She eyed him maliciously but went in silence to the kitchen. Davies leaned towards the new lodger.
‘I’d like to get something out of the canal,’ he confided.
The lamps along the bank of the Grand Union Canal were among the oldest and most sombre in London, and they cast a Victorian gleam on the oily water. They were spaced out at fifty yards so that the three slowly walking men progressed from one aura of dubious light into another.
‘Body found at eleven-forty,’ said Davies. ‘Night-time, that is. October 7th. Been in the water twenty-four hours or more. Corpses tend to go unnoticed down here.’
They paused in the grisly glow of one of the lamps. Mod tugged his muffler closer. ‘The body,’ said Davies, pointing, ‘was found about here. By some kids.’
‘At eleven-forty?’ murmured Tennant.
‘They’re allowed to stay up late around here,’ said Davies defensively. He disliked amateur detectives. ‘But where he was found is not necessarily the same place as where he went in.’
‘Fell in or jumped in,’ put in Tennant.
‘Or was pushed,’ Davies said defiantly. ‘The tow-path varies in width.’ He pointed. ‘It’s narrow and close to the edge along here, but back there it’s yards distant.’ They retraced their steps. The ragged asphalt path backed away from the water almost against the dark wall of one of the neighbouring factories. Davies paced the distance to the edge of the canal. ‘Six yards – eighteen feet,’ he said. ‘If Lofty had been pushing his pram along this piece then he could hardly have gone in by accident. Even if he’d been drunk, which is unlikely because he didn’t drink, he would have had plenty of time to pull up.’
He led them back along the bank. ‘Not so, further on,’ he said. ‘The path is narrow and runs right against the edge of the canal. He could easily have stumbled and pushed the pram over the edge.’
They climbed the wet stone steps to the street and walked silently to The Babe In Arms. Three pale youths from Cricklewood, wearing tartan shirts and waistcoats, were nasally singing a country-and-western song: a lament about a wife who had gone off for a good time leaving her husband with four hungry children and a crop in the field. ‘It’s a fine time to leave me, Lucille,’ they howled.
‘Who could blame her?’ said Mod pensively.
Jemma came in smiling her spectacularly split smile. Davies introduced Mod and Tennant. She winced at the singers and sat down. ‘In surrealist painting, of course,’ Mod said, looking at her absent tooth, ‘it’s so often what is not there that makes the work so riveting.’
Jemma bent forward confidingly. Her hand, like velvet, dropped across Davies’s wrist. She whispered: ‘I’ve found something out. Lofty had a secret.’
It was only ten-thirty when they arrived at the North-West London Refuge for Men but the warden was disgruntled.
‘These chaps need their sleep like everybody else,’ Charlie Copley grumbled, leading them through the snoring dormitory. ‘It’s heads down at ten, you know.’ He had switched on a bleak light and as they trooped through, spectral foreheads rose over bedclothes and there were protests, inquiries and onsets of coughing. Someone, asleep, shouted plaintively that he wanted to go home.
Mod’s eyes flickered with melancholy in the half-dark. Davies whispered: ‘Better pick your bed-space now.’
‘I’d go to hell first,’ muttered Mod. ‘Or work.’
Charlie led them to a small brick room. ‘Lofty’s,’ whispered Jemma. ‘He had a room of his own because he was a regular.’
The abrupt opening of the door disturbed the man in the single iron bed. Uncomprehendingly he stared at them. ‘I left the stuff in here,’ said Charlie. Brusquely he turned to the occupant: ‘No need to wake up, Barker.’ Barker dropped beneath the blanket like a soldier ducking into a trench.
Charlie bent down and began to move a small grating in the wall at floor-level.
‘Lofty’s own personal safe deposit,’ said Jemma.
The grating came away with a sound loud enough to cause half the head of the room’s occupant to emerge again. ‘It’s the police, Barker,’ said Charlie. The ashen forehead and the disturbed eyes slid away. The warden put his hand into the aperture and brought out a dusty shoe box. ‘Barker found it when he was nosing around,’ he said.
‘I found it,’ confirmed a padded voice beneath the blanket.
‘You’ll have to sign for it,’ said Charlie. ‘I can’t take the responsibility.’
‘We’ll sign,’ Jemma told him. ‘Detective Constable Davies will.’
Charlie took the box and they went out of the room. A ghostly ‘good night’ followed them.
They followed the warden through the shadows of the dormitory once more. Faces, white blotches, appeared, for the men were awake and as excited as children now. ‘It’s Dangerous,’ whispered a croaky voice, ‘and that darkie lady.’
‘Settle down,’ ordered Charlie sternly. ‘I won’t be responsible for any refusals tomorrow.’
The threat was a dire one because the inmates dropped at once to silence. The party went down some stone steps and waited on a bleak landing while Charlie turned, with three distinct keys, the locks of a heavy door. It opened and the switching of a single light revealed a room used as an office, piled untidily with papers and with unkempt files leaning in a corner. There Charlie tore a page from an account book and wrote crudely on it: ‘Box and contents, property of Brock, deceased.’ Davies signed it.
‘What’s refusals?’ he asked as he did so.
Charlie regarded him narrowly. ‘Refusals?’ he inquired.
‘Like you just said in there,’ Davies explained. ‘About not being responsible for any refusals tomorrow.’
‘Oh, those refusals. Well, if they don’t behave, toe the line, we can refuse them a bed. You have to have rules when you’re dealing with DMs.’
‘Distressed Men,’ put in Jemma. Decisively she took Brock’s box and put it under her arm. Charlie looked at her with doubt, as if he would have been happier if the person who had signed for the box had taken charge of it, but he said nothing. They went out into the dripping night and the warden closed the door massively behind them. Mod sniffed the air. ‘It smells positively luxurious out here,’ he observed.
‘Let it be a warning,’ said Davies as they shuffled along the pavement with Jemma between them. They were crouched against the weather but she strode on purposefully upright and had to pause to allow them to catch up. ‘You could end up as a DM,’ Davies added to Mod.
‘Or worse,’ put in Jemma. ‘You might be a VDM, a Very Distressed Man, or even a UDM, an Utterly Distressed Man. When you have to be looked after officially, you are reduced to initials.’
‘Where are we going to look at Brock’s box?’ Davies asked suddenly. The Babe In Arms was now shut and he did not want to go to the police station because it would have aroused interest, even suspicion. There were few places that Jemma could go unnoticed.
‘It’s your place or mine,’ the black girl said.
‘It’s not ours,’ Davies told her. The trio had paused on the rainy pavement. ‘Women aren’t allowed. Mrs Fulljames wouldn’t have it.’
The girl laughed in disbelief. ‘What a place to live! You’ll be telling me next that she wouldn’t have blacks.’
Morosely Davies glanced at Mod. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ he said.
‘It will have to be my house, then,’ Jemma said. ‘It’s not all that far. When Charlie told me about the box I only had a quick look because he was looking over my shoulder and I prefer not to get too near to him. His colour prejudice dissolves at close proximity.’
She wheeled around a lamplit corner and they followed. ‘It’s just here,’ she said, stopping outside a frowning house. Her voice lowered. ‘Don’t wake the babies.’
Davies was aware of his eyebrows going up. He sensed Mod’s glance. She unlocked the door and they crept in. The house had been divided into flats. There was another door which Jemma unlocked to let them into a
tight but bright hall and then into a sitting room where a skinny black boy was moodily watching a football match on television. Jemma said his name was Danny. ‘Are we winning?’ asked Davies, glancing at the screen.
‘We just did. Three nil,’ said the boy. He stood thinly and turned the set off.
‘Any noise?’ asked Jemma.
‘Not that I heard,’ shrugged Danny. ‘I was cheering.’
She gave the youth some reward and he sloped away. Jemma opened a darkened room and said: ‘Come and see my babies.’
With no enthusiasm Davies and Mod moved towards the door. ‘You didn’t mention … you had babies,’ stumbled Davies.
‘Take a look,’ she invited seriously. She opened the door wider so that it admitted a slice of light and they looked down into a cot cosseting two infants, one black and one white. Both slept deeply.
‘I sometimes – unofficially – bring my work home,’ Jemma said. ‘Their mothers have flown the coop.’
‘Too bad,’ muttered Davies inadequately as she ushered them from the room. ‘Too bad,’ echoed Mod.
Without asking them she poured three glasses of neat Scotch and they sat around the table looking at the grimy shoe box. It was parcelled with string which Jemma, taking responsibility, began to unknot. Her fingers were long and loose, with unpainted nails. She opened the box.
‘All sorts of stuff in here,’ she said.
Davies looked at the creased papers and envelopes in the box. On top was a linen bag which he turned sideways. Out slid a dull medal with a faded maroon and purple ribbon. He held it in his palm and, turning the medallion, read: ‘“For distinguished conduct in the field.”’ He turned it again. ‘It’s got his name on it. “Wilfred Henry Brock, May 29th, 1940.”’
‘Lofty, a hero!’ said Jemma. One of the babies in the bedroom began to cry. Davies handed the medal to Mod. The second baby joined in. Jemma rose and went into the bedroom. They could hear her hushing. Soon the crying ceased.
Davies returned his attention to the box, picking up each item with a care that suggested there might be lingering fingerprints. Jemma returned and watched him intently. ‘It’s like opening somebody’s forgotten present,’ she said.
‘Forgotten past,’ he replied absently. She watched him extract the papers, dirty and creased, spreading them out and studying each one for a few moments before passing to the next. ‘All stuff from the War,’ he muttered. ‘Lofty was in a prison camp, Stalag 62 in Germany. Letters, notes. Very odd. Scribbled bits about his fellow prisoners. Traitors, informers, even gangs. And I thought they were always digging tunnels or playing chess.’
He continued through the box. ‘He kept everything,’ he said. ‘Here’s a laundry list. And here …’ he paused. ‘Here is another list. And Lofty Brock’s name is on it. Wilfred Brock. It’s marked with a cross. So are some of the others. And there’s a skull at the top. It looks like a death list.’
Four
On Sundays there were invariably some desperate fishermen mustered on the canal bank, dolefully eyeing the glutinous water where nothing but the most primitive life had wriggled for many a year. These men looked up, as monks might when disturbed at their devotions, and studied the arrival of Davies and the frogmen with unchanging expressions. Theirs was not a pastime for displaying emotions.
‘’Morning lads,’ called Davies with heavy cheeriness. ‘Big ones biting today?’
Tennant, who appeared even thinner in his rubber suit, sniffed above mildewed water. ‘The only thing you’ll catch in there,’ he forecast gloomily, ‘is cholera.’ He glanced round carefully as if anxious to ensure that the two other divers had not gone hurriedly home. ‘I didn’t tell them it was quite like this,’ he confided in Davies.
‘They’ll probably like it once they get in,’ suggested Davies unconvincingly. He looked back towards the steps climbing to the road. Jemma was descending towards them with his dog lolloping and falling before her.
‘I brought him down,’ she said breathlessly. She was wearing a brilliant green dress with a suede coat and a bright headscarf which scarcely contained her hair. ‘He was making a fuss in your car. Trying to get out to attack some small children.’
‘He’s very fond of small children,’ said Davies. ‘Can’t get enough of them.’ He regarded the dog who stared back insolently between his dreadlocks.
The two other divers were unhappily surveying the scene. ‘This is it then?’ asked one, a neat and aggressive youth. Savagely he butted his head at the water. ‘This?’
‘Yes, it is. More or less,’ admitted Davies. He glanced for help towards Tennant. The second diver who had a pinched nose and watering eyes, as if he had recently trapped his face, wandered along the tow-path staring down like someone trying to peer through glass darkly. ‘’Ow deep is this lot then?’ he asked.
‘Usual Grand Union depth,’ answered Tennant briskly. ‘Canals don’t generally go up and down.’
‘I’ll put it up to thirty quid,’ whispered Davies urgently. ‘The contribution to the subaqua club. It’s not from official police funds, you know.’
Tennant said: ‘Done.’ He walked to the others. They still grumbled but set about readying their equipment. Davies stood back beside Jemma. Kitty rested his head against the black girl’s suede thigh. Davies eyed the dog. Jemma said: ‘He’s smitten.’
‘Not with me,’ said Davies. ‘You ought to come around and bath the brute, or try to comb his coat. He’s not an easy dog.’
There was a call from the bridge. Mod was coming down the steps. ‘Your philosopher friend,’ observed Jemma. ‘Why is he called Mod?’
‘After Tchaikovksy’s brother,’ said Davies.
‘Oh.’
Mod descended from the road at his customary waddle, the Sunday newspapers clutched in front of him like a breastplate. ‘Terrible situation in Africa,’ he said breathlessly as if it had just occurred. ‘What the answer is I really don’t know.’
‘What chance have the rest of us got?’ shrugged Davies.
Mod surveyed the divers. ‘Have they come up with anything?’ he asked.
‘They haven’t been in yet,’ grunted Davies. ‘We were waiting for you.’
Jemma said: ‘They want somebody to go first.’
Mod regarded her patiently. ‘The world is dark enough,’ he replied heavily, ‘without looking for darkness.’ Tennant called that they were ready. The short, aggressive one, who was called Archie, was going down first at the point where the body was found.
‘He could easily have just gone in and then floated around in that vicinity,’ said Tennant professionally. ‘They do sometimes. And the pram, of course.’
‘Right then,’ said Archie, preparing to adjust his mask. ‘We’re looking for an old pram, right? I bet there are a few in the bottom of this lot.’ He pulled his mask down, stood on the bank, legs bent and, like a large tadpole, leaped feet first into the canal.
Concentric circles of sludgy water spread. The clutch of anglers on the other bank angrily withdrew their lines. ‘That’s right!’ bawled one. ‘Go on, disturb the bloody water! Very bloody nice, I must say.’
‘In the season,’ added his nearest companion, staring at the mud.
‘Police operations,’ Davies called out.
‘You won’t find Lord Lucan in there, mate!’ one bellowed back.
Davies glared across the water. ‘I thought fishing made you a philosopher,’ he said.
Mod said soberly: ‘The essence of philosophy, surely, is the facility to order your thoughts, to categorise them, to collate them if you like, and to publish them, put them into action, or, at the very least, speak them. These persons squat for hours and reach no conclusions whatever. Anyway, it’s wet.’
Jemma said: ‘He’s coming up.’ The displacement of the surface heralded Archie’s return. He broke the water and then descended once more making a hand signal to Tennant as he did so. Tennant said something to the other diver, Charlie, who once more began to grumble. Tennant gave him a shor
t, hard push towards the canal and his involuntary momentum became another graceless leap. He glugged down into the murk. Both divers reappeared several times and eventually came out of the water and were hauled to the bank by Tennant and Davies with Mod hovering in support.
‘’Orrible,’ announced Archie. ‘Never seen so much shit in my life. No prams though.’
The second diver said firmly: ‘I want to go home.’
Tennant pursed his lips and tutted. ‘Quit,’ he threatened, ‘and you won’t come on the Bognor trip.’
Charlie appeared crushed. ‘Oh, all right then,’ he said. He tapped Tennant’s dry rubber suit. ‘But you’re coming down too?’
‘I haven’t got into this to work up a sweat,’ said Tennant haughtily. ‘I’m next in.’ He told Davies he was going to try a hundred yards further along the bank where the tow-path was wider. They watched while he prepared to leap into the canal. He returned their looks as though embarrassed. Then he pulled his mask down in a finalising way and performed the ungainly, feet-first jump into the water.
‘That scores nil for elegance,’ observed Jemma.
‘It’s the flippers that spoil it from an aesthetic point of view,’ agreed Mod. Davies half turned. The fishermen, muttering like gnomes, were trudging away with their gear and baskets. He saw that beyond them spectators had gathered on the bridge that took the road across the canal.
Tennant surfaced, waved what appeared to be an excited hand, and submerged again. They gathered at the edge of the grim water. Globular disturbances were followed by a further waving arm. ‘What’s he got, I wonder?’ said Jemma.
‘Cramp,’ guessed Archie, standing with them.
They hauled Tennant out, backing away from the ordure that ran from his wet-suit. ‘Stinking,’ he said, when the mask was off. ‘Foul. But it’s down there. A pram. It hasn’t been under there long. It’s on its nose. We could hook it up.’
Archie and Charlie went to get some rope and tackle from their truck which was parked on the road. When they returned, a small shifty man came with them. ‘Hello, Shiny,’ said Davies.
The Complete Dangerous Davies Page 30