The Players And The Game

by Julian Symons

  ‘That letter from Abel. Lowson hasn’t got it?’

  ‘No, the other girl kept it. All she remembers is, it was typewritten, and that some of the things he said made them laugh. They thought it might be a black magic group, and it does sound like that. Abel sent an envelope with an address on it, but she can’t remember that either. Or his surname, except that it was Gil or Gal something, and they thought it was Italian or Maltese.’

  ‘You don’t think she’s holding anything back?’

  ‘She’s a frightened girl,’ Hazleton said with satisfaction. ‘She told me all she knows.’

  The Toff was turning the pages of the magazine. ‘Extraordinary the things people want to do, isn’t it? Transvestism, watching other people, doing things in groups. I can’t say things like that ever appealed to me. I see that Bert gives an address here for letters, and says that visitors are welcome. Presumably it’s where he lives. I think you should get on your horse. From the look of it, we’re in for a long weekend.’

  I like that we, Hazleton thought.

  Seventeen hundred hours. In fact Hazleton didn’t mind working at the week-end. It got him away from weeding the flower beds and clipping the hedge, which he detested. Sergeant Brill, who went with him, had made arrangements to take a girl out that evening, and was not pleased by the idea that he might be working late. Hazleton would have called on Plender, but he was off duty, a fact that proved unfortunate. Had Plender accompanied the DCI, arrests might have been made that day, and one life might have been saved.

  Brill, Charlie Brill, had a bashed-in rugger face and unfashionably short fair hair. He was an ambitious officer, who was keen to demonstrate his merits to his superiors. In the car he looked at the copy of Meet Up carefully.

  ‘You see what the technique for sending on letters is, sir? Quite ingenious. You write to one of these box numbers, stick your letter in a plain envelope, write the box number on the back, post it to Bert in another envelope with his fee. You can write four letters for a pound. Bert opens the envelope addressed to him, extracts his fee, looks at the number on the back of the blank envelope, writes the address, posts the letter. Secrecy preserved from everybody except Bert at 123B Westfield Grove.’

  Hazleton grunted. ‘It’s the sort of thing that ought to be stopped.’

  They entered London’s south-eastern suburbs, went through Bromley, Beckenham and Penge, and came to East Dulwich. They passed through wide tree-shaded roads, where large decaying Victorian houses divided into flats awaited the destructive embrace of the property developer who would convert them into what would be called select residential flats. Westfield Grove was one of these roads. Children playing ball stopped and watched them as they got out of the car. The house was grey brick, with steps leading up to a shabby front door, but 123B proved to be the basement. They went down into an area and knocked.

  The door was opened by a pimply boy in his teens, with a sparse growth around the chin. He looked at them without surprise and said, ‘Yair?’

  ‘I want to speak to Bert.’

  ‘Yair.’ He led the way down a passage into a dusty office that contained a small desk piled high with letters, three kitchen chairs and a filing cabinet. A door opposite the one they had come in by presumably led to the back. The boy sat down at the desk, licked stamps and put them on letters as though his life depended on it.

  Hazleton sat on one of the kitchen chairs. Brill asked, ‘You’re not Bert?’

  ‘Nah.’ He pressed a bell push on his desk three times. ‘Know what that’s for?’

  ‘To call Bert.’

  ‘One buzz is a call, two’s complaints, three’s fuzz.’

  ‘Was it that obvious?’

  ‘I seen enough fuzz. I got X-ray eyes for ’em.’

  The two big policemen made the room seem crowded. Hazleton smiled, in a way that meant nothing good. He got up, walked over to the desk, picked up a bunch of the letters and threw them on the floor. Then he got hold of the boy’s ear and pulled hard. The boy howled, tried to rise and made a feeble attempt to punch Hazleton. The DCI twisted one of the boy’s arms behind his back.

  ‘Assaulting a police officer, you saw that, Sergeant. Now get out there and stop Bert if he’s trying to make a get-away.’

  Brill had already moved to the door, and his hand was on it when it opened. A small woman with bright bleached hair came into the room. She wore spectacles encrusted with what were possibly precious stones, a short tight red dress cut to show considerable cleavage, and matching high-heeled red shoes.

  ‘Where the hell d’you think you’re going? And what are you doing to Georgie?’ She stood in front of the door.

  ‘Georgie, is it? I don’t like his manners.’ Hazleton sent the boy spinning across the room. He crashed into the filing cabinet. ‘And just get out of the way, will you. We’re looking for Bert.’

  ‘I’m Bert. You can shut your mouth, no need to look that surprised. Thing is, most clients don’t like the idea of dealing with a woman. It’s okay if they come here and see me, but not many do that. The name’s Alberta, Bert for short. You’re not clients, are you?’

  ‘You know that already.’ The DCI showed his card. She moved away from the door. ‘Brill, go through and see what you can find.’

  ‘You’ve got a bleeding nerve.’ She sat down behind the desk, folded her arms and stayed silent until Brill returned. He shook his head.

  ‘Kitchenette and bedroom, that’s all. Single room. No sign of any permanent male occupant.’

  ‘I tell you why. There isn’t one, not now.’

  ‘You mean there was?’

  ‘I turned him out a couple of weeks ago. His name was Alastair, and he was a layabout. And a pinchfist too, he had the idea that I’d do the work and he’d take the cash and give me an allowance.’

  ‘Alastair what?’ Hazleton was momentarily diverted.

  ‘I never knew. What do you want?’

  ‘A little information about your business.’

  ‘Not local, are you? I’ve had the locals round. I said to him and I say to you, I run a postal service, that’s all, and I’m not responsible for anything outside it. Every page of the mag says it’s an offence to send pornography through the post. I can’t help it if the silly buggers do it, can I?’

  ‘Look, Miss – what’s your name?’

  ‘Norman.’

  ‘At present I’m not interested in the way you run your business. How long’s it been going, by the way?’

  ‘Just a few weeks. Why?’

  ‘Start it up with this Alastair, did you?’

  ‘No. He was what you might call transient. Bed and board. Couple of friends gave me the idea. There’s a dozen mags like Meet Up.’

  ‘And from the look of that lot of envelopes you’re not doing too badly.’

  ‘We meet a need.’

  ‘I dare say. So you run it on your own? Just with Georgie here?’

  ‘That’s right. Georgie sticks on stamps, posts letters. He’s got a couple of friends who come in to help. Otherwise it’s just me.’ She looked at her pink nails. ‘Do you want Georgie?’

  ‘How could anybody want him? I’ll bet his mother doesn’t.’ Georgie moved towards the door. ‘Just a minute, son. I don’t want you, but I do want your name and address. Give it to the sergeant.’

  When the boy had gone Alberta Norman crossed fat legs. ‘What can I do for you? I like to keep in with the law.’ Her voice had a tinny quality that seemed synthetic. Indeed to Hazleton her whole personality appeared false, as though she were a bad actress. But this was not his immediate concern.

  ‘I want the name and address of one of your advertisers.’

  ‘They’re confidential, or supposed to be,’ she said, and Hazleton knew there would be no trouble. More than that, he felt that she knew what he had been about to ask.

  ‘I suppose I shall have to give you what you want. Men usually do get what they want, don’t they? What’s the number?’

  ‘E. 203.’

>   She opened a box on her desk and started to flick through the cards, took one out and handed it to Hazleton. It was typed, and in the top left hand corner said E. 203. On the body of the card was the address: Abel Giluso, Batchsted Farm, East Road, Sutton Willis.

  ‘I’ll keep this.’ She did not protest. ‘Have you ever met this man, Giluso?’

  ‘No, he’s never been in. Just sent his money and some letters, like most of ’em. Then I post on the letters, that’s all.’

  ‘Nice little racket,’ Brill said appreciatively. ‘What’s in here, then?’ He had his hand on the filing cabinet. She came round the desk screaming something, and slapped at his arm. Brill was conscious of a thick hot body against his own, then her semi-precious glasses fell off and he stooped to pick them up.

  ‘Come on now, what’s in here?’

  ‘That’s my business. Anyway, it’s locked.’

  ‘Come on, come on,’ the DCI said impatiently. ‘I’m not worried about any other little games you’re up to. Open it up.’

  She took a key ring from her handbag, unlocked the cabinet. Inside was a collection of sex devices, from oddly shaped and pimpled condoms to massagers, corsets and rubber suits. Brill burst out laughing. ‘What do you lock these up for? You can buy them in any of the sex supermarkets.’

  ‘Georgie and his friends, they play around with them.’

  It seemed to Hazleton that this was a deliberate diversion. ‘Giluso. Have you spoken to him on the telephone, had any letters written to you?’

  ‘No. I tell you, all they have to do is fill in the form, there’s no need to write.’

  ‘Do you keep a record of what letters you send on?’ She shook her head. Hazleton pushed his face into hers. ‘You’re in trouble, Bert. A lot of trouble. We want to talk to Giluso, and I think you know where he is, don’t you?’ She shook her brassy head again. ‘If you’re lying to me, Bert, I’ll see you get done. You’ve got form already, don’t tell me you haven’t, but I’ll really see you get done. Now, how many letters did this Giluso have? And what else do you know about him?’

  ‘I don’t know anything. Never seen him, never spoken to him. How many letters? I don’t know, maybe half a dozen.’

  Some smell came from her to the DCI’s sensitive nostrils. He felt sure that she was lying.

  ‘You open the letters, don’t you?’ Brill said. ‘You’re not supposed to, but you do. Then you stick ’em back again. Could be useful for blackmail. I bet you make a nice little bit in black on the side.’ She shook her head again, took off her glasses and twirled them. ‘And while we’re about it, what’s the point of wearing these?’ He took them from her, gave them to Hazleton. ‘Plain glass. I noticed when I picked them up.’

  Her eyes flickered. ‘They go with the job. They’re the kind of thing people expect me to wear, those who come in. And look here.’ She opened half a dozen of the letters addressed to her. Sealed envelopes dropped out, with their code numbers on the back for addressing. Pound notes and postal orders dropped out too. ‘With money like this coming in, why would I need to try anything else?’

  Hazleton felt that he was wasting time. No doubt Bert was playing round in some way or another with pornographic material, but there seemed no point in going through all her files. He picked up the card index on the desk, handed it to Brill.

  ‘That’s my living you’re taking away.’

  ‘Think yourself lucky I’m not taking you as well. If there’s nothing we want here you’ll get it back.’

  ‘It won’t do any good. They’re mostly accommodation addresses.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  When the two men had gone Bert Norman reached for the telephone.

  Eighteen-thirty hours. Sutton Willis was in the southern part of the county, fifteen miles from Rawley. They drove along roads crowded with grim-faced holiday week-enders travelling bumper to bumper as they moved like lemmings to the sea, then turned off into country lanes. It was still hot, and as Brill looked through the cards he found his fingers sticking to them. When he had finished he put them back in the box.

  ‘Nothing that strikes me, sir, except that a lot of ’em look like accommodation names as well as addresses, the men anyway. John Jones, c/o 84 Abernethy Street, Worcester, that sort of thing. Several Smiths, mostly William. Doesn’t look as if the women bother with it, their names sound more likely. Natural enough, I suppose, the men have mostly got wives and families, the women are either on the game or what you might call professional amateurs. My girl’s got two or three friends who’d do anything for a fiver.’

  ‘Has she now? You want to watch it.’

  ‘Liz wouldn’t step out of line. She knows if she did she’d be in trouble. Right here for Sutton Willis.’

  They turned right. Hazleton said thoughtfully, ‘Abel Giluso. That’s not like John Jones. Maybe it’s his real name, and he is a foreigner.’

  Sutton Willis was a dozen houses and a village shop. They asked an old man the way to Batchsted Farm.

  ‘Batchsted Farm you want, is it?’

  ‘You got cloth ears, dad? That’s what I asked for,’ Brill said.

  The old man had been about to make some further remark, but he cut it off. ‘Turn left at the crossroads, half a mile to the right there’s a cart track. Farm’s along there, you can see it from the road.’ He turned his back on them.

  They turned left at the crossroads down a narrow lane, and slowed down. It was more like a mile than half a mile when they stopped and got out. Hazleton swore.

  Beside the cart track a notice board said: Batchsted Farm. Residence and 3 acres. For Sale by private treaty. Apply J. Darling and Co., Bishopsgate, Rawley. The notice was old and the paint faded.

  Across the fields could be seen what looked like a deserted farm. As they went down the track this impression was proved correct. A solid, ugly brick farmhouse confronted them, its windows blind with boards. Several outbuildings, wooden structures in various stages of decay, surrounded a farmyard where grass grew. A cat delicately picked its way among cans and broken bottles. They walked round the back in silence. There was a pond that looked deep and dirty. Broken fences led to weedy fields. Brill pushed at one of the back doors and it gave.

  ‘We’re in,’ he called, and bent down to look. ‘Somebody’s forced an entry. Not too recent though, by the look of it.’

  Hazleton was not an impressionable man, but he remembered what they had found at Planter’s Place, and found himself a little reluctant to enter the farmhouse. Brill had brought a torch from the car, and Hazleton let him go ahead, shining it about and making occasional facetious comments.

  ‘Kitchen, I suppose. Smells high enough, doesn’t it, who’s been eating gorgonzola? Careful when you tread there, sir, that looks to me like a dried turd, and I don’t mean dog turd at that. Living-room. Someone’s made a fire, but it looks like a good while back. Hall and stairs. Hallo, hallo, nobody’s going to get up those stairs in a hurry.’

  The stairs were broken, with three complete treads missing. When Brill pulled at them another piece came away.

  ‘I don’t know what you think, sir, but I should say nobody’s been doing anything criminal here lately.’ The DCI did not comment on this evident truth. Brill’s ebullience was getting on his nerves. When they were outside he led the way to the outbuildings, and resolutely pulled open the door of the first. There was a rustling sound. A pair of eyes looked out of the darkness. Then Brill shone his torch and a large grey rat blundered past them and disappeared round a corner.

  ‘Now what was he gnawing, some nice bit of tender meat?’ said the irrepressible Brill. The torch revealed the carcass of a pigeon. ‘No, just a bit of nature red in tooth and claw. This was once a coal hole, by the look of it. Shall we try the next?’

  But the other outbuildings held nothing more interesting than broken bicycles, bits of tractors, rusty farm tools. When they had finished they stood staring at the derelict place.

  ‘The question is,’ Hazleton said, ‘what was the
idea of Giluso getting his letters sent here, how did he get them delivered, when did he collect? And where from?’ He slapped his thigh. ‘That For Sale sign. There’s some sort of box just by it.’

  The box was a plain wooden one with a slot in it, of a kind more common in America than in England. There was a lock, which Brill broke with a car spanner. Inside was a letter addressed to Mr A Giluso, with the number ‘E. 203’ on the back. The letter was posted from East Dulwich, obviously by Georgie or Bert. It was signed Estelle, gave a telephone number, and said that she was a real dolly swinger, 21, able to give any man a good time. She didn’t live in Sussex but had her own cosy pad in Bayswater. She liked anything kinky, and was sure she would give satisfaction. She would expect a little present.

  ‘That’s one dolly swinger who won’t fall into Dracula’s clutches,’ Brill said.

  Hazleton’s patience had worn through. ‘Brill, this case isn’t a joke. It’s about a mass murderer. What’s the matter?’

  Brill could hardly speak. When he could get out the words he said, ‘Dracula, sir.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Have you got a piece of paper? There’s a pad in the car.’ He leaned up against the car door writing, then turned with a wide smile and showed the paper to Hazleton. It said: Abel Giluso Bela Lugosi

  ‘It was saying “Dracula” that put it into my mind. Anagram, you see. There’s some use in doing crosswords after all. You remember Lugosi played Dracula quite often, he had those funny eyes, he was in lots of horror films.’

  Hazleton did not remember. It was years since he had been to a cinema. Brill went on.

  ‘Dracula was a vampire, used to suck his victims’ blood. Wasn’t there a lot of blood about with the Allbright girl?’