The Comedy Club Mystery

by Peter Bartram

  I said: “There’s been a little bit of a hitch in that department.”

  Sidney’s eyes flashed with alarm. “Hitch?”

  “Yes. I no longer work for the paper. I resigned.”

  “But why?” Sidney wailed.

  “I believe the paper should stand by you. Help you clear your name. They can’t do that if they kick you out.”

  “You resigned for me…” Sidney started to snivel again.

  “That’s enough of that. You’ve already made my only handkerchief soggy.”

  Sidney pulled himself together. “It was a noble gesture. But was it wise?”

  “Probably not. But wisdom is often in short supply when you’re angry.”

  “And hard cash is in short supply when you’re out of a job.”

  “I’ll freelance.”

  “The Argus won’t employ you. Not after the number of times you’ve twisted Jim Houghton’s tail.”

  “There are plenty of weeklies. I might even get some work from my first paper, the Worthing Herald.”

  We fell silent.

  Sidney snivelled a bit. Rubbed his hands together nervously. Shifted uncomfortably on the hard wooden seat.

  “I suppose this means you’ll have to leave me to my fate, dear boy.”

  “Tomkins will never get the evidence to have you tried for murder.”

  “But innocent people do get convicted. I’ve read about it. Sometimes hanged.”

  “I’ve got good news for you. Today hanging for murder has been suspended for five years. The government is trying out a policy of abolition – but in my view, capital punishment will never come back.”

  “So I face a lifetime in prison. I’ll have to wear those prison uniforms with arrows all over them. Not very chic is it? Rather passé, I’d say.”

  “Look on the bright side, Sidney. You’ll be sharing the shower with the brawny types with big muscles who do bank jobs.”

  Sidney looked alarmingly interested “Mmmm. By way of introduction, I could always ask one to pass the soap.”

  I grinned. “Get a grip, Sidney. You’re not going to end up in jail. You’ll be out of here in a couple of days when Tomkins realises he hasn’t got enough evidence to hold you.”

  “But what about you?”

  “You know me. Fight the good fight. I may not work for the Chronicle, but I’m still a journalist and I intend to crack this story.”

  I stood up, gave Sidney an encouraging nod, and headed for the door.

  Outside, Tomkins was lurking in the corridor. I expect he’d heard I was visiting Sidney. He’d probably had one of his elephant ears pressed to the door.

  He saw me at once. His lips smeared into a lupine grin. He’d obviously heard the news of my departure from the Chronicle.

  “Well, this is a great day for Brighton,” he said.

  “Is that because you’ve just announced your retirement?” I said. “No doubt the crooks are quaking in their boots. There might be some competent coppers to catch them now.”

  That wiped the grin off his face.

  “I’m not the one out of work,” he snarled.

  “Neither am I. I’ve just changed the way I do it. I’m freelance now.”

  “You’ve got no independent status as a pressman.”

  “I’ve got my Press Card. Officially issued by the National Union of Journalists.”

  “A piece of cardboard. You don’t have accreditation from a paper. So you’re banned from the police station. And from talking to any coppers on the force. Including Ted Wilson. I know how you two are all chummy together. Well, that stops now.”

  He turned and stomped off down the corridor. Swivelled his head and said over his shoulder. “You’re out in the cold now, Crampton.”

  Chapter 12

  I stepped into the street and cursed Tomkins under my breath.

  I dug deep into my four-letter-word vocabulary. Managed a six-letter one too. And seven-letters.

  With that off my chest, I turned and headed towards the Chronicle. Then slapped my hand against my forehead in the “I’m an idiot” gesture.

  I stopped so sharply a young woman pushing a pram crashed into my back.

  I mumbled an apology and stepped aside.

  I’d forgotten. I didn’t need to head to the Chronicle. I couldn’t head to the Chronicle. I no longer worked at the bloody Chronicle.

  Tomkins had reminded me I was out in the cold. In the years I’d known him, it was the first time he’d said something that came close to being true.

  I shuffled along the pavement to keep out of the way of people who bustled by me. Normally I’d stride along like I had springs in my heels. But now my limbs felt stiff and heavy. Perhaps it was a case of heavy heart, heavy body.

  The street was busy for a dull November afternoon. Men in suits swung briefcases as they hurried to meetings. Young women hustled along with bulging shopping bags over their arms. A kid on roller-skates raced by.

  I stood in a shop doorway and wondered what I should do next.

  A big bloke wearing a donkey jacket and flat cap gave me a queer look as he sloped by.

  I glanced in the shop window. The place was a corsetiere. The star item in the window was a big white thing with enough straps and buckles to tie down an elephant. According to the sales tag, it “shaped and firmed”. If that was true, the shop was living off the fat of the land.

  Metaphorically, that wouldn’t be me now. Not now I wasn’t picking up a salary from the Chronicle. I’d have to pay my own expenses, too. But money was likely to be the least of my worries.

  I shuffled out of the doorway and headed down the street.

  I glanced at my watch. It had been less than two hours since I’d walked out on Figgis. I’d spent most of the time trying to boost Sidney’s morale.

  Perhaps I should’ve spent more time on my own.

  It wasn’t surprising. I hadn’t had time to consider the implications of becoming a freelance journalist.

  But Tomkins’ malicious comment had brought home to me just how precarious my position now was. For a start, I would be barred from the police press conferences. You needed proper accreditation to be admitted. Usually that meant working for a newspaper. It was possible for freelancers to worm their way in. But it was at the discretion of the officer in charge. Tomkins. He wasn’t going to give me the time of day let alone a free pass to his press briefings.

  Worse, Tomkins would now put a ban on Ted Wilson talking to me. In the past, Ted had usually ignored Tomkins. The fact Ted most often came up with the clues to solve a case meant Tomkins had to overlook his matey chats with me. But not now. Tomkins would have his spies out – and if Ted stepped out of line he’d be cut down to size. He’d end up directing the traffic around Seven Dials. So, unless Ted agreed to speak to me under top secret conditions, I could kiss goodbye to inside info on what the cops were doing.

  And the trouble didn’t end there. The Chronicle was a well-respected newspaper all over Sussex. Whenever I had a difficult interview to do, a mention of the paper’s name opened doors. A freelancer wouldn’t be welcomed so warmly. Or at all. The fish-and-chip tabloids had given freelancing a bad name. They’d employed seedy types who dug for dirt anywhere. They didn’t care how many innocent people they hurt in the process. So freelancers were often treated with suspicion by the people they wanted to interview.

  And then there was background research. The Chronicle’s morgue was the best in Sussex. And what the morgue didn’t hold in press cuttings, Henrietta Houndstooth held in her remarkable memory. Now I’d resigned, I’d be about as welcome in the morgue as an Egyptian mummy. That could be a serious difficulty on a story like the Bernstein killing. I’d have to think of a way to overcome the problem.

  I’d been lost in thought as I’d walked. Now I realised I’d reached the seafront. Clouds heavy with rain hung over a grey sea. Towards the horizon, a cargo boat chugged through choppy waves. A couple of characters dressed in raincoats and sou’westers leant into the wi
nd as they pounded along Palace Pier. They could have been heading for the theatre. Or the helter-skelter. Or the ghost train.

  I spent a minute watching them. I wondered who they were and why they were there. But then I realised I was shutting out my troubles. I had to face up to them.

  It was where I was headed that was important.

  And I intended to write the scoop about who, how and why Danny Bernstein was killed. I didn’t yet know which paper I’d write the story for. But when I’d cracked it, there’d be no shortage of buyers in Fleet Street for a sensational murder piece.

  But there was one person’s help I was going to need.

  I headed to the phone box outside the pier.

  Shirley Goldsmith gave me a basilisk stare and said: “You must have the brains of a deranged dingo.”

  “Be fair,” I said. “I’ve heard some of those dingoes can be quite crafty. You need brains for guile.”

  We were sitting at the corner table at the back of the bar in Prinny’s Pleasure. It was Shirley I’d called from the phone box outside the pier.

  Shirl drained her glass of chenin blanc (“brashly fruity with an elfin wistfulness in the aftertaste”) and said: “That plonk tastes like drain cleaner. I’ll have a beer instead.”

  I signalled to Jeff behind the bar to bring new drinks.

  Shirley said: “You should go back to Figgis and tell him you were only joking about your resignation.”

  “Give him the last laugh, you mean? That wouldn’t work. He was taking orders from His Holiness Gerald Pope. Besides, it was a point of principle. Sidney Pinker is an innocent man.”

  “Yeah! I’ll give you that. But there’s no way you’ll crack this story on your own. You’ve always needed the clout that being on a big-name paper gives you.”

  “But being a freelancer gives me more freedom. No Figgis for a start.”

  “And no pay cheque at the end of the week, too.”

  “But a big fee when I sell the story.”

  “If you sell it.”

  Jeff arrived with our drinks – half of lager for Shirley and another gin and tonic for me.

  Jeff said: “I had a lovers’ tiff once.”

  I said: “We weren’t having a tiff.”

  “I could hear your raised voices over by the bar. Anyway, to get back to my tiff. It was with a girl called Gladys. She was chief bog washer in the public lavs down in the Old Steine. The first time I saw her, she reminded me of that Cleopatra film with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.”

  “She looked like Elizabeth Taylor?” I asked.

  “More like Burton really – after one of his heavy nights out. Everything was going well. I took her for a slap-up meal – a plate of whelks at Vinegary Fred’s seafood bar under the West Pier. Then I whispered sweet nothings in her ear. Well, one nothing actually – if you come back to my place, I’ll take your knickers off with my teeth.”

  “Ugh!” Shirley said.

  “Yeah! That usually gets a girl going. Anyway. She couldn’t get back to my place fast enough. But that’s when it all went wrong.”

  “Your false teeth came loose at a crucial moment?” I asked.

  “No. I hadn’t made the bed.”

  “Does it take long to tuck in a couple of sheets and plump up the pillows?” I asked.

  “You don’t understand. When I say I hadn’t made the bed, I mean I hadn’t put it together. A couple of days earlier, I’d bought a second-hand iron bedstead from Rusty Reg over at Fiveways. It was still in bits down in my yard but Reg had given me this special spanner thing that you used to screw the bits together. So I told Gladys that I’d get my tool out and we’d get it together. I think she must’ve misunderstood what I meant. She slapped my face and said, ‘I’m not that kind of girl’. Then she stormed out. I wanted to see her again, but how could I? She worked in the ladies’ lavs and I wasn’t allowed in.”

  I said: “Why don’t you go and mop down the bar, Jeff?”

  “Sorry to intrude I’m sure,” he said and walked off in a huff.

  I reached over and took Shirley’s hand. Gave it a little squeeze.

  “We weren’t having a tiff, were we?”

  Shirley grinned. “Perhaps a small one. ‘Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.’”

  “I didn’t know you’d read Much Ado About Nothing.”

  Shirley moved closer to me and said: “There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, reporter boy. Tell me what you want to do.”

  So I told Shirley what I’d learnt about the Hardmann brothers from Jessie O’Mara. About how she claimed Bernstein pimped girls to their club with the help of Billy Dean.

  I said: “I need to interview Dean, but he doesn’t seem to go to the rehearsal rooms. So the only place I can do it is at the Hardmanns’ club.”

  “The Golden Kiss? It won’t be easy getting in there,” she said.

  “I have a plan,” I said.

  “I thought you might,” she said.

  Shirley gave me a hard look and said: “This is the last time I do something like this to keep your arse out of the fire.”

  It was just after nine o’clock that evening. We were sitting in my MGB. I’d parked a couple of streets away from the Golden Kiss.

  “Sure, this is definitely the last time. Thanks, and by the way, you look terrific.”

  “I look like a tart. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be?”

  “You’re supposed to be an exotic dancer.”

  “A stripper.”

  I knew we wouldn’t be able to con our way through the front door. The place always had a couple of beefy bouncers on patrol. So the plan was to sneak in through the stage door. Shirl would pretend she was a stripper turning up to her show. I suggested I could say I was her driver. But Shirl said the stage door keeper wouldn’t buy that.

  “I’ll tell them you’re my pimp,” she’d said. “Safer for you, safer for me.”

  Shirl was dressed in a tight-fitting tee-shirt. It had a slogan printed on the front: I wanted to burn my bra but I lost my matches. Back at her flat she’d tried on some of her skirts but didn’t think any of them were short enough. So she’d cut a couple of inches off an old denim number she’d bought in a Debenham’s sale a couple of years ago. She was sitting in the passenger seat with the skirt riding high on her thighs.

  She had a small pink vanity case on her lap.

  I pointed at it and said: “Why do you need that?”

  “All strippers have them.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “Make-up, hair curlers, powder puff, cosh…”

  “Cosh?”

  Shirley grinned. “To discourage unwanted admirers.”

  “I think it’s about time we took our chances at the club,” I said.

  We climbed out of the MGB. Shirl shivered in the cold night air. I put my arm around her shoulder.

  We walked briskly towards the Golden Kiss.

  I said: “Remember, the first thing we do when we get inside is to check where the exits are. We may need to leave in a hurry.”

  “Yeah! And the second thing we do is to make sure the stage door keeper doesn’t show me to the strippers’ dressing room.”

  “Shouldn’t strippers have an undressing room?”

  “Seriously, I can’t mix with the other girls. They’ll spot me for a ringer within minutes.”

  I nodded. “That’s fair. We’ll go into the club and find a secluded table at the back somewhere. We’ll order some drinks and keep our head down. After Billy Dean has completed his act, I’ll slip backstage and try to interview him in his dressing room.”

  “While I sit like a wallflower?” Shirley said.

  “I’ll only be gone five minutes. I won’t be able to risk more. Anyone who notices will think I’ve sloped up to the bar for more drinks. As soon as I’m back, we’ll get the hell out of there.”

  The stage door of the Golden Kiss turned out to be in a mews which ran off the main street. It looked like the kind of modest b
ack door you’d find on thousands of buildings in any town. Then I noticed it was covered with a steel plate and wired to an alarm.

  I pointed at the wire. “They believe in their security.”

  Shirley flashed me a worried look. I took her hand and squeezed it gently.

  I seized the door handle. No lights started to flash. No sirens sounded. So I opened the door.

  I stood back for Shirley. “Strippers first.”

  Shirl tossed her head and flounced in swinging her hips in an exaggerated bump and grind.

  We entered a small room lit by a harsh fluorescent tube that flickered. The walls were whitewashed. There was a stone floor. A small cubicle off to the right was fronted by a lift-up counter.

  A notice on the counter read: “All artistes to report to stage door keeper.”

  As we paused to read it, an old geezer with a wrinkled face, a droopy moustache, and strangely sad puppy dog eyes appeared. He was wearing a worn-out tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows. He had a grubby blue shirt, open at the collar and a flat cap. He carried a clipboard with a list of names on it. He glanced at the list and put the clipboard down on the lift-up counter.

  He looked at Shirley through those sad eyes and said: “Name?”

  This could be awkward. We hadn’t reckoned that the performers would be checked in and out like prison visitors.

  Shirley flashed a smile that could have illuminated the southern hemisphere and stuck out her chest. She pushed her breasts towards the old geezer.

  The geezer said: “Put them away, darling. They don’t impress me. I don’t even notice these days. Not like the old times. We had that Sabrina here once. Cor blimey, hers came round the corner five minutes before she did. Name?”

  I leaned over Shirley’s shoulders and looked at the list.

  “Clarice,” I whispered in her ear.

  “Clarice,” Shirley said.

  “Clarice,” the old geezer repeated. He picked up his clipboard and consulted the list.

  “Clarice,” he said again. “Last name on the list. That means you’re the final act. You don’t come on until two. You’re early.”

  “Punctuality is the politeness of princesses,” Shirley said.