Davies peered into the middle of the lake. The ducks were floating impatiently, looking at him and uttering short, grumbling quacks. ‘All right, all right,’ he called to them. ‘Here it comes.’ He threw the bread into the air and brought the racquet over in a loop striking the crust with the metal edge and splattering it over his head and Nola’s face.
‘No, no,’ she said crossly. ‘No, you’re not doing it at all well.’ She peered at the paper bag on the ground. ‘And we’re running out,’ she said.
With a sigh Davies handed the racquet back to her. She took it silently and retrieved some bread from the bag. The ducks were visibly encouraged. They nudged against each other and quacked in anticipation. She struck the missile accurately among them and followed it with another. They squabbled and thrashed the choppy water.
‘There,’ she said with finality. ‘That’s sufficient for today.’ She picked up the bread bag, screwed it up, and, as if to give Davies something to do, handed it to him. He put it in his pocket. They began to walk away from the lake. ‘You realised that I am a policeman then,’ he said.
She looked surprised. She was very tall, taller than he was, and her face inclined towards him. ‘But, of course. Everybody knows that. All the ladies from the luncheon club.’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘You were sitting in the dining-room at the last Sunday lunch, weren’t you,’ she said.
‘That’s right. It all looked very jolly.’
‘Widows are often jolly,’ she said. ‘They have to be.’
‘All the husbands passed on?’ he said.
‘A bad habit husbands seem to have,’ she said. ‘You were with that lady of colour and that little boy.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Davies steadily. ‘She is … my … girlfriend.’
‘Very beautiful,’ she said with a little sadness. ‘Some of them.’
They had reached the stone gate of the park. ‘I live just along here,’ she said. ‘That damp-looking block of flats.’
‘Oh.’ He hesitated. ‘I wanted to ask you some questions about Mr Dulciman. Do you mind?’
‘I don’t,’ she said firmly. ‘My hope is that you do not succeed in finding him. He’s better lost – or dead. Come and have a cup of tea.’
He walked alongside her past the row of flats, four storeys high. ‘Not very opulent but at least they have a view of the ducks,’ she said. ‘I used to live at Branksome.’
They went up a flight of damp concrete steps and she unlocked the front door. ‘Very exciting having a gentleman to tea,’ she said.
‘Even one who can’t serve for toffee,’ he added.
She laughed quite girlishly. They had walked into the tight hall. The walls were covered with tennis photographs, teams, tournaments, trophies.
‘You’ve always been keen,’ he said examining them.
She sat him on a chintz settee in the old-fashioned room. There were gilt mirrors, tapestries, a painting of Poole Harbour, bits and knick-knacks of a former life. She said: ‘Keen, yes.’ Her tone dropped. ‘People around here really believe I played at Wimbledon. These sort of rumours get about in a place like Bournemouth. There are so many people with nothing to do.’ She put her finger dramatically to her lips. ‘And I’ve never tried to scotch it,’ she said. ‘Why should I? It gives me some sort of distinction.’ She went into the kitchenette. He could see her through the partly open door putting the kettle on. ‘I expect you spend most of your life dealing with stories, Mr Davies,’ she called.
‘Some of them highly unlikely,’ he answered.
She came back and looked through the damp window at the darkening park. ‘My story has not had much of an ending.’
‘What is your story?’ he encouraged gently.
‘Oh, a sort of comfortable life. Nice husband and house. You could see the whole sweep of the sea. Then Trevor died and I had to sell up.’
She returned to the kitchen as the kettle whistled. She brought the tea in on a tortoiseshell tray with a silver sugar bowl and milk jug and a plate of neat biscuits. There was a woollen cosy on the pot.
‘So you want to know about Vernon Dulciman?’ she said, pouring the tea.
‘That would be interesting.’
She poured the milk and handed the delicate cup and saucer to him, inviting him to help himself to sugar. ‘As I told you, I hope you never find him, Mr Davies. At least, alive. He is better wherever he is. Anywhere other than here.’
‘Mr Dulciman does not appear to have been all that popular,’ mentioned Davies. ‘I haven’t heard anyone say a good word about him yet.’
‘Oh, but I loved him,’ she said dramatically. Her faded blue eyes moistened. ‘Deeply.’
‘And what happened to change that?’
She did not answer at once. Then she said decisively: ‘He used to come here and we would go to bed for the whole afternoon. He would go to sleep and snore and I would lie awake listening to the children in the park and think how lucky I was to find love again. You see, I had known him before.’
‘And where was that, in London?’
‘Exactly. Almost thirty years ago. When he had his own teeth. Before he married … And afterwards.’
‘And you renewed the association in Bournemouth?’
‘Yes,’ she replied a little wistfully. ‘I was doing my silly thing hitting bread to the seagulls when someone called. I was in mid-serve as it were. There he was, larger than life than ever. Except that his teeth were more pronounced.’
She took her teacup to the window and stared out over the darkening park.
‘I thought it was so wonderful at the time but later I came to regret it bitterly. Vernon Dulciman was someone who should have remained firmly in my past. I was, and still am, a foolish woman.’
Davies looked into his tea-leaves. There was a strainer on the tray but she had not used it. ‘What did he do?’ he inquired as gently as he could.
‘He robbed me,’ she sighed simply. ‘Robbed me rotten. Twelve thousand and thirty-four pounds. Every penny I had. He even made me cash in my little Premium Bonds.’
Davies regarded her with solid sympathy: ‘What was his story?’
‘A business opportunity. Something not to be missed. I believed him, naturally. He could make me believe. He said that we would go away together. …’ She sighed. ‘I wonder how many times that hollow promise has been made? I wonder how many times he made it?’ Davies thought she was going to cry and hoped she would not. ‘Acapulco,’ she mumbled. ‘Mexico.’
‘And he took off with your money.’
‘Took off is the right phrase, Mr Davies. He positively flew out of here. I looked from the window. Even now I can see him bouncing along the street.’
‘You saw him after that?’
‘Oh yes. Most certainly. Eventually I made inquiries about the business deal and regarding my money but he seemed to have forgotten all about it. He brushed me aside. It was very painful. Humiliating. Naturally I would not, could not, tell anyone else. But then it emerged that he had taken money from others. Silly women like myself. Goodness knows how much.’
She turned slowly still holding the teacup like a small third prize. ‘And that’s all I can tell you,’ she muttered sadly. ‘Except that he vanished.’
Davies had spent an hour picking his way through the files handed to him by Pengelly. Back in his room at the hotel he examined them again. Nothing noted by the police nor by Pengelly himself added anything to his knowledge of the case. The end of Vernon Dulciman, if it was his end, remained as unsolved as ever. Pessimistically, he began to suspect that it might well remain so.
That day he had to leave. He took a reflective lunch in the hotel dining-room. Mildred came in and sat with him while he drank his coffee. ‘When will you be back?’ she asked. Then anxiously: ‘You will be back, won’t you?’
‘Oh, I will,’ he assured her. ‘Of course. I’ve got to get this done if I can. Lots of people haven’t told me the truth. Or not all the truth.’
&
nbsp; ‘Am I one of them?’
‘You could be.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ she said enigmatically. She leaned forward confidingly. ‘Next time you come down we’ll go for a walk. Up along the coast. It’s terrific up there. Dangerous. You can see for miles.’
He smiled and said: ‘We’ll wait for a nice day.’
‘I always am,’ she said.
Davies finished his coffee. He had only drunk a solitary light ale with his lunch. He went to see Mrs Dulciman before he left.
‘Any clues?’ she asked. She was almost jovial. She told him she had won the club bridge championship the previous evening, and he congratulated her. There was something he wanted to ask her but he did not know what it was; something simple that had been touching his thoughts without making itself clear. In the end he shook hands with the old lady and she gave him a scented kiss on the cheek.
‘I look forward to seeing you again soon,’ she said.
‘I’ll be down as soon as I can,’ he promised. ‘In the meantime if there is anything I want to ask, anything that occurs to me, is it all right if I telephone you?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said. ‘I do hope you think of something soon.’
‘So do I,’ he said.
He had the gravest fears that the car would not reach home. On the motorway he twice had to pull it onto the hard shoulder to give it a rest and by the time they reached Hammersmith it was groaning. With a sense of achievement he finally coaxed it into the yard behind Bali Hi where it stood wheezing on the cobbles.
It was strange how he felt at home there. He looked around the walls, bleak and enclosing, with the yellow light of a street lamp leaning over from outside. ‘Davies of the Yard is back!’ he called out. Davies of the Yard; his favourite joke against himself. He would never know Scotland Yard, only this one. Within the garage Kitty began to howl extravagantly, the noise echoing in the enclosed space.
‘All right, all right Kitty,’ he called soothingly. ‘Your master is home!’
The howls turned to snarls as Kitty recognised his voice. He scraped open the door with caution. The dog remained in his deep basket, apparently deciding that a full frontal attack was not fully warranted.
‘Your master is back,’ repeated Davies in honeyed tones: the dog’s reply was a low growl. Nevertheless, and to his surprise and gratification, the animal appeared grudgingly pleased to see him. He allowed Davies to pat his tousled hair and to smile into his face.
‘Has that Mod been looking after you properly?’ he questioned the dog, risking giving his hair another ruffle. ‘We’ve got to get you ready for Crufts.’
Outside he met Mod stumbling across the yard with Kitty’s dinner bowl. ‘Good old Mod,’ he encouraged. ‘No trouble, I take it.’
Mod’s customary pallor was thickened by the edgy hue of the street lamp. His chins folded doubtfully. ‘I don’t truthfully know, Dangerous,’ he said.
‘Why is that? Why don’t you know?’ frowned Davies.
Mod paused, the bowl hanging heavily in his hands. ‘He’s been up to something, but I don’t really know what.’ He looked as though Davies really ought to be told. ‘He had a pair of ladies’ knickers in his basket two evenings ago,’ he reported sorrowfully. ‘God knows who they belonged to.’ Further seriousness creased his face. ‘Mrs Fulljames, perhaps. I have no means of identifying them.’
‘That’s serious,’ muttered Dangerous. ‘Nicking knickers. Has he still got them?’
‘No. I managed to remove the evidence.’ His head shook miserably. ‘They’re in my room.’
‘Maybe she won’t miss them,’ said Davies without much hope. ‘That’s if they are hers.’
‘They could belong to your wife.’
‘I have no means of knowing that.’
He waited until Mod had given Kitty the food and returned with him to the house.
‘Did you solve the big mystery?’ asked Mod.
‘Not a clue,’ said Davies. They wandered into the house.
‘There’s a new lodger,’ said Mod. ‘A Mr Leadbetter. To do with gas.’
When they were seated at the evening table Mrs Fulljames introduced Mr Leadbetter, who looked as if he would rather be elsewhere. ‘I don’t know why they’ve sent me,’ he grumbled over the brown windsor. ‘There was them on the list before me.’
‘Oh, but you’ll like it down here in London,’ enthused Mrs Fulljames as though they were dining in Mayfair. ‘There’s so much to do and see.’
‘February’, intoned the newcomer, ‘is the time for a man to be in his garden. There was others above me on the list for detachment. There must have been a reason.’
Doris, who had been quietly spooning her soup from one edge of the dish to the other, watching the brown waves, said to Davies: ‘Mr Leadbetter takes the Country Landowner.’ She addressed the remark as someone pointing out how well a man could do if he really tried. Mod turned his big, questioning head towards Davies and Minnie Banks emitted an envious squeak. ‘Oh, it must be lovely to have land.’
‘How many acres do you have?’ asked Davies wondering how much the gas board paid its employees.
Mr Leadbetter looked around the faces as though cornered. ‘Only the garden and a bit of allotment,’ he confessed decently. ‘I get the Country Landowner from my sister who works in a dentist’s.’ He surveyed the company again. ‘She gets me Autocar and Our Pets and sometimes The Lady as well if the other cleaner don’t grab it first.’ He swallowed heavily and a riverlet of soup came from the corner of his mouth. Then like a man who has decided to come completely clean said: ‘I like to read the small ads. Especially the Lonely Hearts.’
‘Lonely Hearts in Our Pets must be worth reading,’ mentioned Mod heavily. ‘Man with big dog would like to meet lady with small pus … cat.’
‘Is Mr Leadbetter a single gentleman?’ inquired Minnie looking directly at the person in question. She blushed narrowly down the edges of her nose. Doris extended her chin, reinforcing the inquiry. Mrs Fulljames paused in collecting the plates, balancing them like a poor circus act. Mr Leadbetter said: ‘Mr Leadbetter is not but wishes it was otherwise. Mrs Leadbetter is not exciting enough for me.’
When they were walking down to the Babe In Arms, Mod said: ‘I wonder what Mrs Leadbetter’s like then?’
They had a couple of pints and then walked to Jemma’s flat. Davies was carrying the police file and Pengelly’s file on Vernon Dulciman. They spread it on Jemma’s kitchen table while she brought them sandwiches. After dinner at Bali Hi they were frequently hungry.
‘There he is,’ said Davies putting Mrs Dulciman’s photograph of her husband in the centre of the papers. ‘The man they love to hate. Vernon Algernon Dulciman, aged sixty-odd, five feet ten inches, of upright almost military bearing, although he may have slumped when nobody was looking, small moustache, false teeth, bright challenging eyes, and lots of charm when he needed it, like when he wanted money. Walked out of his wife’s life on 14 September 1988, never to be seen again.’
‘Who sent his teeth?’ asked Mod.
Davies said: ‘Well …’ Jemma glanced at him. ‘The consensus of opinion about the teeth is that Mrs Dulciman sent them to herself.’
Mod looked astonished but quickly understood. ‘To give you the “come on”,’ he nodded. ‘That’s clever.’
‘She’s a bright old lady,’ responded Davies. He turned the sparse pages of the police file saying: ‘I had to use a little blackmail on Mr Pengelly.’
‘What’s he like?’ asked Jemma, looking over his shoulder.
‘Claims to be a private investigator but he earns his bread from a decidedly dodgy escort agency.’ He glanced sideways at Jemma. ‘I had to take one of his escorts out.’
Jemma lifted her calm eyes. ‘Was she fun?’
‘I can’t remember. She drank me under the table. But I got enough on Pengelly to get this file … and this police file which he had as well.’ He turned the pages of the second file. ‘The trouble is that there�
��s something missing. When Dulciman’s shoes were found on the seashore, more or less floating, some lad brought them up to Bertie at the hotel and he took them to the police.’
‘That was a trifle convenient, wasn’t it?’ asked Jemma.
‘Maybe, maybe not. They were found on the beach right below the hotel, presumably where Dulciman went into the sea or wanted to make it look as though he had. The boy who found them took them up to the hotel and gave them to Bertie the porter. The trouble is that Bertie didn’t ask the kid’s name so he couldn’t tell the police and they didn’t think it was important enough to make further inquiries. A bit sloppy.’
‘And this boy is important, you think,’ said Mod. ‘Well, maybe next time we go down I’ll try and track him down for you. You know I’m good at legwork.’
‘And booking your next holiday,’ mentioned Davies.
Mod grimaced. ‘I don’t want to be left with your dog any more,’ he said with doleful firmness.
‘When are you going down again?’ Jemma asked carefully.
‘As soon as I can get a couple of days off,’ said Davies. ‘Without sick leave if possible.’
Jemma said: ‘Remember our music evening. It’s this Friday. Valentine is looking forward to it. Because you’re coming. We’re doing our duet.’
‘I can’t wait,’ said Davies. ‘Is he okay?’
‘For the moment,’ she sighed. Her white teeth gritted. ‘There are times when I could do a few murders of my own.’
At the Babe In Arms Auntie Trudie, a ruddy old woman who drank only rough cider, said she remembered Bournemouth from her girlhood. Mad Maggy said she had been there or it may have been Brighton; Scotty, who boasted a medical background, had memories of Poole. They were talking of distant countries.
The Complete Dangerous Davies Page 61
