Dance Floor Drowning

by Brian Sellars

  Flood was pointing a pistol at Stan Daniels, who took advantage of the distraction and dived to grab it. Flood was too fast. He spun around and clubbed Stan to the ground with it. He dropped like a sack. Billy ran to him and tried to help him to his feet. Blood oozed from a wound on Stan’s head. He moaned softly and covered it with his hand. After a few moments he was able to stand, leaning heavily on Billy as he struggled to his feet.

  Flood was grinning, almost giddy with delight. ‘This is excellent,’ he said. ‘Thank you, for coming, Billy. It’s good to see you again. Now we can tidy everything up at once.’ He turned and pointed to Stan. ‘I suppose you've worked out that he killed that fool Darnley? He eavesdrops at pipes all day, don’t you Daniels?’

  Billy gaped at Stan, and immediately remembered the menthol sweet wrappers on the floor near the chunter pipes. Had Stan been listening near those pipes? Had he heard them arguing? Perhaps he'd heard even the killing.

  ‘He learns all sorts of secrets that way. That’s how he learned Darnley had hidden his sister's body. I suppose he heard Hepburn accuse him and threaten to tell the police. That's when it all started. He flipped. He began making a nuisance of himself, stirring up trouble for everybody. But he's a fool. He's stupid. He killed Darnley instead of waiting to let things take their course. We would have nailed Darnley eventually for Hepburn's murder.'

  'You lying toad. I never …'

  'No matter now. I'll see you're blamed anyway. The evidence is a bit thin, but my good friend Doctor Longden will make sure it sticks, and the drowning too.’

  ‘He didn’t drown Hepburn,’ Billy cried.

  ‘Yes, I know, but it’ll look a lot tidier that way. Longden can fix it. He’ll wrap it all up in a nice neat bundle and everybody will be happy we got the right man.’

  Lackey was at the window peering out into the garden through a chink in the curtains. He turned to Flood. ‘Sir, quick, look here.’ His voice sounded tense and panicky. Billy’s heart sank. If Lackey had spotted Kick and Yvonne, they'd be dragged in too. Flood backed towards the window keeping the pistol aimed at Stan. He snatched a quick look where Lackey was pointing. ‘There’s nothing there, you idiot,’ he snapped.

  ‘For God’s sake, Flood,’ Stan cried. 'He’s just a kid. You can’t mean to kill …’

  Billy retched and vomited on the carpet. His face was ashen. He swayed and reached for the support of a table. Until Stan spoke up, he hadn’t thought of being killed. Now he realised that if Flood was happy to incriminate others in his presence, such as Longden, he clearly had no intention of ever releasing him, or Stan. Obviously, he intended to kill them both, and if he spotted his pals outside, he would have to kill them too. He was insane.

  ‘You can’t kill us both,’ Stan said. ‘Even you're not that mad. How would you explain two violent deaths; a child and an adult?’

  Flood paced the living room. ‘No problem. I’ve got the perfect solution in mind. You're going to vanish, no bodies, no blood, no evidence.’ He turned to Lackey. ‘Have we got handcuffs for both of ‘em?’

  ‘There are some in the car. I parked it up the street a bit, like you said.’

  ‘Good, get ‘em.’

  ‘What are you going to do, chief?’ Lackey was pale and sweating fearfully. Things were moving too fast for him. He was struggling to keep abreast of his deepening personal involvement and adjust to it. How far had he gone? Could he still get out?

  'Get moving! Fetch the bloody car.' Flood's violent glare sent Lackey scurrying to obey. He paused briefly at the door, his face white with fear.

  Flood reached out a hand in a conciliatory gesture. 'Don't worry, sergeant. I’ll explain it all when you get back, but I promise you, when we're done, there won't be the slightest whiff of evidence to point to either of us.' He patted his sergeant on the arm and gently pushed him into action. 'Now, go and fetch the car, and remember, be casual and calm, no rush.’

  Stan keeled over in a faint. Billy tried to help him. ‘He needs some water.’

  ‘Don’t worry about him, Billy. If he dies, it’ll save me having to kill him.’

  A few minutes later, Lackey returned. Flood eyed him curiously. ‘You alright?’

  ‘Yeah, I took a closer look in the shrubbery. I was sure I’d seen something, but it’s all clear.’ He handcuffed Billy and Stan and started as if to leave.

  Flood moved to the curtains and glanced outside. ‘Hang on. We’re not going anywhere yet. It's too light. We need it dark. There are eyes everywhere in this bloody street.’

  ‘Huh, that’ll be another hour or so,’ grumbled Sergeant Lackey.

  ‘I don’t care, we can wait. It goes dark by about eight-thirty - nine. That’ll be just right.’

  *

  Time passed slowly. Billy was bursting for a pee. ‘I need to go.’

  ‘Go? Go where?’ Flood asked.

  ‘The lav. I’m bursting.’

  ‘Do it in your pants,’ said Flood, and looked out again through a chink in the curtains. ‘It’s almost dark enough, I think,’ he told Lackey. He pointed to Stan, who was still lying on the floor. He had barely moved in the last hour. ‘Get him up and let’s get going.’

  Lackey took hold of Stan’s leather flak jacket and started to drag him towards the door. Stan suddenly leapt up and kicked the sergeant sending him sprawling. Flood grabbed Stan’s arms which were handcuffed behind his back and spun him round. He crashed him into the wall like a rag doll. Family photographs and ornaments scattered, a glass fronted cabinet toppled and shattered. Stan sagged to his knees. Flood leapt on him and pushed him facedown into the shards of glass on the carpet. Lackey struggled groggily to his feet. He swung a couple of kicks at Stan before Flood stopped him. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for that later. Right now, I need him walking, not crippled.’

  They half-carried and dragged Stan out to the car and bundled him onto the floor in the back. Billy followed dumbly. He didn’t try to run. He wanted to help Stan. Lackey picked him off his feet and dumped him on the back seat. He slid in beside him, slapping him a few times to make him move to the far side of the car. Flood got in the driving seat. He passed the pistol to Lackey, who waved it about threateningly.

  Flood adjusted the rear view mirror and started the car. He steered it round slowly on the gravel in front of his house and drove sedately down the drive. Billy couldn't see, but at the gate, he felt them turn left, towards the city centre. He'd thought they would probably go right out onto the wild moors, a good place for murdering and burying bodies.

  In the thick shrubbery, Yvonne and Kick had formed a plan. They waited for the car to leave. Yvonne followed it on her bike, keeping well out of sight. Kick pedalled off in the opposite direction. His job was to find John Needham and Doctor Hadfield. Yvonne had told him she would get a message to him through Walter Mebbey on the telephone at the relish factory. She felt sure the old guy would help them, and think of some way of passing on her messages. She also hoped he would know what to do if Hadfield was flummoxed.

  Unaware that Yvonne was following, Billy tried to sneak a look out of the car window whenever Lackey was distracted. He had no idea what Flood had in mind, and heading into the city had completely foxed him. Traffic was quiet. Rush hour was long past. Most people would have eaten by now and be sitting in front of their fires, listening to the wireless. He thought about his mother. She’d be worried sick about him, and fearing the worst. She’d be right too, the worst is exactly what was happening. He imagined her running round to Yvonne’s and other neighbours’ houses to ask them if they had seen him. Yvonne’s mother would flap and start weeping and make things worse.

  Flood swung the car into Fitzalan Square, passed the ruins of the Marples Hotel. He turned down the hill next to the main Post Office and swung left into the street where the Queens Head pub stood. Billy stretched up trying to see what was going on. Lackey punched him back down again and shoved him to the floor. The car swung left again into a dark, quiet street. Billy had seen enough to remember
it. It was opposite the Queens Head. Ruby had pointed it out when she'd told them about the old castle tunnels. He knew it headed into a single flyover arch beneath Commercial Street and the tramlines. Where it went after that, he had no idea.

  The car stopped sharply under the flyover. Flood climbed out looking about warily. The poorly lit street was deserted. ‘Quick get ‘em out before somebody comes,’ he snapped at Lackey.’

  Lackey relished the task. He dragged Stan out onto the road bumping him cruelly on the pavement edge. Billy followed and bent to help Stan, but couldn't with his wrists locked behind him. Flood was facing a narrow doorway built into the stone arch. A rusty iron barred gate sealed it off. Billy could see nothing beyond the vertical bars but pitch-blackness. Flood was fiddling with a bunch of keys, trying to fit one into a large padlock. Cursing, wrenching and twisting, he eventually managed to release the lock. He shouldered the bars, pushing hard to swing the gate. It squealed as though it had not been moved in years. Grabbing Billy by the shoulder he shoved him ahead through the gate. Stone steps led down into blackness.

  Yvonne had seen enough. She thought of asking Ruby for use of the telephone, but decided against it, remembering her curmudgeonly husband. She pedalled to the telephone box near the main post office, looked up the relish factory number in the directory and dialled it. She was weeping but trying hard not to admit it to herself. A night watchman at the relish factory agreed immediately to fetch Walter to the telephone. The sound of Walter's voice on the line was such a relief that she couldn’t speak for several seconds. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. When Walter had the gist of the story, he put a hand over the telephone mouthpiece. ‘Here Barry,’ he whispered, passing the receiver to the young man beside him. ‘Try to calm her down a bit. I’ve got to get going.’

  *

  In the tunnel, Flood was pushing Billy ahead of him, deeper into a damp, silent blackness. He swung a torch beam along narrow tunnels and alcoves. ‘These are the old castle tunnels,’ he said, his voice strangely gleeful. ‘I first came here during the war, but I expect you know all about that by now, don’t you? I’ve been here quite a few times since. Go left.’ He pushed Billy leftwards where more steps led down towards the sound of running water. ‘Down here is where you'll spend - eternity. I hope you like it. You can make friends with Spring Heeled Jack. This is his world. Did you know that?’

  The tunnel opened out into a vaulted area about twelve feet square. Another tunnel and a narrow staircase fed into it. In one corner was a black hole about two feet square. Billy could hear running water in it. He peered closer, but could see nothing. On the opposite side, a wider tunnel sloped down into the room. It seemed to curve in from above.

  ‘I’d like you to climb down there please, Stan.’ Flood pointed his torch at the hole in the stone flagged floor. ‘It’s a bit of a squeeze, but you’ll manage it. Billy will follow you. You'll be company for each other. In a couple of weeks we’ll discover your bodies. No bullets or stab wounds.’ He laughed and glanced at Lackey, then back at Stan. ‘Huh, it’s the perfect murder. Nobody lays a finger on you.’

  He cocked the pistol. ‘Take off his handcuffs, Sergeant. And – er – make sure they've got no pencils or scrapers – nothing that could be embarrassing. Put 'em in head first. That'll make sure they don't climb out. There's a slab over in that corner that you can pop over the top of 'em.’

  Sergeant Lackey froze suddenly. ‘Shush, I hear something.’

  Flood gaped around, his brain sifting every sound. Billy and Stan listened too. There was something. Lackey was right, thought Billy. What was it? It sounded like rustling, like stiff cloth or dry leaves in the wind …

  Flood lost patience. ‘Oh get him in there quick. We can check it out later.’ Lackey started with Stan’s handcuffs. At that very moment, a face appeared in the black mouth of the opposite tunnel; a wicked, cruel face with a wide, vicious mouth and staring eyes. It floated on a strange, indefinable mist. Flood gaped, ‘Spring Heeled - ,' he murmured in disbelief.

  Stan broke free of Lackey and kicked Flood’s legs from under him. The pistol fell to the ground and rattled across the flagstones. Stan gathered it up in a second. Sergeant Lackey shrank back and clutched his head as it was pointed at him. He stumbled, his feet finding only air as he plummeted down the shaft into the water below. Flood capitulated immediately. He stood up, his hands raised.

  The apparition stepped forward, its fiendish face vanishing as it walked. It shed its weird mist, which, on closer inspection, turned out to be a plasterer’s dustsheet spattered with gobs of dried plaster and paint.

  ‘Walter!’ Billy cried. ‘That was brilliant.’

  Walter struggled to remove a pencil he had stuck across his gape. It came away, ridding his face of the wide, leering grin it had given him. That simple device and a torch placed strategically under his chin, had given him the horrific, ghostly façade of Spring Heeled Jack. A plasterer’s dust sheet had done the rest. Three hugely muscled men, wearing gym shorts and vests filed in behind Walter. One of them wrestled a small key from Flood and released Billy from his handcuffs, instantly transferring them to Flood.

  Beams of light were flashing down the tunnels in both directions. Detective Wooffitt and a uniformed police officer appeared from one tunnel. Yvonne, Kick and Constable Needham emerged from the other. Hadfield followed them in. In seconds, the dark, silent tunnels had become a bright, thronged area, with people milling about, happily congratulating each other. D.C. Wooffitt got two of the weightlifters to haul Sergeant Lackey out of the shaft. A young police constable, who was very excited to be involved, gleefully handcuffed him.

  PC Needham and Detective Wooffitt spun a coin to see who would have the honour of formally arresting the Chief Superintendent. John Needham checked the coin and craftily declared himself the loser, thereby avoiding possibly hours of paperwork.

  More police officers arrived and began escorting everyone out into the pleasant night air. Billy found the street full of police cars, two ambulances and a fire tender. A few spectators had gathered. He recognized Ruby from the Queen’s Head pub, and another familiar face, Harry Clegg. ‘Billy, don’t talk to anybody but me,' he hissed from the gathering crowd. 'I want the exclusive on this.’

  Billy glared back at him, annoyed that Clegg seemed to think this was all some sort of game. He nodded crossly and brushed him aside. He was more interested in finding out what was happening about Clarissa.

  Hadfield was talking to Yvonne near his car. She was peering about, grim faced, looking for Billy and Kick. She cheered up as she spotted them, and steered Hadfield towards them.

  ‘Look, old lad,’ Hadfield said pulling Billy gently aside. ‘I need to find Sarah. Her boss, Longden, is in this up to his rotten neck. I'm worried about what he might do.'

  'Do? What do you mean?' asked Billy.

  'Well, he and Flood have been in cahoots, we all know that now. The police want him for fixing evidence. He might try to intimidate Sarah or something. He's a desperate man, Billy. He could do anything. He's gambled away all his family's money. He's finished, in more ways than one. Sarah needs to know. I don't want her getting caught up in …'

  ‘Is that where you're going?’ Billy asked, glancing across to Hadfield’s car.’

  ‘I have to see her, Billy. To make sure she's safe. I’ve explained to PC Needham, and asked him to take you all home. He will do, but you have to talk to the police first. They’re taking on-the-spot-statements. They’ll see us all again tomorrow. They’re letting me go because of Sarah.'

  Billy shrugged, letting Hadfield dash off to his car. He looked around for the constable and found him with D.C. Wooffitt and a knot of police officers, listening to a senior officer who announced himself as Superintendent Roberts. He was taking charge. Meanwhile, other police and forensics officers were moving in and out of the gated tunnel. Flood was sitting handcuffed in the back of a police car. Medics were loading Sergeant Lackey into an ambulance, still handcuffed, but now cursing
Flood and breaking every confidence they had ever shared.

  Billy spotted Walter Mebbey in the growing crowd of rubber-neckers. He and his weightlifter pals, one of whom had driven him to the tunnels in a Bedford truck, were chatting quietly with Ruby and some of her customers from the Queen’s Head. Walter happily nursed a frothing pint of stout. Billy threaded his way through the throng and sidled up to him. ‘Can you get me out of here?’

  ‘Yeah, what’s up?’

  ‘I have to see Clarissa,’ he said from the side of his mouth. ‘She’s involved. In fact after what’s happened here, I’m sure it was her who killed Mary.’

  Walter gasped. ‘Old tweedy knickers? Why would she?’

  ‘Can you give us a lift? We can try the surgery first, burrits late, she’ll probably have gone home. She lives at Litton Mill, near Millersdale.’

  Walter turned to his driver pal. ‘What do you say, Barry? It’s Walkley, the surgery just off South Road?’ He decided not to mention remote Litton Mill out in the Peak District.

  Barry’s face lit up. He was enjoying his adventure, and eager to be of use again. ‘Yeah, come on then. Let’s get cracking. You navigate, Billy.’

  ‘Just a second,’ said Billy. ‘Weerz mi pals? I need to tell 'em.’ He ran to find Yvonne and Kick and explain what he planned. Both wanted to come too, and stealthily backed away from the circle of police activity and sneaked into the back of Barry the plasterer’s truck.

  *

  At the surgery they found Dr Fulton-Howard’s car crazily parked with two wheels in a flowerbed and two in front of the coach house doors. Billy checked its coachwork. The keys were in the ignition. He looked under the seats and checked the boot.

  They found the surgery's Victorian double doors firmly locked. Barry lifted Billy up to the fanlight above them, as though he weighed no more than a loaf of bread. ‘I can see her,’ Billy whispered. ‘Her office door’s wide open. She’s just sat there - wobbling a bit.’ Barry lowered him to the doorstep. ‘We’ve gorra get in there,' said Billy. 'She might take pills or sommat daft.’