Dead Beat

by Patricia Hall

  ‘Fine,’ Mrs Lucas said without hesitation.

  ‘So what exactly do you want and how soon?’

  Mrs Lucas pushed her smudgy snapshots across the table to Kate. ‘This sort of thing,’ she said. ‘And one more place. St Peter’s Church has a refuge which we support. They take in young people at risk on the streets. It’s run by a Rev Hamilton, David Hamilton, and he knows someone is coming on our behalf.’

  ‘Right,’ Kate said faintly, alarmed at how efficiently she had been ambushed into helping this woman and wondering whether or not there was catch somewhere. ‘How do I get hold of you?’

  Veronica Lucas handed Kate a card with her address in Surrey and phone number and Clean Up Soho in red letters across the top. ‘A lot of people are getting to know us,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure they are,’ Kate agreed. ‘You seem to know how to get what you want.’

  The next morning, Kate got up early before either Marie or Tess had emerged from the tiny bedroom they shared, with its two narrow single beds and little else. She folded up the blankets from the sofa where she had slept, stowed them away and was out of the tall, dilapidated house by seven thirty, strap-hanging her way to Tottenham Court Road and then making her way through the still quiet streets of Soho to St Peter’s which, she thought, might be the one place where people got up early round here. To an extent she was right. The heavy church door opened to her touch and she found herself in the area that had been separated off for the young people’s refuge and amongst a dozen or more young girls, some of them still in pyjamas, and, in a separate area, a couple of middle-aged women who were assembling a breakfast of cornflakes, bread and jam and tea on trestle tables.

  ‘Come on, girls,’ one of the women said, with the voice of a schoolteacher who stood no nonsense. ‘Get dressed. The boys will be upstairs in a minute.’ With a few shrieks of derisive laughter, the girls retreated into their sleeping area and drew a curtain behind them, while their supervisors turned towards Kate and enquired what she wanted. She explained.

  ‘Do you know Mrs Lucas?’ she asked.

  The older woman, who seemed to be in charge, nodded. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘We know Mrs Lucas. She’s not directly involved here, but she comes in occasionally when we’re looking for foster homes and that sort of thing. We don’t always see eye to eye with her but her heart’s in the right place, I suppose.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Kate asked.

  ‘We’re Anglicans and she’s a Catholic and when it comes down to it she’s more interested in finding Catholic homes for Catholic children than helping the rest. And she takes a very hard line on contraception, while we have a sympathetic doctor who will help unmarried girls out with the cap. Not many will, you know. Most want proof of engagement if not marriage before they’ll advise.’

  Kate knew, but only vaguely. If mention of homosexuality had been taboo at home and at school, birth control had been even more unmentionable. Even now she half believed that it was something which should be left to men. That was what Dave Donovan had assured her in the back of the group’s van when she finally gave in to his importuning, and although she had remained almost beside herself with fear for a long month afterwards, the precautions he claimed he had taken seemed to have worked. The idea that a woman might take charge of such things was one she was only slowly getting used to since she had read that there was a pill which might soon allow women to do just that. She was sure that would not please her mam or the Pope, or Veronica Lucas, though she thought she might soon get used to the idea herself.

  ‘But I thought you were trying to get these kids off the streets,’ she said, pulling her thoughts back to the Soho campaigners’ concerns.

  ‘We are, but it’s not always easy,’ the woman said, buttering bread busily. ‘We try to get them out of London, into foster homes if they’re under sixteen, into hostels and jobs if they’re older. But there’s always some backsliding.’

  ‘I expect there is,’ Kate said non-committally.

  The heavy church door behind them opened noisily, letting in a blast of cold air, and closed again with a bang, and the women turned to greet a heavily-built man in casual tweeds and a clerical collar who greeted them cheerfully and glanced at Kate with inquiry in his eyes.

  ‘Ah, the saintly Veronica,’ he said wryly when she explained why she was there. ‘You’re one of her acolytes, are you?’

  ‘Not really,’ Kate said sharply. ‘I’m a professional photographer.’ The claim still felt strange and gave her a surge of excitement. ‘She asked me to do a job for her, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to ask the youngsters if they want their pictures taken,’ Hamilton said. ‘I doubt you’ll have much luck. There’s not one of them would want their families to see where they’ve ended up, that’s for sure. But you can ask, I suppose. Explain to them what it’s for.’ Hamilton went downstairs to the crypt and came back with a raggle-taggle group of boys, who took their seats for breakfast beside the girls amongst much banter and laughter, but as Kate watched them wolfing down the plentiful supply of food on the table, she could see that many of them were painfully thin and pale and the eyes, which glanced sideways at her, were wary. One boy in particular caught her eye because of the livid cut on his head, where the hair was only just beginning to grow again. She helped herself to a cup of tea from the urn at the end of the table and went to sit beside him.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asked him as he loaded his bread with jam.

  He glanced at her like a trapped animal. ‘What’s it to you?’ he muttered.

  Kate explained why she was there, but he was not reassured and looked nervously around the cavernous church as if demons lurked in its shadowy corners.

  ‘I don’t want no more pictures taken,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve had enough of that.’ He glanced around him wildly for a moment until David Hamilton came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Kate. ‘Jimmy’s not the best person to ask. He’s had some bad experiences with photographers. In fact, he’s had some bad experiences, full stop.’

  Kate found her mind racing with wild speculations as to what possible harm could come to a boy from an innocent tool like a camera but she supposed it had something to do with the sort of magazines in which she had seen Jonathon Mason’s photograph. It had not crossed her mind that children as well as adults might be involved in that sort of photography and she felt suddenly out of her depth and slightly sick. She got to her feet and put her hand briefly on Jimmy’s shoulder, feeling him flinch from her touch.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll talk to some of the others.’ She glanced at Hamilton ruefully. ‘I’m not sure I’m up to this job,’ she said quietly.

  ‘If it will help some of these kids, you should carry on,’ he said with robust enthusiasm. ‘They need all the help they can get. I actually caught a chap trying to get in here last night as I was locking up. I’m sure he was trying to get hold of someone we had staying here. They don’t like to be thwarted, you know, the pimps and pornographers. They regard children they’ve picked up as their personal property. They want to recoup the cost of housing and feeding them, and then make a profit. It’s a business for them. Sometimes good people ask me why I’m bothering with these youngsters. They seem to think they’re too degraded to be rescued, that I’m wasting my time. But I know that’s not true.’

  Kate had cut herself off from her religion as soon as she went to college and realized that much of the rest of the world seemed to manage quite well without the embarrassing torture of confession and weekly sermons by men in long dresses for whom she had long ago lost any respect. Her mother had railed and threatened when she refused to get out of bed on Sunday mornings for Mass, but she had been stubborn, especially after Tom disappeared, and the parish priest, who had turned up to add his remonstrations to her mother’s, had implied that the family might be better off without him. Kate knew now what Father Reilly had evidently known back t
hen, that Tom was an unrepentant sinner in a way that even as a student she had not understood. But she had loved him then and missed him, and she still did, and that would never change. David Hamilton, she thought, in his cord trousers, jacket and a thick sweater which almost covered his clerical collar, was a different kind of priest and one which she thought she might be persuaded to get along with.

  ‘Have you told the police about this intruder?’ she asked. ‘Sergeant Barnard would be interested in him, I think.’

  Hamilton looked at her curiously. ‘You know Harry Barnard, do you?’

  ‘I’ve met him, yes,’ Kate said. She didn’t want to go into the details of how and why she had come to the Metropolitan Police’s attention.

  Hamilton gave her a faint smile. ‘A man to watch, I think, if you’re female and even remotely attractive,’ he said. ‘But you’re right. I will tell him about the intruder. It was odd, I thought I half-recognized him. Harry might know who he was.’

  ‘So, can I see if any of these youngsters will agree to be photographed?’ she said. ‘I haven’t got a lot of time, but I could come back later if necessary. I don’t think Mrs Lucas has any deadline to meet.’

  ‘Carry on,’ Hamilton said. ‘Come back whenever you like, my dear. We’re all on the same side here.’

  Kate did not go back home to Notting Hill that evening. She shared a sandwich with Marie in the Blue Lagoon, packed with young people taking a break on their way from work before plunging on to crowded buses or underground trains to the suburbs. As Marie toiled behind the bar handing out cappuccinos in glass cups and saucers from the hissing machine, Kate filled her in on her unexpected commission from Veronica Lucas as best she could over the sound of the jukebox.

  ‘You’re going to do what?’ Marie shouted over the sound of the Beatles’ ‘Please Please Me’ which had hit the big time just months before. ‘Take photographs of prostitutes?’ A young man standing beside Kate in Mod parka gave the two of them a funny look and moved further away to wait for his order to be taken.

  ‘I’m going to see what I can get tonight when the girls come out on to the streets. I can’t waste any time because I’m not sure how good my camera will be in the artificial light. It’s dark by six and I don’t suppose there’s much going on so early. Later I’ll have to rely on my flash and that’ll be a bit obvious.’

  ‘Are you sure this is safe?’ Marie asked, leaning close to Kate’s ear. ‘Maybe people won’t want their picture taken.’

  ‘Well, I may have to take long distance shots and blow them up later,’ Kate said with more confidence than she really felt. ‘I’ll tell anyone who asks I’m just taking general shots of Soho at night. It’ll be fine.’

  ‘I hope so, la,’ Marie said doubtfully.

  ‘What time do you finish? I’ll come back later and we can go home together if you’re worried.’

  ‘I won’t finish till midnight,’ Marie said. ‘If I were you I’d get home well before that. It’s really not a place to be making yourself conspicuous when the pubs turn out.’

  ‘I’ll be careful,’ Kate said cheerfully. And as far as she could be, she was. But although her camera was small, it was noticed and, as darkness fell and the street lights came on, making it essential to screw in her flashbulbs every four shots, it was noticed more and more. A group of women in skirts above the knee and high boots, standing outside a busy pub, turned as one to look her over when she aimed in their direction.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ a busty blonde asked, her heavily made-up face twisted aggressively.

  ‘Just taking some pictures of Soho for a magazine,’ Kate said, suddenly realizing how impossible her commission actually was. She could hardly ask these women if they were prostitutes without risking a serious reaction, whether they were or not. She was saved that time by the arrival of four young men in suits and stringy ties, their hair slicked back Elvis-style, who distracted the women’s attention long enough for her to slip away down a side street and make herself scarce.

  When she had got her breath back she noticed that the doors close by were those which frequently had a number of bells one above another, each with a woman’s name on it. Suzie nestled beneath Zsa Zsa, Marilyn above Sabrina. Perhaps, she thought, if she hung about here for long enough, one or two of the women, perhaps as pneumatic as the names they had adopted implied, would come out of the tall, thin house and she could snatch a shot. Just for luck she snapped a couple of the front doors. That at least gave some indication of the trade that went on inside. She hung around for a while, stamping her feet to keep warm, and eventually saw men begin to go in and out of the houses, seldom staying longer than half an hour. She stood well back, and took a couple of shots of the visitors, taking care not to catch their faces, only their anonymous back views. But in the end even that attracted attention and one man leaving the house noticed the flash of her camera and came over to her.

  ‘What the hell you doing, girl?’ he asked in a heavy accent. He was tall and dark, with his hat brim pulled well down, and obviously angry.

  ‘I’m just taking some shots of Soho for a magazine,’ Kate said, feeling slightly breathless.

  ‘Well, go and take them in some other bloody street, not here,’ the man snapped. ‘Bloody cameras are no good for trade. These are my girls and they don’t need no publicity in magazines, so fuck off.’ He looked her up and down in the dim light. ‘Unless you want a job?’ he said, and leered. Kate flinched and backed away, before turning on her heel and hurrying into the brighter lights of Dean Street with panic threatening to overwhelm her. She had, she thought, underestimated the risk of what she had agreed to do for Veronica Lucas and she wondered if the woman was as naive as she was, or whether she had known the danger Kate might run into and had chosen not to tell her.

  As she turned into the main road she was suddenly aware of steps close behind her and turned round, her heart thumping, imagining the man who had warned her off had followed her. She was surprised to find Sergeant Harry Barnard with a hand outstretched to grasp her arm.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Barnard said angrily. ‘I just caught sight of you with Jackie Zahra. Have you the faintest idea how dangerous that man is?’

  Kate shook her head, feeling numb. ‘I was just taking pictures,’ she said faintly. ‘I wasn’t doing any harm.’

  ‘Pictures?’ Barnard said incredulously. ‘You tried to take a picture of a Maltese pimp? Do you even know what a pimp is?’

  ‘I think so,’ Kate said.

  ‘Jesus wept,’ Barnard said. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a drink and you can tell me what this is all in aid of, and I’ll tell you how stupid it is. If you carry on like this you’re going to get yourself killed.’

  FIFTEEN

  Harry Barnard sat across the table from Kate O’Donnell and sipped his double Scotch thoughtfully. She was flushed but the look on her face was defiant rather than contrite as she took a sip of Babycham. She looked about sixteen years old, he thought, and he did not know how to start telling her the extent of the risks he had seen her taking. He put his glass down and sighed. The only way forward, he thought, was to come at the girl obliquely, through her brother, and then perhaps take her out for a meal later.

  ‘I can look after myself, you know, la,’ she said, breaking the silence and glancing at him over the top of her glass, her Liverpool twang very strong. ‘Liverpool’s not exactly a garden of roses or anything. There’s some bad things going on. I learned to look after myself when I was a kid.’

  ‘I’m sure you did,’ Barnard agreed solemnly. ‘But just at the moment, right here, it looks like we’ve got two major gangs at each other’s throats and two deaths which may or may not be connected. Believe me, they won’t be too fussy about getting rid of anyone who gets in their way. We don’t know whether your brother’s friend was involved with one or other of the gangs, or whether his death was something entirely separate. Either way, it makes no sense for you to be out on the st
reets drawing attention to yourself with a bloody flashbulb. If the do-gooders want pictures of the dark side of Soho at night they should ask someone to go out with you and tell you what’s safe and what isn’t. But if I were you, I’d give up on the whole idea.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Kate said. ‘I was a bit amazed to find all these people actually trying to help the prostitutes. I don’t think anyone bothers much up north. They still call them fallen women where I come from.’ She gave Barnard a cheeky smile. ‘At least, some do, if they’ve got a pulpit to stand in,’ she said. ‘Father Hamilton doesn’t seem to be like that.’

  ‘He’s OK, is the Rev Dave,’ Barnard said. ‘He tries hard. But with a lot of those kids he’s wasting his time. They’re jail bait.’

  ‘He wants to talk to you,’ Kate said. ‘I was down there earlier and he was complaining that someone’s been mooching round trying to get at the kids.’

  ‘I’ll have a word,’ Barnard said. ‘What were you doing at St Peter’s anyway?’

  ‘I went up there to get some shots of the place for this Mrs Lucas person but the kids were very wary. I couldn’t understand why some of them hated the idea of having pictures taken till Father Hamilton explained.’

  ‘Does he know who it was, this intruder?’ Barnard asked, very much the copper suddenly.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘There’s at least one young lad there who seems genuinely to be trying to get away from that sort of thing. I’ll make sure I look in on them in the morning to find out what’s going on. In the meantime, I think I should run you home to Notting Hill, don’t you? Get you out of harm’s way – though I’m not sure that’s an area I would like my sister living in. It’s a bit rough as well.’