by Mark Ellis
“Any news on the Ambassador’s return, Herman?”
“He’s coming some time next month. He was pretty vague and if I were a betting man I’d say nearer the end than the beginning. I mean, what would you choose, Philippa? A sunny, warm, war-free Florida or a cold, dark London, waiting for the Luftwaffe? A London which the Ambassador believes won’t survive more than a few weeks of war.”
She started to say something but thought better of it and bit her lip before asking “Do you have any instructions for me?”
He rose from his chair, removed the gum from his mouth and threw it in his desk-side bin. “Just let me know as much as you can of how the police are proceeding and what lines of enquiry they’re taking.” He moved around his desk and accompanied Miss Edgar to the door. As he opened it he held her by the elbow. “An odd fish, Norton, don’t you think?”
She had a couple of inches on Zarb and looked down at him. “He’s not the usual type of diplomat, I suppose, but, as a close and trusted advisor of Mr Kennedy, I give him my full respect.”
“Yes, yes. But don’t you think he’s a bit strange?”
“It’s not my place to make such observations, Herman.”
Zarb chuckled. “Alright, dear, we’ll leave it at that. But I’d like you to keep a particular eye out for him. I’d like to know what he gets up to away from here.”
After he’d shown his guest out, Zarb returned to his desk. He looked out at the darkening square and switched his desk-lamp on. He picked up the Foreign Office letter and read it again. The name of the fellow who had signed it was familiar. A high-flyer he had heard. He spoke the name out loud: “Mr F. R. Douglas.”
Bridges pulled the car over to the kerb. Merlin looked up from the IRA case report he had been immersed in during their short journey. They were a few hundred yards from the Ambassador’s residence. “I managed to speak to Miss Edgar concerning Morgan’s employment, sir. She told me that he was put up for his job by Mr Norton. A reference was also provided by a Mr M. Owen, who described himself in his letter as being a restaurant owner. He apparently used Johnny as a driver and commented favourably on his driving skills.”
“The uncle?”
“I would guess so. Miss Edgar gave me an address for Mr Owen in Earl’s Court.”
“We’ll pay him a visit tomorrow. First things first.”
Merlin got out and led Bridges down a narrow alley into a cobbled mews street. “This is it. I’m sure.”
Merlin strode ahead and stopped next to a garage door. He turned with his back to the garage and flashed his torch at the facing house. “Number 15, Sergeant.”
Bridges handed over the bunch of keys which had been found in Morgan’s jacket. The front door was successfully opened and their footsteps echoed over the linoleum of the small hallway and up the uncarpeted stairs. They unlocked and went through the second door and Merlin swore in Spanish as his knee connected with something solid. He hopped up and down as Bridges switched on the lamp on the solid oak table and looked sympathetic. Merlin’s pain eased and the two men silently took in the room before them. “Looks like he’d come into some money, Sergeant. Must be three times the size of the other place.”
Bridges crossed the opulently furnished bed-sitting room and entered the only other room in the flat. “Nice bathroom as well, sir.”
Merlin limped over to him. “Doesn’t feel very lived-in this place, does it? It’s like a service flat.”
Bridges nodded. “Shall we have a poke around?” The two men spent the best part of an hour looking around the rooms. They found no clothes, no personal items and no correspondence, not even bills. Everything was neat and clean and there was little sign of human habitation.
Merlin sat on the bed. “Nothing much to help us here. It’s as bare as Clem Attlee’s bonce. All we can do is check out the ownership of this property and see where that leads us.”
“The drink’s been cleaned up.”
“What, Sam?”
“You know. Kathleen said that Johnny spilled the whisky over her. No sign of that on the carpet, nor of any drinking come to that.”
Merlin looked at the carpet and then at a full bottle of whisky standing on a drinks cabinet by the bathroom door. “You’re right. Someone tidied up after them.” He rose stiffly to his feet. “Come on. We’ve got a long evening ahead of us.”
It was just after 10.30 when they arrived in the small side street behind Shaftesbury Avenue.
Bridges’ torchlight revealed letters to the right of the door. “‘BA Club’. BA short for Blue Angel we hope, Sam, rather than Bugger All. I think it’s best that we go in separately. If we’re together and start asking questions and someone gets suspicious, then we’ll both hit a brick wall. If we are asking them separately we’ll have better odds and a better chance of getting information.”
“Fine by me.”
“I got some cash out of the kitty. Here’s a couple of tenners. Probably a ten to one shot against you having any change left when we get out.”
“Who’s first then, sir, you or me?”
“I’ll dive in first. Give me ten minutes then follow me down.” It was dark behind the door but there was a glimmer of light when he reached the bottom of the stairs. Further along a narrow corridor a dirty, bare bulb shone onto a black door, to the right of which was a small printed card with the design of Joan Harris’ matchbook and the words ‘The Blue Angel’. As his eyes became accustomed to the weak light, Merlin saw another corridor on his right. A stale, fatty smell wafted towards him from that direction.
He took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell beneath the card. An elderly evening-suited man, with the ears of a small African elephant, appeared immediately. His jacket appeared to have been tailored for a larger body and hung down baggily from his hunched shoulders. There was a red curtain behind the doorman and Merlin could hear music, chatter and the clink of glasses.
“May I ’elp you, sir?” A black wart nestling under the doorman’s battered nose moved around disconcertingly as he spoke, while his flapping ears created a nice breeze.
“A friend of mine told me that this was a good place for a drink.”
“That it is, sir, but was it just a drink you were looking for?”
“He said you offered good company as well.”
“May I know the name of this friend, sir?”
“Name of Jack. Met him in a pub tonight. We had a few drinks together and I asked him if he could recommend some clubs. I’m in town on business. Staying the night and thought I’d like to have some fun. He gave me a few names but said your club was the nearest and the best.”
The gloomy doorman gave him a bleak smile. “Very well. Please come in. I hope you have a good time.”
As the red curtain parted, Merlin’s nostrils were assaulted by a wave of cheap perfume. The room was bathed in a subdued red light. The walls were decorated with a garish purple paper and a number of flesh-filled paintings in the style of Toulouse-Lautrec. He saw a bar in the distance, and several table booths scattered around the edges of the room. In the middle of the room was a small dance floor, where a few couples were dancing to the music of a three-piece band playing from a raised dais next to the bar. The musicians were, for some reason, dressed in Mexican outfits with Zorro hats, tight leather trousers, and frilly shirts.
“Can I show you to a table, sir, or would you prefer a drink at the bar?”
“The bar, please.”
As he made his way past the dancing couples, he was conscious of a host of eyes giving him the once-over. When he reached the bar three girls bore down on him.
“Hello, dear, buy us a drink will you?” said a Mae West look-alike wearing a tight silvery dress, out of which her bust was bursting.
“I saw him first, Carol. You’re going to buy me a drink first, aren’t you ducks?” The second girl was older than the first. Her dark hair was long and fell in curls round her neck and over a less monumental bust than that of her companion. She wore a particularly pung
ent cheap perfume.
A third girl, the youngest and prettiest of the three, sidled up to Merlin along the bar and put her hand on his.
He smiled at the three women.
“Hang on a sec, ladies. All this beauty has taken my breath away. I’ll need a while to recover so if you don’t mind, I’ll just settle in and get myself a drink for now. I’ll try and catch up with you later.”
The buxom blonde and the brunette melted swiftly into the pink gloom. The third girl, a petite girl with wavy fair hair and bow lips, withdrew to a chair further along the bar. She took a long drag from her cigarette. “Take your time, dear, there’s no rush.”
He struggled to get the attention of the barman, who was chatting to a plump man at the other end of the bar. Eventually the barman dragged himself away from his companion. “A beer, please.”
“Run a tab sir, or pay as you go?” The barman was Irish, a short, fair-haired man with a cast in one eye.
“I’ll pay as I go, thanks.”
The barman delivered the drink and passed a bill across the counter. Merlin frowned and handed over ten shillings. “Busy tonight?”
“Pretty normal for a Friday. It’ll probably get a lot busier after midnight.”
In a bowl on the counter were some loose cigarettes. He’d just have the one to steady his nerves. The barman threw some matches over.
“Thanks.” Merlin looked at the familiar design and lettering. “I live out of town but I’ve been to plenty of London clubs over the years. Never heard of this one before. Apart from in that Marlene Dietrich film that is. Been in business long?”
The barman looked suspiciously at Merlin with his good eye. “I’ve only been working here a couple of months. I think the club’s been here for a while but they change the name from time to time.”
The man at the other end of the bar shouted for attention and the barman moved away. Merlin sipped his beer and had a good look around the room. The curtain by the entrance was being pulled back with some regularity and the club was filling up. The band was playing a romantic tune with a Latin American beat. The kind of music his father would have loved.
As he trawled the recesses of his memory to try and remember the title of the song, he saw Bridges being ushered into the club by the lugubrious doorman. Bridges stood for a few moments by the door before heading to the opposite end of the bar. He was also quickly surrounded, in his case by a gaggle of four women. Looking a little perplexed and glancing briefly in Merlin’s direction, he sent three of the girls packing and kept the fourth, a dark-haired, foreign-looking woman. Then he ordered himself a beer and the girl a glass of wine.
“Friend of yours, is he?”
Merlin turned with a start to face the pretty girl perched along the bar. “Not at all. Why do you say that?” He wondered briefly whether the girl had arrived at the club just after them and seen them at the street door. But no, the girl had been well established at the bar when he’d arrived.
“Just seems that you’re taking a great interest in him, that’s all.”
He puffed at his cigarette. “I just like watching what goes on. I’m a curious sort of person. These places are very interesting.”
The girl finished her drink. “Don’t you find me interesting, dear?”
“Of course I do, I’m just taking my time. Didn’t you say there was plenty of time?”
The girl rose from her stool and moved along the bar. She placed her arm around Merlin’s shoulder and leaned her chest against his arm. “There’s plenty of time, dear, but the place is getting busy and you might miss your chance. That would be a pity as I think you’re rather nice. Tall, dark and handsome, just as I like them. How about you getting us a nice bottle of wine and we can go over and sit at one of those cosy tables.”
Before entering the club he had naively envisaged a strategy of flitting from girl to girl, speaking to as many people as he could as if he were at a drinks party. Clearly that wasn’t going to be possible and he decided he might as well sit down for now with one girl and see what he could get out of her.
The drinks menu was brought and he ordered the cheapest wine he could find. The barman nodded and indicated that he would bring the bottle and glasses over to the table. He followed the girl to a secluded corner booth. As they sat down the band struck up a jolly rendition of ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’.
“My name’s Eve, dear. What’s yours?”
Merlin told her as he tried to make himself comfortable in the rather cramped seat.
Eve giggled sweetly. “And where are you from, Frankie boy?”
“Brighton. Just up in London on business.”
“Oh, I love Brighton. Ever been to the races there? Someone took me last year.” Eve sounded like she’d taken an elocution lesson or two, though with limited success.
“I’ve been to the races, of course. There are quicker ways of losing money, though not many. This place probably ranks up there.”
“Like a bit of a flutter then do you, dear?” Eve reached out and squeezed his leg just as the barman arrived. “Come on darling, pour the drinks. I’ve got a dreadful thirst.”
Merlin poured out the wine. He clinked glasses with Eve and drank. He winced. Eve swallowed half the glass. “It’s better if you drink this stuff in big gulps. Of course, you can always buy a better bottle when this one’s finished.” Eve finished off the glass. “How about a dance, darling?”
While his father’s vocal talent had not been passed down to him, Merlin had inherited a sense of rhythm and was no bad dancer. He had cut a fine figure as a young man on the dance floors of East London and had once won a prize for his pasa doble. He realised immediately, however, that Eve’s style of dancing required little reciprocal skill in her partner. Whatever the pace or beat of the song, Eve’s steps consisted of a relentless grinding of her upper and lower body into his. Eve had large blue eyes, a button nose, a small round mouth and hair cut short but with an abundance of wavy curls. Her features would be better displayed in about a third of the make-up she was wearing but the overall effect was nevertheless very pleasing. She was a little over five feet tall and had a good figure.
Bridges soon made his own appearance on the dance floor. He appeared to be enjoying himself and Merlin hoped that he wouldn’t have to explain any disastrous consequences of this adventure to Iris.
He managed to drag Eve off the dance floor after four songs. As soon as they sat down, she placed her hand on his stomach and began to move it slowly downwards. “We don’t have to hang around here all night if you like. I can come back to your hotel whenever you want.”
“Won’t your bosses here be unhappy if you leave?”
Eve tossed her hair back and took another big swig of wine. He realised she was getting tipsy.
“You’ll have to make a little donation to the house, that’s all. Shouldn’t be a problem to a rich, handsome bloke like you, should it?” Her hand now moved up and down Merlin’s inside leg.
“And who is the house, exactly?”
She rested her head on his neck and whispered. “See that fella over there in the far corner? That big fat bloke, sitting on his own?”
He peered through the cigarette smoke swirling in blue trails above the dance floor and found a very large, bald head. He guessed that the substantial head was attached to a substantial body. “What’s his name?”
“Morrie. Morrie the Lorry we call him. He can be smooth as silk with the customers but he’s a bastard to us. A fat bastard and a mean one too. Anyway. If you want me to come with you now, you just have to drop Morrie a few quid.”
“Maybe after a couple more drinks. I like to get to know a girl a bit.”
Eve finished her glass. A girl in a spangly leotard stopped at the table.
“Cigarettes, madam?”
Eve looked sweetly at Merlin. “Would you, Frank?”
He forked out some more cash with a sigh. The barman wandered over to ask whether the gentleman would care to buy another bott
le of wine and he nodded unhappily. He very much hoped that he was going to get some information out of Eve.
The barman deposited the second bottle on the table. Eve removed her hand from his groin and poured out two glasses. “Down the hatch, darling.”
“Cheers.”
She took a big gulp from her glass and then leant over to place her lips on his. He kissed back for a few seconds and then pulled away.
“Don’t you like me, Frankie?” Eve asked in a little girl voice.
“I like you very much, sweetheart, but we can get down to this properly at my hotel, can’t we?”
She rested her head on his neck again. “Alright, dear. As you like.”
There was a pause in the music and they could hear loud laughter nearby. Merlin thought he heard a familiar voice. Eve leaned her head out of the booth, returning with a grimace.
“What?”
“That Yank prick is in again.”
When Merlin carefully poked his head out he saw Arthur Norton sitting down at a booth in the far corner of the room, accompanied by the plump man he had seen earlier at the bar, another man and some girls. The party was boisterous and noisy.
He drew his head back sharply. He didn’t think Norton had seen him.
“Friend of yours, Eve?”
Eve turned her mouth down and grunted with disgust. “Not bloody likely. He’s a…” She struggled hard for the right word before settling with evident dissatisfaction on “swine.”
“In what way?”
“And swine isn’t the half of it but lets just say he’s rude and rough and leave it at that.”
“Come in here on his own, does he?”
“Sometimes. Or with his mates. That chubby one with him is here a lot. Don’t know his name. Other fancy blokes sometimes. Anyway now, where were we?” She snuggled up to him again.
“You know, you can earn a little money from me without going back to the hotel.”