by Graham Ison
‘What’s up, Ma?’ asked the ever solicitous Gary.
‘Look what that sod’s been and done.’ Arlene stooped and tore the label from the large wreath. ‘You wouldn’t credit it, would you?’ she asked the congregation at large.
‘What is it, Ma?’ Gary Crombie craned his head to read the label that Arlene was flourishing.
‘That bastard Harris. Tango Harris has sent a bloody wreath. To my Billie’s funeral. Oh my Gawd, it’s too much, too much for a widow to bear, I tell you.’ And with that, Arlene started kicking violently at the wreath so that great chunks of it flew up in the air.
Gary Crombie took hold of one of his mother’s arms and his brother Kenny took the other. ‘Leave it, Ma,’ said Gary. ‘Just leave it.’ The Crombie brothers steered their mother away towards a waiting limousine, nodding to Fox as they passed him. ‘Hallo, Mr Fox,’ said Gary. ‘Nice of you to come and pay your respects.’ Then he bent to his mother again. ‘Don’t you fret, Ma,’ he said. ‘We’ll sort Tango Harris out. We’ll do for the bastard.’ Fox sighed. ‘Here we go again, Jack,’ he said.
Chapter Seven
‘Mr Fox! Nice to see you again.’
‘You don’t mean a word of that, Morrie.’ Fox and Gilroy seated themselves at one of the tables in Morrie Isaacs’s restaurant and surveyed the work that was going on in the bar area at the front of the building following the arson attack. ‘I see you’re open for business again.’ Isaacs shrugged. ‘Got to earn a living, Mr Fox. Keep the wolf from the door.’
‘Talking of wolves, Morrie, how did Tango Harris take this?’
Isaacs lowered his voice. ‘Not pleased, Mr Fox. Not pleased at all. Said it was his favourite restaurant and he didn’t like having to go some other place.’
Fox nodded understandingly. ‘I suppose you’ll get a refund for the time you were closed, eh?’
‘A refund? I’m not sure I quite—’
‘A refund of what you usually pay Tango Harris. After all, if you pay for protection and then don’t get it, you’re entitled to your money back.’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about, Mr Fox.’
‘I’d be inclined to sue him. Was there a written contract, at all?’
‘Mr Fox … please. I’m in a very difficult position here. I mean, you just sitting here will drive away business.’
‘Really? Well you do surprise me, Morrie. Here am I, investigating a dastardly murder on your premises — your own barman, no less — and you get nervous about it. What would Tango Harris expect? That we’d just forget about it?’
‘We’ve all got a living to make, Mr Fox,’ said Isaacs, wringing his hands.
‘It’s a hard life, Morrie, but tell me again what happened.’
Isaacs let out an audible sigh. ‘I don’t know, Mr Fox, honest. I never saw a thing. I was in the back when I heard shouting and that. I run out and see the whole of the bar in flames. And Harry — he was the barman, God rest his soul — was lurching about all over the place, screaming like a stuck pig. Looking like a human torch, he did. Someone picked up an ice-bucket and chucked it over him, but it never done no good.’
‘And no one saw anyone throw anything?’
Isaacs shook his head. ‘Nothing, Mr Fox.’
‘That’s an extraordinary thing, Jack, don’t you think?’ Fox glanced at Gilroy. ‘Here we are in the heart of London’s West End and someone sets fire to Morrie’s nice restaurant. And no one sees a thing.’
‘Stranger than fiction, guv,’ said Gilroy, playing his usual part of feed-man to Fox.
‘Ah, yes, Jack. Fiction. There’s a lot of it about these days.’ Fox switched his gaze back to Isaacs. ‘Seen Gary Crombie in here recently, Morrie?’
‘Who?’
Fox leaned menacingly close to Isaacs. ‘Morrie,’ he said, ‘I don’t think you realize how many arrows I’ve got in my quiver.’
‘Quiver, Mr Fox?’
‘Yes, Morrie. Not what you’re doing now, but something toxophilites keep their ammunition in.’
‘You’ve lost me a bit there, Mr Fox.’
‘Well, for a start, there’s the fire brigade to look at your fire exits and other precautions. They’ll be practically living here after what happened, I shouldn’t wonder. Then there are the environmental health officers,’ Fox started ticking off the titles on his fingers. ‘Love poking about in kitchens they do, in their unending quest for cockroaches. Not that they need go into the kitchens here to find cockroaches, of course.’ He glanced round at the few diners that Isaacs had managed to attract back. ‘And last but not least, there are the VAT inspectors.’ Fox leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette. ‘And all for the price of three telephone calls, Morrie. After all, the television adverts for BT keep telling me to make that call.’
‘If you don’t mind me saying, Mr Fox,’ said Isaacs, looking at Fox’s cigarette, ‘this is a no-smoking part of the restaurant.’
‘Like the bar you mean?’ said Fox. ‘But let me tell you about the Vatmen. They can be very nasty indeed. Once they move in and start examining the books, they could be here for weeks. D’you do bed-and-breakfast at all?’
‘Mr Fox.’ Isaacs spread his hands and stared at Fox with a plaintive expression. ‘Just tell me what you want.’
‘It’s the same question, Morrie. Have you seen Gary Crombie in here recently? Or for that matter, was Billie Crombie ever in here … before his untimely death?’
Morrie Isaacs took out a large coloured handkerchief and mopped at his brow. Then with a flash of uncharacteristic courage, he leaned across and whispered. ‘They wouldn’t dare show their faces in here, Mr Fox,’ he said.
*
Detective Sergeant Percy Fletcher, having been commissioned by Fox to get out and beat on the ground, used his knowledge of Soho and the surrounding district to good effect. There were not many clubs, dives, strip-joints, and massage parlours that Fletcher was not familiar with.
It was the seventeenth club he visited that produced some information. But then it was only a snippet.
He descended the area steps — the club was a subterranean one — and rapped on the door.
A wicket opened to reveal the blue chin of the resident bouncer. ‘Yeah?’
Fletcher held up his warrant card. ‘Come to inspect the justices’ licence,’ he said cheerfully.
The door opened, reluctantly. ‘What’s this all about then? Ain’t had a copper look at the licence in years.’
‘Life’s full of little surprises, isn’t it,’ said Fletcher and walked through the internal door to the main part of the premises, knowing that the bouncer would already be on the house phone to the proprietor. Sure enough, before he reached the bar, which was only feet away, he was confronted by a bald-headed and overweight man with oily skin and a light grey double-breasted suit that would have got no marks from Fox in the sartorial stakes.
‘Help you at all?’
‘Unless I’m very much mistaken,’ said Fletcher, ‘you’re Siggy Hoskins.’
‘I have that honour. And who might you be?’
‘Detective Sergeant Fletcher, Flying Squad.’
‘Ah yes,’ said Hoskins. ‘You want to inspect the licence, I understand.’
‘Inspect the licence? Whatever gave you that idea? No, Siggy, the Flying Squad are interested in crime.’ Fletcher placed a certain ominous emphasis on the word.
‘Well, my doorman said—’
‘Doormen are notorious liars,’ said Fletcher. ‘At least that’s my experience … particularly of that one.’ He cocked a thumb in the direction of the entrance. ‘On the contrary, Siggy, I’ve come to talk to you about Gina West … to say nothing of Tango Harris and the late Billie Crombie.’
‘Never heard of any of them,’ said Hoskins.
‘That’s unfortunate,’ said Fletcher, gazing round the discreetly lit room. There were about twenty couples seated at tables. Some were clearly amateur adventurers, up west to see life in the raw. The others comprised, for the most part, t
ired-looking businessmen accompanied by young ladies — at least, they looked young in the half-light — who probably described themselves as escorts but who would undoubtedly take their clothes off and hop into bed if the price was right. ‘In that case,’ continued Fletcher, ‘I’ll just have to question one or two of your clientele. All regulars, are they?’
Fletcher stared hard at Hoskins’s hand as it grasped his sleeve. ‘Sorry,’ said Hoskins, leaving go immediately. ‘P’raps you’d better come in the office. That’s where I keep the licence,’ he added a little more loudly, and waggled his head knowingly.
The office was a tip. An old desk stood across one corner, covered in papers, and next to it a filing cabinet on top of which was a bottle of whisky and some dirty glasses. Hoskins waved his hand towards a tired settee. ‘Have a seat,’ he said. ‘Scotch?’
‘Only if you’ve got a clean glass.’
‘Of course, of course,’ said Hoskins and opened a cupboard. He took out two fresh glasses and another bottle of Scotch and poured a stiff measure in each. ‘It’s malt. Only the best.’
Fletcher took a sip of whisky. ‘Well, what d’you know about Gina West, Siggy?’
Hoskins sat down behind his desk. ‘Is this confidential, Mr er—?’
‘Fletcher.’
‘Only I might have bent the rules a bit, see. I mean you take ’em on as hostesses and then you find out they’re on the game, but … well it’s very difficult.’ Hoskins adopted an imploring expression.
‘It’s confidential.’ Fletcher didn’t bother to add that if Hoskins had anything important to say he would be the unhappy recipient of a subpoena to give evidence at the Central Criminal Court.
‘She used to get in here. Quite often—’
‘Did she work for you, or did she pick up clients in here?’
‘Oh no, nothing like that, Mr Fletcher. No, she always come in with a punter. A couple of drinks before they went back to his hotel or wherever, I reckon.’
‘When was the last time?’
Hoskins appeared to give the matter some thought. ‘Must have been eight weeks ago, I s’pose. It was the night of the bust-up.’
‘What bust-up?’
Hoskins lowered his voice, even though they were alone in the office and the door was closed. ‘Billie Crombie,’ he said. ‘She was one of his girls, see.’
‘Yeah, I know,’ said Fletcher. ‘What was the argument about?’
‘Well, Crombie come in here with his boy Gary and three of his friends.’
‘Friends?’ said Fletcher. ‘You use the term loosely, I take it?’
Hoskins ignored the sarcasm. ‘Well, Crombie — Billie, that is — had been drinking and they’d been doing the rounds, I should think. Collecting … if you know what I mean.’
‘How much do they collect off you, Siggy?’
Hoskins forced a laugh. ‘Not me, Mr Fletcher. This is a straight club.’
Fletcher laughed too and put his empty glass on the corner of Hoskins’s desk. Hoskins promptly refilled it. ‘Yeah, go on then.’
‘Well, Gina was in here, with a mug, like, and Crombie went across to their table. He grabs this punter by the lapels and tells him to piss off. Some smarmy jessie from Birmingham, he was. Didn’t look as though he was interested in birds. So, anyhow, he cleared off a bit sharpish, and then Crombie has a go at Gina. Tells her that she’d better come across with her payments, or she’d get a striping … or worse.’
‘This was Billie Crombie doing all the talking, was it?’
‘Yeah, that’s right, Mr Fletcher.’
‘What happened then?’
‘He gives her a slap across the face and tells her to get working, that she hadn’t got no time to go sitting round in clubs.’
‘And after that? They go, did they?’
‘No, they stopped and had a few drinks. Laughing and joking about it. And Billie Crombie says something to Gary about that’s how he should run the business when he took over.’
‘Anyone else in the club when all this happened?’
‘It was early on. There was only two couples. Both regulars.’
‘Names?’ asked Fletcher brutally.
‘Look, Mr Fletcher … please. You know the score. They was a couple of geezers what run with Tango Harris — only small fry, like — and a couple of scrubbers they must have picked up with.’
‘Members of this club, are they?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then you’ll know their names, won’t you. On the other hand, I can seize the membership register and interview each and every one of them.’ Fletcher was certain that none of them would have seen anything, but this was a way of persuading Hoskins to talk.
Hoskins looked extremely anguished. ‘Danny Royce was one of them. The other was Tony Guerrini. I don’t know the broads. They was guests, like.’
‘Are you telling me, Siggy, that a couple of Tango’s boys sat and watched this performance by Crombie and company, and didn’t lift a finger? Didn’t do or say anything?’
‘Wouldn’t have been very clever that, would it? I mean they was outnumbered.’
‘Did Crombie know that they were Tango’s soldiers?’
Hoskins shrugged. ‘Maybe. I don’t know. Might have been Crombie was showing a bit of muscle so’s the word’d get back to Tango Harris. Your guess is as good as mine, Mr Fletcher.’
‘So an unknown man and Gina West were assaulted and threats of GBH or worse made against Miss West. I reckon that amounts to an affray, Siggy. Very serious. Did you call the police to deal with this disorder on your premises?’
Hoskins had been pouring himself another drink and looked up quickly. But Fletcher was laughing.
*
‘Danny Royce and Tony Guerrini appear to be two hooligans we should talk to, Jack … according to Percy Fletcher.’ Fox stared down at the piece of paper in the centre of his blotter.
‘Where do they fit in, guv?’ asked Gilroy.
‘Numbers Three and Four Cells at West End Central for a start, I should think. Find them, Jack, there’s a good fellow.’
*
Neither Royce nor Guerrini had protested when Gilroy and his Flying Squad team arrested them. It was not the first time they had been in police custody, of course, and were probably secure in the knowledge that their first telephone call would bring Tango Harris’s solicitor hotfoot to the police station in Savile Row.
‘One of my officers,’ began Fox, ‘tells me that you witnessed a serious assault, and a threat to murder.’ He lit a cigarette and surveyed Danny Royce through the haze of smoke. He had left Guerrini on ice, having decided to interview the younger of the two prisoners first.
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Yes, indeed. The incident took place some eight weeks ago at an insalubrious drinking club run by Siggy Hoskins and known, with startling lack of originality, as Siggy’s Club.’
‘Don’t know nothing about no incident.’ Royce lounged in the chair with an expression of veiled contempt on his face.
Fox had seen such expressions before … and knew how to remove them. But the time was not yet ripe. ‘It involved Gina West, deceased, Billie Crombie, deceased, and one Gary Crombie — of doubtful parentage — as well as others as yet unnamed.’
‘Oh yeah, I do remember that.’ Royce leaned forward with an expression on his face that could have been mistaken, by the naive, for one of a desire to assist.
‘Splendid,’ said Fox. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘Nothing to it, really,’ said Royce. ‘Me and Tony was sitting having a couple of quiet drinks with two ladies … ’ Fox raised an eyebrow but otherwise let the description pass. ‘And Crombie come in with his kid—’
‘Gary, you mean?’
‘Yeah, that’s him, little tosser. And three other hoods. Well Crombie gets hold of this bird and gives her a slapping, and tells her to get going.’
‘Gina West, would that have been?’
‘Yeah, I think that’s what she was called.’
If the painful expression on his face was any indication, Royce appeared to give that deep thought. ‘Yeah, I think he did,’ he said eventually. ‘It was like he was her ponce and hadn’t got paid.’
‘And was he her ponce?’
‘Well, word round the village reckoned he was.’
‘By the village, you mean Soho, I take it?’
‘Where else?’ asked Royce, apparently mystified by the question.
‘Then what happened?’
‘Well, the bird cleared off, and Crombie and his mates stayed and had a few drinks. Then they buggered off an’ all.’
‘Interesting,’ said Fox. ‘And did Crombie threaten Miss West in any way?’
‘Yeah, I think he promised her a striping. I couldn’t hear proper, because he was holding her chin in his hand and talking close, like. But I reckon he must’ve threatened to top her. Leastways by the look on her face when she pissed off. Right scared she looked.’
‘Tell me, how much does Tango Harris collect from Siggy Hoskins in protection money?’
‘Tango Harris collecting protection money? You must be joking,’ said Royce.
‘True,’ said Fox. ‘I do have a curious sense of humour. But how much?’
‘I don’t know nothing about that,’ said Royce.
Fox substituted Tony Guerrini for Royce in the interview room, but apart from that, nothing changed. Guerrini’s answers were exactly the same as Royce’s had been, down to the last full stop almost. And when Percy Fletcher listened to the tape, he confirmed that their account tallied with that given by Siggy Hoskins practically word for word.
‘If ever I saw a set-up, it’s this,’ said Fox to Gilroy and Fletcher. ‘First of all, Siggy Hoskins came across with the names of those two far too readily. And secondly, Tango
Harris will have heard that Royce and Guerrini had been nicked. You weren’t exactly discreet when you pulled them, were you, Jack?’
‘Well, you said—’
Fox held up a hand. ‘No criticism, Jack. Precisely what I wanted. So, news having travelled rapidly to Chez Harris at Buckhurst Hill, what happens? Nothing is what happens. Now I would have expected one of Tango’s extensive team of legal functionaries to have presented himself to the custody officer at West End Central within the hour. After all, we left it long enough, quite deliberately. But no protests, no mouthpiece, just uncharacteristic co-operation.’ Fox spun the paper-knife in the centre of his blotter. ‘I think that Tango Harris is trying to be clever in his old age. But,’ he added, ‘he’s left it too late.’