by Colin Murray
That was just as well as, after lavishly handing over the quid, I didn’t have much cash left and the bank wouldn’t be open again until Tuesday. Maybe Jerry could lend me a few bob to tide me over.
I stared at the drink gloomily, hunched over the bar. Maybe I should do a correspondence course and become a proper accountant. I was definitely not cut out for what Jerry saw as this detective lark. Minding drunk actors, putting things right with bookies, keeping things out of the papers: I could manage all that, just. But this was another barrel of apples altogether.
I sipped a little more cognac and then asked Roger if there was a telephone around that I could use. He directed me outside to Connie’s domain. Emile looked at me anxiously as I got up and explained that I would be back in a minute or two, and I asked Roger to fill his glass. This one was on the house as well. Emile did not look reassured and sniffed his new drink suspiciously as if he thought he was about to be drugged and sold into the male equivalent of the white slave trade.
Connie showed me into her tiny little office as coyly as if she were leading me into her boudoir. She sat me down solicitously at her desk and even lifted the receiver off its cradle and handed it to me before leaving. I looked at the big ugly black thing for a while, realizing that I was just calling Jerry for something to do, then dialled.
He answered very quickly, so he must have been in the shop. There was something playing in the background, but I didn’t know what it was and Jerry didn’t ask me. He must have been feeling very gloomy.
Ghislaine and Robert had returned briefly and collected their things. Robert had booked all of them into a hotel near Marble Arch. He’d left the address for Emile.
There were two messages for me. Dr Jameson had called in the morning soon after I’d left and asked that I telephone him, and Les had just been on the line.
I went back out on to the landing and asked if I could make another call and Connie nodded amiably. That is, she didn’t actually snarl or bite.
I didn’t call Jameson. I had nothing to tell him and, as he appeared to have been in Cambridge that morning, he could hardly have been the mysterious caller at Miss Beaumont’s flat.
Daphne answered when I called Hoxton Films. She didn’t bother with any banter, just put me straight through.
‘Thanks for calling, Tony,’ Les said. ‘I’ve been ringing Bev for half an hour, and she isn’t answering. I’m worried. She can be a silly girl. Even Daphne thinks there might be something up. Would you drop round and make sure she’s all right? I’ll send Charlie.’
I told him where I was and said I’d be outside in five minutes.
I left Connie’s broom cupboard office and gave her a tanner for the phone. Her big hand swallowed up the coin.
TWENTY-ONE
Charlie swept us back up to St John’s Wood as smoothly and as swiftly as the Rolls could manage, which was very smoothly and very swiftly. Emile sat in the front again, and Charlie was definitely showing off as we glided along Shaftesbury Avenue far too fast.
I sank uneasily into the comfort of the back seat and tried not to think about anything as we whispered our way majestically through the traffic.
It was difficult.
All manner of possibilities buzzed in my head. Beverley Beaumont just wasn’t answering her telephone. Beverley Beaumont simply had a lunch engagement. However, lurking at the back of my mind was the one thing that I definitely knew: David Cavendish had sent Jenkins over to see her.
We pulled up outside the block of flats and walked up to the second floor.
I rang the bell, stepped well back, indicating to the others that they should do the same, and waited. Then I rang the bell again. I was about to press the button a third time when Charlie put his hand on my arm and waved a key in front of my face.
‘Mr Jackson give it to me,’ he said.
‘What’s Les doing with a key to Beverley Beaumont’s flat?’ I said.
Charlie shrugged and shook his head. ‘I think she left this with him for safe keeping when she bought the place. Just so someone had a spare. I don’t think there’s any more to it than that,’ he said and slid the key into the lock.
Maybe there wasn’t. I’d have to ask Daphne. She usually had a reason for disliking someone, and she certainly disliked Miss Beaumont. And no one had ever said that Miss Beaumont favoured young, pretty boys exclusively.
The door swung open, and I walked into the little hallway. It was nowhere near as dim as it had been when I’d come before because all the doors that led off it were wide open and the rooms all had their lights on.
Charlie peered into the bedroom. ‘Someone’s had a right go at this place,’ he said.
He was right. The bed had been turned over and most of Miss Beaumont’s clothes taken from her wardrobe and dumped on the floor. There were a couple of men’s shirts, a blue tie and a tweed jacket lying there as well.
The second bedroom had fared a little better, mainly because there wasn’t much in it. A chair was resting on its back, its thin legs sticking out pathetically in front of it, and a couple of books had been knocked off the desk. A children’s dictionary and a copy of Cupid Rides Pillion by Barbara Cartland.
The living room was pretty much untouched, although one of the cups I’d set out earlier was in pieces, adrift in a little puddle of cold, brown tea on the wooden floor, and the sofa had been pushed back at an odd angle.
I poked my head into the bathroom – just in case – but she wasn’t reclining in a rapidly cooling bath, Roman-style, her wrists slit.
I joined Charlie back in the hall and started to think about Jenkins and Alfred. I wondered if they’d given Miss Beaumont time to get dressed. I hoped so and that they’d given her some privacy as well. If they’d showed her any discourtesy, it was probably just as well for them that Robert hadn’t given me back the Webley.
Charlie sniffed. ‘What we gonna do, Tone?’ he said. ‘I’ll give Mr Jackson a bell, if you like.’ He pointed to the telephone on its little table in the hall.
‘No,’ I said. ‘He’ll just tell us to find her. So, let’s do it.’
He sniffed again and this time there was no mistaking a hint of scepticism in it. ‘And how are we gonna do that?’ he said.
‘Your mate Herbert,’ I said. ‘Do you know where he lives?’
‘No,’ he said.
I cursed softly. ‘Not a clue?’ I said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Why?’
‘Because I’d like to have a word with him,’ I said.
‘Oh, that’s easy enough to arrange. I know where he’ll be about now,’ he said.
‘Well, why the hell didn’t you say so?’
‘You asked me where he lived,’ he said, sounding aggrieved at my exasperation. ‘You never asked me if I knew where to find him.’
I took a deep breath and then smiled at him. ‘No more I did,’ I said. ‘Sorry, Charlie.’
I looked around for Emile. He was in Miss Beaumont’s bedroom, examining her underwear a bit too assiduously for my taste.
I called to him that we were leaving and then told him to take the black suspender belt out of his pocket and put it back where he’d found it. I admit that I couldn’t remember the French for suspender belt and said something about ‘intimate garments’, but that was no excuse for his obvious reluctance to comply. My meaning was clear.
There was a strong whiff of horse liniment, bad feet, stale sweat and uncorked fart as we walked up the creaking wooden staircase and entered the gym where Charlie was convinced his mate Herbert would be.
The gym sat above a church hall on the Whitechapel Road, not far from the Royal London Hospital and the shop that was supposed to have exhibited the Elephant Man, and the smell was appropriate, I suppose, for a part of London that had developed around the more malodorous industries that the gentry hadn’t wanted near their fashionable residences – the breweries and the tanneries and so on. I remember some character in a Dickens book I read as a nipper saying that Whitechapel wasn’t �
��a wery nice neighbourhood’, but it had never seemed that bad to me.
Of course, these days Whitechapel still looked the worse for wear because of the bashing the Luftwaffe had given it during the war. They’d missed that rundown church hall, though. But not by too much. There was an old, overgrown bomb site just behind it that I could see through the windows at the back.
Herbert Longhurst, the Bermondsey Battler, a long way from the manor of his moniker, was standing by the ring, watching a couple of scrawny boys in ragged vests thrashing away at each other. Neither of them looked to have anything other than raw aggression going for them, but they were only ten or eleven and painfully undernourished. About half a dozen other youngsters, all around the same age, were leaning on the edge of the ring, watching proceedings intently. They were in the same gym uniform of grubby vests, big brother’s baggy shorts and black plimsolls. Their thin, white, bony limbs were as grubby as their vests, but none of them seemed to be suffering from rickets.
The Bermondsey Battler gave us a big, soppy grin when he saw us and told the lads to take a break. They looked at us without interest and started talking to each other.
‘How’s the arm?’ I said, pointing at Herbert Longhurst’s sling.
‘Itches like buggery,’ he said. ‘Apart from that, it’s all right.’ He poked a thumb towards the boys. ‘What do you think of them?’
‘Keen,’ I said, ‘very keen.’
‘What do you think, Charlie?’ the Battler said.
Charlie made a little non-committal movement with his mouth, thrusting his lower lip out. ‘I’ve seen better,’ he said. ‘A lot better. But they’re young and they’ve got no meat on them. No weight behind any of the punches.’
‘That’s right,’ Herbert said. ‘But they are keen. The gentleman here’s right.’ He indicated that they should continue, and we watched them for a minute or two as they flailed ineffectually at each other.
‘So,’ Herbert eventually said, his eye on the boys, ‘what can I do for you gents?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I just wondered if you could tell me if your boss, Mr Jenkins, has a lock-up somewhere. A place where he keeps his valuables.’
‘Why do you want to know that?’ he said, looking a little uneasy.
‘I’m pretty sure he has something he shouldn’t have, and I want it back,’ I said.
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head firmly, ‘Mr Jenkins is straight as a dye. He wouldn’t have nothing of yours.’
I considered my options. Herbert Longhurst was a decent sort, commendably brave and loyal. A physical threat was obviously pointless. Not that I’d even consider one. On the other hand, I reckoned he was probably kind to old ladies and dumb animals.
I leaned forward and put my hand on his uninjured arm. ‘It’s not really Mr Jenkins I’m after, Mr Longhurst,’ I said.
‘Call me Bert,’ he said amiably.
‘OK, Bert. The thing is that I’m worried about that Belgian bloke. I think he’s taken a young lady friend of mine, against her will, and I’m really concerned. I’m sick with worry, really, and so’s her mother.’
Charlie raised his eyebrows at me, but I didn’t care if I was laying it on thick.
‘Belgian bloke?’ Bert said.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Jan. The bloke who shot you.’
‘Oh, him,’ he said, his hand moving to his sling and rubbing it. ‘The frog.’
I looked at Emile, but he was watching the lads working themselves into a lather and hadn’t heard him. Not that he’d have understood anyway, I told myself.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘If you could give us any idea where she might be, I’d be really grateful. And so would her mother.’ I ignored Charlie.
Bert looked troubled. He thought about it for a few seconds, then turned back to the ring and told the boys to take another break.
‘I wouldn’t trust that frog as far as I could throw him,’ he said.
I thought that that might be a considerable distance, but didn’t say anything. Apart from anything else, I didn’t want to interrupt Bert’s laboured thinking process.
‘All right,’ he said (actually, he pronounced it in the good old London way, with a ‘w’ replacing the ‘r’), ‘there is a place.’
‘Where is it, Bert?’ I said, looking at my watch. Jerry was always talking about hearing time’s wingèd chariot at his back, and I was beginning to understand what he meant. I wasn’t going to find Jonathan Harrison and get him to Inspector Rose before close of business.
‘It’s just down the road,’ he said. ‘Mile End. I can’t remember the address, so I’ll have to come with you.’
My heart didn’t exactly rise, but it certainly didn’t sink any further. Bert accompanying us was fine by me. It was his not very devious way of ensuring that he could keep an eye on us. It didn’t fill me with joy because I couldn’t be entirely sure which way he’d jump, but I thought he was a decent sort and he might prove useful, even if it was just in getting us through the door. The lock-up being just around the corner did offer a glimmer of hope.
I was wondering whether or not I had time to call Les, to give him the bad news, when one of those coincidences occurred that suggests there is meaning in life.
Ray, the young thug who had pulled the Webley on me the other night, sauntered into the gym. He obviously didn’t see me at first, masked as I was by Charlie, and he just yelled at the Bermondsey Battler from the doorway. ‘Bert, get your skates on. The gaffer’s got a minding job. You’ll like this one.’
Then he did clock me. It took him another couple of seconds to realize who I was, but then he turned and raced back to the stairs, his jacket flapping. He skidded on the landing and pelted down the staircase, taking the stairs three or four at a time.
I’m not as fast as I once was, but I can still chase and catch an out-of-condition toe-rag over a short distance, and I was only a few yards behind him.
We hared down the stairs at much the same speed – something to do with gravity being constant, I suspect, since we both spent a certain amount of time at its mercy, half-flying, half-jumping down – and hit the ground floor still separated by those few yards.
Ray then surprised me, and lost a few feet of his advantage, by turning sharply and, instead of heading out of the front door, making for the rear of the building.
I followed him slowly and carefully along the dim, narrow corridor. It smelled strongly of furniture polish and old Bibles. There was a small table covered with little piles of garish bookmarks with biblical texts and flowers printed on them and some neat stacks of religious tracts.
I stopped running and trod warily because I was sure that Ray intended to hide in some handy, darkened alcove and ambush me. I hadn’t heard him open a door and leave.
A sprung floorboard groaned as I put my weight on it before taking the left turn under the staircase. I instinctively pulled back slightly and so, when Ray came charging out of his predictable hiding place under the stairs, he didn’t hit me with his shoulder nearly as hard as he’d intended, since I wasn’t quite where he expected me to be. Instead of smacking into me hard in the midriff, he caught me in the chest.
But the blow was hard enough to force the breath out of me and to ruin his plans completely. He bounced off me and caromed into the wall opposite, banging into the table. The bookmarks fluttered to the floor like so many exotic butterflies.
Unfortunately for Ray, the edge of the table came into violent and painful contact with his groin, and he fell to his knees clutching himself.
I was spun around and slightly winded but, not having been hit in a particularly tender part, recovered first. I grabbed him by the lapel of his jacket and hauled him to his feet. He made a fist as if he was about to resist, but then saw Emile, who had followed me down the stairs, pointing his ugly gun at him and wisely thought better of it.
I slammed him against the wall, and we stared at each other for a few seconds, breathing heavily. I then straightened up and leaned on him with my right ha
nd pressing him against the wall and my left cocked as though I intended to punch him.
‘So,’ I said, ‘where’s this minding job?’
His head was hanging down and he was still carefully cradling his balls.
I gripped the lapel of his jacket – grabbing some of his shirt, and possibly some of his flesh as well, judging by the authentic-sounding yelp – more tightly, pulled him forward and then hammered him back against the wall.
‘I’d like an answer,’ I said.
He lifted his head sullenly. ‘I dunno,’ he said, ‘I really don’t.’
‘Sure you do,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t want my friend here to get the wrong idea and assume you aren’t cooperating.’
He looked at Emile in some alarm and started thinking about it. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘all I can tell you is where Bert is supposed to show up.’
‘That’ll do for a start,’ I said.
Ray looked down at his well-polished black Oxfords and sniffed. ‘He’s to go to the gaffer’s club, wait outside and he’ll be picked up and taken somewhere,’ he said.
‘Where?’ I said.
‘I dunno,’ he said, trying to paste an open expression of innocence on his face, eyes wide, mouth slightly agape. He only succeeded in looking sly and deceitful.
‘Have a guess,’ I said.
He shrugged, in as far as he was able with me pinning him to the wall. I felt it, rather than saw it. ‘Out of town somewhere?’ he said. ‘Minding someone.’
‘Who?’ I said.
He tried to shrug again.
I relaxed my grip a little. ‘When you came in, you said he was going to like it. Why?’
‘I dunno,’ he said again and looked down at the bookmarks strewn across the floor. He resembled nothing so much as an errant twelve-year-old schoolboy, an expression somewhere between sullen and guilty plastered across his mug.
We stood there in silence, apart from our still laboured breathing and Emile tapping the barrel of his ugly black gun against his leg.
I heard traffic on the Whitechapel Road and then the sound of people leaving the gym and coming down the stairs. I thought it would be Charlie and Bert.