by Graham Ison
DI Gilroy had broadcast the brief description of the man who had attempted to pawn ten thousand pounds’ worth of jewelery at a pawn shop in Staines. He had done this by the simple expedient of opening each of the Squad’s office doors in turn and enquiring if anyone had heard of a villain with a heart and arrow tattooed on the back of his left hand.
“Hang on a mo’, guv,” said Kate Ebdon. “That rings a bell.”
“You know him?” asked Gilroy.
“Might do.” Kate looked pensive. “Give me a few minutes, guv’nor, and I’ll make a call to my old nick.”
A quarter of an hour later, Kate Ebdon tapped on Gilroy’s office door. “Thought I knew him, guv,” she said, “but I couldn’t remember his name. But my old buck at Leman Street remembered him. He’s called Glass, Bert Glass, and he’s got form as long as your arm.”
“Got an address?”
“The PNC has him in Whitechapel, sir, but that was a year ago.”
“What the hell was he doing in Staines then?”
“Maybe he’s moved,” said Kate with a cheeky smile and turned to leave the office.
“Not so fast, Kate,” said Gilroy. “You started it, so you can finish it. Take Joe Bellenger with you and find this Glass. If he does anything sussy, bang him up and give me a bell.”
*
“I flashed the photos of Skelton and Povey around the staff at the Agincourt Hotel, sir,” said DI Evans.
“And?”
“And nothing, sir. None of them recognized the picture of Skelton, and one or two thought they may have seen Povey. But they weren’t sure.”
“Tremendous,” said Fox.
*
Detective Constables Joe Bellenger and Kate Ebdon were no strangers to the sort of sleazy hostelries frequented by the villainry of London. They started their search for Bert Glass in his usual haunt, a pub in Whitechapel High Street. The arrival of the Australian woman detective, whom they thought had gone forever, alarmed the habitues, but when they discovered that she was looking for Bert Glass, they promptly surrendered him. It seemed the easiest way to get rid of the woman who had haunted them and harried them relentlessly during her tour of duty at Leman Street. Remarkably, Glass was said still to be living at his old address in a street east of Brick Lane.
The Indian landlord who owned the run-down house in which Glass had a room was more than willing to assist the police, for the same reason as the customers at Glass’s favorite pub had been. He allowed the two detectives to wait in Glass’s room, having first been cautioned that warning Glass of their presence could have dire consequences.
The room was a tip. In one corner there was an unmade bed. A newspaper-covered table had on it several dirty dishes and a cup of cold brown liquid. “Looks like his staple diet’s corn flakes, baked beans and instant coffee,” said Kate. Thin and dirty curtains hung, half-drawn, across filthy windows and a broken-down armchair sat forlornly in front of a small television set. And there was an overpowering stench of unwashed flesh. “Nice place,” she added. Neither of the detectives sat down.
An hour after they had arrived, the door of the room opened and Glass entered. He wore jeans, a dirty white sweatshirt and a herring-bone jacket with worn-out elbows. Seeing Kate Ebdon, he stopped and turned, but Joe Bellenger had heard the man coming up the creaking staircase and was behind the door.
“Hallo, Bert,” said Kate as Bellenger slammed the door shut, cutting off Glass’s escape.
“I ain’t done nothing,” said Glass. He had a hunted look about him.
“We’ve got a warrant to search your room, Bert.”
“What for?”
“Where have you just come from?”
“I’ve been out Staines way.”
“What for?”
“Bit of business.” Glass looked unhappy. “Who’s he?” he asked, nodding at Bellenger. It was a pointless question.
“Flying Squad,” said Bellenger.
Glass looked ill. “What d’you want then?” he asked.
“Turn out your pockets, Bert,” said Kate.
Reluctantly, Glass emptied his pockets on to the table.
“Well, well, what have we here?” Bellenger gazed down at the jewelery that Glass’s pockets had just yielded. “I suppose you’ve got an explanation for this, Bert?”
“It’s not mine, it’s a friend’s,” said Glass unconvincingly.
“That’s what I hoped you were going to say,” said Bellenger. “You’re nicked, my old son.”
*
Detective Sergeant Percy Fletcher had traveled from Scotland Yard to Piccadilly Circus by underground train. He knew that there was no point in trying to park a car in the West End of London, and he knew also that his quest for information would take him from one place to another.
Fletcher began his search at premises tucked away in an alley off Berwick Street in Soho. Politely known as an all-day live strip show, it entertained a succession of libidinous patrons who paid exorbitant sums of money to see young ladies taking off their clothes. The owner of this establishment was Janet Mortimer. Now about fifty years old – although no one knew her age for certain – she had lived in Soho all her life, most of which had been spent on the fringes of illegality. And she was in constant fear of the police, mainly because she also ran a brothel in the upstairs rooms that she thought the police knew nothing about. In all probability, the local police did not know about it. But Percy Fletcher knew. However, Percy Fletcher had more important things to do than to prosecute willing young ladies for selling their sexual favors to willing old men. In all honesty, he could see little harm in it.
Fletcher pushed open the door of Janet’s office and almost collided with a young brunette wearing a sequin-covered bikini, black tights and very high-heeled shoes.
“Hallo, Janet,” said Fletcher.
“I, er, oh, hallo, Sergeant Fletcher. Wasn’t expecting you.” Janet Mortimer was attired in a black satin dress, high at the neck, and her platinum-blonde hair was piled on top of her head in a fashion that was intended to make her seem younger. Ironically, it actually made her appear older. “You haven’t met Marlene, have you?”
“No,” said Fletcher. “Member of your stable, is she?” He grinned at the brunette as she wiggled her way out of the office, doubtless to warn the inhabitants of the upper rooms that the Old Bill had arrived.
“Have you seen this bloke around at all, Janet?” Fletcher tossed a photograph on to Janet Mortimer’s desk. “His name’s Kevin Povey.”
Janet studied the photograph carefully and pursed her lips. “Don’t think so,” she said and looked up. “Villain, is he?”
“And some,” said Fletcher. “We reckon there’s three toppings down to him.”
Janet nodded slowly. “I’ll put the word out, Mr Fletcher,” she said. “And if I hear anything, I’ll give you a bell.”
That afternoon, Percy Fletcher made several other visits to various establishments around Soho. Some were as dubious in character as the one he had just left. Others, up-market by anyone’s standards, were those where Fletcher knew such influential people as head waiters, hall porters and security officers. By the time he had finished, he knew that the word was indeed out for Kevin Povey. All he had to do now was go back to the Yard and wait. At least, that was the way it was supposed to work.
Ten
Fox received the news OF Glass’s arrest with mixed feelings. “You know, Jack,” he said, “This damned enquiry is getting further and further away from the murder of Wally Proctor. Now we’re involved with some petty toe-rag from Whitechapel who’s been hawking diamonds around Staines. The man must be mad. I ask you, Jack, where’s the logic in all this? I mean, do people actually wear diamonds in Staines?”
“You’re right, guv’nor,” said Gilroy. “It’s not really the sort of trivial rubbish you need to bother yourself with. Leave it to me. I’ll pop down to Leman Street and have a word with this Glass finger.” Gilroy knew that there was not a cat-in-hell’s chance of Fox pas
sing up the opportunity to lean on a villain.
“You’re probably right, Jack…” For a moment, Fox sounded as though he might acquiesce. But then his overpowering desire to interfere at every stage took command. “On the other hand, ten grand’s worth of tomfoolery is quite a lot.” He closed the file on his desk and slung it on the high pile of dockets that threatened to smother his pending-tray. “I think perhaps I will have a look at this fellow. Just in case.” He stood up. “Be silly to overlook him if he holds the key to our murders, wouldn’t it? If there’s nothing in it, we can leave it to young Kate Ebdon to sort out,” he added.
Gilroy grinned. “Shall I get Swann to get the car up, sir?” he asked.
“What?” Fox looked up from the piece of paper he had just found in his in-tray.
“The car, sir. D’you want the car brought up?”
“Oh, er, yes, Jack. Not going to walk to Leman Street.” Fox glanced back at the piece of paper in his hand. “By the way, Jack, you’re on a promotion board on Tuesday week. Good luck!” He initialed the slip of paper and tossed it into his out-tray. “Bit pointless, though. I hear they’re going to abolish chief inspectors.”
“And chief superintendents, sir,” said Gilroy. “So I’ve heard.”
*
Bert Glass was forty-two. And he had experienced prison life for fifteen of those years, once in Malta. His occupation was still shown on the Police National Computer as merchant seaman, and the tattoo which had betrayed him had been acquired in Hong Kong when he was a callow youth of eighteen. But it had been many years since Bert Glass had put to sea.
By the time that Fox arrived at Leman Street police station, Glass had recovered some of his self-confidence and, in his naivete, imagined that he could talk his way out of his latest bit of grief. But he had never been interrogated by the head of the Flying Squad before.
“Well, well, well,” said Fox. He smiled benignly at the prisoner as he sat down in the chair opposite him. “We seem to have a bit of a problem, Bert.”
“We do?” This was the last sort of approach Glass had expected.
“Indeed. Let me explain. I am Detective Chief Superintendent Thomas Fox… of the Flying Squad, and I think you might be in a position to help me.”
“I want my solicitor,” said Glass. He knew his rights.
“Your solicitor. Or a solicitor? Frankly, Bert, old son, you do not strike me as the type of villain who retains his own mouthpiece.”
“All right. A solicitor. Or my social worker.”
“Your what?” Fox turned to Gilroy. “Did I hear aright, Jack? The man wants his social worker.”
“I think he means his probation officer, sir,” said Gilroy, trying hard to hide his amusement. “He’s on probation.”
Fox carefully selected a cigarette from his case and lit it. “It’s amazing, isn’t it, Jack. Here we have a villain with a criminal record a mile high and some idiot puts him on probation.” He peered closely at the prisoner. “And what, Bert, were you put on probation for?”
“It was all a mistake,” said Glass.
“Usually is,” said Fox. “Tell me about it.”
“It was a case of mistaken identity,” said Glass. “Me and two other blokes got nicked for thieving. Except I wasn’t there. The Old Bill just come round my drum and nicked me. And I went down.”
Fox shook his head. “Most unfortunate, Bert, but it does happen from time to time. However…” He picked up the plastic property bag containing the jewelery that had been found in Glass’s possession and placed it in the center of the table. “Where did this come from?”
“Found it, didn’t I?”
“Really?” Fox affected great interest in this statement. “Where exactly?”
“Can’t remember.”
“Oh dear!” Fox would dearly have loved to jog Glass’s memory by giving him a quick rap in the mouth, but he knew that this fictional method of interrogation never worked. “Why then, Bert, did you not hand it into a police station?”
“’Tain’t worth nothing.”
“How d’you know that?”
“The geezer in the—” Glass stopped suddenly, appreciating that he was in danger of talking himself into a verbal cul-de-sac.
“The geezer in the pawn shop in Staines, I think you were going to say, told you they were paste. Yes?”
Glass stared sullenly at Fox. “Yeah. Well he’s, like, an expert, ain’t he. So, if the gear ain’t worth nothing, you can’t nick me for it, can you?”
“On the contrary, Bertie, old dear, these sparklers are not paste.”
“What they worth then?”
“To you, Bertie, about five years, I should think,” said Fox, “but on the open market…” He pretended to give the matter of the jewelery’s worth some close consideration. “About ten thousand pounds.”
Glass appeared positively sick at this revelation. It was a portrayal of mixed emotions, deriving from the knowledge that the pawn shop assistant had lied to him and thus deprived him of acquiring a small fortune, and because he now knew that he was in serious trouble. “Oh!” he said.
“But that is a minor matter,” said Fox loftily.
“It is?” Glass’s tortured mind failed to grasp how the police could possibly regard the unlawful acquisition of ten thousand pounds’ worth of jewelery as a minor matter.
“Yes, indeed, Bertie. You see, dear boy, my detective inspector here…” Fox indicated Gilroy with a flourish. “My detective inspector has been making enquiries since your arrest, and he has learned that this jewelery is part of the proceeds from an audacious confidence trick perpetrated on two, possibly three, harmless little old ladies.”
“Oh!” said Glass again. He had decided that his responses were best confined to monosyllables, not that he would have been able to define it thus.
“Don’t keep interrupting,” said Fox. “But the real problem, as far as you’re concerned that is, is that two of the villains involved in the said scam have been murdered.”
Glass drew breath sharply and was about to say something when he remembered that Fox had told him not to interrupt.
“Now, given that whoever topped those two icemen probably had it away with this little lot…” Fox tapped the property bag with his forefinger. “That someone has a lot of explaining to do.”
Glass had been involved in petty crime all his adult life – and for a lot of his juvenile one, too – but he had never been party to a crime of violence. “I don’t know nothing about no toppings,” he said vehemently.
“Alas, Bertie,” said Fox, “I fear that your denial is not sufficient of itself to row you out of this aggravation.” He banged the top of the table so violently that Glass jumped. “Now where did you get them from?”
“I done a drum down Notting Hill.” Glass knew when the odds were against him and his brain, such as it was, went into top gear. And he did not much care for this mocking policeman opposite him. A policeman who looked as though he could get quite violent, despite his dandified clothing.
Fox adjusted his top-pocket handkerchief and lit another cigarette. “Where in Notting Hill?”
“Don’t rightly know.”
Fox leaned forward menacingly. “Well you’d better start remembering.”
Glass’s face crumpled as his rarely used thought processes came into play. “I got out at Notting Hill Gate.” He glanced up at Fox. “Off the Tube, like.”
“Yes?”
“And I walked down as far as the nick—”
“Notting Hill nick?”
“I s’pose so.”
“I would have thought you’d have known every nick in London, Bertie,” said Fox mildly. “But do go on. It’s fascinating.”
“And I turned right, up a street called…” Glass lapsed into silence once more.
“Ladbroke Grove,” prompted Fox.
“Yeah!”
“And then what?”
“Well then I threw another right—”
“Not a right hook, I
trust,” murmured Fox.
“And went along until I reached a bit of grass. There was some flats off of the other side, like, and I done a bit of drumming—”
“Perhaps you would explain ‘drumming’ for the benefit of the tape recorder, Bertie,” said Fox in a tired voice.
“Well, like, ringing door bells till I found one when there was no answer.”
“And you eventually found one?”
“Yeah.”
“What number?”
“I dunno.” Glass frowned as though genuinely sorry that he could not assist.
“What floor was it on?”
“The top floor.”
Fox turned to Gilroy. “What d’you think, Jack?”
“Almost certainly Robin Skelton’s drum, guv’nor,” said Gilroy, smothering a grin.
But Fox laughed out loud. “D’you know, Jack, there is a certain irony about a tenth-rate villain like this one here—” he waved at Glass. “—screwing the drum of a sophisticated iceman like Skelton and having it away with ten grand’s worth of gear that has already been nicked once.” He swung back to concentrate on Glass, to whom most of the conversation between Fox and Gilroy had been unintelligible. “When did you carry out this burglary, Bertie?”
“Few days ago, I s’pose,” said Glass, unwilling to commit himself.
“Tell me, why go to Notting Hill? Bit off your manor, isn’t it?”
“I’m, like, an importunist,” said Glass.
“I think you mean opportunist,” said Fox.
“I know what I bleedin’ well mean,” said Glass churlishly. Fox raised his eyes to the ceiling. “But it seemed like a good place for a screwing,” Glass went on. “Lot of pricey motors round there, see. You can always tell.”
“That, you prat,” said Fox, “is because they park there before hopping on the Tube at Notting Hill Gate to go to central London.”
“Don’t matter, do it? I done all right.” Glass nodded sorrowfully at the property bag of jewelery. “Well, nearly,” he added.
Fox laughed and stood up. “Where’s Kate Ebdon, Jack?”