Death of a Bovver Boy (7 page)

‘How do you think he got there?'

‘I don't know! How am I to know? I never saw him. What do you want to ask me for?'

‘He doesn't know anything about it,' put in the friend.

‘Had you got anything against Dutch Carver?'

‘No. Only that he was a greaser. Not one of our crowd. I didn't do him, if that's what you mean.'

‘Then I wonder why so many people in Hartington seem to think you did.'

‘I can't help what they think. I never touched him.'

‘You have a motor-cycle?'

‘Yes. So have all the other lads.'

‘Was Dutch ever on your pillion?'

‘No!' Gil shouted. ‘Never! I wouldn't take a greaser like that on my pillion. Or have anything to do with him.'

‘Or cut his hair?'

‘Who cut his hair? I didn't. I didn't know anything about that. If someone cut his hair off it wasn't me.'

‘But it might have been, Gil? I mean you or some of your friends have been known to cut off long hair from what you call the greasers, haven't you?'

‘Not me. Some of them have. Well, they're such——ing cissies with hair half down their back. Some of the lads don't like to see it.' He turned on his friend. ‘Tell him about the cushion,' he said.

‘It's only that they're stuffing a cushion with the greasers' hair. Like Indians with scalps. Not Gil, mind you. Some of the other lads.'

Carolus had to be content with that information, at least for the moment.

‘Now you answer me some questions,' suggested Gil, whose courage seemed to be regained. ‘Are you the Law?'

‘No. Just a private individual, but interested,' said Carolus. ‘Why doesn't your aunt want you to have anything to do with her little daughter?'

‘Who says she doesn't? She's never taken any interest in young Liz herself. Leaves her to run about the streets all day. Then she tells you I have to keep away from her.'

‘Why?' persisted Carolus.

‘I don't know why. Because she's an old bitch, I suppose. She'd sooner let that greaser take her about than what she would me. What the kid needs is her mother to look after her.'

‘Your aunt seems to work very hard.'

‘No more than anyone else. And she doesn't need to. She's got a pension from my Uncle Jack.'

‘We're getting away from the subject. You say you had nothing to do with Dutch's death. Who do you suggest might have, then?'

‘Almost anybody. No one liked him. Even his brother had no use for him. And the rest of his greaser friends—Grayne and White and all that lot. You should have heard them talk about him. They're supposed to have said they meant to do for him one day…'

‘To whom did they say that?'

‘I don't know. That's what I heard, anyway. I wouldn't put it past his own father for that matter. Or that bitch he's living with.'

‘What about his mother?'

Gil grinned.

‘Have you
seen
her?' he asked. ‘But I never liked that Pakistani fellow…'

‘Not Pakistani, surely? I understand that Delafont is a West Indian.'

‘So he may be, but I don't like the look of him. There's one, if you're looking for who did Dutch. Could easily have been him. And I'll tell you who else may have had something to do with it. That's the fellow who owns the discotheque where the greasers go. Swindleton he's called. Just the type. Mind you, I don't say it
was
him, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised. Dutch was always round there. Wasn't he, Trimmer?'

‘Trimmer' was evidently the skinny friend.

‘Certainly was,' he replied. ‘Never came anywhere where we went.'

‘What about girls?'

Gil grinned again.

‘What about them?'

‘You talk as though yours was an all-male community, and Dutch's crowd, too.'

‘Oh yes. There were girls all right. Only ours didn't seem to mix much with theirs. There was some seemed to go for the greasers, like that Lotta.'

‘Lotta?'

‘Yeh. Carlotta her name is. A big busty girl. Always round with Jenny Rivers. They might be able to tell you something about Dutch. They went to the Spook Club, too. Lotta works in the same place as my sister. King's Supermarket. She's nearly always on the vegetables if you go round there. Big girl, she is. Always got a grin on her face. My sister's a cashier. Gets more money and shorter hours.'

Carolus for the first time became aware of the man behind the bar. He wore a fancifully trimmed beard and seemed to be listening intently to the conversation without wishing to interrupt it.

‘Have a drink?' Carolus asked the two young men, thinking that they had been quite long enough on the premises without showing themselves as customers. They both accepted bitter, and Carolus asked for pints and a Scotch for himself. They were all served and Gil turned to Carolus in almost a friendly way.

‘Cheers,' he said. ‘Tell you what. Are you going to show me that trick of yours? How you put me down, I mean? Quickest thing I ever saw. And you say it's not Karate?'

‘It's easy,' said Carolus and repeated his original performance but less violently.

Gil took it well and got to his feet.

‘Try it on
him,'
he said indicating Trimmer. ‘I want to watch.'

Trimmer was a willing victim.

‘Unarmed Combat, you say,' put in the landlord. ‘Looks to me more like Jiu-Jitsu.'

He was interrupted by the entrance of a group of shaven-headed louts who gave surly greetings to Gil and Trimmer.

Carolus saw that an extraordinary change had come over Gil. All his good humour disappeared and his face took on the bestial expression it had worn when Carolus arrived. It was evident that he had what in other circles might have been called ‘a position to keep up'. It would never do for him to be seen by his friends or followers or whatever the new arrivals were, in polite conversation with Carolus.

Carolus could understand that. He knew enough about these street gangs to know that leadership could only be maintained by a show of vicious, often criminal, strength. But it was a revelation of the young man's character.

‘Ought to have seen Gil just now,' said Trimmer who
was evidently less aware than Carolus was of the subtlety of the situation.

‘Why?' said a dark-haired boy who, Carolus learned afterwards, was named Nat Fisher.

This seemed to release a spring in Gil.

‘Shut up!' he shouted to Trimmer, moving towards him.

‘Ought to have seen him!' continued Trimmer derisively. He got no further. With startling speed Gil had produced a knife and was holding it under Trimmer's chin.

‘I told you to shut up,' he said furiously.

Trimmer was—quite literally and obviously—afraid for his life.

‘I was only saying,' he muttered.

‘Next time I tell you to shut up,' Gil said, ‘you shut up. And quick. Now get going and don't let me see you again.'

Trimmer turned by the door.

‘I wasn't going to say anything,' he said.

Gil did not seem to find this worth answering but Trimmer's departure was delayed by the landlord.

‘You owe me for that first round.'

Thus brought back into the room Trimmer became almost effusive.

‘So I do. Must have forgotten. How much was it?'

The landlord told him and Trimmer brought out a pound note.

‘Out!' said Gil when the landlord had given him his change.

Gil's prestige was restored and Carolus was left alone with four of the town's skinheads and observed their movements.

‘Who's this——?' demanded Nat Fisher after a seemingly contemptuous glance at Carolus.

‘Some bloke,' said Gil. The fact that he used a less offensive term than Nat seemed to indicate to the others that Gil did not find Carolus's presence unwelcome.

‘D'you know him?' Nat asked the landlord.

‘Never seen him before,' said the bearded man behind the bar. ‘He's pretty good at…'

‘D'you want what Trimmer's got coming to him?' Gil asked, leaning threateningly across the bar.

The landlord was not as scared as Trimmer had been, but he was scared. A noteworthy force seemed to be represented by Gil Bodmin.

‘I was only going to say he was pretty good at darts,' said the landlord with considerable presence of mind.

Carolus had been amused that all this talk referring to him had been carried on as though he was not present, or perhaps in existence. None of the youths seemed to be of quite normal intelligence though Gil was the least primitive of them all. He could well see how they had become the chief suspects in the case of Dutch Carver's death though he had seen nothing positively murderous about any of them, except perhaps Gil's schizophrenic determination to dominate the situation at all costs. That, Carolus realized, could indeed be dangerous. Suppose that Dutch Carver had called down upon himself some of that brutal violence, that consuming vanity of a youth who precariously held on to his authority over the others, would it not have meant just what Dutch had suffered, gross humiliation and death? It was no use turning back to the time of awkward young ruffians, mischievous boys, the unruly sons of weak parents—these boys were potential killers. Not one of them, not even the shifty
Trimmer, could be erased from a list of suspects in the case.

On the other hand there were people as likely to have been involved as these, and Carolus remembered the two abominable parents on whom he was inclined to lay the blame for what Dutch had become. And he had yet to meet the sinister Swindleton and the two girls whom Gil had connected with Dutch.

As though prompted to action by these thoughts Carolus rose. Out of consideration for Gil he refrained from speaking to anyone and with a nod to the landlord left the pub. Four motor-cycles were drawn up outside like chorus boys waiting for their turn.

When he reached the car park where he had put his car out of sight of those entering, he was surprised to see Gil waiting for him. He had evidently come out by the back door of the pub, perhaps leaving his friends with an excuse or perhaps not bothering to explain himself.

‘This your barrow?' asked Gil.

Carolus said yes.

The boy looked embarrassed and shame-faced. He did not seem able to speak for some minutes then he came out with the sudden remark, ‘I didn't kill Dutch,' and was again silent.

‘Do you know who did?' Carolus asked calmly.

‘I may have got an idea.'

‘Well?'

‘Nothing to go on. I can't really say anything at all. Only if I was you I shouldn't look among the youngsters like us.'

‘Someone older, you think?'

‘I'm not going to say anything because I don't know. But if I was you that's where I should look.'

‘Not among your lot?' suggested Carolus.

‘I'm not saying some of us wouldn't have liked to. But I'm pretty sure it wasn't. It took more than thinking he was a ——ing greaser to bring anyone to that. Someone must have had more reason than what any of us had. See what I mean?'

‘Vaguely, yes. I shall get at the truth anyway. It may take a bit of time…'

‘What about the Law? Don't you think they'll beat you to it?'

‘Shouldn't think so. I'm learning all the time.'

‘Learn anything this evening?' asked Gil.

‘Quite a lot. You don't cover up very well, Gil.'

‘I don't know. Anyway, I've got nothing to cover up.'

‘No?'

‘Another thing. You have a look at that Swindleton. If you don't get something out of him himself you'll learn a lot from his place, the Spook Club.'

‘Thanks,' said Carolus.

‘There's a girl there called…'

From across the yard someone was shouting—‘Gil! Come on Gil, we're pushing off.'

‘Shall have to run,' Gil said. ‘See you again some time.'

‘What was the girl called?'

‘June!' called Gil from a few yards away. ‘June Mockett.'

He dived under the railing of the car park and could be heard swearing amicably at his friends near the back door.

Carolus was not superstitious and was not greatly troubled by what Mrs Stick called ‘the creeps' ‘the shivers' or ‘a turn'. But somehow that evening when he went to drive back to Newminster by the road beside which he had found, guided by Stick, the body of the boy known as Dutch, he was filled with uncomfortable presentiments. It was a cold windy night, for one thing, one of those autumnal nights on which the trees seemed to be moved by angry unrest and their noise by the side of the road sounded like animals trying to break out rather than the placid vegetation, which all through the summer had given shade. Twice on his way he stopped the car to listen to this, not in any ordinary sense frightened but thinking that on such a night the dark landscape seemed to be alive about him.

The case he was investigating was not one which carried threats or any articulate kind of horror, but there was a morbidness and a cruelty about it which perturbed him. No one cared anything for the young boy who had been killed, even Leng, Carolus thought, showed only a professional interest in Dutch Carver as a singer and seemed to have no time to spare for him as a human being. Herbert Carver, nagged if not dominated
by the Farnham woman, made it clear that he wanted to be troubled as little as possible by what should have been to him a tragic event, while the silly vain mother of the boy, in a modern phrase, couldn't have cared less. Even the investigating policeman confessed that he had not long been in the CID and that he was being given his first opportunity to find out the truth about a murder.

Altogether, Carolus decided, it looked like being one of those cases which barely attained newspaper space and would soon be swept under the forensic carpet. He was quite alone in being determined not to let that happen.