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Cover Up

Page 16

by Patricia Hall


  ‘They went to Tom’s home and pulled him out of bed,’ Kate said.

  ‘On what charge?’

  ‘Nobody has bothered to tell us that. We assume it’s because he’s a homosexual. He was in bed with his boyfriend when they came calling in the middle of the night.’

  Minogue took a deep breath and glanced away, refusing to meet her eyes for a minute in obvious embarrassment.

  ‘They do that, the bizzies,’ he said. ‘Sometimes when the mood takes them, they go out and round up a few queers. Poofs aren’t much liked around here by either the Prods or the Catholics. Or anyone else for that matter.’

  ‘So it’s OK to beat someone half to death when you arrest them, is it, because you don’t like who they’re sleeping with?’

  ‘It’s still illegal, Kate,’ Minogue said defensively. ‘And there’re plenty of people who think it should stay that way. I guess DCI Strachan is one of them. A lot of coppers are.’

  ‘And what about you?’ Kate snapped. ‘I know only too well what the Catholic Church thinks. And I dare say you do too. I’ve heard all that since I was old enough to understand what was going on with Tom. But I don’t imagine even the Pope thinks people like Tom should be killed for their sins. And that’s what nearly happened. He was almost killed and I want to know why. I thought it was a scandal the Echo would be glad to expose.’

  ‘It’s a stone my editor won’t turn over in a million years – neither side of it, and there are two sides, believe me,’ Liam said. ‘I went to a very respectable Catholic boys’ school where the discipline was strict. It wasn’t until I’d long left that I understood that the practice of making little boys bare their buttocks to be beaten with a butter pat by the Brothers for various misdemeanours was anything other than acceptable punishment. But attempting to expose that, or DCI Strachan’s little games, is a waste of time. My career would be over before it’s hardly even started. I’m not that brave, or that stupid.’

  Kate looked at the reporter sombrely as he glanced away.

  ‘Attitudes are different in London,’ she said. ‘A bit different, anyway. I think most people know the law is going to change and they’re beginning to act as if it already has.’

  ‘Well, good for them. But this is Liverpool,’ Liam said. ‘It’s not quite Belfast or Glasgow but prejudice lingers in the cracks here, bubbles up when you least expect it, and no one is brave enough to complain. The Churches have fingers in every pie, believe me. We had some sort of a graduate trainee in the newsroom a while ago from some private school and he started going on about it. He was a Quaker or something like that. He didn’t last long, and went back down south. I’m sorry, Kate, but I’m not going to be the one to put my head above the parapet. I know it would get blown off.’ And with that she had to be content.

  Harry Barnard had slept badly and, although he’d resisted the temptation to finish the whisky sitting alluringly in his cocktail cabinet, he felt even more fragile the next morning than when he left Liverpool. And DCI Tom Buxton seemed to go out of his way to make his interview in Pimlico as threatening as it could be.

  ‘Do you want a Federation rep with you? Or a solicitor?’ he barked across the interview room table where he was sitting with a DS at his side.

  ‘No sir,’ Barnard said. ‘I’m happy to tell you anything you want to know. I’ve nothing to hide. I was following a slightly obscure lead in a murder case, not really strong enough to make a fuss about. I’ve done nothing wrong except not mentioning it to you in the first place.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ Buxton said. ‘So let’s start at the beginning. Who gave you Alicia Guest’s name and address?’

  ‘A contact in Soho. A tart I’ve known for years. I mentioned to her that we thought the woman found in Soho Square was on the game and she asked around to see if anyone knew who she might be. They didn’t, but she picked up a rumour about Alicia Guest and got me her address.’

  ‘And this tart’s name is?’ Barnard hesitated, but the two men on the other side of the table waited stony-faced and he knew he would do himself no favours and Evie little harm if he told them.

  ‘Are you sleeping with her, this Evie?’ the sergeant asked with a sly grin.

  ‘No,’ Barnard said. ‘A long time ago occasionally, but not now.’

  Buxton nodded. ‘This is because you have this girlfriend? The photographer girl? Sounds an odd job for a woman,’ he said.

  ‘She’s very good at it,’ Barnard said.

  ‘So how did Evie find out about Alicia Guest?’ Buxton went on.

  ‘She said a friend told her,’ Barnard said uneasily, knowing that they would not be satisfied with that as an answer and that he had landed Evie with an unwanted visit from the Pimlico murder team if nothing worse.

  ‘So tell us exactly everything that happened during your visit to Miss Guest – the times, anyone else you saw or spoke to, anyone who might have seen you, and exactly what you talked about. Dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’, Sergeant. I’ve already got you marked down for a disciplinary hearing but it could be worse, much worse, if you leave anything out and I find out about it.’

  Barnard went over the details of his trip to Pimlico again, slowly and carefully. The sergeant across the desk took notes, but as the interview went on he got the distinct impression that there were specific facts they were interested in which did not necessarily fit with their inquiries into a murder.

  ‘Are you sure that she gave no indication she knew where she was being taken when she was hired for these trips?’ Buxton pressed.

  ‘She said not,’ Barnard said. ‘She said it was different places. But she did say some of them were not far away from where she was living. A short drive, she said.’

  ‘And she didn’t recognize anyone when she got there?’

  ‘It would appear that the men took good care not to be recognized,’ Barnard said. ‘But she was being asked to do things and witness things she didn’t like, so she decided to pack it in. Beyond that she wasn’t prepared to go. They were sufficiently worried about her to pay her off, so she took the money and left.’

  ‘So there are two possibilities, Sergeant. Either these people found out that she had talked to you and decided to silence her, which sounds unlikely. Or she was killed by some random intruder looking for quick pickings who panicked when she found him in the flat.’

  ‘How was she killed?’ Barnard asked, aware that Buxton had told him no details about the crime and if he was serious about counting him as one of his suspects he would be watching closely to see how much he knew about what had gone on in Alicia Guest’s flat.

  ‘Stabbed,’ Buxton said. ‘Very messy. A lot of blood. We may need to take a look at the clothes you were wearing that afternoon. Purely for purposes of elimination, of course. And your fingerprints.’

  ‘Oh come on, sir!’ Barnard said, finally losing patience. ‘You know that’s ridiculous. I’m sorry I trespassed on your territory and no way could I guess that I might have put this woman in danger. It was a routine inquiry which I had no great hopes of. But if you seriously think she was killed to keep her quiet about the nasty sex conspiracy she got herself involved in, surely that’s where you should be looking for her killer?’

  ‘That’s for me to decide, Sergeant, not you. And if I find you interfering in my investigations again, I’ll throw the book at you. Understood?’

  Barnard sighed.

  ‘Understood,’ he said.

  Kate O’Donnell got back to her hotel about four to collect her luggage and was surprised to see her mother sitting in an uncomfortable chair close to the reception desk in what looked like her best black coat, buttoned up to the neck in spite of the sticky summer heat. She stood up when Kate came in and the expression in her eyes was angry.

  ‘Were you going to leave without saying goodbye to me?’ she snapped.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said. ‘I thought you would come to the hospital this morning with Annie. It was important to make sure Tom was all rig
ht before I left. Then I had some work stuff to do before catching the train.’

  ‘I’ve just been up there, la,’ Bridie said, but her face did not soften. ‘I want him to come home to stay with me when they let him out. That other young man is a bad influence.’

  ‘Mam, you can’t run our lives for us now. We’re all grown up. We make our own decisions.’

  ‘And that’s why you’ve decided not to go to Mass any more, is it? You’re too grown up for all that? Holy Mother of God, who do you modern children think you are! Do you really think you’re more important than the Church?’ Bridie’s eyes narrowed. ‘Or is it because you’re living in sin with that man you brought round to my house? Is that what it is? Has he brought this on? Has London turned you into a little whore? On top of having Tom the way he is!’

  Kate reddened and got to her feet, aware that the receptionist was casting interested eyes in the direction of their hissed conversation.

  ‘Come outside,’ she snapped at her mother and they went into the street where their voices were muffled by the traffic on Brownlow Hill. ‘Who told you that anyway?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Never you mind,’ Bridie said. ‘As if I don’t have enough to cope with now your father’s missing and Tom’s in hospital and may end up in prison. Couldn’t you behave yourself, at least?’

  ‘I suppose it was Father Reilly, was it? That man thinks he owns his parishioners and evidently his former parishioners too. Well, you can tell him to mind his own business. And you do that as well, mam. I gave up on your precious Church a long time ago. I had good reason. And I’ll make my own friends, come to that. It’s nothing to do with you. And now I have to hurry to catch my train. I’m going back to London, and where I live and who I live with is nothing at all to do with you or anyone else up here – especially the priests, who are the biggest hypocrites of all.’

  Kate arrived back at the flat she shared with Tess late, tired and hungry. Her friend looked at her in alarm as she dumped her suitcase in her room and slumped down on the sofa and closed her eyes.

  ‘You look shattered,’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Starving,’ Kate said. ‘There was no food on the train. Have you got anything in the fridge?’ Together they rustled up an omelette and some toast, and as Kate wolfed it down she told Tess roughly what had happened in Liverpool. Tess looked completely stunned by the time she had finished. She put an arm round Kate’s shoulders.

  ‘We all know the bizzies used to be complete bastards,’ she said quietly. ‘But I thought all that was over. I thought all that prejudice had gone away. I thought you went up to get pictures of a shiny new modern city with all that marvellous music going on, a fun place to be …’

  ‘Oh, all that’s going on all right, la,’ Kate said. ‘But the old guard is hanging in there when they think they can get away with it. And with Tom the police obviously thought they could get away with it. Tom and his friends are no safer than they ever were. He could have died, Tess.’ And for the first time Kate let the tears flow and she sobbed on her friend’s shoulder.

  ‘Are you staying here tonight or going back to Harry’s place?’ Tess asked when Kate eventually calmed down. Kate shrugged dispiritedly.

  ‘I’ll stay here, I think,’ she said. ‘My mother found out about Harry, so that was a bone of contention too. She’s furious of course. He came back earlier for some urgent reason, so I’m not even sure where he is today. I’ll ring him later maybe and then go to bed.’

  She carried her suitcase into her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. It was a nondescript room and she started unpacking until she suddenly became aware that nothing in the room looked quite right. It had not been ransacked like her hotel room in Liverpool, but she was quite sure it had been interfered with. Books had been moved, her underwear was not quite as she usually left it in its drawers, her clothes in the wardrobe had been arranged with a mathematical precision on their hangers, and the place somehow failed to feel like home. One incursion into her private space had been enough to upset her, two felt very threatening. The first, at the hotel, could have been a petty thief, a random trawl looking for something to steal, but this was careful and cautious and felt very different, professional almost.

  She was so tired that she felt like dropping straight into bed but before she began to undress she heard the doorbell. Hoping that maybe Harry Barnard had called round unexpectedly, she went back into the living room and to her surprise found that Tess had opened the door to a priest in a dark suit and clerical collar, rather than a cassock, who looked more like a wolfish stony-faced business man than a man of the cloth. There was certainly no human kindness in his face that Kate could see, and his eyes were a chilly grey.

  ‘Father Granville came before,’ Tess explained. ‘He said he would come back to see you.’

  ‘I’ve only just come back from Liverpool, Father,’ Kate said, not disguising her anger. ‘I’m about to go to bed.’

  ‘I wanted to catch you, my dear,’ Granville said. ‘From what your friend Teresa told me, I felt you were in urgent need of help before your life runs completely out of control.’ She heard echoes of what her mother had said to her before she left Liverpool and wondered whether Bridie herself, or more likely Father Reilly, was responsible for this evident panic over her immortal soul.

  ‘I am told you no longer go to Mass or confession regularly, my dear. The Church is bound to be concerned about that.’

  ‘You’ve no need to be concerned about me,’ Kate said, feeling a fury building inside her that she did not think she could control for long. ‘I no longer regard myself as a Catholic, and haven’t done for a very long time.’

  ‘I have a very good colleague at St Aloysius, a colleague who is a sympathetic adviser to people struggling with doubt,’ Granville persisted. ‘I can introduce you to him if you would like that.’

  ‘I would not like that,’ Kate said firmly. ‘I would like to be left alone to live my life in peace. I had enough of the Church when I was a child. You did my brother no favours.’

  Granville changed tack abruptly, his expression harder. ‘I hear that you have been gathering information about the career of Terry Jordan in Liverpool. Now there is an example of a man who is a great benefactor to the Church despite a difficult start in life. He has been more than generous to the cathedral, and I think we can look forward to a lot more help if his current negotiations are successful. The Church is very much involved in a lot of his current plans. We wouldn’t like to think that your own project would in any way hinder his efforts for such a very important cause.’

  ‘My project is about the rebuilding of Liverpool. And I can’t see any way that would affect Mr Jordan and his plans.’

  ‘Which are at a very crucial stage, both for him and for the Church. We would not like to think that anything you’ve been doing would interfere with that.’ There was no overt threat in what Granville said, but the menace was there in his eyes.

  ‘I have no idea why anything I’ve been doing should lead you to think that,’ Kate said, turning away from her visitor. ‘Now I am very tired and I’m going to bed.’

  But she lay in bed for a long time before exhaustion took over, and she fell into a sleep tormented by dreams.

  FIFTEEN

  Barnard drove back to Soho feeling alternately frazzled and furious. But instead of parking close to the nick, he turned into the maze of narrow streets where legitimate pubs and restaurants stood shoulder to shoulder with both overt and more secretive haunts of sex workers and petty criminals, extortionists and gangsters, in a teeming den of fun and vice that enticed punters from all over London and far beyond. He knew that eventually he would have to tell DCI Jackson the result of his interview with Buxton but he needed a drink first, and he needed to warn Evie Renton that she should expect a visit from Pimlico detectives sooner rather than later, no doubt with the DCI’s blessing. In the circumstances, Barnard reflected, Jackson could hardly refuse without a furious row between the two emp
ires that might well reach the Yard itself.

  He knocked on Evie’s door for some time before she opened it, obviously just out of bed, in a flimsy dressing gown, her face pale and creased with sleep, and with only the faintest smile of welcome for Barnard.

  ‘What is it now?’ she asked, yawning. ‘I really need my rest.’

  ‘Don’t we all,’ Barnard said. ‘Can I come in? I need to talk to you.’

  She reluctantly held the door open for him and he followed her up the stairs to her room, which was even more untidy and dishevelled than the last time he’d been there. She looked shocked when she took in his battered appearance.

  ‘What the hell happened to you?’ she asked, flinging herself back on to her bed and pulling the blankets up. There was no hint of the invitation she had issued last time he’d seen her, and he was thankful for that.

  ‘I met a brick wall,’ he said, fingering the bruising around his left eye and cheek. ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘I hope the brick wall came off worst,’ Evie said.

  ‘Not so you’d notice.’

  ‘Occupational hazard then, was it? I know all about them.’

  ‘Well, I came to warn you you’ve got one coming up, sweetie,’ Barnard said. ‘Some coppers from Pimlico want to know how you tracked down Alicia Guest. I wouldn’t have landed you with them but Alicia’s dead, murdered, and they’re not going to let go until they find out exactly how I came to be talking to her – entirely innocently, I hasten to add – on the day she was killed. I’m sorry.’ Evie lay back on her pillows and groaned.

  ‘I had another nugget of information for you too, as it happens,’ Evie said, ‘but maybe I should keep quiet.’

  ‘What is it?’ Barnard said. ‘I need to crack this murder case quickly, as it goes, or it’s going to hang round me like a bad smell. Tell me and I’ll have a sniff around and then pass it on to the Pimlico boys if it looks as if it could be useful. How does that sound?’

  ‘A bit dodgy,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ Barnard said tiredly. ‘I’m not thinking straight. You’d best tell them everything you know. But tell me first. I’ve no idea when they’ll get round to questioning you, if they ever do, but you’d better be straight with them. I’ve got you into enough trouble as it is.’

 

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