Mrs Norris arrived with the tea, her eyes sharp. ‘All right, then,’ she sighed tiredly when she had seated herself opposite him. ‘What’s going on about our Celia?’
‘New information has come to light, Mrs Norris,’ he said in the policeman’s manner he sometimes practised before his bedroom mirror. ‘A man has talked. I can’t tell you what he has said but he has talked.’
‘Why can’t you?’
‘These things have to be proved,’ he replied uncomfortably. ‘Without preconceived ideas.’
‘Preconceived ideas,’ she snorted into her tea. ‘They was talking about them twenty-five years ago. Is it the same lot of ideas or a new lot?’
He nodded sympathetically. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, ‘I can guess what it’s been like for you.’
‘No, you can’t,’ she whispered, her eyes and nose almost in her cup. ‘Nobody can. She was a good girl, Mr Davies. Very good. She used to bring me flowers and not many kids do that. And they tried to make out she was some kind of prostitute just because they never found her drawers.’ She sniffed and when she raised her eyes, Davies saw they were smudgy.
‘Don’t cry, Mrs Norris,’ he said with hurried helplessness. ‘Not in Lyons.’
‘I won’t,’ she promised. ‘It’s not so easy as you think to cry. Not after all this time.’ She paused then looked at him with sad hope. ‘How far have you got?’
‘I’ve only just started. But I believe that after all this time, people will say things they only thought twenty-five years ago, or things they didn’t even realize they knew.’
She nodded. ‘People do change their tune,’ she agreed. ‘I know that. Too well.’
‘How?’ he said. ‘In what way?’
‘Well, you know. They’re all sympathy and that at the time, then they avoid you and the whispers start going around. About my girl. And they’re still at it. I mean, you know she went off once before. She was headstrong like that. One of the bloody Sunday papers brought the whole thing up again a couple of years ago, “What Happened to Happy Celia?” That was the headline. They sent some bloke to see me. I chucked a bucket of soapsuds over him.’
‘You do want the answer, don’t you?’ he said.
‘Yes I do, but not that way. Not all over the bleeding newspapers. Muckraking, that’s all that was. It’s got to be done a bit on the quiet. That’s the only way you or anybody else is going to find out any thing.’
‘When she went off before,’ said Davies, ‘was that with a man?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied almost sulkily. ‘When she came back she didn’t say. She said she had been away for a change. I never asked her after that.’
The café was almost empty for it was mid-afternoon. Steam rose from the dishes at the counter which had not been in favour at lunchtime. Odours wandered from the back regions. A tramp came in and, after politely taking off his hat and giving his ragged hair a pat with his hand, sat down at a table near to the counter. At that distance he examined the brightly illuminated food like a patron at an art gallery. He knew his timing.
‘Shepherd’s pie for ten pence? That’s less than half the price,’ suggested the woman across the counter.
The tramp shook his head. ‘I only got six,’ he answered. ‘All right, six,’ sighed the woman. ‘No wonder they reckon you’re a millionaire.’
Davies said: ‘They ought to do a tramp’s pie and sell it to shepherds.’
Mrs Norris did not smile. ‘There’s some good-hearted people around,’ was her only comment. She returned her face to Davies.
Eventually he said: ‘Mrs Norris, do you think you could bear to go through it again? To tell me about that one day. I’ve seen the statements, but I want to hear it from you.’
‘All right,’ she said wearily. ‘Can I have another cup?’
He rose. ‘I could do with one myself.’
‘I expect it’ll go on expenses, won’t it?’ she asked genuinely.
‘I’ll fiddle it and make it a profit,’ he said. He went to the counter and got the teas. The tramp said: ‘Hello, Dangerous.’
Unprompted, she began when he had returned to the table. ‘It was the 23rd of July. She was at home in the morning, helping me. She was very good like that. It was a very hot day. There’d been about a week of hot weather. In the afternoon she went to the Employment place. It was only a little office in those days, not that great big place they’ve got now.’
‘Times change,’ he nodded. ‘She was interested in nursing, wasn’t she?’
Mrs Norris nodded. ‘She’d have been a credit. She was a very kind-natured girl.’ Her voice was without inflection, as though she were merely reciting something she had said many times before. ‘They had a talk to her about nursing but she came to have her tea and went straight out to that bleeding youth club. She said she’d tell me all about it when she got back that night. And, she never did get back.’
‘You didn’t like the youth club?’ he said.
‘I don’t know,’ she shook her head. ‘Nothing was ever said, but there was something rotten about it. Father Harvey never watched it like he ought to have done. But he was new here then. But I think he feels guilty about it. I think he knows how I feel about that.’
‘You didn’t care for Mr Boot?’ suggested Davies.
Her eyes came to life, as though in a moment some faith in him had been kindled. Then she subsided again, ‘No, I didn’t like that one,’ she admitted. ‘I expect you’ve seen the pictures.’
‘Yes, the one of Mr Boot, Celia and another girl at some sort of garden fête.’
‘Ena Brown,’ said Mrs Norris. ‘As was then. She’s Ena Lind now.’
‘Lind? Lind? Who else was called Lind?’ he said, trying to remember the names on the statements.
‘Bill Lind,’ she filled in flatly. ‘He was our Celia’s boyfriend. Just a friend. Like they are at that age. Not really a boyfriend.’
‘And he married Ena, Celia’s friend?’
‘Yes. About three years after. They told the newspaper in that article…they said they had been “drawn together by the tragedy” or some bleeding muck like that. Drawn together! She was pregnant more like it. They’ve got one of those council maisonettes now. She looks like a tart and when I see him in the street he turns the other way. Makes out he don’t know me.’
‘And you didn’t like Mr Boot?’
‘No, I didn’t care for him, neither.’
‘Any idea where he is these days?’
‘He’s at Finchley or Mill Hill or somewhere like that. I saw in the paper he used to run a sort of disco place. And now, I saw an advert the other week, he’s got one of these sex shops. Suit him, it should.’
‘Still in youth work, eh?’ sniffed Davies. He paused. The tea in his cup was beginning to congeal. He drank it quickly and made a face. ‘Did they er…give you her clothes back… eventually?’
‘The police? Yes, I got them back. I’ve still got them. It wasn’t much because it was hot weather, like I said. It was a green gingham dress, a bra and her white socks and shoes: Like everybody knows, her lipstick, just a little Woolworth’s lipstick, and her drawers were missing. Everybody.’ Her voice was dead.
‘You’ve still got the clothes, Mrs Norris?’
‘Yes, but they’re hidden away. I’m not showing them to you or nobody else.’
‘I see. I understand. Er…the youth that found the clothes in the toilet and took them home. Did you know him?’
‘Poor little devil,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘That boy Parsons. The police gave him a hard time. They had to get their hooks into somebody, I s’pose. But he didn’t do it, Mr Davies. I didn’t know him before that time but I’ve seen him around since. He plays in the Salvation Army band now. I’ve seen him in the market. He always nods to me.’
‘What did Mr Norris think about it all?’ he asked.
‘What d’you mean—what did he think about it?’
‘How did he react?’
She considered the questi
on again. ‘He was like he always is where there’s aggravation, shouting his mouth off, charging around, screaming for the police to do something.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘Come to think of it that’s the only time I can ever remember him wanting the police to do something. He was upset, ’course he was, but he shows it different. I woke up in the night and heard him crying downstairs. He felt it all right, same as I did.’
‘What’s he like, your husband?’
‘Bert Norris is all right, at times,’ she said. He could see her selecting the words with care. ‘He’s a layabout, that’s all. Work-bloody-shy. He’s done time, like I expect you know. Silly things. He likes to think he’s big. He was like it when I married him but I thought he’d grow out of it. He used to nick ration books then. Now it’s car log books.’
‘A man who moves with the times,’ observed Davies. ‘Do you love him?’
She seemed incredulous at the question. ‘Love…him? Love him? Christ, that’s a funny thing for a copper to ask. I don’t know…I live in the same house with him if that’s what it means. He’s not somebody you can love. You don’t sort of connect the word with Bert…not with my husband.’
‘He’s a friend of Cecil Ramscar, isn’t he?’
The remnants of her stare from her surprise at the last question were still on her face. They solidified.
‘Ramscar? He went off years ago. Never heard of him since.’
‘He’s back,’ said Davies, deciding to take the chance.
‘Back is he?’ she muttered. ‘I thought there was something going on.’
‘With your husband?’
She backed away from the question by returning to the original. ‘Ramscar—he used to come around and muck about when Celia was here. He always had his hands around her bottom and that sort of thing, but there, he would have a try with any female between eight and eighty. He reckoned he was big. He tried it on me once or twice…’ She glanced at Davies uncomfortably. ‘I…I was younger then, of course, I didn’t look quite such an old ratbag…’
Davies protested with his hands, but she stilled him with hers. He felt they were as hard as dried figs. She went on. ‘He used to tell Bert that he’d like to ’ave me and our Celia in the same bed at the same time. That’s how he was. All mouth and bloody trousers.’
‘Do you think he could have caused Celia’s death?’ asked Davies quietly.
‘God knows.’
‘He was checked out by the police,’ Davies pointed out.
‘So was Jack the Ripper, I expect,’ she muttered without humour.
She looked up from the depths of her teacup. ‘I’ll have to go,’ she said. ‘The shops will be closing. If you want to ask me any more, tell Josie. She works in Antoinette’s, that hairdresser by the clock in the High Street.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘I will. I’m sorry it’s been so painful for you. I hope I can do something.’ He thought for a moment. She was gathering up her handbag and her coat. ‘One thing,’ he finished. ‘People don’t seem to move from this district very much. Most of those who were here then are still here or roundabout.’
She smiled more softly. ‘No, people don’t seem to move away very much from here,’ she said. ‘It’s very homely and friendly, really.’
Chapter Six
That night Dangerous went out with Mod and got seriously drunk at The Babe in Arms. Mod was at his most loquacious and informative, extemporizing on the poisoned arrows used, he said, by certain tribes in Upper India, the sexual taboos of the first period Incas and the history of tramcars in Liverpool. On their stumbling way home to Mrs Fulljames’s house they found a horse walking morosely along the street. They recognized it as belonging to a local scrap merchant. Mod said they ought to inform the police so he reported it to Dangerous, who took brief notes. They eventually tied the horse to the doorknocker of a neighbouring house and went home to bed.
The following day Davies went to seek out Dave Boot. The sex emporium was not difficult to locate. It was called ‘The Garden of Ooo-la-la’. There was a large sticker across the window announcing: ‘Sale’. Davies, who had never visited such an establishment, inspected it with ever-ascending eyebrows. A willowy youth was swaying behind the counter, moving to muted music. Davies approached him. ‘What’s in the sale?’ he inquired.
‘Everything, love,’ replied the youth. ‘Absolutely everything. Depends what your requirements are really, don’t it.’
‘I’m not, sure what they are,’ said Davies.
‘Ooooo, you lads do get yourself in a state, don’t you,’ marvelled the assistant. ‘How about a Japanese tickler, slightly shop soiled.’
‘Are the rubber women in the sale?’ inquired Davies.
‘Some of the older models are,’ shrugged the boy. ‘They perish.’
‘Where’s Dave Boot?’ asked Davies.
The youth’s aloof expression sharpened with the hardness in Davies’ voice. ‘Dave Boot…ah, Mr Boot. He’s doing something at the disco.’
‘Detective Constable Davies,’ said Dangerous, showing his card. ‘Get him, eh?’
The young man brushed his hair away from his fair eyes and dithered with the telephone. Davies wandered to the back of the shop and, on impulse, slid through a curtain into the back room. He was intrigued to find a partly inflated rubber woman with an attached foot-pump lolling against a desk. Unable to resist it he repressed the pump and then let it go, then depressed it, and continued with the sequence, watching to his fascination as the woman inflated to life before his eyes. She grew to full size, then to outsize and then to enormous proportions. Mesmerized, Davies could not stop. He went on pumping. The woman grew fatter and fatter. Her eyes, her cheeks and her breasts all bulged hugely. He could hear the rubber creaking. He went on pumping. Her expanding backside knocked a chair over.
‘Stop!’ The cry came through the door. A tall, thick man in a tight denim suit rushed forward and pulled out a valve in the buttocks. The woman shrivelled horrifyingly.
‘If she’d have exploded you’d have killed yourself,’ said the man. ‘Stupid bloody thing to do.’
Davies’ was gazing sadly at the collapsing rubber figure. ‘Now I know what God feels like,’ he said. He turned and smiled without warmth. ‘Nice place you’ve got here.’
‘We fill a need,’ sniffed the man. ‘What did you want?’
‘I’m Detective Constable Davies.’
‘Yes, Tarquin said. I’m Dave Boot. What was it?’
‘Can I sit down? I’m puffed out after that pumping.’
Boot picked up the chair which the woman had knocked down. Davies sat on it gratefully and Boot sat behind the desk. The youth Tarquin came through the curtain and asked if they would require coffee. Boot was going to send him away but Davies said he would like some and smiled his advanced thanks.
‘Right, two,’ said Boot at the head issuing through the curtain.
‘But don’t stir it with your finger,’ Davies called after him.
Boot grimaced. ‘I’m pretty busy,’ he said. ‘What did you want?’
‘Me too,’ said Davies amiably. ‘Ever so busy. I wanted you to tell me about Celia Norris.’
White astonishment flew into Boot’s face. ‘Celia…Celia Norris?’ He got it out eventually. ‘Christ, that was years ago.’
‘You still remember, don’t you?’
‘Yes, yes. But why…why now?’
‘There’s never any particular season.’
‘Yes, but…aw come on. What is all this? The police went through it all at the time. Christ, hours of it. They cleared me. They had nothing…’
‘I didn’t say you did anything,’ Davies pointed out quietly. ‘I only asked you if you remembered. Nobody’s come to arrest you.’
‘I shouldn’t bloody well think so, either,’ said Boot, his skin hardening. ‘I think I want my solicitor along here. I can’t afford trouble. I’m a businessman.’
‘So I see,’ said Davies looking down at the deflated rubber woman.
‘And there’s nothing you can touch me for here, either,’ said Boot, following his glance. ‘Nothing. It’s all legal. Anyway, I’ll call my solicitor.’
‘Call him if you like,’ offered Davies with more confidence than he felt. ‘But you’ll be wasting your money. Nobody’s putting any pressure on you, Mr Boot. We’ve reopened the case of Celia Norris and I’ve got the job of checking on people who made statements at the time. That’s all there is to it.’
Boot subsided. ‘All right then, if that’s all it is. But what difference it makes, Christ knows. I told them everything at the time.’
Tarquin came through the curtain, curiously knocking on it as though it were a door. He was carrying a cardboard tray with two plastic beakers of coffee. He smiled wanly at Davies. ‘There, Inspector, that’s yours.’ Davies and Boot took the beakers. The youth backed out. ‘I didn’t stir it,’ he smiled. ‘Not with my finger, anyway.’
Davies stared into the swirling coffee and wondered what he had stirred it with. He put it untouched on the table.
‘You remember the night when it happened, I take it,’ he said, leaning towards Boot. ‘When she went off and vanished.’
‘Well, of course I remember it. It was bloody years ago though…how long?’
‘Twenty-five,’ Davies told him.
‘Yes, well, I mean. Twenty-five. It’s not like it was yesterday. But I remember it all right. I’m not likely to forget it, am I?’
‘I’m hoping you might remember bits now that didn’t seem important at the time, now you’ve had a while to turn it over in your mind.’
Boot glanced at him under his puffy lids. ‘All I knew I told then,’ he grunted. ‘Every single thing. God, I went over it enough with them.’
Davies nodded. ‘I’ve seen your statement,’ he said. ‘You saw her at the youth club, she went off on her bike and that was that. You didn’t know she was missing until one of her friends told you some days later.’
‘That’s how it was. Exactly. I said it then and I say it again now.’
Davies mused. He picked up the coffee absentmindedly and took a sip. Horror rolled across his face as he realized what he had done. Boot laughed sarcastically. ‘Don’t worry about the coffee. He probably just stirred it with a Japanese tickler.’
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