by Lynne Truss
‘But the more I continued to study, the more I learned not just about the system of phrenology, but about the richness of human nature. It’s an incredible thing, Penny. To see how powerful instincts are either kept in check, or given free rein. When I lay my hands on a person’s head and feel for the bumps, it’s like the entire personality travels directly into my mind. It’s not a trick at all.’
‘And then you hypnotise people?’
‘That’s the other bit of the act. They used to call it phreno-magnetism. Audiences lap it up. But I have to admit, six or seven curtain calls like yours I’ve never had.’
‘What? Six or seven? Oh, you.’
He was teasing her.
‘It was four, Bobby.’
‘I’m sure you said nine.’
‘It was four!’
Penny wondered whether he was about to practise his phrenology on her. She braced herself to resist. So she was surprised when he said, ‘So what I’m saying is, I want you to put your hands on the back of my head. Just here.’
‘Me?’
He turned his face away and indicated an area of his skull.
‘But I can’t. I don’t know what I’m doing.’
‘Just here,’ he said, gently. ‘I’ll talk you through it. I want you to understand.’
Blushing, she placed her fingertips tentatively on the back of his head.
‘I’m not sure, Bobby.’
‘But that’s it. That’s good. Now press with –’ (he had to work it out) ‘– the forefingers.’
She followed his instructions, and felt his head grow responsively heavy in her hands.
‘That’s it. Perfect. Now, that’s the area of the head concerned specifically with family relationships, home, loyalty and closeness. In the language of phrenology, it’s my organ of Consanguinity. Now, feel about, go on. Gently, that’s right. That’s very good. What can you tell about it?’
‘It’s raised.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s like a bump!’
‘Yes.’
She explored some more.
‘Yes, there’s a definite bump there. Does everyone have it?’
‘Not at all. Some people have nothing there; some people actually have a dent.’
He turned his head to face her.
‘Penny, you know when people say, “You put your finger on it”?’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, you just literally had your finger on it. On what drives me. My enlarged organ of Consanguinity. Everything I do starts there.’
* * *
Jo Carver, better known as the Strong Lady, had not left town. But aside from unthinkingly crushing the glassware in pubs in the Lanes, she had done little to draw attention to herself. She was no freakishly massive woman, in any case: part of her stage appeal was that she looked and dressed like a perky, wasp-waisted dancer but at the same time could chop a breeze block in half with one blow from the back of her hand. She easily disappeared into the crowd, just so long as she resisted the impulse to use her superpowers.
Sometimes this wasn’t easy, though. Just a few hours ago, sheltering under a tree, she had seen three men – outside the police station, around sunrise – transferring a large, heavy sack from a van and carrying it up the steps, and she had very nearly called out, ‘Need a hand with that?’
But, for obvious reasons, she had not been much in the vicinity of the police station. Her main focus had been keeping tabs on Bobby Melba. The scene was still vivid in her memory: police bursting into her dressing room; the sergeant triumphantly holding aloft a red wig and a string of stolen pearls; above all, the sergeant thanking Bobby for his helpful tip-off.
Since her arrest and escape on Wednesday night, she had watched Melba’s every move from the shadows. She had seen him with his new actress girlfriend: the girlfriend who was with him right now in his digs in Ship Street, where the terrifying landlady was famously out each day between nine and eleven, leaving the place otherwise empty, and where an anonymous, slender young woman with a grievance – and with the useful ability to break down a side entrance with just her bare hands – could get in, and get out again, without anyone being the wiser.
* * *
Back at the station, Mrs Groynes was sitting at the typewriter. It was evident that typing was nothing new to her. She sandwiched a piece of carbon paper between two sheets, rolled them efficiently into the machine and was just about to start composing when she realised what she’d done.
‘Oh, my good gawd,’ she laughed. What a mistake! Confident as she was that she could talk her way out of most things, it would be very silly to have a carbon copy of this letter lying around in the police station. So she began again with one sheet, and wrote the following:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
5 June, 1957
I, Jack Braithwaite, hereby confess to the murder of the critic A. S. Crystal, which I intend to commit later this evening. I do not regret what I am about to do. My
dear friend Arthur
Mrs Groynes stopped typing. She couldn’t remember the name of the playwright who had committed suicide in Luigi’s. ‘Arthur’ didn’t sound right. She adjusted the carriage of the typewriter and blocked out the last four words with heavy applications of the capital X.
what I am about to do. XX XXXX XXXXX XXXXXX A dear friend of mine was driven to suicide by Crystal, just ask Luigi, and I personally feel a deep and abiding grudge against the vile man which I can never overcome, coming as I do from Yorkshire where we can’t help it. I am confessing because I do not want police time wasted in following up other fanciful lines of enquiry, however plausible they might look at first glance. The killer is me, and I act alone, using a gun that no one knows I’ve got. And damn the man to hell, I say, because I am known not to mince my words and to write hard-hitting northern plays and so on.
After the murder I will take my own life, as I am a coward and would prefer not to hang, or go to trial or anything. I have spotted a sharp-edged sword at my landlady’s digs that will be just the ticket if I happen to drop the gun at the scene of the crime and therefore can’t use that to take my own life. Again, I am telling you this so that you don’t pursue other angles pointlessly. Honestly, you police are busy enough catching people cycling without their lights on. I cannot emphasise enough that although I am planning to commit a grave offence
Again, Mrs Groynes stopped and backspaced.
although I am planning to commit X XXXXX XXXXXX two grave offences, I do respect the police and would hate to be the cause of unnecessary detective efforts. I am a big fan in particular of Inspector Steine of the Brighton Constabulary, so if by chance this letter should fall into his hands, I will just say that what you do, sir, with your weekly broadcasts is brilliant, and that you should by rights be decorated as soon as convenient by our lovely young Queen. You seem to me to represent everything upright and honourable in our country today. Also, the public loves you.
But now I must
The phone rang. Mrs Groynes was torn. There were only a couple of minutes before Inspector Steine was due to arrive sporting his new haircut. But she had to answer. It might be the Leeds Police. She must take that message, even if in passing it on she got some of the details askew, being but a harmless, uneducated charlady with limited understanding.
‘Brighton Police Station. Miss Fitzherbert speaking,’ she said into the receiver, in a bright voice.
A voice on the other end announced, slowly, that it was a Detective Constable Ollerenshaw and could he speak to Sergeant… “oh, what was it, hang on, I’ve got it here somewhere –” But she interrupted. She didn’t have time.
‘You’d like to speak to Sergeant Brunswick?’
There was a pause. The pause got longer. ‘That’s right, love. Who were you again?’
‘I’m Inspector Steine’s secretary. Miss Fitzherbert. I’m afraid I’m alone in the office right now, but I have been fully briefed. I believe Sergeant Brunswick just wanted to check that in the week of
August the eighth last year in Leeds, a certain act was playing at the City Varieties, the act being –’ she pretended to be quoting from a note ‘– a Professor Mesmer, Last of the Phrenologists.’
In the distance, Mrs Groynes heard the telltale noises of Steine’s arrival at the police station. She could hear his voice downstairs at the front desk, chatting with the desk sergeant. If only this man on the phone would hurry up.
‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘I’ve got the paper here. I’ll have to put the phone down. Only got one pair of hands.’
‘Well, do be quick, please,’ she said. ‘It’s of the utmost importance to the case.’ For the first time in all this, she was anxious. Steine was not the brightest of men, but if he arrived to find her impersonating a secretary, with a half-written murder confession from Jack Braithwaite sticking out of the office typewriter, even he might be a bit suspicious.
At the other end of the line, she could hear broadsheet pages being slowly turned, while the man hummed nonchalantly. Laughter from the hall below meant that at least the inspector hadn’t yet started on the stairs.
‘Hello?’ she said urgently, into the phone. ‘Hello? Oh, come on, come on.’
There was the sound of the receiver being picked up at the other end, then a pause.
‘Hello? You still there, lass?’ said the voice, at last.
‘Of course I’m still here!’
‘Well, there’s no need to be like that, young lady. Now, was it Mesmer, you said?’
‘Yes!’
‘Yes, I can confirm Professor Mesmer, Last of the Phrenologists, was performing at the City Varieties, on the bill with Frankie Lane, Arthur Askey, strong woman Jo Carver –’
Mrs Groynes hung up and raced back to the typewriter. Was there time for a final paragraph? But then she saw what she had written.
But now I must
She looked at the words, baffled. She had no recollection of what she had intended to write next. Now I must what? She couldn’t imagine. So again, she backspaced. She could hear Inspector Steine’s footsteps on the stairs. She ran quietly to the door and unlocked it. Then she rattled out the last few words.
XXX XXX X XXXX That’s it. Sorry about the mess, if I make a mess, that is. I’ll try not to. Bang bang, ta-ta,
Jack Braithwaite
She tore the sheet out of the typewriter, folded it and put it in the pocket of her overall. Why on earth had she written ‘Bang bang, ta-ta’ and all that stuff about the mess? Well, it was too late to change it now. As the inspector reached the door, she grabbed her mop and started to sing ‘Getting to Know You’ from the recent hit musical The King and I.
‘Morning, Mrs Groynes,’ said Inspector Steine, entering.
‘Ooh. Morning, dear. You startled me. That’s a lovely haircut, if I may say so.’
He looked around. ‘Where is everybody?’ he said.
‘No idea,’ she said. ‘They don’t tell me anything, and why should they?’
She reached into her pocket and drew out the letter. ‘But before I forget, I thought you’d like to know that this came for you.’
Ten
Sergeant Brunswick was not the only fan of Harry Jupiter’s in Brighton. Young Ben Oliver – late of the Brighton Evening Argus – had grown up reading Jupiter’s reports, and had long hoped to emulate the great man’s illustrious career as a crime reporter. The decisive moment was when he read the account of the acid-bath murder. From that day forward, to write something half as compelling as the Half-Set-of-Dentures story became his life’s ambition.
Oliver’s family had expected him to join the thriving family grocery business; instead he started as an office boy at the Argus with a view to working his way up. And now he felt awful. It was his fault that Jupiter had come to Brighton and been struck down by some unknown hand! Hadn’t he called the Clarion and instigated this regrettable train of events?
Oliver had many qualities that would one day make him an excellent newspaperman: he was literate, quick, dogged, shameless, insensitive to atmosphere, a whizz at punctuation, hard to intimidate, and looked good in a hat. During his short and uncomfortable interview with the bullying Jack Braithwaite, he had displayed excellent pugilistic qualities – parrying well, then getting his opponent helpless against the ropes, before neatly delivering a killer punch. There was just one fatal flaw in Oliver, from a professional point of view: he had a conscience.
Arriving at the Royal Sussex County hospital on that rainy Friday morning, Oliver shook his umbrella, and rescued from inside his damp raincoat a small bag of grapes. A nurse directed him to a ward on the second floor, where for five minutes he was emphatically denied entrance – on account of its not being visiting hours. But having shown his press credentials to the right person (at last), he entered the squeaky-floored male ward where the strong odour of urine was masked only lightly by carbolic, and found the great journalist awake in his bed – in borrowed pyjamas, with a thick white bandage round his head – perusing a newspaper with an expression of total bewilderment on his face.
‘Who are you?’ said Jupiter. While the memory had gone, the personality was gloriously intact. ‘What’s the big idea?’
‘It’s all right, sir, you don’t know me.’
‘I don’t know anybody. I’ve banged my head. Are those for me?’
Oliver handed over the grapes. Jupiter – characteristically – failed to thank him, took them and started eating them.
‘The thing is,’ Oliver pressed on, ‘I’m a journalist, like you, sir. I mean to say, not exactly like you. But I am a journalist, and the thing is, I want to find out what happened to you.’
Oliver realised he was blushing. He was beginning to wish he had rehearsed this better. Why did every word out of his mouth sound so bumbling and stupid?
‘I’ve read everything you’ve written, you see. When you were awarded your honorary Silver Truncheon for services to law and order, I cut the story out of the paper and pinned it to the back of my bedroom door. I do hope you remember your Silver Truncheon, Mr Jupiter. You’re the first civilian ever to receive one.’
Jupiter sighed, and nibbled a grape. It was depressingly clear that no truncheon, of whatever unsuitably weighty element, could impress him much at this moment. ‘Look, man, why are you here?’
‘Because I think I can help you. And I brought this.’
He produced a slim hardback, dog-eared from multiple readings, published by the Clarion’s own book imprint. It was entitled, You Couldn’t Make it Up: Fictional Murders Re-examined by the Greatest Brains of Scotland Yard.
‘Do you recognise this book, Mr Jupiter?’
‘No. Not at all. I’m a hopeless case, apparently. But it seems to bother other people more than it bothers me.’
‘Well, it’s not one of your major works, I suppose, but it’s one of my favourites. In here, you see, on page twenty-five –’
Oliver opened it at the page and held it out. Jupiter sighed, and didn’t look.
‘In here, you see, you challenge Graham Greene and his subsequent film-makers over the murder of the character “Fred Hale” at the beginning of Brighton Rock.’
Jupiter was becoming impatient. ‘Look, man, whoever you are –’
‘It’s where Pinkie murders Fred on the ghost train on the Palace Pier and shoves his body into the sea.’
‘So what?’
‘Well, it all happens suspiciously quickly, you see. And it’s not exactly clear how it’s done. In the film, the train is rattling along, and Pinkie leers in Fred’s face, and Fred is terrified, and there are screams from all sides, and then they approach a section where the train goes over water, and then there’s a push!’
At the word ‘push’, there was a tiny flicker of recognition in Jupiter’s expression; the merest flinch.
‘And when the carriage comes back out, there’s only Pinkie in it, and Fred is gone.’
Jupiter put down the grapes. ‘I wish you’d go yourself.’
‘People are beginning to s
peculate about what happened to you yesterday, Mr Jupiter. It’s my theory that you were on the ghost train trying to test this fictional murder from Brighton Rock when you yourself fell through the gap and into the sea!’
Oliver had expected more of a reaction to this excellent detective work. He got nothing.
‘So, what I have to find out is, were you alone, or did someone push you?’
‘Look I still don’t understand why you’re doing this.’
‘Because I have always admired you, Mr Jupiter. Because it’s a Brighton story and I’m a Brighton boy. But also because I have asked witnesses on the pier what they remember, and I think the person responsible for your fall must have been Inspector Steine of the Brighton Constabulary! And if only we could get your memory back, sir, such a sensational story will get me my job back on the Argus.’
* * *
At the police station, Steine was celebrating the clearing-up of the two murders with a cup of tea and a slice of cherry Genoa. He had no idea that an interfering turnstile man, with keen observation skills, had just landed him in serious doo-dah.
This written confession from Jack Braithwaite was terrific. It accounted for everything, provided you didn’t examine it too closely. To be strictly honest, there were a few details in this excellent document that made even Steine raise his eyebrows: for example, the choice of intended suicide method being to cut one’s own throat with a sword, while violently knocking over furniture. But looking on the bright side, Steine was glad he couldn’t place himself imaginatively inside the mind of a person as vengeful and murderous as Jack Braithwaite. Not being able to comprehend the warped and disgusting mentality of criminals was, after all, probably what kept him sane.
The cherry Genoa made him think of Brunswick (it was the sergeant’s favourite cake). Steine reflected on the many happy mornings he had spent with Brunswick, down the years, both of them eating cherry Genoa, with the sergeant carefully picking out the cherries to eat at the end, and begging, ‘Permission to go undercover, sir!’, while Steine tried not to stare too longingly at the accumulating pile of sticky loveliness on Brunswick’s plate, and said no.