by Lynne Truss
He pined for his quiet life at home in Brighton, where his evenings were largely spent listening to orchestral concerts on the wireless while reading Somerset Maugham, with Johann Sebastian (the cat) curled up on his lap. Here in London, there had been grand dinners in his honour; invitations to glamorous galas in Shaftesbury Avenue; honorary membership of a Pall Mall club where he sat for three solid hours one evening pretending to be humbled and awed (but actually bored to tears) by a roomful of dinner-jacketed and cigar-smoking Tory grandees. To his credit, he managed not to ask Lord Astor where he lived or what he did for a living, but only because he had learned the dangers of such seemingly innocuous questions on a previous occasion when the chap turned out to be the Archbishop of Canterbury.
But Inspector Steine had an additional reason for wanting to go home. It wasn’t just that he was fed up with shaking hands with these puffed-up individuals. There was one particular London journalist who was making a nuisance of himself, and it was getting serious. This wasp of a man had attended every press conference and from the start he had probed Steine in awkward and embarrassing ways.
‘Clive Hoskisson, Daily Mirror,’ he’d said, standing up at the first, hugely well-attended press conference at Scotland Yard, a few days after the events of the Bank Holiday Monday. He wore a distinctive white raincoat and a brown trilby. Steine, expecting further anodyne questions of the ‘How does it feel to be a national hero?’ variety, benignly nodded at him to proceed.
‘My readers would like me to ask you a few questions, just to clarify the order of events on that extraordinary day, Inspector.’
‘Of course. I’d be happy to explain again.’ Steine leaned forward, folding his hands. ‘Over the weekend, Mr Chambers had shot and killed ten well-known regional organised crime leaders at the Metropole Hotel, leaving their bodies in a room on the sixth floor. You may have seen the list. On the Monday afternoon, Mr Chambers left the hotel and proceeded to the House of Hanover Milk Bar on the seafront where his luck ran out. Mr Chambers was a well-known villain, and since he had just slain ten people and was still armed, I shot him.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
There was a spontaneous round of applause.
‘You’re welcome.’ Steine smiled then looked around. ‘Next question?’
‘But, Inspector—?’ Unconventionally, Hoskisson had remained standing. He also still had his hat on, which showed a regrettable lack of breeding.
‘Yes?’
‘What my readers are wondering is why you happened to have that gun with you, sir, when you were ostensibly expecting only to announce the winner of a local ice-cream sundae competition.’
‘Why I had the gun?’ Steine laughed. ‘Well, it was a good job I did have the gun. Think about this logically, for goodness’ sake. If I hadn’t had the gun, I couldn’t have shot him!’
The press corps laughed along with Steine, and there were calls for Hoskisson to make way for others. But he didn’t.
‘My readers are confused, sir,’ persisted the reporter. ‘Are you saying you knew what Chambers was up to, killing all those men at the Metropole Hotel? Because the way my readers see it, if you were aware of his plans, wouldn’t it have been your duty as a policeman to stop him? But if you weren’t aware of those plans, they ask again – and it’s a very simple question, sir – why were you armed?’
Steine shook his head and sighed. ‘What’s your name again?’
‘Clive Hoskisson. Daily Mirror.’
A small jeer was heard, and some tutting. Someone said, ‘Take your hat off!’ Hoskisson was unpopular with some of his counterparts, it seemed.
‘Well, Mr Hoskisson,’ said Steine sternly, ‘I think you and your so-called readers are deliberately missing the point. By common consent, the shooting dead of Terence Chambers was a very, very good thing. Your own newspaper called it a “Boon to Britain”. The man was a known psychopath and kingpin of organised crime in London, who was evidently planning to expand his empire by removing all his rivals.’
‘I know, but—’
‘There are no buts. I accept no buts.’
‘But—’
‘I repeat, no buts.’
‘But—’
‘Everyone is glad he’s dead, and so should you be.’
‘Yes, but all I’m asking is: did you know what Chambers had just been—’
Steine was starting to lose patience. ‘I don’t see how this is any of your business. The question is irrelevant and you are making a fool of yourself.’
‘But why did you have a gun?’
Steine shook his head, exasperated. One minute you’re expected to know that the primate of all England lives in Lambeth, of all places; the next you have to account for your heroic actions to a worm like this? He pointed a finger at the reporter and looked around for help. ‘Can this man in the hat be removed, please?’ he said.
At which, to the general approval of all the other assembled journalists, Hoskisson was bundled from the room by two constables, and his notebook illegally confiscated.
But the wasp-reporter didn’t give up. In the ensuing weeks, Steine received daily requests from Hoskisson for an interview (which he ignored), and he spotted the objectionable white raincoat and brown trilby virtually every time he left his Mayfair hotel. On entering Broadcasting House to share his Desert Island Discs with Roy Plomley, he saw Hoskisson lurking outside. And when he came out, the man was still there.
‘What records did you choose, Inspector?’ called the reporter. ‘Did you ask for Betty Hutton singing “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun”?’
Steine had had enough. It was on this day that he decided to share his annoyance with the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and it was the commissioner who, imaginatively, sanctioned the immediate secondment of the legendary Miss Roberta Lennon to Brighton, as Steine’s special personal secretary (i.e. effective human shield). If there was one thing the commissioner really enjoyed, it was using his powers to quash legitimate concerns raised by a pesky press.
‘Miss Lennon will protect you, old boy,’ he said, patting Inspector Steine’s shoulder. ‘Trust me, she’s a force of nature. I’ve been meaning to suggest it since this whole thing kicked off. Send her ahead of you down to Brighton tomorrow, then you follow the next day; sneak out of your hotel the back way at the crack of dawn and I’ll have a car waiting.’
The inspector was both grateful and impressed. ‘Thank you, sir. It’s a mite underhanded but necessary in the circumstances.’
‘Which is my exact personal motto, Steine! Oh, yes. Trust me. Pragmatism, that’s the key to success in this profession.’
‘Is it?’
‘Of course!’
Steine attempted to absorb this, but couldn’t.
‘By the way, before you go.’ The commissioner lowered his voice. ‘I hope my Soho chaps haven’t been too hard on you over this Chambers business.’
‘No, no!’ laughed Steine. Then, confused, ‘For what?’
‘Well, for halving their income, in some cases!’
Steine had no idea what the commissioner was talking about.
‘I mean, I shouldn’t say it, but between you and me, my own lady wife is furious with you. Furious! Chambers flew us out to Torremolinos last year for a fortnight, and she said it was the best holiday she ever had. And then of course there were the cases of spirits at Christmas.’
He sat back and lit a cigarette. ‘Oh, well. Win some, lose some. But I can’t imagine that boy Nicky Garroway carrying on those honourable traditions, can you? Far too green. And not much up top either.’
Steine gave up trying to understand. Who was ‘that boy Nicky Garroway’? Why would a notorious villain send alcohol to the highest-ranking officer in the police? Where was Torremolinos?
He changed the subject. ‘I’m wondering, sir, should I be scared of this Lennon woman myself?’
The commissioner roared with laughter and clapped him again on the shoulder. ‘Not at all, old boy! That’s the joy of
it! Miss Lennon is loyal to an almost insane degree. When it comes to protective instincts, there’s no one like her. If that reporter comes near you, she will chew him up whole and spit out his bones.’
When the commissioner so glibly mentioned young Nicky Garroway in connection with future backhanders, he little knew how empty were his hopes for more Spanish holidays from that particular quarter. Because, at the time he spoke, Nicky was lying lifeless beside an abandoned Humber on a grass verge just a mile west of Brighton. He’d been struck on the head with a rock, dying instantly. Since the shooting of Terence Chambers, the great man’s young acolyte had barely been seen around Soho, and he’d been notably absent from the ostentatious funeral, with its intimidating slow-march procession of scar-faced hoodlums through the sombre streets of Stepney. If Nicky had ever intended to take up the reins of the organisation, the funeral would have been the ideal moment to stake his claim.
But in fact he had never entertained such ambitions. With the death of Chambers, Nicky did not sense opportunity. He felt only youthful shame, anger, and an unquenchable lust for revenge.
But what designs had he formed? In what cause had he been killed? It was as yet unclear.
When his body was eventually reported to the police, the attending officers found evidence of another person in the vehicle – a person who had, presumably, delivered the killer-blow and then scarpered. A suit of prison clothes lay crumpled up on the back seat, together with a large-scale map of Berkshire, with a route drawn on it in ballpoint pen towards the tiny village of Crowthorne. Also in the car were a shovel and some stout wire-cutters, a tarpaulin and a thick wool blanket.
On inspection, the prison clothes revealed that they were the ‘PROPERTY OF BROADMOOR’, and also that the prisoner’s number and name were ‘142, CHAUCER, GEOFFREY’.
‘What, like the poet?’ said the constable at the scene, in a disbelieving tone.
‘See for yourself,’ said his partner, holding up the collar of the jacket with the name-tag turned out.
‘Unusual,’ commented the PC, snapping his notebook shut.
Back at the police station, with Brunswick and Twitten still sensibly preferring to stay out of doors (despite the rain), Mrs Groynes wheeled a trolley with a newly filled tea-urn along the dimly lit corridor from the lift. She took her time. In ordinary circumstances she would be keen to get back to the office and implement the first stage of a cunning plot to annihilate her sizeable new enemy in the shortest possible time. Nobody quoted fire regulations at Palmeira Groynes and got away with it. But today her fury with the interloper Miss Lennon kept being displaced by worries of other sorts; there was just too much to think about.
The main thing was: what had been sent to Twitten in that envelope? Who had sent it, and where was it now? (She had opened his locker with ease and found nothing.) Secondly, where had Barrow-Boy Cecil got to, and why hadn’t she noticed he’d gone? Thirdly (and most importantly), why was she overcome with a sense of foreboding? Was it just the abysmal wet and overcast weather, or something more?
Stopping to light a cigarette, she winced to remember the encounter with Twitten outside the locker room, when he had so obviously lied to her. There was no mistaking the expression on his face: he had looked afraid, but also triumphant. This was not a welcome development. For a very enjoyable three months the clever-clogs constable had been powerless to make a case against her, and a friendship of convenience had formed as a result. She had helped him, advised him, confided in him, and (when necessary) gently pulled the wool over his eyes. But today she had seen a different Twitten – a Twitten who believed he had the upper hand – and she didn’t like the way it made her feel.
How far would she go to stop him? That was the question. How far would she go against Constable Twitten if she knew he was in a position to expose her?
‘Mrs Groynes?’
She looked round. It was a boy’s voice, whispering.
‘Shorty?’
‘I’m over here, Mrs G.’
A rolled-up copy of the Beano poked out from behind an open cupboard door, and she went to investigate. And there he was, this adorable boy in shorts who every day gave policemen on patrol a plausible (and slightly revolting) excuse as to why he wasn’t at school. ‘My mum’s taking me to the nit clinic; she told me to meet her here; she says I’m overrun’; ‘They had to shut the school because of the rats.’ He was a very promising juvenile, Shorty; a sharp kid, quick to learn. As his employer, Mrs Groynes cared about his welfare. Nevertheless she was cross with him right now.
‘I told you never to come in here, Shorty!’
‘I know.’
‘So what are you playing at?’
‘Sorry, Mrs—’
‘How did you even get in?’
‘Ah.’ He smiled at her, and proudly kicked a damp cardboard box on the floor. ‘Said I was delivering that, didn’t I?’ he said triumphantly. ‘I said it was a cake!’
‘Well, that was clever.’
‘People never say no to cake, see?’
‘You’re not wrong, Shorty.’ She patted his head. ‘You might say my whole career is based on that one principle. But that doesn’t explain why you’re here.’
‘Look, I told Denise you wouldn’t want me coming, but she told me I got to. You should-a seen her, Mrs G! She was right shook up. She told me to bring you this.’
From his pocket he retrieved something wrapped in a large handkerchief and handed it to her. ‘I ain’t looked at it,’ he said. ‘But she said to tell you it come down the tube!’
Mrs Groynes gently folded back the hankie to reveal – well, we know what it revealed: the ghastly severed finger; the upsetting shards of shattered bunny; the note saying that Shorty would be next in line if Mrs Groynes was informed. When she opened it up, part of the mechanism went (faintly) Fzzzz-zzzz.
She gasped, and staggered. It was as if she’d been struck. Oh, Cecil! What have they done to you? And I hadn’t even noticed you’d gone! I just thought it was too rainy for selling worthless toot on street corners!
She swallowed. What should she do? ‘You’re sure you didn’t read this note, Shorty?’
‘No, Mrs G. I told ya. Denise told me not to.’
‘Good. That’s good. You’re a good boy.’
‘She was white as a sheet, Mrs G. I never seen her like it afore. She went the colour you’ve gone now!’
‘Right. Well, I’m not surprised.’ Mrs G felt faint. If someone knew to target both Cecil and Shorty, they knew far too much about her.
‘But she said to ask, did she do the right thing telling you?’
‘Oh, yes. Yes, of course.’ Mrs Groynes crouched down and gave Shorty a quick hug. ‘But don’t you go running back to tell her that, not now.’
‘No?’
‘No. We’ll see her later, together. I’ve got to think about what’s best for everyone, dear.’
Standing up again, Mrs Groynes put her hands to her face. Who was doing this? Who was behind it?
‘Tell you what, Shorty. Can you pretend to be my nephew? I’ll take you back to the office and you can read your comic until it’s time to go home.’
‘All right. Can I push the trolley?’
‘No, dear. There’s a knack.’
Shorty pulled a face. He would have liked to push the trolley.
‘Are we at war, Mrs G?’ he asked conversationally, as they made their way along the corridor together. ‘Denise said we might be, but when I said at war with who, then, she said, how the hell did she know, and gave me a clip round the ear!’
Three
In the annals of crime, it’s surprising how few violent criminals have shared their names with those of the great English poets. Well-informed readers will of course point at once to the cases of Johnny ‘Bloodbath’ Keats and Elizabeth Barrett ‘Bone-crusher’ Browning – but those are famous anomalies.
So, in the early 1950s, when Geoff Chaucer from Billericay started his extraordinary campaign of boiling the heads of rece
ntly decapitated policemen, you’d have expected it to cause more of a stir in the public imagination. But, alas, in philistine post-war England, even the greatest of fourteenth-century poets were held in shockingly low regard (as were the police), and our Geoff had boiled up the bonces of three London constables before he was arrested, determined unfit for trial, and wisely committed to the top-security hospital we have recently identified as Broadmoor. Meanwhile, the case was kept as quiet as possible, for fear of causing both a sharp rise in public anxiety and a concomitant plummet in police recruitment.
What had made him commit these atrocities, though? He never explained, because, in truth, he didn’t know. Chaucer was a man who suffered short episodes of extreme mania sparked by a mystery stimulus – which was as far as his official diagnosis went until, in August 1957, a new psychologist presented herself to Broadmoor’s governor, formally asking permission to conduct some interviews. It was an unusual request. The governor was surprised, and a bit suspicious, but the lady’s credentials were excellent, and the more he thought about it, the more inclined he was to welcome her to his gloomy institution. What harm could she do? Besides, she would be a new person to talk to, and he was catastrophically lonely. It was two years now since his wife had left him, by ignominiously running off to Cumberland with the gardener.
The new arrival’s name was Miss Sibert. She had worked with Sigmund Freud in Vienna before the war, and then travelled with him to London. Her speciality was recovering buried memories, and her plan (she said) was to write a case study of Mr Chaucer, whose name she pronounced ‘Chow-tza’. She hoped to name a psychosis after him. Until recently, she explained, she had been helping Mr A. S. Crystal, a famous London theatre critic, retrieve details of a traumatic experience, and the process had been progressing in a highly satisfactory manner until he was unfortunately shot in the head.
