Last Detective (27 page)

‘Who, for God's sake, is going to let you dig up eight graves?' said Mod.

‘Nobody,' admitted Davies. ‘I wouldn't even like to inquire.'

Mod glanced at him unhappily. ‘And don't think I'm going to help you dig them up on the quiet,' he said. ‘Because I'm not. I'm not allowed heavy manual work. I'd have got a job long ago if I was.'

They reached ‘Bali-Hi', Furtman Gardens. On the coat-rack in the hall was pinned a note, for Davies. It said: ‘Mr William Lind wishes to see you at the police station.'

The evenings had become enclosed and dark now and on his walk to the police station Davies passed only five other people, and three of those were walking dogs. He reflected once more how, even in that tightly populated place, the streets were emptied at evenings. In some countries, it would be the time for people to be out promenading, parading themselves, but here it seemed that once the factories had stopped for the day people shot like moles into holes and vanished. Even on a hot summer evening, like the one on which Celia Norris was seen for the last time, there were few people actually out walking. There was the matter of television, of course, but also there were few outdoor places to go. A few small parks and the dead banks of the canal. People did as they did in the winter, they went into the pubs or stayed in their rooms. The only difference was that in the summer they left the windows open.

Venus, the evening whore, waved a customary hand to him from the end of the police station street. She looked lonely, exiled, as only a whore can look. For once the police station interior looked welcoming, its official light optimistic in comparison to the overwhelming weariness of the street. The duty sergeant was leaning over the inquiry counter and, at the safe distance, attempting to comfort an elderly lady who regularly reported being followed by salacious men with long fingers. ‘My trouble, officer,' she whinnied, ‘is that I look so young
from the back
. They always follow me.'

‘She should try walking backwards,' muttered the sergeant when she had gone out complaining and full of anticipation into the awaiting night. ‘That would scare them off. Your bloke is in the charge room, Dangerous.'

Davies thanked him and went into the bleak charge room. William Lind was sitting there, biting his lip. He rose as Davies walked in and knocked his wooden chair over backwards, then jumped violently as it sounded on the floor.

Lind's face looked shocked, as though he had committed a recent malpractice. He fumbled and righted the chair. Davies sat down at the opposite side of the wooden table, his overcoat draped around him like a wigwam. ‘Mr. Lind,' he said steadily. ‘Now what can I do for you?'

‘Well Mr Davies, I heard…I understand from my wife, that is. You're looking into the Celia Norris business.'

Davies glanced over his shoulder to make sure he had shut the door. The Metropolitan Police did not like you doing your own work or your hobby on their premises. The door was closed. A policeman passed by and, out of habit, glanced over the frosted glass horizon into the charge room. But the semi-head floated away and Davies returned to the drawn face of Bill Lind.

‘What was it, Mr Lind?' inquired Davies. ‘Bill?'

‘Just this,' said Lind. He felt into his pocket and produced a plastic bag from which he took Celia Norris's light green knickers. Davies almost fell backwards over the chair.

‘They're hers, Celia's,' said Lind. ‘They've been kept in mothballs.'

‘That's almost the full house,' said Davies aloud but to himself as he reached across to take the small garment. ‘It seems like everything has been kept in mothballs.'

‘What…what's that mean?' asked Lind.

‘Forget it. How did you come by these?'

‘I found them,' said Lind simply. ‘Straight up, Mr Davies. In the saddle bag of my bike. The day after she vanished. I opened it up. And there they were.'

‘How did you know they were hers?' inquired Davies.

‘Ah, you can't catch me like that,' said Lind. The denial was made with something near waggish triumph. A finger came up but he stopped short of shaking it. ‘I'd seen her in the club, like playing table tennis and netball and that, and all the boys used to have a look. See a flash of the girl's pants. You know, like lads do…'

‘Yes, yes, they do,' agreed Davies solemnly. ‘But you were her boyfriend, weren't you, Mr Lind? Her regular?'

‘Well sort of,' said Lind doubtfully. Davies could visualize him wearing swimming-trunks in the bath. ‘But that's not the reason I know they were Celia's. It wasn't like that, see. I was a bit of a little gentleman, you understand, and I liked to be decent about things. I still do. I thought of her in a…well, pure sort of way.'

‘Except when she was playing table tennis or netball. Then you had a look with the other lads?'

Two small red spots, almost like those of a clown, appeared on Lind's white cheeks.

‘Now, now, Mr Davies. I didn't come here to have you accusing
me
,' he said primly. ‘I came because I wanted to help.'

‘It must be a long walk,' commented Davies dryly. ‘It's taken you twenty-five years. Why didn't you take this article to the police at the time, Mr Lind? You knew they were looking for her clothes.'

‘Not right away, I didn't know. Because it was some time before they started to get really worried about her,' said Lind, hurriedly. ‘I kept them first of all because I knew they were hers and I just…wanted them. I wanted to keep them. Can you understand that?'

‘Why didn't you go to the police at the time?' insisted Davies heavily. ‘You must have known it was the proper thing to do.'

Lind put his face against his fingers. He had strangely effeminate hands for a capstan operator. ‘I was scared to. The coppers…the police came and took statements and I was frightened out of my life. I thought if I'd shown them these they would have jumped to the conclusion that
I
did it. And they could hang you in those days, Mr Davies. I didn't want to hang by mistake. So I didn't tell them…I'm beginning to wish I hadn't told you now.'

Davies ignored it. ‘Where have you kept them?' he said. ‘Hidden.'

‘In the loft,' said Lind. ‘In an old suitcase, with a lot of other stuff.'

‘You live in a flat,' said Davies. ‘How long have you had a loft?'

‘At my mother's place,' said Lind smartly with that little touch of triumph recurring. ‘You didn't give me time to tell you, did you. In my mum's loft. That's where they've been. I spend quite a lot of time at my mum's. In fact I may go there for good soon. My wife's getting on my nerves, you see. A couple of weeks ago she was actually
fighting
—
fighting
with some man on the stairs outside the flat. None of the neighbours think she's any good, Mr Davies.'

Davies tried not to swallow hard but he did. He retreated into the overcoat to hide the lump as it went down. ‘How did this garment get in your saddle bag then?' he asked.

‘Somebody put them there,' said Lind simply. ‘As a joke or something. Before they realized than something had happened to her, I thought she'd done it herself. It was the sort of teasing thing she'd do.'

Davies said, ‘She was a bit of a…
teaser
, wasn't she?'

‘I would never say that,' sniffed Lind. ‘I didn't think like that. And I still don't. I used to think of her very purely. That was the trouble.'

Davies nodded. ‘Very gallant I'm sure. Right, it looks as though I'm going to have to get all this down in a statement at some time. Is there anything else, Mr Lind?'

He had asked the question with no hope, but immediately he was overjoyed he had put it. Lind half decided to say something, then thought not, then, looking up to see Davies's eyes jutting out at him, he ventured: ‘Yes, there was, sort of.'

‘Well, what, sort of?'

‘It might be nothing, Mr Davies. But my mum reckons that about ten or twelve years ago she was sitting in one of those shelters in Glazebrook Park, you know the little round shelters, kind of divided into compartments. She was sitting there, having a rest walking back from the shops, when she heard two women talking in the next bit, the other side of the wooden dividing piece.' He glanced up to see if Davies was interested. The policeman's eyes were on him. ‘And my mum says she heard one woman saying to the other that her husband had seen Celia walking along the canal towpath with a man. And this bloke had his arm around her. And this woman reckons her husband told the police, when they was asking for information, but she heard nothing more about it. Don't you think that's funny, Mr Davies?

Davies closed his eyes as if it might stop his heart beating so loudly. ‘This woman,' he asked. ‘Did your mother know who she was?'

‘She saw the two women as they got up and walked away,' said Lind. ‘And she knew one of them slightly. But she didn't know which was the one who had said it. The woman she knew was called Mrs Whethers, and she lived somewhere down by the Kensal Green Empire, that was. It was years ago, mind. She might not be there now.'

G
uiltily Davies filled in his required official report at the police station, borrowing a Yellow Pages Directory for suitable addresses, bookmakers' establishments, drinking clubs and the like, where he might have been expected to go in quest of Ramscar. Indeed he had been moved by conscience to pursue some genuine inquiries but these had proved predictably pointless. He believed Ramscar might come to him in the end. In the meantime he found it impossible to think beyond Celia Norris. He filed the report for Yardbird, wondered glumly how long it would be before the inspector began to complain, and then left the station to find Mrs Whethers.

Mrs Whethers was a comfortably heated-looking lady, a flush occupying her face as she hobbled out into the afternoon air on her journey to the Over Sixties' Club in the Kensal Rise Pavilion. A transfixed fox stared glassily from around her neck as if it had jumped there and died. She carried it like a hunter bearing his prey. She had a substantial coat which she had worn for many years but which seemed to have thickened instead of thinned and now had the texture of compressed wood shavings. It banged solidly against her elderly legs as she made her familiar journey down her street.

Davies observed her leave her gate and followed. She reached a bus stop in the main road and stood there substantially. Davies then approached her. ‘Mrs Whethers,' he ventured, ‘I wonder if I could have a word with you?'

As some people get old their curiosity seeps away and nothing matters. She seemed not very surprised or interested. ‘If it's insurance, the Conservatives or Jehovah's Witnesses, I don't want to know,' she said firmly. ‘Or soap powders.'

Davies smiled. ‘None of them.' he replied. ‘Are you going to get a bus from here?'

She sniffed hugely. ‘No, I'm waiting to see if Lloyd George comes along. I haven't got time to talk to you, young man. I'm on my way to my club.'

‘Perhaps I could come with you.'

She regarded him with doubt. ‘It's over sixties,' she decided. ‘But you look a bit threadbare so I expect they'll let you in. Where, for God's sake, did you get that terrible coat?'

‘In a sort of auction,' he replied lamely.

‘You were done, son,' she told him firmly. ‘Diddled. What did you want anyway?'

‘I'm a policeman. Plain clothes.'

‘Plain clothes is the word,' she agreed surveying the garment again. ‘Never saw plainer.'

‘Here's the bus,' he said glad to change the course of the talk.

‘I don't need the bus,' she said briskly. ‘I'm just having a breather. I'm off now. It starts at half past two.'

She hobbled away at a large pace and Davies hurried after her. ‘I wanted to ask you something, that's all.'

‘I've got nothing to fear from the police,' she said. She was puffing a little. ‘And I want to be in time for the dancing lesson.' She stopped and faced him, as though knowing that walking and talking together were too much for her. ‘So if you are making police inquiries you'd better come with me and when I get a spare minute I'll see if I can answer them.'

That was definitely that. She slung her bad leg forward and he had to be content to lope along beside her until they arrived. He did not mind very much. He was glad to have found her. He was relieved she was alive.

The Over Sixties' Club was in a corrugated iron church hall, its roof pointed timidly to heaven, its well-used door touched by a simple stone tablet which said ‘Mary Ann Smith. Laid by the Grace of God. December 15th, 1919'.

With some doubt Davies followed Mrs Whethers into the hall. It was jolly with old people, limbering up for a dancing lesson about to be expounded by an extensively-built woman in her fifties, wearing a rose in her hair and a long feather boa which curled affectionately about her neck and big, blunt bosom.