by Alan Hunter
‘He soon cheered up,’ said Mrs Elton. ‘Laurie isn’t the boy to brood.’
‘Did he mention Lister?’ Gently asked.
‘Not that I remember,’ said Mrs Elton.
‘Did he have a new girlfriend?’ Gently asked.
‘Not particularly he didn’t,’ said Mrs Elton.
She looked squarely at Gently. She had surprising blue eyes. Her face was puffy and her cheeks pallid. She would never have been good-looking.
‘Are you married?’ she asked him.
Gently shook his head.
‘You should be, a man like you,’ she said. ‘And my son isn’t a murderer.’
Gently stirred. ‘We’re not saying he is …’
‘No,’ she said, ‘you haven’t said it.’
Her eyes brimmed over. She felt for a handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes for a moment. She put it away.
‘It’s like this,’ she said firmly, ‘there ain’t no harm in Laurie, really. He’s a good boy, he always has been, he’s always kind to his old mum.’
She used the handkerchief again.
‘And he’s never been in trouble, really. Just the games they all get up to. He pinched a bike when he was a nipper. And he’s steady he is, he holds a job. There’s never been no complaint there. He’d grow out of it. He’s a good boy. There’s no harm in him. Not none.’
‘He’s been in fights, I’m told,’ Gently said.
She nodded. ‘Fights, yes. He’s been in them.’
‘He was put on a year’s probation,’ Gently said.
‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Not a year’s probation.’
‘And a traffic offence. A speeding fine.’
She shrugged, looked at him. She twisted her mouth.
‘But he ain’t wicked,’ she said, ‘he wouldn’t kill no one. Not my son wouldn’t. Not Laurie.’
‘Would he smoke reefers?’ Gently asked.
She looked away. She said nothing.
Upstairs the jazz was going again and feet were slouching on the floor. A trumpet moaned, the saxes blared, drums thumped out a naïve rhythm. They all glanced upwards.
‘I think I’d like to talk to Maureen,’ Gently said.
‘You’re welcome, I’m sure,’ said Mrs Elton.
Her lips tightened. She rose.
Maureen came in. She was a hefty girl with a tangled mop of honey-coloured hair. She wore a black shapeless sweater which came below her hips and had a sagging turtle-neck, calf-length jeans, and ballerina sandals. She was not made up. She had dirty nails. Her hands looked grubby and the fingers were nicotine-stained. Her expression was sulky and she didn’t look at the visitors. She sat down languidly on a pouffe, spreading her legs.
‘So you are Maureen,’ Gently said.
Maureen didn’t contradict him. She looked boredly out of the window, shaking her hair back from her eyes.
‘I’d like you to tell me about Laurie,’ Gently said. ‘About his friends and the things he did. And about Johnny Lister. And Betty Turner, about her.’
Maureen gave her hair a flick.
‘You answer him, my girl,’ said Mrs Elton.
‘Like why should I?’ said Maureen.
‘Because I tell you to,’ said Mrs Elton.
‘And give Laurie away?’ said Maureen.
‘Never you mind about that,’ said Mrs Elton. ‘Just you tell him what he wants to know. And none of that stupid talking, neither.’
‘These squares,’ Maureen said.
‘You hear what I tell you?’ said Mrs Elton.
Maureen drew up a leg, scratched her ankle a few times.
‘Like he was a jeebie,’ she said. ‘Cool. He went for it way out.’
‘Tell me about jeebies,’ Gently said.
‘You wouldn’t dig it,’ said Maureen. ‘If you’re a square you’re a square. It’s nowhere jazz to a square. But Laurie was cool, he went after it. Shooting the ton, that sort of action. But like I say you wouldn’t dig it. So what’s the use me talking?’
‘Where do they meet?’ Gently asked. ‘Do they have a club house or something?’
‘Man, you’re the most,’ said Maureen. ‘You ain’t getting it at all. Like it isn’t a club or that jazz, it’s the way people are. Like squares and jeebies. You’re either one or the other.’
‘And Lister was a jeebie?’ Gently asked.
‘Him too,’ Maureen said.
‘And Betty Turner?’ Gently asked.
‘She’s a chick, man. A cool chick.’
‘How did she go after it?’ Gently asked.
‘Like she shot the ton,’ Maureen said.
‘Like she was smoking sticks?’ Gently asked.
‘Like she may have done,’ Maureen said.
‘And what about Laurie,’ Gently asked. ‘Wasn’t he smoking sticks too?’
‘He went for kicks,’ Maureen said. ‘He went way out for wild kicks.’
‘Would you pass me your handbag?’ Gently said.
‘Like help yourself,’ said Maureen, grinning.
He took the drawstring bag she had brought with her and made a quick check of the contents. He handed it back. She grinned again. She took out a cigarette and lit it.
‘Man, I’ve known brighter squares,’ she said.
‘Take that smirk off your face,’ said Mrs Elton.
‘Like my face is my own,’ Maureen said. ‘I don’t have to keep it straight for nobody.’
Gently watched her for a moment. She puffed smoke towards him. She flicked her hair once or twice. She kept her eyes away from his. He said:
‘How well did you know Lister?’
‘I saw him around,’ Maureen said. ‘I wasn’t never a chick of his. I saw him around, like that.’
‘Didn’t he used to be friends with Laurie?’
‘Till the Turner chick,’ Maureen said.
‘Who else was he friends with?’ Gently asked.
‘Lots,’ Maureen said. ‘We all liked Johnny.’
‘Name some of the others.’
‘Sure,’ Maureen said. ‘There was Sidney Bixley and Dicky Deeming. And Jack Salmon. And Frankie Knights. Like he used to be way out with Dicky, but Dicky’s the coolest. We dig him big.’
‘Tell me about Dicky,’ Gently said.
‘Like I have done,’ said Maureen. ‘He’s crazy, he’s wild, he’s way out with the birds. We meet at his pad sometimes. He’s got a pad in Eastgate Street. We’ve got a combo and make with the music – man, it’s the wildest. I go for Dicky.’
‘He’s some sort of a writer,’ said Setters. ‘A long-hair. I checked him.’
‘He’s nice,’ said Mrs Elton. ‘He ain’t one of these silly kids.’
‘What does he write?’ Gently asked.
‘Booksy jazz,’ Maureen said. ‘He fakes some action for the papers, but that’s nowhere stuff, it isn’t it. Like he writes some wild poetry, jazz that really makes the touch. And he’s writing a book too. Man, that book is the craziest.’
‘And he was a special friend of Lister’s?’ Gently asked.
‘He’s friends with all of us,’ Maureen said. ‘I’ve got big eyes for that jeebie. But he don’t never have a regular chick.’
‘You’ve seen him since the accident?’ Gently asked.
‘Sure,’ Maureen said. ‘I saw him last night.’
‘What does he think about what’s happened?’
‘A kick,’ Maureen said. ‘The mostest.’
‘A kick for Lister?’
‘Like what else?’ she said. ‘Like he was touching and heard the birds. When you shoot the ton you get to touching. It sends you, man. Like you must go.’
‘How old are you?’ Gently asked.
‘I’m seventeen,’ she said. ‘Like Laurie.’
‘And where did you pick up all this jargon?’
‘Not from me, she didn’t,’ said Mrs Elton.
Maureen flipped her hair again, gave her other ankle a scratch.
‘Squares,’ she said. ‘Always squares.
It’s a nowhere drag. It hangs me up.’
‘So that’s what you get,’ Setters said as they went down to the car. ‘Her brother talked like that too until I scared the daylights out of him. You put the fifty-dollar question. Where do they get this hokum from? It isn’t film-stuff, not the most of it, nor they don’t get it on TV. It just creeps in like an epidemic. It frightens me. They don’t care.’
Gently got in, slammed his door. ‘I know where it comes from,’ he said. ‘How it got here is another matter. I’d like the answer to that too.’
‘It came with the overspills,’ Setters mused.
Gently shook his head. ‘No. There’s something like it west of Whitehall, but not in Bethnal Green and Stepney.’
‘They don’t care,’ Setters repeated. ‘That’s what’s different about this lot. They’ve got that thing about touching something. And they’re not quite with you.’
‘What’s the Listers’ address?’ Gently asked.
‘Now there’s someone who cares,’ Setters said.
CHAPTER THREE
THEY CHARGED FOUR thousand eight hundred and fifty for the bungalows in Chase Drive and they looked worth about half of that, which is known in some circles as modern architecture. The Lister bungalow was the last in the road, the road being a two-hundred yard cul-de-sac. There were similar bungalows on each side of the road and this one at the bottom, backing straight on the Chase. The Chase at this spot had thirty-year pines with a screen of birches in front of them. The leaves of the birches had turned pale yellow. They trembled. They caught the last of the afternoon sun. The bungalow in front of them was composed of units with flat, shed-like roofs, and was built of glass and varnished wood and painted wood and a little brick. It had a semicircular concrete driveway and the driveway had no gates. In the arc of the driveway was a goldfish pool and a rockery and a small grass plot. There was a sign staked in the grass plot, a varnished section of a tree trunk. It said Treeways. To the right of the driveway was a tradesman’s entrance with an iron gate.
‘She’s all right. Got money,’ Setters was saying as they parked. ‘Lister was one of the architects here. Coronary occlusion, about a year ago. But he left her well-off, it’s all tied up in these houses. She’s got a couple of younger kids. Good-looking. Probably marry again.’
‘Living alone?’ Gently asked.
‘Till last week,’ Setters replied. ‘She’s got her mother here now to tide her over for a bit.’
They left the car on the road and walked up the driveway. The main door was plain wood painted white and had an iron bell-pull. It rang some chimes. An elderly woman came. She looked sharply at Gently. Setters addressed her as Mrs Clarkson and did his introduction again.
‘Jennifer’s dressing,’ said Mrs Clarkson. ‘You’d better come in, and I’ll tell her. But I hope you’re not going to be here for long. I’m fetching the children from school shortly.’
‘Not for long,’ Gently said. ‘We could come back tomorrow.’
‘It isn’t that, but she really isn’t fit to talk to people,’ said Mrs Clarkson.
She ushered them in through a square hall with a polished parquet floor and into a three-sided, slant-ceilinged room of which the fourth side was a glassed-in veranda. She left them. Setters sat down. Gently moved about the room. The slant-ceiling gave it spaciousness. The furniture was unpolished in a grey-toned wood. The upholstery of the furniture was in off-white and lemon and the carpet was off-white with flecks of black. The walls were papered in a trellis design. There was a piano. There was a record player.
‘What makes a kid from a home like this run riot?’ Setters inquired. ‘I wish I’d been a kid here. I wish I owned a place like it.’
‘When did Lister leave school?’ Gently asked.
‘That’s a point,’ Setters said. ‘It’d be a year ago, wouldn’t it, about the time his old man went. Since when he’s been working as a plumber’s mate for the firm his father was connected with. Starting at the bottom, more than likely. Not a question of money here.’
‘Did Elton work for that firm?’ Gently asked.
‘Yes,’ Setters said. ‘Hailey and Lincon’s. They’re a local firm here in Latchford. They brought in Lister for the overspill project.’
The door from the hall opened. Mrs Lister came in. She was a woman above middle height with a slender waist and wide hips. She had straight-cut gold-brown hair and green eyes and wide cheekbones and under the eyes were blued patches, and the cheeks were pale and a little sagged. She wore a charcoal dress with a bushed skirt. It had a belt. She wore a thin gold chain. She came forward.
‘You wanted to see me again?’ she asked. She held her hand out to Gently.
‘Just a recapitulation,’ Gently said. ‘I’m fresh here, and it always helps.’
‘I want to help you,’ said Mrs Lister. ‘I keep thinking I haven’t helped enough. If Les had been here …’ She stopped. ‘I want to help you all I can,’ she said.
She sat down on a wing armchair, crossing her calves and swinging them slantwise. She laid her hands in her lap. She made a small, hesitant smile for them.
‘I keep hoping it was an accident after all,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to know any more than that. It’s bad enough that Johnny is dead. I don’t think I could bear it if it’s something else.’
Gently nodded. ‘Life can be unkind.’
‘Yes.’ She smiled again. ‘Yes.’
‘And the worst of it is we have to find him,’ he said.
‘I understand that,’ she said. ‘I’m simply selfish.’
‘How did it start?’ he asked. ‘All this business. The motorcycling, the slang.’
‘I honestly don’t know,’ Mrs Lister said. ‘And yet I do. It happened after Les went.’
‘You think that was the cause of it?’ Gently asked.
‘I feel it had something to do with it,’ she said, ‘You see, up till that time Johnny was enthusiastic about his career. But Les going upset him terribly. I think there must have been a connection.’
‘What was his career to have been?’ Gently asked.
‘Building and contracting,’ she said. ‘Les wanted him to be an architect, but Johnny didn’t have the same talent for it. It was the practical side that Johnny was good at. Not just using his hands, but organization. So Les said all right, he’d better not waste time at college, and Johnny went straight into Hailey and Lincon’s. Which is what he wanted to do.’
‘Was he happy there?’ Gently asked.
‘I thought he was,’ Mrs Lister said. ‘He used to be talking about it always. And he went to evening classes in Castlebridge.’
‘Is that how he came to have a motorcycle?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That was mostly the reason. He had a scooter on his sixteenth birthday, but Castlebridge is twenty-five miles from here.’
‘And then what happened?’ Gently asked.
‘Well, he seemed to lose interest,’ Mrs Lister said. ‘He dropped the classes. He dropped a lot of his old friends. He became moody and secretive, bored when he was at home. I thought perhaps there was a girl in it. I tried to get him to confide in me. Then there was this awful slang and the passion for jazz records, and the silly clothes he used to wear. I kept hoping it was simply a phase. He wouldn’t talk to me about it.’
‘He made other friends, didn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘though not the sort I approved of. He brought them home once or twice, but he soon stopped doing that. I’m to blame I suppose. I ought to have concealed what I thought of them. But I couldn’t help it. They were terrible. I don’t think some of them ever washed. And there they sat, in his room, playing jazz records and smoking. Till the small hours, sometimes. I had to say something.’
‘Do you remember who they were?’ Gently asked.
‘I’m not sure I knew their names,’ she said. ‘But I remember the Elton boy coming. And Elton’s sister. And Dicky Deeming.’
‘Jack Salmon. Frankie Knights.’
&nb
sp; ‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t remember. Only Dicky. I thought that Dicky was old enough to have known better. But he’s a writer, of course, so he might have been slumming after material.’ She made a face. ‘If you can call this bungalow a slum,’ she added.
‘How old is Deeming then?’
‘Oh, thirty-ish,’ said Mrs Lister. ‘He looks younger because he’s boyish, short hair and that. He writes for the little reviews, I’m told, and does book notices and things. He’s our only local author. That’s why I remember him.’
‘And Johnny was specially friendly with him?’
‘Oh, quite infatuated,’ she said. ‘For a time, you know. A spell of teenage hero-worship. Dicky was what Johnny wanted to be. Cool, I think is the term they use. A rebel against all convention, a jazz expert and etcetera. For a time he was always around with Dicky. Then Dicky faded out again.’
‘Was there any reason for that?’ Gently asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Mrs Lister. ‘It was around that time, or soon after, that he fell so heavily for Betty Turner. Poor girl. She little knew how it would end, her romance with Johnny. But I think she may have displaced Dicky. I remember thinking so at the time.’
‘He was genuinely in love with her, was he?’
Mrs Lister nodded several times. ‘He was like his father. Fell with a bang. Very like his father, was Johnny.’
‘Did you approve of Betty Turner?’
‘I didn’t disapprove,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have picked her, she’s a sad little trollop. But I thought she was a healthier influence than Dicky. If she’d loved Johnny too.’
‘She didn’t love him?’ Gently said.
‘No,’ said Mrs Lister, ‘she didn’t. It was just a crush on her side.’
Setters shifted in his chair. ‘They were engaged, weren’t they?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They were engaged. But it wasn’t serious with Betty. If you want my frank opinion they wouldn’t have lasted for much longer. She was very pettish just lately. Johnny was much concerned, poor child.’
‘Was Elton the trouble?’ Gently asked.
‘He may have been,’ said Mrs Lister. ‘I know she used to be fond of Elton and sometimes she teased Johnny about him. I’m not sure. She was pettish and listless. She’d just grown tired of Johnny, I think.’
