Pretty Little Packages

by Andrew Crofts

  ‘I would like that.’ She smiled. She looked tired. ‘He is a bad man. I would like to be away from the hitting. I think he hates women. That’s why he hits us all the time. He likes the men, you know what I mean?’

  ‘He’s gay?’ Joe prompted her.

  ‘Sure. So many men. Every day. They have sex with him to pay their debts, but he still takes their money, if they have any. He screws girls too. He likes orientals. All day. Never closes the door, just does it wherever he feels like it. He hits who he likes and screws who he likes.’ She gave a sleepy little giggle. ‘One day he will die of a bad disease and many people will be very happy.’

  Her eyes were closing.

  ‘You sleep now. I’ll come back and see you again tomorrow.’

  ‘Okay American Joe,’ she said, without lifting her lids.

  Bending down he kissed the top of her head, feeling a strange sense of paternal protectiveness. She seemed as much of a lost child as Hugo did in his grand new school. Even through the hospital smells Joe could detect her personal fragrance. It reminded him of the East and he felt a pang of nostalgia for the exotic excitements of Hong Kong, Bangkok and Manila. He let himself out of the room. Doris didn’t open her eyes but a small smile twitched at the side of her lips.

  ‘His name is Rod Miller,’ Adele explained over the phone. ‘I’ve told him all about you and he’s keen to meet up. There’s a pub in Poland Street. Can you make it there for twelve o’clock?’

  Ex-detective Rod Miller was younger-looking than Joe had expected. He had imagined that someone who had been in the police force for twenty years would look like an old man, probably running to a paunch. Miller looked more like a soldier, fit and lean. His thinning hair was shaved short, only a little longer than the stubble on his chin. He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket which looked as if it had been on his back throughout his whole career.

  ‘I’m told you know Len Jones,’ Joe said once they were sitting over drinks in a corner of the room.

  ‘I’ve known Len for years.’ Rod smiled, as if thinking of a favourite wicked uncle. ‘I read your book. Load of bollocks, you realise that don’t you? Half the jobs he claims he was involved in he was nowhere near, and the ones we know for certain he did never got a mention.’

  ‘I guess he didn’t want to incriminate himself with anything that might lead to a prosecution.’

  ‘I bet he didn’t. You did a good job though, great read.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘That’s why I asked for you. I can give you a story that’ll make Len’s book look like Noddy in Toyland. I can tell the truth, you see, even if it means changing a few names here and there.’

  For two hours Rod talked about the vice business, naming names and detailing all their various preferences. Joe interjected the odd question, but there was hardly any need. The material simply flowed forth.

  As they reached a natural break in the conversation, Joe changed track. ‘What do you know about a couple called Mike and Maisie Martin?’ he asked.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ Rod’s face changed to stone, all animation gone. The friendliness had drained from his voice and Joe could imagine just how uncomfortable it would be to be a suspect undergoing questioning.

  ‘They’ve cropped up in the research for another book I’m writing. I just wondered if you knew anything about them.’

  Rod fell silent for a few seconds, as if choosing his words carefully. ‘If I could find a way to put Mike Martin away I would die a happy man,’ he said. ‘We were after him for years. We put away dozens of his henchmen one way or another, but we never got close to him. It was him who stitched me up and forced me to resign.’

  ‘Stitched you up?’

  Rod’s eyes seemed to bore into Joe’s head as he considered whether to confide in him. ‘I wouldn’t necessarily want this to go into the book.’

  ‘That would be up to you. It’s probably better that I know the truth, so that I can judge what to leave out, if you see what I mean.’

  Rod nodded his agreement. ‘There was this girl,’ he said eventually. ‘She was new on the scene, just down to London from up North somewhere. She was working in a club which Martin owned a piece of. We raided the club and she got pulled into the net. I could see she wasn’t any part of it. She had no idea what was going on. I gave her a break, a chance to get out while she still could. She was very grateful. Kept coming back to thank me, bringing me little presents, you know how it is. She seemed to have a bit of a crush.

  ‘Anyway, I weakened. The temptation was too strong. The next day a videotape of the whole thing landed on my boss’ desk. I’d been set up. Apparently she was a couple of years younger than she had told me. It ended my career, ended my marriage.

  ‘When I started asking questions the trail led back to the Martins. I got a bit silly about the whole thing. I got Martin on the phone, told him I was out of the force now and that I was going to come after him. Two days later the girl turned up dead near her home town. She’d been mutilated in a way that linked her murder to a serial killer who had been put away a few years before. Now there’s a lobby saying this proves the man in jail is innocent, that the real killer is still on the loose. But I know it was Mike Martin.’

  ‘He ordered the killing?’

  ‘He executed her. Either ordered it or did it himself. I can never prove it, but I know it’s true. He thinks nothing of killing people. It’s how he maintains his authority. Anyone who crosses him disappears. He doesn’t trust anyone.’

  ‘Not even Maisie?’

  ‘Specially not Maisie. She was a hooker in the Far East, running a chain of brothels. They went into business together in some way and he started screwing her. Or it may have been the other way round. For a while I think he must have fallen in love, or at least fallen in helpless lust. She took full advantage of his weak moment. She’s as hard as he is. She’s just as likely to slice him up if he messes her about as he is to do her.’

  ‘That must keep the relationship sparky.’ Thinking back to his meeting with Maisie, Joe had to admit that he could imagine her capable of anything.

  ‘Don’t even think of getting involved with them at any level,’ Rod said. ‘These are not old-fashioned crooks like Len, who restrict themselves to beating up others like themselves. The Martins are the big league, at least he is. He went into the City during the Thatcher era and made a fortune. I mean, big money. He also made a lot of friends in high places – politicians, you name it, in all the parties. He’s a major fundraiser for the government. It makes him almost invincible. He and Maisie will wipe out anyone they even suspect might threaten their position.’

  ‘But you were willing to let him know you were going to go after him?’ Joe pointed out.

  ‘It wasn’t necessarily the most brilliant thing I ever did,’ Rod admitted. ‘But I don’t have anything much left to lose now. And Martin knows that. He also knows I’d be as happy to take him out as he would be to take me. As long as I don’t put myself in any silly positions he won’t come after me, not at the moment. He knows I’m always armed. I’m banking on him thinking it would cause more trouble than it’s worth to try to rub me out. Hopefully he thinks I’m just another dumb cop. It always pays to be underestimated by your adversary.’

  Joe fell silent and thoughtful for a few moments. ‘You said earlier that you were still in touch with a lot of your old contacts on the force?’

  ‘All of them. There isn’t a policeman in the world who doesn’t know that but for the grace of God he might end up in the same place as me. Even my boss, when he was firing me, told me that.’

  ‘So,’ Joe was thinking aloud, ‘if I wanted to know whether a particular body had shown up somewhere, you’d be able to check it out in some way?’

  ‘I could ask around. If a body fitting that description turned up I could let you know.’

  ‘That’s what I need to know. There’s this Filipino girl, goes by the name of Doris, but I doubt that’s her real name, who was working for
a family in Eaton Square but she disappeared. I would be interested to know what’s happened to her.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll ask around. So what’ll happen about my book idea, then? You interested in helping me?’

  ‘Yeah, I think it could work. The problems would be legal. Who can you safely name without ending up in court? But we could at least get talking to publishers.’

  ‘Sounds all right. What happens first?’

  ‘I’ll prepare a synopsis for you to look at. Once you’re happy with it, I’ll give it to Adele and she can start trying it on publishers. What we want is to get one of them to come up with a decent advance, so that there’s some money in the bank while we actually write it. There might be a good newspaper serialisation deal in it as well.’

  ‘Okay,’ Rod extended his hand. ‘Let’s do it.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Len had booked a table at Langan’s, just off Piccadilly. ‘It reminds me of the good old days,’ he told Joe. ‘When we all had money to burn, and Langan was happy to supply the matches. Of course in the end the bloody idiot set light to himself.’ Len gave a wheezy laugh as he puffed on a thick cigar and surveyed the menu.

  Joe had initially been annoyed at the interruption of Len’s command to lunch, and then relieved at being able to forget, at least temporarily, the problems of setting up his computer in his bedroom. The problem was mainly space. He had had to construct an elaborate support system consisting of his bedside table, the coffee table and a cheap kitchen table from a nearby DIY shop, to simultaneously hold the machine, its keyboard and printer, as well as a few pages of notes and a coffee cup.

  The next big cheque that Adele sent, he vowed to himself as he wrestled with the instructions for assembling the kitchen table in the few square feet of remaining space on his bedroom floor, would go towards a laptop.

  The equipment had been at Fliss’ house and he had been forced to speak to Paolo in order to arrange to collect it first thing that morning, because Fliss had gone to the hairdressers. That had started his day off badly. Not that Paolo had been unpleasant, quite the contrary, he was the soul of affability. In fact, Joe got the distinct impression that the man was trying to recruit him as a pal. Perhaps Paolo was hoping to be able to share some tales of woe about the horrors of marriage to Fliss with someone who would understand completely what he was going through. Joe did not feel inclined to fulfil such a role.

  Joe had seen pictures of their wedding in Hello! magazine. He had tried to force himself not to open the pages but had been unable to resist. The sight of poor old Hugo, dressed up in a polo shirt, jodhpurs and shiny boots in some hideous pastiche of a page boy role, had made him want to scream. He hadn’t asked his son anything about the day and Hugo had remained resolutely silent on the subject. Joe liked to think that the boy was acting out of deference to his father’s feelings, but he suspected he had actually forgotten the whole thing already – simply wiped it from his memory.

  When Joe arrived at the house, Paolo had answered the door himself. He seemed to hover on the brink of putting his arm around Joe’s shoulders as he ushered him into the familiar hall, which had been Joe’s home for the ten years of his marriage to Fliss. Joe had declined offers of tea and coffee and made excuses about having to hurry because he had deadlines to meet. This was true, although they were self-imposed deadlines and could easily have been broken had he wanted to accept the man’s oily hospitality.

  As a result of having the coals of his temper stoked by Paolo, and the flames fanned by the practical difficulties of setting the whole thing up once he got back to the flat, Joe had been unable to get any work done at all, either on Rod Miller’s or on Doris’ synopses. It felt like a wasted morning and he had a feeling that he was now going to waste the afternoon as well, listening to Len telling him stories that should have been in the book but had unaccountably slipped his remarkably selective memory at the time they were writing it.

  ‘Adele says she’s had a sniff at the film rights,’ Joe said as he read his menu. ‘Not that that necessarily means an offer, but it’s a start.’

  ‘Michael Caine’s a friend of mine,’ Len said casually. ‘I’ll mention it to him.’

  ‘Michael Caine’s a friend of yours?’ Joe dropped the menu on the table. ‘Michael Caine’s a friend of yours?’ He had no idea whether to believe Len or not.

  ‘Yeah,’ Len looked surprised at Joe’s surprise. ‘Didn’t you know? We go back a long way, to when we were kids. Done a lot of charity work together. He half owns this place. We used to come here together for lunch sometimes.’

  ‘You never mentioned that.’

  ‘Well, you don’t want to go blabbing about your mates, do you?’

  ‘It is customary when you’re writing a book.’

  Len grinned. ‘Only kidding, mate. You did a great job with what I gave you. You didn’t need to be spoon-fed rubbish like “how I stole Michael Caine’s girlfriend”. You were coming up with a real story.’

  ‘You stole his girlfriend?’

  ‘Nah. Never even met the bloke. But if I had I could have set him up with a nice motor in exchange.’ Len let out a guffaw at his own wit and Joe shook his head sorrowfully, as he finally realised that his leg was being pulled and that Len was enjoying every minute of it.

  ‘If it had been true, a story like that could have added twenty grand to the price we got for serialisation,’ Joe said, trying to regain some credibility in the conversation.

  ‘Wouldn’t have let you put it in, even if it had been true. You can’t put a price on friendship, Joe-boy,’ Len said, sagely, keen to keep it going for as long as possible. Joe was very relieved when he did finally change the subject. ‘Now, what are you planning to eat.’

  Joe told the hovering waiter what he wanted and then waited until Len had finished ordering. ‘Talking of your past love life,’ he said, ‘Rita nearly killed me the other day.’

  ‘Rita?’ Len look startled. ‘You’re not doing a book for that stupid cow are you?’

  ‘She seems to be under the impression I have somehow coaxed Cordelia away from home. Did you know she had taken a room in my flat in Earls Court?’

  ‘Rita?’

  ‘No. Cordelia.’

  ‘I was gonna say,’ Len gave a guffaw of laughter. ‘The amount of maintenance I pay her she should be buying the whole block.’

  ‘Did you know Cordelia was renting a room in my flat?’ Joe persisted.

  ‘I knew she was renting a room. She needs an address in West London for a few bits of business. She told me she was doing it through a friend. I didn’t ask who it was. Take no notice of Rita, she’s always been overprotective of that girl. I told her, “You’ll sap her entrepreneurial spirit, you stupid cow. Encourage her to get out there and make a living.” She’d have her sitting around the house in a fluffy nightie, painting her nails and watching the shopping channels if she had her way. Stupid cow.’

  ‘What line of business is Cordelia in, then?’ Joe asked, trying to make the question sound casual.

  ‘Oh, she does the odd bits and pieces for me. But she’s a bright girl. It won’t be long before she’s running a business of her own. In fact, she probably already is.’ He laughed heartily again. ‘Children rip you off something chronic. You’ll find that out once young Henry gets his hands on your wallet.’

  ‘Hugo,’ Joe corrected him. He considered the idea of Hugo planning to rip him off and decided he would be quite pleased to see that much ingenuity in the boy. It would suggest a better chance of survival in the adult world than his current abilities of tripping over shoelaces and dropping food down his front.

  ‘Thanks for recommending Rod Miller to Adele. He’s got a good story.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Len chuckled as he tested the wine which the waiter had poured for him and nodded his approval. ‘It’s ninety per cent bollocks, of course, but that still makes him more honest than any other policeman I’ve ever met.’

  ‘He says more or less the same about you.’

&n
bsp; ‘Bastard,’ Len said, affectionately. ‘I’d be interested in having a chat with you after you’ve talked to him. There are a few questions I would be interested to know his answers to.’

  ‘I’ll have to respect his confidence once he’s a client,’ Joe protested.

  ‘Yeah, right. Anyway, if you get a sale remember who made the introduction, won’t you? Donations to the old pension fund are always welcome.’

  ‘I’ll buy you a return lunch here,’ Joe said, hoping he was establishing the fact that he expected Len to pay for today’s meal.

  ‘I trust you’ll feel you owe me a bit more than a good lunch,’ Len growled.

  ‘Let’s see if we sell it first,’ Joe said, not wanting to bring the meal to an acrimonious halt before he’d even had his starter.

  ‘Of course you will,’ Len laughed again, bursting the bubble of tension. ‘Greatest ghost-writer in the country, aren’t you? Even if you are a yank.’

  ‘So they say.’ Joe grinned, despite himself. Several fellow writers had teased him about the title after he had been introduced with it on a radio programme.

  ‘Like calling Charles “greatest heir to the throne”, isn’t it,’ one distinguished biographer had suggested at a subsequent dinner. ‘He’d still rather be the king.’

  ‘Greatest leader of the opposition,’ a poet tipped to be a future Laureate had added from across the table. ‘He’d still rather be Prime Minister.’

  Joe had smiled at them and wondered whether he had actually been born with an underdeveloped ambition gland. He’d been quite flattered by the title.

  ‘Rod came round for a drink after meeting you,’ Len said and Joe felt a rustle of unease in his stomach. Was he about to hear something unpleasant?

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘You impressed him. He said you were asking a few questions about Mike Martin.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Joe felt the tension release.

  ‘You don’t want to get mixed up with him,’ Len said.

  ‘Yeah, you told me the other day, at the barbecue.’

  ‘But I’m not sure you believed me, son. If you do get mixed up, don’t ever turn your back on him. Unless you’re sure he’s dead.’