by Julia Hughes
He rattled the handcuffs again. ‘Maybe you’d better accompany me. I’ll get Traffic to drop you back. They can check out those vehicles while they’re here.’
‘Alright, alright, keep your hair on.’ Tarquin’s eyes flickered from the “missing” posters to the Big Top, one hand digging awkwardly at his jean’s pocket as he searched for a light. ‘Look, I didn’t tell you this OK? Bozen had another little racket going. A nice little earner, every place we stopped in. Dad don’t know nothin’ about it.’ Cupping the lighter’s flame with both hands Tarquin focussed on lighting his fag with the intensity of someone performing brain surgery, took a deep drag and went into a coughing frenzy.
‘And Bozen paid you to look the other way.’ Crombie finished for him.
Tarquin spluttered and nodded at the same time.
‘What was it? Illegal dog fighting?’
This prompted a nasal snigger. ‘Good, very good detective. Keep it up, I bet Nipper of the Yard’s spinning in his grave.’
Crombie gave the smug git one last chance.
‘You’ve told me everything?’
‘Everything officer.’ Tarquin sniggered again, not caring that Crombie suspected he was lying. Not knowing that Crombie would be back for him, like a dog worrying a meatless bone.
Turning on his heel, Crombie hurried away, hands thrust deep in his jacket pockets; the fresh spring breeze seemed to grow stronger as it swirled wildly round the wide open expanse of scrubland.
From the slurping and squelching it’d be some time before Tarquin escaped from the slurry created by poor Lu-Lu as she’d trampled aimlessly at the length of her chain. Crombie increased his pace, ignoring the man’s indignant call to ‘wait up.’ He’d spent quite enough time in Tarquin Stephenson’s company, and cursed him for adding complications to the elephant’s disappearance. Flicking to a fresh page in his notebook, Crombie resigned himself to another round of snatched interviews with the circus folk.
******
Bozen didn’t appear too popular with his fellow artistes. Long legged girls wearing feathers in their hair and not much else, lowered long false eyelashes and pouted sparkly lips when asked about the man, although they all professed to “Love Lulu” pleading with Crombie to track her down and “bring her home”. The clowns merely tooted oversized horns at him, their own mouths thin and scowling beneath painted on smiles.
Crombie knew he should make some attempt to re-interview the ringmaster, but the man scurried into the Big Top, shrugging into his red long tailed coat to start the matinee show on catching sight of him. Sighing, Crombie decided he really needed to get some lunch inside him before deciding what to do with this new information.
He slowed passing a hot dog stall, tempted by the smell, until he noted the prices - four pounds - for a small hot dog - a skinny sausage in a bun! Crombie walked on; pleased his girls had never really liked circuses. They’d been more fun in his day, performing seals and monkeys, lion tamers and men being shot out of cannons. Having seen how that poor elephant spent the majority of her day though, it was probably a good thing that performing animals were becoming a thing of the past.
According to Stephenson Senior, circuses would soon go the way of his elephant, and vanish too. This was one of the last six or seven still travelling, and Crombie dismissed his theory that a rival circus might be responsible for the animal’s disappearance. Most likely someone had pissed Bozen off, and in a fit of peevishness he’d freed Lulu’s chains. In fact, knowing the neighbourhood round here, it was entirely possible someone was hanging onto her in hopes of a reward. He saw immediately the flaw in this deduction. Bozen went missing twenty four hours before the elephant. Feeling a tug on his sleeve, Crombie turned to find himself looking down at a man in his seventies, a thin grey man with deep scored facial lines and a flat cap clamped over his skull.
‘Sir?’ Crombie prompted when the man didn’t speak. Swiping a hand across his mouth to mime he couldn’t or wouldn’t speak, the man pressed some photographs into Crombie’s hand, nodded and walked unhurriedly away, hands in pockets. Slipping the glossy photos into his own pocket, Crombie decided to examine them in a less public place. The North Pole Star pub would suit very well, and was just across the road. Crombie was certain that Tarquin Stephenson hadn’t told him everything, and knew that Crombie knew he was holding back. Crombie played with the idea of going back to arrest the prat, then dismissed it, thinking tomorrow would be soon enough.
For now though, Crombie crossed the road and strolled towards the North Pole Star pub, hoping he was in time to be served lunch. Instead of studying the photographs the gnome like man had given him, Crombie mused on how this part of London had got its name; maybe one of Shackleton’s many mistresses once lived in the area. More likely the pub had been renamed in the early 1900s, when it seemed the Edwardians would conquer the world, let alone both poles. If he strained to listen, a faint hurly gurly whirlitzer swirl of music drifted in the air; he could just make out the jaunty flags flying from the circus tents, framed by the viaduct of the railway bridge, which crossed the North Pole Road at the junction of Latimer Road.
Back in the seventies, social developers declared the houses ‘slums’ and one side of Latimer Road had been demolished and replaced with light industrial warehouse/office buildings; giant multi-coloured lego bricks obscuring the old abandoned railway lines. Either money ran out or common sense prevailed and the other side of Latimer Road remained standing, although the majority of the three story houses served as offices and studios.
The old railway lines that skirted Wormwood Scrubs! Of course! Postponing his lunch yet again, Crombie rushed into Latimer Road, across the car park of a warehouse offering printing services, and vaulted over the six foot high metal railings topped with rusted spikes to steamroll his way down the embankment, kicking aside spiteful brambles and slimy undergrowth in his haste to test out his theory, grateful for the magnum boots giving his feet and ankles some protection against the unseen ground riddled with rabbit warrens.
Although interspersed with thistles, the rails stretched cleanly away into the distance; competent and passive. Unsurprisingly the odd sleeper was missing, they made excellent support beams; otherwise there was no sign that anyone even remembered this old railway line which had once ferried goods across the country.
Crombie paced towards the Scrubs, taking jumbo-sized steps, leaping from one sleeper to the next. Where a sleeper was missing, he skidded on fist sized gravel that shifted under foot, crunching like pebbles on a beach. After two hundred yards or so he paused to catch his breath, feeling hungrier than ever. Behind him ivy and brambles had sprung back to cover the path he’d forged down the steep embankment. From here, the smart new warehouses were invisible, apart from a smudge of roof tops opposite, Crombie could imagine himself in deepest darkest Africa. Except he was barely a hundred yards now from Wormwood Scrubs. On the other side of the tracks, a mile back the other way the White City studios of the BBC squatted; the building always reminded Crombie of a squashed wedding cake. Spinning round, he began marching in that direction, parallel with Latimer Road, for no other reason than one of the best fish and chip shops in London was located midway along this street. He paced more slowly now, the certainty growing in his mind that the elephant knappers had taken this route.
‘Elementary my dear Crombie!’ He muttered to himself. After jotting down a few notes to himself in an ever present notebook, he crunched down from the rails, back to the steep embankment soaring a good twenty feet upwards, and began climbing back to civilisation, digging in toes to secure footholds, puffing with the effort of leaning forwards without going over onto his knees.
A couple of warehousemen on a ciggie break stared astonished as Crombie swung himself back over the railings. They returned his nod and greeting politely though. Crombie’s bulk deterred a lot of questioning.
Ever cautious, Crombie checked his wallet as he walked the couple of hundred yards to the small parade of shops, flicking through
credit cards and old shopping lists in vain, huffing with annoyance. He didn’t mind his girls borrowing the odd tenner, but wished they’d ask first. He huffed again at the garrulous queue lining the length of the shop’s counter, giving him no chance of a quiet promise to pay later. On the other side of the chest high counter Maudie with her tightly permed yellow hair and pinched face made non-stop chat as she shook salt and vinegar over puffy golden battered slabs, before wrapping them tightly in newspaper lined with greaseproof paper. Behind her rectanglular frame, the broad white coated shoulders of husband Peter dipped and swayed as he swiped filets of fish into off-white batter, dropping them one by one into a sizzling vat of fat, churning another vat to shovel out mountains of crinkly cut chips. Realising he was staring like one of the Bisto kids, Crombie turned on his heel, banishing the sight, but his mouth still watered at the tangy odour of chip shop vinegar.
His eyes skimmed the street automatically, a lifetime ago, this neighbourhood formed part of Crombie’s beat while he was still a foot soldier in the Met Police. Crombie’s gaze stuttered, returning to a racing green Stag convertible crouching alongside the kerb. The car was showroom standard apart from the Cymru flag on the chrome bumper and his hopes rose. It appeared an old acquaintance must be in town, one who still owed Crombie twenty quid. Whistling tunelessly, Crombie entered the tiny square of garden filled with roses, and lifted the brass knocker high before ramming it down three times. The door flew inwards with Crombie tumbling after it, just managing to get a palm against the flocked wallpaper and saving himself from falling. A voice scolded from behind the open door.
‘At last - I’m starved - Oh. Oh. Hi Detective Inspector Crombie.’
Clutching the wall for balance, Crombie was almost eye level with the speaker, already stepping backwards out of reach as Crombie straightened to his full height.
Crombie recovered from surprise first.
‘Wren Prenderson. The very person.’
Wren giggled nervously.
‘The very person for what DI Crombie sir?’
‘The very person to speak to about a missing elephant.’
Old Friends and Enemies.
Crombie's implied accusation prompted a smile, a smile signalling disbelief, though Wren’s eyes sparkled with mischief, and a jolt of certainty ran through Crombie. If anyone in London was capable of spiriting an eight ton African Elephant into thin air without a trace, it had to be the Welsh wizard in front of him. At their first meeting, Crombie sensed the clear unblinking gaze and shy smile disguised a mind sharp enough to slice souls, the intervening five years had done nothing to change his opinion.
Returning the smile with a curl of his lip, Crombie decided to dig deeper.
‘Since I’m already in the house, maybe we could go into the lounge for a little chat.’
Wren’s eyes flickered to the open door, softening as a pretty girl around the same age as Crombie’s second oldest daughter swung into the garden path, her arms full of wrapped newspaper bundles. A lime green Alice band pulled chestnut spirals of hair back from her rather square face, dominated by hazel eyes, slim hips were covered in blue denim jeans which ended at her calf, on her feet she wore nautical blue and white striped deck shoes, matching the long sleeved t-shirt which made her appear quite curvy.
‘Uncle Derek! What a nice surprise.’ Carrie hurried through the door as she spoke, squeezing past Crombie and Wren to disappear into the back room. ‘Come into the kitchen, we’re having fish and chips for lunch, Wren you don’t mind sharing do you?’ Plates clattered as she continued ‘Or I can run back and get another portion.’
Water gushed against metal now, with a gentle wuft gas ignited; Crombie smirked at the dismay on Wren’s face.
Recovering himself Wren called back ‘No, that’s fine. So long as Uncle Derek shares.’ As always, Crombie felt there was a hidden sub-text to the little sod’s speech, and looked at him sharply, but Wren occupied himself with closing the door and motioning Crombie to move down the passage.
Crombie usually disapproved of this relationship; he and his daughter Lizzie speculated for hours on end what the sweet natured Carrie was doing hooked up with the machiavellian Wren. Although he seemed besotted with Carrie, in Crombie’s experience Wren would always put his own interests first without hesitation. Senses tantalised by the smell drifting from the kitchen, for once he felt glad to see Carrie with Wren.
In stark contrast to the narrow dingy corridor of a hallway, the kitchen had been extended. Originally the sink unit had been slap bang against the back wall, now it formed a natural divider, and Crombie skirted round it to step into the extended area, large enough to act as a dining room with a family sized wooden table and six chairs. A two seater sofa was wedged into the far left corner, about twelve feet opposite a wall hanging television screen. Underneath the plasma screen was a storage unit consisting of various square and rectangle alcoves housing among other things an x-box and controllers, cookery books as well as a collection of mis-matched cups and plates. The kitchen come diner was an organic mixture of old and new. However, the extension had eaten into the garden, already small to start off with, and barely five feet away a mustard yellow brick wall marred the farm house impression, filling the view through the window. Someone had painted a door opened just wide enough to reveal the painted scene behind of a meadow. On either side of the trompe l'œil wooden trellises were nailed, and already dog roses clambered ambitiously towards the sky.
Crombie raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s clever - was it your idea?’ He smiled at Carrie, who shook her head no, pointing at Wren. Crombie’s smile faded. He should have guessed, typical smoke screen and mirrors. Aloud he said ‘Might have known it’d be you trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.’ Wren shrugged a shoulder, refusing to rise, but Crombie felt happier. This lunch promised to be not only appetising, but more entertaining by the minute.
‘So, where’s the third musketeer?’ Crombie asked jovially, operating delicate silver tongs around crystallised lumps of sugar, wondering why Wren couldn’t be normal and use ordinary granulated sugar, but quite enjoying plopping the coloured rocks into his mug of tea.
‘Abroad.’ Wren said. Carrie scowled at his shortness, taking a seat next to Crombie, she unwrapped the greasy paper and began divvying up the chips, slicing an equal third from each piece of fish, rolling a pickled onion onto Crombie’s plate.
‘You may as well have mine.’ Wren said, obviously thinking ahead. Unless you’d partaken too, kissing someone with onion breath was a passion killer.
‘Rhyllann’s in Mallorca with Fat Andrew, Ben and Dan. Then he’s going to America, teaching at a summer camp for a couple of months.’
Crombie’s fork dug into the fish, he could already taste the delicate moistness, when his throat closed up momentarily. Swallowing a couple of times he found his voice.
‘Isn’t it about time he signed up with the RAF? What’s he playing at?
Carrie and Wren exchanged glances.
‘Crombie, you really should talk to Rhyllann.’ It sounded like an accusation.
Crombie stared Wren down.
‘If he wants to throw it all away that’s his business, but he could have at least ...’ his voice trailed away. It was Rhyllann’s business. After all Crombie wasn’t his father, but ...
‘I pulled in some favours for that boy, he should have told me.’ Crombie said.
‘Maybe it isn’t his choice. Did you think of that?’ Wren lips tightened to a white line, daring Crombie to delve deeper.
‘What’s he supposed to be teaching anyway?’ Crombie changed the subject.
‘High ropes and rock climbing.’
Crombie thought he’d misheard for a second. ‘He’s terrified of heights.’
Wren shrugged. ‘He reckons he isn’t frightened of anything anymore, he’s already got his swimming instructor qualifications, and applied to BUNAC. That’s like a not for profit organisation - they sort out these summer jobs. You have your flight and boa
rd and a bit of pocket money.’
Crombie nodded, still feeling cheated somehow, knowing he wouldn’t get any more information from Wren.
‘He’ll be home by the weekend.’ Carrie said. ‘He isn’t leaving for the States till the end of June, a camp in New England wants him; Maine. They play a lot of lacrosse out there, so he’s joined a club over the Scrubs, an Irish Club. It’s a cross between hockey and rugby apparently.’ Carrie sounded dubious about this, according to Wren air traffic control diverted planes around the Scrubs when a match was on, and he made her promise not to go near the pitch, even to watch from the road.
Crombie grunted, thinking he really should have a talk with Rhyllann, get to the bottom of things. The kid should have consulted him. Surely he was owed that much.
A silence settled over the table, broken only by Carrie’s cutlery clinking. Wren ate with his hands, absently pulling the fish into bite sized chunks, Crombie at least bothered with a fork. He finally worked out what Wren had been trying to tell him, and lifted his head to glare at the manipulative little shit, only to find Wren enraptured in Carrie’s every mouthful, like a mother watching a toddler eating.
Wriggling with discomfort under so much scrutiny, Carrie blushed, and started on Crombie’s favourite subject.
‘Lizzie said you’re teaching her to drive Uncle Derek.’
Crombie nodded and chewed, preparing to boast about his favourite daughter, but before he could say a word Wren got in first.
‘Uncle Derek isn’t here for small talk Carrie. He thinks I know something about an elephant that’s gone walkabout.’
