Ritual Murder (9 page)

“His own mates'll be the best judge of that. I intend to have a word with some of them. For what that's worth, mind you. What's childhood but a closed shop, a show put on to take the grown-ups in? Or are you too old to remember?”

“Me?” demanded the little Welshman, opening his eyes wide. “The pride of Llandrobyneth—the manly little chap, open as a twenty-four-hour petrol station?”

“That's the one. Equally, I don't doubt, the lecherous little so-and-so that was always trying to get the girls into the bike shed to try out his new pump—”

“Any other age, they'd be burning you at the stake for that, boyo! Sorcery, it is! Sauce, anyway.”

“No wonder we grow up liars, the practice we've had.” Jurnet cast a jaundiced look about the Close. He felt mocked by the budding trees, the flowers. The silly pigeons strutted croocrooing, or else flew round and round the cathedral steeple. Round and round. What was the sense of that, for Christ's sake, when all you did was end up where you started?

The noise in the Upper Close brought him back abruptly to the matter in hand.

There were not a great many more people than usual moving about on the paved space in front of the West Door. It was the noise they were making—a high-pitched hum that might well have gone unremarked by less professional ears—which made the two police officers quicken their steps. That, and the sight of a small group clustered on the grass.

“Jesus!” exclaimed Ellers. “The bloody Fourth Estate!” He groaned as a small white van, with
Eastern Television
painted on it in blue, hurtled through the FitzAlain Gate and braked as if an abyss had suddenly opened an inch ahead of its front bumper. Out of the back tumbled young men with long hair in T-shirts and ragged jeans who, despite their appearance, proceeded to set up a television camera and ready the recording apparatus, with the dexterity of a gunnery crew at the Royal Tournament. “What the hell's going on?”

A police car came into the Close, probably in pursuit of the van, for the two uniformed men who got out of it seemed to be in no doubt whom they wanted to see. But they too, as they started across the grass, caught the strange humming sound and turned, alert, towardsits source.

Aware at last that something was up, the crowd in front of the West Door had divided, the voyeurs drawing to one side for safety's sake but staying to see what was to be seen, the rest of the tourists retreating into the cathedral. The remainder—a hundred or so men and a dozen women—drew together in a phalanx, well posed in relation to the cameras, and, at a signal from a man with a sternly noble face who seemed to be in command, produced from beneath coats and jackets, with an efficiency betokening many rehearsals, an assortment of banners and placards.

Only the lettering showed haste in preparation. Unevenly printed, poorly spaced, they read: 1144—JEWS KILLED LITTLE ST ULF. WHO KILLED ARTHUR COSSEY? and: HITLER WASN' T ALL BAD. A third demanded: AVENGE ARTHUR NOW! and a fourth, simply: RITUAL MURDER! Two women held up a large Union Jack. A banner of some white material, flourished aloft on poles by the man and the woman at either end of the front line, proclaimed: THE ENGLISH MEN FOR ENGLAND!

Sick at heart, Jurnet broke into a run.

A child was dead.

Death was an end.

This was a beginning.

The noise expanded to an orgasmic climax. “Rit-rit-ritual murder!
Rit-rit-ritual murder!
”

One of the uniformed men was back at the car, speaking urgently to Headquarters Control. Jurnet ran to the front of the screaming faces and shouted, “We are police officers! It is against the law to demonstrate in the Cathedral Close! Put down your posters and disperse immediately!”

Intoxicated with their own uproar, the demonstrators did not hear him: or, if they did, paid no heed.

“Rit-rit-ritual murder: Rit-rit-ritual murder!”

“The bleeding buggers!”

“Cool it!” Jurnet's hand clamped hard on the little Welshman's shoulders, forcing the heels back to earth. “I see Hinchley's called in. We'll wait for reinforcements.” To Hinchley's companion, who had joined them looking angry and rebellious, he directed, “Smile, Bly! We're on telly, can't you see? A nice case of police brutality'd make their day.” Jurnet saw that three of the vergers had emerged from the cathedral, one of them, Harbridge, carefully rolling back the sleeves of his gown. “Oh my Gawd, the Three Graces! Get after 'em quick, and let them know if they so much as touch a hair on this lot we'll do 'em for GBH before they know what's hit them.”

Bly moved away sulkily, and Ellers muttered between gritted teeth, “How the ruddy hell did they know?”

“The media, you mean?” Jurnet's tone was savage. “The fucking media, protector of our democratic rights and liberties? Because some one bloody told 'em, of course!”

Hinchley came running over from the car with a loud-hailer.

“They're on their way, sir. This any use?”

“I doubt it,” said Jurnet, taking the loud-hailer and putting it to his lips.

Immediately the shouting redoubled.

“Rit-rit-ritual murder!”

Jurnet lowered the instrument.

“No point in making ourselves more ridiculous than we are already.”

Ellers demanded, “No brutality, OK—but do we have to stand around looking like pooves?”

“Unless you can think of something better.”

A young man came running over to them from among the onlookers—a young man with a girl following behind, evidently bent upon dissuading him from his course of action. The young man's exuberant jacket and slacks advertised his transatlantic nationality. His dark, curly hair and dark eyes marked a further allegiance.

“For Christ's sake!” the young man yelled. “Aren't you going to-do something? Are you going to let these goddam anti-Semites get away with it?”

“Mort—please!”

The girl plucked desperately at his sleeve. The young man jerked himself free.

“Don't ‘Mort please' me!” To the police officers, “Can't you read what they've got written up on those posters? Can't you hear what they're shouting? Or isn't it an offence in these wonderful British Isles?”

Jurnet replied steadily, “It
is
offensive, sir, I agree. Just as it is also an offence to demonstrate here in the Cathedral Close without permission from the Dean and Chapter. However, in view of the numbers concerned, measures to bring the demonstration to a close may take a little time. We should be in a position to take action very shortly.”

“Rit-rit-ritual murder!”

“Jesus!” the young man shouted; and again he pulled his sleeve away from the clutching girl. Even in the midst of his preoccupations Jurnet noticed that she was very young, slim-legged, and elegant in an English mackintosh the way English women seldom succeeded in being. She stood whispering “Mort!” in a horrified undertone as the young man made for the close-packed English Men and, before any of them could divine his intention, drove his fist into the noble face of their leader.

The man went down to a dismayed howl from his followers. One of the women with the Union Jack brought her flagpole down on the American's head. He reeled, enveloped in folds of red, white, and blue. Blood trickled down either side of his nose, but he did not fall. Instead, he lowered his head and butted it into the stomach of the close-cropped youth who held the placard which proclaimed that Adolf Hitler was not all bad.

For further details thereafter, Jurnet was forced to refer to the television company which, later in the day, put on a private showing for his and the Superintendent's delectation. The long-haired boys had done their stuff. The detective shifted in his seat until, bruised as he was, with a couple of strapped ribs, he felt less uncomfortable, and correspondingly less censorious of the young technicians, intent on their job though all hell broke loose about them. True, a little active participation pending the arrival of the rein-forcements from Headquarters would have been worth a hundred pictures; but the other onlookers, after all, with nothing to do but their duty as citizens, had done sweet Fanny Adams, whereas the telly men had at least engaged themselves in the useful activity of compiling a record.

There was not much they had missed. The young American disappearing beneath booted feet as the four police officers launched themselves to the rescue; the three vergers whirling like dervishes, their arms flailing; the sun catching brass knuckle-dusters—it was all there, in glorious Technicolour.

Had the onlookers stood by like that, all those years ago, watching Josce Morel and his wife Chera dying slowly in their iron cages on the city wall? Had they craned their necks to get a better view of the good doctor, Haim HaLevi, upside down on his cross?

Even as he posed the questions, Jurnet knew the answers. They had stood by. There were always onlookers.

The Superintendent turned to him in the darkness of the projection room, and asked, with a gentleness that was almost paternal, “You feeling all right, Ben?”

“Bit sore, sir, that's all.”

“I don't wonder.” The Superintendent returned his gaze to the screen where Police-Constable Bly, in close-up, was spitting out a tooth. “I shall want to know why it took as long as it did to get help to you.”

“Don't see how they could have done it any faster,” said Jurnet, always the peacemaker: it was what made him so popular back at Headquarters, in spite of his looks. In the darkness the detective smiled up wryly at his own image, one sleeve of his jacket missing, urging the English Men's leader, none too gently, towards the police van.

“Brinton, Briston—what's the chap's name?” the Superintendent demanded.

“Brinston. Claude Brinston. Seems to have a positive genius for teaming up with villains. A born tool.”

“One of
the
Brinstons?”

“That's right. Brinston Boots and Shoes. That's why they kicked out Chesley Hayes, their old führer. Wanted to get their hands on the Brinston millions. And that's why we now have Hayes's League of Patriots as well as the English Men to contend with—two lots of nutters instead of one.”

“So much the better! Only a dustpan and brush needed to clean up little messes.”

“Yes, sir.”

The studio was filling now with the sound of nearing sirens as earlier, in the Close, they had sounded in Jurnet's ears like the trumpets of the blest. The screen was alive with movement. Police poured out of vans like dogs released for exercise, feet pounded over the ground. Even at second hand you could sense, in the midst of the danger, a tremendous elation, even merriment.

Some of the English Men got away, but not many. Soon it was all over, all that was left of the episode some bunting and bits of shredded cardboard which the three vergers, in torn gowns, were piling in a heap on the paving as if they intended a victory bonfire.

Not quite all. On the grass, watched by the girl in the English mackintosh, a doctor worked over the body of the young American. Pictures that the editor was quick to stress had not been broadcast showed an ashen face, eyes closed, blood trickling from the side of the mouth. The two detectives watched as the ambulance men eased the body on to a stretcher, the girl waiting stiff as the statues on the lawn. When they slid it into the waiting ambulance the onlookers began to drift away, full of what they had seen and of their own luck to have seen it. The ambulance, its siren blaring, passed under the arch of the FitzAlain Gate, and out of sight.

The screen went blank. Somebody turned up the lights. The higher-ups brought in to fend off awkward questions inquired warily if there were any further way in which they could be of service. They had already confirmed that an anonymous telephone call had alerted them to the imminence of something newsworthy in the Close.

“Naturally—” one of them spread out well-manicured hands in a plausible simulation of innocence—“we assumed that the police were
au fait
with what was in train.”

They spoke a little further of the public's right to know: offered sherry, which the Superintendent declined courteously.

“Inspector Jurnet and I have taken up enough of your time.”

They did not deny it; escorted the pair to the main entrance, affable now at the prospect of getting rid of them. One of the long-haired young men, something to do with the sound balance, followed them out, and asked, “The American fellow—will he be all right?”

“Doubt it,” Jurnet answered.

“The lousy bastards!” The long-haired young man went back inside.

It had grown dark. The street lights gleamed frostily, winter still lurking in the April night. Jurnet, who had dashed home to exchange his ruined suit for his only other one, which was thinner, felt chilled as he and the Superintendent made their way to the carpark. He tried nobly to stifle his resentment towards the Super, strolling comfortably in a twill topcoat.

The Superintendent said, “Impressive, don't you think?” Jurnet nodded, nosing the car out into the traffic. “Quite a trick, it must be—deciding the moment to stop filming and get back to base. Things so seldom come to neat ends.”

Not this thing, that's for sure, Jurnet thought, but did not say.

The Superintendent continued, “I thought one of those vergers looked a bit worse for wear.”

“Harbridge—I've mentioned him to you. They got him on the old wound he picked up the day the football fans came to town. Wouldn't go to hospital. Said he'd see his GP later.”

“Not wise—unless it looked worse than it was. Blood on television always looks bloodier than blood in real life.” The Superintendent looked sideways at his subordinate. “I thought you looked awful.”

“Lousy make-up man.”

“I suppose there's nothing they left out?”

“Not so far as I could tell.” Jurnet omitted to mention two small matters which had escaped the intrusive microphone and the prying lens. One was a fleeting glimpse of Stan Brent among the lookers-on: the other, the pale American girl. The detective had taken her by the elbow to help her into the ambulance, and at the top of the steps she had turned and said, “We've been married ten days—no, nine! Tomorrow we'll have been married ten whole days.”