The Maggie Murders (4 page)

‘That’s good research.’

Debbie blushed beguilingly and
revealed that her grandmother had lived in the town all her life and as soon as
she said the name to him had commented that ‘’he were the one who got into all
that trouble round the time of the Coronation.” Following this up, Debbie had
discovered that her grandmother’s memory was playing her a little false, as
1952 and 1953 revealed nothing about George Kellow. Fortunately for her
endeavours, the local paper was only a weekly and the archive for the first
quarter of 1954 had turned up trumps.

‘He was released from Exeter
Gaol, having being sent down for public indecency! They made a lot of him being
a disgraced war hero too.  Apparently he was at Dunkirk and some place called
El-Alabama!’

‘El Alamein’, corrected Jane,
before finding the need to add apologetically ‘I took History at A’ level.’

‘I took English Lit, French and
R.E. – got a ‘B’ and two ‘Cs!’ Debbie beamed.

Jane felt now was not the time to
reveal her superior grades in English, History and Geography and diplomatically
asked the tyro journalist to press on.

‘He also won a load of medals,
they made quite a bit about him getting the Military Medal at Dunkirk and being
awarded a bar for El-Alamein. Though I’m sure that doesn’t mean they gave him a
pub, as he was a butcher wasn’t he?’

‘It literally meant a bar on the
original medal to say he’d been awarded the equivalent medal a second time.’

‘Well, seems a bit cheapskate to
me. Anyhow they seemed to use his bravery against him. On his return from the
War he took over his dad’s butcher’s shop in Littleham. His younger brother was
killed at Normandy and it said his sister lived all the way over in Sidmouth.’

Debbie made the East Devon
coastal town just over half an hour’s drive from Littleham sound like it
belonged in the next country. Jane hoped the ambition in this girl could be
realised and that she would quickly get off the local rag and at least make it
to a provincial paper in Exeter or Plymouth. That might be the step up to one
of the Nationals, where she might at least find more PC terms for gay and black
people; though given some of the tabloid hysteria about AIDS recently that
might not necessarily be a step in the right direction…

‘You are listening?’

Jane gave Debbie a sisterly smile
and assured the excited girl of her undivided attention, before spoiling it all
by asking for a minute to have a pee. This took rather longer than expected, as
the woman behind the counter made her reasonable request to use the toilet,
seem like a demand for free credit.

Having being led up a private
staircase to a residential flat above the shop only on the production of her
warrant card, Jane had been made to feel that it was her putting the elderly
owner out by wanting to use a toilet before ‘High Season’. By this point, Jane
felt that she had been overly patient in listening to the host explaining how
the ‘one out back’ couldn’t be fixed until her nephew had come back from Spain.
Jane wished she’d had the quickness of wit to point out that tourists were
probably deserting Devon for Spain in droves not just for the cheaper tea over
there, but also for the better standards of customer care. Instead, she found
herself overcome by her English sense of not wanting to make a scene and became
overly and pathetically grateful for being allowed to use the private toilet
facilities on the premises.

On her return, Debbie filled her
in on the rest of Kellow’s background.

‘It says he was caught soliciting
in the public toilets in Manor Gardens, well they’re closed now and was then
sent to prison.  The man who caught him was an undercover policeman – well he
would say that!’

Debbie grinned at her own joke.

‘Was there anything about him
later on?’

‘You mean that’s not enough?’

‘It’s wonderful Debbie, but as
I’m going to try and persuade the only black police officer in East Devon to
give you a front page exclusive, anything else you can unearth in the archive,
or from your Gran would be a useful persuader.’

‘Do you think he was killed
because he was a gay, some type of hate crime?’

‘I’ll let D.I. Sobers answer that
one,’ smiled Jane, ’but I thinks it’s unlikely. It was 30 years ago.’

‘Yeah, but it’s in all the
papers, this AIDS thing. They’re calling it the Gay Plague.’

‘Given that one day I hope you’re
going to make an excellent journalist Debbie, you of all people should be aware
of not believing everything you read in them.’

Jane settled the bill, knowing
even as she took the receipt that she would never be organised enough to keep
it long enough to go through the hassle of claiming it back on expenses. The
information had been worth its weight in gold, well worth a pot of overpriced tea.
As she watched the leather jacketed Debbie zip down the street on her scooter,
she envied her youthful zest, even if she still had a few corners which could
be polished. And yet she didn’t think homophobia was a likely motive, although
it was certainly worth a punt and they had nothing else to go on.

The great and the good assembled
at the local Conservative Club would probably have been very surprised to learn
that one of their eminent fellowship hadn’t voted for the Party yesterday. Yet
as Gerald Mallowan, a local property developer, returned to a table encircled
by solicitors, businessmen and other local worthies with another bottle of
bubbly, Assistant Chief Constable George Dent joined in their convivial toasts
to Maggie as robustly as the next man.

Over-dressed in a salmon pink
shirt, lemon golfing jumper and bottle green corduroys, Dent looked more
uncomfortable in his Golf Club uniform than he did in his dress uniform. Trying
his best to appear at ease, Dent just looked as if he’d rather be elsewhere. It
may have been that he was just not at ease with men who were his equals. In the
bonhomie of the club, Dent’s flapping ears and self-important air had given a
prime opportunity for the club wits to josh him as ‘Charlie boy’, or ‘Your
Highness’, much to Dent’s poorly concealed annoyance.

Yet the air of tradition and
success implicit in the dark panelled clubroom was an environment Dent craved
and he had spent many years cultivating his career until he felt nearly at home
amid the leather chairs, green baize card tables and gilt framed portraits of former
local grandees. As a senior police officer, fellow members were now unlikely to
ask him to field questions about the third rate private school his parents had
sent him to, or his lack of an Oxbridge education. Yet Dent still felt he
hadn’t arrived and that his moment was still to come. This was why he hadn’t
put his cross next to the Conservative candidate on the ballot paper; he had
simply left it blank to be counted with the small number of spoilt papers in
his constituency.

He’d believed in the Conservative
values of the past few decades, when leaders like Macmillan, Home and Heath
represented his idea of people taking their turn. Too many fly by night new
boys seemed to be gaining power under the current administration. Mallowan for
instance had been put up for the post of club treasurer and he’d only joined
two years ago – Dent suspected the developer’s cut price addition of a new
kitchen and dining room to the building had oiled the wheels of progress in his
favour.

It was why he wasn’t overly bothered
about the lack of progress on the Exmouth Murder. It had been Sir Robert’s idea
to bring in more incomers like Sobers to the force and Dent didn’t like the
idea. He favoured the old idea that it was Buggins’ turn. As far as he was
concerned, he was Buggins when it came to becoming the next Chief Constable of
Devon and Cornwall. He knew Baines was leaving in the New Year and he’d already
been sounded out about becoming the new Deputy. That would place him within
sight of the summit and not even Sir Robert could go on indefinitely. Thirty
years of being a good committee man had earned him that right. If it became
accepted practice to bring in people from other forces, then he might lose out
on the promotions he felt should be his for the asking.

If the Chief Constable’s policy
of bringing in new blood failed, so much the better for his own prospects. It
wasn’t even that Sobers was black; it was that he was from London – the big
flash policeman sent to shake up their unsophisticated rural ways. Well, Dent wasn’t
having any of that. The Exmouth murder should have been headed up by a local,
just as the next Chief Constable should be a local. Though quite when Sir
Robert would be ready to go was anybody’s guess; he seemed far too comfortable
in the role for Dent’s liking.

He was brought back to reality by
a direct question from Roy about Sunday’s match.  Fortunately, it was obviously
a rhetorical enquiry and could be dealt with by a knowing smile. As long as
there wasn’t a more specific follow up question, unlikely with the Big O as he
liked to hold court, then what Dent knew or didn’t know wouldn’t be found out.
Despite the fact that he’d only been pretending to follow the conversation
about football that Roy and Harry were having at the bar, his smile of comprehension
had been genuine enough when Harry had complained about the sheer number of
foreign players flooding into the game.

 As a man who had once boned up
on the names of golfers and rugby players in a bid to follow the more usual
conversations in the club, he was usually at a loss as how to place the names
of football players; however even Dent was aware that names like Ardiles and
Villa weren’t those of British born players and also wise enough to follow the
general conversational drift that they were an insidious influence on the
English game.

Black coppers, foreign
footballers and female Prime Ministers were not Dent’s idea of the natural
order of things.

****

 Set back from the seafront, on a
patch of scrubland known as the Maer, stood what passed for Exmouth Zoo. Sobers
could see why so many people were against such places as he parked his car by
the entrance. Green paint peeled off the wooden façade and the once garish sign
now read ‘We com o Exmo th Zoo’. A couple of cockatoos placed in a cage by the
entrance refused to perform for the family of holidaymakers making desultory
attempts to provoke a reaction.

At right angles to the zoo, stood
another cabin with cut out letters spelling ‘Amus me ts’ – no attempt had been
made to electrify any of the signage. A veranda ran down the longer side of the
building and there was a wooden door wedged open with a fire extinguisher
leading into a gloomy cavern from which emanated a seemingly random sequence of
electronic beeps and bleeps. Looking back at the beautiful strand behind him,
framed by green sea and blue sky, Sobers wondered why tourists would be lured
by such siren songs to this place. Through the darkened entrance he could just make
out a group of children and teens transfixed by the flashing machines in front
of them.

Perhaps he was getting old?
Though only just on the wrong side of 40, Sobers sometimes felt he didn’t
understand the modern world. His mum had told him he’d been born in the wrong
century; he’d pointed out he had been born in the right century – otherwise he
might have been a slave. It was just that there was so much stuff nowadays
which seemed so important to so many people and he couldn’t get worked up about
it. There had been colleagues in London who had gone giddy with excitement
about the computers suddenly springing up everywhere, whilst his sister had
been desperately working overtime to afford something called a Spectrum for his
nephew Josh.

Inside the stale air of the
shack, youngsters either singly, or in small intent groups were gathered in
front of head high cabinets displaying Pop Art illustrations of explosions,
aliens and spaceships in bright garish colours. At least one tiny finger would
be hammering on a button as its owner stared mesmerised at a television style
screen on which pixels rapidly dissolved and reappeared. Small acolytes would
often stand reverentially by the child playing, staring dumbly at the images on
screen and occasionally offering esoteric words of encouragement to the
player.  A couple of pinball machines jammed in a far corner reminded Sobers of
a more familiar age than the machines which displayed names like ‘Pac-Man’ and
‘Pole Position’.

The trouble was that none of the
young people in this arcade looked anything like the photograph he had of
Darren Price. He’d have to check out Price’s other amusement arcades in the
town centre and up at the holiday camp. Resisting the urge to confiscate a
packet of John Player Special from a group of young teenagers, Sobers stepped
back out into the refreshing air of the Esplanade and let his eyes rest on the
ebbing sea in front of him.

In the far corner of the cabin,
Jez wondered what the sharply dressed West Indian had wanted. Dismissing the
idle thought, he turned back to watch Steve breaking the high score he had just
set.

****

B is for Bonfire.

 Some people think it derives
from the French and means good fire. That’s far too literal an interpretation. 
Most likely it’s simply a contraction of bone fire. That strikes me as a very
medieval concept, though quite suitable for my mood. Something from the Dark
Ages.

I wonder why the smoke was so
thick and black? Did I use too much petrol?  At least the evidence has been
destroyed. Those clumsy gloves were the last item to be hurled on to the
bonfire. Next time I’ll buy a more suitable pair.

 Had the butcher’s bones
burnt? Surely the temperature would have had to have been extremely hot for
bones to burn? Perhaps they had blackened; aren’t skeletons only white at
Hallowe’en?

For me fire is something which
purifies; from the ashes of the old a new world will rise.

On the radio Michael Foot is
coming to terms with his party’s defeat. My fire has been barely mentioned on
the local news, much as I had anticipated.   At least Foot’s more palatable
when you can’t see him. If only he’d taken more care with his appearance,
Labour might have got a few more votes.

You cannot imagine her
appearing in public in an old duffel coat and unkempt hair. She takes care to
always be immaculate when being interviewed. She looks the part. Like me she
plans ahead and knows that failure is for the old and weak.

Foot’s policies were old and
ugly and the world no longer holds a place for the old and the ugly.

****

The explosion tore through flesh
and steel with equal efficiency. It took a moment for the astonishing pain to
register as the screams and cries of injured comrades filled the air. As flames
consumed his world, he wondered if it would be death by fire, or death by
water? Connie’s face flashed in front of him; he would never see her again.

Jerking awake, Calum Baker came
to in his wheelchair, his upper body drenched in sweat. The vivid flashbacks
were still as intense as ever and he couldn’t remember having pushed himself
into the garden. He turned around to look through the French windows, but the
answer-phone’s unblinking light told him there were no messages. Just as there
had been no messages yesterday and the day before that; sympathy and
condolences could only last so long.

Not being invited to the victory
parade had been the first indication that all the talk of carrying on and
rising to new challenges had been just talk. No-one wanted to see the cripples,
as that would mean acknowledging the true cost of the victory. It was far better
for Britain to try and forget the less palatable images of the Falklands and
focus on the splendid and rapid victory they’d managed to achieve.

Wheeling himself into the living
room he tried to recall when Connie had said she would be back. Having only seen
his nurse yesterday, he was feeling lonelier than ever. When it got this bad,
he sometimes wished the Argies had been a bit more accurate with their bombs.
Other marines with similar injuries were apparently leading remarkably
fulfilled lives according to the doctors; he envied them. Turning on the
television for company, he tried to fill another day in the rest of his life.

****

Sobers went from enjoying a
relaxing balloon flight over a seascape both familiar and strange to the sudden
and sharp revelation that he hadn’t set his alarm the night before. No wonder
he’d felt refreshed, a whole extra hour in bed, but less than half an hour to
heading up the morning briefing. With no time for breakfast, he rushed to the
bathroom of the cottage.  Topsham was a pretty village half-way down the river between
Exeter and Exmouth, but it was that half-way which now troubled Sobers. Even
without traffic, it would take him too long to get to Littleham Village on
time. He cursed the powers that be who had closed the local police station in
central Exmouth, at least getting there would have saved time, yet getting to
the far side of the town was going to double his journey.

It was as he was scrambling out
of the front door, hoping against hope that a fast driving black man in a
newish car might for once evade the attention of the local traffic cops, that
he saw the envelope with familiar handwriting and a London postmark. Grabbing
it off the mat, he stuffed it into his briefcase and flung himself into his
silver Metro.

In his haste he shot past the
turn at Littleham Cross and found himself trying to navigate a way through the
1950s housing estate which separated the Cross from the Village. In retrospect,
he thought it would have been better to have turned back. The hideous statue of
the gigantic wooden beer drinker, which marked the turning to the crime scene, was
easy enough to find and yet he had a feeling that this was just going to be one
of those days…

Some of the local boys had named
this estate as the most likely place to find the killer – one of the more
popular theories doing the rounds was that the fire had been started by some
delinquent teenager and for many of the team that was just shorthand for someone
who lived in a council house. Sobers himself hadn’t dismissed that theory,
although he didn’t like the lazy thinking which accompanied it. He’d seen too
many of his friends and family incorrectly categorised by such views.

He knew that there must be some
social problems on the estate, but these low rise properties with their neat
hedges and tidy gardens seemed to be a more natural part of their environment
than the islands of concrete and walkways in the sky he was more used to
policing. Many of the flats had colourful floral displays on their balconies
and most of the gardens were either well looked after, or in some cases were worthy
of a spread in a Sunday Supplement. You could bet that many of these families
sent their kids to the same schools; were treated by the same doctors and used
the same dentists as the rest of the town. In London you could have
millionaires at the end of one road and sink estates at the other and never the
twain would meet.