One Fight at a Time

by Jeff Dowson

  “At this rate, I’m not going to get to the match,” Bridge said.

  Goole grinned.

  “City will murder Rovers. If you go, you’ll just get depressed.”

  No self-respecting Gashead would countenance that as the remotest possibility. Bridge pulled himself together.

  “Okay... Back to the office. Put a rocket under the crime scene team, so we can get the reports out of them by the close of play. Work out an ongoing schedule for the investigation and then... you’re right... visit Gladstone Street again.”

  Chapter Ten

  In Brockley Woods, Sam Nicholson and Rodney Pride were inspecting the hospital ward, washed and scrubbed clean.

  “Who did all this Rodney?”

  “Three blokes who are now on a long holiday in North Africa.”

  Nicholson looked out of the window. At a large wooden shed; the site HQ of a non-existent building company.

  A tall, straight backed, grey-haired man, walked into the ward. His suit was a decent navy blue worsted, his shirt light blue, his tie a matching grey. He carried himself well. He looked comfortable, and better than that, prosperous. Pride introduced him.

  “Sam, this is our main man. Richard Havers. He will be the first person our mothers will meet.”

  Havers smiled, relaxed and comfortable. He held out his right hand. Nicholson shook it.

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr Nicholson. I prefer surnames. We should keep all this as formal as possible. Hospitals have a rigid code of behaviour. I want us to adhere also.”

  Pride grinned. “Good isn’t he?”

  Havers looked at Pride. Like an indulgent parent who has let a thing or two slide, but intends to pounce on the next irregularity. Pride got the message, held up his hands and patted the air.

  “Sorry doc. Mr Havers.”

  “Doctor Havers will do.”

  Pride nodded. “Okay, understood.”

  Nicholson looked on amazed. He never seen Rodney this relaxed or amenable.

  “Good,” Havers said. “I have a car outside, full of files and papers and paraphernalia. Will you help me unload?”

  He turned and left the ward.

  “Good isn’t he?” Pride said.

  “As long as he’s a real doctor,” Nicholson muttered.

  *

  Grover was on his way back to Bristol, Salome eating up the miles along the A420. The Tuesday afternoon traffic was light. Grover had the top up and the canvas side walls down. There was no heater in the Jeep. Warm air was blown into the seat well, through vents right and left of the gear box. He was warm from his feet to his knees. But compared to December in the Ardennes, the temperature in Wiltshire in late April was close to sub-tropical.

  Grover was out of uniform. And in the process of achieving this, he had exhausted most of his civilian wardrobe. He was wearing dark corduroy trousers, a pair of thick soled, brown shoes, a grey cotton shirt and a fleece jacket he had bartered from an RAF pilot back in January. A brown, leather suitcase he had scrounged from the Able Company Master Sergeant sat on the rear seat; containing his one civilian suit, two shirts, a pair of jeans and his other pair of brown shoes. His army greatcoat was draped over it. Behind the seat, he had stashed two loaded ten gallon jerry cans of fuel and covered them with a tarpaulin. The government was due to announce the end of petrol rationing any day now, but he did not want to take chances.

  The conversation with Lieutenant Berger had been smoother than he had expected. The two men had worked out a deal.

  Grover had $2,850 in the US Forces Bank. Wages he had managed to save during his years in Europe. He had avoided high stakes poker games, bets on baseball matches and drinking too much. Berger agreed he could have that money in cash, in pounds sterling. Which worked out as £1,040. He postponed Grover’s repatriation and gave him a twelve day pass. He had to be back on the base by the end of the furlough, or he would be considered AWOL.

  Grover stood in front of the Adjutant’s desk and thanked him.

  “We owe you, Sergeant Major,” Berger said.

  “I don’t understand, Sir.”

  “Sit down Ed.”

  Grover sat down in the armchair in front of the Adjutant’s desk. Berger explained.

  “Back in that alley in Berlin, where you found the girl, the Snowdrops found something else. Wedged in the grating of a drain cover, next to the body. A button from a US battledress tunic. So... either somebody had appropriated a tunic from somewhere, or somebody in Baker Company was missing a button. Two days after you were sent to Tempelhof, Baker Company dress paraded. All buttons were present and correct on all tunics. So Major Healy put the brakes on. All action into the matter was suspended.”

  Berger took a beat. Leaned forward in his chair and went on.

  “But at the time, there were two men in sick bay. One of them was the malodorous, Private First Class, Leo Vanderbilt. Remember him?”

  Grover nodded. “Not easily forgotten.”

  Berger grinned and continued. “The glorious fruit of one of his mother’s weekend squeezes, apparently. Why the hell he’s in such a hurry to go home is beyond me. Especially as it’s a craphole trailer park in Canton, Mississippi.”

  “Because he hates everybody.” Grover said. “Germans, Italians, Brits, communists, homosexuals, women, negroes, to name but a few.”

  Grover recalled an encounter with a falling down drunk Vanderbilt, in a back street, six months earlier. “He was squaring up to an MP – a black guy from North Carolina.

  ‘Fucking niggers,’ he was ranting. ‘The army should treat them like we do back home. Sweat-backs, good enough for digging ditches. They can’t eat, drink, sit down or shit anywhere near whites. As for black women... Only good for one thing, well three, if you count cooking and cleaning.’”

  “I remember that,” Berger said. “The Snowdrop decked him.”

  Grover was beginning to wonder where this was leading. The lieutenant got to the point.

  “Back in Berlin, in the sick bay, Vanderbilt was pulling a stroke. He was out of the place a day later. For the next week, I had the Snowdrops keep an eye on him. Twenty-four seven. He didn’t put a foot wrong, but I always suspected the vicious bastard. And I hated that you got the bum’s rush. Shouldn’t have happened. And the death of that sixteen year old girl shouldn’t have gone un-punished. Yesterday… Vanderbilt beat the tar out of Private Lennie Coggins – a black guy again. So right now, he’s in the Brig. He’ll go home in manacles and maybe, just maybe, we’ll get something out of him at a court martial.”

  “Well, good luck with that,” Grover said.

  “Now your friend’s son is in trouble. I understand that you need to help. Do everything you can. Call this my contribution. I didn’t do anything about the girl in the alleyway. But I can do this.”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  Grover stood up, came to attention and saluted.

  Berger returned the salute. “Good luck, Sergeant Major.”

  Grover walked over to the Motor Pool. Henry Whelan had fixed Salome’s oil leak. He had re-sprayed over the stars behind the doors and on the bonnet. She was still registered to the US Army, but she looked a little less like she was going to war. Whelan handed Grover the ignition key. The two men shook hands.

  “Come back in one piece Ed.”

  Grover climbed into the Jeep.

  *

  The office for the hospital enterprise was situated above an empty garage in a cul de sac opposite the Imperial Tobacco Factory in Southville. A place which swarmed with people at shift changes, but was not a main thoroughfare. Just another street in a relatively anonymous neighbourhood. Two of Rodney Pride’s associates, dressed in overalls, were on the pavement, giving the garage and the office access door a coat of paint.

  Nicholson’s Rover pulled up in front of the garage. Rodney had been persuaded to leave his ostentatious hunk of Detroit metal back at Pride Rides.

  “We’ll never keep all this under wraps, if you coast around in that fucking thi
ng,” Nicholson had said.

  The two men climbed out of the Rover. Pride nodded at his work force. Nicholson led him through the office door and up the stairs. He had fitted the place out simply, but elegantly enough.

  “Our clients will have no reason to think this is a cheapskate racket,” he said. “And as we have both floors, we won’t be disturbed by tenants below.”

  *

  Grover took several wrong turns driving through east Bristol. But once in the city centre, he followed the signs to Temple Meads and from there, got his bearings. He pulled up in Gladstone Street just before 11 o’clock. Behind a dark blue Hillman Minx. He picked his greatcoat and suitcase off the rear seat and walked into the shop to find Ellie in a bit of a state.

  “Those two policemen are here again,” she explained. “They’re searching Harry’s bedroom. They said I could stay up there but...”

  She shook her head and faltered into silence.

  “I’ll go take a look.”

  Ellie held out her hands and took the greatcoat and the suitcase. Grover walked into the corridor between the kitchen and the shop and climbed the stairs to the first floor. Harry’s bedroom door was open. Grover stood in the doorway. Goole was crouched on the carpet, searching through a drawer in one of the bedside cabinets. Bridge was investigating the wardrobe.

  “Okay if I come in?” Grover asked from the doorway.

  The detectives looked at him

  “As long as you don’t get in the way,” Bridge said. “And don’t touch anything.”

  Harry’s bedroom sat directly above the wash house and overlooked the back yard. The furniture was old, but comfortable in the space. A wardrobe, chest of drawers, a four feet double bed, with low cabinets each side of it. There was a cast iron fireplace in the chimney breast; no longer used, because there was a small table in front of it with a bentwood chair tucked up close.

  This was the room Harry had grown up in, but all signs of his childhood had vanished from the walls and the shelves. Posters of Ava Gardner and Rita Hayworth had replaced Superman and Captain Marvel. And it seemed he was absorbed by crime fiction. Not the soft centred, country house murder stuff of Agatha Christie. There was no Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot or Tommy and Tuppence. Harry’s preference was much more hard boiled. Mickey Spillane, Edgar Wallace and, it seemed, just about the whole of the Leslie Charteris Saint series filled his bookshelves. And there was a pile of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazines on the floor in one corner of the room.

  Harry’s table desk was covered with papers. Sketches and drawings and pages of notes. And a large, thick, writing pad; bound along the top edge, so each page had to be flipped to read the following one. Pinned to a cork board above the desk were scraps of paper with words, sentences, and bits of doodles, scribbled on them. And a post card from a place called Brean Sands.

  Grover stared at the jumble of stuff. “Can I look through this?”

  Bridge was examining the spines on the bookshelves. Goole was going through the drawers in the other bed side cabinet. He looked at Grover.

  “Yes. I’ve finished there.”

  Grover moved to the table and flicked open the writing pad. The first page was packed with handwritten script. Every line was filled. He flipped the second page, the third, the fourth...

  “Harry’s writing a book,” Grover said.

  “So it seems,” Goole said.

  “And this stuff is his inspiration obviously,” Bridge said. He pulled a volume off the shelf. “Edgar Wallace. The Four Just Men.”

  “That was a good film,” Goole said.

  Bridge replaced the book, then took another look around the room. Put his hands in his pockets and voiced his conclusion.

  “We’re not going to find anything else in here.”

  Goole closed the cabinet drawer he was poking around in and turned to face his boss.

  “No we’re not,” he said.

  At the table, Grover flipped to the end of the writing pad. Where the last page should have been, there was a jagged stub of paper running along the spine at the top of the pad. The page had been pulled out.

  Goole was at his shoulder. “Where do you think that page went?”

  Grover looked at him. “Is that it then? Finished?”

  Bridge stepped towards them. “I’d appreciate a few words with you, Mr Grover, before we leave.”

  “Sure, Chief Inspector.”

  Bridge looked at his sergeant. “Check those two things with Mrs Morrison.”

  Goole stepped past Grover and left the room. Bridge smiled at Grover and gestured ‘after you’. Grover led the way downstairs. Goole was standing in the shop, waiting for Ellie to finish serving a customer. Grover and Bridge moved into the kitchen and sat down at the table.

  “Are you out of the army then?” Bridge asked

  Grover shook his head.

  “Twelve day pass. I want to be round here to help out.”

  “With what?”

  “Stuff.”

  “You’re not really thinking of turning private eye are you? Like your Philip Marlowe?”

  There was a substantial silence as the two men looked at each other across the table. Bridge broke it.

  “I take it you will confine your activities to domestic issues and emotional support,” he said.

  Grover nodded.

  “Those as well.”

  Bridge took his time over the next few sentences.

  “Be under no illusions Mr Grover, we do not have gumshoes in this country. Or vigilantes. If I discover that you’re freelancing in this case, there will be hell to pay. Is that clear?”

  “As creek water, Chief Inspector.”

  Bridge stood up and extended his right hand. Grover stood up too, reached across the table and shook it.

  “Enjoy your leave, Sergeant Major.”

  He left the kitchen, crossed the hall and went into the shop. Ellie was serving a customer, Goole was standing by the door. Bridge stepped through the gap in the counter and said ‘thank you’ to Ellie. Goole opened the door, the bell rang, the two coppers stepped out into the street, the door shut behind them and the bell rang again.

  Grover climbed the stairs again, to search Harry’s bedroom. He was an old hand at this sort of thing. He had lost count of the hours he had spent in Berlin, fishing tins of spam and sardines out of mattresses; cigarettes out of boxes in attics; US dollars out of sacks in basements; medicines out of plastic bags hidden in toilet cisterns. He knew if the page torn out of the writing pad was in the bedroom, he would find it.

  The wardrobe yielded nothing. He garnered the same result from the chest of drawers and the bedside cabinets. There were no edges or corners of carpet loose. He checked the books on the shelves, like Bridge had done. Opened them, spines horizontal, holding the back and front covers apart, waiting for the secret page to drop out. With no success.

  But he was rewarded ten minutes later, courtesy of Ellery Queen. He checked the pile of mystery magazines, one by one, from the top down. He found what he was looking for, in the third volume from the bottom. Slipped between pages ten and eleven. A list of numbers.

  He sat down at the desk table and studied the paper. There were six numbers at the top of the page, written on the first six lines. A letter in front of each one. A name initial? He sat back in the chair and stared at the wall. He focussed on the post card. He reached up, un-pinned it from the board and turned it over. There was no address and no message. Grover pinned it back on to the board.

  As he was descending the stairs, the doorbell did its double ring once more. He walked into the shop. Ellie was alone in the middle of the floor, arms folded, staring through the left hand display window and out into the street.

  “The cops missed something,” Grover said.

  He put the page down on the counter. Ellie swung round to face him.

  “Torn from Harry’s writing pad.”

  “He’s writing a novel,” she said.

  “He’s also writing down numbers,” Gr
over said. “Take a look.”

  Ellie joined him at the counter and inspected the page.

  “It was between the pages of one of his magazines. Nobody was supposed to find it. Telephone numbers, right?”

  Ellie nodded. “But why make such a secret of them? Everybody has lists of telephone numbers.”

  “Not numbers like these, obviously,” Grover said.

  “Shouldn’t we hand them over to the police?”

  “Not until we’ve called them ourselves.”

  Ellie studied the page.

  “I don’t recognise any of them,” she said.

  “So we’ll have to ring them, one by one.”

  The phone’s on the kitchen sideboard,” Ellie said.

  “Okay,” Grover said. “Oh yeah, and where’s Brean Sands?”

  Ellie looked puzzled. “Brean Sands?...”

  “Harry has a postcard on the wall above his desk.”

  Suddenly Ellie beamed from ear to ear. “Of course he has. Of course…”

  She set off for the kitchen. Grover followed. A fat, black, bakelite telephone sat on the sideboard. Ellie picked up the receiver, held it to her right cheek and waited a couple of seconds. There was a buzz, a couple of clicks and the Operator came on the line.

  “Number please.”

  “Can you put me through to Directory Enquiries?” She smiled at Grover. “Brean. Why the hell didn’t I think of that?” She talked into the receiver again. “Yes please. Can you give me the number of Pontins Holiday Camp at Brean Sands?”

  Ellie put her hand over the receiver mouth piece.

  “Ed. There’s a pad and pencil here. Can you write down the number she gives me?”

  Grover moved to the sideboard. Ellie spoke into the receiver again.

  “Burnham on Sea 3527. I’ll just repeat that. 3527. Thank you.”

  She depressed the cradle bar with the index finger of her left hand and then released it. Grover pushed the pad along the sideboard. She looked down at the number and spoke into the mouthpiece again.

  “Operator. Will you get me Burnham on Sea 3527, please?”

  The Operator repeated the number. The line buzz came back and some more clicks, followed by the distant sound of a phone ringing. It stopped and the Operator spoke again.