‘Lemme go, y’ lousy bitch!’ he squealed.
‘Now, now, none o’ that. Don’t show yourself up in front of your mates. I just want a talk. No harm to you. Walk downstairs nicely now, because if you trip and fall y’arm might come right off in me hand.’
At the bottom of the stairs was the room she had noted before, where special matches were screened, but there was nothing on today and the room was empty. She marched him in and sat him down behind a table, and sat herself on the other side as he rubbed his arm and looked sulky.
‘That bloody hurt,’ he complained. ‘Whadda you want, anyway?’
‘You’re Tommy Flynn’s mate,’ she said. ‘I just want t’ask you about Tommy.’ He seemed to find that consoling. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
She had though it would be Barry, because they had called him Baz, but it turned out to be Derren Basilides. He was a skinny creature in his early twenties, with a spotty, underdeveloped face and greasy no-coloured hair, and he was wearing what seemed to be the uniform of baggy khaki pants, trainers and a grubby top: a Staxx T-shirt with the annoying words DON’ NO NO BETTA printed under the name, which in his case was probably true as well as making it an antique.
‘When did you last see Tommy?’ she asked.
A look of low cunning crossed his face. ‘Get us a pint an’ I’ll tell ya.’
‘No, Derren, you tell me and then I’ll get yez a pint. Love a God, d’ya think I fell off the Christmas tree?’
‘Baz,’ he said sulkily. ‘Me name’s Baz.’
‘OK, Baz, here’s how it’ll be. I ask you questions, you answer them, you get a pint and no trouble from me. Got it?’ He nodded, resigned. He had caved in so easily, Connolly wondered whether he had a tough Greek mother who kept him in line. ‘So when did you last see Tommy?’
‘Las’ night. He was here. We played a bit o’ pool, then he went off.’
‘Off where?’
‘I dunno. He was meetin’ someone. A bird.’
‘What bird?’
‘I dunno. He didn’t say.’ To Connolly’s insistent look, he amplified. ‘He had this phone call. Then he says, “I gotta go, I’m meetin’ this bird.” And he like makes kind of yum-yum faces.’ He demonstrated, ludicrously, rubbing his stomach with one hand. ‘Showin’ off she was tasty. He’s always like that.’ he grumbled. ‘Yeah, we get it, Tom, you have a lot o’ sex. Don’t haveta rub it in.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Be about, I dunno, half eleven, quart’ to twelve. It was near on closing, anyway.’ He seemed to suffer a spurt of backbone and asserted himself. ‘What’s this about? What’s Tommy done?’
‘Tommy’s dead, Baz,’ Connolly said. ‘Someone killed him last night.’
Baz blenched; all his blemishes stood out against the sudden pallor. ‘Killed him?’ he bleated. ‘Who killed him? What – is he, like, dead?’
The boy was quick, you had to hand it to him. ‘Dead as a fish, Baz me boy, so now you see why it’s very important that you help me out here. This woman he was meetin’ – have y’any idea who it might be?’
‘No, he never said.’
‘Is he seeing anyone regularly?’
‘Nah, you know what the Flynn’s like – different bird every night.’
In his dreams, Connolly thought. Not on cocaine. ‘Did he say where he was meeting her?’
‘Nah, that’s all he said – gotta go, I’m meetin’ this bird. I’d tell you if I knew. Honest.’ He tried to give her a reassuring look, but it was smeared with alarm, and his knee was jiggling under the table. ‘He’s dead? Tommy’s dead?’
‘Yeah, they got him, all right,’ she said, hoping to spark a reaction.
‘What, the drugs people?’ he said, his eyes widening.
‘It’s possible,’ she said, concealing her satisfaction. ‘Tommy dealt drugs, didn’t he?’
‘Nah, not dealt. He’d get it for you, but he only like sold it to his mates and that. He didn’t go out like on the street or anything. And it was just a few wraps. I mean, if he was like dealing, he’d have been rich, right?’
‘But he would supply charlie if you asked him?’
‘Yeah, and E, and Viagra. Bit o’ speed sometimes. But that’s all.’
Viagra to counteract the effects of the cocaine, Connolly thought. So that’s how he kept the women happy. ‘And where did he get the stuff from?’ she asked.
Now he looked really alarmed. Beads of sweat appeared on his upper lip and his leg was doing a fandango. He stuffed a dirty and bitten fingernail into his mouth and tore at it. ‘I dunno! I swear I dunno!’
‘Don’t bite your nails, it’s a dirty owl habit,’ she said sternly. He dropped his hand as if he’d been slapped. ‘Sure, you must have asked him?’
‘No! Tommy never said and I never asked. I never wanted to get into all that. Them people – you don’t wanna get mixed up wiv ’em. I told him that. But he liked the money. And it was the only way he could pay for the stuff. He took a shed-load o’ charlie, Tommy did. He was mental.’
‘C’mon, Baz, you’ve known your man, how many years?’
‘Since school. We was at school together.’
‘Right, all those years, you’re his best friend –’ She was punting here, but he didn’t deny it – ‘and he’s never told you where he got the stuff? Not a hint?’
‘All I know is, he picked it up at the club.’
‘The Forty-Niners?’
‘Yeah. But I don’t know how, or who sold it him. I swear. He would never have told me. He was careful, Tommy. He’d’ve knew it was dangerous.’ He licked his lips. ‘How – how’d they do it?’
‘You don’t wanta know,’ she said, and he blenched a little more. ‘Come on, now, Baz, there must be something you can tell me, to help me catch ’em. Poor old Tommy!’ she urged, and when this did not do the trick, she added, ‘And what if they come after you next?’
He almost whinnied in fear. ‘They wouldn’t! I ain’t done nothing! I don’t know nothing!’
‘Well, they might just think, bein’ Tommy’s pal, he’d have told you a little bit. Drugs dealers shouldn’t have friends. Most of ’em don’t. But Tommy had you, didn’t he?’
‘The motor!’ he cried in desperation. ‘I saw the motor!’
‘What motor’s that?’
‘What he was picked up in. When he went, I was a bit pissed off, because he hadn’t said nothing about meetin’ no one. I thought we was gonna go back to his place and play some sounds and do some blow. But he gets this phone call and just buggers off. Typical Tommy. So I was standin’ by the window finishing me pint and I looks down and I see him come out and get into this motor across the road, and it drives off.’
‘Did you see who was in it?’
‘Nah.’
‘C’mon, Baz, the driver’s your side, you musta seen something. Was it a man or woman?’
‘I didn’t see, honest. They musta been leaning back or summink. But it musta been a woman, musnit?’
Not if the telephone call was just an excuse to get him out of there. But she didn’t say that. ‘What sort o’ car was it, then?’
‘Astra.’ He was pleased to have a detail pat. ‘Coupé I think.’
‘Colour?’
He frowned, thinking. ‘I dunno for sure. Maybe black. Dark colour, anyway.’
She smiled encouragingly. ‘Now, I don’t suppose you happened to see the reg number, did you, Baz me darlin’? Even a little bit of it would help.’
He shook his head miserably. ‘I never looked. Tommy just got in and it went off, fast. It just beat the lights on to Talgarth Road.’
‘Left or right?’
‘Right. Towards Earl’s Court.’ He thought a bit, and then added, hopefully, ‘It looked like a new car.’ He looked at her as she frowned in thought. ‘Do I get that pint now?’
‘Sure you do. Just a couple more questions and I’ll get it for you. Are y’ll right?’ she asked, noticing that he was very pale and sweaty.
Connolly scowled at him. ‘If you throw up on me, y’can kiss that pint goodbye, ya ganky eejit.’
He gave her a look full of woe. ‘Not sure I want it now,’ he said, and it was the saddest thing she’d heard that day.
She was back at Palliser Road before Slider left, and told him what she had learned. ‘Oh, and the knife was Tommy’s, boss,’ she added. ‘It seems he kept it just under his bed in case of trouble from punters or suppliers. Bought it years ago from a geezer in a pub. Liked to boast about it and flash it about to visitors, so it’s likely whoever he took home last night knew about it or got shown it.’
Baz had also told her that Tommy’s father had died in an industrial accident when he was six, and his mother, his next of kin, had quickly taken up with other men. After giving Tommy a succession of ‘uncles’, she had remarried when he was sixteen and moved to Oldham where she was now living with his two little half sisters. Tommy had been living on his own since then. Baz, with two still-married parents on the scene, seemed to have been the only stable influence in his life – Tommy had spent as much time round his house when they were boys as in his own, and when his mother and stepfather departed he had colonized the Basilides’ sofa until he got on his feet enough to find a rented room. But despite their different backgrounds, Baz had always accepted Tommy’s own assessment of himself, that he was Captain Cool and a love god, livin’ it large on the fast track, while boring Baz was lucky to be allowed to be his humble lieutenant.
‘And now he’s dead,’ Slider said to Atherton when he got back.
‘Gone out in a blaze of glory,’ Atherton said. ‘Some might say he would have wanted it that way. But listen, why did the murderer use his own knife? If the murder was intentional, and part of our series, surely they must have taken their own with them. A Stanley knife and a small cut would have been easier, assuming Tommy had taken enough of something to slow him down.’
‘Could it have been a last-minute attempt to make it look like a suicide?’ Slider mused. ‘Using his own knife.’
‘But I’ve never heard of a suicide managing to cut his own head off,’ Atherton mentioned.
‘No, obviously not, but perhaps the murderer mistook his own strength or the force needed.’
‘Or was overtaken by rage and exasperation and went too far,’ Atherton offered. ‘From what I’ve read in Connolly’s reports, Tommy Flynn was an annoying kind of bloke.’
‘It’s got to be connected, hasn’t it?’ Slider said.
‘And hasn’t it got to be the drugs?’ Atherton added. ‘Corley’s killed, then Flynn’s killed when we ask him questions about it. Flynn presumably was in a position to reveal something about the process by which he was supplied with drugs. And Corley was hanging around all the same people.’
‘As was Guthrie.’
‘And we know he was dealing drugs. And visiting the same clubs.’
‘But Corley wasn’t dealing,’ Slider said. ‘Or using.’ There was a silence, then Slider said, ‘I’ll tell you one thing – it looks as if they’re getting panicky. We didn’t really have much of a connection between Guthrie and Corley – just that dust-up they had outside the club. But killing Tommy Flynn is trying to stop a leak before it happens. And it was clumsily done. If he’d simply disappeared, we might never have heard about it. And if he’d overdosed, we could never have proved anything. Now they’ve just drawn attention to themselves.’
Atherton gave a small smile. ‘If only we knew who themselves were.’
Slider sighed, staring out of the window at the mute, grey day – summer grey, warm and windless. ‘Well, we’ve got the car details, such as they are. No reg number, but a make, at least, to give to McLaren to narrow it down.’
‘That’s not much to be grateful for.’
If Porson had had hair to rumple, he’d have rumpled it. In the days when he wore a wig, he had been known to push it noticeably askew in moments of agitation; now all he could do was make unquiet passes of his hand over his bumpy baldness. He was a phrenologist’s dream.
‘Bloody Nora, what next? It doesn’t look good when people get topped for talking to us. Mr Wetherspoon’s not happy, not happy at all.’
‘I don’t like it either, sir,’ Slider said.
Porson paused and met his eye. They both knew that Wetherspoon, the borough commander and their boss, didn’t like Slider for historical reasons and would use any excuse to disapprove of him. And he didn’t like Porson because Porson stood up for Slider. And he didn’t much like anybody because he had been passed over for promotion and was always looking for someone to blame. So Mr Wetherspoon’s condition of unhappiness was chronic rather than acute, and did not necessarily signify you were doing anything wrong. On the other hand, like the weather, it still affected you.
‘I know, laddie, I know,’ Porson said in a gentler tone. ‘But we need to put something together, something that makes it look as if we know where we’re going.’
‘If I had anything, I’d give it to you, sir,’ Slider said in frustration.
‘If we had the sniff of a reason,’ Porson urged with a certain pathos. ‘Never mind who, if we knew why.’
Slider tried for him. ‘I don’t think it was personal, or financial. I think he trod on someone’s toes. A motif that keeps coming up is that he asked a lot of questions.’
‘I asked for a motive, not a motif,’ Porson snapped in frustration.
‘It was you who suggested it sounded like undercover work, sir,’ Slider said. ‘All the false names and disguises – what if he was investigating something, and the people he was investigating have finally found out?’
‘If that was it, he must have written something down somewhere.’
‘He had a laptop when he moved in to Conningham Road, which wasn’t there when we went in. It must have been taken away along with everything else. Presumably that’s where he kept his notes – if he didn’t just carry everything in his head, which would have been safer.’
‘Safer until you get your head cut off – then where are you?’ Porson demanded unanswerably. ‘I’m betting he put his jottings on that laptop. And if he did, he must have backed it up somewhere, in case of a crash.’
‘Most likely the memory stick, or whatever it was, was taken along with the laptop.’
‘Rubbish,’ Porson snapped. ‘He’ll have put a copy somewhere else, in case of fire. Find that, you’ve got your story.’
Slider thought of the flat at Wynnstay Gardens. Most likely that was where he’d keep a copy – if there was a copy – if he had kept notes – if Porson was right about the investigative journalism idea. But the flat was enormous and full of stuff, and he didn’t have enough people, so without a stroke of luck it might be weeks before they found it, if they found it, if it existed. And Mr Wetherspoon wanted things done yesterday. He was the original hard case that made it bad for the law, in the person of a lowly DI on the job.
THIRTEEN
The Land of Lost Content
The canvass around Flynn’s house was yielding nothing – not that Slider had expected anything. The early hours of the morning were a prime time for everyone to be in bed and asleep, and people who lived with a railway at the bottom of their garden tended to have a high tolerance of ambient noise. It gave McLaren another few sets of traffic cameras to trawl through. If it was the murderer who picked Tommy up outside the pub, they did not take him straight home – they would have turned left, not right, at the end of the road to do that; and in any case would have been home much earlier, as it was only a couple of minutes away by car. Kelly Watson might not be the world’s most reliable witness, but they had checked, and the film she said she had been watching did not finish until 12.35, so even if she had gone straight to bed and fallen asleep at once, Tommy Flynn must have been somewhere else before
going home.
McLaren, the Shane Warne of Shepherd’s Bush nick, had a new patience along with his new look – probably the result of much-lowered blood pressure – and simply took on the fresh work with a nod. Slider couldn’t help feeling that under the Jackie regime he wasn’t enjoying life as much as he used to, but there was no doubt it made him a useful employee.
The papers on Friday went to town on Tommy Flynn, with the fancy knife, buckets of blood and known cocaine-habit aspects of the case. Mrs Panda had not been slow in putting herself forward, and must have been gratified to see herself on the newsreels, leaning against the door jamb, a vision in Lycra, with her saggy-bottomed children lurking behind her legs while her words were immortalized on the news screens. Porson and Slider were happy enough with the distraction. So far, they had managed to keep a lid on the Corley murder. The death of the unknown Robin Williams in the rented flat had not rated more than a paragraph and no one so far had made any connection: Mrs Shepstone was not one to go to the press, and the porter, Perkins, had evidently remained on his dignity. It could not last for ever but it was good for them while it did.
Slider went to Hammersmith straight from home on Friday morning, summoned to a meeting, aka bollocking-and-frightening at the hands of Mr Wetherspoon, at which it was decided to keep the Corley aspect secret for as long as possible. If there was a drugs or gang side to it, it was best not to alert the denizens of that world that they were going to be investigated. But, if it turned out to be personal after all . . . Mr Wetherspoon said, and left it hanging in his most menacing way.
And what had Corley been doing after he quit the Hot Box job, he demanded.
‘That’s what we’re looking into right now, sir,’ Slider said, and got a look so icy it could have sunk large liners.
‘Well, get on with it, then! I want some results, pronto. Do I have to put a rocket under you?’
When Slider got in to his office at last, Atherton had gone over to Wynnstay to supervise the search, but Hollis was there with a piece of paper and a hopeful expression.
Blood Never Dies Page 19