‘Please don’t go, Evie. Let me apologize properly. Don’t leave me. I need you.’
‘You should have thought of that before you became so free with your hands. No man gets a second chance to hit me, not even the great Raymond Carter.’
She hurried to the door and was out into the street before he could react coherently and say something sensible in response. As the door slammed, the sound echoed in his brain like a roll of thunder.
Carter stared at the door for a while, not knowing what to do. Eventually he wandered back into the sitting-room as though in a trance. What the devil was happening to him? Within a few days his whole world seemed to be crumbling and crashing around him as though it had been hit by one of Hitler’s air raids. Somehow he’d been dragged from the Elysian fields into a dark and dangerous side road where his fate was uncertain. He didn’t know who the hell he could trust any more. In a daze he picked up Charlie Dokes and slipped his hand inside. The head turned and the eyes moved as though to gaze at him.
‘Cheer up,’ the doll said. ‘Worse things happen at sea.’
Carter grinned in spite of himself.
‘I’ve got to get you ready, Charlie old boy. I’ve got that bloody show to do tonight, or the fat will really be in the fire.’
‘Ready when you are, old man.’
Carter laid down the dummy on the sofa and was making his way to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face when the telephone rang. It was now a sound that he had come to dread. His whole body stiffened and he found himself clenching his fists with fear. He cried out as though in pain. He wanted to bellow, ‘Leave me alone.’ But he didn’t. Instead, like an automaton, he turned and walked back into the sitting-room and stood by the shrieking instrument. For a moment his hand hovered and then gently with an aching heart he lifted the receiver and placed it by his ear.
THIRTEEN
* * *
The warm beery fug hit me with some force as I pulled open the door of the Guardsman pub. It enveloped me like the welcoming arms of an old friend. The chill November air that had been freezing me to the marrow was instantly forgotten and I felt my body not only relax but expand with relief and pleasure.
It was only six in the evening but the place was already crowded with punters easing the rigours of the day with booze, cigarettes and inconsequential conversation which buzzed around the place. I squeezed my way through the throng to my usual corner to discover that David Llewellyn was already ensconced there and halfway though a pint. He looked ghastly, rather like the ghost of Jacob Marley, wrapped as he was in his voluminous trench coat with a complexion like the morning ashes in the grate and dark semi circles hanging below his bloodshot eyes. It struck me that I must look in a similar grim half-dead condition, or maybe even worse given that I’d been up somewhat longer than my friend. To test this assumption, I tried to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror behind the bar, but the smoke and dim lighting and jostling customers prevented me from getting a good look at my phizog. It was for the best, I reasoned. I felt sure I looked like an extra from a Bela Lugosi zombie picture. I certainly felt like one.
On my arrival, David ordered a fresh drink for himself and a pint for me. ‘When I’ve finished this, I’m heading home for bed.’
‘I think I might join you,’ I said.
He smiled and raised an eyebrow acknowledging the spark of a joke in my response. We were both too weary to pick it up.
‘What news have you got?’ I asked.
He sighed, inflating his cheeks and then releasing the air. ‘Nothing of significance I reckon. As we suspected, Arthur Keating was strangled. He died around midnight. I’ve spoken to his radio producer today.’
‘Edward Simmons … so have I.’
‘And I’ve seen Percy Goodall, the announcer on the show. But learned very little. Our friend Carter doesn’t seem to arouse much feeling in folk either way. People don’t appear to hate him, but they don’t fall over themselves to be in his company either. He’s a bit of a blank. However Simmons seemed to think that Gilbert Manville, the chap that does all the funny voices on the show harbours a bit of a grudge against our Raymond. Maybe you’d like to follow that up, boyo.’
I nodded. Any lead is better than no lead. David passed me a scrap of paper. ‘This is where he lives,’ he said. ‘Not far from your gaff. A flat in the Euston area. Let me know how you get on.’
‘Sure.’
‘Another thing. Both Simmons and Goodall were of the opinion that maybe Carter and the girl singer Evelyn Munro might be a little closer than they let on.’
‘Ah, Evelyn Munro. The soubrette.’
David returned my smile. ‘My, we are picking up the showbiz lingo, aren’t we?’
I touched my hat in mock salute.
‘Well, call her what you will, I’ll be meeting her tomorrow so I’ll see if I can get the low down on her relationship with Mr Dokes’s keeper.’
‘I got a hint of that as well. I suppose if they are in a torrid affair …’
‘’Ere, Mr Hawke, watch your language.’
‘… it might present a motive.’
‘How come?’
‘For someone who is jealous of the liaison. Someone who wants Miss Munro for himself.’
‘Tenuous but possible.’ David took a sip of his second pint. ‘Tell me, Johnny, what’s your take on the Keating murder? I can’t see Carter being the killer, can you?’
I shook my head. ‘It seems unlikely, but not completely out of the question. I’ve been in this game long enough to know you cannot eliminate any possibilities, however improbable, until you really know the truth. However, I rang Carter about an hour ago to check on things and he took ages to answer the phone and when he did, he sounded like a terrified schoolboy. Unless he’s up for an Oscar, I reckon this phantom caller has really got him well and truly spooked.’
‘I hate dealing with theatricals. You can never tell where you are with them. Their working lives are filled with falseness and sleight of hand. It spills over into their real world too. But, you know what, Johnny, if I’m honest I reckon we won’t get any further with this case until something else happens, something that helps to indicate some kind of a pattern. All we have now is a series of threatening phone calls that no one has been a witness to – and a murder. Not much for an investigation to take flight.’
Unfortunately, I had to agree with David. We might have been presented with a small cast of suspects but there was no clue whatsoever as to the identity of the culprit or what the motive was. However, I suspect that our mystery foe was having a right old time winding up Raymond Carter and he would continue the process rather than go for Carter himself. That little entertainment could wait. But I had no idea what his or her next move was going to be and gazing at my fellow zombie whose eyes were flickering with tiredness over his beer glass, neither did he.
We left the pub together, abandoning its strange protective warmth and emerging into the bitter Stygian gloom of a winter’s evening. We shook hands as we prepared to part and wend our individual ways.
‘Now, I know you, Johnny Hawke,’ said David, waving a good-natured finger at me. ‘I don’t want you keeping any useful information to yourself so that you can unmask the murderer in a dramatic fashion like they do in the pictures. Remember this is a police investigation first and foremost, so you keep me in the frame, all right?’
‘Yes, sir.’ I stood to attention and gave him a mock salute. He threw me a sarcastic glance and disappeared into the darkness of the night.
It was still quite early. I thought it might be useful to make a call on that flat in the Euston area and see what Mr Gilbert Manville had to say for himself. And so I took myself along to 34 Croxfield Mansions. The word ‘mansions’ was a serious misnomer. These flats were only a few notches up from slum dwellings. I wondered what a radio performer was doing living in such a place. But then he wasn’t a big star like Raymond Carter, just a fairly anonymous feed.
It was a tenement style buildin
g with the flat in question on the second floor. It was reached by traversing a twisting stone staircase which stank of mould and urine. On reaching the second floor, I made my way along the balcony dodging under the various lines of damp washing strung out there until I eventually came to number 34. I knocked hard on the door but there was no response. I reckoned that this was not going to be my lucky night. I waited a few minutes, knocked again, waited and then threw in the towel on this particular venture. It was obvious that the fellow was out. As I turned to make my way back, running the gauntlet with the soggy washing, a shadowy figure of a man appeared out of the gloom before me. He was shambling and short of breath.
‘What do you want?’ he asked. The tone was puzzled rather than brusque.
‘Mr Manville?’ I said.
‘What’s left of him.’ The voice was blurred with alcohol.
‘I’m a detective investigating the death of Arthur Keating and I wondered—’
‘Arthur’s dead? My God. How?’ He seemed genuinely shocked and upset. But then he was an actor.
‘He was murdered. Strangled.’
‘Christ!’ Manville staggered a few paces. ‘You’d better come in.’ He fumbled with his keys and opened the door of his flat.
The place was a tip inside. Papers, scripts were scattered everywhere. Cups of half-drunk tea decorated the tiled mantelpiece and dining-table. I could see into the kitchen area where the sink was piled high with dirty crockery, while a small mound of empty tin cans and food packets littered the work surface. I thought my place was untidy but it was a palace compared to Manville’s gaff.
‘It’s a bit of a mess, I’m afraid,’ he said observing my glances. ‘I shall need to clean the place up a bit. Margaret’s coming home in a few weeks,’ he mumbled, more to himself than to me. With a violent gesture, he tossed a series of papers from the sofa to floor in order to clear a space for me. ‘Take a seat, Mr … Mr?’
‘Hawke. John Hawke.’
‘Would you care for a beer? A Guinness maybe?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m fine, thanks.’
‘You don’t mind if I indulge.’
‘Not at all.’
He wandered into the kitchen, returning some moments later with a bottle of Guinness. He cleared a space in the armchair opposite and flopped down in it. ‘So, Mr Hawke, what do you want to know?’
‘I really want to talk to you about Raymond Carter.’
‘I thought you said Arthur Keating was dead. What’s Carter got to do with it?’
‘I believe that someone is trying to frame Mr Carter for Keating’s murder.’
‘Wouldn’t surprise me if Carter had done the old bloke in.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Manville’s face twisted into an expression of deep hatred. ‘Do you know the man? Have you met him? He’s a cold-hearted bastard. Wouldn’t lend me a hundred quid to save my Margaret’s life. She’s slipping away from me and they’ve told me that if she leaves the sanatorium, they don’t give her longer than three months.’ He shook his head sadly and took a gulp from the bottle.
I’m used to piecing together random comments into a comprehensible whole from the characters I interview in the course of my investigations – especially the ones whose emotional equilibrium is tilted even further off the level by the intake of alcohol. With some gentle probing and minor leaps of reason, I was able to knit together the strands of Manville’s tale. In simple terms: his wife was in a sanatorium, dying of consumption, but Manville could no longer maintain the payments to keep her there. He had approached Carter for a loan to help him out but ‘the miserable bastard’ had refused. So Margaret had to come home. I gazed around me at the squalor of the flat and felt something of the despair that Manville was feeling. If I had the hundred pounds, I would gladly have passed the money over to him.
‘Where were you last night?’ I asked, moving the subject back to Keating’s murder.
‘Last night?’ Initially his tired brain had trouble with the concept. ‘Oh, I was with Margaret. I stay at the sanatorium a couple of nights a week if I can. They make up a camp-bed in her room for me. I’ve only just left, a few hours ago, then I called in for a few drinks in town.’ He paused and rubbed his hand over his face as though he were trying to reshape it into something or someone else. ‘Who killed Arthur did you say?’
‘I didn’t,’ I said. ‘The investigation is still ongoing.’
‘Oh, I see. Well I hope they catch the bastard.’
Well in my considered estimation, the ‘bastard’ certainly wasn’t Manville. He was a wreck of a man, with an imminent tragedy about to engulf him. Of course I’d pass on the info to David and he could check up on the sanatorium story, but I was convinced. I reckoned that we could eliminate Mr Manville from our lists of suspects. I hoped I wasn’t being naïve. I left the sad fellow still sitting amid his personal debris, sucking on a bottle of Guinness.
As I made my way back towards Tottenham Court Road, it crossed my mind to take myself down to the Velvet Cage, the night club which on occasion became my second home. Here I could indulge in a night cap, while catching the first set of Tommy Whittle and his group. But in the end I felt so weary that even the thought of a good Scotch and some cool jazz couldn’t tempt me from the prospect of a reasonably early night in my little lumpy bed back at Hawke Towers. And so I wandered home, allowing my mind to drift over the events of the last forty-eight hours.
I felt a tinge of guilt when I was reminded of David’s words about keeping him in the picture. Of course I’d tell him about my encounter with Manville but I wasn’t yet prepared to share my own thoughts and theories about the case and I wouldn’t be in a hurry to inform him about my visit to Brighton tomorrow which I hoped would help me assemble a few more pieces of the puzzle. I didn’t like to divulge details until I had something concrete. I guess David knew that.
The telephone was ringing when I arrived home. It was Peter.
‘Hello, Johnny,’ he cried breathlessly, when I lifted the receiver. ‘I thought you weren’t going to answer.’
‘I’ve only just got in. This is a bit late for you to be ringing, isn’t it?’
‘It’s only nine o’clock. I go to bed at half past. Are you on a case?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Is it murder?’
‘Now you know the rules, Peter. You don’t ask me about my cases and I don’t ask you about school work.’
‘Oh, well, I got ten out of ten in a mental arithmetic test today.’
I grinned. ‘Good boy. But I’m not trading on that piece of information.’
‘I wish you would. You know I want to be a detective like you when I grow up.’
‘With ten out of ten in maths I think you should be aiming a little higher: a scientist or a professor maybe.’
Peter mulled this over for a moment. ‘Yeah, that would be good.’
‘Indeed, Professor Peter. I like the sound of that. You could invent a formula to make Hitler disappear.’
There was a snort of laughter. ‘Did you hear Okey Dokes the other night?’
At the mention of the radio show I felt a tingle down my spine. I knew that it was a coincidence but it unnerved me for an instant. ‘No, I didn’t. Was it good?’
‘It was great, Charlie really makes me laugh. Miss Horner says that Charlie Dokes is on at the Palladium. Can … can we go and see him?’
When I didn’t reply immediately, Peter added, ‘Oh, please, Johnny. I really would like to go.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘This Saturday…?’
I grinned at the dark irony of this request. The thought struck me that I could classify a seat in the stalls at the Palladium as research. I reasoned that it would be useful to see the man in action.
‘Oh, please,’ came the plaintive wail squeaking out of the receiver.
‘As I said, I’ll see what I can do,’ I said, my grin broadening.
‘Oh, thanks, Johnny. That would be smashing,�
� he responded, with unbounded enthusiasm, as though the whole thing was arranged and set in stone.
We talked a little longer about inconsequential things and then it was time to say goodbye.
‘Don’t forget about Charlie at the Palladium,’ was Peter’s parting shot.
‘I won’t. Good night, Professor Peter, and God bless.’
Well, I pondered, as I stripped ready to climb under the covers, there’s one little soul going to bed happy tonight. I doubted if Raymond Carter would sleep as soundly.
FOURTEEN
* * *
I had been down to Brighton several times before the war and had fond memories of the town. I remembered it as being imbued with a constant carefree holiday atmosphere: the bold garishness of the shops catering for the seaside trade with the brightly coloured beach balls and buckets and spades in containers spilling out on to the pavement, the flashing coloured lights and raucous hurdy-gurdy noise of its fun fair contrasting with the soothing and hypnotic rise and fall of the tide on its crunchy shingle beach, the elegance of the famous pavilion and what seemed, in retrospect, constant warm sunshine. For a young lad it was a magical place where worries were sloughed off and replaced with swimming trunks and a kiss-me-quick hat, ice cream and saucy postcards. In those days everyone in Brighton seemed to have a smile on their face.
Not so in the November of 1943.
As I made my way from the station to the sea front, a pale winter sun struggled through grey clouds as though attempting to bring a lightness to the dull streets, trying to capture its old glamour, but these scant rays could not eradicate the effect that the war had wreaked on the old seaside town. The boarded-up shops, the bomb-damaged buildings, the tense, hunched posture and grim faces of the folk who passed me by in sullen silence told all too vividly of the demoralizing effects that the war had brought the people and the place. Along the promenade where once the ranks of gaily coloured deckchairs had flapped in the warm breeze there were now rolls of rusting barbed wire barriers strung out in stark regimented fashion and bleak signs warning people off the beach. Above me wheeled the shrieking seagulls, the only signs of the old normality. The grim face that Brighton now wore was the new normality – thanks to Adolf Hitler.
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