by Bill Kitson
They sat in silence for several moments, sipping coffee as they considered their course of action. Eventually, Clara stirred. ‘I’ve had an idea. Why not get in touch with the Met? See if the file on Max Perry gives any more clues, or if there are any officers who might know more.’ She pointed to the folder. ‘The officer who compiled that, for instance, must have known Perry quite well. It might be useful to know how Max was killed, or if anyone was ever charged with the crime. All we know at the moment is that rumour that Callaghan was involved.’
‘Good thinking, Clara. The more we can learn of Raymond Perry’s past, the likelier we are to get some clue as to the motive for the attack, and possibly who was responsible.’
‘That sounds quite a task,’ Clara commented.
‘If you think that’s hard, wait till you hear what I’ve got in store for you. Your job is to trace Raymond Perry’s mother, if she’s still alive. If not, find out when and where she died, even where she’s buried. In the meantime I’ll get on to the Met and order that other file and see what I can find out about the officers who worked the cases. Viv, you continue with Graham Nattrass’s background.’
Nash picked up the phone and rang the Met. Having requested the Max Perry file and elicited a promise that it would be sent by courier that afternoon, Nash asked to be transferred to CID and his former colleague, Brian Shaw.
After some moments, he was connected. ‘Mike, long time since I spoke to you. How are things in the frozen north? Plenty of farmers’ daughters to keep you warm at night?’
‘Not any more, Brian. I’m respectable these days.’
‘Wonders will never cease. Don’t tell me you’re married. Settled down, slippers and pipe, that sort of thing. Mug of cocoa and in bed by 9.30?’
‘I said respectable, not ancient. Anyway, you’re the expert on married life, as I remember.’
‘You are out of touch. That went belly up three years ago after she buggered off with an Eyetie.’
‘Sorry to hear that, Brian.’
‘Yeah, well I wasn’t. Glad to see the back of her. The bloke she took up with owns a string of restaurants and by what I hear he’s been servicing several of the waitresses who work for him. Serves her right. If I meet him, I’ll shake his hand and thank him.’
‘So now you’re leading a lonely, celibate life?’
‘Hardly, I met up with a little smasher, name of Candy. Now I’ve developed a real sweet tooth.’
‘Your jokes haven’t got any better. Has this girl any other faults apart from defective eyesight and poor judgement?’
‘Did you ring just to insult me, or was there another reason?’
‘I’m trying to get hold of someone to talk to about an old case.’
‘How old are you talking?’
‘Twenty-six years, so I suppose they’ll all be retired by now?’
‘Pushing up daisies, more like. What’s the case?’
‘I’m not sure if you know of it. It’s two linked cases, actually.’ Nash explained the details.
‘Perry; that name rings a bell. East End gangster, murdered by one of the opposition. Son took revenge on the boss of the other outfit and got life for it. That the one?’
‘Near enough. Nephew, actually, but apart from that you’ve got it dead right. There’s not much wrong with your memory.’
‘Pride myself on it. Now, give me the name, rank and division of the men you’re after and I’ll get back to you. Shouldn’t take more than half an hour, providing I can get someone in HR to talk to me. Do you want me to phone you back or shall I email you?’
‘You and technology? I’d love to see that. Makes me wish I hadn’t left.’
‘I’ll tell you something, there’s plenty here wish you hadn’t. I’ll get back to you ASAP.’
True to his word, Shaw was soon back on the phone. ‘I’ve good news and bad. Three of the men have gone to the police station in the sky. One’s living in Spain, drinking weak lager and eating paella. Unless your boss is very generous with expenses, that rules him out.’
‘So, what’s the good news?’
‘The last name you gave me, DS Wellings, he’s still hale and hearty. What’s more, he’s not a million miles away from you. Wellings went back to his wife’s neck of the woods when he’d got his time in; retired as a DCI. The note on his file says he and his wife are running a boarding house. Don’t forget your bucket and spade, because it’s in Scarborough. Got a pen?’
Nash was undecided about whether to phone the retired officer, when Clara returned.
‘How did you get on with the Met?’
Nash explained.
‘That’s a bit of good luck,’ she commented when he told her where Wellings was living. ‘Have you phoned him?’
‘Not yet, I was still making my mind up about that. On balance, I think it’ll be better to wait until we’ve had a look at the other file. It should be with us tomorrow.’
It was mid-afternoon when the promised file arrived. Clara eyed it as Nash struggled with the wrappings. ‘That looks a far bigger file than Ray’s.’
‘It will have the murder trial stuff in it as well as Max’s own track record, I guess. Drag a chair over and let’s have a look at the gory details.’
Nash said it in jest, but when they opened the file, it seemed the joke was in fairly bad taste. Clara drew her chair nearer and as they read the section dealing with Max Perry’s injuries, she gasped. ‘That’s impossible!’
Nash didn’t reply. He was still coming to terms with the implications of what he’d read.
‘How the hell did that happen?’ Clara continued. ‘It must be some sort of ghastly coincidence.’
‘You know I don’t believe in coincidences.’ Nash shook his head, as much to clear it as to emphasize his denial. ‘But how a motor mechanic in North Yorkshire dies of what appear to be identical injuries to those inflicted on a London gangster over a quarter of a century ago, baffles me. Even down to the teeth having been knocked out.’
‘What do you intend to do?’
‘First of all I want confirmation of what we’ve just read. I mean an expert opinion. And the only person who can give us that is Señor Ramirez. I’ll try and get to see him tomorrow. I reckon you and I should go for a day at the seaside in the next few days.’
‘A day at the…? Oh, I get you. Go see the retired officer. Wellings, you said his name was, didn’t you?’
‘That’s right, I’ll phone first to make sure it’s convenient,’ Nash kept his face straight. ‘And in case we have some spare time, be sure and buy a newspaper and don’t wear any tights.’
‘What?’
‘You can fold the paper up to use as a hat and you won’t want tights on when you go paddling.’
Nash picked up the folder, and as he did so a photo slid out of the file onto his desk. He picked it up and studied it. ‘Wow! What a stunner!’
‘She’s remarkably beautiful,’ Clara agreed. ‘Who is she?’
Nash looked on the back but there was no inscription, neither could they find any reference whatsoever to the mystery woman in the file. ‘Let’s see what help we can get from Scarborough.’
Nash phoned Ramirez, and explained what he needed. ‘I’ll have a look for you. As it happens, I have a free day tomorrow, unless you manage to find any more bodies, which is always a strong possibility. Ten o’clock in the morning OK?’
Examination of the pathology results provided the confirmation Nash needed. ‘The post-mortem findings don’t confirm the weapon,’ Ramirez said, ‘but the wounds look identical, and the diameter of each injury is the right size. The pathologist didn’t suggest a possible weapon, but now I’ve had chance to study Mr Nattrass’s injuries closely, I think you should look for a sledgehammer as the most likely to have inflicted those wounds. There are other similarities between Max Perry’s case and that of Mr Nattrass. The pathologist at Max Perry’s post-mortem failed to identify the marks on the genitals,’ Ramirez continued. ‘I find that surprising. They�
�re quite clearly burn marks. And just the right size and shape to have been made by a cigarette. Added to that, there’s the way Perry was tied up, which to me looks identical to how we found Nattrass. Do you agree?’
‘Yes, I’d noticed. I think that makes it fairly conclusive.’
chapter seven
The Scarborough guest house was almost identical to those surrounding it. Set back from the road, the front garden had been covered in tarmac to provide parking spaces.
Wellings was nothing like the mental image Nash had conjured up of the retired officer. No more than medium height, slim, wiry of build, with gold-rimmed spectacles, he looked more like an academic than a policeman or a hotelier. He greeted them and led them into the dining room, where he indicated the coffee machine in the corner. ‘Breakfast finished only half an hour ago, so the coffee’s still fresh. Unless you’d prefer tea?’
They shook their heads. ‘Right, I’ll be with you in a second. I’ll just pop into the kitchen and put a jug of milk in the microwave.’
When they were seated round one of the tables, Wellings stirred his coffee. ‘What’s this all about, then?’
‘An old customer of yours,’ Nash told him. ‘Well, two to be exact. Raymond Perry and his Uncle Max.’
‘Ray Perry? I haven’t heard that name in a long number of years. Not that I’ve wanted to. Nasty piece of work; sliced up Tony Callaghan good and proper. What’s your interest in him? Don’t tell me he’s come to Yorkshire?’
Nash nodded.
‘That’s a first, I’ll bet. I don’t think Ray’s willingly been north of Watford Gap all his life. What’s he done?’
After Nash explained, Wellings responded, ‘Can’t say I’ll shed many tears.’ Wellings took a swig of his coffee. ‘Ray Perry was a bloody nuisance, not to put too fine a point on it. Caused us a lot of problems, one way or another, even before he did for Callaghan. Then he became more than a nuisance.’
‘In what way?’
‘When Mad Max was killed we got word that Callaghan was behind it. We were extremely worried there would be an all-out war between the gangs, but thankfully it didn’t happen. Ray’s slicing up of Dirty Harry was very badly timed. We were on the point of pulling Callaghan in for questioning and we were sure we’d get a shed-load of information, even if we couldn’t pin Max’s murder on him, but Ray jumped the gun and got there first.’
‘Inconvenient, to say the least,’ Nash agreed. ‘But given what I’ve read about Callaghan, what made you so certain you’d get info from him? He didn’t seem the type to cough easily.’
‘He wasn’t, but we’d got something on him. Not criminal, this was personal. We thought it was something Ray Perry didn’t know. Obviously we were wrong.’
‘What was it, can you remember?’
Wellings smiled. ‘Oh yes, I can remember well enough. It was a woman,’ the retired officer kept a straight face. ‘They cause a lot of trouble, attractive women.’
‘You don’t need to tell Mike that,’ Mironova interjected.
‘Ray had a girlfriend, a nightclub singer called Frankie Da Silva. She was an absolute stunner. She’d a good singing voice too. Not top class, but good enough to earn a decent living, and to be honest, when she was on stage, very few men noticed her voice. What she saw in Ray Perry, I’ve no idea. She could have had her pick of men. But then, women seem to fall for the most disreputable types.’
‘You don’t need to tell Mike that, either,’ Clara added again.
Wellings grinned. ‘Max Perry’s wife, Corinna, was another case in point. She was a really good-hearted woman; do anything to help anybody. Mind you, that was probably due to her training. She was a nurse before she married Max,’ he explained. ‘Corinna did a lot of fund-raising for local charities, that sort of thing. She was a bit younger than Max, which was another reason I couldn’t understand the match. Pretty, too, although nowhere near as lovely as Frankie.
‘Anyway, just before Tony Callaghan was killed, we got word that he had been seeing Frankie when Ray wasn’t about. Our snout told us Callaghan had been seen going to Frankie’s flat – a lot. After Max’s murder, we were told that it was Frankie lured Max to the place where he was killed; an empty lock-up under the arches near one of the big railway stations. Apparently, the plan was for her to set Max up for the kill, before which they’d get him to tell her where he kept his stash. They’d grab that and scarper. Frankie agreed to do it, both for the money and for Callaghan. Hardly an original scheme, but apparently it worked, at least for Frankie. The only problem was, Ray must have found out what they were up to and got to Callaghan before they could fly off into the sunset.’
Wellings paused, frowning slightly. ‘What is it?’ Nash prompted. ‘Something you remembered?’
‘I sat in on a couple of the interviews when Ray Perry was being questioned. When the boss asked him about Callaghan and Frankie, he didn’t pull any punches.’
Wellings glanced apologetically at Clara before continuing, ‘He suggested Callaghan was screwing Frankie left, right and centre and word was she couldn’t get enough of Dirty Harry’s dick. He went on and on about it, trying to goad Perry.’
‘And did he get a reaction?’
‘He did, but it certainly wasn’t the one he was hoping for. Ray burst out laughing. For some reason, the idea of Frankie and Callaghan tickled him, in spite of the mess he was in.’
‘And you’ve no idea why?’
‘None at all.’
‘What happened to Frankie, do you know?’
‘She was never seen again. We were told at the time that she’d decided to go solo.’
‘Where did you pick up all your information?’
‘Our DCI had a contact. No idea who, although I suspect it might have been a member of Max’s organization, or someone on the fringes of it. Whoever he was, he was bloody reliable. He’d passed us a load of stuff before all this blew up, all of it top class, so we’d no reason to doubt this was genuine.’
Nash slid a photo from the folder he’d brought with him, ‘Do you recognize this woman?’
A nostalgic smile spread across Wellings’ face. ‘That’s Frankie. Frankie Da Silva. One of the most beautiful women I’ve ever laid eyes on.’
‘Did anything strike you about the way Max Perry was killed? The pictures and description of his injuries in the file are fairly graphic.’
Wellings grimaced. ‘Not half as bad as being at the crime scene, believe me. I actually felt sorry for Max. I know he was a villain, but God knows what agonies he must have suffered before he died. They tortured the poor bastard, trying to find his stash, we thought. To do that they burned his balls with cigarettes. He must have been bloody stubborn, that’s what we reckoned, because they also yanked his teeth out with pliers.
‘Did you read how he died? The only way we could identify him was by the bloody great gold chain Corinna had given him. That and his signet ring. Later, we matched his prints with some we lifted from Max’s flat. The place where he was killed was a bloodbath, if that’s what you meant by anything striking.’
‘Not precisely; I wondered if you’d got any clue as to the killer’s identity from the MO?’
‘No, it was a new one on us. Why do you ask?’
‘What Mike’s getting at, Mr Wellings,’ Clara interrupted, ‘is that we’ve got the body of a young man in our mortuary and as far as we can judge from the pathology, this young man’s injuries are a carbon copy of those inflicted on Max Perry.’
Wellings looked stunned. ‘I’ve no idea how that could have happened. As I told you, we’d no clues and only a rumour that suggested Frankie was involved, plus the opportune way she vanished.’
‘You mentioned something about Max Perry’s stash. There’s no mention of it in here. What’s the story behind that?’
‘Again, a lot of it is rumour. We accumulated a fair amount of circumstantial evidence following Max’s death. Surprising, the number of people who talked then, people who were too scared even to say g
ood morning to us beforehand. That was the sort of fear Max and Ray inspired. The story was that Max had been collecting diamonds for years.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘Max said he didn’t trust banks; that they were too easy to rob. Well, if anyone should know, he’d be the one. Also, he didn’t want his money tied up where he’d have difficulty getting to it in a hurry. With some of the things he’d done, he wanted his assets easily portable and able to be converted into readies at a moment’s notice.’
‘What sort of sums are we talking about, any idea?’
Wellings spread his arms. ‘The rumours got wilder and wilder with every telling. But I think you’d be safe in starting with seven figures. And then maybe working up. If they’re still out there the value would be astronomical. Better than a lottery jackpot, even with a rollover, I guess.’
‘They might well be out there,’ Nash said soberly. ‘We may never know for sure. What we can say with some certainty is that there’s a ruthless and sadistic killer who is still out there. One with no qualms about inflicting some of the most horrific injuries I’ve ever seen on anyone who gets in his way.’
‘Is there anything else you need to ask?’ Wellings glanced across at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘It’s just that I help the missus prepare the guests’ evening meals. This time of the year is our busiest.’
‘I’ve just one more thing. Both files are fairly detailed but neither of them gives much clue as to what sort of criminal activity the Perry organization was involved with.’
‘Pretty much anything that made a profit, I’d say. Their power base was built around the scrapyard and the chain of casinos, discos and nightclubs. That’s where Ray met Frankie. Around that time there was a string of bank robberies and bullion hold-ups round the south of England. In those days bank branch security was archaic, making them easy pickings. We heard Max did all the planning, whilst Ray recruited and controlled the muscle. Nothing was ever proved, but it’s surely not coincidence that the robberies stopped after Max was killed and Ray was put inside. Max was bloody clever. He was without doubt the brains behind the heists. We knew it, but he was so careful we could never prove anything. We didn’t even have enough on him to pull him in for questioning. Meticulous, that was Mad Max; into everything from robbery to prostitution and protection.’ Wellings paused and stressed his next point, ‘Everything but drugs. That was one thing they never got involved in. I heard Ray wouldn’t stand for it.’