Forests of the Night

by David Stuart Davies

  ‘I can make my own way back,’ I said, on reaching the frosted door which announced ‘Gentlemen’s Lavatories’.

  My guide nodded and left me to it. Once I had relieved myself, I took a gander at my mug in the mirror over the sink. I looked like I’d been on an all night bender for a week. My skin was pale and blotchy and there was a dark ring under my good eye which made me look as though I’d been using one of those joke telescopes that have a sooty substance round the eyepiece. I swilled my face in cold water and dampened down my unruly hair. If only I could have shaved and cleaned my teeth.

  I stretched and bent over, trying to rev up my body engine. It responded nicely but my head still felt as though someone had sliced off the back of it. By the time I emerged on to the corridor, I was feeling a little more human. I tried to put a spring in my step as I passed by my fellow patients but they had lost interest in me.

  Once behind the screens, I searched for my clothes. My best suit, mud-stained and torn at the knees, was crumpled up in the locker by my bedside cabinet, as was the rest of my clobber. Like a ballet dancer in slow motion I dressed myself, grimacing and groaning softly in the process. Never has it taken a man longer to put on his underpants and trousers – or tie up his shoes. Every time I bent over, my head pounded and my vision blurred.

  After what seemed hours, I was ready to make my escape. Peering out from the screens, I could see no members of the medical Gestapo in view, so I slipped out quietly and made my way towards the exit doors. One old cove caught sight of me as I hurried by stiffly and he turned to a fellow patient in the next bed with the news, ‘I think that chap is doin’ a bunk.’

  A bunk is what I did and I felt better for it. I hate hospitals and I hate being cooped up anywhere. I followed my nose until I saw a sign which gave various directions. I headed for the children’s ward.

  There was a new porter on duty outside the boy’s room. He eyed me suspiciously, as well he might.

  ‘I’ve come to see Peter,’ I said lightly with a smile.

  ‘Have you now? And who might you be?’ His expression, glum and wary, never changed.

  ‘I’m a friend.’

  ‘Bit old for being a friend of the nipper in there, ain’t you?’

  ‘The police have given permission for me to visit him. Inspector Llewellyn arranged it.’

  ‘Did he now?’

  ‘Yes. You could ask sister.’

  As luck would have it, just at that moment the door of the room opened and a man I took to be a doctor emerged. Well, the white coat and stethoscope rather gave the game away. He looked at me with the same degree of suspicion as the porter. ‘What is it, Whittaker?’ he asked the surly sentry.

  ‘This … gentleman says he wants to see the boy.’

  The doctor gave me a further examination. ‘You look as though you’ve been in the wars yourself.’

  ‘A little case of concussion, that’s all. I’m fine.’ I repeated my request and when I mentioned David’s name and Scotland Yard, the doctor smiled and nodded. ‘Oh, yes, I know about you.’

  ‘So, can I see Peter?’

  The doctor bit his lower lip. ‘I suppose so, but he’s still not properly conscious. The fever has worsened. He’s having it rough, poor lad.’

  ‘He will pull through, won’t he?’

  ‘It’s unlikely that he won’t.’

  This circumspect reply did little to reassure me.

  ‘Come on then, just for a minute.’ The doctor ushered me into the room and then I followed.

  Standing by the bedside, I gazed down at Peter, his face flushed feverous red and shiny with perspiration, his head lolling from side to side as he mumbled something. It saddened my heart to see the poor lad in such a condition. I knelt down by him. ‘What is it, old chap?’ I said softly.

  His eyes flickered open. ‘I saw him … I saw him,’ he croaked. I couldn’t tell whether Peter was responding to my question or not. His brow contracted and his mouth tightened as though whatever was going through his fevered mind frightened him. ‘I saw him,’ he said again, his voice clearer this time. ‘Blood … blood … blood on his hands. I saw him.’

  ‘Who did you see? Peter? Who did you see?’

  He leaned forward, his eyes staring fixedly at me. ‘Tiger Blake,’ he said. ‘I saw Tiger Blake.’

  fifteen

  This time I did take a taxi. I reckoned that the trek back to Hawke Towers would just about do me in, so within minutes of leaving the confines of Charing Cross Hospital, I was in a jaunty taxi being chauffeured to my home. I also had managed to pick up a paper and I skimmed it during the journey for news on the Palfrey/Palmer case. I found what I was looking for in a small item on page four. The police had now arrested ‘the prostitute’s boyfriend, Samuel Fraser, an actor, and charged him with her murder. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Knight assured reporters that he was confident of a conviction when the case came to trial’.

  So the thick-headed, short-sighted, blinkered bombast had followed his huge proboscis, the one with the blocked nostrils, and gone for the obvious suspect and got an easy arrest. Case closed and a pat on the back for Knight. That was really bad news for Fraser. There would be no more official police investigation into the case with the result that the real culprit would get away. No doubt he or she would have read the news with a great sigh of relief. So, Johnny, boy, I told myself, it really was up to you now to nail the bastard. Easier said than done, of course for I had to admit I was really little wiser than old Dirty Knight. Those puzzle pieces were growing in number but not in clarity. I wondered if Mr Gordon Moore aka Tiger Blake really fitted into the frame. It certainly seemed that he was one of Pammie’s clients. And what about Peter’s fevered utterances about seeing Tiger Blake with blood on his hands? Of course, he’d watched the film a few nights before and it was probably images from the movie which had stayed in his mind. But I’d seen it, too, and I knew there was no scene in which Tiger had blood on his hands.

  Once I got home, I brewed myself a strong cup of tea and rustled up some slices of toast and devoured them with the savage voracity of a cave man who hadn’t eaten a breast of pterodactyl for months. After a wash and shave, and a soothing Craven A I was beginning to feel half human again. I examined my dressing with the use of two mirrors. It was dry with no sign of blood seeping through the gauze, so I was obviously on the mend. I grinned back at myself in the mirror. A cock-eyed Boris Karloff stared back at me with the same grin.

  Then I planned the rest of my day. There were a few things I wanted to check out. Again, I would have to use a taxi. I still didn’t feel energetic enough to tramp across London. I looked in my wallet: the Palfrey advance was gradually dwindling. Still, I would survive.

  I got a cab to Regent’s Terrace and walked along to the building where Pammie Palmer had her flat. As I suspected, there was no policeman on duty now. With the case being closed, solved, done and dusted, and the hangman polishing his rope, there was no need to keep the flat under surveillance. I went inside the building, rode up in the rickety lift to the third floor and knocked innocently on the door. I knew there would be no reply but I had to check. After my third attempt, I felt happy. It was good to know there was an empty flat there waiting to be scrutinized.

  It is amazing what you can do to a lock with a piece of wire, some know-how and a fair bit of patience. It was one of the tricks I learned when I first went on the beat. A grizzled sergeant who’d seemed old enough to have been one of the original Bow Street runners took a shine to me and showed me the procedure. Since then I always carried a short length of strong wire in my wallet. Kneeling down by the keyhole, I set to work. After five minutes of twisting and scraping, I heard the satisfying click of the lock bar slipping back. Open Sesame. Eat your heart out, Mr Houdini.

  Mopping my damp brow, I entered the apartment. The first thing that struck me was how tiny it was. Smart and chic certainly but on a doll’s house scale. The entrance hall ran the length of the flat with two rooms on either side. T
he first one, on the left, was the sitting room. It was sparsely and stylishly furnished but had no personality stamped on it. Signs of the recent police presence were in evidence: the carpet had been pulled back in one corner, drawers were open, most of them empty, as were the ashtrays. The locust squad had obviously been fairly thorough. It looked as though I had been consigned to the role of Detective Mother Hubbard. This impression was confirmed as I mooched around the room, lifting cushions and peering behind picture frames: the cupboard was bare.

  I crossed the hall and into the bedroom. It was a windowless room so I switched on the light. The bed had been stripped and all bed linen removed but there was a dark-crimson stain on the mattress to bear witness to murder. The blood of Pammie Palmer. I always found something unnerving about a room in which someone has died, particularly one who has died violently. There’s an unnatural chill and a hissing silence in the air which assail your senses. I didn’t want to stay here long and looking around I reckoned there was little point anyway. Again drawers had been emptied and left hanging open like lolling wooden tongues and, as I suspected, the wardrobe had been raided, the clothes no doubt having been bagged up by the lads or maybe the ladies of Scotland Yard. I never expected Knight’s bunch to have been this thorough. Although now they had charged Sam Fraser, no doubt all the items they had acquired would be regarded as unnecessary evidence and squirrelled away without examination in a dark corner of Scotland Yard. The pity of it.

  Some strange instinct made me touch the bed, my fingers running across the mattress towards the patch of dried blood. I wasn’t a stranger to death or to murder but I never felt comfortable with it. The enormity of one person taking another’s life – for whatever reason – chilled me to the marrow. How deep into the dark forests of the night does one have to go before one can summon up sufficient strength and malevolence to commit murder? I didn’t want to know the answer.

  I took one last look round and was about to leave when I noticed a note pad on the bedside table by the telephone. On further inspection, I saw that the pad was blank, but as I leaned over it to examine it, I caught sight of something white that had slipped down the back of the table. I pulled it away from the wall to discover that one of the sheets from the pad had slipped down there. It had been missed by the locust squad.

  With a dry mouth and beating heart, I picked up the paper. It had numbers on it. A telephone number – unless I was woefully mistaken. I gave the sheet a little kiss and sat on the bed and dialled the number. The phone rang and rang. I waited. It rang and rang. I gave it two minutes but still it rang. Well, it appears they are out then, Johnny boy, whoever they are, I told myself.

  I was just about to replace the receiver when miraculously it was picked up at the other end. Initially I was assailed by a bout of violent coughing and then a rough male voice bellowed down the wires, ‘’Allo!’

  ‘Hello,’ I replied cheerily. ‘Who is that speaking?’

  ‘Who wants ter know?’

  ‘This is John Hawke. I … er … I was wanting to speak to Mr Chaplin.’ I made the name up on the spur of the moment and I suddenly had a vision of the little tramp with the bowler hat and cane.

  ‘Well, this ain’t him. My name’s not Chaplin.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ I said, apologetically. ‘What address is that?’

  ‘Are you trying to be funny, mate? This is no bloomin’ address. It’s a ruddy phone box. I’ve been waiting outside for nigh on two minutes waiting for it to stop ringing so I can call my missus.’

  A phone box!

  ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ I said, not wanting to increase this fellow’s indignation any more. ‘I’ll get off the line straight away so that you can call your missus but would you be kind enough to tell me where the box is?’

  ‘It’s on the corner of Berner’s Street and Boynton Street. That do you?’

  ‘Thank you, Mr…?’

  ‘Never you mind who.’

  And the phone went dead.

  When I hit the street again, I was glad of the fresh air. For some moments I stood on the pavement taking deep breaths, expunging the air of death from my lungs. The fresh supply of oxygen must have rushed to my brain nourishing and energizing it for something clicked up there in my rather sore medulla oblongata. As I stood with my back to the building which housed Pammie Palmer’s flat, I realized for the first time that I was facing Regent’s Park. The railings, the trees, you dummy! Yes, that’s Regent’s Park. And it was in Regent’s Park where young Peter was found camping out. Young Peter who rambled deliriously about seeing Tiger Blake with blood on his hands. I turned my head to look at the block of flats and then back again to Regent’s Park. I shouldn’t have moved my head so quickly, not in my rather delicate recuperative state. My vision blurred and I staggered back against the railings, grabbing them for support.

  I must have seemed drunk to the elderly lady passing by for she gave me a wide berth and a nasty look. I didn’t care. I had made a connection. If Tiger Blake, aka Gordon Moore, had visited Pammie on the night of her death, had murdered her in fact, he could have been seen leaving the building by Peter from some hidey-hole in the park. And if Moore had murdered Pammie – a vision of that stained mattress flashed into my mind – then he may well have had blood on his hands. Suddenly some of those puzzle pieces were beginning to slip into place.

  sixteen

  ‘There is only one way to get out of here … and that’s by killing the guards.’

  The beautiful blonde girl blanched and her bosom heaved, straining against her sweat-soaked shirt. ‘But how?’ she squealed. ‘They’ve got your gun.’

  Tiger Blake clenched his teeth and with a deft movement extracted a cruel-looking knife from the top of one of his riding boots. It flashed in the light. ‘This should do the trick,’ he grinned and then froze.

  ‘Cut! That’s a print,’ came a voice beyond the lights.

  ‘Thank the fuck for that,’ observed Tiger Blake in uncharacteristic fashion. Turning his back on his leading lady he walked out of the prison cell on to the studio floor.

  ‘That’s fine, Gordon,’ said director Norman Lee. ‘We shan’t need you again till after lunch. It’s the interrogation scene. You’ve had the rewrites?’

  Tiger Blake, who had now fully metamorphosed into the actor Gordon Moore, gave Lee a sour nod. ‘They’re always fucking changing things.’

  ‘For a better picture,’ said Lee with a pleasant grin. After six films together he was used to Gordon’s moods and was adept at dealing with them. Lee was an American Jew, an escapee from Z pictures on Hollywood’s Poverty Row to British B movies which satisfied his modest ambitions. He was a strong believer in the quiet life and in this instance he knew that Tiger Blake’s Arabian Adventure was the last feature they would make together so he was happy to let the actor have his way. Once the film was completed, he could say goodbye to shoddy Tiger Blake and, more importantly, goodbye to the awkward bastard who played him. ‘Nice work this morning,’ he added, tapping Moore’s arm. He knew how to be oleaginous when it was necessary. ‘Three o’clock on set please.’

  Moore gave him a brief nod and departed for his dressing-room.

  Lee hoped that his star didn’t down too much gin before the interrogation scene. The dialogue was fairly tricky and they’d been lucky enough to get Francis L. Sullivan to play Ben Zahir, the chief of police. Now he was a real actor.

  Moore shut the door of his dressing-room and leaned against it. He could feel tears begin to well in his eyes and he forced them back. He didn’t want to have to redo his makeup again. It took longer than ever these days to make a flabby 48-year-old look ten years younger. Yes, it took longer and the results were far from convincing. He hated growing old. He hated being stuck with the Tiger Blake image – but it was all he’d got. And it had made him a household name. This was the first movie in which he’d had to wear a toupee. His own sandy hair had thinned so much that his bald patch could not be disguised with careful combing any more. Well, it won’
t be for much longer. This was the last Tiger Blake. The scrap heap was waiting.

  He poured himself a large gin and guzzled half of it in one gulp. It burned his throat and it pleased him. He wrapped a thin dressing-gown around him and lay on the couch nursing the replenished glass of gin between his hands. He’d take a nap and then look at those fucking rewrites.

  As he closed his eyes, the vision of Pammie Palmer’s lovely face filled the dark vacuum. Her mouth was open in a silent scream and her eyes glowered back at him in a glassy, accusative stare. The image held for a moment as Moore’s body stiffened with apprehension and then suddenly the girl’s eyes blinked, blood seeped from the corners of her mouth and the scream was no longer silent: it was a shrill and insistent whine. She reached out to touch him.

  Moore opened his eyes, banishing the image. He gave a grunt of fear and sat bolt upright on the couch, a fine film of perspiration bathing his brow. As he caught his breath, he realized that the scream was in fact his telephone, which rang with a high-pitched nagging tone. Taking another gulp of gin, he snatched up the receiver.

  ‘Yes,’ he snarled.

  ‘Mr Moore, it’s Tristan here.…’

  ‘How many times have I told you, you pansy, not to disturb me between takes?’

  ‘I know sir, I know. But this is rather important. It’s an urgent personal call.’

  ‘It’s not my wife, is it?’

  ‘No, sir. It’s a call from a business associate, a Miss Pammie Palmer.’

  Gordon Moore dropped his glass of gin which shattered as it hit the tiled floor.

  ‘Shall I put her through, Mr Moore?’

  The actor’s mind was in a whirl. His throat was dry and constricted when he replied some seconds later.

  ‘Yes, put her through.’ For a moment he wondered if this was real or a vivid dream.

  There was a brief silence followed by some crackling on the line – but no one spoke, forcing the actor to speak first. ‘Hello.’