Dance Floor Drowning

by Brian Sellars

  Yvonne pouted and blinked snootily. ‘I only flipping asked.’

  *

  It took Billy and Yvonne three outings with the dog, plus Kick clearing leaves and weed from Missis Hepburn's small fishpond, before her starchy coolness softened. Unfortunately, as Billy's relations with Missis Hepburn improved, he found himself increasingly at odds with Bridget. When he prepared to walk the dog, she would get its leash down from its hook and hand it over with all the charm of a Gorgon distributing serpents. He eventually discovered that Bridget enjoyed nothing more than stomping for miles across the moors with Rayner. She would tramp far and wide in all weathers, returning, sweating like a horse, or frozen stiff, or dripping wet, but always with fire in her eyes and cheeks as red as apples. Billy, it seemed, was trespassing on one of her few pleasures in life.

  In the garden, Missis Hepburn took the trio aside and walked them slowly to the shade of a pale red Acer. The sun beat down from a clear sky, as she explained the reason for Bridget's coolness. Then, she surprised them all by upbraiding Billy, whilst holding Yvonne entirely blameless. She made it plain that she understood perfectly why he was being so polite and attentive. ‘You’re just trying to get round me,’ she said. ‘I’m not a fool you know.’ She gave him a challenging glare. ‘The police will do what’s best. You are children. These are matters for the police. It’s not something children should be doing. What does your mother say about you questioning people?’

  Billy hung his head feeling caught-out and foolish. Kick surprised him by piping up. ‘We know, but there’s something dodgy going on. And anyway we like you, we want to help you. Somebody killed Mister Hepburn, but they're not bothering to do owt about it – the police. We don't think that's right. Billy and us only want to help. He's just not very good at saying things without making ‘em sound stupid.'

  Billy gaped at Kick, whose face was a picture of innocence and cordiality. It put him in mind of the saints he'd seen drawn in the margins of old Bibles at school.

  ‘If you don't want us, what about your neighbour?’ asked Yvonne, nodding in the direction of Mister Flood’s house next door, invisible behind a screen of sycamores. ‘Would they help you?’

  ‘Huh, chief superintendent or whatever he calls himself nowadays, no thank you. I would not ask them for anything.’ She paused, looked at her feet and gathered her thoughts. ‘They moved here in the winter of – er -nineteen forty-one. I took flowers round, and some eggs. We had hens then because of the war. Things were in short supply. I thought they’d appreciate it. Missis Flood didn’t even invite me in, though she took my gifts, quick enough. I remember feeling quite hurt. I suppose I was being silly, but it didn't seem right. We’ve barely exchanged a word since.’

  She looked at Billy from beneath her cream silk parasol and paused, weighing her options. Billy had been gently teasing Rayner with a well-chewed croquet ball. Even though his playing stopped and the mood changed, the dog was still gazing up adoringly, panting in the heat, his tongue hanging out of the side of his mouth. 'Let’s go inside,' Missis Hepburn said decisively. 'It's too hot out here. I think we need some tea.'

  Yvonne was glaring at Billy as if to say "Put a foot wrong, Billy Perks, and I'll kill you.".

  Scowling murderously, Bridget brought tea into Missis Hepburn’s sitting room and clanked it down onto an occasional table. Billy wondered briefly if she might have poisoned it. He watched nervously as the delicate china cups were filled.

  Missis Hepburn took her tea with lemon and suggested Billy should try it. Ever the adventurer, he agreed. Missis Hepburn smiled and confessed it was the first time she had seen anyone take tea with lemon and milk too.

  'Jim preferred coffee,' she said sadly. 'I had trouble getting it for him during the war. He hated the substitute stuff. And, of course, he would never buy anything on the black market. He called black marketeers "Hitler's cellar rats".

  'You miss him a lot, don't you?' Yvonne said her voice softened by her growing fondness for her.

  'I think of him all the time, dear. After a lifetime together there's nothing one can do that doesn't bring to mind some memory or echo of him.' She looked out of the window, a tear shining on her lashes.

  'What do you think happened, Missis Hepburn,' Billy asked her softly.

  She sighed and looked into the teacup on her lap. 'I don’t know, Billy. I’ve asked myself that question so many times.'

  Silence fell on the room. Billy didn't know what to say next. He was terrified she would suddenly clam up and send them away if he said the wrong thing.

  'It began when Arthur Shrewsbury died,' said Missis Hepburn, giving Billy a flat stare as though that would explain everything.

  Beneath his outward calm, Billy was floundering. What would Sam Spade do, he wondered, raising a questioning eyebrow? It was the look he had seen in so many Humphrey Bogart films. If only he'd brought his trilby hat.

  'Arthur was much more than just a client,' she explained, as if in response to the Sam Spade eyebrow. 'He was a close friend. Jim was shocked at what he found in his Will. He was his executor, you see. He had to read the will. He'd not seen it before. A firm in Lincoln had drawn it up, many years earlier - some old family connection I think.'

  Kick was not following. 'Exec – er …'

  'Executor. He had to make sure the will was executed – er – carried out properly.'

  Kick nodded and shuffled in his seat, content with the explanation.

  'It took him completely by surprise,' Missis Hepburn went on. She glanced at a silver framed photograph on her mantle shelf. It showed a boating party; young women in large brimmed straw hats and summer dresses, the men in boaters and blazers. The trio followed her gaze. 'That's Arthur Shrewsbury, with the champagne bottle on his head. He was always a bit of a card. That was at their graduation. Jim's taking the photograph.'

  Billy and Kick stepped up to the picture. A woman, her face partly hidden by the brim of her hat, held the bottle steady on Arthur Shrewsbury’s head. Clearly they were having a very good time. Something about the young woman steadying the bottle caught Billy’s attention, but he could not bring it to mind.

  'What do you mean about the Will?' asked Yvonne. 'What was so surprising?'

  'Well, for one thing it explained a mystery that had surrounded Arthur since the early years of the war.' She sighed and looked at the many photographs about the room. 'You see, around Christmas 1940, Arthur Shrewsbury came to see Jim. He was very agitated. They talked in Jim’s study for over an hour. He had a question about safety deposit boxes. When he’d gone, Jim told me all about it. He wasn’t supposed to talk about clients, but if he worried about something, such as a client's family, or moral position, he would sometimes discuss it with me. We'd sit right here and talk.' She laughed softly. 'I know nothing about the law, but he used to say that I helped him more certainly than anything. He would suddenly relax and say everything was fine. Usually I had no idea what I‘d said to put him at ease.’

  'Well, that evening he told me he was worried about Arthur Shrewsbury. Apparently, there'd been a robbery at a bank in town. It was during the blitz. Arthur had a safety deposit box, you see. It was damaged by a bomb and some things were stolen. The problem for Jim was that Arthur wanted to keep it quiet. He was most insistent. It made Jim very uneasy. Arthur had asked him if he could legally refuse to answer police questions about the contents of his safety deposit box. As you can imagine, in wartime, that could make them rather suspicious. Nevertheless, Jim sorted it out for him somehow, but he didn’t like doing so.'

  Billy shuffled in his sumptuous chair. 'Is that all?'.

  'Well, he never told Jim what had been stolen, if that's what you mean.'

  Spotting a sudden cooling in Missis Hepburn's demeanour, Yvonne nudged the dog towards Billy, who absently responded by ruffling its ears. Missis Hepburn immediately relaxed and smiled, watching Rayner push his big head into Billy's playful fondling.

  'Jim never knew what was stolen, until eighteen months ago when
Arthur died. Jim had to read his Will. When he discovered the extent of the deception to which he had unwittingly been a party, he was very upset.'

  Missis Hepburn rose from her chair and paced her sitting room. For a moment, she examined her reflection in a large, gilt framed mirror over the fireplace. It looked back at her sadly. She turned from it and faced the children, a tear glistening in her eye. 'There was a letter in the Will. Its contents worried Jim a great deal. He read it to me.’

  Yvonne leaned forward in her chair. ‘What did it say?’

  ‘It was a confession. An admission by Arthur Shrewsbury that he’d stolen a document, called the Pagez Cypher , from the Bodleian library, whilst a student at Oxford. It said he’d bitterly regretted it and had even tried to return it without anyone knowing. He was about to make another attempt when it was stolen from his safety deposit box.'

  'On the night of the Marples' bombing?' Kick queried.

  Billy stared at Missis Hepburn. 'What sort of document was it?'

  'Very old, and of course, priceless, as such things usually are.'

  Yvonne patted the old lady on the back of her hand. 'What was it about?'

  'At first, we didn't know, and we couldn’t find out anything about it, except its name, the Pagez Cypher. We tried looking it up - went to the library – nothing. Jim didn't want to risk contacting the Bodleian, until he knew more about it.’ She paused and shrugged apologetically before going on. ‘Well, there was Arthur Shrewsbury's widow and his two boys to consider, you see? They were innocent. A scandal of that sort can ruin a family's reputation. Finally, Jim decided to ring a friend of ours, a man called Henry Darnley...'

  'The man whose funeral you went to,' interrupted Billy.

  Missis Hepburn nodded sorrowfully and retook her seat. 'Henry was a professor of history. He was on the board at Sheffield Museum, and an expert on old documents. He rushed round here straight away, the very evening that Jim rang him. He sat in that chair.' She pointed at Billy, who looked at the seat beneath him as if he expected to see some vestige of the event.

  'Jim asked me to join them. Henry was very agitated indeed. I’d never seen him so jumpy and cross. He wanted Jim to forget all about it. I must say, I was surprised by that. I rather expected someone with his special interest in old documents to have had a much more responsible attitude to such an artefact.' She paused and shook her head as if still puzzled by Darnley's behaviour. 'Anyway, Henry gave us a potted history of the letter. Its name came about because of a French man called Bastian Pagez. He was a servant and close friend of Mary Queen of Scots. In 1571, in front of the high altar in Sheffield Cathedral, Pagez secretly handed the queen a coded letter, the Pagez Cypher. It was from her supporters in France, and told of the gold they had raised to pay for an army against Queen Elizabeth. As soon as she’d read it, Queen Mary cut it in to two pieces and hid them in different places. She feared it might fall into her enemies' hands, but without both halves, it would be useless. Even if they could break the code they would never find the gold.'

  Kick jumped to his feet. 'Gold! Crickey, It's a treasure map!' he cried his eyes almost popping out of his head.

  Missis Hepburn shook her head.

  Yvonne shuffled in her seat, gripped by excitement. Her dark curls fell across her brow. She flicked them back behind her ears and stared at Missis Hepburn. 'Forgive me, but, do you think this is why – er – Mister Hepburn was – er -...'

  Missis Hepburn reached out and patted Yvonne's knee. 'I don't know, dear. All I can say is that, from the moment Jim read that dreadful Will, things moved from bad to worse. He became quiet and withdrawn. He couldn't sleep. He let things slip. We even began to lose clients.' She sighed and slowly wrung her hands. 'He looked so tired all the time. It preyed on his mind, you see. Then something happened between Henry Darnley and him. I don't know what. He wouldn't say. But I think they must have had a fearsome row. Jim didn't want anything to do with him. He even told me not to let him in the house. They'd been friends for years, but certainly not at the end.'

  'How did they come to know each other?' Yvonne asked.

  'Oh, the golf club, Rotary - you know how these things go. They weren't childhood friends or anything like that, but they both liked golf and angling. They often bumped into each other at their club and at the Turkish baths or the cricket.

  Billy’s ears pricked up. He wanted to ask about the Turkish baths but stopped himself just in time. 'Fishing? Did they ever fish at the Round Dam?' he asked, not really caring whether they did or not.

  'I suppose so, dear. I sometimes went with him. We’d take a picnic. We both liked Rivelin, but often we'd go to Dam Flask at Bradfield.' She went to her sideboard and selected a framed photograph from her collection. 'This’s the pair of them at Dam Flask. That was before the war, of course. I'm behind the camera. It was a glorious day. Henry Darnley slept most of the time. Not surprising really, he ate almost a whole game pie. You wouldn't think it to look at him would you? He was as thin as a rake back then.'

  Billy examined the photograph. Two youngish men in baggy shorts. One small and scrawny legged, with a large moustache. The other, more serious looking, is sitting on a small folding stool. He has a fishing rod out over a flawless reflection of soaring hills on flat calm water. Billy pointed to the seated man. 'Is that Mister Hepburn?'

  Missis Hepburn made a small, stifled sound and blinked her eyes rapidly. Yvonne jumped in quickly with a question to divert her. 'Was Mister Hepburn in the Marples Hotel when it was bombed?' she asked.

  'No, dear.' She looked both surprised and bemused by the question, and dabbed her nose decorously with a lace handkerchief.

  'Do you know anyone who was?' Billy asked.

  'No. Not many survived that terrible night, you know.'

  'I heard that Professor Darnley was there,' Billy said, watching her closely.

  Her reaction gave nothing away. 'Oh no, I'm sure we would have heard about it if he had been. He and Jim were very close for years.'

  'I suppose you know about the bank robbery, of course? Billy said. ‘We think the bank robbers killed a woman that night, to stop her telling the police. Mary Scott. She worked at the museum, just like the professor.'

  Missis Hepburn turned her red-rimmed eyes from Billy to Yvonne and back again. 'Really? But that was ten years ago. I'm certain I never heard about a woman being murdered.'

  'She was,' said Billy. 'They found her body in the old tunnels.'

  'I don't remember hearing that,' she said. 'Jim never mentioned it.’

  'He probably never knew. They didn’t find her until about a week later,' said Yvonne. 'Her name was just added to the list of the Marples' dead. They never treated her death as murder. They didn’t even investigate.'

  'Missis Hepburn,' said Billy, taking the old lady's hand in his. 'We think that whoever killed Mary Scott, may have killed your husband too.'

  *

  Billy would be late home. He fully expected a telling off. His chest tightened with apprehension. His mother would be behind the door, waiting. She would spring on him the instant his toe crossed the threshold. She might even be in the street, or round the next corner. It would not be the first time she had pounced as he had tried in vain to beat the clock.

  A short cut through the back yard of the Heavygate Road chip shop through to Orchard Road would save half a minute, but its hidden brick rubble and snaring brambles could be rough on his bike. There was too the matter of negotiating a six foot high retaining wall, down into what he still thought of as the old Star woman's yard leading into the street.

  He lay flat on the ground, lowered his bike down over the wall and then jumped down after it. Old man Sutcliffe suddenly popped up, as if out of the ground. He grabbed Billy's shirt, whipped him off his feet and shook him like a rag doll before dumping him down in a heap. Billy reared up defensively, wondering if Sutcliffe had left him with the same number of limbs, eyes, and ears as he had started out with. 'You chuffin idiot, you could have killed me.'

>   Sutcliffe grinned roguishly. It gave his broad, thuggish face the look of a Japanese kabuki mask. He was a tough old man, the father of eight huge, bellicose sons whose main aim in life was to fight anything that came their way. As paras and commandoes, the older brothers had distinguished themselves in the war. With Hitler now off the scene, the younger members of the brood had to content themselves with bashing Billy and his peers. Weirdly, the old man quite admired Billy, though that was rather a mixed blessing, like having a hungry wolf as a pet. He had formed the attachment during Billy's investigation of the Star Woman's murder.

  'Does thi mam still want owd jackets?' Sutcliffe asked lifting Billy to his feet with one hand. 'I've gorra good 'en to sell her.'

  'Aye, they're for me dad, for at work, but we don't pay for 'em. Folk gi 'em for nowt.'

  Sutcliffe looked distraught. 'But this is a reight good 'en. Thi dad could wear it for Sunday best. It's Harris Tweed.'

  Billy frowned. 'He dunt want 'em to wear. It's for keeping the heat off him when he's working in a furnace. He lines furnaces wi' bricks, while they're still hot. Anyway, weer did tha gerrit?'

  'It's not nicked, honest, Billy. Straight up. I've just grown out of it, that's all. It's too tight under me arms, burrit'll fit thi dad.'

  Billy remembered what PC Needham had said about the Man’s Head murder victim not having a jacket. 'Euurgh!' he cried with disgust. 'I bet tha found it at Man’s Head, dint tha? I bet thaz teken it off that corpse.'

  Sutcliffe looked about shiftily. 'I never did. I found it up Attercliffe,' he said looking injured, but not so distraught that he forgot to pick an area on the opposite side of the city, as far from Man’s Head rock as possible. 'It – err - were in t'middle of t'rooad, near t'Adelphi cinema. Tha dunt think I'd tek it off'n a dead corpse does tha?'

  'I think tha'd take snot off a chicken's lip if tha thought tha could sell it. I don't think robbing a corpse would bother thee for a second.'