Last Detective

by Thomas, Leslie

  ‘Yes. Up the top.’

  ‘Can I come in for a minute? I wanted to ask you something.’

  Again, Parsons did not seem to think it was unexpected. Davies thought that perhaps he never thought anything was. ‘Yes, if you want,’ he said starting up the steps and manoeuvring his tuba to get his key. ‘About Christianity, is it?’ he asked unconfidently.

  ‘No. I’m afraid it’s about crime.’

  Parsons opened the front door carefully. ‘All right,’ he responded, keeping his head to the front where it was almost touching the red and yellow diamond glass. Briefly he appeared to rest his forehead against the pattern. ’But keep the noise down, will you,’ he asked over his uniformed shoulder, ‘I don’t want the landlady to know I’ve got anybody in. Especially the police. She’s not an admirer of the police.’

  ‘Mine’s the same,’ answered Davies truthfully. He crept through the front door after Parsons. They went up the dim stairs quickly but with stealth, along a corridor hung with cooking smells and shadows, and eventually, when Parsons had unlocked a further door, into a bed-sitting room, tidy but tired.

  ‘Never married then?’ inquired Davies sitting in a cold armchair while Parsons bent to light a gas fire.

  ‘Wouldn’t be stuck up here if I did,’ replied Parsons, again not put out by the question. ‘I’ve lived here thirty years.’

  ‘Man and boy,’ added Davies. He leaned back. Sitting on the chair was like sitting on the lap of a large, clammy woman. He drew his wet coat closer to him. ‘You must have been here when you had the trouble.’

  ‘The trouble?’

  ‘You know, Andrew. The bother about Celia Norris.’

  Parsons stood up slowly, still facing away from him towards the gas fire which was now spluttering around his shins. There was a mirror suspended above the fire and he looked at Davies in that. ‘Oh, God,’ he said resignedly. ‘Won’t you ever leave me be?’

  ‘I know, mate, I know,’ nodded Davies with genuine sympathy. ‘These things follow you.’

  ‘Hardly anybody knows now about my stupidness in those days. I keep hoping it’s all past and done and over. What’s your name anyway?’ He turned away from the wall and the mirror.

  ‘Davies. Detective Constable.’

  ‘Ah, you’re the one they call Dangerous Davies.’

  ‘Everybody knows,’ sighed Davies.

  ‘It can’t be very important if they send you,’ said Parsons bluntly. ‘Not a constable.’

  ‘Routine,’ said Davies not allowing his annoyance to appear. ‘Purely routine. Something’s come up, about the Celia Norris case, that’s all. Maybe a new lead.’

  ‘After—what is it—after twenty-odd years? I would have reckoned all the leads were as dead as she is,’ muttered Parsons. He sat down in an identically worn armchair opposite Davies so that they flanked the gas burner. Only one element was burning.

  ‘People change their minds, think about things differently, say things they wouldn’t have said at the time,’ Davies repeated, as much to reassure himself as inform Parsons.

  ‘That is all very well,’ said Parsons, his tone weary. ‘But you look at it from my point of view. I’ve tried to live it down, forget it. People have just about forgotten it now, around here, and I don’t want them remembering.’ He looked up with a small fierce desperation at Davies. ‘It’s taken me two years to learn to play that tuba,’ he said.

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ answered Davies. ‘But there’s no need to worry. If we can get through this now it will be all over, done, and nobody will ever know any different.’

  ‘Until the next time.’

  ‘There won’t be any next time,’ urged Davies, leaning towards him. ‘Not if we can clear it up this time, with your help and the help of others, then it will be over for ever. It’s going to be painful, for you, I understand that very well, but it needn’t take long.’

  Parsons sighed and clasped his hands before him. Then he rose and put his tuba away in a cupboard as though to keep it from knowing what was going to be said by and about the man who blew into it.

  Parsons returned to the chair. ‘I don’t drink,’ he said. ‘So I can’t offer you anything.’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Davies. ‘I’m thinking of packing it in myself.’

  ‘Does you no good,’ said the Salvation Army man firmly. ‘No good at all. Rots your inside, strong drink.’

  ‘Agreed. Now, will you just tell me, as you remember it, what happened. I’ve read the statement that you made at the time, like I’ve read all the others, but I’m asking people to repeat them because now, after all this time, they may just possibly say something different that will provide a lead.’

  ‘All right, but there’s just one thing, Mr Davies. I don’t do that any more. Understand? You know, the knickers thing. It’s all gone and I’m cured. I was only a kid then and I was lonely. You never think of youngsters being lonely, do you? It was the loneliest time of my life. Now, what with the Salvation Army and the tuba and everything, I’ve got plenty to keep my mind occupied. No more knickers.’

  ‘Just go on,’ Davies encouraged. ‘I understand all you’ve said. We all do things we’re embarrassed about at some time in our lives. Me, not excepted…’

  ‘Oh,’ said Parsons interested. ‘What have you done?’

  Davies knew he was beginning one of his familiar spirals. The suspect was interrogating him. ‘Never mind,’ he said firmly. ‘Just start off now and tell me how you remember it.’

  It took twenty minutes. How he had found the girl’s clothes in the all-night toilet, but minus the knickers. How he had kept them until he realized, from the newspapers, that they were the garments of Celia Norris. How he had taken them to the toilet again and been seen by the attendant. It had not become any the less pathetic over the years, nor diminished because a grown man was talking about the foibles of a boy. The story was retold in a flat voice.

  Parsons sat, his head almost between his knees, never once looking up. When he did, at the conclusion, raise his head, Davies saw that his eyes were streaming.

  ‘All right,’ said Davies getting up and patting him on the level shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Parsons. Thanks for going over it. I just wanted to get the public bog thing straight, that’s all.’

  ‘Is that all now? Is that the lot?’

  ‘Well, I hope so. I can’t promise I won’t be back. There may just be one or two points. You never know. Anyway, thanks.’ He felt it would be wrong to offer the man his hand so he turned and went out of the door and along the corridor. He had gone down the first three stairs when Parsons called after him from the door, in a sudden burst of tears. His voice trembled as he tried to cry out and keep it quiet at the same time. ‘And good riddance too! To bad rubbish!’

  Davies waved his hand sadly in the shadows and continued down. Parsons closed the door and quietly sobbed against its panels. ‘Next time put something decent in the collection too,’ he sniffled. ‘Mean copper.’

  He went, almost dragging himself to the bed, and began to take his stiff uniform off. He took off his tunic and trousers and folded them over a chair. He shivered and he saw that the single bar of the gas fire had gone out. It was cold standing there in his brassière and panties.

  The police station charwoman was languidly washing down the noticeboard when Davies arrived in the morning. The front steps had also been washed down and the brass handle on the door shone with odd brilliance. It was almost as if they had cleaned up the place to welcome him back.

  ‘Waste of time this is,’ said the cleaning woman, eyes drifting aloft as she washed the grime from the glass of the noticeboard. ‘No sooner it’s done than it’s filthy again. This was always a dirty station, Mr Davies.’

  ‘At least you can see through the glass now,’ observed Davies chattily. She made a swift examination of his damaged face but made no comment, apparently concluding, not unreasonably, that it went with the job. He leaned closer, examining the several newly-revealed photographs of
Wanted Criminals. ‘It’s time it had a clean,’ he joked. ‘According to this we’re still looking for Charlie Peace.’

  ‘Good luck to him, I say,’ she replied, his observation foundering. ‘It’s a wonder you lot catch anybody. Not the way this place is run.’

  Inside the station, the duty sergeant patiently tried to assemble the physique of a lost dog. He had taken the chart of known breeds from the wall and was holding it up for a wiry old lady, to point out the type most approximately to her missing friend. ‘He’s got a head like that…and, let me see…a body like that and…oh, yes a nice stubby tail like that and long legs—like that one there.’

  ‘That makes him a camel,’ murmured the sergeant, writing patiently in his book.

  A haunted pair of eyes leaned over the top of the charge room door and two mislaid children awaiting their mother sat on the corridor bench playing ‘Find the Lady’.

  Police Constable Westerman had been stricken with another nose-bleed and was sprawled in the CID room looking like a riot casualty while someone went to get the cell keys to drop down his back.

  ‘The gov’nor wants to see you, Dangerous,’ he said bravely through the blood. ‘Are you feeling better?’

  Davies was touched that the first inquiry after his health had come from one who was so riven with suffering. ‘Much better, thank you,’ he smiled painfully. ‘You’re not too good, I take it.’

  Westerman decided not to risk taking away the scarlet handkerchief again, so he merely rolled his eyes tragically. Davies went upstairs, knocked on Superintendent Yardbird’s office, and, at the call two minutes later, went in.

  Yardbird looked at his scarred face but his expression did not change. There might have been more reaction if Davies had been wearing a different suit.

  ‘We’re all very pleased,’ said Yardbird.

  ‘Oh, good, I’m glad,’ said Davies painfully. Every stitch seemed to hurt.

  ‘Well these things happen when you’re a policeman,’ said Yardbird. He got up from his desk and went, as though by habit, towards the window. The rooftops were like a frozen sea. There was no sign of movement from the students’ hostel. ‘All good experience for you, Davies.’

  ‘Yes sir. Splendid.’

  ‘And it shows that you’ve stirred him up. Ramscar. It shows he’s worried. That’s what the Special Branch are pleased about. I bet he’s had you followed ever since you started asking questions about him.’

  Davies nodded. He remembered the man with no glass in his spectacles. ‘I expect they have, sir,’ he muttered.

  ‘If you’d kept your eyes open you wouldn’t have walked into it. And, for Christ’s sake man, fancy just falling in their laps by taking any notice of a note put through your letter box. And going alone. That was the stupid thing. Sometimes I don’t think you’ll ever make it, Davies.’

  ‘Sometimes I think that myself, sir,’ Davies had to admit.

  ‘Well, anyway, all’s well that ends well. We know at least that they’ve risen to the bait.’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Davies. ‘Even when I’m the bait.’

  ‘Listen, Davies,’ said Yardbird turning from the window. ‘You can jack this in, if you wish. I’ll get somebody else on it. I was thinking about doing that anyway.’

  ‘No, no, I’ll be all right, sir,’ protested Davies. ‘I’ve got a little score to pay back to Mr Ramscar now. Nobody puts a dustbin over me and gets away with it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Yardbird. ‘And I take it you’re concentrating on this now and not digging up old murders.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘Good. Christ, if every copper in the Metropolitan Police spent his time raking up unsolved crimes the Ramscars of this world would have a bloody marvellous time. It would be mayhem. Get your priorities straight, for God’s sake. I hope you won’t be wanting sick leave because of this?’

  ‘I’m working now,’ said Davies evenly. ‘When it’s over perhaps I’ll take some leave then. Let the stitches heal properly. I think I’d like to go and see my uncle in Stoke-on-Trent.’

  ‘Good,’ said Yardbird, returning to his desk. ‘Might do you the world of good. Now, go and find Ramscar.’

  Chapter Eleven

  That night Dave Boot was wearing his best hair, a reddish confection clouding to orange around his clay face. His suit of lights danced and his body lit up with violent, violet flashes, as the console before him hammered out its songs of popular wisdom and illumination. He was pleased to see a big crowd, but not entirely surprised since Mondays was free entry when he hoped to salvage at the bar what was lost at the turnstiles.

  From his rostrum Boot was thinking how tall teenagers grew in these times. He could see them standing silhouetted like trees against the vermilion walls at the back of the room. Then the tallest and widest tree of all swayed forward, clumsily through the wobbling dancers and Boot saw that it was Dangerous Davies.

  Boot found himself shaking within as well as without. He watched Davies come nearer, trying to dance but all out of beat, treading and kicking the young people around him so that they pushed and elbowed him in retaliation. He was shepherding a small, pinched, dark-haired girl. They neared the flashing hues of the rostrum. The illuminated Boot leaned over angrily. ‘What business have you got here?’ he demanded.

  Davies looked up cheerfully, his grin now, at last, the deepest gash in his face. ‘I’m a golden oldie, love,’ he answered. ‘A rave from the grave.’

  Performing an adapted veleta, he jogged Josie away. ‘So that’s Mr Boot,’ said Josie quietly. ‘Celia’s mate.’ Davies did not know how she meant that. He had told her nothing. ‘What a bleeding sight,’ she added. ‘Like a fairground gone mad. I hate all this stuff, Dangerous.’

  ‘I thought all young people like this. It’s pop,’ Davies said. ‘I wish I could do it. It would be somewhere to go on a Monday night.’

  Josie curled up her nose disdainfully in the half-dark. ‘I can’t stand it,’ she repeated. ‘I’m folk.’

  ‘Oh, are you,’ he said. ‘What’s that? Folk?’

  ‘Folk,’ she repeated carefully. ‘Folk music. I’ve got eighty-three long players. There’s a club called “The Truck Drivers” I go to.’

  Davies nodded. ‘I’ve seen that. In Kilburn. I always thought it was a transport caff.’

  She gave a half-inch grin. ‘This is the transport caff,’ she said. ‘Bloody orange hair. Look at him up there.’

  ‘I think we’ll just quietly hop out now,’ murmured Davies. ‘The dog has seen the rabbit and the rabbit the dog. That’s all I wanted. He’ll be worried now. We’ll go and have a pint or something and see Mr Boot later. Thank you for the dance, Josie.’

  He dispatched Josie home in a taxi before going back to find Boot. He paid the driver in advance and then saw that she was gesticulating behind the window in an impersonal way. She had edged the window down by the time he had fumbled with the door. Her small face had appeared framed in the aperture. ‘Now, Dangerous,’ she warned seriously. ‘Don’t—please—get into any more bother. And don’t get drunk. And don’t stay out late.’

  ‘No,’ he replied to all three demands. She pushed her face through the gap and kissed him inaccurately on his top lip. He patted her face clumsily and then waved to her as the taxi went away.

  He returned to the club and strolled in, conspicuously incongruous, among the slight teenagers in the shadows. Boot had gone.

  ‘He’s off early,’ shrugged the lady in charge of the cloakroom. ‘He sometimes takes sort of half a night off on Mondays because they don’t pay, do they? He’s gone. But he’s only just. You might catch him in the car park.’

  Davies went out hurriedly. The lines of cars at the back lay inert. There was only a motor cyclist, bowed under the egg of his helmet, kicking his machine to a start. Davies walked quickly around the cars to make sure that Boot was not merely lying low. He disturbed three back-seat couples (in one car a recumbent girl had her feet pressed against the ceiling in confined ecstasy), befor
e the motor cyclist droned by and he saw in the car park lights the orange wig curling out of a bag strapped behind the seat.

  Boot was beyond the gate before Davies’s belated shout escaped. Davies turned and scampered clumsily towards his Lagonda, upsetting his sleeping dog with the urgency of his arrival and the bursting noise of the starting engine. Kitty began to cough irritably. A young voice called out ‘Peeping Tom!’ as he made for the gate. He saw that Boot was held up at the traffic lights at the foot of the hill.

  Boot had now seen him and he drove the motor cycle smartly along the main road hearing the animal roar of the Lagonda emitted behind him. It occurred to Davies that there was a lot of traffic coming in the opposite direction for a night so early in the week. He kept Boot’s ruby rear light just in sight and was surprised to see it sag and suddenly wobble as the machine was turned off the road and into the car park at Neasden Underground Station. He became wedged in some traffic at a junction. He noticed it was swelling from the direction of Wembley. The delay was enough time for Boot to leave the motor cycle and walk into the entrance of the tube station.

  Hurriedly, if humanely, Davies threw the canvas sheet over Kitty, who snarled, and then went in pursuit of Boot. He ignored the ticket office and clumped in disarray down to the platform where at once he saw Boot, clutching his crash helmet like a trophy beneath his arm, at the far end. A red train was snaking into the station and Boot kept calm. As Davies stumped towards him he stepped aboard. As Davies hurried the length of the train he saw that it was crammed with men. He reached the final door, the one which Boot had entered, and stepped resolutely inside, forcing himself among the tight, overcoated, enscarved, encapped and encapsuled bodies. There were protests over his entry and his bulk, but the doors closed, crushing him into the mass and that was the conclusion of any arguments.

  ‘What you fink of the twin-strikers, then, mate?’ asked the man next to him.

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Davies, making a guess. ‘Powder puffs.’ He could not see Boot in his immediate vicinity. He stood on tiptoe until several of his abutting neighbours told him to stand proper. The man who had asked him about the twin-strikers stared at him, having, in fact, addressed the query to a companion beyond Davies’s shoulder, a companion who now emerged and, after joining his questioner in a haughty look at Davies’s face, settled into a further discussion of the game.