‘Shit?’
‘Shit. No other word for it. Shit. Good old-fashioned, good honest shit. Of course the Saxmore-Blaines were an industrious lot. After all, houses and land like this don’t come cheap. They had made and lost other fortunes in the past. But none like Sir Arthur there had bequeathed. The joke is, he left us a pile – a pile of shit. And that shit was worth its weight in gold. Let me explain.’
‘I’m wishing you would, sir.’
‘You see the seagull behind him?’
Vince saw it. On further inspection, it looked a little out of perspective for the picture, more like an oversized albatross or a small glider. But once the ambassador had pointed it out, Vince figured it was emphasized because it wasn’t just background; it was very much part of the story.
‘You see, Detective Treadwell, seabirds were a favourite with my ancestor. He travelled the world studying and illustrating them. It took him to their colonies, as far away as Peru and the Christmas Islands, where they massed in their thousands for nesting and breeding purposes. And, as well as breeding and eating fish and what have you, the other thing they do is shit. Lots and lots of the stuff. What’s shit good for?’
‘Avoiding?’
‘You’re not a country man, Detective. I can tell that by your footwear, the cut of your suit, even by your colour and complexion. There’s a touch of the Mediterranean about you. Of Italian extraction, are you?’
‘I was left behind by the gypsies, so the story goes.’
‘I wasn’t being insulting, Detective, merely observant.’
‘You’ll have to forgive me, sir, but in the house I grew up in we didn’t have five hundred years of ancestry hanging up on the walls. So my family lineage is a little murky.’
‘Well, let me tell you what shit is good for in this neck of the woods. Fertilizer. And bird shit, seabird shit, is the best fertilizer there is. Guano, as it’s referred to, has lots of valuable properties. Arthur discovered this, so he mined it for all it was worth. He laid claim to, and bought for a pittance, huge swathes of coastal land in places like Peru and Chile that were considered completely useless, due to being covered in birds and bird shit. He re-made this family’s fortune many times over. Oh, we’ve tarted that fortune up over the years with property and farming and gilts and bonds, but it’s the shit that underwrites it all. Shit.’
At that, the ambassador turned and raised a grateful glass to the wily old shit-shoveller in the portrait, then took a hearty swig of his single malt.
‘But you’re not here to hear talk about shit,’ he continued, refocusing his gaze on the detective before him.
Vince got the feeling his host loved telling that story, and mined the ‘shit’ humour for all it was worth. Not wanting to disappoint him by missing this opportunity, Vince replied: ‘I’m not here to talk shit.’
He was right. The ambassador smiled broadly, then he threw him by saying, ‘Then why are you here, Detective?’
‘You wanted to see me, I believe?’
‘But that’s merely your pretext. The real reason is you’re here to see my daughter. I feel I interrupted something a minute ago.’ Vince didn’t confirm or deny the ambassador’s remark, so the old man continued, ‘She’s a beautiful woman who attracts the wrong kind. I’m not saying you’re the wrong kind, Detective Treadwell. But you are the wrong kind for my daughter.’
‘Of uncertain extraction and without five hundred years of ancestry up on the walls, that kind of wrong kind?’
‘You strike me as a good man, Treadwell, and an honest man. You’re a policeman, so can’t be all bad.’
‘Oh, you’d be surprised.’
‘I need calm in this house, calm for my daughter. I’ve read the papers. They’re looking for a story, asking if I blame my daughter for Dominic. Well, I don’t. Dominic was weak, always was. He was his mother’s son, God rest her soul. Well, now they are together, with their Maker.’ The ambassador glanced up at the painting of his dead wife, not lovingly, but as if to check it wasn’t about to come crashing down. ‘And if you read the papers, I assume you know all about her, too?’Vince gave no reaction, not wanting to assume too much. And certainly not wanting to mimic the ambassador, who seemed to thrive on assumptions. ‘Well, they can go to hell! I blame James Asprey and that damned gaming house of his.’
‘That’s very blunt, very honest,’ said Vince.
‘I’m a retired ambassador, and being retired is a bloody relief, Detective, I can tell you that. As well as having the privilege of meeting some real first-raters, I’ve also had the misfortune to meet more pricks and horse’s asses than I’ve had state banquets. And I’ve always held my tongue. So, now that the shackles are off, I’ve promised myself I will speak freely until my dying day.
‘I knew Beresford’s father in the army. Different regiment, different club, but a fine man, a fine soldier. In this case, the apple fell very far from the tree. The son wasn’t fit to black his father’s boots.’
The ambassador said all this with such vigour that Vince couldn’t help but wonder if he was talking about his own son. There was a frightful symmetry between the two fates that had befallen and would forever link the houses of Beresford and Saxmore-Blaine. The ambassador took some calming breaths, but couldn’t rid his face of the twisted disgust it displayed.
‘That place, it’s the Devil’s arcade.’
‘What place is that, sir?’
‘Why, the Montcler club, of course. I know many a decent man who’s lost his fortune, and his soul, at those tables. And Asprey still lets them go on playing, drawing them deeper and deeper into his debt. Asprey and his ilk represent everything that’s wrong with this country. No, sir, I didn’t approve of Beresford – and I was right. He reaped havoc on my children, on this family, and, well, he’s paid the price I suppose. But I shan’t mourn him. To hell with the lot of ’em!’
The ambassador took the first sip of his drink. He didn’t look as though he enjoyed it as much as his daughter did. Tough act to follow. But then again, he didn’t look as though he enjoyed anything as much as his daughter, or his ex-wife for that matter. But the booze obviously worked in taking away some of the bitter taste in his mouth, and seemed to soothe his rancour. He finally stopped pacing and took a seat in a stern-looking high-backed armchair with leather-padded upholstery. It was as shiny as a saddle, and looked just about as comfortable.
‘I’m not completely insensitive or deluded as to the ways of the world, Detective Treadwell, and my own place in it. And also as to my failings as a father. I want to make amends for that now. It seems the person who is most forgotten in this dreadful mess is the young woman my son killed. My daughter and I have discussed the matter, and Isabel will in due course contact her family to make arrangements for reparations to be paid to the daughter and her grandmother. I know what she did for a living, and I know that God will forgive her. I only hope that He will forgive my son.’
Vince gave a series of slow considered nods to this. The ambassador had declared all of this as a matter of fact, as if the Jones family had little or no say on the subject. But Vince didn’t argue the point, as it seemed only right that reparations should be made. What’s the point of having a shit pile of money if you can’t do the right thing with it? And, anyway, what Vince was really considering was his next point. The one he knew he’d be making – and the real reason that he was there.
He hit him with it now: ‘What if I told you, sir, that I don’t think your son killed Beresford?’
The ambassador said nothing for what seemed like the longest time. For a man who talked, gave instruction and advice, smoothed over awkward situations, the silence seemed vacuumously long. He just sat there, elbows on the arms of the padded chair, both hands cupping the cut-crystal tumbler containing the single malt. Vince was certain the man had heard him, but felt duty bound to try again. He did some throat clearing to prime the ambassador that he was going again – then hit him with it.
‘I said, sir, I don’t think you
r son Dominic killed—’
‘I heard what you said,’ barked the ambassador. ‘I am neither deaf nor a fool who blurts things out without considering them first. Kindly allow me that time.’
Vince noted the ambassador’s emotion. Whilst keeping the carapace of calm, the man’s voice had an uneven grating sound to it, like glass in a machine.
‘But I’m also not a slow-witted buffoon who takes all day to make up his mind. And my answer to you is, of what possible use, or good, is that information to me now?’
Vince stalled. ‘Well, I . . . I think I can clear your son’s name. You see, there are too many anomalies in this case. Like the manner in which Beresford was killed and the fact that Dominic—’
‘God damn you!’The ambassador slammed his flattened palm down on the side table next to him, felling a silver-framed photo which had a domino effect and felled some more clustered nearby. They were photos of Dominic and Isabel as children.
‘My son is dead. And so too is Beresford. If there’s any justice in this world, then that’s justice enough for me. Let me make myself clear: I want this investigation ended. I want my daughter’s name out of the newspapers, and my family’s name, what’s left of it, off the tongues of all those malicious bastards.’
‘Your son is accused of a murder I don’t think he committed, therefore I don’t think justice has been done. I’m a little confused, sir. I thought you’d be—’
‘Dominic killed a young woman, that much is clear. Killing Beresford, the man who set that horrendous act in motion, was a just killing – an honourable killing. My son deserves that honour.’ The ambassador put his drink down on the table and stood up. ‘I have no need to tell you, Detective Treadwell, that I know lots of people. Let’s start with the Home Secretary, shall we, and work our way down to the Commissioner of Police.’
‘I’m breathing exalted air, Ambassador,’ Vince remarked drily. ‘But the case is officially closed,’ he added in a deliberately bemused tone. ‘And even if it was still open, it’s out of my hands now, because I’m officially off it.’
‘From what I hear about you, Mr Treadwell, open or closed means little to you. You seem to have a curiosity that needs satisfying, whatever the official status. Tenacity is a quality I admire, but not in this case. It makes me sick to my stomach.’
Vince didn’t bother with sounding bemused this time, as he saw that the ambassador had the measure of him. The ambassador then offered some avuncular advice to the younger man, but it was clear that he thought Vince was trouble, didn’t want him consorting further with his daughter and had the power and influence to end his career. Vince listened, kept his counsel, and then watched as the old man strode out the room.
Vince got the picture: if Dominic was going to go down in history as the tawdry murderer of a prostitute, why not go down with an honourable killing of an ex-guardsman as well? His last act of righteous revenge. Vince was getting to understand the logic, for it was pretty much the same logic employed by Asprey and the Montcler set in their day-to-day dealings with the world. Those very same men the ambassador so despised. And the more Vince thought about it, the more it stank the place up like one of Sir Arthur Saxmore-Blaine’s guano mines on a hot day.
A very old butler with a serious stoop went with him to the door and silently saw Vince out. He didn’t bump into Isabel on the way out, in fact he didn’t bump into anyone on the way out. The house seemed as empty as a graveyard at midnight.
CHAPTER 36
That night, Vince headed to the Kitty Kat club in Camden Town, which offered a mixed bag. It ran a not very busy jazz night for people who really didn’t know or care that much about jazz. It had a burlesque night that did lively business. An open mic talent and comedy night, where you were unceremoniously gonged off if you didn’t cut the mustard. But the most popular nights were Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Inside the Kitty Kat club, there wasn’t much to distinguish it from any other red flock wallpaper and glitter-ball joint, apart from its clientele on a Tuesday or Thursday. Today was Tuesday, and men and women danced cheek to cheek, only not with each other. Fey young men foxtrotted with burly builders wearing full make-up. Bulldog dykes in business suits held their frilly-dressed ingénues tightly for the tango. The queer and dyke combination was fostered on the theory that if the club got raided, they’d all just swap partners, à la Adam and Eve, just as the Old Testament intended. Then all back to Adam and Steve and the twentieth century, just as soon as the Vice coppers had been slipped their envelopes and left. It was like a party game of musical chairs or pass the parcel.
The hostess who led Vince into the back room to meet Bernie Korshank was a pretty little blonde dyke doing a pretty good impression of Marlene Dietrich circa The Blue Angel (1936), in top hat, tails and fishnets. For some reason that Vince didn’t ask about, because he really couldn’t be bothered to get into it, she had a life-sized pink plastic lobster that she trailed behind her on a lead.
The back-room office was guarded by a metal-covered door with an impressive couple of locks on it. Inside, the walls were lined with boxes containing the club’s most precious commodity, liquor. Bernie Korshank, seated at a desk, had just closed a book when Vince entered: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Complete enough, sonnets and all, for the hefty tome to close with a dust-raising thud.
Korshank lived up to his reputation, and to Dominic Saxmore-Blaine’s description. He was a monolith of a man made up of a pylon of fused muscle and a palaeontologist’s prize collection of bones. As a schtaraker, he looked straight out of the Lew Grade school of TV heavies. The big desk he was seated behind looked more like a tray propped on his lap. The chair he sat on had to be presumed, because Vince couldn’t actually see it. He was dressed in his bouncer’s uniform of a black tuxedo, single-breasted with satin shawl lapels. Such was his bulk that Vince reckoned it was a ‘cut and shunt job’: a canny tailor had used two tuxedos to make one, and you couldn’t see the join. The clip-on bow tie sat on the desk next to a mug of tea. The open-necked shirt revealed thick tufts of shiny black hair that, given the size of his barrelling chest, suggested he was smuggling a grizzly bear past customs. He glanced up at Vince from behind half-rimmed glasses that looked stretched to breaking point over the broad and fleshy expanse of his face. He had a full head of thick jet-black wavy hair, heavily pomaded and brushed back from a narrow brow that furrowed down into a bulbous nose that looked as if it had cushioned many a blow. Swarthy beyond measure or description, but here goes: he had the kind of face that if you shaved it using a hundred hot towels, lashings of suds and a freshly forged razor stropped to within an inch of its life, in an hour’s time he’d look as though he’d been dipped in soot and in need of another.
Korshank took off his glasses and rested them on the collected works of the Bard. The specs didn’t lessen the impact of his face; in fact, they added an archly sinister aspect. But, with or without them, Vince could see how the impressionable Dominic Saxmore-Blaine would have been terrified of this man. And how the task of felling a beast like Bernie Korshank would send you nuts – because there was simply so much of him. For the frail young man, it must have felt as if he’d committed mass murder.
Vince didn’t take any chances with the big boy, and immediately showed him his ID. Korshank nodded and gestured for him to take a seat opposite. Vince sat down and gave a nod towards the tome.
‘You rehearsing for a play?’ he asked.
‘Just reading. I likes to brush up. I spoke to you fellers already.’
The voice matched the body; big and blunted, it sounded as though it had been hauled up from the bowels of the earth. It was also slow and deliberate, as if trying hard to reach beyond the stalls with its distinct enunciation, but it was always going to be stymied by the European accent breaking in.
‘What you doing here, copper?’
‘Someone recommended the lobster.’
It had the desired effect: Korshank smiled. And, when he did, the effect was surpr
isingly pleasant, showing rows of squat gnashers, and comical creases around the eyes.
‘That’s Trixie,’ he said. ‘And no matter how handsome you is, copper, she ain’t for you, and that’s for sure!’
‘I sort of figured I stood more chance with the lobster.’
Korshank suddenly stopped smiling and immediately the room grew oppressive. ‘And, just in case you’re wondering, I ain’t no pansy.’
Vince immediately raised his hands and showed his palms in the international gesture of surrender, then got in quickly with: ‘Absolutely positively not. I never thought it for a second.’
The big man seemed satisfied with this answer, and the dark clouds in the room dispersed. ‘My boss got me working here on account of my acting, and mixing with theatrical types. He reckoned I’d be kosher with the queers, more tolerant. It don’t bother me much what they gets up to, not like with some of the fellers.’ The big man gave a philosophical shrug. ‘But I ain’t complaining. The boss has been good to me and we don’t get no trouble in this place. So I spends most of my time in here, and it gives me plenty of time to read.’
‘Sounds like a good set-up.’Vince brushed some imaginary lint off his trouser leg, then said, ‘I was hoping you could tell me about what happened at the Imperial.’
‘Like I said, I already spoke to you boys about it, and I don’t need reminding.’ But it was too late, he was already reminded. For a bit-part player it was a pretty convincing interpretation of sorrowful and solemn. Heavy-browed, burdensome, and Brandoesque, à la On The Waterfront. Vince believed the big feller wasn’t acting, or certainly believed he couldn’t act that well.
Vince prompted: ‘It was an unfortunate turn of events.’
‘If I’d have known the boy wasn’t right in the head, you think I’d have done it?’
‘Not for a second. No one’s blaming you, Bernie.’
‘Bernie?’ The big fellow arched a shiny black eyebrow. ‘What’s with the Bernie all of a sudden? We skipped a chapter, copper. What happened to Mr Korshank?’
Gilded Edge, The Page 27