The Home Secretary Will See You Now

by Graham Ison

  Conway looked round desperately. It was too late. If only he hadn’t let his curiosity get the better of him; if only he’d refused to see the police at all; if only … He opened his mouth, but no sound came. He tried again. ‘Could I have a drink of water, Mr Tipper?’

  ‘I think we might do even better than that; I’ll see if we can persuade the authorities to produce a cup of coffee.’

  ‘I s’pose you haven’t got a light, Mr Tipper, have you?’ asked Conway when they were settled once more.

  Silently, Gaffney passed his lighter across the table, and Conway took a deep lungful of smoke. He returned the lighter and sat back, partially recovered.

  ‘You know, of course, that this bird got topped on Wednesday evening,’ said Tipper. Conway nodded miserably. ‘Well, my job is to find out who topped her. Now, you can start by telling me how often you saw her at Colin’s place in Seville.’

  Conway swallowed, a movement made more noticeable by his accentuated Adam’s apple. ‘Only the once, Mr Tipper.’ Tipper’s eyes narrowed. ‘God’s honest truth, Mr Tipper.’ ‘Yeah, all right, Waldo. Go on.’

  ‘I reckon it was the first time she’d come down there. Well, I know it was because Colin said so.’

  ‘Did you know who she was?’

  ‘No. Well, not then, like; not straight away. He told me after.’

  ‘After what?’

  ‘After she’d been there for a bit.’

  ‘How long was she there for?’

  ‘’Bout a week, I s’pose; bit longer maybe.’

  Tipper shot a glance at Gaffney who shrugged. They were both wondering how she had got away with a week’s absence from her husband, and what sort of tale she’d spun him.

  ‘What were you doing down there, anyway? What were you celebrating?’

  ‘Nothing. It was Colin; he just fancied having a week in the sun. That’s all. Nothing wrong with that, is there?’ he asked defensively.

  ‘Depends who’s paying for it — ’

  ‘Colin did.’

  ‘And where did the money come from?’ Tipper stared intently at Conway until his gaze dropped.

  ‘I don’t know nothing about that.’

  ‘And right now I don’t care,’ said Tipper. ‘But I might.’ The implied threat registered. ‘Did you travel down together?’ Conway looked horrified. ‘Christ no! If we’d done that we’d have spent a couple of hours getting turned over by your blokes at the airport. Do be reasonable, Mr Tipper.’ He paused. ‘No, we travelled down separate like.’

  ‘And what about Mrs Lavery?’

  ‘Who?’ For a moment or two Conway looked genuinely puzzled. ‘Oh, Liz, you mean?’

  Tipper nodded patiently. ‘Yes, Liz.’

  ‘She come down on her own, after the rest of us got there. I remember that, because it was very hot — ’

  ‘Would be,’ said Tipper quietly.

  ‘And we was round the pool, and Colin was swearing a bit because he had to drive out to pick her up from … ’

  ‘Seville?’ Tipper prompted him sarcastically.

  ‘Yeah, but I was trying to think of the name of the airport. Got it: San Pablo. Well the plane never got in till nine o’clock in the evening, and it was a bleedin’ long drive. I reckon it was gone ten before he got back.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Never saw her that night; never saw her until the next morning.’ He laughed. ‘Well, you know what it’s like — ’

  ‘No!’ said Tipper pointedly.

  The subtlety was lost on Conway. ‘The three of us was sitting round the pool, getting pissed on cheap Spanish plonk. My bird was some brass I’d picked up with, and she was flaunting herself about the place, flashing her tits at Colin, cheeky little cow. If there’s one thing a brass can sniff out it’s the old readies; they don’t care who’s got it so long as some of it rubs off on them. And they don’t care what they have to do to get it, neither.’ He sniffed: an eloquent comment on the archness of women. ‘Then this Liz bird comes out of the house. She had to be different, didn’t she? We was drinking plonk, but she wanted gin and tonic. Got it an’ all. Mind you, I reckon she was chancing her arm with Colin. I’ve seen birds come and go before, we all have, lots of them. Still, she soon learned.’

  ‘Learned what?’ Tipper was getting a little weary of this tedious recital, but let Conway go on, amazed that he had got him to talk at all. He knew the power of Masters: he didn’t take kindly to people telling tales behind his back.

  ‘Well, she was parading around in a bikini that must have cost about two sous a square inch; nothing to it, there wasn’t: three little bits of cloth and a lot of string. The rest of us was

  a bit pissy by then, and my bird, Sharon, was starting to have a go at her. She was topless see, Sharon was. Then she takes the bottom half off an’ all, still flashing herself at Colin, but now there was a bit of needle like, with this other bird coming in the frame.’ He laughed. ‘She chucked the bottom half at Colin, like she was a stripper.’ He paused thoughtfully. ‘S’matter of fact, I think she was. Anyway, like I said, Shar was having a go at this Liz bird, telling her to get hers off an’ all. Well she wasn’t having none of that.’

  ‘Was this just your bird having a go, or were you at it, too?’ asked Tipper. He wasn’t really interested, but didn’t want Conway to think he was wasting his time in case he stopped talking.

  ‘You’d better believe it, Mr Tipper. I mean, blokes don’t take the piss out of another bloke’s bird, not if he’s a mate, and specially if it’s Colin’s bird. No, it was just Shar. Well, Colin never took to that, like, and he shouts across to Liz and tells her to get her bikini off, same as Shar.’

  ‘And did she?’

  Conway laughed. ‘She gets all arsy about that and sticks her hands on her hips and says something about not being one of his tarts and not being a stripper neither.’

  ‘I should think he enjoyed that,’ said Tipper mildly.

  ‘Yeah! Well, it all went sort of quiet. Colin puts his glass down, and lays his lardi in the ashtray. Then he gets up off his sun-lounger, dead slow like, and walks across to where she was standing. Oh, he says, you can do a strip on the telly, but you can’t do it here, is that it, like.’

  ‘What was that about?’

  ‘Well, it seems she done a nude scene on telly, years ago when she was an actress. I didn’t know what he was talking about. I never knew she’d been on no telly.’

  ‘Yeah, all right,’ said Tipper impatiently. ‘Then what?’ ‘Well, this Liz bird says something about it having been part of the play, or part of the plot, or something. It’s what all them acting birds say, ain’t it? Anyway, my Shar has a giggle at that, but Colin gives her a bit of a hard look and she shut up. Anyhow, to cut a long story short’ — Tipper

  looked up at the ceiling — ‘he says, well it’s part of the play here, he says. Then he puts one hand down her bra and the other down her briefs and just rips’em off. Like I said, there wasn’t hardly nothing to’em anyway. Then he slaps her face, real hard, and chucks her in the pool. There, you high and mighty cow, he says, now you’re the same as her. Then he goes and sits down again, smiling, and smoking his lardi.’ ‘And was that it? What did she do, walk out?’

  ‘Couldn’t, could she? We was miies from anywhere, like I said. Colin had picked her up from the airport in his motor. If she’d wanted to piss off, she’d have had to walk,’bout twenty miles. No. She was stuck. I wasn’t going to give her no lift, not without the nod from Colin. Anyhow, she crawled out the pool, and walked across to where I was and took my glass of plonk off me. Then she walked across to where Colin was sitting, dead cool like, and chucked it all over him. Put his lardi out, that did,’ he added mournfully.

  Tipper laughed. ‘What did he do then?’

  ‘He grabs hold of her by the wrist, hard, and he tells her to go and wait for him in the bedroom.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, she stands there, just staring at him for a bit, then she turned round and went s
traight indoors. Colin sits around for another ten minutes, smiling and finishing his drink, then he goes indoors an’ all. Never saw’em again for about two hours.’ He looked wistful. ‘’Eard’em, though; noisy little cow, she was.’

  ‘And she stayed for a week, you said?’

  Conway put his head on one side for a moment or two. ‘Yeah, about that.’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘Nothing really. They got on all right after that. I mean, me and Shar knew Colin was giving her a seeing-to — no point in him bringing her otherwise — so she couldn’t be too toffee-nosed, could she? I mean, we was at it, an’ all.’

  ‘She must have been mad,’ said Tipper, as much to himself as to Conway. ‘You knew by then who she was, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Conway nodded. ‘We knew all right, but we wasn’t going to grass. Why should we? Colin’s right hard, and if Shar had let on, she’d have got striped, and a tom who’s had a face job’s out of business. Anyway, we thought it was insurance.’

  ‘Insurance, Waldo? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Yeah, well it don’t seem so funny now, but it was a big laugh at the time. Colin screwing the Home Secretary’s missus. I reckoned she’d square things up if any of us got in bother.’ He laughed cynically. ‘Some bleedin’ hope. If that’d been true, I wouldn’t be sitting here now, would I?’

  ‘What about the Press?’

  ‘What about’em?’

  ‘Surely they’d have got hold of it. Let’s face it, Waldo, there’s a lot of villains in Spain and the Press are always sniffing around.’

  Conway looked at Tipper as if despairing for his reason. ‘Mr Tipper,’ he said patiently, ‘they only write about the ones who’s finished, washed up, on the trot; got no muscle left, see. They don’t put nothing in the paper about the blokes who’s still at it. Too risky, see. Colin let them know. Anyone who wrote anything about him or any of his mates was down for a good smacking.’ He laughed. ‘I tell you what, Mr Tipper, they’d never have played the violin again. Nor a bleeding typewriter, and they knew it.’

  ‘Was that the only time she went to Spain?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I heard she went a few times, but it was the only time she was there when I was there. I don’t … ’ He paused. ‘No, I tell a lie … ’

  ‘How unusual,’ murmured Tipper.

  ‘No, I did see her there again, about four months later. That’s when she started wearing the chain. That was — ’ ‘What chain?’ Tipper’s voice did not change; there was no variation to indicate that Conway had mentioned something which suddenly interested him.

  ‘It was a gold chain that Colin give her, with a big medal thing on the end. She used to walk around with sod-all on except that bleeding chain round her waist, with the medal

  hanging down in front of her fanny. Called it her badge of office. Colin said, when she wore that, she was his. I reckon it must’ve cost a bomb; solid gold it was. Gold chain for a gold lady, that’s what Colin used to say. Pushover for a good-looking bird is Colin.’

  ‘Was marriage ever mentioned?’ Tipper asked.

  Conway scoffed. ‘What, Colin? No chance. Didn’t fancy getting tied up with no bird, not Colin. Screw anything that come along, but he never wanted to marry any of them. Mind you, he never told her that; never told none of them that. I reckon she thought she was there for good; started lording it a bit, so I heard; you know, being the boss’s bird: all that.’ He held fingers and thumb up, and opened and closed them like a duck’s beak. ‘She fancied that villa in Spain bit; go over there any time. And of course, Colin seemed to have more gelt than her old man. I don’t s’pose he had. If I know nobs like Lavery, he’ll have it all salted away in stocks and shares and all that crap. Colin’s used to be in bundles. Always seemed to have a roll of fifties as thick as your arm.’

  ‘What was the attraction? It wasn’t her sort of world.’

  ‘Colin was the pull. There’s a lot of society birds like her who like a bit of rough. And Colin’s rough. Let’s face it, Mr Tipper, he’s just a South London boy. I know he’s got all the gear, but that’s him, ain’t it? I suppose she liked living two lives. You know, the one in London with everyone bowing and scraping because of who her old man was, and then out in Spain with Colin, with no one giving a sod who she was. Colin treated her like any other tart. He’d slap her around an’ all. I’ve seen him give her a good belting across the arse, and he never give a toss who was there. He even had her in the pool once — with us watching.’ He laughed at the memory and then coughed, remembering who he was talking about and who he was talking to. ‘I asked her once why she stood it. She said she loved him, silly little cow.’ He paused to light another cigarette. ‘Mind you, I think Colin was getting a bit brassed off with her; think he was about ready to give her the elbow.’

  ‘Oh? What did she think about that?’

  ‘Dunno. Never see her again, after that last time.’

  ‘Did Colin ever see her in London?’

  Conway frowned. ‘Bloody hell, no. I know Colin’ll push his luck, but he said once that that’d really be chancing his arm. He ain’t daft, Mr Tipper. And I’ll tell you what — he wouldn’t have topped her, neither, if that’s what you’re thinking.’ ‘How can you be so sure? He’s a violent man. You said yourself that no one would cross him, and you say he wasn’t above giving Liz a hiding.’

  ‘That’s the way we are, Mr Tipper; you know that. We’ll do a blagging and if any bastard’s daft enough to put up a fight, he’ll get a smacking. I don’t know why they do it. It ain’t usually their money anyhow, and if it is, it’s insured, so why all the aggro?’ He shrugged, baffled by the unreasonable attitude of the average victim. ‘Why should he do her in? Don’t make no sense. He’d’ve just told her to piss off. What could she have done, sued him? No, he wouldn’t have topped her, Mr Tipper, not Colin. Where’s the profit in that?’

  Chapter Eight

  Jose Galeciras turned the Land Rover on to the earth road that joined Masters’ villa at Puente Alcazaba to the main highway. It was a warm day but an earlier light drizzle had dampened the dust and prevented it from rising; a dust that in the summer would cover them from head to foot, and would penetrate their olive-green uniforms and leave a film on their patent leather tricorn hats: the tricomio that distinguished the Guardia Civil. Galcciras spat over the side of the Land Rover and glanced briefly at his colleague. He shrugged and then swore as the vehicle hit a large stone. It made no sense to either of them. The telephone call from their '['enientc in Sevilla had told them to find out if Sehor Masters was at his villa. When they asked why, they were told to mind their own business, but to be discreet. Pah!

  They knew the villa, of course; had visited it before. They were usually given a beer if Masters was there and spotted them. He had told them that it was good that the police were looking after his property; he didn’t want bandidos stealing from him when he was not there. He was a nice man and such a statement tended to negate the rumours that they had heard in some quarters that Sehor Masters was a criminal himself. If this were so, thought Galeciras, then why would he be able to travel between Spain and England so often without being arrested. Galeciras had read about the British police and their famous Scotland Yard; they would not have let Masters go free if he wras a criminal. Maybe. He had also heard of British policemen coming to Spain to arrest people, but going back without them. Perhaps they weren’t so clever; and perhaps Sehor Masters was a criminal after all.

  He shrugged. But the Teniente in Sevilla need not have been so rude.

  Masters’ villa had been built on a hill, and he could see in all directions from it; and there were no near neighbours. Consequently he saw the approaching Guardia Civil Land Rover when it was still some way away. On this occasion he was staying at Puente Alcazaba on his own. There was a very good reason for that, but it was unlikely that the approaching pareja as they called them — the pair, because they always travelled in twos — were concerned about that. If th
e British police really were interested in him, Interpol would have been alerted, and he would have been visited by some nasty bastard from Seville, or even Madrid; not the local fuzz.

  He walked across the broad patio and leaned over the gate. ‘Buenas tardes,’ he said as the Land Rover came to a stop.

  The two policemen alighted and stamped their feet to straighten their trousers; then they tugged at the hems of their tunics. ‘Buenas tardes, Scnor Masters.’ Galeciras flicked at his tricorn with his gloves by way of a salute.

  4Muchas hot today, siV Masters’ joke-Spanish was his way of covering the apprehension that was second nature to him whenever he had dealings with the police, whatever their nationality. In his book, the approach of the police never meant anything but trouble. The only difference was that some foreign police forces were susceptible to occasional bribery, and you usually got value for money; the sodding British would take your money and nick you as well.

  Galeciras nodded. ‘Yes, it is.’ He was proud of his English. His wife had encouraged him to take English classes in Utrera, near where they lived, but there were few Englishmen on whom to practise in that part of Spain — even in summer — and a conversation with Scnor Masters was a rare chance to try out what he had learned.

  Masters pulled open the gate. ‘You’d better come in and have a beer.’

  For a moment the two policemen hesitated. It was not

  a question of the proprieties of having a drink while on duty: it was a case of whether they should leave the Land Rover where it was or drive it through the gateway. Galeciras shrugged once more, and reached into the vehicle, pulling out two machine-carbines. Then he and his colleague followed Masters.

  ‘Expecting trouble?’ Masters gave a tight laugh and pointed at the guns.

  Galeciras laughed too. ‘We don’t want anyone to steal them,’ he said.