Bottled Spider

by John Gardner

  ‘I go and get a cuppa cha, then, Guv?’

  ‘Bring one back for me, Bill, and one for Suzie here. How d’you take it, Sue?’

  ‘Strong with sugar. Two please. Thanks.’ Nobody ever called her Sue.

  ‘You heard the lady, Billy. Walk on.’ He could’ve been talking to a horse.

  ‘What’s up, Chief?’ She had decided to adopt Abelard’s mode of addressing him.

  ‘We maybe know who the spider is. If it really is a spider.’ He sounded deep and crisp, but certainly not even. ‘The problem is that we don’t seem to be able to put our hands on him.’ He looked suddenly boyish. ‘A temporary setback, I’m sure.’

  ‘Who?’ She was equally crisp. He thinks he knows who killed my sister. I’d give a thousand pounds to know who killed her. If I had a thousand pounds.

  ‘Well ...’ he began, then paused for an infuriating fifteen seconds or so. ‘Well, there’s a possibility that Molly was right. Two-Faced Golly Goldfinch. Myladdo she mentioned in the car.’

  When they’d got back to the Yard, Molly had asked if she could take a look at Golly Goldfinch. ‘She wanted to go on a paperchase. I saw no harm in it. Tell you the truth, I thought it’d eliminate Golly. You ever seen him, Golly, I mean?’

  ‘Once, I think. I had a couple of weeks on nights from Vine Street, and a sergeant pointed him out to me. That was all of three years ago though, Chief, and I never saw his face.’

  ‘He’s a little simple. Two pence short of a bob. His mother was a short-timer in Soho and got caught out twice running, it seems. Mind you, things weren’t all that sophisticated around the turn of the century. Some Holy Joes looked after her both times. Took her to some place for ‘bad girls’ in the country. The daughter must be forty-one or two now, and Golly’s forty. Forty with problems. We’ve got his whole record, and a photograph of him.’

  He turned over a matt black and white that had been lying on the blotter in front of him, and pushed it towards her so that she got the full impact of the divided face, the kecked nose and slewed eye, the mouth askew showing long, sharp teeth protruding over his lip on the right side, in a kind of snarl. She had to remind herself that because he looks like a demon it doesn’t necessarily follow that he is a demon. What had the Guv’nor said about that? Monster inside the monster. The exception that proved the rule.

  ‘How’d you like to wake up to that peeping through your window?’

  She gave an involuntary shudder.

  ‘It’s worse in colour,’ Dandy Tom said, swiftly taking the photograph back, turning it over on his blotter, ‘I could never understand why the mother didn’t get that face fixed. Plenty of surgeons would’ve done it for practice ...’

  You don’t know what people get up to in them hospitals. You don’t know what them doctors get up to when they’ve put you asleep.

  He appeared to be lost in thought for a moment or two. ‘So I let Molly go over to Vine Street. Nobody’s very busy tonight, so they pulled everything they had on Golly Goldfinch. Turns out he’s more interesting than I imagined. First off he’s been associating with unpleasant company for a while now. Mickey Mangle? Know him?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Likes you to think he’s a bit of a tough guy. Talks a lot, plays the hard man; did a five on the Moor for receiving. He got the birch in there for coming the old soldier. Didn’t like it. We’ve never collared him again. Very sneaky small-time crook who pretends to be a big man. Nasty. Spends a lot of time with a couple of other likely lads — Billy Joy-Joy —’

  ‘I know him. Chink?’

  London is a series of interlocking villages.

  ‘Half chink.’

  ‘Got him, and I think I know Mangle now. Who else, Chief?’

  ‘Bruce the Bubble, another tasty little morsel. Handy with his fists. Same line of business; small con jobs; petty theft, stealing by finding, all that kind of rubbish. The occasional long firm fraud. A bit of protection. Toms and street traders mainly. But talk to them and they’re a major crime syndicate, Al Capone and Spring Heel Jack rolled into one.’

  ‘And Golly Goldfinch is part of that set-up?’

  ‘Hung around them as a kid, they’re a tiny bit older than him, and he’s been hanging around with them since he came back to London.’

  He filled in the background for her. ‘Golly’s mum used to work out of three rooms near to the John Snow public house. Up Broadwick Street. Fellow who owned the rooms looked after Ailsa — that was her name, Ailsa Goldfinch. This is all second hand, I’m not that old, but I know they called her Beaky. Had trunky trouble, as my old nanny liked to say; always sticking her nose into other people’s business.’

  Beaky Goldfinch had brought her kids up along the streets of Soho, but eventually she went to live with a relative, he thought it was her mother, out in the country somewhere, and took the children with her. But Golly didn’t particularly enjoy the country. It could be that it had something to do with being sent to a reform school for truancy, threatening behaviour, theft, assaulting a teacher, malicious wounding. You name it. ‘From there he went to an experimental mixed school — St Hilda’s, near Whitchurch — there was a lot of speculative education at the time, completely buggered some people’s lives.’

  ‘When he got out of there he left home and came back to look after his much younger cousin, Lavender, who was tomming it just off Rupert Street. Now here comes the first interesting bit.’ Dandy Tom was edgy, and this was a side of him she’d not yet seen. He kept fiddling with his tie and shirt cuffs, tapping his teeth with the gold pen. He jumped, turning his head sharply when one of the telephones rang. He was waiting for something dramatic — for news of Golly Goldfinch perhaps?

  ‘You alright, Chief?’ she asked as Billy Mulligan came back with the teas and a plate full of unappetizing-looking biscuits.

  ‘I’ll be okay directly. Too much milk in this tea, Billy. We’ve got several important things in the pipeline.’ Then the dam broke and he gave her a slow, lovely, even ravishing smile that started at one corner of his mouth then spread right up his face. It was one of those hundred per cent smiles that lit up his eyes. He could have used that smile to do practically anything, she considered.

  Go on, she challenged him in her head. Go on, try me.

  He told her it was a little under a decade ago that Golly came back to look after the fair Lavender, but no sooner was he back than Vine Street was getting complaints — demanding with menaces, that kind of thing. And he got away with it for most of the time. ‘People who get threatened when they’re with a brass really don’t want to advertise.’

  It seemed that Golly had overstepped the mark on occasion. ‘It’s possible he didn’t understand the rules,’ Dandy Tom said. ‘It was okay to demand with menaces while he was in the set of rooms which Lavender used to screw her clients, but once they were on the street they would, and did, bite back.’

  Golly had developed other antisocial manners. He’d frighten people. Do a spot of petty larceny, that kind of thing. Got into a lot of trouble, but none of it desperate enough to send him to the Scrubs or Pentonville. People covered for him. He was a bad boy. ‘A frighteningly bad boy. But he put on muscles humping boxes around Berwick Street Market. Got muscles on his muscles, and I suspect he had a few lessons from the likes of Mickey the Mangle and his pals. The next thing we’ve discovered is the kind of information that makes your thumbs prick.’

  There were very few genuine freelance girls operating in Soho. Unless you had a good pimp you didn’t get the street space. The other girls would ease you out sooner than look at you. To survive you had to be all pals together and jolly good company. If you tried to queue-jump, one of the girls’ protectors — pimp isn’t a word they like — would step in and give you a good spanking with his belt, like as not, and that was how things were.

  Yet Lavender claimed to be freelance, and she never seemed to have any bother, but it wasn’t Golly who kept order among the girls. Gradually it came to be known that Lavender had
a ponce who made sure everything was neat, and allowed the streets to flow with cash. He was also heavy handed with any girl who crossed up Lavender, and the other ponces were scared of him as well. In general the girls tried to keep clear of him, and he gave one of them, Bridget, a right seeing to. The man who did all this was an unpleasant young spiv called Manny Spellthorne, and it was rumoured that he, like many after him, had friends in high places. Though nobody campaigned for him when the chips were down.

  And the chips went down for Manny Spellthorne when his reign came to an abrupt end in late September, early October, 1938.

  ‘He simply went missing,’ Dandy Tom was playing with the gold pen as he spoke. ‘Nobody would have known if it hadn’t been for his wife. And certainly nobody knew about his wife, who came looking for him and found that the offices he had told her were his place of work turned out to be Lavender’s business address, round the corner from Rupert Street.’

  One night, Manny just dissolved into thin air, like the baseless fabric of Prospero’s vision. And the only person who seemed in the least bit interested was Mrs Spellthorne, Clara Spellthorne, Crazy Clara as the police called her later. And she turned out to be insubstantial as well, because Manny’s name wasn’t Spellthorne after all but Collins. Pat Collins with a lust for the high life, and two other wives that he’d bigamously married at one time or another. Going missing laid waste the many secrets of Manny Spellthorne’s life.

  Among other people, the uniforms from Vine Street went round to see Lavender, who claimed to know nothing of any interest concerning Manny. No, she said, he wasn’t my ponce. Yes, he occasionally helped out if there was a bit of bother. Yes, she knew he had given the girl Bridget a good hiding, but Bridget was a daft cat and had asked for it. Making trouble.

  ‘No, Manny hadn’t been round for a month or two. Well, six weeks, to be more precise.’

  The uniforms from Vine Street had also been to see Golly. Golly didn’t know Manny very well. Didn’t really know him at all. To tell the truth scarcely knew him to talk to. Saw him up Berwick Street Market on occasion. ‘Lavender? No, Lavender wouldn’t have nothing to do with someone like Manny Spellthorne. No, never seen him around Lavender.’ That was Golly’s line on 18 October 1938. The file on Spellthorne stayed open, but there were few entries after that.

  Tommy Livermore smiled grimly. ‘On the twenty-fourth we get sixteen-year-old Mary Elizabeth Tobin done to death with piano wire and raped on Ealing Common. In that order, choked and raped within a week of Golly talking about not knowing Manny Spellthorne.’

  ‘Well —?’ Suzie began.

  ‘Well, indeed, Suzie with a zed. In that file there are several statements from people who say they saw Golly Goldfinch talking to this sprauncy young spiv called Manny Spellthorne. And there are three girls, none of whom I admit can be trusted, who state categorically that they’ve been warned off by Manny Spellthorne, threatened by Manny Spellthorne or, according to one girl, had Manny Spellthorne give her two stinging blows on her backside and told to keep out of Lavender’s way or he’d cut her. That’s not including the girl who was given a good hiding: Bridget, who refused to sign a statement.

  ‘It’s also on record from another of the girls that Manny Spellthorne’s main hobby appeared to be beating up Lavender. One of the interesting details from that account is that Golly, on several occasions, was heard to say such things as, “I’ll swing for Manny Spellthorne” Or, “I’ll do that bastard, Spellthorne”, excuse the language lovely, Suzie.’

  ‘It’s still a big leap, Guv. From a repeat murderer to pinning it on Golly.’

  His smile was almost sly. ‘You know none of us are totally innocent,’ he began and she sensed that he was going to make a confession to her. ‘Narks never give you the full strength first time off. Experienced police officers are the same, they hold back information. And that’s what I’ve done. It’s pretty irresponsible, but I suppose we all want to look like Sherlock Holmes in the last reel. Showing off, my old nanny would’ve called it. Elementary, my dear Suzie.’

  ‘You’ve got inside information?’

  ‘I suppose you’d call it that. The day after they gave you the Jo Benton murder, I happened upon that creep Mickey the Mangle and it wasn’t by accident. He was looking for me.’ He had gone out for a bit of solitude. Lunchtime the morning after Jo Benton was murdered and he was faced with talking young WDS Mountford through this hideously macabre killing. It was turning cold, so he walked rapidly, thinking and doing a circuit, Westminster Bridge up to Waterloo Bridge and back across the bridge and along Victoria Embankment. Mickey the Mangle was waiting for him on the Embankment. ‘Bit worried, Mr Livermore, sir.’

  ‘Talk to me then, Mick. Unless you want a tenner retainer. Turned grass, have you?’

  ‘No, Guv’nor. Just worried about someone.’

  He slowed down and the two men sauntered, side by side back towards the Yard. ‘Who’re you worried about?’

  ‘Golly. Two-Faced Golly Goldfinch.’

  Livermore nodded and waited.

  ‘May be nothing, Guv. Just a kind of feeling I’ve got. The way he’s been talking.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Been dropping hints. Like a kid. “I’ve got something you don’t know” kind of thing.’

  ‘Well, he is a big kid, Mickey. You know that.’

  ‘Yes, but he talked to me a few days ago. Said he’s got this lovely voice now. At night he hears the voice in his sleep. Tells him what to do.’

  ‘Really?’ Dandy Tom’s ears pricked up.

  ‘Yes, really, Guv. I don’t like it. Says nobody else knows. Says nobody else can know. A woman, he says. A woman gives him instructions, orders. And he repeated a bit of the Bible to me. “There is a time to kill and a time to die.” Is that the Bible, Guv’nor?’

  ‘Sort of, Mick.’ Dandy Tom was quite good at his Bible. Like Latin and Shakespeare they’d beaten it into him at his school. ‘To every thing there is season,’ he went on a bit and got the dying and killing in the right order.

  ‘The point is, Guv,’ Mickey continued, ‘The point is, I know Golly and I’d stake my life on this being straight up — honest. I’d say someone really is talking to him.’

  In the present he said to Suzie, ‘I didn’t think about it hard enough. The idea of someone being directed to do people to death was pretty much a wild idea. Viable, but — well, an idea. No more. Until it fused together when that poor little boy did his drawings, slashing the faces with his crayons.’ He paused and looked up at her. ‘I’m sorry, Suzie. I suppose I’m feeling a bit responsible for your sister’s death. Should have taken more notice of Mickey the Mangle.’

  ‘It’s understandable,’ she replied. ‘Mangle sounds unpleasant — you had no reason to take him seriously.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He looked into her eyes steadily, then away.

  ‘You never got to flog your peasants.’ She opened her eyes wide.

  ‘They’ll forgive me. You okay?’

  ‘Not really, but I will be. When we’ve got him. When we’ve got the ...’

  Nice girls don’t swear, Susannah, Charlotte whispered, cheekily, in her ear.

  He stretched out an arm and squeezed her left shoulder. It was a gesture of incredible intimacy, sending a delicious tingle from the nape of her neck to the junction of her thighs. ‘Turns out that Golly’s out of London at the moment.’ He gave her a long look that said he could quite easily drown in her eyes, and she invited him to try. Any time, Dandy Tom, she thought.

  ‘He could have gone to his mother,’ he led her on. ‘Guess where his mother lives, Suzie?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Just outside Whitchurch. A hamlet called Laverstoke. Spit and a stride from Overchurch, and on the way to Basingstoke.’

  She brought a fist down hard on the back of Golly’s photograph. ‘Got him.’ She lit up, incandescent, and Dandy Tom gave her a smile that almost raised the roof.

  She found it all hard to believe: things were moving faste
r than she could ever have imagined.

  *

  Over hill and over dale.

  See we come together!

  Golly marched through the night. It was only the early hours of Boxing Day, so it was all right to sing carols about the Three Wise Men who came to bring the gifts to Jesus, because they didn’t get to the stable much before ’Pifany. That’s what Mr Gregory called it. The Wise Men got to Bethlehem in ’Pifany, so he could sing ‘Over hill and over dale’. Still, no bother, not that he was really singing it. Only doing it in his head as he blundered through the ice-cold night.

  He knew he was going the right way. He had worked it out — bypass Basingstoke, then towards Reading. If he could get somewhere near Basingstoke before dawn he’d be laughing. Find somewhere to lie up. Find an empty house perhaps. He was good at empty houses. That’d been an empty house where he’d done the first one ever. The dog who had growled at him. In the late afternoon when he was running away from the special school. Near Whitchurch that was, after they let him out of the Borstal Reform School and put him into St Hilda’s. His plan had been to get to Andover, then steal money and get the train back to London. But it wasn’t safe to move in the daytime — like now, he certainly could only move at night.

  They were more careful nowadays because there was a war on. But, back then there wasn’t any war. He had known the house was empty because of the bottles of milk on the doorstep and he went in, round the back. Nobody about and some fool had left the window open. Lavatory window. He squeezed in and then had the run of the house. Nobody around. Except the little girl who came into the garden, later.

  There was this big cool hall — it had been a hot afternoon — paved with grey polished flagstones and windows that went right down to the floor.

  He opened the windows, and that’s when the dog, her dog — nasty little white thing with a long face — sniffed him out and barked at him, so he patted the dog and stroked it. He wasn’t afraid of no dogs. Got a hand round the collar and twisted. It gave one little yelp then it died. Later he found out that he’d broken its neck. That was the first time he knew it could be that quick, and that he was so strong.