“The banks wouldn’t have been open. Somefink ‘appened before the banks opened and they ‘ad to scarper,” I said jauntily and received another look of deep suspicion.
“Ah, well, sir,” the copper said to Bert, determined to regain the upper hand, “the squad will be here soon, and they’ll get to the bottom of all this.”
He stood, rocked on his heels a couple of times, threw me another dirty look and said, “You won a tidy sum on the Pools then. I remember reading about it in the paper. Lucky that, very lucky.”
Even I knew that was the wrong thing to say.
“Lucky,” spat Bert, suddenly enervated. “Lucky? The money is cursed, and I loathe the very thought of it. I will give every penny of it to get Peggy back.” He pushed himself to his feet as the desperate thought struck him. “A reward, offer a reward. The man who brings her back shall have it, every penny, I swear.”
Reward! I hadn’t thought of that. This was more than being man of the moment, a hero for a day or two. This was solid reward. The possibility of being possessed of more money than I had ever dreamt of. I saw myself overcoming dangerous odds by wit, cunning and a very newly discovered physical strength and I visualised in every detail the parade that I would lead down Burtonville Road as I led Peggy triumphantly home. The reward bounty rose before my young eyes in the form of piles of glistening gold and jewels. It would raise me to god-like status because money was power. I would be a brave adventurer with money in my pockets to splash around. It would be the means with which to flaunt my undoubted superiority in the face of friends and enemies alike and to magnanimously treat them all to fish and chips at the seafront arcade. My heart pounded with boyish excitement.
Whilst Mutton Chops was trying to persuade Bert to refer the idea of offering a reward to a higher authority (and trying not to imagine himself as the one gaining possession of it) a police car drew up with a squeal of brakes closely followed by an unmarked car. From far off we could also hear the frantic whine of an approaching ambulance.
Four tall thin men got out of the cars, two in uniform and two in plain clothes. Mum and Vi had decided that, for women of dubious character, discretion was the better part of valour and had retreated behind the hedge in Mrs. B’s garden. She, however, was all eyes and ears and, as more curtains twitched, and a few curious souls wandered into their gardens to see what all the excitement was about, she huffed and puffed and every now and again darted across the street to accost whomever she felt might be able to give her any information. Generally, she was put aside with impatience but one of the uniforms had been instructed to ask a few questions and although he must have quickly gleaned that Mrs. B knew very little, she was not so easy to get rid of either. By dint of dogged persistence, she gained the knowledge that Bert was in the house, but that Peggy was not.
She instantly put two and two together and came up with a theory that suited her own warped and vengeful soul. Relinquishing her unhappy captive, she darted back to my mum and Vi and then, having spilled her delightful conclusions to them she ricocheted the whole length of the street from garden to garden expressing as fact that Bert had brutally done away with Peggy and ‘hadn’t she always said that something like that would happen’ and ‘if only her Peggy had listened when she warned her what a brute Bert was.’ The result was that the women of our street said, ‘how appalling that such thing should happen, Bert always seemed to be such a nice quiet sort of chap’ and they then coolly surveyed their own husbands and wondered… The men themselves were more phlegmatic and told their wives to be wary of believing anything that Mrs. B said. Many had been at the sharp end of her tongue and temper over the years since the acrimonious divorce that had turned her into such a matrimonial cynic. Their wives, however, decided to believe her. After all, there were police cars and sirens and an ambulance and ‘something dreadful must have happened’ and ‘wasn’t it always the husband?’
Inside the little house where the bloodbath was supposed to have taken place a tall thin man, in an ill-fitting suit with bulging pockets was chewing peppermints whilst gazing vacantly around him. He stood in the centre of the room with his hands balled into his jacket pockets and his head cocked to one side. He looked old to me and was probably in his early fifties. He had grey hair, thinning on the crown, a thin face with eyes big behind thick lenses rimmed in black and a constant half-smile on his lips as if he were enjoying his peppermint.
Mutton Chops was relating what he knew to another plain-clothes copper, younger this one, with bright searching blue eyes and a neat figure in a sharp suit. Peppermint Copper was listening to every word but looked like he was admiring the décor. At that moment no one except Bones was taking much notice of Bert Freeman, the major player in our little drama. Poor Bert was slumped back in his chair, tears still occasionally oozing from his rheumy eyes. My friend, however, had gone so far as to pat the old gentleman’s hand every now and again. I was disgusted with him for that.
At one point Mutton Chops gestured contemptuously towards me and said something to the copper in the sharp suit. I pulled a face at Chops. He didn’t see it, but Peppermint Copper did. He jerked his chin at Sharp Suit who ushered my hirsute friend from the room. I raised a triumphant eyebrow as he lumbered resentfully out. He was replaced by a green-suited man from the waiting ambulance who went directly to Bert and discovered in ten seconds what none of us had been aware of for the last half hour, that Bert had a lump on the back of his head the size of a walnut.
Meanwhile, Peppermint Copper pulled one of his hands from his suit pocket and held out a packet of Polos.
“So, me young shaver, been having adventures then?”
I stared back at him and only responded in as much as I took three of the mints.
“What’s your name, Sonny?” I hated being called Sonny and I hated policemen too, as I had been taught to do.
“Mikey,” I muttered through all three peppermints.
“Last name?”
“Tomlinson,” I admitted after a pause. I was only so forthcoming because I wanted to be sure that there was no mistake when the reward was due.
“And you live in this street?”
I nodded. The Suit leaned in and said something in a low voice to the older copper.
“Ah,” he said and turned his big hazel eyes vacantly back to me.
I felt a rush of pride in the fact that my name, or at least that of my dad’s, was instantly recognisable. Notorious I would say now of course. Aged eight it was akin to fame and just as satisfying.
“So.” The peppermint copper unrolled the silver paper on his sweet wrapper a little more and taking another mint, he put it absently into his mouth and perched on the windowsill next to me. “You and your kind friend over there are our chief witnesses I am told.”
Chief witness. That sounded important. My chest swelled with excitement and I decided to put aside my contempt for the upholders of the law whilst I could reap the benefits of this enjoyable position. I nodded eagerly.
“Let’s start at the beginning. You saw a car leave here at 6.30am this morning.”
“About that,” I wanted to be accurate, but I didn’t live my life bound by clocks. “It were early. The milkman ‘adn’t been.” It was the best measure I had.
“Whose car was it?”
“It was ‘is,” I indicated Bert who was having his heart listened to.
“Who was in the car?”
“The missus, ‘er name’s Peggy. It was ‘er no doubt about it.”
“And who was driving?”
“Dunno. I fought it were ‘im ‘cos of the flat cap ‘e was wearing but I dunno now, do I, ‘cos I fink ‘es bin ‘ere all day. Tied up. I untied ‘im. I used me penknife.”
I wasn’t sure if he knew that and I wanted to make it clear. The ragged cloth and cut bindings were on the table where Bones had put them.
“So, you have no idea who was driving
the car?”
I wrinkled my face and looked as if I were thinking back. I only remembered the cloth cap with any certainty. Although… there had been a gloved hand on the wheel. A brown leather glove, rather large and surely not necessary in the late spring warmth. It was on the tip of my tongue to mention it, but something decided me not to.
“Nah,” I shrugged, “’e was on the other side to me and I saw ‘im through the windscreen so I only noticed the ‘at.”
“Are you sure?” This was the Sharp Suit and I didn’t like him at all. He was writing down everything I said and was just too cool and efficient. He expected me to lie. He was dangerous.
“I told you, I just saw the cap.” I felt cornered suddenly and slid off the windowsill to make my escape.
“Just a moment.” A hand was on my arm in a gentle but insistent grip and there was no escaping the Peppermint Cop. “How did Mrs. Freeman look?”
I pondered this a moment. I knew what he was asking. Bert had put the medic aside and was staring at me.
“Not hurt,” I said.
The Peppermint Cop slid away from his seat on the windowsill and moved, with every appearance of it being coincidental, to stand just in front of me so that Bert could not see my response.
“But very frightened, yes?”
“Now I come to fink of it, yeah, and…”
“And?”
“I fink she were panting like, you know when you run from ‘ere to the seafront and when you get there your chest is all wheezing and gasping.”
“I see,” said the imperturbable copper, ignoring the flicker of concern expressed by his slick sidekick. “And how did you happen to find Mr. Freeman?”
“I dunno,” I squirmed. “You know, I wuz….” Inspiration struck me. I was, after all, a very bright boy. “I wuz lookin’ fer the cat.”
“The cat? The Freemans’ cat?”
“Yeah, you see when I saw ‘em leave, what I fought was bowf of ‘em leavin’, I fought they ‘ad gone to live in a big ‘otel or on a cruise or somefink, seein’ as they had all that money, so when I came back, after school,” I slipped that lie in boldly, “I wanted to make sure that they ‘adn’t left it to starve, you know.”
“Yes,” he gave me a wry smile. He was mocking me but only half-heartedly. “Not likely is it? So, you were at school all day.”
I shrugged.
“And you came in that way?” He indicated the French windows.
“Yeah, they weren’t locked. I saw ‘im first,” I exclaimed indignantly as if my questionable honesty had indeed been questioned. “’E was on the floor tied to the chair but the chair ‘ad fallen over, see, so we ‘ad to come in. We ‘ad to rescue ‘im, see.”
“Yes, I do see. It seems Mr. Freeman has your love of cats to thank for his rescue.” I gave him a filthy look. I hate cats. “He might have lain there a great deal longer if you hadn’t been so fond of them.”
I hate being patronised more.
“Yeah,” I agreed, belligerently.
“What did you touch when you were in here?”
“I dunno,” I said blankly. “Lots of fings. It were an emergency.”
“Quite right,” he grinned. “And whose cigarette is this?” He indicated the offending article in the ashtray.
“I dunno,” I said airily, and quite truthfully as it happens.
“Is it yours Mr. Freeman?”
“No,” Bert said “I don’t smoke in the house. Peggy doesn’t like it.”
“Did the…?” But Bert got there before him.
“They didn’t smoke in here. It was the lad, he was smoking it earlier.”
I gave the copper a cheeky smile. “Yeah, it were me. So, what? I brung it wiv me.”
“Did you?” Peppermint cop inspected it closely. “And where did you get it?”
Damned if I was going to tell him.
“From ‘ome,” I stated, irritably.
“I see. Well, you and your friend had better run along now. I have to talk to Mr. Freeman before he is taken to the hospital. Thank you for your help.” He gave me another of those cocky grins and beckoning to Bones offered him the peppermints. Bones only took one but that was Bones all over. As we were being ushered firmly from the room he winked at me. “An adventure to tell in the playground tomorrow, eh?”
Hah, that’s all you know, I thought as I bounded from the house and streaked down the road, avoiding the clutches of Mrs. B, Vi and my mother who were wild for any information that they could expatiate on.
I made my way to the top of the grassy sea wall next to my house and Bones and I sat there chewing long lush straws and viewing the action on the street. There wasn’t much to speak of really. The ambulance took Bert away and three or four policemen drifted from house to house ‘making enquiries’ with their little notebooks in hand. One remained stationary in front of the house but it wasn’t long before the two plainclothed coppers, namely Peppermint and his sidekick, climbed into their car and left the scene to two others who started dusting for prints. Mum and Vi had long returned to our house but although one of the boys in blue banged on the door for several minutes no one answered. That was like my mum and even more like Vi so I didn’t think much of it. As the excitement had largely dissipated Bones and I also decided to quit the scene and instead lolloped along the gravel path to the pontoons on the muddy inlet at the top of Smallgains Avenue. The tide was out, and the jigsaw islands of thin scrub stood proud against the glutinous rivulets that snaked beneath a dull sky. The strangely sour smell of salty mud welcomed us as we leaped along the uncertain silver-grey planks of the makeshift harbour. Here and there a well-kept boat shone brightly amongst the decay. A massive hulk, rusty and ramshackle, had once, briefly, been home to someone’s entrepreneurial idea of a nightclub. The old tub now entertained no more than rats and sludge-based parasites. Perhaps, even in its short heyday, it had rarely entertained anything more.
Bones, by my side, we crawled into our special place. The Clubhouse I called it grandly, taking inspiration from one of the Famous Five novels that I had once read. It had been a bit too girly and jam sandwich for me, but it had some good adventure stuff in it.
The clubhouse was another old tub of a boat, only about 18-foot-long, that probably belonged to someone but Bones and me, and sometimes a select crony or two, had been going there for about a year and no one had claimed it or complained that the latch that barred the way to the small cabin had been jimmied open. It was rotting, small, moored uncertainly by ancient ropes and truth to tell it stank to high heaven inside. We’d had to use the defunct toilet (or head as I now know it is called) a few times and that didn’t help sweeten the aroma of salt marsh and rot. Still, it was ours. At least until it sank, disintegrated or its angry owner turfed us out.
Bones and I perched ourselves on the one bench in the cabin that wasn’t in immediate danger of collapse and reviewed the days’ events. Well, I did. Bones just said ‘No kiddin’ in various tones and rolled his goggle-eyes a lot. Using the matchbook, I lit the second of the three long cigarette butts from the Freeman’s garden and imagined myself as Sherlock Holmes. It was whilst in this sleuth-like attitude that I found myself looking a little more closely at the half-smoked and crumpled cigarette in my hand. Probably Bert’s. If Peggy did not allow smoking in the house, then Bert might pop out for a smoke by the garden shed. However, given the immaculate state of the well-groomed garden, it struck me as unlikely that Bert would be so careless with his fag ends so I came to the second, inevitable conclusion that the three cigarette butts were more likely to be the detritus from the abductor’s long, nervous wait for dawn. I was quite excited for a moment. They were a popular brand, most people on the island seemed to smoke them. My Dad did for one, my brother for another. I stubbed it out hastily and put it in my pocket with the matchbook. I glanced shiftily at Bones who was staring blankly at the wall. It meant nothing
. Everyone smoked that brand.
I suggested that we should try and find Peggy and claim the reward. He agreed with me of course. We, or rather I, with the occasional affirming contribution from Bones, went through all the events of the day. Well, almost all. There were one or two points that I didn’t care to share. I mused over the past few hours partly to find clues although mainly to relive the thoroughly enjoyable adventure. Though I didn’t admit it to Bones, I had to conclude that we didn’t know much that would help us find Peggy.
“Probly found ‘er by now’,” said Bones having spent some time carving a skull into the soft wood of the table with my penknife.
“Yeah,” I accepted dispiritedly.
“Is yer Dad at ‘ome?”
“No ‘e’s in London, been there all week,” I snapped, snatching back my knife. “What’s that got to do with anything, anyway. You’re stupid.”
I decided then that I was hungry and, not bothering to bid the stupid, bone-headed Bones goodbye, I made my way home across the lowering salt marshes, prepared for the inevitable third degree at home and hoping for beans on toast or fish and chips if, after all the excitement, mum had decided she could be bothered to supply some sort of tea for me.
5
Revenge is a confession of pain.
Latin Proverb
The next thing that happened was that old Peggy was found.
That was not until several days later though, and in the meantime, life on Burtonville Road had been quite eventful. Bert remained in the hospital for three days recovering from the injury to his head and the effects of being tied up for twelve hours. Then he was taken in by Ern and his wife and the police activity slowly dissipated. The tension in the air over the island took a lot longer to disperse. We all learned a little more about the actual events of that night. Some of what we learned was almost true. Some of what we heard was imaginative or just downright libelous.
Bert’s crony, Ern, one of the few to have access to the unhappy victim, was anxious to clear his friend’s name of the specious rumour that he had done away with poor Peggy, a version of events that Mrs. B clung to tenaciously even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. According to a friend of Ern’s, who had heroically taken on himself the task of visiting all the pubs on the island to set the record straight (a task that, by all accounts he performed with zeal if not sobriety), Bert had recovered enough to tell the whole story and, with a little extra information gleaned from the front page of the Canvey Herald, the events of the day emerged.
A Patient Man Page 4
