Dressed to Kill

by Patricia Hall

  ‘She’s an amateur. She’s just playing at it,’ Kate heard Lubin object before he slammed the door, muffling the rest of their conversation. She turned her attention to the girls who were drifting in one by one and began to distribute the dresses – more avant-garde than anything she had seen here before – to the models and make sure that they adjusted their make-up to suit the heavy, dark-eyed look Andrei liked. The trouble with this assignment, she thought, was not that she did not like fashion but that she really could not see herself devoting her career to it. The people she had met so far in the rag trade would drive her doolally in a very short time, she thought.

  Sylvia, who had struggled into her short dress with some difficulty, grabbed Kate’s arm as she spotted DS Harry Barnard walking through the open studio door.

  ‘That was quick,’ Kate said quietly.

  ‘I told you I needed to talk to your Mr Lubin about Jenny Maitland,’ he said. ‘Is he in?’

  Kate waved at the closed office door. ‘He’s in there,’ she said.

  Barnard squeezed his way through the bustle of semi-dressed girls with every sign of enjoyment, tapped on the door and went into Lubin’s sanctum. He closed the door behind him but Kate wondered if he had deliberately raised his voice because she could still hear most of what was being said. It was obvious that both Lubin and Smart resented any suggestion that they should be held responsible for Jenny in any way once she had left their employment. Kate marshalled the girls into their position on the set, and began to take some preliminary shots, positioning herself as close as possible to the office door so that she could still hear the conversation, which seemed to be rapidly turning into a rant on Andrei Lubin’s part. He could not be held responsible if girls lied about their age, either to work or to sleep with him, if they were so minded, he said loudly, and a lot of them it seemed, were so minded while they worked at the studio. Kate could just imagine Ricky Smart smirking at that blunt response. But neither of the men, it appeared, had seen or heard of Jenny after Lubin sacked her. They assumed she had gone back home to her family. In other words, they claimed to know absolutely nothing about the last two months of the girl’s life.

  All three of the men eventually came out of the office. Lubin picked up a camera and strode over to Kate, looking thunderous but intent on taking over the shoot. Smart, with a secret smirk, followed Barnard out and ushered him to the door. But as he turned back he looked less than happy with his interview and did not even glance at Kate.

  ‘I’m sure I’ll have more questions to ask you, and your boss, and quite possibly some of your models as the inquiry progresses,’ Barnard called out to the retreating Smart, before turning away himself and thundering down the stairs.

  Kate arrived at the Blue Lagoon early, her interview with Ken Fellows having been brief and unsatisfactory. She ordered herself a cappuccino and sat stirring the froth idly as she waited for Barnard to arrive. Fellows had actually laughed when she complained about Andrei and Ricky’s persistent advances.

  ‘News to me, girl,’ he had said. ‘I thought they were all poofters.’

  ‘Definitely not,’ she had shot back. ‘In any case I think I’ve learned enough about the rag trade. I’m not cut out for that sort of photography anyway.’

  ‘It’s another string to our bow, girl, if we can show them some sexy fashion shots,’ her boss said. ‘You stick it out and we’ll put some of your best shots in our portfolio.’

  ‘But we’ve got Tatiana Broughton-Clarke,’ she had argued. ‘I’ll pin her down to a shoot and if you hold the rights you can put as many of her designs in your portfolio as you like. You won’t squeeze the rights to any of Lubin’s pictures out of him. You know that.’

  ‘See the contract out,’ Fellows had said, irritated now. ‘It’s not very long. I’m sure you’ll fend off his unwanted attentions. You’re not a little girl.’ And with that he had picked up his phone to dial a call.

  Kate was still simmering with discontent when Barnard finally arrived.

  He got himself a coffee and slipped into the seat opposite her. ‘You don’t look too happy,’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I tried to persuade the boss to let me bail out of Lubin’s studio,’ she said.

  ‘Good idea,’ Barnard agreed. ‘Seems to me he’s running a knocking shop with under-age girls. I’ll be paying him close attention over the next few weeks. But it’s always the same with these cases: the girls say they were willing, and even if they claim to have been forced it’s hard to get a conviction. The juries don’t believe them.’

  ‘You’re joking,’ Kate said.

  ‘It’s generally one person’s word against another’s in sex cases,’ Barnard said. ‘Pimps and rapists generally walk free.’

  Kate stared at him in horror for a moment and then sighed. ‘Anyway, Ken doesn’t want me to leave,’ Kate said. ‘He seemed to think the fact that Andrei and Ricky both seem to want to get me into bed was funny. I don’t see the joke.’

  Barnard smiled. ‘Come on, I can see why they’d want to do that,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure you can look after yourself. You don’t seem to have much difficulty fending me off.’

  Kate smiled slightly, thinking how very different Harry Barnard was, though there was no way she was going to tell him that.

  ‘Here, this should cheer you up,’ he said, fishing in his inside pocket and handing her a sealed envelope. ‘That should sort your little friend out, though remember, I know nothing about it. See if you can’t persuade her to go home to mum.’

  Kate took the envelope and nodded. ‘Don’t you think I’ve tried?’ she said. ‘I’ll try again, of course I will. It goes against everything I was always taught . . .’

  ‘Quite apart from being against the law,’ Barnard said quietly.

  ‘I know, I know. But I’m frightened of what she’ll do if she doesn’t sort it out.’ Barnard’s lips tightened.

  ‘It can be dangerous,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Kate whispered. ‘I know.’

  ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘I have to be up in Hampstead in half an hour. Take care, Kate, sweetie. I mean it.’

  ‘I will,’ she said. ‘Promise.’

  Barnard eased his car through the narrow gap leading from Hampstead Heath between the pub and the toll house on the other side of the road in the teeth of a large red bus, and then swung the red Capri left into the car park of the Spaniards. It was just on six and there were only a couple of cars there but he knew that the racing-green Jag belonged to Fred Bettany. He parked next to it and made his way into the wood panelled and almost empty interior. The place was popular with walkers on the heath, especially with families who frequented its famous garden, and was still preening itself after fighting off an attempt to demolish the toll house and widen the road outside. But at this time on a working day it was a good choice for a quiet inconspicuous drink, he thought, with just the smallest tremor of anxiety about why Bettany had summoned him to this totally unexpected tête-à-tête.

  Running a quick eye round the various nooks and crannies, he found Fred sitting at a tiny table almost invisible from the door with a glass of Scotch in front of him that looked untouched.

  ‘Ah, there you are,’ he said, sounding irritated, as if Barnard was late. ‘Do you want the same?’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Barnard said, but he accepted the pound note that Bettany handed him, bought his drink, and sat down opposite him, dropping the change into his outstretched hand. ‘All right?’ he asked, before taking a sip.

  Bettany nodded but without any great enthusiasm. ‘I wanted to talk to you about Ray,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m worried about him.’

  ‘Why, is he ill?’

  ‘In the head, maybe,’ Bettany said lugubriously.

  ‘He seemed a bit down last time I saw him,’ Barnard said. ‘I was asking him if he knew anything about this girl found dead behind the Jazz Cellar and he went into a long moan about how everything was going wrong for him. Seemed to blame it all
on Georgie.’

  ‘I think people are turning his invitations down because they’re drawing their horns in after all the scandals, Profumo, Keeler, Ward, all that. Suddenly it doesn’t seem quite so smart being seen in the Evening Standard diary all dolled up and consorting with criminals. What about your lot? What’s the Yard doing about Soho? They can’t have been very pleased about Ted Verity.’

  ‘You know they’ve appointed a God-bothering Scot as my DCI in Vice, and he’s beginning to dig himself in,’ Barnard said. ‘Uptight doesn’t begin to describe it. There’s a few in Vice thinking of looking for a transfer before the proverbial hits the fan. I don’t think it’s going to be such a comfortable berth in future. He seems to think he can clean up Soho. As if!’

  ‘And you? Will that affect you?’ Bettany asked.

  ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I reckon I can outlast anyone Bonny Scotland sends down here. It’ll take him at least five years to find his way around the manor, ten to suss out who really controls his patch.’ Barnard grinned and drained his glass. ‘Another?’ he asked but Bettany shook his head and did not smile.

  ‘Ray told me he wanted to do something big,’ he said. ‘Something to put himself back on the map, as he put it. But what the hell does he mean by big? I think he’s going a bit doolally, to be honest. I’ve never known him in a state like this before.’

  ‘He was really peeved about the Notting Hill disaster, wasn’t he?’ Barnard mused. ‘I told him at the time they’d gang up on him. He’d not be able to get a toe in the water without a major war and he didn’t have the clout or the contacts down there to win one of those. And he did say to me some time back he thought someone new was muscling in on the girls and he wanted me to do something about that. But I didn’t really take him seriously until we found this little girl dead. I have to say the way Ray and the Maltese carve things up between them makes for a quiet life as far as we’re concerned. If someone is trying to disturb that set-up we’re in uncharted waters, especially with a new DCI wanting to make a name for himself.’

  ‘And a nice little earner for you lot, too,’ Bettany said without rancour. ‘What’s your take on the tarts? Is there someone new trying to get a toe in?’

  Barnard thought carefully before replying. ‘This girl we’ve found dead is an unknown as far as I can discover. She’s only been around a short time – in fact she’s only been up west a short time – and none of the regular girls seems to know how she got on to the game. If someone new was running her I haven’t tracked him down yet. But I will, don’t worry about that. She was only a kid. She couldn’t have been on the street on her own. Someone put her there. And she didn’t deserve to end up like that, dumped like a sack of garbage by the dustbins. Beaten up, stabbed, you name it.’

  ‘Ray doesn’t want to run girls,’ Bettany said. ‘He’s never liked that. Says his mother doesn’t approve. He’s perfectly happy running protection and a bit of gambling. He’s not a greedy man. At least he wasn’t until he started rambling on about the train robbers and retiring to the sun in Spain when his mother dies. Fat chance. I’ve never known him take his shirt off even if it hits ninety.’ He laughed, a thin, dry sound like rustling paper. But Barnard, who had known Ray and Georgie Robertson’s mother since they were all boys together in the East End, never laughed when he heard Ma Robertson’s name mentioned, even in passing. She was the glue that stuck her formidable family together and he guessed she was currently extremely busy working on the defence of her younger son. She might possibly have taken her gimlet eye off Ray, though he was sure it would only be temporary.

  ‘Anyway, humiliation out in Notting Hill with his attempted takeover and now in Soho with his social climbing, it’s all getting a bit much for Ray,’ Bettany said heavily. ‘I reckon that’s what’s provoked him into thinking he can turn himself into another Ronnie Biggs.’

  ‘He’s never been any sort of a robber,’ Barnard said angrily. ‘He’s got no experience. I doubt he’s even picked a pocket. And he seems to forget that Reynolds and Biggs and the rest got caught. They’re going to get twenty years for that little lark even if they did get away with a lot of the cash.’

  ‘I tell you, Harry, he’s gone a bit bananas and I don’t know what to do about it. This needs someone who’s known him even longer than I have. It needs someone like you.’

  Barnard shrugged. ‘No,’ he said. ‘He won’t listen to me – and to be honest I’ve known that since way back, if you must know. When we were evacuated he liked having me as one of his gang, as he saw it. Me and Georgie – or Georgie and me, in fact. Family always came first. I made up the numbers against the local lads, and they soon learned to leave us alone, especially when Georgie threw one of his strops. Ray and me pulled him off the local kids a couple of times, or there’d have been a murder back then. But when we came home to Bethnal Green it was different, wasn’t it? They were on home turf heading in one direction and I went to grammar school and headed in another. Oh, I know he plays at “East End boys all made good together” with me. But it’s only when it suits him, when it fits his book. If he really wants to nick the crown jewels there’ll be nothing I can say to stop him, nothing at all; he’ll go ahead and steal them and then try to flog them back to the Queen.’

  Bettany’s lips thinned but he nodded. ‘Well, keep an eye on him for me at least, will you Harry? That’s the least you can do, for old times’ sake. It’s probably all just flimflam, Ray in a panic because he feels humiliated, no more than that. But if you hear of anyone trying to muscle in on his charity events, give me a bell. That would certainly grieve him. And if you track down anyone who might be trying to butt in on his agreement with the Maltese let me know. That would cause major problems. Have you got my home phone number?’

  Taken by surprise and trying hard not to show it, Barnard shook his head and Bettany wrote a number down on a piece of paper.

  ‘We’re ex-directory but don’t call me at the office,’ he said. ‘Any time at home. Shirl will always take a message.’

  Barnard tucked the number he could recite by heart into an inside pocket and stood up, hoping Fred could not see how fast his heart was racing. ‘Ta for the drink,’ he said. ‘I’m sure Ray will calm down. The Notting Hill business has shaken him up, that’s all. It wasn’t what he expected.’

  Bettany nodded gloomily. ‘I hope you’re right,’ he said.

  SEVEN

  DCI Keith Jackson steepled his hands together under his chin and looked at DS Harry Barnard thoughtfully, his bright blue eyes the colour of ice.

  ‘I want you in on this, laddie. You’ve already been to the place and can give uniform an idea of what to look for. Go to their briefing at six and then organize a thorough search when they’ve got everybody out, which should be around midnight. I want all the punters thoroughly frightened – searched at the very least, brought to the station if they’re found with anything remotely illegal at all. I want the musicians brought down here and held in the cells to be questioned thoroughly in the morning.’

  ‘That’s quite an operation, guv,’ Barnard said mildly.

  ‘It’ll pay off if I can get the place closed down,’ Jackson said. ‘I’ve no time for this disgusting jungle music. These places are hotbeds of drugs and vice and perversion.’

  Barnard raised an eyebrow. He had not thought it would be long before perversion revealed itself as at least part of the motivation for this proposed crackdown on the Jazz Cellar. ‘Much of that going on there, is there, sir?’ he asked dead-pan.

  ‘I have it on good authority that at least one of the musicians is a poofter. And then there’s all this racial mixing . . .’ He did not finish the sentence, obviously preferring to leave it to Barnard’s imagination what horrors that might involve. ‘I’m sure we’ll find the American supplying marijuana,’ he said. ‘They’re all at it: bohemians, jazz musicians, blacks.’ Jackson’s lips pursed in distaste and Barnard nodded, he hoped not too gloomily, knowing how easy it was for a DCI sure he would find drugs on a s
uspect to actually make sure he found them.

  ‘You could make a start by discovering if this Mr Abraham is in the country legally,’ Jackson went on.

  ‘He claims to have come over with the American army during the war and stayed on,’ Barnard said. ‘You know how many US troops were here then. He wouldn’t be the only one who decided to stay if he could get away with it. He says he’s applied for citizenship.’

  ‘It would be useful to know whether we have the option of deporting him,’ Jackson said. ‘There are strict controls on American musicians working here. There are always arguments about it being reported in the press. As I understand it they’re not permitted to work here at all. So how is he getting away with it?’

  ‘I’ll check it out,’ Barnard said without enthusiasm. ‘In the meantime I’ve still got more questions for the studio where Jenny Maitland is supposed to have come to work. Now I know a bit more about her it’s looking increasingly dubious, the whole set up.’

  ‘Well, you’d better get cracking then, hadn’t you? You’ve got a busy day ahead of you, laddie. With a bit of application we should have someone charged with this killing by this time tomorrow.’

  Barnard did not overexert himself to get to Andrei Lubin’s studio again before he had visited a few of his regular clients in the bookshops and peep-shows which were open in Soho’s narrow streets even at this time of day. And if some of them were properly grateful for the blind eye he turned to their more questionable activities, who was he to object? But when he probed into the chances of any of the jazz musicians putting girls on the street in defiance of the agreements already in existence, he met only shrugs and blank looks. If there was anyone trying to break into the trade in girls and women, no one at all seemed to know who it might be and they all seemed to have a clear idea of what might happen to anyone who did. Either they did not exist or they had covered themselves up more successfully than anyone Barnard had come across in almost ten years of pounding the streets of Soho in uniform and out of it.