by J P Lomas
‘Well I suppose Maggie deserved to win – couldn’t have a bloody Argyle supporter as Prime Minister.’
It was left to Mike to inform Fiona of the defeated Labour leader’s footballing allegiance, not one of the qualities either of them had been discussing.
‘I wanted The Alliance to do better, ‘interjected Fiona, ‘I’m surprised they didn’t get more support.’
‘Just the bloody Liberals under another name, ‘countered Mike.
‘And they’re all bloody murdering poofs!’ added Salmons.
‘I think you’ll find Jeremy Thorpe was cleared of murdering his lover, ‘smiled Fiona sweetly.
‘I think it was the fact no-one knew who was leading them this time, what with the two Davids,’ was Mike’s more constructive comment.
‘Two bloody Ronnies more like!’ snorted Salmons.
‘I thought David Steel was rather lovely and talked a lot of sense, ‘answered Fiona with a subtle glance in Mike’s direction.
‘And it often takes two opposites to make progress,’ Mike replied, albeit with a subtle undertone that he intended only for Fiona’s ears.
He needn’t have worried as Salmons had been keeping an ear out for the other, more important Sandy-centric badinage rallying across the other table and had been shocked to hear her describing Sobers as ’rather attractive’ and ‘suave and sophisticated like Lionel Richie.’ Walking over to the jukebox he covered his disappointment with Survivor’s ‘Eye of the Tiger’.
Chapter 7
Sobers had approved of the service. It had none of the obvious energy and noise of the ones he’d attended as a boy in Stockwell. The people who were there sat in pews and responded only when asked to do so by the vicar. Even as he knelt and prayed for guidance, Sobers felt at home in this Anglican Church.
Their hymns were more ancient than modern and he approved of the choices. They had muscular rhythms and the deep notes of the organ gave them a more powerful resonance than the tunes played on acoustic guitars and slapped out on tambourines which his family sang. The sermon had been reflective and also encouraging in its own quiet simplicity. There had been no Hell Fire, or Brimstone, only a gentle meditation on what God was asking people to do.
He also liked the sense of timelessness the building itself seemed to exude. He guessed St Andrew’s Church was probably only late Victorian, yet compared to the hall where he had worshipped as a boy, it was as ancient as the Ark. The stained glass window over the altar depicting Christ and two of his apostles gave a soft and opalescent light to the service, whilst the altar rail where he knelt was skilfully carved and planed. The round stone columns ascending to the roof gave both a coolness and solidity to the structure, whereas the plaques and banners decorating the walls made him feel he was in a medieval chapel from old romance.
Yet it was the calmness of the vicar which filled his heart most with hope. He was able to take Communion not because he felt he had to (the feeling that he had as a boy that if he remained seated for more than a second over time, that Auntie Ida’s eyes would skewer him), but because he wanted to. He did not feel self-conscious when he accepted the wafer and then sipped from the chalice, instead he felt generally assuaged, as if the weight he’d been carrying was lifted from his hands.
He was glad he’d put a note on the collection plate, not just because he’d felt the woman passing it to him had looked a little worried as if he was preparing to receive from it rather than give - it was more an offering of thanks for an expiation which reaffirmed his belief in life. As he walked out into the sunshine, there was a most distinctive spring in his well-heeled step.
****
Sitting at the telephone desk, Salmons was bored. He felt he was always being given the most mundane and routine tasks to perform. Nearly two months after the murder, he was the only one left manning the three telephone lines they’d had installed to take calls from the public with information about the crime. The last call had been a crank two days ago claiming it was God’s will that all homosexuals burned in the fires of Hell; Salmons hadn’t even bothered noting it in the log – to be honest he agreed.
With the other PC out buying fags, his perusal of The News of the World exhausted and not even Sandy’s shapely bosom to cast not so discreet leers at, he was feeling as flat as the beer they served down by the docks. And yet he was still a detective, so let him do some detecting around Sobers’ desk – maybe he’d be lucky and find some of that whacky baccy all West Indians smoked.
What he did find was even more incriminating for Sobers, as the Detective Inspector might reasonably have claimed to have confiscated marijuana in the course of an investigation. Unfortunately for him, Salmons found the package from Ronnie under the official papers in his desk drawer. The flimsy lock on the desk drawer proved no match for Salmons’ skill at lock-picking. Triumph and Disgust vied for supremacy on the ambitious constable’s face.
****
It was Jane who had finally managed to track Darren Price down to a gift shop/ cum cafe down by the docks. It didn’t seem a very touristy area, flanked by the towering silos and dilapidated, wooden warehouses that surrounded the dock basin. A swing bridge allowed cars and pedestrians to cross to the ramshackle bungalows which led down to Shelley Beach on the other side. When the bridge swung to one side it allowed the coasters to safely navigate the narrow channel leading to the harbour.
Whilst not in the actual dockyard itself, Shangri-La’s position below the harbour master’s office was still far enough from the end of the main beach to make it a place the grockles weren’t going to find very easily. It probably explained why Darren Price was arguing with the woman behind the counter about the lack of revenue from the arcade machine in one corner.
‘Not the best location for you, Mr Price,’ she sallied as she sat down at a plastic table, which had been squeezed between a cabinet displaying personalised mugs and the less than clean window. She was rather startled to note her own name was not present among the Janets, Jessicas and Julies.
‘And you are?’ a short, well-built man in his early thirties with a slightly sallow face and eyes needlessly protected by mirrored shades returned her look. He was dressed like a parody of a yuppie.
‘Detective Sergeant Hawkins, Scotland Yard,’ she added playfully.
Price didn’t seem to notice the joke. He was busily removing his sunglasses, revealing red rimmed eyes which stared myopically at the well-dressed woman before him.
‘Make mine a black coffee, no sugar,’ she called to the woman behind the counter and indicated the chair opposite her for Price to sit in.
She tamped a cigarette on the white plastic surface of the wonky table and offered the pack to Price. Somewhat to her surprise he refused and ordered a mineral water.
‘We’ve only got tap water,’ came the reply.
Price acquiesced and swivelled on his seat to face Jane.
‘What do you want?’ came out in a higher pitched register than Jane had been expecting and what with the ridiculous mirrored shades perched atop his receding hairline, Price was certainly not the Mr Big of the Exmouth Underworld she had been expecting from the gossip at the station.
Apart from a few minor traffic offences, there had only been one failed case brought against him for handling stolen goods. A few of the lads at the station suspected his amusement arcades were a front for drug dealing and she knew at least one detective who suspected him of racketeering, but then she had also been told that Price was more Del Boy than Al Capone. Her first impression favoured the former opinion.
‘You’re a hard man to track down, Mr Price.’
‘I’ve been on holiday, not a crime is it?’
‘Depends what you were doing on the Costa Blanca…’
‘Just working on me tan. Better weather than around here.’
‘Two months is quite a holiday, my friends in Custom and Excise might be interested in the amount of Duty Free you brought back…’
Jane knew this to be a shot in the da
rk, yet the quick reply from Price told her she had been right to be suspicious of his protracted absence from these shores.
‘Just catching up with some old acquaintances. You can’t pin nothin’ on me.’
‘You’re somewhat of an entrepreneur, aren’t you?’
‘Now don’t you start off with all that kinky French stuff,’ bristled Price.
‘You’re a local businessman.’
‘Not just local, I’m investigating investment opportunities in Sidmouth and Dawlish,’ said Price producing a small box full of business cards and handing one across.
‘The Price Is Right Investments, Shangri-La, The Pierhead, Exmouth, ‘read Jane, ‘Propriator: Mr D. Price esquire.’
‘That’s right, my office is round the back, it’s, um… being redecorated right now.’
‘I’d check the spelling of proprietor, if I were you Mr Price.’
‘What do you mean!’ squeaked Price grabbing back the prized card, ‘I had to pay a small fortune for these.’
‘It’s the same misspelt wording we found on the card pushed through the letterbox of George Kellow’s shop at Littleham Cross.’
Jane was pushing her luck here; however having had a bite about the real purpose of his visit to the Costa Del Crime, she felt that taking a chance on him having put a card through the butcher’s door was not unreasonable. The owner of one of the newsagents could certainly recall being given one and the likelihood that he might have left a card with Kellow which was either thrown out weeks before the fire, or which was lost in the fire was not an unreasonable supposition.
Her coffee arrived in a ‘Gift from Exmouth’ mug.
‘I had nothing to do with that fire!’
She watched Price take a long pull from the water glass deposited in front of him. She wondered about the use of the word ‘that’. Her colleagues who had not written him off as someone trying to punch above his weight, had had their suspicions about a fire in a second hand shop off Chapel Hill a few years back. Though nothing had ever come of them; the site had later become an amusement arcade owned by Price.
‘Yet you’ve got a nice, new arcade in town now and you’ve been sniffing around Littleham Cross for some time.’
Price removed his jacket, revealing a pink shirt with white cuffs and matching collar, it went with his complexion if nothing else. Yet he sat forward in his seat with a confidence which was new to the interview.
‘As you said, I’m an entrepreneur, it’s what we do – look for new investment opportunities. This town would be dead if it weren’t for people like me. I’ve opened three new businesses in the last 18 months, helping shed loads of people off the unemployment figures.’
‘Would you like me to get our boys to check your financial records, to see how much you’ve been helping revive the economy? Perhaps we can put you up for local businessman of the year?’ She felt sure most of the people working for Price were paid cash in hand and only contributed to the black economy.
Yet Price was not to be put off.
‘I’ve looked at plenty of sites around here for new ventures. Kellow’s or another one of those shops would have been available to me in a few more months anyway. To be honest I thought one of the newsagents would fold first, but it doesn’t matter I’ll put a bid in for that one now.’
‘You seem pretty certain the council will license another arcade.’
‘Do I look stupid?’
Jane bit her lip.
‘I’ve done all the checks. They’ll licence whatever makes money. I might even get away with one of them Sex Shops if there was any money for that around here,’ leered Price.
It was now Jane’s turn to feel uncomfortable; the tables had turned pretty quickly on her. She now wished she hadn’t worn her tight Lycra top that morning.
‘You seem confident there’s money to be made in these machines, yet this one doesn’t seem to be doing so well, ‘she said indicating the one in the corner.
‘This is not one of my main revenue streams, ‘he said grandly, ‘the ones on the front make a mint and it’s not just the teenagers. You should see some of those old dears filling the one armed bandits like there’s no tomorrow. People love to gamble, ‘specially when the times are hard. Half my machines are full of people’s benefit payments.’
‘And so where were you on the night of the fire? Say between midnight and 2 a.m.?’
‘In the flat upstairs celebrating Maggie’s victory.’
‘Can anyone verify that?’
Price pointed at the women behind the counter.
‘Come over here Mum, I need another alibi.’
****
Sobers wondered if he should try writing to his mum. It had been six months since he had moved down from London and yet he had only called her twice. Each time she had cut short their conversations, worrying how much these expensive trunk calls were costing him and leaving him unable to explain himself in the way he would have liked to. He began to search the low beamed cottage for some note paper.
The only thing he could find was a spiral bound notebook he used for shopping lists in the kitchen drawer. He really needed a pad of proper paper, something like Basildon Bond with a watermark and one of those underlying sheets helping you keep your lines straight. The type of thing he’d written thank-you letters on to his aunts and uncles when a kid. His mum was a sucker for all that posh stuff.
He settled himself down in the leather armchair which he’d positioned by the ingle-nook fireplace. Photos of his mum and sisters were positioned either side of a picture of his father taken during the War. Posing next to a Hurricane, his father stood alongside fellow members of the West Indian ground crew who had serviced these aircraft during the Battle of Britain.
His mum had never let him forget what a hero his father was and how the British should be grateful that there were men like him willing to join them in their darkest hour. She rarely mentioned the demons which killed him when still a relatively young man. At the time he had thought they were literal demons, the ones which Jesus threw out of possessed people. Only now did he reflect that the demons probably came in a bottle. He had been just seven when his Dad had died and had spent the rest of his life trying to live up to his memory. The one encapsulated in the photograph, not the latter one of a disillusioned man working as a cleaner on the Northern Line.
Sobers sipped tea from a Charles and Di mug. There was a slight crack in the gilt rim; his mum would have objected. Not to their wedding, she loved a wedding and had virtually out flagged the street when celebrating it; no window had been spared a plastic Union Jack or picture of the fairy-tale couple. No she would have thought he was letting his standards slip. She was probably right.
Perhaps he should write to Mary if he was going to write home? His younger sister had at least understood why he’d wanted to undergo this Devonian exile. Unlike the rest she had taken to heart ‘Judge not, that ye be judged’. Outside the bull’s eye glazed windows of the cottage he could hear the commuter traffic from Exeter easing off as the rush hour gave way to the evening.
His hand rested against his father’s leather bound New Testament on the table and yet he felt he could draw no comfort from it tonight. He walked through to the hallway and drew the case papers from his briefcase. Perhaps amongst the statements and reports he might find the clue as to why someone should have murdered a local butcher in an apparently motiveless crime. If not, at least it would take his mind away from the perils and temptations of this night.
Yet after a mere perfunctory perusal of Hawkins’ interview with Darren Price, his restlessness returned. He picked up the Ngaio Marsh novel he’d left on the window seat. At least he felt he knew who the murderer was in this case; his money for the murderer was on the leading actress at the Unicorn Theatre. Frailty thy name is woman. At least that murder had some diverting red herrings to go on – all he had was the suspicion he wasn’t getting much closer to the truth in this one.
Trying to take his mind off the case, he fo
und his place in the book and smoothed the corner of the page he’d broken off at last night back into place. Inspector Alleyn, the Old Etonian detective, was of course brilliant and elegant. Sobers loved solving mysteries himself, but had found police work less satisfying than the artfully plotted detective novels of the Golden Age with which he had grown up. They at least backed up the words displayed at his childhood church that the truth would set you free. Or in the case of these villains see you dangling at the end of a rope. Although the actual horror of capital punishment rarely appeared in these books; the death and violence were just ripples which made occasional disturbances in polite society.
He wondered if Marsh had known that the Elizabethan actor manager, Edward Alleyn, after whom she had named her detective and who also had founded Dulwich College had also been the owner of a brothel in Southwark? It would have been less than two miles from the estate on which he grew up - though the prostitutes of modern South London now reflected the city’s more cosmopolitan make-up. Then again so many seemingly respectable people had less respectable sides. Both the Church and the Courtiers had often made huge amounts of profit from prostitution. Even today the line between the respectable captains of industry and the capos of the criminal underworld seemed a very thin one.
As ‘Like the cricketer’ was the response he usually received when he tried to book anything, he just hoped that his namesake Sir Garfield Sobers wouldn’t be revealed one day in a News of the World style exposé as a West Indian Porn Baron with a string of teenage hookers on his books. And at least Gary had been a better nickname than the ones he knew they used behind his back, well the ones who were polite enough to have used them behind his back.
The nagging doubt returned that the one truth he was trying to escape from was still with him. Yet if he did put pen to paper it might turn into the confession which would make his self-imposed exile permanent. His long fingers curled around the arms of the chair, as he wondered how long he could bear the loneliness for. His eyes returned to the novel on his lap and he suddenly had a horrible feeling that he’d got it wrong.