Night of the Twelfth

by Michael Gilbert

  ‘Stop smacking your lips,’ said Elizabeth, ‘and listen to what I’m saying.’

  ‘I’m listening. I’m a policeman. Even Holbrow Three knows that. I’m told he’s plucking up courage to ask me to sign his autograph book.’

  ‘But you didn’t come here to keep an eye on Jared.’

  ‘Oh? Then what did I come here for?’

  ‘I’m not quite sure. But I’ve got a theory about it.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You’ve been asking a lot of questions about what people were doing at the weekend before you came. The twelfth and thirteenth of June. That can’t have anything to do with Jared. He was up in London with his father.’

  ‘Policemen enjoy asking questions.’

  ‘So I came to the conclusion that it was something that happened that weekend. Some crime. A pretty serious crime if Scotland Yard – you are from Scotland Yard, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’m admitting nothing.’

  ‘Anyway, you’re obviously quite a superior sort of policeman. A cut above Sergeant Baker.’

  ‘Sergeant Baker’s a very good policeman indeed.’

  ‘He’s a darling. But the point is that if someone like you was sent down it must have been a serious crime. Something that people were really getting up-tight about. And it must have happened somewhere in this part of the world. So I got hold of all the papers that came out that Monday and there was only one that seemed at all probable. It was that kid, Ted Lister.’

  As Elizabeth said this she turned her head to look at him. Manifold said, with what he hoped was the right degree of indifference, ‘Lister. The name certainly rings a bell.’

  ‘The boy was tortured and killed.’

  ‘Place near Farnham. Yes, I remember it. And it did happen that weekend.’

  ‘All right,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Be cagey about it. I suppose you have to be. I think the police found something to suggest that the killer might have come from here or hereabouts. Tell me I’m imagining things.’

  ‘You’re imagining things.’

  Elizabeth gave a little shiver and said, ‘I hope so. It’s not a very comfortable idea. I don’t really much like thinking about it.’

  ‘Then why are you thinking about it?’

  ‘When I realized that you were interested in what everyone was doing that weekend, naturally I started to think about it too. I mean, I knew where Nigel and I were, and I thought I knew where TEF and Lucy and Sergeant Baker and Charlie Happold and young Roger were. I thought they were all busy disinfesting.’

  ‘You thought they were?’

  ‘That’s right. We heard such a lot about all the work they’d done, sealing up windows and doors and moving furniture and working away like beavers until nine o’clock at night to get it finished, and it was only when I was talking to Charlie about it that I realized that he hadn’t actually seen Lucy at all.’

  ‘Perhaps she was doing a separate job.’

  ‘Right. That was what I thought. So I had a word with Roger. And with the Sergeant. He was all over the place. If she’d been there, he’d have been bound to have seen her.’

  ‘When did anyone remember seeing her last?’

  ‘As far as I can gather, about tea-time. I’ve no doubt TEF would know where she was. But I hardly liked to raise the question with him.’

  ‘I expect there’s some fairly simple explanation,’ said Manifold.

  ‘Oh, I expect there is,’ said Elizabeth. She rolled over on to her other side. The movement brought her face close to his. He could look down into her guileless blue eyes.

  The door in the wall behind them crashed open. Nigel bounded in. He was wearing only a pair of leopard-skin bathing trunks and was carrying a towel. He hurled the towel into the corner, shouted, “Tarzan love Jane” and cleared both the bodies on the edge of the bath, turning the jump at the last moment into a jack-knife dive.

  With a quick wriggle Elizabeth went after him. Manifold saw her following him as he swam under water. She was faster than he was, and managed to catch hold of his ankles. They surfaced at the far end of the bath in a splutter of foam.

  ‘If you don’t come clean,’ said McMurtrie, ‘not a single solitary drop of vodka will you get.’

  ‘Not even a drop of bitter lemon,’ said Joscelyne.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Jared.

  They were sitting, cross-legged, on McMurtrie’s bed. Outside another July day had died in red glory. There was a luminous quality about the dusk.

  ‘Why can’t you tell us?’

  ‘Because I promised not to.’

  ‘Even if we swear on the bible not to tell anyone else?’

  ‘Well–’ said Sacher.

  McMurtrie sensed a weakening. He said, ‘When a soldier was taken prisoner by the Japs, my father told me, he was allowed to give them military information. That was to save him from being tortured. Suppose we were going to torture you. Then you’d be excused if you broke your word and told us.’

  ‘Perhaps. If I really thought you were going to.’

  ‘Oh, we’ll torture you all right, won’t we, Joss?’

  ‘Rather,’ said Joss.

  ‘How?’

  ‘What we’ll do is, we’ll tie your wrists to the head of your bed, and Joss will sit on your legs and I’ll tickle your stomach. You’re ticklish, aren’t you?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘In a story I read,’ said Joscelyne, ‘an Indian Rajah tickled one of his wives to death with a peacock feather. He went on until she had a fit. So you see–’

  Jared said, ‘I can see I’ve got no choice.’

  McMurtrie and Joscelyne settled down happily. They knew that Jared was longing to tell them. He said, ‘Everything I said was lies. That is, from the moment we came in sight of the car. The two men each had hold of one of my arms. I couldn’t see the driver at all. I think they had expected him to be outside the car waiting for them and they were worried because he wasn’t there. The tall man, who was on my right, said something like, “Where’s Rex?” I think it was Rex. And he half let go of my arm. At that moment someone who had been standing behind the car, in the darkness under the tree, said, “Down, Jared. Flat on your face”. Well, you remember what your father told us. I recognized Mr Manifold’s voice, and without giving it another thought, I flopped down on the ground.’

  ‘Did they let go of you?’

  ‘The tall man did. The other one clung on and came down on to his knees with me. Then there was this sound. Like a cork coming out of a bottle, only much louder, and with a sort of twang to it. The tall man spun round and came down beside me.’

  ‘Dead?’ breathed McMurtrie.

  ‘I don’t know. I was too scared to notice much. I think the other man was as frightened as I was. I could feel him shaking. Then Mr Manifold and Sergeant Baker came out from behind the car. They both had guns. They handcuffed the other man and bundled him into the back of the car. The driver was there already. I couldn’t see if he was dead or just unconscious. Then the van arrived.’

  ‘What van?’

  ‘It was a big furniture van. It must have been standing outside, on the road, because I heard it start up, and it backed through the gate. Some men jumped out and opened the door at the back, and they put down a sort of ramp, and Sergeant Baker drove the car up the ramp into the van, and the tall man was lifted into the back with it, and the van drove off. The whole thing was over in less than five minutes. It was after the van had gone that I heard the front door of the school opening and TEF shouting something.’

  ‘He was yelling at the kids to get back to bed,’ said Joscelyne.

  ‘What were you doing?’ said McMurtrie.

  ‘I was sitting down beside the path shivering. When the van had gone, Mr Manifold came back and sat down beside me. He said, “Here’s where you’ve got to do some play-acting. Do you think you can?” My teeth were still chattering. I said, “I’ll d-d-d-do what I can.” ’

  The boys laughed. Jared said, ‘When I’d got my wits b
ack a bit, Mr Manifold told me what to do, and what I’d got to say. “Don’t make it elaborate,” he said. “You can think out the details later. For now, just say, ‘They let me go’. If anyone starts asking questions give them a dopey sort of stare. And if the going gets rough, you can always pass out.” So that’s what I did.’

  ‘Goodness,’ breathed Joscelyne.

  ‘Some people have all the luck,’ said McMurtrie.

  ‘It wasn’t funny at the time,’ said Jared. ‘Not a bit funny.’

  As he lay in bed, trying to get to sleep, McMurtrie acted through the whole episode, with himself taking the leading part. To stand, in the darkness, with a gun in one hand, to see Jared drop, and then to shoot, point blank, at the tall man and watch him keel over. The thought of it sent a prickle of excitement which started in his stomach, went all the way down into his thighs and seemed to come out at the soles of his feet.

  18

  Detective Inspector “Bob” Taylor operated from West End Central Police Station and his manor included the square mile which is bounded by Oxford Street, Charing Cross Road, Shaftesbury Avenue and Wardour Street and is known as Soho.

  He was a methodical man. He had recorded, in a filing system of computerized complexity, the names, assumed names, ages, personal descriptions, distinguishing characteristics, photographs and nearest known relatives of every prostitute, male and female, operating in his area. He charted their nesting habits and seasonal migrations with the accuracy and care of an ornithologist. He was particularly interested when they disappeared from their normal habitat. A surprising number of murder cases had originated from those filing cabinets.

  He had, at the time, two regular assistants. Detective Sergeant Goodman, a stout deliberate man approaching middle age, and Detective Sergeant Michael Appleyard, who was thinner and younger, though not quite as young as he looked.

  Inspector Taylor displayed a handful of photographs to each of these assistants and explained the reason for the enquiry. He said, ‘You do the strippers, Goody. You can cover the kinky shops, Mike. I’ll take the Boss Clubs. OK?’

  Sergeant Goodman said, ‘Can we tell them what it’s all about?’

  ‘If you think it’ll help.’

  ‘I think it would,’ said Sergeant Appleyard. ‘They don’t like the idea of kids being messed about. We’ll get more co-operation if we tell them.’

  ‘Tell them. But leave out names. And get a move on, both of you. I’m told it’s urgent.’

  Sergeant Appleyard, who was as methodical as his chief, first compiled a list of the establishments he planned to visit, and then tackled them on a geographical basis, starting at the bottom of Frith Street and working north. The shops concerned sold a variety of goods, ranging from solid works like The History of Flagellation and Torture by a Reverend Gentleman to life-sized inflatable female figures (“Why be lonely at night? Clarissa is the perfect bed-mate. Doesn’t snore. Doesn’t smoke in bed. Doesn’t answer back. Available in three different colours”).

  By four o’clock that afternoon Sergeant Appleyard had told his story and shown his photographs to the proprietors of twenty-two shops. The results had been entirely negative. The owners, and their assistants, who were apt to take rather more careful note of the appearance of their customers than the owners of more ordinary shops, were reasonably certain that they recognized none of the people concerned. Certainly none of them were regular customers. Appleyard returned to West End Central to take his weight off his feet and write his report.

  Whilst he wrote, he spread the photographs out once more on the desk in front of him. He knew, now, what had been worrying him all day. One of the photographs rang a very faint bell in his memory. The difficulty was that the routine of a policeman involves a good deal of looking at photographs and memorizing faces, and in the end one face is apt to become confused with another.

  All that he was certain of was that it was some years ago, and was not connected with his present line of duty.

  Sergeant Goodman, meanwhile, had been making a round of the strip clubs. Most of these were run by businessmen who spent their mornings in their offices worrying, like any other businessman, about rents, rates and rising prices and taxes. They knew Sergeant Goodman and received him, when they understood what he wanted, with sympathy.

  ‘I guess you’re barking up the wrong tree, Goody,’ said “Rosy” Rosenbaum. ‘A geezer like that wouldn’t come here. He’s not interested in the unveiled female form presented in fifty different artistic poses. He’s just a plain sod, right?’

  Sergeant Goodman agreed that that was right, but said that some people were ambidextrous.

  ‘Could be,’ said Rosenbaum. ‘Have one of these cigars. Take one for your wife. I wouldn’t think it very likely myself. Most of our regulars are highly respectable people. You know that one I was telling you about last time you was here. The one we call the Archdeacon. You know what he did last night? Came right up on the stage and started auctioning the girl’s clothes. Talk about a laugh.’

  Sergeant Goodman said, ‘I didn’t come here to listen to your filthy reminiscences, Rosy. Save ’em for your autobiography. All I want to know is, do you recognize any of these people?’

  ‘I’d be lying if I said I did. Frank’s got a good memory for faces. What do you say?’

  Frank, who was the doorman and chucker-out, shook his head. One of them, he said, reminded him of a man he’d been in the army with. But, come to think of it, he’d heard that he’d died.

  It was at his eighth visit, at the Penny-Come-Quickly, a discreet and rather high-class club in Lord Scrope Street, that Sergeant Goodman struck pay dirt. The proprietor, a red-headed Irishman, known to all as Pat Murphy, although his name, in fact, was Gavigan, paused at the fourth photograph and said, ‘Sure, now, that’s a face I recognize. He’s been here more than once.’

  ‘How long ago, Pat?’

  ‘The last time would have been a week or so ago. I remember it well. We had a little trouble, which is not a thing I like with my regular clients at all.’

  ‘What sort of trouble?’

  ‘He was trying to take photographs. We couldn’t allow that. It embarrasses the girls.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘There was what you might term a disputation. In the end we had to remove his camera. He was angry and used expressions which I’m sure he regretted afterwards.’

  ‘Have you got the camera?’

  ‘Certainly not. We handed it back when he left. I’m telling you, we parted good friends.’

  ‘Can you fix the date?’

  ‘It was a Saturday. I know that for sure.’

  Mr Murphy consulted a calendar on the wall. It was illustrated, curiously enough, not with unclothed girls in provocative poses, but with three fluffy kittens with bows round their necks.

  ‘It was the night we first showed our Hawaiian Speciality. You ought to see it, Sergeant. A treat for the whole family.’

  ‘I’ll bring ’em along some time. What day does that make it?’

  ‘A month ago this Saturday that’s coming. It would have been June the twelfth.’

  ‘Ah, and you’re sure it’s this man?’

  ‘Am I going to be called to swear to it in a court of law? You’ll understand that I’m not anxious to give evidence against my own clients.’

  ‘If that man spent the evening here,’ said Sergeant Goodman, closing his note book, ‘you’re more likely to be giving evidence for him than against him.’

  Inspector Taylor paid only two visits, but they were to important people and in both cases he had to make an appointment by telephone. The first was to a chemist’s shop in Barnaby Street. He introduced himself to the young man behind the counter, who disappeared through a door at the back of the shop. There followed a wait of nearly five minutes, during which the Inspector sold a woman a bottle of hair dye, and a man a box of throat lozenges, stacking the money carefully on the counter. The young man then re-appeared, and gestured to him to follow. The p
assage in which he found himself was so long that it was clear that they were passing into the next house through an intervening opening. They arrived at a white-painted door, decorated with handsome brass door furniture. The young man knocked, opened the door without waiting, and motioned to the Inspector to go in.

  A small grey-haired lady was seated beside the window which looked out on to a tiny scrap of garden. She said, ‘Sit down, Inspector Taylor. Or is it Chief Inspector now?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘It will be soon, I’m sure. What can I do for you?’

  The Inspector explained what he wanted and spread out the photographs on the sofa table beside her chair. She examined each of them with minute care, seeming to be more interested in the women than the men. She said, ‘Cruelty for the sake of cruelty. It’s not a common disease. But a very unpleasant one when it does occur. It’s not really in my line. You’ll have to have a word with the Major.’

  ‘I’m seeing him this afternoon.’

  ‘I’ll keep my eyes open, of course.’ She handed back the photographs, got to her feet and said, ‘No need to go back through the shop. I’ll let you out by the front door.’

  As he walked down the sun-lit street, the Inspector reflected that you could never tell by appearances. Some of the stories he had heard about the half dozen establishments which that little old lady ran, mainly for middle-aged gentlemen of odd tastes, had turned even his hardened stomach.

  The second visit which the Inspector paid was to a firm of estate agents in a side turning off Soho Square. He was shown straight up to a room on the first floor labelled, “Managing Director”. The man behind the desk did not get up, but waved the Inspector to a chair. The Inspector forgave him the discourtesy since he knew that the Major had lost the use of one leg as the result of a beating by Polish deserters soon after the war. His face was a map of the battles he had fought in his long, successful and unsavoury life. The left side was seamed with lines and wrinkles. The right side was a pad of white and lifeless flesh, topped by a sightless eye, all that was left of the living face after an attack made on him by a woman with sulphuric acid.