Bad Penny Blues

by Cathi Unsworth

  “Hey,” I say, catching his eye as I put my empty glass down. “Another one in here, eh? And one more for my pal.”

  “That's your thirteenth this evening, love,” the landlord comments, raising his hairy old eyebrows like he's giving me a warning.

  “So?” I say. “You think I'm superstitious?”

  I know he's thinking what everyone else round here is saying. That Jack got the wrong one last time; he took Mavis thinking she was me. Same Glasgow accent, same name: Patsy Fleming a girl we both pretended to be, me for the bogeys, Mavis for the Social. Cannae remember who thought of her first.

  “Cheers.” I clink glasses with Vera, know what she's thinking and all. About the time we stood in court for the doctor, the things we saw and the stories we told to keep it all safe. The big houses in Mayfair and Kensington. The smaller rooms in Bayswater and Paddington, the red lights and the flashlights, the smell of stale sex and cheap perfume. Ernie and Margaret Rose, Mavis and her Lords. The reason Vera sleeps with her doors triple locked and her windows bolted, the reason we are out tonight in our matching outfits, turquoise suits with fox trim collars, brown suede shoes, very refined. Which one of us d’you think is which tonight then, Jack?

  The light slides like a halo off the rim of my glass as I down the amber liquid, the taste of home and a song starting up on the jukebox, that old cowboy song by the fella who played Biggles. A girl singing back-up like she's singing from under the earth, a sound that sends prickles down the back of my neck.

  “D’you want another, pet?” says Vera, putting her empty glass down and wobbling on her new shoes, leaning back on the bar for support.

  The light swims before me, down the side of my glass and around the optics, swirling around Vera's head, her blonde curls with black roots showing, red lipstick stuck to her front tooth, jacket slightly gaping at the front. She's a big girl, Vera, not like me. I am slight but full of Glasgow courage and now fancying it's time I roped myself a cowboy before the night is out, pay for some more of this good stuff.

  “Nah,” I say, “my purse is empty. Let's go ride the high country, eh, hen?”

  Vera cackles and leans against my arm as we walk up Portobello Road in our matching suits and our matching heels, trying to remember the words to Biggles’ song as we go, only getting as far as the chorus, two of us bellowing a name: “Johneee…”

  “Ladies,” comes a voice from beside me.

  I stop and turn, wondering where I have heard that voice before. A big man in a sheepskin coat, leaning against a long black car, smoking a cigarette. I try to make out his face in the glow of the streetlamp but then another voice joins in from across the road.

  “Fancy a ride?” A thinner, smaller man walks across to us, not too much hair on this one.

  “Where to, cowboy?” asks Vera, stumbling into him, her hand on his arm, an old shabby mac, not too much brass on him either from the looks of things.

  “Not far,” says the big man, moving towards me, his eyes in the dark the only things I can see, two glowing coals in a face of shadows. I touch the cross around my neck, wondering where I know him from, thinking back into a past blurred by too much whisky and too many tall tales to know for sure where everything starts and everything ends…

  “We'll travel in convoy,” he says to me, “to Chiswick. I know the way. He's from out of town.”

  Vera whispers in my ear. “I'll take your number plates, you take mine.” Scared Vera, thinking about the doctor, thinking about Jack.

  “Madam…” He beckons me towards the open back door and I slide inside across leather seats, a nice car that smells of money, thinking I got the best deal here, I don't like the look of Vera's, as the car pulls out of Portobello Road and turns left on Labroke Grove, underneath the trees where everybody sees, right under the trees of Holland Park Avenue, the spreading plane trees, where I knew a man and he knew me…

  “So,” he says, looking at me in the driver's mirror, “Ernie's been looking for you.”

  The words hit me like a punch in the stomach.

  I look at his eyes in the mirror and see Ernie staring back, Ernie who they say is now buried under the new flyover, a ton of concrete for his grave. I blink and I swallow and I look again and I see the eyes of Margaret Rose sending me a warning, the second warning of the night I haven't heeded. I look behind me and there is no car, there is no Vera following, only a reflection in the wing mirror, Mavis's eyes all full of sadness and I hear him laugh as his hand moves towards the dial of the radio, a crackling sound filling the air as I remember who he is.

  “No!” I try to speak. “Don't touch that dial! No.” I open my mouth but no sound comes out. “Don't touch that dial!” But his fingers close in on the knob and the whole picture dissolves in front of my eyes as he tunes me out for the last time…

  “No!” I heard my own voice in my ears, screaming: “Don't touch that dial!”

  I opened my eyes and the room came into focus, the parlour of the Christian-Spiritualist Greater World Association. My right hand was still in the grasp of Stanley's, his big blue eyes wide with shock. My left was held by Mya, her eyes still closed, her own right hand frantically writing out messages on the pad in front of her:

  VERA THE DOCTOR AND ME – MAVIS ME AND PATSY – ERNIE IN THE FLYOVER DEAD AND BURIED – MAVIS SAYS THE KING IS IN HIS KASTLE AND RON IS BY THE RIVER! FIND HIM BY THE RIVER!

  39 THERE’S A HEARTACHE FOLLOWING ME

  Pete and Coulter sat in the lamplight, in the living room, as Joan and the baby slept overhead. A bottle of whisky on the table in front of them, piles of their notes surrounding it, connecting mugshots of the departed with their best suspects for the killer, while the grandfather clock counted down the night.

  Fielding had returned to CID from his meeting about Steadman not with any news of Sampson Marks’ imminent arrest, but instead, full of the latest information on Mavis McGruder to share with his men.

  The lab reports had come in. Analysis by infra-red and ultra-violet spectro-photometers revealed an exact match between the paint stains found on Mavis and those on Mathilde Bressant, along with identical traces of sacking, rubber and wood. The rubber was the same kind used for lining a car boot, Fielding explained, and the area of the bodies in contact with it suggested that they had been curled up to fit inside the rear floor of a vehicle, a station wagon or a big car. The killer had waited for rigor mortis to pass so he could manipulate them into a convenient position for transportation.

  “The laboratory's analysis is that the bodies have not been near an actual paint spray shop, but in or near premises where cars were resprayed during repairs, which narrows down our search somewhat,” he had told the assembled CID officers. “If we can find that repair shop, we can find our killer. I want you to continue to visit every mechanic in the district, in pairs, with evidence bags in which to collect your dust samples. One of you will ask to see the manager, keep him detained talking about his paperwork, while the other collects the samples out of sight. We don't want them to know why we're really there, we've already lost too many important witnesses in this case…”

  He had let his eyes rest on Pete as he said it, a distinct lack of warmth in them too.

  When the hubbub had abated, Coulter tried to have a quiet word with him about Marks, but Fielding's reply was terse, dismissive. Something about The Chopper already being part of an ongoing investigation that couldn't be interrupted, that it was the Flying Squad's call and he could say no more about it.

  Pete wondering what this really meant.

  July turning into August, tramping round garages as per Fielding's orders, sending the envelopes back to the lab, scanning the papers daily for any mention of a Soho strip club owner getting arrested. August turning into September, the long hot summer as stifling as the unanswered questions between Coulter and Pete that weighed heavier by the day.

  October and the General Election: Harold Wilson snatching victory from bumbling old Alec Douglas-Home by a matter of 900 votes.
No such reward for the pipe-smoking, Gannex-wearing gaffer of Notting Hill nick: still no samples to match the paintwork on the corpses. Meanwhile, Sampson Marks still at liberty, photographed with the Beatles and the Stones at an art gallery in Mayfair, smiling like a proper renaissance man.

  Pete had just been studying this latest affront to public decency when Coulter had come into the canteen, looking more anxious and haggard than Pete had ever seen him.

  “Pete, Dick,” he said, sitting down between them. “A question for you. How far did you get in your search for the Sexy Ron in Stephenson's diary before that fool McSweeney got in the way?”

  Pete and Dick exchanged glances.

  “I think we did about four of them.” Dick scrunched up his brow. “Weren't we on the way to Ronald number five when we were so rudely interrupted?”

  Pete nodded. “I can go over my notes but I'm sure you're right. I seem to recall Ronald number five was an ageing drunk from Lancaster Road, seemed pretty pointless to us at the time.”

  “Well,” Coulter's fingers tapped on the table-top, “I've been going over everything in my notes this weekend and I think that's where we've gone astray. What say we go back over the list, discount anyone who looks too long in the tooth to be Sexy Ron and go back to looking for him?”

  “Why not?” said Dick, scraping back his chair. “I for one am sick to death of talking MOT certificates and grovelling round on garage floors.” He started stacking up their empty plates and cups on a tray, got up and took it back to the counter.

  “Have you had a tip?” Pete whispered while he was gone.

  “Aye,” said Coulter, staring after Dick, “from one of the girls.” He sat in silence for a moment then turned his eyes towards Pete. “I've got a bad feeling,” he said, “that there's going to be another one turn up any minute now.”

  “Come over this evening,” Pete offered. “Joan's making stew and cobblers.” He knew Coulter well enough by now, the older man liked just the sort of food he did. “There'll be plenty enough to go round, and I know she'd love to see you. Then maybe we can discuss it some more.”

  They'd been at it for hours now, the clock inching its way towards midnight.

  “D’you know,” said Coulter, rubbing his tired eyes, “I've only ever had one case in my life as bad as this. I can still lose sleep over it now. He was a mad man like this one, killed seven women right under our noses. Seven women and a baby girl.”

  “Christie?” Pete stared into Coulter's eyes, melancholy lamps in the dark night.

  Coulter nodded. “Did you know he was a policeman, for a while?”

  “No,” hairs bristling on the back of Pete's neck, “no, I never did.”

  “Well, they keep it pretty quiet these days,” Coulter said, “but he worked up Harrow Road during the war.”

  Pete's hand clenched around his glass. “Stan,” he said. “I think I've finally realised what it is that we missed. It's been playing on my mind that me and Dick forgot something when we were checking up on McSweeney.”

  “Oh yes?” Coulter blinking himself back from his reverie.

  “Now I know it.” Pete's pulse quickened. “The man McSweeney was having a drink with, the night Bressant was murdered. We asked the landlord if McSweeney was in the Princess Alexandra at the time he said he was and he confirmed it. Said he'd been drinking with a friend. Only I never thought to get a description of the fella he was with. God,” he smacked his palm to his forehead, “what a fool!”

  “What are you saying?” Coulter frowned.

  “It wasn't a friend of his helping to drown his sorrows, was it?” said Pete. “It was someone else giving him his orders. Telling him that he had to come down the station and confess to murdering Stephenson, telling him the exact time and place to tell us, so that his story couldn't be argued with. Making us look like fools when the next body turned up. And there's only one person who'd know that, isn't there?”

  “The killer,” said Coulter. “Our Jack.”

  “Yes,” said Pete, “someone so bloody scary that McSweeney would rather give himself up than face the consequences of what might happen if he didn't. I always knew McSweeney's story was balls, he was a bloody con man, running that poker game Christ knows how long without turning a hair. But the fear coming off him that morning, by God. Same as Ernie when we arrested him, and who knows what ever happened to him? Same as bloody Steadman. We need to go back to that landlord, Stan, and pray to God he's got as good a memory for faces as a magistrate…”

  “Hold on a minute,” said Coulter. “Who do you think he's going to tell us it is?”

  “Marks,” said Pete, “I'm sure of it. If he can just give us a good enough description…”

  “I don't think so,” said Coulter, shaking his head.

  Pete stared at him. “What?” he said.

  “I mean, I think you're right about McSweeney getting his orders from a man in the pub, that makes sense,” said Coulter, “I'm just not sure it would be Marks coming out in the open, doing something as reckless as that. Why would he, if he's so powerful? Wouldn't he have one of his lackies do his dirty work for him, just in case someone in the pub did have a good memory for faces?”

  “Bugger.” Pete, who had been halfway out of his chair sat right back down. “You're right. Course he wouldn't. He'd have us chasing round after some minor villain, while he sat back and laughed at us, way he has been all along.”

  “Well let's just think about this,” said Coulter, rubbing his hands together, “think about the kind of villain that could put so much fear into men like Tidsall, McSweeney and Steadman. Now, I knew Steadman pretty well and he wasn't a man to be easily intimidated – stupid he may have been, but cowardly he wasn't, not in the ring nor out of it. That meeting you had with the artist fellow suggested that McSweeney was a fairly consummate professional too. And Tidsall thought he was in the clear the moment he got that fancy lawyer, I wonder who was paying for that?”

  “Marks,” Pete scowled, “has more than enough money to cover that.”

  “Ah,” said Coulter, looking at him like a kindly teacher who expects to get the right answer from his star pupil next time, “but is his empire so great that he can engender the kind of fear that would have McSweeney and Steadman putting themselves away for him for years on end, rather than face his wrath? Are his tentacles that long, that far-reaching?”

  Pete suddenly felt his stomach drop from a great height. The photographs. The proof that Wesker had fitted up all those people just to stop any of them from talking about what they might have remembered seeing that night.

  “Oh my God,” he said, his mind racing, looking through Coulter and back onto the banks of the Thames and DCI Bell, turning his face away from the light.

  “There are still some sensitive matters pertaining to the Wesker affair that are best left off the record…”

  If Wesker wasn't covering up for Marks, who was he really taking his orders from? Who had that kind of power?

  Black-and-white images flashed through his mind, a succession of faces smiling for Ernie's camera. Stopped on Sir Alex Minton and Lord Douglas Somerset.

  They were the most powerful men in the room, Pete realised. Powerful enough to have Wesker sent up from West End Central when Gypsy George nicked that bag, that bag of filth, of pictures just like the ones Ernie took, “on the orders of Scotland Yard's finest, Detective Inspector Reginald Bell” as he had heard Wesker say with his own ears.

  Detective Chief Inspector Reginald Bell to whom Pete had handed over every shred of evidence about Wesker they had, every card he would ever have had to play against an operation more ruthless, corrupt and extreme than he could have possibly imagined.

  “Oh my good God no,” he said as his whisky glass cracked under his fist, Joan's best crystal splintering into his hand, blood and whisky all over her polished table top.

  Bell and The Bastard. Bell and The Bastard. They had been in it together all along. He hadn't been sent to West End Central to uncover co
rruption, he realised, but to weave himself into the very web of it, to prove how laughably honest he was, how trusting…

  He looked up at Coulter, unable to speak, unable to comprehend the mess he had made of the table, only knowing that now they could never catch Jack, whichever face in the frame he actually was. Now he could never tell Coulter, either. If he opened his mouth he was doomed, done for…

  “Steady on, lad,” Coulter said gently, getting to his feet and coming over to Pete, helping him out of the chair and into the kitchen, running cold water over his cut hand and inspecting the lacerations.

  “It looks all right,” he said, “nothing deep enough for stitches I don't think, which is just as well, I don't suppose either of us fancied a visit to St Charles's at this time of night. Where d’you keep your first aid kit?”

  Pete motioned with his head to the right cupboard and Coulter found the TCP and the bandages, cleaned him up and dressed his wounds, went back into the lounge and cleaned that up too, started making them both a cup of tea while Pete just stood there, shaking. Thinking about everything he could lose, everything he held dear, everything that slept above him, so peaceful and oblivious to it all.

  “Now then.” Coulter steered him back into the lounge, sat him down and put the tea in front of him.

  “Drink,” he ordered. “It'll do you good.”

  Pete did as he was told, felt his mind start to focus again as the hot sweetness kicked in.

  “So,” said Coulter. “Christie wasn't the only bad apple, then?”

  He said it as if he had known it all along.

  Pete clenched his injured hand, shaking his head, looking up at the man sitting opposite, a sudden flicker of hope that the old detective really was the man he thought he was. Not like Wesker. Not like Bell.

  Coulter reached across, put his hand over Pete's fist. “It wasn't just the poor sods he buried in his home – another one died because of that devious bastard,” he said quietly. “A man who'd still be walking around today if I'd only believed him. Timothy Edwards, poor backwards beggar who swung for him first. Oh, you can say that it wasn't just my fault, that he had a judge and jury trial, twelve good men and true. But I know my part in it and I know what it is you're feeling now, how it'll go on and haunt you for the rest of your days if you let him walk away. I'm not asking you how you know what you know. There are certain things I could never explain to you either. But if you want to get this bastard, this animal, whatever it takes, then I'm with you, all the way.”