Young Petrella

by Michael Gilbert

  “It’s his second,” said the boy. “If he makes trouble, my father and his brother will handle him. Shall we stay to watch?”

  “No,” said Patrick. “I must telephone.”

  “Why waste money?” said the boy. “Use ours. It is in the passage. I will show you.”

  Patrick spoke to the housekeeper. His father was out, and would not be back until late.

  “When he comes,” said Patrick, “tell him – tell him that I am going with some of my friends for a moonlight picnic—”

  He cut short her protests by ringing off.

  Ten minutes later, he was climbing, alone, into the circus enclosure. When the poodles had inspected him, and the Alsatians had sniffed, and passed him, he walked round the perimeter of the enclosure, keeping as much as possible in the shadows, until he came to the line of caravans. Here he moved very cautiously. He was making for an empty caravan, next to the Borners’ at the end of the line. There was a light in the sleeping quarters of the Borners’ van. That would be Donna. Even when she got into bed and turned out her light, she would probably not sleep very soundly. She would be worrying about Sam. Great care was necessary.

  Patrick fitted into the lock of the empty caravan the key which Nina had, very unwillingly, lent to him, eased it round gently, and went in. It was not so elaborately equipped as the Borners’ caravan, but was constructed on the same lines. There was a cushioned couch under the side window. Patrick climbed onto it, and opened the window.

  It was a night of magic. The full face of the moon looked down from a sky of black velvet. It was so bright that it seemed to be generating a light and heat of its own.

  And it was very quiet. Patrick could hear the clack of sharp little hoofs on the concrete as Rosalie or Marguerite moved in her stall, and, away on the far side of the compound, a throaty rumble as old Rosso the lion dreamed of the forests of his youth.

  From where he knelt, every detail of the living room of the Borners’ caravan was picked out in the cold white moonlight. Opposite to him, on his perch by the open window, sat Nestor, the big green parrot. His eyes were shut. Of Nestor, alone among all the birds and animals of the circus, Patrick was afraid. He had been afraid since he had discovered, in a book of his father’s, that Nestor was his real name. Nestor notabilis, the sheep-killing parrot of Australia and New Zealand. He had read how they would fly on to a terrified and cornered sheep and peck through its back, into its liver. He had read, too, how the enraged farmers tried to trap them and how the parrots, endowed with almost human cunning and calculation, had avoided all the snares that were set for them, and even set traps themselves in return.

  Nestor had opened his eyes. For a moment, Patrick thought he had seen him; that he was going to open his hooked beak, and scream out a warning to the camp. Then he saw that Nestor had his head cocked and was listening.

  The next moment, Patrick heard it too. It was the sound of Ramon returning.

  Nestor sidled along his perch towards Leopold and Lorenzo. Patrick could see that they, too, were awake, moving like shadows, noiselessly, from side to side in their cage.

  The door of their cage was fastened with a simple bolt, set well out of reach of the lemurs’ arms. Nestor reached out with his beak, lifted the arm of the bolt, and struck it. There was a tiny, metallic clang as the door swung open, and the monkeys were gone, out of the cage, and out of the window. Nestor hopped on to the sill, and the next moment, he was gone, too. Only the door of the cage, swinging open, showed Patrick that he had not imagined the whole thing.

  As he climbed down the steps of the caravan he could see Ramon clearly. The man had come out from behind the shed, and was tacking, unsteadily, across the open, moonlit square.

  Then the voice of Auguste spoke from the shadows by the stable. It called out, “Ramon.” The imitation was so perfect that even Patrick, who knew it was Nestor, was deceived for a moment.

  Ramon swung to his left. The voice added three unforgivable words in gutter Spanish. Ramon broke into a shambling run. Patrick was close enough to see the moonlight glinting from the knife which he carried, blade upwards, Spanish-fashion, in his left hand. Patrick padded after him, his plimsolls noiseless in the dust. As he rounded the corner, the voice of Auguste spoke for the third time. It came from inside the stable now, rather high up, towards the right.

  The moonlight illuminated a small area in the mouth of the shed. In the middle, Ramon stood swaying. On the left – Patrick’s heart missed a beat as he saw it – was the pony Rosalie. She had been moved by the lemurs out of her stall, and now stood, fastened only by her head rope, to a ring just inside the door. Leopold sat astride her, jockey-wise. Lorenzo crouched on the edge of the stall by her head.

  For a heartbeat, no one moved. Then Lorenzo bent forward and bit Rosalie’s ear. At the same moment, Ramon stumbled. The stumble saved his life. Rosalie’s steel-tipped hoof, lashing out, missed his head, but hit him, with a splintering crack, in the left shoulder. He went down, rolled like an acrobat, and came up on his feet again. The crack must have been his collarbone going, for his left arm was hanging limp. The shock had knocked all the drink out of him.

  Rosalie was whinnying and stamping behind him, but he ignored her. He was staring, his face pale as the moon itself, at the rafter above his head.

  Nestor was sitting there. He stared down at him with unblinking yellow eyes. It was a battle of wills, and the stronger will prevailed. Ramon turned on his heel and walked away. As he went the great green parrot gave a scream of derision and triumph.

  Ramon broke into a shambling run.

  “So,” said M. Theron. “The brother, Ramon, has taken himself off. He crossed the frontier, illicitly, in the early hours of the morning. A guardia saw him, but could not stop him.”

  “Do we want to stop him?” asked Patrick’s father. “Going off like that – it amounts to an admission of guilt. You will have to let Mr. Borner go, now.”

  “Of course. I have done so,” said M. Theron. “It is unsatisfactory, all the same. I like a case to be neatly rounded. All the strings tied up. I should like to know why he killed his brother, and what he did it with. And who helped him. For it must have been the work of confederates.”

  “I don’t suppose we shall ever know the real truth,” said Patrick’s father. And to Patrick, after M. Theron had taken himself off, he said, “You’re looking absolutely done. You must have been out very late last night. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I was a bit late,” said Patrick.

  “It was a last fling,” said his father. “Your mother’s back today. I’ve had a letter from her. She’s chosen the school. She enclosed the prospectus. It’s on the South Downs. Association football in the Christmas term and Rugby football in the Easter term. Two headmasters and a qualified matron. It sounds a splendid place, this time. Much better than the last one we tried.”

  Patrick thought it sounded all right.

  Detective Constable

  Who Has Seen the Wind?

  To Detective Chief Inspector Haxtell education was something you dodged at school and picked up afterwards as you went along.

  “All I need in my job,” he would say, “I learned in the street.” And he would glare down at Detective Petrella, whom he had once found improving his mind with Dr. Bentley’s Dissertation on Fallacies at a time when he should have been thumbing his way through the current number of Hue & Cry.

  Petrella was, of course, an unusual detective constable. He spoke four languages. One of them was Arabic, for he had attended the University at Beirut. He knew about subjects like viniculture and the theory of the five-lever lock; and had an endlessly enquiring mind.

  The Chief Inspector approved of that.

  “Curiosity,” he said. “Know your people. If you don’t know, ask questions. Find out. It’s better than book-learning.”

  Petrella accepted the rebuke in good part. There was a lot of truth in it. Most police work was knowledge; knowledge of an infinity of small, everyday fac
ts, unimportant by themselves, deadly when taken together.

  Nevertheless, and in spite of the Chief Inspector, he retained an obstinate conviction that there were other things as well; deeper things and finer things; colours, shapes and sounds of absolute beauty, unconnected with the world of small people in small houses in grey streets. And whilst in one pocket of his old raincoat he might carry Moriarty’s Police Law, in the other would lie, dog-eared with use, the Golden Treasury of Palgrave.

  “She walks in beauty, like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies,” said Petrella, and, “That car’s been there a long time. If it’s still there when I come back it might be worth looking into.”

  He was on his way to Lavender Street to see a man called Perkoff about a missing bicycle. It was as he was walking down Barnaby Passage that he forgot poetry and remembered that he was a policeman.

  For something was missing. Something as closely connected with Barnaby Passage as mild with bitter or bacon with eggs. The noise of the Harrington children at play.

  There were six of them, and Barnaby Passage, which ran alongside their back garden, was their stamping ground.

  On the last occasion that Petrella had walked through it, a well-aimed potato had carried away his hat and he had turned in time to see the elfin face of Micky Harrington disappear behind a row of dustbins. He had done nothing about it, first because it did not befit the dignity of a plainclothes detective to chase a small boy, and secondly because he would not have had the smallest chance of catching him.

  Even when not making themselves felt, the Harrington family could always be heard. At school? No, too late. In bed? Much too early. Away somewhere? The Harrington family rarely went away. And if by any chance they had moved, that was something he ought to know about too, for they were part of his charge. Six months ago, he had helped to arrest Rick Harrington. It had taken three of them to do it. Rick had fought because he knew what was coming to him. It was third time unlucky and he was due for a full stretch.

  Mrs. Harrington had shown only token resentment at this sudden removal of her husband for a certain nine and a possible twelve years. He was a man who took a belt to his children and a boot to his women. Not only when he was drunk, which would have been natural, and forgivable, but with cold ferocity when sober.

  Petrella paused at the corner, where the blank walls of Barnaby Passage opened out into Barnaby Row. It was at that moment that a line of Rossetti came into his head. “Who has seen the wind?” he murmured to himself. “Neither you nor I.”

  A casement rattled up and an old woman pushed out her head.

  “Lookin’ for someone?”

  “Er, good evening, Mrs. Minter,” said Petrella politely. “I wasn’t going to – that’s to say, I wondered what had happened to Mrs. Harrington. You can usually hear her family.”

  “Noisy little bastards,” said Mrs. Minter. But she said it without feeling. Children and flies, hope and despair, dirt and love and death; she had seen them all from her little window.

  “I wondered if they’d gone away.”

  “They’re home,” said Mrs. Minter. “And Missus Harrington.” Her eyes were button bright.

  “Well, thank you,” said Petrella. His mouth felt dry now that he found his suspicions suddenly come close.

  “You’re welcome,” said Mrs. Minter.

  As Petrella turned away he heard the window slamming down and the click of the bolt going home.

  He climbed the steps. Signs of calamity were all about him. The brass dolphin knocker unpolished, the steps unwhited. A lace curtain twitched in the front window; and behind the curtain – something stirred.

  Petrella knocked.

  He had lifted the knocker a second time when it was twitched out of his hand by the sudden opening of the door, and Mrs. Harrington stood there. She was still the ghost of the pretty girl Rick Harrington had married ten years before but life and rough usage had sand-papered her down to something finer and smaller than nature had ever intended. Her fair hair was drawn tightly over her head and all her girl’s curves were turning into planes and angles.

  Usually she managed a smile for Petrella, but today there was nothing behind her eyes but emptiness.

  “Can I come in?” he asked.

  “Well – yes, all right.”

  She made no move. Only when Petrella actually stepped towards her did she half turn to let him past her, up the dark, narrow hall.

  “How are the children?” he asked; and saw for himself. The six Harrington children were all in the front room, and all silent. The oldest child, Timmy, and the next oldest, Hazel, were making a pretence of reading books, but the four younger ones were just sitting and staring.

  “You’re very quiet this morning,” he said. “Has the scissor man come along and cut all your tongues out?”

  The eldest boy tried out a grin. It wasn’t a very convincing grin, but it lasted long enough for Petrella to see some freshly dried blood inside the lip.

  I can smell tiger, he thought. The brute’s here all right. He must have made his break this morning. If it had been any earlier, the news would have reached the station before I left it.

  “I’d like a word with you,” he said. “Perhaps you could ask the children to clear out for a moment.” He looked at the door which led, as he knew, into the kitchen.

  “Not in there,” she said quickly. “Out into the hall.”

  Now that he knew, it was obvious. The smallest boy had his eyes glued to the kitchen door in a sort of dumb horror.

  They shuffled out into the hall. Petrella said softly, “I’m not sure you hadn’t better go too. There’s going to be trouble.”

  She looked at him with sudden understanding. Then she said, in a loud, rough voice, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you’ve got anything to say, say it and get out. I got my work to do.”

  “All right,” said Petrella. “If you want to play it that way.” He was moving as he spoke. The door to the kitchen was a fragile thing. He ran at it, at the last moment swinging his foot up so that the sole of his heavy shoe landed flat and hard, an inch below the handle.

  The door jumped backwards, hit something that was behind it, and checked. Petrella slid through the opening.

  Rick Harrington was on his knees, on the floor. The door edge had cut open his head, and he had, on his stupid face, the look of a boxer when the ring gets up and hits him.

  Petrella fell on top of him. He was giving away too much in weight and strength and fighting experience for any sort of finesse.

  Under his weight Harrington flattened for a moment, then braced himself and bucked.

  Petrella had his right arm in a lock round the man’s neck, and hung on.

  Steel fingers tore at his arm, plucked it away, and the lumpy body jerked again, and straightened. Next moment they were both on their feet, glaring at each other.

  In the front room the woman was screaming, steadily, and a growing clamour showed that the street was astir. In the tiny kitchen it was still a private fight.

  Then Harrington swung on his heel and made for the window into the garden. For a moment Petrella was tempted. He jumped for the big man’s legs, and they were down on the floor again, squirming and fighting and groping.

  There was only one end to that. The bigger man carried all the guns. First he got Petrella by the hair and thumped his head on the linoleum. Then he shambled to his feet and, as Petrella turned on to his knees, swung a boot.

  If it had landed square that would have been the end of Petrella as a policeman, and maybe as a man, as well; but he saw it coming and rolled to avoid it. And, in the moment that it missed him, plucked at the other foot. Harrington came down and in his fall brought the kitchen table with him. A bowl of dripping rolled on to the floor spilling its brown contents in a slow and loving circle. Petrella, on his knees, watched it, fascinated.

  Then he realised that he was alone.

  His mind was working well enough to bring him to his feet but his
legs seemed to have an existence of their own. They took him out into the front room, which was empty, and then into the hall.

  He was dimly aware of the children, all staring at him, all silent. The door was open. In the street footsteps, running.

  “You won’t catch him now,” said Mrs. Harrington.

  He turned his head to look at her, and the sudden movement seemed to clear his brain.

  “I’m going after him,” he said. “Ring the police.”

  Then he was out in the street, and running. Mrs. Minter shouted, “Down there, mister,” and pointed. He stumbled, and righted himself. Harrington was already disappearing round the corner. Petrella shambled after him.

  When he got to the corner there was one car in the road ahead of him and no one in sight. The car was moving, accelerating; a big, blue, four-door saloon. Too far away to see the number.

  “Got away!”

  A second car drew up behind him, and a voice said, politely, “Is there anything wrong?”

  Petrella became aware that he was standing, swaying, in the middle of the road. Behind him, its bonnet inches from his back, was a neat little sports car in two shades of green, driven by a fat young man with fair hair and a Brigade of Guards moustache.

  “Police,” said Petrella. “Got to get after that car. It’s stolen.”

  The blue saloon was turning into the High Street now. “Move over. I’ll drive.”

  “Hop in,” said the young man. “You don’t look too fit. I’d better do the driving. It’s a tricky little bus this till you get the hang of it.”

  “All right,” muttered Petrella. “But quick.”

  The young man took him at his word. The little car jumped forward like a horse at the touch of a spur. They cornered into the High Street, under the nose of a bus, and shot down the middle of the crowded road.