Tiger at Bay

by Bernard Knight

  The local police division knew a little and suspected a lot more about Tiger’s activities, but never again got within a stone’s throw of a conviction.

  During the last four or five years, even their suspicions died down. Tiger bought the Cairo Restaurant, ostensibly in partnership with two brothers and a sister, and settled down to a respectable life.

  Occasionally, the local CID wondered how Tiger managed to support half his family, a new Ford Zodiac and a succession of thirsty girlfriends on the profits from a seedy egg-and-chips dispensary. As he never gave them any trouble, and as even the police informers never had so much as a whisper of any crime in the district being connected with him, he was left in peace.

  Tiger was curled up on his window seat now, neatly and expensively dressed in a cream shirt buttoned to the neck, but with no tie. A pair of immaculately creased slacks and soft elastic-sided shoes completed the outfit and emphasised his dark handsomeness.

  Even three generations away from the Middle East, a burnous and a camel would have allowed him to slip into Mecca unnoticed, though a careful wave in his jet-black hair clashed slightly with this Bedouin image.

  There were those ‘down the docks’ who said (though not to his face) that Tiger was a bit ‘queer’. This was miles from the truth, though he never allowed women to interfere with business. Like with alcohol, Tiger drank when he was thirsty and ignored the girls when he was not.

  He looked calmly across at Joe, who was gulping beer.

  ‘So it’s not the bogies, then?’ he repeated softly.

  Joe wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sneered.

  ‘Nah, this chap don’t even look like one. Skinny as ’ell, he is. Looks a proper drip, got a piddling little moustache.’

  Tiger gave his gleaming nails a last buffing with a leather pad.

  ‘But it seems that bastard Summers has gone squealing to somebody. Who is it, that’s the thing?’

  His voice held no accent at all – he avoided both the Welsh lilt and the exaggerated vowels of his native Cardiff.

  Joe shrugged. ‘Could be a pressman, I suppose, but I’ve never seen him around before and I know a coupla reporters. I don’t know who the ’ell he is, but I’ll damn soon find out!’

  He banged a fist ominously into the palm of the other hand.

  Tiger lifted a hand in an almost languid gesture.

  ‘Go easy, let’s dig around a bit first. You say he’s actually downstairs?’

  Joseph nodded, his oily ringlets bobbing against his scalp.

  ‘Bloody idiot, ’e is! World’s biggest amachoor! I knew from the minute he started giving me the eye in the pub that ’e was on to me.’

  He scratched his groin as an aid to memory.

  ‘Come to think of it, ’e had a bird with him, a flash bit of stuff. I’d know her again, too – wouldn’t mind knocking her off, come to think of it.’

  He seemed to be diverted into carnal reverie, but Tiger cut in coldly,

  ‘Tell Florrie to come up a minute – let’s see if Auntie can give us a line.’

  Again he spoke softly, but Joe jumped up at once and went out. He was Tiger’s lieutenant, but knew his place. Cunning, but short on intelligence, Joe was very much the strong-arm man who moved only when Tiger pulled the strings. There were two others in the hub of the gang, but a host of Tiger’s family and minor layabouts collected by Joe were on the margin of the several rackets that Tiger carefully manipulated.

  Joe soon came back with Florrie, the woman who had served Iago downstairs. A sister of Tiger’s mother, she ran the cafe which was a convenient cover for the comings and goings of the people involved with Tiger.

  ‘This chap, Florrie. Ever seen him before?’

  His aunt shook her head, the flabby jowls quivering. ‘Never! He’s no copper, though.’ Her speech was thick, suiting her dowdiness and overweight frame, but her little eyes were sharp.

  ‘Think he might be another security bloke from the bank?’

  She shrugged her flabby shoulders. ‘How would I know? But any firm would be slipping if they took on a twerp like ’im.’

  She sank onto the arm of a chair while Tiger uncoiled himself and padded across the room. In contrast to the scruffy cafe downstairs, Tiger’s own quarters were well decorated and furnished. A thick carpet, deep black leather suite and cocktail bar approached the luxurious. On the rest of this second floor were several bedrooms which accommodated the owner and, on occasions, others of the mob.

  Tiger paced up and down silently for a few moments, a favourite way of exercising his mind rather than his body. He stopped abruptly and turned to the other two.

  ‘I’ll go down the back stairs and have a look at this chap through the serving hatch, see if I know him. You go and chat him up, Florrie, see what you can find out.’

  He made for the door, but stopped with his hand on the knob.

  ‘Joe, ring up two of the lads and get them to tail him when he leaves. When he gets home, one of them stays with him, the other belts back here – right?’ He held up a hand to show the strong, pointed nails. ‘Tell them that if they lose him, I’ll mark them to the bone!’

  He opened the door and slid away.

  Florrie’s efforts at pumping Iago Price were no more successful than his own hopes of finding out more about the blackmailers. The fat woman came downstairs in a much more amiable mood than before. When she brought him a cup of tea and took away his dirty plate, she started a conversation which soon led around to asking who he was and where he came from.

  Although Iago had no idea that she was pumping him, he stoutly stuck to some non-committal story, following Chapter Six of his American handbook, which told him never to give away gratuitous information.

  In turn, however, she stonewalled all his questions about who owned the restaurant and who might be living there. No, she only worked there – started last week, in fact. Didn’t know the real owner, but the little chap Ahmed – the one with the round cap – managed the place.

  After he had drunk his tea and sat for a few more minutes, Iago was stumped as to his next move. He had no excuse to stay any longer and he wasn’t built for any dramatic moves like dashing suddenly up the back stairs to see what went on up above.

  He consoled himself with the thought that at least he’d found where Summers’ blackmailers hung out. The best thing he could do was to report back to the bank man and let him worry about the next step – not that Iago could see what Summers could possibly do about the situation. Even if the original blackmail would not have stirred up his employers much, the betrayal of their strongroom security would have put Summers right in the mire today.

  Iago paid his modest bill and wandered reluctantly out into Bute Street. He looked down towards the bus stop, then momentarily straightened his shoulders.

  ‘To hell with the buses – I’ll take a taxi.’

  The sweet, if somewhat dilute, taste of success over his hire purchase coup made him feel that no really successful private eye depended on public transport.

  A few yards in the opposite direction was a garage with a car hire service. He walked to it and a few moments later was rolling importantly northwards to the city.

  Before the car was a hundred yards away, two figures ran up to the little office of the garage.

  ‘Sam, Tiger wants to know where that chap went.’ The speaker was a ferrety little man in a peaked cap.

  ‘Hayes Bridge Road! Why?’

  The small fellow waved a wad of papers at Sam. ‘He dropped this in the caff.’ He ran back to a Vauxhall which had just drawn up at the kerb. Together with his companion, a young lad of indeterminate coffee colour, they jumped into the back. The driver, a burly middle-aged man with an acne-scarred complexion, let in the clutch and they tore away up Bute Street after the hire car.

  Three minutes later Iago was at his office door As soon as he had vanished inside, the Vauxhall stopped a few yards away and Archie Vaughan, the jockey-like character, hopped out. He waved the
car away and turned to inspect the two nameplates outside the seedy entrance. One was Iago’s, the other the headquarters of the Omega Clothing Cheque Company. Archie had little doubt which one housed his quarry, but to make sure, he went up to the Clothing Company and made some feeble excuse to enter the office.

  A quick look around showed him that no thin, stooped, moustached person was employed there – though the solitary female typist almost qualified for that description.

  Back on the street, Vaughan found a phone box within sight of the office door. He rang Tiger to give him the results of his snooping then settled down behind the box to wait for Iago to reappear.

  At six o’clock, Iago and Dilys were at their usual places at the bar of the Glendower Arms. Summers had not yet shown up, but there were a few other patrons drinking there in solitary silence.

  ‘How’s the big case going, Mr Price?’ asked Lewis Evans, with heavy, but good-humoured sarcasm.

  Iago tapped the side of his nose confidentially.

  ‘Fine, fine. Can’t give you any details, but my reputation is spreading, eh, Dilys?’ He again took the opportunity of patting her thigh and she pulled it away with an impatient jerk.

  ‘Fine?’ she echoed cynically. ‘All you’ve done is to follow some feller to a cafe down the docks – and you’re going to have the cheek to charge a fiver, plus a bus fare and taxi ride for that! I know what I’d tell you, if I was him!’

  Iago made futile shushing noises, and looked furtively around the saloon. His eyes passed over Archie Vaughan, but were none the wiser. Archie sat as near as possible to the pair at the bar and his large ears had picked up useful confirmation of earlier happenings.

  Iago turned back to his secretary.

  ‘Don’t discuss business in here, Dill. I’ve told you often enough.’

  The blonde sniffed haughtily. ‘About as often as you’ve asked me to go out with you.’

  He scowled at her. ‘I’ve stopped asking,’ he sulked.

  She shrugged indifferently. ‘There’s a pity! I would have said yes tonight.’

  Iago gaped at her. A full-size, slack-jawed gape.

  ‘You would? Tonight?’

  Dilys sniffed again. ‘May as well. Nothing else to do.’ Iago clutched her hand as if she had just saved him from drowning.

  ‘Marvellous! Some good films on, we could have a meal afterwards.’

  She stared at him sternly. ‘No funny business then, or I’ll belt you!’

  Iago gabbled assurances of his virtuous intentions, none of which he intended to keep. He drained his glass and slid it across the bar.

  ‘Drink up, love, this needs celebrating! Lewis, let’s have some service.’

  The brawny landlord came across, his hairy forearms rippled as he pulled a pint for Iago after Dilys’ champagne perry.

  ‘Gone soft in the head, Dill?’ he enquired solicitously. ‘Hot blood Iago Price here will expect your virtue after a film, a fried rice and a small shandy, mind.’

  Dilys flapped her heavily blackened eyelids at him.

  ‘I’ve ate better things than him before breakfast, Lewis love.’ Her Cardiff accent sounded stronger than ever, but it was music in Iago’s ears.

  Archie Vaughan shifted impatiently on his seat at all this useless small talk. He looked anxiously at his watch. There had been no word from Bute Street since mid-afternoon and Archie was wondering how long he should keep up this shadowing lark.

  His mind was promptly made up at that moment.

  The door opened and in came Summers. The ferrety man knew him well by sight – he had good cause to, as it was he who had taken the photographs in Betty’s bedroom, an uncomfortable operation including three hours’ incarceration in a wardrobe.

  The bank security man looked around suspiciously. He sat next to Iago and spoke so softly that Archie could not catch a single word. Then Iago produced a piece of paper and slid it across the bar to Summers, who looked at it, then called for a pint.

  This was enough for Archie Vaughan. He left his drink unfinished and slipped out, making for the nearby telephone box.

  Chapter Three

  Bob Ellis jerked his feet off the desk and threw down the library book in disgust.

  ‘Bloody trash! I don’t know why I bother to read ’em!’ he snorted in the direction of a detective constable, who sat at the next desk painstakingly typing a statement with two fingers, his tongue struck out as an aid to concentration.

  ‘What don’t you like about it, Ellis?’ came a deep voice from behind.

  The detective inspector jumped up and reddened a little.

  ‘Oh, hello, sir. Didn’t hear you come in. I was talking about these damn silly crime novels. I’m like a drug addict; I despise them, but I can’t give them up!’

  A brief mechanical smile flickered across the long saturnine face of the other man, then he promptly lost interest. He walked away towards his own room at the end of the Criminal Investigation Department, then called back over his shoulder, ‘Anything doing this evening?’

  Ellis shook his head. ‘Very quiet, thank God. This fog and drizzle are keeping the villains at home. I’m just waiting for a call from the Crime Squad about that supermarket job in Llandaff.’

  The chief superintendent grunted and vanished into his office. Bob Ellis looked at the closed door with mixed curiosity and relief. Meredith had only been back in Cardiff a matter of weeks, but already his nickname had followed him and stuck fast, as fast as his London reputation for ruthless dealing. His dark face, upturned black eyebrows and his Christian name of Nicholas had made ‘Old Nick’ an inevitable tag.

  Meredith had left the Swansea Valley over twenty years before to join the Metropolitan Police and had risen to detective superintendent at the Yard. Now he had fulfilled his yearning for Wales by being appointed the new chief of the CID in the Welsh capital, jumping up another rank in the process.

  It was early days yet for the rest of the force to make up their minds about Old Nick. Being a new boss was always a disadvantage in any popularity contest, but already his staff were impressed with his know-how, if a little wary of his dour ways and his subtle, if infrequent, humour.

  Bob Ellis shrugged and sat down again, wondering whether to attack the pile of papers in his ‘In’ tray while waiting for the call.

  The DC tapped painfully away alongside him, but the rest of the long room was deserted. It was half-past seven in the evening and the rest of the Headquarters staff were either out on routine jobs or had vanished homewards through the mist-shrouded park that housed the civic buildings that were the pride of the city.

  A phone suddenly shrilled on one of the empty desks, next to the typist.

  ‘It’ll be the Squad, for me,’ said Ellis.

  The constable listened, then shook his head. ‘No, but it’s for you. Dai Rees from “A” Division.’

  Ellis went to the phone and listened to the voice at the other end for quite a time.

  ‘Think there’s anything in it?’ he asked dubiously.

  He heard Meredith’s door opening behind him and sensed that the chief was listening.

  The ‘A’ Division man talked again, then Ellis said, ‘I’ll come across, though it sounds a load of rubbish to me.’

  He put the phone down and turned to find Meredith standing over him, his lanky six-foot one stooping like some old raven. Old Nick wore his winter uniform of long black overcoat, grey scarf and carried a black Anthony Eden hat in his gloved hand. Ellis was strongly reminded of an undertaker he knew, from one of the mining valleys.

  ‘Anything happening?’ rasped the chief-superintendent. Ellis thought again that he had the common failing of practical men who reached the top by hard work – they are unable to delegate responsibility, thinking they can do everything better themselves.

  Ellis rubbed his ear thoughtfully. ‘Odd story, but sounds a lot of bullshine to me, sir.’

  He stopped and Meredith waited with an impatient look on his face. The watching constable thought what
a difference there was between the cadaveric face of Old Nick and the plump, cheerful Ellis, with his gingery hair and pink, shiny skin. But they both had one thing in common: they were equally devoted to the catching of villains.

  Ellis got his tongue into gear again. ‘Two chaps have been involved in a hit-and-run, sir. One seriously injured, the other only scratches and shock.’

  Meredith’s curved eyebrows rose in enquiry. ‘Since when have CID been involved in traffic accidents?’

  ‘One of these men is a bank security officer, the other is a private enquiry agent. The first was badly hurt and the other started to holler for the law as soon as he came around from his slight concussion.’

  Both the DC and the chief superintendent waited for the punchline.

  ‘The uniformed men asked Dai Rees – he’s a detective sergeant, “A” Division, as you probably remember, sir – they asked him to go over to the Infirmary, as this private eye chap alleged that the running-down was deliberate, not an accident. Sounds a right lot of old nonsense to me, but I’d better go over and sort it out.’

  Meredith brooded for a second.

  ‘What’s wrong with “A” Division doing their own dirty work?’

  Ellis had the answer for this one already. ‘The DI is on the sick, sir. Fell down and broke his wrist this morning.’

  Old Nick grunted. ‘All right, sounds a lot of cobblers to me, especially if there’s a Nosy Parker involved. But let me know what happens. The attempted murder of a private eye would be a new one, even for me!’

  He loped away towards home and a few minutes later, Ellis followed him out to go to the Royal Infirmary.

  At ten thirty that night, subdued voices came from a cubicle in the Accident Ward of the hospital.

  Iago Price slumped in the bed, his head swathed with a dramatic, if unnecessary, bandage. There was sticking plaster on his chin, and a few more pieces on his hands. He was shaking a little, but as much from suppressed rage as from shock.