‘William,’ she corrected purposefully. ‘He likes to be called William. See what I mean?’
‘Yes, I see. Well, William Lind, your husband. When you were all in your teens, those few years ago, he was Celia Norris’s boyfriend, wasn’t he?’
She nodded. ‘For what it was worth.’ She laughed sharply. ‘She don’t know what a lucky escape she had.’ Immediately she glanced guiltily at him. ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ she said.
‘Was he always so … wooden?’
‘Yes, always. Even as a kid he was a prissy bugger.’
‘But you married him. Didn’t you have a baby?’
She smiled a pale smile. ‘You’ve been checking up haven’t you. I lost the baby. I was always a loser.’
‘Sorry, I’m stupid,’ he said, embarrassed.
‘That’s all right,’ she sighed. ‘Anyway, I married him like you say. I knew what he was like but I thought he had a bit up top, you know, as well. Brains. I thought he might get somewhere. Make life a bit comfortable.’
‘And he hasn’t?’
‘Ha!’ The snort was almost masculine. ‘If you call a capstan operator “getting somewhere”.’
Glancing at his glass Davies was moderately surprised to see that he had finished his crème de menthe. She saw the action but made no offer to refill it. ‘I’ve got a friend coming in a minute,’ she said, hinting that it was in explanation. ‘A girl friend, of course. Clare. We get up the West End three or four times a week. Walk around the shops, go to the pictures and that. It’s harmless enough.’
‘I would think it is,’ agreed Davies blandly, wondering why she had said it. ‘I won’t keep you long. Really I just wanted to ask you to recall, in just a few words, what happened on that evening. When Celia disappeared. Just as you remember it.’
She sighed. ‘Well, I’ve done it all before. Another time won’t matter. She was at the youth club playing table tennis with Bill …’
‘William?’
‘I call him Bill behind his back,’ she shrugged. ‘… and off she went home on her bike. It was about ten o’clock. Just getting dark. Nobody ever saw her again.’
‘Bill, William, stayed behind for a football meeting didn’t he?’
Scorn quickly accumulated on her painted face. ‘Football! He didn’t play football or go to football meetings. Afraid of getting kicked. No, he stayed for something. Probably a netball meeting, that’s more like it. He liked to see the girls playing netball.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Probably liked to see their drawers.’
‘Oh, I understand.’
She glanced at him suspiciously. ‘Here, don’t think he did it. I’ve got no bloody time for him, but he wouldn’t do that. Not that sexual sort.’
‘The sexual sort?’
‘Well, you don’t have to be a detective to work out that she wasn’t done for her money, Celia. But not Bill Lind. He was there, in the club, for a good half hour afterwards. Anyway, not him.’ She turned to him determinedly. ‘You’re talking about a man who even now won’t have a bath unless he’s wearing his swimming trunks!’
‘Swimming trunks?’
‘His bloody swimming trunks. And I’ve told that to nobody else. Not even Glare, who’s my mate. I’d be too ashamed. He wanted to lock the door at first, but I wouldn’t have that. Not in my own home, with just the two of us here, so he put on his swimming trunks. Every time he has a bath he’s in there like bleeding Captain Webb.’
Davies wanted to laugh but her face was crammed with unhappiness. ‘He comes from that sort of family,’ she sighed. ‘I’ve heard his mother talk about a chest of chicken.’ She rested her face in her hands and Davies sat embarrassed, wanting to touch her sympathetically.
Instead he said, ‘What about this man Boot? Dave Boot?’
Her head came up slowly as if it were on a lever. She was about to answer when a melody played at the door. ‘Clare,’ she forecast. She stood up and composed her face into the smile it had carried when he had first walked in. ‘I’ll give you a call,’ she said. ‘At the police station?’
‘I’ll give you the number,’ he said, writing it out for her. ‘We’d better fix a time. I don’t like being in there longer than I can help. It’s miserable.’
She smiled like some genteel hostess. ‘All right. Eight tonight. I’ll use the phone box on my way home.’
‘Eight?’ he said. ‘You won’t be home to get your husband’s dinner then?’
‘No, I won’t,’ she said. She moved towards the door as the melody again warbled blandly. Davies thought how much the bell suited her. She paused inside the door before opening it. ‘I don’t do a lot for him,’ she said across her shoulder. ‘But then he doesn’t do much for me.’
*
Because the call was promised for eight o’clock he had to miss dinner at Mrs Fulljames’s, and sat moodily in the CID Room eating a hapless sandwich. He was wondering whether to eat the crust when the phone rang.
Ena was mildly brazen in a giggling sort of way. He thought he could smell the ruby port and lemon drifting over the wires.
‘Listen,’ she said confidingly. ‘I reckoned it would be better on the telephone, but I’ve thought about it again. What the hell, I don’t care. I’ll tell you face to face. Can you meet me somewhere?’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, before I change my mind.’
‘All right. Where are you?’
‘I’m in a phone box at Willesden Green Station, Clare’s gone off home.’
‘I could be there in ten minutes,’ he said.
‘Come to the pub across the road from the station, The Lame Elephant. I don’t mind waiting in there. I’m not proud. I’ll be in the saloon bar but I won’t get a drink. I’ll wait for you, then you can buy it.’
‘Right. I’ll be right along.’
He needed two hands to pick his overcoat up from the adjoining chair. It had been raining and the coat was porous, doubling its already considerable weight and bulk. It was like pulling a wet walrus onto his back. He went out, raising a heavy hand to the sergeant on the desk. His Lagonda stood, as ever, open to the rain but Kitty had crawled below the green tarpaulin. The dog lay in the back seat like an ominously covered cadaver. Davies got in and started the engine and Kitty growled with it. The great headlamps of the car careered grandly through the drizzle and the dreary streets as Davies drove towards The Lame Elephant. He wondered why, if Ena Lind despised her husband so much, she talked about them having people around to dinner.
She was waiting in the saloon bar, enfolded in a coat of dyed rabbit, the space on the knee-high table before her cleared suggestively.
‘Double port and single lemon,’ she said. ‘You’re all wet. You look like a sponge.’
‘My car leaks,’ he explained, going to the bar. He got her double port and single lemon and a scotch for himself and carried it back to the table. ‘No crème de menthe?’ he said.
‘They wouldn’t know what that was in here,’ she sniffed. ‘If the masses don’t drink it, they get confused. They’re all bloody Irish anyway.’
Davies rolled off his coat again, considered the reliability of a coat-hook on the wall and decided not to burden it. He hung it on the chair next to him. Ena Lind regarded him doubtfully.
‘You’re a bit of a mess, one way and another,’ she sniffed. ‘Haven’t you got anybody to look after you?’
‘Well,’ he said, drinking his scotch, ‘I do have a sort of wife. We live in the same house – it’s a kind of boarding house – but we don’t live together, if you understand what I mean.’
‘I understand all right,’ she said. ‘Very well indeed.’ She studied the inside of the saloon bar. It was the period of the evening when it had begun to swell with people and with smoke.
‘If people had homes,’ she murmured, ‘the pubs would be out of business for a start.’
‘True, true,’ he agreed. ‘But if there was a vote on it, homes or pubs, I bet the pubs would win
. Will you have another?’
‘You’ve soon swallowed that.’
‘Yes, I tend to get through the first one quickly.’
‘I can see.’ She disposed of her drink. ‘Right-o then. But this one’s on me. No arguments.’ She pressed a pound into his hand and closed his fingers around it. Her hand felt dry on his damp skin.
‘All right,’ he nodded. ‘Thanks very much.’
‘Have a double,’ she suggested. ‘I expect you’d have got a double for yourself, wouldn’t you? Might just stop you getting pneumonia.’
He grinned gratefully and ordered the drinks. He returned to the table and raised his glass.
‘Cheers, Ena,’ he said.
‘Here’s to Celia Norris,’ she replied soberly.
He looked at her on the sharp angle. ‘Well,’ she said catching his askew eyes. ‘Why not? It’s been a long time. She’s still dead. Maybe, wherever’s she’s got to, she’ll like us to drink her health.’
‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘I thought it was a bit late for that, that’s all.’ He pushed his glass upwards. ‘To Celia Norris, then.’
‘Yes,’ she affirmed. Her glass ascended a few inches. ‘Our lovely Celia.’
‘What’s that mean?’ he inquired quickly. ‘Saying it like that?’
‘Well, she was,’ replied Ena Lind with assumed conviction. ‘Lovely. Nice little figure, pretty little face, suffered spots, but still pretty. Tiny bottom. The boys used to enjoy to watch her playing table tennis, or better still netball, so they could get a glimpse at her arse.’
‘Only the boys?’
‘And some men, of course. That’s what you meant isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Men. Like who?’
‘Let’s have another drink. If I’m going to tell you I don’t want to hold myself responsible for it.’
‘That’s a good excuse. All right. Same?’
‘Same,’ she smiled. She looked quite attractive in a full, forty-year-old way. Her teeth were large and splendid and her face rounded and smoothed with the wrinkles well subdued. The stitched and tinted rabbit skins looked plush on her. She sensed his thoughts and opened the fur down to her middle so that her breasts lounged indolently against it. She smiled and he turned and went to get the drinks. He bought himself another double scotch.
‘Do you always drink that?’ he asked, putting the double port and single lemon on the table before her.
‘That and crème de menthe,’ she said. ‘Mostly when I’m out I drink this. It warms me up. Green’s very cold, don’t you think?’
He sat down. ‘Now tell me,’ he said, turning towards her. ‘About the men?’
‘There was only one really, one who did anything,’ she said. ‘Could you guess who that was? Come on, let’s see if you’re really a good detective.’
‘Ramscar,’ he guessed.
Her etched eyebrows jumped with genuine surprise. ‘Fancy you saying that,’ she said softly. ‘Ramscar. Blimey, I’d forgotten all about him.’ She thought about it. ‘Yes … I suppose you could be right, too. I must say I hadn’t thought about it like that. He used to hang around Celia a bit. Flash bugger. Wandering Hands Society, you know what I mean. He was a friend of her father’s, and he was a crook you know. Still is, I expect. No, I wasn’t thinking of Ramscar.’ Her voice trailed as though she had conjured new possibilities from old memories.
‘Boot then,’ prompted Davies. ‘He’s runner-up.’
‘Right, second time. Dave Boot. He’d had Celia.’
‘Had her? Sexually?’
‘Is there another way? He’d had her and he’d had me and some of the other girls as well. We were all fifteen when we joined there, at the youth club and I reckon he got around us all in a couple of years. We used to think he was terrific. Terrific. I don’t mind telling you now. It’s all gone a long time ago for me.’
With blunt wistfulness she added: ‘I could do with him now, these days. Instead of that dud sod I’m married to. Oh, he was manly, Dave Boot. You know, sports singlet, muscles, fair hair, tanned. He used to go up and lie in the grass by the Welsh Harp every day in the summer because he only worked in the evenings, see. I came across him up there one day when I was mooching along by the water. He had pieces of tin, sort of squares, like the sides of a biscuit tin all around him. He told me it was to catch every bit of sun, reflecting it.
‘We used to think he was great. And there wasn’t many of us he hadn’t fucked by the time he’d finished. He only left the really pimply girls or the fat ones alone. And we all knew who he was having. We used to fight about him.’
‘Dave the Rave,’ murmured Davies to himself.
‘That’s what they call him now,’ she nodded. ‘I’ve seen his picture in the local papers. He’s got this disco at Finchley. I’ve fancied calling in and surprising him. But he wouldn’t know me now. I bet he’s still having them as young as ever. Could I have another drink? Here, I’ll pay for this one. I don’t want to cadge. Please.’
He nodded, reluctant to break her story, and took the money to get the drinks. The barman winked at him, looked across at Ena, her prow heaving like an ice-breaker, grinned and gave the thumbs up sign. Davies ignored him.
He had another double for himself and found the short journey back to his seat took slightly longer than before. He would have to watch it. He didn’t want to lose her now. For a moment, after regaining his seat, he thought he had lost her. She sipped at her drink then leaned back and closed her eyes. Her face was set and passive. He gave her a nudge.
‘What’s the matter?’ she inquired, curiously opening only one eye.
‘Oh, sorry, Ena. I thought you’d dozed off.’
‘No, no. I was just thinking about it. About Dave.’
‘He … he definitely had sex with Celia then? You’re pretty sure of that.’
‘Not pretty sure. Very sure. I was there, mate, I was there. He had us both at the same time. The first time, anyway.’
‘Oh.’
‘Well, we were only kids and we thought he was Mister Wonderful.’ She had closed her eyes again as though trying to recapture the immensity of Boot’s muscles. ‘The two of us, Celia and me, being friends, used to giggle about it and make out what we’d like him to do to us. And then, one day, he did it. Just like that. It was a bit of a shock, but a nice shock, if you see what I mean.’ She glanced at him to ascertain if he had seen what she meant. His whiskeyed eyes were attentive. He nodded her on.
‘Funny thing was, it was afternoon. It must have been in the holidays because we was at school then. We’d gone around to the church which was where the youth club was, as you know, to do something or other, like help getting things together for a church fête. We helped to put a sort of sideshow together and Father Harvey, who’d just got there in those days, was helping us, farting about like he still does, but eventually he went off to pray or something and suddenly, in the vestry, Dave put his arms around our waists. Celia had been bending over getting something and he gave her a pat on the bottom, just playing, and I bent over, laughing like, so he could do the same to me. I remember saying something like: “Not one without the other, Dave.” So he smacked me too. That seemed to start it. We went out of the vestry and all three of us ran across the grass to the youth club, where he had a key to a storeroom. I remember being so hot and excited. I felt like I was flying. I was scared too, of course, petrified. But I could see Celia was just the same, excited but frightened, and I thought then: “She’s not having anything I’m not having.” And that’s how it was.’
She had given the appearance of reciting to herself. Now she waited and looked at Davies. He leaned towards her like a peckish dog. Her returned expression indicated that she required him to say something.
So he said: ‘I’m glad he didn’t do it in the vestry.’
She shrugged seriously. ‘He thought Father Harvey might come back, I suppose. It was nothing religious. He wasn’t all that religious, Dave wasn’t.’
Davies felt weary because of
the drink but he still managed to raise his eyebrows. ‘Do you want me to go on?’ She inquired mischieviously. ‘I bet you do.’
‘I’d like you to,’ he admitted.
‘I’ll need another drink, I think,’ she said apologetically. ‘I’m under a bit of a strain.’
Davies got up carefully as though not to disturb her train of thought. He had run out of money but the publican knew him and told the barman to go ahead with the drinks. ‘Another copper in his pocket,’ said the man caustically as he poured them.
‘Piss off,’ muttered Davies and returned equally clumsily to Ena.
‘Really,’ she said. ‘It does me good to talk about it. It’s years since I was able to talk about it to anyone. In detail.’ She smiled expansively. The port on her breath met the whisky on his halfway between them in an invisible but potent alchemy. He intended only to nod to her, signalling her to recommence, but his head seemed overweight and it dropped forward and collided with her shoulder and her cheek. She patted him affectionately. ‘Now don’t you doze off before I’ve finished. This isn’t a bedtime story.’
He forced himself away from the rabbity comfort of her shoulder and cursed the curse of drink. ‘I’m listening,’ he mumbled. ‘Very carefully, I’m listening.’
‘You’d better. We’re getting to the really wicked bit now. Where he fucked us.’ She giggled. ‘Not that we would have used a word like that then. Not in those days.’ She almost bit into the double port and single lemon. Davies had the nous to reflect that it appeared to have a less wearing effect than scotch. ‘You want me to go on?’ she said.
‘I can’t wait.’
‘So, as I said, we went across to this storeroom and there he undressed both of us. We just stood there like a couple of nits, hands hanging down by our sides, not daring to look at each other or move, and he took our clothes off for us. First he took one thing off Celia, then he turned to me and took something from me. Celia was wearing her first bra, but I was already two cup sizes ahead, I remember feeling quite proud of mine. He took his time over it, that Dave, the devil. I remember the sun coming in the window, watching it, because I was too nervous to even look at his face. Then we stood there, stark naked, Celia and me, sort of shivering like you do. Nervousness. I could feel goose pimples all over me. We both felt a bit stupid just standing there with him looking us over. Celia – she couldn’t help it – started to giggle and so did I. But he told us to stop laughing and he was serious, very stern, so we did. We would have done anything he wanted. I remember wondering what was going to happen next and whether I could get pregnant. But I didn’t think about that for long. He hadn’t touched us, not our skin, not sexually, only to get our clothes off, but then he suddenly took down his tracksuit trousers – he always wore a tracksuit, sometimes a blue one, sometimes red – and then his support whatsit, his jock strap, and out came this great thing. It seemed enormous to us then, and even now, allowing for always remembering the good things, you know, even now I reckon it was something frightening.
The Complete Dangerous Davies Page 10
