That produced a reaction. Jonah’s eyes flicked towards Slider, and a sort of spasm clenched his face and his fists for an instant. He seemed to go through some internal struggle before saying, ‘Yeah.’
‘When was that?’
‘Tuesday morning. I finished four o’clock. Mr Yates told me not to come back.’
‘So Mr Yates was at the Pink Parrot?’
‘He come round jus’ before closing.’
‘Was that usual?’
‘He goes round all the clubs.’
‘Every day?’
‘Nah,’ Lafota said scornfully. ‘What jew fink?’
‘Every week?’ Lafota shrugged. ‘So why did he sack you?’ Lafota didn’t seem to be able to answer that. His eyes were fixed on the wall beyond Slider and he was breathing like a karate exponent psyching himself up for a pile of house bricks. ‘Was it for improper dress?’
‘Yeah,’ Lafota said at last, on an exhaled breath. Clearly resentment was fighting with some other emotion. ‘He said my shirt was dirty.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I wen’ home, didn’ I?’
‘To your flat in – Star Road? That’s off the North End Road, isn’t it?’ Jonah shrugged. ‘What time did you get there?’
‘Half four maybe.’
‘And what did you do?’
‘Went to bed, man, wha’ fink?
‘Alone?’
Lafota clearly wanted to tell Slider to mind his own business, but an alibi was an alibi. ‘Candy was there. My girlfriend. She been staying wiv me.’
‘And what did you do for the rest of the day?’
‘I got up about half one, messed around, had summing tweat, watched the telly.’
‘What time did you go out?’
‘I never went out, man.’
‘Not at all?’
‘I stopped in. Candy was wiv me. I stopped in and watched telly, went to bed about half eleven, went to sleep. Candy will tell you.’
‘I’m sure she will,’ Slider said politely. ‘And what happened the next day?’
‘I got up about half nine, and Candy and me went over her pad. She got stuff to do. All right?’
‘Did you at any time go to Jay Paloma’s flat?’
Lafota looked contemptuous. ‘I don’ even know where he live, man.’
‘Oh, surely you do.’
‘What is all this, man? Get off my back, right? I don’t know niffing about Jay, ’cept he use’ come down the Parrot an’ he don’t no more.’ He stood up, an effect like a bedside cabinet growing into a double wardrobe before one’s very eyes. ‘I come here, I answer your questions, all right? And now I’m going. You got nothing on me.’
‘I’m afraid we have,’ Slider said. ‘We have your fingerprints, found inside Jay Paloma’s flat, which you say you never visited. So I’m afraid I shall have to ask you to sit down and answer some more questions.’
He didn’t sit down, and Slider felt the hair rise on his scalp for an instant; but he could see Jonah had been shaken. His brows drew together and his eyes dothered as he engaged in frantic thought – wondering what he might have touched, perhaps?
‘I ain’t answering no more questions,’ he declared at last. ‘And I ain’t staying.’
‘Then I’m afraid I shall have to detain you,’ Slider said. He was surprised that Jonah had come voluntarily in the first place. Perhaps he was under orders from Billy Yates. If so, would Yates spring him, or continue to distance himself? It would be interesting to see.
Candy Williams looked both nervous and depressed. She was young – judging by the curve of her cheek and fullness of lip, Norma thought she was probably only about nineteen – and adequately pretty, though her face seemed puffy and her eyes red, despite the thick, disguising makeup, as if she had been crying a lot recently, or alternatively had been on a bender. She moved, Norma noted, with a certain upright inflexibility which did not go with the profession of dancer, table or otherwise. She wore a miniskirt and her long, young legs were bare, but she had on a large, baggy, concealing jumper. She had not seemed surprised when she opened the door to the police. Now she sat with passive docility in another interview room, her eyes moving anxiously from face to face, licking her lips occasionally. She would clearly like to be elsewhere, but just as clearly was under orders to do what had to be done.
‘Your full name is Candy Williams, is that right?’ Norma asked. Easy questions first, to get her relaxed.
‘Clare,’ she said. ‘My real name’s Clare. Candy’s my stage name.’
‘How sweet,’ said Norma. ‘And you’re an actress, I understand?’
‘Yeah, that, and I dance. Model a bit. Whatever.’
‘An all-round entertainer. And you live at Flat Twelve, Waterside Court, Hammersmith?’ A nod. ‘You work for Mr Yates, don’t you?’
She licked her lips. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Your last job was table dancing, at the Manhattan Club in Clapham?’ Candy did not dissent. ‘Is that how you met Jonah Lafota? At the club?’
‘Not at the Manhattan. I was at the Pink Parrot. Filling in.’
‘Filling in as what?’
‘Waitress,’ Candy said.
‘Topless?’ Candy shrugged. Prostitution was the name of the game, Norma thought, but that was not what they were here for. ‘How long ago was that? When you worked at the Pink Parrot and met Jonah?’
‘About three months.’
‘And you started going out together then?’ Candy looked up for a moment, as if struck by the incongruity of the expression. Norma smiled. ‘That’s when you became his girlfriend,’ she amended. ‘I don’t suppose you had much choice. He’s not someone I’d like to have to say no to.’
Candy’s eyes met Norma’s. Her expression did not change, but contact had been made. We’re all sisters under the skin, said Norma’s smile, and men are all bastards. It’s only a matter of degree. ‘Does he knock you about, Candy?’
‘He’s all right,’ Candy said expressionlessly.
‘He isn’t,’ Norma said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to give you away to him. Tell me about Tuesday last week. You’d been staying at Jonah’s flat, is that right? Since when?’
‘The weekend. Satdy. I went over Satdy afternoon. He was working Satdy night and Sundy night, but he likes to have me there when he wakes up. So I stopped on.’
‘Were you there on Tuesday morning when he came home from work? And what time was that?’
‘About half past four.’
‘And what did he do?’
‘He come straight to bed.’ All this was easy to her, straight from the script. She answered without hesitation.
‘What time did he get up?’
‘It was about half past twelve when he woke up. I brought him breakfast in bed.’
‘You were already up, then?’
‘Well, I slept in the night, so I got up when he fell asleep.’
‘I see. So you brought him breakfast, what then?’
‘He et it. I got back into bed.’ She shrugged to indicate the reason for that. ‘Then we got up about half one.’
‘And what time did he go out?’
Her eyes moved cautiously. ‘He didn’t go out.’
‘He must have gone out at some point in the evening.’
‘He didn’t. He didn’t go out at all.’
‘But how would you know? You weren’t there the whole time, surely?’
‘We both stopped in. He was with me all evening, all night.’
‘Come on, you must have been out at some point between half past one in the afternoon when you both got up, and half past nine the next morning when you went off to your place. That’s twenty hours.’
The mathematics seemed to upset Candy, and she looked uncertain, but still she said, ‘I was in the flat all that time. And Jonah was with me.’
‘Every minute?’
‘Yeah.’
Norma looked at her consideringly a long time. Candy shifted a little under the gaze, but return
ed the look defiantly. Norma changed tack. ‘Tell me what you know about Jay Paloma.’
‘I don’t know him,’ she said, easily again, back on script. ‘I never even met him.’
‘But you know who I’m talking about.’
‘It was in the papers. Jonah’s talked about it. He got murdered.’
‘So Jonah knew him?’
‘He worked for Mr Yates. Jonah’s met him a couple of times, I think. He didn’t know him well.’
‘Why did Mr Yates sack Jonah?’
‘I don’t know. He didn’t say.’
‘He was upset about it, wasn’t he?’ Candy hesitated. ‘He must have been furious. Did he take it out on you?’
‘No,’ she said, but absently, as though she was thinking about something else.
‘Candy, I think Jonah had something to do with Jay Paloma’s death. I think he’s told you to say that he was with you, to give him an alibi for when he was at Jay Paloma’s flat. That makes you an accessory. Do you know what that means?’ No reply. ‘It means that when we get enough evidence to charge Jonah, you can be charged with him. And we’re going to get that evidence, believe me. It’s only a matter of time. Jonah’s going down. Surely you don’t want to go down with him?’ No answer. Candy stared sullenly at her hands. ‘I’ve seen your flat – very swanky. Nice bathroom, nice kitchen. Soft toilet paper. You wouldn’t like it in Holloway, believe me. It’s a dirty, horrible place.’ No response. ‘Help me, Candy. If you tell me the truth, I can help you. You’ll be all right.’
‘You don’t know Jonah,’ she said abruptly, and then folded her lips tight, as though she hadn’t meant to say as much.
Slider felt a certain sympathy with that. He spoke for the first time. ‘If Jonah’s inside, he can’t hurt you, can he? Help us put him away, and then you’ll be safe. It’s the only way you can be safe. If he walks out of this police station, he’s not going to be in the best of moods. Even if he thinks he’s got away with it, he’s going to be fed up with having spent all this time in here, and who d’you think he’s going to take it out on?’ Candy looked at him resentfully but said nothing. ‘Just tell me the truth, Candy. He wasn’t really with you all Tuesday evening, was he? He went out. Tell me what time he went out.’
Candy didn’t hesitate this time. ‘He was in all evening,’ she said. But to Slider’s ears it had a hint of wistfulness about it.
Billy Yates’s brief was a quick-talking, smiling, rotund man called David Stevens. He had small, twinkling brown eyes and thick glossy hair, and exuded such enormous vitality he was like something out of a Pedigree Chum advert. He also had suits to die for, and the sort of wildly expensive red BMW coupe that successful pimps liked to drive. As he represented all the worst criminals on the ground, Slider knew him very well. The trouble was, Slider liked him, which made it harder to resist him. He thought Stevens liked him, too, but Stevens had the lawyerly knack of being able to think one thing and do another.
‘How come you represent Yates as well as the scum of the neighbourhood?’ Slider asked. ‘Is there some connection I should know about?’
‘You’ll have to be careful what you say to me, or I might have to sue you for defamation of character,’ Stevens said cheerfully.
‘Definition of character, did you say?’
Stevens whistled soundlessly. ‘Ooh, Bill, that’s another hundred thousand. Mr Yates is a prominent local businessman of impeccable probity, who does a great deal of good in the neighbourhood and gives generously to charity.’
‘Yes, of course, silly me, that’s what I meant to say,’ Slider said. ‘And what can his interest be in Mr Lafota, I wonder?’
‘Mr Yates takes an interest in all his employees.’
‘Mr Lafota is unemployed,’ Slider pointed out sweetly.
Stevens was unshaken. ‘You didn’t let me finish,’ he said smoothly. ‘The end of my sentence was – even when they have left his employ. Mr Lafota needed a solicitor – Mr Yates asked me if I would act for him. So here I am.’
‘I can’t say I wasn’t expecting you,’ Slider said resignedly. ‘Though I didn’t think you’d get here so quickly. Jonah hasn’t even had his phone call yet. So tell me, how did Mr Yates hear that Mr Lafota was helping us with our enquiries?’
‘There isn’t much Mr Yates doesn’t hear.’ Stevens gave Slider a canny look. ‘Now, Bill, don’t be obvious! You can’t bring in a seven-foot giant built like a brick shithouse unnoticed, y’know. Anyone could have told him that.’
‘I suppose so,’ Slider sighed. ‘You’re such a nice bloke, Dave, how can you square it with your conscience to spend your life trying to get creeps like him off the hook?’
‘Not that old chestnut!’ Stevens chortled. ‘You must be feeling tired, old chum!’
Slider eyed him resentfully. ‘Where did you get that tan? The Bahamas?’
‘In my own little old back garden, mowing the lawn. It is summer, in case you hadn’t noticed. And now I want Mr Lafota out. You’ve got sweet FA, and you know it, so you’ll have to let him go. Much better not to struggle against the inevitable, as the actress said to the High Court judge.’
‘Oh, gimme a break, Dave,’ Slider said with faint, uncharacteristic irritation. ‘We’re not playing Scrabble, you know.’
Stevens only looked merrier. ‘I know you want a result before Little Eric says bye-bye, but that’s your problem, not mine. You’ve got nothing on my client, and I want him sprung.’
‘I’ve got the fingerprints,’ Slider pointed out.
‘On a bottle of whisky, not on a murder weapon. Paloma bought his Scotch from the club, staff rate. Lafota’s been in the store room there. The prints could have got on the bottle any time. You’ll have to do better than that, sweetheart. It’s not proof. It’s not even evidence.’
‘And the prints on the light switch, in the flat he claims he’s never visited.’
‘They’re very poor prints, less than fifty per cent agreement.’
‘It’s enough to hold him on, while we look for something better,’ Slider said.
Stevens shrugged. ‘Temporarily. The Muppets will let me have him. You know that.’
‘That gives me thirty-six hours. I’ll take what I can get.’
Hart looked in. ‘You still here, guv? I wondered when I saw the light on.’
‘I was just thinking of going,’ he said. He eyed her thoughtfully. ‘Come in a minute, will you?’ She came and stood before the desk, eyeing him perkily. Didn’t these youngsters ever get tired? ‘I don’t generally interfere with my people’s intelligence gathering, but then they know the rules I like to operate under. You’re new to the ground, and you’re new to me, and I have the feeling you also like life to have an element of excitement. This information you got on Jonah Lafota—’
She grinned. ‘S’all right, guv, it wasn’t Garry. Listen, just because I’m black, female, and I talk wiv a gorblimey accent, it don’t mean to say I’m stupid.’
‘I didn’t think you were stupid,’ Slider said mildly. ‘I thought you probably felt you had something to prove.’
She became serious for once. ‘You’re dead right. You’ve heard of accelerated promotion? I got the opposite. People like me don’t start from the starting line, we start from back in the pavilion.’ Then suddenly she grinned again. ‘And d’you know the worst fing of all? If I do get on, get promoted, even if I get commended, I’ll never know if it’s because I’m any good, or because some git’s trying to prove he’s not prejudiced. I can’t win. He can’t win. I hate positive discrimination. It’s a bastard. At least with the old sort you knew where you were. If it wasn’t happening to you, you knew everything was all right. Now they’ve invented the other stuff, you’ll never know. You’ll never, ever know.’
There was a short silence. ‘You don’t leave me with much to say,’ Slider said. ‘I was going to tell you there’s no discrimination in my firm, but now if I tell you that, you won’t be able to believe me.’
‘Yeah,’ she said with
sympathy. ‘It’s like this—’ She took hold of the skin of her cheek between finger and thumb. ‘Once you got it, you just have to learn to live wiv it. You look tired, guv. An’ I bet you ain’t had anything to eat all day.’
Slider tried to look stern. ‘You’re not my mother.’
‘That’ll be a relief to my dad.’
Slider stood up, hesitated, and then said, ‘D’you want to go and get something to eat? Now you’ve reminded me, I am hungry.’ Joanna was away for the night, a concert in Leeds. He didn’t want to go home to cold bread and cheese.
‘Yeah, great,’ Hart said easily.
‘Right then. Oh,’ he remembered, ‘I’ve just thought, I ought to go and look at my house first. My old house – I’m not living there. I have to drop in now and then to make sure it hasn’t been burnt down or taken over by squatters. It’ll take about half an hour.’
‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I’ll come with you, if you like, and we can get a bite after.’
‘Okay. There’s a decent curry house not far from there. I’d be glad of the company, make sure I don’t drop off at the wheel.’
He wouldn’t, he was aware, have said that to Atherton, would not have felt the need to offer a justification. Was that another form of prejudice? He supposed it was, in a way, because he wouldn’t have said it to McLaren, either – supposing he had ever been likely to invite McLaren’s company. Why couldn’t he treat Hart like a male colleague? He had never seen himself as a crusty old MCP – hadn’t he always said Norma was the best policeman in the department? And that wasn’t because she was a woman, but because she was the best. Ah, but then, had she been a man, would he have ever felt the need to say it? Bloody hell, this prejudice business was a minefield! No, be fair, he had only said that about Norma out loud when someone had attacked women in the police generally as being inferior in some way. And privately he thought about her no differently from his male troops: her physical difference was a trait attached to her like McLaren’s eating habits or Mackay’s football fanaticism or Atherton’s finickitiness.
He didn’t think he was prejudiced, not in any direction. He worried about Hart because she was a rookie and because she was a wild card – he didn’t know what she might do. On the subject of which—
Killing Time Page 15