Old Tommy, apparently not having witnessed the drama, finished counting the worms in his bucket. He straightened up, picked up the spade and the receptacle and, with no word nor gesture to them, began plodding back towards the murky shore-line. Bert jerked his head at Davies and followed. Davies turned, weary and defeated, and became the tail of the short, slow, homeward crocodile. The wind was at his back now, pushing at him like someone overdoing encouragement. He stepped carefully, resisting the force of the gusts, and was thinking that at least he was becoming more skilled when, negotiating a screed of bare rock and slimy gullies, he became unbalanced and an opportunist blast between his shoulder blades sent him sprawling forward. He fell on his knees in the icy ooze, his arms sinking to the elbows. His cry caused Bert to turn casually, but the little man made no effort to return although he waited. He watched stonily as Davies unplugged his arms and with anger and anguish eventually contrived to regain his feet.
‘Looks like Old Tommy’s spotted your fiver,’ Bert told him chattily when he had caught up. ‘Look, ’e’s off over there.’
The bait-digger had taken a diversion and was youthfully stepping across inlets and flats. He bent and picked up the five-pound note which was floating in a pool, hugging a wall of rock like a sheltering ship. In almost the same movement, he thrust the note into his pocket before continuing his progress towards the land.
Bert said philosophically: ‘Being deaf ’e’s ’ard to argue with.’
He continued carefully across the mud, the policeman miserably in his wake. Dusk and tide were both advancing. Water began to slide about their waders. Davies looked towards the dim shelter on the shore. Mod could just be discerned. There were two other figures with him. Old Tommy had already gained the grass and Bert was almost there. As Davies got closer, he saw that the shapes flanking Mod were uniformed policemen. It was difficult for his heart to sink further. Slowly, he progressed towards them, the surface beneath his waders becoming firmer. There was a police car standing outside the pub with the driver reporting his arrival over the radio.
He was icy, wet, bruised and coated with grey slime. He felt he could scarcely stagger another step. His teeth clattered. Old Tommy had taken his bucket in the direction of the last of the daylight. Bert walked away into the anonymous gloom. One of the policemen sitting on either side of Mod arose and ambled towards him. He was a sergeant.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he said. ‘Been digging for bait?’
From within his coating of mud, Davies regarded the man with true hatred. His arms and legs felt like frozen wood. ‘No,’ he said bitterly. ‘I’ve just walked from fucking Denmark.’
Twelve
‘Anyone,’ sighed Inspector Joliffe of Essex Constabulary, ‘who lets himself in for arranging police balls must be mad.’ His arms were folded on his desk and he looked sombrely and directly at Davies, as though confident he would find sympathy. After some initial surprise, Davies was swift to offer it.
‘Exactly my sentiments, sir,’ he said. ‘Coppers are apt to get disgruntled.’
‘It was last night,’ groaned Joliffe. ‘Southend. And it’s the final one for me. I can tell you how bloody relieved I was when they played the last waltz. Last straw more like it. Half the raffle prizes were stolen, the band was terrible, and one of the wives hit a woman PC on the jaw.’
Davies moved his head sympathetically. ‘They can get rough. We’ve had to call the police before now.’
‘We don’t have to call them; they’re waiting outside with the breathalysers,’ complained Joliffe. ‘Those who didn’t want to go to the ball, spoiling it for others.’ He bumped his forearms forlornly on the desk.
Davies said: ‘You’re quite right, sir. “Blow into this – and it’s not a bag of chips.” We’ve got them as well.’
The inspector shook his head and withdrew his arms from the desk. The action seemed to remind him that he was there to interrogate Davies. ‘Well, what’s all this then?’ he asked. He picked up a written report and held it at a distance from his eyes, blocking Davies’s view of him. ‘Talk about coppers turning on their own,’ he said from behind the paper barrier. ‘We’ve had to bring you in.’ The report sheet was lowered. The eyes were troubled. ‘What’s it all about then?’
‘Inquiries,’ answered Davies inadequately.
‘Inquiries?’ said Joliffe, his voice firmer. ‘But you can’t just come down here on inquiries. Not just like that. There’s channels. We can’t have the Metropolitan Police making investigations in Essex, in our manor, our patch, with not so much as a by-your-leave. You know about permissions and suchlike.’
‘Yes, sir, of course,’ said Davies dolefully.
‘Who knows where it would stop? There’s the old man in the hotel at Frinton, Mr Linder. You tell him you’re the police but he sees you drive off in a beat-up old heap that obviously isn’t a police vehicle. So he telephones us. Have you got a current MOT certificate, by the way?’
‘Oh yes, I have,’ said Davies. ‘Somewhere.’
Joliffe wrote something in the margin of the report sheet. ‘You’d better produce it,’ he murmured. ‘And your driving licence and insurance at your nearest police station.’
‘Right. Of course. I’ll take it in when I’m next working,’ said Davies. ‘I should be on duty this morning. I’ve had to phone. That’s why I wanted to get the matter sorted out yesterday.’ He realised he was adopting the chummy attitude of the petty criminal when cornered. ‘Incidentally,’ he mentioned. ‘I know a friend of Max Bygraves. When you have the police ball next year …’
Joliffe looked up and regarded Davies carefully. ‘Max Bygraves?’ he said. ‘Max Bygraves wouldn’t come here, would he? You mean, if you asked him?’
‘He might,’ muttered Davies half-encouragingly. ‘You never know with these people. Like, if he was on his way to somewhere else.’
‘There is nowhere else out here,’ said Joliffe, looking at the divisional map on the wall apparently to make sure. ‘Only Ipswich. And he’s hardly likely to be going to Ipswich, is he? Ipswich apart, all there is after here is mud.’
‘I know,’ said Davies feelingly. ‘I’ve been stuck in it.’
‘Ah yes. They were having a laugh about that at the ball last night.’ He examined Davies, apparently for signs of slime. ‘But they helped you to get cleaned up.’
‘Oh yes. They were very decent,’ said Davies.
‘And they victualled you.’
‘Yes. And they put me up in the section house. The cells were probably full.’
‘Yes, yes. We’re not a bad bunch really in this division,’ said Joliffe. ‘The ball brings out the worst I always think.’ He sighed ponderously. ‘Unfortunately this …’ Regretfully he tapped the sheet of paper. ‘… has now gone into the works, the gubbins. Into the computer. And you know as well as I do what that means – there’s no retrieving it. You could bring The Rolling Stones to Chelmsford, and we still couldn’t get you off. Once it’s in the gubbins, it’s in the gubbins for good.’
‘It’s going to be difficult for me,’ admitted Davies.
‘What were you up to, anyway? Whatever it was, you weren’t very quiet over it. After alarming the old boy at Frinton, you go to the pub at Purwell-by-Sea and tell them you’re coppers. The landlord rang us as well.’
‘He hired me his waders,’ said Davies bitterly.
‘Why did you want to go out on the mud?’
‘To see the old man digging bait. There were some questions I wanted to ask him. He turned out to be stone-deaf.’
‘What sort of questions? What’s the background?’
‘The inquiries are about a man called Lofty Brock,’ said Davies. ‘Although that wasn’t his real name. And he’s dead now anyway. He was drowned in a canal.’
Joliffe twirled his pencil as if the story were all too familiar. ‘Why didn’t you do the proper thing then, go through channels?’ he asked. ‘We could have made the inquiries. We can ask questions, you know, just as well as the Me
tropolitan Police.’
‘It wasn’t official,’ Davies admitted in a low voice. ‘It was a personal sort of investigation.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Joliffe, shaking his head. ‘On your tod, was it? That’s a bit frowned on. It would be here.’
‘Yes,’ nodded Davies glumly. ‘It’s frowned on.’
‘And you went to Purwell to ask about this man Brock, who’s dead?’
‘Yes. A family called Prenderley. I thought the old man, Old Tommy, might know them.’
‘He ought to,’ said Joliffe. ‘He’s one of them.’
Staring at the rainy road ahead from behind the Vanguard’s massive wheel, Davies once more began to mutter bitterly. ‘He was one of them. The old deaf bastard was a Prenderley. Why didn’t they say so in the pub? They must be as thick as the mud they bloody well live on.’
Carefully, Mod said: ‘Do you remember what they did say, Dangerous?’
‘Go on, go on. Tell me what I missed – again.’
‘It’s only now I think of it,’ Mod said. ‘When you asked about the Prenderley family in the pub there was a bit of a silence and the landlord asked the man in the corner …’
‘Good old Bert,’ said Davies, grinding his teeth.
‘Exactly. And Bert said something about the Prenderleys having lived at the coastguard cottages. Then the landlord said to Bert something like “Old Tommy ought to know” and Bert agreed that Old Tommy ought to. Of course, he ought to know – because he was one of them. But they weren’t going to tell you everything. If Old Tommy wanted to tell you, let him tell you himself.’
‘Except there was a gale blowing and he was stone-deaf,’ said Dangerous.
‘He’s the last of the Prenderleys?’
‘In that area he is. That’s where they all come from. The inspector, Joliffe, told me there were still some Prenderleys living in Southend. They’re a well-Known local family, or they were.’
‘Even notorious, perhaps. One of the girls doing time for nicking the silver.’
Davies sighed and the sigh turned into a grunt of indignation. ‘And she’s the one who knew the man we call Lofty Brock,’ he said. ‘Or did. She may be dead now.’ In his exasperation he trod on the accelerator and sent the car bouncing and skidding on the soaked road.
‘Steady, steady,’ cautioned Mod. ‘You were way above forty then.’
‘Now we’ll never know,’ continued Davies, managing to steady the car. ‘If I ever so much as put my snout in this manor again, that will be goodbye. I’m going to be in enough bother as it is.’
‘What can they do to you?’
‘For undermining authority? For going into another force’s territory unofficially – and getting caught? And remember, we’ve been to Yorkshire, Hampshire and I went to Bedfordshire to see the old prison lady. For that lot I could find myself standing next to you in the queue at the DHSS. On the other hand, they might be lenient and put me back in uniform.’
Mod was shocked. ‘Oh, Dangerous,’ he said solemnly. ‘I didn’t realise it was that serious. Is there anything I can do?’
‘Yes,’ said Davies grimly. ‘Try not to laugh.’
He had tidied himself up, resolutely brushing his hair and getting out his blazer. Superintendent Vesty kept him waiting for half an hour and he sat grimly in the CID room, trying to interest himself in an old issue of the Police Gazette. Even that was a mockery. Everyone else seemed to be in the process of being promoted.
When Superintendent Vesty sent down, he was in the lavatory and there was a further delay while they shouted around for him. In his rush his braces slipped and caught him a vicious blow in the eye. He reached the office with tears streaming down his cheek.
‘Took your time didn’t you, Davies?’ said Vesty. Propped before him was a folder with ‘Police Boxing’ printed on the cover.
‘Sorry, sir. I was out for a minute.’
‘What’s wrong with your eye?’
Davies grappled for a handkerchief, failed, and wiped the water away with the back of his hand. ‘Bit of a cold, sir.’
Vesty, a wide-eared, round-shouldered man, took no further interest. He bowed low over the folder. ‘D’you know Wilfred Gamage?’ he inquired almost absently. ‘Black kid. Fancies he can box.’
‘Yes, I know him,’ answered Davies. ‘Wilful Damage, they call him.’
‘It’s the Police Boxing Night,’ said Vesty, tapping the folder. ‘He wants to fight a policeman.’
Davies felt himself go pale. ‘I’m a bit old for that, sir.’ His voice came out in a croak.
Vesty looked aghast. ‘Christ, not you, Davies. You get dented enough when you’re on duty.’ He appeared to recall the purpose of the interview and picked up a typed letter with several attachments. He sighed and said: ‘Now, what the hell have you been up to?’
‘It’s the Essex thing, is it, sir?’
The superintendent’s round shoulders seemed to get rounder. ‘What else? Have you been up to anything else?’
‘Oh no, sir. It was all a bit unfortunate.’
‘Listen, Davies,’ said Vesty ponderously. ‘You know bloody well that nobody – nobody – can just traipse across another police force’s manor without express permission. You know how touchy they get. We wouldn’t like it ourselves. If some copper from Chelmsford suddenly took it into his head to roam around this division, there’d be hell to pay.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘And what, in God’s name, was it all about?’ He tapped the paper in his hand. ‘What’s all this stuff about Brock?’
‘Lofty Brock,’ replied Davies defensively. ‘Remember, he died in the canal here, last October. But I don’t think it was just an accident …’
Vesty banged the letter on the desk. ‘Oh, come on now, Davies! You know as well as I do that you can’t just take things on yourself. The Brock case – according to our records which I have here – was open and shut. There was an inquest.’
‘Yes, sir. Open verdict.’
‘I don’t give a damn what the verdict was! All I know is that you’ve been pissing about where you shouldn’t be. Haven’t we got enough to occupy you here? We had half a dozen parking meters prised open this weekend – with an axe by the look of it. Is that stuff too small for you?’
‘No sir. I was doing the Brock thing in my own time.’
Again Vesty slammed his fist on the table so fiercely he winced. ‘Your own time! Jesus – that’s worse!’ He stood and leaned over like a toppling tree. His thick fingers wagged. ‘You must be potty! Drop it – drop it now Davies! At bloody once.’
Davies eyed him nervously. ‘Yes sir … I have. Right now. More or less.’
‘More or less nothing!’ exploded the superintendent. ‘You are in trouble – right in the shit, believe me. This has to go further. It’s out of my hands.’ He looked bitterly at Davies. ‘Anything else? Anything further you want taken into consideration?’
‘No sir, nothing,’ said Davies. ‘Nothing at all.’
Vesty’s sigh as he sat down was so loud it emerged like gas from a balloon. ‘If this sort of thing went on all the time, the Metropolitan Police as we know it would be rent apart,’ he said sonorously. ‘Let’s hope we can get you off lightly.’
‘I hope so, sir,’ said Davies. He rose from the chair. Vesty was glaring at the letter again.
‘You must be potty,’ he repeated. ‘Isn’t there enough crime without inventing it?’
When Davies went down to the evening meal at ‘Bali Hi’, Furtman Gardens, that day, he was discomfited to find his estranged wife Doris sitting primly alone at the table. Mod, he knew, had been summoned to a meeting with a senior employment officer and had gone with anxious heart; it was Minnie Banks’s night for her grooming and personality class, Mr Smeeton had an early performance and Mrs Fulljames was immersed in culinary steam.
‘Evening,’ said Davies politely as he took his chair at the opposite end of the table. The off-white cloth was like a gulf between them. ‘Not a bad day for the ti
me of year.’
‘You’ve ruined my life,’ said Doris, looking down at her knife, fork and spoon. ‘Ruined it.’
‘Not now,’ pleaded Davies. ‘I’ve had a terrible day at the police station.’
‘Every day is terrible for me,’ she sniffed. She picked up the knife and laid it down again. ‘You’ve ruined my life.’
‘So you said. But why bring it up now? It’s been years, after all.’
‘Years,’ she agreed. ‘In this house. Separated. We can’t go on living together like this.’
‘Well,’ said Davies, pondering the logic. ‘It’s been all right so far. It suits us both. We don’t get under each other’s feet all that much.’
‘Don’t you remember,’ she said, her voice all at once hushed, ‘when we were tango champions of Finchley Lacarno. Doesn’t it mean anything to you? You were different then. It was when you got out of uniform – and started drinking.’
‘It’s difficult to go drinking wearing a helmet,’ he acknowledged. ‘Somebody always notices.’
‘Make jokes,’ she retorted. ‘Go on.’ She began to sob.
‘Oh, don’t cry, Doris,’ said Davies genuinely. ‘Not here.’
‘Where can I cry then?’ she snivelled. ‘In my room?’
‘I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’
‘No, you’re not. You’ve still got that darkie.’
‘That is professional. And it’s my business,’ he said firmly.
‘It’s mine. You’re my husband.’
The reality came to him with a sort of shock. He almost said: ‘So I am.’ Instead he asked her: ‘Would you be happier if we had a divorce?’ Her expression sagged. The tears which had been suspended from her lower eyelashes splashed to the table-cloth.
‘Divorce?’ she said. ‘Divorce? We can’t have a divorce. Never. I couldn’t face the disgrace.’
She blew her nose, terrifically, into her paper table napkin. Minnie Banks came in from the grooming and personality class as wan and knock-kneed as ever. She wished them a timid good evening and left again to wash her hands. Mrs Fulljames emerged from the kitchen with two plates of brown Windsor soup, carried at arms’ length like smoking bombs. ‘Been having a little chat, have you,’ she said, placing one before Doris and one in front of Davies. ‘It’s nice when you can get together for a little chat, I think. It clears the air.’
The Complete Dangerous Davies Page 39