by Colin Murray
‘He’s . . . resourceful,’ she said.
‘He’s trouble,’ I said.
‘Perhaps,’ she said quietly. And then she looked straight out defiantly. ‘And perhaps that’s what attracts me to him.’
‘I think he’s in trouble,’ I said.
‘I think so too,’ she said, leaning across and putting her hand on my knee. There was nothing sexual about the gesture, but it was intimate and disturbing. I wasn’t sure if she understood the impact she had on men. ‘Will you help him?’
I thought about it. There was no reason for me to help Jonathan Harrison. And he really was trouble. ‘Will you go back to work on the film?’ I said.
‘I would be happier if I knew that someone like you was looking out for Jon,’ she said. ‘That would make it easier for me to work.’
In the films, a beautiful woman looks to the tall, good-looking hero for help and you know that he’ll sort things out and they’ll be in a clinch before the credits roll.
The thing is that I’m not tall or good looking and I’m certainly not a hero. I also knew that Beverley Beaumont and I were not going to end up together. Even if she offered, which she was not going to, I wasn’t sure that was what I would want, anyway. Like Jonathan Harrison, she was trouble. Not the same kind of trouble. His came with thugs and guns, and you knew where you stood with them. Hers came with messy emotional stuff, which was much more difficult to cope with.
I thought of all the reasons not to agree to help.
‘It’s a deal,’ I said.
She stood, reached up, put her arms around my neck and gently brushed her lips against my cheek.
That was as close to the loving clinch as I was going to get, and we were a long way from the final credits. Clearly, I’d been auditioning for the part of the expendable boy next door, the one who gets shot in the second reel.
‘Never had you down as a miracle worker,’ Les said.
Les, Charlie and I were eating bacon sandwiches and drinking tea in the sunshine. Everyone else – except the catering staff, who were busily slapping margarine on bread, frying sausages and peeling and chipping potatoes – was back inside and making movie magic. Jimmy the Lightning Bolt would have it all in the can in no time.
‘The only thing is, Les,’ I said, ‘I’ve agreed to do something for her. And I’ll need Charlie and the car. For the afternoon.’
Les looked doubtful. ‘You haven’t agreed to anything that would get the company into trouble?’
‘You know me better than that, Les,’ I said.
He looked even more doubtful, then he brightened up. ‘All right, you can have Charlie,’ he said, ‘but not the Rolls.’
‘There’s always the Wolseley, Mr Jackson,’ Charlie said helpfully.
‘That’s right,’ Les said. ‘Yeah, you can have the Wolseley. You’ll have to drop me off at the office first though.’
I looked at Charlie, who nodded enthusiastically.
‘I’ll need Charlie for this evening,’ Les said. ‘At eight. Sharp.’
We chewed our sandwiches and swilled our tea for a few minutes in silence.
‘I don’t suppose,’ I said, ‘that Jenkins gave you a card or anything?’
‘You seem to be very interested in this Jenkins bloke,’ Les said.
‘I thought I might look him up,’ I said. ‘It’s personal.’
‘He left a telephone number and an address. It’ll be back at the office.’ He looked up at the sky while his tongue worked at a piece of bacon rind stuck in one of his back teeth. He winced as he hit a sore spot. He gently massaged his jaw and looked thoughtful. ‘A word to the wise,’ he said. ‘I don’t think Jenkins is someone who should be taken at face value.’
He looked up at the sky again, a little wistfully, and poked a finger inside his mouth, waggled it about and then extracted it. He studied one of his fingernails for a few seconds. ‘I met blokes like him during the war. They’d come along in their Savile Row suits, with their posh accents, and they’d never say they came from this ministry or that ministry, but it was understood. Not true, but understood.’ He paused. He was, I think, remembering some of the scrapes he’d got into. ‘Of course, some of them really did come from a ministry, and they’d be the worst. It’d be the Ministry for Turning Spoons into Bombers, and you’d hand over your spoons. But I never heard of a bomber made out of silver spoons.’ He sniffed. ‘All I’m saying is, tread carefully. The upper-class bastards are the most ruthless. Your East End thug may be nasty, but he has a soft spot for his mother. Guys like Jenkins never had mothers.’
‘Thanks for the advice,’ I said. ‘I appreciate it.’
‘But you’ll ignore it,’ he said. ‘Anyway, don’t misunderstand me. If he offers me money, I’ll take it. But, for what it’s worth, I don’t trust him.’
‘I mean it, Les,’ I said. ‘I’ll walk on eggs.’
‘Just see that you do. And if you tell him I said any of that, I’ll feed your bollocks to Daphne’s cats. With you still attached.’
‘Wouldn’t dream of saying a word to him about you, Les,’ I said. ‘In fact, I probably won’t go anywhere near him.’
‘Sure, Tony,’ he said cynically. He turned to Charlie. ‘Look after him, Charlie. Keep the silly bugger out of trouble. I’m relying on you, mind.’
Charlie smiled his sweetest smile. He was back in favour.
I smiled too, but I had an uneasy feeling deep in my stomach.
TWELVE
Daphne arched a meticulously plucked and painted eyebrow when I deposited Les back in the surprisingly quiet Wardour Street office at just after one thirty. The eyebrow rose like a sliver of dark moon above the glassy horizon of her plain National Health spectacles.
I decided that if there was any credit going, I might as well grab it and shrugged in a self-deprecating way, smiled sweetly and mouthed, ‘He’s all yours,’ at her behind his back. She put down her egg and tomato sandwich and smiled wickedly back.
Les didn’t get past her desk. A rampaging, fourteen-stone England winger would have been stopped dead by such a body-check.
‘You,’ she said, ‘have to sign these.’ And the bulky brown file that she had swept up when she had risen majestically from her seat was thrust into his arms.
To his credit, Les, who might just weigh in at eleven and a half stone after a good lunch and who has never rampaged down the wing at Twickenham, knew when he was beaten, and he offered no argument, just slunk off to his office, murmuring meekly, ‘No calls for the next hour, please.’
Charlie had told me he’d be back with the Wolseley in twenty minutes, and so I asked Daphne for a telephone line and if she could dig out that address for Jenkins.
While she grumbled away, looking for the number, I rang Inspector Rose at New Scotland Yard. He was in a meeting, but the genial Oliver Hardy of a sergeant took my call. All they wanted was my fingerprints – ‘For the purposes of elimination only, sir, I assure you. Your dabs are on the door knob somewhere, aren’t they?’ – and so I arranged to be there in forty minutes.
Daphne handed me a slip of paper. ‘Rum sort of address, that,’ she said, picking up her sandwich, ‘for a gentleman in the City.’
It was. Mainly because it wasn’t a London address at all. Mr Jenkins, it seemed, was based in Cambridge.
Daphne chewed her sandwich, said nothing and concentrated on looking inscrutable.
I sat on the sagging sofa.
‘He’s not an investor,’ she said eventually, when she’d finished eating.
It was my turn to raise my eyebrows.
‘You can always tell,’ she said. ‘Investors come in with their financial advisers or their accountants.’ She paused and looked at me. ‘Blokes like Jenkins are usually looking for introductions to the starlets. Sure, they put a few bob into a film, but it is only a few bob, and they expect to make a handsome profit and get to marry the star.’ She laughed. ‘You should hear them whinge when they lose their money and the girl.’ She paused and looked th
oughtful. ‘You know, sometimes I even feel a bit sorry for poor old Les having to put up with them. Not that that lasts, mind you. He always manages to do something that reminds me why I divorced him.’
‘You love him really, Daff,’ I said. ‘You know you do.’
She couldn’t even be bothered to reply, and the look on her face as she turned back to what remained of her lunch suggested that if I really believed that then I was a bigger fool than even she took me for.
The comfortable, old, pre-war, black Wolseley 25 looked completely at home parked on the Embankment outside New Scotland Yard. It wasn’t so much older than those that ferried the senior policemen about. In fact, there was one of a similar vintage pulling away from the kerb with a uniform in the back as I, with inky fingers and a guilty look, scuttled nervously along the pavement.
‘They let you out, then,’ Charlie said when I opened the passenger door.
I slid into my seat, took a slightly grubby handkerchief out of my pocket and rubbed at my fingers, and gave Charlie the address down in Kennington.
‘But that’s south of the river,’ he said.
‘Not that far south,’ I said, ‘and there aren’t any dragons down there these days. St George dealt with them all.’
‘Well, if you know how to get there,’ he said doubtfully and, apparently relying on the oncoming traffic to mistake us for a police vehicle, pulled across the road without even pretending to look.
As we glided over Westminster Bridge, the afternoon sun sparkling on the murky water and the grubby government buildings, he started to look anxious but, surprisingly, we didn’t get lost, and we drew up opposite Rosemary Elvin’s house only ten or so minutes later.
I had a moment of apprehension as I remembered the scene in the upstairs bedroom the last time I’d been there.
A police constable, standing four-square on the doorstep, looked uncomfortably hot in his heavy uniform. He gave me a worried look as I approached. He may have been momentarily thrown by the car. When I didn’t produce a warrant card, he relaxed.
‘Afternoon, Officer,’ I said. ‘I just came to see Mrs Elvin.’
‘Sorry, sir, but she’s not here.’
He was a big man in his fifties, red-faced and sweating.
‘What’s going on?’ I said. ‘Has something happened to Mrs Elvin?’
‘No, the lady’s all right,’ he said. He looked around, pulled a big handkerchief out of a trouser pocket and wiped his forehead. ‘She’s staying with a friend round the corner.’ He indicated the next street along with his thumb. ‘Number twenty-seven.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. I nodded at the house. ‘Must have been serious.’
‘I can’t say.’
I smiled at him. ‘Something really juicy, was it?’
‘Hop it,’ he said.
I looked around and smiled at him again. Teasing a policeman is always harmless fun and, you never know, he might let something slip.
‘Thanks for your help, Officer,’ I said. I peered up at the sky. ‘You might get some shade in an hour or so.’
‘Hop it,’ he repeated as I strolled away. I didn’t quite catch what he muttered under his breath.
I waved to Charlie and indicated that I was going around the corner. He acknowledged the wave with a little hand motion of his own and followed me.
Number twenty-seven had a well-cared-for air and the black door looked as if it had been painted more recently that most of its shabby neighbours. The step had been scrubbed, and the brass lion’s-paw knocker and the letter-box had both been polished. All in all, it had that respectable look, which you didn’t see that often these days.
I waited until Charlie had slid to a halt on the other side of the little street and then raised the knocker.
The woman who answered my knock had the same look. From the carefully knotted floral scarf that covered her hair, down to the sensible flat-heeled black shoes, she radiated respectability. Which, judging by the narrow-eyed, suspicious look she gave me, was more than I did. I should have borrowed one of Jerry’s hats. Going bareheaded into the wilds of south London was clearly not done.
I gave her my most charming smile, told her who I was and explained that I’d found the body the previous day and that I’d just come to see how Mrs Elvin was. She pursed her lips and sniffed. She was clearly immune to whatever charm I could muster. Then, although you could hardly say she relaxed, she unstiffened slightly, gave me a tight smile and said she’d ask if Rosemary was prepared to see me, and firmly closed the door.
I stood on the step, hoping that I wasn’t making it too dirty and wondering if I should use my handkerchief to wipe away any marks that I might have made on the knocker by using it. I decided against that when I remembered the state of the handkerchief. Fingerprinting ink makes a terrible mess, especially to an article already in need of a trip to the bagwash in Capworth Street. After a minute or two, the door reopened and I was invited into the front room.
It was one of those rooms that you could easily imagine playing host to a coffin on a set of trestles. There was something funereal about the muted colours of the drawn curtains and the rug, and about the smell of furniture polish. This was obviously a room kept for ‘best’, where one gave the vicar tea (or the priest cream sherry) and made awkward conversation. The dark sideboard no doubt housed the good china and a bottle of cooking brandy.
Rosemary Elvin was perched on a high-backed chair just in front of the window, her big, red hands working nervously at each other as they lay on her thighs.
A little patch of silver on the sideboard caught my eye.
‘Mrs Elvin. Rosemary,’ I said.
‘Thanks for coming, Mr Gérard,’ she said, ‘but I’m fine really.’
‘I’m glad to hear that. And it’s Tony,’ I said.
‘This is my friend Florence,’ she said. ‘Florrie.’
I turned and smiled at the neat and tidy householder. She gave me a suitably neat and tidy smile in return. I didn’t fool myself into believing there was any warmth in it.
‘To tell you the truth, Rosemary,’ I said, ‘apart from wanting to know that you were all right, I was wondering if you happened to know where I might find Jon.’
She glanced quickly at her friend and then shook her head firmly.
‘Only, I thought you met up with him late yesterday,’ I said.
She shook her head again. ‘No, I’m sorry, I can’t help.’
I nodded and smiled, wondering why she was lying. It seemed that she’d wanted my help the day before when she’d taken him to my flat. I was fairly sure about that. Beverley Beaumont’s slim cigarette case on the sideboard indicated that someone she knew had been into Jerry’s safe, and I rather doubted it was her.
‘Well, if you do see him,’ I said, ‘you know how to find me. And I’m glad you’re all right, Rosemary.’ I nodded at the other woman. ‘Florence. I can let myself out.’
Their relief as I stepped out of the room and into the hall was palpable. I stood at the foot of the stairs for a few seconds and listened, but I heard nothing beyond a few creaks, the steady ticking of a grandmother clock just along the hall and a dripping tap. There may have been a few creaks more than were to be expected in a house that had long since settled, but nothing too far out of the ordinary.
I waited for as long as I reasonably could without arousing suspicion, even kneeling down and pretending to tie my shoelaces, but if there was anyone else in the house, they didn’t betray themselves, and I slipped quickly through the front door.
There was a black Ford Popular parked a couple of doors down. I wondered if that was the vehicle that had carried Jonathan Harrison to Cambridge and to Leyton. And, at the far end of the street, sat the only other car in sight, apart from the Wolseley.
It was the big Humber Super Snipe that I’d had dealings with before. It was parked a long way away, but it was still careless of them. I decided not to make a meal of it, just in case someone was watching, and walked briskly over to Charlie a
nd the Wolseley.
‘Charlie,’ I said as I closed the heavy door with a clunk, ‘see the Humber down at the end of the road?’ He nodded. ‘Can you drive past it slowly? Though not so slowly that it’s obvious.’
He started the engine, checked his mirrors, pulled out into the middle of the road and we moved sedately, at something not much above the pace of a funeral procession.
Well before we drew alongside, it was apparent there was no one in it.
Charlie took a left into another quiet street, and I asked him to pull over.
If I turned around, I could just see the front bumper of the Humber. I glanced at my watch. A quarter past three.
‘Why don’t you take the car a hundred yards or so further on? I’ll just loiter around this corner for a bit.’
I climbed out, into the warm sunshine, watched Charlie drive off and then looked for somewhere I could see both the house and the Humber, without being too obvious myself. It wasn’t easy. Apart from a lamp-post, there wasn’t much to hide behind. The only car in this little street, another black Ford Popular, was parked too far from the corner for me to see anything from behind it. I decided that all I could do was stand and wait in plain sight, unless anything happened and then I’d have to move quickly for the cover of the car. I thought I’d give it half an hour: anything less and it wasn’t worth waiting, any longer and I’d probably find myself moved on.
In the event, I didn’t even have time to develop too much of a thirst.
I’d only been pacing up and down for five minutes, sweating like the policeman in his blue serge, when the brakes of a muddy-brown Morris Oxford squealed alarmingly as it drew up outside number twenty-seven. I recognized the man who clambered out of the passenger side. It was Jan the Belgian. The driver stayed put with the engine still running, so it didn’t look like I was in for too long a wait. Within a minute Jan the Belgian reappeared, accompanied by two other men. One of them was the young tough who had waved the Webley at me. The other one was no bigger than a grizzly bear. He wasn’t much smaller than one either. I wondered how he’d managed to keep his presence in the house hidden. If he’d just stood up, the place would have leaned over like a ship whose cargo had shifted. Jan was collecting muscle.
