Murder from the Newsdesk

by Peter Bartram

  He had a balaclava knitted out of brown wool.

  And he was carrying a baseball bat.

  “He’s not here for a packet of pork scratchings,” I whispered to Fred. A bead of sweat had broken out on his top lip.

  Balaclava Man glanced up and down the street, then swaggered into the shop. He slammed the door. Strode menacingly towards Fred. Thumped the baseball bat on the counter with a force which sent a cloud of dust into the air.

  He pointed at Fred: “Open the till and give me the takings. The lot.” He had a basso profundo voice that was muffled by the balaclava so that he sounded like a bear with laryngitis.

  I glanced at Fred. Sweat was now trickling down his temples. His lower lip was quivering. He tried to speak but somehow his false teeth had become unhinged and he let out a high-pitched squeak like a mouse trapped in a hole.

  Fred never had any cash to speak of in the till. When he’d accumulated a couple of quid, he’d be up the street to the bookies to lose it on some three-legged nag at Kempton Park.

  So I said: “Better do as he says.”

  Balaclava Man swivelled round. “Shut it. When I want your help, I’ll ask for it.”

  The till went kerrching and Fred rummaged in the cash drawer. His hands shook as he handed over the cash. One pound seven and nine pence.

  “Where’s the rest?” Balaclava Man didn’t look like the sort who’d be easily satisfied.

  Fred quivered like a feather in a storm. His teeth squeaked again. He jabbered something incomprehensible.

  “I think he’s telling you that’s all the money on the premises,” I said.

  Balaclava Man pointed the baseball bat at me. “I told you to keep it shut,”

  He swung back to Fred. “Now give me the rest or your mouthy pal gets a beating – then I’ll finish you, grandpa.”

  Balaclava Man waved his baseball bat and jabbed it twice into my chest. I staggered back.

  “That’s just a taster of what’s coming,” he said.

  I said: “Take it easy. I’m sure we can find a way to work this out.”

  The balaclava twitched in what I took for a grin. “Now you’re thinking straight,” he said.

  I took a couple of deep breaths and said: “For example, did you know that a couple of stitches have dropped in your balaclava and I can see the mole on your cheek?”

  Instinctively, balaclava man reached up to feel his face. I seized the gin bottle by its neck and swung heavily at his arm.

  The bottle connected with the baseball bat and shattered. Balaclava Man dropped the bat. He lunged at me. But I swung the broken bottle at him and caught him on the wrist. My thrust drew blood. He yelled and grasped his arm. I could see blood soaking into his jacket’s sleeve.

  “Bastard,” he yelled. “I’ll get you.”

  He ran for the door. He was gone before I could pick up the bat and chase after him.

  I walked to the door and watched him racing down Chatham Place.

  I turned back into the shop. Fred was behind the counter. His face was more ghostly than usual but he looked as though he was recovering. It wouldn’t be the first time his penchant for bad company had led to trouble. He was winding the strand of hair round his head.

  I said: “I need to use your phone.”

  Fred’s quivering finger pointed to his office.

  I called the Chronicle and got through to Frank Figgis, my news editor. I told him what had happened.

  He said: “Are you hurt?”

  “Superficial bruising. Nothing serious.”

  “Good that means you don’t need to go to the hospital. You can phone in your copy now. I’ll put you through to the copy-takers.”

  Figgis is all heart.

  ***

  Frank Figgis said: “I don’t want to make you out as some kind of superman. No doubt that Cartland plied you with a bottle or two to show his gratitude.”

  “Not exactly,” I said. “He made me pay four pence for using his telephone.”

  It was the following morning and we were in Figgis’s office at the Evening Chronicle. My heroics had made a half a column on the front page of the previous evening’s night final.

  Figgis reached for his Woodbines, shook one out of the packet and lit up. He took a long drag on the fag. Had a throaty cough. Gargled up something thick and green. Spat the Uncle Hector into his waste bin.

  “Well aimed,” I said.

  “They say smoking’s bad for you.” he said. “Those quacks don’t know what they’re talking about. Nothing like a Woodie for clearing out the early morning tubes.”

  I said: “You’ll be emulating the wine buffs and setting up an expectorant corner next.”

  He stroked his chin. “Not a bad idea. But let’s get back to business. Here’s one that it might be worth taking a look at. If only to bring you down to earth.”

  He shoved a sheet of message pad across his desk. “Came into the newsdesk yesterday.”

  I scanned through the scrawled writing. It appeared that a Mrs Mabel Wainwright had had a red sock stolen from her washing line two days ago, on Tuesday. The following day, the thief had returned and stolen one blue sock.

  I said: “So a one-legged man is trying to fill up his sock drawer. Is this really worth bothering about?”

  Figgis harrumphed. “If your improbable supposition is correct, we have a story.”

  I shrugged. “If my improbable suggestion is correct, we have a freak show. But don’t be surprised if this proves to be a waste of my time.”

  I stood up and moved to the door.

  Figgis said: “Look on the bright side. At least Mrs Wainwright won’t be wielding a baseball bat.”

  ***

  I stomped back to my desk.

  After yesterday’s adventure, the thought of writing a story about a missing red sock didn’t exactly sound like the scoop of the year.

  So before I headed out to meet Brighton’s number one hosiery theft victim, I put through a call to Detective Inspector Ted Wilson at the cop shop. Ted was one of the few 'tecs at the cop shop who would talk to me off the record.

  “So it’s crime-buster Crampton,” he said. “Scourge of the criminal classes.”

  Ted was a Sussex man whose lazy drawl always reminded me of country lanes and mill ponds.

  “You can forget the sarcastic bumpkin act,” I said. “Any sightings of Balaclava Man?”

  Ted cleared his throat, a sign he had no hard information. “Big man, ordinary clothes, no description of his face. Doesn’t give us much to go on. He could be any of ten thousand men in Brighton.”

  I thought about the cut my broken bottle had made to his wrist. “No reports from the Royal Sussex County hospital?”

  “He’ll have avoided accident and emergency and patched himself up.”

  “His jacket will be blood-stained.”

  “That’ll be at the bottom of a bin by now. Do you know how many there are in Brighton?”

  “Probably only one with a blood-stained jacket,” I said.

  “But we don't know where it is.”

  “So can I quote you that enquiries are proceeding?” I asked.

  “If you must,” Ted said. He rang off.

  I picked up my notebook and headed for the door.

  ***

  Mabel Wainwright lived in an end-terrace house just off Queens Park Road, in that fringe of Brighton where houses with back yards give way to houses with gardens. Her garden was separated from an alley which ran between the houses by a low wall.

  Mabel had a small garden where she’d planted some nasturtiums. They’d turned brown weeks ago.

  I said: “So this is where you hang your socks out to dry?”

  “They’re not my socks – they’re my husband’s. And they cost two and nine pence a pair at Debenham's.”

  Mabel Wainwright was a tall beanpole of a woman with a long nose and a pedantic manner. She was wearing an apron over a tweed skirt.

  “And you hang them out one pair at a time?” I aske
d.

  “Every evening.” She sniffed. “My husband works on the bins.”

  “He’s a dustman?”

  She sniffed again. No doubt inevitable if your husband's a dustman. “Anyway, when he comes in after a day walking the streets, you can imagine what his feet are like.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “So I wash out his socks and hang them out to dry over-night.”

  I pointed. “On this washing line?” It stretched across the small garden from a bracket on the house wall at one end to a convenient horse chestnut tree at the bottom of the garden.

  “I hang the socks right at this end of the line,” Mabel said. “Just outside the backdoor.”

  I looked at the line. It was tied onto the bracket just above the door, then it looped down in the middle before rising to a fixing on the tree.

  “The red sock was stolen on Tuesday night?” I said.

  “And the blue one on Wednesday.”

  “With the culprit presumably climbing over the wall from the alley.”

  “Well, he certainly didn’t knock on the front door.”

  Mabel was getting a bit above herself, so I said: “And why shouldn’t he, when you’ve made it so easy to climb over this wall? A child of five could have done it.”

  She pursued her lips. “That’s ridiculous. A child of five could never reach the line.”

  The line was six feet off the ground. She was probably right. But what did it matter? There was no news here – and Figgis knew it. Sending me here was his bizarre revenge for making myself the centre of attention by thwarting Balaclava Man’s attempted robbery. But I wasn’t wasting any more time.

  So I gave Old Mother Wainwright my most winning smile. “Thank you for your time. It’s been fascinating.”

  I turned to leave.

  “Before you go.” I looked back. Mabel had a malicious light in her eye. “You haven’t been experiencing sock thefts yourself, have you? Only I couldn’t help noticing you’re wearing one brown sock and one grey.”

  I grinned. “Not at all. I’ve got another pair just like this.”

  ***

  The mystery of the single red sock was going to be a non-story as I’d always expected.

  I put it out of my mind. And as I walked back into town, I thought some more about the raid at the off-licence. I was nursing a couple of purple bruises on my chest where Balaclava Man had prodded me with the baseball bat. I’d take a personal pleasure in writing a story about his arrest.

  So I stepped into a phone box and put another call through to Ted Wilson.

  “Balaclava Man still on the run?” I asked.

  “Probably hiding up somewhere in town,” Ted said. “And we’re now more anxious to find him.”

  “How so?”

  “There’s a rumour going round the station that he could be Big Brucie Dangerfield.”

  I gave a low whistle. Dangerfield was a London hard case with a string of convictions for violent crimes. The previous week, he’d been involved in a bungled raid on the National Provincial bank in Streatham in south London. Police had been tipped off. Two gang members had been arrested. But Dangerfield had shot and wounded a young constable, then escaped by hijacking a bread delivery van. Now police forces throughout the country were on the look-out for Dangerfield.

  “So what’s Dangerfield doing in Brighton?” I asked.

  “Theory is he’s lying low while he arranges a get-away to the continent. I guess he must be in need of funds – hence the offie raid yesterday. Looks like he’s losing his touch.”

  “And you’d like to collar him for attempted robbery at the bank - and at Fred’s place?”

  “It’s a murder charge now,” Ted said. “We heard the young copper he shot died this morning.” He hung up.

  ***

  I turned into St James Street thinking about whether there was anything else I could remember about the raid at Fred’s place now that it had become a bigger story.

  “Tuppence for the Guy, mister.”

  I looked down. A young lad – couldn’t have been more than seven or eight – was grinning up at me. He was wearing a ragged shirt and short trousers. He had a school cap at a sideways angle on his head in a Just William pose.

  I’d forgotten it was November the fourth, the day before Guy Fawkes Day.

  “Whatever happened to penny for the Guy?” I said.

  “Ain’t you heard of inflation, mister?” He turned to another lad standing at his shoulder. “He ain’t heard of inflation, Arnie.”

  Arnie grinned. He had freckles on his cheeks and a gap where one of his milk teeth had fallen out.

  “The penny banger is tuppence this year, mister,” he said. “That’s why Bertie and me wants the extra copper.”

  I grinned and reached into my pocket. “So where’s the Guy?”

  They pointed to a doorway where the stuffed figure lay propped up against a dustbin.

  My heartbeat quickened like it always does when I know I’m about to land a big story. Arnie and Bertie had made a good job of the Guy.

  It was a convincing figure dressed with a mask and hat. With trousers and socks stuffed into a pair of ragged plimsolls.

  One red sock.

  One blue sock.

  But it wasn’t the socks that riveted my attention. The Guy was dressed in a jacket. A common grey check jacket. Thousands of them sold from Burton’s bargain rail.

  But not with a blood stain on the arm.

  “Great Guy,” I said. “Except it’s got odd socks.”

  Arnie looked anxiously at Bertie. Bertie looked anxiously at Arnie.

  “So what?” Arnie couldn’t quite manage bravado. I could see the worry behind his eyes.

  “I know where you got those socks.”

  “Bet you don’t.” There wasn’t much conviction in Arnie’s voice.

  “Bet you I do. You snitched them from Mrs Wainwright’s washing line.”

  The pair exchanged worried glances.

  “You won’t tell, will you, mister?” Bertie said. “We got sixpence. We’ll give you that if you don’t tell.”

  “I don’t want your sixpence,” I said. “But why one red sock and one blue.”

  Arnie decided he’d be spokesman. “We goes up the alley beside Ma Wainwright’s place most nights and see the socks. Trouble is she pegs one of them so high up on the line we can only reach one. So Bertie nips over the wall the first night and nabs one red and I nip over the next night for one blue.”

  Old Mother Wainwright had been right – a child of five couldn’t reach the washing line. But a child of seven could reach up where the line looped lower to grab one sock from each pair.

  “We can give ‘em back, if you won’t tell,” Bertie said.

  “I’m not going to tell. In fact, I’ll add ten bob to your firework fund if you tell me where you got the jacket.”

  The pair exchanged grins.

  “No problem there, mister,” Arnie said. “The party what owned the jacket chucked it in the dustbin. We saw him, didn’t we Bertie? Hiding we was, further down the alley. We sneaked up and rescued the coat from the bin when the party had gone back in the house. Right down the bottom of the bin it was, too. Bertie nearly fell in leaning over to yank it out.”

  “And you could take me to that house?”

  “If you give us the ten bob.”

  I opened my wallet and handed over the brown ten shilling note.

  “There’s something else,” I said.

  Arnie and Bertie exchanged more anxious glances.

  “I’m going to need the jacket,” I said.

  “We can show you the house. But we ain’t giving you no jacket.” Bertie was plainly going to be a tough negotiator. “If we turns up with a Guy without a jacket we stands no chance of winning the best Guy competition tomorrow night at The Level.”

  “Besides it got a stain on the sleeve, mister,” added Arnie.

  I looked at my own jacket. I’d bought it just two weeks ago – and not
from Burton’s bargain rail, either. Italian tailoring. Latest style. Fine fabric. Silk lining. Was it worth exchanging for a blood-stained Burton’s bargain?

  No.

  But for a scoop…

  I shrugged out of it and handed it to Arnie. “But you’d consider a swap, I assume.”

  ***

  “The Chronicle led armed detectives to the alleged killer of a young police constable this morning,” my story in the Night Final edition began.

  I was sitting in shirt-sleeves at my desk in the office later that day reading the front page. The blood-stained coat was already with the police’s forensic officers. I hadn’t yet had time to buy a replacement for my Italian jacket. It would be the priciest garment going up in flames tomorrow night.

  I was thinking about the story I’d write for the November the fifth issue about two young lads who’d uncovered the evidence that led to the arrest of a vicious killer. I’d change their names to protect the not-quite-so-innocent. Obviously.

  Frank Figgis materialised from a fug of smoke beside my desk.

  “Not often we see you in shirt-sleeve order,” he said. “And don’t think I’m going to approve the price of a new jacket on your expenses.”

  As I say, Figgis is all heart.

  The Mystery at the Beauregard Hotel

  Mrs Gribble, my landlady, said: “There’s been a double murder at the Beauregard Hotel.”

  “You mean the one star doss house near Brighton seafront?” I asked.

  Mrs Gribble sniffed. “The AA has just awarded it a second knife and fork.”

  “So now two guests can eat breakfast at the same time without sharing the cutlery.”

  “I wish you would take this seriously, Mr Crampton. Most crime reporters would bite my hand off for this story.”

  It was a grey Sunday morning early in November. I was sitting in Mrs Gribble’s back kitchen staring at the bowl of porridge she’d just served me. It looked like the kind of stuff wallpaper hangers wash down the drain at the end of a long day. The prospect of biting off any part of Mrs Gribble was even more repulsive than the porridge.