Stop Press Murder

by Peter Bartram

  To my right, a small galley contained a hob fuelled by a large gas canister. A frying pan full of sausages and bacon sizzled noisily. The place smelt like the breakfast shift in a transport caff.

  On the radio, the strings throttled back in a diminuendo. Clarence sensed my presence as I advanced into the room. He turned and his eyes glazed with confusion.

  I nodded at the frying pan and said: “Gourmet night, is it?”

  Clarence’s brain, slow as a slug, lumbered into life. He scowled. Then he shifted his bulk. Tossed the cushions aside. It was like watching a prehistoric monster emerge from a swamp. He put a foot to the ground.

  I took four rapid steps across the room. And as he began to rise, I thumped him hard in the chest.

  Ooooooof!

  The air rushed out of him like a punctured balloon.

  He flopped back on the couch.

  On the radio, the trumpets obliged with a little ta-ra, ta-ra.

  I said: “Don’t get up on my account.”

  He said: “Why are you here? I didn’t invite you.”

  “Put it down to my bad manners. So why don’t you have a nice lie down while I ask some questions?”

  He stared at the ceiling as though it might provide some kind of answer. “Questions, questions. You shouldn’t be here. Not asking questions. ‘That is the question, whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…’,” he rambled.

  If I hadn’t already met him, I’d have said that he was on something. I’ve seen journos who make friends with a whisky bottle in their twenties turn into rambling buffoons by their thirties. But Clarence’s problems didn’t pour from a bottle. They’d been drip-fed into him by his mother. A lifetime of fantasy. Of pretending he was someone he wasn’t. Of playing a part instead of living a life. Of learning lines instead of speaking spontaneous words. Clarence was a hopeless case. A lost cause. But somehow I had to drag him back to the real world and make him confront his crime. It was the only way I was going to force him to free Shirley.

  I said: “All right, Hamlet. I already know you’re a walking dictionary of quotations. Let’s have some answers in your own words for a change.”

  Clarence shifted on the couch. His lips twisted into a grimace somewhere between winsome and loathsome. With his chubby face and wisps of hair, he looked like a baby who’d decided to eat his nanny.

  On the radio, Brunhilde hit a high C that had the portholes rattling.

  I said: “You’ve got a young woman locked in the cabin. Where is the key?”

  “‘The keys of the Kingdom of Heaven…’” Clarence babbled.

  “No, the key to the cabin.”

  “‘Lawyers have taken away the key of knowledge.’”

  “Forget that, man. Give me the key.”

  He tried to rise again. I pushed him back. He giggled.

  I said: “The woman you’ve taken isn’t Lady Frances.”

  “You’ll be telling me next she’s the Lady of Shallot.” He snickered. Saliva dribbled down his chin.

  He reached in his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe it away.

  And pulled out the gun.

  He snarled. Now he looked like the baby who’d eaten his nanny.

  And planned to feast on the nursery maid for afters.

  He said: “‘Guns will make us powerful…’”

  “‘… Butter will only make us fat.’” I completed the quotation. “And that old fatso Hermann Goering should’ve known. But that gun won’t make you powerful. It will only make you dead.”

  “Make you dead first.”

  He put his feet to the ground. “Not pushing me back now, are you?” he said. “Not brave now. ‘None but the brave deserves the fair.’ And I have the fair Lady Frances.”

  “You don’t have the fair Lady Frances. You have the fair Shirley Goldsmith, you fool.”

  “No. You’re wrong. She’s Frances and I’m getting ten thousand pounds.”

  “You’re getting Sweet Fanny Adams. Except free board and lodging in Lewes Prison. Trouble is heading your way.”

  “‘Forget your troubles, come on get happy…’” Clarence sang.

  He waved the gun about like it was party favour on New Year’s Eve. The clown could kill me by accident if I didn’t watch out.

  I edged away from him to the other end of the cabin. Nudged up against the table overflowing with papers.

  I said: “Let Shirley go and you become an innocent man. We’ll forget about this charade. Pretend it didn’t happen.”

  Of course, we wouldn’t. But when push comes to shove, I can lie with the best of them.

  “‘It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer,’” Clarence giggled. “But I think it is better that ten innocent people suffer so that one guilty can escape.”

  I said: “Put the gun down. Give me the key to release Shirley and this problem goes away.”

  I moved towards the table near the companionway. Glanced at the contents. My heart lurched. My mouth went dry. I had a sensation like a frozen knife being drawn down my spine.

  In the middle of the table, among a litter of newspapers was a stack of dogged-eared, sepia-tinted photographs. The top one showed a young woman sitting in her bath. I reached out and lifted the top photo. The second one was nearly identical. There’d been just a slight movement in her head. Beside the pile lay the title card: Milady’s Bath Night.

  I’d been treating Clarence like a fool.

  But my thumping heart confirmed that he had become a dangerous man, even before he seized Shirley.

  I said: “Where did you get these?”

  He moved closer. “Don’t touch them,” he said. “They’re mine. Mama said they would be mine.”

  “But you took them from the amusement arcade on Palace Pier.”

  “Yes, but Mama was wrong.”

  “About what you’d find?”

  The memory flashed back into my mind. Trish, the nurse – the one who worked in Accident and Emergency – had told me she’d overheard Marie’s last words to Clarence: “Your fortune lies on the pier.”

  I said: “Milady’s Bath Night is not going to make your fortune. It didn’t even make Marie’s.”

  “Mumsie never told me a lie,” Clarence wailed. “I thought the pictures would give me a secret – lead me to a fortune.”

  He was becoming morose. The bravado was draining out of him.

  “But they turned out to be just pictures,” I said.

  “I couldn’t believe it. I looked at them. All of them. No fortune. Nothing.”

  “So you went back to the pier to see if you’d missed anything.”

  “I hid in the coconut shy when it was time to close the pier. Like I did the first time. You can’t have seen me.”

  “I didn’t. But it was logical that whoever stole Milady’s Bath Night would be the person who returned two nights later for a second helping.”

  “I was only looking for something that was mine. Only right. Only fair. But the old man said I shouldn’t be there. Said he’d call the police. But I had to look. My Mumsie couldn’t be wrong. My fortune was on the pier. I had to find it.”

  “And the man was the night-watchman, Fred Snout,” I said.

  “Don’t know his name. Didn’t until it was in the newspapers,” Clarence said. “And then the old man started pushing me. I told him to stop.”

  “But he wouldn’t?”

  “Said he knew I was a thief and he was going to prove it. But I wasn’t a thief. I took what my Mumsie said I should have.”

  “So you killed him,” I said.

  “I had to. Mumsie would have wanted it.”

  “No, she wouldn’t.”

  “You’re wrong,” Clarence said.

  “But why take Shirley?”

  “She’s Lady Frances…”

  “Then why take Lady Frances?”

  “Because I need money now. Must have money now that the man with the limp knows.”

 
; He meant Jim Houghton of the Evening Argus. With the aid of snitch Pinker, Houghton would have finally tracked Clarence down, despite my efforts to keep them apart.

  “What does the man with the limp know,” I said.

  “What I did on the pier.”

  “Jim Houghton – the man with the limp – doesn’t know that.”

  “He said in his newspaper that he does. He wrote: ‘Police are close to arresting the man who killed Fred Snout.’”

  So Jim’s latest story – the one about the police planning a new arrest after releasing Tom Belcher – had triggered Clarence’s final breakdown. But Jim was flying a kite based, no doubt, on a boozy boast from Tomkins.

  I said: “Reporters sometimes write things they hope will happen rather than know for sure. I’ve done it myself.”

  Clarence curled his lip at that. He said: “Then you’re no better than the rest of them.”

  He raised the gun. Held it with both hands and pointed it straight at me. I knew he was going to fire it and I knew that I couldn’t stop him.

  I watched his eyes. They looked like hard little marbles. I sensed his arms tensing. Watched his finger tighten on the trigger.

  I threw myself to one side.

  Half a second later, he fired. And missed. He’d committed to the shot and couldn’t stop himself.

  The bullet hit a metal stanchion, ricocheted and smashed a porthole. Cool night air wafted in.

  The Götterdämmerung orchestra ramped up the tension with some dark chords from the cellos and a couple of ominous blasts from the trombones.

  Berrrrum, berrrrum.

  I sprawled on the floor. I gasped for air.

  In the storeroom Fanny screamed.

  Shirley shouted: “What’s happening?”

  Poppy barked.

  Then Fanny shrieked: “Come back.”

  Clarence, confused, cried: “A dog? No dogs!”

  And then Poppy raced into the day cabin.

  I yelled: “Fanny, stay back.”

  Clarence stumbled into the table. Raised the gun. Fired another shot.

  It missed Poppy and buried itself in the wall. Poppy bounded across the cabin. The shot hadn’t troubled her.

  I scrambled to my feet. Clarence aimed the gun at me again. I shoulder-charged him.

  He dropped the gun. Swung round to hit me. I ducked. Charged in like a rugby back stopping a prop forward.

  Clarence grabbed at me. Poppy jumped up at him. He lashed out with his legs. Missed the dog.

  The trumpets blasted away like foghorns and the fat lady started into her big number.

  Clarence and I grabbed at each other. He got his fleshy arms around me. I jabbed a fist hard into his kidney.

  One. Two. Three.

  Clarence yelled in pain and let me go. He stepped back. Flicked a grey tongue over his lips. Heaved up his shoulders and aimed a haymaker at my head.

  He was a big man, but slow. I ducked. His swing carried him round. I darted forward and punched him in the kidneys again.

  One. Two. Three.

  Poppy snarled.

  Brunhilde hit some high notes. The drums set up a rumble like thunder.

  Poppy lunged at Clarence’s legs.

  Clarence stepped back. Crashed into the hob. Sent the frying pan with the sausages and bacon over.

  The hot fat splashed into the lighted hob.

  Whuuuuuuumph!

  The fat flared into flame.

  I cried: “Fire! You’ve set the place on fire, you idiot.”

  But Clarence was a man possessed. He charged back across the room at me.

  As he closed in, I turned my right shoulder and took him square the chest. His weight made me stumble back, but he lost the force of his charge.

  Whooooooooph!

  A heap of greasy rags in the galley went up like a Roman candle.

  Tongues of flame spread along the cupboards lining the walls. Reached the books and newspapers on the wooden shelves.

  I said: “We need to get out.”

  Clarence said: “You’re not leaving here.”

  He stepped forward. Aimed a big punch at my head. I swayed back. Clarence’s fist sailed past my jaw.

  I moved in close and delivered a volley of punches to his chest and stomach.

  One. Two. Three.

  Poppy barked her approval. Jumped on the couch and tried to bite Clarence’s leg as he stumbled by.

  We could feel the heat from the fire now. The caked-in grease on the furniture and fabrics had turned the place into a firebox.

  I scanned the room looking for the gun.

  It was on the floor under the table.

  But Clarence, now on the opposite side of the room, saw it, too.

  We started towards it together. I felt like I’d gone ten rounds with a heavyweight. But I knew that if I didn’t reach the gun first, we’d all be finished.

  I pushed myself forward, leapt a pile of boxes, took three big strides.

  But Clarence was closer. He shouldered his way through debris.

  I was six feet from the gun.

  But he was three.

  And then Poppy dashed beneath his feet.

  He stumbled over her. Lost his balance. Regained it. Then tripped again. I heard the thump as his head crunched into the side of the table. He crashed to the floor and lay still.

  I moved forward and grabbed the gun. Cracked it open and checked the ammunition, closed it and replaced the safety catch. I thrust it into my pocket.

  Then I checked Clarence. He was breathing heavily. He snorted like a sleeping pig.

  I shouted: “Fanny, I’m getting the key to release Shirley. Stay where you are – I’m bringing it through.”

  I crossed to the Titanic key rack on the wall. Took the key labelled “Fore cabin”. Called for Poppy and headed for the door.

  With Shirley free, we’d be able to haul Clarence’s unconscious body on deck and get off the boat.

  And then the breeze from the broken porthole accelerated the fire.

  Kerrruuuuumph!

  The flames roared. Shelves by the door collapsed and a burning cupboard toppled over.

  A bonfire of wood and books and papers blocked the doorway.

  I moved towards the inferno, but the heat drove me back.

  The fire had closed off all but a small space in the middle of the doorframe. If I tried to scramble through I’d be flambéed before I’d even reached halfway.

  Behind the flames I could see Fanny heaving on the door handle which locked in Shirley.

  I shouted: “Fanny, I’ve got the key but I can’t get through.”

  “Throw it through the fire,” she screamed.

  “I can’t get near enough to aim accurately. The gap is too small.”

  “Just throw it.”

  “If it falls into the flames, we’ve lost completely,” I shouted.

  Then Shirley started beating on the door.

  Even above the crackle of the fire, I heard her yell: “Get me out. The cabin’s filling with smoke.”

  Frantically, I hunted for anything I could use to bulldoze the burning shelves and cupboard to one side. But everything was either too large or already smouldering.

  And then Professor Pettigrew’s words came into my mind. “She may look like a softy but that Poppy is the most fearless dog I’ve ever known.” She leapt through fire on stage every day.

  Poppy was scampering up and down the cabin. She was in a frenzy of excitement.

  I knelt down. Coaxed her towards me. Rubbed the sides of her head as I’d seen Fanny do. She licked my hand.

  I said: “Poppy, you’ve got to do it.”

  I felt a fool as I said it. I knew she couldn’t understand me. Or could she? She barked. Did that thing where she stands up on her hind legs and turns round.

  Then her furry face snuffled in my hands. I was holding the key. I put it in her mouth. She shook her head from side to side as I’d seen her do on the stage at the Hippodrome.

  And then she turned
and ran to the far end of the cabin.

  I pointed at the fire and said: “Jump, Poppy. Make it the greatest jump you’ve ever done.”

  But she settled down and pretended to sleep.

  I said: “Poppy take the key to Fanny. Go, now.”

  She nuzzled her head on the floor, opened one eye and blinked. As if to say, if you’re so keen on jumping through fire, you do it.

  I shook my fists in frustration. I couldn’t understand why Poppy wouldn’t perform like she did for Pettigrew.

  But I’d forgotten the whole point of his act. The dogs did the opposite of what he ordered them.

  On the radio, the French horns jumped in with some perky arpeggios.

  Dum-di-dum-di-dum.

  “Poppy!” I shouted above the roar of the flames, the crescendo of the music. “Stay. Don’t jump through the fire. Sit.”

  Poppy scrambled to her feet. Snuffled around for a moment.

  Then she careened forwards towards the door, legs pounding. Her floppy ears flapped behind her like a pair of pennants.

  Her hind legs bent to what seemed an impossible angle and she took off. She was fully three feet from the fire. For a second it looked as though she hung in the air like a fluffy puppet.

  She reached the height of her jump, and then started to descend. But she’d misjudged. She would land in the pit of the fire, where the books and old maps were burning most fiercely. But then she thrust out her front legs. It seemed to propel her forward. She sailed through the gap in the fire.

  On the other side, I heard Fanny shriek. “My God, she’s smoking.”

  “And her still under sixteen,” I yelled back. I was so relieved Poppy hadn’t fallen into the flames I just couldn’t stop myself.

  Fanny shouted: “No, she’s fine. It’s just sweat. I’ve got the key. I’m letting Shirley out.”

  Through the flames, I could see Fanny attack the door. Saw it open and Shirley race out. She was coughing like a stoker but seemed otherwise unharmed.

  “Make for the wheelhouse and climb up the ladder to the deck,” I yelled. “Get into the row boat and head for the riverbank. Take Poppy with you.”

  I saw them turn and race towards the escape hatch in the storeroom – and safety.

  I breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

  To celebrate, Brunhilde warbled a few high notes and gave her coloratura a workout.