Dead Beat

by Patricia Hall

  It took the two young women a few minutes to realize that the first pub they entered at lunchtime was different from many of the others where they had touted Tom’s snapshot around and where Kate had taken some pictures. They barely noticed that when they went through the door almost every eye in the place turned in their direction and every eye in the place was male. Kate slipped through the crowds to the bar where a tall man dressed entirely in black seemed to be in charge. She did a double-take when she saw his single gold earring as she took out her photograph of Tom and placed it on the beer-stained bar counter.

  ‘This is my brother,’ she said. ‘Have you seen him at all?’

  The barman glanced at the picture and shook his head almost imperceptibly. ‘Nah, I don’t think so,’ he said, without much sign of interest. But the man standing next to Kate also glanced at the picture, and stared at it for a long moment before giving a dramatic shrug.

  ‘Pretty boy,’ he said. ‘But no, sadly, he hasn’t crossed my path, darling.’

  Kate became aware that if the barman’s earring had seemed unusual enough to have earned him considerable baiting on the streets of Liverpool, the way this man was dressed verged on the bizarre and might have caused a riot in Anfield. He wore a green felt hat which did not entirely cover his long, golden, curly hair, earrings in both ears, a purple silk shirt, mauve tie and a suit of such garish checks in shades of brown and purple that Kate could barely restrain a laugh and, then, a faint sense of horror as she noticed a touch of artificial colour on his lips.

  ‘Come on, Kate, let’s get out of here,’ Marie said suddenly, but Kate had taken a deep breath and turned to her neighbour at the bar with a brilliant smile.

  ‘Can I take your photograph?’ she asked. The barman gasped slightly but the man in the green fedora merely smiled.

  ‘Of course you can, darling,’ he said. ‘Feel free.’

  ‘Outside, if you don’t mind,’ the barman snapped. ‘Some people like their privacy.’

  ‘Vincent,’ green hat announced, holding out his hand to Kate and then to Marie to be shaken. ‘Vincent Beaufort. They all know me round here. They get upset in the pub if I rock the boat, though the truth is that deep down every one of them wishes they had the balls to be me. The only trouble is, if you don’t hide what you are, some people like to give you a good thumping now and again.’

  He unhitched himself from his stool and sashayed through the crowded bar and into the bustling street outside to a few ribald cheers and as they pushed through the swing doors they were greeted by strident whistles from some builders working on the other side of the road. One or two passers-by stopped in their tracks to gaze at Vincent in astonishment while a burly young man muttered ‘Dirty poofter’ aggressively the moment he set eyes on the girls’ companion. Vincent meanwhile held his hand behind his head in an exaggerated film-star pose, with a wide smile that revealed several gold-capped teeth.

  ‘There you are, my dears. What more do you want?’

  Kate grinned and took several quick shots, with Marie watching from a distance.

  ‘Did you mean what I think you meant when you said Tom was a pretty boy?’ she asked Vincent quietly when she had finished.

  ‘I’ve no idea, petal. I’ve never met your brother – though I wouldn’t say no if I did. But he might run a mile if he saw me, like most of this lot.’ He smiled beatifically and raised a regal hand in salute to the passers-by who had gathered round to watch the impromptu photo-shoot and who moved on in embarrassment in response to Beaufort’s acknowledgement. ‘So is that all? Can I get back to my drink now?’

  ‘Have you any idea where I might look?’ Kate asked, grabbing the violently chequered arm in panic. ‘It’s very important to find him.’

  Kate’s desperation obviously had its effect because Vincent took the photograph of Tom O’Donnell out of her hand and studied it carefully before shaking his head.

  ‘I don’t know, petal,’ he said. ‘Maybe he looks vaguely familiar.’ He hesitated. ‘There’s a place called ABC Books in a little alley off Greek Street . . .’

  ‘We’ve already been there,’ Kate said cautiously. ‘He lived near there, but he’s moved out. That’s the problem.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Beaufort said, suddenly looking gaunt and revealing two red patches of rouge on his cheeks. ‘Some boy was killed round there a few days ago. A boy called Jonathon. Him I had met, in the pub here. He caused quite a stir too. We were just talking about it. A very pretty boy. Not that the Old Bill will bust a gut looking for whoever killed him if he’s one of us.’ He glanced back into the pub and shrugged. ‘If your brother’s queer, darling, he’s not been on the scene long, as far as I know. And I would know, believe me. He’d be noticed all right, looking the way he looks. I hope you find him safe and sound.’ And with that he tipped his hat, spun on his heel and pushed his way back into the pub.

  ‘Oh my,’ Marie said, watching the door swing shut behind him. ‘Where on earth did he spring from?’

  ‘You know about people like that,’ Kate snapped, not wanting to admit how unnerved she had been by Vincent’s speculations. ‘You must do. You must know about Oscar Wilde.’

  ‘I didn’t go to the art college with all the bohemians like you did,’ Marie said plaintively. ‘I went to a nice Catholic college with Tess where they didn’t talk about things like that.’

  Kate sighed. ‘Well, you’ve seen A Taste of Honey at least. You remember Geoff who wasn’t interested in women? If you’re going to be an actress I think you’d better find out a bit more about all that. From what I hear, there’s plenty of people like that in the theatre. Anyway, let’s get on. I’ve got to be back in the office at two.’

  But as they turned away, they became aware of a man watching them intently from the other side of the street and suddenly, as if on an impulse, crossing over and putting himself directly in their path.

  ‘Hello, girls,’ Detective Sergeant Harry Barnard said, giving them the benefit of his most charming smile. ‘Can I have a word?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Kate snapped, instantly irritated by the sharply dressed stranger with his confident air and calculating dark eyes. ‘We’re in a hurry.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to insist,’ Barnard said, bringing his warrant card out of his inside jacket pocket and holding it so that Kate and Marie could read it. Kate recognized the name at once. This was the policeman Pete Marelli had told them to contact about her brother.

  ‘I noticed you taking photographs yesterday, as it happens, with a very smart little camera,’ Barnard went on smoothly. ‘Thought that was unusual. Can I have a look at the photograph you just showed our flamboyant friend, Vinnie?’

  Kate was tempted to refuse. She was still not sure she wanted the police involved in her hunt for Tom, but she supposed that in the end she would have to ask for their help and if it was a bit sooner than she had expected it might do no harm. She offered Barnard the enlarged snapshot which she had taken herself shortly before Tom left home.

  ‘It’s my brother. He’s in London somewhere, probably working around here. He’s in the fashion trade. But we’ve not heard from him for a while and my mam’s getting anxious. I’ve just got a job in Soho and I’m trying to track him down.’

  ‘I hope it’s the sort of job you can tell your mother about,’ Barnard said with a grin. He studied the photograph handed him of a good-looking young man, with more than a look of his sister, dark hair flopping across his forehead and a faint, enigmatic smile lighting up his face. ‘And his name is?’ he asked Kate.

  ‘Tom, Tom O’Donnell,’ she said, surprised at how reluctantly the words came out. ‘He came down from Liverpool a year or so ago. At least we think he did. He’s not kept in touch . . .’

  ‘And in the rag trade, you said?’

  ‘He was working in various shops back home,’ Kate said. ‘He really loves fashion . . .’ She hesitated, catching the knowing look in Barnard’s eyes, but he did not comment directly.

/>   ‘Do you know where he was living?’ he asked instead.

  Marie and Kate exchanged an anxious glance before Kate replied. ‘Someone told Marie that they thought he shared a flat off Greek Street, but when we went round there it seemed to be all locked up. So we’re not sure.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t have popped into the shop downstairs and spoken to the owner?’ Barnard asked, his tone suddenly changing. ‘A Mr Marelli who told you to contact the police?’

  Kate felt herself blush and it was Marie who jumped in to reply.

  ‘He didn’t tell us his name and anyway we didn’t believe him,’ she said. ‘He looked at the photograph but didn’t really recognize Tom. Anyway, Kate’s mam didn’t want Tom reported missing. She could have done that herself ages ago if she’d wanted to get involved with the bizzies at home. But she didn’t.’

  ‘Well, she doesn’t have that luxury now,’ Barnard said, suddenly cold. ‘We very much want to talk to your brother, Miss O’Donnell. His flatmate has been found dead and your brother seems to have disappeared, probably the same evening. He has, at the very least, some explaining to do.’

  ‘You can’t think—’ Kate felt her mouth dry and her heart was thumping uncomfortably.

  ‘We don’t think anything,’ Barnard said, surprised at how sorry he felt for Kate, who had gone understandably pale, her eyes full of tears. ‘But we need to talk to your brother urgently. It’s not impossible that he himself might be in danger. I really need to ask you some more questions at the police station.’

  Kate glanced at her watch with a sense of panic. ‘Could I come after work?’ she asked. ‘I’m in a new job and I’m due back in the office. I really don’t want to mess up my chances with my new boss. He’s not going to be impressed if he knows I’m at a police station.’

  Barnard’s instinct was to turn her down flat but something made him hesitate. The bloody girl had got under his skin, he thought irritably. ‘What time do you finish?’ he asked.

  ‘Five,’ Kate said.

  Barnard pulled out a notebook and flipped it open. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Give me your details, home address, work address, phone numbers, all that. And be here at the nick at five fifteen on the dot. OK? And bring me that photograph of your brother. I’ll need that.’

  ‘There’s no phone in the flat where I’m staying,’ she said. ‘Just a payphone down in the hall but I don’t know the number.’

  ‘Can you find it for me?’

  Kate nodded and did as she was told, and took the page on which Barnard had scribbled his own name and the address of West End Central police station.

  ‘Don’t be late,’ he said sharply, as the two young women, both looking relieved, turned away into the crowds, heading north.

  ‘You’re a bloody fool,’ Barnard muttered to himself, though he was pretty sure the girl would turn up. He spun on his heel and pushed open the doors of the pub Kate and Marie had just left, shoving his way to the bar with scant regard for the crowds who stood in his way.

  ‘Right,’ he said to the barman. ‘Tom O’Donnell. One of you poofs must know him and I’m going to make myself very unpopular until I find out who does.’

  SIX

  Detective Sergeant Harry Barnard met Kate O’Donnell in the front office of the police station and led her past the duty sergeant’s desk and through a door into an interior of gloomy corridors lined with institutionally painted doors, ignoring the curious glances and a faint wolf whistle which greeted Kate’s arrival.

  ‘I’ve found us a nice cosy interview room,’ he said, seeing the tension in her face, and hoping she would relax. He smiled slightly at the thought as he took in her slim figure and shapely legs, which had been so openly appreciated by his colleagues. A bit different from the usual women West End Central entertained, he thought, and in different circumstances he could really fancy getting Kate O’Donnell to relax very completely indeed. He knew next to nothing about Liverpool, apart from the rivalry of its two football teams, and its reputation for fierce disputes in the docks, and he wondered how far nice girls up there were prepared to go. Kate seemed very young but surprisingly self-confident for a new arrival from the sticks. Perhaps when this case was over . . . ? But perhaps not, he thought wryly, if he ended up serving up her brother to Ted Venables on a murder charge.

  He held the door open and waved her into a seat on one side of the table while he took another on the opposite side. He lit a cigarette and offered Kate the packet but she shook her head.

  ‘I don’t,’ she said, and watched him pull the ashtray towards himself.

  ‘When did you last see your brother, Miss O’Donnell?’ he asked.

  Kate slipped off her coat before answering. The room was stuffy and airless and had a faintly unpleasant smell of sweat, cigarette smoke and disinfectant which turned her stomach.

  ‘About two years ago,’ she said quietly. ‘It must have been February, or maybe the beginning of March, when he went. I was in my second year at art college. We’ve had a couple of postcards from London since then, that’s all, no address, nothing really at all.’ She glanced away from the policeman, not wanting him to see the hurt she knew must show in her eyes.

  ‘Tell me about him,’ Barnard said. ‘Is he older than you?’

  ‘Two years older,’ Kate said. ‘He’s twenty-five. There are four of us altogether. I’m the second and I have two younger sisters.’

  ‘Catholics?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kate said, slightly defensively. ‘Not that I bother much with religion any more. I don’t think Tom did, either. He didn’t go to mass, not since my father walked out on us. We’ve not seen my dad for about ten years.’

  ‘Or your brother for two? Quite a family for walkouts then?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Kate said, feeling suddenly miserable and trapped. ‘I don’t know much about what happened between my father and mother, but I know Tom had been unhappy at home for a while. He never talked about it, but I could tell.’

  ‘And he worked in shops, you said?’

  ‘Yes, he worked in various fashion shops in Liverpool – Lewis’s, Bon Marché, before it joined up with John Henry Lee. He lost his job after that and went to work in a little place near St John’s Market, selling cheap gear, up-to-the-minute men’s stuff, Mod suits, all that. He was always into the latest thing. Loved his clothes. Spent all his pocket money on them when he was at school. Drove my mam mad.’

  Barnard smiled faintly and straightened his Liberty tie. There was something in the description that he could identify with. ‘So we’re looking for a young man in the latest trend, then. Did you bring his picture?’

  Reluctantly Kate took the snapshot of Tom out of her handbag and handed it to Barnard. ‘It’s the only one I’ve got down here,’ she said.

  ‘You can have it back,’ Barnard said. ‘I’ll get our people to make a copy of it.’

  ‘You won’t—’

  ‘Won’t what?’ Barnard snapped. ‘Use it to help find him? Of course we will. This is a murder inquiry.’

  ‘Did he live in that flat, then? The one over the shop?’

  ‘With Jonathan Mason, the dead man? Yes, as far as we can tell, he did. Did you know Mason? Or ever hear his name mentioned?’

  Kate paled and shook her head, gripping the edge of the table tightly for a moment. ‘No, never,’ she said. ‘If he met him in London, I wouldn’t have, would I? I told you, we’ve barely heard a word from him since he went.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Tom couldn’t kill anybody,’ she said. ‘He’s a gentle person. My mam used to have to make him stand up for himself at school. He never got into fights. Not like my da – he was always coming back from the pub with black eyes and cuts and bruises. I’m more like him. My mam used to say I should have been the boy and Tom the girl.’

  Barnard took a sharp breath. She really didn’t know, he thought. But he was going to have to tell her. ‘Did you realize that your brother was . . .’ He hesitated, wondering which word would shock her least. If possible, he wanted
this girl on his side in spite of the difficult position she found herself in. ‘Not quite normal?’

  ‘You mean homosexual?’ Kate came back fiercely. ‘It’s not something we talked about at home, if that’s what you mean. In fact, I never heard my parents talk about sex at all. What I knew I learned at college, when I got away from the nuns at school.’ She smiled slightly at the memory and Barnard realized again just how very attractive she was. But the smile was just a flash of sunlight and the clouds descended quickly again. ‘Yes, I did wonder about that, anyway,’ she said quietly. ‘I had an idea, but I never found the courage to ask him straight out. People explain these things to you, but I never really understood it, deep down.’

  ‘We think he and the dead man were lovers,’ Barnard said carefully. ‘It’s illegal, of course, but it goes on.’

  ‘But Tom wasn’t like that man Marie and I talked to this morning, Vincent, the man in the purple checked suit. Tom liked his clothes but he wasn’t weird, like that.’

  ‘They say with most of them, you can’t tell,’ Barnard said. ‘Anyone can be queer, in any job, even a copper, though that sounds a bit unlikely to me.’

  ‘I suppose if they think they could go to prison, they hide it,’ Kate said quietly.

  ‘You say your brother never got into fights? If that’s the case, he must have hidden his tastes quite well. A lot of normal blokes would have given him a good thumping if they’d guessed.’

  ‘He did get beaten up once. He’d been to Anfield to watch Liverpool and he said he got set on by supporters from the other team. I can’t remember who it was now. Manchester United probably. There’s no love lost there. But I suppose there could have been some other reason, apart from the football, I mean.’

  ‘Do you know if Tom had friends in London when he came down here?’

  ‘We never really knew where he’d gone. We just guessed it must be London because he used to say how much he’d like to work in one of the big shops in Oxford Street. It was his ambition, like all the boys in the bands want to come down here to make their name now. But I never heard Tom mention anyone he knew in London.’