Death of a Bovver Boy (11 page)

‘Then there's only one way to find out, isn't there? Ask Swindleton himself. He's so shit-scared about Dutch's being found dead that he'll tell you the truth all right. He thinks he's going inside for life over Dutch's death.'

‘What about you, if that's so?'

‘That's why we've come to you. I don't say we're scared but I think you ought to know about it. Somebody might think we'd overdone it. He was alive enough when we left him.'

‘What time was that?'

‘Round about eleven, I should think.'

‘And Dutch was dead an hour or two later, so the doctors say.'

‘Yes, but we didn't do him, did we?'

‘The distinction seems to lie between “doing” someone, and “doing up someone”. It's only a very small word.'

‘Christ, man! I thought you believed us. What we've
told you is the——ing truth. All of it. Ask Swindleton.'

‘Yes, I'm afraid I am faced with that unpleasant necessity. One interview with Swindleton's surely enough.'

‘Ask that June Mockett, too. She lives near the Spook Club. If she doesn't know no one does.'

‘Know who killed Dutch, do you mean?'

‘That too, more than likely. Though she might try to say it was us.'

‘Why?'

‘She doesn't like us.'

‘Nor do I, much. But that doesn't mean I should try to hang a murder on you.'

Des considered.

‘I don't know how to take that,' he concluded. ‘Sometimes you seem to be all right with us. At other times you might be the Law the way you go on.'

‘Speaking about the Law, do you know Detective Sergeant Grimsby?'

Carolus had evidently startled them.

‘Him?' said Des, panicking at the very name.

‘You don't work with that bastard, do you?' asked Phil, seemingly horror-struck.

‘I work with anyone who may help me to get at the truth. I see you both know him. How does that come about?'

‘It was nothing really.'

‘Only something to do with the bikes.'

‘Detective Sergeant Grimsby is not a traffic cop,' Carolus pointed out.

‘No. It wasn't much…'

‘Pot?' asked Carolus.

‘No. Nothing like that. Long time ago, it was. Coupla years at least.'

‘Any charge?'

‘There was going to be. Only my dad knew one of the coppers over at Newminster. He managed to get us off. It was only something to do with a girl.'

‘Bit of a gang bang,' said Phil. ‘Only she was quite willing. It turned out she'd tried it on before with some other fellows. That's why my dad managed to get Grimsby to drop it.'

‘I don't think that's quite the story,' Carolus said.

‘Well this girl's mother didn't want it to come out either. It wasn't as though we'd done the girl any harm. She's quite all right, I mean. Lives over at Boxley. I'm only telling you that because of Grimsby.'

‘You mean because you think I should hear from Grimsby?'

‘Something like that. Anyway we've told you now about Dutch.'

‘You've told me something about him. I want a lot more than that.'

‘You mean from us? We don't know any more.'

‘Then you don't have to worry, do you?' said Carolus knowing from two anxious faces that there was a great deal more worrying to be done, whether or not there was any further information.

Carolus's second interview with Swindleton was very different from his first. He had no blind confidence in what the two boys had told him but he believed enough to feel pretty sure that Swindleton had bribed them to beat up Dutch Carver.

His expert manner of polite but ruthless bullying was excellently suited to Swindleton. And he took care that the
discothecaire
would not be on his own ground. He invited Swindleton to run out with him to the place where Dutch's body had been found. This Swindleton at first refused to do.

‘Out there?' he asked nervously. ‘Why out there? I don't know the place. I've never seen it.'

‘Then it won't worry you, will it? I have to have another look, and as there are a few questions I want to ask you, I thought we could go together.'

‘I'm not going!' said Swindleton.

‘You
are
a nervous type,' said Carolus good-humouredly. ‘It won't look at all well if you refuse, will it?'

‘I'm not going, I tell you.'

‘Then I shall have to put that in my report. It seems a pity, if you've got nothing to hide.'

‘I haven't. But it seems so unnecessary. Creepy, too.'

‘Let's get it over,' said Carolus. ‘You won't even have to leave your seat in the car.'

Without any spoken consent Swindleton followed Carolus out to his car and they set off.

‘Did you give those two friends of Dutch fifty quid each?' asked Carolus when they had pulled up a few miles out of Hartington and Carolus could turn to his passenger.

‘Is that what they told you? Bloody little liars. I haven't got any fifty quids to chuck about.'

‘Or was it for the pot business?' asked Carolus in the same steady tone of voice.

‘Was
what
for the pot business? I never gave them anything.'

‘Then what on earth made them beat up Dutch?'

‘How do I know?' asked Swindleton. ‘Kids are always scrapping. Might have been anything.'

‘It might have been but it wasn't. It was a distinct and clearly worded bargain. They were to beat up Dutch, strip him off, cut his hair and tie him up, for which you would give them fifty quid apiece. It seems rather a large sum to pay for so simple a job, doesn't it?'

‘I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘No? Then I shall have to remind you. You gave them your reasons for wanting it done. Not very convincing reasons. They were connected with cannabis resin.'

‘Leave that out!' said Swindleton. ‘I've had enough trouble with that.'

‘But don't you understand, Swindleton, that this isn't a case of selling kids a few ounces of pot. This is murder. A life sentence; and they're getting longer and longer.'

‘Leave off, can't you?'

‘It seems to me that if I were in your place I would admit the lesser things in the hope of not being
charged with the greater. I don't suppose the whole scheme was entirely yours.'

Swindleton seemed to sway to and fro in the seat of the car. He was clearly in an agony of indecision.

‘I don't know what to say.'

‘Then I'll help you. You're a wretched creature but I don't want to see you given Life for something you haven't actually done. Who put up the money to have Dutch beaten up?'

Swindleton opened his mouth once or twice as though trying to speak. At last he came out with a surprising statement. ‘I don't know!' he said.

Carolus repeated it incredulously.

‘You don't know?'

‘As God's my witness, I haven't the least idea.'

‘But someone did?'

‘Yes,' Swindleton whispered.

‘But you don't know who it was. A hundred pounds landed in your lap from out of the sky?'

‘No. It came through the post, in used treasury notes of £I.'

‘Do you expect me to believe that?'

‘No. That's why I couldn't tell you. Or anyone. No one would believe it. But it's true.'

‘How did you know what to do with it?'

‘I was telephoned.'

‘I suppose you
don't know
who telephoned you?'

‘No. I don't. It was a woman's voice. I couldn't recognize it. Working-class, it sounded like.'

‘What exactly did it say?'

‘I was just going to start out for the office one morning from where I live when the phone rang. “This is a friend,” it said. Bloody nice sort of friend she turned out to be. I asked who was speaking but all she would say was “a friend”.

‘Then she said she wanted me to do a little job for her. It would be to my own advantage she said. I guessed what was coming then. She was going to put the blacks on. “I know enough about your business to be sure that you'll do what I want.” I knew what that meant. But I didn't say anything—just listened, trying to make out who it was. “There's a boy round your place named Carver, isn't there?” she asked. Again I didn't answer but she knew without my saying anything. “I want him beaten up,” she said, and added “on Saturday night”. I tried to tell her he wasn't a bad boy whatever he'd done but she didn't seem interested. “Beaten up good and proper,” she said. “It needn't kill the little brute, just teach him a lesson.” You wouldn't have believed it was a woman at all the way she went on.'

‘Perhaps it wasn't,' said Carolus.

‘The voice was, anyway. Then she gave more details. She'd got it all worked out. It was to be done in my cellar under the club. She gave the time and everything. The boy was to be stripped off. I couldn't believe my ears at that, from a woman, mind you. Why? I asked her. “Never mind why. You listen,” she said, and told me how his hair was to be cut off and burned with all his clothes. He was to be tied up and left there. Then what? I asked her, because I didn't like the idea of young Carver in that condition in my cellar. “Leave the rest to us,” she said. “Only close up the club as soon as you can that night and then keep away from it. Leave the yard gate open, and the back door, and the door down to the cellar. That's all.” I asked her how I was going to get anyone to rough-house Carver and she told me about the hundred nicker. “Only mind it all goes on the job,” she said. “Don't try nibbling or you'll have had it.
Hand it over to those who do it—all the lot. You'll get it through the post the day after tomorrow. Everything understood?”

‘I understood all right but it made me feel ill thinking about it. I never have liked violence and I could feel this was a wicked cruel bitch talking. Imagine a woman wanting that done! And the boy not seventeen!'

Carolus said nothing but drove on.

‘It's a very strange story,' he said. ‘But she'd picked the right man. You carried it out to the letter.'

‘I didn't want to. I felt sick when I heard the poor little blighter's screams coming up from the cellar. But what could I do? You hear a voice coming like that from nowhere on the telephone and it turns you up, I can tell you. I had to do what she said and I handed over every penny of the money.'

Swindleton sounded almost proud of that.

‘Did you see the two boys Phil and Des after they'd been to work on Dutch?'

Swindleton looked slyly at Carolus, perhaps wondering that he knew who had done the job for him.

‘Yes. I paid them off! Gave them every…'

‘You've already said that. And did you leave the club soon after they did?'

‘Yes.'

‘Without going down to the cellar?'

Swindleton looked desperate. ‘Yes! Yes! Of course. I couldn't go down there after what I'd heard.'

‘Then what?' asked Carolus.

He had reached exactly the place where Stick had found the body. He watched Swindleton closely but could see no trace of recognition in his face. Either he was a clever actor or he had not been here before.

‘Then what? As soon as I'd had my breakfast next
morning I went round to the club. Gate into the yard closed, back door unlocked, cellar door unlocked and no sign of Carver. I thought I might find him upstairs on one of the settees, sleeping it off, poor little sod. But he was nowhere. Gone. Taken away. Then, in a couple of days I read about their finding his body, and saw the whole thing.'

‘Meanwhile you did not think of reporting what had happened to the police?'

Carolus could see the man stiffen in his seat. The word police had gone home like a shot.

‘No,' he said. ‘I didn't. If you knew the police like I do you wouldn't be so keen to go running to them for every little thing.'

‘But this wasn't a little thing, Swindleton, it was murder. With a bloody big M.'

‘I know that now, or I suppose I do, but how was I to know at the time? I thought it was like the woman said, just to beat him up and humiliate him.'

‘And now that you do know?'

‘I suppose it was all a plot. All worked out to bring me into it.'

‘Yes. But why? Why should anyone go to that trouble, or spend that money, simply to involve you?'

‘I don't know. I really don't.'

‘Do you recognize this place?'

For the first time Swindleton looked about him. Carolus was sure now that he wasn't acting.

‘This place? You mean … this is where they found him?'

‘Just here.'

‘Never seen it before in my life. Never been along this road unless it was to run straight in to New-minster.'

‘Good. Now about the voice on the telephone. Working-class you said?'

‘Yes. Well you know what I mean.'

‘I do. Did it sound put on?'

‘Not a bit. Quite natural.'

‘And you still don't recognize it?'

‘No. I've thought and thought…'

‘Let's see what voices you know. Have you heard Carver's mother speaking?'

‘Flo, you mean? It wasn't her. I know her voice. Trying to be ritzy, isn't it? No, it wasn't her.'

‘What about Mrs Farnham?'

‘I know that, too. Couldn't mistake it.'

‘What about the girls? What about June, for instance?'

‘She was about all the time.'

‘In the room?'

‘Well, not actually in the room. But round the club somewhere. It couldn't have been her.' ‘Or any of the younger girls?' ‘No. I'd have known them.' ‘Then Mrs Bodmin?'

‘I did just wonder once whether it could have been her. But she was very fond of Dutch. She wouldn't have done all that to him.'