by Simon Brett
During his career in the ring he had had an ongoing rivalry (in small part genuine, in large part puffed up by the media) with a fellow welterweight called Garry ‘Bomber’ Brawn. They had had two memorable fights (‘memorable’ being a relative term since they were both British and there have never been any truly memorable boxing matches that didn’t involve Americans). In the first the ‘Bomber’ had taken Mesquito’s British Welterweight title, in the second the ‘Cobra’ had regained it. Both fights had been uninspiring contests with the fighters doing a lot of holding and leaning against each other, shuffling round the ring like superannuated ballroom dancers. And both had been won on a split points decision.
But for some reason – perhaps lack of competition or rose-tinted recollection – they had gone down in the British sporting memory as epic encounters. So the introduction of Garry ‘Bomber’ Brawn into the cast of Cinderella was reckoned to be something of a publicity coup (not that after the murder of Kenny Polizzi the production really needed any more publicity).
The casting of a second boxer also cheered Bix Rogers enormously. Ever since he’d seen Rocky he’d wanted to choreograph a boxing match, and finally his opportunity had arrived. The interpolation of another irrelevance of course wreaked further havoc with Cinderella’s plot, but the director had long since stopped caring about that. And Danny Fitz was once again driven to silent fury by the elbowing of another of his traditional pantomime routines.
The other piece of news on that Monday morning’s rehearsal was that Jasmine del Rio had disappeared.
At the lunch break Charles found Kitty Woo, predictably enough standing in the cold outside St Asaph’s Church Halls, puffing away at a cigarette as desperately as if it were her oxygen supply at the top of Everest.
‘Presumably you haven’t heard any more from Jasmine?’
The dancer shook her head. The lids around her black eyes were puffy. She’d been crying.
‘And you haven’t remembered anything about her time as Marybeth Docker?’
‘Like I said before, she never mentioned the name.’
‘I was just thinking, Kitty, you said you had a text from Jasmine on Friday evening about nine …?’
‘Yes. It said she was a bit delayed.’
‘Anything else?’
By way of answer Kitty whipped out her mobile and, with that young person’s dexterity that never failed to amaze Charles, clicked icons to produce the relevant text.
‘Running a bit late. Looking forward to the Chinese – and will pay you back, promise. X J.’
‘What did she mean about paying you back?’
‘I guessed she meant she’d cook for me another night.’
‘Sure it wasn’t money? You said she’d borrowed some from you.’
‘Yes, I suppose it might have been that. I didn’t really think about it.’
‘But if that’s what she meant, it might imply that she was going to get some money on the Friday night.’
‘Could do.’ Kitty sounded listless. Her level of hope was low, she was close to despair.
‘Hm.’ Charles looked pityingly at the girl. ‘And otherwise … I assume you’ve heard nothing?’
‘Not from Jazzy, no.’
‘But you have heard from someone else?’ he asked keenly.
‘Text from Laura Hahn.’ The name meant nothing to Charles. ‘Woman Jazzy lived with for a while. Theatre director. I’m sure I mentioned her.’
‘Yes, you did, but I don’t think you told me her surname.’
‘Ah, right. No, I probably didn’t. Anyway, Laura’s heard about Jazzy being missing and she’s dead worried. I think she’s probably still in love with her a bit. She’s coming down here from London this afternoon.’
‘To look for Jasmine?’
‘Yes, though I don’t know that she’ll have any more success finding her than we have.’
‘No.’
‘Actually it might make sense, Charles, if you met her too.’
‘Oh?’
‘Well, you can talk to Laura about the possible Kenny Polizzi connection. She might know something.’
‘Yes, I suppose she might. If they lived together. Must’ve talked about all kinds of things, possibly including Jasmine’s time as Marybeth Docker.’
‘Mm. You haven’t heard any more from the police, have you, Charles?’
He shook his head. ‘Why should I have?’
‘Well, I was just thinking, now Jazzy hasn’t turned up to rehearsals, it’s kind of like she’s officially missing. The police will be wanting to find out more about her movements on Friday. I wouldn’t be surprised if I get another call from them.’ She closed her eyes and clenched her hands tightly together, almost as if she was praying. ‘Oh, I hope to God nothing’s happened to her.’
‘Well, if she’s disappeared, there must be a reason.’
‘She’s been abducted.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Why not? Why else would she suddenly disappear off the face of the earth?’
‘To escape.’
‘Escape from what?’
‘Kitty, if there was some past history between Jasmine and Kenny, then she might have confronted him about it. Kenny might have pulled out a gun …’
‘And shot her?’
‘Jasmine’s body hasn’t been found.’
‘But Kenny’s body has been.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Charles, are you suggesting that it was Jazzy who shot him?’
‘Well, it’s a possibility.’
Laura Hahn was tall and elegant in grey trousers and cream silk shirt under a dark blue knitted jacket. Her shoulder-length hair was dyed a bright scarlet which made no attempt to ape anything in nature. As with most of the gay people of Charles’s acquaintance, if the subject hadn’t come up he would never have guessed her sexual orientation.
She had a lot of poise and, although she was clearly worried about Jasmine, she seemed to be completely in control of her emotions. Charles thought she would probably be a very good director. She had an air of calm competence. He and other actors would relax under her authority.
The three of them met later that afternoon in a coffee shop, which felt a bit odd to Charles. He’d nothing against coffee, but not having an alcoholic drink after rehearsal didn’t seem quite natural. He had hardly ever been in a coffee shop. The Starbucks revolution had passed him by. There had always been a pub close enough for him not to seek out any teetotal alternative.
The women both ordered sticky cakes too, which again felt strange. He’d never had much of a taste for sweet things, so he stuck to a double espresso. The smell brought back to him a dreadful farce set in a restaurant in which he’d played an Italian waiter. (‘Charles Paris’s accent kept slipping like a recalcitrant bra-strap.’ Teesside Evening Gazette.)
Kitty quickly brought Laura up to date with the last contact she and Charles had had with Jasmine. She didn’t mention the recent suggestion that the dance captain might have murdered Kenny. ‘Have you heard anything from her more recently?’
Laura shook her head with something like wistfulness. ‘No, since she moved out, contact with Jasmine has been intermittent at best.’ Charles was interested to hear the use of her full name. Clearly ‘Jazzy’ was something just Kitty Woo used. ‘I had a text from her saying she’d been dumped by the latest man and got this Cinderella job, but that’s probably three weeks back. I couldn’t resist coming down here, though. There’s been so much in the press about the murder. I’ve just got a bad feeling that something terrible’s happened to Jasmine.’
‘Yes, I feel that too,’ said Kitty.
Charles felt he ought to say something calming. ‘We don’t know it’s something terrible. She may have had reasons of her own to make herself scarce.’
‘Rather odd, though, happening at the same time as the murder,’ said Laura. ‘Feels like the two things must be connected.’
‘I know what you mean. And of course her car’s missing too. At l
east I assume it is, Kitty?’
‘Yes, haven’t seen the Figaro since she went off in it on Friday.’
‘But you did tell the police about it?’ Charles wasn’t sure how far the dancer’s bloody-minded non-cooperation with the authorities would go.
‘Oh yes, they’ve got the registration number and what-have-you.’
‘Maybe they’ve already found it,’ suggested Charles.
‘If they have they’re hardly likely to tell us, are they?’
‘No. Maybe they’ll announce something in one of their press conferences.’
‘Maybe.’ Kitty still sounded very dispirited.
Charles turned his attention to Laura Hahn. ‘Actually, there is one thing I’d like to ask you, since you clearly know Jasmine del Rio pretty well.’
‘I thought I did,’ came the embittered reply.
‘Did she ever talk to you about having used the name Marybeth Docker?’
The response was immediate. ‘Yes, that was what Jasmine called herself when she was in the States, trying to make a career out there. Way back, when she was just in her teens.’
‘Did she talk to you much about that period?’ asked Charles.
‘Not a lot. I don’t think it was one of the happier times of her life.’
‘Did she ever say why she changed her name?’
‘I think it was probably to sound more American. Trying to get work out in LA for an unknown was pretty hard. For an unknown Brit it was even harder. I think that must’ve been when she picked up that mid-Atlantic accent she never really got rid of.’ Laura spoke with fond nostalgia. Clearly the feelings she had for her ex-lover remained strong.
Charles asked, ‘Might her reinvention of herself in the States also have had something to do with her age?’
‘You’re probably right. From what she told me, she was only fourteen when she went out there. So yes, that could be another reason for her obscuring her origins.’
‘Did she talk to you about any relationships she had while she was out there?’
‘Sexual relationships?’
‘Yes.’
‘Only in pretty general terms. I think there were plenty of predatory men round LA at the time. So what else is new? There are predatory men around everywhere all the time. But I got the impression from Jasmine that some of the dancing jobs she got involved her putting in some work on the casting couch.’
‘That doesn’t still happen, does it?’ asked Kitty, sounding surprisingly shocked by the idea. ‘It’s never happened to me.’
‘Then you’ve been unusually fortunate. The casting couch has always happened,’ Laura replied. ‘Even in these right-on, politically correct days it still happens. Power goes to men’s heads – and not just their heads. But, anyway, in Jasmine’s case we are talking twelve, fifteen years ago. Gender politics hadn’t advanced so far back then.’
‘Did she mention any names?’ asked Charles. ‘You know, of the men she supplied sexual favours to?’
‘No. I didn’t get the impression any of them were particularly memorable. She just did what she needed to do to get the job. When it came to sex, Jasmine always did have a very pragmatic side to her,’ Laura concluded ruefully.
‘And she didn’t mention the name of Kenny Polizzi?’ The director shook her head. ‘Or any other big-name star?’
Another shake of the head. ‘Anyway, would Kenny Polizzi have been a big star back then? I thought he came from more or less total obscurity to star in The Dwight House.’
‘You could be right.’ Charles sighed with frustration and looked at the swirl of brown in the bottom of his espresso cup. Now he really did need a proper drink. ‘If only we could find Jasmine and ask her.’
‘That is the problem, yes.’ Laura looked desperately sad for a moment before she quickly covered up the feeling. She looked at Kitty. ‘It’s unlike her just to take off in the middle of a job, isn’t it?’
‘She’d never do that. She’s got, like, this really strong work ethic. Once she’d signed up to do something, no matter how sick she was feeling, she’d always turn up.’
Laura nodded. ‘That’s the impression I got of her. Mind you, a good few of my other impressions of her were wrong, so …’
‘No, she’d never just piss off. Jazzy’s a professional.’
‘Hm.’ Charles made one last attempt. ‘Laura, you can’t think of anything else, can you? Anything else Jasmine told you about her time in the States …?’
‘Well, there was one thing. At the stage when our relationship was going really well, when we were even talking of buying a flat together, she did say she’d got about fifteen grand tucked away in a special account. She described it as her “LA haul”.’
‘Do you think she just meant the money she’d managed to save while she was out there?’
‘No, I don’t think it was that. From the way she described her life in LA, she was hardly making enough to keep herself clothed and fed, let alone to give her a chance to save any.’
‘Well, however she got it,’ said Kitty bitterly, ‘it’s gone now.’
‘Really?’ Laura looked shocked.
‘Last bastard she lived with cleaned her out completely.’
‘God, she was always such a bloody idiot when it came to men.’
Charles wanted to get back on to the provenance of the dancer’s stash. ‘So if Jasmine didn’t save it, Laura, where did it come from?’
‘Well, I think … from things she said … that this was some kind of pay-off she’d got from someone.’
‘Was she ever more specific about it?’
‘She did once describe it as her “hush money”.’
‘Did she?’ said Charles, his mind racing.
FOURTEEN
FIRST BROKER’S MAN: What makes you drink so many pints of beer?
SECOND BROKER’S MAN: Oh, nothing makes me. I’m a volunteer.
This time when Charles rang Lefty Rubenstein’s mobile there was no answer. So he left the lawyer a message, asking him to return the call. It was frustrating because Charles needed Lefty to validate the chain of logic that was joining up in his head.
Of course there was another line of enquiry Charles had yet to explore, and he felt diffident – not to say a little frightened – to go too far down that route. It was to follow up the information Lefty had given him about the Eastbourne drugs trade.
Still, after a couple of restorative double Bell’s, he felt braced for the task. He comforted himself with the thought that he would probably be travelling up a blind alley. The police must have followed the same investigative route, so there was a very strong chance that Eastbourne’s dealers would be lying low until the storm blew over.
I don’t have much of a genuine detective instinct, Charles mildly chided himself, setting off on a sleuthing mission in the hope I won’t find anyone to interview.
The pub whose name Lefty had given him was called the Greyhound, set in the less tourist-friendly part of Eastbourne. There was a broad street called Seaside Road which ran parallel to the front. Though one end joined Terminus Road, Eastbourne’s main pedestrian shopping centre, Seaside Road grew shabbier the further east it went. There were more and more ethnic food stores and takeaways, and though there were still some fine Victorian villas, they were not very well maintained and bore the telltale signs of multiple occupancy.
Charles found the Greyhound easily enough. Permanent chalk boards outside promised the usual delights of Sky Sports, Curry Nights, Karaoke and Special Two-for One Meal Deals. Inside, large screens at either end of the bar vied with each other, one providing football, the other music videos. The clientele was not up to that of the Grand Hotel, but it was not as rough as Charles had expected. There was an allowance of shaven-headed men with tattoos and women with hair pulled tightly back from their faces, but there were also respectable-looking pensioners, and even some extended families wading their way through plates piled high with what mostly seemed to be chips.
That sight made Char
les feel hungry. He’d only had a sandwich at lunch and that seemed a long time ago. He wondered if eating a meal was a good cover for an undercover operative investigating the drugs trade and decided reluctantly that it wasn’t. That decision also affected his choice of drink. If he’d been eating he’d have gone for the red wine. Without food it’d be another large Bell’s.
The bar staff didn’t look that interested in their clientele, but the one who served him was polite enough. And Charles knew he had to take advantage of that moment of human contact. He had to ask about the name that Lefty had given him. It made him feel rather like the shifty Russian agent he’d played in a television Cold War thriller. (‘With Charles Paris representing the Soviet opposition, democracy will be safe for a good few years.’ Observer.) So, as he took his change, feeling rather embarrassed, he asked, ‘Has Vinnie McCree been in tonight?’
To his surprise the girl knew who he was talking about. She looked at her watch. ‘He won’t be in till later. Always pops in for his couple of pints round nine thirty.’
Charles consulted his watch. Three-quarters of an hour to wait. He would have that meal after all – good idea. He added to his order a rump steak with all the trimmings and a large Merlot.
And then if he lost his bottle before Vinnie McCree arrived, he could at least go back to his digs on a full stomach.
Charles Paris wasn’t sure what he expected a drug dealer to look like, but Vinnie McCree certainly wasn’t it. A paunchy, balding man in his sixties, he entered the pub wrapped up in an old British Warm coat. His face was suffused with red, the kind of broken-veined complexion Charles feared he too might have in a few years’ time. And Vinnie seemed to be very much a regular – a favourite almost – in the Greyhound. He knew all the bar staff by name and one of them was pulling his pint even before he reached the bar. The girl who had served Charles’s large Merlot (and his second one, and the third) had a whispered word with the new arrival and pointed across to where the actor was sitting.
As soon as he’d paid for his pint and taken a large swallow from it, Vinnie came across. ‘You were asking for me?’ He had quite a thick Scottish accent, but he didn’t sound surprised. Maybe Charles’s approach was the one used by everyone who wanted to buy drugs.