‘Not that I heard,’ Beaufort said. He glanced up and down the street, which was slowly beginning to come to life.
‘I’ll get out of your way, then,’ he said, glancing at the Grenadier where the obligatory bobby seemed to be beginning to take an interest in their conversation.
‘Just one other thing,’ the sergeant said quietly. ‘Have you seen Evie recently?’
Beaufort stood stock-still for a moment, his eyes blank, and then shook his head. ‘Not recently, no,’ he said. ‘Is there something wrong?’
‘Maybe,’ Barnard said. ‘If you do see her, ask her to get in touch with me, will you?’
Beaufort nodded. ‘You were close once, weren’t you?’
‘A long time ago,’ Barnard said. ‘When I first came to Soho.’
‘Those bastards have been hassling the working girls,’ Beaufort said, looking appalled. ‘I do know that. They seem to want to take control of pretty well everything that makes a bit of cash, no exceptions tolerated.’
‘I know,’ Barnard said, and turned to cross the road and face the demands of DI Fred Watson while Beaufort watched him go with a look full of anxiety. Suddenly for him, what had seemed a reasonably settled life had filled with unpredictable risks and dangers just when he had expected the change in the law to make life easier for men like him. He spun on his heel and headed out of Soho towards Oxford Street, wondering if he could afford a holiday.
Back at the nick at lunchtime, Barnard was wondering if he could take time out to see Kate as he had often done before murder erupted so violently on his home turf, when he realized he had caught the eye of the DCI, who looked surprised to see him in the squad room.
‘Sergeant,’ he said. ‘A word in my office.’ Barnard cursed under his breath but had to follow the DCI along the corridor where he left him standing in front of his desk while he sat down and rooted through a few out-of-place documents on his normally pristine workplace.
‘I’m glad I caught you,’ Jackson said. ‘I know DI Watson is keeping you fully occupied but there was something I wanted to ask you about.’
‘Guv,’ Barnard said, feeling his mouth dry.
‘I know I asked you whether you knew where Ray Robertson is concealing himself so discreetly at the moment, so I imagine the reason you went to Bethnal Green to talk to his mother was a result of my interest and with the aim of flushing him out. And I suppose the fact that you haven’t reported back to me on those inquiries is a result of DI Watson keeping you so busily occupied, but I would like to know whether those inquiries bore any fruit or were a complete waste of police time.’
‘Not a complete waste of time, sir,’ Barnard said quickly. ‘But all they told me was that Mrs Robertson is still fighting the local council, which is planning to demolish her street, and claims to be getting no help from Ray to stave that off or to find somewhere decent for her to live. They’re threatening to put her into an old folks’ home of some kind and she is not best pleased. I had a look at Ray Robertson’s gym as well while I was down there and that’s due to be pulled down soon too. It’s empty and pretty well derelict. There’ll not be much of the old East End left in a year or so and Ma Robertson is spitting blood.’
‘She has no idea where Ray is? Is that what she told you?’
‘Yes, sir. That’s what she said. And I could see for myself that he’s not using the gym any more.’
‘And you believed her story?’ Jackson snapped. ‘Don’t you think she might have been covering up for him?’
‘She’s a very old woman, guv, and she doesn’t look well. I don’t think she’s capable of inventing a complicated set of lies in the circumstances and probably wouldn’t have thought she needed to lie to me anyway. I’ve known her most of my life. I think she’s frightened to death of what’s about to happen to her down there and needs Ray more than she’s ever needed him before. My take on it is that she doesn’t know how to contact him or she’d have done it already, and he doesn’t know the trouble she’s in or one way or another he would be there for her.’
‘So if we set up surveillance we might just have a lucky break? He might turn up at his mother’s. This is the strength of the East End family, is it? And I thought that was just a fairy story.’
Barnard shrugged wearily. ‘I suppose he might,’ he said. ‘He’s definitely been in Soho though. My girlfriend saw him near Denmark Street and took a photograph of him yesterday. You remember she’s a photographer? And she knows Robertson. I’ve got a copy for you on my desk.’
‘Leave it with me, Barnard. I’ll see what the Yard thinks about setting up surveillance at his mother’s. And I’ll get the necessary authorization to insist the manager at the Delilah tells us how he keeps in touch with Robertson. He’s running rings around us at the moment.’
‘Sir,’ Barnard said.
‘And Barnard, next time you go on some freelance enterprise like your trip to Bethnal Green without telling me or reporting back to me I’ll have you on a disciplinary charge before your feet touch the ground. Understood?’
‘Understood, sir.’ But as the sergeant made his way back to the squad room he was thinking hard and wondering who had followed him to east London and reported back to the DCI so very promptly. And if that surveillance was so efficient, might someone be following him round Soho as well? Like, for instance, the embryonic drugs team which DI Jamieson had already assured the West End’s assembled detectives was about to spring into being? Life looked like getting even more complicated very soon.
‘Have you still got Marie’s picture?’ Dave Donovan asked Kate O’Donnell as they walked with Kevin Dunne through the busy area around Leicester Square where cinema and theatre crowds were pouring on to the streets seeking Tube trains and buses and last orders in the pubs. Dave had visited the address in Camden Town Marie had given Mansfield’s secretary but had got no reply when he rang the doorbell or tried a phone call.
The two men had rung Kate halfway through the evening when she had realized that Harry Barnard was unexpectedly late home again and that she felt increasingly aggrieved. The men had persuaded her against her better judgement to change into something glamorous, although she told them that she had little to wear which could claim that description. Then they said enthusiastically that she should get the Underground back into the West End to come to the Late Supper Club with them, where Kevin Dunne reckoned he could talk his way in to join Jason Destry who was supposed to be still there celebrating the success of his new record in the charts, and while they were there Dave could use his photograph of Marie check if anyone in the club recognized her.
‘Jason won’t mind,’ Kevin Dunne said. ‘He rates this club because it keeps out the little girls. They’re quite strict on the door now, so it keeps Jase out of the way of people who want his autograph and the girls who wave their knickers around. There’s a bit of privacy.’
‘They didn’t manage to keep out the girl who fell out of the window, though, did they?’ Kate said.
‘Yeah, I’ve no idea how she got in. They were either very careless or someone turned a blind eye.’
‘I don’t think they’ve even managed to identify her yet,’ Kate said.
‘People can disappear in London evidently, la,’ Donovan said heavily. ‘Easy as pie.’ Even in the short time he had been in the city, his optimism seemed to have drained away and he looked increasingly stressed as he came to terms with the fact that it was very unlikely that he was going to track Marie Collins down. It was time, Kate thought, that he went back to Liverpool and gave up on what looked increasingly like a wild goose chase. She caught his eye as they walked up Greek Street and stopped in front of the door to the Late Supper Club.
‘OK?’ she asked, but his nod was perfunctory.
‘I suppose, la,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it. Can’t hurt, can it?’
Kevin Dunne led the way up the stairs to the main entrance and told the doorman that they were joining Jason Destry. The man looked sceptical but when he checked, Destry hims
elf came to the door and signed them all in without a problem and led them to a table at the back of the room, slightly apart from most of the other drinkers and diners.
‘Good to see you,’ he said, although Kate realized that his greeting was directed particularly in her direction rather than towards his fellow musicians. When they had all been served with the champagne Destry ordered he took the seat next to Kate and leaned close.
‘I like your dress,’ he said in her ear with his gaze on the emerald green satin, which was as close to glamorous as she had been able to provide. ‘You’re going to come to my party on Saturday, aren’t you? I’d really like that.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she said, moving a little further away. She had known enough musicians in her time while the Merseybeat took off and swept through Liverpool not to be dazzled by this new version. For a while they enjoyed the drinks that Destry apparently put on his bill, refilling the glasses at will, and he browsed the menu and encouraged the others to do the same, although Kate claimed that she wasn’t hungry, which was true enough. She was beginning to think that this expedition might have been a mistake as Destry filled her glass for the second time and she removed a wandering hand from her knee.
Across the room, she was surprised to see a face she recognized. The man who had chatted her up in the Blue Lagoon was close to the bar and deep in conversation with a man in black tie and dark suit who she guessed must be working at the club.
‘You see the man talking to the one all dolled up in a black tie …’
‘Black tie? That’s Hugh Mercer, the manager,’ Destry said. ‘Or Captain Mercer as he likes to be known. They do like their titles, don’t they, these toffs? He’s not old enough to have been in the war, is he? My dad was a captain in Normandy and was lucky to survive. That one probably ran the cadets at a grammar school in Surrey just like the one I went to, all part of pretending to be a minor public school. Anyway, no, I don’t know who the other fellow is. I’ve never seen him before.’
‘There’s a lot of pretending to be something you’re not that goes on down here in the south,’ Kate said mildly, wondering for a moment whether what she was saying made sense as her head began to ache. ‘In Liverpool you’re either a left-footer or a Prod and you don’t get a choice – you’re born into one tribe or the other. And if you want to cross the line all hell will break loose. Mixed marriages are only spoken of in whispers. Cilla Black found that out. Someone on one side or the other is going to complain, all claiming God is on their side.’
‘Jesus wept,’ Destry said. ‘Does that go for you too?’
‘My mam would like to think it does,’ Kate said, giving the singer a wicked grin and a giggle as her vision unexpectedly fragmented for a moment. ‘But we’re a long way from the Pier Head. I don’t reckon they can hear me from here.’
‘They don’t look as if they’re the best of mates, do they, those two?’
‘I’d say they were having a blazing row in whispers,’ Kate said. ‘Whatever they’re on about, Mercer doesn’t want his precious clients to overhear. The other man told me he was called Bob when he chatted me up the other day.’ They watched as Mercer edged Bob backwards towards the door as if anxious to get him off the premises.
‘Never mind them – I’m starving and the food here is pretty good.’ But before any food was ordered, Dave Donovan got to his feet impatiently, pulled his photograph of Marie out of his pocket and took his picture from one table of diners to another, asking them in turn if they had ever seen Marie in the club. None of them seemed to be very pleased to be approached, though whether it was the photograph or Dave’s broad Liverpool accent that annoyed them most, it was impossible to tell.
‘You’d better stop him doing that,’ Destry said to Kevin Dunne quietly. ‘They’re very twitchy since the accident the other night.’
‘So they should be,’ Kate said sharply. ‘That was awful. Apparently she was high on drugs before she fell.’
‘They’ve tightened up their security since then,’ Destry said. ‘That’s fine by me. Mercer’s got a new man looking at the arrangements.’ He glanced around the crowded club and focused on a dark-haired man with an olive complexion who was eating a meal alone but was already apparently beginning to take an interest in Dave Donovan’s tour of the tables.
‘I remember the girl vaguely from that night,’ Destry said. ‘Apparently she was called Jackie. Do the police know that?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Kate said. ‘I don’t think they have a clue who she was. Some family somewhere must be completely desperate. She was only a kid.’
‘Of course, you’re the one who has a copper for a boyfriend, aren’t you? That seems a bit of a waste when you could have me.’
‘Dream on,’ Kate said and saw a moment of irritation cross Destry’s face.
‘I’ll have to be a bit careful with you anyway,’ Destry said. ‘I don’t want my bad habits coming to your boyfriend’s attention, do I? It did get a bit wild that night. I don’t know where some of the stuff came from to be honest. There was a lot of it about.’
‘What you take is up to you,’ Kate said angrily. ‘But for someone to give drugs to a young kid, that’s dreadful.’ But she was not sure that her protests were making sense any more.
‘I agree with you,’ Destry said with an edge to his voice now. ‘I haven’t a clue who she was or who brought her in here. So let’s move on shall we and get something to eat?’ Still watching what was going on across by the bar, Kate felt Bob’s eyes lock on hers for a moment before he pulled away from Mercer and moved towards the door.
‘Do something about your Liverpool friend, Kev,’ Destry said.
Dunne got to his feet abruptly and followed Dave Donovan to the other side of the busy bar where the burly man in evening dress Kate had been watching was approaching Donovan with obviously aggressive intent now he was free from the man who had been lambasting him verbally. They arrived one each side of Donovan at the same time and with a firm grip on each of his arms.
‘Is this a friend of Mr Destry’s?’ Hugh Mercer the manager asked Dunne, barely able to choke down his fury. ‘And if so, what the hell does he think he’s doing?’
Dunne took the photograph out of Donovan’s hand. ‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘He’s looking for his girlfriend who came down from Liverpool and seems to have disappeared. I told him she was not likely to have been in here even though we know she’s been in Soho. We were invited here by Jason Destry, but Dave here seems to have taken advantage a bit. I play bass in the Rainmakers.’
‘So are we supposed to be the haunt of every waif and stray in the West End?’ Mercer hissed. ‘That’s not what I had in mind when I opened this place. You had better believe it.’
‘Not good enough for you southerners, are we, us from up north?’ Donovan jeered taking the photograph back and trying to straighten out the crumples. ‘Not posh enough? I met enough of you lot when I did my National Service to last a lifetime.’ On the far side of the room the dark-haired man was getting to his feet and heading in the manager’s direction.
‘And I dare say they treated you appropriately,’ Mercer sneered, still in the stage whisper, which was supposed to shield the clients who were by now avidly watching the proceedings, cutlery halfway to their mouths.
‘But you haven’t got the MPs lining up behind you now to protect your backside, have you?’ Donovan said, and suddenly threw an ungainly punch in Mercer’s direction, which caught his arm and which he returned instantly, twice as hard and a hundred per cent more accurately. Dunne caught Donovan’s arm and kept him upright with difficulty.
‘Get that stroppy little northern bastard out before I call the police,’ Mercer said.
‘There’s no need for that,’ Dunne said quickly. ‘We’ll take him away and leave you in peace.’ Mercer hesitated for a moment.
‘Well, my instinct is to throw the lot of you out but I’ll have a word with Mr Destry. I don’t want to lose valuable members like him.
’ He waved the man who had left his table away impatiently. ‘But at this rate I’ll never live down that stupid girl and all the fuss she caused.’
‘I take it the police haven’t made any progress yet then?’ Dunne said, trying to defuse the situation.
‘Not that anyone has told me,’ Mercer said dismissively. ‘Now will you ask Mr Destry to sort his friends out if he wants to remain a member here?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll take this one home,’ Kate said, her voice slightly slurred. ‘I think he’s going back to Liverpool tomorrow so you won’t see him again, la. He’s nothing to do with the Rainmen or Jason anyway. He’s just passing through.’
‘Well, make sure he knows he’s not welcome to pass through here again,’ Mercer said, and went back to soothing the ruffled feathers of the diners, some of whom had been present and taken offence at the sight of the dead girl in the street and the rapid emptying of the club a couple of nights ago. This time they looked fairly determined to get their money’s worth one way or another. When they got a rumpled Donovan back to Destry’s table, the singer raised an eyebrow.
‘I guess we’re not in Captain Mercer’s good books?’ he said.
‘Well, Dave isn’t anyway,’ Kevin Dunne said. ‘Mercer’ll want you to hang around because he seems to reckon you’re the next big thing.’
‘The next John Lennon, no less,’ Destry said with a slightly shamefaced grin.
‘I’ll take Dave home,’ Kate said again. ‘He’s staying with an old friend of mine in Shepherd’s Bush.’
‘I’ve got a car outside and a driver,’ Destry said. ‘He can drop you both wherever you want to go.’ He looked at Kate and pulled her towards himself.
‘Don’t I get a goodbye cuddle?’ he asked and did not wait for her permission to plant a kiss on her lips. ‘Don’t forget the party on Saturday,’ he said. ‘And don’t be late. We’ll be kicking off about ten and there’ll be breakfast if you want it. If you’ve any appetite left after I’ve finished with you, that is. Kev will fill you in on the arrangements.’
Playing with Fire Page 13