Gone Tomorrow

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Not so far.’

  ‘Local TV news, then. That’s the ticket. And you’re the man. Nice sympathetic face. Not a crumbling old ruin like me.’ If it was a joke, he didn’t laugh, and Slider thought better of smiling, even sympathetically. Strike the wrong note with Porson and he could take your head off clean as a vole with an earthworm. ‘What do you want to do with Cranston?’

  ‘Now we’ve got his address, I’d like to search his drum. Either he can give permission or I can arrest him, whichever way he wants to play it.’

  ‘Not shouting, is he?’

  ‘Mute as a swan. Seems to have resigned himself.’

  ‘Don’t nick him unless you have to. Got enough to do without realms of paperwork.’

  ‘Right, sir,’ Slider said, grateful for small mercies.

  ‘All right, Bill,’ Porson said, suddenly kind, ‘better go and work on that statement of yours, get yourself in the right frame of mind. You’ll be doing it over at Hammersmith, of course.’

  ‘Will I?’ Slider hadn’t expected that.

  ‘They’ve got a proper press suite all set up. And the press officer wants you there an hour beforehand to prepare you. Check your nose hair, give you electrocution lessons, that sort of thing.’ He surveyed his junior. ‘Had any lunch yet?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Thought you looked a bit fagged out. Go and get something to eat, and get your statement drafted. Your mind’ll work better on a full stomach.’

  Slider, as he trudged off, wasn’t sure there’d be room for food with all the butterflies.

  Golden Loans occupied one of those dusty-windowed offices above a hardware shop in Uxbridge Road. Access was via an extremely battered door which stood between the hardware shop and the deli next door. The smell of paraffin and salami competed on the air. The door was on the latch and pushed open to reveal a long and steep flight of stairs covered in green marbled lino which sported a collection of muddy footmarks that would have delighted the heart of a Holmes or early Wimsey. Since it hadn’t rained in over a week, it was plain that office cleaning was not high on the list of priorities.

  At the top of the stairs was a half-glazed door through whose hammered glass it was perfectly possible to see the outline of the high toilet cistern and its dangling chain. No female staff then, Atherton concluded. The passage led back towards the front of the building and another half-glazed door on which the name in gold paint had been partly scratched off so that it now read GOI DEN L AVS. From the Bakelite doorknob hung a cardboard-and-string home-made sign on which was written in irregular capitals KNOCK AND ENTER.

  Atherton knocked and entered. The door swung only ninety degrees, stopped by the massive desk which dominated the room. Between the door and the wall to Atherton’s right was an empty patch of lino’ed floor about two feet square, but that was the only empty space in the room. There were two small, hard kitchen chairs against the right-hand wall, for customers, presumably – or applicants or supplicants or whatever the correct term was in the loans-to-the-unthrifty biz. The rest of the room was filled with filing cabinets, a large metal stationery cupboard, a table cluttered with paperwork, the huge desk, and the man behind it.

  Herbie Weedon was vast and almost shapeless: if it weren’t for his head you’d have been hard put to it to swear he was human. He seemed penned behind his desk like something dangerous, for the files and papers which covered the desk had stacked up in interlocking piles like a dry-stone wall, those furthest from him the highest, in teetering columns. He looked dangerous, but to himself more than the world: his blood pressure appeared to be well over into the red zone and almost off the gauge. His nose was spread, bumpy and purple, his eyes sunken and congested, his cheeks an aerial map of tiny red veins. His hair was sparse, as if it had been pushed off his skull by the terrifying forces within; his breathing filled the office, rivalling the traffic sounds from outside. He was like an ancient steam boiler with a jammed safety-valve, ready to blow at any moment. Yet by contrast his pudgy hands were pale and almost dainty, with well-kept nails. One rested on the desk top; the other was occupied with conveying a small thin cigar to and from his mouth. They looked as if they were quite separate entities from the rest of him: milk-white handmaids serving a bloated old sultan.

  ‘Mr Weedon?’ Atherton said gently, on the principle that one doesn’t shout in an avalanche zone.

  ‘The same,’ he wheezed. ‘Do for you?’ Behind the puffy lids the little dark eyes were as knowing as a pig’s. ‘Police?’

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘To me,’ Weedon said, pleased with himself. ‘When you’ve been in this business as long as I have … I’ve seen them all come and go. All sorts. Spot a copper a mile off.’

  Atherton was upset by this. He knew what coppers looked like: cheap suits, big bottoms, thick-soled shoes. Had his standards slipped so far?

  ‘It’s the eyes,’ Herbie explained just in time for Atherton’s self-esteem. ‘Which nick are you from?’

  ‘Shepherd’s Bush. Detective Sergeant Atherton.’ He showed his brief but one of Weedon’s hands waved it away magnanimously.

  ‘Who’s The Man up there now? Can’t keep track since old Dickson died. Great bloke was your Mr Dickson. Many a brandy and cigar we had together down at the club. University graduate he was not, but he was what I call a copper. There’s many a fine degree earned in the great School of Life.’

  ‘It’s Mr Porson now,’ Atherton said, hoping he wasn’t going to throw up. But he knew what Weedon was really saying: I’m older than you, laddie, and I know important people. I can get things done. And also, You and I are on the same side of the law. If he had ever supposed Golden Loans was a squeaky-clean outfit, he would have revised his opinion after that.

  ‘Porson? No. I don’t know him,’ Weedon said thoughtfully, accepting a suck of cigar from right-hand maid. ‘So what can I do for you this fine day? An advance against your salary? You wouldn’t be the first copper to come through that door for that. Shocking badly paid, you blokes. Wouldn’t do your job for all the tea in Wigan. Siddown, siddown.’ Left-hand maid waved Atherton to a kitchen chair. ‘Standing around like that, give me a crick in my neck looking at you. Make yourself comfortable. Smoke?’

  ‘Thanks, I don’t,’ said Atherton.

  ‘Very wise. I’m giving it up myself.’ He began to make a terrible noise and Atherton, who had almost sat down, almost leapt up again, his mind on resuscitation techniques. Then he realised Herbie Weedon was laughing at his own joke. The laugh ended in a racking, phlegmy cough that bounced his whole body, and left-hand maid dashed to his pocket for a handkerchief and tenderly wiped his face.

  ‘I’m interested in an employee of yours,’ Atherton said, thinking he’d better get the questions asked before it was too late.

  ‘Oh yes?’ gasped Weedon.

  ‘Lenny Baxter.’

  The eyes sharpened. The breathing slowed. ‘Oh, yes,’ said Weedon in a very different tone. ‘What’s he been up to?’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Atherton said kindly. ‘I rather thought you might have noticed.’

  Weedon smiled a little. ‘I might have, if he’d died in here. But as it happens, he hasn’t worked for me for a couple of months. He was one of my collection agents, but I had to turn him off. He was coming up short.’

  ‘You mean he was stealing the money he was supposed to collect?’

  Weedon looked away towards the window and waved his cigar gently. ‘Oh, I don’t like to use a harsh word like that. He might have lost the money. He might never’ve had the money. It might have been stolen off him. But a collection agent who doesn’t deliver I don’t need. So I said thank you Lenny and bye-bye.’

  ‘And when was this?’

  ‘Like I said, a couple of months ago.’

  ‘From what I hear, he was still collecting much more recently than that. Like maybe last week or early this week.’

  Weedon shook his head, quite unmoved. ‘Not for me.’

  ‘Did he
collect for other people, then?’

  The hands spread in a little gesture. ‘He was a freelance, he could work for anyone he liked. I didn’t enquire.’

  ‘I thought he was employed by you.’

  The little eyes gleamed. ‘Self-employed.’ Aces over tens. Beat that. All the possible leverage of employment legislation down the tubes.

  Atherton had no choice but to become the supplicant. ‘So what else was Lenny up to, Mr Weedon? You’re a sharp man. You must have an idea.’

  Weedon leaned forward a little, and for a moment Atherton thought he was going to come across. But he said only, ‘It’s a big bad world out there, Mr Atherton, and full of dark deeds. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Lenny Baxter was into something too big for him and it turned round and bit him. He was a cocky sod and he thought he knew it all. But what that thing he was into might have been I can’t tell you.’

  ‘You must have a suspicion.’

  ‘Maybe I have. Maybe you have. But if it comes to guessing we can each guess for ourselves. Maybe Lenny Baxter had it coming. That’s all I can say.’ He blew out smoke and leaned back in his chair. Anything else I can do for you this fine day?’

  Atherton sighed inwardly. Without some leverage he would not get any more out of this old trouper, and any threats he uttered would have to be well filled to work. No use just hinting Golden Loans was crooked. He acknowledged himself beaten. ‘Lenny Baxter’s address,’ he said.

  ‘That,’ Weedon said graciously, ‘I can do for you.’ Both hands were placed flat on the desk and he began heaving himself up. It was a terrifying process. The vast white-shirted torso melded into a vast black-trousered behind propped on short thick legs as big round the thigh as the average man was round the chest. The colour in the face deepened, the wheezing became a roar. Once up, Weedon clamped his cigar firmly in his teeth and waded round to a filing cabinet to pull out a drawer. At close quarters Atherton could hear a whole extra symphony of breathing sounds resonating within the clogged chest, as if he had a family of meercats living in there.

  Weedon returned to his seat and wrote the address down on a slip of paper. Atherton pocketed it and thanked him, and rose to go. At the last minute, as if taking pity on him, Herbie Weedon said, ‘Dark deeds, Mr Atherton. It’s a jungle out there. Young Lenny thought he knew it all. He thought I was an old fool. But he’s dead and I’m alive.’

  Only just, was Atherton’s uncharitable thought as he went out into the dark passage and shut the door behind him.

  The search of Carol Ann’s house and of Eddie Cranston’s flat in Scotts Road revealed nothing of any interest as far as Lenny Baxter’s death was concerned. Cranston’s place was a tiny one-bedroom conversion, and looked as though he used it for little more than to get changed in, for it was chaotic and short on conveniences. The kitchen showed no sign of being used for food preparation, and, indeed, there was nothing in the fridge except for eight cans of Stella, a pint carton of milk gone solid, with a ‘best before’ date of two months ago, and a part-used tub of low-fat spread wearing an interesting blue fur cape under its lid.

  The other thing Cranston evidently used his flat for was to store things. Just as it was deficient in home comforts, it was over-endowed in other areas: packs and packs of cigarettes, an unopened boxed dozen of vodka, several boxes of assorted used CDs, a large cardboard box containing about fifty shortie umbrellas, another of shocking-pink nylon fur soft toys with the sort of button eyes on pins that any self-respecting toddler would have out and swallow before you could say ‘peritonitis’, and three cases of imitation leather wallets from Slovakia. A right little Del Boy he seemed indeed.

  It was going to be a whole separate investigation to find out what, if anything, was nicked and what was genuine stock in trade, especially as Cranston didn’t seem the sort of man who bothered much with paperwork. Fortunately the search team also found a lump of cannabis resin wrapped in kitchen foil in the bedside cabinet drawer, which was enough to keep Eddie under wraps should he feel like legging it.

  All this, plus the result of Atherton’s interview with Weedon, Slider learnt when he returned in somewhat of a foul mood from Hammersmith, where he had done his statement and appeal for witnesses before both local TV channels, three local radio channels, four local newspapers and the Standard. It would add up, he reckoned, to about one and a half minutes of air time, and had used up nearly three hours of his day. And who knew if it would yield any results?

  He stamped up to Porson’s room to report, and found it empty, to his surprise. Porson’s mac and briefcase were gone. He made his way down to the shop where Sergeant Nicholls was in charge, patiently filling in prisoner report forms. ‘Nutty’ Nicholls was a handsome Scot from the far north-west, where they speak a pure English, and the accent is soft with the wash of sea and rain. He had some surprising talents. Once at a police charity concert, got up by the egregious area commander Mr Wetherspoon, Nicholls had sung the ‘Queen of the Night’ aria in a fine, true falsetto and brought the house down.

  ‘Nutty, do you know where Porson is?’

  ‘He’s away home,’ Nicholls answered.

  ‘Porson?’ The old man never went home early. Slider wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that he never went home at all.

  ‘Went through half an hour ago.’

  ‘I thought he’d have waited for me to do my bit on TV.’

  ‘I think his wife’s not very well,’ Nicholls said.

  ‘Oh. Hard to think of him having a wife, really.’

  ‘How did it go? Your piece.’

  ‘All right, I suppose. According to that press female over at Hammersmith, anyway.’

  ‘Amanda Odell. Aye, I know her.’ He eyed Slider cannily. ‘What’s eating you, Bill? I know you don’t like the press, but they’re a necessary evil.’

  ‘It’s that Odell female mostly. She’s supposed to be one of us, but she has a completely different set of priorities. We’re trying to deal with a murder case, and all she cares about is how I place my hands and whether my tie is sympathetic enough.’

  Nicholls shrugged. ‘It’s her job,’

  ‘There shouldn’t be a job like that,’ Slider said, the exasperation bursting through at last. ‘What kind of a people are we, for God’s sake? Everything’s judged by appearance. It doesn’t matter what people do any more, only what they look like.’

  ‘You’re upset, laddie,’ Nicholls said wisely. ‘You didn’t like being in front of the cameras.’

  ‘I hated it,’ Slider said. ‘I felt exposed and – invaded. I feel as if I need a very long bath.’

  ‘You need a very long drink,’ Nicholls corrected. ‘I bet you came across just fine, anyway.’

  ‘Well, I tell you, never again! Porson can do it. They don’t pay me enough to go through that.’

  ‘When’s Joanna coming over?’ Nicholls asked, cutting to the chase.

  Slider looked at him. ‘You think that’s what’s wrong with me?’

  ‘If I was only seeing Mary once a month I’d be climbing the walls.’

  ‘It’s a bastard of a situation,’ Slider admitted.

  ‘Aye. Listen, I’m due a break. D’ye want to have a cup of tea and a chin? Two ears, no waiting?’

  ‘No. Thanks, Nutty, but I’ve got to go and do the search of Lenny Baxter’s drum, now we’ve got the address.’

  ‘No minions?’

  ‘No overtime. It has to be me, as the song says.’ He sighed. ‘Not that it’s likely to yield anything, after all this time.’

  ‘He was living with someone, wasn’t he?’

  ‘According to sources.’

  ‘Why didn’t she report him missing?’

  ‘Word is she was a tom, so I don’t expect “co-operation” and “police” ever come together in her vocabulary.’

  ‘A-huh. Who’re you taking with you?’

  ‘Swilley, in case the female’s there.’

  ‘Atherton’s gone home to the wife, eh?’ Nutty smiled.

  �
��I certainly hope so. If the present set-up doesn’t curb his wandering spirit we’ll have to think seriously about getting him neutered.’

  ‘Well,’ said Nutty, going back to his paperwork, ‘if you’re at a loose end later, I’ll have a drink with you when the relief’s over.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Slider said. ‘I might keep you to that.’

  ‘Friendship’s the next best thing to love,’ Nutty pronounced.

  ‘You’ve been at the Reader’s Digests again,’ said Slider.

  Lenny Baxter’s flat was in Coningham Road, the basement floor of a large Victorian house. It had its own entrance via the area steps; the flats on the three floors above were reached by the stairs up to the front door.

  ‘Nice and private for coming and going,’ Swilley remarked.

  There was no response at the door and no sound from within. It proved surprisingly easy to break in, however, for although there was a deadlock on the front door, it was not engaged.

  ‘I wonder why he didn’t lock up properly when he left?’ Slider said. ‘He was obviously careful – serious locks on the windows.’

  ‘I suppose the woman, whoever she is, was the last to leave and she didn’t bother,’ Swilley said.

  The flat was not large. The passage from the front door ran straight to the back. Off it to the left were the sitting room with the window onto the area and a rather dark bedroom, with a tiny windowless bathroom between them. The passage ended in the kitchen, which had a window onto the rear area. There was no access to the garden, and the area had railing round the top of its wall to prevent – or at least discourage – access from the garden. All the window locks were engaged and there was no sign of a break-in.

  The whole flat was a mess: the occupants plainly had not believed in tidying up. Clothes, papers, dirty crockery: whatever was used seemed to be left where it dropped. But gradually through the casual mess emerged something else: the disorder left by a hasty flight. In the bedroom, drawers had been emptied and most of their contents were missing. A pair of black, flimsy nylon panties lay on the floor halfway to the door and half a pair of sheer black stockings was tangled in the crumpled sheets of the unmade bed, mute witnesses to the hasty packing. The dressing table had marks in the dust to show where toiletries had been swept off it wholesale, and a bottle of eyeliner had fallen down into the limbo between it and the skirting-board.The wardrobe stood open, and there was a suitcase-sized space on the high shelf; one end of the clothes rail was empty, wire hangers were scattered on the floor, and a strappy dress hung askew where it had resisted arrest.