by W H Oxley
The saloon bar was warm and inviting, all mahogany, brass and etched glass windows. Its proximity to Whitehall, Scotland Yard and the Houses of Parliament meant the clientele were mainly a mixture of men in uniform, civil servants and plainclothes policemen, with maybe the odd Member of Parliament lurking in the background. As the barmaid pulled their pints, Hawker ran his eyes over her and licked his lips. She was blond, brassy, slightly vulgar and sexily clad in a tight fitting sweater.
‘At least something good has come out of this war,’ he grunted as he raised his glass.
‘Really, sir.’ Brightwell frowned.
Hawker nodded in the direction of the barmaid’s backside. ‘With so many men in the army, the pubs have been obliged to replace them with tasty little popsies like that.’
‘I’m thinking of enlisting, sir.’
‘Don’t be a bloody fool, Brightwell! You’re in a reserved occupation: coppers aren’t allowed to enlist.’
‘There’s been some talk of them changing the rules…’
‘You’d still be a bloody fool, Brightwell. Forget it!
‘But I feel that it’s my duty, sir.’
‘Oh my God, duty,’ sighed Hawker. ‘Saints preserve us from duty. I suppose you’ve been reading the Daily Mail…’
‘Well, I er…’
‘Then, if you must, you must,’ Hawker shrugged, ‘but at least have the sense to make sure you wangle your way into the Royal Military Police. That should keep you well away from the front line, and if you’re lucky you’ll end up spending the war hanging around railway stations looking for deserters.’
‘Actually, sir, I was planning to volunteer for the infantry.’
‘What! You must be bloody mad!’
‘It’s a man’s duty to fight for his country and risk his life in a just cause.’
‘What are you babbling on about, Brightwell? You sound worse than the Daily Express. What’s come over you? You weren’t like this yesterday; why have you suddenly…’ Hawker paused, and a sly grin appeared on his face. ‘Ah yes, of course,’ he winked, ‘Nurse Williams…’
‘Well, er…’ Brightwell coloured slightly.
‘You hardly present a challenge to my deductive powers, Brightwell. When you turn up dressed like a bookies runner and express a desire to start killing perfectly inoffensive Germans there could only be one possible explanation.’
‘Well, sir, you see–’
Hawker brought his fist down on the top of the bar with a mighty crash. ‘Barmaid!’ he roared.
‘Yes, sir?’ The blond came running.
‘Give my colleague a double whisky. He’s sick.’
‘Nothing too serious I hope?’
‘Nothing you couldn’t cure.’ He winked.
‘Ah, yes, sir,’ she gave him a cheeky grin and wiggled her hips, ‘there’s a lot of it about at the moment. It’s the war, you know. They’re queuing up for marriage licences down at the registry office.’ As she handed Brightwell his whisky, she patted his hand. ‘If you take my advice, love, you’ll go home and have a nice cold bath.’
Hawker watched as Brightwell downed the whisky in one gulp. ‘Is that better?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir, but I must emphasize that I was only considering enlisting.’
‘It is my opinion, Brightwell, that you are in danger of making two fatal errors, and I am not too sure which of them is the most lethal.’
‘Two, sir?’
‘Enlistment and Marriage!’
‘Why marriage, sir?’
‘Because it is a fate worse than death…’
‘Hmm...’ Brightwell gazed thoughtfully into his beer. ‘Would you mind if we change the subject, sir? You were going to tell me about the ballistics report.’
‘Ah yes, the case of the vigilante gun…’ Hawker applied a match to his pipe.
‘Vigilante?’ Brightwell fumbled open a packet of Craven A, extracted a cigarette and lit it. ‘That’s more the sort of thing that happens in America. Was it a murder?’
‘No, nobody even got hurt. It was about ten years ago. Someone fired three rounds into the house of a known child molester, breaking a couple of window panes and a bust of Queen Victoria. Our chaps dug one bullet out of the grandfather clock, found one in the wall and the third was lodged in the roots of an aspidistra plant, but they never found the gun or the gunman. The only thing we do know is that it was almost certainly a Lugar, meaning it was probably a souvenir from the last war.’
‘What became of the victim?’
‘It had the desired result: he moved out of the area.’
‘Where did the shooting take place, sir?’
‘Golders Green.’
‘That’s only about three miles up the Finchley Road from the pawnbroker’s.’
‘Exactly!’
‘Phewee… I see what you mean about back to the drawing board, sir. It’s blown your theories sky-high. Maybe it wasn’t a robbery after all. Is it possible that Purvis has been taking an unhealthy interest in children?’
‘Obviously we are going to have to take that possibility into consideration, and it would certainly give someone a jolly good reason for wanting to frighten him – or even wound him. It would make a lot more sense as a motive: a man who believes he has the right to enforce his own twisted version of the law is unlikely to start robbing pawnshops.’
‘So how do we find out about Purvis’s sexual inclinations, sir? We can hardly ask his family, and now that the newspapers are making him out to be a hero we’ll be well and truly in the shit if we’re wrong.’
‘We ask an expert!’ Hawker held up a business card. ‘The fingerprint boys found this among his paperbacks.’
‘Keeping me in the dark as usual,’ grumbled Brightwell, as he took the card. ‘Mitzi, phone Olympia 3402… Have you managed to trace the address from the phone number, sir?’
‘I don’t need to. It’s in a block of flats just up the road from the Olympia Exhibition Centre.’
‘How do you know, sir?’
‘She’s a whore, been at it since you were in short trousers. I know her from my salad days in Hammersmith when she was an informant. She’d pass on an occasional bit of tittle-tattle and we’d let her carry on her trade in peace. But bang goes another theory, because if Purvis really has been banging that old brass I doubt if he’s into little girls: she’s old enough to be your mother let alone his.’
‘Mitzi…’ Brightwell looked thoughtful, ‘unusual name. Is she French?’
‘She was born in Battersea, and the only French she knows is a French letter. Her real name is Vera Mavis Smith, but she was known in the division as Venal Vera – and has given many an over-inquisitive young copper a dose of the clap.’