‘and what might you be going to do?’

  ‘Nick you, turn you round and send you off to an HM Prison workshop for rather a long time.’

  There was a short pause that seemed long and then Prince said: ‘Oh dear oh dear oh dear, we are in a temper today, aren’t we? And what might the charge be?’

  ‘There’ll be more than one,’ I said. ‘Conspiring to conceal a death, then there’s blackmail and, who knows, it might even go further than that.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky.’

  ‘That’s what they all say,’ I said, ‘right up to the bit where the judge says ten years, no recommendation. So now listen, bunny rabbit, are you the brains in here or just the minder? Why not let the boss get a word in?’

  ‘Watch your fucking mouth,’ said Prince, ‘or I’ll smash it through your teeth, copper.’

  ‘Even if you were able to,’ I said, ‘that would do you no good at all, the jam you’re both in. Now since you are just the minder all you need to do is fuck off, as you are beginning to give me a very big pain in my arse. I can see you’re on the slow side, but have you got it?’

  Baddeley was on the sofa watching all this. For some reason he giggled. I said: ‘I shouldn’t giggle, Walter.’ I said in a voice as grey as death: ‘The real jokes haven’t started yet.’ I added to Prince: ‘Now don’t stand there, darling, when I’ve told you not to. I want a word with Walter here on his own. I’ve marked your card, now get out of here, you miserable wanker, and do it fast – I don’t bother with bunny rabbits.’

  Prince turned white. ‘Go very easy on that talk,’ he said.

  ‘With you,’ I said, ‘I don’t need to go easy on any talk. I can go the distance with you – I can be as deliberate as I like.’

  Prince said: ‘And you are being. If you weren’t a copper I’d have killed you by now.’

  Baddeley said to me: ‘Look, why don’t you just calm down?’

  ‘Walter,’ I said, ‘this is a free and easy age, I know – but you just don’t talk to police officers like that.’

  ‘Why not?’ he sneered. ‘I talk to everybody else in Thornhill like that.’

  ‘That’s an agreeable stage in your life which is about to come to an end, Walter,’ I said. ‘I’m in a very bad temper with you, in case neither of you had noticed, and I’m no Inspector Kedward – which
is lucky for me, because he’s about to be nicked too.’

  ‘What’s the charge?’ said Baddeley.

  ‘That’s none of your business,’ I said. ‘However, I’ll tell you: accepting a bribe, you know all about that, you little villain, but that’s only a start. Now get rid of this poof, will you, before I lose all patience.’ Whereupon Prince said: ‘All right, that’s it,’ and came at me and I said: ‘Indeed it is,’ and stamped on both his insteps very hard.

  ‘You can’t insult and attack people in my house!’ Baddeley screamed. ‘Prince is my personal assistant!’

  ‘So is the devil,’ I said. I went over to Prince, who was sitting on the carpet moaning and stroking his feet. I said: ‘Never ever do that to me again, like have a go, do you understand, because it’ll be your fucking head next time, not your feet.’ I turned back to Baddeley and said to him: ‘What else does this cunt do for you, besides delivering dry ice to unfortunate old men and polishing the grate?’

  ‘He’s a bearer in my undertaking business.’

  ‘How nice to take your last journey on his shoulder. Look at him on the floor there, Walter, good old British stock, turn his hand to anything, from burials to blackmail, a bit of an all-rounder, isn’t he?’

  ‘We’ve all got to live,’ said Baddeley anxiously.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And die too.’

  Prince, his head coming and going backwards and forwards over his feet, moaned: ‘Why don’t we bury him, Walter? The bastard’s on his tod, there’s none to see.’

  ‘I’m one of those folk that never stay buried long,’ I said, ‘and I could see you out any day.’

  ‘Look,’ said Baddeley, ‘I can see you’re uptight over this business with the Mardys, but it was just a commercial deal.’

  ‘It certainly was,’ I said, ‘and it’s one of those deals that’s earned you a second-class single to a load of porridge. Now get up off that sofa.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just do it, darling.’

  ‘You’re not going to have a go at me, are you? What? Are you? Are you mad?’

  I said: ‘Get up and take your glasses off, I don’t want to blind you.’

  Baddeley said: ‘Help me, Johnny, you can see this fucking copper’s going to start.’ Now all his pretensions had dropped and he talked like any villain.

  ‘I can’t, Walter,’ Prince said. ‘Can’t you see I’m hurt? I’m hurt bad, look at my feet.’

  I said to Baddeley: ‘Get up on yours, undertaker.’ ‘No, I’d rather make a statement,’ he said. He added: ‘With my lawyer, of course.’

  I repeated: ‘Get up.’

  ‘But I’ve got a weak heart,’ he mumbled, gazing at me like a sick animal, ‘anyone in Thornhill’ll tell you that.’

  ‘I’m fed up with what I hear in Thornhill,’ I said. Prince had realized how tight the moment was for the two of them and was trying to pick himself up off the floor. I said to him: ‘If you want a really good kick in the earhole you can have it. But if I were you I’d just go on trying to mend your feet. Keep quiet.’

  ‘Police officers can’t behave the way you’re going on,’ said Baddeley.

  ‘I’m other things besides a police officer,’ I said, ‘like a man, for instance – I don’t like you playing tricks with weak people.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ said Baddeley.

  I said: ‘Come outside.’

  Prince said from the floor: ‘Negotiate, Walter. Negotiate.’

  I said to Baddeley again: ‘I tell you, come outside.’

  I pushed him outside to the drive where his Rolls-Royce stood. I said: ‘That car, is it locked?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Unlock it. All the doors. Wide open.’

  He sensibly did as I told him, then he said: ‘Now what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ll show you,’ I said, getting my cock out. I pointed it into the car and pissed all over it; I’d been looking for a place for some time.

  ‘You’re pissing on twenty-six thousand quid’s worth!’ he screamed.

  ‘Yes, but the money’s not yours,’ I said. ‘Somehow I just don’t care.’

  ‘There must be a way to stop this,’ he entreated, wringing his hands.

  ‘That’s what Mardy thought when you began bleeding him,’ I said. ‘But there wasn’t, and there isn’t going to be with you either.’ I pissed on all over the seats, all custom-upholstered in lambswool.

  Baddeley began to cry. ‘The stink’ll stay in the upholstery for ever!’

  ‘Good,’ I said, finishing my piss and zipping myself up. ‘But where you’re going you’re not going to need a car anyway, you can’t drive this thing round in a cell.’ Prince hobbled outdoors as I turned round. He said to Baddeley: ‘For Christ’s sake let’s top him.’ He looked dreadful. He was holding a shooter, but it didn’t look very steady. In his other hand he held a cut-glass tumbler full of whisky.

  I said to him: ‘I very strongly recommend you to put that gun down,’ and Baddeley said: ‘Yes, I’ve got to talk to this man, you – fool, and I can’t do that if he’s dead.’

  Prince began to cry. He said: ‘Now this cunt’s brought me down you don’t want to know about me any more, do you? That’s the fucking strength of it, Walter, isn’t it?’

  Baddeley said: ‘Now don’t be idiotic, Johnny.’ At the same time he tried to get away into the dark. Prince fired at him. He missed; the bullet crashed through the windscreen of the car. Prince threw the gun down on the gravel and stood there with tears running down his face. ‘I feel so small,’ he said with his head down on his chest, ‘so bloody small.’

  ‘All right,’ I said. ‘That’s enough.’ I went forward, picked up the gun and looked at it; it was a Colt .38 revolver. I dropped it in my pocket. Baddeley said to Prince in a hard voice: ‘Johnny, get indoors. Somewhere where I can’t see you. Get out of the way, Johnny.’

  ‘So you don’t need me,’ he said, limping towards the front door. ‘You don’t need me.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Baddeley said to his back, ‘nobody does.’ Prince disappeared into the house. Baddeley turned to me now and said: ‘Forget about Johnny. What I want to know is, what can we do about this business, Sergeant?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  ‘Oh come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s be friends. I could give you a cheque for twenty thousand right away. Or cash if you don’t mind waiting till morning when the banks open.’

  ‘The banks can open and shut as they please,’ I said, ‘I’m not interested.’

  He turned white. ‘You can’t mean that.’

  ‘I do,’ I said. ‘Blackmail, accessory to murder, you’re going to go down for fifteen years minimum, you’ll see.’

  ‘What about Johnny?’

  ‘He can forget the sunshine for ten years.’

  ‘This is just laughter and jokes,’ said Baddeley.

  I said: ‘Yes, and didn’t the Mardys love it.’

  ‘Look, thirty thousand, then. All cash. A nice little nest-egg, Sergeant. I’ve got ten thousand in notes in my safe, and you can have it to be going on with, the rest tomorrow. So we forget about all this, what do you say?’

  I said: ‘I’ve got photocopies of all the payments between Clearpath and Wildways. I’ve got the proof I need to break you, and I’m going to.’

  ‘You people have no sense of fairness,’ he sobbed.

  ‘That sounds really funny,’ I said, ‘coming from you.’

  Prince reappeared on the doorstep. He still held the tumbler in his hand, but now it was empty. He leaned against the stucco masonry of the porch. ‘I hate you,’ he said to Baddeley. ‘I really do, Walter. What’s the use of working for a man who makes love to you and then lets you go down?’

  ‘He’s going down himself,’ I said.

  ‘I want to do myself some good,’ said Prince. ‘At least let’s forget about the shooter.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘The load of dry ice for the Mardys was me and Sanders. That was ou
r lark.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, ‘and you’re going to sing like one.’

  Baddeley shouted at him: ‘Will you just fuck off, Johnny!’ Prince staggered off, and Baddeley said to me: ‘Look, for the last time.’

  I said: ‘The last time was the last time.’

  ‘Give me one chance,’ he said, ‘just one.’

  ‘You had it and used it long ago,’ I said.

  ‘How the fuck did you make Mardy talk?’

  ‘With pity,’ I said. I started to walk away. Baddeley tried to hold me back by the arm but I shook him off; I got into my car and drove out of there back to Thornhill in a state of great depression.

  27

  I walked into Thornhill police station; Turner was sitting there.

  I said: ‘Is Inspector Kedward in?’

  ‘He’s not available, sorry.’

  I said: ‘Make him available.’

  ‘For someone who’s on real bother you like giving orders, don’t you?’ Turner said.

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘you mean that man’s jaw I broke.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and not just anyone’s jaw, it was a police inspector’s jaw.’

  I said: ‘It was a cunt’s jaw, but I suppose these things get about.’

  ‘You’re the living proof that they do,’ said Turner.

  I said: ‘Get Kedward out here, otherwise I’ll go in, I’ll do it myself. I’m just trying to be polite but I’m not trying that hard, see.’

  ‘You never make much of an effort over that,’ said Turner, ‘no.’ He started to get up, but Kedward came shooting out before he could. He said in a white voice: ‘Did you want to see me?’

  ‘You bet your life I do,’ I said. ‘I suppose this is going to be private, I don’t know why, so are you showing me the way or am I going to take it?’

  He understood. I looked at myself in the reflection of a window as I went after him. I looked frightful. I looked as if I had slept in my clothes, and I had; since I’d been down in Thornhill I hardly seemed to have had a chance to get them off.

  ‘Well, sit down,’ said Kedward when we were in his office.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘this is something I prefer to stand up for.’