One Fight at a Time

by Jeff Dowson

  It was neat and tidy, the bed was made and there was nobody there.

  He doubled back along the landing. Checked the bathroom. Empty. And there was a space in the wall cabinet where Harry’s razor, shaving brush and soap had been. Grover walked down the stairs and back into the kitchen. Ellie stepped in from the wash house, carrying a pan and the tea towel she was drying it with.

  “Well?”

  “Harry’s not in the house. He’s gone again.”

  Ellie yelled out, “God Almighty!!”

  She threw the pan across the kitchen. It dug a hole in the plasterboard wall opposite the wash house door, dropped and banged on to the floor. Misery and frustration took hold. She began to cry. Tears of rage.

  Grover moved towards her. She shook her head and waved the tea towel at him. ‘Leave me alone’ the body language said. Grover stood stock still. Ellie turned, went back into the wash house and slammed the door.

  The shop door clanged its double bell routine. Grover left the kitchen to see to the customer. And once Mrs Cotton had left, he locked the door, turned the open/closed sign around and went back into the kitchen. Through the window he could see Ellie hanging washing in the yard.

  He picked up the phone receiver and called Neil Adkins.

  “First of all, thanks again for last night.”

  “Pleasure,” Adkins said.

  He waited, knowing that this call was about something else.

  “Do you know where Mark Chaplin lives?” Grover asked

  “I can find out.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Minutes. Where are you?”

  “At the Morrisons.”

  “I’ll call you back.”

  The line went dead. Adkins was all business. Grover looked at Ellie again. She seemed to be working in slow motion, her shoulders and arms heavy with care. And she seemed to be smaller than the straight-backed elegant woman he had met again less than a week ago. This had to work out right.

  The phone rang.

  “Got a pencil?” Adkins asked.

  “That was quick.”

  “Local phone number 63251. Address in Clifton.”

  Grover opened the sideboard, found a notepad and pencil. Asked Adkins to repeat the number. Adkins did and recited the address.

  “It’s a one bedroom flat, but in a posh location.”

  “What do you know about his father?”

  “Made of stainless steel,” Adkins said. “Not a blot on his escutcheon.”

  “I take it you mean he’s squeaky clean?”

  “Not exactly. I mean that nothing has stuck, so far”

  Grover weighed that up.

  “Have you any reason to believe that there are potential sticky issues around?”

  “Let me put it this way... I was discussing the merits of a certain person with a friend of mine recently. He put forward a proposition, about this person, that seemed outrageous. I said, ‘I don’t believe he’s bent’. The response from him was, ‘Everybody’s bent’. Ed, you don’t get to be a Chief Superintendent, by sending Valentines cards and handing out roses. Do you understand what I’m saying? Be careful.”

  “Thanks Neil.”

  “Pleasure. Keep me posted.”

  He rang off. Grover was beginning to realise the strength of the allies he had in this business. Neil, Mel, and Zoe. Nobody but the best for Fincher Reade and Holborne.

  He called Mark Chaplin’s number. It rang on and on. Ellie came back into the kitchen.

  “I’m truly sorry Ed.”

  She tried a smile that only just worked. Grover closed the call.

  “You’ve got a great smile you know,” he said. “A little rusty round the edges, that’s the trouble.”

  She smiled again.

  “Much better... We have a lead. I’m going on the prowl. I’ll be back later.” He turned to go. “Do you want me to leave the shop door unlocked?”

  “Please.”

  Outside, he got into Salome, unfolded the street map and worked out the route to Chaplin’s address.

  *

  “Your friend, Fidel, hit the wall so hard, he fractured his skull. The top two cervical vertebrae – the atlas and the axis, which help the neck to move – have separated. There is nerve damage also. At the moment, we can’t tell how bad that is precisely, but he is likely to be paralysed from the neck down.”

  Doctor Chapman was talking to Xavier in a small waiting room in A and E. Rachel had gone looking for some coffee.

  “Mr Winston’s prognosis is better. He is in the recovery ward. He has bruised ribs and spine and he’s lost two teeth, but he’s going to be alright. In fact he can go home later today. You can visit both of them now, if you wish.”

  “Good good, thank you. When Rachel comes back we’ll...”

  He faltered into silence. The doctor waited a moment to see if Xavier was going to continue. It appeared he was not.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m on shift for another couple of hours. Come and find me if you want to know anything else.”

  He left the waiting room.

  Xavier leaned forwards, put his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands and interlocked his fingers. He stared down at the carpet. It was threadbare and in his sight line there was a group of dark stains, each about the size of a penny. Rachel walked in from the corridor with two plastic cups of coffee. She handed one to Xavier.

  “Any news?”

  *

  Pembroke Close was a short, leafy cul de sac. Grover parked Salome facing the way he had come. Turning the jeep around with a horde of angry residents at his heels, should this eventuality occur, would take far too much time. Number 12 was at the end. No drive here, just a cast iron gate and a path to the front of the house.

  There were no signs of life from the building. No open windows, no sounds of occupancy, no radios. There was an apartment – not flat or bedsit territory this – occupying each storey. Grover climbed the steps to the front porch. Mark Chaplin lived on the ground floor. Grover rang the doorbell. Which provoked no response. He went back down the steps and turned on to the path down the side of the house. A tall hedge on his right, hid the next door property from view. The hedge ran on and enclosed the whole of the small garden. The ground floor apartment had a rear door.

  It was locked. But the casement kitchen windows had small horizontal windows above them. One was latched open. Grover wheeled a dustbin into position, climbed on it and took the window off its latch. He reached through the gap and down to the casement window latch. He tugged it free and the window swung open. He levered himself into the kitchen, climbed over the sink and dropped on to the linoleum.

  He moved across the kitchen and into the hall, which ran the entire depth of the house, towards the front door. In front of him, the space under the stairs once running up to the first floor, had been commandeered for a bathroom. On his immediate right was a bedroom. The phone sat on a table in the hall. Beyond that was the doorway into the living room which looked out on to the front garden. From the window, Grover could see Salome parked out in the street about fifty yards away.

  This was all new to him. Soldiering had taught him many things, most of them brutal and deadly. Simple breaking and entering should have been a piece of cake, but it terrified him. His heart rate had risen, there was a pulse thumping in his neck, his hands were shaking.

  He looked around the room. The usual three piece suite arrangement so beloved of the Brits, shelves of books, a sideboard with sliding glass doors, a collection of glass objects inside it. The piece of furniture with the most potential, was a repro Victorian bureau. It was old mahogany, with two drawers under the desk section and barley sugar twist legs. Sitting on top of it, was a ten by eight, gilt photo frame. Grover studied the picture. Harry, Mark and Jerry Wharton smiling, posing in the sunshine, in front of the Punch and Judy booth.

  Grover had come hot foot on this adventure without gloves, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He went through the drawers firs
t. There was an Imperial portable typewriter in the bottom one, along with boxes of typing paper, carbon paper and other desk stuff, like a stapler, a pair of scissors, rubbers, pens and pencils. The drawer above, hosted a bunch of non-desk stuff. Including a small tool box with a set of spanners in it, a couple of screwdrivers and a plastic bag of curtain hooks. He transferred his attention to the writing section.

  The embossed front of the bureau which pulled down and transformed into a desk top, was locked. It took him three minutes to find the key – on a ring with two others, in a tiny ceramic vase shaped like a tulip, on the end of the fireplace mantelpiece. He pulled out the two bars which supported the desk top, opened up the front and dropped it down. Stared into the bureau interior.

  There were thin, long vertical compartments designed to hold sheets of paperwork; in this case, some bills, receipts, letters to the landlord, the electricity and water companies. Small, narrow drawers underneath to right and left, housed bits and pieces of family stuff – an old fob watch, a brooch and a gold ring with the initials HDC on the centrepiece. The drawer in the middle of the arrangement, nine inches or so wide and four inches deep was locked too. Grover tested another of the keys he had found, and opened it.

  The important stuff was here. Chaplin had an account at Martin’s Bank. Cheque and payment books were lying on top of a pile of account statements. And underneath, was a white, eight by five envelope, the flap unsealed and folded back into the pocket. Grover picked it up.

  There were eight postcard size, black and white photographs inside it. Featuring combinations of Harry, Martin Chaplin and Jerry Wharton. Two of them in each one. Naked, involved in differing stages of sexual activity. Presumably the third person in each case, was the photographer.

  Grover put the pictures back in the envelope and replaced it in the drawer. He lifted the desk front, locked the bureau and stared again at the photograph in the frame. Taken on the beach at Weston Super Mare, presumably. Ellie had said Jerry would be there today, Saturday May 1st. His pitch shouldn’t be too hard to find. He returned the keys to the tulip vase.

  *

  Leroy Winston smiled at Rachel, then groaned in pain. His jaw had been stitched and the painkillers were only just doing their job. Rachel bent down and kissed him on the forehead. He asked how Fidel Johnson was. Quietly, word by word.

  “He’s still unconscious,” Rachel said. “Still in IC. He has a fractured skull and some brain bleed they’re trying to sort out.”

  Winston closed his eyes and sighed.

  “Xavier is with him.”

  Winston opened his eyes again.

  “They say I can go home later today,” he said slowly. “As long as I have someone to look after me.”

  “It will give me the greatest pleasure.”

  Xavier met Rachel in the waiting room. Both of them were exhausted.

  “The doctors have no idea how it will turn out,” Xavier said. “Fidel may wake up and, in spite of the fracture, be none the worse for wear. He might wake up and not remember anything. He make might wake up with permanent brain and nerve damage. Or he might not wake up at all.”

  Rachel opened her arms and Xavier stepped into them. She held him close.

  *

  Grover climbed into Salome, checked his maps, located the A370, programmed the cross town route into his head, fired up the jeep and set out for Weston.

  He turned Salome on to the sea front at 5 minutes past noon. He parked the jeep at the south end of Marine Parade and stepped on to the sand, stretching unbroken for a mile and a half, along the front and round the curve of rock at Knightstone. Past the line of holiday flats and boarding houses and the Grand Atlantic hotel. Past the town’s great Edwardian landmark, the Grand Pier, built in 1904 – four hundred yards long, with its magnificent two thousand seat theatre out in the sea. Music hall greats like Marie Lloyd had played there. Stage tours of Bernard Shaw and Jack Priestley. Even opera and ballet during the 1920s.

  Jerry Wharton had to be somewhere up ahead. Grover decided to leave the jeep and walk along the beach.

  The sky was cloudless. The sand was dotted with kids, parents and grandparents engaged in bucket and spade engineering; and a game Grover had failed to get to grips with throughout his time in England. Cricket. He had watched Spitfire pilots play it on the squadron base through the glorious weather of the Battle of Britain summer. And English infantry platoons in the weeks leading up to D Day. A Flight Lieutenant, whose Spitfire later went down in a ball of flame over the Channel, had explained the rules to him one day. Something about one side going in and the other side trying to get them out and then going in and trying to stay in while their opponents tried to get them out. Both teams doing this twice apparently, unless rain stopped play or they ran out of time. Some matches, it appeared, took as long as five days. He had seen photographs of old guys in the crowds fast asleep. But he did learn what ‘it’s not cricket’ meant. And how the Germans got up to shabby Nazi tricks, derided by comics, because they didn’t play the summer game.

  As he walked, Grover passed a series of billboards advertising the summer season variety show. About to open on Monday May 3rd and run for eighteen weeks until mid-September. He stopped to read the posters.

  The turns on the bill were a Polish Acrobatic Troup The Lyczinskis, a juggling duo The Two of Clubs, and a seal act called Flipper and Archie. Music was provided by a touring section of the Joe Loss Orchestra and the Morton Frazer Harmonica Gang – an accordionist, five harmonica players and a dwarf. Grover had seen this act at Norwich Theatre Royal back in 1942. The musical comedy routine was based on one joke. The big guys played on and on, while the little guy tried to get in on the act, and for his pains got bounced all over the stage. Third on the bill was a radio comic called Frankie Howerd. Grover had heard him on Variety Bandbox. He did an outrageous ten minutes, based on catch phrases and innuendo and the word ‘titter’, which he tidied up for the BBC. Presumably, at the end of the pier, he could let rip during the second house – a titter ran round the audience, until the manager caught him and threw him out. The singers were a tenor called David Whitfield who closed the first half of the show and Alma Cogan – the girl with the giggle in her voice. Top of the bill was a performer Grover had seen at the Pavilion Theatre Bournemouth, while the 21st was mustering in Dorset during the weeks before D Day. The brilliant Max Wall, dressed in a frock coat and black tights did a routine based on a piano, a piano stool, facial contortions, a funny walk and sequence of doubtful jokes – I am Professor Max Wallofski, well known in the field of music, and also in the field behind the gasworks.

  This was the working class English seaside. Weston in the sunshine. Welcoming, warm and glorious.

  And famous for its donkey rides. Grover watched a couple of toddlers squeal happily as they were hoisted into tiny saddles. The donkeys, calm and serene and professional to the core, stood strong and still, unperturbed by the umpteenth change of jockey. Until with a ‘heyupp’ from their grooms, once again they began their amble along two hundred yards of beach.

  Grover took deep breaths, turned his face to the sun and enjoyed the moment.

  Jerry Wharton stepped up to his shoulder.

  “You know, those donkeys have graced this beach since 1886,” he said.

  Grover turned to face him.

  “Good morning Jerry.”

  “But then, the Weston donkeys are legendary. The quintessence of the British seaside holiday. A symbol of continuity, you see. The sort of thing we like in this neck of the woods.”

  Grover looked into his eyes.

  “Have you got time to talk?”

  “Sure. You can help me set up as we do that.”

  Behind them, built out onto the beach from the sea wall was the Tropicana. A castellated, brick wall of a place with no roof, which looked like a full size version of the toy forts you could buy in shops. Two plastic palm trees rose into the air behind the walls.

  “What’s in there?” Grover asked.

&nbs
p; “The palm trees,” Wharton said, “are as tropical as the Tropicana gets.”

  He led the way towards the door of a storeroom, built into the wall. “There’s a swimming pool in there with a terrace all round it. Tables and sunshades, with exotic fruit painted on them. A couple of cafes and a souvenir shop. Doesn’t really aspire to be much more than that. But the tide on this coast goes out a long way, so if you want to swim...”

  He pulled open the storeroom door.

  “Stay there and I’ll pass the stuff out to you.”

  He disappeared into the dark. Then back through his legs came hardwood battens, sections of painted canvas, pieces of aluminium frame and a plastic bag of brackets and screws. Finally Wharton himself, carrying a big cardboard box of puppets.

  “That’s the way to do it,” he swazzled.

  Grover imagined that beginning to irritate after a while.

  They set up the Punch and Judy booth, after which, Wharton suggested a drink.

  “My first show isn’t until 2.30.”

  Grover said a drink accompanied by lunch ought to be the thing. Wharton shrugged.

  “Okay. Fish and chips, cooked the old fashioned way. In dripping.”

  “Dripping?”

  Wharton looked at him with feigned surprise.

  “How long have you been in this country?”

  Grover switched the subject. “I ought to tell you something.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “I told Mark to burn those pictures,” Wharton said. “I thought he had.”

  The two men had not gone to lunch. They were sitting in Wharton’s store, on wooden crates. There was no electricity. The sun was slanting in though the open doorway and creating a dramatic slash of light across the stone floor.

  “Has the relationship been going for a while?”

  “A few months. It began after Harry first told me about Mark. I was doing a Saturday morning show at the Winter Gardens. He went along. It wasn’t a ‘confess or die’ moment by any means. I think he was just bursting to tell someone.”