Body of a Girl (16 page)

“Exactly.”

Clark said, “What I have to bear in mind the whole time is that I loathe the man's guts. I've got to try not to let it influence me.”

“I wouldn't worry about that, Bob. Once one knows the man's a sadistic swine – you know – what you told Pat and she passed on to Maggie.”

“In absolute confidence.”

“Certainly. But I think it absolves you from any moral scruples at all. What we used to say in the army, if a man's a bad'un get rid of him at once. By hook or by crook.”

“The Police Force is different from the army,” said Clark gloomily.

Chapter Seventeen

On the same evening that Superintendent Clark had his conversation with Murray Talbot a number of other meetings and conversations took place.

Venetia had fallen into the habit of looking in at The Angler's Rest shortly after six o'clock every evening. The landlord, an old friend of regatta days, either shook his head, in which case she took herself off, or nodded it, when she walked through the public bar, practically empty at that hour, and into the private bar where Mercer would be waiting for her.

They would then have not more than two drinks together, and Mercer would drive her, by different routes, to within walking distance of her house. These detours had tended to get longer, and on this occasion had ended under a group of poplar trees, in a side road a mile from Stoneferry, a spot which Mercer had marked down as suitable for the next stage in a seduction which he was enjoying all the more for its slow and stately tempo. Venetia's mixture of inexperience and frankness made her more attractive than any girl he had yet encountered. He had not yet even kissed her.

He was now sitting in the back of the car, comfortably pressed up against her. He could sense that she was excited about something.

He said, “You remember the night we first went to that pub. When we ran into your brother in the bar. Did he say anything about it afterwards?”

“He made one or two snide comments. I don't pay a lot of attention to what Willoughby says.”

“Who was the youth with him?”

“I told you. One of the office boys.”

“Does he often go out drinking with the office boys?”

Venetia giggled, and said, “With one at a time. This one's the latest. His name's Quentin.”

“Really?”

“You needn't worry about it. He's over whatever age it is makes it all right.”

“I wasn't worrying,” said Mercer. “I was just thinking what singularly innocent old gentlemen our Victorian ancestors were.”

“Innocent?”

“Not personally innocent. In spite of their white beards and church-going, I imagine their personal habits were unspeakable. I meant the guys like Arnold who set up all that public school stuff, thinking it would be a bulwark of Church and empire.”

“So it was.”

“Maybe. But it was a hotbed of vice too. A training school in perversion. Can you imagine anything, in the world, more likely to turn an impressionable youth of eighteen into a raging homo than allowing him to beat, ceremonially and in cold blood, a boy of thirteen who he was probably half in love with already? It's the most infallible sex stimulant known to science. It's the sort of thing prostitutes allow rich, tired old men to do to them in discreet flats off Piccadilly.”

“Do they?” said Venetia. “I didn't know.”

There was a long and comfortable silence.

Then she said, “Have you ever beaten anyone? Hard, I mean. To hurt them.”

“Why do you ask that?”

“Oh, just something I heard.”

“Tell me.”

“I didn't believe it.”

“Then tell me what you didn't believe.”

“That when you were the head policeman in that place in the Persian Gulf, you used to flog people yourself. Men and women.”

He could feel that the idea excited her.

“What else did you hear?”

“That once you—well—that you went too far, and the person you were flogging died.”

Mercer said nothing, but she could see that he was smiling.

“Is it true?”

“Certainly.”

“How—how did you do it?”

“Oh, their wrists were tied together, and attached to a sort of pulley, and drawn up tight. Then they were stripped to the waist, and you beat them across the back.”

“What with?”

“With a sort of whippy cane. Who told you about me killing someone?”

“I won't tell you, until you've kissed me.”

“It's a stiff price to pay, but I'll pay it.”

He kissed her gently on the mouth.

“My best friend, Cathy Moorhouse.”

“Who told her?”

“Her aunt.”

“Who's her aunt?”

“I won't tell you unless you kiss me properly … Beast, that hurt.”

“You asked for it.”

“I believe my lip's bleeding.”

“It's an honourable campaign wound. If you were in the American army you could get a Purple Heart for it. Who is Cathy Moorhouse's aunt?”

“Maggie Talbot. Murray Talbot's wife.”

“Ah,” said Mercer. He let out a deep breath. It was like a full stop at the end of a long and complicated sentence. His arm slid up her back. He said, “This is where you take off your bra.”

“I took it off ages ago.”

When Mercer got home, he found Father Philip Walcot waiting for him, curled up in one of his armchairs and smoking a pipe.

The priest said, “I'm sorry to disturb you out of hours. You must be a very busy man.”

“You're welcome at any time,” said Mercer.

It was nine o'clock. He was wondering what excuses Venetia had dreamed up for missing supper.

“When you came to see me, you asked me about Sweetie Hedges. I told you all I could about her. At the time.”

“You've remembered something more?”

“It's not a question of remembering. I had this in my mind. But I hadn't decided, then, to pass it on.”

“Why?”

“Because it came to me under the seal of the confessional.”

“But you're prepared to tell me now?”

“I've never held it to be a seal which is unbreakable. For instance, if I could save life by telling some secret which had been entrusted to me, I should not hesitate to do so. More particularly if the revelation could no longer hurt the man who made it.” He smiled disarmingly. “After this prologue of trumpets you are going to find the main theme rather tame, I fear. The man who made his confession to me was Detective Sergeant Rollo. He later took his own life. Incidentally, that doesn't speak well for whatever comfort I was able to give him.” Father Philip paused.

“Perhaps I can save you some embarrassment,” said Mercer. “Did he, by any chance, confess to you that he had told a lie, in the course of duty, and at the instance of a man to whom he was under some sort of financial obligation?”

“Exactly correct.”

Mercer leaned forward and added, “I suppose he didn't, by any chance, happen to mention just who he was obliging?”

“No.”

“Or what the nature of his obligation was?”

“He was scrupulous in avoiding implicating anyone else.”

“Understandable, but unfortunate.”

“He did, however, say that although the lie was originally innocent, he now realised that it was connected with the death of a girl. That is why I thought it right to tell you. Sergeant Rollo is dead. My breach of confidence can do no harm to him. And it might, I thought, help you. But I see that you knew of it already.”

“I didn't
know
it. I suspected it. There's a difference. To have positive confirmation is extremely useful, and I'm obliged to you. Tell me, Father, speaking theologically rather than legally, if ‘A' deliberately gets ‘B' into his debt, and if he then uses his power to force ‘B' to tell a lie, and if consciousness of the lie is one of many reasons which causes ‘B' to kill himself, would you call ‘A' a murderer?”

“I expect the Jesuits could give you a convincing answer to that. It's beyond me. It's certainly not legal murder. A lot of the worst sorts of killings aren't.” Father Walcot uncoiled himself, and got up to go. He had reached the door before he said, “I nearly forgot. Dolly Grey says you're to watch out.”

“Dolly Grey?”

“She's one of the oldest members of my congregation. A dear old soul, who lives across the road from you. She makes a sort of living by letting out rooms. She says that, about a fortnight ago, a very sinister man took on her front room.”

“Did she say in what particular way he was sinister?”

“According to Dolly, he was very large.”

“That can't have been all.”

“And very rough.”

“You mean he didn't shave.”

“I think by rough she meant the opposite of smooth in appearance and manner.”

“I see.”

“But her chief criticism was that he didn't seem to have anything to do. He seems to spend most of his time sitting near the window, watching this house. That's why she thought I ought to warn you.”

Mercer considered the matter. Then he said, “Tell Dolly that I am very grateful for her information. It's co-operation of this sort, between members of the public and the Police Force which makes our job the pleasure it is.”

“If I say it in that tone of voice she'll think you're laughing at her.”

“No, no. I really am very grateful.”

Evan Pugh was known to his friends as ‘Dutch' Pugh, not from any connection with Holland, but because he preferred to pay for his own drinks, and to let his friends pay for theirs. In the company in which he moved this was considered anti-social, and he was not a popular character, though respected for his handling of the short length of rubber tubing loaded with lead, which he carried in a special pocket on the left-hand side inside his coat. The last person on whom he had used it was still in hospital, unable to speak or see.

As he came out of the saloon bar of the Duke of Cumberland public house, and stood for the moment to accustom his eyes to the dark, someone cannoned into him, nearly knocking him off balance. Pugh swung round, with a selection of obscenity and advised the man who had bumped into him to watch his step, to mind where he was going, and generally to behave himself.

“Take it easy, cock,” said the man. “The pavement doesn't belong to you, does it?”

“Oh, it doesn't, doesn't it?” said Pugh. A couple of shuffling steps brought him within hitting distance. He could see the man more clearly now. He was big, but Pugh had cut down bigger men than him. The fingers of his right hand closed round the rubber grip of his favourite weapon. At this moment something hit him on the back of the neck. It hit him so hard that he had no clear impression of what happened next, but when the inside of his head stopped swinging round inside his skull and he had blinked his eyes open, he realised that he was sitting in the front seat of an old saloon car, beside the driver.

As he shifted in his seat, a bland voice from the back of the car said, “I shouldn't do anything you'd regret, Dutchy.”

Pugh twisted his head. As the car passed under a streetlamp he could see that there were two men in the back. They were both large, and were both smiling. The man who had spoken said, “He's in a delicate state. Shook up. I wouldn't advise him to do anything violent. Would you, Charlie?”

The second man agreed. He said he wouldn't advise it, either. They were like two Harley Street surgeons discussing a difficult case.

Pugh sat still. A purveyor of force, he respected superior force when he ran into it.

After about ten minutes the car swung into the courtyard of a big, undistinguished office block and drew up opposite the back entrance. A voice from the rear invited Pugh to dismount. He opened the side door of the car, and slid out. For a moment, there was no one near him, and he contemplated the possibility of making a bolt for it. As his feet touched the ground, the firm earth rolled under him. He realised that he was in no condition to fight or fly and followed the men into the building. They went up two flights of uncarpeted stairs, along a corridor, past a few thousand similar doors, and then through a pair of swing doors which shut off the end of the passage.

The words painted in black on the glass of the left-hand door said, ‘Ministry of Agriculture' and on the right-hand door, ‘Soft Fruit Division'. In the room at the end were two men. The one who was sitting on the edge of the table, swinging a leg, he recognised as Chief Superintendent Morrissey, C.I.D., head of No. 1 District. The other, seated behind the desk, was a stranger. He looked young enough to be Morrissey's son. He had blue eyes, light hair, and a complexion so delicate that one imagined he would blush very easily. His name was John Anderson and when Vidall died and Morrissey was promoted he was destined to become one of the most feared gang-breakers in England.

Morrissey said, “Sit down, Pugh.”

Pugh said, “You've got no right to do this to me. That man hit me. It's unlawful. What am I supposed to have done? I haven't heard no charge yet.”

“No difficulty about a charge, if you insist. Carrying an offensive weapon.”

Pugh's hand went to his coat. The cosh was no longer there. One of the men who had brought him in laid the length of rubber tubing gently on the table beside Morrissey. “That's right, sir. In his inside pocket.”

“Resisting arrest?”

“That's true too, sir. Took a definite swing at me, didn't he Charlie?”

“He certainly did.”

“Driving a stolen car, too.”

“That's a lie. I never had no stolen car. I never had no car at all. What are you talking about?”

“The car you came here in. Stolen twenty-four hours ago. Covered with your finger-prints.”

Pugh started to say something, and stopped. The floor had started rocking again. Morrissey said, “Sit down, Pugh. All right, you two, I'll deal with this. Now you listen to me, Pugh; or Taylor, or whatever you call yourself. We've been watching you. You've been working at the Hexagon Garage, haven't you?”

“So what? It's a job isn't it?”

“How much do they pay you?”

“That's my business.”

Morrissey lumbered to his feet, came across until he was standing over Pugh, and said, “I'm not a very patient man. If I have any more lip from you, you're going to be in dead trouble.”

“Twenty pounds a week.”

“All right. And how much do the Crows pay you on the side? How much did they pay you for that job you did down in Stoneferry?”