The Lily-White Boys Page 3

  Deliberately combating that embarrassment, Monica studied Harry as he stood with his head bent attentively to her sister. Unlike Justin, whose hair was now steel grey, and George, with his rapidly fading thatch, Harry’s was still dark, and if his jawline had thickened over the years, it served only to give him a more authoritative air. All in all, the years had been kind to him and he was still a very attractive man. Small wonder that Eloise, who thrived on masculine attention, liked to keep him around her.

  Dinner was announced, and served as always by one of the trio of caterers. Two young men and a girl, they worked democratically, taking it in turns to cook, wash up and wait at table. This evening it was the darker man, immaculate in white dinner jacket. Monica noted drily that Primrose’s eyes fluttered towards him more than once.

  Justin, on her right at the head of the table, claimed her attention. ‘How was Court this afternoon?’ He was a fellow magistrate and occasionally they sat on the same bench.

  ‘Pretty run-of-the-mill. At least we’re spared football hooligans, now the season’s over.’ She smiled. ‘Actually, being a JP does have its advantages. I unashamedly pulled strings this evening in an attempt to get an old van removed from our doorway.’

  Justin paused, his fork half way to his mouth. ‘Really? Who does it belong to?’

  ‘I wish I knew. It broke down in the middle of the night and no one’s collected it yet. I’m hoping Sergeant Penrose will do the necessary.’

  ‘Perhaps it was deliberately dumped,’ George suggested.

  ‘I don’t think so. I heard it arrive, coughing and spluttering. The driver tried several times to restart it.’

  ‘Well, if it was only last night, you haven’t given him long to get organized.’

  ‘True. I probably wouldn’t have made such a fuss if it hadn’t been so unsightly.’

  Jeremy, on her left, turned towards her. ‘What is it you’ve been making a fuss about, ma tante?

  ‘A dirty van outside our house.’

  Her mother took up the story. ‘Yes, it’s perfectly disgraceful. I don’t know what our neighbours must think. Monica heard it arrive during the night – she was afraid it might have wakened me, but these new sleeping pills proved their worth, I’m glad to say.’

  Theo, on his grandmother’s far side, leaned round her. ‘A dirty van sullying North Park Drive? The very idea! Have it towed away at once!’

  ‘I’m trying to,’ Monica said evenly, regretting by now that she had broached the subject.

  ‘Hasn’t it got a name on the side?’ George again.

  ‘Obviously not, or I’d have contacted whoever’s responsible. It’s simply a dirty green van with some kind of rack on the roof.’

  There was a moment of complete silence, which for some reason made her uncomfortable. Perhaps it was her tone of voice which had surprised them. She said with a forced laugh, ‘I know this is a fascinating topic of conversation, but can we move on to something else?’

  There was a brief, uncertain pause. Then Claudia said valiantly, ‘I hope you’re all coming to the Private View next week?’

  ‘What is it this time?’

  After a shaky start general conversation resumed and Monica felt herself relax. She looked up to find George watching her and, catching her eye, he gave her an encouraging smile. Dear George, she thought, smiling back; he’d forgiven her her snappy rejoinder. She felt a rush of warmth for him, mingled as usual with an indeterminate sense of guilt. Pushing both aside, she directed her attention to her cooling meal.

  The van was still there when they arrived home, the light from the street lamp waking no reflections in its grimy surface. Monica dropped her mother at the door and drove round to the mews to garage the car. So much for her attempt at string-pulling, she thought wryly, and with a mental shrug resolved to let the matter take its course.

  Later, however, on the point of sleep, the van driver’s face came into her mind, white under the street lamp and staring straight up at her. Unaccountably she shivered and, pulling the bedclothes more tightly round her, she turned on her side and determinedly settled to sleep.

  Doris Trubshaw stirred, felt the space on the mattress beside her, and heaved herself up on one elbow. Her husband was at the window again, holding the curtain aside and peering into the street below.

  ‘Come back to bed, love,’ she said gently.

  ‘I thought I heard the van.’

  ‘Well, they’ve got their own key.’

  ‘It wasn’t them, anyway. I can’t think where they’ve got to. They’ve never done this before.’

  Her heart contracted at the sight of his drooping shoulders, the sparse hair ruffled from an uneasy sleep. ‘They’ll come back when they’re good and ready. They can take care of theirselves, them two, don’t you fret.’

  ‘But we’re responsible for them in a way.’

  ‘That we’re not!’ Her voice had sharpened. ‘They’ve been up to all sorts of tricks I’ve not bothered you with, but if one has backfired they’ve only themselves to blame.’

  Sid, on the point of climbing back into bed, stopped and stared at her. ‘What are you on about? What tricks?’

  ‘Least said, soonest mended.’

  ‘Doris, for pity’s sake! What have they been up to?’

  ‘A spot of burglary, I’d say. Suspicious packages under their beds – that kind of thing.’

  ‘But – why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because I knew you’d worry and it’s not our problem. Can't take on the cares of the world, you know.’

  Carefully he eased himself into the bed beside her, sliding as he always did into the hollow in the middle. She felt his feet, cold from his sojourn at the window, brush against her warm ones. ‘I wish you’d told me,’ he said flatly.

  ‘And what good would that have done? It’s not as if they’re our own. As long as they keep their room tidy and pay the rent, we can’t interfere. Or would you have gone to the police?’ she added mockingly.

  ‘No, of course not.’ He sounded shocked, missing the sarcasm in her voice. ‘But I could have warned them, like. Told them it doesn’t pay in the long run.’

  She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘But it probably does. Better than their window-cleaning, anyway. How d’you think they could afford those leather jackets?’

  He gave a little shiver and she leaned over to tuck the blanket more tightly round his shoulders. ‘Go to sleep, love. There might be some news in the morning.’

  But there wasn’t, and at midday Sid could stand it no longer. Miserable and anxious, he made his reluctant way to Carrington Street police station.

  ‘Yes, sir? Can I help you?’ The desk sergeant hadn’t looked up from his papers.

  Sid cleared his throat. ‘I’d – I d like to report two missing persons.’

  ‘Two? Don’t do things by halves, do you?’ Fenton looked up quizzically, regretting his flippancy when he saw the man’s drawn face. ‘Right, sir, who are you missing?’

  ‘Our lodgers. Two lads by the name of White. Brothers. They went out after supper on Monday, and we’ve heard nothing since.’

  ‘A moonlight flit?’

  ‘No, their rent’s paid up and everything’s still in their room.’ Even the prized leather jackets.

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Mr Trubshaw, twenty-four Trafalgar Street.’

  Fenton looked up, frowning. The address sounded familiar and almost at once slotted into place. Jim Penrose and the abandoned van Miss Tovey’d reported. Best tread carefully here.

  ‘And the two lads are called White, you say. Christian names?’

  ‘Gary and Rob. Robert.’

  That definitely struck a chord, a more longstanding one. ‘Did they have any form of transport, sir?’

  ‘Aye, a van. They’re window-cleaners, like.’

  ‘Could you describe it?’

  ‘Well, it’s not up to much. Dark green Ford Escort. Can’t recall the registration offhand.’

  ‘Any distinguishing
features?’

  ‘Only the rack on top, for the ladders.’

  Something in the sergeant’s manner sharpened Sid’s apprehension. ‘You’ve heard something, haven't you?

  ‘It’s possible we might have something on the van. One answering to this description was abandoned in North Park on Monday night.’

  ‘Abandoned?’ Sid stared at him. ‘Then where are the lads?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, sir.’

  ‘No.’ The old man shook his head positively. ‘It can't be theirs, not in North Park. They never go up there.’

  ‘Might have been on their way back from somewhere and run out of juice.’

  ‘Then where are they? It’s nearly two days ago!"

  Fenton regarded the agitated little man. His concern seemed genuine, and it wasn’t motivated by self-interest since the boys didn’t owe him money. He wondered how much he knew about his lodgers’ activities. Might be worth checking to see if he had form himself. Not, he reminded himself, that they’d been able to pin much on the White twins other than causing a disturbance at football matches. Too fly by half, that pair.

  ‘Thank you for reporting the matter, sir,’ he said formally.

  ‘We’ll keep you informed.’

  It was lunch-time again, and once more Claudia and Abbie sat at the kitchen table. It was their first meeting of the day; Claudia’d had an early breakfast before leaving for a dental appointment.

  ‘How was the dinner-party?’ Abbie asked.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘No need to rave about it!’

  ‘Actually, I didn’t enjoy it as much as usual. I don’t know why.’ She did, though. After her daughter’s comment yesterday, she’d paid more attention to Eloise and her husband, and what she’d seen made her faintly uneasy. Which, after all these years, was ridiculous. Damn Abbie for sowing doubts in her mind.

  ‘Was Theo there?’

  Claudia dragged her attention back. ‘Yes, and Jeremy and Primrose.’

  ‘Oh, Primrose!’ said Abbie with scorn. ‘Poseuse supreme!’

  She took a mouthful of spaghetti. ‘Who else?’

  ‘Only the Toveys and George.’

  ‘The usual gang, in fact. What did you eat?’

  ‘Salmon and garlic mousse, veal cutlets and a kind of bombe thing.’

  ‘Good?’

  ‘Yes, delicious. Perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood. How was the cinema?’

  Abbie launched into a description of the film she’d seen the previous evening, and Claudia’s thoughts wandered again. What exactly did she know of Harry and Eloise’s past connection? Simply that they’d met at the tennis club when Eloise was still at Ashbourne, and become engaged on her eighteenth birthday. Then, some months later, she’d met Justin – through Monica, Claudia seemed to remember. And, as Harry himself had told her, Eloise lost her head over him. ‘After all,’ she remembered him adding caustically, ‘the Teals are one of Shillingham’s oldest families.’

  So the engagement was off and within a month or two Eloise married Justin. It was more than two years later that Claudia’s family moved to Shillingham – too long, surely, for any suspicion that he’d turned to her on the rebound.

  The fact that they were still so friendly with the Teals had bothered her not all. She and Eloise had similar interests, particularly in the art field, and spent a considerable time together without their husbands. It was not only foolish but dangerous to put all that in jeopardy because of a chance remark by her daughter.

  ‘Actually,’ Claudia said suddenly, interrupting Abbie’s narrative, ‘it was a pleasant evening, and I enjoyed it.’

  Abbie looked at her in surprise. ‘That’s good,’ she said.

  Sergeant Penrose had been advised of Mr Trubshaw’s visit and was waiting by the van when the CID car arrived and the two detectives got out.

  Bob Dawson walked round it critically. ‘Owners never heard of a wash leather, by the look of it. Have you tried the doors?’

  ‘No call to,’ Penrose reminded him. ‘It’s not been here forty-eight hours yet. I only came earlier as a favour to Miss Tovey.’

  ‘Well, as you’ll have gathered, now that the owners are reported missing we’re stepping things up.’ He peered through the nearside window. ‘Keys in the ignition, would you believe! In any other area it would have been nicked before now and saved us all this bother!’ He wrapped a handkerchief round his hand and tried the handle. The door opened. Dawson stuck his head inside, then withdrew quickly. ‘Oi, oi. Something not quite kosher here.’

  ‘How d’you mean, Skipper?’ DC Cummings made to bend forward but Dawson gestured him away. ‘Use your handkerchief, Steve, and see if the rear doors are unlocked.’

  They were. On the floor of the van lay a heap of stained tarpaulin. The two sergeants exchanged glances.

  ‘Thinking what I’m thinking, Jim?’

  Penrose had paled. ‘Afraid so.’

  Dawson felt in his pocket and took out a pencil. Leaning inside the van, he used it to lift a corner of the tarpaulin and flick it aside. Then he stood back with a deep sigh. Now exposed to view lay the bodies of two identical young men with short blond hair, wearing the green tracksuits of Shillingham United.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said, feeling in vain for first one pulse, then the other. ‘So they’ve gone to the big football ground in the sky.’

  Cummings, who’d turned hastily away as the bodies were uncovered, managed to find his voice. ‘You – you know who they are, Skip?’

  ‘Certainly I do; our paths have crossed more than once. It’s the White twins, lad, better known on the terraces as the Lily-White Boys.’

  CHAPTER 3

  By the time DCI Webb and Sergeant Jackson arrived, uniform officers were posted at strategic points on the pavement and the van was screened from public gaze. Though for all the interest the public was showing, the precautions hardly seemed necessary. North Park residents had been brought up to disregard that which was none of their business, a tendency which boded ill in a murder inquiry.

  Dawson, Cummings and Penrose were awaiting them on the pavement, together with the Coroner’s Officer, a police constable called Smithers.

  ‘So what have we got this time?’ Webb asked, as Cummings opened the car door for him.

  It was Dawson who answered. ‘Two for the price of one, Guv; the White twins. “In their death they were not divided,” as you might say.’

  ‘Very pretty. I gather you made the ID.’

  ‘That’s right, I’ve had several dealings with them. Football mad, they were, and not averse to a bit of a punch-up at the ground now and then.’

  Webb and Jackson exchanged a glance. It was the opinion at Carrington Street that Bob himself was ‘football mad’, and according to his colleagues the only time he showed any animation was at a United match.

  ‘We’d our suspicions on several breaking and entering jobs, too,’ Dawson was continuing, ‘but we couldn’t make any stick.’

  ‘Right.’ Webb turned to Smithers. ‘Get on to Dr Stapleton, will you, Brian, and the undertakers. Has the police surgeon seen them?’

  ‘Yes, as luck would have it he was driving past, so he stopped and did the necessary.’

  ‘I’d better go and have a look.’ Webb moved cautiously inside the screen, stepping over the equipment which lay in the road. The senior Scene of Crime man looked up with a grimace. ‘I don’t know about you, Dave, but give me the winter any time. This warm weather does nothing for my job satisfaction.’

  Webb’s throat closed in sympathy. ‘I see what you mean. So what’s the gen?’

  ‘Prepare for a double take – it’s uncanny how alike they are. Gave me quite a turn, I can tell you, seeing them side by side like that.’

  Webb moved forward and glanced inside the van. The two young men lay on their backs like broken dolls, covered from the waist down in dirty tarpaulin. Their heads were turned slightly towards each other, and as Dick Hodges had said it was like looking at the same person
twice. Everything about them was identical, not only the style and colour of their hair but the way it grew, the neat ears set close against their heads, the full, rather childish mouths, each with a small mole at the left-hand corner; and, of course, the identical green tracksuits which were the training uniform of Shillingham United. And it was here that the sole distinguishing feature could be seen: the sweatshirt of the twin on the right had a jagged tear which was caked with dark blood and surrounded by a swarm of flies.

  Webb stood looking down on the bodies, filled with an angry sadness. They looked so young. Whatever their lives had been, it was a tragic waste that they’d ended so soon.

  ‘We’ve finished the photos and fingerprinting,’ Hodges said, breaking the silence. ‘Trouble is, since they were dead when they were dumped in there, we haven’t got a scene to work on.’

  ‘Doc Pringle have any comments?’

  ‘Without moving them he couldn’t tell much. As you see, only one of them has an obvious wound, but the other could have got it in the back.’

  ‘At least time of death shouldn’t pose too many problems; they left their lodgings “after supper” on Monday and according to the report the van was dumped here around midnight.’

  ‘That makes sense – rigor mortis has worn off. If we can establish the time of that last meal, the stomach contents should clinch it.’

  The sound of a car drawing up and voices beyond the screen alerted them to the arrival of the pathologist, and Webb went out to greet him.

  ‘You were lucky to catch me,’ Dr Stapleton said tersely. ‘I was on my way to a lecture.’

  He was a thin-faced man with sparse hair and an unbending manner. Even in the warm sunshine he gave an impression of coldness. Too much preoccupation with death, Jackson reflected, watching him talk to Smithers and the Governor. Then Stapleton disappeared behind the screens and Webb turned to Penrose, jerking his head towards the houses behind them.

  ‘One of the residents reported the van, right?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Number five.’

  Webb turned and surveyed the handsome terrace of houses. There were nine in all, each with an imposing flight of steps leading up to a portico and, along the pavement, a stretch of railings tipped with gold paint which screened off a basement area. The façades were smooth stucco uniformly painted cream, the sash windows typically Georgian.