The Complete Dangerous Davies

by Leslie Thomas

  The mystery of Julie Willis, the girl buried on Wormwood Scrubs, remained unsolved, nor had anyone been charged with stealing the library hatstand.

  Davies walked Jemma back to her front door and they kissed there like teenagers in the dark. ‘So what was the escort lady really like?’ she asked in her offhand way.

  ‘Like I said,’ replied Davies. ‘She could certainly put it away. I woke up on her front stairs.’

  She laughed and said: ‘I believe you, Dangerous’ and he thought that she did. She had paperwork to do before the morning. They kissed again and he promised that he would be at the Music Evening to hear the duet. Then he trundled off through the familiar streets, shadowed and wet, back to his home at Bali Hi.

  As he was opening the door of his room, Mod’s door opposite eased ajar and the round, creased face emerged like a doused lantern. It was followed by a hand holding a pale scrap. ‘The knickers, Dangerous,’ muttered Mod. ‘You said you’d take charge of the knickers.’

  Davies frowned but accepted the torn garment. They became aware of a dim face looking over the banister above. ‘What knickers?’ inquired Mrs Fulljames.

  There was no escape. Davies stood with the incriminating evidence in his hand and Mod’s attempt to withdraw his face from the scene was thwarted by Mrs Fulljames descending the stairs and growling: ‘Mr Lewis.’ Davies felt himself blushing in the dark. He looked at the ragged material in his hands. ‘These are the knickers,’ he muttered helplessly. ‘They’re mine.’

  ‘They’re his,’ confirmed Mod disloyally.

  ‘Evidence,’ Davies said desperately. The landlady was now face to face with him and scarcely a step distant. ‘Evidence in a case.’

  She thrust out her hand and he obediently put the remnant into her hands. ‘My silk panties,’ she said, her voice low and threatening.

  ‘My dog ate them,’ said Davies hopelessly.

  ‘After stealing them from the laundry basket,’ grunted Mrs Fulljames. ‘I’ve told you, Mr Davies, that I will not allow that overgrown, dirty, mischievous animal in this house. It stays in the garage where it belongs.’ She rolled her knickers in a bundle in one hand. ‘I’ve had these years,’ she said her voice trembling. ‘When my dear husband was alive. Now look at them.’

  ‘Sorry Mrs Fulljames,’ muttered Davies. ‘I will of course replace them … In a manner of speaking.’

  She glared at him. ‘I am certain of that. I shall purchase another pair. And if that dog of yours so much as shows his nose in Bali Hi again I shall hit him on the head with my meat cleaver. The one I keep for burglars.’

  ‘He doesn’t mean any harm,’ he said.

  At last a clue had emerged in the case of Julie Willis. A girl who walked the Edgware Road with her recalled that on the night when she last saw her she was wearing a brooch in the shape of a swastika. It was a red swastika, the eastern emblem of luck, not the Nazi version. It was not attached to her clothes found in the grave and was not among the tin and trinkets of the box where she kept her jewellery.

  Davies spent his first two days back on duty door-stepping once more, asking the same questions and showing a photograph of a similar brooch. No one recognised it. Some looked at the photograph closely and conscientiously and others barely gave it a glance before closing the door on him as though he were an unwanted salesman. He trudged on through the February streets, his step getting slower, his head lower. In the evening he had to muster all his energy and bathe his feet before taking his dog for a walk along the steamy canal bank, the park and the cemetery both being closed by that time.

  By day, as he walked from door to monotonous door, he tried to think of what might have happened to Vernon Dulciman that night five years ago. Over and over again he mentally ticked off the facts and the theories. He still felt that something was staring him in the face.

  On his third day back on duty he was glad to be relieved of the door-stepping and transferred to a series of petty burglaries all in one street, the usual loot of break-in thieves, televisions, videos, portable radios, stereos. So much of this type of stuff was stolen, he sometimes wondered where it all went.

  One unburgled house was clearly next in line. The owner was a worried Sikh who opened the front door with a caution his forebears might once have used when ambushing the British in their homeland mountains.

  ‘You see,’ said the Sikh. ‘Many televisions are here. In this room, two, in every other room, one. Even in the lav I have one.’

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t want to miss anything,’ acknowledged Davies. He tried to appear convincing, prowling around the terraced house, peering out onto a back-garden jungle, deep enough to hide a tiger. In a small clearing was a shed.

  ‘What’s that for?’ he asked.

  ‘It is my garden shed,’ said the Sikh. ‘For my garden tools.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ nodded Davies surveying the jungle. ‘It would be I suppose.’ He sniffed around as if seeking some final clue, then bade the man goodbye.

  The Indian seemed displeased and asked: ‘Will you be making arrests?’

  Davies studied the fierce face. The deep eyes burned among their wrinkles. ‘I can’t give you an exact time,’ he said. ‘But arrests will be made. Just as soon as we know who to arrest.’

  This seemed at least partially to satisfy the Sikh. Davies went towards the door. ‘Keep the doors locked and windows bolted,’ he said, looking around at the evident precautions. He tapped his nose. ‘I have a plan.’

  They were already singing when he got there, the voices rising from the ugly church hall into the damp Cricklewood night. The windows were bright with yellow light and a glow issued from the front entrance lobby.

  Davies was late because Detective Superintendent Harvey was delayed getting back to the station and all CID men had to await his arrival for a briefing on the Willis case. Harvey was not in a kindly mood. It had not been so much of a briefing as an harangue followed by a bad-tempered casting around for ideas. The street traipsing of the swastika photograph had come to nothing. Harvey surveyed the hapless faces and said: ‘Thank Christ we’ve got a computer. We can always blame that bastard.’

  Hurrying from the station Davies caught a passing bus to Cricklewood and got off outside the church hall. The singers, musicians and the entire audience were black. His was the sole white face. His eyes went at once to Jemma who was wearing a long grey dress and standing in front of the choir all in white. She had a well-known voice and there was a murmur from the audience as she stepped forward with the introductory music. She sang ‘For He Shall Feed His Flock’ from the Messiah.

  Then she was joined by the diminutive Valentine who stepped forward shyly from the choir, grey suited, and they sang ‘I Can Feel It All Over’, with ‘I Just Called To Say I Love You’ as an encore. The little boy had a buoyant voice and he and Jemma enjoyed the duets. The audience loved it.

  Afterwards, as they went back towards Willesden in Jemma’s car, Valentine was inclined to be modest. ‘Anybody could ’ave done that,’ he said while they smiled in the dark. ‘But I got chosen.’

  Three hours later Davies woke up at Jemma’s side. ‘That’s it!’ he exclaimed. He sat up heavily in the bed. ‘That man Leadbetter said the same thing.’

  ‘Dangerous,’ mumbled Jemma turning over, ‘it’s three o’clock in the morning.’

  ‘Leadbetter said it and tonight Valentine said it. Anybody could have done it but they were chosen. Leadbetter was grousing that the gas board had sent him down to London when he wasn’t even the next one on the list. And Valentine said he was just picked out when anyone else could have sung.’

  Jemma replied sleepily: ‘I still don’t understand what you’re going on about.’

  Davies looked at the clock. ‘Five past three,’ he muttered. ‘Well, it’s too early to ring them now anyway.’

  *

  He waited until eight.

  ‘Hello. Is that you Mildred?’

  ‘Dangerous! It’s you! When are you coming back?’
<
br />   ‘Soon.’

  ‘I’ll get a day off,’ enthused Mildred. ‘The weather’s turned lovely. Just like summer … We could go for our walk.’

  ‘Oh, yes. All right. Now Mildred, look in the Bournemouth Yellow Pages for me will you, love. Under …’

  ‘Bertie’s got them,’ she said sounding disappointed. ‘I’ll get … Oh here he is.’ Davies heard her call for the Yellow Pages directory. ‘It’s Mr Davies.’ Bertie insisted on taking on the task himself. ‘Hello sir. I’ve got them here. What was it you wanted?’

  Davies said: ‘Look under Private Investigators, will you, Bertie. That’s right …’ He heard Bertie mumbling. ‘Private Investigators, got it,’ he said.

  ‘How far down the list is Pengelly Associates?’ asked Davies.

  ‘How far down? Well, there’s not many, sir. Only five. Pengelly Associates is number four. After that there’s only Zodiac Inquiries.’

  ‘Four,’ repeated Davies. ‘Right, thanks Bertie, that’s all I wanted to know.’

  ‘Good sir. Glad to help. Coming to see us again soon?’

  ‘Next week, probably.’

  ‘Lovely. That Zodiac Inquiries, sir. There’s a horse called Zodiac running at Kempton this afternoon and another called Inquirer. Looks like a hint for a double.’

  ‘Right,’ said Davies. ‘I’ll remember to put a few thousand quid on.’

  ‘Me too, sir. Goodbye.’

  By Sunday the spring-like weather had moved north-east from Bournemouth to Willesden. The dour water of the canal took on a sheen and clouds of instant midges buzzed; there were primroses in the park and the tombstones in Kensal Green cemetery gleamed.

  Even the old car seemed to react to the change. It stood almost purring in the cobbled yard as Davies prepared Kitty’s blanket on the back seat. He beamed with satisfaction as the pale sun shone on his dog who sat with every appearance of a smile on his shaggy face. Jemma arrived and tousled him and the dog, who was always delighted to see her, grinned more widely.

  Davies was glad to see her too. She had been at a two-day seminar on single-parent families. She got into the car and Davies climbed in beside her. They kissed and sitting upright in the back Kitty growled. ‘I don’t know whether that’s approval or jealousy,’ observed Davies.

  ‘Why did you wake me up in the middle of the other night?’ Jemma asked when they were driving out of the yard and into the Sunday street. ‘You were going on about Valentine and a Mr Leadbetter.’

  ‘They both said, in different ways, that other people could easily do what they were doing at that time,’ Davies told her. ‘Valentine singing, Mr Leadbetter with his gas pipes. They were not the only ones on the list.’

  ‘So?’

  They moved from the traffic lights. Two Indian boys jeered at the car and Davies gave them the finger. ‘So it made me think, something that has been in the back of my mind since I came back from Bournemouth. Why was Pengelly chosen to try to find out what happened to Mr Dulciman? I had to look him up in the normal telephone directory. Pengelly Associates. But anyone trying to find a private detective from scratch would naturally look in the Yellow Pages. And Pengelly’s name was last but one next to Zodiac Inquiries.’

  He acknowledged a round of cheers from some men standing in the sun outside a public house. ‘The point is that Pengelly was not asked to undertake the investigation at random. He must have been known to Mrs Dulciman before.’

  They turned along the North Circular Road towards the Welsh Harp. ‘Pengelly may have been recommended by someone,’ put in Jemma. ‘Why didn’t you ask Mrs Dulciman? You could have phoned her.’

  ‘I like being there when I ask questions.’

  They drove alongside the lake. The air was warm through the car windows. The boot sale was in its usual Sunday site. They parked the car and Jemma put Kitty on the lead. Davies moved towards a table laid out with junk jewellery. He took out the photograph of the swastika brooch and showed it. ‘Nah, never seen the like of that, Dangerous,’ sniffed the man. ‘I’d know if I did.’

  Davies showed the picture to two other sellers but they both shook their heads. Then he saw the library hatstand.

  It was standing, unattended, in the space between several cars. ‘Whose is that then?’ he asked. The nearest vendor, a man with a bright red shirt under an unbuttoned waistcoat, like a cockney bullfighter, shook his head. ‘Gawd knows, Dangerous,’ he said. ‘Never set eyes on it before.’

  Helpfully he called out, as loud as a warning: ‘Who’s that ’atstand belong to? Mr Davies wants to know.’

  There were blank expressions, suddenly rough and devious faces became cherubic, and several men crept behind cars. ‘Nobody,’ reported the red shirt. ‘It just got there.’

  ‘I have reason to believe it’s stolen property,’ said Davies amiably. ‘Nicked from the library.’

  Jemma was running her fingers along the varnished wood of the hatstand. It seemed that the waistcoated man would never recover from the shock. ‘What? From a library?’ he said hand to mouth. ‘Who, I ask myself, would do a thing like that?’

  Ten

  That afternoon, as they sometimes did, Davies and Jemma went to her flat and spent a couple of hours in bed, making love and talking. The hatstand was in the corner of the room. The man who lived all by himself in the next flat was watching football and when a goal was scored they heard his lonely shout of ‘Goal!’

  They remained until the unaccustomed sun faded from the window. At six he got up. ‘I’ve got to spend the night in a garden shed,’ he said. ‘Surveillance.’

  ‘I’ll make you something,’ said Jemma. Nothing he had to do surprised her.

  She was a good cook and he lay in the bath savouring the smells from the kitchen. ‘You watch that Mildred,’ she called through the ajar door. ‘She’s a poor frustrated girl.’

  She sat while he ate. She had to go to a buffet for the deprived that evening. ‘Why do you have to hide in a garden shed?’ she asked.

  ‘Every telly and every video in this street has been burgled and this Mr Khan is expecting his to go any minute,’ he said. ‘He’s going to a big Sikh night out, and they may try to turn over his house tonight. I’ll be in his garden shed.’

  ‘They may beat the life out of you.’

  ‘I’ve got back-up. I can call for reinforcements.’

  Jemma kissed him and said: ‘Take care.’ The early night had turned chill. She turned up his overcoat collar for him.

  ‘There’s not a lot of difference between a copper going off to work and a burglar going off to work,’ he observed.

  ‘What about the library hatstand?’ she asked.

  ‘Ah, yes. I’ll take it with me. Tomorrow I’ll return it in triumph.’

  He went back into the flat and picked up the unwieldly hatstand with its long polished stem and its ornate hooks curling out like antlers. In the street again he half swung around and almost knocked her off her feet. She staggered back into the doorway. ‘Don’t swing it when there are people about,’ she suggested. ‘Or in front of shop windows. And be careful tonight, Dangerous. In the shed. Please.’

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ he assured her. ‘Cheers.’

  He turned painstakingly but still caught the doorpost with the foot of the stand. ‘Steady,’ he warned himself. He staggered a little, then, like an ill-founded ship finally settled on a course, he set off down the street.

  Jemma watched him go with a touch of sadness. She loved him but she often wondered where it would all end. She watched his slightly comic staggering along the pavement, the hatstand swinging like a derrick. His overcoated arm detached itself and waved. She waved back slowly.

  ‘Oh, Dangerous,’ she said to herself. ‘Whatever am I going to do with you?’

  ‘It is a good shed,’ said Mr Khan leading Davies into the dark and tangled garden. He waved the small stool he carried. ‘You will be most comfortable.’

  He opened the creaking door. Davies peered in. ‘You’d better get going t
o your gathering of the clans,’ he advised. ‘Leave a couple of lights on in the house.’

  ‘So that burglars know we are out but pretending to be in,’ said Mr Khan.

  He placed the stool and then, as if it made any difference, moved it a fraction. ‘Most comfortable,’ he repeated.

  Davies sat on the stool and looked about him in the close gloom. He produced a half bottle of whisky from his overcoat pocket. ‘I’ve got something to keep me warm.’

  The Sikh waved a large hand and set off to return to the house. It was seven thirty. Davies took a preliminary swig at the whisky and tested the walkie-talkie. The ponderous tones of Police Constable Westerman sounded from the other end. Everything was ready. Everything was fine.

  Just before the Khan family left, Mr Khan’s mother noticed from the kitchen window that the shed door was open. She had not been told that the shed concealed a police officer and, knowing how her son feared intruders, crept fearfully out into the garden and quietly shut the door, bolting it from the outside. Davies had dozed off. The sunny day and his lovemaking had tired him and before he could fully rouse himself he was trapped in the musky dark.

  He banged on the metal door but nobody answered. He called up PC Westerman. Only a ghostly crackle replied. ‘Good old Westerman,’ he muttered. ‘Hope he hasn’t gone off with one of his nosebleeds.’

  Westerman had, however, suffered a copious discharge which left him confused and embarrassed. He was taken off duty and, in the ways of even the best organised police forces, nobody was sent to replace him. Davies’ attempts to contact his back-up became more hopeless. He had a couple more swigs of the whisky.

  He was asleep, uncomfortably propped on the stool, when the burglars arrived. They were noisy burglars, three young fellows gaining experience, and their clatterings and voices awoke him. He pressed his ear against the door, grinding his teeth. He tried calling up Westerman again but only the crackle came back. Cursing, he tried pushing at the door. Nothing.

  With a sudden surge of anger he banged on the door of the shed and bellowed and bawled as loud as he could. ‘Police! Police!’ Then, pathetically: ‘Let me out of here.’