The Last Best Friend

by George Sims

  ‘Balfour! You made it quick! We saw you go in.’ The asthmatic voice ended the sentence on an accusing note.

  ‘I came here as you said. Is this some kind of joke?’ Balfour felt tense and his chest was tight—he was having a little trouble in breathing himself.

  ‘No, Skipper. Just a little obstacle course to see if you are really keen about Steiner. Now you can meet me pronto, just round the corner. 14 Hyde Park Place. No more tricks. Wait where you are for five minutes. Bert Caley won’t mind you loitering on his property—I promise you that.’ There was a kind of choky laugh.

  Balfour was willing to complete the obstacle course in order to hear about Steiner. He went into the larger office and opened the window to get some fresh air. In the mirror he glimpsed his face, white and strained and the nostrils pinched. At least it made a change from the ‘selfish expression’.

  He looked at the calendar. The top-heavy, sultry nude was the one chosen for July, so it looked as if the office had only recently been vacated. The tenant had been a careful man in one respect, for all the previous months of the calendar had been carefully turned over rather than torn off. With his toe he moved round a small piece of paper on which there was a list of small sums totalled and boldly ticked.

  He waited five minutes and then left the Caley Property Co. feeling prepared for more or less anything. Nevertheless 14 Hyde Park Place managed to surprise him. It was a large church-like building set well back from the road which he must have passed hundreds of times when going up and down the Bayswater Road. There were high iron railings and these helped to obscure it from the road.

  He opened the gate and walked nearly up to the building before he realized that it had a deserted air. It was the odd kind of place that had a fascination for him, and he wondered about its history. There was some lettering about welcoming footsore weary travellers over one of the doors. It was only when he was really close that he saw there was only the shell of the building.

  He looked cautiously through one of the doors, seeing roofless walls and the sky. He smelt fish oil before he sensed danger. Then he was yanked through the open space and swung round, his arms being expertly pinioned against a wall by two bored-looking youths in dark mohair suits with modish short haircuts like professional football players.

  It was a big, fat, totally bald man who smelt of fish-oil. ‘Christ,’ he said explosively, ‘you are a ——ing nosey one! I’ve met some cases. I suppose if we’d told you to put your head…’ He had run out of breath and did not bother to finish the sentence. He spoke with continuously bared teeth and held his face very close to Balfour’s, watching him with a fixed expression of mild perplexity. He gave a short laugh and his heavy face moved in sections. ‘I think he must be a bit dolly dimple,’ he explained to one of the youths.

  Balfour noticed that there was a fourth man in dark glasses holding a brindled boxer on a very short steel chain. He had a pale face and an unusually thick mop of black wavy hair rising steeply from a widow’s peak. He wore a beige gaberdine suit with a thin black roll-neck pullover and a black leather belt with a large circular silver clasp. He looked like a homosexual of the rare, vicious kind.

  The big bald man put his face even closer to Balfour’s, staring right into his eyes as if he wanted to hypnotize him. ‘Now let me mark your card for you. You’re too ——ing nosey for your own good.’ He moved back a pace and slapped Balfour’s face twice in quick succession. They were practised blows delivered in an expert manner with the hand held limp and used like a whip. Balfour could taste the Bovril flavour of blood and a little moisture obscured his eyes.

  The bald man did his choky short-breathed laugh again and appealed to one of the youths, ‘Stop me. I’m beginning to enjoy it.’

  The youth sniggered a little but more as if it was required of him than a genuine response. Even though his face was hot with pain Balfour was struck by the complete indifference of both youths who held his arms. It was quite plainly just a job as far as they were concerned—they were not involved apart from doing the simple labouring work.

  ‘You haven’t said anything yet,’ the big man said. He had come close again and the fish-oil smell was very strong. He seemed a little impressed by Balfour’s silence. Balfour said, ‘Are you Steiner? You’re standing on my foot.’

  ‘Ah, lippy and still —ing nosey,’ the big man said with satisfaction. ‘I like that. No—see—I’m—not Steiner.’ The sentence was punctuated with pauses as he took hold of Balfour’s ears and folded them up in various ways. It was an exercise that had never occurred to Balfour before, but the big man knew how to do it so that it was very painful. The movements disclosed hairy wrists, both of which were tattooed, one with a dolphin and anchor, the other with the words ‘H.M.S. Hell-raiser’. He stepped back and slapped once more, a swingeing blow which made Balfour’s cheek feel as if it had been set on fire. The big man watched his reaction with considerable interest, as if he was conducting a scientific experiment.

  ‘The form is,’ he explained, ‘you get pressure until you start minding your own —ing business and forget all about Weiss and Steiner. Get it into your nut once and for all that you can’t do any good nosing around. Your old pal Sammy Weiss was bent. When the heat was on he couldn’t take it.’ He stopped to pump up breath a bit to continue. ‘What you can do is stir up a bit of trouble for us and that will mean plenty of stick for you. What I mean, if you have any long-term plans, like walking round next week without crutches, you do what I say. Right, Don?’

  ‘Don’, the thin youngish man dressed in beige gaberdine approached with the fierce-looking dog. ‘Don’ had high cramped shoulders and a narrow chest. He took off his dark glasses to reveal sea-green eyes which were unnaturally bright, and gave Balfour a merciless, appraising look which was more frightening than anything the big man had done. When he opened his feverish eyes it was as if a microscope had been fractionally adjusted. He moved with the awkward, unreliable gait of someone with an incipient disease of the spine. It was plain that giving Balfour ‘plenty of stick’ might divert him for a while. He said nothing but nodded and smiled faintly.

  ‘Right. So have we got it straight now?’ the big man asked patiently. ‘If you still want to nose in, it can only mean trouble all round. Did you know that your yid friend had been taking really big money? If you stir things up it will mean that his old sister won’t get the loot. Her Majesty’s —ing Government will grab the lot.’ The fact that these men knew of Rebecca Weiss, together with the £1,000 cheque, forced Balfour to consider the possibility that Sammy had been mixed up in something shady. How else could they have known Sammy well enough to be aware that he had a sister who had lived in Tel Aviv for the past eight years?

  ‘O.K.?’ the big man inquired. ‘Now this is the drill. First they,’ he motioned to his silent assistants, ‘they let your arms drop. You’re stupid you lash out at me. I clobber you or Don sets the dog on you. You’re smart, we all just walk away. You wait here five minutes. You’ve learnt your lesson all right. If you’re upset, well just lay down here and kick and scream a bit. No one will mind. It’s very private.’ He paused significantly, then added: ‘We could have buried you here but you’re being given a chance.’

  His two assistants stepped back at some unseen signal and Balfour’s numb arms dropped limply to his side. He made no movement and ‘Don’, the boxer dog and the two youths walked off through the doorway.

  The chief inquisitor seemed a little reluctant to leave the scene of his recent triumph. He still watched Balfour closely as if he found it hard to believe that things had worked out so nicely. He tapped his forehead and conceded, ‘You’re sharp. I thought so when I first saw you. You’re quick enough to learn. Now, five minutes remember. You’ve no reason, play your cards right, ever to see us again.’ He lurched out of sight saying: ‘Well cheerio, Skipper. All right?’

  Chapter XIII

  From a good viewpoint, halfwa
y across London Bridge, Balfour idly watched the activity by the Custom House and the numerous wharves and jetties between Morgan’s Lane Stairs and Tower Bridge. His mind was trying to deal with the puzzle of why Sammy Weiss should have been in contact with the fat bald man. He had to concede that it was just possible that Sammy had been involved in some kind of criminal activity. Supposing he had, and that the offence was smuggling—Superintendent Hanson had underlined the frequency of Sammy’s trips to Amsterdam—then this could well have been the reason for the telegram, VITAL I HAVE YOUR ADVICE ON TERRIBLE DECISION I MUST MAKE…Perhaps the decision had been to do with Sammy clearing out of England, or about the other men involved, the mysterious Steiner and Quarry? In that event it became possible that the big fat man and his gang worked for Steiner, and had been sent to make sure that no one followed up any leads linking Sammy to Steiner. But in that case how would they know that he might have got on to Steiner’s name? It was true that Sammy was always making notes. Or did the gang know of the cable that he had been sent without being sure of its contents?

  Balfour gingerly felt his sore nose. One thing was certain—if Sammy killed himself because he was mixed up in crime of some kind, then he did not intend to do any more inquiring or even pass on Steiner’s name to Hanson. He was not interested in retrieving money for ‘Her Majesty’s ——ing Customs’ at the expense of another interview with ‘Don’ and the others. He would be content to let Detective Superintendent Hanson make any discoveries in that area. Fortunately there was one person who might be able to tell him about the bald man’s gang. ‘Chas.’ Squibb boasted that he knew most things that went on in London, and from his stories it sometimes seemed that this was true. The Lamb Tavern at lunchtime was the place to find ‘Chas.’

  The little cut in the underside of Balfour’s lip had dried up within minutes of the blow that had caused it; his face still felt flushed but that was probably due to excitement and nervous tension more than the expert slapping—he had suffered much more punishment from so-called ‘friendly’ boxing matches. The few minutes behind No. 14 Hyde Park Place had left no scars and had probably led him to the end of his useless quest. It was a fine warm day and he was looking forward to a peaceful afternoon at Roehampton.

  He glanced once more across the river and noticed with surprise that one of the largest warehouses was boldly lettered ‘Toller, Cato—Export, Import’. The Southwark side of the Thames was an area he had explored and knew reasonably well, from Clink Street to Tooley Street, the George, the Anchor Inn, and the Globe Theatre. He had been over there more than a dozen times and yet he could not remember seeing the Toller, Cato sign before. Perhaps he had but it only impinged now because he had begun to take an interest in the possibility of making Mr Leonard Cato a customer.

  Balfour entered Leadenhall Market from its main entrance in Gracechurch Street. He liked many of the London markets, particularly the lesser-known ones in Hessel Street and Douglas Way, but Leadenhall was his favourite. Nearly everything about it appealed to him, the Victorian atmosphere, the elaborate cast-iron work with griffons supporting the City’s coat of arms, the brightly lit butchers’ shops looking like Dutch still-life paintings, and above all the Lamb Tavern.

  At 1 p.m. Balfour was standing at a comparatively quiet end of the bar, holding a delicious York ham sandwich with plenty of mustard and a half-pint of best bitter. He was savouring the cockney talk going on round him, and mentally contrasting the atmosphere with that of the Malise house where he would be in a few hours’ time.

  ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you.’ It was a falsely petulant voice, a ridiculous imitation of a pansy’s recrimination. Balfour turned round to see ‘Chas.’ Squibb shaking the stump of a forefinger at him. He seemed to be even more bald than the last time Balfour had seen him—the thin strands that barely connected his grizzled sideburns with the fringe at the back of his head had suffered further depletion. Squibb was an inch or two shorter than Balfour but had impressively wide shoulders and a barrel chest. He looked extremely prosperous in a dark blue suit, immaculate white shirt and a military striped tie. There was a cornflower in his buttonhole. His shoes shone with a very high polish.

  Squibb reached towards the bar and, unsummoned, a pint tankard of Guinness was put into his hand. His red face glistened as though it too had been well polished, and his bright eyes went quickly round the bar, anxious not to miss anything. ‘I’ll drink to that, by God!’ he said, apropos of some overheard remark. Then, to Balfour, ‘You know that buy you put me on to? Leominster? The poor old cow with rheumatism? I liked her. And there were some good things there. All those paper-weights. Some Bristol glass tear-bottles and a few other useful odds and sods.’ With his free hand, from which two fingers were missing, he took hold of Balfour’s lapel. ‘Where you been, mate, doing a stretch?’

  Before Balfour said anything, he added a complaint: ‘This morning I went out nearly as far. They said it was like Buck House but it was a right load of old schmutter! You see, everyone’s an antique dealer today. So they say! Young know-nothing kids. Still, after all, they just act as clearing-houses for pros like you and me. Well, where have you been hiding yourself?’

  ‘I’ve been abroad. A holiday in Corsica. So you followed up the tip about Leominster? Did you do all right with the stuff?’

  Before speaking further, Squibb took out an extremely thick pile of five-pound notes held together by a yellow elastic band, peeled off four and stuffed them down in Balfour’s top pocket. ‘There you are, boy. I spent seven five oh with the old dear. No chicanery mind, I could have got the stuff for five oh oh. But I still made a profit. So there’s a few nicker on account.’

  Balfour raised his eyebrows.

  ‘On account of I’m not giving you any more—’ Squibb went into a fit of laughing which ended in his belching and saying, ‘File that under miscellaneous.’

  Balfour wondered about Squibb’s attitude to doing favours and how he would respond to a request for information. Squibb was a funny mixture—he was resolutely opposed to anything he considered sentimental, ‘Don’t give me none of that Sally Army stuff,’ but he always seemed friendly enough. Although Balfour had been frank about his ‘five-week war’ Squibb had, for purposes of reminiscence, enrolled him in the 8th Army and sometimes took him conversationally through battles along the North African coast, the Sicily landing at Pachino, and then up the Adriatic to the Pescara River where he had lost two fingers. ‘You remember that day,’ he would say, ignoring Balfour’s protests, ‘when we wus at Fuggia,’ or some other Italian town atrociously mispronounced, ‘and Nobby Clark…’

  ‘I wanted to ask you a small favour,’ Balfour said. ‘Just a question.’

  ‘And the prize,’ Squibb joked, ‘will be, don’t tell me, a chocolate smoking set.’ But he looked a trifle anxious. He did not care much for a serious conversation and steered away from it, preferring life to be a simple round of work, nosh-ups, knees-ups, and bunk-ups. He lacked all curiosity about what made other people tick. ‘All right, go on then—this question.’

  ‘I had some trouble this morning,’ Balfour said quickly, then pulled his lip slightly outwards to show where it was cut. ‘But I didn’t get into a fight. I was knocked about by a big chap who seemed used to doing it. About fourteen stone. Six foot two. Tattooed wrists, one with the words “H.M.S. Hell-raiser”. He had three other men with him. And a boxer dog.’

  Squibb gave Balfour a funny, vacant look—it was as if a plug had been disconnected somewhere so that the light in his eyes had been extinguished. He was silent for once, fingering a badly sewn scar that ran down the side of his forehead.

  ‘You know him,’ Balfour said excitedly, ‘I can see you know him.’

  ‘You don’t do a bad job on description,’ Squibb admitted grudgingly. Then he asked: ‘What you been up to, mate?’

  ‘Me!’ Balfour expostulated. ‘Me—I’ve done nothing! It was him. I just stood there and he
slapped me around.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand, matey. This man, the big chap. If I’ve got him right, he doesn’t go round picking on people. It’s strictly business with him. Take it from me, you’ve stepped out of line somehow…’

  ‘No—I’ll tell you what happened—a friend of mine died, killed himself, I think. And I’ve been going around, asking a few questions. That’s all. I’ve never seen or heard of this big chap before.’

  ‘I see.’ Squibb took a big gulp which emptied his tankard of Guinness and relapsed into silence, continuing the impressive pause by rolling his eyes in silent askance. Then he opened a packet of crisps and, tilting his head back, poured the contents into his mouth without regard for the whereabouts of the little blue packet of salt. ‘Well—what you want to know—his name?’

  ‘Yes, his name…But what I really wanted to find out was the kind of racket he was in. Why he should have been tied up with my friend.’

  ‘You don’t want much, I’ll say that for you.’ Squibb breathed in deeply, holding his nostrils deflated while he thought this over. ‘Look, I’ll take a chance but do yourself a favour and don’t go “asking a few questions” about him.’ He looked about him and inquired quietly, ‘He’s got a nice head of skin like me?’