The One a Month Man

by Michael Litchfield

  ‘Sort of,’ she said, vaguely.

  ‘Mifsud was in partnership with the Jewish East End creep Bernie Silver,’ I explained. ‘Hard to believe, but Mifsud was a former traffic cop in Malta. Despite being loaded, he dressed like a dosser. They made an unlikely partnership.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Silver was a north Londoner who’d served in the Parachute Regiment. His vice days began in the East End with a brothel in Brick Lane. That was the beginning of a vice empire that was to bankroll him to the dubious title of “Godfather of Soho”. Unlike Mifsud, he dressed impeccably and looked like a suave and dapper George Raft in one of those old black and white Hollywood gangster movies. Silver and Mifsud were as disparate as Laurel and Hardy, but not to be taken lightly. Together, they soon owned most of Soho’s strip joints. Silver was the brains, Mifsud the muscle.’

  ‘Are Mifsud and Silver still around?’

  ‘No, long gone – the way of the Krays and Richardsons; star-polishers in the great penitentiary of the sky.’

  ‘But what can you possibly hope to garner from this escort agency, Mike? Let’s take the mother’s account at face value: Tina just quit all those years ago. We’re not talking about a company like a bank or the Civil Service or the military that keep personal records indefinitely. The day Tina pulled the plug, everything about her would have been flushed.’

  ‘Wrong.’

  Sarah cocked her head like a spaniel, her expression challenging, as if slightly pissed off with me.

  ‘It doesn’t work that way, never has.’

  ‘Educate me, then,’ she said, her tone unusually churlish.

  ‘Escort agencies and porn-brokers are kindred spirits. They retain everything, pictures, personal details, all the minutiae. Know why?’

  ‘You’re supposed to be doing the teaching, but I’ll play along: there’s always the chance that one of their girls – or ex-girls – becomes some sort of celebrity, a Mary Poppins-type film star or marries into royalty. Then all the tales of her tarting can be sold to one of the tacky tabloids for a bundle.’

  ‘Or used for blackmail and monthly pay-days for life.’

  ‘Even so, thirty years is a hell of a time to hang on to tat like that. Just think of the number of girls who must have excreted through that agency during that period. Tina’s fifty, right?’

  ‘Right,’ I echoed.

  ‘They wouldn’t be expecting her to suddenly become Hollywood’s newest discovery.’

  ‘We can mull over this for ever, but we’ll never know until we’ve tested the water,’ I sighed.

  ‘So go dip in your big toe,’ she said, like she was my boss.

  ‘I intend to. Tomorrow.’

  ‘Not too early, though,’ she said, impishly now. ‘Whore-traders aren’t noted for being early birds. They specialize in catching the nocturnal worms.’

  Sarah had a flair for anarchy, an attractive feature in a servant of the Establishment.

  There was only one important outstanding issue to be resolved that day: where would Sarah stay? The matter was solved early in the evening when I introduced her as my wife to my Oxford landlady, Betty Oliver.

  As the two women shook hands, Betty said, ‘Been married long?’

  ‘Quite long enough,’ Sarah replied, roguishly. She loved these games, especially when I could do nothing but squirm.

  5

  Venus for the Lonely was situated behind Park Lane, just off Shepherd Market. The premises comprised one room next to a pub and above a bakery. The pavement-level door was locked. Alongside the black-varnished door were three lit-up bell-buttons. The second and third floor bells were for “models” Melissa and Cristina.

  I pressed the button for Venus. A husky female voice said, via the intercom, ‘Hell-ooh.’ There was heavy emphasis on ‘Hell’. The ‘ooh’ was as in ooh-la-la.

  ‘I’m looking for a lady,’ I said, confident that the double entendre would be a key to the door, which clicked open, without another word from ‘Husky’.

  The stairs were the kind I’d mounted a million times in the course of my invasive work in the West End. You could be in one of the most salubrious neighbourhoods, but front doors could be exactly that – just a front. And behind those doors could be a moral cesspit. More often than not.

  The stairs were uncarpeted. All light was artificial, provided by a single, jaundiced bulb; no lampshade. The peeling walls were painted a sickly green. The first-floor landing creaked under my modest weight. The door to Venus was ajar.

  ‘This way,’ Husky called out, hearing my footsteps.

  The décor of the office was very different from the approach. For a start, there was a carpet. Alongside a window was a burgundy-coloured chaise longue that was in reasonable condition. Framed soft-porn prints, art deco style, were hanging on all four walls. The rest of the furnishing was minimal. Husky sat behind a large, sturdy redwood desk, on which were stacked black-leather portfolios of the agency’s ‘talent’; also a couple of white phones and the two-way intercom speaker. I suspected that there was also a red panic-button somewhere down the side of her desk that, when pressed, would bring the blue cavalry to the rescue.

  ‘Hi,’ Husky said, cheerily, rising and offering a hand that was decorated with rings on every finger. ‘I’m Jasmine, sweet as the flower.’

  ‘Nice,’ I said, stupidly.

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Not so nice. Michael Lorenzo.’

  With a fleeting, sickly smile, she said, ‘Well, how do you do, Michael? Or do you prefer Mike?’

  ‘I do well, thank you, and Detective Inspector will do just fine.’

  For a moment she appeared like a figure in a DVD when you have pressed the ‘pause’ button. Her large, puffy mouth was stuck half open in a ridiculous rictus, while her darkling eyes were frozen. I held my ID in front of her painted face and sightless gaze, but it was still a few more seconds before the DVD was running again.

  ‘I see,’ she said, finally, at last really seeing. Her hand was quickly withdrawn before I could squeeze her flesh. These sorts of folk weren’t inclined to do handshakes and other welcoming gestures with cops. ‘I assume this is a business call?’ Her voice had lost much of its husky texture, which must have been fake, like most of her face, though there didn’t seem to be much imitation about the breasts that were tippling over the top of her décolletage.

  ‘Strictly business,’ I said.

  By now she had returned her substantial bum to the leather chair from whence it had risen like a full moon. She crossed her legs, made black and shiny by the tights that submarined down her undulating legs. Her skirt was as tight as a corset, with the hem nearer her navel than her knees. With her long fingers and brightly painted nails, she eyed me suspiciously, in the manner of a wife whose husband has called to say he’ll be working late at the office for the fifth successive evening.

  ‘How can I help?’ said Jasmine, without much enthusiasm, a touch of cockney creeping into her voice that was now metallic-hard. ‘You said you were looking for a lady. If that’s true, you’ve come to the right place. We have lots of ’em on our books.’ She patted the leather-bound portfolios to underscore her statement, much of her cockiness restored. ‘Much of the dating these days is done by Internet. We have our own website. If you visit it, you’ll see all the same girls that we have in our albums and you can browse at leisure.’

  ‘I’m not here to make a booking,’ I said, inviting myself to sit.

  ‘Then I don’t understand. You did say you were looking for a lady, right?’

  ‘Yes, but a specific lady. One who would have been on your books almost thirty years ago.’

  The hiatus that followed was filled with suppressed laughter and overt incredulity. When finally she was able to speak, she said, ‘There’s no demand these days for grandmas.’ She thought she was funny.

  ‘I said the person I need to find was one of this agency’s girls about three decades ago.’

  ‘About the year I was ha
tched.’

  Or spawned. God, she was a scream, so she thought. ‘How far back do your records go?’

  ‘When a girl parts company with us, so does her CV.’

  She was lying, of course, but it wasn’t yet showdown time. Diplomacy always had to be given a chance before going to war.

  ‘How long have you worked here, Jasmine?’

  ‘Five years, thereabouts.’

  ‘Who owns the business?’

  Suddenly she wasn’t so comfortable, or so jasmine-sweet. Her eyes turned jumpy, as if spooked. ‘You want the name of my boss?’

  ‘No, I want the name of the proprietor.’

  ‘Same thing,’ she said, petulantly.

  ‘Fine. Give.’

  ‘Do I have to?’ she said, weakly.

  Now her discomfort was even more pronounced. ‘The information you’re asking for is confidential. I’m forbidden from releasing those details.’

  ‘With clients, maybe; but not with the police, I can assure you. No, I’ll promise you.’

  ‘I’ll have to make a phone call.’

  ‘It’s your office and your phone,’ I said.

  ‘Would you mind stepping outside while I make this call?’

  ‘I would mind,’ I said, cementing my position in the chair.

  Jasmine scowled effortlessly as she punched a number, going to ridiculous lengths to prevent my seeing the keys she was hitting. Didn’t she really realize that, with infinite ease, I could discover every number called, on any day, from this address?

  A man answered. ‘Yes, now what is it?’ He spoke so loudly, I could hear clearly what he was saying, despite Jasmine swivelling away from me and pressing the receiver hard against her ear.

  ‘I have a cop here.’

  ‘What sort of cop, for fucksake? A traffic cop? A Keystone Cop?’

  Jasmine smirked, suddenly pleased that her boss was shouting. ‘Plainclothes. Very plainclothes. Some sort of inspector.’

  ‘Vice?’

  ‘He never said.’

  ‘So what’s he want?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Me! Shit! What for?’

  ‘About one of our ex-girls.’

  ‘Which girl?’

  ‘I don’t know. Ask him.’

  ‘Put him on.’

  ‘Here,’ she said, sulkily, handing me the phone.

  As I introduced myself, oozing civility, I experienced the disorienting feeling of speaking in a vacuum or echo chamber.

  ‘I hope you haven’t got a problem with my agency?’ he said, his rancorous tone now dipped in sugary insincerity.

  ‘Not as far as I’m aware,’ I said, without menace.

  ‘So what’s this about a girl?’

  ‘She won’t be a girl now. Tina Marlowe, working name Lolita. But that was thirty years ago.’

  ‘Hey, hey, wait a minute, did you say three-zero years ago?’ he guffawed, though still cagey.

  ‘I did.’

  An exhalation of relief blew down the line. ‘Well, that was long before my tenure began. I’ve had this business less than twenty years.’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘You want my name?’ he said, as if I’d asked for a mortgage loan.

  ‘Just for the record.’

  ‘I don’t like being on records,’ he vacillated.

  ‘Nevertheless …’

  ‘Lenny Diamond. My business is straight, understand? No rackets.’

  ‘Did I suggest otherwise?’

  ‘No, but I just wanted to make it clear. I know you people.’

  ‘Know us? Do you mean you’re a known item to us?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ he protested, trenchantly. ‘I’m clean, that’s all I meant and nothing more.’

  ‘I believe you. So who did you buy this business from?’

  ‘A guy.’

  ‘A guy with a name?’

  ‘Frankie.’

  ‘Just Frankie?’

  ‘Frankie Cullis.’

  ‘And where can I find him now?’

  ‘How should I know? I’m not his keeper.’

  ‘It would help if you did know because then I’d walk right out of your life and into his.’

  Now he had a real incentive to co-operate.

  ‘He moved out of London. Went south, to the coast. Last I heard, he was living in Bournemouth.’

  ‘Retired?’

  ‘Maybe. We never kept in touch. We were never buddies. I didn’t even know him that well when I bought him out. I think he opened a bar and started some sort of girlie agency down there, supplying strippers for stag parties and escorts; I heard something like that on the grapevine.’

  ‘In Bournemouth?’

  ‘Bournemouth or Brighton; one or the other. What’s the difference?’

  ‘Only about a hundred miles, three counties, and a culture gap as wide as a strip joint from the Royal Opera House,’ I said.

  ‘Not much difference, after all, then.’

  ‘Got a number for him?’

  ‘Haven’t you been listening?’

  ‘How about the name of the bar?’

  ‘Inspector, he’s been off my radar for light years. Now, that all?’

  ‘For now.’ My favourite one-liner sign-off. ‘Thanks for your help.’

  ‘Any time,’ he said, duplicitously.

  I passed the phone back to Jasmine.

  With her eyes throwing daggers in my direction, she said into the mouthpiece, ‘Sorry to have troubled you again, Lenny.’

  ‘Get rid of the jerk,’ I heard Lenny say, snarling.

  ‘Just going,’ I said, sufficiently loudly for Lenny to hear.

  Jasmine blushed. Bless her. Such innocence! I picked myself up, brushed myself down, and ambled to the door, departing with a one-fingered salute over my shoulder.

  ‘Good riddance!’ Jasmine seethed.

  ‘Mutual,’ I retorted, resorting to kindergarten retaliation.

  6

  I lunched on a burger and a double espresso on the South Bank, beside the London Eye. At an outdoor table, in the welcome shade of a tree that smelled as if all the dogs in the neighbourhood had left their calling cards, I phoned the Bournemouth Central Police Station and asked for Detective Sergeant Charlie Mullet. I knew Mullet from his days with the Met. He’d migrated south a few years ago with his wife and two kids, in search of a better quality of life; by that, he meant schools where the curriculum didn’t major on designer drugs and how to use knives to achieve maximum penetration. Whether he’d found his Eden, I had no idea. We hadn’t spoken since the night of his roistering farewell shindig, when the rest of us had pooled our pocket money to hire a stripper to mortify him. Mullet was very much a slippers-and-fireside guy, which meant he was probably more suited to the provinces than the big, bad metropolis, where sin was the signature, along with the dog piss.

  Mullet was at his desk when he took my call, the first five minutes of which were spent on catch-up. With that out of the way, I said, ‘You might be able to help me with a cold case I’m working.’

  ‘With a Bournemouth connection?’ he said, perking up, clearly itching for some big-time action.

  ‘Tenuous,’ I said, hosing his enthusiasm.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, suitably watered down.

  ‘Does the name Frankie Cullis mean anything to you, by any chance?’

  He didn’t need thinking time. ‘You bet.’

  My pulse rate increased to a trot. ‘I wasn’t sure he was on your turf.’

  ‘He’s one of our celebrity sewer-rats. A poison-paw in every mouldy pie. What’s your interest in him?’

  ‘I’m hoping he’s a stepping-stone, leading me to someone else I need to track down.’

  ‘He hasn’t made his name down here as a Good Samaritan, especially when it comes to helping the law. He doesn’t do favours, unless it’s worth his while, which requires a bung.’

  ‘OK, I’m listening,’ I said, offhandedly. ‘What’s he up to?’

  ‘Everything he shouldn’t be doing
. But he’s a skilled tightrope-walker. He somehow manages to keep his footing and, so far, he hasn’t fallen into our net. He and his missus run an online dating agency, among other dodgy things.’

  ‘A front for prostitution?’ I said.

  ‘Naturally, but they’re not brothel-keeping.’

  ‘Living off immoral earnings, though,’ I said.

  ‘What other way of living is there for that type? But try proving it. They sail close to the wind, but they’re crafty navigators.’

  ‘Have you had personal dealings with them?’

  ‘Several run-ins. Nicked them a few times, but they always walked; spiked by the CPS before I even got them in court. He protests that he’s just an Honest Joe matchmaker, trying to broker a little happiness for the lonely.’

  ‘Obviously sainthood awaits,’ I said, humouring him. ‘What the couples get up to after they’re brought together is none of the middleman’s business. How many times have I heard that?’ My rhetorical question went unanswered.

  ‘Cullis also owns a bar in a sleazy part of town. The Shipwreck. Should be The Flotsam. Caters for tarts, their pimps, drug-pushers, petty thieves and fences. We’re always raiding the dump. Make plenty of arrests, but we’ve never netted Frankie or his beloved, Simone. Simone! She’s about as French and ugly as the Old Kent Road.’

  Mullet’s powers of description had improved since he’d become gentrified.

  ‘What’s his address, apart from the sewer?’

  ‘Which one do you want? Where he occasionally lives with his wife, such as on Christmas Day? Where he shacks up with his mistresses – note the plural? Or his pond-life bar where he serves watered-down drinks, smuggled wines and spirits, and sells fags that dropped off the back of lorries?’

  ‘Gimme all three,’ I said, greedily.

  ‘Best of luck,’ he said, after looking up the information for me. ‘If you want a guided tour, just give me a bell when you land in town.’

  I could tell that he wanted us to get together to reminisce some more, like an old soldiers’ reunion, to recall bygone busts in the Smoke, and to regale one another with anecdotes about ex-colleagues known to us both. Met detectives always gassed about quitting the Smoke for pastures new and environmentally friendly, but those who did cut and run never really ever severed the umbilical cord. The pull of the womb was constant, like gravity, and stayed with them until grabbed by the grave.