Last Detective

by Thomas, Leslie

  The prisoner was being called from the dock to give evidence on his own behalf in the witness box. He dismounted one stand to mount the other, reading the oath in a suitably earthy voice. Davies looked around for the sergeant who had the key to the police station cupboard.

  He saw him squatting at the end of a row of policemen waiting to give evidence in the court’s crowd of cases. Davies advanced with dainty clumsiness, hunched low in the way of a soldier moving under fire, until squatting in his piled overcoat by the officer he persuaded him to surrender the key. He was aware of the court proceedings freezing all around him. He looked up to see the Godlike faces of the magistrates high on their dais regarding him sourly. The rest of the people were either standing or leaning, trying to get a view of the dwarf in the voluminous raincoat who had wafted so clumsily across the floor.

  ‘Mr Davies, is it?’ asked the chairman of the bench, knowing perfectly well that it was.

  ‘Yes, your honour,’ replied Davies still crouching criminally.

  ‘Will you be long?’

  ‘No, sir. Sorry, sir. Just getting the key to the police station cupboard.’ He looked up beggingly to the uniformed sergeant, who, red to the cheekbones, searched and eventually found the key and delivered it to him. Davies began to retrace his progress through the court still at his midget’s crouch.

  ‘Mr. Davies,’ called the chairman. ‘There’s no need for you to continue with this impersonation of the Hunchback of Notre-Dame. You may walk normally.’

  There was laughter in court. Davies, hung with embarrassment, rose to his proper height and bowed at the bench. He backed away and was about to collide with the wheelbarrow when he was pulled firmly into a vacant seat by the court warrant officer. ‘Sit down for a bit,’ said the exasperated official below his breath. ‘Just sit down.’

  Davies gratefully sat down. The case proceeded. From the witness box the prisoner was making a histrionic plea. ‘That allotment, your lordship, has been in our family for years. My father and my grandfather ’ad it. Then me. It was like our heritage. I took it on, carrying on the tradition, but then I was on the sick for months and I couldn’t keep it up and the council comes along and takes it off me. After all those years…’

  Davies found himself nodding sympathetically. ‘They gave it to some other bloke,’ said the accused brokenly. ‘My land.

  ’The chairman leaned over logically. ‘So you think that entitles you to go in the darkness and steal his produce?’ he suggested.

  ‘I manured that allotment,’ said the man bleakly.

  The courtroom door opened to Davies’s right as someone came into the chamber. The duty officer nudged Davies and he took his cue and shuffled out. As he did so the garden gangster was returning to his accused place in the dock: Davies did not know why, but he let himself take a final glance.

  When Davies returned to the police station his way was barred by a rowdy phalanx of boys, all noisily disputing the ownership of a ravaged looking tortoise which squatted neutrally before the desk sergeant on the counter. The sergeant silenced the din with a single shout. Davies ducked and felt it go over his head.

  ‘Now—who found this ugly bugger in the first place?’ demanded the sergeant. Through the conflict that followed he called to Davies. ‘There’s another file of Ramscar stuff come from the Yard, Dangerous. The Inspector said to look through it and then go up and see him. It’s in your locker.’

  Davies fought his way through the squabbling lads. Several of the smaller ones had begun to cry. He shut the door of the CID room behind him. A policeman who had been concerned with traffic duty for as long as Davies could remember was sitting masticating over the collection of pornographic pictures which Detective Sergeant Myers had been investigating.

  ‘Hello, hello, hello,’ said Davies in his deepest police tone. ‘Looking for suspected traffic offenders, eh?’ The policeman grinned sheepishly but rose and put the pictures back in a cardboard box. ‘It’s all right for your lot, Dangerous,’ he sighed. ‘All I see all day is idiot bloody motorists and lollipop women.’

  He went out sadly and Davies took the new Ramscar file from his locker and set it out on the table. It contained reports and photographs from Australia and from America. He went through the material conscientiously, sniffing along the lines of the written summaries and examining the photographs, taken over a period of years, with Ramscar getting thicker and more prosperous as time elapsed.

  There was a photograph in a separate envelope marked ‘Return to Criminal Records Dept, New Scotland Yard, London’. Davies opened it. To his surprise he found himself looking at a wedding-day picture of Ramscar. He attempted a whistle, another accomplishment beyond him. Nothing but hushed air came out. On the back the picture was stamped ‘May 14th 1965’. Davies turned it over slowly. It was an immobile wedding group, everything fixed from feet to smiles, with Ramscar then in his thirties, hugging a big clouded blonde, whose hair, hat and bouquet were being dragged away by what appeared to be a near-gale. The trousers of the men in the group blew out stiffly like flags. Ramscar had a flower in his lapel and another waggishly between his teeth. Grouped around him were a team of London criminals and their loved ones. Mrs Norris was there, clay-faced, and next to her was a furtive man who, he correctly guessed, was Albert Norris. In front of the group was a dainty girl in a bonnet holding a posy and simpering as small girls do at weddings. At first Davies hardly noticed her but then he looked, and put the photograph under the magnifying glass he once more quickly borrowed. The expression was unmistakable. It was Josie.

  He eventually folded the file and carried it up four flights of stairs to Yardbird’s office. He knocked and waited for the customary two minutes before Yardbird answered. He had been by the window for there was new cigarette ash on the floor and there was a girl standing on the flat roof of the students’ hostel looking out over the streets. But now he was back behind his desk and trying to give the impression he had been working heavily there all the time.

  ‘I’ve been through these, sir,’ said Davies putting the file on the edge of the desk. ‘Ramscar’s new file.’

  ‘Did they tell you anything?’ asked Yardbird, without looking up from the report he was ostensibly writing.

  ‘This and that,’ shrugged Davies. ‘I’ve got a pretty good picture of him now. All I have to do is find him.’

  Yardbird said with off-hand tartness, ‘That’s all you had to do from the beginning, Davies. We don’t want you to write his life story, we want to know where he is.’

  ‘I’ve been making inquiries, sir, as well. All over the place. It won’t be too long before I run into him, I expect.’ He paused, then decided to go on even though Yardbird was still writing, his eyes fixed down. ‘He’s been in bother everywhere, hasn’t he,’ said Davies.

  ‘We all know that,’ sighed Yardbird. ‘All sort of villainy. I told you that at the very start.’

  Davies rose and took the file from the desk. ‘I’ll keep this then,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep it with our own file. There was enough in that to hang him.’

  Yardbird eventually looked up. ‘What are you going on about, Davies?’ he asked wearily. ‘Christ, you gabble on like an old woman, sometimes. Can’t you see I’m up to my ears in work?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Davies, moving towards the door.

  ‘What was it anyway? You were just saying?’

  Davies kicked himself afterwards, but it seemed to come out of its own volition. ‘He looked fair game for a murder charge, once,’ he said. ‘Remember the Norris murder?’

  ‘He’s been close to murder… which murder?’

  ‘Norris. Celia Norris. Seventeen. July nineteen fifty-one. Never solved.’

  Yardbird put his pen down. ‘Now listen, Davies,’ he said angrily. ‘Don’t let’s have any of your usual frigging things up. I sent you to find a man, not scratch about with bloody history. I had my doubts about your ability to handle this Ramscar thing, and I should have had a few more. I can see that now.’
r />   ‘No, sir,’ protested Davies. ‘I’ll find Ramscar.’

  ‘Well find him then. Get out and find him, man. And stop mucking about with things that don’t matter any more.’

  Davies went outside. ‘Fuck you for a start,’ he said below his breath. ‘It matters to me.’

  It was a chill afternoon for anyone to be stripping. Davies felt a pang of pity for the girl on the apron stage as she went through the traditional ritual of her work. Her face was distant, her movements never quite synchronized with the music that wheezed from somewhere amid the coloured light bulbs that fringed, but hardly illuminated, the performance. There was little style about the audience either.

  There were three overcoated businessmen, curled like moles. A fourth snored voluminously. There was a butcher’s delivery man, whose pulpitted bicycle Davies had observed parked outside. He sat in his blotched and striped apron, watching the girl almost professionally. There were two lank-haired youths both of whom Davies recognized from their appearances in court. Sitting on one of the unkempt chairs also, occasioning in Davies a certain surprise, was a Red Cross nurse.

  ‘What’s she for? In case anybody faints with excitement?’ Davies asked the bouncer.

  ‘Nah, she ain’t a real proper nurse,’ replied the guardian. ‘She couldn’t stick a plaster on your arse. She’s part of the show.’

  ‘What does she do then? The kiss of life?’

  ‘Nah. She takes ’er duds off, don’t she. You know, black stockings and that gear. Nurses strippin’ is a favourite.’ He nodded disparagingly at the tableau of watchers.

  A small, featureless man with dangling arms had been dispatched to find Albert Norris. The messenger now returned, ambling across the stage, passing within an inch of the performing girl’s ramshackle bottom, and approached them like an obedient chimpanzee. ‘’E’s gorn,’ he said. ‘Just gorn out the back way.’

  Davies stepped between the turgid customers, whose trance he failed to disturb, and strode briskly on to the stage, excusing himself with a bow to the occupant, and then went out into the street through an exit situated within inches of the plywood wings. He failed to close the door fully and was followed by a howl from the girl: ‘The door! Shut the bleeding door!’ He mumbled an apology and turned but she, naked as she was, emerged half way through the opening into the street, made a violent remark, and slammed the door.

  He was in a long road, a service access, behind some shops, and he immediately saw Norris, who had reached the end and was turning into the main road. Davies went at a hurried amble after him. Norris, a small man, was, however, wearing a check overcoat and was an easy target. Davies reached the junction with the main road just as Norris turned to see if he was following. Norris paused, then went into a cinema, following a series of pensioners waiting to pay their reduced afternoon prices at the box office. By the time Davies had reached the foyer Norris was inside.

  Davies paid for a ticket. He stood and as his eyes came to terms with the surroundings he could see that the place was ranked with empty seats with an island of twenty or so patrons gathered together, as though for mutual protection, in the centre. Davies trod cautiously towards them. When he reached the small colony he saw that it consisted of old age pensioners, softly chewing, faces rapt, spectacles reflecting the spectacle which was now dawning on the screen. The exception was the chequered figure of Albert Norris sitting incongruously among them. There was an empty seat in the row before him.

  Davies pushed along the row of sharp knees and hands and sat in the seat. He turned immediately and looked at Albert Norris. ‘Can you see all right?’ he inquired politely.

  ‘What you following me for?’ asked Norris bluntly.

  ‘Shush.’ ‘Shut up,’ chorused the aged people.

  ‘Sorry,’ apologized Davies generally. He watched two minutes of the film then returned to Norris, the weasel face set among all the small rabbit faces.

  ‘I wanted to have a chat with you,’ he said at just above a whisper.

  ‘Shush.’ ‘Hush.’ ‘Shut your mouths,’ complained the old folks. The crone next to Davies dug him in the ribs with her spiked elbow. He kept looking at Norris.

  ‘Chat?’ asked Norris. ‘What we got to chat about?’

  ‘All sorts of things,’ answered Davies. ‘Ramscar for one.’

  He saw the man’s face change even in the dimness. But then his shoulder was seized and he turned to see the angry expression of an aged man standing over him. He wore a bowler hat at a threatening angle.

  ‘Why can’t you poofters go and sit somewhere else?’ demanded the man. ‘Comin’ in ’ere spoiling the fillum for decent people.’ A chorus of threatening support came from all around.

  ‘If you want to hold ’ands or whisper sweet bleedin’ nothings go and do it in the park,’ the spokesman went on. ‘If you don’t pack it up we’ll set on you.’

  ‘Set on them!’ quivered a voice.

  ‘I think we’d better move, angel,’ said Davies.

  ‘Funny bugger,’ glowered Norris. He got up and pushed his way past the elderly. Davies did likewise. The old people pummelled them and struck them with sticks and umbrellas as they went by.

  ‘Nancies!’

  The old fashioned taunts pursued them up the central aisle. Davies put his arm affectionately around Norris’s waist. Norris shook him off and they made their exit to a wild chorus of raspberries.

  They walked, a yard apart like friends who have recently quarreled, along the towpath of the canal. The afternoon had become dimmer and on either side the houses and the backs of shops and small factories stood in a cold frieze.

  ‘Where’s Ramscar?’ asked Davies.

  ‘How in the ’ell do I know?’ returned Norris. Davies decided that all Josie had inherited from her father was her smallness. His eyes were hard-bright.

  Davies watched the aimless water of the canal. Norris said, ‘If you don’t pack up bothering me and my missus and my daughter I’m going to complain. Even a copper can’t keep ’arassing you, or didn’t they ever tell you?’

  ‘Harassing?’ said Davies heavily. ‘Harassing? This is the first time I’ve had the pleasure of your company, Mr Norris.’

  ‘But you been at the wife and Josie,’ argued Norris. ‘I hear what’s going on. And I don’t bloody like it. I’m clean. I ’aven’t done anything in two years. No, my mistake, four years. So you got no reason.’

  ‘You know why I’m checking, then, I take it?’

  ‘Our Celia, so you reckon,’ said Norris. His hard small face turned to Davies. ‘She’s dead and nobody knows who done it. So don’t give me all this crap about digging the whole bloody thing up again. It’s bleedin’ cruel, disgusting, the way you coppers go about things sometimes.’

  ‘Did Ramscar do it?’ inquired Davies quietly.

  ‘Oh Christ! No, no, no, he didn’t do it.’ Norris stopped on the towpath. He caught Davies’s sleeve fiercely. ‘Listen, mate,’ he said firmly. ‘Ramscar didn’t do it. Let me tell you that for gospel. He was at Newmarket. Do you think I would have kept it quiet? She was my girl, you know.’

  Davies stared at the bitter face. ‘Where’s Ramscar now?’ he said.

  Norris began to walk on angrily. ‘I told you, I don’t know. He cleared off abroad years ago. I thought even the police knew that.’

  ‘I’ve heard he is back,’ replied Davies. A duck moved unemotionally along the canal and was followed by its mate, cruising under the bridge. Davies wondered if their feet ever got cold.

  ‘Well you know more than I do,’ said Norris. ‘I ain’t seen anything of ’im. You’d better ask somebody else.’

  ‘What happened to his wife?’ asked Davies. He could see that Norris was genuinely astounded.

  ‘Wife! Christ almighty, that only lasted a month. Fuck me—his wife! I’d forgot all about her. God only knows where she’s gone. I don’t.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  Norris stopped and spread his sharp hands. ‘I don’t know, Mr Davies,
I don’t know. Straight up. Elsie or Mary or something, I don’t know. I hardly knew her. It was bloody years ago.’

  ‘May fourteenth, nineteen sixty-five,’ recited Davies. He was disappointed that his incisive knowledge had no effect on Norris. All Norris said was, ‘Very likely was.’

  ‘What did she do, this Elsie or Mary? For a living.’

  ‘Oh, Christ. I don’t know. If I knew I’ve forgot.’

  ‘Was she on the game, perhaps?’

  Norris considered it. ‘No, not that. Cecil was very particular.’

  He pulled up short as if he realized he was talking too much. They had reached the part of the towpath where the humped bridge with its lamp intervened across the canal and the tight lane ran up to the pawnshops and the massage parlour in the High Street.

  It was a natural place to pause and they stood on the rise of the bridge, looking down at the inclement water.

  ‘Why did Cecil Ramscar send a wreath?’ asked Davies.

  Norris nodded in a dull movement. ‘My missus, I suppose, or Josie. One of them told you.’

  ‘Why did he?’

  ‘You’re so fucking clever,’ said Norris nastily. ‘With your questions and bloody answers. Cecil didn’t mean to send a wreath. He’s not thick. He asked another bloke, a dopey bugger called Rickett, to send some flowers. Sort of sympathy, just like you’d send flowers to somebody if they wanted cheering up. Cecil reckoned it would nice and he got stupid bloody Rickett to send them. And Rickett got pissed at the pub and sent a wreath instead. Cecil got narked and had Rickett seen to.’

  ‘Seen to?

  ‘Sorted out. He don’t walk proper now.’

  ‘Mr Norris,’ said Davies. ‘Could you just run through the events of the day that Celia vanished.’

  Norris looked deflated. ‘Oh bloody Christ,’ he moaned.’ Do I have to? You’ve heard it all from my missus. I wouldn’t mind if it was really Celia you was trying to sort out. But you’re just having a sniff around for other things. I know, mate, I know.’