‘And what might that be, I wonder?’ Swilley speculated.
‘Maybe it doesn’t exist,’ Slider admitted.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A Time to be Bald and a Time to Dye
‘All right, settle down,’ Slider said. The sunny spell had broken at last, and outside the windows the sky was a uniform blank off-white, depthless, as though the whole world had been enclosed in Vitrolite. It was still warm though, and the troops had all taken off their jackets, letting loose a faint prickle of male sweat into the air to compete with six different aftershaves and Norma’s Eau de Givenchy.
‘First of all, I’ve got some sad news. I’ve been informed by Mr Palfreyman that Mr Porson’s wife died in hospital last night.’ There was a murmur of comment. ‘I know he has the deepest sympathy of every one of us. I think we should send him a card to that effect.’
‘I’ll do it, boss,’ Norma said.
‘Thanks. Get everyone to sign it and come to me for his home address. Now, I imagine that means we won’t be seeing anything of him for a day or two more, but it would probably cheer him up if we could get a result on this Baxter business, so let’s see what we’ve got.’
Hollis took over. ‘Our first suspect was Eddie Cranston, because he’d had a fight with Baxter. But we’ve got no evidence against him.’
‘I think Eddie’s too much of a plonker to have done it and not give himself away,’ said McLaren.
Swilley performed an introduction. ‘Pot – kettle. Kettle – pot.’ McLaren made a face at her.
‘I can’t believe it’s Eddie,’ Atherton said. ‘I think he just stumbled over the corner of the operation because of his beef with Lenny Baxter. Remember the very first interview with Collins? He didn’t mind giving up Eddie’s name, while he denied all knowledge of Lenny. He was happy for us to go and investigate Eddie’s little games because it led us away from the real danger.’
‘Also,’ Swilley said, ‘his alibi is Carol Anne Shotter and she seems to be completely straight. Not that women haven’t lied for men before now—’ She waited for the whoops to die down. ‘But she comes across all right and everyone I’ve spoken to who knows her thinks she’s honest.’
‘All right, let’s put Eddie aside,’ Slider said. ‘Next up is Everet Boston.’
‘His alibi checks out as far as it goes,’ Hollis said. ‘He was definitely in the Snookerama snooker hall – half a dozen witnesses – but nothing to say where he was after one o’clock. He could have got back to the park by about half past, and we don’t know for sure exactly when Baxter was killed. And we know he had a motive – some kind of ill-treatment of his cousin Mary, aka Teena Brown.’
‘As against that,’ Slider said, ‘he came to us with information, which he’d hardly have done if he’d offed Lenny. And he’s apparently now scared for his life and in hiding.’
‘I don’t think he did it,’ Swilley said. ‘What you said is right, boss. He wouldn’t have come forward if he had. He came forward because he had a beef against Lenny that he wanted to air. And there’s no evidence against him anyway.’
‘There’s no evidence against anybody,’ Anderson pointed out.
‘Which makes it more likely that it was a professional killing, punishment by the gang,’ Swilley went on, ‘which is what Everet said.’
She looked round to gather opinion, realised that no-one was looking at her and swivelled in her seat. Detective Superintendent Porson was standing in the open doorway. The sight of him had frozen the entire room in shock. It was not that he looked utterly drawn and about a thousand years old – anyone might have expected that – but that he was not wearing his wig. His high bald dome was pale and strangely bumpy, and the few wisps of grey hair round the edges seemed only to emphasise the nakedness, as pubic hair contributes to pornography. It was somehow indecent. All these years he had toted the appalling rug about, denied its existence and vented his fury on anyone who so much as looked at it, let alone mentioned it; and now he had simply abandoned it. If he had stood there totally starkers with his dangly bits on parade it could not have caused more consternation.
Slider rallied himself. It was too bad for everyone to be staring at the old boy. He scraped up a voice and said, ‘We weren’t expecting to see you in here today, sir. We heard the news. I know I speak on behalf of everyone when—’
‘None o’ that,’ Porson said sharply, cutting him off with an imperiously lifted hand. His pink-rimmed eyes swept the room. ‘Consider it said. We’ve got work to do. I’ve had Mr Palfreyman on the dog, chewing my ear off. He’s not as compunctionate as you lot, apparently. He’s agitating to take this case away, given I’ve taken my hand off the steerage. Fulsome apologies and all that, but wouldn’t it be better under the circs, de-dah-de-dah. So let’s get on with it. I haven’t lost my marbles yet. I can still out-copper any bastard with a degree in sociology.’ He quelled Atherton’s rising comment with a look and nodded to Slider. ‘Carry on where you picked up.’ And he sat down on a desk at the back of the room, forcing them all to turn their heads away from him.
‘All right,’ Slider said, and with an effort caught hold of his thread. ‘That brings us to Sonny Collins, who on the surface of it looks very tasty. However, he has no criminal form.’ He looked at Hollis. ‘Have you managed to get anything on his service record?’
‘Yes, guv. That was interesting. He was in trouble a few times for fighting, but nothing major. The best bit comes at the end. He was in a shore-based posting in Hong Kong and got in a fight one night outside a bar with a local. The other bloke produced a knife and stabbed him. That’s when he lost his eye, apparently. In retaliation Sonny hit him under the chin so hard it broke his neck. Well, all hell let loose as you might expect. There was the civilian police enquiry as well as the naval one, and questions asked right up to the Governor and the diplomatic bag.’
‘Be more respectful of the Governor’s wife,’ Atherton said sternly.
Hollis resumed. Anyway, the other bloke was a known troublemaker and already wanted by the Hong Kong police on several other counts. So, given that witnesses saw him get Collins with the knife, and his mates swore Collins wasn’t carrying – which he was known not to – it was brought in self-defence. When Collins came out of hospital he got his discharge on medical grounds and there was no court martial. Otherwise he couldn’t have stopped in Hong Kong, o’ course.’
‘Did he?’ Slider asked.
‘Opened a tattoo parlour in Kowloon, ran it for a couple of years before coming home and going into the licensed trade. Must’ve tattooed a few tars in his time there. Maybe he did his own neck. I’m wondering what other services he offered as well as the skin pics.’
‘Yes, that might be worth knowing. Any way you can follow it up?’
‘I’ll have a go,’ Hollis said. ‘I might be able to trace some of his mates.’
‘Okay. Well, Collins is tasty, and he denies knowing Lenny Baxter, though Eddie Cranston was sure enough that Lenny was a regular at the Phoenix to wait for him there; and of course Eddie says Collins called Lenny by name. And there’s Everet Boston’s statement that Collins was the gang control for both him and Lenny Baxter. Which all looks nice and suspicious.’
‘But Collins has got a good alibi,’ Anderson said.
‘Not for the whole night,’ said Mackay.
‘For the likeliest bit,’ Anderson asserted.
‘Yes, what about that alibi?’ Slider said.
Atherton looked at him patiently. ‘I know you don’t like it, but if Collins actually did the killing he’s not likely to have arranged himself an alibi up to four o’clock and then gone a-murdering afterwards, is he?’
‘And besides,’ said Anderson, ‘we’ve got that Elly Fraser bird’s statement about the two heavies walking down Frithville Gardens at two o’clock, which is right in the middle of his alibi time.’
‘We don’t know they were the killers,’ Swilley said. And don’t forget there was a report from one of the residents saying ther
e was no chain on the gate when he came home from the pub just after midnight.’
‘Yes, but that’s not what he said the first time his door was knocked on,’ Mackay pointed out. ‘He only came up with that after the telly appeal. Probably just wanted to make himself important. You know how they do.’
‘I don’t think Sonny Collins actually did the killing,’ Slider said to Atherton. ‘But I still don’t like that alibi.’
‘Guv, I think it’s genuine,’ said Anderson. ‘Liam the barman at the Shamrock remembers very well, because he said Sonny Collins hadn’t been in for months, and when he did come in, he never stayed that long, just had a couple of drinks to unwind and went away. And Liam was the one called the cab for him, so he knows what time he left. And the cab company confirms the booking, and the driver identified Collins and said he dropped him outside the Phoenix about ten past four.’
‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Slider said. ‘It’s all so perfect. He hadn’t been to the Shamrock in months, so why suddenly did he go there that particular evening and stay so long, with extra precautions to establish the time he left?’ He answered his own question. ‘Perhaps because he knew Lenny was going to be eliminated. Maybe he was warned to make sure he was covered.’
He looked round, and saw no absolute resistance to the idea. ‘Let’s look at the sequence of events,’ he continued. ‘Lenny goes into the Phoenix, as we’re told he often did, and if we believe Everet Boston he had every reason to because Collins was his contact. He goes in just before eleven, let’s say to transact some business with Collins or to give or receive a message. He’s not expecting to be molested by Eddie Cranston. An argument starts. Collins tells him to take it outside. Eddie tries to make a fight of it but Lenny knows he mustn’t get involved with that sort of thing, so he slugs Eddie a good one and instead of following it up, legs it like one John Smith, and heads home.
‘We next find him talking to some professional minder types outside his own home at about half past eleven. Shortly after that Sonny Collins pushes off to establish himself an alibi. And later that night Lenny is killed very neatly and efficiently by a single stab wound to the heart by some one or some ones who go through his pockets to remove something but leave his wad of money behind. Later again, Lenny’s house is expertly turned over and his girlfriend hastily packs her bags and runs for it – we don’t know whether before or after, or whether the people who searched the house also took her with them, either by force or otherwise. Everet is sure they’re after the girl – presumably because she knows too much about the outfit, maybe even who the Needle is.’
‘Guv,’ said Mackay, ‘if it was the minders who done Lenny, why didn’t they do it when they met him at half eleven? Why wait until later?’
‘Well, they wouldn’t want to kill him in a public street, would they?’ Anderson said.
‘They could have taken him inside his house and done it there,’ Mackay said.
‘Yes,’ Slider said. ‘That’s a point. Any suggestions?’
‘Maybe he wasn’t due to be done then,’ McLaren said. ‘Maybe the minders reported back something he’d said, and it was that that made the Needle put the order out on him.’
‘Or maybe he’d said something to Sonny and Sonny reported it,’ Swilley said. And got his orders to get himself an alibi at the same time.’
‘Maybe what Sonny reported was the fight with Eddie,’ Hollis said.
‘That’s certainly a possibility,’ Slider said. According to Everet, Lenny wasn’t a team player and that was what the boss objected to. We’ve got him running for Herbie Weedon and crossing money to fund his gambling habit. We’ve got him selling dope in the park on the side. And we’ve got a lot of iffy goods in his flat which he may have been processing outside of his job for the boss. If he was seen as the weak link and likely to bring police attention down on the gang, that would be good reason to get rid of him.’
‘They got rid of Herbie Weedon just for wanting to talk to me,’ Atherton said. ‘And Everet Boston is running for his life. Could it be that the boss is determined to stop us making any connection between the lowlife and him?’
‘Maybe what was lifted from Lenny’s pocket, apart from his keys, was some kind of paperwork that would link him with the boss or the gang,’ said Swilley. ‘His betting book, for instance, maybe with a telephone number or something in it. He must have written down the bets somewhere, and we never found anything like that.’
‘Yes,’ said Slider, ‘and there was an inkstain on the inside of his empty pocket. Maybe he habitually carried his betting book in there, along with a Biro, which leaked at some point, as they always do.’
‘Brilliant, boss. And we thought something was lifted from beside his telephone at home – which could have been an address book or something similar.’
‘But why kill him in the park like that?’ Mackay said. ‘I mean, it’s a public place. Anyone could have seen them.’
‘Well, evidently anyone didn’t,’ Atherton said. ‘When you think about it, it’s one place they could be sure there’d be nobody around, and it’s not overlooked. They’ve only got to walk up the street and through the gates – no suspicious climbing over because they know Lenny’s got the key. And we know nobody notices anyone walking up the street, particularly late at night, because he’s been doing business there for years and we’ve never had word of it. And the woman who did see the two heavies walking away didn’t think anything about it. She didn’t come forward for a week, thinking there was nothing in it.’
‘There’s people coming and going to the BBC’s back door all the time,’ Swilley said. ‘I suppose that’s cover.’
‘I’ve said before,’ Slider continued, ‘that the way Lenny was left, sitting on the swing, looked like a joke. That and the park chain round Herbie Weedon’s neck could point to the boss having a nasty sense of humour.’
Porson spoke up suddenly, surprising them all: they’d forgotten he was there.
‘All this is all very well, but it’s all supperstition. Maybe, maybe, maybe. You’ve got no murder weapon, no witnesses, no suspects. If it was a gang killing, it’ll have been orders to some hood to carry it out. There’ll be nothing to connect the killer with the victim.’
‘Except the boss,’ Slider said. ‘We’d have to trace it back from the boss.’
‘Ah yes, the boss. But you don’t know who he is. You’ve got no evidence he even exists, apart from the word of one villain on the run.’
‘I think he exists. I think Everet Boston is telling the truth,’ Slider said steadily. ‘He’s got no reason to lie; it makes sense of a lot of things; and he’s genuinely scared, both for himself and for his cousin.’
‘Well, as it happens,’ Porson said, ‘I agree with you. But it doesn’t get you any further forward. Who is the boss?’
‘Everet called him the Needle.’
‘And you think it’s this Trevor Bates bloke?’
Slider hesitated. ‘There’s nothing to connect him except the leather jacket, and that could be a coincidence.’
Porson eyed him cannily. ‘But you don’t think it is?’
‘It’s just a hunch,’ he admitted.
‘Well, I’m all for hunches,’ Porson said. ‘You can’t learn hunches at bloody Keele University.’
Palfreyman really had got up his nose, Slider thought. ‘Four jackets,’ he said aloud. ‘Garfield sold Lenny four. He wore one himself, sold one to Everet and one to Thomas Mark. Who had the other one, I wonder? And why did Bates lie about it? To cut us off at the pass? But how much did he know about the jacket’s origin? I suppose there’s no reason Mark shouldn’t have told him, just idly in conversation, that he bought it from Lenny. That would be enough to make him want to stop that line of enquiry.’
But Atherton shook his head. ‘You don’t know for sure that’s where Mark got it, guv. Anyway, Bates apparently makes a fortune out of property. Why would he want to mix himself up with stuff like illegal bookmaking, and small-time crooks l
ike Boston and Baxter? Why would he risk it? It doesn’t make sense.’
‘A lot of fingers in a lot of pies. Diversification. Running a huge empire. Pulling the threads and manipulating people. Pulling the wool over our eyes.’
‘A Moriarty complex, in fact,’ Atherton said. ‘But we’ve no evidence at all that he’s crooked.’ He stopped.
Slider looked at him. ‘Something just occurred to you.’
‘My contact at the Cultural Legation,’ he said, a little unwillingly. ‘When I asked her if she knew Trevor Bates, and described him, she said no, but,’ he shrugged unwillingly, ‘I think she was lying.’
‘A hunch, eh?’ Slider said innocently.
‘It was just a look in her eye. But I’ll swear she was straight. Apart from anything else, the Americans are very careful about the people they send over.’
‘All right,’ Porson said. ‘Here’s what we do. Sonny Collins is your man. Turn his drum over. Check his phone records. I’ll okay the warrants. And go into his past with a tooth-comb. Also this Trevor Bates. Find some connection between them. We can’t touch Bates as it is. Until we find out he’s not pure as the driven, he’s sacrospect. But if we can get anything on him at all, we can look into his financial affairs, check his bank accounts, and I think we’ll find enough to start putting pressure on him. There’s not one of these entry preeners can stand being put under the microphone. And,’ he added on a different note, ‘go up and down Frithville Gardens, ask everyone who they saw coming and going. Yes, I know you’ve asked ’em already, but ask ’em again!’ He looked round them, and the animation faded from his face, leaving a bleakness as embarrassingly naked as his head. ‘That’s police work,’ he said. ‘Ninety-nine per cent perspiration, and one per cent sheer bloody luck. Get on with it.’
Since Sonny Collins lived in the flat above the Phoenix, there was some urgency in getting there with a search team before the pub opened. So when the warrant was forthcoming, Slider and Atherton went round there with half a dozen uniform PCs and Porson’s promise that if they found anything at all interesting he would order up a Polsar team to take the place apart.
Gone Tomorrow Page 23