Tuppenny Hat Detective

by Brian Sellars

  Inside, the air was full of the clatter of typewriters and the jangle of telephones. Desks were piled with papers and bulging manila folders. Police officers worked on their files, milling about, grouping at desks, dispersing, and regrouping.

  'Ah, so you're Billy Perks,' said the desk sergeant, somewhat scornfully.

  Silence fell on the room and hung there for several seconds as everyone looked up to see who was Billy Perks.

  'Have you any idea how much paperwork you account for in this building, my lad? Of course you don't. Well I do, young man, because most of it has to come across my desk.'

  'I'm sorry, sir,' mumbled Billy.

  'I should hope so too.' He pulled Billy away from his mother and whispered in his ear. 'Mark my words, Billy Perks, your description has been given to Interpol, the FBI, the Kremlin and every copper in the empire. You put a toe wrong, my lad, and you'll spend your life in the worst nick in Arabia, eating rats and drinking camel pee.'

  The office racket had started up again as a side office door opened and Sergeant Burke leaned out from it. 'That'll do, Tom,' he called. 'Master Perks is my special witness. He's helping our enquiries. And if you weren't doing his paperwork, you'd be doing somebody else's, so what's the difference?'

  Billy's mother fired a hostile glare at the desk sergeant and ushered her son towards Sergeant Burke. Inside his cramped office, they were waved to brown, bent-wood chairs. The sergeant sat down opposite them, beneath a wall displaying numerous framed photographs of himself and two other men, showing off large salmon and trout they had caught at various rivers and lochs. Billy thought how out of place the neat gallery of smiling faces seemed in such a dreary room.

  'The trolley will be round in a bit. We can have a biscuit and a mash up,' said the sergeant amiably.

  'What's this all about?' Mrs Perks asked. 'He told you everything the other day.'

  'I'm sorry, but there are a few things that don't add up. I'm afraid I've had to make it official this time. That's why you've had to come here with him. I expect you've had to take time off?'

  She nodded sourly.

  'Aye, I thought so. This is why it's important he tells us everything.' He turned to Billy and leaned towards him across his cluttered desk. 'You know, lad, what you said about old Mrs Loveday set me thinking. I've been looking into a few things myself. If I tell you something, will you keep it to yourself?'

  Billy began to feel less threatened. The policeman was talking to him almost like a fellow detective. 'Yes, sir,' he said, shuffling forward on his chair.

  The sergeant leaned closer. 'That sneck nail clue,' he whispered. 'It took intelligence to spot that. It's had me thinking ever since, but I don't make the connection with old Annabel and you being in the boiler room at the chapel. You didn't explain why you were there?'

  Billy remained silent, gripping the seat. The policeman was leafing through his notebook. 'Here it is. This is what you told me. I wrote it all down. You said your dog was in there and you followed him. You saw Stan lying dead on the boiler room floor. You didn't see anybody else and you ran home and went to bed. Then you said you were too scared to tell anybody and you didn't want your mother to know you'd been down in that boiler room at night. But then your Mam found you trying to get your mucky clothes into the wash tub without her seeing them, so you had to tell her. Is that what you said?'

  Billy felt his economy with the truth had covered all that he had needed to volunteer. He felt he had not lied – exactly. And nothing he could have added would change anything about Stan's murder. He did not know who had killed him, nor had he seen anything. What useful purpose would he serve by volunteering more? 'Yes that's it,' he said.

  'You were in the boiler room weren't you?'

  'I could see Stan from the door. The door was all busted.'

  'There you go again, Billy. You're not answering my questions. He should be a politician, you know,' he chuckled, smiling at Billy's mother, anxious to keep their meeting as stress free as possible. 'Now lets try again, Billy, I didn't ask if you were in the doorway. I said, you were in the boiler room, weren't you?'

  'I've told you what I saw,' cried Billy, ready to burst into tears. 'He was dead on the floor. I don't know who killed him. I didn't see anybody kill him. That's the truth.'

  It was the truth. He was not lying, but the sergeant looked far from ready to accept it.

  'Billy son, there's no call to be frightened of me. I think you're a bright boy, and I don't think you're telling lies. The thing is, Billy, I know that you're not telling me everything. Your hat was in the cellar. That shows you're holding things back. You might not think they're important, but they could be. They might even be crucial. While ever you keep things back from us we can't get to the bottom of it all.' He turned to Billy's mother. 'Look Marian,' he said, his tone softened by friendly concern. 'I have to know it all, and I know he's holding out on me. He's going to get himself in even deeper bother if he doesn't tell us everything.'

  'Are you, Billy? Is there something more?' she asked him.

  Nothing that will make any difference to who killed Stan, Billy was thinking.

  The policeman leaned back in his chair. 'Aarh, I hear Mrs Taylor coming with the tea trolley,' he said, his mood lifting. 'I think we deserve a biscuit and a cuppa, don't we? We always have a mash about this time. I might be able to find you some Tizer, or sommat, Billy, if you want, or will you have tea? Do you like your tea sweet? I do, I like it very sweet. Do you take milk? We have nice biscuits too. Do you like Ginger Nuts? What did the tramp do?'

  'He weren't there,' Billy blurted. Then his heart sank. He realised he had been caught and kippered by an expert, just like the salmon in the sergeant's dusty photographs. He looked at his mother and saw her disappointment. He knew he had let her down - it was written all over her face.

  The sergeant leaned back and stared at him with unblinking eyes. 'Are we going to get down to business now, Billy?'

  The office door swung open and a tea trolley rattled in, pushed by a delicate, prim woman, wearing a brightly coloured floral smock. She struck Billy as being quite out of place in the dark brown office with its fishy black and white photographs and shelves of dull cardboard files. The tea-lady smiled at everyone, and quickly assessed from the sergeant's demeanour that tea all round would be in order. Her head flicked, as if dismissing a wasp or wayward curl from her eyes, as she began pouring. The first cup went to Billy's mother. Billy accepted the next. He was astonished to see the tea lady wink at him. He watched her pour the sergeant's tea, flick her head and wink at him too, though he appeared not to notice. Biscuits were handed round, each accompanied by a wink or a flick of invisible wasp avoidance. The biscuits were not Ginger Nuts.

  'This is the little boy that was beaten up on Orchard Road isn't it?' enquired the tea-lady, smiling sweetly at Billy. 'I'm glad to see you're all right now. I saw the man from the chemist's chasing that young hooligan - you know - him who was shot. Well it's too late to do anything now isn't it, God rest his soul. It's the mothers I feel sorry for. They bring them into this world and then they have to watch them turn out wrong and get shot.' She turned to Billy, tilting her head. 'Anyway I can see you're not like that.'

  Sergeant Burke had been on the verge of ending Mrs Taylor's interruption, when something she said caught his attention. 'Just a minute Mrs Taylor, are you quite sure it was Stan Sutcliffe you saw Mr Pearce chasing?'

  Mrs Taylor frowned indignantly. 'Of course I am. I always get my – err – what's it – facts right. I saw Mr Pearce from the chemist's chasing young – err – Sutcliffe along Camm Street where I live. They were shouting. It was before he was killed. Well I mean it was when he'd bashed nice young Billy there.'

  'Are you sure, because Mr Pearce said he could not identify the person?'

  'Well I don't know why not, they were as close as I am to you. I was cleaning my transom. I was on the inside. I'd already done the outside because of the pigeons. They're filthy those birds. I have to clean
that window twice a week no matter what. They don't bother with the others, but they get my transom every time and it's hard work getting up there with my legs ...'

  'Thank you, Mrs Taylor,' said the sergeant, standing suddenly. He ushered her back towards the door. The tea lady's head flicked and she winked and backed her chinking trolley out of the office.

  'I expect it's no surprise to hear that it was Stan who attacked you?'

  Billy was not surprised, but was still thinking of what Mrs Taylor had said; Pearce and Stan arguing like that. It struck him as distinctly odd and he decided he would have to pay her a visit to learn more.

  'I shouldn't say so, but the Sutcliffes have been on our books for years,' the sergeant was saying as Billy's thoughts surged through growing questions. He had always suspected Stan. He recalled finding the small crow bar at his feet. He had assumed then that Stan had been using it to break into the old woman's house. Perhaps it was him who had dislodged the police notice from the door and left it to fly around the skittle yard? Maybe he had been paid the fifty quid to break in, or was it something he wanted for himself, like the mythical gold coins? Billy had to find out. And also, why had Pearce pretended not to recognise Stan. Were these two things connected? Mrs Taylor, he thought, might be able to shine some light on these mysteries.

  The sergeant shuffled noisily in his chair. 'Now Billy, you were telling us about the tramp. You said he wasn't there.'

  Misery swilled over Billy. He had hoped his slip had passed unnoticed, but the sergeant's unblinking gaze burned into him from across his steaming teacup.

  'I think you've got some explaining to do, Billy,' he said. 'So! Let's begin with the tramp. Not there eh? How do you know about the tramp? You can't possibly know unless you've been up the conduit in that old boiler cellar. Come on, let's have the full story this time.'

  Billy looked at his mother. A large tear rolled down her face and plopped into her teacup, but she didn't move a muscle.

  'You were up there weren't you?' persisted Sergeant Burke. 'Were you there when Stan was shot? Did you see who did it?'

  'I was hiding. I heard them. The only voice I heard was Stan's. I heard him promise not to tell anybody. Then I heard the shot. It was massive. I was deaf, and I never saw anybody - I swear. After the shot, I hid and waited. My ears were ringing. I couldn't tell what was going on. I waited until it was safe, then I came out. That's when I saw him dead on the floor. I ran home.'

  'What time was this?'

  This was the dreaded question. When he answered it, he knew that he would never see another Sheffield Wednesday match as long as he lived. He'd be grounded for life.

  'It must have been at night,' said the sergeant, 'because we know about that tramp. We know him very well. He's a bit sensitive about the scars on his face and hands. He likes to keep out of folks' way. He usually hides and sleeps all day. He's not often seen out in daylight. Our night patrols often see him wandering round the streets. He's harmless, but even so you'd never have got up that conduit in the day time, because he would have been there. He'd have chased you out.'

  'It was after midnight …'

  'Don't be silly! You've not been out after midnight,' his mother scolded.

  'It's true Mam. I'm sorry,' he admitted tearfully. 'I waited until you were asleep, then I went out. I had to see inside the secret drawer. I thought I could get into the sale room through the heating duct.'

  ………

  CHAPTER TEN

  'I suppose it was that silly mother of mine who told you about the secret drawer,' snorted Mrs Perks bitterly.

  Thank gimbals, thought Billy, his sense of relief enough to ripple a string vest. At last, she was speaking to him again. In oppressive silence, they had climbed the steep mile or so from the police station to Doctor Greenhow's surgery.

  'She's no right filling your head with nonsense. I swear she gets barmier the older she gets.'

  'She told me it was at the back of a drawer,' he argued feebly, eyes firmly focussed on the ground. 'I wanted to see if it had clues in it, but old Leaper took it to the saleroom and …'

  'And you thought it'd be all right to break into a chapel,' she interrupted, adding sanctimoniously, 'a house of God. You should be ashamed.' She sniffed and sighed. 'You might have been killed.'

  'I'm sorry, Mam.'

  'There's nothing in it, you silly boy,' she went on. 'She kept her rent book in it, that's all, and your grandmother knew that very well. She could have told you.'

  Billy was astonished that she knew anything about it. 'How did you know?'

  'Everybody knew about it. There was nothing in it. She was old and poor. She hadn't anything, certainly not gold coins like they're all saying.'

  'I wasn't looking for gold coins. I never believed that. I thought – maybe some letters, or photographs or something?'

  'Her rent book and her gas bill in her Tommy's tatty old folder. That's all.'

  'A folder?'

  'Yes, she hadn't anything worth a farthing in that whole house, the poor old thing.'

  'What about the folder?'

  'The folder?' she hooted. 'That's worth nothing; a scruffy old folder Tommy made at school. She loved it. Talking about that damn folder was the only time I ever heard her string more than half a dozen words together.' She glared at him, disappointment dulling her eyes. 'Some mothers have sons they can be proud of. Sons that make them folders, instead of making them have to take time off work to go to police stations.'

  Billy flinched, but felt he must plough onwards. He was now in so much trouble, it could hardly get worse. 'What did it look like?'

  'It was just cardboard, but it was nice. He was very good at drawing, was Tommy Loveday. He was good at anything to do with art and carving and that. He made some nice things.'

  'What was it a picture of?'

  'I don't know, sort of Egyptian. A bird, I think.'

  'And a lion?' Billy asked, staring at his mother, this font of knowledge he had overlooked.

  'You see, I sometimes took her bill in to the gas board in town when I went to pay ours,' she explained. 'They'd all made folders at school, something to do with history. They all made them. Not me though, I wasn't in the same class.'

  Another bombshell of amazement exploded in his head. 'You knew Tommy Loveday at school?' he spluttered. 'That's unbelievable.'

  'Of course I did,' she piped. 'I went to school, didn't I? I didn't just spring from the ground, ready formed as your mother you know. I was a child too once, though not as stupid and disobedient as you.' She glared at him as if doubting he could possibly be her son. 'Tommy was younger than me,' she went on. 'We never had anything to do with each other. All I remember is they made fun of him because he was quiet like - you know - a bit shy.'

  They had reached the Doctor's surgery. Mrs Perks put her shoulder to the ornate cast-iron gate at the garden entrance and pushed on through. Billy followed up a stone-flagged path. He could see the doctor's Rover parked in front of the coach house doors, one of which now leaned on its recently broken hinge.

  The doctor's house stood on a gentle rise, overlooking extensive gardens. It was an imposing stone villa, the sort of house successful cutlers built to impress their friends in the eighteen eighties. A border of copper beech, and chestnut trees assured its tranquillity. A monkey-puzzle tree dominated the perfect lawn.

  A dimly lit white glass sphere, about the size of a soccer ball, hung from a lamp bracket over a side door. On it, black lettering spelled the word SURGE. Halting beneath it, Mrs Perks pressed a bell push. After a worrying delay, an old woman admitted them, scrutinising them closely. She ushered them to one of two battered pine benches in a joyless entrance hall, which served as the doctor's waiting room. Its green and cream painted walls were in urgent need of refreshing.

  'It's Perks, isn't it? You're lucky you are. The Doctor wants to see you himself,' said the woman, enunciating the word doctor, with all the reverence and awe that one might reserve for the King, or Sir Len Hu
tton. 'When I showed him the list this morning he said as how I was to make sure he sees Perks himself. "Don't let young Hadfield see him," he told me. Oh yes, you're very lucky you are.'

  At that moment, Greenhow opened his consulting room door. A middle-aged woman, wrapped in furs, beneath a large veiled hat, sallied forth like a galleon. Bidding her an effusive farewell, Greenhow mimed frantic instructions to his receptionist to open the outer door for the woman's stately egress. Squashing themselves back against the wall to make room, Mrs Perks and Billy watched anxiously as the woman hissed sedately by. Billy felt enveloped in her aura of powder and perfume. He gaped, transfixed by the glass eyes of several dead animals gazing forlornly from her coat collar.

  'This is Perks,' the receptionist told the doctor, indicating to Billy.

  Old Greenhow's eyes remained fixed on the rear end of his departing patient as it disappeared regally behind the closing door. Finally, he turned to Billy, and then glanced sourly around his crowded waiting room. 'I'll see Perks now,' he barked to his receptionist, as if she alone could hear him. 'Send the rest of them home. Tell them Hadfield's had to go out on a call, or some such thing.'

  'Aye but Doctor, I'm reight badly tha knows,' one woman cried angrily. 'I've been waiting for thee for over an hour.'

  'Ayup, I wer eer before thee,' another cried. 'And th'art not as badly as me.'

  'I am badly tha knows. I were across our yard last neet more times than a weshin line.'

  'We can wait,' Mrs Perks offered, anxious to avoid trouble.

  'This way boy, don't waste my time,' said the doctor. 'Is this your mother?' Flustered, Billy nodded as the doctor gave him a patronising swat with an ink spattered, brown paper file, and ushered him into his consulting room. Mrs Perks followed, only to be cut off by the doctor closing the door on her.

  'I'm sure we don't need your mummy. You're a big enough fellow to look after yourself - eh?'

  Silent and rigid, Billy eyed him nervously. The memory of him kicking his car was still fresh in his mind. Greenhow washed his hands, studying Billy through a mirror fixed over a small sink. 'You're a bit of an adventurer, I hear?'