‘Seventy-eight,’ said Davies, grinding his teeth. ‘Two bleeding eighteen-year-olds, and they say that she attacked them first.’
He put his head in his hands and, looking down, saw for the first time the note on his desk. ‘Oh, I took that,’ remembered Sanderson. ‘Hampstead nick. They’ve got Shiny Bright. He wants to speak to you. Says he has information, whatever that may mean.’
‘Hampstead? Shiny?’ wondered Davies. ‘Bit rarified for him.’ He looked up the number and dialled it.
‘Bright,’ said the sergeant at the other end. ‘Know him?’
‘Fairly frequently,’ said Davies. ‘What’s he nicked for?’
‘Breaking and entering. Trod on the watch-dog.’
‘That sounds like Shiny. And he wants to see me?’
‘Wants to grass about something or other. Thinks he’ll get off with a smacked hand. Are you interested?’
‘I’ll come over. Don’t let him escape.’
‘That won’t happen. Somehow the cell was left open and he managed to lock himself in.’
Bright looked like an apprehensive boy seated behind the table in the charge room.
‘Now, Shiny, what’s all this?’ asked Davies, pulling a chair to the other side of the table. ‘I hope you haven’t brought me all this way to say you’re sorry.’
‘I’m sorry, all right, Dangerous.’ said the small criminal. ‘Sorry I trod on the bleedin’ dog. Bit the arse out of my trousers.’
‘Hard luck. You shouldn’t break into people’s houses. They’ll put you away again, and the nice weather is coming.’
‘I got information, Dangerous.’ Bright sat up hopefully, his eyes shining. ‘Maybe I’ll get off light.’
Davies leaned forward. ‘You know I can’t make promises, Shiny. Not of that nature. On the other hand, I know a few magistrates who’ll give you a few quid from the poor box and have the dog destroyed.’ His head thrust further over the table. ‘What information?’
‘Well, you know when you was fishing the pram out of the canal. Couple of months ago. Lofty Brock’s pram.’
‘Yes,’ said Davies slowly. ‘What about it?’
‘Well, I got some information about that.’
Davies leaned further. ‘What, Shiny?’
‘The night Lofty went into the canal …’
‘October 6th,’ said Davies.
‘Right you are. Well, I was trying to do a little job in one of them workshops along there, by the canal. The place where they do the clocks.’
‘Yes … Shurrock’s …’
‘That’s it … Well, I nosed about for a bit. It was all quiet. About eleven thirty, I know because I got ’ome in time for the Open University. For a start, I couldn’t get into the place. Locked tight and barred. Then on the off-chance I tried the front door and, blow me, it opened. Just easy, like that. So I’m in, ain’t I? I reckoned they might have some loose change around in the desks, so I’ ad a rummage but I didn’t find nothing.’ He looked questioningly at Davies.
‘No break-in was reported, Shiny,’ said Davies, as calmly as he could. ‘Now, you saw something, didn’t you?’
‘You’re right, Dangerous, and that’s what I want to tell you about. Will all this be taken into consideration when I come up, Dangerous?’
‘Tell me what you saw, Shiny.’
‘Cars. Two or three cars on that bit of road and lights. Doors opening and suchlike. I couldn’t tell exactly where. I was in a state because I thought it was the law. I don’t know how many people either, because I was keeping low, wasn’t I. Then I heard a gurgling.’
Davies felt his eyebrows go up. ‘A gurgling?’
‘Like somebody being strangled. I looked out and saw this bloke bash another bloke on the ’ead with summat. Blimey, I nearly wet myself. What have I got myself into now, I thought.’
‘Did you see them? What were they like?’
‘Only like shadows, Dangerous. I couldn’t see much. Then there was another sort of row going on. Voices, but not English. You know that wire gate at the bottom of the little road, by the canal. I’d climbed over that myself. But now I ’eard it bein’ opened, and then some running and a shout like somebody was dead scared. After, when I ’eard about Lofty Brock I thought it could be ’im. Because there was a splash, Dangerous. Somebody went in the water …’
Davies stared at Bright. ‘Honest,’ said the small man. ‘I ain’ making it up.’
‘What happened next?’
‘I ’id. I ’id like I’ve never ’id before. Cor, I reckoned they’d ’ear my ticker banging. I was dead scared. I just got down and stayed there under the window until I ’eard the cars drive off. It was only about five minutes. Then I waited a bit more and poked my ’ead up. They’d all gone. Everything was dark and all quiet. So I got up, shut the door locked behind me and climbed over the fence and went ’erne.’
Davies said: ‘And you failed to report this to the police?’
Bright’s hurt little eyes came up from the table. ‘I’m telling you now, Dangerous,’ he said.
‘Hello, Mr Shurrock. It’s me. Back again.’ Davies sat down heavily at the desk. Adrian Shurrock, startled as a rabbit, regarded him from the other side.
‘Mr Davies,’ he said. ‘So you are. What brings you to these parts?’
‘Same old thing,’ said Davies. ‘What the police call “certain inquiries”. How’s the dramatics?’
‘Oh … the amateur dramatics. Well, funnily enough, we did An Inspector Calls just before Christmas. It was very well received.’
Davies laughed bulkily. ‘Can’t say I’ve risen to the heights of inspector yet, Mr Shurrock, but I’ve certainly called.’ He leaned forward. ‘It’s about the old man who died in the canal,’ he confided. ‘October 6th last year, remember?’
‘Yes, of course. But … you’re still on that?’
‘Some cases, unfortunately, make slow progress. A meagre little bit at a time.’ He produced his notebook and importantly licked the end of a thick pencil, bringing a glint of apprehension into the eyes of the wispy young man.
‘I told you all I know,’ he said like a plea.
‘Did you, now?’ said Davies. ‘Have you got a couple of minutes to go over it again?’
‘We’re very busy,’ said Shurrock. He looked sideways and rose to make certain his office door was closed. ‘But if it helps.’
‘I’m sure it will,’ said Davies, trying to read his own writing in his notebook. ‘Now, when I came to see you before, you told me that you’d never had a break-in at these premises.’ Shurrock’s underfed moustache began to quiver like the whiskers of a mouse.
‘I told you we have a security watch,’ he said nervously.
‘That’s not the, question,’ pursued Davies. ‘Have you had any break-ins? You told me you hadn’t.’ He bent confidingly. ‘Now, I don’t think you were telling me the truth. I think you had a break-in on the very night we’re talking about – to wit, October 6th. I even know what time it was – eleven-thirty, because the burglar was home in time for Open University.’
Shurrock’s white face became blotched with pink. ‘All right, all right, there was,’ he said. ‘But to start with, I didn’t even know it was a break-in. Things had been disturbed, drawers left open, but there were no signs of forcible entry.’
‘That’s because you left the front door open,’ Davies pointed out.
Shurrock put his fingers to his face. ‘Oh, God, did I?’ he said. ‘That’s what happened. It was all locked up in the morning.’
‘The burglar locked up after him.’
‘Yes, yes, I see now.’ He looked over the thin tops of his fingers, a little defiantly. ‘But there’s no law which says you have to report a break-in, is there? Not if you don’t want to?’
Davies wasn’t sure. ‘Why didn’t you want to?’ he asked instead. ‘Why did you lie to me when I asked?’
‘I had my reasons,’ said Shurrock. He got up and looked out of the bleak window like a prisoner. ‘My f
ather owns this company and he thinks I’m useless. He once referred to me in public as a whining shit and then said he meant a shining wit. Everybody pissed themselves laughing. I’m only here because he has to employ me – my mother says so.’
Davies rocked his head and tutted. ‘So when you made a mistake, like letting burglars in, you daren’t tell him.’
‘He’d crucify me. I’d be out on my neck.’ He looked weak and lost. ‘I’d have nowhere to go. Not at anything like the money I get here. I couldn’t tell him. God, we had a fire here and he put that down to my carelessness, which I suppose it was, and then a whole consignment of stuff went missing, vanished, never to be found again, and that was down to me too. This time would have been the last.’
Sighing, Davies stood up. ‘You might like to know that omitting to report the crime, and covering up when I asked you, has set back my inquiries several months.’ Loudly he shut his notebook.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Davies. Life gets very difficult, doesn’t it?’
‘I’ll say it does.’ He went towards the door.
‘That’s it then?’ said the young man. ‘I won’t hear any more?’
‘I’m not promising anything,’ Davies told him. He went out. ‘Don’t forget to lock up,’ he said.
At Blissen Ltd Pharmaceuticals, there was a different girl at the desk. She was arranging her eyebrows before leaving for the day.
‘Just off home?’ said Davies.
‘Five o’clock,’ she replied firmly. She was plump and plain. Davies tried to see what she had been doing to her eyebrows.
‘Is Mrs Harrer still here?’ he inquired.
‘Oh, I’ll say,’ said the girl contemptuously. Davies thought she was probably leaving at the end of the week. ‘And him, Mr Harrison.’
‘Good. Could you tell them Mr Davies is here.’
‘Can’t,’ said the girl. ‘She’s on the phone. She grunts away for hours. I’m off at five.’
‘You said.’
‘Why don’t you just go up. He’s up there. Old half-baked.’
Davies thanked her gravely and wished her well in her new job wherever it was. ‘Who told you?’ she asked.
He went along the corridor. At the foot of the stairs he paused and called up politely. A grey man with an oblong jaw appeared. ‘Who is it?’ he inquired sharply. ‘We are closing.’
‘Mr Harrison?’ said Davies, heavily mounting the stairs. ‘How was Las Palmas?’
The man was nonplussed. ‘Las Palmas? It’s months since I was in Las Palmas. Who are you?’
‘I’m a policeman. Detective Constable Davies,’ said Davies, showing his warrant card like a conjurer showing an ace of spades. ‘I won’t keep you long.’
He heard the telephone replaced in the next office, and the huge Mrs Harrer loomed in the corridor. She seemed even bigger than when he had last seen her. She had to move sideways along the passage.
‘Good evening, madam,’ said Davies. ‘You remember I called previously, when Mr Harrison was in Las Palmas.’
‘Ja, of course,’ said the woman suspiciously. ‘And now you are here again. Something else this time?’
Davies shook his head. ‘No, no. Same old thing.’
‘What’s it about?’ asked Harrison. He turned from one to the other as if expecting a simultaneous answer.
‘It was a drunk man fallen in the canal,’ said Mrs Harrer. ‘I told you.’
‘Oh, that.’ He peered at Davies. ‘That was months ago,’ he said. ‘You’d better come in. It gets crowded in these corridors.’
Davies caught the fat woman’s scowl as she lumbered into the office. When the three of them were seated there was no room for another person.
‘It takes the English police a long time to solve their unimportant mysteries,’ said Mrs Harrer. She had rolled herself behind the desk and Harrison had sat in a chair beside it.
Davies spread his hands. ‘Ages, sometimes,’ he agreed.
‘What did all this have to do with us, this company?’ demanded Harrison. ‘I can’t remember anything about it, except that it was a tramp who fell in the canal.’
‘Nothing,’ admitted Davies, ‘except that it happened just outside.’
‘But wasn’t it at night?’
‘Yes it was.’
‘There is no person here at night,’ put in Mrs Harrer thickly. ‘So I told you before.’
‘Quite so. But do you have deliveries here late sometimes? Vehicles arriving after dark.’
Harrison was astonished. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Our deliveries always arrive in daylight. We don’t have staff to unload otherwise.’
‘If I remember …’ said Davies. He paused to study his notebook. ‘You mainly act as a distribution centre for deliveries of pharmaceuticals from the Continent.’
‘That’s almost all we do.’
‘How do they get here, these deliveries?’
‘All sorts of ways they come,’ put in Mrs Harrer impatiently. ‘Across the Channel or sometimes by air.’
‘Generally Heathrow?’
‘Not at all,’ said Harrison. ‘Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham.’
‘And the ferries?’
Harrison was beginning to show ill-temper. ‘Dover, Weymouth and others. But I don’t see what this has got to do with a tramp falling in the damned canal.’
Davies shut his book. ‘Neither do I, frankly,’ he confessed. ‘Well, I’ll be going.’ He stood up. ‘It’s just that we had a report of some vehicles in the service road, just outside, on the night in question.’ He regarded them both. ‘But you wouldn’t know about that?’
‘Not at all,’ said Harrison. ‘Business is done in business hours here. If there were vehicles outside, then they had nothing to do with this company. I’m afraid you’re wasting all our time.’
‘It looks like it,’ said Davies. He got up apologetically.
‘That’s not to say there weren’t vehicles on the road,’ said Harrison. ‘For all I know there may have been. There’s supposed to be a security man on duty. Ask him.’
‘Ha,’ said Mrs Harrer. ‘He is stupid.’
Davies had rarely seen – even in an era of traffic wardens and British Rail porters – a body more unsuited to uniform than that of the security man who had just appeared for duty at the gatehouse of the industrial area. He was young, short and scant, with a shining chin and round, rimless glasses. He had a big hat and a brown tunic. He looked, Davies thought, like a member of the Hitler Youth.
His manner, however, was inoffensive. ‘I always wanted to be in the police,’ he confided. ‘Unfortunately, the height wasn’t there.’
‘Yes,’ said Davies vaguely. ‘There is a minimum.’
‘You wouldn’t think I was perfect for this job,’ the man went on. ‘Physically, I mean. But I can shout. My voice carries.’ Outside the gatehouse, it was the end of the February afternoon, damp and calm. Lights streamed along the road.
‘Let’s see,’ said Davies, opening his notebook. ‘According to your employers, you were on duty here on the night of October 6th last year.’ He read from his notes: ‘Edwin Francis Curl.’
‘That’s when the old man went into the canal,’ said the security man without hesitation. ‘Yes, that’s me. They asked me about it when you were making inquiries before.’ He squinted through his glasses. ‘Taking a long time to find out about it, isn’t it?’ he said.
Davies sighed. ‘It’s on the steady side,’ he answered. ‘But we’ve established that you were the man on duty here.’
‘Right. It was a weekday, so I must have been. I’ve been on this job since August.’
‘You get here at five.’
‘Yes. Straight from work.’
‘And you leave at eight in the morning … What d’you mean, straight from work?’
Curl looked embarrassed. ‘I shouldn’t have said that, should I,’ he admonished himself. ‘Silly thing to say.’ He looked pleadingly at Davies. ‘Do you have to tell them?’
‘I don’t s
ee why,’ shrugged Davies. ‘What’s your day job then?’
‘I’m a security man,’ answered Curl. ‘For another firm. Blue uniform. A better lot than this. Naturally, you have to keep awake all day because it’s mostly what we call scrutinising – keeping check on people going in and out of buildings and that.’
‘So you get some sleep at night?’
‘Well, I have to. This job is a bit of a steal. Once the gate’s closed. I can get my head down after midnight. Look …’ He reached into a canvas holdall. ‘I bring my own Lilo.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to check in every hour or so?’ asked Davies.
‘And my alarm clock,’ said Curl, producing it in a pleased way.
‘Oh, yes. I see.’
‘They’re not much of a security firm, this bunch,’ confided the small brown-shirted man. ‘Some very unsuitable types working for them. People with criminal records …’
‘Have you got one?’ asked Davies swiftly.
‘Me? Oh … well, I used to have a bit of trouble … horses and greyhounds and that. I might as well tell you because you only have to look me up on your computer, don’t you?’
‘It’s easy,’ said Davies. ‘When do you get time to eat?’
Curl spread his neat hands. ‘When I can,’ he said. ‘I have to admit I do sneak off to the fish and chip shop.’
‘What time?’
‘Oh, usually about nine.’
‘Did you that night? October 6th?’
‘I can’t remember, but I probably did. I have a different sort of fish every night.’
‘On that night could you have been absent between say, ten-thirty and eleven-thirty?’
‘The fish shop shuts at ten.’ His hairless face became abruptly wrinkled. Behind the bare glasses, his eyes pleaded. ‘Don’t tell them if you don’t have to. I need the money, Mr Davies, I’ve got three women.’
‘Three!’
‘You know how one thing leads to another.’
There was a movement at the door. Davies turned. Williams, the manager of the safe company, was handing over a key from the window of his car. His expression solidified when he saw Davies. ‘More trouble?’ he said.
‘Same lot,’ said Davies.
The Complete Dangerous Davies Page 36