‘I understand, Bertie,’ said Davies adding quickly: ‘Have you got a key for it?’ He looked towards the suitcase the porter had indicated. The porter looked shocked. ‘Oh, no, I just put the case there, where it is, and more or less forgot about it. It’s just where it was. Mr Dulciman had the key I suppose.’
‘And he never came back, as far as you know, to open it again?’
‘Never, I would have known. I keep my door locked.’
The two men, as though in a rehearsed movement, turned and regarded the suitcase. It stood at the end of a row of dusty pieces of luggage, long locked by the look of them, lined like abandoned rail wagons in a shunting yard. ‘Let’s take a look in it,’ grunted Davies. ‘It might answer a lot of questions.’
Bertie became anxious. ‘Yes, of course, we must,’ he said, his voice low. ‘But, like I said, sir, there’s no key. He took it with him.’
Davies was already moving towards the luggage. ‘We might need a chisel,’ he said. He stood looking down at the sturdy suitcase, large and brown. It had two wide straps around its girth and three tarnished brass locks.
‘A chisel,’ echoed Bertie, the nervousness squeaking in his voice. ‘Yes … well I can get a chisel.’ He remained where he stood, still by the couch. ‘Easily. But … it will be like breaking and entering, won’t it, Mr Davies?’
‘Something like that,’ returned Davies casually, and still looking at the case. He tested the locks, then looked up and saw Bertie’s expression. ‘Don’t worry, Bertie,’ he said. ‘Dulciman’s not coming back for it.’ He grinned grimly. ‘For all we know we might even find him inside there.’
Bertie shuddered. ‘Don’t say that,’ he pleaded. ‘I couldn’t …’ He achieved a nervous smile. ‘But I would have smelt him wouldn’t I.’ It seemed to decide him. ‘I’ll get the chisel.’
While he was gone from the room Davies tried to move the suitcase. He did so with difficulty. It was full of something. He wiped the dust from around the locks as if to make opening them easier. Then on the far side of the case, nearest the wall, he saw the remnant of a label. He pulled the case further into the room. The label was torn off but not sufficiently to make the words ‘The Rock Hotel, Gibraltar’ unreadable. Below this was the edge of some large and flamboyant handwriting but he could not make out the words. Bertie came back with the chisel and a hammer. ‘Thought we might have to give it a whack, sir,’ he said. He had gathered his courage.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Davies. ‘Then you won’t get any blame if it goes wrong. You don’t even have to say you were here.’ He held out his hands for the tools.
‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ said Bertie with his new confidence. ‘After all, it’s been in my room long enough. Five years and he gave me three hundred. That’s hardly thirty bob a week, is it.’
‘Not enough to lose on a horse,’ agreed Davies. ‘Here, let’s get it into some space.’ Bertie moved the couch back and Davies tugged the case into a clear area. There were two more labels, each one with the words ‘The Rock Hotel, Gibraltar’ with ‘Mr and Mrs Vernon Dulciman’ in faded handwriting. ‘Here goes,’ he said, the chisel in one hand and the hammer in the other. ‘Mr Dulciman here we come.’
Bertie’s alarm reappeared for a moment and he took a pace back. ‘Here we come,’ he repeated in a low voice, ‘Mr Dulciman.’
Davies put the chisel under the first lock and gave it a sharp blow with the hammer. It shuddered. He repeated the blow. ‘They made real suitcases in those days,’ said Bertie in the tone of an expert. ‘None of your plastic rubbish.’
Another swift strike with the hammer, and another, and the lock gave in, flying away from its fixings. Davies then went to the second side lock and gave that the same treatment. It came away quite easily on the third blow.
He hit the middle lock three hard times with the chisel. It gaped on the third blow and he struck at it again triumphantly with the hammer to finish it off but only succeeded in hitting his own thumb. He howled with pain and thrust his thumb in his mouth, taking it out to put it between his thighs and then to remove it and rub it with his other hand. ‘Did that hurt, sir?’ inquired Bertie, concern wrapping around his face.
‘Oh, nothing,’ responded Davies through clenched teeth. ‘Just smashed my thumb.’
Bertie said: ‘I’ll get the First Aid box.’ He turned as though anxious to be away from the scene.
‘Forget it,’ called Davies after him. ‘It’s not that bad. It just hurts when you bash yourself with a hammer.’ He swung a vengeful blow at the middle lock, completely severing it from the case. It flew away and hit the wall before dropping to the floor.
‘It really must have hurt,’ said Bertie as if trying to find an excuse for the violence.
There were still the two thick straps holding the case. Davies stood, still rubbing his thumb, and together the two men studied the case. ‘Perhaps it’s just old clothes,’ Bertie suggested.
‘Three hundred quid is a lot for old clothes,’ muttered Davies. He bent and opened the first strap buckle. Bertie made as if to undo the second but Davies waved him aside. ‘My responsibility,’ he reminded.
The second buckle was tough and tight. Davies tugged at it and then parted the strap from the brass. The case sagged open. ‘It’s full of papers,’ said Bertie peering from above. ‘I wonder what they are.’
‘We’ll soon see,’ said Davies turning the suitcase onto its back. He grunted with the effort. With almost the same movement, he opened the lid. It was packed with large brown envelopes. The flaps were only tucked inside and he picked one up and opened it. He turned it to an angle and out slid a large picture of a young girl sitting on a lavatory. ‘It’s not the minutes of the parish council,’ said Davies.
‘Oh, my God,’ exclaimed Bertie. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that before.’
‘I hope you haven’t,’ returned Davies. He looked at the next photograph. The whole batch were of the same subject, the pretty young blonde astride a toilet pan, taken from various angles including underneath.
‘It’s pornography,’ said the shocked Bertie.
‘That’s what it’s called,’ said Davies glancing sideways at him.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ said Bertie in the voice of a man pulling himself together. ‘Open one of the others.’
Davies did. He blinked at the photographs. Three men and one girl. ‘I don’t think you ought to see that one,’ he said sliding it back into the envelope.
He selected another. Two naked girls, one tied to a post, the other with a cane. ‘Sadism, that is,’ said Bertie informatively.
Davies held up another picture. ‘And that’s sodomy,’ he said. Another: ‘And that’s fellatio … and that’s cunnilingus.’
‘Don’t they have some funny names,’ said Bertie. He looked at Davies. ‘Mr Dulciman collected pornography,’ he suggested.
‘Dealt in it,’ corrected Davies. There were some thicker envelopes to one side, yellow, with string around them. He picked one up and took the string away. ‘Magazines,’ he said emptying the contents. Half a dozen fell out in lurid colours. One was called Big Fat Girls and on the cover posing indecently, her huge breasts thrust out, her legs astride, was Mildred.
‘Hello, is that Pengelly?’
‘It is. What do you want, Davies?’
‘To eliminate you from my inquiries.’
‘Oh Christ. Now what?’
‘I’m almost there, Pengelly.’
‘Good for bloody you. It’s nearly eleven at night you know.’
‘Sorry. I expect you’re in bed with a nice cup of cocoa and Enid Blyton.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I’ve turned up a lot of your stock-in-trade. Yours and Dulciman’s. Very naughty.’
‘So? Get off the phone and have a good time.’
‘Stop putting ideas into my head. No, there was just one question, Pengelly. This consignment, nasty as it is, doesn’t seem to me to be the stuff that murders are made of.’
‘So, what’s the point?’
‘Why did the London operators move in on you?’
‘Oh, I get it. You still think they may have done for Dulciman?’
‘It’s a possibility. He may have been in, got in, much deeper than you believe. When you split from him he may have got into murkier waters. But I can’t see anyone knocking him off for naughty nudes.’
Patiently Pengelly said: ‘It was the economics of it, Davies. Pornography is like any other business. Costs. Down here it was relatively cheap. These kids, as I told you, thought that they were on a bonanza for fifty quid. And they were fresh looking, not the worn-out shaggers you get in London. Amateurs turned professional. The studio costs were low, everything was half price compared to London and you got a nicer sort of participant. Get it?’
‘And that’s why the London elements became interested, started to put the touch on you? And that’s why you got out, because they were moving in?’
‘Like I told you, that was it.’
‘All right. Thanks.’
‘Don’t mention it, Davies. Just don’t bother me again.’
‘Unless I find out you done it,’ said Davies smiling down the phone.
She called at eleven thirty. Bertie, who was clearing up and locking up, did not recognise her disguised voice and put her through to Davies’ room. He was lying in bed watching the moon through the window. ‘Dangerous,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve got to see you.’
He sat up quickly in bed. ‘I want to see you too. Where are you?’
‘Not now. Tomorrow. I might as well get a little romance out of this while I get a chance.’
‘Where?’
‘On the hilltop. You know, in the army area where we went.’
‘I was afraid you might say that. You’ve been drinking.’
‘Cider, that’s all. Oh, Dangerous, it was so lovely before. This will be the last time. I’ll tell you what happened. I’ll be waiting for you up there.’
His heart was sad. ‘You silly girl,’ was all he could say. ‘What time?’
‘Nine o’clock. The sun will be on the hilltop then. You can get a bus at eight from outside the hotel.’
‘All right, Mildred. I’ll see you there. Leave off the cider.’
‘I’ll see you too. Darling Dangerous.’
Fifteen
He slept little that night; when he eventually did a parade of people passed through his gritty dreams, Pengelly combing Kitty’s hair, Nola Cloudsley-Clive swinging a squawking seagull around her gaunt blonde head, Bertie dancing with a naked girl, Mildred weeping, Jemma laughing wildly, and through them all the face of Vernon Dulciman baring his false teeth at his wife who merely blinked. The only absentee was Mod. During one of his half-awake moments Davies wondered if this was because Mod himself slept soundly and was therefore unavailable to intrude into anyone’s nightmares.
Sticky-eyed he caught the eight o’clock bus outside the hotel. Bertie watched him go through the lace curtains of the lounge. The morning was mild but grey, the sea sullen and with no wind. He sat on the top deck of the bus watching the empty beaches move by, then into the empty suburbs and out into the empty countryside. At the hamlet with the pub and the telephone box, he got off and, after cautiously looking about him, took the narrow path up which he had followed Mildred. There were spring leaves on the hedgerows and they showered overnight water on him as he passed. He reached the stile with the skull-and-crossbones warning and tentatively climbed it. From beyond that he could see the whole horizon and at once he spotted her. She was standing on the top of the ridge waiting for him. As she had said she would. Heavy in body and in spirit, he began to climb the slope. Why did it have to be her?
Mildred stood poised theatrically as he gained the last steep and grassy incline. ‘It’s much harder this time of the year,’ she called with blatant cheerfulness. ‘The grass is longer and wet.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ he shouted back. ‘My socks are soaking.’
She laughed in her sharp, jolly way and then stopped and silently watched him as he stumbled up the final few yards. At the summit she held out her hands and pulled him heftily up the last hump. ‘Hello, Dangerous,’ she said melodramatically. ‘Have you come to get me?’
He was attempting to regain his breath. ‘Why, what have you done?’ he puffed eventually. He studied her face, white and pudgy, black-ringed below her eyes. The eyes themselves looked sore. Her hair was caught behind her neck but straggles of it had come loose and were lying damply across her forehead. She was wearing her brown anorak and large jeans. ‘God, it’s hot getting up here,’ said Davies.
He opened his coat and flapped it like wings. Set-faced she stepped towards him and put her arms about him. He hugged her and kissed her on her pallid cheek. ‘What made you run away?’ he asked.
‘I knew it was all coming out,’ she said. ‘You were finding out.’ She began to sniffle. ‘I couldn’t face it all. Then, when I came out here three days ago and began thinking, I thought at least I owed it to you to tell you what happened.’
He regarded her with astonishment. ‘You’ve been out here all that time?’
She gave a grin of achievement. ‘Three days. I’ve been living in the house down there.’ She nodded to the abandoned hamlet below. A single chimney pot projected through the mist lolling about the roofs. ‘The house that Alfie and I used to pretend was ours.’ She could see his face was full of concern for her. She smiled tightly and said: ‘It’s very cosy. Come on down and I’ll make you a cup of coffee.’
‘I could do with a coffee,’ he said. He tried to see the sea but today it was out of view. She put her big white hand into his and they descended the slope together. ‘You shouldn’t be out here, staying out here,’ he said. ‘It’s very risky.’
She laughed, her laugh light as she lumbered alongside him. ‘I know the exact times when they play war, the army,’ she assured him breathlessly. ‘I’ve got them written down. They always put them in the local paper so that people won’t be frightened.’
They reached the level ground, the hill was between them and the way he had come into the zone. Her jeans and his trousers were wet to the knees. ‘They don’t use it for manoeuvres so much now anyway,’ she said taking his hand again and moving towards the end house of a tumbledown terrace. ‘Not since the cut-backs. It’s quite safe if you know.’
The small village was tightly together. One house had been demolished and two more were without roofs. It was easy to imagine how it had been fifty years before when it had been lived in. The church still had its tower, although there was daylight showing through a hole in it. The stone houses dripped and the ground underfoot was muddy and strewn with small debris. She led him towards the door of the house she had indicated, pushing it open creakily and throwing out her arm. ‘Welcome, Dangerous Davies,’ she said.
He ducked below the askew lintel. Inside it was like a damp bunker. The windows were screened with opaque plastic which had torn in places, the ceiling sagged, the floor was covered with a pattern of mildewed mats. There was a scarred wooden table and a couple of uncertain-looking chairs, a cupboard with its door clinging to one hinge and a set of double bunks against the wall. Mildred swept her hand about. ‘There. It’s all right, isn’t it.’
She saw his expression and turned quickly away from him. ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said in a low voice. In one corner on an enamel-topped table was a loaf of bread, a half-empty glass cider jar, something in a metal dish and a small primus stove. She lit this and picked up a black kettle from the floor. ‘The water’s all right,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I get it from the stream.’
Testing one of the chairs tentatively first, Davies sat down on it. ‘Mildred,’ he said. ‘What are you doing out here?’
‘Don’t worry, I’m going to tell you,’ she said suddenly starting to sob. She turned towards him tears racing down her cheeks. ‘Can’t you wait a minute until I’ve made the coffee. You’ll hear it all, Dangerous, don
’t worry.’ She turned away and then back to him again in the next moment. ‘While the kettle is boiling would you like to see where Mr Dulciman is buried?’
Davies thought he was going to fall off the chair. ‘Buried?’ he repeated stupidly. ‘Dulciman? Out here?’
‘Out here,’ she repeated firmly. Like a busy housewife she wiped her hands on a ragged towel and said: ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’
Almost blithely she led him out through the low door and into the overgrown village street. ‘This way,’ she said, taking him eagerly by the arm. ‘I thought you’d be surprised.’
Dumbstruck, Davies said: ‘I am, a bit.’ He hurried along with her.
‘It seemed like a good place,’ she enthused. ‘Nobody out here and you don’t even have to dig a hole. The place is full of craters. All he needed was a few spades of earth on him and then the army bulldozer came along a few days later and filled him in nicely.’ He still could not believe this was happening. He kept looking at her sideways as they went; he licked his lips. She led him around the corner at the end of the sagging terrace. Beyond was a field indented with shallow depressions, most overgrown with grass. ‘Now which hole was it?’ Mildred asked herself. She brightened and moved forward resolutely, halting after twenty paces and pointing to a saucer of earth covered with grass and weeds. ‘Mr Dulciman’s down there,’ she said. ‘I’m almost sure that’s where he is.’
*
He sat at the rough table, his head half buried in his hands, although he was still looking at her over them. She was pouring the coffee. ‘Alfie and I brought him out here,’ she said with a touch of bravado. ‘We put him in Alfie’s little car, he had a blue Metro, and drove out here in the dead of night.’ She turned with the coffee mugs. Davies could hardly take his eyes from her. ‘It was the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. Ever.’ She was trying to stop herself talking madly, trying to suppress and slow her voice. ‘We just left the car by the telephone box and wheeled him along the lane in a wheelbarrow, and up here. He was a dead weight – well, he was dead, wasn’t he – but we managed. Alfie, although there was not much of him, was quite strong and I’m used to lifting things about. You have to in hotel work.’
The Complete Dangerous Davies Page 70
