Another Man's Poison

by J F Straker

  ‘Oh! One of them, is he?’

  ‘No. Just saving himself.’

  Robin frowned. He had never known Derek to be spiteful. Had he sensed Simon’s antagonism?

  The woman’s flat was on the ground floor of a converted terrace house. Either because he had found it cold waiting in the car or because he resented the way in which Derek appeared to be taking charge of a situation for which he considered himself to be largely responsible, this time Simon went in with them. She led them into the small sitting-room, cleaner and brighter than the dingy exterior of the house had suggested but cluttered with furniture and knick-knacks, and removed her coat. ‘Now, how about a drink then?’ she said.

  ‘Sit down!’ Robin snapped. With no further need for pretence he could let his anger ride.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I said sit down, damn you!’ Fists clenched, he stood facing her, staring angrily into her bloodshot eyes. ‘This isn’t a pleasure party. We’re here to ask questions, and you’re bloody well going to answer them. So sit down and listen.’

  Rough treatment was not entirely alien to her trade. She said defiantly, ‘Don’t you tell me what to do! Who are you, anyway? What’s all this about?’

  ‘It’s about kidnapping,’ Robin said. ‘It was my wife you helped to kidnap in January. Does that make it clearer?’

  The venom in his voice shook her. She looked at the others, but the grim expressions on their faces told her there would be no help there. Muttering obscenities, she slumped on to the chair behind her.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she retorted. ‘I never had nothing to do with no kidnapping. So sod off, the lot of you, or I’ll call the police.’

  Robin ignored the protest. ‘Who was your accomplice?’ he demanded.

  ‘I told you, didn’t I? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’

  Robin looked at Derek, who nodded. Grabbing the woman’s left wrist, he started to twist her arm behind the back of the chair. At first she struggled, kicking out with her legs as she twisted her body to ease the pain. Out of the corner of an eye Robin saw the look of disapproval on Simon’s handsome face. For Simon, violence to a woman was taboo, no matter who she was or how great her guilt. It would be doubly offensive to him when the woman was white and her assailant black.

  Derek gave the arm a further twist. ‘Stop it!’ she screamed. ‘Stop it, you black bastard! You’ll break me arm!’

  ‘He will if you don’t talk,’ Robin said, bending to peer into her contorted face. ‘Who was your accomplice?’

  She spat defiantly. Robin wiped the spittle from his cheek and watched her agony grow as Derek continued to increase the pressure. And presently she could stand the pain no longer.

  ‘All right!’ she shouted hoarsely. ‘All right!’

  Derek released her. ‘Who was he?’ Robin demanded.

  ‘Jonno,’ she said sullenly, rubbing her elbow. ‘Jonno Gatesby.’ There was fear as well as hate in her eyes as she glared at him. ‘But don’t you ever let on as I told you, or they’ll do me. They will, honest.’

  ‘They? Who are ‘they’? Do you mean Jonno?’

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Well, that’s your worry,’ Robin said. ‘Not that I’m aiming to tell anyone. Not even the law. It’s that black bastard I want, and I want him for myself. But I’m making no promises. It’ll depend on how much you’re prepared to help us. Understood?’

  She nodded. ‘Can I have a drink?’

  They gave her a generous whisky and told her to start talking. At first she was hesitant, but once into her stride she needed little prodding. It was as if, after naming her accomplice, the rest was insignificant. Jonno had been her boyfriend, she said — which Robin interpreted as ‘pimp’ — and had told her that a man had offered him thirty grand to kidnap a woman and hold her for a couple of days and nights in a hideout the man would provide. If she were willing to help him, Jonno had said, he would share the money with her. She had wanted to refuse, she said, but fifteen grand was too great a temptation. Particularly as Jonno had assured her the risks were negligible. They had only to snatch the woman from her home, which was isolated, on an evening when her husband was away, and hold her until the man told them to release her. They would not be involved in collecting the ransom.

  On the night in question they had driven out to the woman’s home in Jonno’s van, she said, but in the lane leading to the house they had hit a deep pot-hole and the exhaust had come adrift. That had made Jonno mad, for with the noise the van was making they couldn’t risk taking the woman back through the town and perhaps getting stopped by the police. They had parked in the woman’s drive, which was the first turning that offered and was screened by bushes, and while Jonno tried to fix the broken exhaust she had walked up the drive to look at the house and had found the Porsche with the ignition key in place. That was it then, Jonno had said. They would take the woman in the Porsche and he would return later for the van. On his instruction she had flashed the car’s headlights three times and when the woman came out, as they had been told she would, Jonno had grabbed her and knocked her out with an ether pad. They had then bundled her into the Porsche and taken her to the hideout.

  ‘Where was that?’ Robin asked.

  On the first floor of the old Anson building in Canal Street, Gwyn said, in a room at the back. Jonno had previously obtained a key, she didn’t know how, and had moved in the few essentials they needed: a camp-bed for herself (Jonno had not spent a night there and their captive had used an old iron bedstead left in the building), bedding, candles, a primus stove, water and a small stock of provisions. It had been on orders from the man that the woman was kept under sedation; and because for much of the time the two women were alone in the building she, Gwyn, had been given the task of injecting the drug.

  They had snatched her on a Tuesday evening, she said, and had released her on the Thursday after the man had told Jonno that the ransom had been paid. ‘And Jonno never give me a penny,’ she said bitterly. ‘First he says he couldn’t trust me not to splash it around, making folks suspicious. Wait till the heat’s off, he says. Then he takes up with this Lander bitch, and tells me to go stuff meself.’ She swore. ‘He’s a right no-good black bastard, that’s what Jonno is.’

  ‘Too bad,’ Robin said. ‘But don’t expect us to believe that in the past ten months you haven’t tried to make him pay up.’

  Oh, yes, she said, she had tried. On the first occasion he had threatened her with a knife and on the second he had slashed her arm. ‘He said if I was to bother him again I’d cop it proper,’ she said. ‘I didn’t, neither. I knew what he meant.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Derek said. ‘Why did we have to force Jonno’s name out of you when you obviously hate his guts? Why try to protect him?’

  ‘Not him,’ she said. ‘Meself. Jonno’s got connections. It ain’t healthy to mess with that lot.’ She licked her lips. ‘Gimme another drink, will you?’

  They gave her another, the third since they had entered the flat. That made four doubles in all, Robin thought. Yet she seemed sober enough. She must have a head like an ox!

  ‘Why did Jonno take the Porsche back to the house?’ he asked. ‘Why didn’t he just dump it?’

  ‘He had to get the van, didn’t he?’

  Ask a stupid question, Robin thought. ‘Who was this man Jonno was working for?’ he asked. ‘The one who made all the arrangements.’

  ‘Jonno never said. He just called him ‘the man’. When I asked he said questions like that wasn’t healthy.’

  ‘Was it you who telephoned on the Wednesday? About the ransom?’

  She nodded. ‘Jonno wrote down what to say. I was to read it out, he said, and then put the phone down. Not to answer any questions, he said.’

  ‘Who rang on the other occasions?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘Jonno, perhaps. I don’t know.’

  More likely ‘the man’ himself, Robin thought
. He wanted to ask about the rape had she known of it, how and when had it occurred — but he could not pursue that line with Derek present. ‘Is Jonno a West Indian?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s a Jamaican.’

  ‘Has he a police record?’

  ‘He was done once. G.B.H., he said.’

  ‘When did he come out?’

  ‘Two — three years ago.’

  ‘And where does he live now?’

  He had expected her to jib at that. But she didn’t. ‘Colet Road,’ she said. ‘With that bitch.’

  Robin looked at the others. Without hesitation, both nodded. Odds of three to one, bolstered by whisky, minimised the possible menace of Jonno Gatesby’s knife. ‘Right!’ he said. ‘We’ll pay him a visit. Get your coat, woman. You’re coming with us.’

  That shook her. It wasn’t right, she protested vehemently, they couldn’t do that to her. Jonno would know she had grassed, and sooner or later he or his mates would get her. But Robin was deaf to her pleading. ‘We need you to show us the house,’ he said. ‘We also need to ensure we’re not being conned. If you’re scared you can stay out of sight in the car. But you’re coming.’

  The house was at the end of a cul-de-sac that led to allotments; a semi-detached, red-brick villa with a small front garden. Lights showed in a curtained ground-floor window and they parked the car by the allotments and walked across the road to inspect the house more closely. A brick porch shielded the front door from the elements and after a brief discussion Robin and Simon stationed themselves out of sight on either side of it, leaving Derek to make the initial enquiry. Jonno Gatesby might be wary of callers at that late hour. A black man at the door would be less likely to alert him to the possibility of trouble.

  It was not a man who opened the door, however, but a young West Indian girl. Not more than eighteen, Derek guessed. And pretty, although too heavily made up. She wore a loose, gaily patterned shirt above tight-fitting silver pants. Jet-black hair, obviously a wig, framed her pert little face.

  Derek gave her an appreciative smile. ‘Is Jonno in?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s away. In Liverpool.’

  ‘Oh! Any idea when he’ll be back?’

  ‘He didn’t say. A coupla days, maybe.’ She had been standing well back. Now she moved closer. ‘You a friend of his?’

  ‘Sort of,’ Derek said. ‘We were guests of the government together.’ He grinned. knowingly. The girl grinned back, showing perfect teeth. ‘He said to look him up if I was ever this way.’

  ‘What’s your name, then,’ she asked.

  ‘Derek. But he probably won’t remember. It was some years ago and there were a lot of us around.’

  ‘I bet.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m Janet. You want to come in? You can if you like. I’m on my own.’

  Despite the make-up, he told the others later, she was pretty enough for him to have considered accepting the invitation under other circumstances. ‘I’d like to,’ he said, letting his gaze roam admiringly over her trim figure. ‘But I’ve a friend with me. Some other time, eh?’

  She shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

  ‘They’re going to wonder how you got the address,’ Robin said, as they walked back to the car. ‘And they could guess right. Welsh Gwyn may have to look to her health.’

  ‘What are you going to do about her?’ Simon asked.

  Regretfully, nothing, Robin said. Short of denouncing her to the police, which was out, what could he do? Beating up a woman, even one as rotten as Welsh Gwyn, just wasn’t on. ‘But she won’t have it all that easy. From now on she’ll be looking over her shoulder and seeing Jonno in her shadow.’

  They dropped the woman off at her flat and drove back to the Hall. Jonno Gatesby’s absence in Liverpool meant that retribution must be temporarily postponed; but in the meantime, Robin said, they might as well investigate the Anson factory. The owner could well be innocent of involvement in the kidnapping. On the other hand he might be ‘the man’. ‘Which means he definitely merits a visit,’ Robin said. ‘I’ll pretend I have a friend who might be interested in buying the factory.’

  ‘Not you,’ Simon said. ‘If he’s ‘the man’ he’s bound to recognise you.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘He’ll warn Jonno, that’s what. Why not let me handle it?’

  Robin hesitated. He wasn’t sure he wanted Simon to handle it. He would have preferred Derek. But Derek was returning to London on the morrow. And Simon was right, he would be foolish to talk to the owner himself.

  ‘Thanks, Simon,’ he said. ‘But check with me first, eh?’

  The tone of the luncheon party the following day was subdued. Most of them were preoccupied with their private thoughts. Jonno Gatesby filled Robin’s mind to the exclusion of all else. Although the desire for vengeance had always been with him, until now his primary concern had been to locate the man. Vengeance had been for the future. Now, with confrontation possibly only a few days away, the future was almost on him and he needed to consider what form vengeance should take, how it could best be exacted. Derek was considering how to screw a respectable advance out of a notoriously tight publisher for the second novel by a young author whose first book had not met with the success Derek believed it deserved. A kind of doctor/patient relationship seemed to have developed between Lucy and Karen; Karen, for once ignoring etiquette, had placed Lucy on her left and tended to monopolise her. An air of nervous excitement in her manner suggested to Polly that she might be anticipating with some apprehension the visit by a social worker arranged for later that afternoon, on behalf of the adoption agency. Unaware of the events of the previous evening, Polly assumed that the impending visit was also the reason for Robin’s preoccupation. She had no doubt of the cause of Martin’s headache. He’s been at the bottle, she thought, I can tell. Contemplating him from across the table, she wondered again why Karen always invited the two of them together. Surely she must have realised by now that they were incompatible.

  ‘I hear you’ve got a new girlfriend, Martin,’ she said brightly.

  The remark halted Karen in mid speech. Martin looked up from his plate. ‘Oh?’ he said. ‘Who says so?’

  ‘Adele. Adele Mallett. She saw you dining at Giovanni’s the other night with an attractive brunette.’ The information had annoyed Polly. When Martin had taken her to dinner it had been steak and chips at the Golden Bull. ‘Adele was there with her parents.’

  ‘Good for you, Martin.’ Karen sounded pleased. ‘Who is she? Anyone we know?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Martin said. ‘She’s from out of town. And if you’re scenting romance, Karen, forget it. There isn’t one.’

  ‘A pity,’ Karen said. It’s time you got married. Eh, Robin?’

  ‘High time,’ Robin agreed. ‘Marriage is an institution I can thoroughly recommend.’

  ‘Well, maybe I’ll get around to it one day,’ Martin said. ‘Right now I’m happy as I am.’

  He took Robin aside when the meal was over. ‘These Malletts,’ he said. ‘How well do you know the family?’

  ‘Well enough. Karen knows them better. Why?’

  ‘What’s the son like? As a person, I mean. Level headed, would you say?’

  ‘I think so. He’s very polite, very conservative — big and little C — very, well, ‘proper’ perhaps describes him best. But he has a bee in his bonnet about blacks. Why do you ask?’

  Adele Mallett’s Mini, Martin said, was well known to the traffic police. Not only was its colour distinctive; Adele collected parking tickets like others collected stamps, and twice in the past three months the car had been towed away to the pound. So when on the previous evening the crew of a patrol car had seen it parked in Renton Street they had suspected it might have been stolen. ‘In case you don’t know, Robin, Renton Street is over in Radcliffe Park,’ Martin explained. ‘Not exactly the district a girl like Adele Mallett might be visiting late at night.’

  ‘No.’ Where was this leading? Robin wondered uneasily.
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br />   ‘When they checked they learned it hadn’t been reported stolen,’ Martin went on. ‘But just to be sure the desk sergeant rang the Malletts. The girl told him her brother had borrowed it for the evening.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I doubt it. The car was parked outside a house occupied by two notorious prostitutes, and there was a light in the bottom flat.’ Martin looked hard at Robin. ‘Now why would a good-looking young fellow like Simon, who should find little difficulty in having it away for free with a girl of his own kind — why would he be buying sex from an overweight, middle-aged whore? You tell me, eh? It doesn’t add up.’

  ‘No,’ Robin said thoughtfully. ‘It doesn’t, does it?’

  It was hard luck on Simon that the incident should have given the police a somewhat jaundiced view of his morals, Robin reflected. But better that than that they should know the true purpose behind the visit to Renton Street.

  Fifteen

  ‘Rowson Enterprises’ was printed in large capitals on the glass panelled door. Simon paused for a moment to collect his thoughts and his wind — fit as he was, running up three flights of stairs had left him slightly breathless — and then went in. By the window a burly man sat at a table jabbing with one finger at the keys of a typewriter. He continued jabbing until, apparently satisfied, he leaned back and looked enquiringly at Simon.

  ‘Mr Rowson?’ Simon asked. ‘I’m Simon Mallett.’

  The man jerked his head towards an inner door. ‘You got an appointment?’

  Yes, Simon said, he had an appointment. The man got up, opened the inner door and poked his head round it. ‘Chap named Mallett to see you,’ he announced loudly. ‘Says he has an appointment.’ There was a murmur from within. ‘Okay,’ he told Simon. ‘You can go in.’

  Alec Rowson was middle-aged, clean-shaven and balding. He came round from behind his desk, extended a welcoming hand and pushed forward a chair for his visitor to sit. ‘Glad to see you, Mr Mallett,’ he said. ‘Any connection with Mallett Brothers, the leather people?’