by John Elliott
‘I’ve got a punter here wants to see DC Ogden.’
‘Not available.’
‘Something in connection with your decomposed Coxie or Orange Pippin. Won’t tell me. Miserable looking little sod.’
‘Not a supergrass, by any chance? That would make my morning. Or even an apprentice snitcher would do.’
‘No. Unarmed civilian of advancing years. Claims to be neighbour of deceased.’
Pat sighed. ‘Okay. Name and number.’
‘Oswald Dunphy. Caucasian. Sober, by the smell of him. Eyes unglazed.’
‘Righty-o. Wheel him through. No, on second thoughts I’ll come round and pick him up. Auntie needs a break from these four walls, however brief.’
Mentally flicking through the evening’s family tasks: husband number one ferrying number one son to and from Taekwondo, herself dishing up cold cuts on return, checking freezer for nearing sell-by dates, she soon covered the short distance to the lobby where the Desk Sergeant jerked a thumb towards a thin, frail-looking oldster seated opposite, seemingly entranced by the toecaps of his less than shiny black slip-ons. Far from having a serviceable Uzi or Kalashnikov about his person, he had contented himself with clutching a large Lidl plastic bag. ‘Unarmed, miserable civilian. I see what you mean,’ said Pat. ‘At least he hasn’t made a run for it.’
She issued out into no man’s land and introduced herself. Like a startled stoat caught in the headlights of a getaway Lexus saloon, Oswald Dunphy, on hearing his name, got to his feet and rapidly looked hither and yon for a possible exit. ‘I only wanted to see Mr Ogden,’ he managed to get out.
‘Very understandable. Outstanding young officer. Tip top local liaison, but I don’t want you to have had an unnecessary journey. We’re here to serve you, the public, and frankly, with the Augustin Cox case, we need all the help we can get.’ In spite of her honeyed words, the possible fount of relevant information still showed a marked reluctance to confide in anyone other than the aforepraised officer, so she took another tack. ‘I was just going to get myself a coffee. Why don’t I get you something? The dispensing machine’s over there. I might still have some macaroons secreted about my desk.’
Whether influenced by these blandishments or not Oswald swithered. ‘Well, I don’t want to get anyone into trouble.’
‘Of course not. Who does? Coffee, tea, something else?’
‘Hot chocolate if it’s there.’
Pat inserted the requisite coins. ‘Nice to see it working.’ She handed over the asked for beverage. ‘Let’s go through to my office. It’s quieter. No prying eyes.’ Whoops! That was a little bubu. Her visitor’s trembling hand was spilling the brown, indeterminate liquid onto the brown, indeterminate floor. Health and Safety would have a field day if she wasn’t careful. ‘Let me take that. Death is upsetting. Murder is even more upsetting. You were his neighbour. You’ve come this far. You want to see justice. It’s natural.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Oswald’s hand steadied the hot chocolate. ‘If it was just me I wouldn’t have a problem. It’s the others. I don’t want to make trouble.’
‘Believe it or not, as a battle-scarred Detective Sergeant, if I can keep people out of trouble I go home and pat the dog. Many less forms to fill in. Winners all.’
A wan smile greeted this sally, but he tagged obediently in behind as she checked him through and gave him the brief tourist rundown on the joys of Feltham nick.
‘It’s my old shipmate, Bert Hill,’ he explained when sitting down opposite her after her fruitless search for the supposed macaroons, which had either been already eaten and the fact forgotten or had disappeared down the throat of some inquisitive, thieving toe-rag. ‘We berth together.’
Pat nodded encouragingly while eying the still tightly clutched Lidl bag. Philosophical about the vanished macaroons, she confirmed to herself by a lady-like sip that the machine coffee was as deleterious to the health as usual. A proper canteen break would now have to wait until this nervous old offender — for no-one could live as long as Mr Dunphy and put out to sea, whether in the Andrew or the Marine, without offending — chose to spill the cannelinis and reveal what was in the bag.
‘He’s gone into hospital for a hip replacement. As if his eyesight problems weren’t enough.’ Oswald gave a dry cough then fell silent, seemingly hypnotised by the yellow, red and blue logo roundel of the bag, which by incremental fits and starts he had now managed to lay on the desk.
‘Modern medicine works wonders,’ said Pat, not voicing the corollary, ‘If the bugs don’t kill you.’
‘This chocolate’s very fine,’ confided the reluctant bearer of tidings, glad or otherwise, after a less than pregnant pause. ‘Thank-you. I don’t have it at home. So the chance to have it here.’ He broke off again, but luckily the word ‘chance’ seemed to jolt him back to the actual reason for his visit for he noticeably perked up, straightened his shirt collar over his Adam’s apple, and started at last to offer things germane to the Cox enquiry. ‘Well, you see, it gave me a chance to really tidy up, Bert being away. He doesn’t like me cleaning up after him. Bit of a strewer, Bert. Anyway, I was doing a delayed spring ship-shape top to bottom, clearing out and battening down when I came across these.’ The suddenly loquacious floor-swabber and bilge-disposer patted the surface of the bag twice for effect. ‘Shouldn’t have really. His locker, when all’s said and done, sacrosanct to him, but I couldn’t let them lie. Letters, you see. Letters for poor Augustin, which he never got.’
‘May I see them?’
Oswald reached in the bag and drew out four letters held together with an elastic band. ‘Trouble I can do without. I don’t want to get Bert in trouble. Or the postmen.’
All of the airmails were addressed to Augustin Cox, the first date-marked when he was still alive. Pat handled them carefully by the edges. ‘They could be important evidence, Mr Dunphy. You’ve done the right thing.’
‘He’s not really spiteful, you know. Bit cantankerous, and that bloody music at all hours drove him barmy, and the postmen. Well, I suppose he met them on the way up, he knew most of them from the Spoon’s, and he must have said, “I’ll save you a journey,” and they handed them over.’ He sighed. ‘Trouble isn’t it? Serious offence I expect, tampering with the Royal Mail.’
‘It is, but I won’t tell, not just yet, until we assess them. Your help will be taken into account, and, after all, perhaps in hospital Mr Hill confessed what he’d done and asked you to put it right.’
‘What an idea, Sergeant!’ Oswald grinned. ‘Isn’t perjury far more serious?’
‘Far more. In fact it’s downright fibbing.’
‘It wasn’t just the music. To be frank Bert hated him because he swore blind he was a foreigner. Something I never really understood. The way he went on I’ve sometimes thought of cutting myself adrift, but we’ve been together so long. And now he needs me, though he’ll never admit it.’
‘These are from abroad. Cox was English. You don’t have to be foreign to get foreign mail. Some people have foreigners and immigrants on the brain.’ She got up. ‘Once again, thanks. It’s made my morning to meet a citizen who is doing his duty. Let’s restore you to the sunshine and the satisfaction of a good deed in an imperfect world. We’ll be in touch if we need to follow up.’
‘You’ll let Mr Ogden know I called?’
Pat nodded.
‘I don’t suppose there’s a reward of any kind. Information leading to.’
‘Correct supposition. Neither Augustin Cox nor Bedfont attract monetary gain. Your deed is purely civic and altruistic.’
On this positive note for Pat, but somewhat melancholic for Oswald, they shook hands, and in a matter of moments the dutiful citizen was once more out of jeopardy with a now empty plastic bag, bereft of goodies, in his jacket pocket.
Meanwhile, back at her desk, Pat allowed herself a quick gloat. It had been Hamish’s boyish charm that had lured the old maritime housewife into the path of righteousness, but she had been the one in t
he first place who had ordered him to establish dialogue with the neighbours. She gingerly eased open the earliest date-stamped letter. ‘Oh, Deutschygramophon!’ she muttered in exasperation. The missive was clearly addressed to Augustin, but the language was not English nor one she comprehended at all. The sender’s name and location was Maria Pinson Guisbert, 174 Avenida Laranga, Montevideo 16.
She Googled Montevideo and chose the Wikipedia entry first. Capital of Uruguay, pop. etc, location etc, language Spanish. She opened the others. Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Same correspondent. Augustin’s mother was Uruguayan. A relative? A family friend? She checked back into his file for any known travel abroad. Nothing connected with Uruguay or any of the Americas. If the damn things were in Polish or Urdu, Hindi or Bengali she could have popped out within a five mile radius and had them deciphered in no time. Not to mention Jerzy. Spanish, though was a different story. The nearest translators on the books were around Ladbroke Grove and Paddington. She phoned. The soonest one available was lunchtime at the Spanish School off Portobello Road. With this heat we might as well be on the Costas, she thought, as she scrawled up on the whiteboard where she was going and why, adding, ‘if you are responsible for macaroon theft I expect you to renew them + 100%’. Photocopying the letters to take with her, she bagged the originals and entered them in items received.
‘Keep them on their toes, offenders young and old,’ she advised a passing motorcycle cop on the way to her car. Inside, the temperature was as comfortable as a wood-fired pizza oven. She got going, windows lowered to the max. Eggs will be frying on the tarmac before the day is out, she gloomily predicted.
*
Jerzy was the first to return to the Ops room after trying in vain to persuade the Superintendent to allocate funds for DNA tests. Quickly deciphering Pat’s scrawl, he called her on her mobile. ‘Can you talk?’
‘Yes, guv. Sorry, Jerzy. I believe we’ve got a breakthrough. The translator’s on the last one now. You’ll have to prepare for a shock when you read them. If I was skipper on Her Majesty’s sloop, Bounty Bar, the ancient mariner, Bert Hill, would be in for a spot of keel-hauling, busted hip and all. Not to mention the Postmaster General, or whoever runs the gaff nowadays. I’d have him licking stamps with an aching tongue for the rest of his tenure. It’s as much a bona fide case of wasting police time and perverting the course of justice as I’ve ever come across.’
‘Pat.’
‘Last one now done. What?’
‘I’ve spent a fruitless morning trying to convince upstairs we need DNA on Augustin. They told me theory wasn’t enough to commit funds. Do the letters change that? Are they relevant evidence as to who the corpse really is?’
‘What gave you that idea? You never hinted it to us.’
‘A sleepless night last night. Things which didn’t tally. We’ll talk about it when you get back.’
‘On my way. Hang on a mo, I’ll get the lingo from our lovely Spaniard. Hasta luego. See we learn something new every day. By the way, has Hamish arrived? No. Well, when he does ask him about his librarian. I feel our boy’s beginning to stray. Might need a curfew warning. See you.’
Jerzy gazed out the window at nothing in particular and at last opened the envelope he had received that morning, knowing full well from the address on the back exactly what it contained. It was indeed his occupational pension details and the amount of his lump sum entitlement. The figures heralded a finality to his now near ending career. A plodder, some might say. Progressed only slowly to DI without ever being considered fast track material. Never quite one of us but relatively harmless. He did some mental calculations. They could shorten the four years still to run on the mortgage. Both boys were financially sound. Bettina would follow up house prices in one of her seaside Mouths, but he would look for another job in West London. Nothing to do with security. Nothing to do with the law. Something part-time perhaps. He’d always fancied himself as a civilian. ‘Enough,’ he said to the empty room and put the letter back into his inside jacket pocket. ‘I might not solve the mystery of the missing macaroons, but I’m damn sure we’re going to crack who killed Augustin before I turn in my warrant card.’
A quarter of an hour later Hamish arrived, looking flushed and reddened by the sun. ‘Where’s Pat?’ he asked.
Jerzy jerked a thumb towards the whiteboard. ‘She’s on her way back. Your friend Oswald Dunphy’s delivered what might turn out to be the key to Augustin’s secret life. The bloody-mindedness of his co-habitee has cost us valuable time.’
‘I didn’t take them, and I’m sure you didn’t,’ said Hamish, referring to the macaroons. Pat’s probably invented them to keep us on our toes.’
Jerzy gave him an uncharacteristic long look. ‘The three of us are a team, I like to think. Is there something you want to tell me? Forget about the jokes and the irrelevancies.’
Reddening even more beneath his newly acquired tan, Hamish sat down. ‘I’ve had this funny feeling there’s more than one Augustin,’ he said quietly.
It was Jerzy’s turn in the circumstances to do a double take. ‘You arrived at this conclusion alone?’
‘Well, not exactly. With the help of my granddad and,’ he paused then blurted out, ‘somebody I’ve been seeing.’
‘This is your librarian I take it.’
‘Not exactly, although you could say she is in a kind of way. Geraldine. Her name’s Geraldine Mycroft. She works for the Norman Bones Detective Agency.’
There, it was out in the open. The cat let out of the proverbial bag. The invisible elephant no longer on the banks of the Limpopo but large and trumpeting here in the savannah of Feltham nick.
‘The same Norman Bones identified with Blythe Fuller by Enfield?’
Hamish nodded. ‘They were working for Joan Oliphant. We were in tandem you could say.’
‘Pretty picture. Just like Daisy, Daisy. Ms Mycroft steering and you behind, or would you say in parallel rather than in tandem?’
Hamish looked glum. ‘Maybe I’ve screwed up, but at least I didn’t filch Pat’s macaroons. That would have been a capital offence at Thornton Heath.’
‘Well, DC Ogden, much as I advocate self expression, don’t let your love life get you side-tracked. I expect your loyalties to be solely here, and, if it’s any comfort to you. I, too, am wondering about Augustin’s identity. I’m not even sure we’ve got the right corpse. Let’s hope our Montevideo correspondent sheds some light. Pity, though, you didn’t get Bert Hill to hand them over when you had your feet under their table.’
Before Hamish could mount a case for the defence, a more than gently perspiring Pat walked in with a triumphant, ‘Tara! Tidings from a damsel scorned. Late, I know, but revelatory. I’ve photocopied the translations. Cheer up, young Princess Leia. You look as though someone’s snatched your year’s supply of space dust.’
‘Pat, just hand them over. It’s far too hot for Star Wars.’ Jerzy fished out his reading glasses.
‘Toot de sweet.’ She handed out the transcripts. ‘They’re in date order.’ She grimaced to Hamish followed up by a wry glance at Jerzy, who, head bent, was quickly riffling through the several sheets, and wordlessly mouthed, ‘what’s up with him?’ When no response, either verbal or facial, ensued she muttered some non-sequiturs about fried eggs and melting macaroons then sat down to await their assessment in the enveloping silence only punctuated by the habitual flight path drone.
‘My darling Augustin’ the first letter began, as did the others.
‘You see I’ve done as you wished. Bedfont where you are sounds much nicer than Hayes. I got Zora to translate it. You remember her. She has good English. The bed and the fountain are things of love. How I yearn we will share them together soon! You say all this is a stroke of luck, and I thank the gods it is so, yet I know how capricious they are all the time we are apart. I want to lie in your arms, look in your eyes and say your name over and over. Do you think of our nights together as I do when we used to meet — our sweet refuge — at the sixth
floor apartment in Carasco? Many times I waited down below in the taxi until the light went on in our window, and I knew you were there waiting for me and our love to bloom. Once it rained so heavily — unexpected rain. It poured down in torrents on the roof of the cab. The windows were too steamed up to see out of so I asked the driver if he would go out and look up and see if there was a light. “Yes, señora there is,” he said and those words were as beautiful to me as the strength of your body, the succour of your breath over me. For the truth is I couldn’t bear to be there alone, touching the melancholy things which someone else had chosen, staring at the tawdry decor, unchanged for years it seemed, all meaningless in the fear you wouldn’t come. It’s like that now , my darling. I need to hear from you, see you, touch you, be with you. I’d leave tomorrow if only you would say. You don’t know what it’s like. I go to the post office every day, and there’s nothing in the poste restante. “No. señora,” they say time after time. Your silence is strangling me. I can’t breathe properly. You know I’d abandon him without one single regret to be with you at the slightest notice. You said this silence wouldn’t last. You’d e-mail, you’d phone, you’d write as before. Please, I beg of you, rescue me, Augustin. I write this name with difficulty for inside I say yours and yours alone as I will always say yours. Break the silence and comfort me when you get this.
Your everlasting love.
Maria’
‘Deluded,’ said Pat. ‘Completely deluded. They get juicier.’
Jerzy raised an admonishing hand. ‘Let us read them before comment.’
‘I’ll leave you to it then. I need water. My throat’s as parched as a Kalahari koala bear’s.’ She exited with apparent satisfaction on her geographical inexactitude.
