The Vacant Casualty (14 page)

‘We’ve got no fewer than fifty-four articles cut out or partially excised from the paper after June 1951. Most of the big ones are in those few months, June to September. After that
it peters out. Now we’ve got no evidence to back this up, but—’

Bradley looked up from his pad. ‘But there’s circumstantial evid—’

‘Objection OVERRULED!
My
witness! Let me finish.’

‘I think you’ve had too much of that vodka. Can you stop waving the bottle aro—’

‘Objection overruled! Will the Counsel please let me finish. Okay – okay, I’ll be more careful with the bottle. I did get you that time, sorry. Our conjecture, your Honour
–
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury
– is that something happened to do with that hill in the summer of 1951. Something controversial. And the persons who claimed that it
wasn’t a good idea were victimized.’

‘Stop talking to the bloody wall, Sam! Talk to me. I just want to get this straight. We think that people who objected to this scheme, whatever it was, were victimized in some way; made to
feel like outcasts. Then there are these six isolated and mysterious references in other articles to people who are called things like “notorious troublemaker” and “objector to
the beneficial scheme”. And we think these are the ones that slipped through because the other pieces which have been cut out are also references to the same thing.’

‘Exactly. And those who didn’t up sticks and move away were victimized even further.’

‘Because,’ said Bradley, going back to a newspaper he had placed on the floor and holding it up, ‘it seems all these monstrous crimes that happened throughout the following
years were perpetrated upon the very same people who objected in the first place. The six names we have all match: Waldicott, Tennyson, Hibblewick, Tavistock, Jerome, Duffield. All brutally
murdered.’

‘God damn it, I love it when we crack a case like this!’ said Sam.

‘I really think you should put the vodka down. And stop smoking that terrible skunk, or whatever it is.’

‘Oh, I thought you didn’t know what it was.’

‘Of course I do. I’ve got a television set, haven’t I? I don’t care a crumb what you smoke, I’ve got bigger fish to fry. Come on, I’m starving. Let’s
get a meal here in town and then drive back to Fraxbridge.’

D
URING THE DRIVE
back to the centre of town, Sam, who was temporarily on another high after their detective work, lobbied successfully, by a process of
whining until Bradley could take no more, for them to eat their meal in the pub rather than a local restaurant. By the time they arrived in the car park he had slumped again into a semi-torpid and
introspective state, and had embarked on the tediously contemplative stage of being high.

‘You know Raffles, the gentleman thief?’ he asked as they got out of the car. ‘Do you reckon he was called Raffles because it rhymes with “snaffles”? Because
that’s sort of a posh word for steals? So the author – was it E. W. Hornung? – hoped the tagline would be “Raffles snaffles”?’ He trotted along, struggling to
keep up with the detective as they crossed the car park towards the pub’s back door.

‘Am I talking crap?’ asked Sam.

‘Yes.’

As they reached the doorway they heard a wolf whistle that made them turn.

Both looked left and right, mystified, and were about to continue on their way when they heard a second, more aggressive whistle and, peering through the gloom, saw that it came from a tiny
figure in a battered old VW Golf about a dozen yards away. Approaching not with concern, perhaps, but certainly with confusion, they saw first that in the driver’s seat was a little old lady
of at least seventy-five, and second that she was languorously smoking a silver Silk Cut, with her hand lolling out of the window.

‘That your car, is it, love?’ she said. She was chewing gum as she spoke, and looking the other way.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Bradley.

‘I said, is that your car, sweetheart?’ She flicked the cigarette butt so it spun in the air and bounced off the windscreen of a smart-looking Audi, ten feet away.

‘Er, no . . . actually . . . That’s mine, over there,’ said Bradley, pointing with his little finger. ‘The Prius. It’s a, er, a hybrid. They’re quite good . .
.’

He tailed off. The old lady chewed her gum, rolled her head.

‘. . . Good for that sort of thing . . . Prius . . . Can I . . . Do you need any help?’

‘Oh, I don’t need any help, love,’ said the old lady, lasciviously looking him up and down, then lighting another Silk Cut and blowing the smoke towards him. She tilted the
mirror down (quite sharply down) and checked her reflection in it. ‘I got my golf clubs in the boot, and my sisters are backing me up. Reckon I’m all right.’

‘Your sisters . . .’ said Bradley.

The two men looked up and squinted in the darkness, and saw four separate sets of headlights blink on and off in a quick signal, one from each corner of the car park.

‘Yes, I reckon I’m all right, heartface. But are
you
all right? Maybe you want to watch yourself round here.’

Bradley and Sam exchanged a look, and the detective was about to speak when the VW’s engine sparked to life and the cigarette landed at his feet.

‘Just thinking of your safety, boys.’ She smeared a crimson lipstick across her lower lip with all the sensuality of someone hoovering a duvet, then squeezed her mouth into a pout,
rubbing her lips back and forth, and leered at him. ‘You look after yourself, you hear me, honey? Wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you.’

She pushed the car into gear and as it crept forward she leant out of the window and said, almost too low to hear, ‘Folks round here don’t like people who stick their noses in where
it isn’t wanted.’ And before they could think how to respond, the car crawled out of the car park and pulled into the street at about twelve miles an hour. An oncoming vehicle had to
break sharply and honked its horn, but she sailed off, slow as she pleased.

One after the other, the remaining cars departed as part of the same convoy, leaving only half-smoked Silk Cuts smouldering on the gravel behind them.

‘The granny mafia,’ said Sam wonderingly.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Bradley.

He refused to engage Sam in conversation about what had happened until they had ordered their food (Sam corrected Bradley’s order of a risotto to one of burger, onion rings and chips) and
sat down with their drinks in the far corner, as far from anyone else as they could be. Bradley was so confused by what had just happened, he did not demur as Sam ordered them two pints and two
whisky chasers ‘to save time’.

‘Let’s deal with that later. This case is getting exciting. I’m very pleased with our work today,’ he confided. ‘For a couple of non-detectives we’re doing
pretty well.’

‘This is all terribly exciting,’ said Sam. ‘Am I technically deputized yet?’

‘I’m not sure that’s really a process that can happen in the UK. Or anywhere in the last hundred years. I feel we’re closing in, but I’m not sure on what. In this
situation, what would Brautigan do?’

‘You really want to be like him?’ asked Sam.

‘God, yes,’ said Bradley. ‘Mrs Detective would certainly like it if I were more like him.’

‘Hell
yes
, she would!’ said Sam, nodding in a rather suggestive way that Bradley chose to ignore.

‘More decisive.’

‘Is that decisive with a question mark?’

‘No,’ said Bradley.

‘Well, say it more decisively, then. There’s no word that deserves it more. Mrs Detective would like it if you were what, big dick?’ He was needling Bradley now, he could see.
Making him uncomfortable.

‘More de
cis
ive.’

‘More derisive? She deride you?’

‘No! Don’t be silly. More decisive!’

‘Who decides how decisive you are?’ asked Sam loudly.

‘I do,’ said Bradley, looking away. ‘
I
do!’ he said, looking back, annoyed with himself.

‘So you’re going to be more decisive, and . . . ?’

‘More assertive! Good Lord, yes, I am!’ Bradley was still coming across like someone who had accidentally got into a conversation by being overheard, and was desperate to slink away.
Neither particularly decisive, nor assertive.

‘Not “Good Lord”, Detective, “God damn it”.’

Bradley looked somewhat shyly back at him, as though to say: that’s all right for you, but I can’t carry it off.

‘God DAMN it, I said!’ bellowed Sam, so loud that anyone who might have been within earshot would undoubtedly stare at them. The possibility someone could be passing nearby, from the
kitchens or to the toilet, still embarrassed Bradley so much he went red hot to the ears.

‘
God damn it
, then,’ he said quietly, but with intensity.

‘Your career is on the line and it’s hanging from the line by a thread. Nothing matters to you except cracking this case. You’re not going to blow it, this is all you’ve
got. You’d rather die.’

Bradley thought about that, and realized it was true.

‘Then God damn it, you punk-ass motherfucker, you’re not going to take any shit from anyone, are you?’

‘Well . . .’ said Bradley, ‘certainly one of the things that’s essential to good policing is calming down a potentially difficult situ—’

‘I’m not talking about good policing, you pathetic punk . . .’

‘Hey . . .’

‘I’m talking about being a good goddam detective. Do you care about the rules?’

‘Of course. What else
are
the police if you—’

‘No, you don’t! You’re going to get your man, no matter what, and when the dust has settled they’ll see that they need you more than you need them. No matter what those
pen-pushers at the Town Hall squeal about down the phone.
That’s
being a detective, Detective.’

‘Hmm. I have to admit, it does sound good,’ said Bradley, tasting his whisky.

‘Hey, you know, if we run into that old bag again—’

‘That’s a little rude, don’t you think?’

‘
I’ll
tell you what’s rude. That granny gangster has got no respect for the
law
. She’s trying to run this town in a climate of fear. Those teens I met up at
the castle, the big church, the – what is it, the abbey? They’re skulking around up there because they’re afraid of that nasty little pensioner scum. So if she tries some of the
same shit on you again,’ said Sam, ‘you know what you should say to her?’

‘No,’ said Bradley.

Sam counted the acceptable responses off on his fingers.

Forefinger. ‘Don’t give me that shit! Repeat after me.’

‘Don’t give me any of that shit!’ he said.

Middle finger. ‘I ain’t taking no for an answer, God damn it!’

‘I ain’t taking no for an answer, God damn it!’ said Bradley.

‘Still too quiet. At best you’re doing a Clint Eastwood drawl. I want to see Al Pacino losing his shit. A full-on tantrum. You know, “Attica, Attica!”’

‘I don’t know that reference.’

‘Well, it’s a very rousing speech he delivers in
Dog Day Afternoon
. Where he plays, er . . . Well, he plays a gay kidnapper holding up a bank to pay for his boyfriend’s
sex change. So that’s maybe not the best example. Imagine him as Serpico but, you know, more loud.’

Bradley fixed him with a baffled look.

‘Okay, next line.’ Ring finger. ‘So help me, if you don’t spill, I’ll run your ass down to the bullpen.’

‘The
bullpen
?’

‘Yeah, the fuckin’ bullpen! You playing innocent with me? The bullpen . . . The squad room . . . The station house . . .’

Between them they were now making so much noise that any minute they would surely attract attention from the other diners (or, possibly, other members of the local police force), so, hoping this
might be the conclusion of the lesson, Bradley stood up, throwing his chair back onto the floor, and pointed right into the middle of Sam’s face. ‘So help me, I will run your arse right
down to the police station!’

‘Woa, that’s good! That’s good, man, sit down.’

‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’ called the landlord from the bar. Giving Bradley an encouraging smile, Sam got up and skipped over. He had already dealt with two whiskies and more than
half his pint, so he ordered the same round all over again and asked for it to be put on Bradley’s tab.

‘You gentlemen, er, actors or something?’ asked the landlord, with his genial skill for starting conversations intended to go nowhere.

‘We’re detectives!’ said Sam, still addled. ‘And we’re going to blow this shit wide open. Just me, my boss over there and a wise-crackin’ hamster!’

‘Right you are,’ said the landlord, placing the drinks on a tray.

‘The hamster isn’t here right now,’ added Sam.

‘You’re not from round these parts, are you?’ said the landlord.

‘That guy’s got no sense of humour,’ said Sam, sitting back down. ‘But I admit I am starting to feel slightly conspicuous. Where were we?’

The food arrived and they had to make room for it on their table, which involved the loud and awkward removal of several glasses and lots of splashing of still-full drinks. When they had settled
into their meal, it seemed that the detective’s interest had firmly been piqued, for he asked: ‘What else do I need to do to be this proper detective you talk about, then?’

‘You’ve got to swear all the time, and have no sensitivity at all for good manners.’

‘Okay, good point. Thank you.’

‘Hmm,’ said Sam, chewing on a bit of scampi. ‘And don’t order the bloody risotto. What’s wrong with you? It’s burgers for you now, my friend – for
breakfast, lunch and dinner.’

‘Oh dear. I don’t think that would . . .’ Then he caught Sam’s eye and stopped. ‘What else?’ he asked.

‘Well, how do you get on with your wife, for instance?’

‘Oh, well enough,’ Bradley replied, looking slightly defeated.

‘You shouldn’t. You should sleep around relentlessly, never tell your wife where you are and needlessly provoke arguments with her, just to remind her that she needs you.’ A
reluctant glint of interest entered Bradley’s eye, and Sam added:‘Of course, she’d still love you, but you’d be so difficult that she’d leave you and set up with some
other, more clean-cut guy, who’s less of a macho dude than you. An architect or a dentist, or something.’