‘What … sort of business?’
He clicked his tongue and adjusted the brim of his hat. ‘Nothing that you need worry your little head about, angel,’ he said with a leer and then left.
Harryboy’s departure did not lighten Rachel’s spirits. She had thought of fleeing in the night, but it was hopeless. What were a few hours of false freedom? There was nothing she could do in this lonely, alien city to resolve her plight. She knew that she would obey orders and return to the hotel at the appointed hour. She feared what might happen if she did not. Harryboy would seek her out and then … She shuddered to think of the consequences. She sighed deeply. It was pointless to struggle or plan. In her heart she knew that there was no escape.
TEN
Whoever had come up with the phrase ‘looking for a needle in a haystack’ got my vote. How on earth was I to find the killer of Walter Riley in a city of several million people? London was a very dense haystack indeed. To make matters worse, it was apparently a random killing, a snatch and grab affair. I had no clues, no leads and no suspects. Just what a private investigator loves! I should have returned the brown envelope with the fifty pounds in cash to Mrs Riley and told her to put her faith in the efficiency of the police force. But a mixture of guilt – at not being able to prevent Walter’s death – and greed had prevented me. Now I was stuck with a seemingly impossible task. Yes, I could still return the money, I supposed, but I’d already made a few inroads into the stash. Well, a man’s got to eat and drink and I’d been able to emerge from the shop with the three brass balls reunited with my thick winter overcoat. Once again I could walk the streets without hugging myself for warmth. Nevertheless, spending some of the money without actually doing any detective work only increased my sense of guilt.
As usual, when I was down a one way alley facing a brick wall, I called on the help of my old Scotland Yard buddy, Inspector David Llewellyn. I arranged to meet him for an early evening drink at his favourite watering hole, the Guardsman public house, a short truncheon’s throw from the Yard. I’d explained my dilemma to him over the telephone. I hoped that his down to earth, common sense approach to life might help me to find the end of this mysterious tangled skein. I listened stoically to his barrage of sarcastic comments. There were the usual supposedly humorous taunts on the lines of ‘call yourself a bloody detective’ and ‘has Mr Sherlock Holmes run out of steam at last?’ It was a kind of routine we had, or to be more precise, he had. It amused him to abuse me in this fashion. I knew that after the banter he would do his best to help me, although he assured me that on this occasion his best was not likely to be very useful. After all two men looking for a needle in a haystack doesn’t really improve the odds that much. This did little to lift my spirits.
I was just about to leave the office when Susan McAndrew called. She wanted to know if I’d had any news of Peter. I felt a pang of guilt as I told her I hadn’t. It was not that I had forgotten about the boy or that I didn’t care about him, but I had deliberately put the problem to the back – way back – of my mind. I had reasoned there was little I could do about the situation until I had more information. Well, that’s what I’d tried to convince myself was the case. Perhaps it was because I couldn’t face the reality of the situation. I’d been happy in the knowledge that Peter was away from the dangers of London, breathing in the fresh untainted air of Devon, living in a caring household and settled at last. Now I knew different and it pained me.
I assured Susan that if Peter attempted to get in touch with me, I’d let her know straight away. Even as I spoke the words, I wasn’t sure that they were true. For all her kindness and concern, Nurse McAndrew represented officialdom. As soon as Peter was in her care again, the authorities would step in. It would either mean a return to Devon or – the nightmare loomed before me – the orphanage.
As I put down the receiver, I realized I was sweating. Even the thought of an orphanage churned me up inside. These places had been part of my life. I still bore the scars and I wouldn’t wish one on my worst enemy, let alone little Peter.
I mopped my brow. God, did I need a drink.
It was already dark when I entered the pub to be met by a warm wall of smoke and noisy chatter. No matter what horrors the war threw at Londoners, they never failed to be cheerful in a pub. There was laughter, giggling women and somewhere a tinkling piano was thumping out a popular melody, creating the impression that all was right with the world. And to some extent after a few drinks in the cosy, fuggy atmosphere you could almost kid yourself that it was.
I wandered over to the corner of the long counter in the saloon bar, hitched myself up on a stool and ordered two pints. I knew David wouldn’t be long: he could smell a freshly pulled pint from a mile off.
I had just taken my first gulp of ale, hoping the alcohol would either raise my spirits or bring on a bout of amnesia, when I felt a firm hand on my shoulder.
‘Nice coat. Coming up in the world, are we?’
It was David. I’d recognize those dark, lilting Welsh tones anywhere.
‘It’s just out of hock,’ I said.
David hopped on the stool beside me and smiled. ‘As I said, coming up in the world.’ He glanced at the full pint standing on the counter and expanded his grin. ‘Mine, I take it.’
‘Yours. You take it.’
‘Good man.’ And without further comment he raised the glass and downed at least a third of it in one long swallow.
He was a broad-shouldered, thickset man, getting broader now that he’d hit his mid-thirties, with a thinning mop of curly blond hair and a broken nose, a trophy of some youthful rugby match. There was a lively intelligence in those pale-blue eyes that illuminated his rather craggy countenance.
‘Did I need that,’ he said, plonking the glass down. ‘It’s been a hell of a day.’
‘You and me both.’
Suddenly David’s features darkened and he looked decidedly glum. ‘I reckon I might win this contest.’
‘Oh,’ I said, surprised at his sudden change of mood. ‘What’s happened?’
He took another deep swallow of beer before answering. ‘It’s always worse when you lose one of your own. One of our lads got shot last night. Alan Reece. Young chap with a wife and kiddies.’
‘You certainly have won the contest,’ I said quietly. ‘How did it happen?’
‘We’re not sure. He was found late last night by a young courting couple just off the Old Kent Road. Shot through the head.’
Suddenly I felt more guilt heaped upon me. How could I be feeling sorry for myself?
We both lapsed into silence for a while. David finished off his pint and ordered another round from the crusty old barman. ‘Still,’ he said, slipping the damp change into his pocket, ‘we have a pretty good idea who did it and it might be the villain you’re after, too.’
‘You’re joking,’ I said, although it was perfectly obvious he wasn’t. ‘You’d better put me in the picture.’
‘About a week ago a young bruiser called Harry Jenkins, known to his intimates as Harryboy, went AWOL from an army camp in Kent. He took with him a revolver and enough ammo to kill a regiment. In his flight he stole a car, killing the owner, a local vicar, in the process. We reckon that Harryboy made his way up to London to lose himself here.’
David pulled a small snapshot from his pocket and passed it to me. ‘That’s the bastard. It’s an old picture I’m afraid, but it’s the best we’ve got,’ he said, grimly.
The snap was blurred and grainy and the face that stared back at me was fairly indistinct, but what caught my attention were the man’s eyes. They were dark, unemotional and cruel. One could easily believe that this was the face of a killer. I passed the photograph back.
‘So you think he’s here in London.’
‘Let’s face it: the city is full of bloody deserters. They’re swarming about the place like rats in a sewer. Well, it turns out that the bullet that killed the car owner, the unfortunate vicar, matches exactly the one we took
out of poor Alan Reece’s head today. The same gun killed both men. Not only that but we found a car registration number in Reece’s note book which—’
‘—is the same as the stolen car.’
‘Yes.’
‘Was this car a Wolseley?’
David nodded.
‘That was the make of the car used by Walter Riley’s killer.’
‘So you said. You are sure about that?’
‘As sure as I can be. It was dark and I’m not the world’s best car spotter.’
‘Well, I’ve asked them at the Yard to check the bullet that killed your lady friend, Mr Walter Riley to see if it matches the other two. We’ll find out tomorrow.’
I screwed my face up. ‘It’s a long shot. There are lots of black Wolseleys around.’
‘Not driven by brutal killers, though.’
‘You have a point. What do you know about this Harry Jenkins?’
David screwed up his face. ‘Not much. Bit of a wrong ’un from the start it would seem. Truant at school. Tried to set fire to the gym. Drowned the neighbour’s cat for a bet. Several minor offences as a teenager. The usual stuff. And then he joined up in ‘40.’
‘And now he’s on the loose.’
‘And now he’s on the loose … with a gun.’
And after that we ran out of conversation. Two old friends, frustrated and tired by the evil in the world and unable to shrug off our innate conviction that it was part of our duty, our raison d’etre, to do something about it.
David stared at the dregs of his second pint and sighed. ‘You know, boyo, I don’t fancy another. I think I’ve had enough stimulation for one day.’ He slipped off the stool and patted me on the shoulder. He forced a grin. ‘It is a very nice coat,’ he said but the humour was not there in the voice. ‘I’ll be in touch when I get the report back on the bullet.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, realizing that that was the last concern on his mind. I knew he was thinking of Alan Reece’s widow and children and the unfairness of life.
He left me to the cheery, noisy warmth of the saloon bar which somehow had lost its escapist charm. For some moments I sat in a brown study and then I downed the last of my beer and left. I contemplated moving on to The Velvet Cage but somehow tonight I wanted hearth and home, however humble they might be – and they were very humble. I knew I could muster a Spam and mustard sandwich and a glass of Scotch. That would do me before an early night and the blessed oblivion of sleep.
ELEVEN
Harryboy Jenkins liked to think that he did not have a sentimental bone in his body. He was too self-obsessed and too concerned with his own welfare for such a weakness. Nevertheless he did have one emotional itch that he needed to scratch. He would die rather than admit it to anyone, indeed he tried to deny it to himself, but in quiet moments the desire, the want, returned and taunted him. It was a need that had to be satisfied. He only admitted it, accepted it, by downgrading this feeling to the status of a whim, a slight fancy. That fitted in nicely with his view of life. He enjoyed indulging himself in this fashion. He told himself, for example, that it had been a whim that had prompted him to approach the young tart in the milk bar a couple of days before. He had seen her, was attracted to her and thought it would be fun to take her to bed and now here he was shacked up with the girl, allowing his sexual appetite full rein for the first time in months.
Now he was following another whim. Or so he tried to convince himself. But in reality it was something more serious, more deeply rooted than a fickle fancy.
After leaving Rachel in Benny’s café, he had gone off to fulfil this need that was gnawing away inside him. He had lied to her about having some business to attend to. There was no business – just something he wanted to do. If he had been more of a man, he would have accepted that it was in fact something he had to do.
He walked to Charing Cross Road where he hailed a taxi which took him to Pimlico. As he neared his destination, Harryboy sat forward in the cab staring out of the window, gazing at the familiar dull buildings and streets of his childhood. They swept by him in a nostalgic panorama, those grey shabby edifices and dreary thoroughfares. But then there came a gradual change. Streets littered with rubble and the skeletal remains of houses stark against the blue sky. Casualties of the blitz! For a brief moment a pang of fear seized him but with a heavy shrug he blotted out the emotion.
As he had requested, the taxi driver dropped him outside the Malt Shovel pub, a great three storey monster occupying a corner site of Belgrave Road and Charlwood Street. It was like an island in an area of derelict and deserted houses, boarded-up ghosts that were decaying quietly. Some had suffered bomb damage, but mainly they had been abandoned by families who couldn’t put up with their bellying walls and crumbling conditions any more.
‘You’ll have to wait a couple of hours before they open,’ observed the cab driver nodding at the pub as he collected his fare.
Harryboy made no comment. He stood on the pavement and waited for the cab to depart. The street was eerily quiet. The only movement was a discarded newspaper that rippled and shifted its way along the gutter as the breeze caught its faded pages. Harryboy gazed at the dark, blank windows of the pub as the phantom noises of raucous drinkers and a badly played piano filled his ears. It was in the Malt Shovel that he’d had his first drink – an illicit pint, of course. He’d only been about thirteen. He remembered the moment with crystal clarity. He saw the dark ale slopping over the sides of the glass as it was handed to him. Handed to him by a fellow with black curly hair, a freckled face and a broad gap-toothed grin. Handed to him by his brother.
Harryboy felt his first ache. It was real and physical. His bowels stirred and he gasped for air.
His brother. Jack.
There he was: white collarless shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, scruffy black trousers held up by a broad brown leather belt, his curly locks falling across his forehead. Leaning easily on the bar, he raised his pint in a toast to Harryboy, his smile almost splitting his face in two. ‘The first of many, eh?’ he’d said before taking a large gulp from his own glass so ferociously that dark drops of beer spattered down on to the front of his shirt leaving beige teardrop stains there.
Jack.
The sound of his brother’s laughter echoed in Harryboy’s ears. He snarled an obscenity under his breath. He didn’t want to feel this. This was not the man he was. This sort of stuff was for tarts. He gritted his teeth, fighting back the emotion that was welling up within him. Why the hell had he come here?
A gaunt old man walking a greyhound passed by and cast Harryboy a casual glance. He wasn’t used to seeing someone so smartly dressed or fresh faced in his neck of the woods. He was about to say, ‘Good morning’, but the young man with the sour face turned away. The old man spat in the gutter and carried on walking.
Harryboy stood for a moment staring into space and then he moved off. Now he was here, in Pimlico, he might as well go and have a look. Then it would be over. Then he could let it lie. It would be a kind of exorcism. A five-minute walk brought him close. With each step he felt his heart constricting as though a hand was gently squeezing it. He had never experienced anything quite like this before and he hated it. It was a weakness. He was behaving like a bloody emotional schoolgirl. But, however much he hated himself, he could not stop and turn around. Something propelled him forward. He knew he had to go on. The compulsion was too great.
In keeping with his mood, the sky had clouded over, shadowing the area, blocking out the pale sunlight. It seemed as though he was walking in a monochrome landscape. He passed the large area of waste ground where he’d played as a kid. There were still the remnants of the old hut that he and his mates had used as a den and the stream of water running like a shiny silver finger across the scrubland, emanating from the large concrete drainage pipe, the gaping mouth of which emerged like an alien spaceship out of the dusty earth. The aperture was covered in wire meshing, but the kids knew how to get past that to make this wate
ry cave part of their playground. In the echoey dark, down deep in the pipe was where he had his hideout when they had been playing cowboys. Harryboy had always been the baddie – by choice. He had hidden deep down in the manmade tunnel where none of the other lads dared venture.
Leaving the waste ground behind he came upon an enclave of narrow streets: terraces of red-brick houses cheek by jowl with other identical red-brick houses. Victorian hutches for the workers. The dry, warm hand increased its firm hold on his heart. At the end of Waterloo Street, he stopped and gazed down the dusty thoroughfare, across the cobblestones, and down past Aspinall’s General Store, which was still there apparently untouched by time. It was here where he’d bought many a halfpenny liquorice and bags of gobstoppers. Then his eyes finally rested upon number seven. Number seven, Waterloo Street.
His home.
The home he hadn’t seen for five years.
It looked much the same as it had done, but then so did all the other houses in the street. They had been frozen in time like in some fading sepia photograph. There was a large rug hanging over the washing line in the tiny front garden. The colours were dull and it looked threadbare in places, but he recognized it as the one that used to be in the parlour.
For over half an hour, he stood, staring as though mesmerized at the street, the house, the garden, the faded rug, the straggly privet hedge, the paint peeling off the front door. He felt strange, invisible even, as though he had entered some time machine and was visiting the past. No one could see him. He was an alien from the future.
In the distance he could hear the goods trains, like clanking ghosts on the morning air. Once more his stomach lurched as forbidden memories forced their way into his consciousness.
A little lad in baggy short trousers and a Fair Isle jumper emerged from one of the houses, ran across the cobbles and went into the shop. He came out a few minutes later carrying a couple of bulging brown paper bags and scooted back home. Doing an errand for his mother, thought Harryboy with a smirk, probably got whatever he bought on tick. That was the trick. Don’t go yourself. Send your little boy to get sympathy from Fred Aspinall. The old softy couldn’t refuse an urchin with a note requesting some food. That little boy could have been him.
Without Conscience Page 7
