I went to see Pat Hawes; he had just moved to Wandsworth, so I didn’t have far to go. I saw him by appointment in an empty cell in the Punishment Block. The customary scene – section 43 and a screw outside.
‘Hello, Pat.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Whatever I like that you’ve got to give,’ I said, ‘might be a little, might be a lot.’
‘If it’s questions you won’t get any answers. I’m not very easy,’ he said, ‘no, I’d say I was a difficult man.’
‘You must be a masochist to talk like that,’ I said, ‘because this is going to be sheer agony for you, I’ve come here to loosen you up a great deal.’
He looked at me full of age-old lies. He still looked big, but not so fit – not like back in the days when he still had an iron bar in his hand. He seemed to me now a man for whom the murderous rush across a pub at someone he thought was being deliberate was now over – and I hoped for good. He was a London whelk out of its shell that therefore stood no chance: a clever man, resourceful, oversexed like the rest of us and who, as well, trusted no one. Violence, his only cover, had consistently uncovered him, discovered him. But in my role I was watching him, seeing how jail life, jail food and jail inactivity were in the process of turning him to jelly. Yet when I thought of how he had taken life and maimed it, that separated us, and then I stopped bothering about his state.
‘You know a man called Jack or Jackie Hadrill?’
‘By sight, yes. Who doesn’t. But not to know him, no.’
‘Now look, you’re trying to take me for a cunt,’ I said, ‘which as far as I’m concerned proves that you’re one. Now don’t fuck me about – Hadrill was practically on the firm. I say practically because after he marked your card for that shoe factory he then grassed you to Serious Crimes.’
‘Oh well,’ he said, gazing away at the wall, ‘no hard feelings, that’s how it goes.’
‘You mean how it went,’ I said. ‘Hadrill’s dead.’
‘Yes, I saw that on telly,’ he said. ‘Nasty.’
‘Right, there’s nothing much worse can happen to you than winding up boiled and stapled into five plastic bags. You know anything about it?’
‘Me?’ he said. ‘In here? You’ve got to be joking.’
‘I just don’t know what’s happened to my jokes,’ I said, ‘and yours are pretty flat too. The fact that you’re in here has nothing to do with it. Hadrill’s dead, you’ve got a motive for wanting that, I’m the man who’s been told to find out about it, and I’m going to.’
He didn’t say anything straight away, just stood looking ahead as if he wanted to have a stiff shit. ‘I know what they really make up at that factory in Yorkshire,’ I said. (I didn’t know.) ‘Where it says they make shoes. It isn’t shoes.’
‘It was shoes the night I was there,’ he quipped. ‘But maybe they’ve started on something else now.’
‘Don’t be cheeky,’ I said. ‘Are you still saying you just took the wages?’
‘Right.’
‘Well, that’s funny, because Hadrill knew there was a fucking sight more to it than that. That’s what got him interested in you. I know, because he left a note. More than a note really. More like a letter.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Hawes. ‘Hadrill was just a grass. He got us bang to rights; now he must have grassed someone else, got up their nose and was topped, and who fucking cares?’
‘You might find yourself doing a lot of caring,’ I said, ‘because I’m beginning to reckon that you thought you’d better top Hadrill before he came to us about what got lost at the factory besides the money.’
‘I’m really sorry,’ he sneered, ‘I’m completely and totally mixed up, what you’re talking about.’
I attacked on another front. ‘What it is,’ I said, ‘you’re sick with fright, because you’ve heard that we’re not going to stop until we’ve found out who did Hadrill, who had him done, and why. You hoped his body was going to get dumped out with the garbage, didn’t you? You didn’t think the bags were ever going to be found, did you? Well, now you know what’s happened – your man made a right royal fuck-up, had to leave his signature, had to leave the bags for the caretaker to find. Also the job had “done for money” written all over it, a right villain’s work, and that’s dropped you straight in the shit, as if you weren’t in it already.’
Hawes started to look unhappy, and it didn’t surprise me. ‘I’ve been through all the people who’ve had visiting orders from you,’ I said. ‘There’s your wife and your eldest boy, who’s doing borstal now I hear, a real chip off the old block. And then there’s your brother-in-law, Tony Williams, he pops in and out too.’
‘Well, why not?’ Hawes said. ‘He’s family, ain’t he?’
‘You’re not being helpful,’ I said, ‘which wouldn’t be so bad, except that I know you could be helpful if you wanted.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t help you at all, copper.’
‘Look, you’re not being very bright either,’ I said, ‘so I’m going to put this simply. You’ve got a lot of bird to do yet, a lot – and you can take it from me that the parole board’s not keen on you, so you might find yourself in the death having to do practically all of it, particularly if we give the board a push. After all, you’ve killed three men and badly damaged a lot more, so why not?’ I looked round me. ‘Still, I suppose it’s not that bad in here, not for you. I hear you just about run the maximum security wing. You’ve got some screws bent. You’ve got money outside, plenty of it, and then you’ve got Williams; after all, he’s the governor of the Nine Foot Drop, and I bet he’s always good for a bit of the ready.’
‘What’s Tony got to do with it?’
‘A lot,’ I said. ‘That pub of his was the last place Hadrill was seen alive. We’ll come back to that. Meantime, though, speaking of governors, I believe the governor here’s not a hard man. Not hard with you anyway – he doesn’t want a riot on his hands. Then you’re a snout baron. I’ve had a long talk with the principal officer and it seems you’ve been in front of the governor for working a few tabs in, a bit of shit. Sells well in here, doesn’t it? Why, Christ, for a killer, you’re leading the life of Riley in here.’
‘Well, it could be worse,’ he smirked. ‘All the same, it’s bloody bad.’
‘You moody bastard,’ I said, ‘if you don’t cooperate with me I’ll make it fucking impossible. How would you like to do the bird you’ve got now, and then double it?’
‘You can’t work that, you bastard!’ he screamed. ‘There’s a fucking law in this country!’
‘That’s right,’ I said, ‘and I’m it. And if you won’t help me, and if I have to prove the hard way that you had a connection with Hadrill’s death, then you’ll find yourself back at the Bailey before you’ve even had a chance to do up your shoes, do you hear? If I can show, as I mean to end up doing, that anyone ever even mentioned the name Hadrill to you, well then, a word with the DPP’s office is all it takes. And here you are – it’s not as if I even had to go to the trouble of arresting you. None of it’s difficult for me. Dicey for you, though. You mightn’t be able to take all that extra bird. Suppose you drew thirty altogether, why, you’d be seventy-two by the time you came out, Pat, do you realize that? Think of it! You could go mad in here; folk do. And think of all that money you’ve got koshered away outside, and never a chance to spend five p of it till you’re an old cunt on a stick. And again, who knows, they might have changed the currency or something by the time your release comes up; things happen fast outside these days.’
‘You bastard!’ he shouted. ‘Fuck you!’
‘That’s OK,’ I said, ‘let it rip. What matters is, when you’ve finished, are you going to help me or not? How was that Hadrill meet set up? Who arranged for McGruder? Tony? You?’
‘Get stuffed!’ he bawled. ‘I’ve never heard of McGruder!’
‘I was told downstairs that you were having roast duckling breasts with green pepper sauce on them
for dinner tonight,’ I said primly. ‘Now that’s a very rich meal, and I wouldn’t want it to go repeating on you.’
He went white. ‘You can’t interfere with a man’s food!’
‘I can interfere with anything I like,’ I said, ‘there’s always a way. Anyhow, when it comes to leaning on a villain I’m tailor-made, so don’t push me.’
‘I’m not,’ he said after a while. ‘I’m just telling you I don’t know what you’re on about.’ He took a roll-up from a tin and lit it with a trembling hand. He held it craftily, the way cons do, hiding the weed behind his hand and drawing on it in a furtive manner. I called through the peephole to the screw outside. When he came in I said indignantly: ‘Look, this man’s smoking.’
‘Yes, I see he is,’ said the screw. ‘Still, it’s not against regulations, that isn’t.’
‘It is if I think it is,’ I said. ‘If the new act goes through I’ll be able to think what I like. And I think it’s bad for this man’s health,’ I added in a concerned way. ‘I don’t think he ought to be allowed to ruin it, smoking like that – look what a bad colour he is. After all, the State’s responsible for him.’
‘Very true,’ said the screw uneasily, ‘yes.’ I could tell he was one of the ones Hawes looked after, and looked after well, so that between Hawes and me he didn’t really know what to do next.
‘Also he’s eating too much of this rich food,’ I said, ‘I’ve been checking in the kitchen. For a man leading a sedentary life like he is, that’s very bad for his health too – oh, very bad. I think you’d better come along with me when I leave, officer, and we’ll see the MO about it.’
Hawes was staring incredulously from one to other of us. ‘What are you talking about?’ he yelled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What I mean,’ I said, ‘is that you might prove to be a valuable prosecution witness in another trial, and I wouldn’t want you to go ruining your health smoking and eating too much rich food, you might have a heart attack.’ I said to the screw: ‘OK, leave me alone with him for a few minutes more.’
When the screw had gone I said to Hawes: ‘Well?’
‘Look, for Christ’s sake, will you get off my back!’
‘That depends,’ I said. ‘Who was the man standing next to McGruder that night in the Drop? Youngish, solid, scar across his left earhole, fancy dresser, tends to be careless with a set of car keys?’
‘I don’t know a thing!’
‘Was it a man called Merrill Edwardes?’
He looked at me with anguish. ‘Even if I knew anything, I couldn’t sell a geezer!’
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘You kill people and have them killed. What’s so special about just selling someone?’
‘I don’t know anything,’ he said, turning whitish.
‘You’re getting deeper and deeper in,’ I said, ‘and the less help you give me, the more trouble you’ll get.’
He screwed his eyes up. ‘Isn’t doing bird bad enough?’
‘Duckling breasts tonight or bread and water?’
‘Look, I suppose it could of been him, I mean I don’t know if it was him.’
‘You know bloody well the two of you, you and your brother-in-law, planned to have Hadrill topped,’ I said. ‘You’ve got a motive as bright as a bunch of red roses. When I make it stick, by the way, that makes Williams an accessory before the fact – you’re coming unravelled all over the place. Now tell me the rest of it. Christ, get your bloody mouth in tune, or I’ll tune it for you – I’ll put you away for ever.’
‘Look, if there was a contract out for this geezer,’ said Hawes, ‘and I say if there was, I suppose it could have been Edwardes, this geezer you say left the keys. I say I suppose it could, that’s all.’
‘You prepared to make a statement?’
‘No.’
‘What went out of that York factory besides the money?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You’re lying. You’re guilty right, left and centre.’
‘Prove it.’
‘I’m going to, don’t worry about that. It’s how much help you’re going to give me, that’s what you need to worry about.’
‘No help, copper. These people you’re on about, they’re just names.’
‘Bread and water, then.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘but at least I’ll stay alive to eat it.’
Going back across the river, the day was sweet and sharp, the sun like bursts of music. The weather that day had no flaws; only the people were flawed.
21
I went into the Nine Foot Drop and leaned against the bar. It was early, just after opening time. A big bloke in a striped blue and white shirt came over. He was fat and chirpy. He had thick white hair and a white Turkish-style moustache.
‘Evening, squire, what’ll it be?’
‘It’ll be a few questions,’ I said, producing my warrant card. ‘You Tony Williams?’
‘That’s right. What is this, a census poll?’
‘It’s the kind of poll that could get you in a hell of a lot of bother,’ I said, ‘so you’d best mind your manners.’
‘Bother?’ he jeered. ‘Me? Look, I’ve been running this boozer for fifteen years and I’ve never had no bother.’
‘That could all suddenly change,’ I said, ‘though if you were helpful it might just be passing clouds.’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’
‘I wish I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that,’ I said. I put a pound on the bar. ‘OK, serve us a pint of that Hofmeister you’ve got there.’
‘My treat.’
‘Not a chance,’ I said. ‘I always pay for my rounds.’
He brought the beer and a ring-a-ding for himself and his tone grew conciliatory. ‘Look, I know the Drop’s a tough pub,’ he said, ‘but what else do you expect in a place like Hammersmith? Anyway, I’ve never had any bother here that I couldn’t handle.’ I believed that, because as he spoke one of the hardest-looking youths I’ve ever seen came up through the cellar trap, carrying a case of beer as if it were a packet of biscuits. ‘I’ve got a good staff,’ said Williams approvingly. ‘Like nimble.’ He had, all right. Williams picked up his drink and said: ‘Well, cheers.’
‘I’m not sure about the cheers,’ I said. I pushed my glass away. ‘Something nasty started up in here three nights back.’
‘That’s funny,’ he said. ‘There haven’t been no fights.’
‘This wasn’t a fight,’ I said, ‘it was the lead-up to a topping.’
‘Christ, when was that, then?’
‘The evening of April the thirteenth. And don’t look so innocent.’
‘You must be coming the acid,’ said Williams. He was around fifty, but he still looked hard behind all the jollity. He certainly looked as if he knew what his fists were for, also his feet. ‘What’s all this about, then?’
‘Well, it’s about this bloke who wound up in a warehouse in Rotherhithe in five plastic shopping bags,’ I said. ‘Did you ever know Jack Hadrill?’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘Look, you’re not trying hard at all on this one,’ I said. ‘You’re going to have to do a lot better. Hadrill was sitting at one of your tables here practically all evening.’
‘I don’t know everyone who comes in here,’ he said. ‘Why should I?’
‘Because it’s strange,’ I said, ‘I’ve been asking around a lot – that’s my job, isn’t it – and it seems he did come in here.’
‘Well, I think I might know who you’re talking about vaguely,’ he admitted after some thought. ‘I read about him in the linens, of course. Dreadful business.’
‘And it will be for you too,’ I said, ‘if you don’t open up on full throttle and tell me everything you know about it.’
He thought some more, then shook his heavy white head and said with his lips pursed: ‘No, that night, I honestly can’t say I noticed him, squire.’
‘Well, I’ve got a witness who did notice him,’ I said. ‘
He states that Hadrill was in full view of you, and don’t ever call me squire. Now, there was also a man called Merrill Edwardes standing here at the bar, just about where I’m standing now. I suppose you’ll be telling me next you didn’t notice him either.’
‘Oh no. I know who you mean by Merrill Edwardes.’
‘Well, we’re making a start at last,’ I said. ‘Now then, there was a bit of moody with a set of keys Edwardes left on the bar when he left. Right under your nose, my bloke says.’
‘I’m sorry, I really am. But I don’t remember about no keys.’
‘You must be one of the most unobservant governors I’ve ever met,’ I said. ‘So of course you didn’t notice who picked the keys up, either.’
‘That’s right, I didn’t.’
‘Well, I know this place is thick with villains, solid with them. After all, you’re not Pat Hawes’s brother-in-law for nothing. But even you must take some notice when a man like Billy McGruder comes into a pub.’
‘McGruder? Name means nothing to me.’
‘Well, that’s probably just as well for you,’ I said. ‘No man Billy takes an interest in ever stays healthy very long. You been visiting Pat lately?’
‘Well, if I have been,’ he said, ‘it’s only natural. It’s family.’
‘I’m getting more and more tired of you,’ I said. ‘You know a hell of a lot about all this. You do know Hadrill, or you did, you know Edwardes, and since all your best mates are hard villains it wouldn’t exactly amaze me if you turned out to know McGruder as well, anyway by sight. Did you know Hadrill was a grass, by the way? A big-time grass?’
‘No.’
‘You’re lying,’ I said. ‘You’re telling me nothing but lies, Tony; you’re white with lies, and I really hate that. I think you fixed up this meet for your brother-in-law all right, and if it turns out that you did, you realize that makes you an accessory to murder, don’t you?’
‘Look, I just don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Williams anxiously.
‘Oh, don’t you?’ I said. ‘Look, I’ve a bloody good mind to go straight back to the Factory and get a W out for you, and by the time I’ve finished with you the charge will be what I just said it was. You’ll go down with a bang you could hear from Hammersmith to the Elephant. Now, I’ll give you one more chance. If you’re helpful with me, we might be able to kosher some of this up. I’m not promising anything, mind. I’ll also tell you another thing. I’m the sort of man, once I get started on something I never let go, and I’m into this Hadrill business hard, hard. Now then, how well do you know Edwardes?’
The Devil's Home on Leave (Factory 2) Page 10