Blue Rondo (aka Flesh Wounds)

by Lawton, John

  ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ Troy asked.

  ‘I am, sir. A lot of Jewish names.’

  ‘The remnants of Alf Marx’s gang, getting by the only way they know. Serving their new masters.’

  Troy pulled out his list.

  ‘I got this from John Brocklehurst’s files. A good portion of Alf’s gang went down with him. I crossed those names out. I’d guess there were a dozen or so left on the street when he went down. The Ryans seem to have recruited seven, if your narks have it right.’

  Godbehere took the list and set them side by side on the desk.

  ‘Stan Cohen.’

  ‘Not one I ever met,’ said Troy.

  ‘Arthur Cantor.’

  ‘In his day one of the best petermen in London. Lately I think he’s done not much more than run errands for Alf and Bernie Champion.’

  ‘Saggy Stein.’

  ‘Drove the car on Alf’s bank jobs. Spent most of the forties in Parkhurst.’

  ‘Lou Levy.’

  ‘A thug. If Alf wanted legs broken or arms twisted, Lou was the man.’

  ‘Dave Silver.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Mal Gelb.’

  ‘Nor him.’

  ‘Moses Kettleman.’

  ‘Ah . . . Mott Kettle. Petty thief, pickpocket, bookie’s runner and police informer. My first collar in 1936. I caught Mott brazenly stealing women’s underwear from a stall in Whitechapel market. He got three months. Then in 1938 I caught him for receiving and the judge put him away for two years. By the time he got out the war was on, he was nearly forty, the army wouldn’t call him up at that age and he didn’t volunteer. He did what a lot of skivers did – he worked the black market, worked it stupidly and poorly and took getting nicked as an occupational hazard. It’s not that Mott was at the back of the queue when God gave out brains, he was probably just looking the other way.’

  ‘You think he’s the weak link?’

  ‘I think they’re all the weak link. Pull the lot.’

  This, clearly, was close to the last thing Godbehere had expected to hear Troy say. ‘If you don’t mind me asking, sir, why?’

  ‘Because the Ryans will expect it. If we’ve done this properly, they now know I’m here. They know you’ve been building up a file and they’ll expect action. Mr Mazzer will surely have told them that.’

  ‘But I’ve shut Mazzer out – just like you told me to do.’

  ‘Quite. But he’d be a very poor excuse for a detective if he hasn’t been able to come up with a version of what’s happening. Fragmented, maybe, with a lot of guesswork filling in. Nothing like being cut out to make a copper nosy, after all. And if he hasn’t tipped the Ryans off then I’ve overestimated them all.’

  Godbehere nodded as though finally seeing the whole picture for the first time. ‘You do realise they’ll turn up with their briefs?’

  ‘Some will, some won’t. And if the Ryans feel like spending money on a lawyer for the likes of Mott Kettle, then I’ll eat my hat. Pull them in, and ask them about their whereabouts on the nights Joey Rork and Glenda Felucci died. Ask them till they curl at the edges with boredom. And let’s put on a show. Lots of police cars, lots of uniforms, a few sirens. Let’s make ourselves visible.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll know anything?’

  ‘No. In fact, I’m damn certain they won’t. As I said, Mr Godbehere, we’re putting on a show.’

  84

  Mott reminded Troy of the first time he had ever met Fish Wally. The sheer intensity of neglect and plain grubbiness. Wally had improved beyond recognition. All he’d required was an income remotely commensurate with his taste. Mott had got worse. He’d greeted Troy with ‘How long is it now, Mr Troy?’

  And Troy rather thought it had been seven or eight years since he’d last encountered Mott. Now he was fifty-six or -seven. Thin, in that undernourished way that still characterised Wally and which Troy was fairly certain he’d never shake off, but thinner than thin – he was scrawny. A scrawniness emphasised by the fact that his suits always seemed to be hand-me-downs. This particular hand-me-down had been made for a man much stouter than Mott and hung on him with all the elegance of a barrage balloon snagged on a telegraph-pole. He looked tubercular. Grey of skin, red of eye and sporting a manicure that would have had Mazzer throwing up in the gutter. Buckets of lemon juice, mountains of pumice would never shift the nicotine from his fingers. It had gone way beyond the tips. It crept down his fingers to the second joint, looking like blackleg on a potato haulm. The suit was a wartime relic, the wide-trousered, tight-waited fashion of the early forties, nipped at the back of the jacket with a strap – tastelessly brown, faintly enlivened by a pencil-line red stripe, worn shiny at the knees and elbows, and piss-rotten at the crotch.

  He greeted Troy like a long-lost friend, rising from his chair, one hand clutching a cigarette, one outstretched as though he would shake hands given half a chance. Not knowing why he had been pulled, the sight of a man who had put him away twice was close to familiarity.

  ‘As I live and breathe – Mr Troy. How long’s it been now, Mr Troy?’

  ‘Sit down, Mott.’

  ‘What is it – fifteen years? Twenty? I’ve followed yer career, y’ know. Local boy made good an’ all that. You’ve done really well for yerself. I said that the first time you nicked me. I said, “That young copper’s going to go far.” S’welp me I did. I said to the lads, “That young man’ll be in a top job one day.” A top job. I did. Honest I did. A top job. And now . . . ‘ere you are. A Scotland Yard detective an’ all. I said you’d go far. I did. I did. A top job.’

  It seemed to Troy that Mott would go on all night like this. He held up a hand as though he were on point duty in traffic. Anything to stop the babble of nonsense. ‘You’ve not brought your brief. You’re entitled to have a solicitor present.’

  ‘Mr Troy, I ain’t done nuffink. What would I want with a lawyer?’ The mouth split into a broad smile, a cave of stained teeth. The hands spread in a disarming gesture, fag ash scattering across the table. ‘Besides, you ain’t cautioned me yet.’ Mott smiled the wider. One point scored in the midst of his babble.

  ‘Anything you say . . . and blah-de-blah . . . Let’s take the caution as read, shall we?’

  ‘Why are you cautioning me? I ain’t done nuffink.’

  ‘Where were you on the night of July the seventeenth?’

  Mott still smiled. ‘Biowed if I know.’

  ‘Or August the fifth?’

  And smiled again. He was enjoying the game. ‘I’d have to ask me social seccerterry.’

  ‘How long have you been working for the Ryans?’

  The smile vanished. Mott resorted to a fit of coughing to disguise the reality of his reaction. The name ‘Ryan’ alone might have been enough to turn that sallow hide pale.

  Troy waited for him to finish hoiking, straighten up and put another cigarette to his lips.

  ‘Never ‘eard of ‘em.’

  The match shook in his hand. Troy gripped Mott’s hand in his and guided the flame to the tip, squeezing hard as he did so. Mott twisted his head to get closer to the flame, accepting pain as a fair price for his shot of nicotine.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mott. I must be going deaf. I thought you just said you’d never heard of them.’ Troy let him go.

  One swift, greedy drag, and another fit of coughing. ‘Well. I’ve ‘eard of ‘em. O’ course I ‘ave. Everybody’s ‘eard of ‘em. But that’s it. I don’t know nuffink. I ain’t done nuffink. I just . . . ‘eard of ‘em. That’s all.’

  ‘New kids on the block, eh?’

  ‘Yeah . . . that’s it . . . new kids.’

  ‘New kids who bumped off John Brocklehurst, Joey Rork and Glenda Felucci, and made Bernie Champion vanish into thin air.’

  Mott inhaled deeply and blew out a long cloud of smoke. ‘We was all shocked by what happened to Mr Brocklehurst. It weren’t right. And poor Glenda. I knew ‘er when she was a little girl. That we
ren’t right neither. I never ‘eard of that other bloke. But Bernie . . . Bernie’s just taking a break.’

  ‘Bernie’s dead, Mott.’

  ‘No . . . ‘e ain’t, Mr Troy. ‘E’ll be back any day now. I reckon ‘e’s away on a spot of business. ‘E’ll be back any day now, you mark my words.’

  ‘Bernie was set up by a member of your team, set up and bumped off by the Ryans. The Ryans then came to you lot, the dregs at the bottom of Alf and Bernie’s pickle barrel, and told you they were taking over. You’ve spent the summer working for the new kids, only they’re not kids. Now – where were you the night Bernie vanished?’

  ‘It was a Thursday the last time I saw Bernie. An’ I always play snooker on Thursdays.’

  ‘And you’ve witnesses to this?’

  ‘Every Thursday since 1945. Sid Stott’s pool room by Stepney Green station. Ask anybody.’

  ‘So who was with Bernie that night? Who drove for him, who was meant to be guarding him?’

  ‘I never drove for ‘im, Mr Troy. Why would Bernie want me drivin’ for ‘im when he had Lou and Saggy? Two o’ the best

  The brick dropped so clunkily on to the table that even Mott heard it and stopped.

  ‘So it was Lou and Saggy who set Bernie up?’

  ‘I don’t know nuffink.’

  ‘You stood by and let two of your mates sell out the man who’d looked after you since you got out of the nick nearly twenty years ago. You stepped aside and you let a pair of tearaway kids blow him away.’

  ‘I don’t know nuffink.’

  Troy got up to leave, Mott yelling at his back, ‘I don’t know nuffink! What could I know? Bernie ain’t dead, Bernie’ll be back!’

  Troy left Mott alone with Shrimp Robertson, and went in search of Godbehere. Godbehere was just emerging from an interview with Lou Levy. ‘He’s the only one who brought his brief. I feel like I’m playing in the yes-no interlude in there. I’ll get gonged off any minute.’

  ‘I think I know why Lou might be the only one who wanted a brief. He’s probably the one who helped Mazzer set up Bernie for the Ryans.’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll confess to that in a month of Sundays.’

  ‘Nor do I. String it out as long as you can – until about half an hour before the pubs close if possible. I want them in a pub tonight, bewailing their lot and shooting their mouths off.’

  ‘I’ve been with them just over an hour and we’re already at the point where his brief is saying, “My client has already answered that question, Mr Godbehere.” I’m running out of new ways to phrase the same question.’

  ‘Try for ten o’clock at least – and then turn them loose. Everyone but Mott. Let Mott spend a night in the cells.’

  85

  Troy caught the Underground back to Charing Cross and walked along the Embankment to Scotland Yard.

  Mary McDiarmuid was still at work in his outer office. A pile of files a foot high on her desk – a dozen or more spread out across the floor, and Mary on her knees hunched over them.

  ‘I think I’ve got something,’ she said, turning to look wry-necked at Troy.

  ‘So soon?’

  ‘Once you lay down criteria, so much else just falls away. Doesn’t make the conclusion the right one, but it does throw up possibilities that fit the initial assumption.’

  She was learning fast. That was an Eddie Clark sentence. The precise phrasing of the consummate philosopher con-artist, offering no hostages to logic or fortune. A retreat always open to an implicit ‘I told you so.’ Troy knelt beside her – a movement that would have sent him reeling with giddiness a fortnight ago.

  ‘There’s two that really stand out. Him . . .’ Mary slapped the flat of her hand on an open file. ‘. . . and him.’

  She reached across the floor and pulled a file nearer to them. ‘Naill Devanney. Aged twenty. Been missing since last Christmas. Labourer on a council road crew in Warrington. His mother reported him missing the day after Boxing Day. He has the physique to be either of these. And you’ll see . . .’ She held up the photo to Troy. ‘Quite the pretty boy. I could fancy him m’self’

  ‘But,’ said Troy, ‘queer?’

  ‘Boss, nobody, however worried about their son, is going to walk into a nick anywhere in Britain and say the boy is queer. What Mrs Devanney actually said was that he was always getting picked on at work, and that he’d been beaten up a couple of times outside pubs. I’d put money on Niall being a poof. I’d put money on him knowing he was different, holding back most of his life and only acknowledging it when his mates started calling him a nancy-boy and making his life into hell.’

  ‘Bad as that, eh?’

  ‘I’m from Glasgow. Take it from me. Most working-class men feel threatened by queers, or anyone they suspect might be.’

  ‘And the other.’

  ‘John Mackie from Skelmersdale.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Lancashire, sort of between Liverpool and Bolton. John was nineteen. Vanished in February. Not a labourer. A clerk at the Co-op accounts department. But he belonged to a gym and went in for bodybuilding. His parents went to the police together after he’d been gone five days. There’s nothing so definite to make me think he was queer, except their reluctance to talk about their son’s character, friends, hobbies – you name it … To judge by their answers to the local police they hardly knew the lad. Either they’re not telling what they know or he led a double life. Either way I can feel my thumbs pricking.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Troy. ‘I think it’s time we called in a favour from Mr Milligan.’

  ‘Mr Milligan?’

  ‘He was transferred to Warrington.’

  Paddy heard Troy out, offered to call a friend at Skelmersdale and to drive round to the Devanney household in person. But there was a but. ‘Knocking on someone’s door and saying, “That lad you reported missing may well be dead. And, oh, by the way was he a shirtlifter?” isn’t exactly guaranteed to get results. Not on Merseyside anyway.’

  ‘I’ll leave that to your tact, Paddy.’

  ‘Give me about an hour,’ he said.

  As Troy rung off, Mary McDiarmuid was standing in front of him clutching a note. ‘The strangest character rang up. Sort of bloke who’d use three words where one would do. Name of Fish Wally. Wants to meet you. St Stephen’s, as soon as you can.’

  86

  It was warm in the upstairs room at St Stephen’s Tavern. Warm and empty. It was the watering-hole of MPs – this being the summer recess, there was not one to be seen. Just the odd peer and the odder policeman, stranded like crabs in rock-pools at low tide. Empty, and warm enough for Wally to have forsaken his overcoat. But for the Mickey Mouse gloves he looked rather like a barrister, with his black jacket and striped trousers. He sat at a centre table, sipping neat vodka. When he saw Troy enter he raised the glass and indicated more of the same. Troy changed a fiver at the bar and set a glass apiece in front of Wally. He would have liked an ice cube in his, but he did not feel like hearing Wally’s lecture on how to drink vodka.

  ‘I am sorry to drag you out, but this is as safe as anywhere. I have news, of sorts. I caught up with old Bobby Collington. A day or so after we last met he decided to retire. Something proved too much for the old man. I tracked him out to a seaside boarding-house.’

  ‘Frinton?’

  ‘Herne Bay. Where he lives under the tender care of a Mrs Cravat, whilst looking in every estate agent’s for a suitable bungalow. The man is clearly through with London. Indeed, to invoke Dr Johnson, I thought he might be through with life. He was reluctant to see me, but I oiled his wheels. In fact, you owe me for a first-class return fare and a bottle of single malt. But … he eased up and he talked. The Ryans came into his office – I do not know precisely when, but it must have been around the time we last met – high on the thrill. Bobby thought they were drunk at first, but it dawned on him that it was the intoxication of action. After all, he and I and you saw so much of that during the war. The garrulousness
of it all. The constant, compulsive rehashing of a moment. As potent as any drug, you will agree. They told him how they had, and I quote, “bumped off a copper’s nark”.’

  ‘They did,’ said Troy. ‘Or, at least, I can see how they might think he was a copper’s nark.’

  ‘Understandably Bobby panicked. He told them he wanted out and offered to sell them his remaining share of the club for twenty thousand pounds. He took five. Within forty-eight hours he had let his flat in Marylebone, and set off for Kent with a suitcase and a portable gramophone. He says he will never go back to London. Nor, alas, will he ever repeat anything of what he told me. I don’t know what use it would be in court anyway, but I rather think Bobby would die before he’d testify against the Ryans. They have him well and truly scared.’

  ‘I need a witness, Wally.’

  ‘Collington is not your man. I begin to wonder who is. This pair seem to scare the living daylights out of everyone they meet. You need a very brave man, a very foolish man … or else you should be praying they do something utterly stupid.’

  ‘I’m working on that,’ said Troy.

  He bought Wally another vodka, left two fivers under the glass, saw the gloved hand make them disappear like a music-hall conjuror, and went back to the Yard.

  87

  ‘Nothing doing,’ said Milligan. ‘The couple in Skelmersdale wouldn’t let my mate over the threshold. They slammed the door in his face as soon as he asked the question. I had better luck. I got past the front door – but Devanney practically chucked me out of the house once he realised what I wanted. His wife was more willing. I could see she wanted to talk. But for the old man she might have done. But your guess was right. The rage had motive. Kept banging on about “no son of mine” and all that malarkey. The boy’s a poof all right. In fact, I don’t think he ran away, I rather think the old man threw him out.’