Dangerous in Love - Dangerous Davies 02 (8 page)

It was almost midday when they reached the higher moor, which rose like a brown blanket, and Davies pointed the Vanguard's sturdy nose on the final upward track. Mist came down, then drizzle within the mist, while the road curved and canted. Mod saw a long drop over his side of the car and fell silent. Eventually they reached a sign which said 'Topling-on-the-Moor', and beyond that the broken silhouette of a long building. 'Topling Hall,' read Mod from the gate. He peered through the drizzle. 'Toppling it seems to be,' he said.

The house was half demolished, one wing lying in grey rubble, rafters and beams standing out like bones. They left the car and doubtfully walked towards it. Only the front portion was complete, its windows staring apprehensively, with the expressions of condemned men. A notice, like a personal warning to Davies, said: 'Keep out - Dangerous.'

Within the stone porch was a bell-pull in the shape of a nose. Davies pulled it. A dull dong echoed within the house, followed eventually by the squeaking of metal and the scraping of the door. As it opened pulverized plaster showered from the lintel. A stout untidy man stood there, debris on his black overcoat. 'This place gets terribly dusty,' he said, attempting to brush it off. 'Come in, will you.'

He led them through a giant hall, pillars and vaulted ceiling, with half-conce
aled portraits peering out like
spies. 'This part of the buildi
ng's all right,' he assured
them. 'It's the middle portion that's unsafe. The back's already fallen down, as you probably saw. I was going to have it double-glazed, but it scarcely seems worth it now.'

They followed him into a big and chilly chamber. A single-bar electric fire stood balefully in the void of a grand fireplace, an armchair drawn close to it. A dog like a dinosaur glanced up at their arrival but collapsed back to its prostrate place before the meagre warmth. 'We squabble over the fire,' said the man. He smiled surprisingly brightly through his dust. 'I'm Robin Ingate,' he said, revealing a hand from his overcoat sleeve. 'I'm so glad you came. I don't get many visitors. How about a drink?'

Davies introduced himself and then Mod. 'It's good of you to agree to see us, Colonel Ingate,' he said. His eyes travelled about. 'I expect you're kept pretty busy.'

The old officer was pouring long measures of sherry from a decanter. 'Bloody good stuff, this is,' he said, handing it to them. 'All that's left, the cellar. I've still got ten or fifteen years to get through down there.' He went to the chair and motioned them to a threadbare six-seater sofa. Davies rummaged behind his back and produced a massive bone from a crevice. The colonel leaned forward and took it from him. 'We wondered where that had gone,' he said amiably. He raised his glass and they raised theirs.

'Just marking time, now,' he said, as if he owed them an explanation. 'Just trying to synchronize what's left, so that when I die the rest of the damn place will fall on top of me. Make rather a grand tomb, don't you think?'

They laughed uneasily. The colonel said: 'I was delighted with your call. Not many people telephone me these days. In fact, I'm surprised the blessed thing still functions. I can't recall paying a bill for some considerable time.'

Davies regarded him with sadness. 'Do you
’
he ventured, 'live here by yourself?'

'Absolutely!' exclaimed the colonel cheerfully. 'Except for this bloody dog.' He prodded the sprawled animal with his carpet-slippered toe. 'Only way, old boy. Wife passed on ten years ago and, frankly, I didn't want to live with anyone else. Perfectly happy. Can't stand staff around the place. Anyway, can't afford the blighters now. So here I am. Just waiting, really.'

Mod coughed awkwardly. 'I discovered your whereabouts from the Stalag 62 Ex-POW Club, sir,' he said. 'They send their best wishes and asked me to tell you that you would be an honoured guest at the annual dinner.'

'I know, I know
’
sighed Colonel Ingate. 'But I won't go now. I'm not going down to London to hear a lot of museum pieces talking about dead men and dead battles.' Regret crossed his strong face. 'Being a soldier is like being in a club
’
he said. 'And being a prisoner too. Nobody else is interested. So I don't go. It was all such a long time ago.'

Leaning forward, Davies said: 'We were hoping that you would be able to recall something of it for us. About the prison camp.'

'The old Clickety-Duck,' smiled the old man.

'Pardon, sir?'

'Clickety-Duck. Stalag 62. Housey-Housey, you know. Played a lot of Housey-Housey, there. The Boche used to love it.'

'You let them
...
er, join in then?' asked Davies. 'Play
...
? The Germans?'

'Oh, gracious yes. They weren't so bad, you know, and we were all stuck there together. And the Boche were the only means we had of getting prizes, apart from the stuff we'd saved from Red Cross parcels and so forth. Cigarettes mostly. But you didn't come to talk about that.'

Davies smiled. 'It's all related. We wondered if you could remember a British soldier called Wilfred Henry Brock.'

The old man started to shake his head. 'There were three thousand British in the camp .
..'
he began.

'Known as Lofty,' prompted Davies.

The colonel's face brightened. 'Ah, yes
...
Lofty Brock! Deuce, I
do
remember him! Yes, young Lofty.'

Davies leaned forward. He felt the thin firelight touch on his face. 'Anything you can remember might be useful. He died a couple of months ago
...
in rather odd circumstances
...
and it may have a long history
...'
From his pocket he took the small bag and slid from it the medal they had found with Brock's papers. 'He won this,' he said.

'Ah, the DCM,' said Colonel Ingate. He held the medal in the palm of his hand, tenderly, it seemed. He turned it over and read the name. 'Fancy that,' he said. 'I don't recall it. Won just before Dunkirk. It's a long time ago now.' He handed the medal back. 'So he came to a bad death, did he? What a shame,' he said. 'Now let me see. He wasn't there all that long, because, I seem to remember, he was one of the contingent shipped off to Silesia.'

'Oh, they moved?'

'Half the camp. Went off early in 1945, as the Russians were advancing. It was very bad. Some of them died, not always at the hand of the enemy. There was warfare within the camp among the prisoners of different nationalities. But I remember young Brock, right enough
, when he was with us in Stalag
62. You could hardly miss him
...
He was the camp goalkeeper.'

Davies felt his mouth drop. 'Goalkeeper?' he said. 'Brock?'

'Indeed, very agile too for his size, as I recall.' On a thought he rose. 'Wait a moment. I might even have a picture of him. In the team. I've got a whole lot of rubbish from those days in the next room.' He put down his sherry glass and stumped off towards the adjoining room.

Davies eyed Mod. 'A goalkeeper?' he muttered. 'He must have worn springs.'

'Or they had small goals
’
said Mod.

From the other room came a muffled crash, a shout, and a low discharge of dust through the open door. They rose anxiously but the colonel appeared, newly coated but triumphantly carrying a bound album. 'Got it
’
he said. 'Put my hand on it at once. Unfortunately it was half-buried in there. Holding up a part of the wall, actually. Thought the blessed lot was coming down.' He brushed himself ineffectually and handed the album, opened, to Davies. 'That's the team
’
he said. '1944. That's Lofty Brock at the back. See, his name's underneath.'

Together Davies and Mod peered at the browned photograph. The man standing at the rear of the team, wearing the roll-necked jersey, was all of six feet six inches.

6

The journey to Botfield was less demanding. They left The Babe In Arms at noon, to the incredulity of drinkers and staff, and drove down into December Hampshire.

"The New Forest",' read Mod aloud as they travelled. '"Established by William the Conqueror in the eleventh century as a hunting ground
..."'

'Fascinating,' mumbled Davies, narrowly watching the unaccustomed motorway ahead. They rarely overtook anything. 'And there, in the Forest, is former Sergeant Major George Bing. Late of Silesia.'

Mod grunted: 'About forty years late of Silesia.' He returned to his information cards. '"King Rufus met his untimely end a
t Stoney Cross, near Lyndhurst,
he recited. 'Arrow in the eye. Was it an accident? Now, there's a real mystery for you, Dangerous.'

'I'd rather find out who shoved Lofty in the canal.'

Mod sighed. 'Has it ever occurred to you that he
fell
in
...
accidentally, I mean,
really.
He
fell.
Splash! The official version. Don't you think that sometimes these little whims of yours get a bit out of hand?'

The lines deepened on Davies's face. He knew Mod had been waiting to say it. 'No, I don't,' he said.

Kitty, who had so far slept through the journey, woke with a gaping yawn and blinked out of the window. They were chugging past trees and fields with red roofs showing between winter branches. The dog began to moan.

'Shut up, you,' ordered Dangerous in the direction of the dog. He glanced acidly sideways at Mod. 'It's not a bloody whim.'

'Dangerous,' insisted Mod. 'All I'm saying is that you might be wrong. When you get one of these bees in your bonnet nothing will stop you. But, there are times when the most
obvious
explanation is the
right
one. Lofty Brock
fell
in the canal. How, we don't know. But he just
fell.'

Grimly, Davies said: 'So you think all this investigation is just a waste of time?'

'Not at all. It gets us out in the fresh air. Away from the pub
...
Yorkshire
...
Hampshire. It's very interesting.'

'Like a hobby,' muttered Davies.

'If you like. You've said yourself that everybody's got a past. Ordinary people have secrets. Dig into their history and something murky can turn up, a skeleton in the cupboard. Perhaps you're reading too much into Lofty's past.'

'In 1944
’
grunted Davies, 'Lofty Brock was six feet six inches. How come he was five feet one inch when he died? He didn't just shrink.'

'That doesn't mean somebody
killed
him for his past. What you're doing, Dangerous, is getting all the circumstances and
trying to make them fit the crime,
which may not have been a crime at all.'

The cracks in Davies's face grew darker. 'All this is the mad imaginings of a frustrated copper then
...'

'No, no. Now wait a minute.'

'...
A copper who gets all the miserable, shitty little jobs that nobody else wants and which never get in the headlines. The last detective. So he's trying to make his own headlines. He's making up a crime to suit himself.'

Kitty began a renewed howling in the back seat. 'And you can shut up too,' snapped Davies over his shoulder. 'There's sod-all you know about it.' * * *

Former Sergeant Major Bing had gone to the golf club, his pink-pinafored wife said from their cottage door. 'I don't know why
’
she complained inadequately. 'He can hardly drag one foot after another. But he goes every day, rain or snow or shine. He says he likes to get out.'

It was not far. They parked the Vanguard and the dog among the few vehicles in the gravel car park and went into the modest wooden club house. It was mid-afternoon and the early dark was moving in. There was a robust fire in the grate reflecting in the glasses polished by the steward. 'He'll be in soon
’
he told them. 'He won't be able to see his ball. You'll hear him.'

After ten minutes, they saw a cambered figure coming alone through the trees in the dripping dusk, stumbling and tugging a golf trolley as if it were a field gun. 'You'll hear him in a minute,' forecast the steward. 'He won't let a soul help him. He'd drop first.'

They watched from the bay window while the man stumbled closer. The steward went to the bar door and opened it, and then the outer door. Now they heard Mr Bing moaning as he limped up the incline. 'Oh
...
oh
...
oh God
...
Damn it
...
to hell with it
...
Oh, oh
...
nearly there
...
nearly there.'

He arrived in the room, apparently close to collapse, and Davies and Mod rose to assist him. Clay-faced he motioned them away. 'No, no thanks. Don't need anybody. I'll manage.' His golf trolley had fallen over outside the door and the clubs, like arrows from a quiver, had spilled. He ignored it and staggered towards a chair. Even easing himself into it was a torture. They winced at the cracking of his bones. 'Jesus
’
he said eventually. 'It's good to get some fresh air, you know.'