Unholy Ghost

by James Green

  ‘If I don’t come back let McBride know what happened.’

  ‘Sure, I’ll see that she knows.’

  Jimmy knew it was a lie. It had come too quickly, too easily. But it didn’t matter, one more lie among so many lies made no difference and in the grand bloody scheme of things, what the hell ever did?

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The Black Diamond club could never be mistaken for anything other than what it was, a cheap and nasty dive where small-time gamblers went to lose money. The entrance was down some steps off a street that was, at night, bright with harsh, coloured lights that flashed, flickered, and flared among the bustle of people desperate for fun and laughter, desperate to tell themselves they were having a good time. Daylight would reveal the reality, and it wouldn’t be a pretty sight.

  ‘The membership charge is a one-off payment of two hundred Euros.’ Jimmy handed over some notes. The young man counted them, slipped them into a drawer, and pushed across a form. ‘Fill this in using a name you will remember. It is the name that will appear on your membership card.’

  ‘If it’s on my card why do I need to be able to remember it?’

  ‘In the event of your losing your card we would need the name to replace it.’

  Jimmy wrote his own name and looked through the other information they wanted. He put the street of the residential home as his address and the telephone number of Nadine’s hotel. For references, they required two, he put Nadine Heppert with her Paris office address and M. Joubert with his Paris address, then pushed it back to the young man who examined it.

  ‘You have a Munich address but your references are both in Paris?’

  ‘I’m an international playboy.’

  The young man made a face that said he didn’t care one way or the other so long as he had the money in the drawer. He filled out an elaborate membership card and pushed it across. Jimmy slipped it into a side pocket and went on into the club.

  The place wasn’t big and it wasn’t busy. There were half a dozen tables each set out for up to six people to sit at and play cards. The lighting over the tables was adequate, elsewhere in the room it was about enough to get around without falling over anything but not so good the management would have to spend much on keeping the place decorated. Around the walls were pools of light in which stood gaming machines. In a dark corner a light shone weakly on the sign for the toilets and the emergency exit. The only other well-lit place was the bar. Jimmy walked through the tables, stood at the bar, and looked round the room. Two tables were in action, one was full, five players and the house dealer. A young man in a white shirt and black bow tie. The other had a young woman in a low-cut evening dress and two middle-aged men sitting talking. The young woman had a deck of cards in front of her so Jimmy assumed she was the dealer waiting to get a game going.

  Somebody behind him said something in German. Jimmy turned.

  ‘I don’t speak German.’

  ‘There is no problem, I speak English very well. What do you want to drink?’

  ‘Beer.’

  The man went and got a bottle out of a chiller cabinet, snapped off the top, and picked up a glass. He put them before Jimmy on the bar.

  Then he told him the price.

  Jimmy’s eyebrows went up. It was a small bottle even by small bottle standards.

  The barman smiled.

  ‘Yes, I know, a good price, you are surprised, you expected to pay more.’ He took the note Jimmy put on the counter. ‘The prices go up after eleven. This is what you in England call happy hour, yes?’

  ‘Happy hour, yes.’

  The man went to the till, put in the note, and brought back the change.

  ‘Put it wherever you keep your tips.’

  He nodded thanks and he went off.

  Jimmy poured the beer into the glass and took a drink. It was, he supposed, beer under even the loosest interpretation of any trades description act, but it was gassy and really too cold to tell what taste it had, if any.

  Another man came in and sat down at the table where the girl was the dealer. He shook hands with the other men. Regulars, thought Jimmy. For God’s sake, why not play at home with friends with no cut going to the house? But no, people were people. They were funny and did things you never could explain. If you could explain why everybody did what they did there’d be no place for coppers and crimes would solve themselves.

  ‘Another?’

  Jimmy turned back to the barman. The bottle was empty but he still had beer in his glass, not much, true, but there wasn’t much to begin with, not with bottles that size. Jimmy decided the bloke must be on a percentage.

  ‘Is there a manager?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘A manager, someone in charge.’

  ‘You wish to talk with the manager?’

  ‘Yes, I wish to talk with the manager.’ If he was going to do it there was no point in hanging about until he had a bigger audience. ‘I have a message for him from a customer, Greta Mann. I don’t know if she uses that name here but her first name really is Greta. He’ll know who I’m talking about. If he’s not sure tell him she’s in the residential home business and drives a neat little Mercedes sports model that his friends bought for her.’

  The barman’s English obviously wasn’t good enough to follow and even if it had been he didn’t seem to like Jimmy’s attitude.

  ‘Tell me your message and I will see that it gets to the manager.’

  ‘OK. I visited Greta today and we talked. We talked about two friends of mine, an old soldier who died in his wheelchair a few years back and a French journalist who sadly passed away under a train here in Munich not so long ago. Greta told me that the manager could tell me all about it and before you ask I’m not the police, not German police, not any police. I’m a businessman, I represent an office in Paris which has a proposal to put to his,’ Jimmy paused looking for the right words, ‘his associates.’

  ‘Associates?’

  Jimmy reckoned the barman was making a genuine enquiry, he couldn’t imagine the man was any part of what was going on.

  ‘Yes, the people the manager works for or with, his business associates. They know all about my two friends here in Munich, the old soldier and the journalist. It’s a long message, do you want to write any of it down or will you remember it all?’ The barman wasn’t in the mood for any kind of humour. He’d understood the general idea of what Jimmy was saying, Jimmy could see that by the way he looked at him. ‘And no more beer, thanks. It’s too cold.’

  The barman turned and went to a phone behind the bar. He talked to someone and then came back to Jimmy.

  ‘You wait.’

  It was spoken like an order.

  ‘Sure.’

  Another customer had come to the bar. The barman switched back on his smile and happy manner and went to serve him. Jimmy guessed that later on, if and when the tables got busy, there would be waitresses to do the fetching and carrying so the games wouldn’t get interrupted. At the moment, as it was happy hour and the beer at almost give-away prices, it was self-service. Jimmy stood and looked at the room. Somewhere the manager was probably making a call, checking, finding out what to do.

  After about ten minutes the phone behind the bar rang. The barman answered it then put it down and came to Jimmy.

  ‘Who in Paris do you represent?’

  ‘Parker and Henry, corporate attorneys, they’re an American firm. I’m working with a Nadine Heppert who is in their Paris office. Nadine Heppert, Parker and Henry, got that?’ The barman didn’t answer, he went back to the phone and picked it up and spoke again. Jimmy waited until he’d put the phone down. ‘You can tell your boss that Ms Heppert is staying in Munich, he can check what I’ve told him if he likes. I put Ms Heppert’s hotel number on my application form.’

  The barman gave him a nasty look and for the first time Jimmy noticed what a well-muscled, fit-looking, young bloke he was. You wouldn’t have thought they’d need much in the way of muscle in a c
lub like this, still, I suppose they got a few bad losers who needed to be escorted from the premises now and then.

  The barman was back on the phone. When he put it down there were two more men waiting at the bar. He served them and they took their drinks to the table with the young woman dealer. The table was full so the woman was shuffling the cards and there were chips in the centre of the table. There were dealers at two more tables, one had one punter, the other two. All men so far. Jimmy looked at his watch, quarter to ten. The night was getting going.

  The phone rang again. The barman apologised to the man he was serving and answered it then came to Jimmy. He nodded to a dark corner.

  ‘That door over there, up the stairs, there is a door at the top. Knock.’

  He went back to the man he was serving and Jimmy crossed the room to the dark corner. When he got really close he saw a door peeping out from behind some sort of heavy drape. He pulled the drape aside and opened the door. In front of him was a narrow, uncarpeted wooden stairway lit by a solitary bulb in a wall-bracket half-way up. The top of the stairs was in darkness. He began to climb, passed the bulb, and went on. With the bulb behind him the top of the stairs became a little clearer and he could see a door. When he reached it he knocked and a voice answered. He went in. It was a small, shabby, cluttered office lit by another single bulb, this time hanging from the ceiling. There were two people sitting at a desk. One was a well-turned-out woman in a business suit, the other an older man, flabby and bald, in an open-necked shirt with a gaudy tie hanging loose. It was the woman who spoke.

  ‘Please, Herr Costello, sit down.’

  There was a chair facing the desk so Jimmy sat down.

  ‘You the manager?’

  ‘No, Herr Schmidt is the manager but he speaks no English so he asked me to come and talk to you. I speak English.’

  ‘I thought everyone spoke English, most of the people I’ve met did.’

  ‘I assume you have not come to talk about whether people speak English or not, so please explain what it is you have come to talk about.’

  ‘What about Flabby? If he doesn’t speak English what’s he here for, decoration?’

  There was nothing in the way of a reaction on the flabby man’s face so Jimmy accepted that he wasn’t an English speaker. Not that it mattered if the woman could negotiate.

  ‘I’ve come to offer you a deal on the Colmar estate business. My partner, a woman of influence who has an interest in the matter, feels sure it will be a better deal than the one you think you have.’

  ‘I was informed you wished to talk about two friends. I know nothing about any Colmar estate.’

  ‘Of course you don’t. But I bet you know someone who does.’

  ‘I was told you had a message from a customer of ours. Do you have such a message?’

  ‘No, I told you, I want to talk to someone about the Colmar estate.’

  ‘I’m afraid we know nothing about this Colmar estate and if you do not have a message then I think we have no more to talk about.’ She turned and said something in German to the flabby man whose face didn’t change and who said nothing, just kept looking at Jimmy. ‘If there is nothing further, Herr Costello, the manager is a busy man and I also have things to do.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Unless you have anything further you wish to say.’

  No, he had nothing further he wished to say. He wished he wasn’t there, he wished he hadn’t come in the first place, and he wished he’d done a better job of making his pitch. All of those things he wished. But there was nothing he could think of that he wished to say.

  He stood up.

  ‘Thank you for your time. If you or your friends change your minds I’ll be around for a day or two.’

  ‘Goodbye, Herr Costello.’

  She didn’t get up to say it.

  Flabby said something in German.

  ‘The manager says that your application for membership is not acceptable. I’m afraid you have been refused membership.

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘There were irregularities in the form you filled. This is a respectable gaming club. We cannot allow irregularities.’

  ‘Of course not. Where would we all be if we let the irregularities pass?’

  It was the manager who answered.

  ‘We would all be where you will soon be, Mr Costello.’

  So, Flabby spoke English and spoke it well. Another mistake.

  Jimmy went to the door and left. The light bulb on the stairs had gone out. It was total darkness. Jimmy felt for the wall and began to negotiate the steps slowly. Suddenly the light came on beside his head. He stopped and looked round. At the top of the stairs Flabby was looking down at him.

  ‘You were in the dark, Mr Costello, but look, I have returned the light so you can see your way out. Take my advice, Mr Costello, leave all this alone, get out while you can still see a way out.’

  ‘Or else?’

  Flabby raised his hand and Jimmy found himself once again in total darkness. He waited for more advice from the voice but nothing came so he felt his way to the bottom of the stairs and opened the door. Compared to the dark of the stairway the room looked bright. Two more tables had gone into action during his short visit upstairs. At one of them a face was looking at him. Greta’s face. She was smiling. Whatever they had planned for him pleased her and that was not a good sign. Jimmy walked across the room to the exit and out to the desk where the young man was still sitting. This time the barman was standing beside him.

  ‘Your card please, Herr Costello. Your membership has been refused.’

  Jimmy pulled the card out of his pocket and tossed it onto the table. The young man took it, tore it in half, and dropped the pieces on the floor.

  ‘How about a refund of my membership fee?’

  ‘Oh no, that was a standard administration charge. Membership is free for those who are accepted. There can be no refund.’

  Jimmy left the club and walked up the stairs into the street and headed quickly for the main road where it was brighter and noisier and there were plenty of people, witnesses. Before he could reach the lights and the people a car pulled in beside him the front door opened and a man quickly got out and looked around while he opened the back door. He said something in German. Jimmy guessed he was being told to get in so he got in. If he was going to die he didn’t want to hurry it up by causing a fuss, and he didn’t want it to happen on a grubby side street. Once in the car it pulled away, nobody spoke, there wasn’t much to say. They all knew what they were doing so they got on with it.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  The Comedian put a beer on the table beside Jimmy’s chair then sat down opposite him and poured a beer for himself.

  ‘I’m sorry you could not be told what was happening but I had to use the men that were available and none of them speaks English. It was all something of a rush.’

  ‘What was planned for me?’

  ‘There is a young boy in your bed at your hotel, a young immigrant boy. An illegal of course. There are a couple of reporters and a photographer. The police have been primed and I expect someone has been told to be ready.’

  Jimmy poured his beer and took a drink.

  ‘Well, it’s not as drastic as I was expecting.’

  ‘No, not perhaps what you were expecting but effective. You would have been a paedophile, a man who travels abroad seeking out the young and vulnerable to serve his perverted sexual desires. The boy, of course, would have been beaten as well as sexually assaulted. He would have earned his money, I assure you.’

  ‘I think I’d have preferred a bullet.’

  ‘The outcome would have been a serious criminal charge which would have been splashed over the media and the job would have been done. No one, no one at all, would want to listen to anything you might say. When the visitors at your hotel realise you will not return they will leave and I will arrange for your things to be collected and find you somewhere to stay until you leave Munich.’


  ‘I’m leaving Munich, am I?’

  ‘Oh yes, Mr Costello. Keeping you out of trouble is taking up too much of my time. I think you will have to go back to Rome.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘That you were at the club?’

  ‘Yes. Was it Heppert or the people at the club? Who?’

  ‘I was told and now you are safe. How I came by that information is no concern of yours.’

  ‘Like hell it’s not. I trust you about as much as I trust the people I met at the club. How do I know you’re not in with them on this?’

  ‘Even if that were the case it would still be no concern of yours. You invited yourself into all this, Mr Costello. You have no idea of what you are doing or what is going on, yet you still blunder …’

  ‘Those bastards kill people, two to my certain knowledge and they tried damned hard to kill Professor McBride. Is that the company you keep? Is that the way Danish Intelligence works?’

  ‘More to the point, how do you work, Mr Costello? I have to say I find your methods opaque. I cannot see what it is you are trying to do. You are here with Ms Heppert. Why? She is pursuing her own ends in this matter and I assure you she is not at all interested in helping you. You interview Greta Mann. Again why? Given that she is involved in two murders she is hardly likely to prove co-operative when questioned, especially by a foreigner with absolutely no authority. You barge into a gambling club where you know you will not be welcome and put yourself in danger. Again why? What is it you hope to achieve?’

  He was right of course. He was ex-Detective James Cornelius Costello, not James bloody Bond. He wasn’t one of those blokes in books who crash into stuff like this, kill the baddies, and save the world.