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Death of a Bovver Boy

Chicago Review Press Incorporated

The ugliest case which Carolus Deene ever chose to investigate was brought to his notice by his housekeeper Mrs Stick, a little woman whose aim had always been to keep Carolus away from 'murders and such'. Perhaps she was not conscious of what she would be starting when she said primly one Sunday evening — 'Stick's very upset.' Carolus, who was accustomed to hearing somewhat enigmatic references to his housekeeper's husband, obligingly asked — 'What about?'

'You'd better ask him,' said Mrs Stick. 'I can't get a word out of him. It's something he's seen on the Boxley Road. He won't say what it is, but I daresay he'll tell you, being a man. All I know is, it's put him off his supper tonight and that means it's not to be laughed at. When Stick's off his food he has been upset and no mistake about it.'

'I'll ask him about it in the morning,' promised Carolus, who was preparing to turn in.

But ten minutes later Mrs Stick returned to his study, her face flushed and her whole small being showing excitement which she could not repress.

'I've got it out of him,' she said. 'You can't wonder he didn't want to say anything about it. It's scarcely decent, not for a lady to hear.'

Carolus knew better than to interrupt.

'Stick was walking back from the Three Thistles at Boxley this evening when a car came up behind him and almost knocked him into the hedge. I've told him a hundred times to walk facing the traffic if he must walk at all along the road at night, but he won't listen. The car didn't stop, of course, and there was Stick pushed right in the ditch or culvert or whatever they call it. He was just going to climb back on to the road when he saw this arm ...'

'Which arm?'

'What I'm telling you about. It was an arm stretched out there, and when Stick stooped down and looked he saw the whole body lying in the ditch. But what upset him was that this fellow hadn't a stitch on. Can you imagine it?'

'Not until you tell me which fellow.'

'How do I know which fellow? Stick says he looked about seventeen but you couldn't really tell because he was stone dead. Been some time, Stick said, and his face covered with bruises.'

'Did Stick recognize him?'

'No. Well, he wouldn't, would he? I mean it might have been anyone. Might not have come from round here at all.'

'What did Stick do?'

'Do? What could he do? He looked round for something to cover the poor young fellow up. At least to make him a bit decent for anyone who came on him, like Stick had. All he could find was the News of the People which he had in the pocket of his overcoat meaning to have a read of it when he got home. So he put that over and came back here as fast as he could.'

'He has not reported what he found?'

'He was going to tell you as soon as he got his breath, you being interested in anything like that.'

'Like what, Mrs Stick?'

'Well, murders and that. I mean, what else could it be?'

'An accident,' suggested Carolus not very convincingly.

'What, with no clothes on?'

'They could have been removed after death.'

'I suppose they could have but it doesn't seem likely, does it?'

'Suicide?'

'I suppose it might be that, but who's going to kill himself with nothing on unless he was raving mad? No, Stick thinks he'd been murdered. That's why he was going to tell you about it.'

'It will have to be reported,' said Carolus. 'Will you ask Stick if he'll drive out with me and show me where it is?'

'That's what he said he wanted to do. You know what Stick is. He'd rather you took charge of it than go running round to the police station and have them asking all sorts of questions.'

'Very well. I'll get the car out,' said Carolus rising.

'He'll wait for you out by the gate,' promised Mrs Stick.

Little was said as Carolus drove out in the direction of Boxley for Stick was a man of few words. He did say 'I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw what it was,' but after that he kept silence till he told Carolus that 'it must be about here' and Carolus pulled up.

'It' was just there. Almost exactly where Stick had asked Carolus to stop. By the light of his powerful torch Carolus examined the body when Stick had removed the copy of the News of the People with which he had covered it 'to make the poor young fellow a bit decent' as Mrs Stick had explained.

The boy — Carolus judged him to be even younger than seventeen — lay in a peculiar hunched-up position. Rigor mortis, that stiffness so popular with crime writers, had produced a weird effect as though down there in the ditch he was sitting hunched on the pillion of an invisible motor-bike, his arms stretched out as though they had been clasped round the rider's waist. But as Mrs Stick had put it in a prim cliche he had 'not a stitch on'. What was more there were patches and swellings on his face.

Carolus noticed another thing. Round each wrist was a ring of abrasions in the flesh as though he had been handcuffed or tied with rope. Since the two rings were similar, identical in fact, it would seem that the dead boy had been roped by the wrists. Almost instinctively Carolus looked down at the ankles and found similar rings of red rubbed flesh.

'Looks as though he's had his hair cut,' remarked Stick and Carolus, having followed Stick's pointing finger agreed. But the job had not been done by a skilled barber. The dead boy had worn his hair long and probably since his death it had been roughly shorn.

Stick excelled himself. 'Must have been done after he was dead,' he said. 'Those that have long hair don't like parting with it. It's taken a long time to grow, you see, and they're proud of it. So I should say if I were asked ...' He looked at Carolus as though he wanted encouragement ... 'that it had been done after he was dead and knew nothing about it.'

Carolus did not answer. He was looking down on the dead boy and his face was serious, even sad. Whatever the youngster was, whatever he had done to be killed, he was a pitiful sight. He was at the very beginning of those years which are the best in most lives. And in the light of the torch his face had not the placid, sometimes rather beautiful expression of dead youth. He looked as though he had died in agony.

Perhaps Stick thought the same.

'I'd like to know what killed him,' he remarked to Carolus.

'So would I. And who. But we can leave that to the police. I've seen all I want to here. You'd better stay here to see that no one touches him while I drive back to the police station. It won't take me more than a quarter of an hour and the police will soon be out. You don't mind, Stick?'

'I can't say I fancy it and the wife will get jumpy if I don't get home soon. But I see what you mean. We don't want anyone messing about with the evidence, do we? So you run along, sir, and I'll wait here.'

Carolus drove away. It was only a few months since he had admitted that his attempt to retire from his mastership at the Queen's School, Newminster, had been a failure and he had returned to the small Georgian house in the town which he had let on a short lease, foreseeing perhaps that he would need it again. He had, moreover, returned to the School on a parttime basis, giving history lessons to the senior students, but not as a full member of the staff. This had suited him admirably and the scheme had been welcomed by the Headmaster, Mr Gorringer, particularly as Carolus, who had large private means, asked that his salary should be paid to the school's Re-Building Fund.

The Sticks were delighted to be back in the house in which they had looked after Carolus for nearly thirty years and all that had been wanting in Carolus's life had been one of those deathly puzzles, which more frivolous observers called whodunnits, to occupy his time and test his powers of deduction. And this Sunday evening it looked as though the need had been filled. He was, as he might have thought, At It Again and all set. At least he had been presented with a corpse. The rest, in his experience, would shortly follow.

He entered Newminster Police Station, regretting the days when John Moore had been the senior CID man in the place and they had worked together so successfully. John was now Detective Superintendent Moore of the Yard and there was a strange face behind the uniformed duty sergeant's desk.

'Sergeant Patson, I believe,' said Carolus who had troubled to become informed about the Newminster Police.

'That's right. What can I do for you?' said the sergeant curtly.

'I've come to report a dead body.'

'Have you now? Would your name be Deene by any chance? Yes? I've heard about you, Mr Deene. Is this one of your practical jokes?'

'No. Nor any other kind of a joke. A boy of about sixteen is lying in the ditch beside the Boxley Road, naked and dead.'

Sergeant Patson no longer smiled.

'I'm sorry,' he said. 'You have a bit of a reputation for pulling our legs. I thought you were doing it this time.' He pulled a writing pad towards him. 'Did you find the body yourself?'

'No. My gardener did. He was walking home from Boxley when a car nearly pushed him in the ditch and drove on. In the ditch was the dead boy.'

Patson was evidently quite serious when he asked, 'Did he notice the number of the car?'

Carolus kept his temper.

'No. He did not notice the number of the car. But he noticed that he had nearly fallen on top of a dead youth who was stiff and huddled up. And he reported it to me.'

'Why didn't he come to the police?' asked Sergeant Patson.

'My house was nearer. I told him to get in my car and guide me to the place.'

'That was very unwise of you, Mr Deene. A discovery of this sort should be reported immediately to the police, not to a private individual, however much he may fancy himself as an investigator. Where did you say the cadaver is to be found?'

'I didn't say. And if you talk like the Police Manual I shan't say. So let's stop all this high horse nonsense and I'll speak to your CID officer, if he's in.'

Sergeant Patson gave Carolus a nasty look. A very nasty look. But he picked up his telephone and spoke to someone whom he addressed as 'Harold'.

'Detective Sergeant Grimsby will be here in a few minutes,' he said sulkily.

'I'll wait for ten,' said Carolus and there was silence between them.

When Grimsby came in, wearing grey flannels and smoking a pipe, Patson nodded towards Carolus but did not find it necessary to say more.

'Yes, Mr Deene?' said Grimsby.

Noting that Grimsby too was aware of his name, Carolus said —'A youth is lying dead in a ditch by the Boxley Road.'

'Accident?'

'I shouldn't think so. He's stark naked. I'll drive you out there if you like.'

'I'll follow in my car, if you don't mind. May have to go off somewhere else. Shall we go?'

Carolus led the way and Grimsby kept close behind. Stick was waiting where Carolus had left him and Carolus explained his presence to Grimsby.

Grimsby made a brief businesslike examination then went to the telephone in his car. When he had set in motion what he called 'all the formalities' Carolus asked him to take statements from himself and Stick so that they could leave for home before all the police palaver began. Grimsby agreed to this.

'May have to ask you both to give us further details tomorrow,' he warned. 'But for this evening I can soon get down your statements.'

He proceeded to do so in a smart, almost military fashion. It did not seem that he gave the whole thing any great importance. One would have thought he was accustomed to finding dead young men in a ditch naked every day of the week. There was something rather callous about his handling of the dead limbs, too. Altogether a very unsentimental police officer, Carolus thought.

'Any idea how long he's been there?' asked Carolus.

'The doctor will tell us. I should guess about twenty-four hours,' Grimsby said. 'But it's only a guess.'

'No idea who he is, I suppose?' persisted Carolus.

'Never seen him before, but they all look alike nowadays. No need for you to hang about if you don't want to. Nor you Mr Stick.'

'Good. Then we'll go,' said Carolus. 'You know where I live if you want me again?'

'Yes. I know,' said Grimsby. 'Good night, Mr Deene.'

Mrs Stick was still up when they reached home.

'I suppose this will start you off again, sir,' she said rather sulkily. 'If I'd have known what it was Stick had found I shouldn't have said anything about it. Now I suppose we shall have nothing but murders for the next few weeks.'

'Only one,' Carolus corrected. 'If it was a murder. The police will know that.'

'So you're leaving it to the police? That's something, anyhow. I shan't have my heart in my mouth twenty times a day wondering who's at the front door. I only hope you mean what you say. It wouldn't be the first time you'd have got mixed up in something after you'd said you'd leave it to the police.'

'It depends on what they do about it,' said Carolus.

'There you go!' said Mrs Stick. 'I knew what it would be as soon as we got back to Newminster. I told Stick, I said, it won't be long before he gets started again on something horrible, I said. But I never thought when Stick came in looking upset it would lead to all this. The young fellow was dead, I suppose?'

'Quite, quite dead, Mrs Stick.'

'There you are. One of these long haired ones, sure to be?'

'No. His hair was short.'

'They're worse! A skinhead, you mean?'

'Not exactly. I think he'd had long hair but it had been cut off.'

'There! It makes you think, doesn't it? I suppose you'll find out all about who did that, won't you? I wonder you don't get tired of it all, I really do. Murder, murder, murder. Anyone would think you had nothing better to do. And Stick's as bad, putting you up to it. I don't know what Mr Gorringer will say when he knows. No sooner do we get back here and settle down when you're off looking for clues. How did you say they'd killed the poor young fellow?'

'I didn't. I don't know. Good night, Mrs Stick. Sleep well.'

The little woman gave Carolus her fiercest stare as he left the room.

When Grimsby came to see him a few days later, Carolus realized that it was not so much to obtain the necessary details about finding the body of the dead youth as to consult him as an expert. Not that he said so. A policeman would rather die than admit that he had anything to learn from an amateur dabbler in crime investigation, and in many ways he would be justified in holding Carolus, and his whole tribe, in contempt.

Professionalism in this as in most other ways of life was really to be admired and respected. The gifted amateur sometimes struck lucky but was usually to be dismissed as a nuisance.

But Grimsby was young and, as he admitted to Carolus, had been put in charge of the investigation in this case, given for the first time the responsibility of clearing up what his superiors had called a 'nasty mess'. He knew the reputation of Carolus and although he would not admit it had a half-mocking hope that Carolus would lean back in his chair, put his fingers together and proceed to solve the entire puzzle.

That there was a puzzle, and that he was baffled by it, Grimsby admitted to himself, adding in his own mind that there could be no harm in hearing what that chap Deene had to say. Carolus, on his side, knew that only through Grimsby could he learn the essential facts of the case, the identity of the murdered boy and perhaps something of his associates.

'Oh yes, we know who he was all right,' said Grimsby. 'There'll be no secret about it by tomorrow because we've given the name to the papers. The London Press aren't interested and even our local newspapers don't show much excitement. There's been so much of this sort of thing lately, you see. The novelty has worn off.'

'But the puzzles remain?'

'That's it. They do.'

Carolus was silent for a moment then said, 'Did you notice the dead boy's wrists?'

Grimsby looked disappointed. If this was all the famous Carolus Deene had to contribute it would not get him much farther.

'Yes. And his ankles,' he said. 'Been carried some distance on the pillion seat of a motor-cycle.'

'Dead or alive?'

'Either, as I see it. Probably dead. The boy came from Hartington. Father's a foreman in a plastics factory.'

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Excerpted from Death of a Bovver Boy by Leo Bruce. Copyright © 1974 Leo Bruce. Excerpted by permission of Chicago Review Press Incorporated.
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