‘Jay Paloma,’ Slider said. ‘He works for you—’
‘Not any more,’ Yates said sharply.
‘Since when?’
‘Since he didn’t turn up to work. I don’t give second chances. Not when there’s a hundred people out there eager for his job.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘Monday night – or Tuesday morning, rather, at about ten past four, when he left to go home.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘As far as I know.’
‘And when was he due to come in again?’
‘Seven Tuesday evening. Seven till four were his hours, with an hour and a half off. He didn’t show up, and that was that as far as I was concerned.’
‘No message or telephone call?’
‘Nothing.’ Yates shrugged. ‘And after I’d taken a chance on him, given him the job when there were younger dancers I could have had.’ And paid him accordingly, I bet, Slider thought.
‘When you last saw him, did he seem in normal spirits?’
Yates only shrugged, picked up a cigarette box from the clutter of the desk, offered it to Slider and Hart, and then took one himself, making a slow business of lighting it. To give himself time to think, Slider thought, keeping silent. At last Yates said, ‘As you mention it, he did seem out of sorts on Monday night. Hadn’t got his mind on his job. Performed like crap. Fortunately Monday’s a quiet night. But I made a mental note that he’d have to pull his socks up or get out.’
‘Well, you’ll be glad to know that you’ve been saved the trouble of making the decision,’ Slider said, watching Yates’s eyes. ‘He’s been murdered.’
There was no flicker, only a serious, considering look of inward thought. ‘I’m sorry,’ Yates said tersely. ‘When?’
‘Tuesday night.’
There was no response to that at all.
Slider went on, ‘I’d like you to tell me everything you know about him.’
Yates made a dismissive gesture. ‘I knew nothing about him, beyond his work.’
‘Did he meet anyone here? Did you see him with anyone?’
‘If I did, I wouldn’t have made a mental note of it. The staff are supposed to be friendly to the customers, make them feel at home.’
‘Who were his special friends amongst your staff? Who did he talk to during his breaks?’
‘I don’t know that he had any friends. I pay my staff to work, not to fraternise.’
‘Well, perhaps I can talk to the people he worked with. Perhaps they’d be more forthcoming.’
Slider expected Yates to object to that, but after a slow, moveless look into Slider’s face, he said, ‘Do as you please. Just don’t do it during my open hours. It wouldn’t please my customers to have detectives hanging around asking questions.’
I’ll bet it wouldn’t, Slider thought. He was about to get up when, unexpectedly, Yates spoke again.
‘There is something.’
‘Yes?’ Slider said encouragingly.
Yates seemed to be having difficulty in bringing himself to be helpful. At last he said, ‘I do remember seeing him with someone just recently. For the last few weeks. Not every night, but a couple of times a week. Out in front – in the club. He’s been sitting with a man, talking, during his break.’
‘Did you know the man?’
‘No. It wasn’t unusual for Jay to talk to customers. But I noticed this one because he wasn’t a fag.’
‘How could you tell?’
For the first time there was a flicker of animation – a withering look. ‘In my business you have to know. This man was—’ He hesitated. ‘He wasn’t a customer. He wasn’t enjoying the club. He was there on business of some kind.’
‘Drug dealing, perhaps?’ Slider said blandly.
The face went stationary again. ‘I don’t like what you’re suggesting. I think you’d better go.’
Slider felt his headache coming on again. ‘Oh, come off it, Mr Yates! You know and I know you get more dealers in here than Monte Carlo. I’m not here to investigate that. I’m not here to make trouble for you – but I can, if you won’t help me.’
‘I doubt it,’ Yates said with such utter indifference that Slider wondered anew whose pocket he was into. All the same, after a moment Yates went on, ‘But I’ve no objection to helping you. I’ll give you a description of this man. About thirty-five, five-ten, well built, clean shaven, dark hair.’
‘Would you know him again?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. He sat in a dark corner. I got an impression of him, rather than really saw him. He looked like trouble.’
‘Trouble? In what way?’
Yates seemed to have difficulty in defining it. ‘He was a professional. He was on some kind of business, and he was going to get it done, and if anything got in the way—’ He shrugged. ‘That’s why I noticed him; that’s why I kept my eye on him.’ He tapped his nose. ‘This was warning me.’
‘And what do you think Jay Paloma had to do with him?’
‘God knows. He wasn’t screwing him, that’s all I know.’
‘Could he have been selling him drugs?’
‘I’ve told you—’
‘Without your knowledge or approval, of course,’ Slider said smoothly. ‘As I said, I’m not here to make trouble for you. But a man of your experience must have seen drug dealers at work. So off the record, could this man have been one?’
‘He could have been the type,’ Yates conceded. ‘He had the look. That’s all I can say. But Jay didn’t use – not to my knowledge. I wouldn’t have anyone who used working for me. Not worth the risk.’
‘Someone waiting to see you,’ Nicholls said as Slider passed through the front shop. The words brought a replay to his mind of Jay Paloma, nicely dressed and sweating through his aftershave with fear, turning up his eyes in appeal. You let him down. Cobblers, what could I have done? Something. Anything. He came to you and you let him down. And another mind-flash, of the pretty streaked-blond hair pasted into the splintered skull with pink ooze. Flash: the smell of sweat, not Paloma’s dainty, fresh sweat, but the old accumulated stink of a man in shorts and khaki socks. Flash: Atherton’s eyes widening in surprise and recognition—
‘Bill?’
He pulled himself back. ‘Yes – you said? Someone wants to see me?’
Nicholls watched him consideringly. ‘You all right, pal?’
‘Yes.’ But Nicholls was an old colleague, and deserved better than that. ‘That whack on the head I had must have knocked something loose. It’ll be a while before it beds in again.’
‘You came back to work too early.’ Nicholls was serious.
‘Good job I did, as it happens,’ Slider said lightly. ‘Where’s this bloke?’
It was a slight, wiry man in his fifties, sallow and moley: his face was all over little tags and buttons, some dark, some flesh-coloured, as though he hadn’t been finished off properly. He had a thick nose, a wide, lipless mouth, milk-chocolate-brown eyes behind large plain glasses, tight crinkly black hair turning grey. He was wearing grey flannels and well-polished black shoes with thick rubber soles, a blue anorak showing a peep of a pale blue polo-shirt, and a pair of new pale leather driving gloves, the sort with the knitted string backs. He was wearing the left one and holding the other in his left hand; his right hand showed the two first fingers stained rich amber, and a thick, plain gold wedding ring on the third finger. If he hadn’t been under size, Slider would have put him down as a copper off duty.
‘Mr Slider?’ He offered a friendly smile with a very large number of small, uneven teeth. ‘I hope you don’t mind. Well, actually, I thought I might be able to help you,’ he said in the mild accent of North Harrow. ‘Benny Fluss is my name.’ He pronounced it to rhyme with truss. He held out his hand, looking expectantly at Slider as though he expected the name to be recognised.
‘Yes, Mr Fluss,’ Slider said, managing with the grace of long practice not to notice the extended hand. ‘What did you want to talk
to me about?’
‘Well, this awful murder, of course,’ the man said, reclaiming his hand and comforting it by letting it play with his loose glove. ‘Didn’t Val – Miss Parnell mention me?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Slider said. ‘Do you think you might have some information for me? Let’s go somewhere quieter, shall we?’ He led the way to the nearest interview room and ushered the man in. He seemed nervous – or perhaps on edge was nearer the mark – but eager to please. A friend of Busty’s? An ex-customer? Yes, perhaps that would account for the nervousness. A married man, fond of Busty but not wanting any trouble.
‘Right,’ Slider said when they were seated opposite each other, ‘what do you know about this business?’
‘Nothing about the murder, I’m afraid, but I am in a position to confirm Miss Parnell’s alibi.’
‘What makes you think she needs an alibi?’
The man smiled indulgently. ‘Oh, I don’t mean it like that. Obviously Val had nothing to do with it. Anyone who knows her would know that – and I’ve heard her mention you, Mr Slider, so I know you do know her. But I know how you chaps work. Everything has to be checked and verified, even if it’s just to be able to put it aside out of the question. I’m here to put the record straight so that you can tick off that item and get on to something else. That will be helpful, won’t it?’
‘Any information which bears on the case is helpful,’ Slider began, and Fluss jumped in again with eager garrulity.
‘That’s right. That’s what I thought. So I popped straight along as soon as I heard about it, to save you the trouble of having to come and find me. Always glad to help you chaps – you’re good to us, so we should be good to you. And I don’t mind telling you,’ he went on confidingly, ‘that, awful though this business is, I can’t help being a little bit excited at being involved even in a small way. I’ve always been interested in the law. It’s one of my passions – almost a hobby, you might say. If you were to see my bookcase at home, you’d think it was a solicitor’s! Benny the Brief they call me at our garage. That’s my nickname, Benny the Brief. They all come to me with their little problems. I’m cheaper than a real solicitor, and I talk plainer English, ha ha!’
Now Slider placed the look of him, the neat appearance, the anorak, the shoes. And, like firemen, they gave each other silly nicknames which were often better known in the business than the real names: a nickname might go all over London if the idiosyncrasy it marked were extreme enough. ‘You’re a taxi driver,’ he said. ‘You’re the one who brought Miss Parnell home on Wednesday morning?’
‘Well done!’ the man beamed. ‘The detective is worthy of his hire! Yes, I’m the man who drove her home – and much more. I’m a very old friend of Val’s, and I drive her everywhere. Whenever she wants to go anywhere, she calls me. I’m practically her private chauffeur.’
‘That’s very altruistic of you.’
‘Oh, she pays the fare. Nothing funny about it, I assure you,’ he said seriously. ‘Not but what I wouldn’t give her the odd free ride, being as we’re such old friends, but she insists on it. “Benny,” she says, “you’ve got your living to make the same as me.” But she goes everywhere by cab, does Val.’
‘So she told me.’
‘Did she? She must have mentioned me then. She didn’t? Oh. Well, I met her when she was working in the Nitey Nite Club, and there’d been a nasty case when a colleague of hers got raped by a mini-cab driver—’
‘Yes, I remember,’ Slider said. ‘In fact, she mentioned that only the other day.’
Fluss nodded. ‘It was a real shock to her. Well, I said to her after that, you can’t be too careful. You make sure you always get a proper cab from now on. “Benny,” she said, “if I could be sure I’d always get your cab, I’d be a happy woman.” And that was the start of it.’
‘How did you meet her in the first place?’ Slider asked.
Fluss lowered his eyelids. ‘Well, if you must know – strictly off the record – I was working “round the back” at the time.’
Slider knew what that meant: picking up tourists and taking them to a club on a commission basis. Touting was illegal for licensed cabbies, but – well, lonely Japanese reps looking for a good night out, a taxi driver with a living to make and too many cabs in competition, a club willing to pay £15 a head for customers – it was one of those victimless crimes everyone tried to close their eyes to. Knowing the Nitey Nite and knowing Val, Slider wouldn’t be surprised if Benny had also been “going case” as it was called – driving a prostitute and her client from the club to a hotel and bringing the girl back afterwards. It was reassuring for the girl to know the driver was looking out for her, and the client would also know that he had been “clocked”, and would thus be deterred from any funny business. If that had been the basis of their association, it might well turn into a lasting friendship.
‘That’s between you and the Carriage Office,’ Slider said. ‘I’m just interested in Val and Jay Paloma. So you’ve been driving her regularly?’
‘For the last year or so, I’ve been the only person to drive her,’ Benny said with a hint of pride. ‘I’m on a radio circuit now – Monty’s, you know?’
Slider knew. The full title was Monty’s Radio Metrocabs; the garage was under the railway arches on the other side of Goldhawk Road, the owner one Monty Green, an expansive man with a figure like Pavarotti and the hackney carriage trade in his veins. Atherton called him Monty Verdi, an obscure joke that made only Joanna laugh.
‘So she can always ask for me,’ Benny went on. ‘And for when I’m off duty, I’ve given her the number of my mobile. Any time, day or night, I’ve told her, you can call me.’
‘What does your wife think about that?’ Slider couldn’t resist asking.
‘My wife passed away, Mr Slider,’ Fluss said gravely. ‘Six months ago. Cancer of the liver.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Slider said. Of course, wedding ring on the right hand – some old-fashioned types still swapped hands to indicate widowhood.
‘She went just like that,’ Benny said, looking down. ‘I suppose it was a blessing it was so quick. Thirty years we’d been married, and never a cross word. She was a wonderful woman.’
Slider waited a tactful beat and went on. ‘So you brought Miss Parnell home on Wednesday morning?’
‘That’s right.’ He jumped from Mourning Widower to Perfect Witness suspiciously quickly. ‘Of course, it was booked for later that morning, to pick her up from her sister’s at ten forty-five, but she rang me direct at six o’clock to say her brother-in-law had come home unexpectedly, and could I come and pick her up. She was in quite a state. The man’s a brute, Mr Slider, not to mince words. I can tell you I was round there like a shot. It wouldn’t be beyond that man to raise a hand to Val, same as he does to Shirley.’ He gave Slider a significant nod.
‘And what time did you get there?’
‘About ten past six, it must have been. She was waiting outside on the pavement with her bag, which I—’
‘That was quick,’ Slider interrupted.
‘Well, I hadn’t far to come. I’ve got a room in Barlby Road now, just round the back of the North Pole, you know? I sold the house when the wife died.’
‘But it must have taken you some time to get dressed and so on.’
‘I was already up, as it happened, dressed and shaved and everything. Well, I’ve always been an early riser, and since the wife passed on, I don’t seem to sleep as much as I used to.’
‘I see. Well, it was lucky for Miss Parnell, at any rate. And what time did you get to White City?’
‘It would be just before half past. Twenty-five past, maybe. That time of morning there was no traffic about, so it was a quick journey.’
‘And did you go upstairs with her?’
‘I wish I had,’ he said earnestly. ‘I truly wish I had. I tell you, Mr Slider, I hate myself for putting her through that all alone. If only I could have saved her the terrible shock! But I didn’t
usually go up with her, you see, unless she had something heavy to carry, or she invited me in for a cuppa. And this time she just said, “See you later, Benny,” and off she went like a bird.’
‘See you later?’
‘Well, I was to’ve picked her up to take her to work.’
‘Did she seem upset about the business at her sister’s?’
‘No, not really. She knows the score there all right. She was angry when I picked her up that he’d virtually chucked her out, but she was more anxious about Jay, because he’d been rather down in the dumps lately. He seemed a bit under the weather on the Tuesday when I picked her up to take her to her sister’s.’
‘Oh, you saw him then?’
‘Saw him, yes. He came to the door. In his dressing-gown, and not shaved – which I will say was not like him,’ he added as if grudgingly admitting that the Krays were good to their mother. Slider gathered he didn’t like Jay Paloma. ‘Always neat and tidy he was as a rule, and kept the flat as nice as my wife kept our house. And like my wife would never have normally gone to the door in her curlers, Jay wouldn’t normally have let anyone see him with a stubble and not dressed. So he must have been out of sorts.’
‘Did he say anything about why he was out of sorts?’
‘Oh, he didn’t talk to me. Just answered the door and said he’d tell Val I was there, that’s all. There was no conversation. But he looked, shall we say, a bit sombre. Val said he’d been quarrelling with his – boyfriend.’ The slight hesitation and the emphasis showed what Benny thought of Jay Paloma’s inclinations. Then he seemed to think better of speaking ill of the dead and added, ‘Val was very fond of him. They’d been friends a long time, and he’d been good to her in a number of ways, according to Val.’
‘Did you drive him, too?’
‘I did not,’ Benny said firmly. ‘The arrangement I had with Val was special.’
‘Oh. I understood Jay was very particular about taking cabs too,’ Slider said.
‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ Benny said vaguely. ‘But, you know, I wouldn’t be surprised—’ He paused and glanced at Slider.
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