Last Detective

by Thomas, Leslie

  ‘I’ve got a body, exhibits including the girl’s bicycle, a witness and an accused, and I still don’t know why the hell I became a detective in the first place,’ said Davies miserably.

  ‘It’s something I’ve often asked myself,’ agreed Mod uncharitably. ‘Can I make a suggestion?’

  ‘You want me to forget the whole thing?’

  ‘No indeed not. Not now. You’re nearly there, boy. But think, is there anybody, anybody you’ve already talked to or anybody you think you should have talked to, who might just give it that extra couple of yards it needs? Anybody?’

  Davies remained gloomy. The rest of the journey was made in general silence with Father Harvey’s muted praises, punctuated by curses directed at other drivers, filtering through to them. Mod took out an antique copy of Clarendon’s Rebellion, Volume Three and read it assiduously. Davies thought but nothing happened.

  When they reached ‘Bali Hi’, Furtman Gardens, Mod wheeled Davies into the downstairs front room which Mrs Fulljames, with some grudging generosity, had put at his disposal for the time of his incapability, and at only a small extra cost. On the mantelshelf was a letter. It was from Frederick Fennell in the St Austin’s Mental Hospital, Bedford. It said simply: ‘Come and see me again for interesting news.’ Beneath his signature was the drawing of a girl’s bicycle.

  Fortunately it was the off-season for outings from St Fridewide’s and Father Harvey was able to bring the church vehicle around the following day so that Davies could be transported to see Fred Fennell. ‘I’ll see you get repaid one day,’ Davies promised the priest. ‘If all this becomes official police business.’

  Father Harvey, who had shown remarkable incuriosity for a priest, nodded generously as he and Mod guided the invalid chair into the open rear of the vehicle. ‘I’d quite like to have one of those blue flashing lights on the roof,’ grunted the priest as he heaved the heavy load up an improvised ramp. ‘And maybe a police siren. Oh yes, I’d certainly like that.’

  As they drove towards Bedford, Mod again rocked the chair moodily. ‘What d’you hope to get from this?’ he sighed. ‘Another witness? Your case gets better and better, Dangerous. One witness over a hundred and likely to pop off during his evidence, and another who’s convinced he’s Peter the Great.’

  ‘It’s not much of a line-up,’ acknowledged Davies. ‘But there’s got to be something. Something somewhere.’

  Father Harvey helped them to disembark then obligingly went off to see the hospital chaplain whom he knew from an occasion when they had taken part in a religious brains trust in Wandsworth Prison. There was no question of the wheeled chair going through the main door, so Mod, on Davies’s guidance, took it through the rear garden gates. The solitary lady was still prodding at her private weeds with a table fork. Davies had warned Mod of what might occur so they were not surprised to be marched to the Superintendent’s office at gunpoint. Davies raised both hands, but Mod only one since the captor acknowledged that he needed the other to push the chair. Davies gave her a disarming smile as she delivered them to the main office and the Superintendent took them to see Frederick Fennell sitting calmly in the room where Davies had first met him.

  ‘Oh God help us, you’re in a state,’ said Fennell when he saw Davies. ‘I was told you’d been in a dispute.’

  ‘Described to a nicety,’ acknowledged Davies. ‘This is Modest Lewis, my assistant on this case. How did you hear about me?’

  ‘Tarantella, Madame Phelps-Smith, came to see me,’ said Fennell. He talked quietly and rationally. His face was no longer haunted. He smiled at the memory of her visit. ‘She said that she had shown you the bicycle. So I thought I ought to tell you the rest.’

  Davies fidgeted, forward in his chair. ‘Yes, Fred,’ he said steadily. ‘That would be very useful.’

  ‘My wife’s been to see me too,’ continued Fennell. ‘She came because you went back to her and asked her. I’m very grateful to you. That’s why I want to tell you.’ He paused and smiled, almost secretly. ‘Funny thing, I’ve been stuck in this nuthouse all this time, and nobody’s bothered and all at once they both came to see me.’ He sighed. ‘I’ve had to tell Tarantella that it’s all over between us, of course. I think I’ll be on my way out of here before too long and then my good wife and I will start somewhere again. She brought me some nice cold beef sandwiches last time.’

  ‘In that case you’re definitely back in favour,’ said Davies firmly. ‘What else did you want to tell us?’

  ‘Oh yes. You don’t want to listen to my personal gossip. When you came here last I wasn’t sure what you were after. You didn’t tell me in so many words. But Tarantella filled it all in. Anyway, if it’s any use to you, I’ve got something. By the way, did you like Edwina’s little place in the country?’

  Davies remembered the swamped caravan. ‘Oh yes,’ he murmured. ‘Very rural.’

  ‘I want to sell it. Get right away from here. Down to Cornwall, somewhere fresh.’ He caught Davies’s glance. ‘Yes, well that’s me, again, isn’t it. Sorry, but so many things have happened. I feel like I’m alive again.’

  ‘You’re looking a great deal better,’ said Davies truthfully.

  ‘And thanks to you. It was like the sun coming up… Anyway, listen. I’ve got something for you. Edwina brought it in to me. I told her where to find it in my old police relics. Here—it’s for you, Mr Davies.’

  He held out a registered envelope. Puzzled, Davies took it. Mod was watching over his shoulder. ‘Registered,’ said Fennell. ‘See, it’s registered London, NW10, 20th August 1951. And it’s never been opened.’

  ‘What’s in it?’ asked Davies.

  ‘A statement by PC Dudley,’ said Fennell undramatically and simply. ‘He was a careful bloke, Dudley, and he wanted to be sure to cover himself. He wrote this when they started treating the Norris girl business as murder. He wrote it all down and then sent it to himself by registered post. If it remained unopened that would be proof that it was written at the time the registered post label was dated. Got me?’

  ‘Yes. But we can’t know what’s in it without opening it ourselves. And that would destroy its value as evidence.’

  ‘Right. But he made a copy. I’ve got that too. It was sealed up with sealing wax and I’ve opened it. They came from Australia, after Dudley died in that fire. A solicitor in Melbourne sent them to me. He said Dudley had lodged them with him with instructions that they were to be forwarded to me in the event of his death. He was in all sorts of trouble, you know. Maybe he planned to commit suicide. But anyway that fire settled it for him. And these arrived in the post.’

  Fennell smiled wryly. ‘It was about the time when I went off my head.’ He glanced in a suddenly embarrassed manner as if he thought that Mod might not realize why he was in the building. ‘The envelope got stuck away with my other things and, to tell the truth I forgot all about them. I had enough trouble remembering who I was!’ He laughed. ‘You won’t believe this but I actually thought I was Peter the Great. And he’s been dead years!’

  Davies glanced at him with alarm. But it was a joke. Fennell grinned knowingly at that. ‘Here’s the second envelope.’ He handed a foolscap envelope blotched with sealing wax to them. Davies took it. He was surprised to find himself so calm.

  ‘It’s about that night,’ said Fennell thoughtfully. ‘The night the girl disappeared. We’d been to the party for Davie Morris who was leaving the force and had had quite a few drinks, even though we were on duty. You could get away with, well, sort of unofficial things. Anyway we, that’s Dudley and myself, we were supposed to be on duty in the little van. I sneaked in to see Tarantella and when I went out again I walked up the street towards the cemetery because that’s where I thought Dudley would be waiting. We used to meet up there. One of us would park the van by the cemetery gates and let the other go off for an hour. On this night the van wasn’t there, but there was this bike lying by the wall. I’d had it in the back of my mind for a long time to kind of have a bit of
evidence standing by, you know, to produce if anybody wanted to know what I was doing in Tarantella’s place. And my wife was getting suspicious. I would say that Tarantella had found it and I’d gone there in response to her call. The bike was some solid evidence, if you know what I mean. It all seems so bloody paltry now…and so faraway.’

  ‘What happened to Dudley that night, do you think?’ Davies did not want him to slip away now.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ nodded Fennell. ‘I’m coming to that. I suppose we were just young coppers and up to all sorts of roguery. And we were allowed to get away with it. Anyway, this bike. I took it into Tarantella’s place and then I went back to find Dudley in the van. It was parked in the main road by the alley leading to the canal. By the pawnbroker’s. Dudley was in the front but was still feeling terrible. He never could take his drink. In fact, you’ll see in the statement, he’d only just got there. He felt so bad that he’d been lying down in his girlfriend’s flat. There’s more about that in the statement. Anyway I told him to clear off early and I did the rest of the stint myself. I signed in for him when I got back to the station. There was never any difficulty about that either. It was easy.’

  ‘So Dudley was in the car when you got there?’ said Davies. In imagination he could see Mr Harkness cheerfully spilling false evidence in every sentence. He sighed wearily.

  ‘Yes, he was sat there. I remember how bad he looked. Silly bugger had been drinking rum. But…but something else had happened. Something…he’s put in the statement. You’ve got to read that for yourself. Even though we used to share that duty nearly all the time, and we’d fixed it to fiddle time off, we were never very pally. We never really trusted each other.’

  ‘But it was to you that he arranged to have these envelopes sent.’

  ‘Because I was there that night. That’s the reason. In a way I was in it with him. Whatever it was. Read it. Go on, read it.’

  Fennell leaned forward, eagerness overcoming his carefully arranged calm. He watched Davies open the thin envelope. Davies read aloud.

  ‘At the top it says: “This is a true copy of my statement of 20th August 1951, sealed in a registered envelope also in possession of Maxley Davidson of Flinders Street, Melbourne. The statement is as follows:

  ‘“On the night of July 23rd 1951, I was on duty with PC Frederick Fennell, patrolling the area of the High Street, London NW10. There was a police social function at the nearby ‘Sturgeon Rooms’, a farewell party for a colleague, David Morris, who was leaving the force. During the course of our patrol in the police van PC Fennell and I called into this function and had some drinks. I drank rum which always had a bad effect on me and I felt ill. PC Fennell left before me and, as he often did, went to visit a woman friend. We arranged to meet at the gates of the cemetery an hour later. Sometimes one of us would take unofficial time off and sometimes the other would do the same. The one who remained with the van would be at the cemetery entrance at a prearranged time. We had done this for more than a year and nothing had gone wrong with the arrangement.

  ‘“But on this night, I felt so bad after drinking the rum that I did not think I could drive the van to the rendezvous. It was then that PC Vernon Yardbird offered to take over the duty for me. He had been drinking with the rest but he seemed to be all right. I let him take over and I went to the flat of a friend in the district and had a cup of coffee and a lie down. After about an hour I felt better and I walked to the cemetery gates intending to meet PC Yardbird with the van. It was not there and I walked along the High Street until I finally spotted it near the pawnbroker’s shop. There was no one in it. I could see someone moving down the alleyway leading to the canal. Someone was in the verge by the allotments.

  ‘“I called and eventually PC Yardbird came up the alley. He looked very strange, white-faced, sweating and there was blood on his cheek as though he had been scratched, and he told me he was going home because he thought he had drunk too much. I thanked him for doing me the favour and I got into the driving seat of the van. On the floor by the passenger seat I found a lipstick. I put this in my pocket but later I threw it away in case my wife found it. It is not until now—a month later—when the case of Celia Norris’s disappearance had come into prominence, that I have begun to think that the lipstick and the state PC Yardbird was in that night might have had any bearing on the case. The lipstick was a type sold in Woolworth’s and was of the same type that Celia Norris was said to have had. This statement is true.”’

  Davies looked up at the others. ‘He’s signed it. James Henry Dudley, PC. August, 1951.’ He held the registered envelope in his hands, as though weighing it. ‘And that is a duplicate of the statement contained in this package.’ His natural pessimism asserted itself. ‘I hope.’

  Chapter Twenty

  It was difficult to hold a cosy gathering at the police station. Nevertheless the cleaning lady had dusted the charge room for once and had put a bunch of dried flowers on the table which, remembering Celia’s flowers, Davies thought was accidentally appropriate.

  Detective Sergeant Green of the Special Branch helped Mod to get Davies’s wheeled chair up the front steps to the station. He had come out purposely and leaned close to Davies’s ear when they had reached the top step. ‘What have you been doing to Yardbird?’ he inquired quietly. ‘He’s bloody livid. He’s supposed to make this presentation to you this morning but something’s happened. I think he’d rather strangle you.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Davies mildly. ‘I think I must have embarrassed him.’

  ‘Christ, you’ve done more than embarrassed him. Apparently went berserk in his office half an hour ago and he said he wasn’t going to make the presentation. But my boss, Bob Carter, has insisted that he does it. And Yardbird won’t say why he’s blowing his top.’

  ‘I see,’ said Davies. ‘I think I know why he’s so upset, Mr Green.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’ll tell you soon. Would you do me a favour?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘After our little ceremony is over—as soon as I give you the eye—would you take your boss, Detective Superintendent Carter, into the CID room. I’ll come in very shortly after with Inspector Yardbird. I have something I would like to say to him in your presence.’

  Green nodded silently. He was a man well accustomed to the odd twists of life. He let Mod push the wheeled chair towards the charge room when the duty sergeant, the shiny Ben, appeared like a substantial shadow and pulled him aside.

  ‘Very quickly,’ whispered Ben. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been up to, Dangerous, but the old man is fucking furious. It happened first thing this morning, as soon as Yardbird came in. I gather there’s been a complaint against you from somebody called Boot. Says you’ve been terrorizing him, beating him up, he says. Anyway he’s been telling tales on you. Then old Yardbird comes down to the CID room and gets the key to your locker, which he empties all over the floor. And he went out frothing at the bloody mouth with a photograph of some young girl. I didn’t see this, but PC Westerman was in there with a nosebleed. He said it was a photo of a girl.’ Ben looked at Davies curiously. ‘You haven’t been dabbling in indecent pictures, have you, Dangerous?’

  Davies smiled. ‘Sort of,’ he said.

  Ben stared at him but said nothing more. He helped Mod to wheel the chair into the charge room which was full of people drinking Cyprus sherry. As he came in they all clapped and he gave a short, embarrassed wave. Then through the door came Detective Superintendent Carter and Detective Sergeant Green of the Special Branch and, stiff-faced, Inspector Yardbird.

  Davies sat in his chair, feeling its wheels vibrating from his own trembling. Mod stood one side of him and Josie on the other. To his amazement Doris and Mrs Fulljames then arrived both extravagantly kissing him before retiring to a short distance, looking smug and apparently not noticing Josie or her proximity to Davies.

  He knew that Mrs Fulljames was pleased because the rag-and-bone man had that day restored the brass beds
tead to ‘Bali Hi’, Furtman Gardens. Davies had seen the piece in the yard when he had gone to give the horse a cabbage for saving his life. He purchased it, at a special police discount, the man alleging that he bought it from an honest-looking Persian who was in a hurry.

  It was Detective Superintendent Carter who made the speech. Inspector Yardbird stood behind like a wax figure.

  ‘This is in the nature of a very private function,’ ‘Carter said. ‘The implications in the matter which was concluded at Bracken Farm, Uxbridge, are still going on. Mr Ramscar and others are still to go for trial, as you know. But I felt, and I know others did, that in some personal and private way we should make some presentation to Detective Constable Davies, known to you all as Dangerous Davies. Official recognition of his performance may well follow. That’s not for me to say. But this is our own private show. As we can all see he has been severely injured in this affair, although I am glad to hear that he will soon be walking again. I hope that this small presentation from his colleagues will make up for some of it. I will ask his own station inspector, Inspector Yardbird, who himself has known the unique difficulties of a policeman’s life in this particular district, for a good many years, to make the presentation.’

  Yardbird, staring at Davies, stepped forward. Davies wheeled the chair across the floor. His hands trembled on the rim of the wheels. The Inspector, shaking more than Davies, presented a silver marmalade pot, plate and spoon. He said no word. Davies thanked them all from his wheeled chair, shook hands with Carter and then held his hand out to Yardbird. Yardbird pushed out a freezing hand. Davies held it strongly.

  All around there was more applause and the Cyprus sherry began to flow. Davies was in his chair next to the stiff legs of Yardbird. As Yardbird was about to move away, Davies reached up and tentatively tugged the edge of his tunic. Yardbird looked down into a big stony smile.

  ‘Sir,’ Davies said diffidently. ‘Do you think I might have a few words with you? In private?’