The Laundry Man

by Graham Ison

  Fox increased the coverage on Conway and put Evans in charge of it. He knew that he was taking a chance in letting Conway loose to find Bundy, but as he had often said in the past, you get nowhere in this job if you don’t take a chance now and then.

  It happened at a club. One of the many tiny dens of iniquity with which Soho’s basements are infested. Most are little more than drinking clubs, sometimes livened up by the presence of tired, topless waitresses, and are the resorts of villains and prostitutes.

  Conway barged his way in, oblivious it seemed to the possibility that Bundy might be accompanied by some of his cronies. ‘Bundy,’ he shouted.

  Bundy stood up. ‘And I suppose you’re Conway, the little tosser who can’t satisfy Genie Vandermeer?’ Word had obviously got back to Bundy that Conway was looking for him, and although he didn’t know him by sight, he had made an accurate assumption. The club’s patrons sat up and paid attention, sensing that an impromptu cabaret was about to start.

  ‘You bloody stay away from her,’ said Conway. ‘She’s decided to give up poofters,’ he added and threw a bar stool at Bundy. Then all hell broke loose. But it was not allowed to last for long. The five Flying Squad officers assigned to watching Conway and who had almost trodden on his heels on the way in, now entered into the fray with the sort of enthusiasm that only the Squad can muster. Bone connected with flab, producing some satisfying grunts and groans and, in the best traditions of a bar brawl, the mirror and the optics fell victim to a flying table. But the prime thrust of the Flying Squad operation was concentrated on preventing Conway from doing too much harm to Bundy. Fox had emphasised that he wanted the goods delivered in pristine condition.

  It was over all too soon for the detectives’ liking, but there was work to be done. Conway and Bundy — and just for good measure, three malcontents who looked as though they might have joined in — were handcuffed, hauled out of the club and conveyed to West End Central police station.

  *

  Fox stood elegantly in the doorway of the charge room. ‘Well, Waldo, what’s this I hear?’ He shook his head and stared reproachfully at Conway.

  ‘Nothing to say,’ said Conway churlishly.

  ‘Good heavens! And Mr Bundy, too. Well, well.’ Fox smiled at Bundy. ‘Two or more persons fighting to the terror of the Queen’s subjects ...’

  The custody officer hovered. ‘Excuse me, sir —’

  ‘The plan is this, skip,’ said Fox, steering the sergeant out of the prisoners’ hearing. ‘Messrs Conway and Bundy can be charged with making an affray, together with that little team over there ...’ He indicated the three ‘extras’ who had done nothing but protest their innocence before and since arriving at the station and were only there to make up the numbers. ‘The fact that it’ll likely come to nothing is neither here nor there, and it certainly isn’t your problem’ He nodded towards Evans. ‘My DI there will give you the necessary evidence to support the charge, and incidentally, skip, there’ll be no bail. There is a distinct possibility that more serious charges will follow.’

  ‘Really, sir?’ The sergeant could not immediately visualise anything more serious than making an affray.

  ‘Yes,’ said Fox. ‘Like the attempted murder of a police officer.’

  ‘Like you say, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘There’ll be no bail.’

  *

  ‘I think you will find that there is insufficient evidence there to sustain a charge of affray,’ said Fox, dropping a slim report on to the CPS solicitor’s desk. ‘Probably a case of my officers over-reacting a bit, apart from which a private club probably doesn’t constitute a public place within the meaning of the Act. Still,’ he added, ‘you’re the lawyer. Best thing is to think in terms of common assault and refer the parties to their civil remedy.’ He grinned insolently.

  The CPS solicitor drew the report towards him, fanned the edges of its few sheets of paper and sighed wearily. ‘What’s happening here, Mr Fox?’ he asked. ‘I don’t seem to be able to keep track of this thing at all.’

  ‘Know how you feel,’ said Fox cheerily. ‘But once we’ve got a result on Bundy’s fingerprints, we can let them all go. Except Bundy, of course. I’ve a feeling he’s here to stay.’

  ‘George Bundy’s real name is Pedlar, guv. James Pedlar.’

  ‘Sit down, Denzil,’ said Fox. ‘I want to relish this moment.’ Evans dropped into one of Fox’s armchairs and spread his papers on his lap. ‘Aged forty-four. A string of previous, including two for armed robbery. In Birmingham, would you believe.’

  ‘I would, Denzil, I would.’ Fox smiled. ‘And about to become three ... or even four, I rather fancy.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Fox was reasonably happy with the way things were going. George Bundy, now known to be one James Pedlar, a native of Birmingham, was locked up at West End Central and would remain there for as long as the Police and Criminal Evidence Act allowed. Which wasn’t very much longer. But it would be enough once Fox took a hand. And that, he decided, would be now.

  ‘Waldo.’ Fox smiled benevolently at the sorry figure sitting in Savile Row police station’s interview room.

  Conway stood up. ‘Mr Fox. What can I say?’

  Fox shook his head solemnly. ‘Waldo, I put my career on the line to have you let out, and how d’you repay me? I’ll tell you. You abuse my trust, Waldo.’

  ‘Yeah, but I was provocated, Mr Fox.’

  ‘The word is provoked, Waldo. However, I think we can come to some arrangement regarding last night’s little fiasco.’ Conway brightened. ‘We can?’

  ‘I think so. Now, about Danny Horsfall ...’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘It seems to me, Waldo, that he’s the villain of the piece. Mr Bundy, with whom you had a slight disagreement, is merely a cat’s-paw in all this. And as for the gorgeous Eugenie ... Well, she’s been taken advantage of.’

  ‘D’you mean that bastard Horsfall’s been screwing her an’ all?’

  ‘Now you’re beginning to catch on, Waldo,’ said Fox, deeming it unnecessary to correct Conway’s inaccurate conclusion. ‘I am reliably informed that Danny Horsfall has a finger in this porn video business. In fact, more than a finger, a bloody great fist.’ He had no evidence of that at all, but it suited his purposes to let Conway think that that was the case.

  ‘Well, what are you going to do about it?’ Conway sounded like an aggrieved taxpayer who has suddenly realised that he’s not getting value for money for the police rate. Not that Conway had ever paid much in the way of tax.

  Fox shook his head slowly. ‘Oh, Waldo, Waldo. It’s a case of what you’re going to do about it. Now, let me lay it on the line for you. You, yet again, are languishing in a police station. Why? Because —’ Conway opened his mouth, but Fox held up a cautioning hand. ‘Because, Waldo, you were silly enough to go and put the arm on Eugenie, and then, as if that wasn’t a sufficient breach of the peace, you then attempt to sort out Bundy, during the course of which you commit several offences of causing criminal damage. You should be very grateful that the police were on hand to save you from a nasty hiding there, Waldo.’

  ‘He’s a ponce.’

  ‘Indeed, Waldo. But Horsfall is more so. Now, I’ll tell you what happens next.’ Conway looked apprehensive. ‘What happens next, Waldo, is that you give me the fullest possible details of Horsfall’s laundering activities, and anything else you know about him, so that I can pursue enquiries to the point where he’s nicked official. And providing you do that, and providing you stay away from Eugenie, I’ll consider letting you out on bail. Only consider it, mind. Unless, of course, you particularly want to go back to Brixton pending what we in the trade call due legal process.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Conway.

  ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself,’ said Fox. ‘Denzil,’ he said, turning to his DI, ‘I do believe Mr Conway wishes to make a further voluntary statement.’

  *

  It is well known in forensic circles that the
allegations of one co-conspirator against another are unlikely to carry much weight with Her Majesty’s Judges of the High Court of Justice unless some corroborative evidence is forthcoming.

  Although Conway’s statement had confirmed Horsfall’s continuing readiness to launder money, and had proved, at least to Fox’s satisfaction, that he had handled the proceeds of the robberies in Surbiton and France, it was unlikely that the Crown Prosecution Service would be prepared to authorise proceedings on that alone. And Fox knew it. Something more would have to be obtained.

  He decided that it was time to arrest Eugenie Vandermeer.

  *

  So that there would be no problems, DS Crozier obtained a warrant from the Bow Street magistrate and with Rosie Webster went to Notting Hill.

  The door was opened an inch or two on a chain. Eugenie obviously feared the return of Waldo Conway and evidently didn’t know that he was, once more, locked up in a police station. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, recognising Rosie Webster and opening the door. She was wearing jeans and a sloppy sweater, looked drawn and tired and had yet to put on her make-up.

  ‘You’re going to have to come with us, Genie,’ said Rosie. ‘So if you want to put a face on ...’

  *

  ‘I am more or less satisfied,’ said Fox, ‘that Waldo Conway did not carry out the robberies at Surbiton and Armentières. However, in the absence of any better prospects, I am quite willing to charge him with those offences and let him take his chance at the Crown Court.’

  Eugenie Vandermeer placed her hands flat on the table and gazed at them for some seconds as if assessing the efficacy of her nail varnish. Then she looked up, straight at Fox. ‘It wasn’t him,’ she said, ‘although why I should worry about him after the way he behaved, I don’t know.’

  ‘So who was it?’

  ‘George.’

  ‘George Bundy?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was almost a whisper, and Eugenie stared at her hands again.

  ‘How long have you known him, then? Bundy, I mean.’

  ‘Two or three years.’

  ‘That long, eh?’

  Eugenie nodded. ‘Yes. He’s not a nice man.’

  ‘I’d come to that conclusion myself,’ said Fox. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘I was a call-girl. I still am, as a matter of fact.’ The Belgian girl spoke flatly, as if giving answers to the questions on a hire-purchase form. ‘George was one of my clients.’ She looked up at Fox. ‘I don’t know if you know,’ she said, ‘but prostitutes don’t often get any satisfaction from the men they go with. It’s all too ...’ She paused, searching for a word. ‘Clinical.’

  ‘But Bundy was different?’

  ‘Ja, at first. Then it changed.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He became sadistic. Wanted me to do all sorts of things that even a prostitute ...’ She left the sentence eloquently unfinished.

  Fox nodded. He didn’t need to ask. He had been a CID officer for long enough to know the depths of human depravity. ‘Why did you keep on seeing him?’

  ‘What else could I do? Go to the police?’ Eugenie laughed cynically at her own suggestion. ‘I was frightened of him.’ She shrugged. ‘He said he knew what I had been doing in Brussels and that I had had to leave in a hurry. He said that the police were waiting to arrest me for that. Also, he said that I was an illegal immigrant, that I had overstayed my time.’ She seemed suddenly vulnerable, like a little girl. All the sophistication that had been there the first time Fox had met her had dissipated.

  ‘That’s nonsense,’ said Fox. Under European Community regulations that could have been regularised quite easily, but it seemed pointless to tell her that now.

  ‘I didn’t know this. Anyhow, that's what he said and I believed him.’

  ‘So you did everything that he told you to do?’

  ‘What else could I do?’ Eugenie gave a resigned nod. ‘First it was the money.’

  ‘What money?’

  ‘From my other clients. He would take most of it. He said it was for protecting me.’

  ‘And this all started two or three years ago?’

  ‘Ja. He found out that Waldo was in prison. He thought that he had been my protector ...?’ Eugenie glanced at Fox, an eyebrow raised, seeking confirmation that she had used the right word.

  Fox nodded. ‘Yes. Go on.’

  ‘And he just took over. Moved in. Like I said, at first it was all right. In fact, it was good. Then, it was not so good. Then there were the films.’

  ‘What films? The porn?’

  Eugenie nodded slowly, still looking down at the table. ‘That was terrible. He took me to this place in Belgravia, where you came the other day. He forced me, all the time threatening to report me to the police. I had to let men have me — sometimes even other women — all sorts of ways, doing all sorts of things. Terrible things. Tearing my clothes off, tying me up, whipping me. And all the time, he was taking films of this. It was awful.’ Suddenly, she dissolved into tears, her face in her hands as great sobs racked her body.

  Fox waited cynically, refusing to accept that a prostitute of Eugenie Vandermeer’s calibre would have yielded to emotion. Had she been one of the amateurs, like the housewives from the suburbs who occasionally ventured into the West End for the excitement and the extra money, he could perhaps have understood it. But this girl was a professional and, by definition, case-hardened and impervious to the normal feelings of the normal woman. Bundy must have had a very powerful hold over her indeed. Or Eugenie Vandermeer was a bloody good actress.

  ‘And the robberies?’ Fox’s voice was unusually gentle and Rosie Webster shot a surprised sideways glance at him, unaware that he was playing along with the Belgian girl.

  ‘It was the same.’ Eugenie had recovered somewhat, and searched her handbag for a tissue. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She wiped her eyes, and shook her mane of shoulder-length brown hair. ‘He found the gun in the flat one day.’

  ‘Waldo’s gun?’

  Eugenie hesitated, but then shrugged. ‘Yes, Waldo’s gun.’

  ‘The one that Waldo left when he went to prison for the bank robbery, five years ago?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Bundy took it?’

  ‘Yes, he took it. It was him who shot the policeman at that place ... Streatham, was it?’

  ‘Surbiton.’

  ‘Waldo had been at my flat that weekend and George thought that as it was Waldo’s gun, Waldo would get the blame for the robbery.’

  ‘He was very nearly right, too? said Fox. ‘Waldo knew nothing about this, I take it?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, he didn’t know. I didn’t dare to tell him?

  ‘And Armentières?’

  ‘The same. I foolishly told him that Waldo and I were going away for a holiday, to my home town. That is in leper, in Belgium?

  Fox nodded. ‘Yes, you told me before?

  ‘We should just have run away,’ continued Eugenie. ‘I was hoping that Waldo being out of prison for good would frighten him off, but George said that if I said anything to Waldo, he would kill us both. It was all arranged before we went. I had to make excuses to leave Waldo in the hotel, so that I could meet George?

  ‘But he trusted you to get rid of the proceeds? To have it laundered?

  ‘Laundered? What is this?’

  ‘To have it exchanged for legitimate money,’ Fox explained.

  ‘Of course.’ Eugenie half smiled, as though Fox hadn’t understood the power that Bundy had exercised over her. ‘But I had to get Waldo to do it all, so that if it went wrong, he would get the blame.’

  ‘Nice bloke,’ said Fox.

  *

  ‘What d’you think, Rosie?’ asked Fox.

  ‘I think she’s a lying cow.’

  ‘Oh?’ Fox had come to that conclusion early in the interview, but was interested in Rosie Webster’s reasons for agreeing with him.

  ‘She’s having you over, guv’nor.’ Fox grinned but said nothing. ‘Stands to re
ason, doesn’t it?’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘All this nonsense about being in fear of Bundy in case he grassed on her. I’ll bet she made a fortune out of those porno films. And if she’s wanted in Belgium, why does she risk a week over there with Conway? She’s not going to do that if there’s a chance of getting nicked the minute she arrives. Anyway, the Belgians haven’t asked for her extradition.’ Rosie smiled cynically. ‘No, sir, she’s running with Bundy but she’s quite happy to shop him now the chips are down. For once, I almost feel sorry for Waldo Conway.’

  ‘I knew it was a good idea taking you with me, Rosie,’ said Fox.

  *

  Eugenie Vandermeer was kept in custody at Bow Street police station, as much for her own safety as for any other reason. Although Bundy was locked up and Conway probably knew better now than to try anything further, Fox had doubts about Horsfall, or more particularly the muscle he employed. Like Lenny Feather, for example.

  Fox now devoted himself to the matter of George Bundy, also known as James Pedlar. But not directly. At least not immediately. That task he assigned to WDC Webster. Just for the sheer hell of it.

  Bundy sat sideways on to the table in the interview room at West End Central police station, a truculent sneer on his face. A sneer which became more marked when Rosie Webster entered the room and closed the door behind her. Unbeknown to Bundy, DS Crozier and DC Crombie were immediately outside. Fox never took chances with his officers’ safety, even an officer as capable of taking care of herself as Rosie.

  Rosie dropped a sheaf of papers on the table in front of Bundy. ‘I am WDC Webster of the Flying Squad,’ she said. ‘And that is a statement made earlier today by Miss Eugenie Vandermeer in which she makes some very serious allegations, and outlines certain facts that make it likely that you will be charged with two counts of attempted murder, two counts of armed robbery, and numerous offences of blackmail.’ She sat down. ‘To say nothing of living on the immoral earnings of prostitution. You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but anything you do say will be recorded and may be given in evidence.’

  Bundy swept the statement contemptuously off the table. ‘Piss off, girlie,’ he said. He had obviously decided that he was in trouble enough and that a little amusement at the expense of this sexy-looking police officer opposite him wouldn’t make matters any worse.