The place itself looked thirty years out of date, the song she was singing was ten years out of date, but the singer herself seemed right up to date. She looked as if she didn’t belong there but, then again, thought Vince, she would have looked out of place in Sherry’s among the boys and girls her own age. But on Jack Regent’s arm? No, that didn’t fit either.
Vince told the bartender that he’d like to buy Ms LaVita a drink. The barman gave him a look that said, ‘For the sake of your own health, steer clear.’ And if Vince hadn’t received the message, he backed it up with words: ‘For the sake of your own health, mate, steer clear.’
Vince flashed his badge.
‘Tread … what?’
‘Treadwell.’
She laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ she said with a playful smile, not letting him in on the joke. Then she repeated, ‘Tread … well.’
He was sitting with Bobbie LaVita in the corner booth furthest from the bar. She pulled a cigarette out of her pack, then offered one to Vince.
‘I don’t smoke.’
‘Good for you,’ she said, then glanced down at a book of matches in the cut-crystal ashtray. Vince took his cue and lit her cigarette. The light illuminated her face, a face that was just about as perfect as he might want it to be. The eyes were flawless in shape and proportion. The lips were fuller than they originally seemed on stage, the pale lipstick playing down their natural poutiness. A small shallow dimple adorned the chin.
She was undoubtedly a beauty. He knew the face, had seen it before. His mind scrolled back, but nothing came up. He tried his old trick of attributing a movie star to her. Was she a … Sophia Loren? Darken the hair, put a few pounds on … Or maybe she was an … Audrey Hepburn? He gave up, knowing he’d been wrong about this kind of shorthand before; and some faces just don’t match the movie-star photo fit. Yet he felt sure he’d seen her somewhere before.
‘You look like that actor,’ she said.
Vince smiled. She obviously liked to play the same game as him.
‘Yeah? Which one?’
She pursed and parted her lips, made a clicking noise against the roof of her mouth with her tongue. The answer was already on the tip of it. ‘Victor Mature?’ she offered up.
Vince smiled. Like him, she obviously played the game badly. He didn’t look anything like that brawny actor.
‘I watched Samson and Delilah on the TV last night.’ Her eyes narrowed in examination of his features. ‘Must be the nose, sort of Roman.’
‘Don’t tell Vic that. I think Samson was Jewish.’
‘It was rather corny, so I wasn’t paying much attention.’ She stopped smiling and a short sigh announced that playtime was over. ‘I’m assuming you’re here to ask me questions about … that thing on the beach?’
‘That thing?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I know what you mean. The murder.’
‘I thought that was done and dusted. All you fellows assume Mr Regent did it.’
‘By “all you fellows”, I’m assuming you mean the Brighton police.’
She looked quizzical. ‘You are a policeman?’
Vince nodded. ‘Scotland Yard, not Edward Street.’
‘Scotland Yard? Is that supposed to impress me?’
Vince smiled. He was kind of hoping it would. ‘Not really, Miss LaVita. I’m just saying I’m new to the case. I have no predisposed views regarding Mr Regent’s guilt or innocence, either way. We’re trying to find him to help us with our inquiries.’
‘Oh, yes, you are a policeman. Only they can talk like that.’
Her accent was hard to place. A little clipped and done with such precision, Vince suspected maybe she was trying too hard at it, and pitching it above her station.
‘That’s why I joined the force – the hip lingo,’ he said.
She suppressed a laugh, conceded a smile, re-reviewed him.
‘I’ll be straight with you, Miss LaVita. He’s our main suspect until we can prove otherwise.’
‘So what can I do for you, Detective Treadwell?’
Vince pulled out his notebook and showed her an image he’d drawn, a good likeness copied from an encyclopedia.
‘That’s the Moor’s head, which is the emblem on the Corsican flag. Did Jack wear any jewellery that had this on it, such as a ring, a medallion?’
Bobbie inspected the drawing. ‘No, but he did always say that his role model was Napoleon.’
‘Napoleon?’
‘Napoleon Bonaparte was Corsican. Jack’s keen on history, but you’re not, obviously.’
‘History? It’s the nightmare I’ve yet to wake up from.’
She threw him a querying look.
‘A famous writer said that, or something like it.’
‘I was just kidding about Napoleon, Detective.’
Vince gave her an acquiescent smile, but didn’t think she really was kidding. Most gangsters were tinpot despots running their little fiefdoms fuelled on massive egos and Napoleon complexes. And, whilst Jack wasn’t known for a diminutive stature, Vince reckoned the club foot must have given his psyche a good kicking over the years.
‘Did he have any tattoos?’
She frowned. ‘Tattoos?’
Vince replied, facetiously, ‘Yeah, inky markings, snakes coiled around daggers, eulogies to dead mothers, odes to girlfriends.’
‘Thank you, Detective, but I know what they are. And he had none that I noticed.’
‘And you would have noticed?’
‘We weren’t that close.’
‘Really? I thought you were about as close as two people could get.’
Bobbie dragged on her cigarette and blew out a plume of smoke that suggested either she was bored or that he should back off. ‘From my intimate knowledge, I never saw any tattoos. But, then again, there’s intimacy, and there’s intimacy. And if I was that intimate, why would I be telling someone whom I wasn’t that intimate with?’
‘Because it’s a murder investigation and I’m a policeman,’ he said, as a reminder to himself as much as to her.
‘Well, maybe we should get more intimate, then I might tell you.’ She searched his face for embarrassment.
None was forthcoming, as Vince held her gaze, his slightly hooded eyes expressing a world-weariness that suggested he’d heard it all before. He put his notebook away and glanced around the room. Two punters had left the bar. The couple sitting by the stage were now locking lips – that Bed & Breakfast was clearly beckoning.
‘Did Mr Regent talk about his family, Miss LaVita?’
‘No.’
‘Then what do you know about them?’
She shrugged to signify nothing.
‘I’m sure the officers you spoke to made you fully aware that withholding information is—’
‘I’m not withholding anything, officer. And if I sound a little obtuse, it’s not deliberate. These last few weeks have been very difficult, very difficult indeed.’
Vince wasn’t buying her last line, as her delivery seemed devoid of the emotions that usually went with such a statement: the tears and the quaking voice of an innocent caught up in the maelstrom of a murder investigation. Her response sounded too lawyer-rehearsed and cross-examination ready.
But still Vince was compelled to give the stock answer: ‘Yes, I’m sure it has been, and I won’t take up too much more of your time. We just need to find out the truth, so—’
‘I’m answering your questions as truthfully as possible. You asked me if he talked about his family, and I said no. You asked me what I knew about his family, but I know nothing about them, because we never talked about them. So I assumed he didn’t have any.’
‘Everybody has a family, Miss LaVita, whether we like it or not.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
‘And in the time you spent together, you never thought to ask more about his family?’
‘No. And he didn’t ask about mine.
’
‘What did you talk about, then?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Just curious.’
‘Far more interesting things.’
‘Oh, that’s right,’ he said derisively. ‘Big weighty subjects like history? And there’s such a lot of it, must have kept him amused for hours.’
She eyed him contemptuously, then pinched a piece of tobacco from her tongue.
‘You said history was a favourite, Miss LaVita?’ he pressed.
‘So I did.’
‘Just not each other’s.’
‘For a lot of people, Detective, families are rather like your writer chap’s description of history: a nightmare I’ve yet to wake up from.’
Vince twigged the bitterness in her voice. There obviously was a history.
‘So, in lieu of any family, it’s safe to assume that you were, or are, the closest person to him?’
‘You think I know where he is?
‘I think someone does.’
‘And, if I knew, you think I’d tell you?’
Vince gave a noncommittal shrug.
‘You’re wrong. I wouldn’t.’
‘Maybe. But someone, anonymously, has already told us something. That’s why we’re after him.’
‘You think I’m the anonymous someone?’
His shrug was less noncommittal this time around.
She tensed, straightening her back. Her whole face became defensive, eyes narrowed, her bottom jaw jutting slightly. ‘And why would I do something like that?’ she said, tightening the clip in her voice.
‘Well, look what happened in that film you watched last night. Samson fell head over heels with Delilah. Delilah found out all his secrets, cut his hair, took his strength. Then the whole shebang fell in about their ears. I forget my Bible stories, can’t remember why she did it. Maybe you could fill me in?’
‘Like I said, Detective, I wasn’t paying that much attention.’
‘To get him out of her hair, perhaps?’
‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘You look nothing like Victor Mature.’
‘And I don’t think you’re the anonymous someone.’ Vince gave her a warm smile, followed by a cold fact: ‘You wouldn’t be sitting here now if you were. You’d be dead.’
On hearing this, her eyes flicked downwards and she stubbed out her cigarette. As she crushed the lipstick-smeared butt into the glass ashtray, Vince registered her unease. He reached into his jacket pocket and took out his card and a steel Sheaffer ballpoint pen, wrote down his phone number, and rested the card on the rim of the ashtray. ‘If you think of anything that might help, here’s my number. I won’t take up any more of your time, Miss LaVita.’
She picked up his card and gave it a quick glance, then smiled and announced, ‘Bobbie. Call me Bobbie.’
‘Thanks, I will. Because you really don’t look like a LaVita.’
‘How many have you met?’
‘You’re the first.’
‘Then you’ve got nothing to compare me with,’ she said, her smile widening, accentuating the high cheekbones that cradled those perfectly poised green-brown eyes. ‘We’re rare birds, we LaVitas.’
Vince felt happy to see her smile. Rows of strong white teeth, cheeks that dimpled, eyes that lit up. She’d look good in the sunshine, he thought. It would seem more natural to her than the night, the gloom of a nightclub, or the persona of the sultry torch singer. He still thought the name LaVita was as much paste as the diamonds on her brooch which, at close quarters, featured either a peacock or a phoenix.
She pulled another cigarette from the packet. This time, Vince lit it for her without a prompt. She shielded the flame unnecessarily. It was about contact, and Vince flinched when he felt her hand touch his. The tiny jolt alerted her. Her eyes widened as she took him in. Every little movement, magnified, measured, significant. Every gesture becoming stupidly big.
‘Can I call you Vincent, or are there rules against calling policemen by their first names?’
‘I get called worse.’
‘Like what?’
‘Vinnie, or Vin.’
‘How about Vince?’
‘I can live with that. And I do.’
‘But you introduced yourself as Vincent.’
‘I live in hope.’
‘Then that’s what I shall call you.’
He wanted her to call him that, and the realization made him uncomfortable. Of course, he didn’t trust her, and her sudden ‘intimacy’ was probably all a flirtatious routine to throw him off the scent. And that deceit made him feel uncomfortable, though it shouldn’t have. Because he operated in a world where deceit was a cloth worn close to the skin.
There’s only so long you can sit in a booth in silence without resorting to smoking or saying something you might regret; so he stood up and broke things off.
‘Where are you going, Vincent?’ she asked, giving him a playful smile that verged on mockery.
The way she used his proper name made him feel like a kid. ‘Busy day tomorrow,’ he explained.
Busy day tomorrow? He felt an internal wince at that statement. It dripped ‘gauche’ and undid all the ironic, sardonic and snappy repartee that had gone before, in his attempt to bury the plodding copper spiel.
‘That’s a pity, because I know of a good party tonight.’
He smiled. A reprieve: she’d thrown him a line. ‘Not tonight, Josephine. Napoleon might not like it.’
There was another internal wince; but cheap as it was, the wisecrack worked. He’d wiped that playful smile off her face and brought it all back into check.
He’d brought Jack back into the equation. Her lover. His quarry.
CHAPTER 6
THE MODERNISTS
Heading towards Hove, and away from the bank-holiday crowds, Vince and Bobbie walked along the promenade to the party. He hadn’t needed a lot of convincing. It was a good opportunity to find out more about Jack Regent.
The coast road was now alive with packs of Mods, who revved and rode their scooters, three or four astride, straddling the lanes and stopping normal traffic. A gang of Rockers tore past in the opposite direction as Triumphs, BSAs, Nortons and Royal Enfields gunned their heavy engines and burned up the tarmac. In their brief passing, insults were thrown either way. The ever-present sound of sirens just behind them reminded these opposing forces who held the real power in the town tonight – even though it was a tenuous hold. On the main drag running from Marine Parade to the West Pier, packs of Mods promenaded and peacocked: sleek, sharp à la mode urbanites with their faces alert, glowing and glowering, searching for the enemy. That meant anyone in leathers and with greased-backed hair, who they viewed as rural, uncouth, dated and definitely not them. While for them the weekend was about hitting the dance halls, popping pills, putting on a performance, having a tear-up, making the newspapers and getting your picture taken. And sex, lots of sex. On the beach, in B&Bs, in public bogs, in back alleys, in the backs of broken-into cars, underneath the arches, underneath tables, on top of tables! Sex and violence threaded through the air like electrified wire. It was all set to go off like a bank-holiday firework display, burning up the night sky with its petrified chorus of alarms, sirens and flashing blue lights. It was undeniably a good time to be young because, as far as sex and violence went, the young were so undeniably good at it.
Vince stuck close to Bobbie, who nevertheless seemed fearless and completely impervious to it all. Vince noticed that, as much as she gleaned turning of heads and wide-eyed admiration from the oncoming traffic of males on the street, her beauty didn’t attract the usual wolf whistles, statements of intent or the comments that young men are likely to make when they travel in predatory packs. Instead they’d approach within a certain distance, and then give respectful smiles and nods, and almost doffs of their proverbial caps. Or maybe it was because of himself. When in protective mode, Vince’s dark good looks just got darker. They’d linked arms since leaving the club, and
Vince was aware he was walking with his chest thrust out, his jaw set firm and his eyes cautiously in command. His present mien undoubtedly sent out its own warning signals.
‘I believe that once you stop learning, you die. When you stop asking questions, the big important questions, you die,’ declared Bobbie LaVita. ‘Because you lose your purpose in life. Is that why you became a detective, just so you could ask lots of questions?’ He didn’t get time to answer before she continued. ‘But the thing is, Vincent, you’re asking all the wrong questions. You’re not looking at the bigger picture. You involve yourself in a mystery but it’s just a sideshow. It’s not the main event. You’re not engaging yourself in the main event, or the big questions. You’re being sidetracked by matters of inconsequence.’
‘I don’t see a man turning up on the beach minus his head and hands as particularly inconsequential. And I’m sure his family don’t, either.’
‘I’m sorry about the man, too, and it is very sad. But that’s not what I’m talking about, Vincent.’
Bobbie looked up to the heavens and shook her head as if in incredulity at the prosaic nature of her companion; making it clear that she was working on a higher plane of consciousness than the flat-footed copper who plodded diligently alongside her.
And this was pretty much how it played out between them on the fifteen-minute hike towards the party. Bobbie LaVita had talked – a lot – and she had successfully bobbed and weaved and deflected all his questions about the case.
She covered a gamut of kooky-bird themes, flitting from an A-to-Z of Astrology to Zen Buddhism. She appraised him of her love affair with the arts, all the arts, riffing on poetry, mainly French and some of the American Beat stuff. She told him how she admired the Existentialist and the Situationists. But it was music that held her greatest devotion, letting slip that she was signed up to a major record company, Dominate Records, had already cut a 45, and was set to go into the studio and record a 33 with no less than Dickie Eton producing. And – bingo! – Vince now had a connection between the music producer/impresario Dickie Eton and the gangster/boyfriend Jack Regent. When he asked her about Eton, she became cagey and dodged the bullet. Instead, she asked him what star sign he was, and what had really made him become a cop. Vince claimed he liked the badge because it had a star on it. That was his best shot at both astrology and being kooky.
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