Mistress Murder

by Bernard Knight

  MISTRESS MURDER

  A Sixties Mystery

  BERNARD KNIGHT

  A classic murder mystery.

  When a beautiful woman is found dead in a wrecked car, it’s assumed that she simply lost control and crashed while drunk – a sad but not unfamiliar story.

  Soon, though, a series of events makes the police re-examine the facts of the case. It transpires that the woman, a part-time model, was brutally murdered before her body was placed in the car. But why?

  The trail leads through the sleazy clubs and backstreets of 1960s Soho, complete with drug dealers, bookies, and gangsters…and a tale of murder and mayhem that has its roots in Germany, many years earlier…

  To Jean –

  my wife and most constant critic

  Author’s Note

  The Sixties Mysteries is a series of reissues of my early crime stories, the first of which was originally published in 1963. Looking back now, it is evident how criminal investigation has changed over the last half-century. Though basic police procedure is broadly the same, in these pages you will find no Crime Scene Managers or Crown Prosecution Service, no DNA, CSI, PACE, nor any of the other acronyms beloved of modern novels and television. These were the days when detectives still wore belted raincoats and trilby hats. There was no Health and Safety to plague us and the police smoked and drank tea alongside the post-mortem table!

  Modern juries are now more interested in the reports of the forensic laboratory than in the diligent labours of the humble detective, though it is still the latter that solves most serious crimes. This is not to by any means belittle the enormous advances made in forensic science in recent years, but to serve as a reminder that the old murder teams did a pretty good job based simply on experience and dogged investigation.

  Bernard Knight

  2015

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Sixties Mysteries

  Chapter One

  Paul Jacobs walked sedately up from the subway of Cardiff railway station and paused on platform one to consult his wristwatch.

  The waiting London-bound diesel had three minutes to go. He gave a little satisfied smirk at his impeccable timing then climbed aboard to claim his reserved seat in a First Class compartment.

  Jacobs put his expensive suitcase on the rack and fiddled with it until it sat exactly right. Then with a deliberation that made the passenger opposite want to scream with exasperation, he neatly folded his light overcoat, placed it immaculately on the case and finally, with the air of a master conjurer at the climax of his act, crowned the lot with his black homburg. He turned and nodded briefly at the other two businessmen who shared the compartment and sat down.

  The fellow opposite, the one who was growing the duodenal ulcer, swallowed his nerves and gave him the quick meaningless smile that un-introduced first class travellers use, then dived back into his Western Mail. Paul Jacobs shook out a pink Financial Times as the diesel rolled slowly out of the station, dead on eleven twenty-six.

  For an hour, the three gentlemen sat in a silence as holy as that of the British Museum. Then Jacobs got up and followed the steward’s advice about first lunch.

  He had a good meal in the restaurant car, enjoyed a brandy and a cigar then came back to his seat for the rest of the journey to Paddington.

  If either of his travelling companions had been asked on oath to say what they remembered about him, probably the only thing that would have stuck in their minds was the fact that the magazine that he took out after lunch was in German. Otherwise they would have had to describe him – to the despair of the police – as ‘of average height – medium build, brown hair – or was it rather fair? Oh yes, he wore glasses.’

  A woman might have done better, for she might have thought him as definitely fair with a high forehead and quite good-looking.

  This anonymity of appearance was part of Jacob’s professional stock-in-trade. It helped him to keep his income in the six-figure range. But none of this was ever to be put to his fellow travellers. He read his German magazine undisturbed until they reached Paddington. Then he took down his case, made farewell smiles at them and stepped onto the platform.

  Jacobs walked leisurely down the platform, across the crowded area at the top and back down to the toilets on platform one. There, in the cramped but complete privacy of a cubicle, he shed his carefully assumed role of a sedate provincial businessman. Paul Jacobs went into storage in the suitcase. His dark overcoat, briefcase and umbrella were stowed away. He took everything from the pockets of his grey suit – everything that his wife expected him to carry: diary, letters, wallet, keys – they all went into the suitcase. All he kept was some loose change and a wad of banknotes. The last things to go were his heavy-rimmed spectacles, the lenses of which were almost plain glass.

  He snapped the case shut with a satisfied click and walked back up the platform to the Left Luggage Office. There he exchanged the identity of Paul Jacobs for a pink ticket and called a taxi at the rank.

  For the next ten minutes, he was in a personal no-man’s-land as the taxi took him across London to Euston, but at the other station he reversed the process with a ticket carefully retrieved from the bottom of his breast pocket.

  He took the new case, a large and ostentatious lightweight, to the nearest gents’ and extracted from it the personality of Paul Golding. He put on a cream-coloured waterproof overcoat of an expensively rakish cut, fitted another wallet and diary into his pockets, and took out some more keys and a few papers. Finally, he put on an American-looking pork pie hat with a wide band and changed his shoes for grey suede with elastic sides.

  When he stepped out of the lavatory a few moments later, swinging the empty case, he was an utterly different man from the one who had arrived at Paddington half an hour earlier. Though he had no false beard or cheek pads, his golf and business acquaintances in Cardiff would have passed him in the street without a second glance.

  The second taxi took him to a block of flats in Newman Street, literally within a stone’s throw of the edge of Soho. As he stood paying off the driver, he could see the top end of Dean Street beyond the milling traffic in Oxford Street. Paul had picked this place with great care. As he went into the entrance hall, there was no curious porter to mark his comings and goings; the lift that whisked him up to the fourth floor had no gossiping attendant, only a row of buttons.

  He reached his flat and let himself in with a key from the Euston suitcase.

  ‘Paul? Paul, is that you, darling?’

  A woman’s voice came from the room on the left of the tiny hallway. As he pushed the door open, she ran towards him across the carpet, barefoot, her arms wide open. Now she was in his arms, her hands on his neck and her lips burrowing into his. Paul felt the warmth flowing through him as she strained against his chest. Her mouth moved excitingly and sensually on his, but, as he gave himself up to enjoyment, a part of his mind stayed detached. It was comparing her kisses with those of his wife, now probably playing bridge with her friends in a Cardiff suburb. He decided that if Barbara practised for twenty years she could never kiss like Rita. Eventually his mistress pulled away and leant back, holding on to his hands, looking like a sleek cat after some long overdue cream.

  ‘Paul, you’re three days later this time – over a fortnight.�
��

  She pouted delightfully, her lips quivering, ready for more.

  ‘Miss me, sweet?’

  ‘Of course – I always do.’

  ‘I expect you found something to do, beautiful.’

  ‘What is there to do?’ Her voice had a foreign huskiness.

  ‘Come and sit down, we can’t stand up all the time.’

  A little warning bell rang in his mind. His exquisite sense of self-preservation hovered over her words. Had there been a little hesitation there – was she covering up?

  ‘What have you been doing, anyway?’ he asked as they moved to the settee.

  ‘Same damn things,’ she pouted. ‘Hairdressers, a couple of shows … what else is there to do when you stay away so long?’

  Nothing there, he thought. His early warning system stopped buzzing, but stayed watchful. Rita pulled him to her on the settee, the focal point of the small but beautifully furnished lounge. She tossed back her hair carelessly and slid her arms around his neck. He pressed his face against her hair, which was as genuinely black as her fiery Italian blood.

  ‘Kiss me again, Paul … two whole weeks, you swine!’

  As he obliged, he wondered whether she was overdoing this ‘happy return’ routine. With the print of her lips fresh on his, he rebelled at the need to be suspicious, but his cautious mind told him to get to his secret box in the bedroom as soon as he could. They kissed again, the woman’s enthusiasm lulling his doubts. When they drew apart, he sank back against the cushions and looked her over. His brows came together in a frown.

  ‘Why d’you wear those damn trousers, sweet … you know I can’t stand them?’

  She looked down at her long legs sheathed in skin-tight jeans.

  ‘Sorry – but I didn’t know you were going to come today, did I?’

  She looked at him with her dark spaniel eyes and he laughed.

  ‘OK, I’m not going to leather you this time – come here.’

  They went into another passionate clinch. After a decent interval, Rita broke away and jumped up.

  ‘I must be getting old – I can’t hold my breath that long!’

  She laughed gaily and stretched luxuriously in front of him. Was she breaking it off sooner than usual? He cursed his suspicious mind and reached forwards to grip her round the waist.

  ‘What about changing out of these abominations?’ He pinched her through her tights.

  ‘Aoww … swine!’ She bent down and bit him hard on the ear. Before he could retaliate, she had skipped away to the door of the bedroom.

  ‘I’ve got to have my hair done at four, so I’ll have to change anyway.’

  She vanished and Paul sat brooding for a few seconds. She’s going out – good! A chance to have a look in the box. He got up quickly.

  ‘I’ll come and help you change.’

  Moving fast he reached the bedroom door before she could slam it and lean against the other side.

  He grinned, pushed it open with his shoulder and chased her round the big bed. She ran squealing with delight, barefoot over the coverlet, but let herself be caught without much trouble. He brought her down with a thump on to the bed.

  ‘I’ve told you before not to wear these when I come home.’

  His hands were busy at the waistband of her jeans and she was kissing him again.

  ‘Hairdresser’s by four, darling!’ she whispered practically.

  Paul listened at the door until he heard the whine of the lift taking her down.

  ‘She should be gone a good hour and a half,’ he muttered as he took a beer from the refrigerator. He spent ten minutes over it to make sure she didn’t come back for some reason, then got down to business.

  He went to a drawer and took out a screwdriver. Going into the bedroom, he knelt in front of a built-in wardrobe and pulled the doors open. Parting a row of expensive dresses, he cleared the floor of shoes and hatboxes to expose the boards. Taking out six screws, Paul lifted the floor out entirely and laid it on the carpet. The cavity beneath was lined with a thick layer of sound-proofing sponge. In the centre was a tape recorder with unusually large spools. Fine wires led from it to the back of the nearby skirting board, where the junction box of the bedside telephone was fixed.

  Paul looked at the amount of tape that had passed on to the take-up spool. He frowned and the cold part of his brain said, ‘I told you so!’

  On previous occasions when he had come to his ‘bugging’ apparatus, there had been hardly any tape used at all. This time, well over half of the big spool had passed over and as he pressed the rewind button, he felt already resigned to the inevitable. This had to happen sooner or later, he thought regretfully.

  Paul Jacobs picked up a little earpiece and thrust it in place. With a sigh, he pressed the playback button.

  That evening, he took Rita to the Nineties Club, in Gerrard Street, on the side of Soho furthest from their flat.

  In spite of the revelation of the tape recorder, Paul’s manner towards his mistress was the same – a mixture of affection and domination. In turn, Rita showed her usual vivacity and coquettishness. She had no idea that he had heard every word of her telephone conversations for the past fortnight.

  He helped her out of a taxi in front of the Nineties at about nine thirty. They walked to the door, sandwiched between a brash amusement arcade and a smart Chinese restaurant.

  ‘Evening, Mr Golding.’

  The doorman, his physique suggesting his real function of bouncer, saluted them smartly. They passed through the narrow doorway under the neon Can-Can sign that flickered over the entrance.

  The uninspiring exterior of the place gave way to an imaginative and expensive decor. The club proper was in the basement and they walked down a heavily-carpeted stairway to reach it. The walls were hung with Victorian draperies with many heavily ornamented mirrors. There were framed theatre posters from the last years of the old century, to set the atmosphere that gave the club its name. Even the chucker-out doorman wore a top hat and side whiskers to mimic the ‘good old days’

  At the bottom of the stairs was a small cloakroom with an attractive girl to take Paul’s coat and Rita’s mink cape. Paul wore a dinner jacket and Rita a slinky cocktail dress. She looked very different from the sweater and jeans of the afternoon, but even more alluring.

  Jacobs looked at her back with regret as he followed her through the padded swing-doors into the club itself. This was a long room which extended the whole length of the building above. At the further end was a small stage for the band and cabaret, and along the left-hand wall was a long and ornate bar. Paul shepherded his mistress towards it and found a couple of high stools still vacant.

  The barman hurried up, his leathery face crinkled in smiles.

  ‘Mr Golding … Miss Ronalde … nice to see you!’

  He sounded as if he really meant it.

  ‘The usual, Snigger,’ replied Golding. ‘Brandy ginger for Rita, gin and French for me.’

  The barman bustled off to get the drinks. He had two barmaids and a waiter to assist him, but he dealt with this order himself. He was a little man, who looked like an ex-jockey, mainly because he was an ex-jockey – ex because he had been caught doping his competitor’s steeds a few years before.

  He came back with the drinks and waved away Paul’s offer to pay.

  ‘First one’s on me, as usual, Mr Golding.’

  ‘Everything all right, Snigger?’ asked Paul.

  There was more in the casual remark than anyone other than themselves realised.

  Snigger winked and gave a thumbs-up sign.

  ‘Fine … same with you?’

  Golding nodded shortly, but the barman recognised the lack of conviction. A barmaid came up to him with some query and he moved away down the bar.

  Rita was looking around the room, which was almost full to capacity – a typical Saturday night crowd. She tried to make her inspection look like idle curiosity, but Paul knew that she was hoping to catch a glimpse of someone special –
the other voice on the tape.

  ‘Ready for another?’

  His voice jerked her attention back to the bar and she gave him a bright, but mechanical, smile.

  ‘Mmm, please, same again.’

  She finished her drink quickly, gave him another dazzling smile and slid her arm through his.

  He smiled back, patted her arm and said, ‘Bitch,’ to himself. She prattled on about nothing in particular, making the sweet talk that he had enjoyed, along with her Latin-style lovemaking, for the past eighteen months – since he had picked her up in this very bar, in fact.

  But, more sensitive than ever tonight, he noticed that, even as she talked, her eyes kept straying to the big mirrors behind the bar, searching the reflection of the people in the crowded room.

  The bar and the rest of the club repeated the late Victorian motif of the entrance. The barman wore the striped shirt, collar, cravat, and armbands of the period, and even had a pair of false side-whiskers and moustache. His attractive barmaids were dressed in bustled full-skirted dresses with alarmingly low necklines. The draperies and bar fitments were all authentic and the huge ornamented mirrors which Rita found so interesting were from a demolished London pub of the eighteen-eighties.

  Snigger was still busy down the bar and his assistant, an adenoidal man dressed in a similar outfit, fixed their second drinks. After a few minutes, Paul casually excused himself and strolled in the direction of the toilets, which played such a big part in his double life. As he passed the lower end of the bar, he gave Snigger an almost imperceptible jerk of the head. The barman responded by raising his eyebrows a sixteenth of an inch and after a moment or two, followed him out.

  They met in the washroom and waited until another man left. Then they stood washing their hands unnecessarily at adjacent basins while they talked.

  ‘How’s tricks?’ asked the ex-jockey.

  ‘Bloody awful – but don’t worry, it’s nothing to do with – the racket.’

  Snigger allowed his George Robey eyebrows another excursion up his forehead, but said nothing. He knew better than to push his curiosity with Paul Golding.