by John Gardner
‘What can we do? We get the local law to follow up leads, if they have any, and we get on with our investigation. The trick is making sure you’re covered at all times. Someone stays with you wherever you go. If we’re really careful there’s no reason for you to come to any harm.’
He looked around as though checking that Golly hadn’t by some cunning got himself into the room already.
‘Molly is armed, you know that. Always is. Only person in the Met with permanent clearance to carry a firearm. Tomorrow I’m going to get the okay to carry one myself.’
Suzie noticed that he didn’t offer to get permission for her to carry a pistol. Not surprising because she wasn’t the best pupil ever with a gun. There had been a nasty incident on the firing range at Hendon, and another in an underground range where Tommy had taken her for instruction. He had ruled that she was firearms dyslexic, and she had to go home and look up ‘dyslexic’ in the dictionary to realize that he meant she was totally inept with weapons.
‘Do more damage to yourself than the villains, heart.’
Now Tommy turned to Molly. ‘Better go back to bed, Moll. Need you sharp as a razor tomorrow. Get your beauty sleep,’ and he gave a little twitch when he spoke, a half smirk and a lift of one eyebrow, knew well enough that Molly was doing the horizontal conga with Brian.
With an unexpected flurry of embarrassment Molly left, saying she’d make certain that Suzie had company down to breakfast, giving Tommy her version of the evil eye to speed him on his way.
When Molly had closed the door, Tommy moved infinitesimally closer and said that now he was here why didn’t he…? To which Suzie told him to leave her be, but not quite in those words.
‘Tommy, darling, please no, not tonight. I’m tired and this news has done nothing to help my nerves. Look, I’ll lock the door and won’t let anyone in but you or Molly. Please, Tommy.’ She opened her eyes wide and gave him the longing look she knew did the trick with him, so he nodded, got up, kissed her head lightly and departed.
‘Thanks love,’ following him to the door, squeezing his arm, locking up when he’d left and shooting the bolts at top and bottom.
In truth, Tommy understood, because he also was unnerved by the news: this was the worst thing that could happen to them. Tommy, in spite of his lapses of taste — a besetting sin since childhood — his offhandedness, his crude jokes, his occasional superiority, loved Suzie, heart, soul and body. She had captivated him like no other person on their first meeting. Beneath his suave and dapper exterior, Tommy would have grave difficulties existing without her for she had become an extension of himself. He was also conscious that there was a significant age difference.
When he thought of Golly Goldfinch, Tommy saw the man with a gargoyle face, scaled like some slimy reptile. He thought of him trying to kill Suzie, choking her with the piano wire, like he had done to so many others. Deep down, Tommy feared Golly as much as Suzie feared him: the man was a walking killing machine with about as much emotion in him as a standing stone, quite capable of killing anyone who got in his way. Even murdered Suzie’s sister, Charlotte, by mistake, so single-minded was he when the need to take life was on him.
As for Suzie, in the afterburn of the news that Golly was out and about, she couldn’t sleep, tossed and turned and didn’t get a wink, she told herself when she woke in the morning to the Wagnerian crash of Molly’s morning knock-up. In fact if she was entirely honest she would admit to being in a light doze, certainly nothing like a deep and dreamless sleep.
Molly accompanied her to the bathroom along the corridor, waited for her and shepherded her back to her room, then Tommy came and took over: out of bed, dressed, shaved and smelling of Trumper’s Bay Rum.
‘All set, heart?’
‘Just doing my stockings, Tom.’
‘Good,’ the lascivious smile that was really quite nice because it showed that he was truly interested.
‘Better this morning, heart?’ Watching her clip the suspender to her stocking top, showing a generous slice of thigh. Tommy Livermore never tired of that view.
‘I wasn’t unwell.’ Now the other one.
‘Didn’t want my company. Got a sense that all wasn’t right between us. Haven’t put my foot in it or anything, Suzie?’
‘Course not. I was just a bit tired, then the news and all that… You got the okay for a weapon?’
‘Up at sparrow fart, heart. Yes. Couple of phone calls and that nice Mr Tait from King’s Lynn sent one over in a car.’
‘We’re meeting him later?’
‘Yes, and I need you there to see fair play. Not altogether happy with him, Tait.’
‘No?’
‘No. Got a horrible feeling he was trying to lead the gentlemen from the Yard up the garden path, all glory, laud and honour to the local man. Understand, heart?’
‘He would do that?’
‘You’d be surprised, sweetheart. These country coppers can be sly as foxes.’
*
The army had arrived. Two 15-cwt trucks and a jeep. Half-a-dozen men in battledress and camouflaged smocks, a sergeant with a fierce handlebar moustache, and a smart young officer, talking in the hall to Molly, who was treating him with great deference.
‘Good, the brown jobs’ve made it at last.’ Tommy guiding Suzie into the dining room to face the morning agony of breakfast: solid egg yolks, tomato and mushrooms overcooked, sausage and bacon undercooked, toast leathery and burned, as Tommy would say, ‘Black as a badger’s whatsit.’
Molly came in. ‘I’m getting a ride in a jeep,’ she said all of a twitter. ‘I’m going up with Captain Skeggs, show him the ropes. I’m going to get them to cover the Knights Cottage grounds first, then go on to wherever you recommend, Chief.’
‘I’d say take a run along the grass verges, the main road, beside the aerodrome boundary, eh? Should think it’ll be closer to home though. Bet whoever did it disposed of the weapon in the garden. If not there then it’ll be a very long way off.’
‘Sounds fine to me, Chief. I’ll be back before you leave.’
‘Good.’ Tommy sniffed the air as Beryl served his breakfast. ‘Oh, good, Grape Nuts again.’ He loathed Grape Nuts.
‘What time are we leaving?’ Suzie feeling better now, here among people, the day’s chores starting, a sense of normality. She wouldn’t need reminding not to go off on little private jaunts.
‘We’re meeting Freddy Ascoli at the hospital around eleven thirty.’
‘So we go around ten thirty?’
‘Only if I think it’s safe to leave Molly with the pongos. Don’t fancy Brian’s chances now, eh?’ he chuckled. ‘Old Molly: real black gee-gee.’ Another chuckle, deeper, almost a belly laugh.
They picked through the food, eating what was edible, and drinking the grey, weak coffee. Molly returned just as they were in the last stages of the meal.
She was a trifle breathless. ‘Captain Skeggs has invited me to his mess,’ rosy, flushed and smiling. She told Beryl she only wanted some coffee and toast.
‘Coffee and charcoal, eh?’ Then Tommy winked at Suzie, ‘Told you so. These Royal Engineers have good messes, plenty to drink, reasonable food. All the fun of the fair.’
‘You’re going?’ Suzie asks Molly.
‘I’m thinking about it,’ she doesn’t look Suzie in the eye.
Tommy grins, ‘That Captain Skeggs, persuasive fellow.’
Molly nods, and Tommy spots the headlines of a paper being read at the next table. Sets him off talking about the latest war news — the British and Canadian Commandos landing at Dieppe and the fighting going on around Stalingrad.
‘I was there the day before we declared war,’ Tommy told them.
‘What, Stalingrad?’ Suzie and Molly both, like a Greek chorus.
‘No, Dieppe. Had a couple of weeks off in Nice, dashing back to dear old Blighty before the balloon went up.’
‘Couldn’t the Duke of Westminster have given you a lift home in his yacht?’ Suzie having a go at sar
casm.
‘Already left.’ Tommy didn’t miss a beat. ‘And we couldn’t get on a boat, had to go to Boulogne. Ended up in Folkestone.’
‘Who’s the “we”?’ Suzie asked.
‘My father and mother. We were big on family holidays before the current bit of unpleasantness. Remember my mother called it Folke-stone, as if it was two words.’
Suzie gave a sickly smile as he took a deep breath, as though ridding himself of memories, and said, ‘Come on then, Susannah. Time we were on our way. Drop you off, Molly, I expect Captain Skeggs is waiting.’
‘’Spect he is,’ big smile and looking predatory in the trench coat: ready for anything. ‘Any more instructions, Chief?’
‘Tell you when we get there, see the pongos at work.’
Brian drove them to Knights Cottage, a nicer day, sun shining and the sky unmarked. Tommy said they’d better go and see the boys doing their job in the garden; so Molly led them through the house and on to the terrace at the back. Three of the soldiers were painstakingly sweeping the lawn and borders to and fro in wide arcs with metal plates attached to poles, each man with a backpack from which thick wires traced to the equipment, each with headphones.
‘This is Captain Skeggs, Chief.’ Molly introduced the tall and slender officer who had a definite eye for one person only — a grin forty feet wide all over his stupid pink face. ‘This is my chief, Trevor,’ she said. ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Livermore.’
Chinless wonder, Suzie thought, only bum fluff on his jowls. Old Brian would be more reliable: she’d tell Molly to stick with Brian.
‘Trevor Skeggs, sir.’ The captain stuck out his hand. ‘We’ve met before. Last New Year’s Eve, I came to Kingscote Grange, to the ball. We spoke.’
‘Oh, yes. Trevor Skeggs. You’re Snuffy Skeggs’s boy.’ And that was that, it was patently obvious that Tommy had no real recollection of meeting young Skeggs, who explained that the men were sweeping the ground with what he called glorified metal detectors. ‘Crude, but they do the job.’ The other men slowly followed behind the sweepers, investigating any possible ‘find’.
‘Better do the meadow behind.’ Tommy pointed to the field in which Bob Raines kept his pigs, where Piglet, the sexually ambivalent dog, sniffed around to get his oats. ‘Take no notice of that farmer, Molly. Just get it done. Nice to have seen you again, Skeggs. Good huntin’.’ Turn, swing the arm, march off. Dead military.
As they walked back through the house, Suzie remarked that the ground was still damp. ‘But they didn’t seem to have sparks coming out of their bums.’
‘What you bloody talking about, Suzie?’ he grumped.
They noticed that Brian was out of sorts during the drive over to King’s Lynn.
***
Golly didn’t know where he was at first, waking up in the strange room, hearing the wireless playing next door. Then he remembered the escape and drummed his heels on the mattress under the sheets.
He had a full memory, all the details, by the time Lavender came in with his breakfast: bacon and eggs, fried bread, some fried potatoes, a tomato and a sausage, toast on the side. She got extra rations from a local butcher, and some of the Yanks: services rendered.
‘That looks good, like my old mum used to do it. You’re a real sport, Lavla.’ He stretched out and gave a happy groan. ‘Goin’ to have a good rest today, nobody around to chivvy me about.’ Propping himself up on the pillows and tucking in.
Lavender said she’d be going out with Queenie a bit later on. ‘Thought we’d take a ride over to Long Taddmarten, have a look round.’
‘What’s at Long Taddmarten then?’
‘That’s where your favourite person is, Goll. Where that lady copper is, poking her nose into a murder there. Three murders.’
‘Yeah. Yeah I read about that. Someone shot that bastard responsible for getting me into Saxon bloody Hall. Saxon bloody Hole more like. Bastard!’
‘Well, you said you wanted to get even with her and that other copper, so we reckoned, Queenie and me reckoned, as how we should go over and take a peep. Come back and report to you what the chances are.’
‘Queenie?’ Golly grinned. ‘Nice name. Didn’t get to meet her last night, did I? Not proply anyway.’
‘Not proply, Goll, no. But you will.’
‘That was good, Lavla. Getting me out, and it’s good you going to check up on that bitch of a lady policeman.’ He looked up and grinned his lopsided grin with the teeth showing on the right side. In Saxon Hall they’d talked about the dentist having a go at straightening those teeth. Golly didn’t like the sound of that.
‘All right, Goll. I’ve had a ham cooking and I’ll leave you a few slices for your dinner, but you mustn’t set foot outside this flat. Don’t even go out the front door and look down the stairs. Understand?’
‘Course I unnerstand, my sweet-smelling Lavender,’ chuckle. ‘Course I do. I wouldn’t go out. Not use to it, am I?’
What had really happened was that Lavender told Queenie Golly was all set to knock off the female pig who was over with that Dandy Tom Livermore, famous copper, in Taddmarten investigating the murder of the Ascoli family, barrister that defended Golly.
‘Not that he did much to defend him ’cos he was behind bloody bars in the end. Hospital they call it, that Saxon Hall. Bloody loony bin, that’s what it is, and Golly don’t deserve that, stuck in a loony bin. Trouble with Golly is that once he gets an idea in his head he won’t settle till it’s done.’
So they decided to take a butchers, see what chances could come up while the bloody woman was on the case: take a look at where they were staying, the coppers, how careful they were being.
Having told Golly about fifty times that he mustn’t go out, they got him some books, Wizard, Hotspur and The Champion — comics really — with a spare copy of Film Fun that the newsagent had hanging around — ‘Be careful,’ the newsagent said. ‘That’s last week’s Film Fun, if your kiddie’s already had it you’ll be in trouble.’ Lavender told him her kiddie hadn’t seen it ’cos he’d just come out of hospital in Cambridge, and what with one thing and another the newsagent said what a terrible thing that was, the ambulance from Cambridge, and the fellow killed and that loony on the loose. ‘You keep your door locked at night, my duck,’ he said to Lavender, fancying her a bit and letting her know it.
‘Bugger,’ she said to Queenie. ‘Won’t be able to go in there again, he’ll be wanting to know how my kiddie is.’
‘He will, an’ he’ll be wanting to study the hidden secrets of your body, Lavender an’ all.’ Queenie was a forthright young woman.
So they got their Austin Seven out, took the comics back to Golly — parked round the corner and walked back to the flat, two storeys up from the ground floor of Lime Tree House — told him again he wasn’t to go out no matter how late they got back, and Golly said, ‘Don’t you worry about me. I’m going to have a nice kip,’ and off they went.
Golly had a giggle because he knew what else he was going to do, have a bit of a wank and stretch out in the luxury of it all. He even had a poke around the flat, looked in all the drawers and held up pieces of Lavender’s and Queenie’s undies, chuckling at the little pants they wore and the bits of lace they’d sewn on them, getting a hard-on like a stag’s antler. He’d be okay for the rest of the day. Time enough for that Suzie girl. Time enough. She wouldn’t be going anywhere, would she?
*
Freddy Ascoli was waiting for Tommy and Suzie, alone, loitering and neatly dressed in dark clothes outside the hospital. Even said it was nice to see them again in his precise way.
‘You’re on your own then?’ Tommy asked.
‘Not going to put the ladies through this. They’re coming down as soon as we know about the release of the bodies: organize the funeral.’
‘You can probably arrange that today. Go to the coroner’s office. We’ve just about finished with them.’
Then, getting no response, he said, ‘This isn’t going to be easy fo
r you,’ ushering him through the doors into the hospital’s reception and emergency area where the coroner’s representative was waiting for them, a lugubrious pale-faced man who introduced himself as Eland Alder. The name appeared to throw Freddy who asked him to spell it. He did and Freddy was none the wiser: Eland with a long ‘E’ seemed to be unfamiliar to him. Perhaps it was something to do with his Italian heritage, Suzie thought.
‘We have the bodies in a room like a chapel of rest, Mr Ascoli, but there is one big problem.’ They waited for an explanation. Finally Alder continued. ‘As you probably know…’ They were walking down corridors all the time and Eland would stop to acknowledge other members of staff as they went. ‘As you probably know, the faces of the deceased are damaged beyond possible repair, so we have bandaged the heads. If you cannot identify any, or all, of the bodies we can remove the bandaging. It’ll take a little longer but we should allow you all possible assistance.’
Freddy acknowledged this helpful suggestion, though Suzie noticed that he was a shade paler than when they’d met him outside. Eland Alder led them through a door marked ‘Mortuary’, into a small waiting area with chairs and a vase of flowers on a table below a crucifix and an attendant standing ready to assist.
‘D’you mind, Chief?’ Suzie asked, having no desire to view the bodies again. Tommy nodded, asked Freddy if he was ready and gave the nod to Alder, who led the way through the next door, then again through another to the right, into the cold room where the bodies were on view: on hospital trolleys in a row, covered nicely with white sheets, each with a large red cross on them — always a big cross for C of Es or RCs.
Alder gently removed the sheets, folding them on to the back of chairs standing beside the trolleys. The three bodies were dressed in loose white robes, a long frock for Jenny and white satiny pyjamas for Max and Paul, soft white socks and slippers on their feet so they wouldn’t go forward into eternity barefoot.
‘Dear God,’ Freddy said, crossing himself. Indeed, the heads were not visible: each covered in a fastidious, if bulky, bandage, the whole in a seamless cotton wrapper — great white egg-shape rising from between the shoulders — making it look as if all three of them had been topped off with candyfloss.
