The Garden Party

by Peter Turnbull

‘I’m with you,’ Vicary replied, ‘carry on.’

  ‘It turns out that the prosecution’s witness to the murder for which Rainbird was arrested was none other than Eddie “The Slime” Fretwell.’

  ‘Rainbird’s enemy!’ Vicary sat forward. ‘I see where you are going, and I don’t like the sound of it.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound good, does it, sir?’ Ainsclough replied. ‘The two gangs were territorial; the murder took place in The Cross Keys just off the Mile End Road, right in the middle of Arnie Rainbird’s territory, and not only that but it was his much favoured pub.’

  ‘So Eddie Fretwell would not have been there?’

  ‘No, sir. If Eddie Fretwell set foot in The Cross Keys he’d wake up in the Royal London Hospital, probably with his entire body encased in plaster.’ Ainsclough raised his eyebrows. ‘He would not have been present when the fight took place, as you say.’

  ‘Who was the senior officer in the Daniel Meed murder?’

  Tom Ainsclough consulted the file. ‘One Detective Inspector Scaly.’

  ‘Scaly?’ Vicary smiled. ‘As in scaly dragon?’

  ‘That’s what it says here, sir.’

  ‘Is he still with us?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He is now with the Anti Terrorist Squad.’

  ‘Him,’ Vicary said, ‘him I would like to have a little chat with.’

  Victor Swannell, feeling weary and drained, returned home to his modest terraced house on Warren Road in Neasden, where he, like the majority of householders, had concreted over their small front lawns to form a parking space for the family car. Warren Road was laid out before mass car ownership was the norm and was just not wide enough to permit the householders on both sides of the street to park their cars at the kerb. He entered the house by the front door and found his two teenage daughters sitting on the lounge floor, both deeply engrossed in an Australian soap opera which at that moment was being shown on television. They did both manage to say, ‘’Lo, Dad’, but didn’t take their eyes off the screen. He went into the back garden, which was filled with the sound of the incessant hum of traffic on the North Circular, where his wife was weeding the rose bed. She stood up on his approach and perfunctorily pecked his cheek without saying anything and then knelt again and continued to stab at the soil with a small hand-held garden fork, drawing out and casting weeds into a sieve. Swannell turned and walked back into the house.

  It was, he had come to realize, all that he could now expect from family life.

  Tom Ainsclough also returned home, also feeling tired but satisfied after his day’s work. He entered his home in Hargwyne Road in Clapham and checked for post on the top of the table that stood in the communally owned hallway which he and Sara shared with their neighbours, the Watsons, who owned the lower conversion of the house. Ainsclough took the two letters which he found addressed to Mr and Mrs Ainsclough, both from the bank, and unlocked the door leading to the stairs and to the upper conversion. His wife met him at the door and kissed him warmly, but she was already dressed in her uniform and hurriedly leaving for work, anxious not to be late. Newly promoted to Sister at the hospital she was keen to create a good impression and to lead from the front, believing that ‘good timekeeping makes good leaders’. Tom Ainsclough spent the evening channel surfing the television, wondering again if it was the constant crossing of paths with his wife as one leaves and the other returns that kept their marriage, in their cramped accommodation, healthy.

  Penny Yewdall also felt a sense of satisfaction at a good day’s work as she returned home. She took the train from Charing Cross and alighted at Maze Hill, from where she walked the short distance, through narrow Victorian streets, to her modest house in Tusker Road. Once showered and changed into jeans and a T-shirt, she went for a stroll in Greenwich Park and up to the observatory, where a group of foreign youth were photographing each other standing astride the meridian, and was reminded of the amusing incident wherein two Argentinian women seeking the meridian had stopped her and asked, with limited but sufficient English, ‘Please, where is half the world?’ Upon Observatory Hill, she turned and enjoyed the vista of the Thames and of East London beyond the river. Penny Yewdall then walked home, casually, enjoying the safety that Greenwich afforded. It was a safe place for a woman to walk alone and, being a young woman, she could still rejoice in her single status; there was time for marriage and a family yet, she told herself . . . still time and that bit is not to be hurried; perhaps, she thought, perhaps she was not the ‘elective spinster’ she thought she was. After eating, she retired to bed early and as darkness fell the night sky revealed a good Orion. Sometimes the constellation of Orion was stationary but at other times, as on that night, it could be observed marching across the sky. She lay quite still watching the seven observable stars of the constellation move slowly across the window pane of her bedroom, and as she laid there her mind turned to Elizabeth ‘Long Liz’ Petty, she of the endless legs, who would at that moment be out there, negotiating a price on the hoof in London’s other meat market.

  SIX

  ‘I feel that I must confess that I find it most unnerving. Most unnerving indeed.’ Davinia Bannister was, Yewdall observed, a short, auburn-haired woman of trim, almost petite figure. She and Penny Yewdall walked the athletic track on the school playing fields. Davinia Bannister had suggested that they walk ‘the white lines on the green stuff’ as it was the only place that they would find peace, the games field not being required at that particular time.

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ Yewdall replied, ‘I can well imagine how unnerving it would be to have your past tapping you on the shoulder like this, but please don’t let it alarm you.’

  ‘I can’t help being alarmed.’ Davinia Bannister looked sideways at Penny Yewdall. ‘Though I am not fearful of any action being taken against me; I did nothing illegal. I have no fears there, but I won’t be giving evidence, you may rest assured there, madam, you may rest well assured.’

  ‘Yes,’ Penny Yewdall sighed, ‘unfortunately they all say that.’

  ‘And no wonder.’ Davinia Bannister was neatly, if not severely, dressed in a three-quarter length black skirt, high-necked white blouse, dark nylons and sensible shoes, and was carrying a large black handbag on her shoulder; all in complete accordance, thought Yewdall, with her position as history teacher at a large comprehensive school. ‘They were, still are, very heavy boys and if you can find me, so can they. So, how did you find me, anyway?’

  ‘Liz Petty told us about you, she said that you and she talked during that week. She recalled few details; your Christian name, that your father was a lawyer and your mother a curate.’

  ‘She is a fully fledged priest now, the Reverend Muir.’

  ‘I made a few discreet enquiries, mainly of the police in Reading. Davinia is not a common name; the police seemed to know your father. He does a lot of criminal work, so I found.’

  ‘Yes.’ Davinia Bannister brushed a wasp from her face. ‘He is a solicitor. He represents felons in low-end crime; the sort of stuff that is dealt with in the magistrates’ court, and the police do indeed know him, even though he acts for criminals whom they are prosecuting; each doing their job, but they sit and chat to each other at the conclusion of the morning’s business.’

  ‘Yes, they would do. So one police officer did know of a Mr Muir whose daughter Davinia is a school teacher and whose mother joined the priesthood when she was in her middle years. I did assure the police in Reading that you were not a suspect and they insisted on phoning me back at New Scotland Yard to ensure I was kosher. Another phone call to the local education authority, again with the same assurances and with them phoning me at New Scotland Yard . . . and . . .’

  ‘And here you are. So frighteningly simple.’

  ‘Only for the police; Arnie Rainbird and his crew won’t be able to do that and they know you as Davinia Muir.’

  ‘No . . . no, they couldn’t but they knew I was a secondary school teacher. They will assume I returned to my roots in Readi
ng. Very easy for them to wait outside the school gates of every comprehensive school in this city until they see me emerge, follow me home and, if I am lucky, I’ll only get beaten up. If I am unlucky, I will disappear and my little body will never be found.’

  The two women walked on in silence for some moments, broken when Davinia Bannister said, ‘You know we used to do this when I was at school, as a pupil, I mean.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Walk on the athletics track chatting with my mates. It was meant to be run on with great effort, with gritted teeth, total determination. Sorry, but I was never particularly sporty when I was at school, and when other girls were shaving split seconds or minuscule distances from school records, me and two other girls would just stroll round the athletic track being overtaken by other girls working on their one thousand metres time, using it for the purpose for which it was laid out, and occasionally we’d catch the eye of the games mistress who’d yell, “Run, you three!”, so we’d jog along for a few yards and then start walking again. Eventually she gave up on us as a hopeless cause and forgot about us, which suited us admirably. It suited us to perfection. We would even risk a cigarette. When we were circling on the track and were at our apogee from the games mistress we’d risk a quick drag.’

  ‘That was risky.’ Yewdall grinned.

  ‘I’ll say. Exclusive girls’ grammar school, sneaking a cigarette behind the bicycle sheds during lunch break was bad enough, but smoking when purporting to be doing games, that would be akin to lighting up during maths . . . instant expulsion, and I’d really catch it at home. My mother used to be very heavy-handed, even when I was a teenager, but we got away with it, and now I am a teacher and have to keep an eye out for smoking among the children . . . what goes around comes around, as they say.’

  ‘I grew up on a housing estate in the Potteries,’ Yewdall replied. ‘A corner shop was run by a kindly but partially sighted old gentleman and we could steal sweets and chocolate bars very easily. So, not anything I am proud of, and I am now a copper and catch thieves. Dare say we grow up and turn out all right.’

  ‘Yes.’ Davinia Bannister nodded her head slightly. ‘Dare say that’s the main thing. So what can I tell you about that so-called party?’

  ‘We know the gist, we know some of the details, but we don’t know all the personalities. Can you tell me about your lover?’

  ‘Well hardly my lover, and he was nothing to me as soon as we arrived and I found out what was going on.’

  ‘Yes . . . sorry, not a lover.’

  ‘He was my sugar daddy and I was his bit on the side to visit twice or thrice a week because his wife didn’t understand him. He paid the rent on my bedsit.’ Davinia Bannister shuddered. ‘Imagine, my father a lawyer, my mother a curate, my brother studying for a medical degree and intending to join the army as a medical officer, and me a school teacher and bunking up with a career criminal.’

  ‘But you didn’t know he was a career criminal?’ Yewdall offered.

  ‘No.’ Davinia Bannister shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t. I thought he was a stockbroker or something of that ilk. He led me to believe that. I did think he was a little rough round the edges, but I dismissed that as being part of his self-made, local boy makes good image, and he paid the rent and bought meals, and occasionally gave me a wad of pocket money. It all made living in London possible on a school teacher’s salary, especially on the salary of a newly qualified teacher. I used to feel sorry for the males or the less attractive females who had no option but to make their salary stretch. I had an easy ride until the party . . . then I paid for it.’

  ‘Yes.’ Penny Yewdall looked to her left at a stand of trees which formed the boundary of the school grounds. ‘That’s what Sandra Barnes described it as being like; enabled her to survive, financially speaking. Then she also paid the price.’

  ‘Sandra . . . yes, I remember her.’ Davinia Bannister kept her eyes downcast. ‘She was in the same boat, a primary school teacher, so even worse off than me. I earned more as a teacher of the eleven to sixteen age range, but it took that dreadful week long orgy of sex and violence to see our sugar daddies for who they really were. So how is Sandra?’

  ‘Doing well, living in the north . . . two children, happy with her marriage.’ Yewdall did not wish to provide too much information.

  ‘And “Long Liz” Petty?’ Davinia Bannister enquired. ‘I really took to her. She was a working girl but she had a naturally warm personality.’

  Yewdall paused. ‘She still is and still has.’

  ‘Oh,’ Davinia Bannister groaned, ‘she’s still working the street?’

  ‘Yes, sadly for her,’ Yewdall replied softly, ‘she’s still a working girl and a vodka merchant as well.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear that. I did hope she could tear herself away from the street. I know it’s not easy . . . but . . . I did hope the best for her.’ Davinia Bannister looked at the low-rise angular brick building that was the school at which she taught. ‘She and I talked of escaping.’

  ‘Yes, she told me that.’

  ‘Fanciful really, but the idea kept our spirits up a little. We would not have got far, both naked and no footwear. You have to experience that state to realize how vulnerable you are, and both so dreadfully weak through insufficient food. Picture us if you will, picking at the remains of hamburgers and carbon-encrusted sausages, not caring what we ate and talking of making a run for it. We wouldn’t have got past the goons.’

  ‘Goons?’ Penny Yewdall queried.

  ‘The guards, we called them goons like it was some prisoner of war camp. Dogs guarded the front of the house by night and gofers, the goons, by day. The back of the house was fully fenced off with that interlocking stuff you have to use your big toe to climb and that is excruciating; if you’ve ever tried to do it you’ll know what I mean. I did it once.’

  ‘At the party?’

  Davinia Bannister smiled. ‘No . . . no, another more innocent situation, but the same sort of wire. So we gave up the idea and realized that if we were going to survive the answer was docility and compliance, or as Liz said, “Look, just forget it. Keep your head down and don’t kick up a fuss about anything and we’ll get through this” . . . she had that sort of street girl savvy and she was right. And by then, of course, we’d seen Sandra Barnes get a slap, and such a slap I never saw before or since, then get half-drowned by The Baptist. Then these two wretched men getting pummelled with golf clubs and then handed to The Baptist to finish them off, though I confess I don’t think The Baptist’s skills were needed. I can’t imagine anyone surviving an assault like that but Arnie Rainbird wanted to make sure.’

  ‘You saw it all?’

  ‘Yes.’ Davinia Bannister kept her eyes fixed on the ground in front of her. ‘Little Davinia Muir as I was then, all five feet nothing of me, waif-like, yet I was the only one who didn’t faint. Some girls fainted at both assaults or at one or the other, but I didn’t faint at either, or at the drownings or at the bonfire. I saw it all from beginning to end and it’s lodged in here –’ she tapped the side of her head – ‘I just cannot drive the image . . . the images from my mind.’

  ‘Who assaulted the two men?’

  ‘Charlie Magg and Fergus McAlpine. Imagine a name like Fergus McAlpine, you’d think you’d hear him saying things like, “Am a no a bonny fighter, Jamie?” Instead, he complains in estuary English when Charlie Magg drags him off a woman before he kills her, “Leave it aht, Charlie, ah was only given her a little slap, wasn’t ah? I mean gotta learn ’em right from wrong, ain’t yer?”’ Davinia Bannister fell silent. ‘You know, Charlie Magg saved the lives of the two women whom Fergus attacked, you really should put a word in for him for that if you can.’

  ‘I’m afraid Charlie is past helping any. He might well have rescued women but he has a number of male victims.’ Yewdall savoured the fresh air of the playing fields. ‘So, if you can, tell me about The Baptist, we know nothing of him.’

  ‘Jerry Primrose was h
is name, probably still is; quite a nice evocative name but the character was evil; he smiled as he killed. Jerry Primrose, he owned a big house in north London and had a passion for Ferraris. Only a blood-red Ferrari would do for our Jerry. He has a large birthmark on his chest which he is self-conscious about and that explains why he kept his clothes on when he was doing his thing in Snakebite’s swimming pool.’

  Penny Yewdall beamed at Davinia Bannister. ‘You do know a lot about him.’

  ‘I should do, I was his tart. I was his to visit when he so fancied, but that was his name, Gerald Primrose. I saw his name often enough on cheques and credit cards. Kept me in a bedsit hidden away from his world and then one day out of the blue he calls and drives me up to Bedfordshire. “We’re going to a party,” he says, so we go to the house and he opens the car door, and drags me out by the arm. He never got hold of me like that before. The foyer of the house is full of naked women, and he drags me across the floor and plants me in front of the only woman who was wearing clothes and says, “Do everything this woman tells you and don’t argue about anything”, then he walks away out to the back of the house, to the garden and pretty soon I am starkers, too. The next day he half-drowns Sandra Barnes then seems to vanish. I didn’t see him again until the middle of the week when he appears again and drowns those two tramps after they had been well worked over with golf clubs. I never saw him again.’

  ‘And you are sure that you won’t give a statement?’ Penny Yewdall pressed. ‘You saw everything. You can make a clear identification of The Baptist.’

  Davinia Bannister walked on in silence. Then she said, ‘I wouldn’t be seen as a grass, would I? I wasn’t in a gang. I wouldn’t be breaking the criminal code of honour.’

  ‘No . . . no . . . you wouldn’t,’ Penny Yewdall answered with a note of encouragement.

  ‘I want to talk it over with my mother.’

  ‘Your mother!’ Penny Yewdall couldn’t contain her surprise.

  ‘Yes.’ Davinia Barrister smiled. ‘I’m a grown woman, I am not seeking her permission but I would like to talk to her in her capacity as a priest; it is a matter of ethics. I need guidance. I would also like to talk to my husband. He is a man of some standing in this town. The trial, if it comes, will generate a lot of publicity. He should at least have some forewarning. Neither he nor my parents know anything of that horrible week in Bedfordshire and about how I survived on a teacher’s salary when I lived in London. They should hear it all from me first. Let me phone you. Give me a contact phone number and I will phone you in a day or two.’