by Ray Connolly
‘At the end of five years presumably you just shake hands and that’s the end of it. I honestly never thought about it when I joined. It seemed so far away. Marriage was something else. One girl I was told about… Barbara told me… wanted to marry one of the clients. He was Iranian and incredibly rich. This was before the revolution. Apparently he went to Sarah and bought her out of the system, together with all the pictures and negatives that Sarah had on her. I know it sounds incredible but it’s true. People can be bought and sold even in London.’
Charlie nodded. He could believe that. He had heard stories about one very famous, handsome French film star who had bought his wife’s freedom from the Marseilles Mafia.
‘But how can you be sure that that will be the end of it?’ he insisted. ‘How can you be sure that Sarah, or someone working for her, won’t bring up all the evidence in a few years’ time … perhaps when you’re happily married to some Mormon millionaire? And how can she be sure that you won’t do what Barbara wanted, and join another firm?’
‘Well, she’s sure now, isn’t she?’ said Kate bleakly.
Charlie didn’t answer.
Kate went on: ‘We knew the risks of the game when we got into it. Nobody ever pretends that prostitutes have the support of the law. They don’t. When a hooker gets murdered it gets a couple of lines in the papers, unless it happens to be a particularly juicy story. When someone kills a housewife it’s headlines. I think they call it an occupational hazard.’
‘But Barbara got headlines,’ pointed out Charlie.
Kate conceded the point: ‘Yes. For a day. And that, I think, was more for the nature of her death than for her death. A nude housewife hanging would have been even better for them, wouldn’t it?’
‘So what are you saying?’
‘I don’t know,’ Kate shook her head. ‘It’s just that when criminals fall out the police don’t really want to know. They’ll try and sort this thing out for a few days or so, but if the results don’t come to hand straight away, then it’ll be pushed aside for something more worthwhile. You see people like Barbara and me … well, we’re not important. We’re the most expendable women in society. Nobody will cry for Barbara. Only me. And I don’t count.’
It was now after three. At last Kate was beginning to look as though sleep were possible. Quietly Charlie stood up and moving to her he put his arms on her shoulders. She was still wearing his towelling gown. It had fallen open slightly at the neck. He pulled it closed again.
‘Come on,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ll sleep now, I think,’
Helping her to her feet he led her silently from the living-room into his bedroom, where, pulling back the sheets, he helped her into bed. She lay back, and looked at him.
‘Good night. Sleep well,’ he said, and for the first time since they had been together again he saw a flicker of a smile cross her features. Carefully he pulled the sheets around her neck.
‘If you want me … I’ll be right out here,’ he said, gesturing towards the living-room. ‘All you’ve got to do is whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you?’ And knowing a good exit line he walked softly out of the bedroom to go and tidy away the dinner dishes and set up a makeshift bed on the living-room settee.
Chapter Twenty-Three
In retrospect everyone agreed that Charlie might have given Marty some kind of advance warning. The fact that it didn’t occur to him until it was too late was unfortunate, particularly for Marty.
For once Marty was late getting to the office on that Wednesday morning, the reason being that he had spent most of the previous night in a pub with a man from EMI Records who drank nearly half a bottle of Scotch before promising to look in at Charlie at the Mystery Train. Arriving home after midnight considerably the worse for drink Marty had then been assailed by his wife with the news that his sixteen-year-old daughter Rachel had telephoned earlier to say that she would be spending the night at her boy-friend’s place, and had then promptly hung up on her distraught mother. At times like that mothers need strong comforting husbands around, he had been told: and girls needed firm, no-nonsense fathers. But what had they got? A drunk!
Now it was true Marty had been drunk: but he was not a drunk. All the same he had hardly been in a position to argue about his failures as a parent and husband, particularly since only thirty minutes earlier he had confided in the man from EMI that what he really needed these days was a bit of young stuff, some nice firm flesh to get hold of, not jail bait, but not much older.
At the same time, since Marty did not know who Rachel’s boy-friend was, let alone where he lived, he did not see that there was a great deal that could be done. So withdrawing in the face of the matriarchal onslaught he had crept into the spare bedroom, where he had quickly forgotten about his daughter’s virtue, knowing for a fact that she had forgotten about it a good two years earlier.
The morning however, had brought with it a hangover of moral and parental outrage, and when Rachel had casually popped in to change her clothes for school, Marty had been there on the steps to harangue her with a lecture of spine-snapping moral turpitude. It was doubtful whether Rachel had listened to a word he had said, but it had made him feel better, even if it had meant that he was thirty minutes late getting to the office.
‘Mr Finch?’ A voice, quiet and blunt, hit Marty from behind as he put down his bottle of milk and took out his keys to open the doors of his office. Was it the man from RCA he had been pursuing all week?
Marty turned around. Standing behind him on the stairs to the next floor were three men, broad as buses and as smart as Cecil Gee could make them. They certainly didn’t look like representatives of a record company.
‘Yes?’ Marty had never been a man to judge others by appearances, but something about these fellows immediately gave him cause to reassess the wisdom of that virtue.
‘We’ve been waiting for you, Mr Finch,’ said the fair-haired man who had originally addressed him. The other two just stared. ‘You’re late this morning, and you’ve got a very difficult lock.’
Marty smiled. The blighter bleaches his hair, he thought, and he wanted to laugh. He didn’t: the whole situation had a distinct air of menace about it. He didn’t know who these smart boys were, but for once in his life he really didn’t feel like inviting anyone to step inside his office. He struggled to get the large key into the lock: ‘Business is usually quiet in August,’ he said as a sort of aside, an excuse if they wanted one. They didn’t look like the sort of chaps that it was wise to be rude to. The key turned in the heavy-duty lock. He looked back at the three men. They were standing in a semi-circle right behind him.
The fair man put one heavy hand out and leant on the door. It swung open. ‘Don’t let’s forget the milk, Mr Finch,’ he said. ‘We might want you to make us a nice cup of tea, mightn’t we?’
Marty looked between the plateaux of shoulders down the steep pass of the stairs. There was no escape there.
‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’ he said at last.
‘I hope so, Mr Finch,’ came the reply. And with that he felt himself being propelled with some force into his own office.
Over in Lansdowne Road Charlie had fared badly on his settee, only finally falling into a deep sleep towards dawn, from which he had suddenly started at the uncustomarily late hour of nine-thirty. For a moment he had been disorientated by his surroundings, but then the events of the previous day had flooded back in a medley of pleasures and fears.
Pulling on his dressing-gown he turned on the radio and searched for the nine-thirty news. He was just in time to catch the last couple of items: ‘The building societies are expected to raise their mortgage rates by one per cent following last week’s rise in the Minimum Lending Rate,’ read the announcer. ‘A spokesman for the Homeowners National Association described the impending rise as “scandalous” and a “national disgrace”.’ Charlie shook his head. The announcer was not deterred. ‘Police last night ruled out the possibility of foul play in the death of Ger
man-born model Barbara Bachman. Miss Bachman was found hanged in her London home yesterday morning. The time is nine thirty-two.’
Charlie turned off the radio. ‘No foul play,’ he repeated to himself. The significance hit him in uncertain waves. Without pausing to knock he bounded into his bedroom.
Kate was already awake. She tried a smile as he entered, but it was only a try. He noticed that she was no longer wearing his bath-robe and was lying naked under the sheets. It had probably been too hot during the night. She sat up clutching the covers around her chest.
‘The police think it was suicide,’ he said. ‘It’s just been on the news.’
Kate reflected for a moment and then nodded: ‘That’s what was intended then. Daley and his boys are professionals. Anyway, it’s easier for everyone if it was suicide, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Charlie. ‘It can’t be so easy to fake a suicide.’
‘It can if that’s what you’re looking for,’ said Kate. ‘Look, forget about it, Charlie, it isn’t your problem.’
‘But it is my problem,’ insisted Charlie. He wanted it to be his problem. ‘If it’s bothering you, then it’s bothering me. Don’t you understand?’
Kate didn’t speak for some moments. ‘I understand the way I feel,’ she said at last, ‘and I know now that I shouldn’t have dragged you into all this. When I panicked I just ran to you. I was selfish. I’m sorry. I won’t be any more trouble to you.’
Charlie didn’t like the sound of that. Was she planning on leaving today? Where could she go? ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘I’m going home, Charlie, back to Canada. I’m getting out while I can. It’s the only way. I have my passport with me. Always carry it. I’ll go and leave everything and take a risk on losing them in the great Canadian wilderness. I can’t stay here. They’ll be looking for me and they’ll eventually get round to you. You won’t be safe as long as I’m here.’
‘But somebody has been murdered. You can’t just ignore that. You can’t let murderers get away with it.’
Kate shook her head: ‘You don’t understand, do you? That’s the risk you take. That’s the job.’
‘Like hell it’s the job,’ Charlie was almost shouting. How could she just turn away from the situation? She couldn’t ignore the murder of her best friend. But even as his moral righteousness was sniping to get out of him, another, more worrying thought, occurred. ‘And anyway, if you go to Canada … what about us? I mean … I want to get to know you again … not like in Sicily but properly this time …’
Kate shook her head: ‘For Christ’s sake, Charlie … It’s hopeless. You’re just a romantic. Don’t you see I’m not what you want? You don’t want a hooker … I saw you in that place yesterday. You were great. This is just the beginning for you, Charlie … you don’t want me around.’
‘How do you know who or what I want to be or what I want around me? All my adult life I’ve been playing music, and that’s how it’s always going to be, whether anything exciting happens or not. The music won’t change. But you can change. You don’t have to be a hooker if you don’t want to be … if you don’t like it any more. You can go to the police, tell them what you know …’
‘And never be safe again! They get people who talk too much, Don’t you understand that? They don’t always kill them. Girls like me get acid in their faces. Believe me it happens.’
Charlie turned away. ‘I don’t know what to say. I just know I want you … and all the rest is … boogie woogie,’ he said bleakly. There was a long silence between the two of them. Charlie stared at the carpet. The excitement of a few moments ago had turned to gloom. At last he said: ‘Well, I don’t suppose there’s much more to be said.’
Kate lay back and stared at him: ‘Just this, Charlie. I love you. When I came back from Sicily I tried to convince myself that you’d just been some infatuation. Well, maybe you were … but it’s taking a long time to go away. So, whatever you think about me, believe me when I tell you that I love you. I never told anyone that before.’
‘Never?’ Suddenly Charlie found himself blushing with embarrassment. For the moment the police had been forgotten.
Kate shook her head.
‘Well, then, there, now …’
For a few moments neither of them said anything. Charlie shifted from one foot to the other. He felt awkward. It was as though Kate had made a statement of fact rather than a romantic declaration.
‘Look,’ said Charlie at last, ‘I want to telephone Marty. I have to tell him how the session went. I don’t want him to think I’m not grateful for all his wheeler-dealering.’
Kate nodded: ‘I meant it, you know.’
‘Like I said,’ smiled Charlie. ‘I’m the luckiest man in the world.’ And still blushing he went through into the living-room and dialled Marty’s number. He wasn’t used to all this high passion before breakfast.
Holding the telephone he listened to the ringing tone. It was now after ten. Marty was certain to be in. Suddenly the ringing tone stopped short.
Charlie groaned to himself about the inadequacies of the London telephone system and dialled again. This time the line stayed dead.
He called the operator next to see if she could put him through.
‘I’m sorry,’ came the reply at last, ‘but that number is out of order. It will be reported to the engineers.’ And with that the switchboard girl rang off.
In Marty’s office one of the silent twosome had closed the door behind them and another had gone immediately to the window and pulled down the Venetian blind. Then the telephone had rung. The two look-outs had squinted questioningly at their leader. For one moment there had been indecision, before the situation was resolved as, with an immense pull the fair man whetted his subordinates’ appetite for mindless brutality by ripping the whole telephone system out of the junction on the wall.
‘Temporarily out of order,’ he said, and smirked so that Marty could admire his dental work. ‘You’d better report it to the engineers.’
‘What do you want?’ said Marty, perspiration now flooding his forehead, and dandruff falling in a continual blizzard around his shoulders as his worried fingers raked through his hair: ‘The safe’s over there, behind the picture. But there’s not much money in it.’ He pointed to a large blown-up picture of Linda Ronstadt wearing roller skates which dominated one wall. It was the first place any half-intelligent burglar would have thought of looking.
‘Oh, come on now. Do we look like safe robbers …? Dear, dear, dear. That isn’t very complimentary, is it boys? No. What we want is information.’
Marty looked at them with new hope. His hundred and fifty-eight pounds and ninety-five pence might be safe after all.
‘It’s about one of your clients. Name of Fairweather,’ the fair man went on.
‘Charlie?’ Marty couldn’t help but sound surprised. This was the second time in two days that someone had been anxious to find the hitherto most unwanted person on his books. perhaps they were record company talent scouts after all.
‘The very one,’ came the reply.
‘He’s very talented,’ said Marty. ‘Lovely writer. Going to be very big … well he already is very big, isn’t he?’ Marty didn’t know why but he suddenly felt a great need to try to joke the goon along. Whatever they wanted with Charlie couldn’t be healthy, for either of them.
‘Where does he live?’ The fair-haired man was leaning over the files.
‘Hard to say,’ said Marty foolishly, since both they and he knew that it was very easy to say.
‘Oh yes?’ The man had picked up a long silver paper knife, and was running his forefinger and thumb along the six inch blade, backwards and forwards over and over again.
‘I mean, you know Charlie, sometimes he’s on tour, other times on holiday … he gets around a bit, does Charlie.’
The fair man pulled open the filing cabinet, and began sorting through the names, using the paper knife as a probe. ‘F,’ he said, igno
ring Marty’s futile attempt at a detour. ‘F for Fairweather … Lansdowne Road.’
He plucked out an invoice with Charlie’s address on it and tucked it into his pocket. Marty wondered again whether there was any chance of calling for help. But it was pointless. The only other occupants of the building were the staff of a small new film company. They wouldn’t be in before noon at the earliest.
‘Mr Finch!’ The time of reckoning had clearly arrived. ‘You are a very foolish man. First you keep us waiting by being late, and we don’t like that; and then secondly you start playing ducks and drakes with us, as though we’re a bit loose around the brain department. I think you need teaching a lesson.’
‘Don’t hurt me,’ shouted Marty. But it was too late. Suddenly the silent two had pinioned and then taped his arms to the sides of his chair, while the fair man deliberately flicked the rapier paper knife up into his nostrils, first one and then the other. For a second Marty thought it was about to penetrate the back of his eyeballs as it gouged away, tearing apart the membranes of his nose. But his attacker knew when to stop. As blood poured from Marty’s nose all over his desk, blotting pad, suit and shirt, the knife was withdrawn.
‘Just one more thing, Mr Finch,’ said the talker: ‘Silence is golden. Remember? The Tremeloes, wasn’t it? If we ever have to come back we won’t be half so sweet-tempered.’
And picking up Marty’s heavy set of office keys, he put up a mocking hand to Marty, who was now slumped over his desk, his face covered in blood, his arms strapped to the back of his chair, and followed the two merry pranksters out into the corridor.
The door closed, and Marty heard the lock turn from the outside. He was a prisoner in his own office with a face full of blood, and he didn’t even know why.
For some reason Marty’s broken telephone kept nagging at Charlie. What if something was wrong? he thought to himself as he made some tea and toast in the kitchen. What if the BBC radio news was playing down something that was the lead story in the popular morning papers? He regretted now his decision to cancel a morning paper. The trouble with the BBC was that they took themselves too seriously to worry about the lurid deaths of models.