‘So what went wrong?’
‘You know that Makepeace had done officer training at Eton, and that made it more than likely he’d be called up, long before the invasion of France.’
‘Yes, I understand how it worked,’ I say.
‘Well, he learned that he was about be posted away, and since there wasn’t much chance he’d ever come back to Oxford – at least not while Comstock was still around – he decided that it would be pointless to share the last couple of weeks’ profits with the sergeant. The only problem was that Comstock found out all about it, and when he ran across Makepeace in a pub in Oxford, they had an argument that soon turned to violence.’
‘How do you know all this?’ I ask.
‘Comstock was with his two minders – and one of them, unbeknownst to him, was one of my people, who had been collecting evidence for weeks.’
‘When did Comstock turn up dead?’
‘It was less than twenty-fours later. The killer had hidden him in the bushes near the river, but a dog sniffed him out, and the dog’s owner rang the police straight away.’
‘And was it Makepeace who killed him?’
‘Almost definitely.’
‘And the police knew this?’
‘Sure, we told them everything, because we’d had it clearly pointed out to us that once we left the base, it was their world we were operating in, and they were entitled to whatever we had.’
‘So why wasn’t Makepeace arrested immediately? And why is there nothing about this in police records?’
‘The answer to both those questions is that the whole affair was more about politics than it was about justice,’ Dickerson says.
‘What do you mean?’
‘There was already some friction between the base and some of the civilian population. Naturally enough, the young men (who saw all the prettiest girls from their village going around with GIs) and the mothers and fathers of those girls (who feared their daughters would be deflowered by one of these gum-chewing barbarians) were the most vehement, but they were by no means the only ones who resented the Yanks. Arresting Makepeace would only have inflamed the situation further.’
‘Yes, I imagine it would have,’ I agree.
‘The Yanks would have demanded instant frontier justice. It would have been naïve of them to expect to see Makepeace hanging over the camp’s main gate, but then a lot of these boys came from the backwoods, and they were naïve. And as for the Brits – there were a good number of them who would have objected to an English gentleman being arrested for killing a mere colonial barrow boy.’
‘So you did nothing?’
‘So we passed the problem right up the chain of command, and waited for the powers-that-be, on both sides of the pond, to decide whether justice should be done, or whether – in the interest of the greater good – justice should be ignored. And while we were waiting for their decision, Makepeace disappeared, so the whole problem went away.’
‘What would you say if I told you that he was discovered dying in one of St Luke’s quads, and that his last words, spoken to the head porter, were that the Yanks had done for him?’
‘I’d say it’s perfectly possible that Corporal Hicks – he was the Comstock minder who wasn’t working for me – managed to track Makepeace down and do just what you say Makepeace possibly accused him of doing,’ Dickerson replies. ‘On the other hand, it’s equally possible that Makepeace never said that at all, and that the head porter put those words in his mouth to protect one of your own.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean that maybe Makepeace identified someone from St Luke’s as the killer.’
‘Like who, for example?’ I force myself to ask
‘Like the boyfriend he had with him on the night of the fight with Comstock.’
‘Charlie Swift,’ I say, with my gut sinking further with each word.
‘I didn’t know his name,’ Dickerson tells me, ‘but say this Swift gets worried that if Makepeace is arrested, it will come out about them being all queers together. Maybe he decides that would ruin him, and that the only solution is to kill Makepeace.’
Yes, maybe that was it, I think miserably. That’s almost exactly what Charlie said the police would think – and maybe, too, it’s exactly what did happen.
TWENTY
16 October 1974
I find Detective Inspector George Hobson sitting on the stairs outside my office. The pose seems reminiscent of something, but I’m not sure what, until I remember those old black-and-white American films, in which the angry cop pays the free-spirited private eye a visit. Actually, now I’ve got the context, I can see it’s a pretty good hommage he’s put on, though it would have been better still if he’d been wearing a heavy raincoat (rather than a Millet’s anorak) and had had a fedora hat pulled down over his eyes.
Pen in hand, he’s studying his newspaper, and though he looks up briefly when I reach the foot of the stairs, he goes back to the paper, as if I’m of no further interest to him.
As I get closer, I can see that what he’s working on is a monster crossword puzzle, and that its almost entirely filled in, but when I attempt to take a better look at it, he quickly closes the paper, which suggests to me that the puzzle is no more than a prop, and the squares are filled with random letters.
I step around him, take out my keys, and unlock the office door. He makes no move to follow me.
‘All right, so you’re the roughest, toughest cop ever to have walked the mean streets of South Oxford – and I’m impressed,’ I tell him over my shoulder. ‘Now are you going to come into my office or not?’
He says nothing.
Well, screw him!
I open the office door, and step over the threshold.
‘What do you know about the two bodies that were found in the ventilation shaft in St Luke’s College?’ he asks.
I freeze. ‘I’m not sure I …’ I begin.
‘And before you say something that you might later regret, I should inform you that Lord Swift says you know nothing about them at all.’
‘If he says that, then it must be true, mustn’t it?’ I ask. ‘After all, if you can’t trust a member of the British aristocracy, who can you trust?’
‘You’re playing games with me, aren’t you, Jennie?’ he asks harshly. ‘You have been for days.’
‘You’re playing games with me,’ I counter. ‘You’re even talking out of the corner of your mouth, like a poor man’s Humphrey Bogart.’
He laughs loudly – as if to acknowledge that I’ve just caught him out fair and square.
‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ he says, more seriously. ‘I think you’ve known about these two dead bodies for quite a while, and that when you had the opportunity to tell me about them, you didn’t take it. In other words, you have lied to the police, and are guilty of obstruction of justice.’
It’s worse than that – I didn’t just lie to the police, I lied to a friend. But the problem was, I thought I had another friend – an even closer friend – who needed me to do just that.
‘It was this clash of loyalties …’ I begin.
I know that I sound totally inadequate, but it’s hard not to when you are inadequate.
‘I must admit I was a little hurt at first – maybe even a little betrayed,’ Hobson says.
‘It wasn’t about you,’ I protest. ‘It was about …’
‘But I’ve got over that,’ Hobson interrupts. ‘And do you know why I’ve got over it?’
He falls silent, and it’s clear that he’s not going to speak again until I’ve forced myself to say something.
‘No,’ I say in a mechanical voice which is floating on an underlay of dread. ‘No, I don’t know why you’ve got over it.’
‘I’ve got over it because this very afternoon, something exceptional happened. I – Detective Inspector George Hobson – have personally closed up not just one murder case, but two,’ he says.
My mouth is dry, my head is p
ounding. I know that this is going to be just awful.
‘The first murder was of James Makepeace,’ he continues. ‘Remember him, Jennie? I think we were discussing his disappearance in the Bulldog, only a few days ago.’
‘Yes, we were,’ I say.
‘And the second is the murder of Lennie Moon.’ He makes a great show of lighting up a cigarette. ‘Now I’d like to say the case was solved by brilliant deduction on my part, but the truth of the matter is, the murderer just marched into the station this afternoon, and confessed.’
‘It wasn’t …’ I gasp.
But it was – it had to be!
‘That’s right, the murderer is none other than Lord Charles Edward George Withington Danby Swift,’ George Hobson says.
‘It can’t be him. That just isn’t possible,’ I argue.
But hasn’t it already crossed my mind that Charlie might have killed Makepeace, so is it that much of a stretch to accept that he could have killed Lennie Moon as well?
Yes, it is too big a bloody stretch! A younger Charlie might have panicked and murdered Makepeace if he’d been threatened, but – though I’ve been wrong on so many other things about him – I’m still convinced that the Charlie I know would never have killed a holy innocent like Lennie.
‘Well, you may think he didn’t do it, but as well as me, two detective constables and one other detective inspector have heard what he’s had to say, and we’re convinced he’s our man.’
‘He’s conned you,’ I say. ‘I don’t know why he should want to do it, but that’s what he’s done.’
‘The one thing he’s yet to do is sign a confession,’ George continues, as if I’ve never spoken, ‘and he’s more than willing to do that if I’ll just bend the rules a little for him. Now normally, as you know, I wouldn’t bend the rules for anyone, except possibly you – and that’s all in the past – but since Lord Swift has been so very co-operative …’
I’ve been wondering why George has taken the trouble to come to my office and explain all this to me, and now I know.
‘He wants to talk to me, doesn’t he?’ I say.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ George agrees. ‘He wants to talk to you.’
Even the thought of seeing him in those circumstances is enough to fill me with an unhappiness that is almost too much to bear. If I thought I could persuade him to change his story, I’d endure even that, but my gut, my heart and my brain all tell me I couldn’t.
I can’t see him!
I won’t see him!
‘I don’t want to talk to Charlie,’ I tell George Hobson.
‘I can well believe that,’ George replies, ‘but after the way we both know you’ve betrayed our friendship, I think you owe me at least that.’
He’s right.
I do.
The interview room is on the first floor of the police station. It is painted in dark brown to waist height, and from there to the ceiling it is a sickly cream which, to me, says lamb’s vomit, (though I must confess to never having actually seen a lamb throw up). The table is wooden, and wobbles, unless a doubled-up empty cigarette packet is placed carefully under the front left leg. The seats are of the folding metal variety, and are sprayed in olive green. The only source of natural light comes from a window set high in the wall opposite the door.
This is not the first time I’ve been in this room, not by a long chalk. In my brief career as a detective constable – which ended, ingloriously, in my enforced resignation – I conducted at least a dozen interviews in here. And, much more recently, during the Shivering Turn investigation, it began to seem as though I would never leave the place.
And here I am again – alone and waiting.
The door swings open, and Charlie is escorted into the room by two police constables. One of them must just have scraped the minimum height qualification – the other is so large he could almost scrape the ceiling. Giant-constable points Charlie towards the table, then watches him sit down opposite me. Mini-constable positions himself in the corner closest to the door. Once Charlie is seated, giant-constable takes his leave.
I look hopefully across at mini-constable.
‘Sorry, ma’am, I have to stay,’ he says, reading my mind, ‘but I promise I won’t be listening.’
Is there anything more depressing than being called ‘ma’am’ by a very small policeman?
Yes – and you have to trust me on this – it is much more depressing to look across the table at a man who has just confessed to two murders, and happens to be your best friend.
I had planned on a calm, reasoned approach to this meeting, but it doesn’t quite work out that way, because my first words are, ‘For Christ’s sake, what do you think you’re doing, you bloody moron!’
‘I’m so ashamed of myself,’ Charlie says. ‘You told me I was putting you at risk with my cowardly behaviour, and you were quite right. Well, you’re not at risk any more. Detective Inspector Hobson has assured me of that. That’s one of the two reasons I asked to see you – to let you know you’ll be all right.’
‘And what was the other one?’
‘We’ll never meet again, Jennie, and I just wanted you to know that you are very dear to me – dearer than anyone else I have ever known.’
I can cry – or I can be the hard-boiled private eye.
I choose the latter, and I don’t think I’ve ever put as much effort into anything as I’m putting into being the private eye right now.
‘Let’s go back to your first reason,’ I say. ‘Are you seriously claiming that the only reason that you confessed was because there was a possibility that if you didn’t, I might get a prison sentence?’
‘No, no, of course not,’ Charlie says, glancing nervously at mini-cop. ‘I confessed to the murder of James Makepeace because I was the person who killed him.’
‘Why did you kill him?’ I ask.
‘You must surely have been able to work that out for yourself by now,’ he says. ‘The police were on his tail, and he needed money in a hurry, so he could make his getaway. He threatened me that if I didn’t give it to him, he’d reveal that we were lovers, and I’d go to jail.’
‘But he’d have gone to jail himself.’
‘True, but by that point, he didn’t have much to lose.’
‘So you killed him?’
‘Yes. I had no choice in the matter. Once I’d given in to his blackmail, I’d never have been free of him.’
‘And Mr Gough helped you to get rid of the body?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why did you kill Lennie?’
‘He was right there in the college, the night that I killed James Makepeace. We – that is, Mr Gough and I – persuaded him to keep quiet, but I knew that once the discovery of the bodies became public knowledge, he’d go into a panic. I couldn’t let him talk about it, so I went to his bedsit, and I killed him.’
‘Why do that, if you were going to confess anyway?’
‘At the time, I didn’t know I was going to confess. I only made up my mind after I’d met you off the plane.’
‘So you killed Lennie needlessly.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You suppose so. Is that all you can say?’
‘What else can I say?’
‘And don’t you feel guilty about it?’
‘Yes, I suppose I do.’
But he doesn’t feel guilty – and that’s not because he’s incapable of feeling guilt, it’s because he has nothing to feel guilty about.
‘So you broke his neck,’ I say.
‘Yes.’
‘Just like that?
‘Just like that.’
‘Breaking a neck is not as easy as most people seem to think it is,’ I say. ‘You have to get the right angle on it for a start, and you have to exert just the right pressure on just the right points at just the right time. It’s a skilled job, especially when the person whose neck you’re breaking is as big and strong as Lennie Moon was.’
‘Stop this, Je
nnie,’ Charlie hisses, glancing nervously at mini-constable. ‘Stop it before you ruin everything.’
‘By which you mean, before I persuade the police that you couldn’t have done it.’
‘I killed James Makepeace and I killed Lennie Moon,’ Charlie says stubbornly.
‘Who are you trying to protect, Charlie?’ I demand. ‘And why would you even want to protect the bastard who killed poor harmless Lennie?’
Charlie stands up.
‘I want to go back to the cells,’ he says to the mini-cop. ‘I want to go right now!’
TWENTY-ONE
When I was growing up, people in Whitebridge used to say, ‘Is it cold, or is it just me?’ and that’s exactly what I ask myself as I step out of the police station and onto St Aldate’s.
It certainly feels cold to me, but then I’ve just come back from five days on the temperate island of Majorca, haven’t I?
And maybe it feels cold to me because I’m in a state of shock – because my best friend has just told me that we’ll never see each other again.
I hear a voice shouting, ‘Extra, extra, latest edition!’ and when I instinctively turn round to face him, I see the newspaper seller is wrapped-up from head to foot against the cold.
So it isn’t just me who’s feeling it, I think, starting to feel better.
And then I see the placard in front of him, and I instantly start to feel worse again.
OXFORD MAN COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD – AND DIES AGAIN.
The headline is self-explanatory – at least to me – but I buy the newspaper anyway.
The article isn’t on the front page, but it takes up three of the inside ones, because the picture editor has obviously seen this as an excuse to pull a couple of standard shots out of his Spanish collection. Thus, there is a picture of a beach which at the opposite end of the island to the place where I met Mr Gough, and a picture of a cliff which I’m almost sure is on the island of Menorca. But there are also some more domestic shots – the modest bungalow where Mr Gough and his wife appear to have lived, and the beaten up Seat 500 which seems to have been his main transportation around the island.
Dry Bones Page 20
