Dirty Weekend (Macrae and Silver Book 1)

by Alan Scholefield

  People said Jack Benson was a bastard. It was true. But every girl needed a bastard at some time in her life.

  So, no movies or theatres or restaurants by herself. She could play billiards by herself. That would be fun. Or she could get into the car and go for long drives by herself. Or stay in and watch television and read and relax. Except that’s what she always did. Ever since she’d lost the baby she’d been ‘relaxing’.

  ‘Why don’t you take it easy?’ That was Richard’s phrase.

  And Dr Hartwell had said, ‘It’s perfectly natural to be depressed. Most women who miscarry are depressed afterwards. But you must eat. You’ve lost too much weight.’

  She had lost weight. She’d also lost her interest in food. Not, however, in liquor. She’d have to be careful of that this weekend.

  She went round the house checking the catches of the windows and the locks on the doors and then came back to the fire.

  It was such a cliché, she thought. Wife stuck in the country, husband works up in town. Husband meets another woman and starts an affair.

  Maybe she should have an affair too. After all, what was sauce for the goose, et cetera. The problem was she didn’t know anyone down here to have an affair with, even if she’d wanted to.

  She picked up the paper with the TV listings and began to check the programmes. It was going to be a long, long weekend.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Dinner’s ready,’ Lottie said. ‘It’s on the table. Where’s your father?’

  ‘I heard him a moment ago,’ Leo said.

  ‘His last pupil’s at five. It’s now half past six. Tell him please.’

  ‘We eat too early,’ Leo said. ‘Why do we always eat at six-thirty?’

  His mother went back to the kitchen without replying but his sister Ruth, who had been looking through legal papers, said, ‘You’re always going on about it. Dad likes to eat early. So does Sidney.’ She looked across at her husband as though daring him to deny it. ‘Anyway, Stanley always eats early.’

  Stanley was her six-year-old son, now sitting on the floor colouring in a picture book.

  ‘One question and I get the complete lecture,’ Leo said.

  He had recently been re-reading Hay Fever and suddenly he saw his family in a Coward play.

  We are in the drawing-room of the SILVER family’s mansion flat in North London on a snowy March evening. The room is in need of redecoration, but has a faded, pre-war elegance. It lies in West Hampstead, on the wrong side of the Finchley Road, and is rent controlled. The owners have for many years been trying to get the SILVERS to leave, without success.

  In the drawing-room we discover LEO SILVER, who is in his late twenties. He is dressed in black slacks, black polo-neck and black leather jacket. He wears black most of the time and is pretty damned presentable, if he says so himself.

  His sister RUTH MARCUS, a solicitor, is eight years older. She is a large, heavy woman who favours long dresses and ethnic jewellery. Her husband SIDNEY MARCUS, who has his own estate agency in Kentish Town, is plump, balding and, to LEO, something of a bore. Their son, STANLEY, is LEO’s one and only nephew, of whom he is very fond.

  From time to time LOTTIE SILVER, an untidy woman of sixty summers, puts her head round the door to tell them that dinner is ready. In the distance we can hear the tinkle of a keyboard. This is being played by the paterfamilias, MANFRED SILVER (original name SILBERBAUER) who is a pianoforte – his word – teacher and composer. We meet the family in their usual argumentative state.

  Time, the present.

  Enter MANFRED SILVER. He is short with a full head of silver-grey hair of which he is inordinately proud. To complement his artistic way of life he affects a small Van Dyke beard. As he enters he is drying his hands on a large paper napkin which he drops into a wastepaper basket already overflowing with similar used napkins.

  He kisses RUTH and STANLEY. For a moment SIDNEY, the son-in-law, thinks that he, too, is about to be kissed and looks apprehensive. The moment passes . . .

  ‘It’s half past six,’ Manfred said. Like his wife he still had a discernible Austrian accent. Both had come with their families as refugees just before the outbreak of war.

  ‘Dinner’s on the table,’ Leo said.

  ‘Has he . . .?’ Manfred said, looking at his grandson.

  ‘Yes, father,’ Ruth said.

  ‘Me too,’ Leo said. ‘I’ve washed my hands, my feet, my ears. And so has Sidney and so has Ruth.’

  ‘Don’t be smart with me, Leo,’ Manfred said.

  Ruth glared at her brother, but Leo pretended not to notice.

  ‘You want salmonella?’ Manfred said. ‘I’ll visit you in hospital.’

  ‘You ever heard Dardanella?’ Sidney said to Leo as they took their places at the table. ‘Marvellous.’

  Mr Silver looked sharply at him and so did Ruth, but Sidney was devoid of sarcasm or guile. He found it difficult to discover a suitable personality for himself on these family evenings. Often he tried to work late, but Ruth would come to the office and drag him out. Leo had once described him to his father as a ‘simple soul’. His father had replied that Sidney was a ‘twat’, a word Leo had never heard him use before.

  Mrs Silver, on the other hand, put up with Sidney. He had, after all, married her rather plain daughter and given her the ultimate prize, a grandson. But now that she had one grandson she wanted more and Ruth was digging in her heels. She and Sidney worked hard and had bought their own house in a part of Kentish Town which Sidney described, in the only descriptive literature with which he was familiar, as ‘lower Highgate’.

  They were now paying off a huge mortgage and Ruth’s income was vital. She worked for the firm of Bluestone, Koppel, Motzkin & Bloch in Camden Town, specialising in matrimonial upheavals.

  They ate in silence for a while then Leo said, ‘How’s the symphony coming, Dad?’

  ‘Better you don’t ask,’ Mrs Silver said. ‘It gets bigger and bigger. Bigger than Mahler. Bigger than Bruckner. Bigger even than that man who died a few years ago. Havergal somebody.’

  ‘Bryan,’ her husband said.

  ‘Brian Havergal? No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Havergal Bryan, for God’s sake! And it’s not as big as his.’

  ‘Full orchestra? Two choirs? Steer horn? Hour and a half? In this day and age who needs it? People want trios, quartets. Even a sextet is too expensive.’

  ‘So now you’re the expert,’ Manfred said. ‘Mrs Lottie Silver. Musical expert.’

  ‘All right, Manfy, we all know you had a piece played.’

  ‘A piece!’ Manfred Silver said, helping himself to more fish. ‘That’s nice.’

  In 1958 his ‘Gog and Magog’ for contralto, harp and tympani had been performed in the Wigmore Hall to an audience of twenty-four, all of whom had been friends or relatives. Its poor reception had been a seminal moment in his life. After that he had changed his style. He had rejected Schoenberg (meretricious) and Alban Berg (unmusical) and turned back the clock. He had written a ballet ‘The Happy Peasant’ based on Brueghel’s painting Bauertanz and set it to the music of Goldmark. He had used half a dozen Bach church cantatas to create an oratorio for four choirs and double organ. Neither of these had ever been performed. For the past five years he had been working on his great Falklands Symphony to celebrate Mrs Thatcher’s naval assault on the islands of the same name.

  ‘I think I’m getting a house in Reddington Road,’ Sidney said, wiping his son’s mouth.

  ‘Reddington Road!’ Lottie said. ‘That’s very posh. You start selling houses there and you’ll be a millionaire in a few years.’

  ‘It’s not definite,’ Sidney said hastily, in case he had given the wrong impression.

  ‘Sidney says house prices are picking up again,’ Ruth said.

  ‘Apricots?’ Lottie said, passing round the dish. ‘You want cream or custard, darling?’ she said to Stanley.

  ‘Can I have both?’

  They ate their puddings.r />
  ‘Where’s Zoe, tonight?’ Lottie said, fixing her eye on Leo.

  ‘Working.’

  ‘She’s always working late.’

  ‘Not always. Sometimes.’

  ‘It seems like it. She never comes to dinner any more.’ Lottie brooded over this for a few moments and then said, ‘When are you two going to get married?’

  ‘Why? You want more grandchildren?’ Leo said. ‘We don’t have to get married for that.’

  ‘Don’t get smart with your mother,’ Manfred said.

  ‘Anyway, who would marry a policeman?’ Ruth said.

  ‘People marry solicitors,’ Leo said. ‘Look at Sidney.’

  ‘Anyway, he’s not just a policeman,’ his mother said.

  ‘Yes, I am just a policeman.’

  ‘You’re a detective! That’s not a policeman. And a sergeant.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Ruth.

  ‘And one day you’re going to be Commissioner.’

  ‘If Leo gets to be Commissioner I’ll eat . . . I don’t know what I’ll eat,’ Ruth said.

  The phone rang and Lottie, who was nearest, went to answer it. It was for Leo. ‘It sounds like that Mr Macrae. That’s always trouble. He’s not a nice person, Leo. Can’t you work for someone else? Get a transfer?’

  ‘He looked like he was dirty to me,’ Manfred said.

  Leo pushed past her and took the phone in the hall. In a few moments he was back, pulling on his black leather jacket.

  ‘Don’t rush!’ his mother said. ‘How can you digest?’

  ‘I’ll digest in the car,’ Leo said, kissing her.

  ‘What is it?’ Sidney said, his eyes suddenly shining. ‘A murder?’

  ‘Yes,’ Leo said. ‘A murder.’

  *

  Detective Superintendent George Macrae sat on the edge of his bed and replaced the phone in its cradle. He was naked and his large white back was turned to the woman on the bed.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said.

  She was naked too. She was in her early twenties and her name was Frenchy, although the nearest she had ever been to France was the seafront at Brighton. The name was not nationalistic but professional. She had been christened Sharon.

  ‘That’s a shame. We was only just getting going. I could do you a quickie if you liked.’

  He bent down to look for his socks. The room was in a mess, but then it usually was. It smelled of whisky and tobacco smoke. She saw the long white ridge that travelled down his left arm and touched it lightly with her fingertips. She could feel him flinch as he moved his arm away. He never liked her touching the scar, which was why she did it.

  ‘Some other time,’ he said.

  She leaned on one elbow and watched him dress. She was a large woman with large breasts and a bottom you could get your teeth into. Macrae liked them fleshy.

  He stood up and felt slightly dizzy. Christ, he didn’t want to go on a job in this state.

  ‘Why don’t you get us some coffee?’ he said. ‘Strong.’

  ‘Sure.’

  She got off the bed and, still naked, wandered downstairs to the kitchen.

  He heard her voice from below and went to the bedroom door.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘I said you want to get this place cleaned up, George. There’s dirty plates and old Chinese take-aways and I saw this bit of cheese in the fridge last summer. It’s got fur on it.’

  ‘I like it that way.’

  He was putting on his jacket when she reappeared with the coffee. She was wearing his silk dressing-gown. The one Mandy had given him. Seeing her nipples against the soft silk he felt himself becoming aroused again but put the thought from his mind. There would be other times.

  He drank the coffee and took some money from his wallet.

  ‘No, George. You don’t have to. You never have to.’

  ‘I know that.’ He took her face and kissed her on the lips in a surprisingly tender gesture. ‘It’s difficult enough to part a Scot and his money so take it while you can. Here.’

  She looked irritated but took the five-pound notes. ‘You don’t like to be beholden, do you?’

  ‘Lock up when you go. Put the key through the letter box. I’ll ring you soon.’

  He went out into the bitterly cold night trying to clear his head. Too many things could go wrong when it was a murder.

  Chapter Five

  In London the snow had stopped but the wind off the Thames was bitter. The South Bank, including the Festival Hall and the National Theatre, with its walkways and stairways and underpasses and brutal concrete buttresses, was a deserted wilderness, its strings of coloured lights swaying in the wind.

  Hungerford Bridge crosses the Thames at this point. It is really two bridges, a railway bridge and a footbridge. The footbridge has long been a place for dossers and meths drinkers and, in recent years, for street kids and teenage beggars.

  A small crowd had gathered at one end. Here, there was a walkway. Above the walkway, among the concrete pillars and angular walls, was a hidden area the size of a small room.

  It was lit now by the beams of two hand torches. One was held by Detective Superintendent Macrae of Cannon Row police station, the other by his assistant, Sergeant Leopold Silver.

  The torch beams showed the area to be a kind of den or human lair, silent except for the noise of dripping water. There were two sleeping bags lying side by side, placed on newspapers and covered by polythene sheets, two candles in plastic bottles, and a small pile of magazines.

  The torch beams moved along the walls illuminating festering patches of lime, which gave the place the appearance of some outbreak of concrete psoriasis. Water dripped into the area forming a pool on the floor. Next to the pool, its foot lying partly in the water, lay the body of a black man.

  He lay on his back with his legs drawn up and both hands covering his belly; the position of someone asleep on a grassy bank in the sun.

  Macrae, who was just over six feet tall, was bent nearly double as he played his torch over the body.

  ‘That leather jacket must be worth a couple of hundred,’ he said to Silver. Then he looked at his watch. ‘It’s nine forty-three.’ Silver made a note.

  Macrae called down to the constable below him, ‘Aren’t those lights here yet?’

  ‘Just coming, sir.’

  In almost the same second, floodlights lit the walkway and the interior of the den.

  Now the black man’s face could be seen more clearly. The lips were open at the corners and the teeth were showing.

  ‘I think that’s what’s called a rictus smile,’ Leo Silver said.

  ‘That’s what you learned at the university, is it?’ Macrae turned towards the lights. ‘Any sign of the doctor?’

  ‘No, sir,’ came a disembodied voice. ‘But Forensic’s here.’ He paused, then said, ‘Screens are going up, sir. Do you want the footbridge closed?’

  ‘What’s the crowd like?’

  ‘Nothing much. Too cold, sir.’

  ‘Then the screens’ll do.’

  He turned back to the body and crouched next to it. Carefully he lifted the shirt. It had dark stains around what looked like a four-inch tear. The black stomach was exposed. Here the tear became a wound. Blood had caked and hardened and now only a light-coloured liquid oozed from it.

  ‘Christ!’ Silver said. ‘That’s what’s-his-name . . . Foster. Henry Foster.’

  ‘Who the hell’s Henry Foster?’

  ‘The TV journalist. He’s on at breakfast time.’

  ‘Never watch it. You sure?’

  Silver leaned down and tried to visualise the face with the mouth closed. ‘I’m sure, sir. Has his own interview programme called Focus.’

  ‘Well, he won’t be interviewing anyone any more.’

  Just then a voice from below said, ‘Doctor’s here, sir.’

  Macrae moved over against the wall and the police doctor was helped up on to the concrete shelf that formed the floor of the shelter.

&nbs
p; ‘Evening, G. D.’ Macrae said.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, George. Evening, sergeant.’

  The rota doctor, G. D. Kanwar, was an Indian in his mid forties, about Macrae’s own age.

  ‘I might have guessed it would be you. Every time a holiday comes up I say to myself there will be an air-traffic controllers’ strike on the Continent and George Macrae will be mixed up in something nasty. Is it nasty?’

  ‘Take a look.’

  Dr Kanwar opened his bag and took out a stethoscope.

  ‘The only thing you’ll hear with that is the trains,’ Macrae said.

  Dr Kanwar ignored him. He listened briefly for a heartbeat and then began the examination proper. Macrae watched him broodingly. Silver watched them both. It was true, he thought, Macrae attracted crime like marmalade attracts wasps. Things always seemed to happen when he was on duty.

  ‘I’ve found a new one,’ Macrae said to Dr Kanwar.

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Hammersmith Broadway. The Red Hot Raja. Something like that.’

  ‘Don’t know it.’

  ‘Proper tandoori. They’ve made a bloody great hole in the kitchen floor and stuck it in there.’

  ‘What did you have? Madras? Or need I ask?’ Dr Kanwar unbuttoned the corpse’s shirt.

  ‘Of course. Lamb. And stuffed parathas and onion bhajee. Mixed vegetables. Pilau.’

  ‘Hot enough for you?’

  ‘Well, you know me.’

  ‘I suppose you asked for chilli sauce?’

  ‘Just a little.’

  Dr Kanwar began to examine eyes and ears. He said, ‘My grandfather went through the curry cycle. Couldn’t get it hot enough. Eventually he was eating pure chilli sauce with a little food on the side. There was a nasty noise one day when the capillaries in his abdomen burst.’

  Silver felt his gorge rise. He had not seen too many murdered men – or women for that matter – and always had to steel himself. It wasn’t the time for foodie jokes, he thought.

  Dr Kanwar straightened up. Macrae said, ‘How long do you think he’s been dead?’

  ‘Maybe two hours.’

  After a few more minutes Macrae, Silver and Dr Kanwar dropped down from the area on to the walkway.