The Laundry Man

by Graham Ison

  ‘I don’t believe that, Mr Fox. I know that’s what you said before, but I reckon your lot just followed her. She wouldn’t put the finger on me, not Genie.’

  ‘Such faith,’ murmured Fox. ‘Tell me, Waldo, this shooter ...’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Was she the only one to handle it, or did you put your grubby mits all over it too?’

  Conway didn’t like the line that Fox’s questioning was taking. ‘Well, I might have,’ he said, not quite sure what Fox was driving at. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m asking the questions. Did you wipe it clean, then?’

  That was a crippler. If Conway said that he had, he could be in bother. If on the other hand he denied it, he could be in bother anyway. His problem was that he didn’t know what Fox knew. He settled for compromise. ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Where d’you get it from, Waldo?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ said Conway again, but this time without any thought at all.

  Fox hadn’t expected a reply to that. ‘Was that the one and only time that you saw Feather?’

  ‘Nah! Cheeky sod come back again, about a week later, it must have been.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Same message,’ said Conway laconically.

  ‘And did Genie throw him out again?’ Fox couldn’t pass up the opportunity of reminding Conway that his girlfriend had saved him the first time.

  ‘No, I did,' said Conway unconvincingly.

  Tell me what happened ... the second time.’

  ‘He busted the door open again, and just marched in. Said as how I was to remember what Horsfall had said, and I was to stay clear, money or not — ’

  ‘We’re talking about the take from the heist at Surbiton that you’ve admitted to, are we?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Fox sighed. ‘I don’t know why you’re persisting in this fiction, Waldo.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘When you made your statement yesterday about the Surbiton job, you said you’d put the money in a canvas holdall, turned left out of the building society, shot a policeman and jumped on a bus. Right?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘Wrong. I know what happened in that robbery and it was nothing like that.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Oh, indeed. Now who are you protecting? Is it Eugenie Vandermeer?’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to say.’

  Fox hadn’t hoped to get an answer to that question and changed tack. ‘I’ll bet Horsfall had you over, Waldo. You’re getting nothing out of this, are you?’ He looked pensively at Conway. ‘Are you going to let him see you off, then?’

  ‘What are we talking here, Mr Fox?’

  ‘Nothing yet, Waldo, but think on, my son.’

  For a few moments, Conway remained silent. Then, somewhat reluctantly, he said, ‘I’ve heard there’s a tickle coming off, Mr Fox.’

  ‘Really? And what might that be?’ Fox sounded sceptical. ‘Safety deposit job, up west some place.’

  ‘This had better be kosher, Waldo.’ Fox sat back with a smile on his face. ‘Well?’

  ‘Dunno much more than that, ’cept as how word is that Horsfall’s behind it.’

  ‘Is he now?’ Fox leaned forward again with an earnestness that frightened Conway. ‘And how come you heard that in here?’

  Conway shrugged and gave a grin. ‘Obvious place, ain’t it? There’s lots of villains in here, Mr Fox. Not that I’m one of them,’ he added hurriedly.

  ‘Fascinating, Waldo, but I don’t believe a bloody word of it. Horsfall’s in the laundry business, not armed robbery.’

  *

  It was the same pub, and Fox sat at the same table.

  Spider Walsh entered in his usual stealthy way and peered round.

  ‘Over here,’ said Fox loudly.

  Walsh shuddered. ‘Hold up, Mr Fox,’ he said in a stage whisper as he approached the detective chief superintendent’s table.

  ‘Stop panicking, Spider, and come and sit down. I’ve got you a glass of stout.’

  Walsh lowered himself warily on to the chair, as though there might be a tin-tack on it, and put his hand lovingly round the pint of Guinness that Fox had bought for him. ‘It’s a bit dodgy, Mr Fox,’ he continued. ‘I might be seen.’

  ‘No one’s ever suggested you’re invisible, Spider. Now listen carefully.’ Fox dropped a screwed up twenty-pound note in Walsh’s lap and smiled cynically at the speed with which it disappeared into the inner recesses of Walsh’s dirty raincoat. That’s not a charitable contribution, Spider,’ he continued. ‘But if you earn it, you’ll stay out of trouble for a while. And if you come good, there might be more. Quite a lot more, in fact.’

  Walsh made no acknowledgement of this proposition, but took a healthy gulp of his Guinness. ‘What d’you want?’ he asked without looking at Fox.

  ‘I want Horsfall.’

  Walsh belched suddenly, an involuntary spasm that Fox put down to advanced shock. ‘Gawd ’elp us,’ he said.

  ‘I thought you might say something like that, Spider. Now listen. Word is that Horsfall’s putting a team together to do a safe deposit. I want to know who and when. That’s all.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Walsh, stunned at the enormity of the task that he had rashly agreed to simply by pocketing Fox’s twenty-pound note without demur. ‘You don’t half want a lot for a score.’

  ‘A score is what I want,’ said Fox, ‘and I’m not talking about a measly twenty sovs, neither. So get out among them, Spider, and bring Uncle Tommy the goods. If you don’t, I shall come looking for you, my son. Be lucky,’ he added and, rising, slapped Walsh painfully on the back.

  *

  ‘The wheels are beginning to turn, Denzil,’ said Fox. ‘They are definitely beginning to turn.’

  *

  Like Tommy Fox, DI Jack Gilroy of the Flying Squad had a running flush of snouts, most of whom inhabited the less salubrious areas of London. One of the most informative of these snouts was Dancer Williams, so called because he had a reputation for taking it on the dancers the moment danger threatened. It had been hinted from time to time that the Old Bill tended to look the other way on such occasions because he was such a good informant. It was a suggestion hotly denied by those in high uniformed authority at Scotland Yard, probably because they didn’t know anything about the art of thief-taking. But they did watch The Blue Lamp every time it appeared on television, and they slept soundly in their beds at night.

  ‘How nice to see you, Dancer,’ said Gilroy, sliding on to the stool next to Williams in the latter’s favourite pub in Rotherhithe.

  ‘Oh my Gawd,’ said Williams.

  ‘Knew you’d be pleased. Haven’t got time to waste,’ said Gilroy. ‘Horsfall. Daniel, of this parish.’

  ‘Christ!’ said Williams.

  ‘He might be to you, Dancer, but to me he’s just a nasty piece of work that my guv’nor’s decided to send on holiday. Very charitable bloke, my guv’nor.’

  ‘Don’t know nothing about him,’ said Williams.

  ‘I know that,’ said Gilroy, ‘or you’d have told me already, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘What’s coming off, then?’ Williams was starting to look furtive.

  ‘That, my old son,’ continued Gilroy, ‘is what you’re going to find out, and what, in the fullness of time, you’ll be telling me. Be lucky, Dancer.’ And Gilroy put a fiver under Williams’ glass, slid off his stool and walked out. To cast that particular piece of bread on the waters had taken less than five minutes.

  *

  Unhappily for Fox, little came from either Spider Walsh or Dancer Williams. Each, in his own peculiar way, confirmed that something big was coming down, and word was that Danny Horsfall was connected. That much Fox knew already, but he was no nearer knowing the two essential details, namely where and when.

  Then, by chance, a name came out of the great blue yonder. Or, more specifically, out of a small blue policeman.

  ‘Tommy?’ The voice on the
other end of the phone was gratingly familiar. ‘It’s Jack Farmer, at Eight Area.’

  ‘Thought you’d retired,’ said Fox.

  ‘That’s what they told me about you, Tommy. Here, listen, mate. Gavin Brace, DCI at West End Central, gave me a bell this morning. PC on Clubs came to see him, reckoned he’d picked up a name from a club owner. Something to do with a safe deposit heist that’s coming down.’

  ‘Yes?’ Fox pressed the telephone closer to his ear.

  ‘Know anything about it?’

  ‘Might,’ said Fox cagily. ‘What’s this PC picked up, then?’

  ‘Won’t say, Tommy. Reckoned this club owner said it was for you and no one else.’

  ‘God bless him,’ said Fox. ‘Jack, be so good as to have this PC sent to Scotland Yard forthwith where his call will be treated in the strictest confidence.’

  Twenty minutes later a PC in plain clothes knocked nervously at Fox’s office door and was told to enter.

  ‘Mr Fox, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘PC Wood, sir, from West End Central Clubs Office.’

  ‘Sit down, young man,’ said Fox, ‘and tell me your news.’

  ‘This club owner I was talking to last night, sir, always keeps his ear to the ground. Anyway, he said to me, “Here Ernie, I’m going to make you a commander.” ’

  ‘Decent of him,’ murmured Fox.

  The PC looked slightly embarrassed. ‘No, sir, I think what he meant was —’

  Fox grinned and held up his hand. ‘I know what he meant.’

  ‘Yes, well, he said that he’d overheard a little team at one of the tables talking about a job that was coming off. They’d been well on the wine apparently and weren’t being too shrewd. Anyway, the up and down of it was that this bloke who seemed to be the host was putting a team together to pull a safe deposit job.’

  Fox nodded slowly. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Oh no, sir.’ The PC pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and gave it to Fox. ‘That’s the place, and that’s the date and time, sir.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Fox. ‘Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings ...’

  The PC grinned. ‘D’you want the name of the bloke who was setting it up, sir?’

  ‘I think I know that,’ said Fox. ‘A certain unsavoury finger called Danny Horsfall.’

  The PC frowned. ‘That wasn’t the name I got, sir. It was Lenny Feather.’

  ‘Even better.’ Fox stood up and opened his drinks cabinet. ‘I shall give you a large Scotch on the strength of that, young man.’

  The PC looked apologetic. ‘I don’t drink, sir.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘It seems to me,’ said Evans, ‘that Conway knows more than he’s telling.’

  ‘That,’ said Fox, ‘is a very shrewd observation, Denzil.’

  ‘So what’s the next move, guv? Have Feather off ... when we can find him? We could start getting the lads out round the likely haunts, or — ’

  Fox held up a hand and grinned. ‘He’s going to give himself up, Denzil.’

  ‘He is?’

  ‘Oh yes. Definitely. Look at it like this. We have word that Lenny Feather is putting together a team to do a safe deposit ... right?’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  ‘And we now know where and when. Therefore, Denzil, we loiter in the vicinity thereof and not only do we have Mr Feather off, but his cohorts also.’

  ‘And Danny Horsfall?’

  Fox shook his head sadly. ‘I think not,’ he said, ‘I somehow doubt that friend Horsfall will venture out on something as sordid as a safe deposit heist. After all, he might get his collar felt ... or catch pneumonia, or something. But his employees, including the aforementioned, well-built Mr Feather, may well be tempted to give information to the police regarding his involvement in this audacious crime, on account of their being disinclined to stand it themselves. If you see what I mean.’

  Evans nodded blankly. ‘I think so, guv,’ he said.

  ‘Splendid.’ Fox walked across to a side table and unrolled a large sheet of paper. ‘This, Denzil,’ he said, ‘is a plan of the safe deposit premises and surrounding streets ...’ Fox looked up and grinned. ‘And we shall determine, in the not too distant future, how best to deploy our meagre resources in order to nick the bleeding lot.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Evans.

  ‘Ah, indeed, Denzil. But first, we will require the assistance of a certain carefully selected person or persons on the inside ... having first taken precautions.’

  ‘What sort of precautions, guv?’

  ‘Like satisfying ourselves that there are no bent bastards on the staff who are in on this.’

  ‘I’m ahead of you there, guv,’ said Evans triumphantly.

  ‘Good,’ said Fox softly.

  ‘The security officer there’s Charlie Shiner. Used to be a DI out Ealing way before he retired.’

  ‘I remember Charlie Shiner. Spoken to him yet?’

  ‘Not yet, guv.’

  ‘Do so, Denzil, do so.’

  *

  Charlie Shiner, in common with many retired policemen in the security business, was more than happy to talk to Denzil Evans. In fact, he invited the Flying Squad DI to meet him for lunch at a secluded restaurant. Evans’ initial hesitation was quickly overcome when Shiner assured him that his employer would pick up the bill.

  After two Scotches and half an hour or so discussing the fortunes and misfortunes of mutual acquaintances and former colleagues, Evans delivered his bombshell to coincide with the arrival of the first course. ‘Your place is going to get screwed, Charlie,’ he said in matter-of-fact tones.

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Shiner, carefully impaling a shrimp from a cocktail of the same name. There was silence for a moment or two while he digested the shrimp, a mouthful of brown bread, and the information that Evans had just given him. ‘When’s this coming down then, Denzil?’ He topped up Evans’ glass with a decent Chablis.

  ‘Fortnight Tuesday,’ said Evans.

  ‘Sod it,’ said Shiner. ‘I was going to take that week off.’ He looked up and grinned. ‘Can’t get them to change the date, I s’pose?’

  *

  ‘Charlie Shiner’d put money on all his people being kosher, guv.’

  ‘Brave man,’ said Fox.

  ‘Most of them have been there twenty years and upwards, but he’s double-checking. Incidentally, I had a good look round the place, discreetly of course —’

  ‘Of course,’ murmured Fox.

  ‘And it won’t be too much of a problem to place our lads.’

  ‘Inside?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Charlie was more than agreeable.’

  ‘I’ll bet he was. Feather in his cap, if his boss thinks he’s the one who’s going to put the kibosh on it.’

  ‘Feather in his cap, and Lenny Feather in our nick,’ said Evans, with a rare flash of obtuse Welsh humour.

  Fox stared at him acidly. ‘I take it that was a joke, Denzil,’ he said.

  *

  WDC Rosie Webster wafted into Fox’s office in a cloud of expensive perfume, wearing a dress that a seamstress of her acquaintance had copied from the latest collection of one of London’s leading fashion houses.

  ‘Rosie?’

  ‘Eugenie Vandermeer, sir.’

  Fox laid down his pen and took an interest. ‘What about her?’

  ‘Got a new fellah, sir. So I hear.’

  ‘A pimp?’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘She’s never used one as far as I know. No, this character seems to have moved in when we nicked Waldo Conway. Possibly even before.’

  ‘How did you hear that ... or shouldn’t I ask?’

  Rosie shrugged. ‘I’ve got my sources, sir.’

  Fox nodded. Rosie Webster had some useful contacts in the world of vice, contacts that were normally unavailable to male officers. Prostitutes were as cynical as policemen and believed, often correctly, that the said policemen were after something other than information. ‘Who is this finger?’


  ‘Name’s Bundy. George Bundy.’

  ‘What’s his line of business, then?’

  ‘Undefined, sir.’ Rosie smiled. ‘Apart from possibly living off Eugenie’s immoral earnings, although that’s doubtful. She doesn’t seem to have been practising the craft of late. But he’s apparently a bit of a smoothie. Right man-about-town, it seems. They’ve been seen clubbing up west, and generally living it up.’

  ‘Got any form, this Bundy?’

  ‘Not officially, sir.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘He’s come close a few times. Quite a good con-man, so it’s said, but we’ve never laid hands on him. It’s the usual story. The mugs he’s seen off haven’t got the bottle to complain. Seems they just swallow it and swear vengeance. But he usually picks a mark who’s got a reputation to worry about and who isn’t willing to show out that he’s been had over.’

  Fox nodded. There was nothing unusual about that. ‘So what d’you reckon? They known each other long?’

  ‘Well, as I said, certainly since Conway got banged up. But I can’t get any nearer than that. Not yet.’

  ‘I wonder ...’ Fox swivelled on his chair and gazed out of the window. Then he swung back to face Rosie again. ‘Any word that he might be a robber?’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘No, sir. But anything’s possible, I suppose. Why?’

  ‘I hate to admit it, but I’m just wondering if he and Vandermeer did the Surbiton job, and Conway’s prepared to stand for it, just because he thinks that she’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. And probably doesn’t know anything about Bundy.’

  Rosie looked doubtful. ‘Word is that Bundy doesn’t like getting his hands dirty,’ she said. ‘But it’s always a possibility, I suppose.’

  ‘Tell you what, Rosie,’ said Fox. ‘Keep your ear to the ground, and in the meantime, I’ll get Percy Fletcher to have a sniff around.’ He paused. ‘Won’t upset anything you’ve got going, will it?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so, sir, but if we’re going to start rattling the bars it might be an idea to put an obo on the Vandermeer girl. Just to see what happens.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Fox. ‘If we can pick up some more information about this unfaithful hussy having it off with the suave Bundy, I can go back to Conway and tell him all about it.’ He grinned at the thought. ‘That ought to make him jump up and down a bit. Never know, he might feel inclined to tell me the truth.’