Dangerous in Love - Dangerous Davies 02 (9 page)

The steward brought them a tray of tea. Bing had managed to get out of his muddy golf shoes and was in his stockinged feet.

'They don't mind here,' he said, waving a hand around the bar. 'It isn't a very posh club, thank God. Well done, son.' The steward had picked up his shoes and carried them out to the locker room. 'A good chap,' he confided, leaning forward. 'Ex-Royal Marine.'

'Were you playing alone?' asked Davies.

'I have to. No other bugger will play with me. Nine holes and they have to carry me back. Anyway, this club is geriatric. The flag seems permanently at half-mast. Top half of the pole has hardly been used.' He half laughed, half coughed. 'That's why there's nobody here now. Not in this weather. I
make
myself. Once I'm trapped, I'm finished. My missus knows that.'

The steward came to the low table and poured some more tea. They surveyed the soaking grey countryside through the window with the four o'clock darkness sliding into every knot and crevice of the golf course. A dishevelled blackbird was sitting on the muddy putting green under the window. 'But it suits me
’
the old man said oddly. 'There are worse places.'

Davies said: 'As I explained on the telephone, we came to ask you to try to remember anything you can about the prison camp days.'

'Right. So you did.' A momentary wistfulness came to his eyes. 'Seems like yesterday,' he said. 'How has all this come up then? With the police?'

'An old chap died in somewhat odd circumstances, drowned in a canal in London,' Davies told him. 'A few weeks ago.' He glanced at Mod before continuing. 'We're not altogether satisfied it was an accident. One or two things have come to light which make us think that his death might
just
have some connection with something in his past.'

'And you said he was in Stalag 62
’
said Bing. 'There were a lot of blokes there, mind you. About three thousand. What was his name? I might just remember him.'

'Brock,' Davies said quietly. 'Wilfred Henry. Also known as Lofty.'

Bing was taking a drink of his tea and he choked over the cup, spilling it in all directions. The attentive steward brought a napkin across and the old man thanked him for it. He stared at Davies and Mod. 'Lofty Brock? It couldn't be. Lofty Brock's been dead forty years or more. I saw him die.'

'They carted us off to Silesia,' related Mr Bing. 'It was terrible. Cold as hell. They had us building defensive systems and air-raid shelters because the Russians were on their way. It was only the winter holding them up. In the old Stalag 62 it wasn't so bad. Just whiling away the time until the War finished, we were. None of this escape stuff you see on your television or read in books. If anybody tried it, the Germans would come down like a ton of bricks on the rest. Short rations, everything. So it wasn't encouraged. There were all sorts there, all nationalities and types, half the time falling out among themselves. But it was bearable. The old man, Colonel Ingate, kept the British more or less together, kept up morale and discipline
...'
His cup was empty and he stared into it as if trying to read what the tea leaves said.

'What happened when you went to Silesia?' Davies inquired.

'Well, we knew that the War didn't have far to go, six months at the most. The Russians were coming one way and the Yanks coming from the other. But we didn't even know exactly where we were. We were taken east by train and then told to get off in the wilds. It turned out to be about sixty miles from Nysa, but we didn't know then. And the guards were bastards. Ukrainians mostly, fighting for the Huns. They knew when the Reds caught up with them, they'd be for the high jump, and they weren't overjoyed about that. All sorts of things went on in that camp and not always after dark either. There was a lot of in-fighting, personal some of it, some of it political. But, by any standards, it was a pretty unhealthy place. You could never tell who your enemies were.'

'How,' asked Davies, 'did Lofty Brock die?'

'Somebody put a knife in him. He was just about a goner when we found him. Never said a word. Looked like somebody crept up on him because there were no signs of a fight and he was a great big bloke. But it was in the last days there. The Russkies were on the way and there was panic everywhere. We didn't feel all that smug about it because they were reckoned to be not all that particular who or what they shot. The Ukrainians ran away and we more or less followed them, going west, back into Germany to try and join up with the Americans. Eventually most of us did.'

Davies asked: 'Would it have been an easy matter for somebody to take over Brock's identity? Even somebody who didn't look remotely like him? Who was seventeen inches shorter, for a start.'

The elderly man began to work his hands. The knuckles were knotted. 'It gets me there,' he said. He returned to Davies. 'It wouldn't be all that difficult,' he replied. 'It was a shambles. You could easily alter identification papers, such as they were, give yourself a new name. God, some of the ruddy Nazis did it, didn't they? Just took over somebody else's name and got clean away. Some of them lived in prison camps for months before sliding out scot-free.'

'So a man could have taken over Brock's identity without much of a problem?'

'No problem at all. Most of our lot, the British, ended up in Vienna. Thousands of them. As I say, it was a shambles. And nobody wanted to know. The War was over and that was all that mattered. Everybody wanted to bugger off home and forget it. Men just disappeared. Some with good reason.'

'What about his family? Brock's?' put in Mod.

'I don't know about that,' said Mr Bing, shaking his head. 'I can't remember anything about his circumstances. But having a family didn't prevent people vanishing. Sometimes they were only too glad to.' He looked up at them. His eyes, as Davies now saw, very pale and hopeless. 'Sometimes I wish I had myself
’
he said.

7

Jemma had placed the tank of goldfish on the table where Davies regarded them sternly. 'At least they don't scratch
’
he observed. 'Or yell like Edie.' The fish were crowding against the wall of the tank. 'They stare
’
he said. 'Look at them staring.'

'Tomorrow
’
said Jemma, 'they'll be going back. Once the man is out of hospital.'

'Who
’
wondered Mod, eyeing the fish, 'would want to do a smash and grab on a pet shop?'

Davies, his own eyes widening with those of the goldfish, said: 'Maybe someone with a craving for hamsters.'

'He stole three pounds fifty and put a poor man in hospital
’
said Jemma firmly. 'I just hope you catch him.'

'Oh, we'll get him,' forecast Davies. 'We've had sniffer dogs down there. They've noshed a couple of tons of biscuits between them and one of them swallowed a white mouse.'

Jemma went into the kitchen and came back with some toasted bacon sandwiches and three mugs of coffee on a tray. Gratefully, Davies smiled at her. 'At least we're getting decent rations on this case
’
he said. He bit into a sandwich and felt the bacon fat roll warmly down his stubbled chin. He had - in the pursuit of his official duties - been on a case dealing with unrest among vagrants and had gone among the down-and-outs trying to look like one, but most of them had recognized him.

'I think we ought to recap,' he said eventually. 'Get everything into order and see where we are
’

'Go to jail,' muttered Mod. 'Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred pounds.' He caught Davies's eye.

'AH right,' Mod agreed, his mouth bulging with sandwich. When he had finished it, he immediately began to look as if he had been left out. Davies put the remainder of his sandwich in his mouth. Speaking at first through the bread, he went carefully over the known history of the person they still called Lofty Brock.

The goldfish were still congregated at the glass as though hardly able to believe what they saw. 'Incidentally,' said Davies, 'I called in on the security company, Keystone, who are supposed to keep an eye on the industrial estate. Keystone is a good name. Like the comedy cops. Nobody heard a thing that night. They're supposed to patrol regularly throughout the night, but I bet they don't. One of the blokes had holes in his socks.'

Jemma went to a cupboard and from it took two cardboard boxes. 'The file of papers from the hostel
’
she said, putting the first on the coffee-table. 'And the things from the pram.' She placed the second box alongside the first.

She sat down and the trio became motionless, three pairs of eyes on the two containers. Eventually, Davies opened the flaps of the box from the hostel. An odd expectancy came over them, as if the answer might be miraculously revealed. Nothing happened. On top of the folded papers was the linen bag which contained the medal. Davies picked it up, the maroon and purple ribbon lying across the palm of his hand. He turned the medal over. 'I wonder,' said Mod, 'what the penalty is for impersonating a holder of the Distinguished Conduct Medal?'

'Or for stealing it,' added Jemma.

'Or for murdering the recipient
’
suggested Davies.

He balanced the medal in the palm of his hand. 'Somebody killed the real Lofty Brock in the prison camp. There's a cross beside his name on the list in this box,' he said doggedly. 'Sergeant Major Bing must have been right. Perhaps it was the man who stole his identity. Lofty Brock Mark Two.'

'I'll be glad when he's got a name,' said Mod.

Davies nodded: 'It's difficult investigating somebody nameless. Half the time you never know who you're talking about.' His eyes went to Jemma. 'Haven't got any more bacon, have you?' he said.

Jemma rose. 'There's three rashers left. Don't continue without me.'

When she had gone into the kitchen, Mod said quietly: 'I wonder how she came to get that tooth knocked out.'

'I don't know,' replied Davies. 'I don't like to ask. Maybe she fell off her bike.'

He got up and went to the bookshelf.
'Aspects of Social Behaviour,'
he read aloud.
'Applied Psychology. A Plan for Social Realignment, Patterns of Deprivation, The Thinking of Children, Decisions in Cities.'
He sniffed and turned away. 'If you read stuff like that you could make something of yourself,' he said to Mod.

'Aye,' nodded the philosopher, 'and have somebody else's goldfish to look after.'

Jemma returned with the bacon sandwiches and coffee. 'Wipe your fingers before you start picking up any more of Lofty's things,' she said. Before taking hers from the plate, Jemma opened the biscuit tin and took out the wooden box. She laid out the contents on the table, first opening the ring box in which the pearl sat like a small bird's egg, then came the hairbrush, the razor and the blades, the bottle of cough mixture, the penknife
, the cow creamer, and finally.
the stained and faded photograph in the metal frame: a woman staring out, possibly from the dead.

She placed the picture on the table and as they chewed they fixed their eyes on it, like hungry spiritualists hoping to raise a ghost. 'If those lips could only speak,' Mod recited.

'She'd probably ask for a bacon sandwich,' said Davies. He wiped his hands and picked up the frame. He opened the back as he had done before. 'No name, not even a photographer's trade mark,' he said. 'Nothing.'

'But it's not the original size,' said Jemma carefully. She examined it more closely. 'It's had a piece cut off to make it fit the frame. At the bottom, done with scissors by the look of it. It's not as level as the other edges.'

Davies picked up the frame. 'You're right,' he said. 'It's top-heavy - and it's not centred.'

'She looks grim, doesn't she,' put in Mod. 'Years ago, people didn't used to smile at the camera. There was no shouting "cheese". You had to be dead serious.'

'You're right as well,' mused Davies. 'She looks
so
miserable. Fancy having your picture taken looking like that. And the way she's staring like she hated having her photograph taken.'

'Perhaps she did,' suggested Jemma slowly. 'You know
...
Dangerous
...
it looks like
...
it looks
...'
Davies realized.

'Say it,' he said.

'. . . like a prison photograph,' she finished.

The early weather that winter had been the usual desultory grey, often mild and often wet in the streets (the inhabitants of the area only considered the weather at street-level; it was not a place where people looked much at the sky). The lights of the shops and houses provided the sole visual warmth; the power station sent up its personal white clouds while working chimneys and traffic fumes added to the wintry grit. Then, like an order miraculously delivered on time, a few days before Christmas, it began to snow. The nuisance and ugliness of the underfoot slush was more than compensated for by the lambent white of ordinary roofs. On the first night of moonlight factory chimneys glistened like candles.

'Somebody's got to work over Christmas,' said Davies in The Babe In Arms. 'As usual, it's me.'