by Aly Monroe
‘What did he do when he worked?’
Vine shook his head. When he did so his lips were loose enough to flop. ‘I am not going to work for Imperial Tobacco. I’m not. I’m not—’
Cotton sighed. ‘Has Mrs Gardener been in touch with you?’
‘Oh no!’ said Vine. ‘I did absolutely everything you said.’
Cotton was taken aback. He had remembered Vine being huffy and reluctant but not such a prompt and very bad liar.
‘Anybody else get in touch with you?’
‘No! I’ve told you. I felt my life was over.’
‘You felt,’ said Dawkins, ‘that what you wanted your life to be was over.’
Vine blinked. He could see no difference. ‘All right.’
‘And now?’ said Dawkins.
Andrew Vine combined tremor and sigh. ‘I really don’t know any more.’
Dawkins raised his eyes. Cotton took over.
‘Does your wife know about Work and Pensions?’
‘No!’
‘We’ll get her in soon,’ said Cotton.
‘But why?’ wailed Vine.
‘What the hell do you think this is?’ said Dawkins. ‘You’re not choosing where to fucking go on holiday!’
‘Shhh,’ said Cotton. ‘Did Mrs Gardener ever try to contact you?’
‘No!’ said Vine. He sounded put upon. ‘I said that.’
Vine’s skill in lying had not improved. Cotton nodded.
‘I’m going to ask your wife to come in. You have a lot of talking to do. Start with Work and Pensions, all right? We’ll take it from there.’
‘But I need to think things out,’ said Vine. ‘And I can’t.’
Cotton stared at him. ‘Are you saying your suicide attempt was your way of asking for a divorce?’
Vine’s face crumpled again. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. He frowned. He shook his head. ‘I don’t even know if I could afford a divorce.’
‘Does your wife know about Mrs Gardener?’
‘I haven’t said anything.’
‘And do you think that means a lot?’ said Cotton.
‘I don’t know,’ said Vine. ‘I really don’t.’
Cotton grunted. He thought Vine was overdoing ignorance as a mysterious condition. He nodded at Dawkins who opened the door. Mrs Vine came in.
‘Well?’ she said.
‘Your husband has been appointed to a post in Work and Pensions,’ said Cotton. ‘He seems to think this is a dreadful come-down.’
‘Is it?’
Cotton shrugged. ‘He was worried you would feel let down.’
Mrs Vine frowned. ‘But is it less money?’
Cotton turned round. ‘It’s the same,’ said Vine.
‘Will he have to travel?’ asked Mrs Vine.
‘No,’ said Vine.
Mrs Vine looked at Cotton. ‘Is that it?’
‘More or less.’
‘But it has something to do with you seeing him in the first place.’
Cotton nodded. ‘That was a security check.’
Mrs Vine looked baffled. ‘He can’t handle security,’ she said. ‘Just look at him!’
Cotton took out one of his business cards. ‘I’m giving this to you,’ he said. ‘I really don’t think this episode is more than an unfortunate personal crisis, but should you have any reason to think differently, please contact me.’
Mrs Vine took the card. Cotton did not think she needed reading glasses or really had to hold the card that far away from her.
‘Are you suggesting he needs help? Psychological perhaps? Even spiritual?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cotton. ‘I have no training in psychology or the spiritual.’
Mrs Vine shook her head. ‘I really don’t like you people,’ she said.
Cotton nodded. He in turn was not particularly fond of her but recognized she was trying to hold her family together and he was not going to make any observations on how she was going about it. She had, as yet anyway, not used any expression involving the phrase ‘man enough’.
‘He did say,’ said Cotton, ‘that he’s not keen on business.’
Mrs Vine slowly raised one eyebrow but then spoke quite sharply. ‘In business I understand the ability to make decisions and carry them out with resolution and dispatch is a plus,’ she said.
She lifted her chin. She had better skin than Mrs Gardener. She was determined not to break down and Cotton was quite confident she would succeed.
‘Thank you very much,’ he said. ‘If there’s anything else, we’ll get in touch.’
Cotton and Dawkins left the hospital room.
‘I can’t wish them well,’ said Dawkins.
‘Any particular reason?’
‘She’s a snob and he’s a coward. I don’t like this kind of area. It’s snippy. And it’s a lie.’
They paused to prepare themselves for the outdoors again.
‘He had an affair she may not know about,’ said Cotton. ‘My guess is that Mrs Gardener is in London.’
‘Right,’ said Dawkins. ‘He’s a piss poor liar, that’s for sure.’
‘Mrs Gardener was introduced to Andrew Vine by Mair in Paris,’ said Cotton. ‘Vine raised the European alarm on Watson.’
Dawkins nodded. ‘Right. I think there’s a train in fifteen minutes,’ he said.
34
THANKS TO Mr Shinwell’s ruling on external lights, the night was as dark as the wartime blackout. Cloud shut off any light from the night sky. Cotton could just see something of Dawkins’s breath issuing from the thicker dark where he was.
It was eye-wateringly cold, the ice underfoot sounded brittle. Cotton’s feet throbbed briefly from the heat of the hospital, but the cold coming through the soles of his shoes finished that, even before they got across the car park.
Helped by the headlights of a van creeping towards them from Croydon, they crossed the Brighton Road and headed towards the High Street. On their right were the iron railings of a Church of England junior school called Christ Church and about forty yards ahead of them, to their left, there was a little light coming from a pub window. Beyond the school on their side, chinks in curtains from the people who lived in the flats above provided a little more, enough to make out the slight curve in the street.
More out of habit than need, Cotton glanced behind him to check on any traffic before he started crossing the street towards the pub. As he did so, he heard Dawkins let out a short groan, and a scratching sound turned into a flaring match about four yards ahead. The match looped off in a low arc about head high towards Cotton’s left.
Then Cotton glimpsed a ribbon moving like a sectioned snake towards his face. He jerked his head back and remembered to turn his body and push out his right thigh. Razor fighters use both hands, one coming in high, the other low.
Something, a button on his coat, clicked. There was a quick hissing noise. Cotton clenched his left fist. Using the natural recovery of his body, he added everything he could and delivered a short downwards punch towards an area about a foot in front of his right hip. Through the pain in his knuckles he knew he had hit skull. A couple of yards in front of him there was a dull spark and the sounds of metal breaking facial bones.
He resisted the desire to start kicking out and squatted. His right knee touched something human, somewhere about the lower ribs of someone’s back. Cotton flattened his right hand and drove it downwards, to where he thought the head might be. He was over-generous in guessing the man’s height. Only half his hand struck the very top of a cold, bald head. There was a crunch and a reflex gasp as the face hit paving stone and ice.
Frantic to get his bearings and frantic to stop those razors, Cotton scrabbled round and got his right knee on his attacker’s right upper arm. The man struggled. Cotton drove the head down again.
‘Shit!’ hissed Dawkins. He grunted. There were more bone-crunching noises. Then a police whistle sounded. Cotton had straddled the man’s back and now banged the head against stone and ice several times.
He gave it one more bang and sat back. He thought the man was an odd, short-limbed shape, but was not sure if that was not his own distorted impression.
‘Are you all right?’ said Dawkins.
Cotton thought he probably was. ‘Yes. You?’
‘Yes.’
‘You blew the whistle?’
‘Yes.’
There was a grunt and a number of wriggling, clothy sounds, then a crack and a shriek almost coincided.
‘I’ll do your other knee,’ said Dawkins. ‘Just you move.’ He breathed out. ‘Damn!’ he said. ‘I’ve got the shakes!’
Cotton did not feel he was doing much better. He felt weak, not quite as if he were melting, this was more as if he was about to faint and might be dribbling away. Two policemen on patrol arrived, handcuffed the men and called for a car.
‘Sinclair and Boyle?’ asked Cotton.
‘Yes,’ said Dawkins.
The razors were gathered up. By torchlight Cotton saw a length of blue ribbon about an inch wide and a yard long to which razors had been sewn. The other razors were more old-fashioned.
‘Safety razors in one hand, old-fashioned cut-throat in the other,’ said one of the patrolmen.
When the police car arrived, Dawkins spoke up.
‘These men are under arrest. Take them to Croydon and lock them up.’
‘Probably better to check them over first, sir,’ the policeman holding the razors said. ‘They may need treatment.’
The Cottage Hospital was displeased by the number of people and the quantity of blood.
‘What’s going on?’ asked the doctor they had already seen. ‘I am the duty doctor here and I can assure you cases like this are taken to Mayday Hospital.’
Dawkins stared at him. ‘I don’t care,’ he said. ‘I want you to check them over, make sure we can lock them up.’
‘We have women in labour here.’
Dawkins was so angry he stepped forward until he was very close to the doctor. ‘My wife has given birth twice. I remember blood and I remember shrieks,’ he said. ‘You check them over. If you need to call an ambulance for them, then you call one. We are deferring to your professional knowledge, Doctor. Will you accept that?’
The noise of a siren and the arrival of more police at the Cottage Hospital did not help, but the doctor did as he was asked.
Boyle had lost teeth and suffered a broken jaw, cheekbone and nose. His left knee was very swollen.
Sinclair, the person Cotton thought of as his, had sustained a broken nose, heavy bruising, a swollen lip and several ice cuts to his face. He was short, about five foot two, with chunky legs and prominent buttocks, a large, top-heavy head that showed how close razors could shave, and very pale, almost milky skin. Neither man was saying a word, looked sealed in.
‘These men have been assaulted,’ said the doctor.
‘You have that the wrong way round,’ said Dawkins. ‘These two delights are razor boys. They attacked us in the dark and without warning. Do you understand what I’m saying, Doctor? They are going to be charged with a serious crime. What I want to know from you is whether they can be taken from here to a cell now, or whether they need to be given treatment first. Is that clear?’
‘Yes. That looks like a shattered kneecap,’ the doctor said, pointing at Boyle. ‘He also needs facio-maxillary work. The other needs his nose set but is mostly cuts and bruises.’
Dawkins cocked his head.
The doctor nodded. ‘They would be better treated at Mayday Hospital but they don’t need an ambulance to get there.’
Dawkins smiled. ‘Good.’ He turned. ‘Read them their rights,’ he said to a police sergeant. ‘Then get them formally remanded at Croydon police station and call the Police Surgeon. We’ll be along later.’
Cotton spoke into Dawkins’s ear. ‘Don’t have them charged. Not yet.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘We don’t know enough. They may have been sent. They may have acted on their own.’
Dawkins nodded. ‘Right.’ He waited till the sergeant had finished reading the two men their rights.
‘Just hold them for now,’ he said. ‘We have to make further investigations. The Police Surgeon should have enough to do till we get there.’
Cotton stepped aside to allow Boyle and Sinclair to be taken away. He was aware that his left hand was swollen. Now when he moved, he realized his right shoe squelched. He looked down. Blood was oozing out of his sock and over the rims of shoe.
He looked up. Dawkins was rewrapping a handkerchief round his hand. The razor had cut him above the knuckledusters, up to his wrist and across the veins of the back of the hand.
‘That’s razor work,’ said Dawkins holding up his hand for the doctor. ‘And that is too.’ He pointed at Cotton. Cotton looked down again. His overcoat was cut through.
A nurse came up to him.
‘Where will I start?’
Cotton held up his left hand.
She looked and made a face. ‘I hope you’ve got more gloves.’
She cut the glove off in the same way he had had plaster cut off in the war. As the leather peeled away Cotton saw the left side of his hand was grotesquely puffed and tinged with blue.
‘Two. Maybe three fingers broken,’ said the nurse.
Cotton learnt that Mrs Vine had come out to see what the noise was when he heard Dawkins speaking to her.
‘Next time, if your husband’s really serious, he may want to ask a razor gang for assistance. More convincing, ma’am.’
Mrs Vine looked at Cotton’s hand. ‘What’s going on? Are we at risk?’ she said.
‘I don’t think so. But I think we may need to talk a little more.’
‘Sorry,’ said the nurse, ‘but I need to take this gentleman to the treatment room.’
Mrs Vine nodded and turned away. She looked pale but, Cotton noticed, almost beautifully grim.
‘Where do I go?’ said Cotton.
‘Stay where you are,’ said the nurse. ‘You’re making enough mess as it is. Somebody has to clean the floor here, you know.’
She got him some crutches and he swung along behind her till they reached a tiled room. Quite large, it contained only a high birthing bed and a glass and enamel cabinet. To one side was an alcove with two large sinks.
Cotton leant against the bed. On the wall facing the end of the bed was a large drawing of three babies. One was white, one was blue and one was divided vertically into blue and white. Cotton did not ask. Was this to encourage the mothers in labour or to remind the staff to be on the lookout for blue or partially blue babies? He glanced down. His hand had blue patches not dissimilar to the blue of the drawing, but some were darker and other patches were red and bloodless white.
The nurse helped him with his overcoat and then his jacket. The cut-throat razor had sliced through both.
‘Well, I hope you know a good tailor,’ she said.
The razor had continued through his trousers, the trouser pocket and into his right thigh.
‘Drop your trousers, please.’
Cotton did. He saw that the skin of his leg had been parted and the cut had gone into the muscle. The cut was on a mild curve with an abrupt sideways snick at the end nearest the knee. The wound had stopped bleeding and the coagulated blood was drying.
‘You’ve been lucky,’ said the nurse. ‘Think if he’d got you a bit further this way.’
‘That’s a comfort,’ said Cotton.
The doctor came in and pressed the wound together. The cut began to bleed again.
‘You’re lucky,’ he said. ‘More than half an inch causes problems. This will take stitches.’
It took twenty-three. While the stitches were going in, the nurse put a splint on each of the last two fingers of his left hand and bandaged them very tightly. It made his middle finger throb.
‘That’s only sprained,’ she said. She bent down and took off his shoe and sock and went through to the alcove to clean the shoe out and wash the sock.
/> Cotton closed his eyes and concentrated on the smells. He smelt the powdery smell of cotton wool, the sharpness of surgical spirit and then something thinner and meaner like thin, acidic vomit. He grunted. The doctor was at about the thirteenth stitch.
‘Doing my best, you know,’ said the doctor.
‘I know. I’m just taking breath.’
‘Do you want me to stop?’
Cotton breathed in. ‘No,’ he said.
Cotton closed his eyes again. He had, of course, done army training in what had been called ‘unarmed combat’, but could not remember actually ever having been unarmed. There was also the business of creeping up behind a guard, the ‘guard’ being one of the other trainees and liable to be rather deafer than an enemy guard might be, or like a man called Abbott (subsequently removed from the course) who would keep saying ‘Heard you! Heard you!’ when nobody had yet moved.
‘There you are,’ said the doctor.
Cotton looked down. It took a moment for the liquid in his eyes to clear and for him to see that the stitches really did look as ragged and black as he had first thought. They covered, with what looked like soldier ants’ legs and knots, a cut about eight inches long.
The nurse began smearing iodine round and on the wound. There was a second Cotton thought his teeth were seething. He breathed out. The sharpness gave way to heat and a smell that reminded him of the sharp stuff his mother had used to remove nail polish.
‘Thank you,’ he said. He looked down again. There was something particularly ugly about the black stitches and the yellow and brown iodine.
‘The nurse will bind you up,’ said the doctor. ‘I’ll get you some pills.’
‘I’ve put your shoe under the radiator and your sock on it,’ said the nurse. ‘I really gave that sock a good wringing.’
‘You’re both very kind. Thank you.’
The doctor left, the nurse went to fetch bandages from the cabinet and Dawkins put his head round the door.
‘I’ve been done,’ he said. Dawkins’s eyes had puffed up, looked almost closed. One of his hands was bandaged. The other, in which he held his bloodied handkerchief, he waggled at the nurse.
‘Waste in here,’ she said and got a metal bin.
The rolled handkerchief gave a decided clunk as it went in. The nurse started but Dawkins smiled at her.