The Death of the Elver Man (4 page)

The phone box was at the other end of the short row of houses, most of them homes for prison warders and other staff. Newt felt his heart race as he jogged as casually as he could past the closed doors. It would take just one glance from a window and he would be caught, but luck was with him. He reached the box, stepped in and dialled for a reverse-charge call. When the call was accepted he delivered his message as swiftly as possible, replaced the receiver and stepped out into the winter sunshine. He waited, leaning against the glass of the phone box until the warders picked him up a few minutes later. Ushered him into an isolation cell they shook their heads at his folly.

‘What did you do that for you daft lad?’ one asked.

Newt shrugged. ‘Just fancied stretching my legs a bit. You was quick though, spottin’ I’d gone.’

The warder stared at him and burst out laughing. ‘You looked the part, until you got out on the road. Then you was easy to see. Not many joggers around here in wellies.’

Newt smiled to himself as they closed the door and went off to tell their fellow guards about the Somerset lad’s ‘great escape’. He’d done what was needed. It was up to his father now.

Kevin shivered in his thin jacket as the March night turned cold and squinted at the nets in the muddy river. This was the delicate bit. Pull them in too soon and you only got half a catch, leave them too long and the homemade frame might give way and that was a night’s work swimming away downstream for someone else to harvest. The
moonlight
faded as dark clouds rolled in from the west and he decided he’d had enough. Hauling at the square net he tipped the contents into several plastic boxes stamped ‘Property of Highpoint Fish Quay’. He hefted the boxes into an old pram careful to keep the baby eels upright as they squirmed and rolled in their hundreds. Not bad, he though as he packed up his gear, stowed his nets in the reeds and began to push the pram and its precious cargo along the towpath. Nearly three boxes – might be over thirty quid. It was nearly a mile to the underpass where the Elver Man waited each night and he put his head down and plodded steadily along in the dark, watching for any signs of the river wardens as he went.

The Elver Man’s van was parked in the shadow of the motorway bridge, lights off to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Kevin pulled his pram up to the back and rapped on the door. When there was no answer he went round to the driver’s window and peered in. The seat was empty but he spotted the keys in the ignition. It began to rain and the wind was getting up, blowing the water sideways under the bridge. Kevin hesitated for a moment but as the rain increased he opened the door and slid inside. He’ll be back soon, Kevin reasoned. The keys were there so he’d not be far. He glanced in the wing-mirror to make sure his precious elvers were safe and felt in his pocket, pulling out a fistful of money. Over two hundred quid now he gloated, running his thumb over the edges so the notes rustled. Another fifty or so and he’d have his dues. He would be a fully paid up member of the Watermen, the best and finest Carnival gang in town. He shoved the money back into his pocket and settled back in the worn seat. It had been a long night and the interior of the van was warm. In the dark, with the rain pouring down he didn’t notice the blood as it dripped from the back doors to gather in a sticky pool around the van. He didn’t realize his shoes were splashed with it where he’d circled the vehicle. After a few minutes he drifted off to sleep.

Alex gazed from her office window at the grass along the banks of the River Parratt. Bright daffodils, blocks of vibrant gold and cream, had sprung up seemingly overnight and there was real warmth in the pale spring sunlight. Her phone rang and she turned back to her desk as she saw the clock. Kevin, she thought. Bloody Kevin’s late again.

‘Message from Kevin,’ said Lauren’s voice. ‘He’s got
himself
arrested and won’t be in.’

‘I’m coming down. Don’t let his mother leave,’ Alex said, and dived for the stairs. The main room was empty by the time she got there and Lauren was leaning on the counter looking anxious.

‘You let her go!’

Lauren shook her head and beckoned her over.

‘Never mind that, she’s gone off to find a solicitor.’

Alex stopped and asked, ‘What’s wrong with old Smythe? He’s been Kevin’s solicitor since – well, for ever.’

‘I think Kevin’s going to need someone a bit better than Smythe,’ said Lauren. ‘He’s on his way to Bristol as we speak. Word is, he’s murdered the Elver Man.’

Alex took a deep breath, confounded by yet another unknown in this strange world but was distracted by the main door flying open. Three young men sporting
Mohican
haircuts and leather jackets swaggered in and flung themselves onto chairs in the waiting area. They were full of themselves, laughing about the ‘Lorry Boy’ they’d left
standing
outside, too scared to come in. The leader, a tall rangy boy with broken front teeth, shouted across to the office window.

‘Mornin’ Bridget. Tell him I’m here, right?’

Lauren glanced in his direction and waved vaguely before turning back to Alex.

‘Hang on – Bridget? Why Bridget?’ Alex asked. The whole office fell quiet and suddenly everyone was busy, their
attention
fixed on papers and typewriters.

‘Lauren! Why did he call you Bridget?’ Alex insisted.
Lauren
looked up at her defiantly.

‘Like the song. You know – “Bridget the Midget”, okay? It’s a joke.’

Alex was scarcely average height herself and looked skinny, but her lean frame hid muscles developed from years of sports. She was round the counter and had the boy by the arm before he could react. Holding him in a wrestling hold she forced him to his knees and pressed the palm of her free hand onto his, exerting a steady pressure on his splayed fingers.

‘Shit, stop, you’re breaking my hand!’ he cried.

‘Apologise,’ said Alex.

‘Okay, I’m sorry. I’m sorry! It was just a joke. We all do it … aah!’ The pressure increased and he was forced down further until he was huddled on the carpet at her feet.

‘Alex, stop, please!’ Lauren hurried towards her and pulled at her elbow. Alex lifted her hand but leaned on the boy’s shoulder to stop him rising.

‘It is not a joke and it will not be tolerated. Tell everyone – your friends and cronies – because if I ever hear that again I’m coming after you – understand?’

The boy nodded, cradling his hand to his chest.

‘Good. Now, who have you come to see? And you can get up now.’

The young man struggled to his feet and slunk back to his chair.

‘Girt bitch,’ he muttered.

Alex swung round to face him again. ‘You have something else to say?’

The boy sneered at her. ‘You’m in trouble. I’m going to tell my probation officer on you. You’m can’t do that – ’tis not right.’

Lauren laughed and held up a buff folder. ‘Good luck with that Brian. Alex is your new P.O.’

Brian stared at Alex. ‘That’s not it. I always get Mr
Malcolm
. I don’t want you!’

Alex reached over and took the folder, flipping through a sorry catalogue of petty crime and minor misdemeanours. Brian had been a very busy boy for the past few years. She snapped the file shut and beckoned to him.

‘Well Brian, you had the misfortune to turn seventeen last month,’ she said. ‘Mr Malcolm looks after the juveniles but you, alas, are no longer numbered amongst them.’

There was a pause as Brian struggled to make out what had happened. Alex waited for a moment then said softly, ‘You’re a youth now, Brian. You get me, not Mr Malcolm. Now come on, we’ve got work to do.’

‘So what exactly is an elver?’ asked Alex later that day, as she and Lauren sat in the lunch room. It was a glorious day, the sun streaming through the open windows accompanied by the gentle cooing of doves from the eaves of the converted
schoolhouse they now occupied. Lauren took a bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully.

‘It’s a baby eel,’ she said. ‘They swarm up the rivers and the locals set up nets and haul them out in their thousands. But it’s not legal unless you have a licence.’

Alex sipped her tea. ‘So Kevin was poaching?’

Lauren nodded. ‘Yep. All of them’s poaching I suppose. That’s why they sell to the Elver Man. He comes down here just for a few weeks. Buys up everything the lads catch and disappears again. All cash, no questions. Is big business down here, is elvering.’

‘Why did Kevin have all that money on him then? The police say he had over
£
200 in his pockets. That’s an absolute fortune for a lad like him, surely.’

Lauren shrugged and took another bite. ‘His mother says ‘twas his subs for the Watermen. Seems like Kevin didn’t trust the banks so he carried it around with him.’

‘Okay, who or what’s the “Watermen”,’ asked Alex wearily.

‘Now that don’t make sense,’ said Lauren. ‘Watermen’s a Carnival club. Big one too, one of the oldest and most
important
. No way would they let someone like Kevin join, not if he had a thousand pounds. I reckon they was just fobbing him off, asking for such a big sub. They never expected him to raise it.’

‘Well, it’s given the police a motive,’ said Alex sadly. ‘They told me he was charged with robbery with violence as well as murder.’

Lauren shook her head, ‘Whole thing’s just stupid,’ she said. ‘I know Kevin’s several sandwiches short of a picnic but even he’s not dumb enough to rob the Elver Man, kill him and then fall asleep in the van. Something’s wrong there I reckon.’

‘I must say I don’t have Kevin down as a murderer,’ Alex agreed. ‘The police seem happy enough though. What do they say – method, opportunity and motive? They’ve got two of the three and they reckon the poor man was stabbed with
some sort of curved blade, like a fishing knife. Kevin’s got one of those so it doesn’t look too good for him.’

Lauren screwed up her sandwich paper and lobbed it into the bin. ‘Well, I don’t think he did it and if the police can’t see that maybe we should try to find out ourselves. We can’t just abandon the lad. He won’t stand a chance in prison.’

Alex peered at her second sandwich, sniffed it and decided not to bother.

‘I don’t know. It’s not exactly my job. I wouldn’t know where to start.’

Lauren slid off the chair, excited at the prospect of a new challenge.

‘Come on, we’ve got to try. Someone probably saw him out on the riverbank for a start. We could ask around. What harm can it do?’

‘That may be how they do things in London,’ said Garry Wilkins, putting a sneer into the name of the capital city, ‘but it is not acceptable behaviour in Somerset.’

Alex sat in front of her Senior’s desk and nodded. She had long ago decided silence was the best response with Garry. He worked himself up into quite a state if contradicted and tended to take his anger out on the team at random.

‘Brawling in the waiting room! We’re lucky you’re not being accused of assault. What were you thinking?’

Alex tried to look contrite and waited until Garry started again. It was obvious he had no interest at all in what she might have been thinking.

‘God, the people we appoint. You don’t know the area, you don’t know the job, the way you dress – and that terrible old car of yours.’

Alex struggled with the temptation to point out she couldn’t afford a better car after five years at university and she always wore a skirt (reluctantly) into court. Besides which, as she said to Lauren later, taking a new car into some of the areas she had to visit was just asking for trouble.

She wandered down to the front office, still smarting with
the injustice of it all. To her surprise, Pauline, the senior administrator, opened the door and invited her in to the back office tea-room, a rare honour. Lauren and Pauline brewed fresh coffee and sat her down whilst the other office women smiled and greeted her like an old friend. When Garry rang down demanding to know where she was, she heard Pauline offering a vague story relating to an emergency call-out
necessitating
her absence for the afternoon.

‘Don’t worry about him,’ said Lauren. ‘He’s been losing it for a while now. That’s why there’s so many new staff
coming
in. No-one wants to stay for long and he moved half the experienced people out into other offices. He thought they were undermining his authority.’

‘Glad it’s not just me then,’ mumbled Alex. The remark about not knowing the job had stung her. She’d left a secure job in the civil service to follow her dream of becoming a probation officer. After three years at university she’d got a degree in social science and she’d spent two more years
getting
her qualification. A whole year of that had been working on placement in hostels, offices and court buildings. Lauren shook her head at her.

‘It’s our job to teach you what you really need to know,’ she said. ‘You may know the book stuff but no-one comes here able to organize a case-load. You got no idea how to address the local court when you need to breach someone, your paperwork is a terrible mess and half of you don’t keep proper records. The first year we take one officer each and try to beat you into shape.’

Alex was rendered speechless for a moment, but if she was being honest she suspected there was considerable truth in Lauren’s words. The administrators were overworked, undervalued and poorly paid compared to the probation officers but they knew everyone, always had the correct files to hand and seemed to handle the sad and sometimes
aggressive
procession of clients with tact, humour and considerable skill. Without Lauren, she reflected, she would have crashed and burned in her first week.

She looked around the office with more attention, noting the speed and efficiency of the activity. The women rarely stopped for a chat yet they were good humoured and relaxed in their competence. Lauren was watching her and suddenly grinned.

‘Yep, you get it. Lots of you don’t, however long you’re here. Just don’t let Garry see you behaving towards us as if we’re real people. Seems it offends his sense of importance.’

‘And, off the record now,’ added Pauline, ‘you watch him. He’s been known to make rather strange decisions, especially if he thinks someone’s a bit of a challenge. So you check with Lauren or me if you’re not sure of anything. Now, you go off and get that old car of yours out of the car park before he spots it.’

‘What about work?’

Lauren held up a form. ‘Is already being logged. You’ve been very busy this afternoon, doing your job somewhere else. Why don’t you go see Ada Mallory, see if Kevin was teamed up with anyone else that night? I reckon he must’ve seen
someone
else on the river. Maybe someone can give him an alibi.’

On the way out she passed Gordon, damp cloth in hand, scrubbing at the back seat of his car and received a vague wave in acknowledgment of her greeting. Stung by his
attitude
she drove off feeling almost surplus to requirements once more.

It was abominably hot in the Mallory’s front room. The
windows
were closed against the fresh spring air, the fire was roaring in the hearth and the whole room was crowded with furniture, ornaments and dogs. Clothes were scattered across most surfaces and there was a layer of animal hair on the sofa where Alex perched after Mrs Mallory had swept a pile of grey underclothes on to the floor to make space. One large and overly affectionate dog of indeterminate breed lay across the rest of the couch, inching its head towards her as she reluctantly accepted a biscuit to go with her dark, stewed tea. She declined the offer of sugar after seeing the bowl with its
mix of lumpy white granules and unidentified black specks. Ada Mallory settled her ample self in an armchair, pulled her bright pink cardigan around her shoulders and sighed heavily.