Free Last Detective by Leslie Thomas Page B

but she stilled him with hers. He felt they were as hard as dried figs. She went on. ‘He used to tell Bert that he’d like to ’ave me and our Celia in the same bed at the same time. That’s how he was. All mouth and bloody trousers.’
    â€˜Do you think he could have caused Celia’s death?’ asked Davies quietly.
    â€˜God knows.’
    â€˜He was checked out by the police,’ Davies pointed out.
    â€˜So was Jack the Ripper, I expect,’ she muttered without humour.
    She looked up from the depths of her teacup. ‘I’ll have to go,’ she said. ‘The shops will be closing. If you want to ask me any more, tell Josie. She works in Antoinette’s, that hairdresser by the clock in the High Street.’
    â€˜Right,’ he said. ‘I will. I’m sorry it’s been so painful for you. I hope I can do something.’ He thought for a moment. She was gathering up her handbag and her coat. ‘One thing,’ he finished. ‘People don’t seem to move from this district very much. Most of those who were here then are still here or roundabout.’
    She smiled more softly. ‘No, people don’t seem to move away very much from here,’ she said. ‘It’s very homely and friendly, really.’

Chapter Six
    T hat night Dangerous went out with Mod and got seriously drunk at The Babe in Arms. Mod was at his most loquacious and informative, extemporizing on the poisoned arrows used, he said, by certain tribes in Upper India, the sexual taboos of the first period Incas and the history of tramcars in Liverpool. On their stumbling way home to Mrs Fulljames’s house they found a horse walking morosely along the street. They recognized it as belonging to a local scrap merchant. Mod said they ought to inform the police so he reported it to Dangerous, who took brief notes. They eventually tied the horse to the doorknocker of a neighbouring house and went home to bed.
    The following day Davies went to seek out Dave Boot. The sex emporium was not difficult to locate. It was called ‘The Garden of Ooo-la-la’. There was a large sticker across the window announcing: ‘Sale’. Davies, who had never visited such an establishment, inspected it with ever-ascending eyebrows. A willowy youth was swaying behind the counter, moving to muted music. Davies approached him. ‘What’s in the sale?’ he inquired.
    â€˜Everything, love,’ replied the youth. ‘Absolutely everything. Depends what your requirements are really, don’t it.’
    â€˜I’m not, sure what they are,’ said Davies.
    â€˜Ooooo, you lads do get yourself in a state, don’t you,’ marvelled the assistant. ‘How about a Japanese tickler, slightly shop soiled.’
    â€˜Are the rubber women in the sale?’ inquired Davies.
    â€˜Some of the older models are,’ shrugged the boy. ‘They perish.’
    â€˜Where’s Dave Boot?’ asked Davies.
    The youth’s aloof expression sharpened with the hardness in Davies’ voice. ‘Dave Boot…ah, Mr Boot. He’s doing something at the disco.’
    â€˜Detective Constable Davies,’ said Dangerous, showing his card. ‘Get him, eh?’
    The young man brushed his hair away from his fair eyes and dithered with the telephone. Davies wandered to the back of the shop and, on impulse, slid through a curtain into the back room. He was intrigued to find a partly inflated rubber woman with an attached foot-pump lolling against a desk. Unable to resist it he repressed the pump and then let it go, then depressed it, and continued with the sequence, watching to his fascination as the woman inflated to life before his eyes. She grew to full size, then to outsize and then to enormous proportions. Mesmerized, Davies could not stop. He went on pumping. The woman grew fatter and fatter. Her eyes, her cheeks and her breasts all bulged hugely. He could hear the