A Little White Death

by John Lawton

  He rested the full bucket on the lip of the well. It was definitely autumn, the last pretence of summer dropped, too cold to be out before eight in the morning in his shirtsleeves. Half a mile in the distance he could see the slate gables of a big house, and he realised he was staring at the back of The Glebe, that the meadow that rolled down into the valley from Tara Ffitch’s yard was the same one he had looked into for the best part of twenty weeks from The Glebe. If he found the time, he’d look in on Catesby before he drove to London.

  He followed the scent of stinkhorn. Only a fool would eat the stinking prick, but if it was close by, so might be the highly edible Boletus edulis or the more common Agaricus campestris, and a day without much in the way of breakfast might suddenly have the best of beginnings.

  Half an hour later he woke Tara. She was buried in a rough mountain of sheets and blankets. One arm, one foot and a few strands of mousy hair showed where she was.

  ‘Good God, Troy. I don’t do mornings. Never have. What time is it?’

  ‘About half past eight.’

  ‘Troy, just fuck off will you!’

  ‘I need to talk to you. Besides I’ve made breakfast.’

  ‘Out of what? Fresh air and toadstools?’

  ‘More or less.’

  She sat at the kitchen table wearing the eiderdown, held in place by a firm grip from her armpits. The look on her face said ‘so surprise me’. He did. She took one bite and gasped.

  ‘Good grief. It’s bloody marvellous! Whatever is it?’

  ‘Toast.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘With creamed cèpes, a touch of parsley I found in what remains of your garden, and a dash of garlic I found growing wild. The rest I improvised from the contents of your larder.’

  He did not tell her that he had picked the maggots from the flour. She wolfed the slice, the eiderdown slipped, a nipple escaped and she did not care to retrieve it.

  ‘Any more?’

  ‘Toast takes a while over a gas ring, but yes, there’s more.’

  He stuck a slice of bread on the end of the toasting fork and lit the gas ring. He dangled the bread, a visible temptation.

  ‘You were saying last night that Blood gave the worst of his interrogation to Caro.’

  ‘Bastard. He’d have never have got the better of her with me there.’

  ‘I’ll need to talk to Caro.’

  ‘Nothing doing, Troy.’

  He lit a flame under the mushroom sauce, hoping the aroma would waft her way.

  ‘I have to know everything. If I thought you’d seen it all, believe me, I wouldn’t ask to see her. Where is she, by the way?’

  Tara said nothing.

  Troy said nothing. Turned the toast, stirred the sauce.

  ‘If I were to tell you . . .’

  Troy was not about to finish this or any other sentence for her.

  ‘It would be off the record, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I’m investigating a murder. Nothing’s off the record. If, along the way, I have to investigate Percy Blood because he’s conducted his investigation with scant regard for the rules, then I will. But nothing’s off the record.’

  ‘We lied. Both of us in our statements. Me in court. That’s perjury, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. But I wouldn’t worry about it. If Blood did what you say he did, no one is going to charge you with perjury. No one is going to take Caro’s baby. Trust me, I’m a very important policeman. All I want to do is get Caro’s version. That means notes. If as a result of that Blood is reprimanded, or God knows perhaps charged, I’ll need it in writing.’

  ‘Wit hthe two of us as witnesses?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then the answer’s no. Caro’s been a witness once too often. We can’t put her through that again. Now, are you going to give me seconds or are we going play temptation all morning?’

  ‘I do have one last question.’

  ‘Fire away,’ she said.

  ‘Do you know of anyone who might want Fitz dead?’

  ‘No one and everyone,’ she replied. ‘No one who knew him, and almost everyone who didn’t.’

  After breakfast Tara yawned, kissed him on the cheek and went back to bed. He was in the lane starting the Bentley when she stuck her head out of her bedroom window.

  ‘Troy,’ she yelled, ‘I meant what I said. You have to talk to Alex. I don’t want to hear a peep out of him for two weeks. Capiche?’

  § 84

  At the turn-off for the London road, just before the pub, he braked and paused, and only when someone honked behind him was the decision made for him, and he drove on, down the hill and into the driveway of The Glebe.

  Nurse appeared at the sound of his tyres on the gravel, almost as though she had been listening out for him.

  ‘Well, Frederick, we didn’t expect to see you so soon. How long is it now?’

  ‘About six weeks, I suppose. I was hoping to see some of the others.’

  ‘Our Geoffrey left when you did.’

  ‘No,’ said Troy. ‘He left weeks before me. It was Alfie left when I did. The day before, in fact. I suppose I was wondering about the General.’

  ‘We lost the General.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘He didn’t make it.’

  The almost military style of the euphemism startled him.

  ‘When?’

  ‘This morning. About six thirty. He was not responding to treatment. His heart and kidneys were weak . . .’

  ‘Is he still here?’

  ‘Yes. We don’t have a morgue. He’s laid out in one of the single wards.’

  ‘Can I see him?’

  She thought for a second. Another of her little battles with her sense of authority.

  ‘I don’t know. Some people are shocked by the fact of death. Have you ever seen a dead person?’

  ‘I’ve seen more corpses than I can count. I’m a policeman.’

  The mask slipped just a fraction. ‘You kept pretty quiet about that. OK. Follow me.’

  His sparse hair was neatly brushed and combed, his moustaches trimmed, his hands crossed on his belly, his skin waxen, all but translucent. His eyelids looked older than parchment, beaten thin by time. Only the rims and lobes of his elephantine ears showed colour where the blood had pooled blue at extremity. It was corny but it was the only thing that occurred. The old man looked as though he were sleeping.

  Troy had thought this and moved on to nothing more profound than the residue of his own affection for the old man. Nurse peeked over.

  ‘It’s the passing of an era, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘When one of them goes.’

  It was as blithely trite, as barren of thought as anything he’d ever heard her utter, but it was accurate. As unerringly accurate as she’d be when she said the same thing at the passing of General Eisenhower or Field Marshal Montgomery or Churchill. In their passing, passed the era. And God alone knew what kept Churchill alive.

  § 85

  He thought Jack was saying something very like ‘I told you so.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Troy. ‘I have got somewhere, as you put it. But I was trying to say that I think it’s a digression. And that’s not the same thing as a waste of time. Blood intimidated witnesses. He seems to have been hell-bent on convicting Fitz at any price.’

  ‘But that’s hardly murder, is it? It’s hardly rare either.’

  ‘No, Jack, I’d like to think it’s rare, I’d like to think . . .’

  ‘I know what you’d like to think, but I’m thinking of a time in 1944 when you dragged a corpse out of the mortuary cold cupboard and shoved it in front of your witness!’

  Troy was thinking of it too. Sergeant Miller’s body, his face shot to pieces, the back of his head smashed like a conker. He’d done exactly what Jack was saying he’d done. He’d intimidated a witness with a brutality that had shocked even Onions. But there was one vital difference.

  ‘Not a witness, Jack, the killer. Diana Brack had killed that man.’
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  ‘I know, but we neither of us knew that at the time. And to get back to the point, Blood bullied witnesses. I have little difficulty believing that. But he’d have to be mad to want to shoot one!’

  Clark was waving at them from the other side of the room. ‘Eddie?’ said Troy. ‘I’ve been trying to show you this. I came across it yesterday.’ He shoved a single sheet of paper in front of Troy. ‘Came across’ – a Swift Eddie euphemism for whatever method he had really used to obtain it. It was a medical report from the Chief Police Surgeon, Scotland Yard. It was signed in a scrawl that Troy took to be the man’s signature, and it was addressed to Quint with the initials FYEO – For Your Eyes Only – and dated 19/9/63.

  Subject:

  Blood,Perceval Albert

  Detective Chief Inspector,

  Vice Squad

  I saw DCI Blood after repeated and insistent calls from his wife. He was reluctant, but once ordered to report did so. Mrs Blood had been complaining to me of his violent – and I use that word literally – mood swings. After examining Blood over a period of two days, I found no physical complaint worse than dyspepsia and flatulence. However I consider that he is suffering in extremis from the strain of work – the minor physical discomforts I hold to be symptomatic of a larger mental problem – and have placed him on sick leave, with the strong recommendation to his GP that he be referred for psychiatric consultation. If Blood declines this course of voluntary action, I will consider imposing it. Initial period of sickleave – 1(one) month minimum.

  Troy passed it to Jack.

  ‘Oh bugger. Oh bugger.’

  ‘You were saying . . . he’d have to be mad.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware I was being literal.’

  ‘Beggin’ your joint pardon, sirs,’ Clark said. ‘But if the two of you sat in the staff canteen a bit more often you’d know that most of Percy’s colleagues think he’s a bit mad.’

  Troy said, ‘I know. Blood’s mad, I’m wild and Jack’s a flash bastard. Eddie, this is beyond gossip.’

  ‘So,’ Jack concluded, ‘it could be out of our hands altogether.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Procedure, Freddie. It’s A10’s job investigating coppers’ misdeeds, not ours.’

  A10 was Scotland Yard’s internal investigations arm.

  ‘A10?’ said Troy. ‘I’m not letting A10 within a mile of Blood! Blood is in this so steeped—’

  Jack leant forward in his chair. Fixed Troy with his gaze. ‘Freddie. Tell me truthfully. Do you in your wildest dreams think DCI Blood murdered Paddy Fitz?’

  Troy pulled back a little. Jack was that bit too close.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Of course not. But don’t tell me I’m clutching at straws. I’m not. Right now, Blood’s all I’ve got.’

  Jack lowered, softened his voice, ‘Right now, Freddie, you’ve got irises as big as saucers. Whatever you’re on, don’t overdo it.’

  When he had gone Clark remained.

  ‘Spit it out, Eddie.’

  Clark handed him another sheet of paper.

  It was a transfer order, signed by Quint, moving Blood from Special Branch to Vice, dated at the end of May.

  ‘You did ask,’ said Clark.

  For the moment Troy could not remember that he had asked.

  ‘The date, sir,’ said Clark.

  ‘I was in the wilderness in May. You’ll have to remind me.’

  ‘It was the morning after Timothy Woodbridge made his denial in the House of Commons, sir.’

  ‘Surely you mean the morning after his admission?’

  ‘No. I mean what I said. Percy was transferred between Woodbridge’s statement of denial and his letter admitting the lot five days later. There was no Commons admission. This is Westminster. You stand firm in public, you capitulate quietly.’

  Jack’s words came precisely to mind. ‘Oh bugger, oh bugger.’

  ‘I rather think I’ll want a word or two with Chief Inspector Blood before the day’s out.’

  ‘Exactly what I was thinking, sir. A word with our Percy. I’ve already checked. He’s taking it easy at home. And he lives south of the water. In Camberwell. I’ve jotted the address down for you.’

  Clark handed Troy a third piece of paper. It was his day for pieces of paper. He handed them out as though rationed. Released them judiciously for full effect. Troy glanced at it and pocketed it. He held up the second, Quint’s memo.

  ‘Eddie?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  ‘Firstly, you’re a smug bastard, and secondly, we never saw this.’

  Clark smiled a smile as smug as he could muster and went to answer the phone.

  ‘For you, sir. A woman. Won’t give her name.’

  ‘I want to see Blood. Put her off.’

  ‘Asked for you as “Troy”, sir. No rank.’

  Troy took the telephone from him.

  ‘Troy? It’s Tara. Don’t talk. I’m in a phone box feeding in coppers at a rate of knots. Just jot this down. 44 St Simon Square, W11. Flat 1. And if you upset her or hurt her I’ll never, never, never forgive you. Capiche? And if we end up in court again, I’ll tell young Alex you spent the night here and rogered me rigid.’

  ‘Truth or dare?’ said Troy, but the pennies shot through the gate and the dialling tone was all he heard by way of answer.

  § 86

  Troy caught a cab to Notting Hill. He thought better of parking a Bentley anywhere in the vicinity of St Simon Square. It was the heart of what had lately become known as Rachman country, after the infamous slum landlord who had died the previous year. St Simon Square looked typical of the poorly maintained London houses that had formed the backbone of his property empire. Tall, once-elegant, terraced houses, surrounding a square, once green with grass and shrubs, now grey with cinders and cordoned off by chainlink fencing. Paint peeled from high windows, rubbish piled up in porticoed doorways. Ironically, two or three houses on either side of the square were boarded up – ironically, as those houses that were not would undoubtedly be bursting at the seams with human life. Rachman had had a simple policy, and he had not been its only practitioner. Buy cheap – and the Church of England in the fifties had been only too willing to sell – mortgage to the hilt, boot out the existing tenants and then fill up with West Indian immigrants – Jamaicans, Barbadians and Trinidadians – and charge them the earth whilst pointing out that the rest of London did not ‘take coloured’. And, of course, this was true. Troy could recall seeing signs in the windows of London lodging houses, when he was a beat bobby before the war, that read, ‘No Coloured, No Irish, No Dogs.’ It was a policy of playing upon the prejudices of the English in order to make it pay. By the late fifties there had been race riots on the streets of West London.

  Some time this winter, the door of No. 44 had had a fresh coat of paint. Deep, glossy green. Troy knocked. Heard feet bounding upstairs.

  The door swung sharply back. A black face peered out at Troy.

  ‘Man, when you told us you were the heat you weren’t joking, were you?’

  It was Philly the sax player from the Cool in the Shade Club.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I told you the truth.’ Troy had never felt the need to apologise for his profession.

  ‘An’ now I s’pose you tellin’ me you lookin’ for Caro?’

  ‘Is she at home?’

  Philly said nothing and kept his hand firmly gripped on the edge of the door.

  ‘I’m not investigating Caro. I’m investigating the death of Paddy Fitz.’

  ‘She still upset about that.’

  Aren’t we all? thought Troy. Philly pulled the door wide and admitted Troy.

  ‘Right to the back, and down the stairs. She’s in the kitchen.’

  Troy descended a rickety, uncarpeted staircase to the basement.

  Caro was standing by the gas stove, hair up in a headscarf, no make-up, blue jeans and a dark, billowing, chequered blue shirt many sizes too big. She was stirring a pan with one hand, holding and gently rocking a coffee-co
loured infant with the other.

  ‘Troy,’ she said with the merest hint of surprise. ‘Phil. Take Vivienne will you. I’m sure Troy just wants a quiet word.’

  Philly reached over and hefted the two-year-old into his arms.

  ‘No,’ said the child.

  ‘Yes,’ said Philly, and he disappeared back up the stairs.

  Caro turned off the gas, swept an errant lock of blonde hair back under the headscarf and sat down at the kitchen table. ‘He’s very good with children,’ she said. ‘Loves them.’

  It occurred to Troy that nature was somewhat awry if fathers did not, but it seemed as though she had read his mind.

  ‘Vivienne isn’t Philly’s. She’s Cliff ’s. Cliff ’s all right in his way. But he’s never got any money.’

  She seemed disinclined to push the line she had opened. Troy pulled out a chair and sat opposite her.

  ‘Tara told you I’d be coming?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t mind. Really I don’t. But I suppose I did think Fitz might have shot himself until . . .’

  ‘Until I told Tara otherwise?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I need to know what happened between you and Chief Inspector Blood.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ve heard what happened with Tara. I need to know what happened when you were alone with him.’

  ‘We weren’t alone at first. He split us up as a way of getting at me. He was never easy on me, never pleasant, but after Tara was gone he became horrible. She has a way of deflecting other people’s anger away from me and onto herself. She’s done it since we were children. I was lost without her. Blood sensed this. He’d asked us about men we slept with and Fitz. He wanted us to say we were tarts and we paid Fitz as our pimp. We wouldn’t.