by Mia Dolan
Tony Brooks was drunk and enjoying the company.
‘My daughter,’ he said to the four men he was drinking with. ‘She’s ordering me around like a bleedin’ dog. I told her that you know. I told her that.’
‘Why don’t you have another drink,’ said the man he knew as Sean.
‘Your wish is my command,’ Tony replied.
‘We’ll put one behind the bar for you.’
His four new friends made ready to depart.
‘You’re leaving already?’
They hadn’t been his friends for too long. His mind was a bit addled as to when they’d actually met, but he did recall having one hell of a binge with them the night before. They’d trawled a few pubs before making their way to the Blue Genie in the early hours of the morning.
‘Thanks for taking us to your club. You’re a lucky man, Tony,’ Gerry, one of the other Irishmen, said to him.
Tony didn’t correct them as to the ownership of the Blue Genie. He boasted to a lot of people that he owned a nightclub. To his mind it wasn’t that far from the truth. His daughter owned it, right? By being married to Michael Jones.
His smile was broad and fuelled with alcohol. ‘No problem at all. Any time you want, just mention my name.’
The four Irishmen left him standing there at the bar. He lifted his hand in a desultory wave and made it seem that he had no intention of leaving the pub just yet. Who did Marcie think she was ordering him around anyway? All the same, he wasn’t as drunk as last night. His daughter had been urging and it wouldn’t hurt to go along and see what the matter was.
Outside on the pavement the four Irishmen began the long walk back to their digs. The woman they were lodging with kept a tin bath in an outhouse where they were required to bathe one night per week. She also had an indoor bath in which she kept the coal. The coal cellar itself was let out to a family of Jamaicans. Everyone wanted somewhere to stay and what did it matter if you piled them in?
‘Make hay while the sun shines, that’s my motto,’ she told them when they’d asked why she kept her coal in the bath.
They’d carped on to one of Rafferty’s men about the conditions they were required to live in.
‘Nothing will come of our moans and groans,’ Gerry had said, but he’d been wrong.
‘Lads, in exchange for a little job . . .’
Rafferty had given them an option. New lodgings or cash in hand. They’d gone for the cash and done the little job he’d asked them to do.
Chapter Eleven
MARCIE WAITED UNTIL gone three in the morning before she phoned the Blue Genie. There was no reply.
Following that she phoned her father. A woman’s voice, which she presumed belonged to her father’s latest girlfriend, answered.
‘Hello.’
‘Is Tony Brooks there? It’s his daughter, Marcie.’
‘He’s here, but out of it. Drunk as a skunk. No good to man nor beast – and certainly no good to woman.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Desdemona.’ She gave a little laugh.
Marcie persisted. ‘I’m trying to find out where my husband, Michael is. No one’s answering the phone at his club. Can you ask my father if he’s seen him?’
‘Sure.’
She heard Desdemona ask and heard her father’s grumbled reply.
‘He said to tell you that they were drinking half the night. He’s probably out of it on that settee at the back of his office.’
Marcie paused. Michael did indeed have a studio couch-style settee in the small alcove at the back of his office. He dossed down there when he was too tired to come home. It wouldn’t be the first time her father had led him astray, though it was only very occasionally and usually the drink was aided by weariness.
‘Is that what my father said?’ Marcie asked.
‘He grunted something about drinking. I’m assuming the bit about the settee, honey child,’ said Desdemona.
It occurred to Marcie that Desdemona had personal knowledge of the settee. Nobody would know it was there unless they’d made use of it. An empty feeling as heavy as molten lead seemed to swirl in her stomach. Either Desdemona had heard gossip from other girls about the couch, or she’d knowledge of it herself – possibly introduced to it by her father. It wasn’t entirely unknown that he took advantage of the club’s facilities when it suited him.
‘OK. I’ll leave it until the morning. You don’t know what trouble happened last night do you?’
‘No idea.’
‘My dad never mentioned anything?’
‘Nothing at all.’
Marcie concluded that there was nothing to worry about seeing as her father was sleeping like a baby. Michael would be in touch once he’d slept it off. All the same she cursed her father for curtailing what could have been a very romantic evening and passionate night.
Resisting the inclination to phone her husband was difficult, but Marcie was determined not to appear too needy. Michael might get suspicious that she was hiding something. She’d resolved not to make a fuss about the Linda Bell incident, and she would stick to her guns.
Even though he had not been in contact by the next morning, she went along to the sewing room as usual, taking the kids with her. Although she’d told herself she wasn’t worried, the cracks were beginning to show.
The baby fell asleep and Joanna was playing with some buttons in a cardboard box.
Sally was telling her otherwise and kept asking her what was wrong.
‘Nothing,’ snapped Marcie.
The cotton on the sewing machine snapped as she tugged a snakeskin gaiter too quickly and roughly.
‘From where I’m sitting it don’t look like nothing,’ said Sally. She turned to Allegra. ‘How about you?’
Allegra was sitting in a chair by the window facing the street. The light from the window cast odd shadows across her face. She didn’t hear what Sally had said.
Sally raised her voice. ‘Allegra? Please come down to Planet Earth.’
Allegra looked round. ‘Did you say something?’
Sally rolled her eyes. ‘I said that Marcie seems to have something on her mind and should share it with us. One look at you and I see that she’s not the only one with something on her mind. What the hell is this? Something contagious?’
Allegra apologised. ‘I’m sorry. My mind was elsewhere. What were you saying?’
Allegra Montillado was a different person than the one who’d been in love with Victor Camilleri. He’d seen her at church with her parents, had seduced her and made her his mistress. Things had gone wrong when Marcie had appeared. Torn between her friend and her lover, Allegra had found Victor out for the brute he could be.
‘Are you still mooning about Victor?’ Tact never being her style, Sally was the one asking.
Allegra shook her head. ‘No. Not any more. I’ve decided that there are more important things in life than men.’
Sally’s eyes opened wide and her hands went to her hips. She was the picture of shocked amazement. ‘I did not know that!’ she exclaimed. ‘What have you found that’s better?’
Seeing that she was being mocked, Allegra smiled gently and shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Try me.’
Dwelling as she was on her own problems, Marcie couldn’t bring herself to make comment or to intervene. The only thing she did notice was that Allegra no longer wore make-up or jewellery and yet she owned the very best. Victor had been generous to his mistress. Perhaps, thought Marcie, she’d wanted more than that. But Victor was married. Just as Michael was married to her. She still couldn’t believe that he’d been involved with a girl like Linda Bell, but hadn’t had it out with him. Fear got you like that, she decided. Fear of the truth. Fear that her happy life was nothing but a sham.
Allegra seemed to come to a considered decision. She took a deep breath. ‘I just feel that we sometimes pursue the same things other people pursue without really wanting them. Once they’re gone we see them fo
r what they were – just passing fancies . . .’
‘Like Victor?’ asked Sally.
Allegra glanced at her as though her intervention was predictable and not worth commenting on. ‘If you like. It was an experience, and one I will not be repeating.’
‘We’ve all said that,’ laughed Sally. ‘You’ll fall in love more than once in your life. We all do. Isn’t that right, Marcie?’
Marcie’s fingers tightened over the piece of material. Johnnie would always have a place in her heart because of her daughter, but the feeling she’d had for him was slowly evaporating. Michael had replaced him and when they’d married she’d told herself that she would never want anyone else. He’d told her that he would love her forever. She’d believed him. And now there was Linda Bell . . .
Chapter Twelve
MICHAEL STARED ACROSS the table, unable to believe that he was being accused of murdering Linda Bell.
‘No,’ he said shaking his head. ‘No way!’
‘Witnesses say you threatened to kill her. Come on, Michael. You might call yourself Jones, but we all know who your old man is, don’t we? Victor Camilleri. Catholic he might be, me old mate, but saintly he is not. Like father, like son, in my opinion.’
They were in an interview room at the local nick. The smell of industrial-strength cleaner failed to mask the lingering scent of stale sweat. The copper on the other side of the table was chewing a matchstick at the side of his mouth. He looked confident, cocky even.
His sidekick – introduced as Detective Sergeant Bill Floyd – was sitting next to him. A uniformed constable was doing doorman duty. He stood like a stone pillar against a white-tiled wall. Michael guessed that the same white tiles were used in the cells below, a foretaste to the accused of things to come.
Although he tried desperately to hold on to it, Michael felt his confidence sinking fast, not that he’d let them know that.
‘You have to be fucking joking!’ he exclaimed.
The bloke chewing the matchstick shook his head slowly. ‘Murder is no joke. You had a set-to with Linda Bell. You were heard threatening to kill her. Are you denying knowing her?’
‘No. I knew her.’
‘Witnesses said she claimed to be pregnant. Was it yours?’
Michael glowered. ‘Fuck off!’
‘Less of the bad language,’ said the copper doing the interviewing, who had introduced himself as Detective Inspector David Daniels. He had a sandy-coloured moustache that shielded his upper lip from view. His eyes were a murky shade of hazel and his hair was like a sandy thatch sitting at a lopsided angle on his head.
Despite the circumstances, Michael couldn’t help a wry grin. The bloke was definitely sporting a wig.
‘What’s so funny, Camilleri?’
Michael felt his facial muscles tighten and his smile disintegrate. ‘My name’s Jones, Michael Jones.’
He’d learned how to handle the police from his father. He knew that Victor had a few high-up members of the constabulary in his pocket, bundles of loot handed over in exchange for them looking the other way. But he knew that things had floundered a bit of late. The coppers he was now dealing with weren’t the same ones who had got hold of details of Victor’s very illicit business deals. They had Michael to thank for that. It was Michael who had passed over the accounts books and the lists of clients paying protection money. Michael had presumed that nobody would come asking him for protection money simply because he was Victor Camilleri’s son. But they had. Now all he had to decide was which one of the bastards had set him up for this: his own father or Paddy Rafferty. The former had been really pissed off at being put inside on fraud charges on account of his own son. The other he had insulted and made clear to him that he was not going to get the partner ship he’d pushed for.
Michael had been unaware that the building he’d bought was up for redevelopment. Not that it mattered much. Both his father and Rafferty possessed a similar brand of revenge mentality. He was in the firing line no matter who had loaded the gun.
David Daniels was not amused. He raised his voice. ‘Wipe that smirk off your face! I think we’ve already made it plain that murder is no laughing matter!’
‘I totally agree with you. Sorry. I was just thinking.’
‘Thinking what?’
One corner of Michael’s mouth lifted into a half-smile. ‘How some men lose their hair quicker than others.’
Perhaps Daniels might not have lost his rag if Michael hadn’t ran his fingers through his thick head of dark brown – almost black – hair. The policeman’s face went bright red before he flung himself across the table, his hands groping for Michael’s throat.
Michael kicked the chair back and stood up before he could reach him. The officer by the door came to life, catching the chair and stepping forwards ready to restrain the prisoner.
‘Dave!’
Detective Sergeant Bill Floyd was a bull of a man. Although getting on in years, he was strong and had no trouble in getting his superior to sit back down.
‘Got to keep to the rule book, Dave,’ he said.
It was obvious from his tone and his words that Bill Floyd was a stickler for doing things by the book. That was probably why he was still only a Detective Sergeant, promotion having passed him by in favour of younger and more flexible operators. Michael recognised the steadiness in him and was thankful he was there. He adjusted his tie by way of fingering his throat. He looked at Daniels with a face full of swagger, even if inside he was reeling.
‘Charge me or let me go,’ he said to them grimly and with confidence.
Daniels pointed a warning finger. ‘You did it, you bastard! You arranged to meet her with the aim of killing her. She turned up hoping that you’d do the right thing by her and instead you shot her.’
Michael sat back down as directed by Detective Sergeant Floyd. ‘This is ridiculous. I can’t – couldn’t – do the right thing by her. I’m married. I’m sorry she’s dead but, like I said, I never had the pleasure.’
Actually saying that he was married filled him with fear. What was Marcie going to say? Surely she wouldn’t believe that he’d been having a relationship with Linda Bell? He had to make her believe that it wasn’t true. His life might depend on it.
He decided to say nothing until he had to. He didn’t want to upset Marcie unnecessarily and he was so sure that the police would let him go that he hadn’t even asked for a brief.
Then Daniels dropped the bombshell.
‘We’ve got the gun. Your prints are all over it.’
Michael felt the blood draining from his face. The gun he’d found in the club the other night! Further enquiries of his employees had shed no light on where the gun had come from.
Michael had placed it in the safe until he decided what to do with it. Unfortunately it meant his prints were all over it. It was reasonable to assume that someone had been paid to plant it in the drawer. Up until now the thought had never entered his head. Now here he was, jumping to conclusions that this was some kind of a set-up. All the same, he had to bluff it out.
‘I don’t have a gun.’
‘Not a legal one,’ snarled Daniels with a hint of glee in his eyes. ‘We checked our records. You hold no gun licence – but that doesn’t mean you don’t own one. Blokes like you operating outside the law don’t go in for gun licences. Only blokes that shoot pheasants and rats do that. But then you are a rat, Michael Camilleri . . .’
‘My name’s Jones,’ Michael repeated with an edge to his voice. ‘Michael Jones!’
Daniels grinned. His eyes glittered. ‘Whatever! Michael Jones, I am arresting you for the murder of Linda Georgina Bell. You don’t have to say anything but whatever you do say may be taken down and given in evidence against you.’
Jacob Solomon had arrived in England as a refugee from Nazi Germany just before the Second World War and had immediately set up home and his legal practice in the East End of London amongst other members of the tribe of Israel. Having fled brutal oppres
sion he’d been very relieved and happy to find such a safe and friendly haven, so much so in fact, that he rarely left the East End of London for anyone. But Michael Jones was one of his best clients and he liked him, recognising something of the son he’d once had who he had left behind with his wife in Germany. He’d hoped to make arrangements for them to follow him to London but he’d never seen either of them again.
Michael was a gentile and only a substitute for his dead son, but it gave him comfort. Jacob took pride in Michael’s achievements as though he were his real son. He liked the fact that the boy had rebelled against the Camilleris. He’d heard what brutes they were, violent landlords of Victorian tenements that had survived the Blitz. He abhorred all violence. It was in his blood to do so.
Marcie was totally taken aback to see him standing on her doorstep. Her day at the sewing room had not been without its problems. Number one, Renee hadn’t turned up. A note had finally arrived saying she’d tripped over a neighbour’s cat and twisted her ankle. Normally she would have phoned but the shop phone was out of action. Following numerous calls from the public phone box, the Post Office people had eventually turned up and informed her that the fault was with the telephone receiver in the shop below with whom she happened to share a party line. Oddly enough the broken telephone connection made her feel better. Michael was obviously trying to ring her, but couldn’t get through. It gave her some solace and even the hope that he could drop by the sewing room if he couldn’t get through.
The problems of the day had been unexpected. Jacob turning up at their home was even more so.
‘Jacob! What a surprise.’
At first she smiled, but on seeing that his solemn expression remained dark, her smile faded.
‘May I come in?’
Joanna was gazing at Muffin the Mule on the television in the front room and Aran was asleep in his cot. Marcie took Jacob into the dining room and asked him if he would like a cup of tea.
He shook his head and sucked in his lips. His eyes flickered nervously behind his horn-rimmed spectacles.
His manner said it all. Marcie felt her face drain of colour because she knew, she knew beyond doubt, that something was terribly wrong.
