A Commonplace Killing - Siân Busby

by A Commonplace Killing (epub)

  30

  Within a few moments of leaving the house, it had occurred to her that she had no idea what she was going to do. She couldn’t go back there, not for a few hours at any rate; that was certain. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. She pictured herself boarding a Number 43 bus, riding it to Muswell Hill or Friern Barnet, but had no idea what she would she do once she was there. It was too late to look for lodgings, and besides, she didn’t have enough money on her to start over. Walter always kept her short, and she’d spent most of the housekeeping money on shopping. She kept walking with her head down while panic began to mount. There’s the coupon books, she thought; four of them: Mother’s, Douglas’s, Walter’s and her own. She supposed she could try and sell them. She thought of the spiv, Dennis, and wondered whether she oughtn’t to try and find him at the Feathers. Her heart was pounding quite hard, though she couldn’t tell whether this was down to the thought of committing a crime or the prospect of seeing the nice-looking young man again. She tried to steady her breathing, which had become a little shallow, making her feel faint. She wasn’t sure whether she ought to sell her own, or whether she could bring herself to sell Douglas’s, so she attempted to calculate whether Mother’s and Walter’s would bring in enough to pay the rent on a bed-sitting room for a week or two – just while she looked for a little job in a hat-shop, perhaps, or a nice tearoom; but she had no idea how much coupons went for, so the exercise was futile. Perhaps she should just go to the Feathers now and ask him how much he was prepared to give her, and if it wasn’t enough she would just thank him and that would be it. She had never walked into a pub on her own before; she hadn’t even been in that many pubs with other people, but as things were, it was hard to see what she had to lose. This is a turning point, she told herself. All she had to do was step through the door of the pub and everything would be changed for ever.

  It was relatively early and still light, but cooler now; the heat of the day diminished. She slowed down as the reality of what she was contemplating set in. Walter wouldn’t blame her for starting over, not after what he had done. He would see that they were better off without one another. He would probably let her keep the coupons without a second thought: it was the least he could do. She paused, the realisation slowly occurring to her that she would have to tell Mavis to make arrangements for Mother, and Mavis would want to know where Mother’s coupons were. Perhaps she could say they’d been stolen. Coupons were always being stolen. The thought of the police coming and asking her questions caused a small tremor of panic to make her heart shudder. What had she done? What was she going to do? A rivulet of sweat trickled between her breasts, and it came to her that the Holloway Road might as well be the Atlantic Ocean, because she was not going to cross it now; nor was she going to walk into the pub and sell the coupons to the spiv. Whatever had she been thinking? She had been utterly ridiculous and now she wanted to cry. One thing was quite clear: she couldn’t go home, not now. Perhaps she ought to go down to Liverpool Street and catch a train to Clacton. She probably had enough money on her for a ticket and Mavis would just have to pay for the taxi when she got to Jaywick. This seemed like a good plan, but then she thought of how Mavis would have a field day, with “I told you so” – I told you he was a rotten failure. I told you he’s not all there. I told you not to marry him. So did Father. So did we all. On and on and on. She couldn’t bear that. She’d be better off dead than putting herself at Mavis’s mercy.

  No, she’d be better off just going to the Odeon, as she had planned to do all along. Richard Greene and Ann Todd. She felt as if she was being pressed to death by a heavy slab of defeat, disappointment. She told herself that she liked Ann Todd, who’d been very good in The Seventh Veil. She had played the piano beautifully. Perhaps she would enjoy the picture, and afterwards she could go back to the house and decide what to do next. Her nerves would be better then. And besides, why should she be the one to leave? It was her mother’s house, after all: Walter and Evelyn were only there because of her. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself and considered how she would feel safe in the warmth of the Odeon. Ann Todd had gone mad in The Seventh Veil, and after Herbert Lom had helped her she’d gone off with James Mason, who had a wonderful voice and had been her true love all along. She doubted that this picture would be as good as The Seventh Veil, but she started to walk towards the cinema in any case, as if in a dream. Maybe, she thought, maybe the spiv would remember that she was going to the Odeon and would come looking for her there. She looked for him in the line waiting to go in. Perhaps it was a turning point after all. A hat-shop. A nice tea-room. She would begin again some place that the war hadn’t touched. She would meet nice men for lunches and for cocktails. She would steady their hands as they reached across to light her. She would go somewhere that wasn’t broken and covered in dust; somewhere that was not haunted by the ghosts of houses, by the remains of vanquished lives. And everything would be nice again, just like it used to be.

  31

  Manny Cohen was a dapper little Jew in a pork-pie hat and a bow-tie and a spotlessly clean snowy-white barber’s jacket. He was also one of the best fences in London, about whom it was commonly averred that he could fence anything from a cigarette to an elephant. He was that good.

  Cooper told the fellow who was having his chin shaved to get out and shoved the coupon book under Manny’s nose.

  “A little bird told me,” he said, “that you sold him this on Sunday morning.”

  Manny barely glanced at the coupon book before shooting Cooper a wide smile, all crooked brown teeth at odds with his spotless jacket and immaculately trimmed little ’tache.

  “I don’t know anything about coupon books, Mr Cooper,” he said. “You ought to know that.”

  Cooper sighed heavily and removed his hat and swept his hair back from his forehead.

  “You want a little dab of Brylcream, Mr Cooper?” asked the barber.

  Cooper shrugged and took a dollop from the proffered jar.

  “I’m tired of people lying to me, Manny,” he said. “Really, really tired.”

  The barber nodded sympathetically.

  “You know me, Mr Cooper – I don’t know anything about coupons. Why do you take the word of some thief over mine? I always thought we got along pretty well.”

  Cooper wiped the remnants of the Brylcream on to a towel, fighting an irrational impulse to pick up Manny’s razor and hold it against the fellow’s throat.

  “The coupons are implicated in a murder case,” he said. He watched Manny pale. “I just need to know where you got them.” He waited for a beat or two, before drawing himself up to his full height and bearing down on the little barber. “It’s murder, Manny.”

  The barber stroked his chin nervously. He wasn’t smiling now.

  “Murder, eh?” he repeated in a quiet voice. “I swear to God, Mr Cooper, I don’t know nothing about no murder.”

  “Where did you get the bloody coupons?”

  “I don’t want any trouble…”

  “Listen to me,” said Cooper, “I’m not interested in your shabby dealings. I’m trying to solve a murder, and right now your coupon book is my best chance.”

  Manny pondered his options for a moment or two.

  “So there won’t be any trouble?” he asked.

  “I’m turning a blind eye, Manny, but you’re testing my patience.”

  “The murder – is it – does it have anything to do with Johnny Bristow?”

  “I don’t know,” said Cooper, “but if you’re worried it’s a matter of some razor battle between two thugs, then I can assure you, it isn’t.”

  The barber swallowed hard. He seemed relieved.

  “A woman comes in here from time to time,” he said.

  “What woman?”

  “Her name is Nesta. That’s all I know about her, I swear to God. She was in here on Saturday night, about seven o’clock, with a kid. He had a pair of cufflinks he wanted to sell. I still have them out back. You want I
should fetch them?”

  “That will do for a start.”

  Manny went away and came back a few moments later with the cufflinks and an expensive-looking travel clock.

  “She was back here on Sunday morning, about half past ten, eleven, with the clothing coupons and this.” Cooper took the travel clock and the cufflinks. “She said she was leaving London and wanted a quick sale, but she knew how much she wanted for them, alright.” Manny sighed. “I swear to God, I don’t know anything about a murder,” he said.

  Cooper waved him aside. The juxtaposition of cufflinks and a travel clock had brought to mind the pinched suitcase – the one that had also contained the green tweed swingback jacket and the mackintosh. He turned to where Tring was standing in the doorway and showed her the two items. She was frowning, the corners of her mouth turned down, as she took them from him.

  “I’ll contact the owner of the suitcase,” she said, “as soon as I’m back at my desk.”

  Cooper turned back to Manny.

  “Where are the other books?” he demanded. “You said there were four of them…”

  “I don’t like dealing in coupons, Mr Cooper. It’s not in my line of business. I got rid of them quick the next morning. Took them up to Johnny Bristow’s. I sold them to one of his boys for the same as I’d bought them, I swear to God. That’s the whole truth. I don’t know anything about a murder.”

  “Can you remember the names on any of the coupon books?”

  Manny shook his head.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” he said again.

  Cooper reached into his mackintosh pocket and withdrew the artist’s impression of Dennis.

  “Recognise him?”

  Manny smoothed out the creases and stroked his chin as he scrutinised the image.

  “It could be,” he said. Then nodding, with more certainty: “It looks like the kid with the cufflinks.”

  Cooper folded up the artist’s impression and stuck it back into his pocket.

  “Do you know where I can find Nesta?” he asked.

  Manny shook his head. “No idea,” he said.

  Cooper sighed.

  “If she comes in again,” he said, “you know where to find me.”

  Tring was waiting outside in the car. He threw his hat on to the back seat and sat for a moment in grim contemplation. She had her hands on the steering wheel, waiting for his instruction.

  “It seems odd to my mind,” she said, “that everybody knows her, but nobody knows where to find her.”

  “She probably moves around a lot from one lodging to another. It’s the post-war world…”

  He was thinking that Nesta would doubtless turn up, given enough time, but time was the one thing he didn’t have; or rather time was one of a long list of things he didn’t have.

  “Turn right on to Seven Sisters Road,” he said.

  She did as she was told, and a couple of minutes later they pulled up outside a half-bombed shop a short distance from Finsbury Park Station. Cooper told her to stay in the car while he went inside. He banged with the flat of his hand on the bomb-splintered door that was patched up with sections of corrugated iron.

  “It’s DDI Cooper,” he called out, and after a moment or two a small weasel-like fellow appeared in the doorway, looking cautiously up and down the street.

  “It’s alright, Codger, I’m on my own. Is Johnny at home?”

  “He won’t want to see you, Mr Cooper,” said the weasel, but he let him in all the same. Cooper passed down a narrow passageway to a surprisingly large room at the back where a few thugs were hanging about playing pool, or rather they were standing around the table watching Johnny Bristow taking his time to pot a couple of balls. Cooper joined them and waited patiently. When the third failed to roll into the pocket, Bristow knocked his expensive hat on to the back of his head and squinted at Cooper through the smoke of his cigarette.

  “What do you want, copper?”

  The spiv was dressed in a nylon shirt and well-cut fawn-coloured trousers. Whenever his hand moved, the large gold signet ring on his little finger glinted.

  “A pal of yours was taken last night with some clothing coupons on him.”

  Johnny shrugged.

  “I don’t know anything about clothing coupons,” he said. “Not worth my while.”

  “A woman was strangled on Saturday night and the coupons were taken from her handbag, probably by the murderer.”

  Johnny rubbed chalk on the end of his cue and blew the dust towards Cooper.

  “I was tucked up in bed all weekend with a Windmill girl,” he said.

  A couple of the men began to laugh but stopped when it was clear that Johnny wasn’t joking.

  “Your pal brought the coupons in here on Sunday. There were four books, but so far only one has turned up.” Cooper looked around the room, fixing each of the thugs with a cold stare. “Any ideas where the others are?”

  Nobody stepped forward. He hadn’t expected them to.

  Johnny was leaning on his cue, smoking. He removed the cigarette from his mouth and inspected the glowing tip.

  “A strangled dame,” he said, “is not my type of thing. A little outside of my area of expertise, you might say.”

  Cooper smiled.

  “I’m appealing to your better nature, Johnny,” he said. “You do have a better nature, don’t you? You can’t possibly be bad all the way through. And even if you are, it isn’t your fault, is it? Not really. Something happened to you, I dare say, a long time ago.”

  Johnny drew hard on his cigarette until it was spent; then he threw the butt to the floor, grinding it with his expensive boot heel.

  “Why don’t you fuck off, bogey,” he said.

  One of the thugs, a burly fellow with a shock of red hair, stepped forward. He had one hand wrapped menacingly around the knuckles of the other.

  “Want me to get rid of him, boss?” he asked.

  Cooper wasn’t bothered. He had already reckoned, long ago, that he had nothing left to lose.

  “Nah,” said Johnny. “He ain’t worth it.”

  Cooper nodded slightly, as if in agreement.

  “I remember you when you had to stand on tip-toe to pinch an apple from a barrow,” he said.

  Johnny shrugged. “So what?”

  Cooper contemplated his next move. For a brief moment he toyed with giving Johnny the blasted eggs in exchange for Nesta Jones, but instead he pointed at the kid’s twisted foot.

  “Helped to win the war, didn’t you?”

  “Nobody won the fucking war,” Johnny snarled. “Look around you.”

  “Still, you were out there, weren’t you, fighting the Nazis, when others were at home feathering their nests? A few of them in this room, I dare say.”

  The red-haired thug stepped forward again.

  “Let me deal with the bastard,” he said.

  “I said leave him,” said Johnny. “Don’t give him what he wants.”

  “That’s not what I want, Johnny,” said Cooper mildly. “I don’t give a damn about you or your pathetic little capers. The days of easy money will soon be coming to an end and you and all your sort will find yourselves on Carey Street – that’s if you don’t end up in prison or dangling from the end of a rope before then. I’m looking for a wicked sod who goes around strangling women for no good reason. A murder, a stolen handbag, it might all be the same to you, but it isn’t to me. So, if you come across a woman called Nesta Jones I’d like to think you’re going to let me know about it.”

  A few of the crooks laughed nervously.

  “You’ve gone crazy, Cooper.”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps.”

  32

  “Have you gone stark raving mad,” asked the DI, incredulous, “sir?”

  Cooper held up his palms in mock surrender. “It was the act of a desperate man,” he said.

  “Now he’ll think we’re in the market for information.” Lucas lit a cigarette and smoked it furiously.

 
Cooper shrugged. “I thought of that,” he said, feeling tired. “We pay crooks for information all the while; we pay them to tell us who’s up to what, when the next consignment is coming in, who the buyers are… It’s really no different.”

  “But this is Johnny Bristow, not some ten-bob nark. We don’t want him thinking we owe him something.”

  “We’re running out of time looking for a killer, Frank.”

  “You could have been done in,” said the DI. He attacked the ashtray with the end of his cigarette.

  Cooper shrugged. He was feeling strangely disconnected from the whole matter; as if a great weight had been taken from him and he was floating above it all, careless instead of helpless. It was not a bad feeling, he decided; certainly a chap could grow accustomed to it.

  He went and fetched himself a slice of Victoria sponge from the canteen and made his way to the incident room. She was sitting at her desk, on the edge of which was perched Quennell. The boy detective was leaning over in the act of whispering something to her, perilously close to her neck, and seeing this Cooper felt a lurch of disappointment, of sourness, dyspepsia. A large box of chocolates was spread out on the desk in front of her, incongruous amid the tidy piles of paperwork and stationery items, and he watched her reach for one as she chatted gaily to Quennell all the while. He took another bite of cake. His plan was to make his way across the room to a desk over on the other side, as far away as possible, before she noticed him, but the mention of his name made him stop where he was, frozen in anticipation.

  “DDI Cooper?” she was saying. His heart beat hard against his ribs. “Oh, I don’t think so.” She laughed and he thought how her laugh was so warm and melodic. “As a matter of fact,” she said, “I had thought he might be queer…”

  His heart plummeted faster than a falling lift, and the mouthful of sponge he had just taken tasted like sand in his mouth; or maybe it was sand: these days food was rarely what it purported to be. In a cold sweat, he tried to scurry away into a dark corner, but Quennell had seen him and was jumping off the edge of the desk and to attention.