Dance Floor Drowning

by Brian Sellars

  'The don't know how that bloke drowned, tha knows. My friend Stan told me.'

  Hadfield blew a sigh and sipped his coffee. 'I might as well talk to a wall.'

  'Now thiv found a man's eeyad at Mans eeyad,' Billy went on.

  Hadfield gaped. 'A man’s head at…'

  'How can tha tell 'ow somebody died if thaz only gorriz eeyad?'

  'Only-got-his-head,' Hadfield enunciated. 'Speak English, for God's sake, Billy. What do you have against using the letter aitch?'

  Billy frowned, 'But how can you tell?' he said, with some small concession to Received Pronunciation.

  'Its detachment is a strong clue, old lad,' Hadfield quipped. 'Mind you, even then, pathologists will stir the metaphorical entrails in search of ambiguity. No pathologist worth his salt will pass on the enigmatic, Billy.'

  Billy scowled. 'I don't know what tha'rt saying,' he grumbled. 'How though? How can tha tell what they died of?'

  'Do you know what, Billy? You really are the worst possible company for a chap down in the doldrums,' said Hadfield. 'You don’t talk to one, except to ask ludicrous questions. You certainly don't listen, and you spend your entire visit looking for the dirty bits in one's medical books. Aren't you the least bit interested in anything I say?'

  Billy sat up and straightened his shoulders. 'Sorry. Err – so - how much curing have you done today?' he asked, attempting interest.

  Hadfield deflated miserably. 'You make me sound like a pork butcher, or a tanner.'

  Billy shrugged his shoulders. 'Ooh well, if tha 'rt going to be a narky owd mardy arse, I'm off,' he said. 'I came to see thee for nowt. I thought we were friends.’

  'OK, stop right there.' Hadfield raised a staying hand. 'You never visit me for no reason. And frankly, old lad, I can always tell when you're up to something. So, what is it this time? Why are you here? Are you in detective mode again? Is that why you're asking about drowning and headless corpses?'

  'I'm norra detective no-more. I told thee that before. I were asking because thiv found a man's eeyad at Mans eeyad.'

  'Forgive me, old lad, but that's a downright fib. I mean to say, if you're really not a detective, why would you want to know about headless corpses?'

  Billy dropped his gaze. 'I just want to know. It's all a bit fishy. Sommat's going on. There are bodies floating in swimming pools and dead eeyads popping up all o'er.'

  The doctor frowned. 'I think you've flipped, old lad. What could possibly be going on?'

  'I don't know, but the coppers are acting reight weird about it,' he said. 'Thiv warned me to stay away. They were gonna handcuff me. They had me down at the main cop-shop on Monday. They said they'd lock me up forever if I didn't stay out of it.'

  'They can't do that. We fought the Nazis to stop that sort of thing.'

  'That's all reight for thee to say, tha'rt posh. It's different for me. They don't care what they do to me. I nearly lost me bike and us ration book.' He looked about giving the air a righteous sniff before going on. 'If old Fishy Wragg hadn't taken it in for me it would've got nicked. Now it stinks of fish and I lost two pounds o' sugar. My mam went barmy. I thought she'd kill me.'

  'Billy, this is serious.' Hadfield scratched his head. 'Why were you at the police station?'

  'I told thee! They arrested me - took me in a police car. They wunt bring me back though. I had to walk home. It's miles. I could've got lost. I'm only a little child tha knows.' He tried to look pathetic.

  'Who did you see? Who spoke to you there?'

  'A big-wig. Chief Superintendent Flood, or sommat. He were ranting on abaht all sorts. He poked me in t'chest and said he'd lock me up if I didn't stay out of it.'

  Hadfield stood up and paced his cramped room. 'This's not cricket, old lad,' he said, his brow furrowing with concern. 'Leave it with me, Billy. I'll get to the bottom of this. Have you told your parents?' Billy shook his head. 'Perhaps it's best not to - until we know more about it. I'll poke around a bit - see if I can get to the bottom of it. How's that?'

  'But worra about my mam's sugar ration? She sez I've got to mek it up. How can I?'

  'Hum, better start growing beets, old lad.'

  0o0o0

  Chapter Four

  A week had passed since the "Dance Floor Drowning". A wolfish frenzy of pressmen had milked the story from every possible angle, and, as their attention veered to the "Man’s Head Murder" yet more salivating hacks flapped into the city from the capital like crows to a carcass.

  Rivelin Valley crawled with reporters and photographers. Dog walkers and hikers with any old cock and bull story to tell, no matter how improbable, achieved overnight celebrity. Old men on their allotments were snapped and quoted in the national dailies, especially the red tops. Even when the decapitated head turned up, still firmly attached to a body, the press struggled to cling on grimly to the "man's head at Man’s Head" headlines, until they had exhausted every possible spin they could put on it.

  It had taken the police two days of poking and peering under bracken and rocks to unearth the head - and its body. Tangled briar and bracken had covered the head which gazed out from rocks, some as big as bags of cement. The body was covered up to the neck. It was not surprising that the hikers who had reported its discovery had thought they were seeing a severed head.

  When the police finally carried away the disappointingly intact corpse, the crowds that had gathered to watch, rapidly dwindled. Fleet Street headline writers were inconsolable. Shredding blizzards of unusable alliterative iterations, they fled to Sheffield's Midland, and Victoria Stations and boarded trains for London.

  Billy clamped his hand on his dog's muzzle and tried to keep him calm and quiet. Wire Haired Terriers are not good at calm, or quiet. True to the breed, Ruff, as he was called, had two operational modes, ecstasy and sleep. Even when sleeping, his dreaming was often as ecstatic as his waking life.

  From the cover of birch trees on the hillside opposite the murder site, Billy viewed the search area. Apart from a solitary constable sitting on a low wall, all that remained of police activity were two poles, like broom staves, with a string of grubby bunting hanging limply between them.

  Billy released Ruff and climbed down through the woods to the river. Four yards wide and a foot deep, the River Rivelin eddied and tumbled chaotically around rocks and tree roots. The pair crossed it on stepping stones made from old millstone grit grinding wheels, like giant cotton reels. Ruff crossed it several times, twice, fully immersed in the peaty waters. Once across, Billy grabbed the dog by its collar and passed by the Round Dam, an old millpond whose glassy waters had powered mill wheels since the time of Henry the VIII. The valley road ran above the now ruined mill. Beyond it, steep, rough pasture rose to a craggy edge from where the fearsome Man’s Head Rock overlooked the murder site.

  The solitary policeman pretended not to notice Billy's approach until he was almost within an arm's reach. 'Why are you still here?' Billy asked. 'I heard you'd found a body and its head.'

  The constable eyed him gravely, gently batting the wet dog from his trouser leg. 'And who might you be - the Chief Constable?'

  'No, I'm Bil …' He stopped himself, recalling Chief Superintendent Flood's dire warnings. 'I'm – err - just a member of the public who's interested in what happened.'

  'Well then, oh great and valued member of the public, forgive me,' said the constable. He stood up, pulled his tunic straight and saluted theatrically. 'I am Police Constable John Needham, at your service, sir. Forgive me, for a moment there, I thought you were that nosy kid called Billy Perks, the dead-eye detective of Walkley.' PC Needham smiled eyeing him craftily.

  At six feet two, with a broad athletic build, Needham towered over him. Billy felt dizzy looking up at him, but much reassured by his open, friendly face and cheerful blue eyes.

  'Now that thiv found it, I was just wondering why you're still here. Are they still looking for sommat else, or what? And I'm norra detective no more.' For emphasis, he adopted his best portrayal of injured in
nocence.

  Constable Needham laughed. 'Well I hope you're a better detective than you are an actor, cos that performance were rubbish.' His expression softened and he smiled at the lad. 'Still, it's a pity you're not that Billy Perks kid, cos this'd be a really good case for him.' He paused and gave Billy a quizzical look, before going on. 'I mean to say, headless first - then not headless – makes you think don't it? It's not unusual for a corpse to lose a head, but they don't often gain one, do they? I'd have thought it'd be a real challenge for a lad like – that there Billy Perks.'

  'I've been told not to get involved. I'll gerrin to trouble if I do.'

  'Who said that – thee dad?'

  'No, Chief Superintendent Flood.'

  'Crickey! Chief Superintendent Flood. You've got some important friends haven't you?'

  'Huh, he's not me friend,' said Billy. 'He said I'd go to jail for life if I stick me nose in.'

  The constable's eyes narrowed. 'When did he tell you that?'

  'Last Monday.'

  'So here you are now, just a week later, interrogating me at the murder site.' Chuckling softly he looked around the silent, leafy valley. 'Tha dunt seem to be taking him too seriously.' Resuming his seat on the low wall, he looked down at his boots and brushed away a smear of muddy earth. Ruff helped him by licking it. 'Well you can rest assured, lad. We did find a body. It most definitely had a head on its shoulders, and it's been taken away for examination.'

  'Was it a man? How was he killed?'

  'Oooh that was nasty.' The constable pulled a face as if smelling rotten fish. 'His head was bashed in. Sommat big and round, like a beer mug, or a piece of pipe. I heard our blokes talking about it.'

  Billy's eyes widened. 'But he weren't in pieces?'

  PC Needham eyed him gravely. 'Only the one. They don't know what happened yet. I think the so-called experts are a bit baffled – seem to be talking rubbish, from what I’ve heard.'

  'Why?'

  'Well some of 'em said he must have been run over by a truck and then buried up here.'

  'Run over?' Billy sneered dismissively. 'How did he get up here then - walk by his sen?'

  'That's just what I said. The killer would have had to carry him all the way up from the road. It couldn’t be done. It’s too steep and rough. Even Tommy Ward’s elephant would find it a struggle.’

  'Maybe he was chucked off the crag,' suggested Billy doubtfully. They both turned to look up at the rocks. Billy snorted, regretting his suggestion. He couldn't imagine how even a strong man could have carried a fully clothed corpse all the way up from the road and thrown it back down again.

  The constable was having similar doubts. 'More than likely,' he suggested, 'he wasn't dragged or thrown anywhere. I think he was here already, and was killed here.'

  'The killer might have had a car,' said Billy, still struggling with his "Thrown off the crag theory". 'He could have run over him, put him in the boot and driven round up to the top lane, and chucked him off …'

  'No – no - no, you can't park near enough, and you'd never carry a corpse all the way across that sheep field up there. It’s too far and it’s all rough and tussocky.' He looked expectantly at Billy and then added, 'And a sheep might bite thee bum.'

  Billy giggled.

  'And if you could carry him, you'd be bound to be seen. There's always somebody up there looking around; hikers, climbers, bird watchers.'

  'Unless it was night,' said Billy.

  'Now thart talking rubbish. You'd never attempt it at night. Besides a dead body weighs a ton, especially when it's all floppy. Has tha ever tried to lift a drunk up?' Constable Needham shrugged his broad shoulders and held out his palms as if they contained evidence for his explanation. 'And don't forget that it were buried under t'rocks. That means the killer would have had to climb down here to bury it after he'd carried it all that way up and chucked it off the cliff top. And some of them stones on him were big ens. He'd have to be a giant to 'ave done all that.'

  'Was it only his head that was bashed in?'

  'Blimey! Int that enough for thee? You're a bit bloodthirsty aren't you?'

  'No I mean, if he was run over by a truck why wasn't he injured in other places?'

  'What, d'you mean like Doncaster and New York?'

  Billy giggled again. It took him several attempts to calm himself sufficiently to clarify his question. 'No, I mean other parts of his body. Like broken legs or arms, not just his head.'

  'I didn't see the body close up. All I know is, they said his head were clubbed wi sommat round.'

  Billy looked down to the gently stirring lime trees shading the valley road out to Kinder Scout and the Snake Pass. 'It's lonely round here. Aren't tha scared, all by thee sen? A monster-beast might come and bash your head in.'

  'You're the only one who's doing my head in. I hate to think what you'll be like when you grow up and join the police force.'

  'Who sez I will?' Billy thought for a moment. 'Folks are always saying that, burra don't want to. I used to want to be a tram driver. Now I want to be a furnace mason - like me dad.'

  'Furnace mason? What's so good about working in a scorching steelworks?'

  'You get Hot Money.'

  'What?'

  'They have to line the furnaces with special fire-bricks while it's still really hot, so they pay 'em extra money. It's called Hot Money. It's brilliant, int it?'

  The policeman looked doubtful. 'Hum, I suppose it's all right - until it kills thee.'

  Billy shot him a stricken glance.

  PC Needham didn’t notice. He was looking at the sky. 'You'd better get thee sen home, lad. It looks like it’ll rain soon.'

  Billy looked at the lowering sky, and nodded agreement. 'Yeah but first I'm going to have a look from his head. Have you been up?'

  'What, up there, you mean?' Needham pointed to the craggy features of Man's Head rock. 'Not flipping likely, and neither should you, tha'll get soaked in a minute.' PC Needham moved off to unpack his police cape from a haversack he had tucked under the wall. He swung it round his shoulders, and laughed at the irony as he watched Billy set off up the steep path at the edge of the crag. 'You'll never prove he was chucked off the top. It's a barmy idea.'

  Billy waved and scrambled up the relatively easy, ramblers' climb to the top. The killer could have dragged the body down that way too, he realised. It would not have been easy, but it might explain how they did it. At the top, the muddy ground was as slippery as ice. Billy had to be careful not to go skating over the edge. Staring sheep moved away warily as they spotted little Ruff scrambling up behind him. A stiff breeze ruffled their fleeces as Billy peered out across the valley. He waved to PC Needham, then set off across the field to look for signs of a motor car, or lorry. He did not expect to find anything. The idea that a grown man had been run over, driven up there and thrown off, seemed ridiculous, but if he had, Billy thought, there should be some sign of it.

  A dry stone wall, badly patched here and there with odd bits of wire netting, ran along the side of the field. Beyond it he found the narrow muddy lane, churned into a tangled mess of tyre marks. Numerous vehicles had used the track recently. Any evidence there might have been for the unlikely theory of a killer with a car or truck, had long been obliterated.

  Billy climbed over the wall into the lane and waited mockingly for his little dog to manage the same feat. When finally he did, they set off home together through the first raindrops. Ruff cocked his leg up and peed on a crumbling gap in the wall, as if to show the staring sheep, his mastery of their terrain. Billy noticed he had picked a spot where one of the cars that had parked there recently had evidently scraped into the tumbled stonework, leaving flakes of black paint behind.

  *

  Between a particularly bad case of haemorrhoids and a carbuncle, Dr Hadfield called Police HQ from his surgery. It was his third attempt to contact the chief superintendent. Promised call-backs had not materialized, and he was now feeling cross and quite ill-used. Being kept hanging on the
silent line for what seemed ages, did not improve his humour either. The woman at the other end of the line eventually clicked back on and apologized for keeping him waiting. 'In what connection was it that your enquiry is in connection with?' she asked in a ridiculously snooty and ungrammatical telephone voice.

  'I've explained it all before,' said Hadfield wearily. 'I need to speak to the Chief Superintendent. It’s about a young patient of mine.'

  'But he's been out. He's very busy you know. He may not be - oh – err – no - just a moment, sir, I believe he's coming into his office now. Please hold. I'm putting you through.'

  Flood's brassy voice came on the line. 'Hello, Doctor – err - Heathfield. How can I help?'

  'Hadfield, Chief Superintendent, it's Hadfield. I've been calling you for days.'

  'Oh really? I'm very sorry to hear that,' Flood said. 'I've been – er - they had to find me. We're really very busy here. You probably heard about our murders. Just like tramcars, what? Don't get one for ages then two come along at once. Now how can I help – er - Doctor – err -?'

  'Young Billy Perks,' said Hadfield, trying to keep calm. 'He told me you arrested him …'

  'Good Lord no - not arrested, no no no no no. We spoke to him on a police matter, but that was over a week ago. Why are you involved? He is alright, isn't he?'

  'Yes, he's fine, but I was concerned to hear how he'd been treated …'

  'Treated. What on earth do you mean? He was cautioned on a serious police matter.'

  'You cautioned him?'

  'Well not exactly A Caution – not in the legal sense. You see, Doctor – er – erm - the lad got involved in a murder investigation once before - last year. Sad to say, some rather misguided adults assisted him. Thoroughly irresponsible, I thought. You may recall it.'

  Hadfield blushed guiltily, aware that Flood was having a dig at him, as he had been one of the adults involved.

  'It was only a game to him, of course,' Flood went on. 'He was just playing at being a detective. The trouble is, it was a very dangerous situation, you see. He and his friends could have come to serious harm. I wanted to make sure he didn't get any ideas about these latest cases, especially as they're somewhat unusual. I expect you've read about the murder at Man’s Head Rock? Well perhaps you don't know, Doctor – erm – er – Heathfield, but we know that Billy Perks and his friends often play near there. I just wanted to make sure he stays out of it – for his own safety. We could be dealing with a lunatic. The last thing I want is children and – err - misguided adults too, for that matter, putting themselves at risk.'