‘Everything, love,’ replied the youth. ‘Absolutely everything. Depends what your requirements are really, don’t it?’
‘I’m not sure what they are,’ said Davies.
‘Ooooo, you lads do get yourself in a state, don’t you,’ marvelled the assistant. ‘How about a Japanese tickler, slightly shop soiled.’
‘Are the rubber women in the sale?’ inquired Davies.
‘Some of the older models are,’ shrugged the boy. ‘They perish.’
‘Where’s Dave Boot?’ asked Davies.
The youth’s aloof expression sharpened with the hardness in Davies’s voice. ‘Dave Boot … oh, Mr Boot. He’s doing something at the disco.’
‘Detective Constable Davies,’ said Dangerous, showing his card. ‘Get him eh?’
The young man brushed his hair away from his fair eyes and dithered with the telephone. Davies wandered to the back of the shop and, on impulse, slid through a curtain into the back room. He was intrigued to find a partly inflated rubber woman with an attached foot-pump, lolling against a desk. Unable to resist it he depressed the pump and then let it go, then depressed it, and continued with the sequence, watching to his fascination as the woman inflated to life before his eyes. She grew to full size, then to outsize and then to enormous proportions. Mesmerised, Davies could not stop. He went on pumping. The woman grew fatter and fatter. Her eyes, her cheeks and her breasts all bulged hugely. He could hear the rubber creaking. He went on pumping. Her expanding backside knocked a chair over.
‘Stop!’ The cry came through the door. A tall, thick man in a tight denim suit rushed forward and pulled out a valve in the buttocks. The woman shrivelled horrifyingly.
‘If she’d have exploded you’d have killed yourself,’ said the man. ‘Stupid bloody thing to do.’
Davies was gazing sadly at the collapsing rubber figure. ‘Now I know what God feels like,’ he said. He turned and smiled without warmth. ‘Nice place you’ve got here.’
‘We fill a need,’ sniffed the man. ‘What did you want?’
‘I’m Detective Constable Davies.’
‘Yes, Tarquin said. I’m Dave Boot. What was it?’
‘Can I sit down? I’m puffed out after that pumping.’
Boot picked up the chair which the woman had knocked down. Davies sat on it gratefully and Boot sat behind the desk. The youth Tarquin came through the curtain and asked if they would require coffee. Boot was going to send him away but Davies said he would like some and smiled his advanced thanks.
‘Right, two,’ said Boot at the head issuing through the curtain.
‘But don’t stir it with your finger,’ Davies called after him.
Boot grimaced. ‘I’m pretty busy,’ he said. ‘What did you want?’
‘Me too,’ said Davies amiably. ‘Ever so busy. I wanted you to tell me about Celia Norris.’
White astonishment flew into Boot’s face. ‘Celia … Celia Norris?’ He got it out eventually. ‘Christ, that was years ago.’
‘You still remember, don’t you?’
‘Yes, yes. But why … why now?’
‘There’s never any particular season.’
‘Yes, but … aw, come on. What is all this? The police went through it all at the time. Christ, hours of it. They cleared me. They had nothing …’
‘I didn’t say you did anything,’ Davies pointed out quietly. ‘I only asked you if you remembered. Nobody’s come to arrest you.’
‘I shouldn’t bloody well think so, either,’ said Boot, his skin hardening. ‘I think I want my solicitor along here. I can’t afford trouble. I’m a businessman.’
‘So I see,’ said Davies looking down at the deflated rubber woman.
‘And there’s nothing you can touch me for here, either,’ said Boot following his glance. ‘Nothing. It’s all legal. Anyway, I’ll call my solicitor.’
‘Call him if you like,’ offered Davies with more confidence than he felt. ‘But you’ll be wasting your money. Nobody’s putting any pressure on you, Mr Boot. We’ve reopened the case of Celia Norris and I’ve got the job of checking on people who made statements at the time. That’s all there is to it.’
Boot subsided. ‘All right then, if that’s all it is. But what difference it makes, Christ knows. I told them everything at the time.’
Tarquin came through the curtain, curiously knocking on it as though it were a door. He was carrying a cardboard tray with two plastic beakers of coffee. He smiled wanly at Davies. ‘There, Inspector, that’s yours.’ Davies and Boot took the beakers. The youth backed out. ‘I didn’t stir it,’ he smiled. ‘Not with my finger, anyway.’
Davies stared into the swirling coffee and wondered what he had stirred it with. He put it untouched on the table.
‘You remember the night when it happened, I take it,’ he said, leaning towards Boot. ‘When she went off and vanished.’
‘Well, of course I remember it. It was bloody years ago though … how long?’
‘Twenty-five,’ Davies told him.
‘Yes, well, I mean. Twenty-five. It’s not like it was yesterday. But I remember it all right. I’m not likely to forget it am I?’
‘I’m hoping you might remember bits now that didn’t seem important at the time, now you’ve had a while to turn it over in your mind.’
Boot glanced at him under his puffy lids. ‘All I knew I told then,’ he grunted. ‘Every single thing. God, I went over it enough with them.’
Davies nodded. ‘I’ve seen your statement,’ he said. ‘You saw her at the youth club, she went off on her bike and that was that. You didn’t even know she was missing until one of her friends told you some days later.’
‘That’s how it was. Exactly. I said it then and I say it again now.’
Davies mused. He picked up the coffee absent-mindedly and took a sip. Horror rolled across his face as he realised what he had done. Boot laughed sarcastically. ‘Don’t worry about the coffee. He probably just stirred it with a Japanese tickler.’
Davies grimaced. He pushed the beaker out of reach across the table so that he would not be moved to pick it up again. Then he leaned again towards Boot, confidingly. ‘Statements are just sort of catalogues of fact, see. I did this at such and such a time, and then I did that. They’re not very filling, if you know what I mean, Mr Boot. A lot of bones and not much meat. They never tell you how people feel. I want to find out that. How they felt about Celia Norris. How did you feel about her?’
‘Feel?’ Boot shrugged and spread his hands. ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. She was just a kid at the youth club.’
‘You didn’t fancy her then?’
Boot glared. ‘Sod off, I’m going to get my solicitor. Like I said. I should have before.’
‘Don’t bother,’ reassured Davies. ‘I’m going now. I only wanted to have a look at you. Just let me ask you one more thing before I’m off.’
Boot sulked and said nothing but Davies pretended not to notice.
‘How would you have described her behaviour, Celia’s, sexually? She was seventeen. Do you think she was a virgin?’
Surprisingly, Boot thought about it. ‘I don’t know about her virginity, I’m sure. They used to keep it longer in those days, didn’t they.’
‘So I understand.’
‘Yes, so do I. But they were all full of it. You know … flirty.’
‘Flirty,’ smiled Davies. ‘Ah, Mr Boot that’s a lovely old-fashioned word, I think I’ll write that down.’ He took out his notebook carefully, while Boot watched impatiently, and wrote down ‘FLIRTY’ in capital letters and with great care. He stood back and considered it as though it were some prize etching. ‘Flirty,’ he repeated. ‘Lovely.’
‘Well, she was,’ said Boot, unhappy that he had said anything, but somehow drawn to continue. ‘We used to say they were PTs didn’t we, Mr Davies? Prick teasers.’
‘Did we!’ exploded Davies. ‘Did we now? And why should we say that? Prick teasers. Just a minute I want to write that down too.’ Boot
swallowed heavily as Davies wrote the words painstakingly beneath the word ‘FLIRTY’. He regarded the phrase as he had regarded the single word. ‘My goodness,’ he said mildly. ‘That takes you back, doesn’t it, Mr Boot? It really takes you back.’
‘Not me, personally,’ muttered Boot. ‘It was just a saying at the time. You must know that.’
‘Flirty prick teasers,’ mused Davies rubbing his chin. ‘Celia Norris.’
‘Yes,’ said Boot stubbornly. ‘Celia Norris.’
‘And why would you say that about her?’
‘Because I’ve got eyes,’ said Boot desperately. ‘I could see what she was like couldn’t I? She had a boyfriend there …’
‘Bill Lind,’ prompted Davies. ‘Good old Bill Lind.’
Boot stared at him hard. ‘That’s him. That poor bugger used to go crazy. But they were all the same, those girls. Today at least, they’re honest. They give something.’
‘Do they?’ asked Davies his eyebrows ascending.
‘Surely even you know that. The kids now are more straight-forward about sex and that. They don’t have the frustrations we used to have.’
‘Didn’t we just, Mr Boot,’ said Davies. He looked again at the three words he had written, studying them as though he thought they might be an anagram. ‘Flirty old Celia Norris,’ he grinned.
‘Flirty Celia Norris,’ nodded Boot savagely.
‘And Ena Brown,’ said Davies. ‘Flirty Ena Brown?’
There was no vestige of colour in Boot’s face now. ‘Ena Brown,’ he muttered. ‘Her as well.’
At The Babe In Arms a representative of the Spanish Tourist Office was making a presentation to the rough woman who had broken her ankle while dancing to ‘Viva España’. It was followed by a similar presentation from the juke box company. The ceremony was attended by press representatives and embryo celebrities who had come to try and get their pictures in the newspapers. The landlord beamed on the scene.
Davies and Mod left the bar early and in disgust, for the evening meal at ‘Bali Hi’, Furtman Gardens. ‘I think I would prefer the silence of that lonely room to the false glamour we witnessed back there,’ said Mod sorrowfully as they walked down Furtman Gardens. ‘Vanity, vanity, all is vanity and publicity.’
‘Commerce,’ corrected Davies. He had been telling Mod about his visit to Dave Boot. ‘Can you imagine a shop like that? Floor to ceiling with sexual fantasy.’
‘And he probably does very nicely from it too,’ nodded Mod. ‘They say that in Arabia there are men who sell shade to pilgrims walking the hot road to Mecca. They put up an awning or rent a bit of wall and they charge people to stand in the shade for a few minutes. It’s supply and demand.’
At ‘Bali Hi’ they found a new lodger established at the table, an Indian, Mr Patel, who was soon engaged by Mod who asked about tribal customs of the North-West Frontier about which Mr Patel knew nothing since he came from Tottenham. Thin Minnie Banks squeaked girlishly at the error but Mr Smeeton, on this evening disguised as a harlequin, showed renewed interest.
‘One of my acts is a sort of conjuring extravaganza,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t mind a bloke in a turban to be Gilly-Gilly, the funny assistant. Would that interest you?’
Mr Patel politely refused the offer on the grounds that he was busy with his job as a lecturer in Metallurgy and he did not possess a turban anyway. He apologised that he knew nothing of the tribal customs on the North-West Frontier.
This was digested in uncomfortable silence. Doris knocked her fork onto the floor and they all jumped. Davies said diplomatically: ‘I think the tribal customs of North-West London are probably a good deal more primitive.’
‘He’s a detective,’ said Mr Smeeton caustically nodding his harlequin head towards Davies. ‘But he’s no bloody good. Not from what we hear, anyway.’
Mr Patel smiled agreeably. ‘It is very nice to be in a household where everybody speaks so frankly.’
‘Detective!’ snorted Mrs Fulljames appearing from her kitchen cavern with a cauldron of stew. ‘Detective!’ The pot seemed to be pulling her along like a steam engine.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve lost another bed,’ observed Davies wearily.
‘No. But the other one hasn’t been found either,’ she sniffed. ‘Antique. And I suppose you slept all through the racket last night. All the screams and everything. It woke the whole street up but not you.’
‘What did I miss last night?’
‘Somebody tied a horse to Mrs Connelly’s door knocker. Somebody’s idea of a joke.’
A glance each from Mod and Davies crept across the table.
‘A horse?’ protested Davies. ‘I’m a policeman not a groom.’
‘It was a crime,’ said Mrs Fulljames, firmly slopping out the lamb stew. Davies saw Mr Patel looking at it doubtfully. So did Mod.
‘It’s quite all right, Mr Patel,’ said Mod, his voice booming ghostlike through the vapour. ‘It’s sheep, not sacred cow.’
‘Thank you, thank you,’ muttered Mr Patel.
‘The upset!’ said Mrs Fulljames still pursuing the horse. ‘It kept banging on Mrs Connelly’s door knocker and neighing or whinnying or whatever they do. And that poor woman came down in her nightdress and the animal walked straight into her front hall. Petrified she was, and who can blame her?’
‘Who indeed,’ said Davies, staring into the volcanic stew.
‘Well you didn’t hear it,’ complained Doris. ‘People miles away must have heard it, all that screaming and the horse making a terrible noise. But not you.’
‘It went right in, right in the hall,’ said Mrs Fulljames, sitting down with her plate sending its veil to her face. The meal was beginning to resemble a séance. ‘And it trod on Mr Connelly’s foot when he came down to see what was going on. He’s off work for a month.’
‘A month at least, knowing Mr Connelly,’ commented Davies. ‘What did they do with the horse, shoot it?’
‘It belongs to that terrible man down the town, Scribbens isn’t it? The rag-and-bone merchant. They got him to come and take it back. Disgusting business altogether. Poor woman.’
They paused to eat and the steam subsided as they emptied their plates. Eventually Mr Patel said: ‘A detective, Mr Davies, most interesting, most. And what, if it is possible to divulge, are you investigating at this moment?’
‘Apart from my stolen bed,’ sniffed Mrs Fulljames.
‘Well,’ Davies hesitated. ‘A sort of missing person.’
It was early closing day but Antoinette (Paris, Switzerland and Hemel Hempstead) Ladies’ Hairdressers remained stubbornly open. Davies loitered in the lee of a telephone box across the street until Josie came out for her lunch at two o’clock. He was, as usual, disconcerted when she immediately walked across the road to him.
‘How did you spot me?’ he inquired unhappily.
‘Spot you? Blimey, half the shop saw you,’ she laughed. ‘You’d be surprised how well-known you are in these parts, Dangerous. Marie – that’s my friend in the salon – you nicked her brother for stealing scrap metal a couple of years ago, but he got off because of some technicality. You’d lost your notes or something.’
Davies sighed. ‘I seem to remember that,’ he admitted.
‘They do, too. Marie said they still have a good laugh about it.’
‘Thanks.’ They had begun to walk apparently aimlessly along the shut street.
‘Then the lady whose perm we were doing said you’d found her front door swinging open one night and you walked in and her old man smashed you over the head with a chair, because he thought you was a burglar.’
‘Yes, I recall that too. He broke the chair.’
‘Bertha – that’s Antoinette – and most of the customers and staff knew you in some way or another. Didn’t you see them crowding to the windows to look at you trying to hide behind that phone box?’
‘Well, I did think you had rather a big crowd in there for a small place,’ admitted Davies. ‘I thought it was your busy morn
ing that’s all.’
‘You talked to my mum, didn’t you,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘She trusts you, she does. Are you still working on the thing about our Celia?’
Davies arched his eyebrows. ‘Of course I am. I’ve only been on it a few days.’
‘What’s that after twenty-five years?’ shrugged Josie. ‘I’ve got some sandwiches. I was going to get a bus and sit up by the Welsh Harp. My scooter’s got a puncture. I’m going by the reservoir. As it’s a decent day.’
It was too. There had been a smattering of October sun through the morning and, miraculously, it now grinned over the entire sky.
‘You can come as well if you like, Dangerous,’ said Josie. ‘I won’t eat all my sandwiches myself.’
‘All right,’ he said. They walked along the closed faces of the shops. The white bodices of the cooling towers looked strangely clean in the sunshine. They were comfortable in each other’s company. The bus arrived opportunely and they boarded it, sitting without speaking on the cross-seats on the lower deck. They reached the Welsh Harp, a shapely lake shining benignly beyond the reach of the factory fumes. Three small sailing dinghies, one with red sails, swam across its easy surface. Davies and Josie walked to a seat overlooking the water and sat down. She opened a packet of sandwiches and gave him one. It was cheese and pickle.
‘Your mother,’ said Davies through his bread. ‘She’s never got over it, has she?’
‘You don’t have to be Maigret to see that,’ she commented, but not directly at him. ‘She’ll never get it off her mind. When the anniversary comes round she’s almost mental.’ She paused as though weighing up whether to add something. She decided she would. ‘It sounds a silly thing to say, I know,’ she ventured. ‘But it’s … it’s almost, sort of, given her something to live for.’
Davies glanced sideways at her and whistled softly to himself. ‘That’s a strange remark,’ he said.
‘I said it was, didn’t I,’ she pointed out. ‘But it has, Dangerous … You don’t mind me calling you that do you? What’s your proper first name?’
‘Percival,’ he lied.
The Complete Dangerous Davies Page 7