He pulled out a gunmetal watch at the end of a leather strap. ‘Ten to twelve. I think we’d be the better for a pint. By the way—one other thing about your tearaways. Nearly forgot it because it’s one of my headaches and no concern of yours. Next Saturday to Monday—Whitsun weekend and Bank Holiday.’
‘What about it?’
‘Trouble expected with the ton-up lads, the mods or rockers or whatever. Apparently there was a fight last Saturday at The Demon. The word is that they’re coming back in strength for a real old fashioned punch-up. I’m sending down all the chaps I can spare, which will be about four—say six with the local man and a sergeant. It should be enough but we’re liable to be thin on the ground if Clacton or Southend ask for additional chaps—as they have.’
He stood up and stretched himself.
‘It might give you a lead if you’re still minded that way.’
15
The Night of the Demon
SATURDAY, THE FIRST day of the Whitsun holiday, began so gently that the sun did not disperse the veil of mist until it was no longer dawn but full morning. In the main estuary the three anchored merchantmen remained silhouettes without detail, sleeping on water as featureless as frosted glass. The promise of heat hung in the air and only the gulls failed to recognise that this was an hour for laziness and whispering. They swerved and screeched about the Bowl as the tide ebbed, quarrelling petulantly over mysterious treasures in the mud.
From his bedroom window Morty observed the plain clothed figure of Sibling emerge from a door in the sail lofts on his extreme left, retrieve a lady’s bicycle from behind one of the brick piles on which they stood and vanish silently towards Forty Angels and presumably breakfast. A solitary bather crunched across the pebbled yard, still rubbing his back with a multicoloured towel and presently two men in yellow oilskins loaded a boat with baskets and tackle and rowed away towards the shipping, their path making a wide swathe of light on the pearly water.
Morty descended to the reassuring atmosphere of bacon and eggs and put his head into the kitchen to announce his arrival. The poet of the saltings had avoided his guest since their encounter but Dixie appeared to be at some pains to ignore the affair, if indeed she was aware of it. She greeted him cheerfully as she looked up from a large pan of Demon cakes which she was cutting into squares.
‘A lovely day, Mr Kelsey dear. Makes you want to sing “Oh what a beautiful morning!” I hope it stays that way.’
‘Any reason why it shouldn’t?’
Her forehead puckered as she concentrated on the equal divisions of cake. ‘Well, there is, you know. We had that silly man Simmonds here last night, full of warnings about mods and rockers and I don’t know what else, telling me I needn’t open the pub if I didn’t want to—as if I didn’t know my rights—advising me to watch my step. I told him it was up to him to keep things in order outside and that indoors I’d look after myself, thank you. I have, too.’
‘Hired a few chuckers-out?’
She laughed. ‘That’s about the size of it. A couple of lads from Firestone are coming in as extra barmen and the whole of the darts team are spending the evening here. You’ll be away all day, I expect? I hear the doctor is coming down . . . ?’
Morty accepted the enquiry with a grin.
‘I guess I’ll look in at The Hollies. You can count me out if you’re worried about tables for lunch.’
Dixie patted his hand. ‘Just as well,’ she agreed. ‘You’ve made your peace with her, then? You should never have let that wicked little tart pick you up, Mr Kelsey dear—it’s no way to do your courting with a real girl. I’d give Saltey a miss over the holiday as far as you can. It’ll be overrun with trippers and tourists which is fine for me, since I’ve a business to run, but no good for people like yourself. I doubt if we’ll see half a dozen regulars all day. They don’t like strangers. Run along now and I’ll get your breakfast.’
The invasion began whilst he was still eating. Three motor cycles roared and skidded over the forecourt, disappearing towards the sea wall and reappearing from the opposite direction, having established a rough-riding circuit of the inn regardless of property. Presently a vehicle which had once been a London taxi but was now painted shocking pink and decorated with slogans arrived by the edge of the Bowl and disgorged a group which might have come from a quatrocento harlequinade.
‘Don’t blow your cool,’ proclaimed their transport. ‘This is a Freak Out. Watch it, Fuzz!’
A sexless face framed with dark unkempt hair appeared at the open window and a hand holding an enamel can was thrust towards his table.
‘Hey, you. Get us some water will ya? We wanna brew up, see?’
It was a demand made with conscious truculence. Morty surrendered to it with as much grace as he could muster. Prudence, however, suggested that he should remove his precious Lotus Elan from the doubtful security of the stables of The Demon and he drove slowly out of the hamlet towards the comparative security of The Hollies.
Overnight, several more tents had appeared on the open land between The Demon and the derelict churchyard and the occupants in various stages of undress were taking the sun. A new caravan and three or four cars rested on the twitchy grass. An ice cream tricycle was already doing good business and a diversity of transistors sprayed the air with a confetti of competing rhythms, but the true inhabitants of Mob’s Bowl had locked their doors and barred their windows as for a siege, offering no welcome to visitors.
Morty was relieved to see Dido’s trim little car drawn up by the portico of The Hollies but as he approached the garden room his spirits began to wilt and he found his heart beating uncomfortably. Mr Lugg greeted him with a conspiratorial grin.
‘’Er ladyship will receive you shortly,’ he announced. ‘And I might add that I think you’re going to be lucky. My Mr C is comin’ down this afternoon and ’e seems to ’ave told ’er that you’re not the ’orrible Carsonoma that you make out. You’re to stay for luncheon which will be served out of a lot of very classy tins.’
Dido, emerging unexpectedly from the garden with a sheaf of early delphiniums, found them deep in a discussion on bachelor cooking. She was wearing a white blouse with trousers of saxe blue linen and her hair shone like a blackbird’s wing.
‘The patient has recovered, I see,’ she said formally. ‘One of my swifter cures. No headaches, I hope?’
‘None, lady, none. The marks under my eyes are simply visible signs of my anxiety for your safety. I get bad dreams but that’s my private terror complex. Campion says not to worry but I can’t play it so cool. . . .’
‘Forget it,’ she said and put out a hand. ‘This is a holiday. My official week off from the rota.’
He held her at arm’s length, surveying her from head to toe.
‘Anything you say. Just stand there just as you are and let me get my breath. If your week turns out to be a century that will be too short for me.’
It was an idyllic morning. A cuckoo shouted from the copse beyond and was answered by an echo from inland. From the road behind the high brick wall came the occasional rattle of a motor cycle, but the garden remained a remote sunlit arbour unconcerned with the passing parade.
Mr Campion arriving late in the afternoon found them asleep on cushions and Edwardian travelling rugs on a lawn which was beginning to show respectful signs of Lugg’s handiwork.
He left them silently and applied himself to the telephone in his bedroom, comforting himself with the thought that no young woman could retain such limpid perfection even in her dreams without a certain amount of forethought. Morty, it was clear had made a deeper impression than he supposed.
His six calls brought him no comfort and he descended to the tinkle of teacups punctuated by the ripple of Dido’s laughter. Mr Lugg, another of her willing slaves, had decided that an Edwardian tea party was fitting, and had produced a three tier ‘curate’s friend’ cake stand which supported small triangular sandwiches of cress and paté.
‘No silver tea
pot,’ he announced regretfully. ‘It’s been ’ocked or nicked or given away, I suppose. Below stairs spoons, too, but the china’s O.K. Came out of one of the knick-knack cases. . . .’
He paused disapprovingly as a passing motor cycle drowned his words. ‘And that’s another item which is not the article, if you take me. Very mackaber. Ton-up kids wearing voodoo masks. They’re ’orrible enough themselves, without that.’
‘Masks?’ enquired Mr Campion mildly. ‘Did you say voodoo masks?’
‘That’s exackly what I said.’ Mr Lugg was forthright. ‘Like those shrunken heads which are just the job for making the parlour look ’omely when you come back from a luxury cruise to central Africa. You can get ’em at any shop when you ’appen to be laying in yer stock of itchin’ powder, green deformed ’ands, vampire’s teeth and what not. Only these ’appen to be more Chinese tiger type.’
‘Or Demon style?’
‘Young demons ’ell bent on ’aving a kick-up at The Demon, I shouldn’t wonder. If I was you, Mr Kelsey, I’d give your ’otel a miss until they’ve gone.’
‘The trouble with a mask,’ said Mr Campion, ‘is that the face behind it can be any age you like. Who’s to tell? I think Lugg has a point there, you know.’
Mob’s Bowl was having one of those days which Ned Ward, the London spy, would have recognised as belonging to his own age. Londoners flooding out to the coast to catch the holiday sun were seeping like a tide into every byway and The Demon, as the last hostelry on a road which ended at its doorstep, caught a large share of the trade. Sandwiches and the celebrated cakes disappeared by battalions, washed down with beer more easily measured by the barrel than the pint. By midday the narrow road from Forty Angels was blocked with cars unable to turn and only cyclists infiltrating by footpaths could reach the inn or the sea wall, except by abandoning transport and proceeding afoot.
Dixie, working with concentrated skill and apparently inexhaustible energy, was not happy. Money was pouring in but the total occupation of the house by apparently militant youths dressed in what looked like uniforms cast off by S.S. troopers or Austrian Hussars made her nervous and at moments actively frightened. The rockers, who by definition ride more powerful machines than mods and who make a display of living dangerously, had established themselves in the main bar shortly after noon and occupied it exclusively by strong arm tactics, so that less forceful customers crammed the Snug and passed refreshments by hand to those outside.
The masks, evidently agreed upon in advance as the smart wear of the day, produced their quota of sensation, for the designer had avoided the accepted pantomime convention of wickedness and created a face with narrow oblong eyes, wisps a horsehair for a Capricorn beard and a mouth of the same cruel shape outlined in scarlet. Stripes of yellow and black like tribal markings scored the cheeks. The intentionally shocking quality was increased by the modernity of the presentation of mindless wickedness which yet had echoes of the ancient pit.
There was no doubt of their success in creating an atmosphere of dangerous uncertainty, but the heat of the day cut the triumph short. The penalty for wearing such an emblem of terror for more than a few minutes in a close atmosphere is a suffocating bath of perspiration and the denial of refreshment. Having achieved their purpose the owners either pushed them to the tops of their heads or discarded them altogether.
A police van, a uniformed motor cyclist and an official car had arrived before noon and the vehicles were prominently parked in front of the inn. Embarrassed and impotent, the occupants sat with apparent indifference whilst the revellers danced invitingly around them, resuming their masks for the purpose. It was a display of defiance, half comic and half menacing. Discomfited Authority is always a delight to holidaymakers and the free entertainment was received with relish.
Sergeant Throstle having taken stock of the situation muscled his way into the main bar and drank a pint of warm beer with rather less opposition than he had secretly hoped. He took mental notes of those he recognised, but since he himself was known to several of the customers, his eavesdropping was limited to well chosen insults aimed at him from a safe distance. Presently he retired discreetly to the sail lofts and ensconced himself in the comfortable but unpleasantly warm eyrie of the lantern. The lookout point of Harry Morgan had been wisely chosen. With his glasses he could pick out every detail of the anchored shipping, admire the figures of the water skiers from across the estuary who careened around them and count the crews of small yachts with billowing multicoloured spinnakers far out to sea. Bathers along the sea wall defied the mud and struggled out into the flat water. Inland, the narrow neck of road to Forty Angels was clearing and picnickers dozed amongst their papers and bottles on the verge. A concentrated roar of engines from the ground closer to him caught his attention and he leaned forward counting heads as the invading army departed as noisly as it had arrived.
He followed its progress across the saltings and finally lost it as it vanished like a swarm of angry bees heading towards Nine Ash. A dancing curtain of heat hung over the further hamlet and for a long time there was no human movement. Presently Throstle eased his body on the straw padded sacking which covered his perch, stretched himself and fell deeply asleep.
He was awakened by a clang above his head which startled him into a cold sweat and made his ear drums dither. The second sound, that of a stone rattling and sliding down the corrugated iron roof just below him, explained the cause and he jerked himself forward in an effort to discover the origin of the missile. From the forecourt of The Demon a group of picnickers and a solitary policeman were looking curiously in his direction and he watched grimly as the man in his blue official shirt set out to discover the disturber of the peace. The search was careful enough but plainly fruitless for it was impossible to guess the direction from which the stone had come and each caravan, tent, shack or abandoned boat offered cover for a marksman.
Throstle descended from his perch and made his way towards the uniformed man. He was not the local P.C. Simmonds but the young mobile officer who had remained after the main party had left.
‘Any luck?’ he enquired.
The youth shook his head. ‘A skylarking kid, I reckon. Makes a din, that old weathercock. You want a good eye to hit it.’
Throstle nodded towards the police cycle with its shining aerial parked by the inn. ‘Are you in touch with Nine Ash on that thing?’
‘Just about—it’s only short range. If you’re interested in the tearaways they headed off towards Maldon and Mersea. Inspector Branch said to tell you if I saw you. He thinks they may come back.’
The long twilight of late May did not bring peace to The Hollies for after sundown the roaring rattle of motor cycles began again and the trees beyond the walled garden flickered into spasms of unnatural detail as the turning headlights took the corner on their way to the Bowl. With nightfall came a small, chill wind which shivered the last of the may blossom to the grass and brought wisps of shouting and laughter across the saltings. An occasional rocket swept into the air to burst in a plume of stars and the erratic banging of squibs and small fireworks added their quota to the atmosphere of discomfort and unease. The Bowl, whether it had been invited or not, was having a party on its doorstep. Nearer at hand even the Angel was having a share of custom but the barrackroom quality of its welcome did not encourage visitors to a second drink.
Dido and her guests ate a cold meal almost without conversation in the formidable mahogany-laden dining room. The drop in temperature had wiped out the day’s magic and Mr Campion after his afternoon with the telephone sat with one ear directed towards a bell which refused to ring in reply. His face was drawn as if the lines about his mouth and forehead had decided to become permanent. They drank coffee in the garden room where with twilight the scent of eucalyptus had become heavier. The table had been spread with a map of the eastern suburbs on which he had traced in blue pencil the western end of the ancient route linking Saltey with the original Mob’s Hole at Wanstead.
The wail of a siren like the melancholy warning of wartime air raids came distantly to the group and instinctively they turned their heads in the direction.
‘The fire station at Firestone,’ said Morty. ‘They make that noise to alert part time members. I wonder what’s cooking?’
Mr Lugg’s voice from inside the house but above their heads brought news. ‘A tidy little blaze out at the Bowl. I’d say. Come up ’ere and take a dekko. Might be the sail lofts by the look of it.’
Morty caught Dido by the shoulder. ‘Nothing to do with us,’ he said. ‘You’ll stay right here. If you want a view go and watch from a bedroom, but no joining the fun tonight. What do you say, Campion?’
‘I? Oh, I agree. Probably too many spectators already. All the same, I think I shall add to their number. You never know who may be helping on an occasion like this.’
He slipped quietly into the garden and disappeared among the shrubs and trees beyond, evidently making for a door in the wall which was normally kept locked.
Towards the Bowl the sky was ominously red and flames were lighting the low clouds which had gathered unnoticed since sundown. Morty and Dido stood by the landing window at the head of the staircase.
‘Not the sail lofts,’ he said at last. ‘Not the church either. I can pick them out. It must be this side of The Demon—the cottages, perhaps.’
Mr Lugg descended breathily from the attic, an enormous pair of binoculars slung round his neck.
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