Just Duffy

by Robin Jenkins

  He was panting and terrified and drenched to the skin when at last he rang Duffy’s door-bell. He was afraid the nosy woman would come out and tell him he had no business there; but he was still more afraid that Cooley, transformed in some awful unimaginable way, would suddenly rush down the stairs at him, her hands and mouth bloody.

  There was Johnny too: his ghost wouldn’t rest and be peaceful.

  The door opposite opened. She looked out. Nobody tonight seemed human. ‘You here again?’ she asked.

  ‘Duffy’s my pal.’

  ‘Some pal you are. You’re Dykes, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We don’t want your kind here. Did you hear the news on the televison tonight?’

  ‘About Johnny?’

  ‘He was here with you the other night, wasn’t he?’

  He wondered how she knew. Was she in the devil’s plot against him and Duffy?

  For Christ’s sake, Duffy, he thought, open the door.

  ‘You were here last night too, weren’t you? Duffy’s mother wouldn’t be pleased. She doesn’t want him associating with your sort.’

  To his great relief Duffy’s door opened. But Duffy did not cry, ‘Come in, Mick.’ Instead he stood staring like a zombie, his eyes dark in his pale face. It was as if Cooley had got to him first and drained all the blood out of him.

  ‘Did you hear on the news what happened to Johnny?’ muttered Mick.

  Duffy just stared.

  Mick lowered his voice so that Mrs Munro wouldn’t hear the pleading whine in it. ‘What about letting me in, Duffy? I’m soaked, I want to talk to you about Johnny.’

  Duffy shook his head and then, to Mick’s consternation, shut the door.

  Never in his life had Mick felt lonelier, more miserable, and more sorry for himself.

  ‘You’ve had your answer,’ said the fat bitch, very pleased. ‘Now off you go and never come back.’ Her door closed too.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ muttered Mick, trying to express his bewilderment. He couldn’t understand why Duffy had rejected him. Was it because Molly was in the house and he wanted her for himself? Had he looked like a zombie because she had had him on the job too many times? Or was it Cooley the vampire that was in the house with him?

  Not sure any longer what was real and what was imagination Mick crept down the stairs. Shivering with cold, he lingered at the closemouth. The rain was as pitiless as ever.

  There was nowhere for him to go except back to his own house where there was no place for him to go either. If he had had any money he could have gone to Chuck’s. He had scrounged cokes before but he couldn’t tonight when they would all be talking about Johnny. He must be proud, for Johnny’s sake.

  He had an idea. The cops could tell him what had happened to Johnny. He could go to the station and ask them.

  But big Milne might be there, with lots of suspicious questions. Because he was so unhappy, Mick wouldn’t be on his guard and might give himself away and Duffy too. Duffy hadn’t let him in but he was still a pal and pals must never be betrayed.

  He had another idea. He would go to Teuchter’s house and ask him. Teuchter himself was all right for a cop but it was his wife who gave Mick hope. Even his mother admitted that Mrs McLeod wasn’t the stuck-up bastard she could easily have been.

  He ran all the way, gasping more than he should have. He smoked too much. Johnny had often warned him about it.

  The McLeods lived in a new residential area. Their house was a bungalow called Blaven.

  Shivering, Mick pressed the bell button. He heard the chimes, and thought that if he ever had a house of his own he would have a door bell like this.

  Mrs McLeod opened the door. She was wearing a tartan skirt and fair-isle jumper. There was a pleasant smell of home off her.

  ‘Is Mr McLeod in, please?’ he asked.

  She stared at him curiously but not offensively. ‘Who are you?’ Her voice was homely too: it was warm and friendly.

  ‘I’m Mick Dykes. Johnny Crosbie was my pal.’ To his chagrin he sobbed. If people were hard he could be hard too, but if they were kind – it didn’t happen all that often – he went soft.

  ‘You’d better come in. You’re drookit.’

  ‘I’ll make puddles on your carpet.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter.’

  It mattered to him. He had his pride. ‘It’s all right, Mrs McLeod. I just want a word with Mr McLeod and then I’ll go away.’

  She went in. He heard her saying: ‘Angus, there’s a boy, Mick Dykes, to see you.’

  McLeod must have protested for she said: ‘Don’t be silly, Angus. Of course you must talk to him. He’s very upset.’

  She came back to the door. ‘He’ll be here in a moment. Are you sure you won’t come in?’

  He shook his head. ‘Thanks just the same.’

  Suddenly there was Teuchter, with a pipe in his mouth. ‘It’s yourself, Mick. What’s the matter?

  ‘I heard the news on the television, Mr McLeod. About Johnny. Johnny Crosbie. Could you tell me what happened to him? Was it an accident?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say any more than what was given out in the news. A further statement will be made in a day or two.’

  ‘Was it his tumour that killed him?’

  ‘You knew about that?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Tell the boy,’ said Mrs McLeod, from within.

  ‘Tell him what?’

  ‘Tell him the truth, that’s all he wants to know.’

  Everybody hid behind lies. Defilers of truth, Duffy had called them.

  ‘Nobody knows the truth,’ said McLeod. ‘Not yet. There will have to be an autopsy.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Mick.’

  ‘A post mortem. To find out what caused his death.’

  ‘Could somebody have killed him?’

  ‘Why do you ask that?’

  ‘Archie Cooper was saying he was going to get Johnny.’

  ‘Archie Cooper had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘Maybe somebody else did.’

  ‘Have you somebody in mind?’

  ‘Maybe I have.’

  ‘Lots of people didn’t care for him.’

  ‘That’s enough, Angus,’ said Mrs McLeod, behind the door. ‘The poor boy’s dead.’

  Yes, Johnny was dead. He would never play ludo again, or sing ‘The Sash’, or chase cats, or assemble model aeroplanes, or stand Mick cokes in Dirty Chuck’s.

  ‘Sorry for bothering you, Mr McLeod.’

  Mick was about to turn away when Mrs McLeod opened the door wider. She had a raincoat in her hand. ‘Take this,’ she said. ‘It’s an old one of my husband’s.’

  He was appalled and couldn’t help showing it. They had laughed at him because he had been to bed with Fat Annie, they would laugh louder and more nastily if they heard that he had been given a cop’s raincoat. He would as soon have worn a crucifix belonging to a Pape. Yet it had been offered to him out of kindness.

  He stumbled off into the rain, more bewildered than ever.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Chief-Inspector Findlay was taken aback (but in his secret heart not displeased) to receive a telephone call from Dr Imrie, the renowned pathologist from Glasgow, who was carrying out the post mortem on John Crosbie, in Lightburn hospital. It was to the effect that in Imrie’s opinion the boy’s death had not been caused by the building being knocked down on top of him or by the tumour on his brain, though this would have killed him soon enough. What had caused it were some vicious blows on the head, with a stone or brick with sharp edges. He could not of course be a hundred per cent positive, considering how many stones and bricks had descended on him, but he was pretty sure that it was a case of murder, and he gave some pathological evidence, obscure but impressive. To obtain a second expert opinion he had sent for his colleague Dr Lindsay. ‘Also there was something clutched in his fist. Did you know that? I think you’d better come and see for yourself.’ Seven a
nd a half minutes later Findlay, accompanied by Inspector Hogg, Detective-Sergeant McLeod, and Detective-Constable Black, arrived in the hospital morgue.

  They did not attempt to assess the significance of the marks on the boy’s head: they were glad to take the doctor’s word for that; but they examined with intense and devout interest the small metal hair-grip that had been forcibly extracted from the boy’s fist.

  The last murder committed in Lightburn had been eight years ago, before Chief-Inspector Findlay’s time. An old man had taken a hammer to the head of his wife of thirty-five years because she had arrogantly switched off his favourite television programme. Then he had walked to the police station and given himself up. No detective work had been necessary and no commendations had resulted.

  Dr Telfer stood by, wearing a white overall and looking left out.

  Findlay and his colleague carried the hair-grip back to the station with them, in a small box lined with cotton wool, as if, Black was to say to Fiona that evening, giving her a fit of the giggles, it was John Knox’s foreskin.

  A conference was held in the Chief-Inspector’s office to make preparations in the event that Dr Imrie’s opinion was corroborated and a murder hunt had to be organised.

  ‘It is a pity,’ said Detective Sergeant McLeod, his accent at its thickest because of excitement, ‘that we did not think to inspect the contents of the big bucket more closely.’

  The Chief-Inspector was not grateful for that observation, shrewd though it was. If they did not themselves solve the crime quickly officious experts would be sent from Glasgow. These would say with asperity what McLeod had said modestly.

  ‘We have the advantage of local knowledge,’ said Findlay. ‘Are we all agreed that what probably happened was that Crosbie attacked some girl with intent to rape her, as in the case of Sally Cooper, but this time met more than his match?’

  ‘We should bear in mind, sir,’ said McLeod, ‘that nowadays many boys wear their hair long and some may well use hair grips.’

  ‘A good point, Angus. We’ll keep it in mind. But is there really any doubt in anybody’s mind that the person we are looking for is a girl?’

  They all nodded, except Harry Black.

  ‘Do any names occur to you?’ asked the Chief-Inspector.

  ‘What about Sally Cooper?’ asked Inspector Hogg. ‘I heard her say she was going to get her own back. She actually said she would kill him.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have the strength,’ said Sergeant Milne.

  They waited for George to say whom he suspected. His knowledge of the town was prodigious. But he kept quiet. He could have been thinking that whoever had got rid of Crosbie had done the town, and George himself, a good turn, for George was known to have detested the dead boy. Still, it wouldn’t be like George to be tender towards any criminal, however obliged he might feel.

  ‘What about big Molly McGowan?’ asked Black. ‘She’s got the strength.’ Especially in the thighs. He had joined in lewd jokes at the station about Molly’s fuckable qualities. All the same, even as he was proposing her name, he was thinking that Molly, wise girl, would have let herself be raped, on the principle that one more fornication would make little difference.

  ‘She has not got the viciousness,’ said McLeod. ‘I will tell you who has, and also the strength. Helen Cooley.’

  Black was doubtful. Cooley was a bitch but not that sort of bitch. He should have held his tongue but he said: ‘Didn’t Mick Dykes tell us she’s gone to London?’

  McLeod explained. ‘In the course of our enquiries, sir, relating to Crosbie’s disappearance, we interrogated Michael Dykes, Crosbie’s crony. He could not tell us anything about Crosbie or at any rate was not prepared to tell us anything, but he did offer the information that Helen Cooley had gone to London. His uncle Fred, a lorry-driver, got her a lift from Glasgow, early on Monday morning. If you recall Crosbie went missing on Sunday. Dr Imrie said he had been dead for at least four days. Cooley could have done it before she left for Glasgow.’

  ‘What do you think George?’ asked the Chief-Inspector.

  ‘I would put her at the top of the list.’

  ‘If you like, sir,’ said McLeod, eagerly, ‘I could trace all Cooley’s movements since Sunday.’

  ‘You’d have to be discreet, Angus. Pretend she’s wanted for absconding.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Some grinned, behind their hands. Angus was about as discreet as a Highland stot in a field of corn.

  They were then all exhorted to keep their eyes and ears open and consult their contacts. If Crosbie had been murdered there would be whispers naming the culprit.

  On their way to question Mick’s uncle, Mr Fred Meiklejohn, Black expressed his doubts. ‘Honestly, serge, I can’t see it as murder.’

  ‘Dr Imrie is an expert in his field, Harry.’

  ‘I know, but if there was a trial the defence would find other experts to contradict him.’

  ‘What about the hair-grip?’

  ‘That’s right, serge, what about it? How did it get into his hand? He could have had a seizure and he held on to it in his pocket. It could just as easily have been a coin. Isn’t that more likely than him snatching it out of the hair of somebody attacking him with a brick, especially if that somebody struck him from behind? I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be natural causes.’

  ‘Do you know who came to my door last night, in the pouring rain?’

  ‘Crosbie’s ghost? Sorry, serge. No idea.’

  ‘Mick Dykes.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He wanted to know what had happened to Crosbie. Do you know what he said? He said he thought Crosbie had been attacked and he had an idea who had done it. What do you think of that?’

  ‘To be honest, serge, not much. Mick’s not the brightest of lads. He liked Crosbie, God knows why, so he’d be upset and confused.’

  ‘He was upset and confused, yes, but he knows Crosbie’s enemies. We’ll have a talk with him afterwards.’

  Fred Meiklejohn lived in a council housing scheme, not far from the Cooleys. The small front garden seemed to have been planted with the rusty parts of cars. Among others were two wheels, an axle, a wing mirror, and a radiator.

  Mrs Meiklejohn came to the door, a busy-looking small woman with dyed carroty hair in curlers and a cigarette hanging from her mouth. Short-sighted, she stretched forward to make sure they were who she thought they were before giving them a hearty sneer. She did not remove the cigarette. ‘What do you two want? Nellie was warning us about you.’

  Nellie was Mrs Dykes.

  ‘We’d like to have a few words with your husband, Mrs Meiklejohn,’ said McLeod.

  ‘Well, you can’t. He’s in bed. He’s just back from Felixstowe. He was driving all night and he’s dead beat. Come back next month. What’s it about anyway?’

  ‘We want to ask him if he arranged a lift for Helen Cooley, from Glasgow to London, on Monday morning.’

  ‘What do you want to know that for?’

  ‘Helen has disappeared. Her parents are anxious.’

  She laughed scornfully. ‘I don’t believe that. I know her parents. They’re a pair of shits. If they heard she’d got her throat cut they wouldn’t be anxious.’

  McLeod felt discouraged. This hostility towards the guardians of the law was so unreasonable. Mrs Meiklejohn and her kind seemed to have imbibed it with their mother’s milk. Little girls of three screamed abuse at police cars.

  ‘Fred and me have a lot of time for Helen,’ said Mrs Meiklejohn. ‘She doesn’t give a bugger for anything or anybody.’

  Hardly an admirable attitude, McLeod would have thought.

  ‘I’ll see if he’s asleep,’ said Mrs Meiklejohn.

  She was back in less than a minute. ‘He says Helen got a lift on Monday, as far as Rugby. That’s not very far from London.’

  ‘Could your husband give me the name of the driver who gave her the lift?’

  ‘He could but I don’t think
he will.’

  She went and soon returned. ‘He wants to know what you want the name for?’

  ‘We may have to question your husband’s colleague.’

  ‘What for? What are you up to? There would be no hanky-panky, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s a married man with three children.’ She grinned. ‘Anyway, just to put him and anybody else off the notion she told them she’d just been cured of a dose of the pox. The lassie’s gone to make her fortune. Why don’t you leave her alone?’

  Off she went again. She came back shaking her head. ‘He says I’ve to tell you nothing else. He doesn’t trust you, Mr McLeod. Nothing personal. He doesn’t trust any policeman. He’s got his reasons.’

  She shut the door on them but not too angrily or contemptuously. They were bastards doing a job that only bastards would do, but still they were human beings and McLeod had a wife and dapper Black a girl friend and they were her guests though she had kept them on her door-step: therefore, all things considered, they should be shown a small degree of tolerance.

  Back in the car McLeod said, plaintively: ‘Do you ever feel, Harry, that you are part of an army of occupation?’

  ‘All the time, serge.’

  ‘It seems to be getting worse.’

  ‘It’s because we’re getting better paid. We’ll get nothing out of Mick if that mother of his is there.’

  ‘Don’t forget Crosbie was his friend.’

  ‘She’d break his teeth if he told us anything. We’d have to get him on his own.’

  Mrs Dykes was instantly belligerent. Before McLeod could open his mouth she stridently accused him of getting her house a bad name with his visits, and when he said civilly that he only wanted to ask Michael a question or two concerning John Crosbie she accused him of persecuting her son.

  They were not invited in. She brought Mick to the door, like a lioness her cub. ‘He’s hoarse. The silly bugger went walking in the rain last night.’

  ‘We are investigating the disappearance of Helen Cooley,’ said McLeod. ‘Her parents are anxious about her.’