Dead Beat

by Patricia Hall

  ‘Tarra for now, then,’ Donovan said, as she turned to head back to the tube station and slipped her camera into her bag and zipped it up, feeling a sense of relief that he had not insisted.

  SEVEN

  The boy stood with Hamish at the top of the embankment, looking down and breathing more freely behind the fence which concealed them from the road.

  ‘D’ye ken there used to be a river down there?’ the old man asked the boy, as they gazed down at the Circle Line below. ‘The Fleet it was called, like Fleet Street, ran right down to the Thames at Blackfriars till they filled it all in because of the stink and the rubbish, and put it in a drain. Terrible thing that, putting a river in a drain. Like putting it in jail.’ For once Hamish was relatively sober and pulled a dog-eared book, with only one frayed hard cover, out of his pocket.

  ‘It’s all in this wee book I found,’ he said. ‘Did ye ken London was once a Roman city?’

  But the boy was not listening. He was worried about the promise he had given his client to go with him to a party the next day. The lure was the promise of more money, enough, he reckoned, to pay his train fare far away from this terrifying place in whose history he had not the faintest interest. ‘Is Scotland a nice place to live?’ he asked.

  Hamish looked at him sharply. ‘How much did that pervert gi’ye, laddie?’

  ‘Not enough for the train,’ the boy said. ‘But he said if I go with him tomorrow he’ll give me more.’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘Just to a party,’ the boy said. ‘No harm.’

  ‘Nae harm?’ the old man said, raking his fingernails through his matted hair. ‘Nae harm? Ye must be kidding me, laddie, ye really must. Where’s this party?’

  ‘I dunno,’ the boy said. ‘He wants me to go round to the flat at teatime. Says he’ll take me in his car. I’ve not been in a car since . . .’ He stopped and Hamish glanced at him, his rheumy eyes blurring his vision too much to see the skinny boy, still a child in all but experience, clearly. The boy did not talk about his past or the reasons he found himself on the streets but Hamish guessed from the nervous tics he showed when he was tired that wherever he had come from had been grim and probably brutal. When he was not drunk the old man was frequently angry and the boy’s life made him angriest of all.

  Detective Sergeant Harry Barnard sat at his desk in the cramped quarters which were allocated to Vice at West End Central, and turned back again to the page which had originally caught his attention in the magazine and grinned. So that’s what you were up to, you naughty boy, he thought. There was nothing there that particularly shocked him. Very little did these days. He was inured to the wilder shores of human sexuality by now, and there was far more hard core pornography in the back rooms of Soho, of both the normal and the more unusual variety, than the slightly grainy photographs he was looking at now. What he had been seeking was another glimpse of a face he thought he recognized, amongst the writhing limbs and buttocks of this particular offering, but so far he had failed. Picking out individual faces was not always easy, especially as the activity these models were engaged in was strictly illegal simply on the basis of their gender. There was not a woman to be seen and for that reason faces tended to be blurred or half-hidden, turned away from the cameras rather than towards them. But on just one page, Barnard was sure that he had found a recognizable image of Jonathon Mason, the dead actor from the flat off Greek Street.

  He got up and went upstairs to DCI Ted Venables’ office and tapped on the door. ‘Think I might have something here, guv,’ he said, when summoned in. He dropped the magazine on to the cluttered desk, avoiding a couple of empty whisky glasses and the overfilled ashtray. ‘Isn’t that our pansy thespian who got his throat cut? Seems to have been doing a bit of modelling on the side.’

  Venables glanced at the picture with more weariness than apparent interest, though he looked rather more cheerful than Barnard had seen him recently. Perhaps Vera had come back to cook his dinner, he thought.

  ‘Not much of a surprise, is it?’ Venables said. ‘You know what these actors are like. I don’t know why we have to waste our time chasing these buggers when they fall out and get carved up. It’s like the toms, isn’t it? They all put themselves in harm’s way and then run whingeing to us when it turns nasty.’

  Barnard looked at the older man for a moment, his face impassive, but he said nothing. If he had learned one thing during the course of his career it was that it did not do to question the wisdom of those even one step above you on the ladder. Since the first time in Soho, still a wet-behind-the-ears recruit in CID, when he had been slyly offered a fiver to turn a blind eye by someone he and his puppy-walker had stopped in the street, and he had waved it away, he had learned that you conformed to the culture or you got nowhere as a detective in the Met. The DC who had been with him that day had turned on him furiously after the encounter and told him in no uncertain terms which side his bread was buttered in Soho if he wanted to progress. The bread had been well buttered ever since and Flash Harry Barnard had progressed to detective sergeant accordingly.

  ‘Do you want me to follow it up?’ Barnard asked eventually. ‘We’ve got an ongoing inquiry into the publishers of these things. It’s not all coming from Holland any more, though no one wants to advertise the fact that the photo sessions are probably being held in a semi-detached in Pinner or Ilford or wherever they can find an empty house in a quiet road. We’ve got a lorry driver on board who’s been delivering this stuff all unawares, and was pretty peeved when he found out what he was dropping off at various outlets around town. If we could track back to where they’re taking the pictures we’d likely find out a lot more about our man.’

  But Venables handed the magazine back to Barnard with a shrug, making no attempt to hide his evident boredom. ‘I’ve got my own lads on some very promising leads, Harry,’ he said. ‘These two were well known for smoking dope, apparently. I reckon this may have more to do with that than what they got up to in bed, or for porn mags, come to that. Maybe a bust-up over the proceeds, if they were supplying the stuff. Anyway, the Liverpool police are following up O’Donnell and Mason’s mates up there. Leave it for now. Don’t bust a gut. I’ll let you know if I want any more help, but at the moment we’re doing OK, thanks. We’ll find O’Donnell eventually.’

  Barnard hid his surprise and shrugged. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Whatever you say, guv. I’m not short of something to do.’

  ‘There is one thing, though,’ Venables said. ‘Something a bit odd. We had a call from one of the emergency doctors at Barts, a medic I happen to know. Keeps us informed from time to time. He’d had a young boy brought in after a road accident in the City, about thirteen or fourteen, he reckoned. He was unconscious when he came in and as soon as he came round, he nicked a nurse’s outdoor clothes and scarpered almost as soon as he could get out of bed. Very odd, the doctor thought. There wasn’t much wrong with him, apart from a bang on the head, apparently, but when they examined him in Casualty, he said it was obvious he was into queer sex, willingly or not, who knows? And when he was coming round one of the nurses heard him rambling on about someone who’d had his throat cut, covered in blood, pretty graphic, apparently. She didn’t think he was dreaming, but he didn’t remember what he’d said when he came to properly. When he was awake the doc asked him about it. He couldn’t remember being hit by the car and when he asked him about what sounded like a murder, he went very quiet and wouldn’t say a word, clammed up completely. Bit odd. I reckon we need to talk to him if we can find him.’

  Venables rummaged through the jumble of papers and files on his desk and handed Barnard a sheet torn from a notebook. ‘The doc gave us a pretty detailed description,’ he said. ‘Though he ran off in a hospital gown, so we don’t know what he’s likely to be wearing now. But when he left his head was bandaged. He was quite badly cut and bruised on the left side, and that’s not going to disappear in a hurry, the doc said. Worth keeping an eye open. He might have strayed on to our manor
from the City. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, the mentality of some of these poofs, interfering with kids? That I don’t like. I’d castrate the lot of them if I had my way. But if he saw someone with his throat cut – if it wasn’t just a delirious nightmare – it could be our nancy-boy in Greek Street, in which case we’d better have a word. Could even be he wanted to do things the young lad didn’t like and he took a knife to him. No more than he deserved maybe, but we’d best go through the motions.’

  Barnard raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing. His own DCI turned a blind eye to a lot of things but he was a hardliner on queers and there was deep hostility in the upper reaches of the police force to any change in the law, in spite of pressure for reform. He himself couldn’t see the point of chasing grown men for a victimless crime, but he jumped heavily on anyone he caught using young boys.

  ‘I’ll keep an eye open,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask around. He might have got himself to St Peter’s. They reckon to take anyone in who wants to get off the streets, and they’d certainly give him some new clothes.’

  ‘Good, do that,’ Venables said. ‘We don’t want him appearing in the News of the Screws at Holy Joe’s behest with some sob story about nobody bothering about him, do we?’

  Barnard walked back downstairs to his own desk with a thoughtful expression on his face. He had been surprised at Venables’ sudden conviction that Jonathon Mason was using cannabis. Nothing he had picked up on the ground had given a hint of that and he had seen no indication in the reports he had seen on Mason and O’Donnell’s flat that they were even occasional users of pot. But there had been no doubt about the DCI’s main message. He had been told to back off the case, and not for a moment did he accept the reason offered. There had to be more to it than that and he wondered if someone was buying Venables off, and why. If he was accepting backhanders in a murder case, he reckoned he was heading for disaster. And no way was Harry Barnard going to be caught up in that catastrophe.

  Kate had developed the pictures of the Ants she had taken the previous evening and showed the contact prints to Ken Fellows, who looked at them sceptically.

  ‘I took them in my own time,’ she said defensively. ‘They can pay for the cost of materials, but not a professional’s time. But they’re hoping to get a record out soon.’

  ‘Get Brenda to do an invoice,’ Fellows said. ‘They can have half a dozen prints, but no more. If they make it big we’ll be ahead of the game, but as far as I can see most of these bands are going to sink without trace.’

  ‘Do you still want me to go to Liverpool to get some background on the Beatles?’

  ‘Take a long weekend,’ Fellows said. ‘It’s not worth more than a day off work. But not this Friday. There’s something I may want you to do Friday evening. I can’t get there myself and I don’t think anyone else is free. That’s not a bad little camera you’ve got there and you seem to know how to use it. Have you got a party frock?’

  ‘A party frock?’ Kate asked, slightly bemused by the backhanded praise. ‘Yes, I’ve got a party frock.’

  ‘A smart one, I hope. You may need it,’ Fellows said enigmatically. ‘I’ll let you know.’

  That lunchtime Kate left the office and wove her way through the narrow streets towards Regent Street, the western boundary of the bohemian quarter. She was alone because Marie was working and she had to borrow an A to Z from Brenda so that she could find her way through the bustling maze that was Soho on a working day. Carnaby Street turned out to be a narrow lane lined with small shops, many of them selling clothes which only young people would buy, skirts shorter than parents would like, shirts and ties in fancy prints that would raise eyebrows in the suburbs, the rockers’ leather gear and the Mod suits that the two antagonistic tribes of young men yearned for.

  The pavements were crowded with young people on their lunch break and Kate wondered where on earth she should start. If Tom worked here it could be in pretty well any one of the shops. He must have found, she thought, his natural element right here. She pulled her photograph of her brother out of her bag and went into the first of the menswear shops, pushing through the browsing shoppers and the packed rails of clothing to the casually dressed assistant at the back, but, distracted by clamouring purchasers, he only glanced at the picture and shook his head. It was the same in most of the crowded boutiques. No one, it seemed, had employed her brother or even seen him in what must have been a place he had at least visited to browse himself. Fashion-mad Tom just had to know this street, she thought desperately as she worked her way down one side and up the other. He couldn’t have been in London for long without discovering its delights.

  Only when she was beginning to despair, did she finally strike gold. Just as she was glancing at her watch anxiously, knowing time was running out, she noticed a small shop front almost entirely hidden by pavement racks of shirts and ties in bright flowery designs. Her mother wouldn’t have minded some of the fabrics to make up as dresses for her younger sisters, Kate thought wryly, but not in a month of Sundays on a boy. She pushed her way through the open door and found herself face-to-face with a tall, willowy young man with blond hair down to his collar and a fringe flopping into his eyes.

  ‘I’m looking for someone,’ she said, pulling out her photograph, now slightly dog-eared and dirty, yet again. ‘This is my brother Tom. You don’t happen to know him, do you?’

  The young man took the picture out of her hand and to her surprise scowled at it slightly. ‘Of course I know him’, he said. ‘And I’d like to bloody know where the kidder is an’all.’ The voice, for all the southern sophistication of the young man’s exterior, was pure Liverpool, and Kate felt her heart quicken.

  ‘Where are you from then, la? My lot are in Anfield, used to be in Scottie Road. We can hear the cheers on match days now.’

  ‘Croxteth, me,’ the young man said, smiling shyly now, and holding out his hand for Kate to shake. ‘Derek Stephenson. Tom told me all about you. And your sisters. He works here. At least he did, but I’ve not seen or heard from him for days.’

  ‘We haven’t heard from him since he left,’ Kate said, the burden of that knowledge suddenly weighing her down again. ‘I’ve come down to work as well, and I thought I’d tracked him down, but the kidder he shared a flat with is dead and Tom’s disappeared and the whole thing is a nightmare.’

  ‘Dead?’ Stephenson said, looking suddenly pale and ill at ease. ‘Here, sit down a mo’ and I’ll make some coffee. That’s a stunner.’

  Kate sat on the single chair at the back of the shop while Stephenson disappeared into a back room and came back with a mug of instant coffee which she clutched like a lifeline as he moved to serve a couple of customers clutching trendy ties. She took a deep breath when he came back and told him quietly all she knew about Tom’s disappearance. Stephenson took it in without comment, flinching slightly as she skated over Jonathon Mason’s gory end.

  ‘You do know what you need to know about Tom, don’t you?’ he asked when she had finished. ‘He and Jonathon weren’t just sharing a flat.’

  Kate nodded, and wondered whether Stephenson shared her brother’s tastes. Was there a triangle here? If so, she had no doubt the police would be interested in Derek Stephenson as well as Tom, but at the moment Derek showed no inclination to confide.

  ‘I don’t suppose your mam would be very keen on all that stuff,’ was all he said, as Kate nodded numbly again.

  ‘The bizzies are looking for him,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a detective sergeant asking me questions.’

  ‘You’re bound to have,’ Stephenson said. ‘But Tom wouldn’t do something like that. He wouldn’t have it in him.’

  ‘I know that,’ Kate agreed. ‘But it’s difficult to convince anyone who doesn’t know him.’

  ‘Tom seemed to be made up with this Jonathon when I first met him, soon after they came down from the Pool,’ Stephenson said.

  ‘They both came down from Liverpool?’ Kate said, surprised. ‘I didn’t know that. I tho
ught he must have met him in London.’

  ‘No, no, he met him at home. Jonathon went away to school and university somewhere, but he was around on the scene, like. I’d met him once or twice. I think he persuaded your Tommy to come away with him. He was older than Tom, but like I say, they seemed really made up with each other. But just lately I thought it was cooling off a bit. Your Tom told me Jonathon was into things he didn’t like, didn’t want to get involved in. There’s some nasty stuff goes on behind closed doors in London, you’ve no idea.’ He glanced somewhat distractedly at the customer trying to attract his attention. ‘What time do you finish work?’ he asked. ‘I close the shop at five thirty. Come back then, and I’ll tell you everything I know about Tom. He’s a great kidder, I really like him. Perhaps we can find him before the bizzies get to him. Or even worse, the scallies who murdered his friend.’ He put an arm round Kate’s shoulder as she got up to go. ‘Cheer up,’ he said. ‘We’ll get the scousers on the case. There’s a few of us around. You’re not on your own, you know.’

  Kate smiled wanly. ‘It’s nice to know,’ she said, meaning it, and she headed back to work feeling slightly happier than before. But before she had even turned out of Carnaby Street she felt a hand on her arm and spun round in surprise to find herself facing DS Harry Barnard, who had a less than friendly look in his eyes.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘Did you find him then?’

  ‘Who?’ Kate said, although she knew in the pit of her stomach that playing dumb would get her nowhere. Barnard, she thought, could put on the charm, but there was steel behind the smiles. ‘Are you following me?’ she asked, her anger only partly feigned.