Having taken the dog to their room and seen him subside grumpily but gratefully into his basket, removed now from the bathroom door, he went unsteadily down to the bar.
‘You’re ill,’ announced the woman tending it. ‘I can see you’re ill.’
‘I don’t feel so good,’ Davies agreed miserably. He ordered a double scotch.
‘Your eyes give you away,’ she said.
He sat aching on the bar stool. She approved of the whisky. ‘Although brandy’s better. The rougher the better too. Burns through your system and drags everything out. Drags it. Germs, phlegm, everything.’
There was no one else remaining. Rain slid down the windows like tears. ‘I thought Bournemouth was supposed to be healthy,’ he suggested weakly.
‘Oh, it is,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Supposed to be. It’s the trees, the pines, giving off vapours. But looking at you I’d say it was too late for that.’
Davies groaned. ‘So it’s no good me going out and sniffing at a pine.’
‘Better go to bed and stay under the blankets,’ she advised. ‘I’m closing up anyway. Unless you want another.’
Davies said he did. He drank it straight down and went to bed. His whole body seemed to be groaning. He had never realised that being ill was like this. ‘Oh God,’ he mumbled. ‘I do feel poorly.’
All through the night great doors and windows seemed to be opening and closing. Spasms of hot air were at once followed by icy blasts that whistled through his pipes and shook his bones. His throat felt cracked. The sheets were soaked with sweat. ‘Kitty, Kitty,’ he croaked. ‘Oh, Kitty.’
The dog snored on. He would have been no help anyway. He was no St Bernard. Davies shivered so much the bed vibrated. Then he fell into a sticky sleep from which he awoke as a grim bar of grey light was appearing over the curtain rods. His mouth was arid, his throat raw. For a while he thought he had wet the bed. He felt so low and lonely. Where was Jemma? Where was Mod? Where was anybody?
Mildred came in at nine o’clock, briefly knocking and pushing a cup of tea before her through the opening. ‘I hear you’re not …’ she started. She saw his state and said: ‘Oh, you’re not are you,’ her voice dropping. He held out his pale, damp hand from the bedclothes for the tea. She helped him to put it to his parched lips. ‘I’ll get the doctor,’ she said. She went to the door and then turned and studied him. ‘Yes, I’ll get him,’ she repeated and went out hurriedly.
Davies went into a ragged sleep and the next time he woke the door was opened by Mildred with the doctor, a gingery man, following her. ‘Never had malaria, have you?’ he asked conversationally as he opened his bag. He shook his thermometer and put it into Davies’ mouth. Davies hummed and shook his head to indicate that he had never had malaria. The doctor took the thermometer out and peered at it. His ginger eyebrows went up. Mildred was hovering near the door.
The doctor looked at his throat. ‘Nasty,’ he said. ‘Like Aladdin’s cave. Your tonsils are rotten, you know.’
‘All of me feels rotten,’ suggested Davies.
The doctor laughed. ‘You’ll be all right in a few days, a week at the most. I’ll give you some antibiotics and then you’ll have to sweat it out. Pity you never had those tonsils removed when you were a child.’
‘My mother was always busy,’ croaked Davies.
Jemma came down on the following day, bringing with her a photograph taken of the regulars in the Babe In Arms holding up their pints and wishing him a swift recovery. She surveyed him anxiously but tried to smile. ‘By God, Dangerous, you can’t look after yourself can you,’ she said. She kissed him on his cheek, where he pointed, as though he had been injured again.
She checked the bottles and jars at his bedside and stayed an hour trying to soothe him and telling him news from Willesden. It was mostly a monologue with Davies merely croaking and nodding. She then went down to fetch a tray of tea but after that she had to leave. She had abandoned a meeting to come and see him and he understood that most of her life was taken up trying to help people who were less fortunate than he was, although at that moment he might have argued the point.
‘What about Kitty?’ she asked.
‘Take him home, please,’ he wheezed leaving a space between each word. The dog sat up expectantly. ‘The doctor’s afraid he might catch this.’ Jemma laughed and gave him a gentle push. But her eyes dimmed with concern again. ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do about you, Dangerous,’ she said huskily. His plight was bringing out the social worker in her. ‘I’d marry you if I could.’
‘You may need to bury me,’ he said miserably. He lay back on the pillow and regarded her with a bleak expression.
She bent and kissed him again, this time on his damp forehead. ‘Still,’ she added with an attempt at cheerfulness. ‘This is the first time I’ve known you to be ill.’ She paused: ‘As distinct from injured.’
Kitty was eager to leave. Davies saw them go out of the door and it was closed on them. He lay back mournfully, watching the swiftly fading light of the afternoon. At that time of the year the day could not wait to go. He could see through the window the dark line of the sea, growing thinner by the minute. There was nothing on it; not a ship, not a light.
Mildred brought him two poached eggs on toast. ‘They look like your eyes,’ she said studying his eyes. He could only eat one, and the toast grated like wood in his sore throat. She ate the second egg having thought to bring a fork.
‘I’ve had an unfortunate life,’ she said as though she had been waiting to tell him about it and this was the perfect opportunity. Her skirted hips overhung the sides of the bedside chair. ‘Look at my name for a start. There’s not many girls of twenty-five called Mildred.’
Davies attempted to look surprised. He raised his eyebrows and shook his head.
‘It’s dead true,’ she asserted. ‘Mildred … it sounds like someone who’s afraid of working in a cloth factory, doesn’t it. Mill-dread. My mum called me that after some auntie of my dad’s. She was always trying to please him. Up until she pushed him down the stairs. But they didn’t know what they were doing to me. Sod Auntie Mildred. I’ve tried calling myself other names … Tammy, Nicky … but somehow I get found out and it’s back to bloody Mildred.’
It was a one-sided conversation but he was grateful that she had come. He patted her hand in appreciation. She left but came back immediately with the evening paper. ‘The Echo might cheer you up,’ she said. ‘The new unemployment figures are just out. And there’s been a nasty accident … and Bournemouth lost.’ He managed to say: ‘I heard.’ As she was leaving she turned at the door and half whispered: ‘Mrs Dulciman still wants to see you. Just as soon as you’re a bit better.’
*
It was two further days before his malaise began to leave him. His throat eased, his temperature quietened and his eyes dried. He spent much of the time propped up on the pillows wagering against himself on the appearance of a boat on the sea. One appeared on the second afternoon and he viewed it as a sickly castaway might do.
Bertie came up to see him and brought the racing paper to see if he fancied anything. He picked a seven-to-one runner at Kempton Park, a horse called Dry Throat, but it lost by a neck. Mildred brought him some poached haddock and ate most of it herself while telling him of her life’s bad luck from the day of her birth in Newcastle when, due to a road mishap, the ambulance taking her mother to hospital had been halted for an hour on the bridge across the River Tyne. ‘That’s where I was born, up on that bridge, neither one side nor the other. In fact, in limbo,’ she related. ‘That’s why I eat too much.’ She regarded him as though she did not expect to be believed: ‘It’s compensation.’
On the third morning Mildred came into the room and asked if Mrs Dulciman could come and see him now. Davies, reading an analysis of local jobless, and having read an even deeper analysis of Bournemouth’s problems in front of goal, was glad to accede. The old lady came into the room daintily, with a sedate smile and a bright eye. She
was wearing a dark-blue dress with lace at the collar and cuffs. She did not have a white stick.
‘So glad you’re better, Dangerous,’ she said. She regarded him anxiously as she pulled up the bedside chair. ‘You don’t mind me using your eponym, I hope.’
‘No, please be seated,’ he said.
‘Everyone else, at least those who know you, calls you Dangerous, I imagine. I heard the little black boy call you that.’
‘Generally that’s how I am known,’ he agreed.
‘And why is that?’ Her eyes fixed him, wanting to know. ‘You don’t look very dangerous.’
He laughed, still roughly. ‘And I don’t feel it, Mrs Dulciman, believe me,’ he replied. ‘They just call me that. It started a long time ago.’
‘You are a policeman, I believe.’
‘Yes. In London. I’m a detective constable.’ Her face was pink with wisps of grey hair around her forehead. ‘That’s how I got the nickname. They knew I was harmless, the coppers and the criminals, so that’s what they nicknamed me. Dangerous. They used to send me on jobs that nobody else wanted to do. They still do.’
The old lady looked thoughtful. She framed the question carefully. ‘Why do people commit crimes, do you think?’
Davies swallowed and held his tender throat. ‘Well, let me see.’ He regarded her carefully. ‘Some do it because they are driven to it, some because it looks easy, some can’t help it.’ He paused. ‘And there are those … who do it because they’re evil.’
‘Yes. That’s quite a comprehensive list. Do you think you would be able to solve a crime for me?’
‘Me?’ He clutched his throat at her suddenness. It hurt. ‘But …’
‘I would pay you a fee. Five thousand pounds,’ she said firmly. ‘Half now and half when you’ve cleared it up.’
‘But, Mrs Dulciman, I’m a full-time officer, I couldn’t take on anything like that. I’m out of my patch, my area … the local police wouldn’t …’
She laughed quite heartily. ‘Oh, they’ve tried. Well, they said they’d tried. It’s my husband. He vanished five years ago.’
Davies nodded. ‘Yes, I heard,’ he said. ‘And please don’t misunderstand, Mrs Dulciman. I’m very flattered and it’s a generous offer, but I’m not able to do anything like that. I’m not allowed. You should get a private detective if you’re serious about it.’
‘Serious,’ she echoed. ‘Oh, I’m serious enough. It’s other people. I had a private detective. A weedy-looking man who was always combing his bald head and had a perpetual cough, lying on wet grass I imagine, keeping observation and suchlike. But he was utterly useless. All right for spying on adulterers and that type of person, but quite hopeless otherwise.’
She regarded him sagely from behind her shining glasses. ‘Revenge,’ she said mildly. ‘You didn’t mention revenge.’
Davies blinked then realised. ‘Oh, yes. In the reasons for crime. No, you’re right, I completely overlooked revenge. That’s one of them, of course. Crimes against the person generally.’ He smiled. ‘You don’t often get somebody stealing a bike for revenge.’
‘It would be to ride or to sell,’ she nodded seriously.
‘Why now, do you want to find out for sure what happened to Mr Dulciman?’ he inquired. ‘It’s been five years.’
‘I need to.’ She did not ask him how he knew. Instead she responded briskly: ‘When he first vanished naturally the police made inquiries. Some shoes were found and some remains washed up from the sea but the findings were inconclusive. They might have been Vernon’s but then they might not. I certainly couldn’t recognise them. Then I asked this Pengelly man, this private detective.’ She sniffed. ‘He says he’s Cornish. Can you imagine a Cornish private detective?’
‘I’ve never thought about it,’ admitted Davies.
‘They are good at concealing things, the Cornish, that’s why they made good smugglers, but I don’t know about finding out. Anyway this one was no good at all. I paid him off and he went back to spying on people breaking their marriage vows.’
‘So why now? After five years have gone by.’
She gave a small sigh. ‘Well, it’s been on my mind. And then you arrived. I thought the moment I heard you were a detective that you might be the person to find out. You give me a feeling of confidence.’
He blinked at the compliment, then said: ‘Do you miss your husband, Mrs Dulciman?’
‘Miss him? Good gracious no! I couldn’t stand him. He was a dreadful man. Appalling.’
‘But you still want to know where he went. What happened to him. If he is alive or dead.’
‘I would certainly like to find out. He left a substantial amount of debts and, I subsequently discovered, a substantial amount of money. I had to pay off the debts, naturally. But I cannot lay my hands on the money. Most of it anyway. I have to wait seven years until a court will declare that he is presumed dead.’ She waited, then said: ‘I may not live that long myself.’
‘I see.’
‘Besides which I would genuinely like to know who did for him, if he was done for. I don’t like unsolved mysteries, as popular as they are on television and in books, and I don’t want to lie on my deathbed still trying to work this one out.’
He laughed and patted her hand. There were light-blue veins protruding from the skin. There was a knock and Mildred came in with a tray of tea. ‘Thought you’d like some,’ she mumbled. ‘It’s quite mild out now Mrs Dulciman.’
‘Yes, Mildred,’ returned the old lady smiling gently. ‘For the month of the year.’
Mrs Dulciman told her to leave the tray and the old lady studiedly poured the tea. They drank quietly saying nothing now. It was darkening outside the window. But it was quiet. ‘I’ll have to give it some thought, Mrs Dulciman,’ said Davies looking at her over the rim of his cup. A tear of tea ran down the side and he caught it on the saucer he held beneath. She handed him the plate of biscuits and putting the saucer on the bedclothes in front of him he took one.
‘Half the fee would be payable on agreement,’ she repeated. ‘Half on completion. When will you let me know your decision?’
‘I’ll be leaving at the end of the week,’ he said. ‘Could I let you know then? The difficulties are as I said – I’m breaking the rules. A serving policeman can’t just go off on his own and take up a private case. Also I will be in London and I would need to get down here to Bournemouth a lot.’ He grinned at her. ‘It might have to wait until my summer hols.’
She smiled almost fondly before sharply breaking a biscuit in two. ‘There are weekends,’ she pointed out. ‘Or days off. I presume even with the present lawlessness in the country policemen do get some free time. It would just be like doing a spare-time job. What do they call it, Mr Davies?’
‘Moonlighting, Mrs Dulciman. It’s called Moonlighting.’
Five
Jemma drove along the New Forest road, the dual carriageway that cut in half the ancient hunting chase of William the Conqueror. It was a sparkling day but the sun was already low and shining between naked branches. A herd of deer grazed. The motorway was straight ahead.
‘So you refused. You told her you could not do it,’ she said.
‘I had to,’ said Davies from the depths of his overcoat. ‘How can I do something like that on the quiet? I’d be drummed out. And I couldn’t spend enough time on it, not to justify the money. I’d be short-changing the old lady.’
‘It’s a lot of money, Dangerous, five thousand,’ she pointed out. ‘Think of what you could do with that.’
Davies sniffed. He still felt low. His face was pale with deep, dark lines. ‘I could buy a new dog, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I’m glad Kitty has been behaving.’
‘Well, he has with me,’ said Jemma cautiously. ‘I took him for a walk through the cemetery, twice, and he’s as good as gold.’
‘When he likes you, he likes you,’ nodded Davies his face framed in the cleft of the overcoat, his voice muffled. An unhappy thought struck him. ‘Has
Mod had any trouble with him?’
She appeared to be deeply concentrating on the road, straight, four-laned and with only scattered traffic. ‘The motorway’s not far,’ she muttered.
‘Tell me,’ said Davies grimly. His weary eyes turned sideways towards her.
‘Tell you?’ she asked ingenuously. She smiled towards a group of shaggy New Forest ponies. ‘Look at that. So pretty.’
‘Tell me about Kitty and what he did with Mod,’ he insisted in a low voice. ‘Don’t tell me the bugger wrecked the pub again. I warned Mod …’
‘No, no,’ said Jemma inclining her head like someone struggling to find something good to say. ‘No, the pub was intact, just fine. In fact everybody said what a good dog Kitty was. They thought his stay in Bornemouth had done him good.’
‘What then?’
‘It was that man with the hot-dog stall,’ she said with a slow despair. ‘The one near the Jubilee Clock.’
‘Oh God. I knew it was only a matter of time. That dog’s had his eye on him. What happened?’
‘The man’s going to sue you,’ said Jemma grimly. She kept her eyes on the route. ‘I’ve always thought he was dodgy anyway. The stench from those onions and the Environment Depart …’
‘How much damage?’
She sighed. ‘The stall and the man were both wrecked,’ she said getting it off her chest.
‘Jesus. Kitty didn’t bite him?’
‘No. Kitty’s mouth was full of sausage meat. But the whole stall collapsed. The man was a nervous ninny. He’s going to sue for loss of earnings, mental anguish, the lot.’
Davies moaned. ‘Hot-dog man’s mental anguish,’ he recited slowly. ‘I can see the headlines now. What am I going to do?’
‘Five thousand quid might come in handy. You may need to buy him off or settle out of court.’
Davies sighed. ‘Five thousand,’ he repeated. ‘It might just be an old lady rambling on.’
‘Mrs Dulciman doesn’t strike me as the rambling-on type,’ observed Jemma firmly. ‘Did you ask her about her white stick?’
The Complete Dangerous Davies Page 53
