by James Green
Jimmy shrugged.
‘I got what I wanted.’
They began to walk.
‘Next time for Christ’s sake stick to the agreed fucking script.’
Jimmy shrugged again and they set off in silence heading for the station. Although Henderson-Kenwright’s offices were in the city centre they were located in a row of pleasant three-storey Edwardian buildings over the road from which was pretty park filled with trees and well-maintained lawns and flower beds. The station was only five minutes walk away through the trees and flowers but at the far end of the park the scenery changed abruptly. They left the park and took a pathway which led down steps into an underpass. Overhead was a busy ring-road and on the other side of this road you emerged into a mass of grey, slab-like, concrete and glass. This post-war redevelopment was a place of tall office buildings with small, unlovely retail outlets at street level. They bought their tickets in the station and found they had forty-five minutes to kill until the next train to Leamington came in, so Jimmy suggested a quick drink. He’d spotted a big old pub not far from the station which somehow had been missed by the planners. It was twenty-five to twelve but the Rocket pub was open. Inside it was empty of customers and the man behind the bar looked up from his paper and gave them a welcoming smile. Jimmy bought drinks, a pint and a lemonade and lime, and took them to the table where Rosa had sat down. Once he was seated Rosa raised her glass.
‘Cheers. Despite your injury-time efforts that all went very well. I think I made a bloody good job of slipping our marked card onto him. If anyone asks he’ll say it was his idea to choose Tate and Wiston.’
Jimmy put down his pint. It wasn’t bad. Pedigree, a Midland beer. Not Directors or London Pride, but drinkable, very drinkable.
‘It was a good idea and you did it well. Even I could almost believe in the award the way you pitched it. What will your editor say when Dredge finds there’s no such award never mind any splash in the business pages for the winner?’
‘If I get the story I promised him, the one about Mercer, he’ll say, “fuck off and if you’ve got a problem we’ll see you in court”. If I don’t get the story he’ll apologise humbly to Dredge and then tell me to fuck off and I’ll never work on a London paper again.’ But she didn’t seem worried about it either way. Was she really that cocky? ‘And while we’re busy handing out congratulations, well done you for making the connection. What made you think of Henderson Kenwright and the publisher?’
‘I did some looking when we got back from Leicester. Henderson’s business is in Coventry and it just so happens that Harry’s publisher is in Leamington Spa, a few miles away. It was too much like a coincidence so I checked what else they publish. It’s like Dredge says, all trade stuff, journals and business books. Why would a publisher like that take on an unknown crime-thriller writer? They have no marketing to plug it into because it doesn’t fit in with anything else they do. What sort of publisher does all trade stuff but takes on one solitary crime writer? Does it sound on the up and up to you?’
‘So you reckon someone persuaded this Tate and Wiston outfit to publish Harry’s stuff and that someone was Henderson.’
‘It was worth a close look. If we can confirm it then we’ve got all three of them hooked into each other.’
Rosa was impressed, this guy thought things through. But then, he’d been a copper, a detective and, by all accounts a good one, if bent. From what amounted to virtually nothing he had sorted out how Jarvis, Mercer and Henderson were linked.
‘What was all that stuff you asked before we left? About Henderson being retired and did he come back at all?’
‘I was told in Spain that Henderson leaves Santander about six times a year, he tells people he goes back to the UK to check on his business. Now we know he doesn’t, so where does he go?’
‘You should have been a reporter, there’s more money in it than police-work and it’s not so dangerous. Do you want me to introduce you to my editor?’
‘Do you think he’d give me a job?’
She laughed.
‘Get the whole of this story and he’ll give you mine.’
She took a drink. Jimmy looked at his watch. It was nearly time to be getting back to the station.
‘You’re a bit young to be a reporter on a London paper? How did you get so far so fast?’
‘I told you, Jimmy, I’m good and I’m in a hurry. Also I’m prepared to do whatever it takes.’
‘Sleeping with the enemy?’
‘It’s been known to happen. Like I said, you do what it takes, if you don’t there’s others who will. These days talent on its own isn’t enough.’ Jimmy gave her a look. She gave him one back. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t got you marked down for a bit of pelvis-pushing. You’re just someone who might get me a good story.’ Then the look changed and Jimmy knew that sort of look now. ‘But keep going the way you are and I might throw in a freebie at the end of things.’ She finished her drink, pushed the glass away and stood up. ‘Come on, let’s get going to see this Jardenebloke.’
Chapter Twenty-four
Copthorne Terrace had been built in the glory days of Leamington Spa when Regency society flocked to its healing waters to flirt, gossip and display. The terrace was a long row of what had once been classic Regency elegance, but now the facades were shabby, stained and peeling, a Regency dandy fallen on hard times. This was back-street Leamington, not much-photographed Landsdowne Crescent, nor the gleaming white of the well-maintained fronts that looked across the Parade at Jephson Gardens where visitors walked among trees and flowers on the banks of the gently flowing River Leam.
The houses of Copthorne Terrace were now bed-sits, small flats and low-rental office space. Number thirty-two, where Tate and Wiston occupied the first floor, looked bigger and better maintained than most; the white of the frontage had been repainted as recently as ten years ago, almost yesterday compared to the majority of its neighbours. Inside the offices of Tate and Wiston it was much the same as the fronts themselves, a standard of office organisation was obviously maintained, but not too high a standard. Shelves were stacked with piles of magazines, journals and pamphlets which had obviously been there for some time, forlornly waiting the attention which would never come.
Mr Jardene fitted well into his surroundings. He was a small man of indeterminate middle-age, anything from forty-five to sixty-five. His suit had been good when new but it was now far from new. His desk was the one really tidy thing Jimmy or Rosa had seen since they had entered the offices. He was a raft of order afloat on a sea of incipient chaos.
‘We are a very small publisher you understand.’ He waited a second for his visitors to recover from the shock of this bombshell. They recovered. ‘Ours is a rather specialist business, trade journals and magazines for the smaller business associations.’ He picked up a magazine and offered it to Rosa who took it. The Commercial Meat Haulier’s Gazette. It had a picture of a juggernaut on the front. Rosa gave it back. ‘But it is steady work and the few books we publish are very focussed so they do quite well, in a specialist market sort of way.’
Rosa got down to business. Commercial Meat Hauling, though fascinating in itself, would have to wait for another time.
‘I understand you publish the crime-fiction of Harry Mercer?’
A shadow passed over Mr Jardene’s face. He looked as if she had tactlessly mentioned some past infidelity committed by his wife, forgiven but not forgotten. He pursed his lips as if he was sucking a wasp.
‘It appears under the Tate and Wiston imprint. In that sense you could say we publish Mr Mercer.’
It hadn’t been the response they had been expecting but Rosa pushed on.
‘It’s a bit unusual for a publisher like yourselves to do something quite so different from your main work isn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No, not unusual. Unheard of in any respectable house.’
‘Could you explain?’
But Mr Jard
ene disliked the subject. He wasn’t in a cooperative frame of mind. That much was obvious.
‘I thought you had come to discuss our opinion of the service we get from our accountants, Henderson-Kenwright. Something about an award?’
Rosa moved ahead carefully. It would be easy to lose him and she didn’t want to lose him.
‘Yes, in a manner we have, but Mr Dredge was the one who told us you published Harry Mercer and it might make a good piece in the feature.’
‘The feature?’
‘We will do a feature on Henderson-Kenwright if they win the award.’
‘Well I don’t see that the books of Mr Mercer will be of any interest to anyone. They are certainly not best-sellers.’
‘Oh, we were told they were.’
‘Then I suggest you check your source.’
‘I see, how well do they sell?’
‘Hardly at all.’
Rosa was struggling, Jimmy could see that, but he had no way of helping. He was struggling himself.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’
‘They are badly-written rubbish. No, sorry, I’m afraid I’m letting my feelings get in the way of my judgement. They were badly written rubbish, the first two. The third was just about readable and the last one had some small merit. For anyone who likes lurid crime-fiction, that is.’
‘Could you explain, Mr Jardene? What you seem to be telling me is that you have published a series of books in a genre in which you have no interest or expertise, that the writing doesn’t merit their being published. They don’t sell yet you have published four.’
Mr Jardene decided to relent. Here were people who looked as if they would listen sympathetically to him.
‘The decision, I assure you, was not mine but, as I said, they appear under our imprint., but that is all. Design and production are carried out elsewhere as are sales, publicity, and marketing, if there is any publicity or marketing which I doubt. I have as little to do with the wretched things as possible.’
‘So if you don’t want them published by Tate and Wiston, who does? Is it vanity publishing, does Mercer pay to have them published?’
The idea of Harry paying for the vanity publishing of his books almost made Jimmy laugh out loud, but Rosa was doing well now so, with an effort, he remained outwardly comatose.
‘Indeed not. I would have resigned rather than stoop to vanity publishing. The very idea!’
‘OK, Mr Jardene. You told us your mystery tale, now can we get to the bit where you rip off your false nose and whiskers and reveal who committed this dastardly crime?’
It was a clever move and she got the reaction she wanted. Jardene gave a small smile.
‘It was Mr Henderson’s idea. He seemed very taken with it and when he explained it to me I could see that, as an idea you understand, it might work. A series of crime thrillers written by a reformed criminal using his first-hand experiences. With the right publisher and with a good editor it might have worked.’
‘Mr Henderson was the one who wanted them published?’
‘Yes.’
‘But why with Tate and Wiston? Like you said, it needed the right publisher and an editor who had experience in crime-fiction. That doesn’t sound like Tate and Wiston.’
‘It isn’t and wasn’t, but unfortunately we are the only publisher owned by Mr Henderson. So we got stuck with it.’
There was a pause. Mr Jardene nursed his sorrow while Jimmy and Rosa were thinking. Jimmy decided it was his turn to speak.
‘How long have you been with Tate and Wiston?’
‘Twenty-one years.’
‘And how long has Mr Henderson been the owner?’
‘A little more than seven years.’
‘Did Henderson-Kenwright get to do the firm’s accounts after Henderson bought the firm, or before?’
‘Before. Henderson-Kenwright were our accountants when I started with the firm. That was when old Mr Henderson ran the business.’
Jimmy did the calculations. Henderson had bought the business one year before Jarvis had been released from prison. While Jimmy was thinking, Rosa kept the questions going.
‘If the first book was badly written and didn’t sell why did Mr Henderson go on?’
‘He said he had given Mercer a three-book contract.’
‘OK, but why book four?’
‘I don’t know but, as I said, the quality of writing improved from book to book. From an abysmal start, admittedly, but book three was almost readable and book four, though trashy and desperately in need of a good editor, might have been commercial in the right hands.’
‘You obviously found the whole thing distasteful, so why read them? You seem to know them very well.’
‘They appear under our imprint. I wouldn’t dream of having our imprint on anything I hadn’t read myself.’
‘A matter of professional pride?’
‘Not at all. I am a publisher, my most valuable skill is the judgement of the quality of the material we accept for publication. I wouldn’t dream of taking someone else’s assessment of the quality of something I publish.’
‘Or appear to publish.’
‘Quite. I know the books are rubbish because I have read them myself.’
Jimmy cut in.
‘Are we finished here?’ They looked at him. ‘I think we’re finished here.’
Rosa decided she agreed. She stood up.
‘Thank you, Mr Jardene, you have been more than helpful.’
Jardene stood up.
‘And if Mr Dredge asks how things went?’
‘I’d have to say Henderson-Kenwright have fallen back in the betting, right back.’
Jardene smiled.
‘Yes, I rather think I would say that as well.’
‘Fine, then we’ll be on our way.’
‘Can I phone for a taxi?’
Jimmy answered.
‘No thanks, we’ll walk.’
‘As you wish.’
They all shook hands and Jimmy and Rosa left the offices, went down the stairs and out into the street where they headed in the direction of the centre of town, a couple of streets away. Jimmy suddenly stopped.
‘Hang on here.’
He turned and hurriedly walked back to number thirty-two. Rosa saw him go in. She waited and after a few minutes Jimmy reappeared and came back up to her.
‘What was that about?’
‘There was one more thing I wanted to ask Jardene.’
‘Obviously. What?’
‘I wanted to know who did the cleaning?’
They resumed walking.
‘You think that place gets cleaned?’
‘Not the inside, but the windows do, once a month. A local firm do it.’
They walked on in silence for a minute.
‘Are you going to share it with me?’
‘Acme Property Services.’
‘Not the bloody window cleaners. Why did you ask the question? Is whoever cleans the windows important?’
‘I don’t know, it might be. Come on let’s find somewhere to get a drink and I’ll explain.’
They went to the bar of a big, white-fronted Regency hotel on the main street opposite the public gardens. It was comparatively quiet and was big enough for them to get a table where they wouldn’t be overheard. The beer this time was Bass, as classic as the Regency interior of the hotel. Rosa had tea.
‘Henderson bought Tate and Wiston before Jarvis came out of prison. That means he’s been part of Harry’s game from the word go. Harry must have set it up in prison. He took my advice after all.’
‘Advice?’
‘Years ago I pulled Harry and some others for a security van job. I told Harry that he was getting too old for violence and he should learn a trade when he got sent down. As it happened the case never came to court, some sort of cock-up by the prosecution. But when Harry next went down he must have decided he wanted something quieter but still profitable. I think he decided to become a porn wholesaler but he
needed a legitimate front and a way to explain the money. When Jarvis turned up inside Harry found his front. Jarvis was educated, a teacher. Harry probably sounded him out to see if he would write the books so Harry could re-invent himself as a gangster turned writer. Jarvis knew his teaching career was over and he needed a source of income so he agreed. Harry provided him with genuine information and general background and Jarvis cobbled together the first book. Somehow they got Henderson on board.’
‘Any idea how?’
‘No, not yet, but he had to be on board because he bought Tate and Wiston. They needed a tame publisher for the books to get into print.’
‘Like Jardene said, they wouldn’t have seen the light of day with a genuine publisher.’
‘No, and Harry didn’t want them to. He just wanted them out there.’ Jimmy smiled to himself. ‘He was lucky Jarvis was such a bad writer. If he’d been a good one Harry might have got to be somebody important in the literary world and that kind of attention –’
‘Would put the lid on his real business plan.’
‘You can be a best-selling crime-writer, or a hard porn retailer, but not both, not at the same time anyway.’
‘I see what you mean. The books were bad and didn’t sell but that didn’t matter, it was even a plus because no one took any notice of them and Henderson hid away the income from the porn racket in the accounts at Tate and Wiston.’ Her mobile rang. ‘Yeah? Things are going fine, we’re making real progress. If he keeps going like he is then my guess is he’ll get all the way on the story.’ She smiled at Jimmy. ‘You should give him a job. We’ve made the connection between Jarvis, Mercer and Henderson and we know the books were just a front, done by a publisher Henderson owns. No, that’s as far as we’ve got but like I say, we’re getting there. What do you want me to do?’ She listened. ‘OK, I’ll pass it on.’ She put away the phone. ‘That was my editor, he was impressed. And he had a bit of news for you. The Spanish police want to talk to you.’
‘Official?’
‘No, there’s no official request as yet, no warrant or anything like that, but he’s got a tip that the UK police have been asked to locate you and, when found, hold you until the Spanish decide what they want to do. Apparently it’s all very low-key at the moment. Seems the Spanish can’t make up their mind how they want to play it. They want to talk to you but they don’t want to make it public.’