Dance Floor Drowning Page 7

  Yvonne bit her lip for a second. 'We really aren't detectives this time.' she told him, thinking about Billy's problems with chief superintendent Flood. 'Although, like anybody else, we'd like to know what happened. We sometimes ask Doctor Hadfield about things, you know, dead bodies and stuff. He gives us his advice and he tells us if we get the wrong idea. He's a good friend. He's also my sister's young man.'

  Harry Clegg chuckled quietly. 'Her young man, you say? Oh well then, I guess that puts him firmly on the detective team, whether he wants to be or not.'

  0o0o0

  Chapter Seven

  PC John Needham tried the door to Walkley Post Office. Finding it securely locked, he strolled on to the adjoining premises, a sweet shop still open for business until late. The storekeeper smiled and waved though his window as John moved on checking the door locks of the other shops in the row; Maypole grocery, Wraggs the fishmonger, and Rumpleys chip shop, before vanishing for a smoke in a lock up behind an ironmonger's shop.

  John unlocked the wooden storage shed with a key provided by the ironmonger upon his initiation into the secrets of the Walkley beat. Inside, he switched on a small lamp bulb casting a weak light over boxes, crates and shelves packed with assorted ironmongery. An old church pew pushed up against one wall provided seating and served as a worktop for a primus stove, kettle, teacups and milk bottle. He frowned at an apple core and an unwashed tea cup left by the day shift copper, and made a mental note to tell his colleague to clean up after himself in future.

  Leaning back in the old pew he daydreamed wearily in the silence as he waited for the kettle to boil. Billy Perks barged in through the door, giving him a heart stopping shock.

  'Eddie! Chuffing 'eck,' Needham gasped in confusion.

  Billy slid in alongside him on the bench. ‘Eddie? Who‘s that? It's me.'

  Needham coughed, appearing flustered and embarrassed. 'I know. I can see yer now,' he said, quickly regaining his composure. 'Captain Trouble. What's tha want?'

  Billy grinned, pushing his specs up his nose. 'I came to see thee. I've been waiting ages.'

  'How did you find me?'

  Billy shot him a surprised look. 'Tha always comes here for a smoke and a mash.'

  'Oh aye, and who told you that?'

  'Everybody knows. All t'coppers come here. That's why they leave this old bench and a kettle and everything.'

  'Hum, is that so?'

  Billy pointed up to a shelf above the door. 'Thiz an old wireless set up there an' all. Tha can get t'Test match on it, and t'football.'

  Being fairly new to the Walkley beat, PC Needham hadn't yet discovered the radio. 'Tha seems to know more about this job than I do.'

  Billy's thoughts had moved on. His face now wore a look of urgent enquiry. 'What's the latest? Have they got the killers yet?'

  PC Needham groaned and rocked back on the bench. 'Look, forget about all that. You're a kid. It's not healthy to be moping around over corpses and stuff.'

  'On no, I can't forget it,' said Billy. 'I have to find out. It's not just being nosey or playing a game, tha knows. This's important. I think they're trying to cover it up. Both of 'em.'

  'Who is?'

  'I don't know. Some bigwigs, I expect. They won't let anything be in the papers. They don't even say who the victims were. They've warned me to stay out of it. And now they've changed your beat and sent you up here instead of where you were before ...'

  'Ayup, now hang on a minute, lad. You're gerrin carried away wi' thee sen. I’ve been pestering for this beat for months. I like Walkley. I only live round t'corner.'

  'Well why isn't it in t'papers then?' Billy asked. 'You’d think a story like this would be top news until it's solved. Instead there's only little snippets, hardly anything at all.' Billy walked around the cluttered shed absently peering into sacks and boxes. 'It's all very fishy, and I'm not the only one who thinks so.'

  John Needham blew out his cheeks and shook his head. 'The trouble with people like you is, you see bogey-men behind every tree. There is no cover up, Billy. There is no conspiracy.' He fixed Billy with his smiley blue eyes. 'You should be playing and having fun, not worrying about corpses and cover ups.'

  Billy gritted his teeth and frowned at him. 'I'm going to see Mister Clegg. Him and Doc Hadfield are the only ones who listen to me. If tha wain't do sommat about it, they will.'

  'Get proof, lad. If you can show me some proof, believe me, there's plenty of folk who'll listen to you.' He looked Billy in the eye and put a hand on his shoulder. 'What do you think the police are doing? We’re not trying to hide owt. If there's a crime, believe me, nobody is going to take it more seriously than us. And if you can prove I'm wrong about that, I'll team up wi thee me sen. We'll capture the baddies together.'

  *

  The following morning Billy faced a starchy receptionist across her desk at Kemsley House, headquarters of Sheffield's local press. 'You can't just walk in and expect a red carpet,' she told him with chilling finality. She swivelled on her typist-chair like the gun barrel of a Churchill tank, presenting Billy with the rigidly coiffed elegance of the back of her head.

  'I don't want a carpet,' he told her. 'I want to see Harry Clegg. He told me I could come and see him anytime.'

  The Churchill swung back again and took aim. 'Don't be a silly little boy. Mister Clegg would never say such a thing – especially not to – er - a boy like you.'

  'Well he did. We're - er - working on a story together. I'm his assistant. I helped him last year. I was in the paper - on the front page.'

  The black telephone at the woman's elbow suddenly emitted a strangulated whirring sound, as if ringing inside a boxing glove. She sneered icily, removed her spectacles and one dangly earring, and lifted the telephone receiver to her ear. 'Good morning: Sheffield Press, how may I help?' Her rigid expression softened, evidently melted by the voice on the other end of the line.

  Billy seized his chance. He knew the layout of the building very well. The year before, during his brief moment of fame, Harry Clegg had given him a conducted tour. He dashed up the stairs and battered through the double swing doors on to the main news floor. His gaze swept the clutter and bustle of the large, open office. Faces turned enquiringly up to his, then quickly fell away again, in disappointment.

  'I'm looking for Mister Clegg,' he announced.

  'Aren't we all, luv,' said the nearest minion, without looking up from her clanking Underwood typewriter. 'He's gone – scarpered - vanished without a word.'

  Firm hands gripped Billy's shoulders. He felt himself hauled backwards through the double doors. 'Right, mi lad. Out you go.' A uniformed commissionaire, his chest covered in medal ribbons and gold braid, frog marched him down the stairs and out onto Sheffield's busy High Street. 'Bye bye, now. And don't come back.'

  Billy watched him re-enter the building between its impressive Portland stone columns. The lead glazed doors swung shut, seeming to render the place impregnable. The burly commissionaire glared out at him, powerful evidence that it probably was. He retreated a few steps and looked up to where the newspaper's gilded Star emblem floated proudly on the domed roof above the grand entrance. He thought wistfully of how, only a few months earlier, he had been the Star's hero, the face on the front page. Now he couldn't even get in the door.

  With disappointment etched into his freckled face, he sloped away. What had happened to Harry Clegg? Why had he disappeared? Was this suspicious, or was he simply on his summer holidays? Either way, it was a spanner in the works. He was sure there was much that Harry Clegg could have told him.

  Billy sat on the steps of the Cutlers Hall, in Church Street, at the heart of Sheffield's blitzed city centre. Facing him, the clock on the cathedral tower ticked towards eleven-thirty. Around the cathedral, most of the buildings had escaped the bombing. Behind their windows, inky fingered solicitors, accountants and clerks, pored over dusty deeds, ledgers, stock cards and forms. Should they bother to lift their heads to look out, they would see sunlight gildin
g every corbel, castellation, cartouche and cornice of the sooty cityscape, adding texture and vitality to both medieval and Victorian gothic. Billy looked about unseeing, his mind greatly troubled.

  'You seem much taken by our lovely church, young man.' The speaker, an elderly cleric, let out a stifled gasp as he struggled to sit beside him on the Cutlers Hall steps. 'I come almost every day to take it in from here, but I've never had the good sense to sit on these steps like you, young man. What a very good idea.'

  Billy cast him a sidelong glance, not sure what to say. He shuffled up to make room. 'I'm just waiting for the tram,' he said lamely.

  The old man did not seem to hear him. 'I like to look at it each day, you see. It changes with the sun – often it looks quite different.' His shoulders shook gently as if he was laughing inside. 'We're going to be changing it quite a lot soon; a new extension on the west there.' He pointed, and then waved his hand as if rubbing out an image in the air. 'I'm not sure about it, personally. I’d rather not change it, but everyone seems to think it's a good idea.' He gave Billy a studying look and smiled. 'There's been a church here since at least the ninth century, you know. Did you know they found an Anglo-Saxon stone cross that probably stood right there.' He pointed vaguely. 'It's in the British Museum now. I've seen it, of course. It's quite splendid.' He laughed, shaking his head incredulously. 'You won't believe this, but it'd been hollowed out to make a quenching trough in a blacksmith's forge.' He rolled back on his buttocks and laughed softy. 'It's a miracle it survived.'

  A Walkley bound tramcar shook the ground as it rattled to a halt at the tram-stop. Billy stood up. 'I've got to go. Tarraahh.'

  'Don't give up, young man. Keep trying.'

  Billy looked back curiously as he boarded the tram. He paid his fare, and climbed the stairs to the top deck. From the tram window, he looked down at the old cleric seated on the steps of the Cutler's hall. He was looking back at him, a knowing smile creasing his face beneath his silver hair.

  'Any more fares please?' The conductor’s voice sounded weary with repetition. He rang the bell. 'Hold on very tight now please!' The tram shuddered into life, throwing Billy onto a hard seat in the back-bay windowed area of the upper deck. He shuffled along the empty leather bench and looked back to the old cleric. He was still there and still watching, until the tram turned a corner and lost line of sight.

  Billy glanced around the top deck. Most of the seats were empty. He counted only eight other passengers, all men, sitting alone and taking full advantage of the freedom to smoke on the upper deck. He jerked upright suddenly when he saw that one of them was the old man he had seen at the funeral. He turned and spotted Billy at the same moment and immediately came over to join him in the back-bay. 'Hello, lad.'

  'I saw you at the funeral,' said Billy, slightly startled.

  'I saw thee an' all.' The old guy smiled cheekily and began the ritual of rolling a cigarette. 'You were there with that young lass …'

  'Yvonne.'

  'Smart as paint, that one. And I know your other pal an' all; a good little footballer.'

  'What's the badge for?' Billy asked eyeing the splash of silver pinned to the old man's lapel.

  'Union, I'm shop steward at Cranks Forge. As a matter of fact I'm on union business right now,' he said, adding a muffled harrumphing sound to emphasize the gravity of his position. 'The bosses have sacked a comrade. I've gorra gerrim his job back. The daft bugger. Between me and thee, he dunt deserve it. He's a lazy sod, but we can't have t'bosses trampling all o'er us can we?'

  Billy had no opinion. 'Why did you go to the funeral? You never went in the church.'

  He fixed Billy with a hard stare. 'Some go to remember. Some go to remind.'

  Billy frowned, unsure what to make of his response. He said, 'There's sommat fishy going on. I think somebody's trying to cover it all up. It's the same with him at the swimming baths. Is that what you think an' all?'

  Again the steady gaze. 'Spring Heeled Jack will know the answer.'

  'Who? Spring Heeled Jack? Who's he? '

  'It all started in his dark realm,' said the old man, in deadly earnest. He turned and glanced out of the window and then stood up sharply, grabbing a strap handle to stop himself skittling down the aisle as the tram bucked and lurched. 'I gerrof at the next stop.' He smiled and doffed his trilby hat. 'I run a gym most evenings. It's in the coach house behind the relish factory. D'you know it? Leavygreave Road. If tha needs to talk to me, tha can find me there.' He winked and ruffled Billy's hair. 'Don't worry, I know thee dad. He knows me an' all. He were a reight good footballer thee dad. Tell him thaz seen Walter Mebbey. He'll know me. Tha can bring that pal o' thine an' all, but not the young lass. We don't have lasses. It's boxing, catch-as-catch-can, and weightlifting. It's not fit for lasses.'

  'Who's Spring Heeled Jack?'

  'Find out for thee sen , and pray tha never meets him on a dark neet.'

  0o0o0

  Chapter Eight

  'Billy!' The voice was Dr. Hadfield's, his tone, angry. 'What the devil have you done?'

  Billy was scroamin into the greenhouse garden by his usual route under the advertising hoardings. He was not expecting to be challenged, and especially not by Doctor Hadfield. He scrambled to his feet, dusted himself down and faced the young man. 'What's up? How did you gerrin?'

  The doctor's face was red with rage. 'Never mind about that. What have you done, Billy?' he yelled. 'I can't protect you now, you idiot. You've left me no choice. I have to go to the police.' He pulled a large envelope from inside his jacket and waved it under Billy's nose. 'Where the devil did you get this? This is theft, Billy. Even worse, it’s tampering with legal evidence. People go to jail for this sort of thing.'

  Baffled, Billy eyed the envelope and backed away towards the greenhouse. 'I haven't the faintest idea what tha'rt going on about,' he said. 'Honest I've never seen it afore.'

  The doctor followed him inside, glancing about warily. He closed the door behind them. 'Billy, please do not insult my intelligence. It is obviously you who put this through my letterbox. Who else could it be? But how the devil did you get it?'

  'I-don't-know-worrit-is,' Billy said, annunciating forcibly. 'I've never seen it afore.' He flopped into a deckchair. 'Anyway, why would I be so sneaky about it? If I'd got sommat to show thee, I'd bring it round, like I usually do. We'd look at it together and talk about it.'

  Hadfield looked shaken. He sat in the remaining deck chair and toyed nervously with the envelope. Billy reached out and gently took it from him. It was made of very stiff paper, and had a concertina like pleat down its sides to allow for expansion. The opening flap had a string fastener to facilitate reuse. Billy did not say so, but he had seen similar envelopes in Harry Clegg's office at the newspaper. A handwritten note on the front read, Neither is what it seems.

  Billy blew out his cheeks and shook his head. 'It weren't me, Doc. Honest.'

  Hadfield sighed and looked about him at the whitewashed panes of glass, the tinder dry seed boxes and rows of dead plants, as if counting cobwebs. 'Good place this,' he said quietly after a while. 'Whose is it?'

  Billy glanced around mirroring the young doctor. 'Hum, it's old Mister Eadon's place. He dunt use it anymore. My granny says he's got bad legs, but I expect you know about that.'

  'Hum, no he’s not my patient.’ He sighed and knuckled his eyes as if weary. ‘What a mess,' he said miserably. 'D'you have any idea who it could be from?'

  Billy shook his head. Harry Clegg sprang to mind, but for the time being, he decided to keep his thoughts to himself. Peering inside the envelope, he drew out a thin sheaf of papers. There were two foolscap pages of rough sketches and two of handwritten notes. Another slim bundle contained several extracts, none more than four lines long, cut from typewritten documents.. A single staple held them together. There were no printed sheets, or letterheads; nothing to indicate their origin, or ownership.

  'I believe you, Billy old lad. I should know better, but who could it be?'
>
  'I've a vague idea, but I don’t want to say anything until I know for certain. It’s best if I keep it to myself.’

  'Thank God one of us is acting like a grown up,’ Hadfield said apologetically and gently retrieved the papers. 'These are absolute dynamite. I think the typed bits are from Coroner's Office documents. As you can see, they're carbon copies. Hopefully, that means whoever pinched them left the originals safe and intact. There's not much to go on, but the language and style is pretty typical of the Coroner's court.' He cleared a space on some upturned seed trays and laid the pages out on them. 'This one says there'll be an inquest, but the deceased's remains can be released to the family for burial. That's definitely from the coroner's office.'

  'Yeah, and the date’s about right,' Billy said reading it from the page. 'Both victims have been buried now, one in Crookes cemetery and I read about the other in the paper.'

  The doctor smoothed out the hand written pages on his thigh. 'The writing's terrible, but I think these might come from the pathologist's own notes, just the rough versions, of course. They look like hastily made copies. It's as if somebody had sight of the pathologist's notes, but had only seconds to crib from them. Some of it looks like shorthand that’s been rubbed out and then written over.'

  Billy knew that Harry Clegg often used shorthand, and was now sure it must be him who stole them and posted them through the doctor's door. He imagined him scribbling away as he riffled through the pathologist's files, one eye on the office door, his ears cocked for the sounds of approaching footsteps.

  'Whatever it is, it's obviously an illegal copy,' said Hadfield. 'I'll have to tell the police.'

  'What's it say?'

  'Well, in summary; death was by drowning. This must be the man in the swimming pool.' He shrugged apologetically for having stated the obvious. 'This other one seems to be the Man’s Head victim. It's a list of injuries ...' He stopped, a puzzled expression on his face. 'All but one is post mortem.' He went over all the reports again. 'It's as if the corpse was battered about – post mortem.'