Gone Tomorrow

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘Prove it.’

  ‘I have a witness who says you did.’

  ‘He’s lying too.’

  ‘I don’t think so. He worked alongside Lenny.’

  ‘So where is he, then?’ Collins said defiantly. ‘What’s his name?’

  Slider put his hands flat on the table. ‘Look, Sonny,’ he said, ‘you know that we’ve got an ongoing investigation into your little doings. If you don’t start co-operating with me—’

  Stevens intervened. ‘Sounds like the opening phrases of a threat. You will be careful not to threaten my client, won’t you?’

  Slider tried to ignore him. ‘Lenny Baxter was killed, and I think you know a lot more about it than you’ve said. Who was Lenny working for? Tell me that, and maybe it’ll be enough from you for now. We’re looking for a murderer. I don’t want to clutter up my desk processing you for whatever little games you’re mixed up in. Buy yourself some time, Sonny. You can clean up your act before we come after you. Tell me who Lenny was working for, and go back to your pub with an easy mind.’

  Collins, sitting up straight as a ramrod, looked scornful. ‘Easy mind? What do you know about it? You don’t know who you’re dealing with.’

  ‘My client has nothing more to say to you,’ Stevens intervened smoothly.

  ‘Who, Sonny?’ Slider urged. ‘Who am I dealing with?’

  ‘You got nothing on me!’ Collins said. ‘I’m saying nothing. I want it on record. I know nothing and I’ve said nothing.’

  ‘He must be a pretty big shit if he can put the frighteners on you,’ Slider said with interest. ‘What can he do to you, Sonny? Lose you your job? I can do that. If you know something and don’t tell me, I can have you for obstruction. Maybe perverting the course of justice. You can go down for that. How would you like a spell inside? Plenty of people inside would admire your fine physique. I’m sure you’d make lots of new friends.’

  ‘Do it then. I don’t care. It’d be a piece of piss compared with—’ He stopped himself, and his good eye swivelled round to Stevens. ‘I want out of here!’

  ‘Unless you are intending to charge my client...?’ Stevens said on an interrogative note, looking at Slider, who waved a negative hand. ‘Then my client is free to go.’

  Slider looked sadly at Collins. ‘You leave me with no option but to bring forward the investigation into your other activities. Everything’s going to come out. All the little bits of business going on at the back door. We’ve got plenty on you already and if you don’t think we’ll get the rest you overestimate the loyalty of your customers. You’re going to go down, Sonny –and all for want of a name. That’s all you have to do, give me the name.’

  Collins, already on his feet, paused, clenching his fists down by his sides. It seemed a curiously involuntary gesture. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said again. ‘If I gave you his name—’

  ‘This interview is over,’ Stevens said.

  ‘He’d never know it was you,’ Slider said, holding Collins’s gaze.

  ‘Over,’ Stevens repeated.

  ‘I’d know,’ Collins said with finality. ‘Do what you like, I’m saying nothing.’

  It was an odd little emphasis that puzzled Slider.

  Atherton sat on the windowsill, backlit by the sunshine like a Dutch old master. ‘So he’s tacitly admitted that he works for the same boss – or at least, does business with him.’

  ‘But he’s too scared to give the name,’ Slider said. ‘Scared or – something.’

  ‘Something? I’m dazzled by your eloquence.’

  Slider frowned. ‘There was something odd going on there. Some emotion or concern I couldn’t guess at, but it was stronger than the fear of prison.’

  ‘And Everet Boston’s scared blue. This man provokes powerful loyalties.’

  ‘Oh, so you believe in the big boss now?’

  ‘Do me a lemon.’

  Slider looked worried. ‘I’m wondering about David Stevens.’

  ‘Don’t. That way lies madness and destruction.’

  ‘But I can’t believe Collins would have the money or the know-how to hire him, and if it’s not the brewery—’

  ‘Then it’s Mr Big retaining him for defence of one of his minions?’ Atherton said.

  ‘Shoring up a potentially weak place in the organisation,’ Slider concluded. ‘But if that’s the case then Stevens knows who he is.’

  ‘As I said, that way lies madness,’ Atherton repeated. Anyway, it’s all pure conjecture. You know my feelings about this whole Mr Big story.’

  ‘You think I’ve got a Moriarty complex.’

  ‘I think small-time crooks like to talk big. If Boston’s right about Lenny dealing drugs, it’s more than likely he was doing a spot of trade in the park and one of his customers was blasted and did him to avoid having to pay.’

  ‘But then why didn’t they take the money?’ Slider objected. ‘And where’s the lock and chain?’

  ‘I think you can get too hung up on the lock and chain. They’ll turn up somewhere.’

  ‘They irritate me.’

  ‘Maybe the park keeper’s got them.’

  ‘Maybe. I think we’d better have another word with him, at least clear up how Lenny was able to use the park as his office. Tell Mackay to go and fetch him in. He’d better check with the council first to find out where he is. I don’t suppose he spends his entire day hanging around the one park.’

  The telephone call established that Ken Whalley had not been in to work. It was natural enough, said the woman in the parks department, after such a terrible shock. Two weeks’ compassionate leave, they’d given him, the same as you get for a close-family bereavement. They were going to arrange counselling for him, as soon as he phoned in to say he was ready for it. He was at home as far as she knew. She didn’t think he had any family or anything, so unless he’d gone away for a holiday …

  ‘Found him cowering indoors with the chain on,’ Mackay reported when he had brought him in. ‘Wouldn’t answer the door at first, and even after he’d seen my brief it took me ten minutes to talk him out. He thought I was from the council, come to tell him he’d got the sack.’

  ‘But they’ve given him leave,’ Atherton said. ‘Why would they do that if they were going to sack him?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s very bright,’ Mackay said. ‘Apparently they offered him counselling and he thought that was something to do with a solicitor. Thought it meant they were taking him to court.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Dunno,’ Mackay shrugged. ‘He’s not making much sense.’

  When Slider went downstairs he could see why. Ken Whalley had gone downhill since Tuesday. He was unshaven, his hair was a wild bush, and he smelt as if he hadn’t washed in as long as he hadn’t shaved. He was wearing a pair of black shell-suit bottoms and an indescribably grubby teeshirt, and his bare feet were shoved into flip-flops. His pudgy face seemed to have melted into a shape of woe and the hair sprouted from it in irregular patches like mould. His droopy basset-hound eyes raised themselves to Slider’s face in abject misery. He was a bad dog, and he had come to be punished.

  ‘I never meant it to happen. I never meant no harm,’ he whined before Slider had spoken. ‘I sweartergod, if I’d of knew, I wouldn’t never of done it. But when he ast me, I didn’t see no harm in it. I never knew what he wanted it for.’

  ‘All right, just calm down and we’ll go through it from the beginning,’ Slider said.

  ‘Am I gonner lose me job?’

  Slider sat opposite him, wishing there were a way to stay upwind of Whalley’s miasma; but in a small enclosed space all directions were down. ‘Never mind about your job now,’ he said with measured sternness. ‘This is much more serious than your job. If you’re going to stay out of prison, you’re going to have to co-operate with me fully, tell me everything.’

  ‘Oh Gawd,’ Whalley said faintly. ‘What—?’

  ‘No, I ask the questions, you answer. That’s th
e way it’s going to be. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yessir,’ Whalley said. Being managed seemed to brace him a little, as Slider had guessed it would.

  ‘Now then, how did you first meet Lenny Baxter?’

  Whalley licked his lips. ‘I never—’

  ‘The truth! You lied to me before. You said you’d never seen him before in your life. But that wasn’t true. You knew him very well. That’s why you were so shocked when you found him dead.’

  ‘I fought,’ Whalley said in the same wisp of a voice, ‘I fought I’d get the blame for it.’

  ‘How did you meet him?’

  ‘He come up to me in the park one day. Got chatting. Wanted to know about me routine, locking up and that.’

  ‘And he made you a proposition?’

  ‘Not then. Not right away. I see him in the park a few times. Sometimes he comes over and chats. Then one day he comes in when I was locking up—’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Last year. In the summer. I know it was summer ’cos it was a late lock-up. ’Cos it gets dark later in summer,’ he added helpfully.

  ‘I understand. Go on. What did Lenny say?’

  ‘He ast me to go for a drink. So I says yes. We went down the Coningham. That’s his local, he says. So we goes for a pint.’

  ‘And he made a proposition to you,’ Slider asked, hoping to speed matters up a bit. ‘What did he want you to do?’

  Whalley looked down at his dirty fingernails, coming to the moment of shame.

  ‘He wanted me to borrow him the key.’

  ‘The key?’

  ‘To the Frithville Gardens gate. He said he’d give it back. I said I couldn’t, ’cos of opening up in the morning, so he said he’d come the next day after I opened and he’d have it back to me before I had to lock up.’

  ‘And what did he want it for?’

  ‘I dunno,’ Whalley said, still looking down.

  ‘I think you do,’ Slider said.

  ‘He never said.’

  ‘He wanted to get it copied, didn’t he? So he’d have a key of his own. So he could get in and out of the park when he liked. Isn’t that right?’

  Whalley nodded. ‘Maybe. He never said, but – well, what else’d he want it for?’

  ‘Why did he want to get into the park?’

  ‘I dunno. He never said.’

  ‘You do know.’ No answer. ‘Look at me!’ The reluctant eyes lifted, full of fear and guilt. ‘What did he want to use the park for?’

  ‘I swear I dunno. It’s the honestroof.’

  ‘You must have known he was up to no good. Why did you go along with it?’

  ‘Well, he ast me.’

  ‘You could have said no.’

  Whalley looked as though he might cry. ‘I was scared,’ he admitted. ‘He was big. You never saw him. He was a big bloke. I fought he’d do me over if I said no.’

  Slider looked at the pathetic lump of putty. Ken Whalley was such a coward you could have held him up through the post.

  ‘So what did he offer you for letting him borrow the key? Was it money?’

  ‘No,’ Whalley said. ‘I never took no money off him, not a penny, only the drink he bought me.’

  Slider detected a note Whalley was probably unaware of. ‘Not money. But he did give you something, didn’t he? What was it?’

  ‘I can’t,’ Whalley said, bowing his head. ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘You will say. What did he give you? Come on, Ken, I can sit here all day if I have to. You’re going to tell me. What did he give you in exchange for the key?’ Whalley muttered the answer, and Slider couldn’t catch it, it was so low. ‘What? Say it again. Louder. What did he give you?’

  ‘It was a woman,’ Whalley said, and from the slump of his shoulders, it was clear they were coming to the bottom of this sad creature. ‘It was this bird he lived with – Tina, he called her. She was gorgeous. A real cracker. Well, I’m – you know. I mean, look at me! I’m no good with women. They don’t fancy me. I’ve never had a proper girlfriend.’ Out with the plastic waterweed and the miniature gothic castle, they were down to the gravel now. ‘If you wanna know,’ he said abjectly, ‘I’d never done it. Never in me life. I’d never done – you know – with a woman.’

  It was a sad confession, and as a man with plenty of you-know under his belt, Slider pitied him.

  ‘Are you gay, Ken?’

  ‘No! I’m not like that. I like women. Only they don’t like me. They laugh at me. And Lenny – he was such a big handsome sod. He could have all the women he wanted. He treated ’em rough and they loved it. But me … He got it out of me, when we had the drink, and he said if I’d do that little favour for him, he’d set me up with a woman. I mean, set me up like – have sex with her. He said she’d do anything I wanted. I thought she’d turn out to be this real dog, you know what I mean? But he said no, he said, she was gorgeous. And she was,’ he finished simply.

  ‘So when did this meeting with Tina take place?’

  ‘Next night. After he give me the key back he said he’d meet me at locking-up time and take me to her. I never fought he’d be there.’ He looked at Slider to see if he understood.

  ‘You thought once you’d done your part of the bargain he’d have no reason to stick to his? You thought he’d stiff you?’

  ‘Yeah. Why wouldn’t he? He’d got what he wanted. But he was there. He played straight with me.’ The gratitude was pathetic. This, Slider saw, was one of Lenny’s many holds over Ken Whalley’s loyalty, that he had had the chance to cheat him and hadn’t taken it. ‘So he took me to a place – his flat, I suppose it was – and she was there. This black bird, Tina. A real cracker. And young and everything. He left me with her and – and we done it.’ He was silent a moment, perhaps reliving the moment. Then he said, ‘After that, I never see him again, not to talk to –only the once.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘About a fortnight ago. He come in the Smuts, where I drink, and he took me outside and he said, Ken, he said, have you been talking? And I says no, I swear – which I hadn’t. I’d never mentioned it to a soul. Why would I?’

  ‘To boast about the girl, maybe?’

  ‘What, tell everyone I’d never done it in me life till then? Anyway, who would I tell? I haven’t got any friends,’ he said with simple truth. ‘No, I never mentioned it to a soul. Anyway, he believes me, and he says, you just keep it that way, he says, ’cos he says if I ever say a word to anyone, he’ll know, and he’ll get me. He’ll beat me up, he says, so’s my own mother won’t know me. So I never said nothing.’

  ‘Even after he was dead?’ Slider said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth when I first spoke to you? There was nothing he could do to you then.’

  ‘I fought you’d fink I did it. And I fought – all right, he was dead, but someone else would get me. I mean, he musta been in it with someone else. Like – a gang or summink.’

  He lit a cigarette with fumbling hands. Slider noticed absently that it was a Gitane, unusual choice for a dork like Whalley. Then his attention sharpened.

  ‘Where did you get those cigarettes, Ken?’

  ‘Lenny sold ’em me cheap. I don’t usually smoke this kind. I don’t like ’em much, but he let me have ’em so cheap it was worth it.’

  ‘Where did he get them from?’

  Whalley looked slightly surprised at the question. ‘I dunno. Abroad, I s’pose. Maybe that’s what he does – import and that.’

  ‘Illegal import,’ Slider said. ‘Otherwise known as smuggling.’

  Whalley looked frightened again. ‘I dunno. He never said. I didn’t know they was illegal. I just – I just—’

  ‘Oh come on, Ken, you know how that game’s played. Don’t tell me you didn’t know they were smuggled.’

  ‘I never ast him. You didn’t know Lenny. You never saw him. You wouldn’t ast him questions. You just wouldn’t.’

  ‘So what was his game? What did he do in the park? Come on, don’t say you do
n’t know.’

  ‘I don’t, I swear. I didn’t want to know.’

  ‘If he was up to something really bad, like dealing drugs, that makes you an accessory. You can go down for that – jail, Ken. Think of that. Locked up for years with a bunch of big ugly tough bastards like Lenny, only not so kind-hearted. You help me out, tell me what Lenny was up to, and I might be able to keep you out of there.’

  ‘I don’t – I didn’t – I’d tell you if I could, but I don’t know!’ Whalley wailed in fear.

  Slider shook his head and sighed. ‘Bad choice, Ken. Seriously bad choice. If you won’t help me, I can’t help you. I’m not going to put myself out for you. You’re going down. Not just accessory to Lenny’s game, but accessory to his murder. How does that sound? You’re going to prison for a long, long time.’

  Whalley turned so white Slider thought he was going to throw up. The cigarette shook in his fingers and fell, rolling off the table into his lap; but he didn’t notice. His cowardly heart had tried to do a runner: his eyes fluttered upwards and he slumped into a dead faint, his head hitting the table top with a sound like a judge’s gavel.

  ‘I think you went a bit too hard on him, guv,’ Mackay said impassively.

  Joanna sat up, her short, thick hair madly tousled.

  ‘Wow,’ she said. Succinct, but heartfelt.

  ‘Why, thank you, ma’am,’ Slider said. ‘And wow yourself.’

  ‘Food now,’ she pronounced.

  ‘No, no, you stay, I’ll go. I’ve had this planned for days.’

  ‘All right,’ she said, settling herself back on the pillows, ‘I’ll do the sultan bit.’

  ‘Sultana,’ he corrected, heading, naked, for the door.

  ‘I know, I’m your currant entanglement.’

  ‘More my raisin d’être,’ he said.

  He was back soon with the tray: the best pâté de fois from the deli in Turnham Green Road, a ripe and creamy Gorgonzola, crusty French bread, fat Italian olives.

  ‘Wow,’ she said again.

  ‘Nothing but the best for my lady.’ He kissed her, getting back into bed.

  ‘And what’s this? Rocket?’

  ‘Dressed with lemon juice and black pepper, à la Atherton.’