Dead Beat

by Patricia Hall

  ‘Do you know where he is?’ Barnard asked.

  ‘No, but I know where he’s going to be at seven. We’re both going to see our ma. We always do on a Thursday night. Old family tradition. You remember Ada Street?’

  ‘She’s never moved out, then?’

  ‘Nah, we’ve offered to buy her a new place a hundred times, but she won’t have it. Won’t hear of moving away. She was bloody lucky Hitler didn’t blow the place to smithereens, but it’s still standing, just about. She’s getting more and more cantankerous as time goes by but she still thinks she rules the roost.’ Robertson laughed. ‘She doesn’t know the half of it.’

  ‘Right, I’ll pick him up for a chat,’ Barnard said. ‘Nothing heavy at this stage. It’ll all have to go back to DCI Venables in the end. It’s his case. But I’ve got Georgie in the frame for this one. Though whether he had a motive for picking on this woman or whether it was just for kicks, I can’t imagine.’

  ‘I can,’ Ray said. ‘He’s still the same Georgie who incinerated moggies when he was nine years old, don’t forget.’ He sighed heavily. ‘It’s time he was stopped,’ he said.

  ‘So tell your ma Georgie might be a bit late tonight,’ Barnard said. ‘I’ll pick him up before he gets there.’

  ‘Nice to see you, Harry,’ Georgie Robertson said expansively when Barnard swung open the passenger door of the Capri as his quarry parked his car an hour or so later in Bethnal Green and walked past on the way to his mother’s house. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘A quick word, Georgie,’ Barnard said and waited patiently while Georgie pulled at the knees of his beautifully tailored dark suit so as not to crease them and settled himself into the passenger seat. ‘We’ll just take a quick spin round the block, shall we?’

  Georgie nodded approvingly as Barnard swung away from the kerb and cut into the traffic stream on Roman Road. ‘Not a bad motor,’ he said. ‘You doing well for yourself, then? I guess you are, working in Soho.’

  Barnard merely grunted as he manoeuvred round a bus and then turned into a side street and stopped halfway along beside the bombed-out wreck of a factory which had not been touched since it had gone up in flames in 1941.

  ‘Smoke?’ Georgie asked, pulling out a pack of Balkan Sobranie and offering one.

  ‘No, ta,’ Barnard said. ‘We need to talk.’

  Georgie shrugged and lit up.

  ‘There’s been another killing on my manor today,’ Barnard said. ‘Some poor woman died very messily indeed. At St Peter’s Church. You know it?’

  ‘That place that takes in kids off the streets? Yes, I know it. Padre’s wasting his time, isn’t he? Like trying to empty the Thames with a bloody sieve. There’s always more kids coming off the trains and plenty of people ready to snap them up for this and that.’

  ‘Just like you snap them up, you mean?’ Barnard said harshly.

  ‘Nah, not my line of country,’ Robertson said easily. ‘I leave the street girls to the spics like Falzon. And the protection to my bloody stupid brother. He’s got no imagination, Ray. You know that? I’m looking for bigger fish to fry these days. A much classier clientele. Ask my mate Ted Venables if you don’t believe me. He knows what’s going on.’

  Barnard’s stomach lurched suddenly. If Venables knew what was going on and was doing nothing about it, it could only mean one thing: Georgie was paying him off. That was something Ray had not mentioned when he outlined his brother’s unwelcome venture into freewheeling pornography and blackmail. And it explained perfectly why Georgie and Venables had been on such good terms at the Delilah Club.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, Ted’s on the case. I know that,’ he said as if his colleague’s involvement was stale news. ‘But this latest killing’s someone from out of town, some toffee-nosed woman from the suburbs, and pretty nasty at that. Scotland Yard aren’t going to like it. Coming on top of the two killings in Greek Street, Pete Marelli and the queer actor, they’re going to get very twitchy. And I happen to know you’ve been mooching round St Peter’s. You were recognized.’ But if Barnard thought that accusation would throw Robertson he was soon disabused.

  ‘I reckon Ted’s got all the angles covered,’ Georgie said easily. ‘They’re not going to bust a gut over a pervert and a porn merchant, are they? As I hear it, you’ve got a suspect for those two anyway. I’m sure Ted can add another victim or two to the list. If not, I can tell you for a fact that Pete Marelli got it because he crossed the big man. He’d agreed to help me out with some of my publishing plans, a nice line in stuff for the queer boys, and Falzon didn’t like it. You know what the spics are like. Cut your throat as soon as look at you. But if you can’t pin it on Frankie’s lads, I’m sure you can pin it on this suspect for the other job. Two in the same building? Got to be connected, haven’t they? And this woman? No trouble as far as Ted’s concerned, I reckon.’

  ‘Not if the suspect was securely locked up at the time,’ Barnard said. ‘Not even Ted can put his suspect at St Peter’s torturing an old bird when he was in a remand cell in jail.’

  But Georgie just shrugged. ‘D’you want in, Harry? I reckon we could stretch to a cut if that’s what you fancy. As you’re based in Soho it could be useful. Eyes and ears and all that, now Ted’s moved onwards and upwards and doesn’t get out on the streets like he used to.’

  Barnard took a deep breath. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he said. He had, he thought, already been handed this partnership on a plate, and had not realized its significance, when Kate O’Donnell had shown him a photograph of Georgie Robertson and Ted Venables raising glasses of champagne to each other at the Delilah Club. Though how far the partnership stretched might be very difficult to unravel. Blackmail victims were notoriously reluctant to complain to the police and the sleazier the things they had been involved in the more reticent they would be. And there was no way Georgie or anyone else was going to give him chapter and verse on the links between the private parties young Jimmy had been taken to and the pornographic magazines and blackmail attempts which seemed to follow.

  ‘I need to get to my ma’s,’ Georgie said, suddenly impatient. ‘She doesn’t like it if we’re late.’

  ‘We’ll talk again, Georgie,’ Barnard said as Robertson opened the car door and he noticed a low-slung dark car pulling in behind him. He had not realized they were being followed nor that Georgie now commanded that level of heavyweight protection.

  ‘Okey-dokey,’ Georgie said, so cheerfully that Barnard wondered for a moment if his suspicions were some sort of dark fantasy. But as he slipped the car into gear and pulled away from the kerb, closely followed by Robertson’s limo, he knew that even amongst the gangs of the East End and Soho there were very few men who would kill with Georgie Robertson’s expertise and enthusiasm. As he had said to his brother, and Ray had not bothered to argue, this had Georgie’s fingerprints all over it, though it might be much harder to prove than he had anticipated now he knew that Georgie had heavyweight support right at the heart of the murder investigation. No wonder Venables had looked a much happier man just recently, he thought. He might be getting that boat he coveted much earlier than he had expected.

  Barnard drove thoughtfully back to St Peter’s and parked outside the churchyard railings, beyond which temporary lights slung from the trees now illuminated the side of the building as forensics officers and photographers waited their turn impatiently to carry out their duties in the confined space of the boiler house. A coroner’s van, with a couple of men idling beside it as they waited to remove the body, was parked behind the squad cars. Barnard sat for a moment watching the bustling scene, which had attracted an audience of gawping passers-by on their way to an evening’s entertainment in the nearby pubs and clubs. He wanted to talk to David Hamilton again, but very much did not want to talk to, or even see, DCI Venables. The bombshell Georgie Robertson had dropped about his relationship with Ted needed some time to assimilate, he thought. The landscape had suddenly lurched around him and he was sure that there were mantraps and un
exploded bombs strewn around his manor which could catch him out any time. He no longer knew who he could trust and that made him very edgy indeed. His train of thought was disturbed by a slight tap on the window and he wound it down to find himself face-to-face with Hamish Macdonald, breathing alcohol fumes into the car.

  ‘What the hell do you want, Hamish?’ Barnard said impatiently.

  ‘I’ve been here a wee while,’ the Scot said. ‘A man sees things if he’s got his eyes open.’

  Barnard felt suddenly cold. ‘Get in the car,’ he said, swallowing his reluctance to let the malodorous vagrant through the door. Hamish slid into the passenger seat and Barnard turned to face him. ‘So what did you see?’ he asked, almost afraid of the answer.

  ‘I was waiting and watching, to see if the wee laddie was still here,’ Hamish said, sounding more sober than Barnard expected. ‘I saw people going in and out, the woman who’s dead. She went in but I didnae see her come out again. And then two men, a big fellow in a hat and coat, and a wee chappie, wi’ dark hair. They went in, and after a long while they came out again. They’d been round the side of the kirk, so when they’d gone I went to take a look, and told the young lassie who came in later.’

  ‘You sent her off to find a body in that state, you stupid bastard?’ Barnard complained. ‘Why didn’t you tell the vicar or call the police yourself?’

  ‘Ach, well, I’d had enough of the polis, hadn’t I?’ Hamish came back. ‘I didnae want to be involved. But that’s not the main thing. Not at all.’

  ‘So what is?’

  ‘Ye’ll only want tae know this if ye’re an honest man, Mr Barnard. And how can I be sure of that?’

  Barnard sighed and met the sharp blue eyes of the old man. ‘You’ll have to take it on trust, Hamish,’ he said, his voice weary. ‘Tell me what you saw.’

  ‘The man who came earlier came back again,’ Hamish said. ‘The big man, he came back with the polis. He was one of them.’

  ‘Could you swear to that in court? Identify him and swear he was here twice?’ Barnard asked, his heart thumping.

  ‘If I had tae,’ Hamish said. ‘That was a terrible thing they did.’

  Barnard turned away and stared out of the windscreen in silence, watching the comings and goings in the churchyard again for a moment and then suddenly drawing a sharp breath. ‘Is that him?’ he asked Hamish urgently as Ted Venables came out of the churchyard gate and made towards his car.

  ‘Aye, that’s him,’ Hamish said, confirming something Barnard really did not want to know.

  NINETEEN

  Kate O’Donnell took a train to Guildford from Waterloo, gazing sightlessly out of the window as it clattered through south London and out into the Surrey countryside. The late commuters filling the carriage thinned out past Wimbledon and only a few dozen people got off at her destination, slamming the train doors behind them and hurrying out of the station like zombies towards the car-park or up the hill towards the town. She paused briefly to buy a map at the bookstall which was about to pull down its shutters for the night, and then followed the other passengers up the station approach and after studying the map carefully underneath a street lamp she found her way to the long High Street, up the hill, past the main shops and into the darker suburban streets beyond.

  The vicarage was in an ill-lit, tree-lined road alongside a Victorian church, not unlike St Peter’s in Soho, as far as Kate could judge. The church was in total darkness but there were lights in the downstairs windows of the vicarage and a car was parked on the drive outside the front door. She approached cautiously, not sure what sort of reception might await her inside. She did not expect that the vicar would be particularly pleased to know that she had been able to discover Jimmy Earnshaw’s whereabouts so easily, or necessarily let her talk to him, but she knew she had to try for Tom’s sake.

  Her knock was answered by a tall, thin, anxious-looking man in grey flannel trousers and a dark tweed sports jacket over his clerical collar and shirt who peered at her short-sightedly.

  ‘Can I help you, my dear?’ he asked.

  ‘I think so,’ Kate said, suddenly unsure of herself. ‘If you have a boy called Jimmy staying with you, I think you can help my brother.’

  The vicar’s response was no more than a sharp intake of breath but he opened the door wider and beckoned her in, glancing round the shadowy garden doubtfully before closing the door again. ‘My colleague asked me to keep Jimmy safe. I’m not sure—’

  ‘I’m not a threat to Jimmy,’ Kate said, regaining her confidence slightly. ‘I think I need him kept safe too. I’ve met him before at St Peter’s in Soho. I think he’ll remember me.’

  The vicar led her into a stuffy, overcrowded living room to one side of the front door where almost every surface was covered with books and papers, and waved her into a chair.

  ‘My name is Stephen Merryman,’ he said and Kate wondered how a man’s looks could so totally belie his name. ‘I only took the boy in as a favour to my colleague in Soho, because he said he was in danger. I have boys the same sort of age myself. They’re at a school play tonight with my wife. I should have gone but I thought I shouldn’t leave Jimmy alone, so we dropped them off and came back here. I had this odd phone call from David Hamilton telling me not to let Jimmy talk to anyone, not even the police. It all sounds very odd. Do sit down, Miss . . . ?’

  ‘O’Donnell,’ Kate said. She sat down abruptly on a sagging armchair, feeling exhausted, and told the vicar the whole story of Jonathon Mason’s death and her brother’s arrest and remand for his murder. Merryman listened in silence – a good listener, Kate thought, as men of his profession often were. When she had finished, he gazed at her for a moment, his hands steepled underneath his chin.

  ‘I can see why you are so concerned,’ he said. ‘Jimmy’s in his room at the moment. Fortunately there’s plenty of space in this rambling old place to take in waifs and strays occasionally. It’s due to be sold off soon and something smaller built as a vicarage. I’ll ask him if he’ll agree to talk to you, my dear, in spite of what David Hamilton said. Though you must understand that if he doesn’t want to I shall respect his wishes. He’s a very frightened child, and he is only a child, although he insists he is sixteen. Stay here for a moment while I talk to him. I’ll tell him about your brother and how he could possibly help.’

  Kate waited impatiently downstairs for five minutes, her stomach knotted with anxiety, close to panic. Harry Barnard had suggested that he had a witness who could help her brother’s case, but a homeless runaway, effectively living as a prostitute, which is what this lad seemed to be, did not seem the ideal person to stand up in a court of law and clear Tom’s name. But when Stephen Merryman eventually returned with a skinny boy with haunted eyes close behind him she put on her warmest smile in greeting.

  ‘Hello, Jimmy,’ she said. ‘I’m Kate. Do you remember me? I was at St Peter’s a few days ago taking photographs. I’d be very, very grateful if you would help me and my brother out.’

  The boy looked at her for a long time, as if debating with himself whether or not he could trust her. Finally he gave a faint nod and sat down. But in the end, there was not that much to tell, Kate discovered, when the boy had made himself comfortable on the sofa beside her and described what he had seen on the evening Jon Mason had been killed. But what he had to say he was quite sure about. He had seen two men coming away from the flat before he had summoned up the courage to go up the stairs himself. And neither of them, he said, had looked remotely like Tom O’Donnell. Kate leaned back on the sofa and closed her eyes for a moment, almost speechless with relief.

  ‘We need you to tell people that in court,’ she said faintly. ‘Otherwise my brother is going to be blamed for something he didn’t do. Can you do that for me, Jimmy? It’s very, very important.’

  The boy shrugged bony shoulders. ‘If they promise not to send me back to the home,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll do nowt if they do that. There’s a copper who said he’d see me all right. He k
nows all about it.’

  ‘Was that Sergeant Barnard?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Aye, I think so. Hamish said he were all right.’

  ‘Hamish? Who’s Hamish?’ Kate felt confused.

  ‘He’s a mate of mine,’ the boy said, just as they all heard a thunderous knocking on the front door of the vicarage. Jimmy jumped out of his seat with a look of terror on his face, went to the window, pulled back the curtain a fraction and turned back into the room in panic.

  ‘It’s him,’ he said. ‘He’s found me. I knew he would. You’ve got me here in a trap.’

  ‘Who?’ Merryman asked, suddenly galvanized in a way which amazed Kate. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘The bloke I saw. The one at the flat. It’s him. I swear to God it’s him.’

  Merryman took hold of Kate’s arm and pushed her towards the terrified boy. ‘Get him out of the house at the back,’ he said. ‘Don’t come back till I call. I’ll stall whoever it is until I can call the police and get help. Go, now. Don’t waste any time.’

  In a daze, Kate did as she was told but as soon as she had hustled Jimmy out of the kitchen door into the dark garden behind the house he wriggled free from her grasp and ran, disappearing into the trees in seconds and leaving her standing alone, horrified. For a moment she hesitated before deciding that if she could not find him no one else would. She turned and went slowly back into the house where she found Stephen Merryman in the hallway with a heavily built, red-faced man breathing heavily.

  ‘What do you mean, he’s not here?’ he said, his voice so threatening that Kate was afraid he was about to hit the vicar. She stepped forward, her heart thumping.