Seventeen
As he hung across a stretcher in the casualty department at the hospital Davies opened his eyes and smiled a grating smile at the young doctor nosing over his injuries. ‘Could I have my usual room, please?’ he asked. He was aware of another figure prostrate on a trolley-strecher a few feet away. He half-turned and even to his blurred vision the face looked familiar. The man seemed to sense he was looking and scraped his head to the side so that he could face him. It was Josie’s father.
‘Hello Mr Norris,’ muttered Davies. ‘What are you in for?’
‘Same as you, you fucking berk,’ said Mr Norris unkindly. ‘I told you to lay off.’
‘Ramscar as well, eh?’
‘It wasn’t Father Christmas. I told you what would happen. I hope they’ve duffed you up good.’
The young doctor looked annoyed. ‘Will casualties please stop quarrelling among themselves,’ he said petulantly. ‘It’s not a mothers’ meeting, you know.’ He turned as two orderlies came into the area. ‘This one,’ he said pointing at Davies. ‘Dressings and observation.’ Then he nodded at Norris. ‘That one, theatre number two. In half an hour.’
Davies’s heart fell. He thought at once of Josie. ‘Sorry Mr Norris,’ he whispered.
‘So am I. Ramscar will nail you, you just bleeding wait. I’m staying inside here for as long as I can. By the time I’m out maybe you and the rest of the berks will have got him. I bloody doubt it, though. I doubt it.’
Davies was beginning to personally doubt it himself. He ached from the waist up, but he knew they had not hurt him as much as before. He decided to buy the rag-and-bone man’s horse a complete cabbage once he was released from hospital.
It was his last conscious thought until next day. He awoke in the early afternoon when a pale, round nurse asked him if he would like a bedpan and some custard. He declined the custard.
Mercifully neither Doris nor Mrs Fulljames came to visit him. That would have been beyond his patience. But Mod did, sitting moodily watching his bandaged face with doubt and consternation.
‘I suppose,’ remarked Mod with Welsh solemnity, ‘that a powerful police dragnet is at this very instant closing around the perpetrators of this new outrage against your person.’
Davies grinned and winced. ‘I have no doubt that the Metropolitan Police have been moved to vast inactivity,’ he said. ‘They sent a sergeant over here to get all the thrilling particulars and the cops’ doctor came and looked me over. It’s been terrific, believe me. My God, by now they’ll have enough men in the hunt to throw a cordon around a phone box.’
‘A disgraceful situation,’ grumbled Mod. ‘They seem to have no regard for you at all. Still, I suppose they’re so accustomed to seeing you bashed about that the novelty’s worn off.’
Josie came to see him too. She sat by the edge of the bed regarding him sorrowfully but saying nothing. He felt like an archer looking through a small slit window, ‘You’ve got a job lot to visit now,’ he joked with difficulty. ‘How’s your old man?’
‘In a mess,’ she shrugged. ‘Worse than you, and that’s saying something, that is. Christ, you must have three miles of bandages round your head.’
‘Sorry, Josie,’ he mumbled. She looked lost. She put her hand on the bedclothes. ‘Don’t you go blaming yourself, Dangerous,’ she replied softly. ‘He’s been skimming around in that mucky pond for years. First with Ramscar then with others like him. Some time or another he was bound to get done. And you were doing your job as a copper. What else can anyone say?’
‘What about your mother?’
‘She’s got the wind up. It was she who found the old man on the doorstep. He’d gone to the door. I’ve shoved her off to her sister’s in Luton.’
‘Is Luton far enough away?’ asked Davies. ‘From Rams-car.’
‘It’s got to be. The next nearest relative’s in Australia.’ She laughed making the joke, but her face was crowded with fear. ‘It’s got to stop some time,’ she said. ‘Or else somebody’s going to get killed. And it looks like you’re favourite, Dangerous.’ She suddenly laid her head against the white bedcover, her face small and pinched. He touched her thin shoulder with his fingers and she put her hand up to hold them.
‘Do you think it’s just Ramscar?’ she asked, still with her head on his legs. ‘Or is it something to do with that Celia thing? Somebody trying to stop you.’
‘It could be both,’ he sighed. ‘Maybe they’re the same thing. Maybe Ramscar did it after all. The more I find out the less I know, Josie. Do you think your father knows where Ramscar is hiding out?’
She laughed wryly. ‘If he does there’s no bloody way he’s going to tell anybody now. Not the state he’s in. It’s a miracle they managed to sew him together again. He’s like a patchwork quilt. It’s sodded up his looks for good, and he never looked much anyway.’ She looked up from her crouching position, slowly, then quickly, as though awakening after a nap. ‘Dangerous, have you found out anything about Celia? What happened to her.’
He had never told her. He paused a moment now, then he said. ‘I’ve got her bike, Josie, and I’ve got her pants.’
He thought she was going to fall off the chair. ‘You’ve got what!’
‘Her bike and her pants,’ repeated Davies carefully.
‘Christ! However did you …?’
‘Listen,’ he said. He tried to lean forward but it hurt too much. ‘Listen Josie, I’ve turned up all sorts of thing. I’ll tell you soon, promise. Not now, because it’s too public here, and I feel too rough right now. But I’ll tell you before long exactly what happened to your sister. Perhaps I’ll know who did it too.’
Josie continued to stare at him in deep disbelief. ‘I … I can’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Honest, I just can’t believe it.’
‘You didn’t think I could do it?’
‘No … No, it’s not that. I just didn’t think anybody could do it. And you’ve got the bike?’
‘Still in working order,’ Davies said quietly. ‘A bit creaky but nothing more. I’ve even got the remains of the flowers she was taking home to your mother. She got them from the cemetery, you know.’
She appeared to be unable to digest the information. She slowly got to her feet. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to think about this.’ She looked at him doubtfully. ‘You’re sure,’ she said. ‘I mean you’re not having me on …’
‘I’m sure,’ nodded Davies. ‘Very sure. See you Josie.’
‘See you,’ she almost stuttered. She moved forward quickly and kissed him on the piece of cheek that was showing. As she moved away she produced a small smile. ‘You’re brighter than I reckoned,’ she said.
‘Thanks,’ he replied. ‘Sometimes I surprise myself.’
She went without looking back. He realised that his head was throbbing from the encounter. He slept briefly and then lay, in the night dimness of the ward, thinking about Celia Norris and her bicycle journey to eternity twenty-five years before. He followed every turn of the pedals by those brown shoes. From the youth club to the cemetery. He saw her brazenly climb the wall, knickerless, and steal the flowers from a grave. He knew she would be capable of that. He could see Josie doing it. And then what? Waiting outside the wall, or just approaching it as she climbed over again in the gloom, was the mooching police van. At its wheel, a policeman who had been drinking at the social function shortly before; alone in the van while his colleague spent time with his fortune-telling lover.
What did he do, that policeman? Did he get out of the car and stand waiting under the wall while she climbed over? Did he see then that this seventeen-year-old girl was wearing nothing below her gingham dress? Was he stern with her and did he take her into the police van, not seeing her bicycle left in the dandelions and weeds? Did they drive slowly up the High Street that humid summer night? And while they drove did that inebriated policeman suggest to that young girl that they went down by the canal bank together? Did he cajole or threaten her?
&nbs
p; Davies saw them walking in the dusk, the policeman without a hat, as Mr Whethers had seen. Down to the foot of the alley and by the bank. And then it happened. That policeman raped Celia Norris and murdered her. And disposed of her body. But not her clothes. Disposed of her body … but not her clothes …
Suddenly Dangerous Davies shot up in bed so fast that his head sang with pain. He clasped it with a cry that was almost exultation. A man across the ward called out eerily: ‘Are you all right? Shall I get the nurse?’
‘No, no,’ warned Davies hoarsely. ‘Nothing, thank you.’
The last thing he wanted was the nurse. He looked at his watch. It was only ten o’clock. They closed down early in hospitals. He slid clumsily out of bed, stood up and put his pillow beneath the sheet. His head banged in protest as though somebody were trying to get out through the bandages. There was an ante-room just outside the ward and last time that was where they had kept his clothes. He went painfully but hopefully across the polished floor of the ward, his head feeling like a turnip. But his hope was realised. His suit and his overcoat were keeping each other forlorn company on a single iron hanger. His shoes were in a locker beneath, but he could not find his socks, his underwear or his shirt. He took the clothes and the shoes and went into the toilet. He put them on over his pyjamas and, pulling the faithful overcoat up around his plastered ears, he crept heavily towards the corridor. There was no one there. The night nurse was in a side room and the doorway to the outside was only a few yards down the passage. He gained it in three strides and let himself out into the chill air.
He was a mile and a half from the single room of Andrew Parsons of the Salvation Army, which is where he wanted to be. Not even the most optimistic of taxis ever patrolled that thread-bare area and he was thinking he might have to walk or to steal a bicycle when he saw a bus illuminating the distance. The bus stop was just outside the hospital. No one at the gatehouse took any heed of him and he timed his walk so that he gained the pavement just before the bus. Gratefully he boarded it, miraculously found some coins in his overcoat pocket, and sat on the cross-seat feeling relieved and elated. He thought he knew where Celia Norris was.
At the next stop a couple, arms entwined, boarded the bus and sat opposite him. Their interest in each other was gradually transferred to him. At first they studied his heavily embalmed head, intently as though following every whorl and curve. Then the girl’s gaze dropped to his ankles. Awkwardly he followed her eyes down and saw that his pyjama legs were protruding below the turn-ups of his trousers and that immediately below that incongruity he was showing segments of bare feet.
He smiled feebly across at them. ‘Night shift,’ he said as though confident that that would explain everything.
They nodded dumbly but continued to stare until he left the bus in the High Street. When he last saw them, as the vehicle made off into the latening evening, they had their faces pushed to the window, together with that of the conductor, to whom they had obviously reported the phenomenon. Davies waved to them as he crossed the road.
He kept into the best shadows of the terrace houses until he came to the front door of Andrew Parson’s lodgings. He knocked with misgiving which was justified by the beginnings of a scream which came from the flowered-overalled woman who answered. He tried to smile through the bandages which made matters worse, but fortunately he arrived at an explanation before she arrived at a screech. ‘Mr Parsons, please,’ he pleaded. ‘Salvation Army. It’s an emergency.’
To his relief and her credit, she subsided. ‘It looks like an emergency too,’ she commented. ‘I’ll call him. He’s up there with his cronies. Blaring away.’ She advanced to the bottom of the stairs and bellowed ‘Mr Parsons!’ up into the gloom. She called twice more and eventually a phase of light showed that a door had been opened. ‘Mr Parsons, there’s somebody for you. Says it’s an emergency.’
‘Emergency?’ Davies heard Parsons return. ‘Who is it?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ she bawled back. ‘Looks like the Invisible Man.’ She turned to Davies. ‘Go on up,’ she said. ‘I can’t stand here shouting my head off.’
Davies thanked her and advanced up the stairs. When he had gained the first landing, Parsons, on the third, called doubtfully again. ‘Who is it?’
Davies chanted:
‘I am the ghost of General Booth,
I’ve come to make you tell the truth.’
He was pleased with his extemporaneous effort. He heard Parsons give a quick sob in the gloom and he knew he had been recognised. Parsons almost tumbled down the stairs to meet him. ‘Mr Davies …’ he said. Then seeing Davies’s state. ‘Oh my goodness … what happened?’
‘I tripped over my collection,’ said Davies in the dark. ‘I want to have a chat, Andy. I’ve come specially to see you. Can I come up?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ pleaded Parsons. ‘Not now. Not in the room. We’ve got bandsmen practising.’
As though to corroborate the statement a subdued trump issued through the open door above. Then a piping whistle noise. ‘All right,’ whispered Davies. ‘Tell me something, exactly and no bloody lies mate, and you can go back and get on with Crimmond, otherwise we go up and talk about it there.’
Parsons’s head had dropped. He was muttering, perhaps praying. ‘What? What is it then?’ he asked.
‘Right,’ Davies moved closer to him on the landing. ‘Where did you really find those clothes? Not in the public bog. Come on tell me – they were not in there, were they?’
‘No,’ nodded Parsons. ‘Dear God, I knew it would all come out one day. I’m trying to live it down … The Army …’
‘Where?’ asked Davies stonily.
‘No, not the convenience. I took them to the convenience when I tried to put them back, after I’d realised that they were that girl’s things. But I lied about finding them there. I was just all confused and upset, Mr Davies.’
‘Where?’ repeated Davies grimly. His heart jerked when Parsons said: ‘By the canal. They were just lying there. I nicked them. But when I heard about the girl I panicked and took them to the convenience. That’s when they copped me. I couldn’t tell them the truth about where I got them. I was already on probation, and they knew I collected things from lines and that. They tried to get me for that girl, Mr Davies, and I didn’t do it. I stuck to my story, every detail. And they couldn’t break me.’ A small triumph had entered his voice. Davies leaned out in the half-dark and caught him by the collar. Parsons stifled a squeak. ‘They could … you know … hang you in those days,’ he stammered.
‘That’s what they all say,’ said Davies, remembering Lind. ‘Now exactly where, Mr Parsons? To the inch.’
Parsons face was shining with sweat in the dark. ‘Yes, yes,’ he nodded. ‘Exactly. Just at the bottom of the alley. Where the old wartime blockhouse used to be. Just there. I was walking down the alley, towards the canal and I saw them. I was tempted by Satan and I picked them up. God, how many times I’ve regretted that weakness.’
Davies could feel himself smiling painfully within the helmet of his dressings. ‘Lovely,’ he breathed. ‘Lovely. At the bottom of the alley, right. At the foot of those gardens, allotments.’
‘It was there,’ nodded Parsons. ‘By the allotments.’
‘Right,’ said Davies. ‘You can go back to your oompah-pah, now. Have a good blow. But don’t piss off to any band festivals or anything. I want to know where I can find you.’
‘That’s all then?’
‘Yes, that’s all. Why, was there anything else?’
‘No. Oh no. I’ll be going back.’
Davies said: ‘All right. Play a tune for me.’
Parsons ran gratefully up the grimy stairs. To satisfy his friends in his room he called over the banisters. ‘Goodnight Mr Davies. And God Bless. I’ll pray for you in your trouble.’
It was eleven-thirty when Davies roused Mr Chrust and his two sisters-in-law from their beds above the newspaper office. The same lights and the same entranced
faces materialised. They shuffled about and opened the door for him, a strong family politeness apparently preventing them asking how he came to be swathed in ghostly bandages. He did not keep them long from their rest. It was merely a matter of checking the recent issues of the Citizen for the report of the prosecution of the vegetable garden thief. Davies noted his name, George Tilth, 47, Harrow Gardens. He thanked Mr Chrust and said a muffled goodnight to the ladies of the place. Then he went to see Mr Tilth.
He was relieved to perceive that it was not yet bedtime in the Tilth household. There were lights downstairs in the modest terraced house and Mr Tilth answered his knock fully clothed and appropriately cradling a squat potted plant.
‘I don’t suppose you remember me?’ began Davies.
‘I can’t see you for a start,’ replied Mr Tilth reasonably. ‘Not through all that first-aid stuff. Who are you anyway?’
‘Police,’ said Davies. ‘Detective Constable Davies.’
The man went white as lime. ‘I’ve done nothing, officer,’ he protested. He glanced down at the pot-plant as a woman might look at her nursing baby. ‘This is mine. I grew it all by myself.’
‘All right, all right,’ calmed Davies. ‘I haven’t come about anything like that. You’re the man who knows all about gardens and I want some information.’
‘Information? Horticultural information?’
‘Yes, you could say that. Can I come in for a moment?’
Mr Tilth nodded. ‘Yes, all right,’ he agreed. ‘I’ve got nothing to conceal, Mr Davies. But perhaps you wouldn’t mind just waiting here for a moment.’
Davies loitered while from the front room of the house came the sounds of furtive but urgent movements. He was tempted to step in but he knew he could not spoil it now for anything. Eventually Mr Tilth returned, a guilty flush replacing the former pallid countenance. ‘Yes, it’s all right now. To come in. Just wanted to get the place tidy for you. You don’t expect visitors at this time of night, do you? Not generally.’
The Complete Dangerous Davies Page 22