Body of a Girl

by Michael Gilbert

  “I’ve met him,” said Mercer. “He’s a dipso.”

  “I’ve heard he was a bit of a drinker.”

  “He’s not just a heavy drinker. He’s an alcoholic. When you’ve met one or two of them you can’t miss it.” Mercer was standing with the list in his hand. Rye had noticed that he had a habit of talking about one thing and thinking about something quite different. Now he said, “What was the official reaction when she disappeared?”

  “We didn’t treat it as a murder case, if that’s what you mean.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Had a word with her known boyfriends. They all said much the same thing. They all admitted they’d paid her money for favours received. But they all said they’d had nothing to do with her for at least a month.”

  “What did they make of that?”

  “The same as we did. That she’d picked up with a professional. Someone who saw she was worth more than smalltown money. And he’d taken her off and set her up in London. That was our first idea, anyway.”

  “The first?”

  “And the last, officially. All the same there were some odd points about it. For instance, she had a lot of quite nice clothes. She didn’t keep them at home. Her father would have flogged them. Mr. Jeejeeboy let her keep them in a locker, in a room behind his restaurant. She had some jewellery, too. Not worth more than a few pounds, but the sort of thing a girl gets attached to. She left it all behind.”

  “It’s the sort of thing a girl might do,” said Mercer slowly, “if she was starting a new life. Or thought she was. She wouldn’t want the old stuff to remind her of what she was leaving behind. It was trash. It was devalued. It stank.”

  “Maybe,” said Rye. “But there’s one thing she left behind which would have been worth the same in London as in Stoneferry. We found this among the clothes.”

  Mercer took it. It was a Post Office Savings Book. The last figure in it showed a credit balance of £27.15.0.

  “What did our revered Superintendent say when you told him about this? Did he still rule out foul play?”

  “He said she must have forgotten about it.”

  “When did she disappear?”

  Rye referred again to his file.

  “She was last seen in Stoneferry late afternoon, on a Wednesday in March. Father Wolcot spoke to her.”

  Mercer was examining the book. He said, “The last entry is five pounds drawn out on March 7th. She must have had a very short memory.”

  “I don’t think the old man wanted it to be murder. He likes to keep his statistics healthy. If it was a disappearance, it wasn’t a crime. Not even a suspected one.”

  “That’s one way of keeping your sheet clean,” said Mercer. “We’d better get after these six and put ’em through it again. Who’ve we got?”

  “This is one of those moments,” said Rye, “when we’d like a real detective force. Half a dozen clean-limbed youngsters sitting round, straining like greyhounds on the leash, waiting for the word ‘go’.”

  “Who have we got?”

  “You and me. And Massey. Sergeant Gwilliam’s starting his leave and Prothero’s up in London, where he’ll be for the best part of three days.”

  “What the hell’s he doing there?”

  “Waiting to produce some photographs and give five minutes’ evidence about nothing at all. You know, Skipper, I’ve often wondered why they bother to try people. Why don’t they just say, ‘The police have arrested them, they must be guilty, send ’em to prison’?”

  “You do Camberley and Barrington. Massey can take the bookie and the Pakistani.”

  “That leaves Rainey for you.”

  “Yes,” said Mercer. “And by the way. That chap Prior. Did he leave the district?”

  “Prior?”

  “Owner of the Stoneferry Central Garage.”

  “Oh him. No. I don’t think so. I’ve got an idea he lives in one of those bungalows above Westhaugh Lock. Why?”

  “Weatherman said, after Prior went bust he left the district. I’m going to have a word with Rainey now. Be back in half an hour.”

  “Extraordinary chap,” said Rye to himself. “Doesn’t seem able to keep his mind on one thing at a time.”

  As Mercer was passing the Superintendent’s office, the door opened and Clark came out. He said, “Oh, Mercer. I understand you’re making a bit of headway with the case of that girl.”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  The Superintendent was blocking the passage. Short of pushing, he couldn’t get past him.

  “I’d like to be kept in the picture about it. Fully in the picture.”

  “I’ll see you’re kept in the picture.”

  “Do I understand you’ve identified her?”

  “We’ve got a tentative identification. Nothing definite yet.”

  “I see. Well, keep me posted.” He made a half move, and Mercer slid past him. “You realise that if we clear this up without any help from Central this will be a feather in our caps.”

  “A feather in your cap, you crafty old bastard,” said Mercer as he went out into the street.

  “Wojjer say?” said Station Sergeant Rix.

  “Nothing. Just talking to myself.”

  “Daft,” said Station Sergeant Rix to Station Officer Tovey who happened to come in at that moment.

  “Who’s daft?”

  “The new C.I.D. man. Talking to himself.”

  “Those plain-clothes characters are all cracked,” said Tovey.

  Bull’s Garage and Motor Mart occupied what had been two shops in the High Street, and the yard behind both of them. The site had not been designed as a garage, and as a result the pull-in in front was not as deep as it should have been and the four petrol pumps were squashed against the office frontage. All the same, it looked a pretty prosperous sort of outfit.

  Johnno found time to grin at Mercer between finishing filling the tank of an old Bentley with high-octane petrol and starting to sell a quart tin of oil to a youngster in a Mini-Cooper. Mercer wandered through into the office where he found Vikki who was frowning over a pile of indents. The tip of her pink tongue was sticking out of the side of her mouth. When she saw Mercer she cheered up, and said, “Hullo, Sunshine. What can we do for you?”

  “Where’s the boss?”

  “In the yard. What do you want?”

  “That,” said Mercer, “is absolutely nothing to do with you.”

  “Oh, I’m just the dogsbody,” agreed Vikki with a grin. She looked as happy as a kitten that has found a warm spot to curl up in.

  Mercer walked through the office and out into the yard.

  This was more spacious than the frontage had suggested. There was a row of four lock-up garages down each side, and an open-fronted workshop at the end with two inspection pits and some quite elaborate overhead gadgetry. Jack Bull was working with one of the mechanics underneath a van which had been hoisted on hydraulic stilts. Seeing him stripped confirmed Mercer’s first impression. He was a man of formidable physique which was only just beginning to run to seed. He had the barrel chest and rounded shoulders of an old-style wrestler, and his one good arm was thick with muscle.

  Seeing Mercer, he climbed out of the pit, wiped his right hand on the side of his denims, and said, “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You’ve come to buy a car.”

  “Five out of ten,” said Mercer. “That’s one thing I’ve come for.”

  “I’ve got just the job. An M.G. Not quite three years old. Done only fifteen thousand. New tyres all round. Yours for two hundred and fifty pounds.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  “No catch. I like to see the force properly equipped. She’s in the end garage. Come and have a look at her.”

  Mercer didn’t need to look twice. Unless there was something seriously wrong with it the car was worth four hundred pounds of anyone’s money. “You realise,” he said, “that if a back wheel falls off or the gear-box seizes up first time I use it, you’re going to have to pu
t it right.”

  “The motto of Bull’s Garage is service after sales. And until you find somewhere better, you can keep it here. All you’ll need is a key to the yard gate, then you can get it out any time you like.”

  “That sounds fine,” said Mercer. “The only thing is, they might want me to keep it at the station.”

  “You can’t. They’ve only got two lock-ups there. Bob Clark’s got one and Bill Medmenham’s got the other. Of course, you could keep your car in the open yard at the back of the station. That’d be all right as long as the weather keeps fine.”

  “No need to twist my arm,” said Mercer. “I accept your offer, till further notice. It’s very kind of you.”

  “You won’t be the first copper I’ve helped,” said Bull. “Tom Rye used to keep his jalopy here, until they found him a house with a garage. And so did Sergeant Rollo. That’s fixed then. What’s your other bit of business?”

  “I want to have a word with Rainey.”

  “And if I ask you what it’s all about, I suppose you wouldn’t tell me.”

  “I can’t see why not, seeing that he’ll tell you all about it as soon as I’ve gone. I want to ask him about a girl called Mavis Hedges, otherwise Sweetie Sowthistle.”

  Bull made a noise in his throat. It might have been the ‘Oh’ of incredulity or the ‘Ah’ of enlightenment, or it might have been a mixture of both.

  “So that’s who you dug up, was it?” he said.

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “And was Rainey one of hers?”

  “A suggestion has been made to that effect.”

  “You’d better have a word with him then. He operates in a room round behind the workshop.”

  Mercer said thanks, and moved off. As he turned the corner he looked back. Jack Bull was standing watching him. When other pictures had faded, Mercer was to remember that particular one. The man, massive and unmoving, dressed only in a singlet and denim trousers. The army surgeon had taken the left arm off neatly at the elbow. The end of the stump was puckered and seamed.

  Most men hide their wounds, thought Mercer. But not Jack Bull.

  Chapter Five

  “Did you get anything out of him?” asked Rye.

  “I got what you always get out of a dipso,” said Mercer. “I got a load of old crap. First he couldn’t remember the girl at all. Then he did remember her very vaguely. ‘Time passes so quickly, Inspector. There’ve been other girls. I couldn’t tell you their names, Inspector. That wouldn’t be right, would it?’ “

  Rye laughed, and said, “You’ll find Stoneferry is a permissive place. It’s something to do with being on the river, I expect. Romantic.”

  “What you mean is that a punt is more convenient than the back seat of a car.”

  “Something in that,” said Rye. “Talking of cars, is she yours?”

  They were standing at the window of the C.I.D. room overlooking the yard.

  “Do you like her?”

  “Quite a nice-looking bus,” said Rye. “What did Jack Bull sting you?”

  “Two hundred and fifty, and unlimited time to pay.”

  “It’s a gift.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “All the same,” said Rye, “I wouldn’t have done it myself.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  “It makes it a bit awkward if you owe local people money.”

  “Oddly enough,” said Mercer, “I’ve never found that to be so.” He was smiling again the smile which Rye found disconcerting. “All my life I’ve owed people things. It was usually them who found it awkward, not me. Who is Bull?”

  “Lived here all his life. Went off to the war. Lost an arm at Arnhem. Came back. Bought the garage with his gratuity and a mortgage. Did all right. Paid off the mortgage.”

  “Any form?”

  “Good heavens, no,” said Rye. He sounded genuinely shocked. “He was on the council for ten years. Member of the Rotary. Past chairman of the Chamber of Commerce. President of the Ex-Service Organisation. You might call him the unofficial mayor of Stoneferry.”

  “A solid citizen.”

  “Solid as they come. Why? You don’t think—?”

  “I don’t think anything,” said Mercer. “It’s just that he seems to be on Christian name terms with an awful lot of senior policemen.”

  “He’s a friendly short of chap. He let me keep my car in one of his lock-ups.”

  “Free?”

  “Practically. I think I paid him a bob a week.”

  “Did Sergeant Rollo have the same arrangement?”

  Rye looked up quickly. Mercer had his back to him and was staring out of the window. Rye said, “Has someone been talking to you about Sergeant Rollo?”

  “The name cropped up. He ran into a bit of trouble, didn’t he?”

  “Dick Rollo was a damn nice boy,” said Rye.

  When that seemed to be all he was going to say, Mercer swung round. He wasn’t smiling. He said, “Cough it up, Tom. I’ve got to know about it some time.”

  “He had a warning that disciplinary proceedings might be taken. They sent two men down from Central to look into it. Preliminary investigation.”

  “What charge?”

  “Accepting payments to compound an offence.”

  “Did they peg him?”

  “They didn’t peg him. There were no proceedings. He opted out.”

  “How?”

  “Since you’re so bloody interested, he ran a length of hosepipe from the exhaust into the back of his car and switched the engine on.”

  “Did he leave any message?”

  “No.”

  “Wife or children?”

  “Wife. No kids.”

  There was a long silence. Mercer seemed disinclined to break it. He was staring out of the window again. It had started to rain, and fat drops were running down the glass, leaving tracks in the summer dust which had accumulated on the outside.

  Massey came in. He was carrying a brown paper parcel, which he put down on the table.

  “You been shopping?” said Rye. He seemed glad of the interruption.

  “I saw that Jeejeeboy,” said Massey. He was a big serious youngster with light hair, blue eyes and the build of a campus athlete. “He gave me these.”

  He opened the parcel, and spread out the contents.

  “They were things he was looking after for Sweetie. When she disappeared, he thought he’d hang on to them until she turned up again. Now it looks as if it might be—well, it might be sort of permanent—he thought he ought to hand them over.”

  There was a knee-length coat, trimmed at the cuffs and hem with fur, a fawn-coloured skirt, a lemon-coloured sweater, and a pair of lizard-skin shoes. The coat was old, and the moth had got into the fur. The other items were newish and looked as if they had cost money. Massey put his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out a paper bag, with ‘Jeejeeboy’s Stores’ printed on it. He tilted it up and a pile of trinkets fell out. There were two bracelets, an elaborate costume-jewellery brooch, a slave-girl anklet, a necklace of soapstones, a few rings, and finally, as Massey gave the bag a shake, a thin mesh chain with a small golden cross on it.

  The three men stood, for a moment, looking down at the pile on the table. Outside the rain was coming down harder. It was beginning to wash away some of the grime.

  Mercer said, “I’m going visiting. You can come with me, Massey. Parcel that stuff up. We’ll take it along.”

  Massey started to say something, but Mercer was already out of the door. He looked at Rye. Rye said, “You heard, boy. Get weaving.”

  Mercer drove his new car carefully, getting the feel of it. They had cleared the High Street before he spoke. He said, “You’d better guide me. I’ve never been there before.”

  “I don’t know where we’re going.”

  “And you call yourself a detective. What do you suppose we’ve brought this stuff with us for? To give it an airing?”

  “I imagine we’re going to ask Hedges to ident
ify it,” said Massey. “If that’s right we’ve gone past the turning.”

  Mercer stamped on the brake so suddenly that Massey nearly hit his head on the windscreen. Then he reversed the car neatly into a gateway.

  “I just wanted to test the brakes,” he said. “They’re pretty good, aren’t they?”

  “Very,” said Massey. “Turn down here to the right. You can take the car as far as that clump of alders. Then we have to walk.”

  Easthaugh Island was a bigger version of Westhaugh, covered by the same ragged growth, divided from the bank of the river by a deeper backwater, which was spanned by a rather more permanent-looking bridge on cement piles. Sowthistle’s barge had been grounded on the inland side, and had subsided so solidly into the mud that it looked like an extension of the island.

  “God, what a hole,” said Mercer.

  The place stank of stagnant water, rank vegetation and slime. He thought of Sweetie tripping home at night, over the bridge. No wonder she had left her gear behind in Mr. Jeejeeboy’s store.

  “How do we get in?”

  “The door’s round the other side.”

  A sloping plank led up to an opening cut in the side of the barge. Knocking produced no answer. Massey said, “He’s probably at the boozer. They won’t throw him out till two o’clock. Not if he’s got any money left.”

  “Where does he get his money from?”

  “It’s a mystery. He never shows up at the Labour Exchange – and so far as anyone knows he doesn’t draw old age pension.”

  Mercer said, “The pubs don’t shut till two. That gives us half an hour.”

  Balancing on one leg, he swung the sole of his heavy shoe flat against the door, just under the catch. It burst inwards.

  “Oughtn’t we to have a warrant?” said Massey.

  Mercer looked at him curiously. He said, “I’d heard of people like you. I didn’t believe they existed outside of books.”

  Massey flushed scarlet, and then muttered, “All right, all right. It’s your responsibility, Skipper.”

  “As long as we’re clear on that point,” said Mercer. They stepped down into the barge.

  Inside was worse than outside. Much worse. Outside the smells had been rank and vegetable. Inside they were animal. Massey turned round abruptly and made for the opening.