‘Lily, there you are.’ Ignoring the protests of the other ten-thirty-curfew girls crowding around the cloakroom hatch, Judy bulldozed her way through to her friend. ‘Excuse me,’ she snapped at a girl with dyed, blue-black hair who deliberately tried to block her progress by elbowing her in the chest.
‘And excuse me for living,’ the girl bit back tartly.
‘I have her ticket,’ Judy lied. Pushing two tickets into Lily’s hand, she looked around. ‘Where’s Helen?’
‘Last I saw she was with Jack.’
‘Jack Clay! Her mother will fry her alive.’
‘Not if Joe finds her before she stays with Jack long enough for her mother to hear about it.’
‘Joe’s here?’
‘He came to take us home but he has another boy with him who’s been drinking and one waiting in the car.’
‘He came to take you and Helen home,’ Judy corrected. ‘Katie and I are catching the train.’
‘With Adam Jordan and Brian Powell?’
‘What if we are? And there’s no need to look at me like that.’
‘I’m not looking at you like anything.’
‘Come on, Lily, I know you. What’s wrong with us going home with Adam and Brian Powell?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You don’t even know Brian.’
‘He’s our new lodger.’
‘And you saw him first, is that what you’re saying?
God, this is Helen and Adam all over again ...’
‘It’s not Brian,’ Lily contradicted firmly, ‘it’s Helen. We shouldn’t have left her by herself in that dress.’
‘We didn’t tell her to wear it.’
‘No, but we didn’t stay with her either. I spent all night with Martin. Katie’s been with Adam –’
‘And what a surprise that was. “Wouldn’t say boo” Katie Clay landing the best-looking boy in Carlton Terrace. That’s one in the eye for Helen.’
‘That’s nasty, Judy. Thank you.’ Lily took the coats the attendant handed her.
‘It’s what Helen deserves after the way she carried on tonight, trying to spoil our evening. And seeing as how I danced the first dance with Adam, Helen probably wants to scratch my eyes out along with Katie’s. But so what, we’re her friends not her keepers.’ Judy took the last two coats and fought her way back to the door. ‘Is she very angry with us?’
‘She wasn’t pleased when you danced the first dance with Adam.’ Lily made a beeline for Katie who was hovering anxiously in the foyer.
‘I can’t help it if he preferred to dance with me and before you say another word I’m not as nice as you. There’s no way I’d turn down a boy like Adam Jordan because a friend staked first claim. Besides, even if I had refused to dance with him, there’s no guarantee he would have asked Helen. He had the whole of the rest of the evening to dance with her and he didn’t leave Katie – not that I saw.’
‘You haven’t found Helen?’
‘No.’ Lily handed over the old, navy-blue school mac that Katie had chopped to three-quarter length in a futile attempt to make it look fashionable.
‘You girls have to get a move on if we’re going to get a seat on the ten-thirty train.’ Adam took Katie’s coat from her and held it out, ready to help her on with it.
‘Joe’s looking for Helen. He’s offered us a lift in his father’s car.’ Lily checked her watch, then caught a glimpse of Joe standing with his friend talking to a group of boys at the bar. They obviously hadn’t expended much time or energy on the search for Helen.
‘I thought you were in a hurry to catch the train, Judy,’ Brian prompted as he joined them.
‘I am, but we’ve lost Helen.’
‘She can’t have gone far in that dress,’ Adam commented.
‘Perhaps she’s in the Ladies and we missed her, Judy ...’ Lily looked up as a shout echoed in from outside.
‘Fight!’
‘Look at ...’ A chorus of wolf whistles drowned out the rest of the cry.
‘Why do I think that’s something to do with Helen?’ Lily tore through the door, closely followed by Judy and Katie.
‘Stay back.’
‘That’s my brother!’
‘All the more reason for you to stay back, Clay.’ Pushing Martin behind him, Brian slipped off his jacket as he ran towards the cliff face. Fighting his way through the encircling crowd, he thrust his coat at Helen who was cowering, white-faced and shivering, beneath a rocky outcrop. Muttering, ‘Cover yourself up’, he turned to a boy who was standing over another lying on the path in an evening suit. Guessing Martin’s brother wouldn’t be wearing a dinner jacket, Brian checked his injuries weren’t too severe before examining the man on the ground. His face was bloody and he was groaning but his eyes were open and Martin thought he could detect a touch of theatrical display in the agonised cries.
Sensing the one still standing was about to move in again, Brian gripped his arm and held him back. He spotted Adam on the fringe of the crowd and shouted, ‘Call the police and an ambulance. The rest of you, on your way,’ he ordered, with more authority than he felt.
‘Bloody spoilsport!’ a boy called from the circle of onlookers.
‘Less of that language.’
‘Or ...’
‘He’ll arrest you.’ Forcing his way through, Roy tipped his helmet back on his head and eyed the boy who’d sworn. ‘You’re Ned Davies’s son, aren’t you?’ The boy shrank behind his friends. ‘Come on, now,’ Roy coaxed softly. ‘You heard the man. Break it up. You’ve all got homes and beds to go to, and at this time of night you should be safely tucked up in them.’
There was a moment’s hesitation before those on the edge of the crowd began to move away. After that the rest were quick to disperse.
Roy crouched beside Larry. ‘You all right, son?’
‘Do I look all right?’ Larry sat up and spat blood from his mouth. ‘My face is a mess, my dinner suit ruined ...’
‘And your flies open,’ Roy stated flatly. ‘Your name?’
‘Why?’ Laurence demanded.
‘I’m a police officer, son.’
‘Laurence Murton Davies.’ Larry hastily fastened the buttons on his trousers before glaring at Jack. ‘My father will have you in court for this.’
‘We’ll see about that, boy. Either of you care to tell me what happened?’ Roy looked past Jack to where Helen, now wrapped in her own coat, was sobbing on Lily’s shoulder. There was something pathetic and ridiculous in the sight of the tall, well-built girl being supported by the diminutive Lily, but Roy didn’t laugh.
‘He’ – Jack pointed at Laurence – ‘attacked the girl I was with.’
‘That right, Helen?’ Roy asked.
Helen’s cries grew louder and more incoherent.
‘Either of you see anything?’ Roy looked from Brian to Martin.
‘We heard people shouting after the barman called last orders. I came out and saw these two fighting. The girl’s dress was already torn,’ Brian answered.
‘So you were too late to see exactly what happened.’
‘It’s bloody obvious,’ Jack broke in angrily, picking up the remains of Helen’s dress from beneath the cliff face. ‘Look at this. He ripped it off her ...’
‘All I did was kiss her and she was willing enough.’ Staggering to his feet, Laurence reeled and vomited on the path.
‘Steady, boy.’ Roy helped him on to a low wall. ‘You’re best sitting down.’
‘I was ready to pay her.’ Laurence opened his hand; the crumpled five-pound note lay in his palm.
‘You filthy, swine!’ Jack dived towards Laurence but Brian was quicker. Blocking his path, he held him firmly in his grip.
‘Jack, please,’ Roy murmured in his hypnotically smooth voice. ‘You’re in enough trouble as it is, without courting more. Helen?’ Reaching out, he patted her shoulder. ‘What have you got to say about this?’
Shrinking from Roy’s touch, grasping Lily as though her life depended on maintaining her hold, Helen’s cries escalated into hysteria.
‘We have to get her home, Uncle Roy,’ Lily pleaded as Judy and Katie helped her support Helen.
‘The ten-thirty train has gone,’ Adam announced, sticking close to Katie.
‘My mother’ll kill me.’
Roy waved as an ambulance came clanging down the path. ‘Not when I explain, Judy.’ He gazed in exasperation at the new crowd forming around them. ‘Brian, see Mr Laurence Murton Davies into the ambulance. You too, Helen.’
‘No! Not with him. I won’t go anywhere with him!’ Helen dived back, dragging Lily with her.
‘What you got, Roy?’ the ambulance man asked as he climbed out of his cab.
‘Possible concussion, hysterical girl who may have been attacked.’
The man looked from Laurence to Helen. ‘As they’re conscious we’ll take them both.’
‘Girl won’t go into the ambulance with him.’
‘Then it has to be the concussion. Sorry, Miss,’ the man apologised to Helen. He drew Roy out of earshot. ‘She’ll be seen quicker if you get her to the station and send for the police doctor. It’s chaos in Casualty. We’ve got over twenty injuries stacked up from a fight in the Dockers’ Club.’
Roy removed his helmet and scratched his bald head thoughtfully. ‘Brian, go into the Pier. Warn the manager we’ll need to borrow his office and their storeroom for a few minutes, then phone the station and ask them to send a man to the hospital to look after Mr Laurence Murton Davies, and a car and a Black Maria here. Martin, you stay with your brother. We’ll sort this out in town. Joe, how nice to see you.’ He greeted Joe expansively as, oblivious to the fight and his sister’s plight, Joe strolled towards his car with Robin. ‘Why don’t you come back to the Pier with the girls and me? It looks like your sister could do with a stronger shoulder than Lily’s to cry on and, given the circumstances, I think yours might be the most suitable.’
‘You didn’t say you’d become a copper,’ Martin reproached as he returned to the office after telling Adam he wouldn’t make it back to his place.
‘You didn’t ask.’ Brian replaced the receiver on the telephone in the manager’s office.
Jack was sitting quietly, but Brian noticed that he looked towards the door every few seconds. ‘I’m going to clean myself up.’
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Brian warned as Jack left his chair.
‘I’m a mess.’ Jack fingered his blood-spattered shirt and jacket.
‘You are, but those bloodstains are evidence.’
‘I need a slash.’
‘Then I’ll go with you.’
‘I don’t need a bloody nursemaid.’
‘You do, while you’re involved in a possible criminal case.’
‘That’s right; hang me, just because I threw a punch at a rich bastard in a monkey suit. Never mind that he deserved it.’
‘No one’s accusing anyone of anything, Jack.’
‘Yet,’ Jack sneered.
‘I’ll go with him,’ Martin offered.
‘No ...’
‘What’s the matter, Brian?’ Martin enquired acidly. ‘Don’t you trust me?’
‘I trust you.’ Emulating Roy’s relaxed attitude in the hope that it would diffuse the tension between him and the Clays, as it had done between Roy and the crowd outside, Brian perched on the edge of the manager’s desk. ‘But you have to realise it could go hard with Jack if he doesn’t put his side of things sooner rather than later, and the mess on his face and clothes is part of that. It might help prove that he took sufficient share of the punishment to plead self-defence, should the other party accuse him of unprovoked assault.’
‘I didn’t take much punishment but I gave plenty,’ Jack boasted. ‘This’ – he fingered his bloodstained shirt – ‘is crache blood.’
‘Talk like that won’t help, Jack,’ Martin warned.
‘It won’t make any difference either, no one will listen to me.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘A copper listening to a Clay who’s been to Borstal? That’s a first,’ Jack mocked.
‘Even if I didn’t respect your brother, it’s my job to get to the truth of what happened out there. Still want to pee?’
‘I can wait.’ Jack leaned against the wall.
‘Want to tell me what happened?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.’
‘Helen suggested we went outside.’
‘Helen – that’s the girl with the dress?’
‘Without one,’ Martin interposed drily.
‘We were dancing; she was hot. I bought her a drink.’
‘What kind of drink?’
‘Gin and tonic – two of them, but she didn’t drink one. I dropped it when I clocked that bastard.’
‘Christ, Jack, she’s under age,’ Martin interrupted angrily. ‘And if she drank you must have ...’
‘She’s eighteen, I checked, and I only had a couple of beers.’ Jack turned on his brother.
‘That’s not the point. Think how it looks, gin and tonic ...’
‘Only one.’
‘I’ve seen you with a couple of beers inside you.’
‘Not since I was fifteen and I’ve learned how to take it since then.’
‘You had one drink, Helen suggested you went outside, then what?’ Brian pressed, breaking up the argument.
‘She went ahead while I went to the bar to get more drinks.’
‘They let you take glasses outside in this place?’
‘No, but I know the barman. Why?’
‘Because broken glass can be classed as an offensive weapon. You sure you didn’t use them on Murton Davies?’
‘I told you, I dropped them when I saw Helen trying to fight him off.’ Jack’s voice hardened. ‘And after I dropped them, I thumped him. I suppose you’ll tell me now that I have to pay for the glasses.’
‘You’re sure she was the one who suggested you went outside.’
‘It was her idea.’
‘You didn’t see her talk to that man in the dance hall?’
‘You were there. How many blokes did you see in dinner jackets?’
‘Two.’
‘One was Joe Griffiths, Helen’s brother,’ Martin explained.
‘But the man you hit wasn’t in the ballroom?’
‘Not that I saw.’ Jack met Brian’s steady gaze.
‘And this Helen you were with didn’t know him?’
‘All I can tell you is, when I went outside, his flies were open and he was trying to get on top of her. She was screaming her head off. There wasn’t time for introductions, even if she did know him.’
‘And her dress?’
‘How many times do I have to say it? The bloke I clobbered tore it off her.’
‘You saw him tear it?’ Brian persisted.
‘Yes.’
‘Then it looks like a clear case of Sir Galahad to the rescue.’
‘What’s the betting no one else will see it that way when a Clay’s playing Sir Galahad?’ Jack retorted acidly.
‘Any of you girls see what happened?’ Roy asked as he escorted them into the storeroom.
‘They were with her, they must have ...’
‘You’ll get your chance to talk later, Joe.’ Roy pointed to a couple of chairs outside the door. ‘But for now, you and your friend sit and behave like good boys until the Black Maria arrives.’
‘I’ve nothing to do with any of this, I didn’t see a thing so I may as well leave you to it,’ Robin slurred, backing towards the door.
‘And you are?’ Roy rested his hand on Robin’s shoulder as he squinted at the piece of paper Brian had handed him after seeing Laurence Murton Davies into the ambulance.
‘Robin Watkin Morgan.’
‘Robin Watkin Morgan, do you know Laurence Murton Davies?’
‘I wouldn’t say know,’ Robin hedged. ‘Joe just happened to be giving both of us a lift, that’s all.’
‘Where to?’
‘Pardon?’ Robin looked at him blankly.
‘You said Joe was giving you a lift. Where was he taking you?’ Roy glanced into the storeroom before closing the door on the girls.
‘Home.’
‘Which is?’
‘Gower Road. My father is Dr Watkin Morgan. You must have heard of him, Constable?’
‘I have.’ Roy set his mouth into a thin hard line. The one thing guaranteed to set his teeth on edge was people trying to intimidate or curry favour with the police by using their position or influence. It annoyed him even more when it wasn’t their own position or name they used and he knew the senior police surgeon, Dr Watkin Morgan, well enough to suspect that he wouldn’t be pleased at the thought of his son cavorting down the Pier, drunk. ‘And Laurence Murton Davies?’
‘What about him?’
‘Is he staying with you?’
‘No.’
‘Then where were you taking him?’ Roy looked at Joe.
‘He came along for the ride. It’s his twenty-first, he’d had one too many ...’
‘Then he was drunk?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Let’s get this straight, Joe, he was in your car. You were giving Robin a lift home and Laurence Murton Davies had come along for the ride, although in your words “he’d had one too many”?’
‘That’s about right,’ Joe agreed sheepishly, realising his explanation sounded ridiculous.
‘So you intended to drive Laurence Murton Davies home afterwards?’
‘I hadn’t thought that far.’
‘Then do some thinking now,’ Roy advised harshly, ‘because that’s your sister in there. And in case you hadn’t noticed, she’s in a bit of a state. From initial appearances it appears to me that your friend Laurence has had something to do with that.’
‘It can’t be Larry. It has to be Jack Clay. Everyone knows what he is.’
‘Constable, as I said, I’m nothing to do with this so if I can get a taxi ...’
‘You can get one from the station, Mr Watkin Morgan. There are one or two points I’m not clear on and you may be just the person to set me straight.’ Walking into the storeroom, Roy closed the door behind him.
‘We’d just got our coats when we heard the row outside, Uncle Roy.’ Lily’s arms were round Helen who was sitting with her face buried in her hands.
‘We only got there a minute or so before you, Mr Williams,’ Judy chipped in.
‘Helen?’ Exasperated by the silence that greeted his question, Roy turned to Katie. ‘Did you see anything?’
‘I saw Helen talking to Jack in the ballroom,’ she ventured courageously, shocked by the blood on Jack’s clothes and Larry’s assertion that her brother had attacked him. She knew better than anyone how wild Jack could be, but she refused to believe him capable of assaulting anyone – even crache in a dinner suit – for no reason.
‘And Helen wasn’t upset then.’
‘She was smiling.’
‘Did any of you girls see Helen leave the dance hall?’
They looked at one another.
‘No,’ Judy answered, ‘but I saw Jack standing at the bar by himself when I went to get my coat.’
‘Which was how long before you went outside?’
Judy looked at Lily. ‘A couple of minutes.’
‘About five,’ Lily concurred.
The manager stuck his head round the door. ‘The Black Maria and car are here.’
Roy ushered the girls through the door and into the back of the car. After asking the officer driving the car to wait, he saw Joe, Robin, Jack and Martin into the Black Maria with Brian.
‘You not coming with us, Roy?’ the driver of the Black Maria asked.
‘No, I’ll bring the girl to the station as soon as I’ve seen the others home. Tell the sergeant I’ll be right behind you.’
‘If anyone should go with Helen, it should be me,’ Joe muttered mutinously.
‘I’ll look after her, Joe.’ Whether Roy had intended to sound critical or not, Joe took his words to mean ‘better than you’.
‘We’re not going to the police station, are we, Mr Williams?’ Katie asked in a small voice as they sped down Mumbles Road towards Swansea.
Roy turned from the front passenger seat and smiled. ‘No, love, I’ll drop you home but you and Lily may have to make statements tomorrow.’
‘Statements ...’
‘It’s nothing to worry about. You just tell me what you saw.’
‘I didn’t see anything that happened outside.’
‘But you did see what happened inside. It will be all right,’ Roy reassured, ‘You can make the statement in our house and your Mam can be there.’
‘My mother will have a fit at the sight of me coming home in a police car.’
‘I’ll explain, Judy.’
‘What about me?’ Helen gasped hoarsely between sobs.
‘I’m sorry, Helen, but you’re going to have to come down to the station with me so we can sort out what happened back there.’
‘My father will kill me.’
‘Oh, I doubt he’ll do that, love,’ Roy reassured.
‘Leastwise, not until you’ve paid for that dress,’ Judy whispered in Helen’s ear as Roy turned back to give the driver directions.
‘We’re well ahead of the time it would have taken you to walk from the train stop,’ Roy murmured as they turned the corner into Carlton Terrace. ‘Right, as yours is the first house, Judy, I’ll see you inside.’
Lily squeezed Helen’s hand in an attempt to comfort her as her uncle walked Judy to her front door. He was inside only a few minutes.
‘Is Judy’s mother angry?’ she asked as he returned.
‘No, love, none of this is your fault. You next, Katie.’
Shaking, Katie crept out of the car and followed him down the steps to her basement.
‘Got your key, love?’
‘Isn’t it in the door, Mr Williams?’
‘It is. Bad practice that, anyone could walk in.’ Knocking loudly, he turned the key and stepped down into the kitchen. Annie was hunched over the table.
‘Annie?’ He blanched as she turned her face to him. It was a raw mass of bloody, beaten flesh, her blood-flecked eyes sunk so deeply into the swollen tissue above her cheekbones he doubted she could see.
‘I – I – fell over, Roy,’ she mumbled thickly. ‘Hit the sink ...’
Walking over to her, he wrapped his arm round her shoulders. She cried out and he saw her right arm hanging purple and limp from her shoulder. ‘Come on, love, I’ll take you to our house.’
‘I can’t – the boys – Ernie –’ She didn’t even ask what he was doing, bringing Katie home.
‘Katie, pack whatever you and your mam need for the night. You’re spending it in our house. Go on, love,’ he prompted when she hesitated.
‘Dad ...’ She didn’t need to say any more.
‘I’ll check.’ Roy walked to the door that led to the passage.
‘He’s out,’ Annie whispered thickly. ‘He woke up and went out. We thought he’d sleep through the night but he didn’t ... and I fell over ...’
‘I know, Annie. You don’t have to tell me how clumsy you are. I’ve seen it since the day you moved into the street.’ Helping her out of the chair, he scooped her into his arms as she fainted.
‘When the ambulance comes you’ll go with Annie, Norah?’
‘If I do that, Roy, who’s going to stay with the girls?’
‘They’re sensible enough. They proved that tonight.’
‘But Ernie ...’
‘I’ll alert the patrols to keep an eye on the place. It might be as well if you warn Lily to keep the door locked and bolted, and at the first sight or sound of Ernie to ring 999, but I doubt he’ll come here, not to a policeman’s house after what he’s done.’
‘And Brian?’
‘Remind Lily to ask who’s there before opening the door.’
‘Roy ...’
‘Sorry, Norah, I’ve got to get to the Griffithses. They’ll want to come down to the station.’
‘That Helen Griffiths,’ Norah began heatedly, ‘she’s nothing but trouble. I’ll not have our Lily ...’
‘We’ll talk about it in the morning, love. Lily and Katie have had enough to cope with for one night. And ring the station before you leave the hospital. I’ll get a car to pick you up and bring you back here.’ Roy stepped over the low wall that separated the Griffithses’ house from theirs and rang the doorbell. He rang it three times before giving up and returning to the car.
‘Do you know where your mam and dad are?’ he asked Helen.
Her sobs had subsided since the other girls had left the car and he couldn’t help thinking that her tears had been more for the benefit of her audience than any injury or shock she’d sustained. ‘Mam’s in the theatre. Dad’s at some old boy thing.’
‘Dynevor School?’
‘I think so.’ She began to cry again at the prospect of seeing her father.
‘That’s being held in the Mackworth Hotel,’ the driver said.
‘We’ll telephone from the station.’ Roy recalled some of the rumours he’d heard about Esme Griffiths as he climbed into the front passenger seat of the car. If they were to be believed, she spent more time in Swansea Little Theatre than she did with her family. The evening’s events had rather borne that out. No mother worthy of the name would have allowed her daughter to go to the Pier in a dress like the one Helen had been wearing. Little wonder the girl was running wild and attracting the wrong kind of attention.
He glanced back at Helen, hunched and miserable on the back seat of the car, and felt an unexpected pang of pity. He’d have a few words with John and Esme Griffiths when they came down to the station. What was the point of having money enough to give your children everything they wanted if you didn’t take the time and trouble to guide them on the right path?
‘Tell us exactly what happened,’ the sergeant barked.
Helen began to cry again, this time softly and quietly.
‘The truth.’ The sergeant looked from the girl to Roy. He was aware he sounded harsh and intimidating but he wasn’t used to questioning young girls. Signalling to Roy to step outside, he closed the door and glanced up and down the corridor to make sure they couldn’t be overheard. ‘Do you think she was raped, Williams?’
‘No, sir. But only because there wasn’t time. The girl’s dress had been ripped off her and Murton Davies’s flies were open when I got there. In my book that makes his intentions obvious. Young Clay told Powell the girl was struggling with Murton Davies when he left the ballroom with the drinks. He also says he saw Murton Davies rip her dress, which suggests Murton Davies had just attacked her.’
‘I phoned the hospital.’
‘Is Murton Davies all right?’
‘Oh, yes. Minor bruises and contusions. He’s also drunk as a lord but then he might as well be one. You have heard of the Murton Davieses?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Roy answered carefully.
‘His father’s already been on the line screaming for his son’s attacker’s blood.’
‘And the girl his son tried to rape?’
‘I’d be very careful who you relate that version of events to, Constable Williams.’
‘His friends admit he was drunk. The girl was screaming and trying to fight him off. Clay saw him tear the girl’s dress. His flies were open. How much more evidence do we need?’
‘Murton Davies’s solicitor is at the hospital. From the boy’s version of events, it appears he and the girl got a little over-amorous, the girl’s dress got caught on his watchstrap and he accidentally ripped it.’
‘You believe that, sir?’
‘I believe in youth and high spirits, and a girl crying rape when she thinks she’s about to be exposed as a tart. We’ll have to wait for the doctor’s report, but there appears to be no real damage done to the girl that I can see, and you know the Murton Davieses. The father’s Grand Master this year. He can call on some pretty strong connections.’
‘That doesn’t alter the facts of the case, sir.’ Roy knew damned well it did, but he wasn’t going to stand by while Jack Clay’s and Helen Griffiths’ more likely version of events were swept aside without a single protest.
‘You know how difficult it is to prove these cases one way or another. Between you and me, if the boy did tear her dress deliberately she would have got no more than she deserved,’ the sergeant pronounced caustically. ‘Parading down the Pier half naked on a Saturday night. Her dress might be in shreds, but by all accounts there wasn’t enough to cover the bits that mattered before it was ripped off her. Has she said anything to you about why she left the ballroom?’
‘Not to me, Sergeant, but Jack Clay mentioned she was hot ...’
‘I bet she was. The Murton Davieses’ solicitor suggested she’s a professional streetwalker.’
‘She’s barely eighteen.’
‘We’ve picked up younger.’
‘I know the girl and her family. They live next door to us.’
‘In Carlton Terrace?’
‘That’s where I live, sir.’ Roy tried not to let his exasperation show. He knew what the sergeant was thinking. No family in Carlton Terrace could possibly rank as consequential in the scheme of Swansea politics or importance as the Murton Davieses.
‘The solicitor also suggested that both the girl and the boy who attacked Murton Davies had been drinking. He said something about smashing glasses over his client.’
‘It appears the girl had one gin and tonic, sir. The boy she was with, Jack Clay, brought out a second and dropped the glass when he went to help her fight off Murton Davies.’
‘Allegedly fight off, Constable. And as he admits he bought her two gin and tonics even if we can’t prove the streetwalker charge, we may get her on drunk and disorderly.’
‘You want me to charge her, sir?’
The sergeant bristled at the disapproval in Roy’s voice. ‘Not yet, but we’ll keep it in mind. I think the best thing we can do from everyone’s point of view is sweep the whole thing under the carpet. I can’t see the Murton Davieses wanting a scandal any more than the girl’s parents or the lad who attacked him. What’s his name?’
‘Clay, Jack Clay, sir.’
‘Sounds familiar.’
‘It should.’
‘There we have it. A wild one, eh.’ The sergeant stood back and thought for a moment. ‘There’s no doubt she arranged to meet this Clay outside?’
‘She hasn’t said, but witnesses inside the ballroom corroborate Jack Clay’s story, so it seems likely, sir.’
‘That puts a whole new complexion on things. In my experience couples only leave a ballroom to do the one thing they can’t do inside. It could be she is a professional after all. Arranged to meet one chap, then another comes along, smarter, wearing a dinner jacket more money in his pocket ...’
‘I don’t think either her or Clay had more than a couple of kisses in mind, sir. That path’s too public. Not the sort of place a professional would choose a few minutes before closing time when the entire area is about to be flooded with people leaving the Pier to catch the ten-thirty train back to Swansea.’
‘Sarge?’ a young constable opened the door that led to the public desk. ‘Miss Griffiths’ father is here.’
‘Doctor here yet?’
‘On his way, Sarge.’
‘Send him in as soon as he gets here.’
‘And Mr Griffiths?’
‘Better tell him to come in.’