Dangerous in Love - Dangerous Davies 02

  Dangerous in Love - Dangerous Davies 02

  Book Jacket

  Series: Dangerous Davies [2]

  Tags: Humour, Crime

  In this mystery Dangerous Davies, "the last detective", falls in love. The object of the mystery is the death of Lofty Brock, a harmless old man, and the object of the detective's infatuation is the striking black girl with a gap in her teeth, the extraordinary Jemima.

  Leslie Thomas

  DANGEROUS IN LOVE

  A Dangerous Davies novel

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England Viking Penguin Inc., 40 West 23rd Street, New York, New York 10010, USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 1B4 Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  First published by Methuen London Ltd 1987 Published in Penguin Books 1988 3579 10 8642

  Copyright © Leslie Thomas, 1987 All rights reserved

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading Filmset in 10’12 Linotron Meridien

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  To my friend and fellow author

  Brian Freemantle

  who always buys my books

  'Write that down,' the King said to the jury; and the jury eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.

  Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland

  1

  There were moments when it seemed to Detective Constable Dangerous Davies that mayhem moved into his path, marking him purposefully out, isolating him, and then engulfing him, like those small individual whirlwinds that travelled around in parts of America and which he had seen on television. It was so on this ordinary damp night in early October as he and Mod Lewis, the unemployed Welsh philosopher, were walking to their lodgings at 'Bali Hi', Furtman Gardens, London NW, from an evening at The Babe In Arms public house. They were humming as they walked.

  At the Neasden end of Power Station Lane, under the drizzle of the cooling towers, they heard the distant but unmistakable sounds of a fracas. Davies halted like a troubled dog. 'A punch-up,' he said. Mod stood, his face damp and moon-pale in the drizzle. His heavy head rolled to one side as he listened.

  'Singing,' he ventured. 'They're only singing. Tuesday's not a fighting night.'

  A crash like cannon fire came from the far end of the street. 'Somebody going through a door,' said Davies.

  At once, the singing became louder, less enclosed. 'Irish,' he added. 'I suppose we'd better have a look.'

  'You're the policeman,' said Mod, standing still.

  Davies sighed: 'All right. I'll go. You ring the law. It sounds like a three-dog job to me.'

  'Do you happen to have ten pence?' asked Mod.

  'You have to ring 999,' Davies said. 'It's free.' Mod went off into the windy drizzle. Tentatively, Davies went along Power Station Lane to where he could see the riot: the light coming through the wildly open door, jostling figures behind the steamy windows.

  Spectators had made themselves comfortable in upper storeys across the street, sounding appreciation, ooohs and aaahs, like people watching fireworks. He advanced along broken fences and dripping privet hedges, a short burst at a time, until he was twenty yards short of the battle which occupied the entire terraced house. With caution he fell back into the concealment of an open gate, and was thoroughly frightened by a huge hand on his shoulder. He turned to see a West Indian staring from the night. 'It's the bleeding Irish, mate,' said the man.

  'Have they been at it long?' asked Davies, faintly hoping that the alarm might have already been raised and the police on the way. The man's teeth lit up like a window.

  'You're Mr Davies,' he said. The hand that had dropped on his shoulder now descended again like a mechanical shovel and, turning him around, grasped his hand and shook it immensely. 'You was very fair to my boy,' said the man fervently. 'Motor Bike trouble. Thompson.'

  'Ah, yes, Thompson, Power Station Lane. John Bountiful Thompson,' remembered Davies. 'Taking and driving away. Thirty charges. Six months suspended. How is he?'

  'Settled down a treat,' beamed the man. 'You said he ought to take an interest in things, join something. Well, 'e joined the National Front.'

  'Oh good,' muttered Davies. He peered further along the street. 'I suppose I'd better go and ask this lot why they're knocking hell out of each other.'

  '"Summat to do wiv some bloke wot died in Ireland,"' offered Mr Thompson. 'So they reckoned in the boozer this afternoon.'

  'Been going on since this afternoon has it?'

  'Since Sunday,' corrected the man. 'After church.'

  As he spoke a crate of bottles came out of the open upper window of the uproarious house and crashed into the front garden. 'Empties,' said the West Indian. Davies moved away along the privets. He wondered how long the dogs would take. They were probably in bed. As he moved into the light of a street lamp, someone shouted from an upper window: 'It's Dangerous! Go on Dangerous, mate, sort them out!'

  'Never fear,' whispered Davies, timidly raising his hand. He had reached the scene of the fracas now and peered around the dishevelled hedge. The front garden area was a shambles of debris, the just-jettisoned Guinness crate lying like a beached raft on an island. Two dazed men sat in the postures of children in a corner against the house. A boy in a turban appeared. 'It's the Irish,' he said.

  'So everyone keeps telling me,' replied the policeman. He scanned the garden area.

  'It's always like that, their garden,' said the Indian child. 'Send them back to Ireland where they belong.'

  As he spoke a man came out of the front door as if propelled by explosives, ejected backwards, arms whirling. His feet became entangled with some bottles on the path, which spun like rollers and capsized him against the low wall. He slid down, eyes flickering, finally closing, and became motionless. 'Mr Phelan,' said the Indian boy. 'He's on the council.'

  'Oh God,' muttered Davies. A familiar sense of doom settled on him. His tongue was dry. He looked up and down the street but no help was arriving; no sirens, no dogs. He sighed, straightened up, and walked, as casually as a postman, to the gaping door.

  'Now lads, now lads, what's all this about?' he called from the front passage. 'Come on now. You've had your fun.'

  A moment later, wide-eyed, the Indian boy saw him coming out headlong. His feet caught bottles lying on the garden path. He staggered as if on skates, tipping backwards over Mr Phelan, striking his head on the brick wall and subsiding with a spent sigh. The child bent and peered into the collapsed face. There was an open cut on the forehead, grazes down the cheekbone. Blood dropped from the lower lip. 'Dumb copper,' the Indian boy muttered. From somewhere distant, beyond the night streets, a police siren sounded. Too late again.

  They had put him in his usual bed in the hospital and now, with his head split and aching, swathed like a nun's, lip sewn, he leaned against his pillows and morosely surveyed the grey scene outside the window. It was surprising how swiftly the seasons altered. Only a few weeks ago, during his last stay he recalled, the tree beyond the pane had a cover of gritty leaves, bu
t now there was nothing to cloak its bleakness. He had mentioned this to a Nigerian doctor who had remarked, with a touch of medico-poetry, that it looked like an X-ray photograph of multiple fractures.

  The arrival of Mod did little to brighten him. The elliptical Welshman, library books hugged beneath his overcoated arms, shambled down the centre of the ward exchanging small talk with other patients. 'He's back in again, oh aye . . . it's home from home to him.' He arrived beside Davies's bed, the books pinioned by his arms.

  'You look like Moses,' muttered Davies.

  'Works of power,' answered Mod, piling the volumes on the bed. 'You should read some philosophy or lives-of-the-greats while you are lying there, Dangerous. It could transform your entire outlook.'

  'That could only be for the better,' grumbled Davies. 'I've got a half-shut bloody eye and out of it I can just see the swelling of my split bloody lip.'

  Mod put his glasses on and leaned closer. 'Boy, that's a beauty,' he observed. 'Exceptional, even for you, Dangerous. Like the spout of a Welsh milk jug. I brought you some fruit.'

  From the interior of his commodious overcoat, he produced a sad apple and some dates wrapped in green toilet tissue. He put them on the bedside locker.

  'Don't put them there,' said Davies sourly. 'They'll all be wanting some.'

  Mod looked around at the other patients and secreted the apple and the dates in the locker drawer. 'Contributions from Mrs Fulljames,' he revealed. 'I nicked them.'

  'I thought that might be the case.'

  'As usual she wants full rent whether you're there to eat or not. I've fed your dog and informed your wife.'

  'Not much reaction from either, I suppose.'

  'No noticeable reaction at all,' confirmed Mod. 'But the boys at The Babe once again send their sincere best wishes for your recovery.' He sat on the side of the bed, inspecting Davies's injuries. 'What,' he inquired, 'seems to be the trouble?'

  Davies glared under his lowered eyelid. 'I'm in what is called a generally sodded-up condition,' he said. 'Fortunately no fractures. Just what you see, plus a black-and-blue rib-cage.'

  'I've seen you worse,' consoled Mod. 'Have you had any visitors?'

  'The Coroner,' muttered Davies. 'He was just passing through. The pathologist was with him. They'd been to the mortuary. They gave me a good looking over, and I didn't like the way they did it.'

  'Future reference, you think,' mused Mod. His large bald head nodded. 'Well, you never know. You do find trouble, Dangerous. It's a pity you didn't hang on for another fifteen minutes. There were police and dogs everywhere. But everything had subsided by then. You included.'

  'Any arrests?' asked Davies.

  'Apparently none. One of the dogs wet himself in the house - fear, probably - and the Paddies want compensation.'

  'They would,' grunted Davies. 'Kitty is all right, is he?' He did not wholly trust Mod with his dog. 'He's had fresh water?'

  'He's had fresh Guinness,' returned Mod. 'The boys from The Babe donated it. Six bottles.'

  'Six? How many did Kitty get?'

  'We went half and half,' admitted Mod. 'By the way, you've won the pools.'

  Davies's eyebrows went up so swiftly he yelped in pain. 'Won them! How much?'

  'One hundred and eighty quid between the whole police syndicate. Nine quid each. I'll collect it for you if you like.'

  'No thanks,' Davies sighed. His visible eye clouded. Mod leaned privately towards him. 'I don't know why you don't get out,' he said. 'Clear off somewhere.' He regarded his friend painfully. 'Look at you. The embroidered man.'

  'The last detective,' acknowledged Davies sadly.

  'Exactly. The last detective. The last one they send - unless there's a madman to tackle.'

  'It seems to be my fate to look at people with murder in their eyes.'

  Mod's fat face softened. 'Why don't you go off and do something else? Open a hardware store.'

  Distraught, Davies gazed at him. 'Hardware?' he said, touching his forehead.

  'Anything as long as you get out of the police and out of this area,' said Mod. 'Take your accumulated pension and your dog and go. You're not cut out to be a copper. Never were.'

  They sat moodily. 'Sierra Leone,' Mod said eventually. 'Anywhere.' A nurse giving out bedpans progressed down the ward. 'Have you got the right time?' asked Mod.

  Davies nodded towards his locker. 'It's in there. It must be nearly opening.'

  Mod pulled the drawer and took out the watch. 'Half an hour,' he said. 'Could I borrow the ticker? Just while you're in here?'

  Firmly, Davies retrieved the watch. 'I like to see the time dragging by,' he said. He put it back into the drawer. Mod rose and took up his burden of books. 'I'd leave one of these for you,' he said. 'But they're a bit heavyweight.'

  'I don't want to start reading until both eyes are open,' replied Davies.

  Still clutching the books, Mod reached into his pocket and produced a randomly folded newspaper. 'I brought you the local,' he said. 'You're not in it. Nothing about your bravery.'

  He shambled off. Davies watched him go down the ward, helping himself to grapes. He revolved at the door and waved royally. Davies lay back, closed his heavy eyes, then opened them as far as he was able and picked up the local newspaper. On the second page he saw that Wilfred Henry Brock, a disordered old man who had wheeled a perambulator about the district for years, had been found drowned in the canal. The news saddened him. Lofty Brock had been a moving landmark, muttering to himself as he pushed his pram, picking up random pieces of paper, as if looking for a lost letter. Nobody knew his story for, it was said, he had himself forgotten it. Davies wondered how he had come to get himself drowned.

  He was given sick leave, but after washing his car and attempting to mend some of it, and brushing his dog, he seemed to have little else to occupy him. Cricklewood Snooker Hall was shut while they changed the tables, and there were disadvantages in not having a proper home. He walked to the police station to pay his football-pool stake. Sergeant Bannister, who filled in the coupon, was on duty.

  'We hit the jackpot then, Frank,' mentioned Davies.

  'Forgot the date of the wife's birthday,' confessed the sergeant, shaking his head morosely over the report book on the counter. 'Always fill in everybody's birthdays for the numbers, Dangerous. I put a cross against seventeen, and it turns out the wife's is the nineteenth. Typical of her. That would have been another draw. Twenty-five thousand quid.'

  A furtive woman came in from the street and began to hover.

  'Any rewards?' she inquired plaintively. 'Any rewards going this week?'

  The sergeant regarded her patiently. 'Not that I've heard of, Minnie,' he said. He turned to Davies. 'You haven't, have you, Dangerous?' Davies pretended to think.

  'In short supply these days, rewards,' he said, shaking his head like a shopkeeper. The woman shuffled towards the door and went out silently sideways. Davies said: 'What about poor old Lofty, Frank.'

  'Never harmed a fly, Lofty,' mused the sergeant.

  Davies began studying the notices on the police station board. 'Wanted for Terrorism.' 'Wanted for Armed Robbery.' 'Treatment for AIDS.' 'Do You Recognize This Weapon?' It was a wicked world.

  'I can never understand these Identikit pictures,' he sniffed, studying the man wanted for armed robbery. 'This bloke's got three different chins.' He felt his own scarred chin. 'When's the inquest on Lofty?' he asked.

  'This morning,' said the sergeant. 'PC Westerman's just gone up there.'

  'I might look in,' said Davies, glancing down at his watch. He made for the door. A wet-cheeked woman and an old man hugging his leg were coming up the steps as he went out. He wished them good morning and went towards the car compound.

  For years he had been the possessor of a seedy but - on account of its antiquity - valuable Lagonda tourer, which also served as a home for his dog, but necessity had ordered its sale. He had replaced it with a venerable Vauxhall Vanguard. It was bulky and plum-coloured with white wheels, obt
ained at a police auction of misappropriated goods. Kitty, his Yak-like dog, was waiting for him now in the ragged rear seat as he crossed to the vehicle.

  Girls in the West Indian hair salon (Pierre of Brent) had recently arranged his tangled hair into dreadlocks. Kitty, pleased with the attention, had sat quietly and ringlets now hung from his large face, his eyes peering between the spiralled strands like those of a prisoner behind bars.

  As Davies got into the car, the dog barked provocatively. He frequently had difficulty in accepting him as his master.

  He edged the bulbous vehicle into the traffic. It was ten minutes to the Coroner's court, a drive through coarse streets: the Rawalpindi Supermarket, The Great

  Wall Chinese Takeaway, the Halal Butcher, Barbados Groceries, The Jewel in the Crown Curry Centre, and the older-established premises of Smith, Jones, Murphy, the Credit Outfitters and the Queen Victoria off-licence.

  The Coroner's court was in a new building which seemed to Davies unnecessarily bright for a place in daily association with tragedy. Some upset people had just come out from an inquest and a man was ineffectually trying to comfort another man who was weeping clumsily into thick hands as he stumbled towards the exit. The first man produced a yellow scarf and gave it to his friend to hold to his eyes. The weeper rubbed at his tears and then blew his nose on it. The first man seemed a little shocked and held out his hand for his scarf.

  Davies, soberly observing the pair, moved aside to let them pass. The guiding man whispered: 'His mum took an overdose.' He ran his finger across his throat.

  'Sorry about that,' muttered Davies, as if there were some way he might have prevented it. In one ordinary morning there was a lot of small sorrow around. He pushed open the door of the court. The Coroner, Mr Noel Benskin, was perched like an auctioneer on a raised dais at the far end of the neon-lit room, his pen scratching audibly. The next case was proceeding. Evidence had just been given by a doctor who was now descending with pursed lips from the witness stand. A drained woman sat on a front bench watching him dumbly as if she could bear to care no longer. The Coroner looked up from his deathly ledger and said in his low official voice: 'You may go now. You may make the arrangements for the funeral.' The woman said: 'I... I don't know how to.' She waited, then added: 'Sir.'