by Jack Higgins
“I see. When did the girl arrive?”
“About five minutes after the other two.”
“You knew her name, so presumably she’d been in before?”
“Two or three times a week, usually with a different bloke and she wasn’t too particular about their ages either.”
“Was she a Tom?”
“That’s the way it looked to me.”
“And what about this boy friend of hers?”
“You mean Harold?” Meadows shrugged. “He’s met her in here maybe half a dozen times. I don’t even know his second name.”
“Was he picking up her earnings?”
“Could be, I suppose. He didn’t look so tough to me, but you can never tell these days.”
Miller nodded. “All right, what happened between Faulkner and the girl?”
“She sat on a stool at one end of the bar and he told me to give her a drink. It seems he and Morgan were going on to some posh do and Faulkner got the idea it might be fun to take the girl. She must have liked the idea because they all left together.”
“And then Harold arrived.”
“That’s right and he didn’t like what he found. Ended up taking a punch at Faulkner who got very nasty with him. I had to intervene. In fact I told Morgan to tell him he needn’t come back. I’ve had about as much as I can take.”
“He’s been mixed up in this sort of trouble before then?”
“Too damned much for my liking. When he loses his temper he’s a raving madman, that one. Doesn’t know what he’s doing. He was in here one Saturday night a couple of months back and a couple of market porters came in. You know what they’re like—rough lads—they started taking the mickey out of his posh voice and so on. He took them both out in the alley, gave them a hell of a beating.”
“Did you report it?”
“Come off it, Mr. Miller. I’ve got the reputation of the house to think of. I only put up with him because most of the time he’s a real gent and why should I cry over a couple of tearaways like that? They asked for it, they got it.”
“A point of view.” Miller started to button his coat. “Strange in a man of his background, all this violence.”
Meadows hesitated perceptibly. “Look, I don’t know if this is any use to you, but he was in here on his own one night, not exactly drunk, but well on the way. We were talking about some court case in the evening paper. Three blokes who’d smashed up an old-age pensioner for the three or four quid that was in her purse. I said blokes like that were the lowest form of animal life. He leaned across the bar and took me by the tie. ‘No, they’re not, Harry,’ he said. ‘The lowest form of animal life is a screw.’”
In other days the man who turned the key in the lock had been called a warder. In more enlightened times he was known as a prison officer, but to anyone who had ever served time he was a screw, hated and despised.
“You think he’s been inside?” Miller said.
Meadows shrugged. “Sounds crazy, I know, but I’ve reached the stage where I could believe anything about that one.” He opened the door. “You don’t think he killed Grace Packard, do you?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. What happened to Harold after the others left, by the way? You didn’t tell me that.”
“I offered him a drink and he told me where to go and went out after them. Funny thing was he turned up again about five minutes afterwards full of apologies. Said he was sorry he’d lost his temper and so on. Then he tried to get Faulkner’s address out of me.”
“He knew his name then?”
“Apparently he’d heard me use it during the fuss when I called out to Faulkner to lay off.”
“Did you give him the address?”
“Do I look as if I came over on a banana boat?” Meadows shrugged. “Mind you, there’s always the telephone book.”
“As you say.” Miller punched him lightly in the shoulder. “See you soon, Harry.”
He went. Crossed the yard through the heavy rain. Meadows watched him climb into the Cooper, then closed the door.
Miller went up the steps of the Central Railway Station and paused to light a cigarette in the porch. The match flared in his cupped hands briefly illuminating the white face and dark eyes. Here and there in the vast concourse a lounger stiffened, turned and faded briskly into the night which was no more than Miller had intended for the railway station of any great city is the same the world over, a happy hunting ground for wrongdoers of every description.
He moved across to the buffet by the ticket barrier and looked in through the window. The young woman he was searching for was sitting on a stool at one end of the tea bar. She saw him at once, for there were few things in life that she missed, and came out.
She was about twenty-five years of age with a pleasant, open face and her neat tweed suit was in excellent taste. She might have been a schoolteacher or someone’s private secretary. In fact she had appeared before the local bench on no fewer than five occasions for offences involving prostitution and had recently served three months in a detention centre.
She nodded familiarly. “’Evening, Mr. Miller, or should I say good morning?”
“Hello, Gilda. You must be hard up to turn out on a night like this with a bloody maniac hanging around out there in the rain.”
“I can look after myself.” When she lifted her umbrella he saw that the ferrule had been sharpened into a wicked-looking steel point. “Anyone makes a grab at me gets this through the eyes.”
Miller shook his head. “You think you can take on the whole world, don’t you? I wonder what you’ll look like ten years from now.”
“Just older,” she said brightly.
“If you’re lucky, only by then you’ll be down to a different class of customer. Saturday night drunks at a quid a time for a quickie round the back of the station.”
She wasn’t in the least offended. “We’ll see. What was it you wanted?”
“I suppose you heard there was a girl killed earlier tonight?”
“That’s right. Other side of the park, wasn’t it?”
“Her name was Grace Packard. I’ve been told she was on the game. Is that true?”
Gilda showed no particular surprise. “Kinky looking little tart, all plastic mac and knee boots.”
“That’s it.”
“She tried working the station about six months ago. Got herself into a lot of trouble.”
“What kind?”
“Pinching other people’s regulars, that sort of thing. We moved her on in the end.”
“And how did you manage that?” She hesitated and he said harshly, “Come on, Gilda, this is murder.”
“All right,” she said reluctantly. “I asked Lonny Brogan to have a word with her. She took the point.”
“I can imagine she would after hearing what that big ape had to say,” Miller said. “One other thing, did anyone pimp for her?”
Gilda chuckled contemptuously. “Little half-baked kid with a face like the underbelly of a fish and black sideboards. Harold something or other. Christ knows what she saw in him.”
“You saw her give him money?”
“Plenty of times—mostly to get rid of him from what I could see.”
He nodded. “All right, Gilda, I’ll be seeing you.”
“Oh, Mr. Miller,” she said reprovingly. “I hope you don’t mean that the way it sounds.”
Her laughter echoed mockingly from the vaulted ceiling as he turned and walked away.
11
When Brady and Harold entered the general office at Central C.I.D. it was bustling with activity for no man might reasonably expect to see his bed on a night like this. Brady left Harold on an uncomfortable wooden bench with the Saturday sport’s paper and went in to Chief Superintendent Mallory who was using Grant’s office.
Mallory was shaving with a battery-operated electric razor and reading a report at the same time. His white shirt was obviously fresh on and he looked crisp and alert in spite of the hour.
“What’s your first impression?”
“Oh, there’s something there all right. For a start, he’s an unpleasant little bastard.”
“You can’t hang a man for that.”
“There’s a lot more to it than that.”
Brady gave him the gist of his conversation with Harold and when he was finished, Mallory nodded. “All right, let’s have him in.”
When Brady called him, Harold entered with a certain bravado and yet his nervousness was betrayed in the muscle that twitched in his right cheek.
Mallory greeted him with extreme politeness. “Good of you to come at this hour, Mr. Phillips. We appreciate it.”
Harold’s confidence received a king-size boost and he sat down in the chair Brady brought forward and gave Mallory a big man-of-the-world smile. “Anything I can do, Superintendent. You’ve only got to say.”
Brady offered him a cigarette. As he was lighting it, there was a knock on the door and Miller glanced in. He was about to withdraw, but Mallory shook his head and beckoned him inside. Miller closed the door behind him and took up a position by the window without a word.
“Now then, sir, just to get the record straight, you are Mr. Harold Phillips of 10, Narcia Place?” Mallory began.
“That’s me.”
“I’m given to understand that you and Miss Grace Packard were engaged to be married. Is that correct?”
“I suppose you could say that in a way.” Harold shrugged. “I bought her a ring a couple of months back, but nothing was really official. I mean we hadn’t set a date or anything.”
“I understand, sir. Now I wonder if you’d mind going over the events of last night again. I know you’ve already discussed this with Constable Brady, but it would help me to hear for myself.”
“Well, as I told Mr. Brady, I had a date with Grace at half-eight.”
“Just one moment, sir. What happened before that? What time did you get home from work?”
Harold smiled bravely. “To tell you the truth I’m not actually working at the moment, Superintendent. It’s my back you see. I had this accident about a year ago so I have to be very careful.”
Mallory looked sympathetic. “That must be difficult for you. You were saying that you had an appointment with Miss Packard at eight-thirty?”
“That’s right. In The King’s Arms, the one near Regent Square on the corner of Lazer Street.”
“And you kept that appointment?”
“I was a couple of minutes late. When I got there she was leaving with two blokes.”
“Who were they?”
“I don’t know—never seen ’em before.”
“Did she often do this sort of thing?”
Harold sighed heavily. “I’m afraid she did. She was sort of restless, if you know what I mean. Always looking for something new.”
It sounded like a line from a bad television play, but Mallory simply nodded and went on, “What happened when you arrived and found her leaving with these two men?”
“I tried to stop her, tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t listen.” Harold flushed. “Then one of them got hold of me—great big bloke he was. He twisted my hand in one of these judo locks or something. Put me down on my face. That’s when the landlord moved in and told ’em to clear off.”
“And what did you do then, sir?”
Harold frowned as if trying to remember. “Oh, had a drink with the landlord—on the house.”
“Did you go straight home afterwards?”
“No, like I told Mr. Brady, I was too upset. I walked around in the rain for a while, then I had a coffee in the station buffet. Got home about half-nine. Me mum was in bed so I took her a cup of tea and went myself.”
Mallory had been making notes. He added a sentence and as he glanced up, Miller said, “Excuse me, sir, I’ve been expecting a message.”
He went out into the main office, picked up the telephone on his desk and rang through to Mallory. “Miller here, sir. He’s lying.”
“That’s certainly nice to know,” Mallory said calmly. “I’ll be straight out.”
He put down his phone and smiled brightly at Harold. “I’ll only be a moment.” He got to his feet and said to Brady, “See that Mr. Phillips gets a cup of tea, will you, Constable? There should be some left in the pot.”
He found Miller sitting on the edge of his desk drinking someone else’s coffee. Mallory sat down in the chair and started to fill his pipe. “Nasty little bastard, isn’t he?”
“He may have his moments, but they must be few and far between,” Miller said. “To start with I’ve seen Harry Meadows, the landlord of The King’s Arms. After the fuss, he offered Harold a drink on the house. Harold told him to get stuffed and went off after the others. Five minutes later he returned full of apologies to claim his free glass.”
“Now why would he do that?” Mallory said thoughtfully.
“Apparently he spent the time trying to pump Meadows. Wanted to know where Faulkner lived.”
“You mean he actually knew Faulkner by name?”
“Oh, yes, he made that clear enough. He’d heard Meadows use it during the argument.”
Mallory grinned like the Cheshire cat, the first time Miller had ever seen him smile. “Well that’s a nice fat juicy lie he’s told us for a start.”
“There’s more,” Miller said. “Grace Packard was on the game. Worked the station until the rest of the girls moved her on a month or two back. According to my informant she had a boy friend who picked up her earnings pretty regularly. The description fits our Harold exactly.”
Mallory got to his feet. “Let’s go back in.”
Harold was half-way through his third cigarette and glanced round nervously when the door opened. “Sorry about that, Mr. Phillips,” Mallory said. He smiled heartily and held out his hand. “Well, I don’t think we need to detain you any longer. You can go back to bed now.”
Harold’s mouth gaped. “You mean you don’t need me any more?”
“That’s right. The information you’ve given us will be most helpful. I can’t thank you enough for turning out at this hour in the morning. It’s that kind of co-operation that helps us beat these things you know.” He turned to Brady who came to attention briskly. “See that Mr. Phillips gets home will you, Constable?”
“See to it myself, sir.” Brady put a hand under Harold’s elbow, looking more avuncular than ever. “Have you home in fifteen minutes, sir.”
Harold grinned. “Be seeing you, Superintendent,” he said and went out of the room like a turkey-cock.
Mallory sat down and put a match to his pipe. “No harm in letting him think he’s out of the wood for a few hours. When we pull him in again in the morning the shock will just about cripple him.”
“You really think he’s got something to hide, sir?” Miller demanded.
“He’s lying when he says he doesn’t know Faulkner by name—that’s for a start. Then there’s this business about the girl—the fact that he was pimping for her.”
“It still doesn’t add up to murder.”
“It never does to start with, Sergeant. Suppositions, inaccuracies, statements that don’t really hold water—that’s all we ever have to work with in most cases. For example, Phillips says that he walked the streets for a while after leaving the pub, then had a coffee at the station buffet. How many people would you say use that buffet on a Saturday night?”
“Thousands, sir.”
“Exactly. In other words it would be unreasonable to expect some sort of personal identification by any of the buffet staff. Another thing—as far as we can judge at the moment, the girl was killed at around half-ten.”
“And Phillips was home at nine-thirty and in bed ten minutes or so later. What was it he said? That he took his mother a cup of tea?”
“Interesting thing about Mrs. Phillips,” Mallory said. “Brady had
to kick on the door for a good five minutes before he could rouse Phillips. There wasn’t a bleat from the old girl. In fact Phillips told him she was sleeping like a baby.”
Miller frowned. “That doesn’t make very good sense.”
“Even more interesting was the bottle of Canbutal capsules Brady found on the mantelpiece. A couple of those things and you wouldn’t hear a bomb go off in the next street.”
“Might be an idea to check with her doctor in the morning, just to get a complete picture.”
Mallory nodded. “Brady can handle that.” He got to his feet. “I’m going over to the Medical School now. We’ve hauled Professor Murray out of bed. He’s going to get cracking on the post-mortem just as soon as the Forensic boys have finished with her. You’d better get a couple of hours’ sleep in the rest room. If I want you, I’ll phone.”
Miller helped him on with his coat. “What about Faulkner?”
Mallory shook his head. “I never had much of a hunch about him, not in the way I do about Phillips.”
“I’m afraid I can’t agree with you there, sir.”
For a moment, Mallory poised on the brink of one of those sudden and terrible wraths for which he was famous. With a great effort he managed to control himself and said acidly, “Don’t tell me you’re going to solve this thing in a burst of intuitive genius, Miller?”
“Meadows had some very interesting things to say about him, sir,” Miller said patiently. “There’s a pattern of violence there that just doesn’t fit in a man of his background. He uses force too easily, if you follow me.”
“So do I when the occasion calls for it,” Mallory said. “Is that all you have to go on?”
“Not exactly, sir. He had a pretty strange conversation with Meadows one night when he was drunk. Meadows got the impression that he’d been inside.”
Mallory frowned. “Did he indeed? Right, get on to C.R.O. in London. Tell them it’s for me. Say I want everything they have on Faulkner by breakfast. I’ll discuss it with you then.”
The door banged behind him and Miller grinned softly. For a moment there, just for a moment, it had looked as if they were going to clash. That moment would come again because George Mallory was a stubborn man and Nick Miller was a sleeping partner in a business so large that he didn’t need to put himself out to anyone for the sake of keeping his job. Not God or even Chief Superintendents from New Scotland Yard. An interesting situation. He lit a cigarette, picked up Mallory’s telephone and asked for Information Room.