Never Die in January

by Alan Scholefield

  “What’ll I do with it?” she said out loud. Since Eddie’s death she found herself doing this more and more. It was as though she could not stand the silence of the empty flat. She wished she had something alive to talk to but they weren’t allowed to keep pets on the Green Leas Estate. So she had begun to talk to a brown-and-white china bulldog which Eddie had brought home from a fair many years before. It sat on the fake mantelpiece — there was no fireplace — with its pink tongue hanging out. She had never liked it much, now it was her only companion.

  “I’ll put it in the fridge,” she said. “Eat it later.”

  When she’d cleared up she came back into the sitting room and stood looking out at the bleak urban landscape. Dusk was falling. She stood there for a few moments in the grey unlighted room, hidden by the curtains so that “they” would not see her. Then she closed the curtains, put on the lights, and began the long and complicated task of preparing the flat, like some castle in old Outremer, against the besieging terrors of the night.

  CHAPTER III

  “But why?” Manfred Silver said for the umpteenth time. “Why can’t — ”

  “Why?” his wife repeated, shrilly. “Because your daughter goes to hospital, that is why!”

  “For a tooth!” He threw up his clean piano-teacher’s hands in contempt. “I never went to the hospital for a tooth.”

  “Not a tooth. A wisdom tooth. An infected wisdom tooth.”

  “You told me impacted.”

  “Infected and impacted. They have to cut it out. So Ruth goes to hospital. I’ve explained all this a million times.”

  Lottie Silver, in her sixties, wife of Manfred, once of Vienna, now of north-west London — the unfashionable part — made as though to go about her business, but Manfred, once Silberbauer, who only came from near Vienna, as Lottie often pointed out, blocked her path.

  “But why — ?”

  “No! No more whys, no more buts. While Ruth is in hospital Stanley must go to kindergarten; Sidney must go to work (vurk). Someone must look after our grandson and our son-in-law.”

  “And what (vot) about me?”

  They had agreed, when first they had come to England, to speak the language of their adopted country to each other, but under the strain of the argument syntax and pronunciation were breaking down.

  “That is why Zoe comes over. Zoe and Leo. They will look after you.”

  Manfred pulled at his Vandyke beard, always a sign that he was agitated. “But where will they sleep?”

  “What?”

  “There is only one spare room.”

  “That’s where they’ll sleep. Where else?”

  “But they’re not married.”

  Lottie stared at her husband in silence for a moment. She saw a short, portly man with a mass of grey hair. She herself had grey hair and it was untidy and her face was flushed from arguing. Slowly she shook her head in pity and amazement.

  “Manfy…Manfy…What am I going to do with you? They have been living together for ages. They have a flat together.”

  “In Pimlico,” Manfred said, as though Pimlico was Sodom. “Not here.”

  This exchange had taken place the day before. Now nemesis, in the shape of his son, Detective Sergeant Leopold Silver, and Leo’s girl, Zoe Bertram, unmarried and not of this parish, was catching up with Manfred.

  “Just remember,” Leo said to Zoe as they drove across London towards the old-fashioned apartment, “wash your hands every ten minutes and dad will love you for ever and ever.”

  “I know…” Zoe said, with bravado, “I’ve been before.”

  But underneath that bravado there was a nervous substratum. She had accompanied Leo to occasional lunches and dinners but had never before stayed in the large old-fashioned mansion flat. The Silvers had always made her uneasy.

  There was the cooking, for instance. “Jewish food? Is that what he likes? Gefilte fish? Matzos balls? I can get them from Blooms.”

  “Don’t be silly. He’s not some rare exotic species. Anyway, we never really eat Jewish, we eat, well, just what you and I eat.”

  “Bacon? Ham? That sort of thing?”

  “For Christ’s sake, he won’t be wearing a koppel. And he’s not Hasidic, so he’s not going to be wearing a black hat either. You know him, you’ve seen him before. Don’t make such a big deal out of it.”

  “Leo.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I want you to be with me. I don’t want to have to entertain him in the evenings.”

  “Of course.”

  “And Leo.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Just remember, old buddy, like father like son. I’ll be watching you.”

  “Like mother, like daughter.”

  “Being a vegetarian isn’t illegal.”

  “Your mother lives in that…that…”

  “Co-operative. That’s the word. The Alternative Technology Co-operative. And there’s nothing illegal about that either.”

  This was the kind of tension the Silver family managed to create, even in absentia.

  The evening was not as bad as she had anticipated. Manfred had had his supper before they arrived — cold cuts left by Lottie. His habit, like that of great potentates, was to rise from the table when he had finished and leave the disposal of dishes, napkins, etc., to others. In this case it was Zoe, and she took his dishes into the kitchen and generally cleaned up while he played chess with Leo.

  “How’s Ruth?” Zoe said, to break the silence.

  “Queen,” Manfred warned Leo. Leo moved his queen out of harm’s way.

  Zoe waited, but the subject of Ruth was not pursued. She picked up the paper, saw her reflection in a wall mirror and mouthed silently at herself, She’s fine, zank yew.

  At that moment Manfred looked up from the board and saw her apparently talking to herself. Hastily he turned away as though having surprised her in something despicable. He recovered and said, “She’s having a tooth out.”

  Leo said, “We know that, Dad, anyway it’s not just a tooth it’s a wisdom tooth.”

  “A tooth is a tooth.”

  Zoe sat on the sofa and read the paper until the game was over. Manfred won. There was a sharp exchange about Leo’s missed opportunities and then Manfred stood up and said, “I’m going to bed. Goodnight.” He paused at the door. “Sleep where you like, I don’t care.”

  They heard him go into the bathroom. “What did he mean by that?” Zoe said.

  “God knows. Father’s mind is impenetrable.”

  They watched the late news and went to bed. The spare-room bed was icy.

  “For God’s sake!” Leo said, as she put her feet against his legs. “They’re freezing.”

  ““Put them against me,” you used to say. “I’ll warm them up,” you used to say. Things have certainly changed.”

  “Give them to me. I’ll rub them.”

  The light was still on and he looked down at her as he rubbed her feet. She was small and dark and gypsy-looking, with widespaced brown eyes and high cheekbones.

  She said, “Is this what’s called foreplay in the Metropolitan Police? Rubbing feet?”

  “Sssh. Not so loud.”

  “I just want to know your plans.”

  He stopped, listening. She pulled his head down and kissed him. After a moment he drew away and listened again.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Yes there is.”

  “It’s…well…I don’t think I can make it here. Not with my father — ”

  “But he’s gone to bed.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s not natural to me here. Listen!”

  “What?”

  “Can’t you hear? He’s in his music-room. He’s pacing.”

  “Leo, you’re a basket-case. Lock the door if it bothers you.” He locked the door and came back to bed but it didn’t change anything. “It’s mental,” he said.

  They lay next to each other under the bedclothes and held hands. “Darb
y and Joan,” she said.

  After a while he said, “I went to Eddie Twyford’s funeral this afternoon.”

  He described the miserable group at the grave and said, “Macrae started complaining about how few there were. And he was right. The priest didn’t like it, though.” He paused for a few moments and said, “Cremation for me.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  “No, I mean it. When I go I don’t want to be stuck in a box in one of those places.”

  “Leo, don’t. Not now.”

  “Just as long as you know.”

  “All right. I know!”

  “I felt sorry for Gladys.”

  “Gladys?”

  “Eddie’s widow. She seemed so…defenceless…They don’t have any kids. So it’s just her now. And she lives on this estate. That’s another thing. I’m not living on an estate. Not ever.”

  “Right. Cremation. No estates.”

  “You should have seen it. You know those old black-and-white newsreels of World War I, Passchendaele and the Somme?”

  “Torn trees and lines of blind men after the gas attacks.”

  “Well, there’re lines of youths now. They carry chains and bricks, and poor old Gladys is scared out of her wits. Apparently they started persecuting the two of them soon after Eddie left the police. Shoving parcels of…well, never mind what…but shoving them through the letter box. Gladys is too afraid to go out much now. She sort of looked to Macrae to help. Arrest the yobbos, that sort of thing.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  “It’s not on our manor, and anyway you’ve got to catch them at it. Can’t arrest someone unless he’s committed a crime — or at least you’re pretty sure he has.”

  “What about prevention being better than cure?”

  “What about it?”

  “Well, why wait until whatever happens happens? I mean if you know someone’s going to be harmed or killed or whatever, wouldn’t it be a good idea to stop it before you’ve got an injured person or a corpse?”

  “You just can’t go up to people and — ”

  “Come on, Leo. The police can do anything they like. You’ve told me so often enough.”

  “Only by bending the rules. You wouldn’t approve, and for that matter I wouldn’t either.”

  “You sound like the Archbishop of Canterbury. Sorry…I mean the Chief Rabbi.”

  “Very amusing. Anyway Macrae did catch up with one youth and gave him a warning. Told him to lay off.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Macrae.”

  “Well, there was a bit more to it than that.”

  “Threats and menaces?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Will it do any good?”

  “Shouldn’t think so. Anyway, the whole thing’s mainly Macrae’s fault.”

  “You know, Leo, sometimes you get a bit irrational about Macrae. He’s been very good to you.”

  “This hasn’t anything to do with that. No…he didn’t mean it. That’s his trouble. He just doesn’t think sometimes about other people.”

  She thought of Leo’s father and said, “It’s called being selfish. Go on.”

  “Well, it’s a kind of chain reaction. People of Macrae’s rank always used to have drivers. Then there was the big reorganization of the Met to cut costs. No drivers any more. If you were going out on a job you went by Underground or bus or drove yourself.”

  “Macrae? On a bus?” Her voice filled with awe.

  “We travelled on the Underground together once. It was like Star Trek. New worlds. I don’t think Macrae had been on a tube train for years. Kept on scowling at people. There was this young guy who was eating a doner kebab next to him. The smell wasn’t too good. So Macrae tells him to put it away and the guy says mind your own business and Macrae tells him who he is and grabs him and marches him off the train at the next station and makes him eat the kebab right down at the end of the platform and then makes him find a litter basket and put everything in it — and only then lets him go.”

  “I’m with Macrae. I hate people eating in trains and buses. Anyway what’s that got to do with Eddie Twyford’s funeral? You really must learn to think clearly, Leo.”

  “I’m getting there. Well, Eddie was Macrae’s driver in the old days. So to keep him Macrae gets him transferred around the department where he can drop everything when Macrae needs him. It’s strictly against the rules but Macrae’s such a good thief taker that no one complains.”

  “Let me guess. Until Scales arrives.”

  “Deputy Commander Kenneth Scales. The new broom. Right. He warns Macrae, not once but three or four times. Macrae ignores him. Finally Scales buries Eddie so deeply in the filing-room in Scotland Yard that there’s no way Macrae can use him.

  And Eddie hates it. It bores the pants off him.”

  “So he resigns?”

  “Retires. Goes home to live with Gladys on the Green Leas Estate and starts a long-running war with the local lads. The pressure and stress of it bring on a heart attack. And that’s it.”

  “That’s what?”

  “Well, the chain reaction.”

  “So because Macrae doesn’t like to travel next to people who eat doner kebabs, Eddie Twyford dies? Is that the scenario?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You’d better get into a different line of work — ”

  “Ssssh.”

  “What?”

  “I thought I heard something.”

  “Goodnight, Leo.”

  The following morning Leo was in the bathroom and Zoe was getting Manfred his breakfast of boiled eggs. Three and three-quarter minutes. Not three and a half. Not four. Three and three-quarters.

  “Well?” Zoe said, standing over him as he broke the shells. “Very nice.”

  He said it grudgingly, as though he’d been rather hoping she would get it wrong.

  He sipped his coffee suspiciously. He couldn’t complain about that either. He looked at her over the cup. “You don’t have to lock your door here,” he said. “It’s not Pimlico.”

  She was taken aback but, like a volley at the net, she replied, “Didn’t you know? Leo’s afraid of ghosts.”

  Manfred frowned and dipped his toast in his egg. He didn’t really know how to handle Zoe. Her mother was said to be mad.

  Like mother like daughter? He couldn’t say, only that Zoe had always made him uneasy.

  While Manfred Silver was testing his boiled eggs in West Hampstead, Detective Superintendent George Macrae was searching for a slim cigar in his small terraced house in Battersea. He found a packet, but it was empty. “Bugger it!”

  “What is it, George?” Frenchy called from the kitchen. “Nothing.”

  “You want more coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He went into the sitting-room. A forensic team would have had no difficulty in deciding what had taken place there the night before. The curtains were still drawn, there was an empty whisky bottle on the floor and a half-full bottle of Bacardi on the mantelpiece. A brassiere lay on the carpet and a pair of woman’s briefs hung from the branches of a yellowing umbrella plant.

  Macrae opened the curtains and blinked in the harsh winter light, then began to search through the ashtrays. He found a cigar that had been half-smoked, straightened it, lit it, smoked it, and began to cough.

  Frenchy came to the door. She was in her early twenties and was dressed in one of Macrae’s shirts. It was open all the way down and showed a pair of large but firm breasts, a soft and creamy abdomen, and thighs and buttocks which might have been sculpted to suit Macrae’s powerful hands. She was a simple creature who spent a fair proportion of her time with him. It had started because her pimp owed him a favour but she had grown fond of him in a motherly sort of way.

  “You want some breakfast, George?”

  “No thanks.”

  “You should eat something.”

  “No thanks.”

  “You want me to go out and buy a steak?”

&n
bsp; “Jesus! At this time of day? What’s this?”

  It was a black leather bag with a shoulder strap, the size of a large flight bag. In their cavortings the night before it had fallen behind the sofa and some of its contents had spilled out.

  “My work bag,” Frenchy said. She began to put the contents back. He saw soaps and shampoos, a tube of lubricant, face cloth, towel, two pairs of black lace panties, a black teddy, tampons, condoms, a diaphragm, lipstick and blusher, a couple of wigs, one red, one blonde, a telescopic whip, a pair of handcuffs, a vibrator, and a portaprinter for credit cards.

  “I didn’t know you took credit cards. I thought — ”

  “What, George?”

  “I dunno. Thought it was a cash business I suppose.”

  “Modelling fees. It’s kosher. You’re just old-fashioned.” She finished repacking and looked at her watch. “I’ve got a couple of hours. You want to go back to bed?”

  But George was not the man he once was.

  She picked up the morning paper. “I’m going to have a little peruse. I’ll be upstairs if you feel like it.”

  “Listen, I — ”

  The telephone rang.

  “Is that Mr Macrae?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “This is Mr Stoker.”

  Macrae was puzzled for a moment. “Mr…?” Then he laughed harshly. “Stoker? Is that you? Who gave you permission to call yourself “Mister”, you horrible bastard?”

  “There’s no call for that, Mr Macrae.”

  Stoker’s voice was well controlled and Macrae should have guessed right then that something was up.

  “Don’t give me that crap, what d’you want?”

  “Molly…Mrs Gorman would like to see you. She says can you come up to the house?”

  “What’s all this in aid of, Stoker?”

  “Mrs Gorman will tell you.”

  Macrae put the phone down. What did Stoker want and why hadn’t Molly phoned him herself?

  He relit the stale cigar and sat staring out at the winter street. You thought things were over. That they were all right.

  But they never were.

  CHAPTER IV

  Click.

  The light came on. She was glad, she had no wish to see the empty flat in the dusk of a winter’s afternoon.