One Fight at a Time

by Jeff Dowson

  “You wanted to talk to me...”

  Marsden opened his mouth and then closed it again. Grover waited for a moment or two, then cut to the chase.

  “Tell me about Bill Bullivant-Shaw.”

  Marsden stood rooted to the spot, his back to the door.

  “He’s er... he’s the caretaker at St. Christopher’s Childrens Home, in Bristol.”

  “And?...”

  “Well he looks after the place. Has done since before the war.”

  “And how do you know this?”

  He waited for Marsden to rev up. Eric was taking his time.

  “Alright, let me start the ball rolling,” Grover suggested. “Did Harry tell you anything about the contents of Nick Hope’s address book?”

  Marsden looked at him in some confusion. Grover continued.

  “Did you know Nick Hope?”

  “For a year or two. But a while back.”

  “Is that all? Come on Eric, you said you wanted to talk to me.”

  “Yes. I did. Alright.”

  “So what’s your connection with St Christopher’s?”

  “I worked there during the war.”

  There was more on the way. Grover waited. Marsden cleared his throat.

  “I didn’t fight you see. I was a conscientious objector. I was jailed for fifteen months between spring 1940 and autumn 1941.”

  “That seems a bit heavy for simply refusing to fight.”

  “Actually there was more to it. I was arrested after taking part in an anti-war demonstration. Somebody started a fight. I hit a policeman, who was later found injured. He was in hospital for a while. I was charged, convicted and sent to jail. Some irony in that don’t you think? A committed conshie, sent down for causing actual bodily harm. I was released on the understanding I spent the rest of the war doing something useful in the community. I worked in St Christopher’s until VE Day. As a cleaner.”

  “So you knew Bill Bullivant-Shaw?”

  “The bastard.”

  Grover had let Marsden loose and now it started to pour out. He looked straight into Grover’s eyes.

  “You know the saying, ‘everybody has one job which fits them’? Well, the caretaker’s job fitted him like a glove. Manna from heaven...” He took a deep breath, his shoulders heaved. “The slimy bastard was a child molester. Boys or girls, it didn’t matter. And he lived in the place. Had access to them round the clock. I found out one night when I was working late. We had an inspection coming up the following day. Someone from some government department. A routine annual thing. I was told to clean two of the dormitories, while the kids were having some reading sessions in the hall. I found one of them, alone in his bed, sobbing his heart out. I tried to help, find out was wrong. Comfort him I guess. The poor little sod mistook that for the prelude to a repeat performance of what had just happened to him. He rolled off his bed and hid under it. He lay on his stomach, his face pressed into the floorboards. Rigid with terror. Holding on to a teddy bear. That’s something I’ll never forget. Jesus...”

  He choked at the recall and faded into silence.

  “And that kid was Nicholas Hope. Right?”

  Marsden swallowed. Nodded at Grover.

  “And you didn’t do anything about this. You didn’t report it?”

  “No. To my eternal shame I didn’t. I decided I had too much shit in my life as it was. I wasn’t going to rock any boats. I spent the next two years at Saint Christopher’s keeping well out of Nick’s way. In the end, I think he came to realise I wasn’t going to do anything to him. But I guess he never got to trust me.”

  “Was the current head honcho, Baines, there at the time?”

  “Who?”

  “Baines.”

  Marsden shook his head. “The bloke in charge back then was Richard Farmer.”

  “Is he still around?”

  “No, he’s dead. Run over by a reversing coal lorry, five or six years ago. The driver was ashamed and embarrassed. But it was probably the best good deed he ever did. If only he knew it.”

  Marsden began to shake. He sat down on one of the beds, tilted his neck back and closed his eyes. He clenched his fists to stop the tremor in his hands.

  “Are you okay?” Grover asked.

  Marsden dropped his head down between his knees. He regained some control. Grover sat in the armchair and waited. It was a while before Marsden straightened up again.

  “Sorry.”

  Grover waited some more. Watched the colour seeped back into Marsden’s face.

  “I’m alright now,” he said. He pointed at the sink unit, in the corner to Grover’s right. “Can you get me a glass of water?”

  Grover took a glass from the shelf above the sink, filled and handed it across the desk. Marsden sipped the water.

  “Thanks.”

  He began to breathe steadily. He drank some more.

  Grover had one more question to ask.

  “Was Nick Hope blackmailing you?”

  Marsden looked at him over the rim of the glass.

  “Dear God no...”

  “I ask, because he was blackmailing Bullivant-Shaw and a bunch of others listed in his address book.”

  Marsden lowered the glass onto his lap.

  “I swear. I’ve had no connection with Nick Hope since the summer of 1945.”

  “Okay,” Grover said. “Can you hazard a guess as to why you’re listed?”

  “No. Well, I guess he didn’t forget me. Perhaps he didn’t want to. If that’s the way it was, I can’t blame him. After all, I was part of the conspiracy of silence.”

  He took another drink. Grover got up out of the armchair.

  “I’ve got stuff to do Eric,” he said. “Will you be okay?”

  “Yes. I’ve got stuff to do too.”

  Grover stepped to the chalet door and opened it.

  “Get him Ed,” Marsden said, his voice now as steady as plainsong. “Beat the bastard’s brains out.”

  Grover grinned at him.

  “This from a pacifist.”

  He left the chalet and closed the door.

  *

  The return journey to Bristol was smoother than the outward. Grover kept his foot down all the way and Salome surged into the grounds at the front of St Christopher’s, barely thirty-five minutes after leaving Brean Sands.

  There was something happening. The kids were being bundled on to three buses. Staff and visitors’ cars had been moved to a corner of the forecourt. Grover squeezed the jeep into the only space available, next to a dark blue Standard 8. He quizzed one of the adults. It appeared the whole place was going to a monster anniversary picnic at St Jude’s, which boasted more space and two playing fields. Enough to accommodate both sets of inmates. Mr Baines was the last person on to the last bus in the line. Mrs Holland waved them ‘goodbye’ from the entrance steps. She greeted Grover as warmly as she had the last time he visited. He told her he was looking for the caretaker.

  “A few moments ago, I saw him doing something at the far end of the main corridor,” she said. “He may have gone upstairs. Or he could be down in the basement.”

  “Is it okay if I go and look for him?” he asked.

  “I don’t see why not. I’ll be in the office if you need me.”

  Grover left her watching the last coach negotiating its way into the main road traffic and set off along the hall.

  No Bill Bullivant-Shaw.

  Grover ran up to the third floor taking the steps three at a time. He checked along the length of the floor and then worked downwards.

  No one.

  Back on the ground floor, he located the basement door, at the foot of the stairs. He tried the door handle. Gently swung the door open. Stepped on to the top of a flight of stone steps. The light switch on the wall by his right ear was flicked to on. Where Grover stood, he was in shadow. A couple of one hundred watt bulbs lit the basement on the other side of the huge furnace. Coal was piled up on the floor – at the bottom of a chute, which began below a hat
ch up at ground level. The temperature must have well up into the 70s.

  The ambient noise was a dull hiss. Accompanied by the regular clicking of some old thermostat, maintaining the heat levels around the building. All this loud enough to disguise the soft clump of his shoes, as he dropped down to the basement floor. He stood stock still and listened. Now he could hear the muted roar of the furnace.

  And the sound of a man’s voice, singing The Alphabet Song. Bill Bullivant-Shaw doing a lamentable impersonation of Perry Como.

  Grover stepped out of the shadows. The huge furnace was to his left. Pipes ran into and out of it like lengths of spaghetti. There were valves on the pipes, with wheels to close and open them. There was a small, tatty desk in the far right hand corner. Bullivant-Shaw was sitting behind it on a plastic chair, looking down at some paperwork, no longer singing, but biting the end of a pencil held in his left hand. He registered Grover’s presence and looked up.

  “You’re the Yank,” he said. “You’re not allowed down here.”

  Grover raised his hands.

  “I know, but we have some things to straighten out.”

  “What things?”

  “Things like child molesting, buggery and murder.”

  Shaw stared at him, gob-smacked. Grover stood still, waiting for more of a reaction. Using his left hand again, Shaw opened a desk drawer, pulled out a neatly honed, black oak baton – about twenty inches long, with a fluted handle. His ‘specials’ police truncheon. He placed it on the desktop and stood up.

  “You knocked Nicholas Hope unconscious with that,” Grover said.

  Shaw sneered at Grover. “So you say, Yank.”

  “Not just me. The evidence is mounting.”

  The sneer left Shaw’s face. Grover went on.

  “Do you remember Eric Marsden?”

  Shaw looked confused for a moment, then shook his head.

  “No.”

  “He was a cleaner here, during the war. He remembers you.”

  The sneer pasted itself back in place.

  “The conshie, yes. They sent him here to clean the toilets and swill out the drains. Because he refused to fight for his country.”

  “Like you did the first time around.”

  “That’s bloody right.”

  He sounded hoarse. As if needed to clear his throat.

  “Got gassed as a reward,” Grover said.

  “Yes I bloody did,” Shaw yelled. Then broke out in a coughing fit as if to prove it.

  Grover moved towards him. Shaw recovered, picked up the truncheon with his left hand and stepped out from behind his desk. The two men were now three or four paces apart.

  “Mr Marsden is prepared to testify that you regularly abused Nicholas Hope.”

  “That’s bollocks.”

  “And other children in this place, over many years.”

  Shaw began to shake his head. Grover continued.

  “We have bank statements which show the cash payments you made to Nicholas Hope. He was blackmailing you. He had nursed the memory of all those years you brutalised him. And as soon as he was given the opportunity to make his move, he set about it. You paid up for a while, then decided enough was enough. You went to his flat, knocked him senseless with the truncheon, tied him up, beat him, sodomised him and then slit his throat.”

  Shaw was looking at Grover, stunned. He recovered a fraction.

  “Do I look fit enough to do all that?”

  Grover pointed to the truncheon. “Nick would have been out of it from the moment you hit him.”

  Shaw shifted the weight of the truncheon in his hand.

  “It’s over Shaw. Now give that to me.”

  Shaw took a couple of paces forwards. Grover held up his right hand.

  “Don’t do it, Bill. You can’t win this one. I’m a trained killer. You’re just a bald, overweight, repressed, slimy, sadistic deviant.”

  In a rage, Shaw leapt at him and swung the truncheon. Grover saw it coming and swayed back out of range. He crabbed to his right. Shaw stepped in front of him again, in the process moving closer to centre of the room. There was now a straight line from the coal chute shoot behind Grover to Shaw and behind him, the furnace. Grover took half a step back. His right heel pressed down on the business end of a long handed coal shovel. He stood stock still. Waiting. He knew that Shaw had no idea what to do next, but he needed room; needed Shaw to be a couple of steps further back. He swayed into a southpaw boxing stance, shuffled his feet and yelled out.

  Shaw reacted in surprise and, instinctively, took a step backwards. Which left Grover with the time and space he needed. He bent down, picked up the shovel, swung it up into the air and round in a circle, like a hammer throwing winding up. He had a longer reach than Shaw had with the truncheon. Shaw stepped back another pace. Grover swung again. Shaw swayed out of the way, over-balanced and fell back against the furnace door. He yelled as the heat seared through his shirt. Dropped his arms and stumbled forwards, arching his back and moaning in pain. The truncheon slipped out of his hand.

  Grover swung again, this time aiming for the side of Shaw’s head. The tin shovel end banged against Shaw’s left temple. His head spun round, the rest of his body followed, revolving like a kid’s top. He tried to straighten, tripped over his own feet and fell to the floor. By the time he got to his knees, Grover had the truncheon in his hand. And it was all over.

  Shaw’s back was burning, the left side of his face was bleeding, and he was not sure which direction he was facing. His breathing sounded like he was gargling.

  “Do you have anything to say?” Grover asked.

  Shaw blinked and tried to straighten up, but it hurt too much.

  “Fuck off,” he managed to gasp.

  Grover pulled Shaw up into a sitting position, then thumped the truncheon down onto the back of his neck. The caretaker crumpled to the floor and lay still. Grover put the truncheon back on the desk, hoisted him into a fireman’s lift and set off up the stairs.

  Mrs Holland was watering the begonia on her window sill with a child’s tin watering can. Grover dropped Shaw into the visitor’s chair, feet splayed in front of him. Mrs Holland watered on until she had finished, then turned round to deal with the commotion behind her. Grover reached for the desk phone and picked up the receiver. Mrs Holland dropped her watering can and stared at the caretaker, struck into silence. Grover fished Bridge’s calling card, out of a jacket pocket and dialled the number. Mrs Holland felt water seeping around her toes on the carpet and finally found something to say.

  “What have you done to him?”

  Grover’s call was taken by DS Goole.

  “This is Ed Grover. I have Nicholas Hope’s killer. The caretaker at St Christopher’s Childrens Home.”

  Goole asked him if he was serious.

  “Get round here now. Double quick time, top gear, sirens, the lot. I’m about to call an ambulance.”

  He put the receiver down and looked back at Shaw. Mrs Holland picked up the watering can.

  *

  The medics got to St Christopher’s two minutes ahead of Bridge and Goole. The sergeant watched them put Shaw into the ambulance and sent a constable along for the ride. Grover took Bridge downstairs and gave him the story.

  “I wanted to talk with Shaw. I found him down here. He waved his truncheon at me. I took it away from him and hit him with it.”

  “More than once, by the look of things.”

  Grover pointed at the pile of coal. “No, the injury on his cheek came from that spade.”

  Bridge stared at it.

  “The thing is, Chief Inspector,” Grover continued, “Mr Bullivant hyphen Shaw is a child molester from years ago. I can provide you with testimony that goes way back to the late thirties. Nick Hope was repeatedly sodomised here, when he was a kid. The pain, the guilt and the disgust never went away. In the end he took to blackmail. Shaw stood for it as long as he could, until he decided enough was enough. He killed Hope using Harry’s switchblade, which he foun
d in the flat. The defence team can give you chapter and verse, blow by blow.”

  Grover pointed to the furnace.

  “That’s probably where he got rid of his blood-stained clothes.”

  Bridge was listening, but not convinced by what he was hearing. Grover moved to the desk and pointed at the truncheon.

  “This is what Shaw used to sodomise Hope in his flat. It’s also the blunt instrument which knocked him out. Give it to your pathologist and he’ll match it with the injury to Hope’s head.”

  Grover now had the Chief Inspector’s complete and undivided attention.

  “We have evidence, legally obtained, to support all this – including Hope’s address book and his most recent bank statements.”

  Bridge looked as if he was about to interrupt. Grover shook his head.

  “Your crime scenes team missed the statements when they searched Hope’s flat. The new tenants found them when they scrubbed the place out. Harry had already taken Hope’s address book away. He gave it to Jerry Wharton, who gave it to me.”

  Bridge recognised an endgame when he encountered one. He looked Grover in the eyes.

  “Alright,” he said. “We can’t ignore all that. Bring Harry and his solicitor into the Bridewell tomorrow and we’ll sort it out.”

  “As the burden of proof lies on your shoulders, can I suggest you meet Harry and his defence team, at the offices of Fincher Reade and Holborne. Tomorrow morning, at 10 o’clock. Zoe and Suzy will run the show. You won’t have to listen to me.”

  “Fincher Reade and Holborne.” Bridge rolled the names around on his tongue. “Do they still serve up chocolate bourbons with the coffee?”

  On the ground floor again, walking along the corridor towards the front door, he asked Grover if he had any plans.

  “What sort of plans?”

  “Are you going home?”

  “Maybe not yet. I kind of like it here.”

  Bridge did not seem surprised. Grover went on.

  “There is a whole lot about this country I don’t understand. And whole chunks of it I haven’t seen. Snowdonia for example. And I figure, that as I played a significant role in the defeat of the Nazi hordes, the British authorities might cut me some slack.”

  Bridge grinned at him. The two men reached the front door. Grover looked at the policeman.