‘You were there for your pension? What was he there for?’
‘Disability money. ’E had a thirty per cent disability pension.’
‘For the leg. Did he ever say how he got it?’
‘Certainly. ’E was in the army. In the Paras. Did a night jump. Wind caught him and smashed him into a rock pile. The chute pulled him through the rocks for ’arf a mile. By the time his mates got to him, his right leg was in bits.’
‘Was he unemployed?’
Nobby Clarke was contemptuous.
‘Peter? Never. Wouldn’t take a penny wot wasn’t due to him. ’E was a nightwatchman.’
Of course. Live alone, work alone. No-one to report him missing. And the chances were the company he worked for had closed down for August, bloody August.
‘How did you know he was dead?’
‘Paper. It was in the Stennit.’
‘That was nine days ago. Why did you wait so long?’
‘August. Always go to my daughter on the Isle of Wight for two weeks in August. Got back last night. Good to be back in the Smoke. All that wind off the sea. Catch me death, I nearly did.’
He had a comforting cough and lit up again.
‘So how did you happen on a nine-day-old newspaper?’
‘Spuds.’
‘Spuds?’
‘Potatoes,’ said Nobby Clarke, patiently.
‘I know what spuds are, Nobby. What have they got to do with the dead man?’
For answer Nobby Clarke reached into a side pocket of his jacket and pulled out a torn and faded newspaper. It was the front page of the Evening Standard of nine days ago.
‘Went down to the greengrocer this morning to buy some spuds for me tea. Got ’ome, unwrapped the spuds and there ’e was staring at me from the kitchen table.’
An old-fashioned greengrocer. Used newspaper to wrap potatoes. From the paper, grimed with stains of earth, the limping man stared up. On the reverse side, page two, was the panel with all the details, including the reference to Detective Inspector Burns of the Dover Street nick.
‘So I come straight over, din’t I?’
‘Want a lift home, Nobby?’
The pensioner brightened.
‘’Aven’t been in a police car in forty years. Mind you,’ he added generously, ‘we ’ad real rozzers in those days.’
Burns called Luke Skinner, told him to grab the key on the ribbon that was taken from the pocket of the dead man and bring the car to the front.
They dropped Nobby Clarke at his sheltered accommodation, having taken details of the local Social Security office, and went there. They were about to close and the staff was accessible. Burns flashed his warrant card and asked for the supervisor.
‘I’m looking for a man. First name, Peter. Surname unknown. Medium height, medium build, grey hair, aged about fifty to fifty-five. Pronounced limp, collected a thirty per cent disability pension. Used to sit . . .’ He glanced round. There were several seats by the wall. ‘Over there with Nobby Clarke. Any ideas?’
DSS offices are not very chatty places, at least not between the staff behind their bars and grilles and the applicants outside. Finally one of the female clerks thought she recalled such a man. Peter Benson?
The computer did the rest. The supervisor punched up the file on Peter Benson. Due to extensive benefit fraud, photographs of applicants have been required for years. It was a small passport-sized photograph, but it was enough.