‘Vince, you old queen, where have you been hiding.’
Beaufort did not resist. He seemed to physically deflate in Barnard’s grip and his eyes bulged with fear. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘We want you for a little chat about your mate Nigel Wayland,’ Barnard said. ‘You know he’s dead, I take it?’
Beaufort gulped and nodded.
‘OK,’ Barnard said steering him across the road and towards the nick. ‘Think we’ll book you a cell for the night and in the morning you can fill us in on what you know about Wayland and how he came to get his throat cut underneath the arches at King’s Cross.’
THIRTEEN
Harry Barnard sat drumming his fingers intermittently on his desk the next morning. He had arrived at the nick early in the hope of talking to Vincent Beaufort only to find that his plans had been scotched by Vic Copeland who, he was told, was already shut in an interview room with the prisoner and a detective constable, Trevor Jones, who had overtly become one of the DS’s most enthusiastic disciples. Barnard ground his teeth impotently and settled to riffling through the paperwork which had piled up on his desk, and typing some reports with two fingers, furious with himself for allowing Beaufort to fall into the clutches of Copeland.
The hands of the squad room clock seemed to advance almost imperceptibly as he waited for Copeland to emerge, but in the end it was DCI Keith Jackson, red-faced and clearly furious, who pushed open the door and, without a word, beckoned to Barnard to follow him. In the corridor outside Barnard could hear a commotion downstairs in the reception area and, as he followed Jackson in that direction, the sound of an emergency bell not far away.
‘What’s going on, guv,’ he asked as Jackson marched down the stairs.
Jackson did not reply but when Barnard reached the ground floor the outline of the crisis was clear enough. Vincent Beaufort was huddled face-down on the floor with his hands handcuffed behind his back, his jacket covered in blood, groaning loudly, while Copeland, his DC and a couple of uniformed officers stood round him in a threatening position and two ambulance men, whose vehicle could be seen in the street outside, blue lights flashing, manoeuvred a stretcher through the swing doors.
‘What the hell happened,’ Jackson demanded of Copeland, who turned towards him and shrugged.
‘Bastard had a knife,’ Copeland said, his DC, Trevor Jones, nodding energetically behind him. ‘We should have known but I thought he would have been searched last night.’ He glared in his turn at Barnard.
‘Custody sergeant should have done that,’ Barnard said. ‘He’s got no history of violence as far as I know.’
‘Well he has now,’ Copeland said. ‘He went completely doolally in there. We’re lucky not to need an ambulance ourselves.’
Jackson glared at both the officers. ‘My office. Now,’ he said.
The ambulance men were crouching by their patient who seemed to have relapsed into unconsciousness. ‘Can we get these handcuffs off,’ one said. ‘We can’t get him on the stretcher like this. And he’s bleeding from this hand anyway. He’ll bleed to death if we’re not careful.’
One of the uniformed officers released Beaufort’s wrists, getting his hands covered in blood but allowing the ambulance men to turn their patient over, revealing the extent of the battering he had obviously taken.
Barnard winced but Beaufort’s eyes remained closed and one of the ambulance men checked his pulse and was apparently satisfied that at least he was alive. They put a tourniquet above the hand which was bleeding heavily and placed him on the stretcher.
‘Shall I go with him?’ Barnard asked the DCI, but Jackson shook his head angrily.
‘My office,’ he said. ‘I want chapter and verse on how this happened. Uniform can send someone to the hospital to keep an eye on him and let us know if and when he comes round. I hope for all your sakes we’ve not got a carbon copy of what happened in the City, Sergeant Copeland. I really do.’
Barnard followed the other three men back up the stairs and into the DCI’s office where Jackson closed the door firmly and placed himself behind his desk, his expression grim. Copeland maintained a defiant sneer but DC Jones, who had followed him in, was beginning to look distinctly uneasy. Barnard for his part felt immensely relieved that whatever else he had to hide he had taken no part in what had happened in the interview room downstairs.
‘Right,’ Jackson said ‘I want it straight, nothing left out, nothing invented. Barnard, tell me how you happened to bring him in last night.’
Barnard went carefully over his accidental encounter with Beaufort the night before. ‘He was obviously trying to avoid being noticed,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t in his usual flamboyant gear. But I’ve been around Soho long enough to recognize him even when he was trying not to be recognized. I told the custody sergeant he was wanted for questioning about the Nigel Wayland murder and we would talk to him in the morning. And that’s where I left it. He wasn’t very happy but I didn’t give him any options. It was too risky to let him loose to disappear again. I came in early this morning but Vic here was in even earlier and had begun to question him when I arrived. And that’s all I know about it.’
‘Did you ask him any questions last night?’ Jackson asked.
‘No. I thought it was better to let him stew,’ Barnard said.
‘Right, now you, Copeland. What state was he in when you fetched him out of his cell this morning?’ Jackson asked.
Copeland shrugged. ‘Well, I wouldn’t say he was very happy. And he was even less happy when he realized he was going to talk to us and not Flash Harry here.’ Copeland flashed Barnard a glance of sheer malevolence.
‘Any idea why that might be, Sergeant Barnard?’
‘No sir,’ Barnard said flatly.
‘Carry on, Copeland,’ Jackson snapped. ‘What happened next?’
‘Well, nothing unusual happened next. Beaufort was evasive, said he hardly knew Nigel Wayland, denied he’d ever had sex with him or lived with him. I didn’t believe him but I let it go at first. I asked him why he’d disappeared, why he’d left his usual haunts, why he was creeping around more or less in disguise, and again he was evasive, said he’d gone out of London with a friend but wouldn’t give the friend’s name, said we’d only pull his mate in for gross indecency if he did that. So I went on to ask him about the night Wayland’s body was found, and the previous day. Did he have an alibi, in other words? And that’s when he lost it. He suddenly stood up and vaulted over the table with a knife in his hand. We were lucky not to get slashed. Took us completely by surprise. But I managed to grab his right arm and DS Jones here got hold of the knife. But Beaufort didn’t give up. He went at us hammer and tongs until I caught him on the chin and he went down poleaxed. He doesn’t look as if he could scare a cat but he’s a bloody nutter. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
Barnard looked hard not at Copeland but at DC Jones, who was looking increasingly uncomfortable, and he knew Copeland was lying. Jones, he thought, was the weak link and he wondered how to get the DCI to appreciate that.
‘What happened to the knife?’ Jackson asked.
‘It’s in an evidence bag,’ Copeland said. ‘My guess is it’s the one he used to kill Wayland. They might even be able to tell. You never know.’
‘Make sure it goes to forensics,’ Jackson said. ‘Barnard, you check on that please.’
Barnard nodded.
‘I want written reports from all three of you by lunchtime,’ Jackson went on. ‘The Yard will want to hear about this and I don’t think any of you will come out smelling of roses. So get out of my sight.’
The three men left the DCI’s office in silence and while Harry Barnard headed back to the CID office to type out his simple report the other two hurried downstairs and, he thought, no doubt out of the building to coordinate their stories.
Behind them DCI Jackson put in a call to Scotland Yard and asked to speak to Assistant Commissioner John Amis. He was put through quickly and the AC listened
to his description of the morning’s events in silence.
Jackson hesitated and then ploughed on. ‘Can you recall Copeland, sir?’ he asked. ‘He’s causing more trouble than he’s worth.’
‘Certainly not,’ Amis said. ‘You know why he’s with you. There have to be some changes in Soho. It’s seeping out to the Press, I’m told. You risk becoming a national disgrace, front page of the News of the World. I want the manor cleaned up and cleaned up fast. Top priority is your man Barnard. Is there no way you can involve him in this latest debacle? He brought your victim in, after all.’
Jackson drew a sharp breath. ‘I don’t think that’s feasible, sir,’ he said. ‘The whole nick knew what was going on with Beaufort. He’s a well-known character in Soho, something of a celebrity queer, you might say, and we’ve had him on our wanted list for days, since the body was found in King’s Cross. He seems to have disappeared as soon as Wayland was found which is suspicious, to say the least. And now he’s pulled a knife. I’ve had all the beat officers keeping an eye out for him for days. But his friends very soon found out where he was last night and there was a lawyer banging on the counter downstairs almost as soon as Copeland started his interview.’
‘Doesn’t say much for your security,’ Amis snapped.
‘Someone outside must have sent him, but Copeland wouldn’t let him into the interview room,’ Jackson came back defensively. ‘More or less told him to sod off. But there’s going to be outside interest as soon as it gets out that Beaufort is in hospital. So there will be complaints from that direction as well as from every nancy boy in the neighbourhood as soon as they realize Beaufort has been seriously hurt. Barnard wasn’t even in the nick when most of this was going on. But he might have alerted a brief.’
‘Pity,’ Amis said. ‘Leave it with me, chief inspector. I’ll have a word with the press office and see what we can do to keep the evening papers at bay. In the meantime search Beaufort’s flat. And get forensics on to that knife.’
‘Sir,’ Jackson said, and hung up with an expression of deep dissatisfaction on his face. He could see nothing but trouble ahead.
Barnard occupied himself for the rest of the morning but Copeland and Jones did not reappear. They must have a lot to talk about, he thought. Then, just as he was beginning to think about lunch a colleague called across the room with a smirk.
‘A call for you from a bird.’
Barnard picked up the receiver half expecting to hear Kate’s voice but it turned out to be the prosecution lawyer Ruth Michelmore.
‘Can we meet for a chat?’ she asked. ‘I’m at Oxford Circus.’
‘Outside Peter Robinson’s main entrance in ten,’ Barnard said, glancing around the half-empty squad room to make sure no one was listening.
He hung up and flung on his trench coat and hat and made his way to the north end of Regent Street at a brisk pace. He saw Ruth across the busy junction gazing into the store’s display as if window-shopping for miniskirts, which seemed unlikely as she was wrapped in a long bulky coat which Barnard guessed his mother might have worn. He crossed the junction quickly.
‘Follow me into the first cafe on the left in Great Portland Street,’ he said as he passed her.
When she arrived looking flustered, and sat down opposite him, he allowed himself a faint smile. ‘Sorry about the tactics, a bit what’s-his-name, James Bond?’ he said. ‘But we really ought not to be seen together.’
‘You’re right,’ she agreed. ‘But I found out for sure this morning that what we suspected is true. The old Scot and the boy, Jimmy Earnshaw, are both missing. The case against Georgie Robertson is collapsing. That has to be really bad news doesn’t it? There’ll be no witnesses left soon and those there are seem to be pretty peripheral, like your friend Kate O’Donnell. But that may be all we’ve got. Or maybe one or two people from the queer pub who may have heard or seen something that we didn’t think we needed up to now.’
‘Damn and blast,’ Barnard said. ‘That’s all I need. You realize the Yard are still saying officially there’s no problem with the witnesses?’
‘Yes, I know. That’s why I’m keeping all this a bit cloak and dagger. My boss doesn’t accept that they could be lying, but one of my colleagues has failed to get interviews with either of them for a couple of weeks now. Something is seriously wrong. The director of public prosecutions is beginning to take an interest in the evidence and he can pull the plug on the whole prosecution if it won’t stand up in court.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Barnard agreed. He thought for a moment. ‘Can you leave Kate out of it for now?’ he asked. ‘And I can reassure you about Jimmy Earnshaw at least. He turned up at the shelter St Peter’s church runs and the vicar has made sure he’s being looked after in a safe place. Even I don’t know where that is, but when he’s needed he’ll be there, I promise.’
‘That’s a relief, at least,’ Ruth said.
‘As for the Scot, I just don’t know. I have to say I fear the worst.’
‘That’s not good news,’ Ruth said. ‘I don’t understand how this could have happened.’
‘No,’ Barnard said, his face grim. ‘Something very dubious is going on and I’ve had no luck pinning it down. In the meantime, I’ll follow up the queer angle. Any suggestion that Georgie has inclinations that way will give the jury conniptions. It won’t do his case any good at all.’
‘That’s true, even though it’s not true and the defence won’t like it. But mud will stick, and mud may help.’
‘Leave it with me,’ Barnard said. ‘I promise you we’ll nail this bastard if it’s the last thing I do.’ A vivid memory of taking a beating from Georgie Robertson as a boy when Ray was not around flashed into his mind. Even then Georgie had enjoyed inflicting pain, he thought, as he recalled writhing in the corner of a field as his tormentor ran away laughing, and Georgie had gone downhill ever since.
Ruth Michelmore finished her coffee and gathered her things together, still looking anxious. ‘Keep in touch,’ she said before hurrying out of the cafe and moving quickly out of sight in the swirling shopping crowds.
Barnard stayed where he was for a moment gazing into his own coffee cup. His own time might well be running out, he thought, and he needed to act fast if he was to keep Kate’s name out of sight as a possible witness. He took a deep breath, paid for the coffees and set off at a brisk pace for the Middlesex Hospital.
He found Vincent Beaufort sitting up in bed, pale and heavily bruised, one eye half closed and his hand and forearm bandaged. A uniformed constable was sitting by his bed. ‘Give me ten minutes, Gerry,’ he said to the PC. ‘Go and get a cup of tea, why don’t you?’
Happy enough with that offer, the officer ambled out of the ward and Barnard took his seat beside Beaufort’s bed.
‘Sorry about all that, Vincent,’ he said.
‘You’re all bastards when it comes down to it,’ Beaufort said, his voice faint. ‘But your Sergeant Copeland is something else.’
‘What happened to your hand?’ Barnard asked.
Beaufort glanced at the bandage. ‘It got slashed by the knife I’m supposed to have pulled.’
‘So where did the knife come from? It was obviously there, in the interview room.’
‘One of them pulled it out from somewhere. They dragged me across the desk and for a minute I thought Copeland was going to cut my throat. He’d already beaten me to a pulp. I must have grabbed the blade to push it away. I bloody nearly lost a finger.’ He waved his bandaged hand in the air as if to illustrate the point.
‘What did he want?’ Barnard asked. ‘What the hell was it all for?’
‘He only wanted to fit me up with Nigel Wayland’s murder,’ Beaufort said. ‘He practically had my confession written for me. We were lovers, we fell out and I knifed him. No doubt he chose to plant a knife on me, just to make the whole fantasy that I’m a dangerous maniac more believable. Jesus wept.’ Beaufort sagged back on to his pillows, wincing with pain, his eyes terrified.
>
‘He’s insisting you pulled the knife on him.’
‘You know that’s ridiculous,’ Beaufort whispered. ‘I’ve never carried a knife in my life. It’s crazy. You know it’s crazy, Mr Barnard.’
‘Tell me about Nigel Wayland,’ Barnard said. ‘Are you sure you never had any relations with him?’
‘Never,’ Beaufort said. ‘He had other interests, dear.’
‘Which were?’
‘If you want the unvarnished truth, he liked young boys, at least until recently. He wasn’t very popular in the circles I moved in.’
Barnard stiffened as pieces of the jigsaw began to make a sort of sense. ‘And recently?’
‘Rumour was that he’d suddenly got a steady partner but I’ve no idea who.’
‘Did you ever see Wayland with Georgie Robertson?’
Beaufort nodded imperceptibly. ‘More than once,’ he said.
‘Is that why you disappeared?’ Barnard persisted.
‘When Nigel was killed I wondered if I might be next,’ Beaufort said. ‘I thought I’d make myself scarce for a bit. You know I’m a bit conspicuous around the place. And Georgie Robertson must have known I’d seen him once or twice back then, chatting about boys with Nigel. I just thought maybe they would want me as a prosecution witness after all. He may be banged up but don’t tell me he hasn’t got friends on the outside who’ll be doing their damnedest to make sure he gets away with it. Goes without saying, doesn’t it?’
‘You say you’ve got an alibi for the night Wayland was killed?’
Beaufort nodded again.
‘You’re going to have to use it now,’ Barnard said. ‘Get a brief organized and tell him who you were with. There’s no choice. They’ll charge you for what Copeland said happened in the interview room anyway, however much you deny it. You need to get your defence well organized.’
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