Dangerous in Love - Dangerous Davies 02 (3 page)

'He didn't have any, as far as I know,' she replied. 'He was teetotal. That's very rare in that sort of person, people without home or family. Very rare, sir.'

Davies followed her from the court after the open verdict and caught up with her on the pavement. 'Oh
...
Miss Duval
...
I'm Detective Constable Davies ...'

Unhurriedly she turned and took him in. He hoped she would not smile because he knew he would not be able to avoid staring. She did and he stared. Until he had seen that missing tooth he had never realized that something could be so potent, even beautiful, by its absence. 'I've heard of you,' she said. 'You're called Dangerous.'

He was abashed. 'Just a nickname,' he said. 'I don't know who started it.' Her smile was reasonable. Encouraged, he said: 'It's just opening time. Would you like a drink?'

'The Dog and Shovel,' she nodded.

His heart had begun to bang blatantly inside his overcoat. He fell in beside her and they walked at a brisk pace along the pavement. She was only an inch below his height, but quite a lot of it was her hair. 'Poor old Lofty,' he said conversationally. 'Never did a soul any harm.'

'Didn't he?' she said cu
riously. 'Not many go through life without
harming somebody.' She shrugged away the moment. 'But that's what everyone says
’
she agreed, striding on, looking ahead. He had some difficulty in keeping up with her.

'That pram must be in the bottom of the canal, then,' he said a little breathlessly. 'With all the other junk. And it'll stay there now.'

She reached the public bar door first, pushed it open and reached for her handbag.

'No, please,' argued Davies, rummaging in his pocket. 'What would you like?'

She regarded him challengingly. 'It's my local,' she said.

'So it is,' he agreed. He smiled directly at her. 'A pint please.'

She came back with a beer for him and a lager for herself. They sat down behind a scarred table. It was only just beyond opening time, and they were the only customers. A waft of street air came in, followed by a man with a dog. His head half revolved in jerks like someone late for an appointment. He grunted and went out.

'How did you come to let them call you Dangerous?' she asked. 'I don't know. It just grew.'

She laughed slightly. 'Some things are like that,' she said. 'They call me Jemma.' As they were drinking, she said casually: 'Funny how they called poor old Brock "Lofty", wasn't it? It was one of those reverse jokes. Like you being called Dangerous.'

'I suppose so,' said Davies thoughtfully. 'I mean, he was hardly an inch over five feet.'

'One inch,' she answered. 'He was five feet one inch.'

He regarded her oddly. He said: 'I get uncomfortable sometimes about things like this. A man is dead, there's an inquest, an open verdict because nobody knows how or why, really nobody cares and that's that. "Rest in Peace Wilfred Henry Brock".'

"An inconsequential death,' she said.

'Exactly.'

2

On the final day of his sick leave, an hour of limp sunshine in the early afternoon provoked Davies into taking his dog for their well-worn walk, along the canal bank and among the stone fingers of Kensal Green Cemetery. He brushed Kitty as much as the animal would allow and set off with him attached to a tough length of rope since he had again chewed through his lead. The dog played awkward games, either tugging him powerfully or lingering so long that he had to drag him. By the time they had reached the canal bank, however, Kitty had become bored by the sameness of the afternoon and trundled along sulkily. The water reflected the pale sun like a trodden flower. There was the usual debris: floating tins and soaked pieces of wood, an armchair like a half-sunken ship, and the evidence of the previous night's sins committed on the tow-path.

It was not cold, but Davies pulled his collar high about his neck as if it might afford some protection from the urban squalor. Even on a good day in that atmosphere buildings that were not very distant became grey silhouettes. Moodily he mounted the steps towards the road bridge. Halfway he looked up and saw Jemma standing at the top.

'Looking for Lofty's pram?' she called down.

He glanced up guiltily. 'No, no, nothing like that,' he said. 'Just taking this beast for some exercise.'

'I saw you walking. Staring into the water.'

'I was thinking I ought to have bought shares in the London Rubber Company, that's all,' he said, reaching the pavement level. 'They're very popular again now.'

She had not moved, and now they were standing quite close to each other at the top of the bridge. She was wearing the fine red coat she had worn at the inquest, but because of the mild day it was open like a door all down her front. For the first time he saw her interior. Even now he tried not to look, although the edges of the coat were kept apart by the accommodation of her bosom. 'We were just going into the cemetery,' mentioned Davies. She began to walk with him. He glanced around, hoping someone he knew might see them together.

'Why don't you walk your dog in the park?' she asked.

'It's too far. Tiredness sets in and then he collapses, and then it's one hell of a job to get home. Anyway, we're not welcome. Last spring he destroyed two-thirds of the daffodils in north-west London.'

'How come the dog is a
he
and gets called Kitty?'

'A drunken Taff,' shrugged Davies. He thought he saw someone staring at them from a bus and he waved. 'A Welsh git. At The Babe In Arms. The Taff said it was a girl dog and it was a few days before I noticed and the name had stuck by then. He's so contrary, he doesn't care anyway. I think sometimes he thinks he's a cat.'

They had reached the cemetery gates. 'Here we are then,' paused Davies, concluding it was the separation of their ways.

'So I sec,' she said. 'I've never been in here. I'll walk with you.'

His eyes grew. 'Oh
...
oh, all right then. It's a good cemetery.'

'I know,' she said. She recited:
'Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green'.'
They walked through the gates. Jemma's missing tooth showed at its best in the dimming afternoon light. She took hold of his arm. 'I read it all up,' she said. 'The history of this area, including the cemetery, when I knew I was coming here to work.' They walked along the gravel path between the tombs and vaults. 'The roofs make it look like a little town,' she said.

Davies blinked. 'I s'pose it does in a way,' he said. 'Never thought about it like that.'

'It's a good address,' she said solemnly. 'There's all sorts here. Writers, actors, statesmen. Also Blondin, the tightrope man.'

'An
d Gilbert Harding,' put in Davie
s. He glanced up. It had begun to rain.

'It would now, wouldn't it.' She looked about them, then said: 'Here,' and moved sideways towards an elaborate vault with a covered marble patio at its front. Uncertainly Davies followed. They crouched under the portico, the dog pushing at Davies's legs for more room.

'Gilbert who? Who did you say?'

'Gilbert Harding.'

'Who was he?'

'He was on television.'

Her face had become very dark, her eyes luminous.

'Before your time,' he said. 'He used to be on quizzes and such-like. And advertised indigestion, tablets.'

'When?'

'Oh, I don't know . . . not very long ago
...
in the fifties.' He glanced at her.

'Speak for yourself,' she smiled. She touched the marble column of the tomb as though testing its soundness.

'I wonder who's in here?' Her smile became mischievous. 'Maybe some famous police officer.'

'I doubt it,' he said, examining the sheltering marble roof. 'Not a copper. Bit too ornate. If coppers get memorials they're generally on walls. Donated by a grateful public'

The rain had thinned. 'We'd better go,' she said. The torn remnants of the day's sky showed between dripping boughs. A bird chirped coldly. They moved off along the wet gravel. Kitty edged across the lawn beside Jemma. She motioned for the rope and Davies, grimacing at the dog, passed it to her. At the gate the cemetery custodian was pacing, sounding his keys like a knell.

'G'night,' called Davies cheerfully. 'Thanks very much. Very nice.' When they were outside he said to her: 'Fancy a cup of tea? And a meat pie or something?'

'It's a little early for me, for a meat pie,' she said. 'But I wouldn't mind a cup of tea.'

They walked together along the pavement to a steamed window with a yellow sign which said 'Texas Cafe'. He paused, regarded it doubtfully and said: 'There's not much else around here.'

A battery of noises, voices, clanking cups and plates and the pounding of a juke-box blew out when Davies opened the door. 'You're sure?' he said.

'I'm sure,' she said. She pushed him into the cafe.

They manoeuvred along the tight aisle between the laminated tables. There were about twenty desultory men in the place, their faces propped on elbows, blowing smoke, lifting heavy mugs of tea, a few biting into meat pies. Some played at a fruit machine, others at a pin table; two thin youths hung languorously over the juke-box.

'Youth,' sighed Davies. 'What d'you do about it? There's not many places they can go like this. Welcoming and warm, between the DHSS and the pub.'

A blotchy boy, so engulfed by a greasy woollen sweater that he looked trapped in a hole, passed them and said: "Ello, miss.'

'One of my clients,' said Jemma.

'And mine,' grunted Davies. 'Grievous Bodily Harm.'

'Not him. It must have been an accident.'

'It often is. Accidental GBH.'

He rose heavily. 'Alfi
e's busy,' he said, looking towards the counter. 'I'll get them. Hang on to Kitty, will you.' He looked down threateningly at the dog. 'Behave, or no pie.'

Jemma watched him pull his overcoat collar up symbolically around his neck, and he pushed towards the counter. A man with smarmed hair and an earring regarded her speculatively.

'Can't they play that row a bit quieter,' Jemma remarked to him, nodding towards the juke-box.

'Stone bloody deaf, they are.' He opened a cave of a mouth and bawled: 'Order! Order! - Leave it out, will you?'

'Finished anyway,' sniffed one of the youths who had been hanging over the machine. 'I notice no uvver fucker puts any money innit.'

'Less of the verbals,' threatened the smarmed man, 'in 'ere.'

Davies returned and set down the teacups and the plate supporting the meat pie, a single curl of steam ascending like a signal or a prayer. His troubled eyes were on the juke-box youth. He moved clumsily between the tables. 'Like the man said, watch the verbals,' he said.

'All right, all right,' sniffed the youth. 'We was just going, wasn't we?' He glanced at his companion who nodded minimally. They moved towards the door.

Davies turned back towards Jemma. A cold stream of air caught his neck. The door was swinging open.

He put the cups down and went to the entrance. 'Hey,' he called up the street. 'Hey, Robert Redford. The door.'

He returned to the table. A figure returned past the misted window and the door was shut heavily from outside. Davies divided the meat pie. Steam gushed out. Jemma was regarding him with deep amusement over her thick cup. 'Sure you don't want one?' he said.

'You know, Dangerous,' she said quietly, 'I think I will. All the excitement has made me quite hungry.'

By the time they left, the five o'clock darkness had closed in; the little shop windows, the windows of the buses and homeward cars, all squares of illumination. In such an unpicturesque place it was often the best time of the day.

'Where,'enquired Davies after some hesitation, 'do you come from?'

He asked around the corner of his overcoat collar and she replied likewise. 'Forty-two, Westwood Road, NW6,' she recited deliberately. A vivid eye rose to observe his reaction.

'No
..
. no, I mean ...' They sidled through some Sikhs heading home to Willesden. 'No
...
where
...
originally
...
if you see what I mean?'

'I was born in Martinique,' she told him.

'Ah, Martinique
..
.' he nodded, striding alongside.

'You know it?'

'Well, I know
of it.'

'French West Indies.'

'Yes, well of course. Naturally.'

'How about you?'

'Me?' said Davies. 'Here. Well, Kensal Rise. Born, went to school, and nicked my first bike driver without lights all within a couple of yards. I've not been that much further since.'

'I went to school in Paris and London,' she said. 'My father was in the Consular Service. Then I went back to Martinique. That's where I was married.'

His face came from his collar. 'You're married then, are you?'

'I have a son,' she said. 'He is seven now. He is with my mother.'. 'In Kilburn?'

'Martinique. I had to leave him. Some day I'll go back.'

'Oh, I'm sorry about that,' said Davies genuinely. 'I bet you miss him.'

'I do. He's called Anthony.' Her head dropped into her coat again. He lowered his also and they walked silently through the homing people and the traffic. Davies gave bogus orders to the dog.

'You married?' she asked eventually.

'In name only,' he admitted.

'Where is she?'

'In the same house as me. It's only digs, lodgings
..
. a boarding house. But we don't speak. Separate rooms and all that. I'm closer to the dog than I am to her - and you can see how close I am to the dog.'

'Why don't you move out? One of you?'

'God knows. It's getting around to it. And one not going to move to spite the other.' He regarded her woefully. 'I'm a nineteen fifties' man, I suppose,' he shrugged.

'Like Gilbert

'Harding.'

She halted. 'I can get my bus here,' she said. There were people hunched like stones at the stop.

Davies said, 'Right. Number fifty-two.' She stood, all at once a little awkward. He said: 'Thanks for coming, anyway. It made my day. Sorry it wasn't quite Maxim's.'

Jemma laughed freely. 'It certainly wasn't.' She leaned forward and touched his hand. 'I've been on some dates,' she said. 'But a walk through the cemetery followed by a meat pie