Last Detective (20 page)

Passengers left the train at every station and few boarded to take their places. When the adjoining seats became vacant Boot, enjoying himself, rolled his eyes suggestively and Davies grumpily followed him to them. Eventually there remained only a mothy-looking woman near them and two men, both wearing England rosettes as big as their faces, who sat at the extreme end of the carriage, on opposite seats, contemplating each other in antagonistic silence.

Davies frowned at the passing stations and then at the map. The train was under the Thames and heading for home at the Elephant and Castle. Boot was clamped in silence, taking a newspaper out of his pocket and reading it minutely. Davies sat uncomfortably. The mothy woman stood up and gathered her spreadeagled belongings to her, eventually, and got from the train. Now there only remained the two men and they were at the far end. ‘All right,' sighed Boot, folding away his paper. ‘What's it all about?'

‘I hope you enjoyed your fun,' replied Davies sourly.

‘I saved you from being thrown off the train for not paying your fare. You might have even been arrested,' Boot pointed out.

‘Yes, very good of you, mate. Now where exactly are we getting off?'

‘I'm not getting off,' said Boot firmly. ‘You can if you like. But I told you, I don't want any copper following me home and upsetting my mum. It's not as if you've got a warrant or anything. Like I told you before, my solicitor ought to be present.'

‘She means a lot to you, your mum,' commented Davies.

‘Funnily enough she does,' replied Boot sharply.

‘Did you used to go home, to your mum in the old days—in the good old days, remember? Did you go home to her after screwing Roxanne Potts on the vaulting horse?'

‘Who the hell…!'

‘Roxanne Potts, now there's a name to conjure with.'

Boot looked miserably thoughtful. ‘Jesus, you've been busy digging them up, haven't you. Roxanne Potts. She must be forty-odd now.'

‘She was fifteen then,' said Davies quietly. ‘So was Ena and so was poor dead Celia Norris. Remember the trampoline? Nobody could accuse you of not using the equipment.' He made a bouncing movement with his hands. ‘Davy go up, Davy go down. Davy go up…'

‘Pack it in, will you, you bastard,' snorted Boot. He looked along to see if the men at the far end of the carriage were listening. They had stood up to get out. The train was at the end of the line. They looked around curiously at Davies and Boot, then stepped down and hurried away with collars pulled around their ears. As each of them walked past the window their eyes came around the sharp end of their collars to look at the two who remained in the train.

‘Elephant and Castle,' said Boot, half getting too his feet. ‘It stops here.'

Davies eased him back into the seat. ‘But I don't,' he said. ‘Now we've travelled so far together I want you to listen for a while and then I want to hear your story too. I suggest you do it now, Booty, because later it could make things much nastier for you.'

Boot sat down. ‘We can't sit here,' he argued lamely. ‘The train's finished for the night.'

‘We'll wait until they throw us off,' said Davies cheerfully. ‘It's warm and comfortable and it's quiet. We can talk.'

‘Who's been talking to you?' asked Boot. ‘Roxanne Potts?'

‘No. I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Roxanne. Try again.'

‘That Ena.'

‘That Ena it was,' approved Davies. ‘Ena Brown that was. Ena Lind that is. She married dashing Bill Lind, you know, and now lives in a council penthouse overlooking the entire world. You know she's even got a green cat.'

‘Sometimes,' observed Boot, ‘you sound like you're drunk when you're not.'

‘You don't believe she's got a green cat? I'll take you along to see it if you like. It's really something to see.'

‘No. No thanks. I'll pass on that one.'

‘Ena would love to see big muscled Dave again. You could wear a singlet and a jock strap. She'd know you meant business then. Take a trampoline along and—provided you could take it up in the lift—you could have a rare old time together. Just like the old days.'

‘You can't touch me for that, Davies. It was years ago.'

‘So was the murder. I could touch you for that.'

Boot's face stiffened as though he had suddenly realized the magnitude of the business. ‘And murder is a wound that time won't heal,' encouraged Davies close to his ear. ‘You'd better tell me all you know, Booty.'

‘I told you, I didn't have anything to do with it. Not killing her,' said Boot dragging the words out. ‘Straight.'

‘All the more important that you should tell me what you did have to do with then,' urged Davies quietly. ‘Otherwise I might think you
did
do that bad thing.'

A London Underground man strolled along the platform, a languid West Indian, buried by life below a cold city. He was supposed to check the train but as he passed the carriage where they sat his attention was caught by a new cinema poster. He examined it casually, quietly embroidered the heroine with a curly moustache, and continued his echoing patrol without seeing Boot or Davies. They did not see him either. Boot was whispering to Davies about teenage girls who had seduced him in the days that used to be. Davies was listening. He was waiting. The doors of the train slid together in a sleepy embrace and it moved. Boot looked up, but now he had begun he seemed reluctant to let anything get in the way. For his part Davies would have detained him on the train even if he had known it had just begun a journey to Addis Ababa.

Eventually Boot had told everything he knew or remembered or cared to relate. He had not been looking even occasionally at Davies's face. Few people do when they are telling something difficult from their past. When he thought he had come to the conclusion of the story, he did glance up as if he thought Davies might have dropped off to sleep. But the big, scarred face was still watching him. The brown overcoat had settled around the policeman's shoulders like a mound of damp earth.

‘We're moving,' Boot said nodding at the darkness that was stumbling by the window. ‘God knows where we're going now.'

‘It's no bother,' yawned Davies. ‘These things find it difficult to get out of London. You hadn't finished, had you?'

‘Yes,' hesitated Boot. ‘I think I've told you everything, officer.'

Anger gathered in Davies's face like an extra bruise. ‘Don't you fucking “officer” me, Booty,' he threatened. He stood up and grabbed the other man's lapels, lifting him from the seat. ‘Tell us about your boxing days then,' he said. Boot's face stretched tight and he began to say something. Davies, however, picked him up and threw him the length of the carriage. He landed, half-sitting in the open area by the doors. ‘It's all right, inspector, I can vouch for him. I'll see he pays his fare,' Davies called up after him. Boot, his features drained, looked along the seats from his place on the floor. ‘You're out to get your own back for that,' he whispered. ‘You're like all of those police buggers. All for yourself in the end. You're going to do me over because I made you look small.'

Davies at once beamed into a real smile. ‘No, I wouldn't do that, Booty. Not to
you
. Not while we're having such a useful talk.' He walked over and hauled Boot up from the floor with excess gallantry, brushing him down and replacing him in his seat. ‘But,' he said when they were seated again. ‘But, I want to tell you something. For your own comfort and convenience. If you don't think of a bit more of that story, the bit you've left out, I'm going to chuck you down to that other gangway next time. That furthest one up there. And then I shall come and stamp on you for taking the piss out of me in front of all the football fans. All right. You've got that clear?'

Boot's head went up and down as though it were on a hinge. ‘What
else
then?' he asked.

‘The night, Booty,' said Davies, his nose almost in the man's ear. ‘The night of July 23rd, 1951.' His face dissolved and he broke into a fragment of song. ‘That perfect night, the night you met, there was magic abroad in the air…'

‘Celia?' said Boot.

‘Too bloody right, Celia,' confirmed Davies quietly. A little smoke of excitement began to rise within his heart. Boot watched his fists close. ‘That night.'

‘We had it,' said Boot. ‘Sexual intercourse, that is. She pestered me. They all did. Christ, I was on the point of exhaustion sometimes.'

‘Rotten lot,' murmured Davies.

‘And she kept on at me. It was her turn, she said. So… so…that night I told her to come to the store after she had told everybody she was going home. And I saw her there.'

‘Why did you kill her, Booty?'

‘I DIDN'T KILL HER!'

His shout echoed strangely through the carriage. The train was clattering and curving on its nameless journey. Davies reached for the lapels again, picked up Boot and flung him the distance to the far doorway. He lay on the ribbed wooden floor looking around him, trying to find his breath.

‘There, I told you I could do it,' Davies remarked. He walked, swaying with the train towards Boot. Boot sat up and hid his head in his hands like a frightened boy in a school playground. Davies hung above him on the straps. ‘Now,' he said. ‘Do you want me to throw you back again?'

Boot spoke from his sitting position, his face still enclosed in his hands. ‘I had her knickers,' he said. ‘I got rid of them after. But I didn't kill her, Davies. Straight I didn't. She was all right when she went from me. She went off on her bike.'

‘Leaving you with the prize pants,' said Davies. The smoke within him had become a small fire of triumph. He had
solved
something!

‘She ran off without them,' muttered Boot. ‘We'd had a row, a dispute…'

‘About what, Booty?'

‘Oh, for Christ's sake. It's twenty-five years ago…'

‘What about?'

‘I wanted her to do something, you know what I mean, and she wouldn't. She suddenly turned all Catholic and said it was a sin. And I started to kid her about it, just kidding, and she got wild as hell…and…'

‘I don't know what you mean,' said Davies, ‘You said I'd
know
. But I can't even guess. What did you have the fight about?'

‘You are a bastard,' muttered Boot. ‘You just want to hear me say it, don't you.' He looked up as he felt the damp sole of Davies's shoe pushing him in the shirtfront, an inch below his Adam's apple.

‘That's right, I want you to say it.' said Davies. ‘My imagination is a bit limited about things like this.'

‘I wanted her to…give me a gobble,' said Boot, his head going back to its hiding place between his hands. He looked up and his expression collided with Davies's look of outraged disbelief. ‘You know…' Boot mumbled. ‘A gobble. You know what a gobble is.'

‘It's a noise a turkey makes,' said Davies.

‘Oh, Christ. Stop it. I wanted her to take it in her mouth, But she wouldn't.'

‘I don't blame her,' said Davies. He had become outwardly even more calm. ‘I wouldn't like to give you a gobble either.'

Boot's head was trembling in his palms. ‘And that was it. She got all ratty and slapped my face and I caught hold of her wrists to stop her. I was only playing, really, but she took it all seriously. Then she, kicked me, hard—very nastily too—and rushed out. I saw her get on her bike and she went. That was the last I saw of her.'

‘Leaving you with her bloomers. Something to remember her by.'

‘That's the lot,' said Boot miserably. ‘That's all. Make what you like out of it.'

Davies stepped back and sat on one of the seats. ‘All those years ago,' he said shaking his head at the wonder of it. ‘And you can still remember how hard she kicked you. And all over a little thing like a gobble…' Boot squealed as the big man jumped at him. Davies picked him up and thrust him back against the swaying curved walls. Three times he banged him against the wall. Then he turned and threw him half the length of the carriage again. Boot lay on the floor, moaning. He got up as far as his elbow. ‘You…you fucking hypocrite,' he howled. ‘You only do this because you've never had a gobble in your bloody life!'

He was saved from almost certain death by the lurch of the train. Davies stumbled and stopped. He sat down heavily on the cross seats not doing anything. Suddenly he felt very cold. He could see fingers of rain hitting the windows and extending down. ‘Look at that,' he called to Boot at the far end. ‘It's pouring. We've been nice and dry in here, anyway.'

One of the doors communicating with the next carriage opened noisily and an overalled and undersized man poked his head through. He took in the scene as though it were not entirely unfamiliar. ‘'Ere,' he inquired. ‘What you doin' still on the bleeding train? This train is in the washing shed.'

He made a short bow, like a man having delivered a brief but important oration, and vanished behind the closing door. He returned in five minutes with two other longer men. ‘There,' he said. ‘That's them. Look, that one's got blood all down him. They been having a fight.'

Davies had, by then, fixed Boot in the seat beside him and had put his arm affectionately about his shoulder. ‘L'il disagreement,' he informed the trio. ‘Few drinks then the argy-bargy. But we're all right now. Mates again, ain't we, Booty?' The head in the arm nodded as it was powerfully squeezed. ‘And we'll go orf 'ome quiet. Thank you, gentlemen.'

‘This way then,' said one of the men ungraciously. ‘You got to go right through the train to the end. You can get out there. And don't be sick, somebody's got to clean this train. You're trespassing anyway, you know that?'