by J M Gregson
‘It’s not my face the customers are interested in, after the first few minutes.’ She smiled wryly and without self-pity at the facts of her life. He was almost at the door when she put her hand on his arm and said abruptly, ‘How much longer have I got?’
She was thirty-five, and he knew in that moment of sudden fear why she had groomed herself so carefully before she came down to meet him. There was nothing so pathetic and so dispensable as an ageing tom, nothing so desperate as a woman who felt the doors of this lucrative but dangerous trade closing against her. He wanted to reassure her, but he knew that he had no power to do so. Perhaps, indeed, there was no power on earth which could do so.
But if he kept this new role, it would fall to him in due course to tell her that she was finished. He said with false heartiness, like a man offering reassurance to an ageing relative in hospital, ‘You’re all right for a good few years yet, I’m sure, Sandra!’ He clasped her hand briefly for a moment before she opened the door and allowed him to flee.
He wondered as he drove away how he would be able to make dismissals like that. He had thought of himself as hard and efficient, but he couldn’t do this new job, if indeed it was a job. His hatred of Tim Hayes throbbed in his temples as if it had a pulse of its own.
* * *
The girl had wide brown eyes, a spontaneous, infectious smile, a figure which curved with the supple, unthinking grace of a nineteen-year-old, skin the colour of milky coffee.
Tim Hayes watched her through the one-way glass of the window of his office and congratulated himself on his decision to come to the casino tonight. This was definitely a better way to spend his Thursday evening. The wisdom of his decision to ditch Clare Thompson was confirmed for him by this vision of youth. As her employer, he must surely be an attractive proposition.
There was no hurry. The casino staff hadn’t seen him for months, because of his regular assignations with Clare. He had caught them on the hop, five minutes late opening and with two of the tables not fully ready for business. There was no real damage to trade: the first hour was always very quiet. But he had shown his people that they could not relax, that the boss was likely to drop into the place at the most unexpected times.
This one-way window in his office was similarly an excellent addition. The staff and the punters couldn’t see him, but he could see them at any moment he chose. He glanced out only occasionally, and usually not for long, but his workers knew that they might be under observation at any time during their evening. It was a cheap but highly effective spur towards efficiency.
He watched the floor filling up for a while, then opened the top drawer of the filing cabinet. The girl’s name was Jane Martin; he checked her name, age, address and background. Quite a clutch of GCSEs and A levels, with good grades. She was no fool, but he would have expected that. There was a lot of competition for croupier posts; for some reason it was seen as a glamorous job. Perhaps it was the British obsession with money. You handled plenty of that, as the punters bought their chips and embarked on their hopeless quests.
He watched Jane Martin intermittently as the evening wore on. She was not only attractive but efficient. A pretty, cheerful girl always drew out the money more easily than the most polite and efficient of men. The clients tended to hesitate and then decide on another fifty or a hundred pounds beyond the limit they had set themselves when a girl like this one smiled at them. Men were perpetually stupid, but that was the basis of his business: the overwhelming majority of punters here were men, though they were increasingly often accompanied by women. That was something he encouraged. All men liked to be seen as big spenders, when they had a woman at their elbow to impress.
Tim Hayes waited until the girl went for her break at half past ten. He gave her a couple of minutes in the small staff room at the back of the building before he emerged from his office. He moved among the tables, nodding to clients he recognized, checking quietly that all was in order with members of his staff; there was no need to make his intentions too obvious.
She had coffee and a biscuit in front of her when he went into the rest room. There was only one other person there, a burly doorman who was relaxing for twenty minutes before his busiest hour of the night, which was always after the pubs shut. Hayes caught his eye and flicked a glance towards the door. The man left with the briefest of words to the girl at the table; when your employer made his intentions clear, you didn’t hang about.
Jane Martin looked at him curiously as he sat down opposite her. ‘You’re new here, aren’t you?’ she said.
Tim liked that. It helped when girls made a gaffe like that. It got them off on the wrong foot, made them more anxious to please, more malleable. ‘Not entirely new, no. I’m your boss, actually.’
She was as embarrassed as he’d hoped. ‘I’m sorry, sir! I never realized. It was Mr Ballack and another gentleman who appointed me. They said I’d see you eventually, but I wasn’t quite prepared to meet you like this.’ She spoke well, but with a marked Lancashire accent, which seemed to him an intriguing contrast with her exotic hue and figure.
‘You blush as becomingly as you do everything else, Jane Martin. I’ve been watching you during the evening, you see, and I’ve been pleased with what I’ve seen. But I didn’t think anyone with that gorgeous colouring could do a good blush! We learn new things all the time, don’t we? I’m Tim Hayes.’
He thrust out his hand, took her smaller one in his, shook it heartily, held it for just a little too long as she said, ‘Jane Martin. Pleased to meet you, sir.’ She slid her fingers from beneath his as soon as she could and glanced at the small gold watch on her wrist. ‘I suppose I’d better be getting back to work, hadn’t I? Don’t want to break the rules the first time I see the boss!’
Her nervous giggle was music in his ears. He let it flicker away into the comers of the small room. ‘There’s no hurry. You’re entitled to your full rest allocation. You’ve only been in here for ten minutes: I can’t be seen to be exploiting my staff, can I?’
He must have watched her come in here. Jane found that a little disturbing. She wondered just how much he had been watching her during the evening. She went hastily back in her mind over her actions during the last few hours; had she done everything a croupier should? Still, he seemed to like her, which had to be a good thing. And he was a good-looking man, the boss, for an oldie. She’d tell her boyfriend that, in due course: it didn’t do any harm to keep your man on his toes, the magazines said.
Hayes gave her his most winning smile, the one which said he was powerful but human. ‘Do you like it here, Jane?’ He lent forward, fixing those limpid brown eyes with his own keen grey ones, stealing his hand on to the top of hers. ‘Please be absolutely honest, now.’
His touch didn’t frighten her; she was quite flattered by it.
She didn’t feel at all threatened; a pretty girl like her didn’t reach the age of nineteen - nearly twenty, as she told anyone who asked - without learning to handle male attention. It was rather nice to have this attractive, powerful man treating her as a human being, not just an employee.
Jane Martin had not had an easy life, but she had retained a surprising degree of naivety.
Now she couldn’t think what to say. She didn’t want to let anyone down when she was talking to the boss. She felt stupid as she said feebly, ‘I like it here. People have been very kind to me.’
‘I’m sure they have. It must be very easy to be kind to you, Jane. Even I feel like being kind to you.’ He pressed her hand to emphasize the words.
‘I suppose it really is time I was back at work now.’ She slid her hand from beneath his, smiled apologetically, began to get to her feet.
‘There’s really no need. No one will come in here looking for you.’
For the first time, she felt real apprehension. ‘Nevertheless, I feel I should get back, Mr Hayes. It must be getting busy out there.’
‘Nonsense. If you’re with me, no one’s going to watch the time. And if I can’t en
joy a private chat with a pretty girl like you, what’s the point of owning the place?’ He gave her his open, winning smile. ‘And thanks to me, your coffee’s gone cold. Let me get you another.’ He leapt up and went over to the machine on the far wall of the room.
He slid his coin into the slot, hummed a little tune whilst he filled the beaker, kept his body between himself and Jane Martin as he slipped the tablet of Rohypnol into the beaker. ‘There you are, dear. I’m only too glad to see you drinking coffee and not alcohol.’
‘It’s forbidden at work.’ The words came quickly. And meaninglessly: he made the rules, so he must surely know that. She added clumsily, ‘I don’t drink much, actually, even in my leisure time.’
‘And probably don’t smoke either. A sensible girl, if I’m any judge, as well as a pretty one!’ He laughed heartily; she saw that he had perfect, expensive teeth and a couple of fillings.
‘You’re right. I tried it at school and after I left - I think everyone does that. But I never got beyond five a day and I never really inhaled.’ She laughed more naturally this time. It was a relief not to have to pretend you were sophisticated with this man who seemed to understand you.
‘Don’t go away. I’ll be back in a minute.’ He went out quickly and shut the door behind him. He said to the man who patrolled the floor and controlled the staff, ‘Arrange cover for Miss Martin, will you? The lady won’t be completing her shift tonight.’
‘Will do, sir. It’s not particularly busy.’ The man had more sense than to make difficulties or ask for explanations.
When he went back into the rest room, he and the new girl conducted a conversation which became gradually easier as the drug took effect. He watched her drink the coffee, knew that it was only a matter of time now. He asked her about her home life and she was flattered that he should be interested in it. He leant forward and said earnestly, ‘You should have gone to university, with your qualifications. Why didn’t you?’
‘Circumstances. My mum hasn’t got a man. I felt I should help out with the money at home.’ She didn’t usually volunteer this to strangers, but this man was hardly a stranger now, was he? She confessed shyly that she played the violin at home, admitted that she liked classical music, as if confessing to some sort of youthful perversion.
Tim professed himself delighted with these revelations, explained that he would be back in a moment, then left her again. Alone in his office, he looked at her application form again and made a swift phone call. ‘Mrs Martin? It’s Brunton Casino here. Just to let you know that your daughter is working a late shift tonight. She said you’re not to worry when she doesn’t come home. Apparently she’s made arrangements to stay with a friend.’
The sleepy voice said all right, told him she’d got her own place now and then thanked him as an afterthought for making the call. He hadn’t even been asked for his name.
He went back to the rest room, asked her about her violin playing, scratched his memory and told her that the Beethoven violin concerto was one of his favourite pieces of music. This time when he took her hand in his, she made no attempt to withdraw it. The date-rape drug was obviously everything people claimed. Not that he needed it, of course. But when you were a busy man, it helped to hurry things along a little. When he moved his chair beside her and slid his arm around her waist, she made no objection.
It was time to go.
Jane felt a little unsteady when she walked, slid her arm through his as she got to the door. He grinned at her, then detached himself. ‘Better if we go through the main room without touching each other, I think.’
She looked at him uncomprehendingly for a moment: her mind didn’t seem to be working as quickly as usual. Then she gave a conspiratorial chuckle. ‘That would be much better, wouldn’t it?’
He nodded at the man he had spoken to twenty minutes earlier as they crossed the floor between the gaming tables. The worker knew what was going on all right, but he’d have more sense than to talk about it. And he didn’t know and would never know about the Rohypnol.
Outside, the girl, relieved that she had made it across the floor without stumbling, fell against him in her relief. ‘I feel quite woozy. Almost as if I was a little pissed!’ She giggled at the impropriety of the word, then clasped his waist as they made their way to the big car with his arm round her.
He stowed Jane Martin in the front passenger seat, looking appreciatively at her carelessly exposed thigh, feeling the lust rise within him as he set off towards the flat.
Thursday night had improved no end.
Chapter Seven
The houses here had been built in terraces, cramped and close. The streets were also narrow. The nineteenth-century landlords had wanted as many houses as possible to the acre, as near as possible to the mills where the occupants were to work, and they had not been hampered by the building regulations which were introduced during the next hundred years.
These were not the worst houses built in that era: they had not had to share the rudimentary services and sanitation provided. Each of these dwellings had been given a single cold tap within the house and a privy at the end of a narrow flagged yard at the rear, which the night-soil men of the time emptied once a week.
Brunton had never suffered from the cholera epidemics which had decimated the great cities of the empire on which the sun never set.
The terraces which survived slum clearance had been much improved by their occupants in the years after the Second World War. It was King Cotton’s grip on the area which had been the raison d’etre of the town. Ironically, it was as his control declined that the people who had once rented these houses prospered. They now had the money first to buy them and then to improve them. The proud new owners had introduced indoor sanitation and hot water to the grimy brick dwellings, had converted them into what the most popular phrase of the time proudly termed ‘little palaces’.
It was quiet here at eleven o’clock on a Friday morning. On a dull, mild February day, the light in the narrow street seemed even dimmer than that in the centre of the town. A thin tabby cat hurried along thirty yards away, but there was not a single human presence in the street. That was the way DCI Percy Peach wanted it. When you were visiting a snout, you had to be very careful to do so in secret.
He parked beside the Pakistani corner shop a hundred and fifty yards away. He covered the ground to the house quickly, a squat, quick-striding figure, wearing a grey suit which was a little too stylish for the area. The door opened straight onto the street. It slid wide at his first knock. The sinewy hand motioned him into the house; the thin, crafty face looked quickly to right and left before the door was firmly shut upon the world outside.
‘Kitchen, Enid,’ the man said firmly as he followed Peach into the room. The thin, grey-haired woman in the pinafore allowed herself a single curious look at the visitor before she disappeared.
The television glared at them from the darkest comer of what had once been the front parlour of this two-up and two-down house, its morning programme crazily optimistic about the spring fashions, which were being given free publicity by the determinedly bright presenters. The man who sat down at the table with his smartly dressed visitor had twisted teeth and stale rather than stinking breath; Peach, who was used to pressurizing people in confined spaces, had smelt much worse. The eyes above those teeth darted restlessly about, as if even in his own home the man feared there might be hidden traps. When you were a police informer, you could not be too careful.
‘You said you had information, Ron.’
The head nodded repeatedly on the neck which seemed too thin for it, like that of a toy doll in the back of a car. ‘Good stuff, Mr Peach. You can rely on Ron Peggs.’ He nodded slyly and looked at Peach’s jacket, wondering which of the pockets might contain the fee he was hoping to negotiate.
Peach produced a wallet from his inside pocket. He watched Peggs’s face as he peeled two twenty-pound notes and a ten and spread them on the table with elaborate slowness beneath the man’s wi
dening eyes. The thin hand stretched longingly towards the notes, but Peach clamped his own broader palm firmly upon them. ‘Facts first. Then we trade, Ron. And I control the terms.’
The thin, greedy face nodded eagerly. ‘It’s good stuff, this, Mr Peach. Worth more than that.’ But his eyes said that he would take the fifty willingly.
‘I’ll be the judge of that, Ron.’
The man looked automatically at the blaring television and then at the door through which his wife had disappeared, though it was apparent that no one could hear them. ‘Hayes Electronics.’
‘A name, Ron. No more than a name.’
‘A front, Mr Peach.’
‘You think we don’t know that?’ Peach’s poker face told the man opposite him not an iota.
‘Tim Hayes is up to things, Mr Peach.’
‘And you think we weren’t aware of that? I’m disappointed in you, Ron.’ The black eyebrows lifted fractionally in surprise, the comers of the chief-inspectorial mouth dropped fractionally, expressing his regret that the man should waste his time with such generalities. He leaned so close to Peggs that he could see the grime on the scalp beneath the thinning hair. ‘I hope you’re not wasting my time, Ron. I’m a busy man.’ His hand drew the notes back a little towards him on the table.
The gesture brought Peggs near to panic. ‘It’s good, this, Mr Peach! I’ve got real information for you. I didn’t know how much you already knew, did I?’ His voice rose in the old lag’s familiar whine of protest.