by Len Maynard
“Will do. But I wouldn’t bank on me getting anything out of Lois’s doctor. When I spoke to Francombe on Wednesday he was reluctant to tell me anything at all, claiming doctor/patient privilege.”
“Well, do what you can. You have a way of winkling things out of people.”
Myra tilted her head to one side. “Should I take that as a compliment?”
“I should. God knows they don’t come along very often. When they do, you have to grab them with both hands.”
“I need to interview Albert Klein,” Jack said as he stepped into Bob Lock’s grotto.
“Why don’t you send for him?”
Jack shook his head. “I want it to be a less formal meeting.”
“Visit him at home then. He has a house in Hampstead. Bishops Avenue. Quite a pile, or so I’m led to believe.”
Jack simply held out his hand. He didn’t need to ask if Lock had the address. Of course he would.
Lock pulled out a sheet of paper from a small untidy pile perched on the edge of the desk and scribbled down the address. “Do you know it?” He handed Jack the slip of paper.
“I know Hampstead. I shouldn’t have too much trouble tracking it down.”
Back in his office he told Fuller that he would be out for the rest of the morning.
“Do you need me?”
Jack automatically shook his head and then stopped. “On second thoughts, yes, come along. I don’t know what my reception will be like, so it won’t do any harm if two of us turn up on his doorstep.”
The drive to Hampstead in Monday morning traffic was incident-free and, fifty minutes later Fuller swung the Wolseley in through the gates of the Bishops Avenue house.
“And they say crime doesn’t pay,” Fuller said, taking in the verdant lawns, the stately poplar trees and the huge detached house built from yellow brick with a green tiled roof. “There’s probably a swimming pool in the back garden.”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. It looks like we’ve got a welcoming committee.”
Fuller followed Jack’s gaze. The front door of the house had opened and three men stood in the doorway, one slightly ahead of the other two. Fuller recognized the man standing alone as Isaac Gold. The other two were both heavy-set and had hard, brutal faces. Sensing potential trouble Fuller took out his warrant card and brandished it as he took a step towards them. “Detective Sergeant Fuller. This is Chief Inspector Callum. We’d like to see Albert Klein.”
Gold stepped lightly down the two stone steps that led up to the front door. He studied Fuller’s warrant card intently for a few seconds. “Hampstead is a little outside your jurisdiction, isn’t it?” He had a mellifluous, almost singsong voice that contrasted sharply with his narrow eyes and menacing gaze.
Jack stepped forward and showed the man his warrant card. “We’d like to speak with Mr. Klein regarding one of our cases.” Jack smiled benignly. “For background information only.”
Gold turned his attention to Jack, studied the card and appraised him. Judging from the look on his face he didn’t seem that impressed with what he was appraising. Finally he bowed his head slightly. “I’ll ascertain whether Mr. Klein will be able to see you.” With that he spun on his heel and went back inside, leaving Jack and Fuller to continue their staring contest with the two thugs. Moments later he returned.
“Mr. Klein has agreed to see you.” There was an edge of resentment in his voice that he failed to disguise. “You have ten minutes. Follow me.” He turned sharply and led them into the house.
The interior of Albert Klein’s house was every bit as impressive as the exterior. The walls of the entrance hall were covered in a deep red, embossed wall covering, hung with framed watercolours of hunting scenes. The doors leading off from it were oak, polished to a rich lustre, and the carpet that covered the floor looked expensive. Probably Persian, Jack thought as the followed Isaac Gold across the hall to an open door on the far side.
The door gave onto a huge room with a glass roof, the walls given over to expansive picture windows that maximized the light bleeding from the overcast sky outside. “There’s your pool,” Jack said quietly to Fuller as they entered.
Their footsteps echoed on white ceramic tiles that surrounded a large swimming pool. There was a heat haze shimmering above the blue-toned water and they stood poolside watching as the sole occupant swam with easy, effortless strokes towards the stainless steel ladder closest to them.
The man who mounted the ladder and emerged, dripping, from the swimming pool, had a well-muscled body, tanned and gleaming, and a completely bald head. Albert Klein was a good-looking man in his forties with bright blue eyes above a nose that had only the hint of a Jewish hook. “Don’t fuss, Isaac, I can dry myself,” he snapped as Gold draped a white towelling robe around his shoulders and patted his bald pate with an equally white hand-towel.
Gold stepped back deferentially and handed Klein the towel.
Glancing at Jack and Fuller, Klein made his way to a small marble-topped table in the corner of the poolroom, surrounded by four blue-painted wrought iron chairs with yellow seat pads. “Won’t you join me, gentlemen?” Klein sat down at the table and pulled a cigar from a brown leather case. The attentive Gold was again on hand, cigar lighter primed. Klein ducked down and set the end of the cigar aglow, sucking in the smoke and rolling it around his mouth before puffing it out towards the glass ceiling. “Isaac tells me you’re investigating a crime in your area. Hertfordshire?”
“Letchworth Garden City, yes,” Fuller said, taking the lead.
Klein shook his head. “Don’t know it. Is it nice in that neck of the woods?”
“Green. Very green.”
Klein smiled indulgently and puffed again at the cigar. “So, what’s the crime?”
“Murder. An actor was murdered. Tony Turner. You might know him.”
Klein sucked on his cigar for a moment while he considered the idea, then he laid it down to rest on the lip of a chunky glass ashtray. “No.” He shook his head. “Never heard of him.” Turning to Isaac Gold who was hovering a few feet away, ready in case his services were required, he said, “Have you hear of him, Isaac, this actor, Tony Turner? Does the name mean anything to you.”
Gold shook his head. “Means nothing to me.”
Klein gave an exaggerated shrug. “Well, there you are, gentlemen. It seems you’ve had a wasted trip.
It was Jack’s turn to speak. “One of our lines of inquiry has taken us in the direction of Thomas Usher, a name I’m sure you’re familiar with.”
A slight smile hovered on Klein’s lips. “You seriously have old Tommy in the frame for this? You know he had a stroke a while back, don’t you?”
“We were aware of that.”
“Then forgive me for saying so, gentlemen, but you seem to be barking up the wrong tree.” Klein got to his feet. “Now, if you’ll excuse me I have to go and put some clothes on. I have a business meeting in a little while. We’ll continue this shortly.”
Before they could respond Klein disappeared into to a small dressing room leading off from the pool area, followed closely by Gold who turned and closed the door behind them.
Fuller gave a low whistle. “Well, he’s a cool customer. Do you think he’s right? About barking up the wrong tree?”
Jack sat, staring into the depths of the swimming pool, a faraway look in his eyes.
“Sir?” Fuller prompted him.
Jack seemed to shake himself. “Yes. Probably. I don’t know.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Something’s nagging away at the back of my mind. I know him from somewhere. I’m sure I’ve met Klein before but, as much as I wrack my brains, I just can’t place where.”
“Hardly a surprise. You’ve crossed swords with lots of villains in your time.”
“But not one as wealthy as this.” His arm encompassed the poolroom. “I’d remember.”
They lapsed into silence, broken only by the steady hum of the swimming pool’s pum
p and the occasional gushing sound as the inlet valves opened and allowed warm water in from the heater.
Eventually the changing room door opened and Gold stepped out, the robe and towel draped over his arm, wet trunks clasped in his fist. He walked past them without acknowledgment and disappeared back into the house.
Finally the door opened and Klein stepped out. He was dressed casually in a pink jumper over grey slacks with white canvas deck shoes on his feet. The bald head had been covered by a neatly cut blond wig that transformed his face, softening the hard features.
Jack stared at him as he approached them and let out a breath. “Albie Small,” he said almost to himself as recognition finally dawned.
22 - MONDAY
“I wondered when the penny would finally drop,” Klein said with a smile.
“You two know each other?” Fuller looked at Jack incredulously.
Before he could answer Klein said to him, “They say in the nick that you never forget the first copper to feel your collar. Your Chief Inspector here was the first rozzer to arrest me, that’s right isn’t it, Mr. Callum?”
Jack nodded. “You’ve done all right for yourself since those days, Albie.”
“Albert now, Mr. Callum. Albie Small was a skinny little runt from Ponders End. A world away from this.”
“You changed your surname too,” Fuller said.
Klein shook his head. “Not legally. Klein was always my family name, but being recognizably Jewish in England in the twenties and thirties was not a good thing to be. Remember, Sergeant, this was the time of Oswald Mosley and his fascist Blackshirts. My father owned a tailor’s shop in Palmers Green, and the Blackshirts would come around regularly and smash it up, and him into the bargain. When they firebombed it my mum decided enough was enough and persuaded the old man to sell up and move, hence we ended up in Ponders End, not the most salubrious area of North London, but a damned sight safer place for us than the snootier Palmers Green. We changed our name from Klein to Small and dad started a business working from home. The Blackshirts didn’t bother us again.”
“So why didn’t you follow your father into the trade? Instead of becoming a hoodlum?” Jack said.
“Because I saw what tailoring did to him. A curved spine from hours hunched over whatever garment he was stitching, hands crippled by arthritis, and eyesight pretty much shot by the time he was forty. No.” He shook his head. “Not for me. I wanted better out of life.”
“And so you became a petty thief.”
Klein smiled at Jack. “Fair play. That’s what I was when you first collared me, but I seem to remember you used to wear blue serge with three stripes on your arm then, and look at you now. We evolve. We move on. Adolf Hitler changed my life.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “He changed a lot of people’s lives. Mostly for the worst.”
“And when a Nazi stick grenade landed in my Jeep and blew it to hell I thought it had mine, but I was invalided out of the army and sent home. For me the war was over. I was in hospital for the best part of six months while they patched me up, and they did a bloody good job of it. Most of the scars have disappeared now, but my insides were a mess and I’m still on daily medication. Funnily enough, the hair never grew back. Alopecia they said, brought on by the stress of the explosion and the resulting injuries. But God, as they say, works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform, and for me that was certainly the case. Wartime Britain was a land of endless opportunity for those with an eye for the easy profit.” Klein gave a smile that was just the wrong side of smug.
“You became a black marketer.”
“An entrepreneur,” Klein corrected him. “I prefer to think of myself like that.”
“I’m sure you do,” Jack said sardonically.
“Sour grapes. Chief Inspector? Surely not. Not that I can blame your cynicism. Before I reconnected with my faith after the war and started using my God given name I’ll admit I was pretty much a hopeless case, a profiteer with few scruples. But Judaism changed all that and helped me get my life back on track.” He paused and looked at them both intently. “Ah, I can see the scepticism in your eyes. Shame. Let me try to convince you.”
“In a moment perhaps.” Jack reached into his pocket for the photograph of Isaac Gold and Simon Docherty taken outside The Purple Flamingo and laid it down on the table.
Klein picked it up and stared at it. “Why are you showing me this?”
Jack pointed to one of the figures in the photograph. “That’s your man, Isaac Gold?”
“Yes, that’s Isaac. I don’t know who the other fellow is though.”
“His name is Simon Docherty, legal advisor to Thomas Usher, and it was taken outside Usher’s nightclub on the Tottenham Court Road. I was just wondering why your man was in, what seems to be, a deep conversation with the brief of one of your business rivals.”
Klein dropped the photograph back on the table, shaking his head. “Isaac’s his own man. I’m sure he had his reasons. Besides who he decides to converse with is entirely his own business. It has nothing to do with me, and certainly has nothing to do with the police.”
“The man who gave me that photograph was the father of the young man who took it. He’s a Jewish businessman like yourself, who is mourning the death of his photographer son, who died under the wheels of a bus in the very same spot the photograph was taken.”
“Fate can be a swine sometimes. I hope you’re not suggesting that this has anything to do with me.”
Jack smiled at him easily. “Not at all. His death was deemed an unfortunate accident. It’s just me, the way I work. I’m just trying to tie all the strands of this case together. You said that we appear to be barking up the wrong tree, but trees have branches, and I’m following those branches. Strangely enough, they all appear to lead to either Usher’s or your businesses.”
“A conundrum indeed,” Klein said as Isaac Gold walked into the poolroom. “Ah, here’s Isaac now. Show him your photograph. Perhaps he can shed some light on it. Isaac, if you could spare a minute.”
Gold smiled and came over to the table.
“The chief inspector here has a photograph he’d like you to take a look at.”
“With pleasure.” Gold picked up the photograph and looked at it. “That’s me. When was it taken? Some time ago I’d hazard. I haven’t worn that suit in over a year. I ripped the pocket and never got it repaired.”
“You should let me take a look at it, Isaac. I could probably fix it for you. Invisible mending was one of my father’s specialities. I did learn a few things at the old man’s knee.”
Jack steered the conversation back on track. “It was taken about eighteen months ago, outside The Purple Flamingo on the Tottenham Court Road.
“It’s that nightclub Tommy Usher used to own,” Klein said. “And apparently that’s Usher’s brief that you’re talking with.”
Gold shrugged. “Well, I’d hardly call it talking. He was just asking me the time. I thought he was just one of the club’s customers so I obliged.”
“And there was nothing more to it than that?” Klein said.
“No.”
“Well, that clears that up then. Happenstance, Mr. Callum, nothing more and nothing less. A coincidence that has made you spend a morning trekking all the way over to Hampstead from the very green environs of Hertfordshire on nothing more than a wild goose chase.” He shook his head sadly “I wouldn’t want your job, Chief Inspector. It seems a very frustrating, unrewarding occupation to me.”
“Someone has to do it. Thank you for your time, Albie.” Jack walked to the door. “Just out of interest, where were you last Tuesday afternoon?”
“Oh, that’s easy. I was at my uncle’s house in Highgate, sitting Shiva for aunt Miriam, his wife, who died on Monday.”
“My condolences.”
“If you need that corroborated, Jacob Bloom, Rabbi Bloom was also there. He works out of the Golders Green synagogue. Or I can give you the names of the other mourners if you need more.”<
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“That won’t be necessary. Goodbye.”
“But don’t you want the grand tour of house and grounds. It’s not often I get the chance to show off.”
“Maybe the next time I come to see you.”
Klein smiled and shook his head. “Oh, I doubt there will be a next time, Mr Callum. I doubt that very much. Good day.”
“Would you mind telling me what that achieved?” Fuller said as they got back into the Wolseley.
“It was an itch that needed scratching.”
“And that’s all?”
“For the time being, Sergeant.”
Fuller shook his head and started the car.
Myra Banks sat down at her desk, picked up the ’phone and called down to Elaine Simmons on the switchboard. “Elaine, could you get me Northrop Chemicals?”
“Give me a moment,” Elaine’s cheery voice replied. She was a 48-year-old spinster with an ample bosom that matched the rest of her curvaceous frame. Her naturally happy disposition was infectious and even the sound of her voice could melt all but the hardest of hearts. She was surrogate mother to all of the younger officers at the station, Myra included, a warm, wise matriarch, totally reliable, and a discreet shoulder to cry on. “I have the number, Myra love. Would you like me to me to put you through?”
“If you would, Elaine, and thanks.”
“Do you want to go to the Two Brewers for a drink on Thursday? There’re a few of us going. It’s my birthday.”
“I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Lovely. Connecting you now.”
The switchboard operator at Northrop Chemicals was polite but had none of Elaine’s warmth.
“I’d like to speak to the person in charge of advertising,” Myra said. “The person responsible for the Cadence campaign a few years ago.”
“I’ll put you through to our marketing director. Who shall I say is calling?”
Myra introduced herself and a few seconds later a man came on the line. “Stephen Sullivan, Marketing.”