Death Watch

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘What does Lister’s wife say? Presumably if he thought he had a good chance of being rubbed as well, he’d have told her about it,’ Dickson said.

  ‘We haven’t had a chance to interview her yet, sir. That’s next on our list.’

  ‘Right, let’s get to it, then. Someone tactful had better go and interview Mrs Lister, seeing she’s so recently bereaved. This is not the moment to get complaints laid against us, even frivolous ones.’

  ‘Norma, you take it,’ Slider said. ‘You’ve got a nice, kind face.’

  ‘There’s the two survivors, too,’ Atherton said. ‘Simpson and Godwin. If Lister warned Neal, he may have tried to warn them as well.’

  ‘That’s priority,’ Dickson said. They’re also presumably on the hit-list. We want to get to them before the murderer – if any – does. You’d better go and see Simpson yourself, Bill, and send Beevers up to Newcastle.’ He intercepted the disappointed glances of the others and said with spare humour, ‘He’s a Methodist. He can be trusted in a strange town full of pubs.’

  ‘The rest of you divide up the other deaths between you,’ Slider said, suppressing a smile. ‘Pull the records, go over everything with a toothcomb. If there’s anyone to interview, go and interview them again. These men last worked together in 1974, but the deaths don’t start until 1986. What happened in between? What happened in 1986 to start it all off? Was there any other connection between the men, apart from working together? All right, let’s go.’

  Muted conversation broke out as the troops got up from their various relaxed positions and moved away. Dickson, taking his departure, rubbed his hands. ‘We’ll beat that bastard yet!’ he said to no-one in particular.

  It was perfectly possible, of course, to assume he meant the murderer by that; but given the aftershave and clothes-brush phenomena, Slider felt inclined to make a different identification.

  The little Victorian terraced house within bonging distance of St Albans’ Cathedral yielded up Mrs Simpson, a pretty, harassed, freckle-faced woman. Her hair was tied up into a knot with a piece of string, from which it was escaping, and slipping into her eyes. She was wearing muddy rubber gloves, and there were streaks on her forehead and cheek where she had pushed the hair away without thinking.

  ‘I’m doing a bit of gardening,’ she explained hastily, seeing the direction of Slider’s eyes. ‘Jack’s up in the attic, doing something to the electrics. Is it trouble? He hasn’t been doing anything he shouldn’t, has he?’ A smile accompanied the words, and her eyes were limpid with an enviable lack of apprehension.

  ‘No, nothing like that. I’d like to have a word with him, that’s all,’ said Slider. From beyond her, through the tiny house, came the captive roar of a washing machine in the kitchen, and the high, penetrating voices of two young male children playing in the garden.

  ‘I’ll go and get him, then,’ she said. ‘Come through to the kitchen, will you? Only if I don’t keep my eye on the boys, they forget and trample on the borders.’

  The kitchen was full of sunshine, and beyond the window the dayglo yellow of a forsythia whipped back and forth in the sharp breeze. The washing-machine’s scream reached a peak of agony, and subsided into gurgles and whimpers as it passed from fast spin into second rinse. Outside a boy’s voice pronounced deliberately: ‘This is the goal, between here and here, all right? And I’m Peter Shilton.’

  Slider went over to the back door and looked out. It was a tiny garden, with a square of lawn surrounded by crowded but neat borders, bright with genuflecting daffodils. The grim, square tower of the Cathedral rose behind the lace work of trees in the background. The sky was a pale, April blue, and large, leaky-looking clouds were bowling fast across it. England, my England, he thought.

  Two boys of about eight and six occupied the lawn. At the far end the elder boy clutched the football to his chest as he gazed down the pitch, waiting for Gascoigne to shake off his marker and make himself a space. The chanting of the England supporters and the hooting and whistling of the Italian crowds were faint and far off in his ears. He was the greatest goalkeeper the world had ever known: nothing could shake his professional concentration.

  Slider recognised the intensity of imagination which transformed the everyday with such elastic ease at that age. It was soon lost. Children grew up quickly — too quickly for a man who was hardly ever home. He remembered teaching Matthew to play cricket one summer on the beach at Hastings. Matthew had been a bit younger than this boy, of course, but there had been the same intense concentration in the face, the same light of shared manhood in the eyes. That time had passed and gone. Even were Slider at home and at leisure, Matthew was now of an age to prefer the company of his peers and to find parents an embarrassment. It was desolating to Slider to think that he would probably never again feel his son’s arms around him in a spontaneous hug.

  Both boys had noticed him now, and were looking at him with their mother’s clear, guiltless eyes; but Mrs Simpson had come back into the kitchen, and Slider turned away from the door towards her.

  ‘Here he is,’ she said. A male figure loomed in the narrow passage behind her, too big for the tiny house which had been built for a less well-nourished generation. Jack, this is Inspector – I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name already. How awful of me!’

  ‘Detective Inspector Slider, Shepherd’s Bush CID,’ Slider said. Simpson came into the kitchen, a tall, loose-knit man wearing corduroy trousers and a well-ventilated navy jumper, through whose holes a check shirt provided relief and contrast. He had a good, open, healthy face, clear eyes, and tough springy hair that seemed to grow upwards, like heather, towards the light.

  ‘How d’you do,’ he said formally, shaking hands. His hand was large, very hard and very dry, with a workman’s grime under the nails and a fresh scrape cross the knuckles. ‘Shepherd’s Bush? You’re a long way from home.’

  Before Slider could answer, the boys had come running into the kitchen, clamouring gladly for their father.

  ‘Daddy, have you finished?’

  ‘Come and play football.’

  ‘Daddy, you know you said you’d show me about electric plugs and everything? Well, Jason says his Dad—’

  Simpson fielded them expertly, turned them around with the swift efficiency of a BA ground team handling two 737s, and sent them back into the garden with orders to stay put until called for.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ he said, returning his attention to Slider. ‘I usually take them out somewhere on a Saturday afternoon, but I had a little bit of a job to do today that couldn’t wait – dodgy wiring.’

  ‘You’re an electrician?’ Slider asked.

  ‘Jack can turn his hand to anything. Would you like a cup of tea, Inspector?’ Mrs Simpson asked.

  ‘Well, if it’s no trouble—’

  ‘I’d like one, anyway, love,’ Simpson said.

  ‘Right then, I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘Now then, Inspector, what can I do for you? won’t you sit down? Or would you prefer to go somewhere else to talk?’ Simpson offered a chair at the kitchen table.

  ‘This is fine by me,’ Slider said, sitting where he could see out into the garden. The sunshine was too good to waste. The table was covered with a plastic tablecloth, and the smell of it, warmed by the sun, suddenly reminded him of the American cloth on the kitchen table at home, when he was a boy. Smells, more than sights or sounds, had the power instantly to carry you back. Kitchen, sunshine, green check American cloth, woman making tea – the rush of water into the kettle, the hiss and whap of the gas being lit – they were immutably parts of his childhood. All that was missing was the itch of a healing scab on the knee. Slider doubted whether, in those days of short pants, it would have been possible to find a single boy anywhere in Britain between the ages of five and thirteen without a scrape at some stage of healing on at least one kneecap.

  ‘Right.’ Simpson sat opposite him, laying his big, strong hands on the table and leaning back in the chair. All his
gestures were large and open, the very antithesis of concealment. ‘So what have I been up to?’

  ‘I’d like to talk to you about a former colleague of yours, from the days when you were in the fire brigade.’

  A cloud crossed the clear blue eyes. ‘Oh Lord, it’s not that silly business of Barry Lister’s is it?’

  ‘Ah, so Mr Lister did contact you?’ Slider said.

  Simpson gave a little exasperated snort. ‘Poor old Mouthwash! I think he must be going a bit daft. I told him if he really believed all that rubbish to go to the police with it, but I didn’t think he’d really do it. I’m sorry if you’ve been bothered with it.’

  ‘I wonder if you’d mind telling me exactly what Mr Lister told you,’ Slider said, flipping open his notebook. ‘How did he approach you?’

  ‘Well, he rang me up first of all – when would that be, Annie?’ he asked over his shoulder.

  ‘Oh, let me see, now – about a fortnight ago, wasn’t it?’ she answered from the worktop where she was assembling the tea-things. ‘He came to see you on a Tuesday—’

  ‘No, it was the Wednesday, don’t you remember? Clashed with the football on the telly.’

  ‘Oh yes, that’s right.’ She smiled at Slider. ‘They’re all mad about football, my men-folk. Yes, he came round on the Wednesday, so it would have been the Monday he phoned Jack. That’s Monday week past.’

  ‘Right,’ said Simpson. ‘Well, he phoned me up on the Monday night, completely out of the blue – I hadn’t so much as thought of him in years. We used to be on the same watch when I was a fireman – well, I suppose you know that?’

  ‘At Shaftesbury Avenue station.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I was there four years, until they shut it down. Then I went to Pratt Street, because I lived in Camden Town in those days, but I was only there about eighteen months. My Dad wanted me to go into his business – he’s a builder and decorator – and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.’

  ‘He’s got his own business now, though,’ Mrs Simpson said quickly, anxious there should be no mistake. ‘He’s self-employed.’

  ‘I couldn’t have done it without Dad,’ Simpson said, turning his head. ‘He taught me everything I know.’

  ‘Your Dad had his money’s worth out of you,’ Mrs Simpson retorted. ‘He’d have kept you fetching and carrying for him until you were old and grey if he’d had his way.’

  ‘I had to learn the trade, didn’t I?’ Simpson said indignantly. ‘It was better than the City and Guilds, what I got from Dad.’

  It was evidently an old friction. He noticed, not for the first time, how couples with an unresolved conflict liked to air it in front of a detached third party – the philosophy, he supposed, behind the Marriage Guidance Council.

  ‘Had you had any contact with Mr Lister since you left Shaftesbury Avenue?’ he asked.

  Simpson turned back, embarrassed. ‘No, not really. Well, he was a lot older than me, so it’s not as if we’d’ve seen each other outside work anyway. I think he retired, actually, when Shaftesbury closed down – health problems of some sort,’ he added vaguely.

  ‘So you were surprised when he telephoned you?’

  ‘A bit, yes. But then I thought he was probably lonely, poor old boy, so when he said could he drop in and see us, I said yes.’ He slid a sideways look at his wife. ‘Got it in the neck from Annie for that, as well.’

  ‘Not for asking him,’ she protested quickly. ‘Only because you didn’t find out if he was coming to tea or not.’ She appealed to Slider. ‘Not that I begrudged, I’ve never begrudged, but I like to know. It made it awkward not knowing if we ought to have it early and get it out of the way, or wait it for him.’

  ‘Did he tell you when he phoned why he wanted to see you.’ Slider asked Simpson.

  ‘No. He just said he’d like to call in and have a bit of a chinwag about old times.’

  ‘Yes, I see. So he turned up on Wednesday night—?’

  ‘That’s right. We’d had our tea, so Mouthwash and I had a couple of glasses of beer, and at first it was just general chat about what had he been doing and what had I been doing and so on – the usual sort of thing. Then he asked me if I’d heard from any of the others from Red Watch since the close-down. So I said no, not for years. Well, I went for a pint with Cookie and Moss a couple of times at first – that’s Jim Sears and Gary Handsworth. They were what you’d call my best mates at the time. But we gradually drifted apart – you know how it is. After all, it was sixteen years ago. I haven’t heard from any of them for years – or thought about them, either.’

  He paused, and Mrs Simpson drifted closer, as if she sensed he was in danger. Simpson looked straight across the table at Slider, and his clear eyes were suddenly troubled.

  ‘And then Barry comes out with it, all of a sudden. He says he thinks someone is trying to kill everyone on Red Watch.’

  Mrs Simpson laid a hand on her husband’s shoulder, and he put his own over it without looking round.

  ‘You must have been very surprised,’ Slider helped him along.

  ‘I was shocked. I thought poor old Mouthwash had flipped his lid. I mean, he’s pretty old, and he wasn’t looking too chipper—’

  ‘Downright ill, I would have said,’ Mrs Simpson said. ‘He wasn’t a good colour.’ Her head snapped round sharply and she said, ‘Jackie, Tom, go and play. Your Dad’s told you once.’ The boys, who had drifted up to the open door, drifted away again, disappointed. ‘I don’t want them to hear any of this,’ she said when they were out of earshot. ‘It’s not healthy.’

  ‘Did Mr Lister explain why he made this astonishing claim?’ Slider asked.

  Simpson nodded. ‘Oh yes, but I didn’t believe a word of it. I mean, it was just a load of rubbish. He said four of us had been murdered already, and that unless something was done, we’d all be bumped off one by one.’ His hand tightened around his wife’s, and she interrupted.

  ‘I stopped him. I wasn’t having it. It was making Jack upset. I told him, I said it was just an old man’s sick fancy, and that he should go and see a doctor. Well, of course, he was already seeing a doctor, but that isn’t what I meant.’

  ‘What did he say to that?’

  ‘Oh, he said it wasn’t imagination, it was all true, and that my Jack ought to take action before it was too late,’ she went on, her eyes bright and hard. ‘I said if he didn’t stop I’d throw him out myself.’

  ‘Now, Annie, don’t get upset.’ Simpson smiled weakly at Slider. ‘You wouldn’t think to look at her, but she can be a fierce little thing when she’s roused.’

  ‘Did Mr Lister tell you who he thought was responsible?’

  Simpson looked apologetic. ‘Well, no. I didn’t let him give me any details.’ He rolled his eyes significantly towards his wife. ‘Annie was getting upset, and it was just a load of – a lot of rubbish anyway. So I told him I didn’t want to know, and that if he really thought there was anything in it, he should go and see the police. And that was it, really.’

  ‘He didn’t say any more?’

  ‘Not about that. He sat quiet for a bit, and then he asked could he have a drink of water to take a pill. He wasn’t looking too clever. I think he might have had a bad turn. Anyway, he took a pill, and then he talked about the football for a bit, and then he went, and I haven’t heard from him since. So he really did take it to the police, then?’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ Slider said. ‘I don’t know whether he would have done so or not: as it came about, he missed his chance. He died last Thursday evening.’

  Simpson’s eyes only widened slightly, but Mrs Simpson gave a loud and surprising cry. ‘Oh my Lord!’

  ‘It was a heart attack. He died at home, in front of the television.’

  The Simpsons exchanged a swift glance – relief? Reassurance?

  ‘The poor old blighter,’ Simpson said. ‘Well I never. So he really was sick?’

  ‘In his body,’ Slider said. ‘Not necessarily in his head. I’m
sorry to say that it seems as though there may have been some substance in what he came to warn you about. At the time of his visit to you, four of your former colleagues had met violent deaths. Two of them at least were murdered. And there’s been another murder since then. Last Sunday—’

  ‘I don’t want to hear it!’ Mrs Simpson suddenly cried out. ‘That’s enough about death and murder! I won’t hear another word!’

  ‘Be quiet, Annie,’ Simpson said, not loudly, but firmly, and she shut her mouth sharply, pulling her hand back from his and holding it with the other one at the base of her throat. Simpson looked steadily into Slider’s face, waiting to hear the worst. ‘Who – which of them are dead?’

  ‘Sears, Handsworth, Webb and Hulfa. And Richard Neal was murdered last Sunday night,’ Slider said.

  Simpson said nothing at all, but his skin seemed to pull tighter over his bones.

  ‘I have reason to believe that Mr Lister tried to warn Neal, as well. Mr Neal told someone that an old friend he hadn’t seen for years had warned him that someone was trying to kill him.’

  Simpson breathed heavily through his nose. The constriction of his face muscles made it look as though he were starting to grin. ‘Poor old bugger. No-one believed him, and he was telling the truth all the time. Poor old bugger.’

  ‘Jack!’ Mrs Simpson protested.

  ‘So Cookie’s dead too, eh? And Mouthwash. And that leaves only me.’ He really was grinning now, but his eyes were frightened.

  ‘And Paul Godwin,’ Slider added.

  ‘Paul doesn’t count. He was only with us a few weeks, just before the end, to replace Larry. He wasn’t really part of it. All the rest are dead now. How does it go, that old rhyme? And then there was one!’ He laughed, and the sound of it seemed to shock him as much as his wife, for he stopped immediately, and put his hands to his face in a curious gesture, as if to see what it was doing. Slider looked past him to Mrs Simpson.