‘Wait, take it easy,’ she pleaded. ‘Down, Dangerous, down.’
Perspiring, Davies lowered himself away from her. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled. His knees hurt. ‘I got carried away.’
‘So you did,’ she replied sweetly. She leaned over and kissed him at random on the face. ‘Me too.’ She sat up. ‘Let’s take it easy. Forget the wrestling. Nobody is hurrying us. Maybe we’ll stay here until Boxing Day.’
‘You’re quite right,’ said Davies, smiling broadly through his sweat. ‘What shall we do next?’
‘Well, I think you ought to take some of your clothes off. That overcoat reeks of The Babe In Arms.’ She regarded him teasingly. ‘You take some off, and then I’ll take some more off, and then it’s your turn, and so on. But nobody touches anybody until we’re finished, naked. All right?’
‘I’ll try my best,’ promised Davies. He rolled off his overcoat and then his jacket and pullover. Sitting in his braces, he studied her challengingly.
‘My turn,’ she agreed. Her hands returned to her dress buttons, and without rush she undid them to the neck. Davies stood, then sat down heavily on the prisoner’s chair. ‘More?’ she inquired.
‘A bit more,’ he suggested croakily.
‘Okay,’ she agreed. With a delicious flick of her dark body, she wriggled out of the dress. It fell to the bed, leaving her naked shoulders glimmering in the lamplight. Her eyes moved up to him. ‘Your deal,’ she invited.
Instead of unlooping his braces, Davies undid each button separately, causing the elastic to fly dashingly over his shoulders, striking the wall behind. Now he became uncertain. She merely nodded for him to continue. He unzipped his fly at the third attempt, and began to peel back his heavy trousers. Then he changed direction and took off his boots.
‘Your deal now,’ he muttered.
Without leaning down, she kicked off her shoes.
‘Go ahead,’ she said.
Closing his eyes, his face colouring, Dangerous pulled down his trousers, revealing his white, woollen long johns. Jemma fell at once into hilarity. ‘Oh, Dangerous!’ she laughed. ‘Look at you! I’ve never …’
‘They go on in October when the clocks go back,’ said Davies doggedly. ‘And they stay on until March when the clocks go on again.’
‘Not … not the same pair?’ She was looking over her hands.
‘No, not the same pair,’ he said, hurt. ‘I’ve got four pairs.’ She still couldn’t stop. ‘Listen,’ he said in an upset voice. ‘I didn’t expect all this … I’d have worn my Union Jack jockstrap.’
‘No, no. I’m sorry,’ she pleaded. Wiping her eyes, she stood and in her stockinged feet stepped towards him. He remained in the chair. She pressed his face to her naked stomach. Then she bent at the knees so that his trembling nose travelled up to the folds of her breasts. Her hands moved down and she pulled the heavy long johns from him. His hands slid around her waist and then down over her buttocks, pulling her pants with them. ‘You don’t wear a lot considering the weather,’ he said.
‘Enough,’ she mumbled. Her fingers were on his thighs now, stroking them. Davies began to groan. He rose from the hard chair and pushed her, gently this time, towards the bed.
After several bungled attempts to undo her bra, he took his hands away and she did it for him. Her glimmering breasts lolled forward. He kissed them.
They stretched out to enjoy each other. She urged him to take his time and he did. When they were lying quietly afterwards, her head in the crook of his arm, he said, looking at the ceiling: ‘This is HM Government Property, you know.’
‘Is it?’ she mumbled dozily. ‘I take it what I’ve just had was yours.’
There was no more conversation. Davies remained happily awake, but Jemma quickly slept. After a while he began to think about Sergeant Emmanuel’s brass-bound box.
Nine
‘Rhubarb …’ said Davies, making it sound like a long word. The remark was the first for some time above the lonely noise of the cutlery. Dinner at ‘Bali Hi’, Furtman Gardens, was often a muted feast. ‘… is at its best, I always think, at this time of year.’
Mrs Fulljames’s mantled eyes came up from her plate. The eyes of Doris, his estranged wife, followed obediently. The schoolteacher, Minnie Banks, examined her rhubarb as if something had eluded her. Mod ate another spoonful of his.
Davies regarded in turn each half-person exposed above the table. ‘A touch of frost, a bit of sooty London rain and a few slugs,’ he continued, ‘and what do you get – perfection.’ He examined the length of rhubarb on his spoon, its strands hanging like the lifeboat davits of an abandoned ship.
‘It’s a shame it has to be cooked in such long dishes,’ put in Mr Smeeton, the Home Entertainer. He guffawed silently above his pudding. Mod examined him with loathing.
‘And the custard,’ continued Davies, rolling a yellow avalanche from his spoon. ‘Thick and glorious.’
‘I hope you mean what you’re saying, Mr Davies,’ muttered the landlady. ‘Anybody who’s not satisfied can move on at a week’s notice.’
Davies appeared slowly shocked. ‘I was most sincere, Mrs Fulljames,’ he said.
‘He should like the custard,’ chortled Mr Smeeton. ‘He’s a policeman. He takes people into custard-y!’ He almost choked on that one. Mod said: ‘Good God.’
Davies finished his rhubarb and wiped his mouth on his handkerchief, a Christmas present from the cleaning lady at the police station. Leaning over the table he said: ‘I bet you’ve wowed a few over Christmas and New Year, Mr Smeeton.’
‘Thirteen separate functions, ten for the old folks,’ replied the entertainer with brisk pleasure.
‘Had them laid out in the aisles, throttled by their own corsets, I bet.’
‘Mr Smeeton,’ put in the landlady stonily, ‘does wonderful work for charity.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Mod. ‘The Euthanasia Society.’
‘Really!’ exclaimed Doris. ‘It’s a pity some others don’t get off their backsides and do some good.’ She glared at Mod. Miss Banks said: ‘Back to school next week. Another term.’
Nobody had anything to add to that. An armed silence dropped over the table. Doris, like someone who had been lying undecidedly in ambush, broke it. ‘You’ve been seen,’ she said up the table towards her husband.
His eyebrows went up over the custard. ‘I wouldn’t argue with that,’ he said. ‘I’m not The Invisible Man.’
‘Let me finish,’ she said tartly. ‘You’ve been seen – with a dark woman.’
Davies looked askance around the table. ‘What other revelations are we going to have tonight?’ he inquired. He leaned again across the cloth. ‘Women, Mrs Davies,’ he said heavily, ‘come either dark or fair, with a few ginger ones thrown in.’ He concentrated his gaze on his wife’s starved hair.
‘Mine is Titian,’ she replied haughtily. ‘And the dark woman was dark all over – a darkie in other words.’
Davies thought he heard the eyelids of Mrs Fulljames click up once more. He continued to look in the direction of his wife. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is enough to have you nicked under the Race Relations Act.’
‘She’s a darkie,’ said Doris defiantly. ‘No Race Relations Act is going to alter that. It won’t whiten her.’
‘I don’t know why I should bother to reply to this slander,’ Davies said. ‘Let’s say she’s a friend.’
He left the table. Mod rose and went with him from the room.
‘Going to The Babe?’ he asked casually.
‘Inquiries,’ said Davies, ‘of a certain nature.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, give her my regards. I’m busy tonight anyway. Radio Four. Ibsen. Peer Gynt.’
‘Oh good,’ said Davies. He went out of the front door and walked along the echoing street. Christmas and the New Year had emptied them. When he reached Jemma’s door he rang; she called through and released the safety lock. The deep aroma of cooking filled the passageway. Jemma came to the inner door and kissed him.
&nbs
p; ‘Where’s Mod?’ she asked. ‘Gone to the pub?’ Sizzling came from the kitchen.
‘Not Wednesday,’ he said, his nose wrinkling. ‘There’s something on the radio he wants to hear.’
‘Peer Gynt,’ she nodded. ‘I was going to listen but somebody turned up. A fugitive. Mrs Wan from the Chinese take-away. Her husband’s threatened to chop her head off.’
‘So she’s staying here.’
‘Just for tonight. Tomorrow, she says, her brother will come and he’ll chop her husband’s head off.’
‘Better examine your next take-away,’ said Davies. He took off his overcoat and kissed her properly.
‘You’re lovely,’ she said. ‘Lovely.’
‘You’re not so bad yourself,’ said Davies. He sniffed. ‘She’s certainly doing something miraculous.’
‘Have you eaten?’
‘Well, eating at “Bali Hi”, Furtman Gardens, doesn’t count. We had rhubarb. Like eating firewood.’
‘There’ll be plenty,’ said Jemma.
He looked at her. ‘I came to have another peep at Lofty’s things,’ he said, almost shamefaced.
‘Now?’ she asked.
‘I’d like to.’
‘Right. I don’t think she’s ready yet.’
‘Not ready yet,’ Mrs Wan called from the kitchen.
Jemma fetched Lofty’s belongings. From the biscuit tin Davies took the wooden box. ‘This,’ he said. ‘This is what I was thinking about. After seeing Sergeant Emmanuel’s box. Remember?’
‘Not while … you know … we were …?’
‘No. God no. Afterwards. Post-coital.’
She smiled. ‘We should do it more often. If it helps you think.’
‘Depends how full the cells are,’ said Davies. He held the box, turning it lightly in his hands. ‘All that work in Emmanuel’s box made me think of it. The brass and everything. Have you got a screwdriver? These screws are buried right down.’
‘Several,’ she said. ‘When you live alone you find you need screwdrivers.’ She went into the kitchen and returned with a plastic cutlery tray from which she took three screwdrivers. Davies selected one. His eyes tightened as he pushed it into the rounded recess. ‘It’s a lovely bit of work, this box,’ he said. ‘Made by a craftsman.’
As he eased the screw away from its burrow the Chinese woman came from the kitchen and watched him. ‘Good box,’ she said.
The screw gradually came free. ‘Look at that,’ said Davies. ‘Just look at that – it’s made of wood.’
Walter Pitt, the undertaker, was busy, as he often carefully phrased it, with a customer. As Davies came through the street door and the bell jangled, Walter called out: ‘With you in a minute.’ His small businesslike face quickly fulfilled the promise.
‘Ah, it’s you, Dangerous,’ he said. ‘Come on through.’
Davies did not enjoy going into the back of the premises, but Walter solicitously closed a coffin lid as he did so. Then he opened it again to retrieve his glasses. There was the overwhelming sweetness of French polish and flowers.
Walter had a long reputation for decency and fair prices. He was absently polishing the casket to which he had been attending and now, disconcertingly, he half-lifted the lid as if to be assured that the occupant was still there. To Davies’s relief he closed it again. ‘Lost my pen now,’ he explained. ‘I’m always doing it. Between you and me, Dangerous, there’s quite a few of my ball-points gone where I’ll never be able to get them back. And three pairs of glasses.’
There was a small green-clothed table in the room, at the side, upon which was a tray set with cups, a teapot, sugar and milk. The undertaker poured two cups. ‘We’re pretty busy,’ he said. ‘You’d be surprised how many people hang on for a few more days over Christmas and the New Year. First and second week of January, it’s quite lively.’
‘Bit like the sales,’ suggested Davies.
‘In a way,’ said Walter. ‘People sometimes struggle into another year, anyway.’ He looked up. ‘Is there anything I can do for you, Dangerous, or did you just drop in?’
‘There is, actually, Walter,’ said Davies. He rummaged in his overcoat pocket and brought out an envelope from which he took the screw from Lofty Brock’s box. ‘Ever seen one of these?’ He handed it to the undertaker.
A small light came into Walter’s face. ‘Now just look at that,’ he said, turning the screw in his fingers. ‘Wood, and beautifully made.’ He turned it happily just below his nose, emitting little hums of approval. He looked up. ‘Lovely job,’ he said.
‘Ever seen one before?’ asked Davies. ‘I thought if anyone would know it would be you.’
‘Thank you, Dangerous,’ said Walter graciously. ‘But I can’t say I have. He held out his palm and rolled the screw to and fro. ‘It must be for a very special purpose,’ he said. ‘Or it was, because it seems to be some years old.’
‘Not just to use in keeping a box together?’
‘Well, if it were a very special box, I suppose so. But it’s finely made, turned, and it’s good as new. You could use it now.’ His fingers tested the screw. ‘It’s very hard,’ he said. ‘Well turned.’ He looked up at Davies. ‘Is finding out a matter of urgency?’ he inquired.
‘The sooner the better,’ said Davies. ‘It came from a small cabinet. A box. There were twelve used altogether.’
‘Well, if you don’t mind me keeping it for a short while, I could make some inquiries in the woodworking fraternity. Someone might know.’ Once more he rolled the screw on his palm, beginning again his pleased hum. ‘They don’t make things like this,’ he said. ‘Not these days.’
Miss Honoria Gladstone, late of HM Prison Service, lived in Bedfordshire, a small castellated building with tight windows and a heavy studded door.
‘It was the lodge once,’ she explained. ‘The gatehouse to the estate, but it looked so much like a minor prison that I purchased it at once. After a lifetime’s work in places of confinement, it’s rather appropriate and comforting.’
Davies ducked below the threshold of the front door and followed her, almost at a crouch, along a damp and diminishing corridor to a cell-like room piled and lined with books and papers. A desk towards the lancet window was contained in a crater between the overwhelming paraphernalia.
‘The work continues,’ enthused the old lady. ‘Girls Behind Bars is my current labour.’ She put her surprisingly gentle hand on his sleeve and her powerful eyes gleamed through her dense spectacles. ‘There are not many people doing this work today, you know,’ she said with a fierceness that made him blink. ‘Fortunately,’ she added.
She pushed her way towards the desk, advancing through the alleys of literature like someone in a maze. A tower of periodicals slithered to the ground and Davies bent ineffectually, first to stop the avalanche and then to pick it up.
‘Don’t bother, don’t bother!’ exclaimed Miss Gladstone. ‘Next year’s work, that is – Paying the Price: The Crimes and Punishments of Women.’ She pointed vaguely: ‘There’s a chair somewhere under that lot.’
Davies went to the area she had indicated and burrowed below books until he unearthed an upright wooden chair. On the chair was a flat tabby cat.
‘Ah,’ said Miss Gladstone. ‘That’s where you got to.’ She waved a satin hand at the tabby. ‘Come on, Holloway,’ she urged. ‘Move your rump.’
The cat yawned and slithered away. ‘Sometimes,’ mentioned the old lady, ‘even food won’t bring her out of hiding. She’s a born fugitive.’ The remark provoked her to jot a note on a pad. Davies, pushing aside further books, eventually sat on the chair.
‘I cannot think what further use I may be to you,’ said Miss Gladstone, looking like an eagle over the desk. ‘I kept your photograph, of course, and I’ve given it thought, but although I am an authority, the authority, on British Women’s Prisons, that does not mean to indicate an ability to recognise individual denizens.’
‘As you know I had some copies of the photograph made,’ he said, ‘
before I gave you the original picture at the Christmas party. I’ve had one copy blown up.’ He took it out from an envelope. ‘There’s one thing that has come to light with the enlargement, although it’s not very much.’
He produced the picture, now eight inches by twelve, and passed it across to the elderly lady. ‘Hmm, she’s no beauty, is she,’ commented Miss Gladstone. ‘She would never have been a member of the sewing circle.’ She glanced up. ‘A special clique of prisoners,’ she explained.
Davies leaned forward. ‘The thing that has come out by enlarging the photograph,’ he said, his finger pointed to the top right-hand corner, ‘is this bit here. If you look carefully, there is faint sunlight coming through some sort of leaded window, in the shape of a curve. You can just make it out.’
‘Chelmsford,’ said Miss Gladstone firmly. ‘Circa 1935–37. They took the prisoner pictures in the chapel.’
He pushed the door of the CID Room open with such bad-tempered force that he knocked Detective Constable Sanderson off a chair he was using to reach his tennis racquet, which he kept hidden on top of a cupboard.
‘Oh God, sorry, Sandy,’ said Davies, righting the chair and then the policeman. ‘I’m bloody livid, that’s all.’
‘Your two villains,’ guessed Sanderson, examining a broken string in the racquet. ‘They got off.’
‘They might as well have done,’ growled Davies. He picked up three darts and hurled them violently at the dartboard. ‘Mag … i … bloody … strates!’ he said, flinging each one with emphasis. All three missed the board. He sat down bulkily. ‘Six months – suspended,’ he said. ‘Six months is bad enough. When the silly old sod said “suspended”, I nearly ran over and throttled him.’
‘You’d have got fifteen years for that,’ forecast Sanderson. ‘They conjured up a defence, did they?’
Davies’s eyes bulged. ‘A defence? Jesus Christ, listen to this. They said the old lady attacked them first!’
That smote even Sanderson. ‘Attacked them!’ he said unbelievingly. ‘How old is she? Seventy-five?’
The Complete Dangerous Davies Page 35
