The Complete Dangerous Davies

by Leslie Thomas

  They had discharged him from the hospital with the well-meant advice to be more careful in the future. He had walked painfully that evening to the police station to write the required official report on the attack and his comrade officers had gathered around him, inspecting his injuries, poking him as though he were some manner of specimen, and discussing among themselves various wounds suffered by policemen in the past. He was grateful to return to the rain. He had walked under it in the direction of the shuttered High Street and heard, through the veil of the evening, the sounds of the Sabbath band.

  Davies had always admired and enjoyed the Salvation Army. Even on this evening, drear and dun, they seemed to puff out warmth, as though the fervent breath emitted through the oompah instruments was pumped from some special Christian boiler. Standing there by the telephone box, on the second day of his two-day convalescence, the street lights through the squared post office panes making a guard across his damaged face, he remembered years ago how his mother had dearly wanted to join the Salvation Army. But his father had disliked the bonnet and had forbidden her to wear it. They were both dead and gone now and he wondered idly whether part of his father’s purgatory was to sit and watch his mother wearing an eternal hat of Booth’s blue and red.

  Davies was observing Andrew Parsons, pumping warm low notes through a tuba. He was a cubed man with a serious and solid face (which anyone who plays a tuba must have since it is an instrument which precludes a smile) level shoulders, legs planted surely astride; a long way travelled from the bag-eyed lad who had stolen ladies’ garments from half the washing lines in the neighbourhood. Davies approved.

  The commandant of the little band stopped the music for a prayer. Presumably as a privilege of rank he was handed an umbrella, ringed with the army’s blue and red and, clutching it between his hands in the manner of some different faith with a crucifix, he said a compendium of prayers. He then commenced a sermon, taking predictably as his text (and not for the first time, Davies imagined) the assurance about where two or three are gathered together in His name, there will He be also. Now that they were not playing their instruments, the band seemed to sink lower in the street almost as though the drizzle was quietly melting them. The sermon was too long for the liking of the pseudo-conductor outside the circle and he began shouting: ‘Get on with the hymns!’ and ‘Stop the bleeding rabbiting!’ which finally provoked a bassoonist to turn and threaten, in a thoroughly unChristian fashion, to close him up for good.

  Likewise Davies found that wisdom and water were poor mixers, so he slyly slotted himself into the telephone box, pretended to be making a call, and observed Parsons from there. The commandant, he perceived, seemed to shout all the louder for his benefit, or perhaps to cast his words to the windows of the street, alight and uncaring all around. His mouth opened so wide that the rain dropped in. But nobody heeded. He was a wilderness crying in a voice.

  Eventually the band played again and, as if God were also relieved that the sermon was ended, the rain eased and the faces of the bandsmen dried out. At the end came a prayer and Davies emerged from the telephone box to meet the demanding eyes of Parsons who was making the collection in his hat.

  ‘Hope you’ve enjoyed it, sir. Would you like to contribute something?’ he asked in a way that indicated that Davies owed an admission fee. Davies looked down at the floor of the hat. The simpleton had placed two milk bottle tops in there and Davies added the two pence which he had held in the cause of realism during his bogus phone call. Parsons, who, from experience, had accepted the milk bottle tops without argument, stared at the two pence and then at Davies, shaming him into putting a further ten-pence piece. The coin lay like a silver moon in a black sky.

  ‘Thank you sir,’ said Parsons, looking down into the black-bottomed hat. ‘We’re saving up for a new concert hall.’

  The money was, nevertheless, religiously counted and after another humphing hymn and a prayer, so quiet it was almost an aside, the cordon bleu broke and its members went off through the damp dark, nursing their instruments like infants. The banner was examined and Davies heard the portly woman who had borne it sigh, ‘Sopping wet again. Take all week to dry.’ He turned and followed Parsons through the streets.

  ‘Pity there weren’t a few more of us there,’ he observed chattily, catching up with the square, striding man. Parsons looked round quickly and grinned grimly. ‘Can’t expect it this weather,’ he said philosophically. ‘It takes all our faith to keep us out there. Be much easier in a nice warm citadel.’

  ‘Still, it was enjoyable even in the rain,’ said Davies. ‘I couldn’t see the Catholics having High Mass in those sort of conditions.’

  ‘No, that’s true enough,’ agreed Parsons thoughtfully. ‘You couldn’t burn incense or candles on a night like this could you.’ He walked a few more yards and then asked: ‘Are you a Christian?’

  ‘No. I’m a copper.’

  Parsons showed no surprise. He continued walking and nodded quietly. ‘Yes, I thought so. I’ve seen you around. Your face seems to have changed, though.’

  ‘It’s old age,’ answered Davies. They had reached some untidy steps leading up to one of the narrow Victorian houses. There were odd curtains in every window. ‘You live here?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Up the top.’

  ‘Can I come in for a minute? I wanted to ask you something.’

  Again Parsons did not seem to think it was unexpected. Davies thought that perhaps he never thought anything was. ‘Yes, if you want,’ he said, starting up the steps and manoeuvring his tuba to get his key. ‘About Christianity is it?’ he asked unconfidently.

  ‘No. I’m afraid it’s about crime.’

  Parsons opened the front door carefully. ‘All right,’ he responded keeping his head to the front where it was almost touching the red and yellow diamond glass. Briefly he appeared to rest his forehead against the pattern. ‘But keep the noise down, will you,’ he asked over his uniformed shoulder. ‘I don’t want the landlady to know I’ve got anybody in. Especially the police. She’s not an admirer of the police.’

  ‘Mine’s the same,’ answered Davies truthfully. He crept through the front door after Parsons. They went up the dim stairs quickly but with stealth, along a corridor hung with cooking smells and shadows, and eventually, when Parsons had unlocked a further door, into a bed-sitting room, tidy but tired.

  ‘Never married then?’ inquired Davies sitting in a cold armchair while Parsons bent to light a gas fire.

  ‘Wouldn’t be stuck up here if I did,’ replied Parsons again, not put out by the question. ‘I’ve lived here thirty years.’

  ‘Man and boy,’ added Davies. He leaned back. Sitting on the chair was like sitting on the lap of a large, clammy woman. He drew his wet coat closer to him. ‘You must have been here when you had the trouble.’

  ‘The trouble?’

  ‘You know, Andrew. The bother about Celia Norris.’

  Parsons stood up slowly, still facing away from him towards the gas fire which was now spluttering around his shins. There was a mirror suspended above the fire and he looked at Davies in that. ‘Oh God,’ he said resignedly. ‘Won’t you ever leave me be?’

  ‘I know, mate, I know,’ nodded Davies with genuine sympathy. ‘These things follow you.’

  ‘Hardly anybody knows now about my stupidness in those days. I keep hoping it’s all past and done and over. What’s your name anyway? He turned away from the wall and the mirror.

  ‘Davies. Detective Constable.’

  ‘Ah, you’re the one they call Dangerous Davies.’

  ‘Everybody knows,’ sighed Davies.

  ‘It can’t be very important if they send you,’ said Parsons bluntly. ‘Not a constable.’

  ‘Routine,’ said Davies, not allowing his annoyance to appear. ‘Purely routine. Something’s come up, about the Celia Norris case, that’s all. Maybe a new lead.’

  ‘After – what is it – after twenty odd years? I would have reckoned all the leads were as
dead as she is,’ muttered Parsons. He sat down in an identically worn armchair opposite Davies so that they flanked the gas burner. Only one element was burning.

  ‘People change their minds, think about things differently, say things they wouldn’t have said at the time,’ Davies repeated, as much to reassure himself as inform Parsons.

  ‘That is all very well,’ said Parsons, his tone weary. ‘But you look at it from my point of view. I’ve tried to live it down, forget it. People have just about forgotten it now, around here, and I don’t want them remembering.’ He looked up with a small fierce desperation at Davies. ‘It’s taken me two years to learn to play that tuba,’ he said.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ answered Davies. ‘But there’s no need to worry. If we can get through this now it will be all over, done, and nobody will ever know any different.’

  ‘Until the next time.’

  ‘There won’t be any next time,’ urged Davies leaning towards him. ‘Not if we can clear it up this time, with your help and the help of others, then it will be over for ever. It’s going to be painful, for you, I understand that very well, but it needn’t take long.’

  Parsons sighed and clasped his hands before him. Then he rose and put his tuba away in a cupboard as though to keep it from knowing what was going to be said by and about the man who blew into it. Parsons returned to the chair. ‘I don’t drink,’ he said. ‘So I can’t offer you anything.’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Davies. ‘I’m thinking of packing it in myself.’

  ‘Does you no good,’ said the Salvation Army man firmly. ‘No good at all. Rots your inside, strong drink.’

  ‘Agreed. Now, will you just tell me, as you remember it, what happened. I’ve read the statement that you made at the time, like I’ve read all the others, but I’m asking people to repeat them because now, after all this time, they may just possibly say something different that will provide a lead.’

  ‘All right, but there’s just one thing, Mr Davies. I don’t do that any more. Understand? You know, the knickers thing. It’s all gone and I’m cured. I was only a kid then and I was lonely. You never think of youngsters being lonely, do you? It was the loneliest time of my life. Now, what with the Salvation Army and the tuba and everything, I’ve got plenty to keep my mind occupied. No more knickers.’

  ‘Just go on,’ Davies encouraged. ‘I understand all you’ve said. We all do things we’re embarrassed about at some time in our lives. Me, not excepted …’

  ‘Oh,’ said Parsons interested. ‘What have you done?’

  Davies knew he was beginning one of his familiar spirals. The suspect was interrogating him. ‘Never mind,’ he said firmly. ‘Just start off now and tell me how you remember it.’

  It took twenty minutes. How he had found the girl’s clothes in the all-night toilet, but minus the knickers. How he had kept them until he realised, from the newspapers, that they were the garments of Celia Norris. How he had taken them to the toilet again and been seen by the attendant. It had not become any the less pathetic over the years, nor diminished because a grown man was talking about the foibles of a boy. The story was retold in a flat voice. Parsons sat, his head almost between his knees, never once looking up. When he did, at the conclusion, raise his head, Davies saw that his eyes were streaming.

  ‘All right,’ said Davies, getting up and patting him on the level shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Parsons. Thanks for going over it. I just wanted to get the public bog thing straight, that’s all.’

  ‘Is that all now? Is that the lot?’

  ‘Well, I hope so. I can’t promise I won’t be back. There may just be one or two points. You never know. Anyway thanks.’ He felt it would be wrong to offer the man his hand so he turned and went out of the door and along the corridor. He had gone down the first three stairs when Parsons called after him from the door, in a sudden burst of tears. His voice trembled as he tried to cry out and keep it quiet at the same time. ‘And good riddance too! To bad rubbish!’

  Davies waved his hand sadly in the shadows and continued down. Parsons closed the door and quietly sobbed against its panels. ‘Next time put something decent in the collection too,’ he sniffled. ‘Mean copper.’

  He went, almost dragging himself to the bed, and began to take his stiff uniform off. He took off his tunic and trousers and folded them over a chair. He shivered and he saw that the single bar of the gas fire had gone out. It was cold standing there in his brassière and panties.

  The police station charwoman was languidly washing down the notice board when Davies arrived in the morning. The front steps had also been washed down and the brass handle on the door shone with odd brilliance. It was almost as if they had cleaned up the place to welcome him back.

  ‘Waste of time this is,’ said the cleaning woman, eyes drifting aloft as she washed the grime from the glass of the notice board. ‘No sooner it’s done than it’s filthy again. This was always a dirty station, Mr Davies.’

  ‘At least you can see through the glass now,’ observed Davies chattily. She made a swift examination of his damaged face but made no comment, apparently concluding, not unreasonably, that it went with the job. He leaned closer examining the several newly-revealed photographs of Wanted Criminals. ‘It’s time it had a clean,’ he joked. ‘According to this we’re still looking for Charlie Peace.’

  ‘Good luck to him, I say,’ she replied, his observation foundering. ‘It’s a wonder you lot catch anybody. Not the way this place is run.’

  Inside the station, the duty sergeant patiently tried to assemble the physique of a lost dog. He had taken the chart of known breeds from the wall and was holding it up for a wiry old lady to point out the type most approximating to her missing friend. ‘He’s got a head like that … and, let me see … a body like that and … oh, yes a nice stubby tail like that … and long legs – like that one there.’

  ‘That makes him a camel,’ murmured the sergeant, writing patiently in his book.

  A haunted pair of eyes leaned over the top of the charge room door and two mislaid children awaiting their mother sat on the corridor bench playing ‘Find the Lady’.

  Police Constable Westerman had been stricken with another nose-bleed and was sprawled in the CID Room looking like a riot casualty while someone went to get the cell keys to drop down his back.

  ‘The gov’nor wants to see you, Dangerous,’ he said bravely through the blood. ‘Are you feeling better?’

  Davies was touched that the first inquiry after his health had come from one who was so riven with suffering. ‘Much better thank you,’ he smiled painfully. ‘You’re not too good, I take it.’

  Westerman decided not to risk taking away the scarlet handkerchief again, so he merely rolled his eyes tragically. Davies went upstairs, knocked on Superintendent Yardbird’s office, and, at the call two minutes later, went in.

  Yardbird looked at his scarred face but his expression did not change. There might have been more reaction if Davies had been wearing a different suit.

  ‘We’re all very pleased,’ said Yardbird.

  ‘Oh, good, I’m glad,’ said Davies painfully. Every stitch seemed to hurt.

  ‘Well, these things happen when you’re a policeman,’ said Yardbird. He got up from his desk and went, as though by habit, towards the window. The rooftops were like a frozen sea. There was no sign of movement from the Students’ Hostel. ‘All good experience for you, Davies.’

  ‘Yes sir. Splendid.’

  ‘And it shows that you’ve stirred him up. Ramscar. It shows he’s worried. That’s what the Special Branch are pleased about. I bet he’s had you followed ever since you started asking questions about him.’

  Davies nodded. He remembered the man with no glass in his spectacles. ‘I expect they have, sir,’ he muttered.

  ‘If you’d kept your eyes open you wouldn’t have walked into it. And, for Christ’s sake man, fancy just falling in their laps by taking any notice of a note put through your letter box. And going alone. That was
the stupid thing. Sometimes I don’t think you’ll ever make it, Davies.’

  ‘Sometimes I think that myself, sir,’ Davies had to admit.

  ‘Well, anyway, all’s well that ends well. We know at least that they’ve risen to the bait.’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Davies. ‘Even when I’m the bait.’

  ‘Listen, Davies,’ said Yardbird, turning from the window. ‘You can jack this in, if you wish. I’ll get somebody else on it. I was thinking about doing that anyway.’

  ‘No, no, I’ll be all right, sir,’ protested Davies. ‘I’ve got a little score to pay back to Mr Ramscar now. Nobody puts a dustbin over me and gets away with it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Yardbird. ‘And I take it you’re concentrating on this now and not digging up old murders.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Good. Christ, if every copper in the Metropolitan Police spent his time raking up unsolved crimes the Ramscars of this world would have a bloody marvellous time. It would be mayhem. Get your priorities straight, for God’s sake. I hope you won’t be wanting sick leave because of this?’

  ‘I’m working now,’ said Davies evenly. ‘When it’s over perhaps I’ll take some leave then. Let the stitches heal properly. I think I’d like to go and see my uncle in Stoke-on-Trent.’

  ‘Good,’ said Yardbird, returning to his desk. ‘Might do you the world of good. Now, go and find Ramscar.’

  Eleven

  That night Dave Boot was wearing his best hair, a reddish confection clouding to orange around his clay face. His suit of lights danced and his body lit up with violent, violet flashes, as the console before him hammered out its songs of popular wisdom and illumination. He was pleased to see a big crowd, but not entirely surprised since Mondays was free entry when he hoped to salvage at the bar what was lost at the turnstiles.