‘All right, so they had a farewell drink for a retiring copper. So what? It often happens.’
‘But murders don’t—not on the same night,’ pointed out Mod hoarsely. ‘It was the same night, Dangerous.’
‘Yes. Yes, all right then. But…’
‘There’s a picture on page three,’ said Mod relentlessly, enjoying himself in the chilly light of the little room.
Davies turned the page and looked at the picture. A group of policemen, pictured at the farewell to Sergeant D. Morris, said the caption. Above the photograph was the heading: ‘Cheers, say Policemen’ and below it a panel of names of the officers who raised their glasses for the cameraman and for posterity.
‘All right,’ said Davies. ‘But I still don’t see…’
‘Read the names,’ said Mod. ‘Go on, read them!’
Davies read them. Two names made him swallow so hard he had a fit of coughing. ‘PC James Dudley and PC Frederick Fennell,’ he said eventually. After a silence, he added: ‘And they were supposed to be in the patrol car in the High Street when she vanished.’
‘But they weren’t, were they,’ said Mod.
‘I’ve seen the duty slips and reports they signed,’ said Davies. ‘And they were drinking with the boys. They lied for a start.’
‘And nobody noticed the lie,’ said Mod. ‘Or nobody cared to notice.’
An apologetic shadow appeared on the stairs. It was Mr Chrust. ‘How are you getting on, gentlemen?’ he inquired. ‘Making some headway? I’m afraid the ladies are so excited they can’t get back to sleep.’
‘We’re just off, thank you Mr Chrust,’ said Davies, his thoughts miles, years, away from his voice. ‘Just going.’
He and Mod folded the file and heaved it up into its slot on the shelf like a piece of masonry. Mr Chrust walked over and shining his lantern-torch along the bindings pedantically made sure that the years still ran as ordained. ‘We sleep above history here, Mr Davies,’ he smiled fluffily.
‘You certainly do,’ agreed Davies his mind still on what he had seen. They had reached the outside door. ‘Thank you very much,’ he called back. ‘Sorry to have disturbed you. Good-night.’
To his astonishment further ‘good-nights’ came from above and he looked up to see the two plump ladies girlishly framed in the upstairs windows, the sashes thrust up.
Their progress home towards ‘Bali Hi’, Furtman Gardens, was hung with guilt, slowing their steps and causing them to dawdle at street corners more than was justified by the damp blanket of drink that still loosely enwrapped them. Neither mentioned the horse until they reached the final right-angle, the turn that would take them into Furtman Gardens and a view of whatever there was to be seen. Then Mod leaned back against a privet hedge, causing its dust to fall like pollen, and shook a cowardly head. ‘Dangerous,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I can’t go any further. I’m afraid to look.’
Davies tried to hold on to the hedge as one would lean against a wall but his hand kept sticking into the prickly twigs. He found he could stand upright without aid, however, and, pleased by this improvement, he confronted Mod.
‘We’re going home,’ he ordered sternly. ‘We’re both going home. We’ve got to face this together, Mod. After all we’ve got an alibi and if I turn up and you don’t they’ll be sure to think you did it by yourself.’
Mod nodded miserably, acknowledging the logic. ‘I wish you wouldn’t keep buying me drink, Dangerous,’ he mumbled. ‘If you didn’t buy them I wouldn’t be able to drink them. Aw, Christ, come on then. Let’s face the foe.’
There was a fire engine, a police car, a horse ambulance, and the rag-and-bone man’s cart outside the house of Mrs Fulljames. Each was toting a red or blue revolving light, even the rag-and-bone man’s cart which had no navigation or warning appliances of its own and had borrowed a spare revolving blue light from the sympathetic attendant of the horse ambulance. From the distant end of the street they could see the crowd gathered and individual shadows moving with the various emergency lights bleeding and bleeping above them. It looked, at that distance, like a modest but busy fairground.
Davies and Mod approached to within a few yards, with seemly caution. The horse, looking elated, was being led by its owner to the shafts of the cart. It blinked at the revolving light but otherwise went quietly. The horse ambulance attendant was unemotionally inspecting a kicked door, on his vehicle; the front door of ‘Bali Hi’ was also bereft of its lower panels. Firemen were washing down the path, possibly feeling that since they had been summoned they ought to contribute something. All around were the faces of police and people, trying not to laugh.
The front room bay window on the first floor was open and backed with orange light. Mrs Fulljames, Doris at her side, stood in impressive silhouette as though she were about to jump or make a speech. With unerring aim she spotted the loitering Mod and Davies as soon as they came to the penumbral verge of the incident.
‘Did you put that horse in my house?’ she bawled hysterically. ‘Did you two do it?’
Their faces, innocence and amazement fighting for possession, elevated themselves to the voice. She gave them no time to deny or even reply. ‘There’s shit everywhere!’ she howled. ‘Every bloody where.’
Some people in the crowd, neighbours who had to keep the peace with Mrs Fulljames, turned away and hid because they were laughing too much. ‘Up the passage, on the stairs, in the front room!’ she continued. ‘Shit!’ The very force of her bellow seemed to draw her forward and people below cried a warning, possibly fearing for themselves as much as her. ‘Better get the jumping sheet,’ Davies said to an enthralled fireman. ‘I think she’ll topple over any minute.’
Doris even from the window saw the brief conversation. ‘Are you listening to Mrs Fulljames?’ she shouted. ‘Do you care? That thing has smashed the sideboard in the front room. Antique that was. Antique!’
‘Belonged to Mr Fulljames, I bet,’ whispered Davies to the speechless fireman.
‘That belonged to Mr. Fulljames,’ screamed Doris obediently. ‘The late Mr Fulljames.’
Mrs Fulljames, somewhat ungraciously, pushed Doris violently back into the room and then leaned out menacingly. She looked like Mussolini pressing a point. ‘Mr Davies, Mr Lewis,’ she demanded. ‘Did you get that horse in here? Did you? I want to know.’
‘Mrs Fulljames,’ shouted Davies mildly. ‘You are making a scene. I have been out on police inquiries of a serious nature and Mr Lewis has been accompanying me.’
His landlady clamped her mouth angrily and then pulled down the window with a sound almost as loud. Davies’s fellow policeman, having seen the horse between the shafts and taken its name and that of its owner, now returned. ‘This is where you live is it, Dangerous?’ inquired a young officer. Davies nodded, still 1ooking up at the finality of the slammed window.
‘Seems a nice cosy little place,’ murmured the policeman. ‘Bit on the quiet side, but cosy.’
‘Nothing ever happens,’ shrugged Davies. He turned to Mod. ‘We’d better go in and see if we’ve still got beds. Good-night, officer,’ he added formally.
‘Good-night, Dangerous: I’ll be glad when we’ve finished tonight. We’ve already had two bloody hooligans pulling down the drainpipe at the pub.’
Chapter Thirteen
Mrs Edwina Fennell lived in a dying caravan anchored at the centre of a muddy field, ten miles from the streets and the industry her husband had patrolled as a policeman on occasions when he was not in bed with the lady palmist who lived and foresaw the future in the High Street.
‘She’s over there,’ pointed out the farm man from whom Davies had asked directions. He indicated, with a dungy finger, the caravan across the soggy field. ‘It’ll be a bit damp underfoot, but it’s a good job you didn’t come in the real winter. Sometimes she gets cut off altogether.’
Davies commenced to sludge across the field. Sometimes the cowpats seemed firmer than the surrounding earth. He had a quick recollection of walking into the
front hall of ‘Bali Hi’, Furtman Gardens, early on that same morning, after the horse had been taken away. He winced partly from the thought and partly at the spasm of a mean wind which was searching the open land. It was a flat and unpoetic place, no hills, few trees, just muddy fields holding up a muddy sky. He was glad of his faithful overcoat, bravely opposing the cut and buffet of the wind. He looked up and saw he was still only half-way to Mrs Fennell’s caravan, wheelless and listing listlessly, like some sorry shipwrecked raft.
In such circumstances he was surprised to see an illuminated door chime affixed to the peeling door of the caravan. He pushed it and released a globular melody not inferior to that which had heralded his entrance to the council penthouse of Ena Lind. It was necessary to stand in the morass of the field while he awaited a response, for there was no step. The caravan had subsided so far into the field, however, that Edwina Fennell, when she opened the door was on almost the same level. ‘Sorry I was a long time,’ she sniffled. ‘I get so fed up with people coming and ringing the bell.’
Bemused, Davies quickly looked around to see if he had missed a city on his journey. But the field remained disconsolate all about. ‘Yes,’ he replied carefully. ‘It’s a bit of a drag to have to keep answering the door. I hope I won’t keep you long. I’m Detective Constable Davies. I’m at your husband’s old station.’
‘Oh that,’ she said, as though it were of only remote interest. ‘Well he’s not here. Not any more.’
‘I see,’ said Davies. She remained resolutely in the small entrance, thin arms folded over a pallid pinafore. ‘I wanted to have a word with you as well, Mrs Fennell. Do you…could I possibly come in? I think I’m sort of sinking here. The water is getting through into my shoes.’
‘Wipe your feet then,’ she said dully backing away from the entrance. He stepped out of the chilly mud, each foot emitting a reluctant sucking sound as he pulled it clear. Within the doorway the floor was covered by a piece of coconut matting. He thought he would destroy it if he wiped his shoes so, mumbling as one performing a rite, he took them off and left them in the field, walking into the interior in stockinged feet.
There was little difference in the temperature in the caravan to that of the outside. It was cold and cloying, the fittings damaged and the plastic furniture unkempt. There was an unlit oil lamp and, a hand-wound gramophone with a pile of old-fashioned records. They had a damp sheen on them. Mrs Fennell had been occupied in cutting a great careful pile of sandwiches assembled from a sizeable joint of cold beef and three long sliced loaves of bread.
She was a rejected-looking woman in her sixties. Her sunken eyes seemed incapable of rising to look at him. She went behind the barricade of sandwiches and began to butter some bread. ‘It gets very muddy out there sometimes,’ she said absently. To his surprise she emitted a cackling laugh. ‘Sometimes I think I hear the bell and I think it must be one of my million lovers at the door. But when I go they’ve vanished and I think they must have sunk down in the mud.’
‘Yes, it’s a trifle damp,’ said Davies awkwardly. He wondered if his shoes would still be there when he went out. He nodded towards her sandwiches. ‘Looks like a picnic,’ he said.
‘Foxes,’ she replied. ‘I cut them up every day for the foxes. They come around after dark and sit and wait. They’re so handsome. And it didn’t seem right, dignified if you see what I mean, to just chuck bits of food out to them, so I do it properly, in sandwiches and they each have their own plates. You should see them eating. It’s a lovely sight when it’s a full moon.’
Davies sincerely said he could imagine it was. He half hoped she might offer him a sandwich for himself, but the thought obviously never came to her.
‘What did you want then?’ she prompted. ‘What did you want with Fred Fennell?’
He knew that when a woman called her husband by both Christian and surname he was not in any kind of favour. ‘Well, just a few memories of his police days, really,’ he said. ‘I’m checking on something that happened a long time ago and I thought I might pick his brains.’
‘There’s not a lot to pick,’ she sniffed bluntly. ‘He’s lost all his brains. He’s in the looney house, Mr Davies. The mental hospital. St Austin’s at Bedford.’
Davies felt his heart plummet. ‘Oh, I’m sorry about that.’
‘He’s not. Loves it. Every minute. He thinks he’s Peter the Great. Well he did last time I went to see him.’
‘When was that?’ asked Davies.
‘Last year.’ She cut into the bread fiercely. ‘Twelve months ago.’
‘Why did you stop?’
‘Reasons.’ She seemed to be gritting her teeth, trying not to cry. ‘I couldn’t stand it. All the horrors in there. I couldn’t stand hearing him giving orders to the bleeding Russian court and the like. I couldn’t face it. I stopped going.’
She stopped cutting the sandwiches. It occurred to Davies that the foxes were in for a feast that night. ‘It’s horrible in that place,’ she said. ‘So horrible I can’t tell you. You’ll see if you go.’
He got up. The smell of the fresh bread and the cold beef was overpowering. ‘I’ll be off then,’ he said. ‘What shall I say if he asks when you’re going to see him?’
She hesitated, then cleaned the crumbs from the knife with her fingers. ‘Tell him…tell him I’ll come after the Revolution,’ she said. ‘That’ll do.’
Immediately he went beyond the gates of St Austin’s Hospital, Davies experienced the guilt of the sane going to visit the insane. He drove the Lagonda with consideration through the arched gatehouse and nodded in an agreeably humble way to everyone he saw. At first he was in a wide expanse of playing fields and woodland, but it felt different; it was as if he had entered a strange country. In the distance he could see the bent backs of the buildings among greenery like giants kneeling at a game of dice. He realized that this was a no man’s land. There was another, higher wall ahead.
Autumn was thinning the trees and, through a belt of white and shaky birches he could see moving coloured figures. Some men with ropes were sawing loudly in an oak tree around which the road curved. They waved to him from the perilous branches and he gladly waved back. As he turned the curve he saw that a football match was being played ahead; a proper match with goalposts and nets, corner flags, and with the players decked in correct shirts, shorts, socks and boots. A referee, in regulation black, danced around controlling the game. The scene pleased Davies immensely. It was Wednesday morning and he was glad to see them playing at that time of the day and the week.
He slowed the car, stopped it almost opposite one of the goals, a few yards from the touchline which, he was again glad to see, was being overseen by a proper linesman in black shirt and shorts holding a bright orange flag. The linesman smiled at Davies and proceeded to pretend he was walking a tightrope along the whitewashed line. Davies laughed heartily at his joke and called: ‘Good match?’
‘First rate,’ responded the linesman soberly, balancing on his imaginary tightrope. His arms went out like stabilizing wings and he prepared to spin slowly and go back the other way. ‘Two good teams,’ he added before revolving. ‘Best teams in the world.’
‘Oh,’ said Davies uncomfortably.
‘Brazil and England,’ said the linesman secretly. ‘Playing for the World Cup.’
There came a burst of action in front of the adjacent goal. A heavy forward of the yellow team trundled the ball through and, having unceremoniously pushed the advancing goalkeeper away with both hands, scored easily and went dancing joyfully down the pitch to the arms and kisses of his teammates.
Davies shouted from his driving seat. ‘Foul! Foul!’ The linesmen turned with worried, white face. ‘You think so?’ he inquired.
‘He just pushed the goalie out of the way,’ Davies pointed out.
A player in the red team standing near the touchline heard him. ‘No goal!’ he bellowed across the pitch. ‘A foul! This man says it was a foul!’
An icy fear caught Da
vies’s heart. The linesman was staring at him drop-mouthed, and, across the football pitch twenty-two shouting, arguing, pushing players charged at him with the referee and the other linesmen funeral figures far to the rear.
Kitty, sensing something important was taking place, looked out from below its tarpaulin and, seeing the advancing shirted horde, howled dismally. The sound jerked Davies into fortunate action. ‘Must be off!’ he shouted handsomely, jabbing the accelerator. ‘Play up!’
The Lagonda ran forward quickly. At a safe distance he looked in the mirror and saw them standing in a coloured bunch all shouting at each other. The referee was sitting alone under a tree, one linesman was kicking the ball and the other was still tiptoeing the line.
He found he was trembling. Kitty burrowed below the tarpaulin once more. The road was leading towards a great wooden gate, set in a formidable wall; it curved to an apex like the entrance to a castle or a prison. Set into it was an infant door. Davies stopped the car and walked to it. The sadness of the place was settling upon him. There was a silence too, holding everything, the walls, the peeping roofs, and the grimy sky. Against the inset door was fixed an iron ring handle, inhospitable to the hand. He turned it and, somewhat to his surprise, it opened without resistance and the little door swung easily in.
Davies was confronted with a framed scene, much as Alice was through her looking glass. Stretching as far as he could see were desolately well-tended lawns and flower beds, set out in squares and oblongs. They appeared perfectly cultured and kept but looked as though no sun ever shone upon them. Set into this there was a solitary human figure, a woman, a bent back and downturned face overlooking some minute job at the corner of the border just beyond the gate. Unhappy, Davies stepped through.
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