Dressed to Kill

by Patricia Hall

  ‘They’ve not wasted any time. They’ve written to the Yard asking permission to interview Abraham, with a view to his eventual extradition to face a murder – or, as they call it, a homicide – indictment. And remember it’s still a capital offence over there. I want you to liaise with Saprelli and Brixton Prison and sit in on the interview. You’d better make sure he has a brief as well. We don’t want to be accused of any infringement of the rules when it comes to court. By the book on this one, Sergeant. Strictly by the book. I don’t want any bleeding-heart lawyer getting him off somehow.’

  ‘Guv,’ Barnard said, his face impassive. ‘I never asked Saprelli whether the incident happened in this country. Would that make a difference?’

  ‘The American forces over here were responsible for their own military law. It wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference to Abraham’s situation. If they can prove he’s who they think he is and provide prima facie evidence at an extradition hearing, he’ll be on his way. If he’s an American and his victim was an American, and they were both US soldiers, then the trial will be American. So let’s get the process started, shall we.’

  Jackson’s expression was implacable and Barnard knew there would be no budging him. He knew his prejudices and they ran deep.

  ‘I’ll get straight on to it, guv,’ Barnard said and had set off to do just that, silently aware of how reluctant he felt to consign a black Muddy Abraham to US military justice and a possible death sentence. I must be getting softer than I thought, he told himself as he picked up the phone back in CID and dialled the American embassy’s number.

  It was almost lunchtime by the time the arrangements had been finalized for Barnard and Saprelli to interview Abraham at Brixton the next day. Only then could Barnard put on his hat and coat again and make his escape from the nick, and stroll through the pale winter sunshine to the Delilah Club. He found Ray sitting in his comfortable executive chair behind his huge desk, smouldering cigar in one hand, a beatific smile on his face and his eyes closed.

  ‘G’morning, Flash,’ he said, without opening his eyes in spite of being obviously aware of Barnard’s arrival. ‘Take a seat,’ he said. ‘Have you arrested any likely gangsters this morning? Doing your job of protecting the great British public from the likes of me, are you? Or are you more interested in getting your own sticky fingers into the till?’

  Robertson’s eyes suddenly opened wide and his blue eyes flashed without any sign of warmth. What’s bugging him? Barnard wondered, not expecting to have moved from one antagonistic environment to another.

  ‘How’s tricks?’ Robertson asked grudgingly, before opening a desk drawer and pulling out a bottle of Scotch and two glasses into which he poured generous measures and pushed one across the desk to Barnard.

  ‘Not too bad, thanks,’ Barnard said as Robertson settled back in his seat again. ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Someone seems to be annoying my Mediterranean buddies and I don’t like it. Have you got any idea who?’ Robertson asked.

  ‘We did have a couple of possibles but one’s scarpered and the other’s got his throat cut, possibly by the first fella,’ Barnard said lightly. ‘We’re working on it.’

  ‘That would be Ricky Smart,’ Robertson said. ‘I’d had heard some whispers about him, as it goes. Picking up girls for modelling. As if. What are their pathetic parents thinking of? So maybe Falzon’s solved the problem without my help. Do you reckon?’

  ‘Could be,’ Barnard said cautiously. ‘I’ll keep you in the picture. That wasn’t why I popped in, as it happens.’

  Robertson took a sip of his drink and smiled the smile of a tiger sizing up dinner. ‘Out with it then,’ he said.

  ‘I saw you yesterday with Reg Smith,’ Barnard said cautiously. ‘I just happened to be passing as you came out of the club.’

  ‘Yeah, I thought you did,’ Robertson said unabashed. ‘I caught a glimpse of you as we got into the car. And so?’

  ‘And so,’ Barnard said. ‘What are you plotting with that toe-rag? By rights he should have been hanged years ago when it was still an option, but no one will testify against him. Half of London south of the river is terrified of him. What the hell are you up to?’

  ‘We’re just having a friendly exchange of views,’ Robertson said. ‘Nothing for you and your DCI to get worried or upset about.’

  ‘I think I need to get worried, Ray. The sort of thing Smith is into gets the whole weight of Scotland Yard thrown at it. It’ll not be just the vice squad. They’re still pursuing him for that armed robbery in Lewisham where two cashiers were shot. This isn’t the sort of thing you want to get involved in, is it? If it is, you can’t count on me to help if the Yard come sniffing round, poking their noses into your affairs here up West or in the East End. This is big time, nothing to do with vice in Soho. It’s way over my head. Just remember how quickly the great train robbers came to grief. Not so great in the end, that lot. They’ll spend the rest of their lives banged up.’

  ‘You’re a good lad, Flash,’ Robertson said. ‘But life doesn’t stand still, you know. Things move on. You have to be ambitious in this life or you start to slide backwards. I’ve got one or two new projects on the go at the minute, business and pleasure. You should be doing the same yourself, going for Inspector, moving onwards and upwards, as you do. Getting a ring for that pretty little girl you’ve been chasing. I’ll be all right, Harry. I can look after myself, always have, always will.’

  ‘But better not with Smith,’ Barnard said. ‘Believe me.’ He sighed. There was a limit to how far he could push Ray without provoking a fit of rage that, while it would pale in comparison to his brother Georgie’s outbursts, was still not to be ignored. Telling him that Smith was a force of nature he would be unlikely to cope with risked an eruption that he really did not want and quite possibly could not handle.

  ‘Don’t blame me if he takes you for a ride,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t say you weren’t warned.’

  ‘It’s good of you to worry, Flash, but you really don’t need to, boy.’ Robertson stubbed out the glowing end of his cigar and sat up straight in his chair. ‘There’s really no need at all. I’m moving up a league, that’s all. You should do the same. We’ve both been stuck in a rut too long.’

  Kate O’Donnell got back to the flat early that evening and helped Tess cook a meal before her friend settled down to a pile of exercise books to mark. Kate was restless. She watched the television news on their newly acquired black-and-white set and smiled faintly at pictures of the Beatles being mobbed outside the Cavern by a crowd of young girls on one of their increasingly rare trips back to Liverpool. But it only occupied half her mind, which returned again and again to the fate of Ricky Smart and Andrei Lubin’s disappearance. Was it guilt or fear that had driven him away from the studio, she kept asking herself? Had he killed Ricky or did he fear that he would be next? She wondered whether to ring Harry Barnard, who would probably be at home by now. She was sure that not telling him where Andrei might be probably constituted some sort of crime and she was sure that the police would be able to track him down in a small seaside town. But still she hesitated, partly because she did not want to give in to her own secret desire to see the importunate policeman again, and partly because she was anxious to talk to the photographer again herself before he possibly disappeared into police custody for good.

  She was still debating with herself when the phone rang, still able to make her jump with its unfamiliarity.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ she said to Tess. The fact that it was Andrei Lubin’s voice, slightly muffled, at the other end, set her heart racing.

  ‘Andrei, where are you?’ she asked. ‘Do you know the police are looking for you?’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Lubin said. ‘But they’re not the only people looking for me, so they’ll have to wait. What are you doing tomorrow?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kate said. ‘I don’t think Ken has anything lined up for me because he didn’t know I would be there . . .’

 
‘Well, you can do me a favour then,’ Lubin went on quickly, not giving her a chance to interrupt. ‘Call in sick or something. Then I want you to get a train to a place called Diss – D.I.S.S.’ He spelled it out. ‘Liverpool Street station, or maybe Kings Cross, you’ll have to check. Get there as near midday as you can. There’s a sort of lake in the town centre, the Mere I think it’s called. I’ll meet you there. You can’t miss it. There are seats and ducks and things, mothers with kids, no one will think it’s odd of you to hang around. There’s no station where I am so I’ll drive there. I’ve been trying to get hold of June, because she has a key to the studio, but she’s not on the phone, silly cow, so you’ll have to help me. I’ll give you my key. I want you to go to the studio and sort out a few things for me.’

  ‘I wanted to get into the studio myself because I’ve left some of my stuff there,’ Kate said faintly. ‘But won’t the bizzies – the police – have been in already?’

  ‘They will have had to break the door down,’ Lubin said. ‘I don’t see why they should have done that. Whatever Ricky was up to – and I’m sure he was up to something – is nothing to do with me or the studio.’

  ‘So why did you run away?’ Kate asked.

  ‘I haven’t run away,’ Lubin snapped back. ‘If you just sort a few things out for me – nothing to do with Ricky, I promise – I’ll get in touch with the police and tell them anything they want to know about him. Come on, Kate. I’ve done a lot for you. This is just a small favour. And if anyone sees you, you just say you went in to fetch some stuff of your own. That’s a perfect cover. Come to Diss in the morning and I’ll give you the key.’

  Kate sighed. ‘OK, OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll meet you in Diss, la. But don’t blame me if the police turn up at the studio. I’m not going to lie to them if they do. I don’t want to end up in a cell, ta very much.’

  ‘Just tell them you’re picking up your own stuff,’ Lubin said. ‘You don’t need to say you’ve seen me. That’s perfect.’

  In the end, and against her better judgement, Kate agreed to meet Lubin in Diss, promising herself that if he didn’t talk to the police on his own initiative she would tell Harry Barnard what she knew and leave it to him to track him down. When she hung up she found Tess staring at her across the room with a worried expression on her face.

  ‘Was that who I think it was?’ she asked. ‘What on earth have you agreed to do for him?’

  Kate told her the gist of the conversation, which only seemed to increase her friend’s anxiety.

  ‘If the police are looking for him you must be crazy to meet him without telling them,’ Tess said. ‘You’ll end up getting arrested yourself.’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ Kate said. ‘I’ll tell Harry Barnard that Tatiana knows where Andrei is when I get back to London. Even if he doesn’t keep his promise to get in touch with them, they’ll soon find him if they know where to look. I really want to get back to the studio to pick up my own stuff. Amongst other things, I left the film I shot at the Jazz Cellar there. I never got round to developing it, I’d so many other things to do.’

  ‘I think you’re taking a crazy risk,’ Tess said. ‘Why don’t you talk to Harry Barnard now, tonight?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Kate said. ‘I promise. After I get back.’

  SIXTEEN

  DS Harry Barnard had met the American officer, Lieutenant Saprelli, in smartly pressed uniform, outside the jail at eight thirty that morning, a raw dark November dawn only just working itself into daylight. They were signed in and led through locked doors and down long corridors to an interview room close to the governor’s office where Muddy Abraham was already sitting at a table with a warder on duty just inside the door. He looked up as the door opened and although his expression did not change as the two officers came in, Barnard noticed that his fists clenched slightly as if prepared to defend himself.

  Saprelli thumped his file of papers on to the table and sat down and the warder left the room, telling them to knock on the door when they were finished.

  ‘So don’t I get a lawyer?’ Abraham asked Barnard. ‘Ain’t I entitled?’

  ‘Apparently this interview will be conducted under American army regulations,’ Barnard said. He had argued with Saprelli over this point but had been overruled by the DCI who seemed determined to ship Abraham out of the country on the next available flight. ‘I’m only here to observe,’ he said with a shrug.

  ‘Right soldier, let’s get sorted out just who you really are,’ Saprelli snapped. He pulled the photograph that he had shown Barnard at the embassy and showed it to Abraham. ‘Do you deny that’s you – Abraham Moses Davis – AWOL since October twenty-seventh, 1945. Last sighted that evening in the village of Edershaw, five miles from the transit camp where you were awaiting a flight home and where you unlawfully struck Sergeant Gary Strang when he approached you to remonstrate about you consorting with a white girl. That you, soldier?’

  Abraham shook his head. ‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘That ain’t me. No way.’

  Saprelli did not argue but pulled some more papers out of his file. ‘This is your signature, taken from your army record,’ he said, slapping a sheet of paper down in front of Abraham. ‘And this is your signature taken from the receipt you signed here for your belongings when you were brought in. Abraham Moses Davis and David Abraham – Muddy not being a given name anyone would accept, I guess. You can say that they were signed nearly twenty years apart, but you made the mistake of using part of your name again. Abraham – it’s identical.’

  Abraham still objected. ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘I ain’t that man.’

  ‘Well I’m sure you are and I’m telling you now I’m applying to have you sent back to the US of A to have you face the homicide indictment you should have faced in 1945.’

  ‘Homicide?’ Abraham said, clearly shocked. ‘Who said anything about homicide? I thought you said this man Davis hit the sergeant . . .’

  ‘He did and Strang hit his head as he went down,’ Saprelli said. ‘He died in hospital two days later.’

  ‘Jeezus, man,’ Abraham said, flashing a glance at Barnard whose eyes were fixed on his notebook. ‘Can they do that to a British citizen?’ he asked.

  ‘We can’t find any record of naturalization papers in your name,’ Barnard said quietly. ‘Though I suppose it depends which of your names you used.’

  Muddy Abraham shook his head like a baited bear. It was obvious that if he had taken out naturalization papers in another name his denials that he was the man Saprelli wanted were a waste of breath. ‘This is crazy,’ he said. ‘This is nearly twenty years ago we’re talking about.’

  ‘Sergeant Strang is still dead,’ Saprelli said. ‘Why should the United States Army forgive or forget that, soldier? The witnesses are still alive and willing to testify and get some justice for Strang’s family. He had five kids.’

  ‘Jee-e-ez,’ Abraham breathed into the silence. ‘Sergeant Barnard, can I have a private word with you?’

  Barnard glanced at Saprelli who hesitated for a second and then nodded.

  ‘I’ll wait outside,’ he said. ‘But don’t imagine anything you can say to Sergeant Barnard is going to make a difference to your situation, soldier. Uncle Sam wants you and nothing you say’s going to change that. You’re going back home and you’ll fry.’

  When the American officer had gone Barnard took his seat opposite Muddy Abraham.

  ‘If I help you can you help me?’ Abraham said bluntly.

  Barnard shrugged. ‘You’ve got some time,’ he said. ‘And if you help me I could maybe get you a bit more as a witness we need to keep tabs on for a murder trial. But in the end, they’ll probably get their extradition. It has to go to court here, but I can’t see a court refusing the request even after such a long time. Murder is murder. And America is our ally.’

  ‘I had no idea he was dead,’ Abraham whispered, and then, realizing that what he had just said amounted to a confession, he said no more, his broad shoulders sagging. ‘I didn’t
hit him hard.’

  Barnard waited, lighting a cigarette and offering Abraham one.

  The American took one and lit it slowly, dragging the smoke deep into his lungs like a drowning man drags air on his last visit to the surface. ‘OK,’ Abraham said at last. ‘Your dead girl. When we talked about her I wasn’t tellin’ you everything.’

  ‘I didn’t think so,’ Barnard said. ‘So what did you leave out?’

  ‘The little girl who died? I saw her a couple of times with Chris Swift. Once outside on the sidewalk, once inside the club. I reckon Chris was doing a bit of business with some of the girls on the game – sleeping with them, maybe, but maybe more than that. I think he may be their pimp.’

  ‘This is Chris Swift we’re talking about?’ Barnard said. ‘The man who says he’d like the Jazz Cellar to be pretty well anywhere but in Soho where there are all these tarts around? The man who sounds like he should be running a bloody Sunday school?’

  ‘That’s the man,’ Abraham said. ‘He’s a good actor, I’d say. And a good liar. But he has a temper. I’ve seen him lose it a couple of times when the music’s not going as it should. And once with the girl. The next time I saw her she had bruises, a lot of bruises.’

  ‘And you’d be prepared to give evidence against him in court, if it came to that? If we find enough evidence and can charge him?’

  ‘Sure thing,’ Abraham said. ‘And there’s more. I don’t think he was running these girls on his own. I think he had a partner.’

  ‘Was he working for the Maltese?’ Barnard asked quickly. ‘They control most of the tarts in Soho.’

  ‘No, I don’t think the man I saw him with a couple of times was Maltese. He was called Ricky, a man called Ricky, who had a smart car, an Italian car. But every time I saw them in the club they seemed to be arguing.’