The front door of the house was opened slowly, but also in a rapid response to Harry Vicary’s pressing of the front doorbell. Vicary removed his panama and said, ‘Hello, Mr Meed, I am DI Vicary of the Murder and Serious Crime Squad of New Scotland Yard. We spoke on the phone.’
Donald Meed, frail and elderly, extended his hand. ‘Thank you for the phone call, I appreciated the advance notice.’ Donald Meed was a tall man and was dressed casually in summer clothes. He stepped sideways and invited Harry Vicary to enter his home. Vicary stepped into a neatly kept, clean-smelling hallway and was then shown into a spacious, airy lounge which was also neatly and cleanly kept, but given Mr Meed’s frailty it seemed to Vicary to speak of a visiting housekeeper, rather than good housekeeping on the part of Mr Meed. The house itself was, thought Vicary, a late Victorian or early Edwardian building. Detached, it stood on Staveley Road, Chiswick, with a small, well-manicured front garden, with a stone path which led to the centrally placed front door. Once in the living room and seated, Vicary cast an eye round the room and found it all appropriate to Mr Meed’s age and social position. It had a strong, immediate post World War Two feel, with sober-minded decoration. The rear garden, which could be seen from the sitting room, was, like the small front garden, lovingly tended and, like the interior of the Meed household, it also spoke of hired help.
‘I am sorry to call at such short notice, sir; a phone call just thirty minutes prior to calling is not a good period of notice.’
‘It was sufficient. I have a dicky ticker and sudden surprises could be dangerous but half an hour’s notice, well, as I said, is sufficient. You said that you wished to call in respect of my son’s murder?’
‘Yes, sir, we believe that some new information has come to light.’
‘Even though someone was successfully prosecuted?’
‘Yes, sir, but information in respect of associated crimes.’
‘I see . . . well, anything I can do to help. Confess we, that is my wife and I, were confused by the success the man had in having his conviction for murder quashed and replaced by a conviction for manslaughter because the original sentence of twenty years still stood. A little academic we thought. That’s my wife, Dorothy.’ Meed pointed to a framed photograph of a woman which stood on the mantelpiece, as he lowered himself into his armchair. ‘But then we found out the manslaughter charge enabled him to apply for parole earlier than would be the case had the murder conviction remained.’
‘Yes, sir, that is the case; that’s the way of it,’ Vicary replied.
‘And now he’s out. Seven years ago he was released. We were notified by a letter from the Home Office. He was still in prison when Dorothy passed on. That was a blessing because she would have found it difficult to know that he was out, a free man, while Daniel was in his grave. He picked up his life . . . our son didn’t live to see his twenty-first birthday . . . it’s so unfair.’
‘Yes,’ Vicary replied softly, ‘the police often encounter such unfairness.’
‘I am sure you do, Mr Vicary,’ Meed sighed, ‘I am sure you do, as you say, it is the way of it.’
‘I am sorry if this is going over old ground but can you tell me,’ Vicary asked, ‘if your son had any previous connection with the man Rainbird?’
‘Good Lord, no. Rainbird was a career criminal, a real villain; Daniel was an undergraduate at Liverpool University. He was studying law. We had no knowledge of any reason why he and his girlfriend should have been in a pub in the East End; we . . . I mean I . . . still don’t.’ Meed paused as if collecting his thoughts. ‘You know, when the police called to tell us our son had been killed in a pub fight in the East End we refused to believe it. We said that they must have the wrong Daniel Meed, but they showed us his student union identity card which had his photograph on it, but even then we didn’t believe it until we saw his body in the mortuary of the Royal London Hospital. He was apparently involved in a fight in a pub. He picked up a broken bottle to defend himself and then dropped it quickly and offered no resistance, so the witness said. So that made the murder charge stand, but on appeal Rainbird claimed he still felt under threat, or was reacting to the threat or some such argument, and that was accepted by the judges who heard his appeal. Rainbird fled the pub but one man was courageous enough to come forward and name him. Rainbird still had the clothes he was wearing at the time when the police caught up with him a few days later. He hadn’t washed them and Daniel’s blood was still on them, and he also had the knife. The pub’s CCTV was out of action at the time . . .’
‘I was going to ask,’ Vicary commented. ‘Ordinarily that would have been very useful.’
‘So the issue wasn’t who killed Danny, it was whether the crime in question was murder or manslaughter. Fella called Fretwell gave evidence against Rainbird. As he left the witness box Rainbird called out, “You can run but you can’t hide, Fretwell”.’
‘Fretwell,’ Vicary repeated.
‘Yes, I remember the name because I thought it quite unusual.’
‘Do you know of anyone who can shed any light on why on earth he would be drinking in a pub on the other side of London?’
‘Only his girlfriend at the time Diana . . . Diana Wortley was her name, still is. I believe she lives with her parents, quite close to here, but sadly I hear she has gone down with a wasting disease. My son and her were the boy and girl next door; they seemed very happy together.’
‘Wortley,’ Vicary said, ‘living in Chiswick. There won’t be many Wortleys in Chiswick; it’s not a very common name.’
‘No, it’s a town up in Yorkshire, I believe, so the name is probably more common in the north country, but that was her name, Diana Wortley. Nice girl.’
Penny Yewdall scanned the interior of the Victoria Arms in Canning Town. She saw its appeal. It had, she thought, a very solid yet welcoming interior. The roof was lower than the cavernous interior of The Neptune at Seven Kings, where a few days earlier she and Tom Ainsclough had made enquiries about one Desmond Holst. The windows of the Victoria Arms were of frosted glass, with the name of a long defunct brewery etched on them, and through which could be glimpsed the occasional red double-decker London bus as it whirred past. The bench seats and chairs in the pub were of upholstered maroon and the tables were solid metal supports topped by a thick, highly polished wooden surface. The carpet was of a darker maroon than the seats and chairs. The bar was of carved, and also similarly highly polished, wood. The television set was tuned in to a sports channel, but, mercifully in Yewdall’s opinion, the sound was turned to mute. The only other customers in the Victoria Arms that morning were an elderly man who sat engrossed in the horse racing pages of a tabloid and a few feet beyond him an elderly woman, who in turn was engrossed in a schooner of port and who mumbled to herself intermittently. Yewdall and Liz Petty occupied a corner seat, as far from any overhearing ears as they could. ‘Oh, well.’ Liz Petty lifted her vodka and coke to her lips. ‘It’s five o’clock somewhere; your health, darling.’
‘Cheers.’ Yewdall raised her glass of orange juice. She noticed that the white-shirted barman was pointedly ignoring them, which, she felt, meant he was very, very interested in them. She hoped indeed that Elizabeth Petty was correct in her belief that she, Penny Yewdall, would not be recognized as a police officer.
‘So, the garden party.’ Liz Petty put her glass down on the polished table top. ‘Well, we got recruited by the old woman . . . Pearl was her name. She went up and down the pavement picking out the youngest. I was twenty, I think . . . about that, and I was still naïve enough not to know that if something sounds too good to be true it usually is. Two hundred pounds just to be one of a few girls at a party for one night . . . and it sounded safe, a lot safer than you were, than you are, if you get into a car with a strange punter.’
‘Yes, your occupation is the most dangerous of all.’ Yewdall sipped her orange juice.
‘Don’t I know it, and who is bothered? A working girl gets murdered and no one cares. Sometim
es doesn’t even rate a mention in the newspaper. Yet when the interest rate goes up half a percent it makes the headlines. There’s no justice.’ Liz Petty shook her head.
‘Unfair . . . you’re right . . . but Pearl, was she a bodybuilder do you know?’
‘Something like that, or a female wrestler. Why? Do you know her?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ Yewdall glanced at the barman, still not looking at them, but also still seeming to be very interested in the two women.
‘So anyway, they laid on a coach – not a single-decker with hard seats, but a real charabanc luxury number – so it all seemed kosher. The girls were relaxing, chatting away . . . summer, light nights, nice evening, but the journey was longer than we had been led to believe and some girls got a bit nervous. So, anyway, we arrive at the house. Big it was, but not an old mansion. By then no one was talking; by then we were wondering just what we’d let ourselves in for, and we file off the bus and into the house. So Pearl says, “Right, girls, everything off . . . get your kit off” . . . and she hands round plastic bin liners. Some girls hesitate and Pearl says, “The only way back to London is on the coach and that doesn’t leave until tomorrow, and you want your money, so you work . . . so kit off.”’ Liz Petty took another sip of her vodka. ‘So Pearl collects the bin liners full of clothes and handbags and she locks them in a room, so then we were staying whether we liked it or not. So we just stood around and some girls began to sit on the floor. Then a little later a car arrived and that was the first time I saw Sandra Barnes and she saw us. I mean, the look of shock on her boat race . . . and her Tom just left her standing there. Walked past us, not a glance did he give us; just walked past us and Pearl says to Sandra, “So what? Did you think you’d be playing musical chairs?” You could tell she was frightened and you could tell she wasn’t a brass; this was all new to her. We got to talking later and she told me she thought her Tom was a stockbroker in the city. That week she found he was a gangster and she was his moll. There were two or three others like her; girls who were mistresses. They arrived in flash cars but they all went back to London on the coach. Reckon their usefulness was over. Everything was taken from us, everything, not just our clothes and watches and jewellery and handbags but . . .’ Elizabeth Petty tapped the side of her head, ‘but in here as well. Everything was taken from us.’
‘Your sense of self?’ Yewdall held eye contact with Petty. ‘Yes, I understand, believe me I do; your sense of self and your sense of self-worth; and Sandra’s man walking past you without taking any notice of you, that was rehearsed.’
‘You think so?’ Petty sighed.
‘I feel certain it was; all part of the plan.’ Yewdall sipped her drink. ‘Ignoring you, weakening your resistance.’
‘It did that all right.’
‘Sandra said she walked on to the back lawn and the men there looked at her and ignored her; went back to drinking beer and eating from the barbecue.’
‘Yes.’ Petty looked at the table top. ‘That was how it was; twenty-five or thirty naked young women suddenly appear in front of a bunch of men and not one of them reacted, it was like we were invisible.’
‘It was all planned, believe me, it was all part of the plan to make you feel you were not worth anything,’ Yewdall explained. ‘It was designed to make you feel that you were not important.’
‘It worked. I just wanted to give up, not resist anything.’ Long Liz Petty spoke with discomfort. ‘It brought a lot of things back for me.’
‘Yes. I am sorry.’
‘Well, the party started that night as dusk was setting and we found out it was for a blagger who had been in the slammer for ten years. I won’t go into any details.’
‘It’s all right,’ Yewdall smiled. ‘I can imagine.’
‘So we gritted our teeth and each one of us was thinking about the two hundred pounds and a ride back to London in the morning. So the morning came; all the geezers were still snoring away. We asked when we were going back to London and Pearl says, “A week tomorrow, girls. This party is going on all week and none of you are going anywhere until I say so”, and it was then that Sandra Barnes kicked off and started mouthing off, and Pearl . . . Pearl just took three long strides over to where Sandra was standing and slapped her. And I don’t mean slap, I mean slap. I’ve seen girls slapped about but that slap was the hardest I’ve ever seen . . . just one slap.’ Liz Petty drew a deep breath. ‘But it knocked Sandra clean off her plates.’
‘Plates?’
‘Plates of meat, feet, darling,’ Petty explained. ‘It lifted her clean off her feet.’
‘Of course, sorry.’ Yewdall smiled. ‘That was slow of me.’
‘Sandra picked herself up and staggered away in a daze, holding her cheek, and she had a black eye for the rest of the week. You see, if you slap someone hard enough the blood goes into the eye socket and it looks like they’ve been punched.’
‘I know.’ Yewdall smiled. ‘I’ve seen that quite often over the years.’
‘Sorry, darling.’ Petty reached for her drink. ‘That’s me teaching my grandma to suck eggs. So, the party; it settled down with the girls all getting used for what they were brought to the house to be used for. We didn’t even get a proper meal, not once in the whole week were we fed. A little breakfast, but mainly we had to pilfer food to stay alive.’
‘Yes.’ Yewdall held up her hand. ‘Sandra described all the arrangements quite well. I understood two girls got very badly assaulted?’
‘Little rat-faced, ginger-haired guy called Fergus, he was dragged off each one by Charlie Magg, who said, “Come on Fergus we don’t need the Filth investigating no murder.”’
‘Fergus?’ Yewdall asked.
‘Fergus McAlpine.’ Petty nodded. ‘Fergus McAlpine. The party went on all week and we heard things, we got to know who was who. I overheard Charlie Magg say to The Baptist . . . you know about The Baptist?’
‘Yes,’ Penny Yewdall said, ‘we know a little about him but anything you can tell us will be useful.’
‘Well, Charlie Magg was talking to The Baptist and The Baptist said, “Good job you were there, Charlie, McAlpine has a thing about women.”’
‘So that was Fergus McAlpine?’ Yewdall clarified. ‘The small ginger-haired, rat-faced, geezer who beat up the two women, that was Fergus McAlpine?’
‘Seems it was.’ Liz Petty drained her glass.
‘Another drink?’ Penny Yewdall asked, and stood and walked to the bar.
‘So,’ Penny Yewdall said as she sat back at the table with a vodka for Liz Petty and another orange juice for herself, ‘Sandra told me about The Baptist.’
‘Yes . . . thanks.’ Liz Petty sipped her drink. ‘Pearl told him Sandra had been lippy and, well, let’s just say The Baptist took Sandra and showed us all how he got his nickname, and Sandra didn’t give no more lip to anyone after that. No one did.’
‘Yes, so then later in the week we understand something really bad happened?’ Yewdall probed.
‘Yes, the two straggly-haired geezers . . . can’t tell you much.’
Penny Yewdall felt a pang of disappointment.
‘I was one of the first ones to faint, darling.’ Liz Petty shrugged her shoulders. ‘I mean, I may have been on the street for five years by then, but I was still only twenty years old and I’d never seen anyone battered to death then drowned, just to make sure.’
‘You saw that?’ Yewdall asked.
‘Not all of it; like I said, I fainted, little food for four or five days then watching that.’
‘So what did you see?’ Penny Yewdall noticed the barman standing closer to where she and Liz Petty sat, noticeably closer; not looking at them, but listening, intently so.
‘Towards the end of the week it was, two geezers got pulled through the house and on to the back lawn . . . thin, wasted, long hair and beards, pleading for their lives; they were rabbiting on about not grassing on anyone, but the guy Arnie Rainbird wasn’t having any of it. They took one guy and put him down and
started working him over with golf clubs; that noise, a squelching sound, blood in his mouth, but they avoided hitting his head. I fainted so I didn’t see much after that.’
‘Who assaulted the victim?’
‘Charlie Magg and Fergus McAlpine.’
‘Sure?’
‘Yes, definitely.’ Liz Petty looked about her. ‘I hate this smoking ban, I need a fag . . . but, definitely, I remember. Charlie was the guy who liked women. He never took advantage all week but he could give a geezer a fair slap, and Fergus McAlpine, well, he just took everything he could get and hated men and women equally, I remember thinking that before I passed out. So, yes, it was Charlie Magg and Fergus McAlpine who did the business with the golf clubs.’
‘What was the next thing you remember?’
‘I came to and people were just standing round, the men and the women. I stood up and for some reason I walked over to the swimming pool and saw the water was streaked with blood. I was told someone had stabbed him in the stomach after The Baptist had drowned him.’ Liz Petty bit her fingernail. ‘Can’t think why anyone would do that. I mean, if the geezer was dead by then. I need a smoke.’
‘To let the gas escape from the body,’ Yewdall replied, ‘that must have been the reason.’ Yewdall took a sip of her drink. ‘But if you didn’t see that . . .?’
‘No, I can’t say I saw that, but I saw the body had been carried to the bottom of the garden and laid across a bonfire. The bonfire wasn’t lit,’ Petty explained.
‘Yes, I understand,’ Yewdall replied, ‘it was ready to be lit.’
‘Yes, then they did the same thing to the other poor toerag, calling him a grass. Pretty well as soon as they started on him I fainted again.’ Petty spoke apologetically. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I think I would have done the same,’ Yewdall replied comfortingly, ‘no reason to be sorry for anything. So then . . .?’
‘Well, then I came to again and sat on the lawn for an hour or so, as did the other women and a few of the men. No one was saying anything, then it was Sandra Barnes’ Tom, he seemed to be put in charge of the women. He came out of the house and said, “Right . . . on your feet”, and we walked to the bottom of the garden and stood in a line and watched them burn the two corpses. The air just filled with a horrible sickly sweet smell, I’ll never forget it, and again the women just started collapsing either side of me as the bodies burnt.’
The Garden Party Page 18