by Len Maynard
“Before he died.”
“I gathered as much, but have you any idea when and where it was taken?”
“Looks like a boxing match.”
“Have you any idea where the venue might be?”
“The York Hall, Bethnal Green, I should imagine. Benny used to photograph all the fights there.”
“Benny being your son?”
The old man nodded. “It was his passion, had been since I first got him into photography. As I said, he was a bloody fool. Weddings and portraiture, that’s where the money is in this game, bread and butter shots, not taking snaps at sporting events on the off chance of selling them to the newspapers. That’s a mug’s game. Mind you he did manage to get rid of this one.”
“Really, he sold it? To where?”
“The Police Gazette of all places. The bloody Police Gazette! I remember when he sold it, two weeks before he died. He was crowing so loudly about it, mind you they only paid him pennies for it. ‘That’s not going to make your fortune,’ I told him, but did he listen? Did he hell. He wouldn’t listen to his old man. He was always on the lookout for what he called the money shot. The one photograph that the newspapers would pay him a fortune for. That’s how he got himself killed, trying to snap someone as they came out of the Purple Flamingo in Tottenham Court Road. Stepped into the road to get a better angle and a bus hit him. Bloody fool!” The old man slapped his palm down on the counter. “You don’t get hit by buses at weddings.”
“No. I should imagine not.”
“I lost heart in the business when Benny passed.” He rubbed his palm over his face, squeezing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t know. You spend your life building something up. Something to pass on to your nearest and dearest, and then in a split second it all goes to hell under the wheels of a number 29 bus.”
Fuller left the old man to his bitter memories and headed back to the station.
13 - FRIDAY
If Edith Rosser had been more put out by Myra’s presence in her classroom then she would have had difficulty expressing it to any great effect on her sour-featured face. As it was, she stood up in front of the class and said, “Phyllis Mayhew and Sally Wilson, please come down here to the front of the class.”
Myra watched as two of the girls put their books away in almost identical satchels, stood up from their desks and moved down the aisle to the front of the classroom.
“Right,” Mrs Rosser said as they assembled uncertainly at the front. “Please go to the staffroom with WPC Banks. She has some questions for you.”
Myra smiled tightly at her old domestic science teacher. “Thank you, Mrs Rosser. I’ll try not to keep them too long.”
Whether or not it was the girls’ first time in the out-of-bounds staffroom Myra couldn’t say for sure but, judging from their wide-eyed expressions as they entered their teachers’ inner sanctum, she guessed it was.
“Okay, girls. Take a seat and make yourself comfortable.”
There were a dozen matching leatherette armchairs in the room and several low coffee tables, complete with used coffee cups, and each with their own overflowing ashtray. In fact the whole room stank of old coffee and stale cigarette smoke.
Sally Wilson wrinkled her nose in mild disgust and took a seat by an open window. The less confident Phyllis Mayhew vacillated for a few moments before plumping for an armchair alongside her school friend. She sat down, hugging her satchel to her chest as if for protection, and looked up at Myra with an apprehensive expression on her rather plain, moon face.
“It’s okay, girls. You’re not in any trouble.” Myra reassured them.
Phyllis exhaled her relief noisily while Sally, an altogether more attractive girl with curly red hair and freckles, stared out of the window, a couldn’t-give-a-damn look in her green eyes.
Myra took a position at the front of the room, turned to them and cleared her throat to make sure she had their attention. “Geraldine Turner. She’s not in school today. Have either of you any idea where she might be?”
Phyllis was quick to shake her head. Sally just continued to stare out of the window.
“Sally?” Myra said.
“I haven’t seen her since afternoon break yesterday.” The girl took a long time to answer and, when she finally responded to Myra’s question it was in a bored voice.
“And you, Phyllis?” The girl looked close to tears. “Have you seen Geraldine since yesterday?”
Phyllis closed her eyes tightly and shook her head vehemently.
“So neither of you have any idea at all where Geraldine might be today?”
“Erm…” Phyllis started, but Sally rounded on her.
“Sshh, Phyll! We promised!” Her friend hissed the words at her angrily.
“Okay.” Myra clapped her hands together. “Pax, fainites. I don’t want you two to fall out over this…and I’m sure Geraldine wouldn’t want that either.”
“Her name’s Gerry, and she swore us to secrecy,” Sally said.
“I wasn’t going to say anything, Sal.” A tear ran down Phyllis’s cheek and she looked wretched.
Sally glared at her.
“All right, Phyllis,” Myra said gently. “You can go back to your class,”
Uncertainly, Phyllis got to her feet and, still hugging her school bag, hurried to the door.
Sally stood as well.
“Not you, Sally,” Myra said in a stern voice. “Please sit down.”
Sally glared at Myra, but she sat back in the chair and again directed her gaze out through the window.
Myra waited until they were alone in the room, then went and sat in the seat that Phyllis had vacated. “Gerry’s not in any trouble, Sally. I want you to understand that. It’s just that we’re all worried about her.”
Sally blinked hard, twice.
“If you tell me what you know, you won’t get into any trouble either.”
“But Gerry will know I told you,” Sally said. “And she made me promise.”
“You care about Gerry, don’t you?”
Sally nodded.
“Then you’ll be helping her, really you will.”
Sally continued to stare out through the window but tears were welling in her eyes.
You’re nowhere near as tough as you think you are, Myra thought.
“They beat her, you know,” Sally said suddenly.
Myra looked at her sharply. “Who beats her? Her parents?”
“Her stepmother and the old bag who lives with them during the week.”
“Hester Gough?”
Sally nodded. “She’s the worst. She hates Gerry, and Gerry hates her.”
Myra took a breath. “I see.”
Sally shook her head. “No, you don’t. You have no idea how awful it is for Gerry, living in that house.”
“Then tell me, and tell me where she’s gone. Will you do that?”
“She threatened to break Gerry’s fingers!” Tears were running freely down Sally Wilson’s cheeks now. She nodded her head slowly. “I’ll tell.”
“Threatened to break her fingers?” Jack said, shocked. “What kind of people are we dealing with here?”
“Not the type I’d want on my Christmas card list,” Myra said.
“Nor mine. Break her fingers! Music, the piano is everything to that child.”
“So you can see why she ran away.”
“Oh, yes, I see. Only too well. Did this Sally Wilson have any idea where Gerry might have gone?”
Myra shook her head. “Gerry wouldn’t tell her. Only that it was somewhere safe.”
Jack sat back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “The poor girl was probably scared out of her wits.”
“They used to beat her on a regular basis as well.” Myra could empathise with Gerry, coming as she did from a family with a violent drunken father and a weak and ineffectual mother. Myra’s teenage years were blighted by the uncertainty of where the next blow or slap would come from. In her mind, it was what drove he
r on to become a policewoman. It was a need to right injustice and bring to book those who preyed on the weakness of others.
“Is DS Lesser back from seeing the grandparents?” Jack said.
“He’d just got in as I came up.”
“Then send him up to see me. Let’s see if he’s had any luck. Hopefully Gerry won’t be missing for much longer.”
“What are you going to do about Hester Gough and Lois Turner, sir?”
Jack looked at her grimly. “Oh, I’ll deal with those two. In my own time, and in my own way.”
“How did you get on, Frank?”
Lesser grinned “Old man Turner’s a bit fierce. Sent me away with a flea in my ear.”
“Did he indeed? Sit down and tell me what was said.”
Lesser pulled a chair up to the desk and sat.
“Did he seem upset that his granddaughter was missing?”
“Not especially,” Lesser said. “He seemed more concerned with getting me out of the house and back on the streets to look for her.”
“What about Mrs Turner? Did you get to see her?”
“Bit of a wet weekend that one.”
“But you saw her, which is more than I managed. Did she seem upset? If it were my granddaughter and I’d just been told she was missing, just days after my son was murdered, I think I’d be frantic with worry, maybe even a little hysterical.”
“You, guv?”
“My only granddaughter has gone, for all I know, taken by the same person who’s just killed my son? Yes, sergeant, I think I’d be pretty hysterical.”
“Well, she was crying, but I wouldn’t have called it that extreme. I might just have told her that her dog had run away.”
Jack scratched the back of his neck. “I’m going to go and see them myself.”
“You think they may be lying about having some contact with her?”
“Through their teeth, Sergeant. In fact I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Gerry Turner was with them in the house all the time you were there. She might have been in one of the other rooms.”
“I should have checked.”
“My fault. I told you to tread lightly. You didn’t want to upset them further. Gerry told her school friend that she was going to go somewhere safe. Where could be safer than with her grandparents?”
“Then why didn’t the Turners say something? They must know that we’re expending a lot of man hours in the search for their granddaughter.”
“They probably think we’d just ship Gerry back to her stepmother and Miss Gough. They’d go out on a limb to protect her from that, if Gerry told them what her life was like with those two bitches. Leave it with me, Frank. I’ll drive over there again once I’ve spoken to Eddie. He’s up in Islington checking out a lead for me. He should be back any time.”
“Stepped out under a bus?” Jack said.
“Apparently.” Fuller crossed his legs under the desk. “He was snapping someone either going into or coming out of the Purple Flamingo nightclub on the Tottenham Court Road. Stepped into the road to get a better angle and wham!” He clapped his hands together, “Goodnight Vienna.”
“So let me get this straight. Benny Talbot sells a picture of Thomas Usher and his cronies at a boxing match to the Police Gazette, and two weeks later he falls under a bus outside Usher’s nightclub. Is it just me, or does that sound like an unlikely coincidence?”
“When you put it like that.”
“How else would you put it, Eddie? Those are the facts.” Jack got up and took his raincoat from the stand. “Have you contacted your old guvnor?”
“Yes, first thing. I’m going to drive over to see him this evening.”
“Well, there’s another thing you can ask him. Did the Met look into the circumstances surrounding Benny Talbot’s accident? Because, to my mind, this stinks like a haddock left out in the sun for a month.”
“I’ll check with him.” Fuller watched his boss walk out of the office and then leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. Charlie, what the hell are you up to? Fuller thought.
Jack almost made it out of the front door before being hailed by Andy Brewer. “Sir?”
Jack stopped with his hand on the door handle and looked back at the desk. “What is it, Sergeant?”
“Gentleman to see you, sir,” Brewer nodded towards a youngish man sitting on the bench, under the public information signs on the wall.
Taking Brewer’s nod as his cue, the man got to his feet. He was pencil thin, with stringy black hair and a protruding Adam’s apple. On the bridge of a hooked nose he wore a pair of thick, rimless glasses. As he spoke his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Chief Inspector Callum? Neil Clarke, News of the World.”
A reporter, Jack thought. That’s all I need.
“It’s about the Tony Turner murder.”
“Then I’m afraid you’re going to have to make an appointment to see Chief Superintendent Lane. He deals with all the press reports issued from this station. Sergeant Brewer here should have told you that.” He shot a withering look at Andy Brewer who had just developed an acute interest in a pile of missing pet forms on the desk.
“Ah.” Clarke adjusted his glasses, pushing them back on the bridge of his nose with his finger and peered at Jack. “I’ve just seen your chief superintendent, sir. He told me to wait here to have a word with you, as you are, ‘in charge of the investigation’. His words, not mine.”
Thank you, Henry, Jack thought. Chief Superintendent Henry Lane rarely missed an opportunity to get his name in the papers, so why was he passing the buck now? Perhaps had it been the Sunday Times and not a scandal sheet, he’d have been keener to give a quote.
“Perhaps you can answer a few of my questions? Superintendent Lane gave me the outline of the case, the bread and butter so to speak, but I need you to supply the meat for the sandwich.”
Meat? Sandwiches? Jack thought. What the hell is he talking about?
“I’m sorry, Mr. Clarke. I really haven’t got time for this. You need to make an appointment to see me. There’s somewhere I need to be.” He looked at his watch pointedly and moved towards the door. Clarke moved as well, keeping up with him, step for step.
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll make an appointment. Just one thing before you dash off though. Bearing in mind Mr. Turner’s past relationship with Thomas Usher, would you say there is a connection between his murder and the historic gang rivalry between Usher and Albert Klein?”
Jack looked at the reporter uncomprehendingly for second, and then shook his head. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the details of our investigation.”
“Would that be a ‘No comment’ then?”
Jack glared at him. “Yes, Mr, Clarke, it would.”
Clarke gave him an obsequious smile. “Thank you, Chief Inspector. That will be all for now. I’ll call up and make that appointment.” With that he pushed past Jack out of the station, letting the doors swing shut behind him.
“Why have I got the feeling I’ve just been stitched up?” Jack said to Brewer.
Brewer smiled. “Because you just gave him the golden answer. ‘No comment’. Which, for a reporter, is like being handed the keys to the kingdom. He’s free now to write any kind of speculative nonsense he likes. Do you read the News of the World, sir?”
“I wouldn’t let that rag through the letter box.”
“Shame, because if you did you’d realise that speculation and innuendo are their stock in trade. I think they invented the motto, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”
Jack shook his head. “Marvellous. Absolutely bloody marvellous.”
14 - FRIDAY
“Chief Inspector, twice in one day? To what do I owe this dubious honour?” Bob Lock said.
“Was Thomas Usher involved in some kind of turf war with a chap called Albert Klein?”
Lock considered the question for a moment. “You might call it that. At his height Usher had the South pretty much sewn up, from the Thames down to the coast. Albe
rt Klein has North of the river, almost as far up as Watford.”
“Why haven’t I heard about Klein before? Why does it take a hack working for the gutter press to tell me something I should already know and be on top of?”
Lock smiled. “I call it the Hertfordshire effect. Once you get out of London to live in this pleasant part of the world, the grimy world of urban crime just passes you by.”
Jack shook his head. “I’m slipping, Bob. I should know what’s going on in other parts of the country, especially London.”
Lock shook his head. “No, sir, not really. There’s more than enough crime here up here to deal with, without importing more in from the smoke.”
“But you’ve heard of this Klein chap?”
“The way my mind works is both a blessing and a curse. I get the chance to read everything that comes across my desk and ninety per cent of it doesn’t concern us at the Hertfordshire Constabulary at all, what does affect us I pass on. The rest of it goes on file but, because I’ve read it, it lodges here.” He tapped the side of his head. “And I have the devil’s own job of getting rid of it.”
“Well, dig out everything you have on file about Usher and Albert Klein. I’ll be out for a couple of hours, so have it all on my desk for when I return.”
“Your wish is my command.”
“Do genies live in dungeons?”
“Apparently, this one does,” Lock said with a rueful smile.
Jack pulled up outside the Turner’s bungalow and sat, with his engine off, watching the windows, looking for movement from within. The bungalow had heavy net curtains but after about five minutes he saw what he was expecting to see. He got out of the car and walked up the path. At the front door he pressed the doorbell and rapped on the door with his fist for good measure.
Laurence Turner opened the door and when he saw it was Jack, his face folded into a furious frown. “You again.”
“I just want to talk to her, Mr. Turner.”