Barnard held his breath for a moment but said nothing about Ricky Smart’s death. ‘OK, that may be very useful,’ he said at length. ‘Running girls is not a major crime, even under-age girls, unless we can link Swift to Jenny Maitland’s murder, so I shouldn’t build your hopes too high. But it might buy you a bit of time if we can pin something on Swift and keep you here as a witness. The other thing that might help you is to prove you’re British and get a lawyer. You should be entitled to legal aid.’
‘I filled in the forms in my natural-born name,’ he said. ‘And signed them, of course, which tells Saprelli all he needs to know.’
Barnard sighed. If he was honest, he could see no way out for Abraham. ‘If you help us in court, if we ever get to court, I’ll do all I can,’ he said gloomily.
‘Sure you will,’ Abraham said, with no conviction at all.
Later, Barnard stood in a doorway outside the Valetta restaurant in Charlotte Street smoking his fifth cigarette on the trot and hoping he was not as conspicuous as he feared he was. He pulled the brim of his trilby down and his coat collar up, and waited, stamping his feet occasionally against the November chill. A muffled phone call at the nick – almost as soon as he had got back from seeing Abraham – from an anonymous caller who Barnard had no difficulty identifying as Joe Inglott, his Maltese informant, had told him that ‘the Man’ had returned to London and would be having lunch at the Valetta that day. When he had arrived at the restaurant soon after noon he had opened the door and taken a quick look round the interior where tables were set for lunch but very few were taken. He nodded to a couple of waiters lounging by the bar and went out again, content to wait until ‘the Man’, Frankie Falzon, turned up.
The Maltese, who controlled most of the prostitution in the square mile, did not often turn up in person in Soho. Barnard knew that he had a large luxurious house in Mill Hill and that he left the day-to-day running of his lucrative empire to lieutenants who were generally members of his own large family or trusted friends from the Mediterranean island. Something important must have brought him to the area for lunch and the sergeant wondered if it had anything to do with the two recent murders on his patch.
By the time a long American car pulled up right outside the restaurant door and deposited Falzon and a couple of heavyweight minders outside the door, and raised a cacophony of angry car horns behind, Barnard’s feet were frozen and the chill made it almost impossible to light his sixth cigarette. He watched and waited as the limo pulled away, allowing several irate taxi drivers free passage up the narrow street again. He did not move for a few more minutes to give Falzon time to settle himself at a table before he opened the door again and went in, pushing his hat to the back of his head, holding his warrant card in one hand but keeping his hands well away from his pockets.
Frankie Falzon was not a tall man, but broad and muscular, his tanned face shadowed even after what looked like a close shave and his dark hair just beginning to silver, certainly not a man with whom you would want to pick a fight on a dark night, Barnard thought, but so elegantly dressed in a dark suit with silvery tie that it was obvious he had no need to bloody his own hands any more. Barnard had met him before but never in a confrontational situation. Falzon had no criminal record in his adopted country and although a handful of his associates had been charged and a couple imprisoned for vice offences, Barnard assumed that their boss’s contributions to various police charities and individual senior officers’ pension arrangements, in the West End and at Scotland Yard, had until now protected him from legal embarrassment and would continue to do so unless the man was discovered by at least a dozen officers from another force in flagrante delicto with a murder weapon in his hand. And that, Barnard knew, was not going to happen any time soon.
He approached Falzon’s table slowly, the eyes of the two bodyguards watching his every move.
‘Mr Falzon,’ he said. ‘Detective Sergeant Barnard from Vice. Can I have a quick word with you.’
Falzon dark eyes flashed but after a second’s hesitation he waved Barnard into a chair. ‘Bring us a bottle of Chianti, and two glasses,’ he barked at a waiter. ‘You have five minutes before my guests arrive,’ he said to Barnard. ‘No more.’
Barnard did not waste any time. ‘We are concerned about the appearance of some very young girls on the streets in recent weeks,’ he said. ‘One of them was found dead, dumped like garbage behind the Jazz Cellar. This is something new, something we didn’t associate with your business operations. Can you shed any light on who’s putting them there?’
Falzon’s face darkened and Barnard was aware of the more aggressive stance of his minders. ‘I have been away,’ Falzon said. ‘Family business. I have just buried my mother. But I was told about these events when I came back. I have no idea yet who is organizing these intruders, but I intend to find out.’
Barnard waited patiently for a moment. ‘Are you worried about your relationship with Ray Robertson?’ he ventured.
‘Should I be?’ Falzon snapped back.
Barnard shrugged slightly.
‘He’s an old business acquaintance, as you obviously know,’ Falzon said. ‘He has seemed a little restless lately but I don’t suspect him of interfering with any of our previous arrangements.’ He shrugged. ‘What I think is that he has other ambitions. As for the girls on the street? I think this is more likely to be some newcomer who has not yet learned the rules.’
‘A man called Ricky Smart, maybe?’
But Falzon’s expression did not flicker.
‘Or Chris Swift?’
‘Them I don’t know,’ he said flatly. ‘I think maybe you should turn your attention to the Jazz Cellar, Sergeant Barnard, if that’s where the dead girl was found. That African music is not good for young people, it’s primitive, harmful. The church condemns it. That place might be more fruitful for your inquiries. I am told you are already taking an interest there.’ His eyes flickered to the door where several people were handing their coats to the maitre d’.
Barnard nodded with only the faintest smile at hearing the most successful pimp in London complain about a style of music.
‘My guests are here now, Sergeant. I don’t think I can be of any more help to you.’
And with that Barnard had to be content.
Frustrated, he took his usual daily stroll around his manor, gleaning whatever he could from the motley collection of shopkeepers and bar and cafe owners who kept him posted about what was going on in the tangle of narrow streets between the big stores to the north and the theatre district to the south. Very little in the tangle of sex, entertainment and commerce which was Soho could be taken at face value and a copper here was only as good as his contacts. And Barnard reckoned he was very good. A judicious mixture of threats and bribes generally kept the information flowing in his direction and if contacts who felt grateful for his protection were moved to offer the odd thank-you present, who was he to complain.
He had a quick lunch at a pub in Wardour Street, glanced in at the open doors of the Jazz Cellar but could see no one except cleaners tidying up after the night before, and then strolled down west towards Berwick Street market which was crowded with eager shoppers as usual. Stepping cautiously round a pile of discarded vegetable debris which had spilled on to the pavement, he glanced down the alleyway where Andrei Lubin’s studio was situated and was surprised to see a figure he recognized going into the building.
‘Now what are you up to now, Katie, my sweet?’ he said to himself as he turned to follow. He caught up with her at the top of the last flight of stairs where they both stood for a moment catching their breath.
Kate flushed pink although Barnard was not sure whether it was the exertion or embarrassment that caused her blush.
‘Well, well, what are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘Do you have a key?’
With the key Andrei had given her in Diss in her hand, she could hardly deny it. She nodded. She knew her cheeks were flaming, perhaps betraying something more t
han the embarrassment of being caught out. ‘I was going to come round to see you later,’ she said, still slightly breathless. ‘But I need to get some stuff I left here first. I didn’t want you lot taking my undeveloped films if you decided to search the place. I need them.’
‘And can I ask where you got the key from?’ Barnard asked, taking it out of her hand and opening the door and ushering her inside. ‘I think we won’t talk on the landing where anyone can hear us. I think you’ve a bit of explaining to do, don’t you?’ He ushered her inside and locked the door behind them.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘You can make us both a cup of coffee – I’m sure you know where everything is – and then you can tell me what the hell is going on here.’
Kate did as she was told meekly, too meekly, Barnard thought although he was not bothering to hide the fact that he was furious with her. But the very fact that she did not seem to want to fight back told him that she knew she was in the wrong.
‘There’s no milk,’ she said, putting two mugs of black coffee and a bag of sugar on to the worktop in front of him.
He took a stool and waved her into another. ‘Now, let’s hear it. What on earth have you been up to?’
So she told him how she had got up early that morning to take a train from Liverpool Street to Diss in Norfolk and how she had found her way through the small market town to the Mere and met Andrei Lubin more or less as planned. They had sat on a wooden bench together in pale sunshine watching the swans and ducks, almost like a couple of lovers, she said, though it was obvious that Andrei was an extremely worried man.
‘He’s scared,’ Kate said quietly. ‘He’s very scared and I don’t know exactly why. He wasn’t very explicit but it must be something to do with Ricky’s murder, mustn’t it?’
‘Don’t you think he killed him?’ Barnard asked harshly. ‘Didn’t it cross your mind that you might be going out there to meet a murderer?’
‘No, of course not,’ Kate snapped back. ‘I’m not so stupid.’
‘What you did sounds very stupid to me,’ Barnard said. ‘Not to mention illegal. If the DCI hears about it he could have you in a cell for any number of offences up to aiding and abetting murder, if Lubin was charged with that.’
‘I don’t believe for a moment Andrei killed Ricky. He cut his finger one day in the studio and nearly passed out at the sight of blood. He’s a pussy cat. If you suggested the other way round I might wonder, but not Andrei.’ It was only now, when Kate looked back on the two men’s relationship that she realized that Andrei might have been the boss in name at the studio but Ricky was the boss in fact.
‘So why exactly did he want you to rush off to this place in Norfolk anyway? Is that where he’s holed up?’ Barnard persisted.
‘No, his cousin says he’s got an old cottage on the coast, Southdown is it, no, Southwold. She gave me the address – here.’ She handed Barnard the scrap of paper Tatiana had given her for her cousin’s cottage. ‘There’s no phone. And no railway either. It sounds like the back of beyond. He met me in Diss because I could get there easily on the train. He used his car to get there. I don’t know how far away Southwold is, do you?’
But Barnard shook his head irritably. ‘But when he called, you went running? So why? What did he say on the phone to persuade you?’
‘He said he wanted me to come to the studio and find some documents for him. When I’d got them he said he would come back to London and talk to the police,’ Kate said. ‘If he didn’t come back I told him I would give all the documents to you anyway.’
Barnard laughed but there was no humour in his eyes. ‘My guess is that he’s planning to contact you again and persuade you to meet him again with the documents. He’s got no intention of coming back to London at all if he can avoid it.’
Kate shrugged. There was nothing she could say to prove that she had been right to trust Lubin. ‘The other thing was that I wanted to get in here myself anyway. I really didn’t want to lose the films I’d left here . . .’ Kate trailed off miserably realizing what a risk she had taken, not least from Barnard’s stony expression.
‘Right,’ Barnard said. ‘This is what’s going to happen. We were planning to search this place anyway so you can leave me the key Lubin gave you, and his documents, when you’ve found them, and then you can take your own rolls of film and make yourself scarce. And we’ll ask the local bobbies to pick Lubin up in Southwold. I expect he’s gone back to his cottage. Even if he’s not there I shouldn’t think he’ll be difficult to find. As far as you’re concerned I never found you here. If the DCI wants to talk to you again later you can tell him about your trip or not, it’s up to you. But stick to what happened with Lubin and not a word about us meeting like this or I’ll be for the high jump. I should report you. So be very careful. Jackson’s got a reputation for sniffing out the truth from the most innocent-looking hidey-hole.’
Kate nodded miserably and turned to the door. Barnard did not say goodbye.
SEVENTEEN
Kate walked slowly back to the agency. She felt humiliated by what had happened and guessed that Harry Barnard’s obvious annoyance would be hard to dispel. How was it, she asked herself, that he and she constantly edged around each other at cross-purposes. Why, she wondered, was nothing between them straightforward?
Back at the agency the photographers’ room was empty, everyone out on assignment, so she set about belatedly developing and printing the photographs she had taken at the Jazz Cellar. They had turned out quite well, she thought, considering the dark and smoky atmosphere she had had to work in and she took the sheets of contact prints in to show Ken Fellows just before lunch.
‘I should think Stan Weston might like to buy a set of these for his publicity,’ she said, dropping the sheets on Ken’s desk. ‘They’ve come out better than I expected.’
Ken glanced at them unenthusiastically. ‘Print a dozen of the best and drop them round to the Jazz Cellar. It can’t hurt. There might even be a bob or two in it. You’re not exactly bringing in much any other way at the moment, are you.’
‘Tatiana Broughton-Clarke may come up with something quite soon,’ Kate said defensively.
‘Have you heard anything from Lubin?’ Fellows asked. ‘Is he actually going to reopen his studio or do we have to call it a day for you there? You did OK but I’d have liked you to stay a bit longer.’
‘I don’t know,’ Kate said. ‘I bumped into Sergeant Barnard and he said the police were still looking for him but hadn’t found him yet. I just don’t know what’s going to happen.’
‘Do you think he killed what-his-name, Ricky Smart?’
Kate shrugged. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to know her views on Andrei Lubin as a likely killer. But the more she thought about the man, the more she reckoned it was impossible.
‘I can’t see him saying boo to a goose, quite honestly,’ she said. ‘I don’t like the man but calling him a likely murderer is something else, isn’t it? But running away won’t have helped, will it? It makes him look as if he’s got something to hide when I think in fact he’s terrified he’ll be the next to be attacked.’
‘It won’t have helped, not with the police or his clients,’ Fellows said, with some satisfaction. ‘Well, I can’t complain if the opposition shoots itself in the foot, can I? I’ll give some thought to how we can pick up some more fashion work. I don’t want the cash I’ve spent on you wasted, do I?’
There’s always a ready reckoner behind Ken’s eyes, Kate thought. I suppose that’s how you get on in business. But Andrei Lubin wasn’t like that. It was Ricky Smart looking out for the main chance all the time, almost taking the decisions for him. Maybe that had been his undoing.
She printed a dozen of her Jazz Cellar pictures and then sat with a coffee looking at them critically, thinking back to the evening she had spent there with Tess and Dave Donovan. The place had been packed, the musicians on a roll, and it had been hard to believe that the body of Jenny Maitland had been found dumped at the club just a
week or so before their visit. With the pictures now blown up faces were more clearly visible and on one shot, taken while the musicians were having a break and some of them had come into the main room seeking refreshment, she drew a sharp breath when she recognized someone she did not expect to see in the crowd. Behind a shot of Muddy Abraham talking to two intense middle-aged men, she picked out the face of Chris Swift, the clarinettist, seemingly in animated conversation with a young girl Kate recognized.
‘What on earth were you doing there, Sylvia?’ Kate muttered under her breath, knowing with a sick feeling that there was no way of asking her and quite probably no way of ever finding out. Sylvia could not have been there in the audience for the whole evening or she would have seen her, she thought. She must have come in during the interval, presumably to talk to Swift specifically. Could he be the father of her baby, she wondered? Or was there some even more sinister reason for their intense discussion?
She sat at her desk for a long time wondering what to do next. When she’d made her decision she went back into the darkroom and printed a duplicate set of photographs and put them into two separate envelopes. One she addressed to Stan Weston at the Jazz Cellar, the other to DS Harry Barnard with a note to identify the slightly fuzzy image of Sylvia Hubbard. Perhaps Swift was the father of Sylvia’s unborn child, she thought, or perhaps there was more to it than that, but this time, she thought, she would leave it to Barnard to find out. She really did not want to talk to him again today. She would simply deliver her pictures to him and to Stan Weston and leave it at that.
Her first call was at the Jazz Cellar where she didn’t really expect any of the musicians to be around at lunchtime. But when she pushed at the half-open main door she saw Stan Weston by the shuttered bar on the other side of the room, deep in discussion with his drummer Steve O’Leary. She made her way across the room with her envelope of photographs in her hand.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think you’d be here so early in the day.’
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