The Ballad of Peckham Rye (11 page)

Munificence was his middle name.

I felt a grim satisfaction.

They were poles apart.

I dropped into a fitful doze.’

‘Read us it again, Trev,’ Leslie said. ‘It sounds like English
Dictation. Perhaps he’s a teacher as well.’

Trevor ignored him. He tapped the notebook and addressed Collie.

‘Code,’ he said. ‘It’s worth lolly.’

An intensified expression of misery on Collie’s face expressed his agreement.

‘In with a gang, he is. It’s bigger than I thought. Question now, to find out
what his racket is.’

‘Sex,’ Leslie said.

‘You don’t say so?’ Trevor said. ‘Well, that’s helpful,
son. But we happen to have guessed all that. Question is, what game of sex? Question is,
national or international?’

Collie blew out his smoke as if it were slow poison. ‘Got to work back from a
clue,’ he said in his sick voice. ‘Autumn’s a clue. Wasn’t there
something about autumn?’

‘How dumb can you get?’ Trevor inquired through his nose. ‘It’s a
code. Autumn means something else. Everything means something.’ He dropped the
notebook and painfully picked up the other. He read:

‘Peckham. Modes of communication.

Actions more effective than words. Enact everything. Depict.

Morality. Functional. Emotional. Puritanical. Classical.

Nelly Mahone. Lightbody Buildings.

Tunnel. Meeting-house Lane Excavations police station yard. Order of St Bridget. Nuns
decamped in the night.

Trevor turned the pages.

Entry Parish Register 1658. 5 May.

Rose, wife of Wm Hathaway buried
Aged
103, who boare a sonn at the age of 63.

Trevor said, ‘Definitely a code. Look how he spells
“son”. And this about bearing at the age of sixty-three.’

Collie and Leslie came over to see the book.

‘There’s a clue here,’ Collie said, ‘that we could follow
up.’

‘No,’ said Trevor, ‘you don’t say so? Come on, kids, we got to
look up Nelly Mahone.’

‘If we’re going to have a row,’ Mavis said, ‘turn on the wireless
loud.’

‘We’re not going to have a row,’ said her husband, Arthur Crewe, in a
voice trembling with patience. ‘I only ask a plain question, what you mean you
can’t ask him where he’s going when he goes out?’

Mavis switched on the wireless to a roar. Then she herself shouted above it.

‘If you want to know where he goes, ask him yourself.’

‘If you can’t ask him how can I ask him?’ Arthur said in competition
with the revue on the wireless.

‘What’s it matter where he goes? You can’t keep running about after him
like he was a baby. He’s thirteen now.’

‘You ought to a kept some control of him. Of course it’s too late now
—’

‘Why didn’t you keep some control —’

‘How can I be at my work and control the kids same time? If you was
—’

‘There’s no need to swear,’ Mavis said.

‘I didn’t swear. But I bloody well will, and there’s no need to
shout.’ He turned off the wireless and silence occurred, bringing a definite aural
sensation.

‘Turn on that wireless. If we’re going to have a row I’m not letting
the neighbours get to know,’ Mavis said.

‘Leave it be,’ Arthur said, effortful with peace. ‘There’s not
going to be any row.’

Dixie came downstairs. ‘What’s all the row?’ she said.

‘Your stepdad’s on about young Leslie. Expects me to ask him where he’s
going when he goes out. I say, why don’t
he
ask if he wants to know. I
haven’t got eyes the back of my head, have I?’

‘Sh-sh-sh. Don’t raise your voice,’ Arthur said.

‘He’s afraid to say a word to Leslie,’ Dixie said.

‘That’s just about it,’ said her mother.

‘Who’s afraid?’ Arthur shouted.

‘You are,’ Mavis shouted.

‘I’m not afraid. You’re afraid …’

‘Keep time,’ said Trevor. ‘All keep in time. It’s
psychological.’

And so they all three trod in time up the stone stairs of Lightbody Buildings. Twice, a
door opened on a landing, a head looked out, and the door shut quickly again. Trevor and
his followers stamped louder as they approached Nelly Mahone’s. Trevor beat like a
policeman thrice on her door, and placed his ear to the crack.

There was a shuffling sound, a light switch clicked, then silence.

Trevor beat again.

‘Who is it?’ Nelly said from immediately on the other side of the door.

‘Police agents,’ Trevor said.

The light switch clicked again, and Nelly opened the door a fragment.

Trevor pushed it wide open and walked in, followed by Collie and Leslie.

Leslie said, ‘I’m not stopping in this dirty hole,’ and made to
leave.

Trevor caught him by the coat and worked him to a standstill.

‘It’s all clean dirt,’ Nelly said.

‘Sit over there,’ Trevor said to Nelly, pointing to a chair beside the table.
She did so.

He sat himself on the edge of the table and pointed to the edge of the bed for Leslie and
the lopsided armchair for Collie.

‘We come to talk business,’ Trevor said, ‘concerning a Mr Dougal
Douglas.’

‘Never heard of him,’ Nelly said.

‘No?’ Trevor said, folding his arms.

‘Supposed to be police agents, are you? Well, you can be moving off if you
don’t want trouble. There’s a gentleman asleep next door. I only got to
raise me voice and —’

Collie and Leslie looked at the wall towards which Nelly pointed.

‘Nark it,’ Trevor said. ‘He’s gone to football this afternoon.
Now, about Mr Dougal Douglas —’

‘Never heard of him,’ Nelly said.

Trevor leaned forward slightly towards her and, taking a lock of her long hair in his
hand, twitched it sharply.

‘Help! Murder! Police!’ Nelly said.

Trevor put his big hand over her mouth and spoke to her.

‘Listen, Nelly, for your own good. We got money for you.’

Nelly struggled, her yellow eyeballs were big.

‘I get my boys to rough you up if you won’t listen, Nelly. Won’t we,
boys?’

‘That’s right,’ Collie said.

‘Won’t we, boys?’ Trevor said, looking at Leslie.

‘Sure,’ said Leslie.

Trevor removed his hand, now wet, from Nelly’s mouth, and wiped it on the side of
his trousers. He took a large wallet from his pocket, and flicked through a pile of bank
notes.

‘He’s at Miss Frierne’s up the Rye,’ Nelly said.

Trevor laid his wallet on the table and folding his arms, looked hard at Nelly.

‘He got a job at Meadows Meade,’ Nelly said.

Trevor waited.

‘He got another job at Drover Willis’s under different name. No harm in him,
son.’

Trevor waited.

‘That’s all, son,’ Nelly said.

‘What’s cheese?’ Trevor said.

‘What’s what?’

Trevor pulled her hair, so that she toppled towards him from her chair.

‘I’ll find out more. I only seen him once,’ Nelly said.

‘What he want with you?’

‘Huh?’

‘You heard me.’

Nelly looked at the two others, then back at Trevor.

‘The boys is under age,’ she remarked, and her eyes flicked a little to
reveal that her brain was working.

‘I ask you a question,’ Trevor said. ‘What Mr Dougal Douglas come to
you for?’

‘About the girl,’ she said.

‘What girl?’

‘He’s after Beauty,’ she said. ‘He want me to find out where she
live and that. You better go and see what he’s up to. Probable he’s with her
now.’

‘Who’s his gang?’ Trevor inquired, reaching for Nelly’s hair.

She jumped away from him. Leslie’s nerve gave way and he ran to Nelly and hit her
on the face.

‘Murder!’ Nelly screamed.

Trevor put his hand over her mouth, and signalled with his eyes to Collie, who went to
the door, opened it a little way, listened, then shut it again. Collie then struck
Leslie, who backed on to the bed.

Trevor, with his big hand on Nelly’s mouth, whispered softly in her ear,

‘Who’s his gang, Nelly? What’s the code key? Ten quid to you,
Nelly.’

She squirmed and he took his moist hand from her mouth. ‘Who’s his
gang?’

‘He goes with Miss Coverdale sometimes. He goes with that fair-haired lady
controller that’s gone to Drover Willis’s. That’s all I know of his
company.’

‘Who are the fellows?’

‘I’ll find out,’ she said. ‘I’ll find out, son. Have a
heart.’

‘Who’s Rose Hathaway?’

‘Never heard of her.’

Trevor took Dougal’s rolled-up exercise book from an inside pocket and spreading it
out at the page read out the bit about that Rose Hathaway who was buried at a hundred
and three. ‘That mean anything to you?’ Trevor said.

‘It sounds all wrong. I’ll ask him.’

‘You won’t. You’ll find out your own way. Not a word we been here, get
that?’

‘It’s only his larks. He’s off his nut, son.’

‘Did he by any chance bring Humphrey Place here with him?’

‘Who?’

Trevor twisted her arm.

‘Humphrey Place. Goes with Dixie Morse.’

‘No, never seen him but once at the Grapes.’

‘You’ll be seeing
us
again,’ Trevor said.

He went down the dark stone stairs followed by Leslie and Collie.

‘Killing herself,’ Merle said, ‘that’s what she is, for money.
Then she comes in to the pool dropping tired next day, not fit for the job. I said to
her, “Dixie,” I said, “what time did you go to bed last night?”
“I consider that a personal question, Miss Coverdale,” she says.
“Oh,” I says, “well, if it isn’t a personal question will you
kindly type these two reports over again? There’s five mistakes on one and six on
the other.” “Oh!” she said, “what mistakes?” Because she
won’t own up to her mistakes till you put them under her nose. I said,
“These mistakes as marked.” She said “Oh!” I said,
“You’ve been doing nothing but yawn yawn yawn all week.” Well, at
tea-break when Dixie was out Connie says to me, “Miss Coverdale, it’s
Dixie’s evening job making her tired.” “Evening job?” I said.
She said, “Yes, she’s an usherette at the Regal from six-thirty to
ten-thirty, makes extra for her wedding savings.” “Well,” I said,
“no wonder she can’t do her job here!”’

Dougal flashed an invisible cinema-torch on to the sprightly summer turf of the Rye.
‘Mind the step. Madam. Three-and-sixes on the right.’

Merle began to laugh from her chest. Suddenly she sat down on the Rye and began to cry.
‘God!’ she said. ‘Dougal, I’ve had a rotten life.’

‘And it isn’t over yet,’ Dougal said, sitting down beside her at a
little distance. ‘There might be worse ahead.’

‘First my parents,’ she said. ‘Too possessive. They’re full of
themselves. They don’t think anything of me myself. They like to be able to say
“Merle’s head of the pool at Meadows Meade,” but that’s about
all there is to it. I broke away and of course like a fool took up with Mr Druce. Now I
can’t get away from him, somehow. You’ve unsettled me, Dougal, since you
came to Peckham. I shall have a nervous breakdown, I can see it coming.’

‘If you do,’ Dougal said, ‘I won’t come near you. I can’t
bear sickness of any sort.’

‘Dougal,’ she said, ‘I was counting on you to help me to get away from
Mr Druce.’

‘Get another job,’ he said, ‘and refuse to see him any more. It’s
easy.’

‘Oh, everything’s easy for you. You’re free.’

‘Aren’t you free?’ Dougal said.

‘Yes, as far as the law goes.’

‘Well, stop seeing Druce.’

‘After six years, going on seven, Dougal, I’m tied in a sort of way. And what
sort of job would I get at thirty-eight?’

‘You would have to come down,’ Dougal said.

‘After being head of the pool,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t. I’ve
got to think of my pride. And there’s the upkeep of my flat. Mr Druce puts a bit
towards it.’

‘People are looking at you crying,’ Dougal said, ‘and they think
it’s because of me.’

‘So it is in a way. I’ve had a rotten life.’

‘Goodness, look at that,’ Dougal said.

She looked upward to where he was pointing.

‘What?’ she said.

‘Up there,’ Dougal said; ‘trees in the sky.’

‘What are you talking about? I don’t see anything.’

‘Look properly,’ Dougal said, ‘up there. And don’t look away
because Mr Druce is watching us from behind the pavilion.’

She looked at Dougal.

‘Keep looking up,’ he said, ‘at the trees with red tassels in the sky.
Look, where I’m pointing.’

Several people who were crossing the Rye stopped to look up at where Dougal was pointing.
Dougal said to them. ‘A new idea. Did you see it in the papers? Planting trees and
shrubs in the sky. Look there — it’s a tip of a pine.’

‘I think I
do
see something,’ said a girl.

Most of the crowd moved sceptically away, still glancing upward now and then. Dougal
brought Merle to her feet and drifted along with the others.

‘Is he still there?’ Merle said.

‘Yes. He must be getting tired of going up and down in lifts.’

‘Oh, he only does that on Saturday mornings. He usually stays at home in the
afternoons. He comes to me in the evenings. I’ve got a rotten life. Sometimes I
think I’ll swallow a bottle of aspirins.’

‘That doesn’t work,’ Dougal said. ‘It only makes you ill. And the
very thought of illness is abhorrent to me.’

‘He’s keen on you,’ Merle said.

‘I know he is, but
he
doesn’t.’

‘He must do if he’s keen —’

‘Not at all. I’m his first waking experience of an attractive man.’

‘You fancy yourself.’

‘No, Mr Druce does that.’

‘With your crooked shoulder,’ she said, ‘you’re not all that much
cop.’

‘Advise Druce on those lines,’ he said.

‘He doesn’t take my advice any more.’

‘How long would you give him with the firm?’

‘Well, since he’s started to slip, I’ve debated that question a lot.
The business is on the decline. It’s a worry, I mean about my flat, if Mr Druce
loses his job.’