Say Goodbye to the Boys (8 page)

The door swung open and Amos emerged. ‘Mr Garston took some time to tell you about this contraption, didn't he Marks?' The Inspector was brushing dust off the old man's shoulder. ‘Will you stop patting me, man?'

‘You know the rules, Mr Ellyott. There can be no discussion. None whatsoever...'

‘Down there,' Amos said, ‘what is there down there?' I remembered then. ‘A loading bay of some kind?'

‘A garage,' the Inspector said. ‘Now... Come on.'

‘Belonging to Garston?' A large lean-to structure in that most vile of building materials – corrugated iron. Have you charged him yet?'

The Inspector's torch was pointing at the ceiling. I saw him draw himself up to his full height, saw him adjust a cuff, straighten his tie. ‘Mr Ellyott – you ought to know better than to ask. Besides, is it a crime to possess a garage? Is it a crime to possess a lift?'

‘It is to withhold evidence,' Amos snapped, and they had a quick slanging match which Emlyn broke up by asking if it was all right to have a ride in the lift.

‘How long was it before he told you there was a lift?' Amos persisted.

‘That will do!' the Inspector roared. ‘I now order you to leave these premises. All of you! At once!'

Amos waved his torch at us as he came stumping after us down the aisle between the chairs. ‘I have friends in high places,' he was muttering. ‘I am not to be spoken to in that tone of voice.' But out in the street his mood changed. ‘Now it becomes fascinating,' he said. ‘Mr George Garston – isn't he a card? Only answers the question. Volunteers nothing. I took it upon myself to survey these outbuildings, you know. Special lock, would you believe? And expensive. Mr Garston had something to hide. We must draw him out – like a boil.'

We went out on the town that evening, and I thought it was all very embarrassing because, wherever we went, the conversation took a dive and was some time rising again. ‘Notorious at last,' Emlyn said with satisfaction.

The only dance was in the Girl Guide Hut in the sand hills on the way to the golf club. Music courtesy of gramophone record. The dance was due to finish at eleven. We arrived at twenty to, the wrong place, and the wrong time, and I was about to suggest a retreat until I saw Ceri was there. MT Edmunds was building up to the climax of his speech at that point.

‘Let us build our town into the premier resort on this lovely coast,' he declaimed. ‘Big ends have small beginnings!' I saw Ceri raise a hand to hide a smile. She was standing next to Mrs Williams-Brown who was famous for being in charge of the Brownies and who was fat and hearty and didn't like our appearance one little bit. ‘You young people,' said MT, one of his posters on display, ‘you are the flowers of our town. Support must come from you.' He waved his poster like a banner. ‘Turn up in your hundreds. Join in. Revive our beautiful town!' Mrs Williams-Brown boomed out a ‘hear, hear!' And without ceremony brought the speech to an end with the next record at full volume. Even so, MT managed the last word, ‘On with the dance,' he cried, ‘let joy be unconfined!' Then he swept out, pausing only to give the three of us a friendly punch, the dedicated man himself, and to hell with murder and apathy and a poor weather forecast.

‘You owe me a dance,' Ceri said. ‘My word, you smell like a brewery.'

‘Get your coat – I'll walk you home.'

But she insisted on a dance. ‘I came to give old Williams-Brown a hand with the kids,' she said, ‘until their mothers come to collect. Don't stand so stiff, for goodness' sake. It's like dancing with a lamp post.'

Mash and Emlyn were being daft and dancing with two little girls. ‘Isn't Emlyn Morton a cherub,' Ceri said as the last waltz began. ‘I remember dancing with him before the war. He dared me to climb the flagpole and I took him on.' Then we stopped dancing and stood still in the middle of the floor and watched two mothers in macs and scarves grab their children away from Emlyn and Mash. Emlyn was tight-lipped; Mash bewildered.

They came over to us. ‘We're off,' Emlyn said. ‘See you're fixed up, Philip.' We watched them go, a platoon of mothers at the door stepping aside for them.

Ceri said grimly, ‘You stand there where everyone can see you. I'll get my coat.'

We walked slowly along the narrow road through the sand hills. ‘They're not going to make public enemies of my friends,' she said. ‘You should have heard what my father said when the police came to see me.' I told her about the station and the visit to the Market Hall, and Amos Ellyott. ‘Now him,' she said, ‘he drops in on us – for hours! But you and Emlyn Morton and Mash have got the tongues wagging – you know that, don't you?'

‘Bound to,' I said.

‘She was a nice woman. Bit of a hard case. It was a scream when you went there to have your hair done – the things she came out with.' She squeezed my arm. ‘Did you like her?'

Lilian Ridetski, fat fingers caressing the cards. Her death hit me then. ‘Of course I liked her.'

She drew me to a halt and reached up and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I'm glad you said that.'

‘We all liked her.'

‘And that.' I held on to her then, and she was warm and encouraging until I pushed her back against a gorse bush. ‘Ow! My bum! God – the places you take me!' She was saying that when we heard a shout ahead.

We ran forward. Out of the darkness MT came staggering, a handkerchief to his face.
‘Oh my goodness,' he said through it, ‘what a terrible nosebleed.'

Then I heard a car door slam shut. Its lights came on as it moved off using too many revs. MT was breathing heavily, ‘Thank God it's you Philip.' Not a nosebleed, I decided. MT had just been thumped.

‘What's going on, Mr Edmunds? Whose car was that?'

‘Now Philip – young lady, know your father well of course – I implore you. On your word of honour say nothing about this to anyone, please. Please.' He touched his nose, the handkerchief white in the darkness. ‘It's the embarrassment, you see.'

I had a clean handkerchief and I gave it to him. He made a speech of thanks and found more ways to apologise than I thought possible. He walked away after wishing us half a dozen good nights, but called me over before he finally went to whisper urgently. ‘Not a word of this to Marshall – will you promise on your honour?' I said of course. ‘And the young lady?'

‘She'll keep quiet too,' I assured him.

‘What have I got to keep quiet about?' Ceri enquired as we walked on.

‘Doesn't want anybody to know he's been in a fight.'

‘Oh – do you suppose George Garston's anti sports and carnival like the rest of the town?'

‘Why George Garston?'

‘His car,' she said. ‘I'm positive. And do you know the police have been talking to David Garston too?' She laughed softly. ‘When your old man's a gentleman of the press you hear it all.'

VIII

 

 

 

 

During the war, Maelgwyn's population had taken a leap. Out of the cities had come the refugees from the bombs, most of them elderly, most of them well–heeled. One of the features of the town was the number of women you saw trotting around to the shops, chattering over cups of tea, taking the air on the promenade. Little, birdlike women in floral dresses and ancient hats, monied widows and spinster ladies, firm believers in keeping themselves to themselves who had decided not to return to the big towns when peace finally arrived. Such a one was Catherine Jane Porterhouse, who was discovered at ten on that Tuesday morning, perched on King Teddy's lap. Dead of strangulation.

‘It's a maniac loose,' Laura declared. ‘That old statue – just imagine – she was sitting on his knee, flowers in her hand. Wild flowers. She collected them. At night.'

‘At night?'

‘They say she might have been there for days. Nobody ever looks at that old statue anyway. High old time the council pulled it down.'

‘There was nobody on his knee on Sunday morning,' I said.

The remark silenced her. She stared at me keenly. ‘You won't have to go to the police station because of her, will you?' She had hurried back from the shop with the news, her working hat still on her head. Now her cheeks flushed to the same colour – pink. ‘You know what I mean, don't you? Don't know if I'm coming or going, I don't. It's a maniac loose. We never had that – not even when the troops were here.'

‘Did you know her? Mrs Porterhouse?'

‘Miss,' she said with a shake of the head. ‘Mollie Ann says she's seen her, but nobody seems to know anything about her. She was renting some rooms – that place near the Royal on the front. George Garston's, they say – got property everywhere that man. She came from a very good family Yorkshire way. Wool, Mollie Ann says. But nobody really knows much about her. Know what they're like, don't you? Don't mix. Just come here to live by themselves and mind their own business. It's terrible, isn't it? Don't you think it's terrible?'

‘You're having me on.'

‘It's true, Philip.'

‘She picked wild flowers at night?'

‘She was strangled – like – you know.' Laura sitting down now, settling down too. She had rushed back to tell me. I wondered what she had expected to find. An empty house? The police at the door.

‘King Teddy's lap? Honestly?'

Now she was embarrassed. ‘I was just like you. Couldn't believe it, neither.' Sweat shone on her forehead. ‘I thought I'd let you know.' She fanned herself with the
Daily Mirror
. ‘Goodness – isn't it hot? It's a heat wave on the way, they say. Even hot in the Market Hall.' A suspect, that's what I was.

‘Who found her?'

She gulped. ‘Marshall Edmunds. He was running or something and he happened to look up – and he saw her. Reported it to the police.'

‘It's a fact,' Emlyn said. ‘It would have to be old Mash, wouldn't it? He was training, would you believe? Pounding up the prom and he spots this old girl up there. Just goes to show – if you want to hide something then leave it in a prominent place.'

We were aboard the
Ariadne
, sitting on some sackcloth because the roof of the cabin was so hot. Mash was giving another coat of red paint to the old boat's keel. He'd looked up and she was sitting there on the old King's knee, sea holly in her hand. He was very proud that he had been the one to find her, Emlyn said. But they held him at the police station all morning.

Emlyn pointed towards the dune ‘Oh God, look what's coming – anyone for tennis? You can smell the mothballs from here!'

Amos Ellyott stood on top of the dune, his stick raised like a sword. He was wearing a white shirt with billowing sleeves, a tie and white cricket flannels of stunning tightness. On his head the biggest straw hat. ‘Halloo there,' he called, ‘it is I, Ellyott!'

I suggested that we hide, but Emlyn went down to escort him over the mud and heave him, rung by rung, up the ladder. And all of that afternoon under a burning sun the old man talked death from the deck chair. He knew little more than we did about Miss Porterhouse, but he was positive that she had died of strangulation. He found that fascinating. The same method as before. Some sort of strap had been used. Bizarre, the old man said, bizarre and puzzling. No one, as yet, had come forward to claim her, either.

‘No one's claimed Lilian – is that what you mean?' I said.

Two ladies of such different backgrounds, he went on. Lilian Ridetski had no relations because of an accident of birth; Miss Porterhouse would
probably have outlived hers – and she had never been
married to a Polish airman, now officially listed as a
deserter.
Andrei Ridetski. A very fastidious gentleman.
Something
of a dandy, and rumoured to be involved in the underworld of Warsaw.

Had he perhaps taken flight because of the lady's sexual appetite? ‘That is a possibility, my friends – but I doubt such a reason would instigate him opting for desertion in a foreign land, for leaving a prospering little business, and a warm little nest. The premises were in the lady's name, but they were purchased by Ridetski, who, we are led to believe is a penniless Polish refugee. Where did the money come from? Was there, perhaps, assistance? There are claims that he has been sighted, he added from behind a white handkerchief which now covered his face.

‘Seen here – in Maelgwyn?' I asked.

‘Elsewhere,' Amos replied. ‘Persons answering to his description.'

Later he awoke to tell us that George Garston had admitted finally that he had made use of the secret room on the top floor to store unspecified goods.

‘George Garston would be involved in the black market, wouldn't you say? But on the night in question he was attending a concert in the village hall at Brynberth. He was accompanied by his son, he claims. It was an affair that continued well into the night. But there would have been time. There is always time when one is desperate.' He appeared to have gone to sleep again. We stretched out and surrendered to the heat.

‘However,' he said. We both sat up. Beneath us we could hear the old boat's timbers shrinking, ‘let us consider some other intriguing factors...'

‘Not the day for considering anything,' Emlyn protested. ‘I think I've got heat stroke.'

Amos Ellyott's thin, precise voice, rasped on relentlessly. ‘Mrs Ridetski was a lady who loved finery – a gaudy dresser, I am given to understand. Yet, on the night in question, she had not dressed in her usual fashion. We must therefore assume that the summons had been urgent, unexpected and important. Summoned by a familiar, I am led to conclude.' He gave us a long silent spell to ensure that we thought about it. ‘Well – what d'you say?'

‘If you say so,' Emlyn said. ‘I mean – yes.' He appealed to me. ‘You take over – the heat's got me.'

‘Nonsense,' Amos said. ‘You are simply refusing to think. Mrs Ridetski had a key. She went in answer to a summons. The same key opened the garage door as well as the door to the lift contraption. She ascended.' His mottled hands came up and pulled at an imaginary rope. ‘And there was someone waiting, someone who she had hurried to, confidently. Tell me – why have you not confessed to the murder of Miss Porterhouse?'

‘I beg your pardon?' Emlyn said.

‘The Inspector will want to know. He will send for you before the day is out. The three of you. Marshall's parent too. All the confessors. He will want to know why you made a special case of Lilian Ridetski. I trust you have your answers and your alibis?'

‘Well, bugger me,' Emlyn said lightly. ‘I should throw you off my ship. We're suspects, are we?'

‘Only because you have invited suspicion, you foolish, naive young men,' Amos said before he went to sleep once more.

At five that evening I was interviewed by Inspector Marks. At six, Emlyn. At seven Mash, and they kept him in for a long time. They had to throw MT out of the police station.

‘OK,' Emlyn said, ‘I know I'm to blame – but you don't really care what they think in this shitty little town, do you?'

‘It isn't that,' I said.

‘Well – you never used to care. You didn't give a fuck for anybody. You were famous for it.'

‘Me? Famous? When?'

‘At school. Ask anybody.' We had given Mash an escort home and we were standing outside Emlyn's house in the Crescent. Some women in the King's Arms had actually pointed the finger at us. ‘Now look – what we'll have to do is get this bugger caught. I mean, I'm like you. I don't give a sod what the bloody town thinks. But what we'll do is we'll set a trap. He's local all right and he's gone off his nut, so once and for all, to stop all this harassing we're getting because I made a bit of a balls of it, we'll catch him, preferably in the act!' He was facing me, standing on his toes, he eyes shining.

‘Good night,' I said. ‘You go to your bo–bo's and read a comic. Count me out.' I walked away from him.

‘Philip,' he called after me.

‘Bollocks,' I called back.

That night Lilian's shop was burgled. Nothing was taken, nothing much disturbed, except that someone stripped a length of wallpaper off one of the walls in Lilian's bedroom. ‘Something there behind a picture on the wall,' Laura said, her eyes quick and wide. ‘Fancy!'

‘It'll be an envelope,' Emlyn told her with great assurance. ‘Brown manila. With plans for an atomic bomb!'

‘Good heavens!' Laura said, ‘how d'you know?' Then she laughed. ‘You're joking. Having me on.'

Laura, perched on a stool outside the shop, swung out with her rolled up
Daily Mirror
and caught him across the ear. ‘Get away,' she said, ‘clear off the both of you!' Only be back to close the shop for her in case the maniac was lying in wait behind the bookshelves.

‘Leave it open,' I suggested. ‘Maybe he'll pinch the stock.'

‘I should be so lucky,' she shouted after us.

We wandered around the hall. ‘Isn't this great?' Emlyn said. ‘Messing about – just like when we were kids on those long summer holidays. I remember going up and down like a yo–yo in that old lift – but I thought they'd done away with it too.'

‘Second time someone's broken into Lilian's place,' I said. ‘Maybe old man Ridetski's come home.'

‘Could be,' he agreed, ‘but why pick on Miss Porterhouse?' He said it to Mollie Ann Fruits, and she, in a voice that came from deep inside said, ‘It's only the beginning – mark my words!'

Outside in the sunshine Emlyn said, ‘We are going to give MT a lift? The Jazz Band.'

‘Without me,' I said promptly.

‘I want us all in whites. Black bow tie. Dark specs. The wagon's fixed. Mash on drums. Sid Bates'll be on piano – I've fixed that as well. You on banjo.'

‘Look, I've no strings on the fucking banjo,' I said.

‘All the fucking better for that,' he went on smoothly. ‘I knew I could rely on you!'

MT's carnival and sports day were fixed for the
Friday, and in spite of forecasts of depressions on the way, the days leading up to it blazed, each one hotter than the last.

‘Oh – this old heat wave,' Laura complained, ‘makes all them books sweat in the shop.' But the whole town came out to rejoice in it, fan itself, and take the air and crowd the pubs. Talk of murders and inquests and funerals went by the board. Heat and sunshine's deaths and dying antidote.

I took Ceri out each day and to hell with working on the boat. The town council had officially boycotted the carnival and sports day, she told me. They had even tried, and failed, to secure a police ban on the procession because of the grave happenings in the town. The heat and the sunshine had met a barrier at the walls of the Council Chamber. To hell with grave happenings too, I thought. There was Ceri running out of the sea, Ceri smiling in the sun, Ceri's voice in my head. I would have to work on keeping her away from David Garston who was sniffing around. It was she who told me that David had failed his exams. It was Amos Ellyott who told me that the police interviewed David every day, and were not happy with his story. But that wasn't why Mash thumped him in the saloon bar of the King's Arms. No one knew why he did it. David walked in. Mash threw a punch at him. And afterwards he couldn't remember doing it.

The depression arrived the morning of MT's carnival. A boisterous wind sprang up from the estuary with havoc in mind, a startling dip in temperature, grey clouds obscuring the sun. It made the parade that was assembling in the yard of the Royal Hotel look even thinner that it was.

‘Only three entries in the decorated bicycle class,' MT said, ‘but never mind, never mind. It will look fine once we string along.' He had decided to stick to the original route in spite of warnings about the wind on the promenade. The newer part of town first, then the old, up to the High Street and back to the Royal. ‘Look at the children,' he cried out. ‘Aren't they marvellous?'

There were four shivering fairies, one with a broken wand; two little girls in Welsh costume who kept chasing their hats and three little boys dressed as ghosts. Numerous soldiers with sooty faces, twenty or more of whom it was difficult to say exactly what they were, and a little girl named Sian Thomas, not in fancy dress at all, who said she was the atomic bomb. Among the adults were John James as Mae West. Emlyn could remember him as Mae West in 1935, and at every subsequent carnival.

‘A noble effort all round,' MT declared. ‘Now – into line everybody.'

Only three floats had assembled, two of them horse drawn because of the petrol rationing. On one of these were the Women's Institute as ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor', crinolines billowing, wigs, and flower baskets. The other was a small cart covered with flowers, a highly professional job, a trade entry from a new shop in the High Street – ‘Bilton's for Better Blooms' in gold lettering on either side of the mound of blossoms, a small pot pixie rising above them all. We followed this on one of MT's lorries. The Jazz Band. Emlyn was already warming up. Mash banging enthusiastically on the drums, Sid Bates trying to unstick the keys on the old upright that Emlyn had borrowed, and me with my banjo wishing it was all over. Amos Ellyott sat at the rear of the lorry on an ancient cane chair. ‘If anybody asks,' Emlyn said, ‘tell them he's the singer.' MT wouldn't give us a prize because that would have been favouritism.