Fatal Quest

by Sally Spencer

‘No, ’e didn’t, boss. The cheeky bleeder said ’e didn’t need to, because yer’d already know. D’yer want me to send ’im away wiv a flea in ’is ear?’

  ‘No, I’ll see ’im,’ Burroughs said, looking down at his breakfast, and realizing he didn’t really want it any more.

  Woodend was escorted into the room by two minders, one on each side of him. Yet he didn’t look intimidated by his situation, Burroughs thought. In fact, he looked as if nothing could intimidate him that morning.

  Woodend looked around, at the heavy curtains and the heavy wallpaper, at the pictures which had been painted on the ceiling.

  ‘Nice place,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Burroughs agreed. ‘It’s my private dining room. It’s the place where people come when they want to eat wiv me, but don’t want ter be seen eating wiv me.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Why are yer ’ere? I don’t recall ’aving sent for yer.’

  ‘Let’s get one thing straight right from the start,’ Woodend told him. ‘I’m not your boy now – an’ I never will be.’

  One of the minders tapped him on the shoulder, and Woodend turned to face him.

  ‘Watch yer mouth, copper!’ the minder warned.

  ‘This has nothin’ to do with you,’ Woodend said. ‘Can’t you see I was talkin’ to the organ grinder, not his monkey?’

  The minder stepped clear of the policeman, and balled his hands into tight fists. ‘It’s time yer learned a bit of respect,’ he growled.

  ‘An’ you think you can teach it to me, do you?’ Woodend asked. ‘Well, go ahead. Take a swing at me. I’d really like that.’

  ‘Leave it out, Larry,’ Burroughs said.

  ‘Sorry, boss?’

  ‘I’m ’aving my breakfast, and I don’t want blood all over the table, so why don’t you and Pete go back to the bar?’

  ‘Wot about ’im?’ Larry asked, jerking a thumb in Woodend’s direction.

  ‘He stays,’ Burroughs said.

  The minder shrugged, and he and his partner turned on their heels and left the room.

  Burroughs speared a devilled kidney with his fork, and forced himself to pop it into his mouth.

  It tasted like sawdust.

  ‘Sit down, Sergeant,’ he said, indicating the chair opposite him.

  Woodend sat, but said nothing.

  ‘Yer sounded very angry just then,’ Burroughs commented. ‘More angry, I’d have fort, than the situation merited.’

  ‘I’m angry, right enough,’ Woodend agreed.

  ‘Wiv me?’ Burroughs asked, showing only a mild interest.

  ‘No, not with you. At least – not yet.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be very clever of yer to get angry with me ever,’ Burroughs said. ‘But if I’m not yer problem, then what is?’

  ‘I’m angry about bein’ pissed about,’ Woodend said. ‘I’m angry about bein’ lied to. But most of all, I’m angry because I’ve been used as a pawn in other people’s games.’

  Burroughs shrugged. ‘Then break free. Stop playing by uvver people’s rules, and start playing by yer own.’

  ‘That’s what I intend to. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I’ve got some questions I need answerin’, an’ you’re the one who can give me the answers.’

  ‘In uvver words, yer want me to play by your rules?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Because you want somethin’ from me.’

  ‘Do I? What?’

  Woodend sighed. ‘There you go – I’ve only been here a couple of minutes, an’ you’re already pissin’ me about,’ he said. ‘We both know what it is you want, so why pretend otherwise?’

  Burroughs nodded. ‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘We both know what it is I want. The question is, are yer going to give it to me?’

  ‘I might,’ Woodend told him. ‘I haven’t decided yet. It will all depend on what happens in the next twenty minutes.’

  ‘I could always have my boys beat it out of yer, yer know,’ Burroughs said softly.

  ‘Even you would think twice before havin’ a copper worked over,’ Woodend said. ‘Besides, I wouldn’t talk, whatever they did to me.’

  ‘Do you know, I fink I believe yer,’ Burroughs said. ‘All right, Sergeant, ask me yer questions.’

  ‘How did you persuade Jimmy Machin to take the blame for the Wally Booth murder?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘I don’t know what yer talking about.’

  ‘Of course you do. He’s one of your lads.’

  ‘That don’t prove a—’

  ‘An’ the fact that he is one of your lads means he would never even have contemplated goin’ for a drink in a pub right in the middle of Ron Smithers’s territory. So he wasn’t there, was he?’

  ‘Possibly not.’

  ‘An’ if he wasn’t there, he couldn’t have killed Booth.’

  ‘That makes sense.’

  ‘Which brings us back to my original question, doesn’t it? How did you persuade him to put his hands up for the murder? By intimidation? Did you threaten to harm him – or a member of his family?’

  Burroughs chuckled. ‘If yer ever going to make a success out of being a copper, yer’ll need to learn how blokes like Jimmy Machin fink.’

  ‘An’ how do they think?’

  ‘To men like you, prison is a terrible place. But to men like Jimmy, it’s a second ’ome. They don’t mind serving a few years’ porridge, especially if there’s a nice bundle of cash waiting for ’em when they come out.’

  ‘An’ will there be?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  Woodend stood up. ‘That’s it!’ he said angrily. ‘The meeting’s over.’

  ‘Sit down again, Sergeant!’ Burroughs ordered.

  ‘You still haven’t got the point, have you?’ Woodend demanded. ‘So I’ll say it again – I’m not your boy.’

  Burroughs sighed. ‘Machin will be looked after.’

  Woodend still hovered over the chair.

  ‘By you?’ he asked.

  ‘By me,’ Burroughs admitted. ‘His family’s already getting a few quid every week. Now please sit down again, Sergeant, and ask yer next question.’

  Woodend sat. ‘I suppose I could ask you why you fitted Machin up,’ he said, ‘but there wouldn’t be much point in it, because I already know the answer.’

  ‘Do yer? And what is it?’

  ‘You did it so I wouldn’t have to waste any more of my time on investigatin’ the Wally Booth case.’

  ‘Yer really do ’ave an ’igh opinion of yerself, don’t yer, Sergeant?’ Burroughs asked.

  ‘An’ so do you,’ Woodend countered. ‘Them Liverpudlians would have beaten the shit out of me if the lads you’d sent to protect me hadn’t stepped in at the last minute.’

  ‘How do yer know they were my lads?’

  ‘Because they were wearin’ nylon stockings over their heads.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So the reason they wore the stockings was to hide their identity. Right?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘But there was no point in hidin’ it from the Liverpudlians, who were only in London for the one specific job. So it must have been done to hide their identity from me.’

  ‘Interesting theory,’ Burroughs said.

  ‘An’ yet, at the same time as you were protectin’ me, you got your lads to beat up Tom Townshend, who was helpin’ with my investigation,’ Woodend continued. ‘Now why was that?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Because you wanted me to investigate Pearl Jones’s murder – that’s what’s been drivin’ you from the start – but what you didn’t want was for it to become public knowledge who was payin’ her school fees through the Meadows Trust. An’ it wasn’t only her school fees the Trust was throwin’ money at. It was also buildin’ the school a new science wing.’

  ‘So yer fink I’m behind this Meadows Trust, do yer?’

  ‘I know you are. B
y the way, how would you say “the meadows” in Spanish, Mr Burroughs?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Of course you have. An’ so have I, now that I’ve looked it up. You’d say “Las Vegas” – as in the Las Vegas Club.’ Woodend chuckled. ‘That headmistress – a racist cow if I ever met one – really couldn’t stand Pearl’s guts, you know. But I expect the school governors told her that she’d just have to put up with the girl, because if the school didn’t have Pearl, it wouldn’t be gettin’ any money from the Meadows Trust, either.’

  ‘So I ’elped out a little coloured girl,’ Burroughs admitted. ‘Nuffink wrong wiv that, is there?’

  ‘You helped her out anonymously.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I didn’t want people finking I’d gone soft.’

  ‘This is difficult for you, isn’t it?’ Woodend asked sympathetically.

  ‘I ain’t got no idea wot yer talking about.’

  ‘But it doesn’t have to be difficult, you know. You can tell me all about it. An’ I promise you that havin’ kept it bottled up inside you all these years, you’ll feel better for gettin’ it off your chest.’

  ‘Yer just like every uvver copper I’ve ever met, ain’t yer?’ Burroughs sneered. ‘“Admit to doing over that bank, Toby, and I promise yer, yer’ll feel better for it.” “Put yer ’ands up for that jewel robbery, Burroughs, and I promise yer, it’ll be a great weight off yer mind.” I must ’ave ’eard it a fousand times.’

  ‘Except that this time we’re not talkin’ about a crime, are we?’ Woodend asked. ‘This time, we’re talkin’ about your life!’

  ‘And suppose I don’t want ter talk about my life?’

  Woodend shrugged. ‘Then I can’t make you. But if you don’t tell me, I won’t give you what you want.’

  Burroughs made one more attempt to show an interest in his food, then pushed his plate to one side.

  ‘If I do tell yer, and it ever goes beyond this room, then yer a dead man,’ he said.

  ‘Bad move!’ Woodend told him.

  ‘What d’yer mean?’

  ‘I don’t like bein’ threatened, Mr Burroughs, an’ if you try threatenin’ me just once more, I’m leavin’.’

  ‘So ’ow can I be sure yer’ll keep quiet?’

  ‘You can be sure because I’m tellin’ you – here an’ now – that I will.’

  Burroughs lit up a cigarette, and sucked the smoke in greedily.

  ‘I met Pearl’s muvver in 1932,’ he said. ‘Back then, she wasn’t the same woman is she now. She was so energetic. So alive. English girls seemed pale in comparison – and I ain’t just talking about the colour of their skin.’

  ‘She became your girlfriend,’ Woodend suggested.

  ‘She became my secret mistress,’ Burroughs corrected him.

  ‘Why secret?’

  ‘Because it wasn’t the done fing to go out wiv coloured girls back then. A few of the boys might ’ave taken a darkie to bed once – just for the novelty value. But if yer wanted to get on in the rackets in them days, yer needed the backing of the big names, and most of ’em were strictly old school, and didn’t like to see no mixing of the races. Besides, I wasn’t just giving ’er one now and again, was I? I was seeing ’er regular – and that definitely wasn’t on.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I bought ’er a house in Stepney. I wasn’t known around there, and neivver was anybody I ’ung around with. I used to visit ’er free or four times a week. Sometimes we ’ad sex, and sometimes we didn’t. Often we’d just sit around and talk. We liked being in each uvver’s company.’

  ‘An’ then she got pregnant,’ Woodend said.

  ‘And then she got pregnant,’ Burroughs agreed. ‘And it was only when she give me the news that I finally realized I’d fallen in love with ’er. I can’t tell yer ’ow ’appy I was at the fort of ’aving a baby.’

  ‘So what went wrong?’

  ‘What went wrong was that Victoria ’ad started getting religion by then, and she insisted that we got married. Well, I couldn’t do it, could I? Yer can’t expect to still command respect out on the street if yer marry a nigger! So I told ’er it wasn’t possible, and she told me that she never wanted to see me again.’

  ‘She still took your money, though, didn’t she?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘But not for ’erself!’ Burroughs said, with a sudden burst of anger. ‘She’s a good woman. A decent woman. She took the money for our child.’

  ‘I never meant to suggest otherwise,’ Woodend said humbly. ‘An’ if that’s how it sounded, then I’m sorry.’

  Burroughs nodded, acknowledging the apology.

  ‘I moved the two of ’em out to the countryside during the Blitz,’ he continued, ‘but after the War, Victoria wanted to come back to London. I could ’ave set ’er up in a much nicer ’ouse than the one I did, but she said she wanted to live close to ’er friends from the church.’

  ‘An’ what about Pearl?’ Woodend asked. ‘Did you ever see her?’

  ‘I never spoke to ’er – Victoria wouldn’t allow that – but I saw ’er occasionally. I’d sometimes watch ’er as she went to school, or when she was coming ’ome again.’

  The man in the big black car, who Lene had spotted from her window, Woodend thought.

  ‘You loved her,’ he said.

  ‘Wiv all my ’eart,’ Burroughs said, as tears began to form in his eyes. ‘I used to dream that one day, when she was grown up – and I’d left this life behind me – we could meet properly. And now we never will.’

  ‘When you learned she was dead, the only thing that seemed to matter to you was that her killer was caught.’

  ‘Yes. It was the one fing I could still do for ’er.’

  ‘Didn’t you try to find out who’d killed her yourself?’

  ‘Of course I bloody did. But I kept coming up against a brick wall. That’s when I realized that ’ooever ’ad murdered Pearl must ’ave a powerful protector.’

  It wasn’t so much that the murderer had a powerful protector as that he was a powerful protector himself, Woodend thought. But he wasn’t going to mention that now.

  ‘So you decided that the only way you’d get at the truth was through a police investigation,’ he said. ‘But why choose me? Couldn’t you have put some pressure on DCI Bentley?’

  ‘Bentley!’ Burroughs repeated with contempt. ‘Bentley runs errands for me now and again. Little jobs. ’E doesn’t ask why ’e’s doing them – and ’e doesn’t care, as long as ’e gets paid.’

  ‘Little jobs like what?’ Woodend wondered.

  Burroughs smiled thinly. ‘For instance, when I needed to ’ave Jimmy Machin arrested, I told ’im to go and wait in the Waterman’s Arms, and then I passed the word along to Bentley that ’e should order you to go there.’

  ‘Maybe you’d better check it over again yourself, personally, before we finally give them permission to open up,’ Bentley had said.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary, sir,’ Woodend had replied.

  ‘What you think doesn’t matter a tuppenny damn. Round here, it’s what I think that matters. So instead of lecturing me on what is and isn’t necessary, you’d do well to get yourself off to the pub and see if it can be opened again. Got that?’

  It had all seemed far too neat at the time – a tidy parcel just waiting there to be picked up – and that, of course, was exactly what it had been.

  ‘But while I let ’im run my errands, I didn’t trust ’im to investigate my Pearl’s death,’ Burroughs continued.

  ‘An’ you were wise not to,’ Woodend said. ‘Because however much money you’d offered him, he wouldn’t have dared help you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t ’e? Why not?’

  ‘That’s not somethin’ you need to know. It’s more to do with another little matter that I have to clear up later, with Deputy Commissioner Naylor.’

  ‘And suppose I insist on knowing?’ Burroughs asked.

  ‘Insist all you like, but I still won
’t tell you,’ Woodend replied. ‘It’s police business, an’ – trust me – you’re better out of it.’ He lit up a cigarette. ‘You still haven’t said why you chose me for the investigation.’

  ‘Because yer were the only one ’oo who seemed to care – the only one who seemed to fink that the death of a coloured girl was wurf investigating.’

  ‘Why did Victoria deny that the girl in the photograph was Pearl?’ Woodend asked.

  ‘Because she was scared.’

  ‘Of you?’

  ‘Yes. She fort that I’d blame ’er for Pearl’s death. She fort I’d kill ’er if I found out.’

  ‘An’ the only way to prevent that happenin’ was to pretend that Pearl wasn’t dead at all?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘An’ did you kill her?’ Woodend asked, remembering what Lene had said about the car picking her up, and how she had been reluctant to get it.

  ‘No, of course I didn’t kill ’er.’

  ‘Then what did you do with her?’

  ‘I sent ’er back ’ome to the West Indies.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I knew that when the police finally got around to questioning ’er, the ’ole story – wot I’ve been keeping secret for sixteen years – would finally come out into the open.’

  And you still didn’t dare to admit to what you’ve done, Woodend thought. You just couldn’t find the strength within yourself to tell the world that you were once in love with a coloured woman.

  ‘Can yer … can yer tell me anyfink about the last few hours of my daughter’s life?’ Burroughs asked, on the verge of tears again.

  ‘She was in a place called the Charleston Club,’ Woodend said. ‘That’s where she met her killer. I won’t try to tell you that she didn’t suffer at all, but at least it was quick, because ten minutes later she was dead.’

  ‘She was just a schoolgirl,’ Burroughs said. ‘What in God’s name was she doing in a nightclub?’

  She was lookin’ for you, Woodend thought – lookin’ for the father who she’d never met, yet desperately needed to know.

  But Burroughs was already in enough pain without him adding to it, so all he said was, ‘I suppose that’s somethin’ we’ll never have the answer to.’

  Twenty-Seven

  It was eight-fifteen on Monday morning when the man walked, unannounced, into DCI Bentley’s outer office. He didn’t say who he was, but there was no need to – because his uniform said it for him.