‘They sell a lot of sherry down here,’ mentioned Davies remembering the people at the Moonlighters Club.
‘Mr Davies, it is warm and it’s sweet. Even the dry is sweet, if you understand me. It makes an older person feel … warm and sweet.’ She regarded him apologetically. ‘But enough of this. You want to know why I need the money.’
He was about to shake his head and say that it was her private business but she went on: ‘I don’t. Not for myself. But my husband had a son, Gervais Dulciman, by his first marriage. He is middle-aged now. And more hateful than his father was even in his latter years. He is a cheat and a bully, a thoroughly unpleasant man. He left a sweet, good wife and two children destitute. Went off abroad to some warm beach where he could not be traced. Now he’s back, still denying them. She has had to struggle, believe me, and she has done it very bravely.
‘Mr Davies, I want her, Anna, to have that money. I want to make sure she has what is her due. If I cannot prove my husband’s death and I die in the meantime, as I may well do, then it will drop very nicely and neatly into Gervais Dulciman’s lap.’ She paused and added: ‘The rat.’
Davies felt his eyebrows lift. He concentrated on the sherry. ‘I was asking you before we went to sort out the dog … I was asking if you might have a photograph of your husband,’ he said.
‘I was about to get it.’
‘Sorry about the diversion.’
‘That’s perfectly all right. This hotel could do with a little livening up sometimes.’ She rose and moved towards a small, fine bookcase. She unlocked one of the lower drawers. ‘This is where I keep all my secrets,’ she smiled looking back at him.
She sorted through the drawer but quickly returned to him holding a photographic folder: ‘It’s a self-portrait,’ she said. ‘It was taken some years ago.’
With a small flourish, almost a little ceremony, she opened the folder, and displayed the black-and-white photograph. ‘Vernon Dulciman,’ she announced. It was like a picture of an old-fashioned film star; handsome regular features, a firm nose, carefully parted hair, thoughtful forehead, and light, slightly amused eyes.
‘Artistic and arrogant, one of his friends called him,’ she said.
‘Who was that?’ asked Davies.
She appeared surprised at the question. ‘Let me see,’ she mused. ‘I can’t actually remember. A woman I expect.’
‘He had a lot of women friends?’ he remained looking at the photograph so that he would not have to face her. But she replied easily: ‘You imagine right. In the London days there were certainly. But I’m not the jealous type and I was certainly not inclined to spend all day keeping track of him. I had one or two flings myself. Strange to think of it now. But we went home together more or less every night. I was the one he took to Ascot and I wore the diamond bracelet he bought in Aspreys.’
‘Have you still got it?’
She flushed. ‘No I sold it. I had to sell it. Why do you ask?’
Davies said honestly and a little abashed: ‘I don’t know. I’m always asking questions for reasons I don’t know.’
‘Yes. I suppose it’s something you would do. Anyway I sold the bracelet. Here in Bournemouth.’
He returned to studying the photograph. It was signed in a flowery script across one corner: ‘Vernon Dulciman. Mayfair.’
‘That was his normal trade mark, as it were,’ she said.
‘Even for a self-portrait?’
‘It wouldn’t be strictly a self-portrait. I mean I cannot imagine him setting a time switch and then rushing to the other side of the studio to pose. He was not that sort. One of his assistants would have done it.’
Davies returned the photograph to her. She looked at it with no particular expression and only briefly before closing the folder with the finality of someone closing a book.
‘I’m afraid I have to pry a bit,’ said Davies.
‘Naturally. I’ll tell you anything I can.’
‘Not in that way. But I’d like to see any documents he left behind.’
She shrugged. ‘He didn’t, that’s the point.’ She walked towards the bookcase again, unlocked the drawer and replaced the photograph. ‘There are a few bits and pieces here but very little. You can see them if you like.’ She took a small sheaf of papers from the drawer. ‘But there is nothing of any note.’
‘That’s a bit surprising, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I was surprised certainly. When we came here he had a whole archive of things. After a life in business you are bound to accumulate aren’t you. But there was nothing left. It was as if he had taken them elsewhere.’
‘The action of a man running away,’ he began.
‘Intending to make an escape,’ she agreed almost dreamily. ‘But I wonder where? Where would he have gone, Mr Davies? Where?’
Seven
As they shuffled along the damp and resounding pavements to the Moonlighters Club to drink their lunch, Mod observed: ‘There’s some funny characters down here, Dangerous. Very odd.’ The wet sea air seemed to have given extra weight to his overcoat. He peered below the dripping brim of a black sou’wester.
‘You look like the coxswain of the lifeboat,’ said Davies. ‘I’ve never seen you wear a hat before. You don’t wear one in Willesden, even in winter.’
‘Salt,’ muttered Mod his eyes still on his feet. His bootlace had become undone. He decided to leave it. ‘This saline sort of rain, drizzle, Bournemouth mist, or whatever you wish, is very bad for the balding scalp.’
‘You’re not balding,’ corrected Davies mildly. ‘You’re bald.’
‘Most observant. But the fact remains that the salt corrodes the pate. Glance around at a few hairless heads down here and see how they have become pitted. I don’t wish to spoil my appearance.’
They trudged on. There was an incline towards the club and Mod began to puff. ‘There are some funny characters,’ he repeated as they gained the top. He stopped to take in breath. ‘All this exercise,’ he complained.
‘Which funny ones in particular?’
‘I saw that woman on the beach hitting bread to the seagulls with a tennis bat,’ Mod answered. ‘The one Mrs Dulciman mentioned.’ He commenced walking again. ‘She had me throwing the crusts up so that she could whack them as they came down.’
‘Mrs Nola Cloudsley-Clive,’ nodded Davies. ‘She’s a lady I’d like to talk to.’
They paused at the foot of the final steps rising to the entrance of the Moonlighters. It afforded a further opportunity to regain breath and for Mod to raise his scattered eyebrows. ‘She’s a suspect?’
‘I have a number of suspects,’ corrected Davies. He shrugged. ‘Well I have to have, don’t I? I’ve got to start getting a few names together. Any names. You’ve got to start somewhere.’
Mod conceded the point. ‘She could have battered him with her bat, I suppose,’ he nodded ponderously. ‘She knew him, then?’
‘Everybody knew him, the dapper Mr Dulciman,’ said Davies. They were at the club door. ‘Everybody in here, for a start.’
They went in. Mod, who rarely strayed beyond the Babe In Arms, looked critically around the large, worn, all but empty room. The same couple as Davies had seen last time sat at one end drinking their twin glasses of Amontillado. It could have been the same glasses. Orville, the barman, polishing his counter, greeted them.
‘This is Mr Lewis,’ introduced Davies. ‘Is it … all right?’
‘Of course,’ returned Orville genially. ‘I’ll sign him in. You’re a temporary member anyway. I thought you’d gone home.’
‘I came back,’ said Davies. ‘I missed it.’
They had two pints and retreated to a table near the smeared window. After testing the beer Mod inquired quietly: ‘What about the old lady?’
Davies was nodding with exaggerated amiability towards the Amontillado couple. They recognised him and raised their tiny glasses, each taking a minute sip.
‘What about her?’
‘After I’d gone t
o my duties as police dog handler. Pleasant young chambermaid that.’
Davies said: ‘Well, Mrs Dulciman showed me a photograph of Mr Dulciman. I nearly said “the late” Mr Dulciman but it may well be “the absent Mr Dulciman”.’
‘You think he may have just gone off? Left his shoes in the sea and scarpered. Well, it’s been done before. What did he look like?’
‘Matinee idol type,’ said Davies. ‘There are some pictures of him on the wall over there. On our way out we’ll have a quiet look at them.’
He drank his beer half-way down the tankard. ‘He left no documents behind, or hardly any. Not a passport, nothing. Which sounds like someone who’s doing a runner.’
‘Why do a runner?’ asked Mod.
Davies said: ‘He was a ladies man, our Vernon. He may have had a piece of stuff and gone off to Honolulu or Ilfracombe or somewhere. But, on the other hand, he left a lot of money behind. It’s all in various accounts and she can’t lay her hands on it. That’s why she wants to know if he’s alive or dead.’
‘She needs the dosh,’ sniffed Mod.
‘Not for herself apparently. The object is to stop a son by a first marriage, Dulciman’s that is, getting his hands on it. This bloke is not very popular with Mrs D. She wants the money to go to his impoverished wife and kids.’
‘I see. And you think Dulciman was carrying on. I hope it wasn’t with the old bat with the bat.’
‘There are more reasons for carrying on, as you put it, than the obvious,’ pointed out Davies. ‘Our Mr Dulciman was a devious gentleman.’ Mod went to the bar and with a flourish bought two pints. He asked the barman to have one. To his relief the offer was declined.
‘I’ve never understood why you haven’t been more interested in women,’ ruminated Davies examining the texture of the ale. ‘You admired the chambermaid. The stirrings are obviously there.’
Mod exhaled hugely. ‘What woman could I ask to share my regime of study and contemplation?’
‘It wouldn’t suit everyone,’ agreed Davies.
‘Celibacy’, continued Mod, ‘is a reward in itself. Not that even now I don’t experience the rumblings of desire in this great body.’
‘I’ve heard the odd rumbling,’ acknowledged Davies. He grinned at his friend. ‘Well, this afternoon you are going to have the opportunity to begin, or continue with, your sex life. We are going to the tea dance.’
Josef and the Nineveh Six were well into a set of foxtrots. The room was commodious and there were not many dancers, although more were coming in as the waitresses began to serve the tea trays.
‘Shall I pour?’ inquired Mod primly.
‘You’ve eaten both the eccles cakes,’ complained Davies. ‘Yes, go on, you pour.’
The two big men were sitting at a dainty table next to a lolling rubber plant and almost as close to the band. The Nineveh Six appeared likely to be reduced to five at any moment for the drummer was doubled up with a coughing fit during the course of which he had poked his own drumstick in his eye. Josef glared, then sighed deeply, and tapped the rhythm with his patent-leather shoe.
They were playing ‘I’ll See You Again (Whenever Spring Breaks Through Again)’. Two ladies in dresses bursting at the busts cruised by. Although supported by each other’s arms they contrived to turn both faces towards Davies and Mod.
‘You two should be on the floor,’ admonished one.
‘Yes, come on. There’s never enough men.’
Davies eyed them apologetically. ‘We’re just drinking our tea,’ he said.
‘Just had the first sip,’ confirmed Mod his eyes lame.
‘It will cool off while we’re dancing,’ said the first of the ladies. ‘Up you get, the pair of you!’
The women broke apart like a large tree splitting down the trunk. There was no denying them. Each had chosen her target and now the two men found themselves confronted with the formidably overhanging bosoms topped by glittering eyes. Final desperate protests were pushed aside and Davies and Mod were towed into the dance. The floor was more populated now. Most of the people were middle-aged or elderly, but there was a young couple in pastel shellsuits, ducking and diving, whirling and twirling, and then swooping across the floor with an intricate embroidery of steps.
‘Bobby and Mandy Brennan, Southern Champions,’ identified Davies’ partner with a touch of spite. ‘They wind them up like clockwork.’ Her dress felt warm and loaded.
Mod’s partner clutched him close, like someone pleased with protection. He could feel her heart banging below her ribs. ‘Do you come here often?’ Her smile was pearly.
‘No. No. First time,’ he confessed. ‘Don’t go in for dancing.’
‘I can tell that,’ she answered her attitude changing. ‘Why couldn’t you have had a shave? Your chin is like a hedgehog.’
‘I’m growing a beard.’
‘Why?’
‘Disguise.’
She appeared to find this acceptable. When the dance finished he led her gallantly back to her chair as Davies was doing the same with his partner. The two men performed old-fashioned half-bows and then returned across the floor. ‘Didn’t like yours,’ muttered Mod.
‘Nor me,’ agreed Davies. ‘Like pushing a bag of damp washing.’
Mod poured the tea. His hand was shaking. ‘I don’t really see where this is getting us, Dangerous.’ He surveyed the room. ‘No booze and not a decent-looking woman in the place.’
Davies was looking over his teacup towards the door. ‘Now, this is where it’s getting us,’ he mentioned. ‘Look who’s come in.’
Mildred, wearing a big denim dress, was standing looking around the room. Mod peered at her. ‘Well, she’s younger but not much thinner,’ he said morosely.
‘She’s the receptionist at the hotel,’ said Davies. ‘Didn’t you recognise her?’
‘Ah, right. Well I only saw the top half of her when I went in. Wonder what she’s doing here?’
‘It’s not for the band,’ said Davies.
He stood up and brushed cake crumbs from his front. The Nineveh Six had started a wheezy waltz, a favourite because there were twitters of approval, and the floor began to fill. Davies walked around the edge of the dancers and lightly tapped Mildred on her fleshy shoulder. She was looking the other way and she turned suddenly and flushed when she saw who it was.
‘Waltz?’ invited Davies with another little bow.
‘Love to,’ she said.
They shuffled into the revolve of the other dancers. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked carefully.
‘Basking in the social scene,’ said Davies. ‘And what about you?’
‘Looking for someone,’ she answered. Her frowning face came around to him. ‘Anyone.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, it must get a bit lonely for a young person in the afternoons.’
They were dancing awkwardly; she was not much better than him. ‘Not only the afternoons,’ she corrected. ‘There’s young people around. Students and plenty on the dole. They come down from the north, Liverpool especially, because they get some idea that it’s warm down here.’
‘The warm south,’ agreed Davies. He was aware that other dancers were looking at them. ‘It’s because we keep barging into them,’ Mildred whispered. ‘They like to do all the silly steps. Sod them, I say.’
He grimaced. ‘This is the best I can manage,’ he confessed. ‘Do you want to sit down?’
‘Oh, no.’ The words were almost urgent. ‘We’re all right.’ She surveyed the dancers. ‘Silly old farts.’
‘You don’t mix with the younger people then?’
‘There’s a pub I go to sometimes. But, generally speaking I haven’t got that much in common. I’m not studying anything and I’ve got a steady job, so I haven’t got a lot going for me.’ She looked almost sulky. ‘And I’m big,’ she said.
‘And lovely,’ he said kindly. She smiled her thanks and said: ‘I had a boyfriend once. Well, a fiancé more or less. He was a soldier. But he’s dead.’
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br /> Davies was shocked. He stopped dancing and regarded her with sympathy. ‘That’s rotten luck,’ he said.
‘Bloody rotten,’ she said.
‘Was it … on active service …?’
‘Sort of. Salisbury Plain. He went on a survival course and he didn’t survive. Broke his leg and was lying out there for God knows how long. Got pneumonia, exposure, the lot. He died. He was only twenty-five.’ She glanced at him. ‘We can sit down if you like.’
Davies took her plump elbow. ‘Come and meet Mod,’ he said. ‘Have a cup of tea. We’ll get an extra cup.’
She walked slowly with him. ‘Mod,’ she repeated reflectively. ‘MOD. Ministry of Defence.’
They reached the table. Mod, who had been looking around like someone expecting an ambush, was relieved to see them. ‘I remember when you checked in,’ said Mildred shaking hands.
‘I only saw the top half of you,’ Mod told her cheerfully.
‘Is the rest any better?’ she asked.
‘You’re lovely,’ put in Davies. ‘All of you.’
Quietly Mod said: ‘Dangerous. There’s that old thing who hits bread with the tennis bat. I think she’s seen me.’ His voice dropped. ‘God, she’s coming to get me.’
The angular Mrs Cloudsley-Clive approached the table with a craggy smile. ‘Ladies’ invitation, Mr Lewis,’ she smiled. ‘Hello, Mildred.’ She looked at Davies. ‘And it’s you. How nice to see you again. Come, Mr Lewis. Let’s hit the floor.’
Mod started to protest but she had a grip on him. She almost levered him from his seat and setting him in front of her, and placing his hands in the correct position, she led him into the dance. ‘I can’t do this one,’ they heard him plead haplessly. ‘I don’t know how.’
‘She’s determined,’ observed Davies.
‘They are,’ answered Mildred with a grimness that surprised him. Her face had hardened. ‘When they get on in years,’ she said, ‘they do things you’d never dream. It’s like as if they don’t care any more. They’re up against it. Time. And nothing gets in their way, Dangerous.’
She said she would not have tea but she took the remaining cake, a cream horn, and ate it fiercely. Then she wiped the crumbs from her mouth and said: ‘You’re trying to find out what happened to Mr Dulciman, aren’t you.’
The Complete Dangerous Davies Page 57