Death of a Bovver Boy (15 page)

‘Are you sure?'

‘Absolutely. It was the biggest surprise of my life.
The skinheads never come round to the Spook Club. Never been known to. It's kind of understood. They go to the Cattle Market and we go to the Spook Club.'

‘So you class yourself as a greaser, if that's the term?'

‘I don't class myself as anything. Only that's what Dutch was and I've never had any use for skinheads. I don't mind admitting that even though I am telling you this about one of them.

‘Anyhow it was Gil. He pulled his bike up on the stand and went round to the back door. We couldn't see him for a bit then. But we kept watching. I told you we thought there was something funny going on over at the Club and this was the bit that surprised us most. Then all of a sudden we saw Gil coming round the corner as though Satan was after him. He pulled his bike off the stand, jumped on and was away hell for leather down the road.'

‘Can you be sure of one or two things, Roger?'

‘I should think so. I'm not likely to have forgotten that night, am I?'

‘First of all, you are absolutely certain that it was Gil who rode up? I mean with goggles and helmets most of you look the same.'

‘Absolutely certain. He took his helmet off to go round the back.'

‘Then are you equally certain that it was Gil who came back from behind the building?'

‘Certain as the other. I watched him, didn't I? And June will tell you the same.'

‘And there was no one—please be quite sure about this—there was no one on his pillion, coming or going?'

‘No one. We should have seen, wouldn't we? He
went off alone, same as he'd come.'

‘And that was the last you saw of him? Or of anyone else round the Spook Club that night?'

‘Yes. But after we'd gone to bed—June's going to marry me, remember—after we were in bed, I can't tell how long because I'd been asleep, June woke me up. She was sitting up in bed. “Roger, I'm sure I heard a car,” she said. I was sleepy. “What's so funny about that?” I said, because it's a fairly busy road and you often hear cars all night. “I was asleep”, I told her.

‘But she went on about it. “It was stopped outside the Spook Club,” she said, “and the engine was kept running.”

‘I asked her what sort of a car, I meant a lorry or a sports car or what. She gave me the sort of bloody silly answer a woman would give. “Just an ordinary car it sounded like.” So I told her to shut up and let me get to sleep. I mean, it could have been anything. Could have been Swindleton coming back to see whether he'd locked up. Or anything. I didn't think any more about it that night. But afterwards, when I'd heard about Dutch, I wondered whether it had anything to do with it. Do you think it had?'

‘I don't know,' said Carolus. It was the literal truth but it might have been called disingenuous for all that. Then he asked, ‘Has your “so-called stepfather” as you refer to him, has he got a car?'

‘No. A motor-bike to go to work with. He works in a factory on the other side of the town. Shares the expense of the bike with a workmate he picks up every morning. Why?'

‘Just wondered,' said Carolus with annoying vagueness. ‘I'll have a talk to Gil Bodmin this evening. Ask him what he was doing round the Spook Club that night.'

‘Well, I must run along,' said Roger. ‘I'm taking June out this afternoon.'

Now, with the latest information which Roger had given him Carolus began to feel that he was approaching the centre of the circle in ever decreasing twirls. Unless something totally unexpected turned up he believed he could give Grimsby enough information to make an arrest within the next day or two,

A nasty little case, he reflected. Full of cruelty and malice and scarcely a gleam of decent behaviour, let alone generosity or decent feeling to compensate for it.

He lunched at an arty restaurant which advertised its inclusion in some good food guide or other but would have made a Frenchman turn green not with envy but with nausea. At eleven o'clock that night, having spent some hours with his notes, he approached the Cattle Market on foot. There was a bell and a peephole in the door and his ringing brought out, framed in the peep-hole, a long anxious face ornamented with a ludicrous moustache.

‘Are you a member?' the owner of it demanded in a tired but hostile voice.

‘I've no wish to come in,' Carolus replied. ‘I want to ask you if you would be good enough to call out one of your members named Gil Bodmin.'

The anxious face lengthened even more.

‘I'll see if he's in the Club. Who shall I tell him wants to see him? He won't come out for just anybody you know. Are you the Law?'

‘No. But he will come out if you tell him quietly, out of the hearing of any of his friends, that Carolus Deene wants to see him.'

‘Who? What?'

‘It's a perfectly simple name. Carolus is the Latin for Charles and Deene is quite a common surname.'

‘It sounds a bit fancy. Gil won't like anything like that. But I'll try him. You wait here.'

A scowling Gil presently emerged.

‘What the hell do you want?' he shouted at Carolus in the hearing of the other, then said quietly—‘Wait for me round the corner.'

Carolus could hear him telling the other not to let any more of that sort in.

But presently Gil appeared and offered his hand to Carolus.

‘Wasn't expecting you,' he said.

‘Sure of that? What were you doing round the Spook Club on the night Dutch was killed?'

‘I was going to tell you about that.'

‘Then why didn't you?'

‘See, it's about this phone call I got that night.'

‘You didn't tell me about that, either.'

‘Wait till you hear it all. It was a trap, I'm sure of that. I didn't want to get Life for killing Dutch.'

‘Naturally not. Suppose you begin at the beginning?'

‘Well, that Saturday was just ordinary. I was dancing at this joint, the Cattle Market, when suddenly that drip on the door you've just seen, Crumbs they call him, I don't know why, came up and told me I was wanted on the phone. A woman's voice, he said.

‘I went over, just as I came when you called for me tonight and when I picked up the phone I heard this woman…'

‘Which woman?'

‘That's what I've been puzzling my brains to decide. I know I've heard the voice before but I can't make out who it was.'

‘You're not the only one,' remarked Carolus.

‘Anyway she said “Is that Gil Bodmin?” I said “Yes. Who are you?” She said “Never mind,” but added
that it was something I should be glad to hear. Then she said young Dutch Carver wanted to see me. Now you must understand with our crowd if anyone says he wants to see anyone and names a place and time it means trouble and plenty of it. Then this woman who I don't know who it was says “He's waiting down in the cellar of the Spook Club now. The door's open,” and hung the receiver up. There was only one thing to do. I knew I could handle Dutch and wasn't worried about any other greasers he might have with him. So I didn't call the boys but got on my bike and went straight round to the Spook Club.

‘I put my bike up on its stand and went round to the back. Sure enough as the woman had said the back door was open and what I took to be the cellar door was open, too. What's more the light was switched on.

‘I went on down expecting to get a crack over the head at any minute but when I got to the bottom of the stairs I saw Dutch, strung up like a chicken and stark bollock naked. His hair had been cut short and the poor little sod was shivering with cold. He'd been gone over pretty bad and a cut in his face was bleeding. When he saw me he was more scared still and tried to turn his head away as though I shouldn't recognize him.'

‘What did you do?'

‘Hopped it and——ing quick.'

‘You didn't think of releasing him?'

‘Yes I thought of it. But I thought too that that was just what I was meant to do. The telephone and all was a trap. The only thing was to get out of there pretty dam' quick.'

‘And leave him in that state?'

‘What else could I do? If I'd told the police they'd
have thought it was me. Besides, how was I to know he was going to die? He was alive enough when I was there.'

‘Not very heroic of you, was it?' suggested Carolus. ‘But there's been a lot of non-heroism all through this case. Even if you had told me, instead of leaving me to find out that you'd been there, I should not have thought so badly of you. As it is I shan't lift a finger to help you. Even if all you've told me is true and the Law gets on to your part in the whole thing it'll be a lagging at least, so think that over.'

Probably no one had spoken to Gil like that for years and he did not seem to be able to find an answer.

More for some way of filling time before he met Grimsby next evening at seven, than with any very lively hope of further discovery, Carolus decided to call on Bert Carver and Mrs Farnham at about the same time as he had been to the house before.

This time it was Bert who opened the door.

‘We're going out in a few minutes,' he warned Carolus. ‘But you can come in if it's anything urgent.'

‘I think this whole enquiry's urgent, but you don't seem to agree,' said Carolus.

‘Oh, I don't know. Of course I want to know who killed the poor little sod, only you can't expect
her
to be that interested. After all he wasn't her kid.'

‘No. I see that.'

‘And his own mother never had a bit of time for him. Nor for me, for the matter of that. She had too much to do looking in the mirror, she had.'

‘I've met your older son,' said Carolus.

‘Oh yes. Good steady boy, he is. Hard worker. Not like the other one. Mrs Farnham will be down in a minute. She's just getting ready. Was there anything particular you wanted to know?'

‘Yes. Did Dutch—I seem to have got in the way of calling Kenneth that—did he confide in you at all, Mr Carver?'

‘How d'you mean?'

‘I know you didn't get on very well together, but after all you were his father and he lived in the same house.'

‘I see what you're getting at. I can't say he did, to speak the honest truth. Not since I took up with Connie. At one time we used to have a word sometimes. Nothing much—only about dog-racing and television and that. But not for a long time now, we haven't. See where it was, he had his own friends, Des and Phil and those. As I told you before, I never saw much of him.'

‘He didn't, for instance, tell you something he wanted kept secret during the last week or two?'

‘What was that?'

‘I don't know. I wish I did. But I know he had some secret he didn't seem able to tell anyone.'

‘Perhaps it was where he got his money, though there wasn't much secret about that. He got it pushing pot for Swindleton.'

‘You know that?'

‘Where else could it have been? You know what Swindleton is.'

Mrs Farnham appeared.

‘What's this about Swindleton?' she asked. ‘I know one thing, he's not long out of prison and it won't be long before he's back again.'

‘Who says so?' asked Bert. ‘You've no right to say things like that. You don't know there's any truth in it. You could be taken up for putting about such stories.'

‘I know all about it…'

‘Yes. You always know all about it till one day you find yourself in Court. You haven't said good evening to Mr Deene, either.'

Connie Farnham's ‘good evening' was dropped snappily and she turned to Bert.

‘Come on,' she said. ‘We've got to hurry.'

Carolus left them and made for the Spook Club. It wasn't open yet but he found Swindleton in his office. The man appeared to Carolus even more nervous than before. He was smoking a cigarette and a piled ash-tray gave evidence that he had been doing so for some time.

‘Yes? Yes?' he said rising to his feet.

‘I have a few more questions for you, Swindleton.'

‘Oh God! Shan't I ever hear the last of this wretched business. What is it about this time?'

‘About the Saturday night on which Dutch Carver was killed in your cellar.'

‘Who says he was? It may have been anywhere.'

‘You said you closed the Club early that night because the woman's voice on the phone told you to?'

Swindleton looked at Carolus as though wondering if he should deny it.

‘I was tired,' he said. ‘Don't you think a man gets tired at my job? I get so tired sometimes I could drop.'

‘Were Phil and Des tired when they left the club about an hour before you?'

‘I don't know. I never saw them go. Well not actually leave.'

‘Where did you go when you left your Club?'

‘Home, of course. Where do you think? I went home to get some sleep.'

‘And did you sleep well, Swindleton? Knowing all you did?'

‘Knowing what? I knew nothing. I slept like a top. Nothing on
my
cpnscience. You make things up, Mr Deene!'

‘You didn't come back that night?'

‘To the Spook Club? Certainly not. I didn't wake up till the morning.'

‘You've no idea who might have gone back there?'

‘None at all. I only know that when I got there in the morning Dutch had been taken away.'

‘I'm going to have a look round that cellar,' announced Carolus.

‘You can, Mr Deene. You won't find much. The police have been all over it, every inch of it. But you can look. Certainly you can.'

Carolus went down to the cellar and from the top of the stairs Swindleton watched him. He saw Carolus peer about him, using his torch, then stoop down and pick something from the floor. This he put between the pages of a pocket diary and prepared to join Swindleton.