‘It did cross my mind,’ admitted Davies. ‘But you never think that a receiver would be so worried about having stuff pinched, would you.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, there it is. You’ll be detective inspector next, Bunny.’
‘Give me time, Dangerous,’ said Burrows.
Heavily Davies sat at his desk. The telephone rang. It was Jemma. ‘We’ve got a date tonight,’ she said. He smiled at her through the mouthpiece.
‘The Savoy wasn’t it?’
‘If you like,’ she answered blandly. ‘I think I’d prefer a curry.’
Davies was preparing to lower his voice but Detective Sergeant Burrows got up from his desk and made for the door waving a silent farewell. Davies said to Jemma: ‘I’ve sent Mod to do a bit of legwork at Bournemouth.’
‘You’re getting somewhere?’
‘I keep thinking I’m not. But I think I could be wrong. I often am.’
‘Tell me,’ she urged.
‘I’ll tell you tonight.’ He replaced the telephone and it rang again.
‘Hello, DC Davies here.’
‘Dangerous, it’s Marsden. Good morning.’
‘’Morning, Fingers. Get anything?’ Davies picked up a pen.
‘Your bloke’s got a bit of form. Theft from a bookmakers. I suppose there’s a case for saying that’s poetic justice. And intent to defraud.’
‘What’s he call himself?’
‘Page. William Henry Page. Aged thirty-three. Lived in Marylebone at one time. Want the address?’
Davies said he did and wrote it down.
‘When were the offences?’ he asked.
‘Let’s see. Some time ago. The theft was 22 November 1984. From Winner and Co., Marylebone High Street, fined three hundred quid.’
‘They’re still there,’ said Davies. ‘And the other?’
‘Intent to defraud, not proved. That was in 1981, 3 July.’
‘Thanks very much, Fingers. Keep it to yourself, will you.’
‘I’ll not say a dicky-bird. Do you want the whisky glass back?’
‘No thanks. Keep it and I’ll put a double scotch in it next time I see you.’
There was a 999 call from a butcher’s shop in Kensal Rise reporting an armed raid. Davies was sent with two uniformed officers. The butcher, a tearful man, reported the theft of a leg of lamb, six pork chops, and two pounds of best liver. ‘Nothing’s safe these days,’ he wailed. ‘What my dad would have said I don’t know. He had this business thirty-three years and never anything like this. There’s no morality, Mr Davies, no morality.’
‘There’s not a lot of it about,’ agreed Davies. The robber, a man variously described as in his thirties, forties and fifties, bald, sparse gingery hair or straight black hair combed across his brow, with menacing, wild, crossed eyes, of medium or short height, quite tall, stocky or thin build, had rushed in waving something which most witnesses described as a gun, an automatic pistol of sorts, but which might well have been a lamb chop picked up from the window display as he entered. In moments of crisis, as Davies knew well from experience, few people could get a description or a sequence of events in order.
Routine inquiries were initiated. One of the constables earnestly asked Davies what he thought the man’s motive might have been and Davies told him: ‘Gluttony.’
One positive benefit came from the interlude, however, for Davies left the scene of the crime with a plastic bag full of meat scraps which Kitty devoured later with growls of satisfaction and a violently wagging tail. He returned to the station and put in his preliminary report. ‘No ideas?’ asked Detective Sergeant Burrows who was put in charge of the case. Davies sniffed and said: ‘I think we’re looking for a non-vegetarian with a deep freeze.’
It was getting dusk but he thought he would still have time to go to Winner and Co., Turf Accountants of Marylebone High Street, before they closed. It was out of his area, in the next division, so he would need to proceed with caution. He took a bus down Harrow Road and another along Euston Road. The bookmakers’ premises were lit encouragingly with windows full of photographs of horses and greyhounds, footballers, tennis players and cricketers, all in the course of winning.
He went inside. There was the usual late-afternoon fuggy smell, much like the morning scent of a pub but warmer. He pretended to be studying the lists of runners on the wall. The place was empty except for a man preoccupied with an adding machine behind the counter. The man looked up and Davies thought disconcertingly that he recognised him. ‘What chance does Little Dorritt have,’ said Davies conversationally.
‘None at all,’ responded the man. ‘It fell in the two-thirty this afternoon.’ He paused. ‘I know you, don’t I? Are you a copper?’
‘No, not me,’ lied Davies at once. ‘No. I work for Sainsbury’s. Just on my way home. Well, cheers.’
‘Cheers,’ returned the man amiably enough. ‘I could have swore you was a copper.’
Quietly Davies cursed as he stood at the bus stop. He pulled his collar up so that nobody else would recognise him. Working another police patch was not so frowned upon officially in the Metropolitan Police these days but the local nick did not like it. Policemen were inclined to be jealous of their own preserve. Inquiries might be made.
He went back to Bali Hi and took Kitty for a walk around the lit streets. The dog kept burping but behaved well, apparently trying to keep friendly with him now that he had a source of good meat. He called into the Babe In Arms for a pint and wondered how Mod had progressed that day in far-off Bournemouth.
Mildred was on his conscience. They had slept together all night, with their arms innocently looped around each other, first his around her from behind and then, as though by some rehearsed manoeuvre turning to reverse the embrace. In the morning she had left silently while he still snored. Now he had the problem: should he mention it to Jemma?
As so often happened he made the wrong decision. They were enjoying their curry in Kilburn and he had drunk several lagers. During the meal he had gone through every aspect of the Dulciman case, pulling it apart, as he pulled apart chicken on his plate. Teasingly she leaned towards him over the table. ‘And how was Mildred?’ she asked sweetly.
‘Fine, fine,’ he returned amiably. ‘We went for our long walk in the country.’ He decided to take the risk. He was innocent anyway. Fairly innocent. ‘She came into my room when I was in bed and she was lonely and crying and …’
‘And?’
‘Well, it was all innocent but I was half asleep and I let her share the bed.’
He knew he had made the wrong decision. ‘You what?’ she demanded with sudden menace. ‘You slept …?’
‘Slept,’ he argued. ‘Just slept.’ He did not like the look in Jemma’s eye. ‘Proper sleep, bye-byes, nothing happened …’
She was livid. ‘Like the escort tart you took home and slept on her stairs,’ she said through her teeth.
‘Well, now, come on, Jemma … That was … And as far as Mildred is concerned … she’s only a kid and …’
‘She was lonely and crying,’ mimicked Jemma. Her Caribbean eyes were like lightning. ‘That’s the lousiest excuse I’ve …’ Words failed her. She stood up and picking up her plate of curry turned it onto his head. The plate cracked in two equal halves and he ended up with one in each hand while she went out of the door. The Indian staff and the other diners had watched the assault with growing interest and now the manager came diffidently to the table and inquired, ‘Is sir finished?’
Davies was trying to scrape the curry from his head. It ran down his forehead and continued onto his nose, it made his eyes smart. He looked at the manager through the mess and said: ‘I think you could say I have.’
Slowly he stood up, wiping the curry from his hair and his eyes. The manager looked helpless but anxious to please: ‘Not a very hot curry,’ he ventured wringing his hands, his eyes rolling. ‘Quite mild.’
The other customers were entranced, forks hovering, pieces of Tandoori chicken falling onto plates, rice
tumbling. A staring man bit through a popadum with a resounding crack. ‘Where’s the toilet?’ asked Davies grimly.
Pointing the way the manager said: ‘I will procure towels.’ He surveyed the other eaters and announced: ‘Incident is finished.’ Obediently they returned to their plates.
In the confined lavatory Davies managed to scrape most of the curry from his hair with toilet paper. The manager, his arm only appearing around the door, like someone who fears an explosion, pushed in the towels. Grunting and cursing Davies threw water over his head from the basin. ‘Rotten cow,’ he complained almost sobbing. ‘Bloody women!’
‘Bloody women,’ echoed the manager when Davies returned to the restaurant. ‘Most bloody some of them.’ The other customers were trying to keep their eyes down but some of them were smiling. The man who had cracked the popadum did it again.
‘How much is it?’ asked Davies morosely.
‘This much,’ said the manager handing him the bill. He regarded the plate cracked cleanly in two and still lying embedded in the red-brown mess on the table. ‘No charge for damages.’
‘Thanks,’ returned Davies. ‘Best news I’ve heard all night.’ He paid and made for the door. For once, just when he could have done with it, it was not raining. He stood reeking at the bus stop. When the bus came he went on the top deck and sat at a distance from the scattering of other passengers. Two West Indians got up and went downstairs holding their noses. At the Jubilee Clock he left the bus and hunched along the street. The conductor leaned from his platform and called: ‘Love the scent.’
Davies shook his fist and muttered: ‘Funny bugger.’ He plodded around the corner from the High Street. Another bus coming from the opposite direction stopped and Mod alighted heavily. He saw Davies and waddled towards him. Davies stood truculently and Mod stopped. ‘You smell very exotic, Dangerous,’ he observed. ‘A touch of the sub-continent if I’m not mistaken.’
‘You are not,’ grunted Davies. ‘It’s Chicken Madras.’
‘You’re supposed to eat it,’ said Mod. ‘Not wear it.’
‘That Jemma put it on my head,’ muttered Davies.
‘Ah, a hot-blooded lady.’ They both peered towards the Babe In Arms but it was irrevocably shuttered and dark apart from the single light left glimmering over the bar. ‘Let us see if the hot-dog stand is open,’ suggested Mod. ‘Now that we have made our peace with the vendor.’
‘Come on then,’ agreed Davies. ‘I’ve never had so much food and still been hungry.’ He glanced sideways at Mod as they turned their steps around and went back towards the clock. ‘How did you get on?’
Mod nodded weightily, his head going with his steps like a carthorse. ‘Not at all badly, in the circumstances,’ he replied.
‘What happened?’ asked Davies at once eager. ‘Did you find the kid’s name?’
‘I shall tell you while we dine,’ insisted Mod. ‘I feel this is a two-hamburger night, with double chips for me.’
They saw the stall in the distance, lit like a craft in dark space. The man stood in his oblong of illumination and watched them approach. ‘You haven’t got that dog have you?’ he called. ‘Not on you.’
‘Not on us,’ repeated Davies. ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about, mate.’ They came up to the counter. With a continental touch the man had placed a scruffy wooden table and two collapsible chairs under the plastic awning of his cart. ‘Another attack like that would finish me,’ said the vendor. ‘And the business. That dog is mad.’
‘Four hamburgers and double chips twice,’ said Davies determinedly. ‘The dog is at home, in his basket, sleeping the sleep of the innocent.’
‘I bet,’ said the man, but mollified by the unexpected size of the late-night order. He sniffed. ‘Something smells like the Ganges,’ he said.
Davies glared but said nothing. He retreated to the small table and he and Mod sat down, Mod carefully testing the strength of the chair first. ‘It must be a niff if he can smell it over his rotten onions,’ grumbled Davies. Mod went to the counter and picked up the paper plates with their steaming and greasy contents. ‘And two teas please,’ he added turning to Davies and saying: ‘The teas are on me. On expenses.’
They sat down and hungrily ate the hamburgers and chips. The vendor regarded them with the expression of one who knows more than he says. ‘Nice are they?’ he asked.
‘Brilliant,’ returned Davies. ‘I must tell Egon Ronay.’ He said to Mod: ‘All right, what happened?’
Mod disposed of a bulging mouthful of hamburger and then took another bite before replying. ‘I got down there at ten forty-five,’ he related. ‘It was a pleasant day for the time of the …’
‘Don’t give me a weather up-date, for God’s sake. Did you get the names of the kids who were cleaning up the beaches on that day?’
‘No,’ admitted Mod firmly, ‘but I made some progress. I went to the newspaper, as you suggested, and they were very friendly and helpful …’ Davies rolled his eyes. A piece of onion was caught on Mod’s lower lip and hung there perilously, eventually falling into his lap. ‘… but the man in charge of the archives had gone off on holiday and taken his key with him.’ He looked at Davies thoughtfully. ‘He went to Brighton on holiday,’ he said. ‘From Bournemouth.’
‘Really,’ sighed Davies. ‘So what did you do, go to the council offices?’
‘I did but they were not very helpful. Indeed they were a mite suspicious about a man turning up and inquiring about lads who clean up beaches.’
‘You surprise me,’ said Davies looking at Mod’s bent form over the steaming chips. ‘So then what?’
‘I returned to the newspaper because they had said they must have a duplicate key somewhere, but they couldn’t find it. I told the chap that I was looking for a long-lost relative and he came up with an idea. He remembered that all the youngsters who helped to clear up the beaches came from youth clubs and he put me in touch with a Catholic priest who was in charge of the whole operation for several years.’
Davies brightened. ‘Ah, and what did he say?’
‘Not much. He was dead.’
‘Oh, sod it,’ said Davies.
‘Probably his own sentiment,’ observed Mod disapprovingly. ‘Another priest had taken over the parish but he was in Rome, an audience with His Holiness.’
‘I’ll go down again next week,’ said Davies. ‘At least that’s something to go on.’
‘I am glad I was useful,’ said Mod looking sadly at the last crescent of his second hamburger. His eyes went to Davies’ chips, pale in the night, and Davies pushed them towards him. He picked some up in his fingers. ‘Why did Jemma throw the curry over you?’ he inquired mildly. ‘That large girl at the hotel?’
‘You should be a detective,’ suggested Davies sourly.
‘Have you been romancing that young lady?’
‘Not at all. She climbed into bed with me because she was lonely. She was crying and …’ He saw Mod did not believe him either. ‘But nothing happened. It was just company.’
‘Two’s company,’ agreed Mod sagely.
Davies changed the subject. ‘I’ve got another little job for you,’ he said. The man with the stall looked up and down the yawning street, yawned himself and prepared to close for the night. ‘Tomorrow,’ said Davies. ‘Today, that is.’
Mod looked a little peeved. ‘But my studies are suffering,’ he complained.
‘Today,’ insisted Davies. ‘I’d like you to go to a bookmakers. It’s not far, only in Marylebone. I can’t go. The bloke in there knows me.’
‘All right,’ sighed Mod. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Put a bet on the favourite in the two-thirty.’
Davies loitered as inconspicuously as he could in the shadow of the bus shelter while Mod went into the betting shop and looked melodramatically in both directions along the street before entering. There was still a streak of Welsh probity in him. Once he had entered the premises, his big untidy head appeared again and he treated th
e street to a further scrutiny before giving a blatant thumbs up sign to Davies who was doing his best to remain at least half hidden. Davies sighed.
It was not Mod’s signal which caused him to come to the attention of the bag lady. She was heading in his direction anyway, muttering, examining the gutter, and rearranging her burdens. Davies saw her coming and hovered, undecided whether to break cover or remain where he was and hope that she would ignore him. He knew she would not.
‘You waitin’ for a bus or waitin’ for the Queen to go by?’ she inquired gummily.
‘Is the Queen coming down this way today then?’ he asked interestedly. To his discomfiture she put her bags on the pavement carefully one at a time and then, after a glance at the sky, moved them under the canopy of the bus shelter, obviously prepared for a long conversation.
‘The Queen will be along before the bus comes,’ she cackled. He smiled tightly at her, keeping an eye on the betting-shop door. She seemed pleased at her joke and cackled louder, spraying spit and squeezing up her eyes. ‘A lot bloody before,’ she embellished.
‘I expect so,’ said Davies glumly. Why did they always pick him out? Worse was to follow.
‘You’re a copper you are,’ she said prodding him with a filthy finger. ‘I seed you up in Willesden. I seed you with that dog. Is that a police dog?’
Davies could feel himself sinking. Why could he never hide like other police officers. ‘No, he’s my personal dog,’ he said keeping his voice low.
She looked around speculatively. ‘What you whispering for?’ she inquired. She pointed accusingly: ‘You’re waiting to nick somebody.’
‘I’m busy,’ he said winking, hoping she would enter into the spirit of the moment. ‘Very busy.’
‘I ’spect you want me to piss off then, don’t you.’
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ he said pleadingly.
‘You’re watching that betting shop,’ she concluded after giving the street a further scrutiny. ‘That’s what, ain’t you?’
‘Look …’ pleaded Davies feeling in his overcoat pocket. ‘Do me a favour …’
Her hand was out for the money before his was out of the pocket. She looked anxiously at what he might produce. He gave her a pound coin. ‘Go and buy yourself a drink,’ he suggested.
The Complete Dangerous Davies Page 65