‘ “Be popular” has never been number one on my list of things to do today,’ Slider said indifferently.
‘There you go again, you see. I’m telling you this for your own good Bill: you’re a damn good copper, one of the best I’ve ever worked with, but unless you change your attitude, start polishing what needs to be polished and licking what needs to be licked, you’ll be a DI for the rest of your life.’
Slider smiled. ‘Thank you very much, sir.’
‘I give up.’ Dickson shook his head sadly, gestured with his glass, and drained its contents. The strain of so much personal exposure was telling on him, and when he put the glass down his face was its usual terrifying mask of conviviality.
‘About this case: Mr Head, with the aid of our little department mole, has got very excited about the Nearys. Colum’s obviously up to something, probably on his brothers’ behalf, and he’s keeping some very unhealthy company. Now Mr Head wants to redirect our resources to breaking up the O’Mafia before it gets going again. That’s far more important than Neal’s murder – if indeed a murder it be, quoth he.’
‘But I thought—’
‘Well don’t. Breaking up a gang bent on armed robbery scores fifteen points with Special Branch. Catching a local murderer can’t compete with that.’
‘No sir.’
‘It’ll make the troops happy,’ Dickson observed judiciously. ‘Lots of overtime, surveillance details, hanging around pubs and clubs, which is where they like best to be.’
‘Yes sir.’
Dickson drew breath and shed the complaisant mien. ‘But I decide how my own men are deployed, not the DCS. He’s spending tomorrow with his beloved wife, poor bitch, and his three charming children, so that gives us twenty-four hours unmolested. You’ve still got some lines to follow up, haven’t you?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Good. Stay on the case, use everyone you’ve got, get me something I can use to buy us more time. I don’t like leaving jobs half done. Keep plugging away at it, Bill. Something’s got to give, and an old copper’s instinct tells me it’s going to happen soon.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Half Some Sturdy Strumpet
‘I TOLD DICKSON I STILL had lines to follow up, but I’m damned if I know what they are,’ Slider said.
‘There’s Gorgeous George,’ said Atherton. ‘He’s got to be involved somehow.’
‘Yes, and the bastard did lie to me. We must have another chat with him, point out the error of his ways. I think I’ll save that pleasant little task for myself.’
‘You deserve a treat,’ Atherton agreed.
‘Meanwhile there’s the Forrester side to pursue, and I don’t see how to proceed.’
‘There are still Mrs Hulfa, Mrs Sears number one, Gary Handsworth’s mother, and the beguiling Mrs Mouthwash who were around at the time. One of them might have heard something about Forrester’s death not being an accident. And at least we can get some idea if it was commonly held that Neal and Mrs F were consorting.’
‘But that’s all sixteen years ago. We still have to prove she was there on the night of Neal’s murder. She has no alibi for the time of death, and the logic of it holds up, but that’s not enough even to give her a tug and search her flat.’
‘Oh well, you know what you always say to me,’ Atherton said cheerfully. ‘Go through the motions, Guv. Go through the motions. You never know what will turn up.’
‘Thank you, Mr Micawber. All right, put the team onto it, check everything that can be checked on the other deaths. And find out where Mrs Forrester was when Sears was murdered. She must have been interviewed at the time. If we can connect her with the Sears murder, that’ll be a start.’
‘Right, Guv. Of course, she might have hired a hit man to off him, had you thought of that?’ Atherton grinned.
‘Oh, go away,’ Slider said wearily.
He drove slowly, hoping the magical properties of forward motion would turn over the heap of leaves in his brain and uncover something that wriggled. He had the sensation that something was missing, or had been forgotten, but that, of course, might be perfectly normal paranoia. Mrs Forrester was a very intelligent and, he had no doubt, determined woman, but there was no such thing as the perfect murder. There must be some way of proving she had been there.
Perhaps this long trip into the past had clouded the issue. There were too many people to think about. Perhaps he should go back to first principles, look at the Neal case as it had first appeared to him, before all the personalities and emotions got in the way. He turned down Conningham Road to cut through to Goldhawk Road and avoid the traffic, and thought, the Red-Headed Tart: he still hadn’t sorted her out. Perhaps, after all, she was the key to everything. If he could only find her, she might supply all the missing pieces.
And almost at the same instant – or perhaps it was what had made him think of her at all – he saw Very Little Else, sitting on a garden wall on the corner of Scott’s Road, scrabbling through her latest carrier. Luckily there was a gap in the end-to-end parked cars along the kerb just ahead. He pulled into it, and got out to walk back and talk to her.
‘Hullo, Else. How’s it going?’
She looked up at him warily for a moment, and then recognition spread over her features. ‘Oh, ’alio Mr Slider.’ She went back to her scrabbling. ‘Got a biscuit in ‘ere, if I can only find it.’
‘You picked a nice sunny spot to sit down,’ he said, parking himself beside her, though not too close, and upwind.
‘Yeah, I got my special places,’ she said, relinquishing the search. ‘You gotter know where you can an’ where you can’t, see? No good if they come and turn you off, is it?’
‘That’s right. What about Gorgeous George’s? Is that one of your places?’
‘What, his garridge? No, that’s no good. Too much shadder. Corner of the park’s better. I can see his place from there all right, though. Told you, didn’t I?’ she chuckled.
‘Told me what, Else?’
‘Told you he knew all about it, didn’t I? That feller what got killed in the fire.’
‘Yes, I remember. And Gorgeous George was a bit naughty. He said he didn’t know the man.’
‘Lyin’ sod. He knew ’em both – him and the girl.’
‘Well, the girl was renting his flat, we knew that.’
‘He knew her from before that. He’s known her years and years,’ Else said scornfully.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Course I am. Why else’d he let her have his flat? He don’t let no strangers stop there.’ She lost interest in the subject abruptly, and resumed her burrowing in the murky recesses of the bag.
‘But how do you know?’ No answer. ‘Else, how do you know he knew the girl before?’
She looked up. ‘Got a biscuit on you, Mr Slider? I had a whole packet in ‘ere. Dunno where they’ve gone.’
‘Never mind biscuits, what about the girl?’
‘What girl? They was Lincolns an’ all. None of your cheap rubbish. Y’know what I really like? Custard creams. I ain’t ’ad a custard cream in years.’
He got up, and felt in his pocket for change. ‘Here you are, Else. Go and buy yourself a packet.’
‘Gawd blesher, Mr Slider,’ she said, cupping her hands. ‘You’re a gent. Better’n that Mr Raisbrooke. Whass gone of ‘im now, anyway? I ain’t seen ’im for months.’
She was such a frustrating mixture of sense and forgettery, he thought as he climbed back into his car, there was no relying on her. But on the principle that the broken clock is right more often than the slow one . . .
Gorgeous George showed no resentment at being interrupted a second time. It was all part of the perpetual psychological warfare he waged that he sat relaxed and smiling, leaning back in his chair and playing gently with his gold cigarette lighter, almost as a man fondles a dog’s ears.
‘I hope you won’t be keeping me too long. I’ve got an important meeting to get to by two-thirty.’
They�
�ll run all right without you,’ Slider said firmly. ‘I’d just like to have a little talk to you about Richard Neal – and please don’t put on that enquiring look, like a friendly guide dog looking for a blind man. You know who Richard Neal is. I’m surprised at you, George, telling me lies.’
‘Lies?’
‘You said you didn’t know him when I showed you his photo.’
‘As I remember, I told you’d I never seen him going into the flat,’ he said smoothly. ‘That was perfectly true.’
‘A very selective truth.’
Gorgeous lit a cigarillo unconcernedly. ‘I’ve got nothing to hide. If you ask me the right questions, you’ll get the right answers.’
Slider leaned forward and laid a fist down on the table. ‘This is not a game, George, and I’m not here for the pleasure of your company. You were seen handing Neal a large sum of money in the Shamrock club, and having conversations with him on more than one occasion. Now I suggest to you that you’re in serious trouble, and it’s time you started being a bit more frank with me.’
He smiled. ‘Is that a warning, man to man? How can I be in trouble, arranging a few bets for a bloke? Successful bets at that.’
‘Come on, George, you can do better than that.’
‘Can I? This man you’re so interested in was a gambler, didn’t you know that? A bad one, like all amateurs – too fond of mug doubles and the fancy stuff, and ready to take anyone’s tip, if the odds were long enough. He was in bad money trouble and thought he could gamble his way out of it. He knew my reputation, and asked me if I’d choose some horses for him, and put the bets on.’
Slider stared in rank disbelief. ‘This is a new you I hardly recognise. A tender, caring creature, ready to go to any lengths to help his fellow man. What happened, George? Why the sudden benevolence? Did you find Jesus, or what?’
Gorgeous smiled lazily, his eyes gleaming like those of a cheetah that’s just spotted a wildebeest with its mind on other things. ‘It wasn’t benevolence, it was business. I did it on a commission basis. Do you think I’m stupid?’
‘Not at all. I have the highest respect for your animal instincts – self preservation and the like. But animals don’t do each other favours. It was a lot of trouble to go to for a complete stranger.’
Gorgeous shrugged. ‘It was no trouble. I was betting on the horses for myself anyway. The commission paid my expenses for the day nicely, with a bit to spare. Never say no to a spot of bunce, Bill, no matter how small. Contempt of money is the root of all evil.’
‘I’ve heard that. So the money you were seen giving to Neal was his winnings.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Lucky.’
‘Not luck – science.’
‘I suppose you wouldn’t happen to remember the names of those galloping horses, by any chance?’
‘I’ve got them all on file, of course. With the dates and the odds, if you’d care to check them.’
‘I’d be delighted to,’ Slider said. ‘But it was all a bit risky from Neal’s point of view, I should have thought. The horses might just as easily have gone down. I wonder he didn’t want a more reliable source of extra income, if he was in trouble. You wouldn’t by any chance have put him in touch with someone who lends money at a high, not to say punishing, rate of interest, would you?’
‘Do I look like a bank clerk?’
‘You don’t look like a bookie’s runner. No, I was thinking more along the lines of some of your entrepreneurial friends. I was wondering if you made Mr Neal known to the Neary brothers.’
George shook his head sadly, and showed his white, carnivorous teeth in a pitying smile. ‘I don’t know who you’re getting your information from, but you ought to be sending him for immediate outplacement counselling. Everyone knows the Nearys are inside – where you, I might mention, helped to put them.’
‘Not Colum,’ Slider said gently. ‘Colly Neary’s out – sent on ahead, to get everything ready for the happy day when the Neary family is reunited on the outside. The old firm, back in business at the usual stand. In business lending money, for instance, on the Shylock principle, to those unfortunates who can’t persuade Barclays they’re a good risk.’
Gorgeous tapped the long ash from his cigarillo with complete unconcern. I’m surprised at you, going fishing during working hours. All I know about the Nearys is what I read in the papers, like everyone else. You’re throwing out spinners and hoping I’ll do your job for you. Not on. Sorry.’
Slider leaned forward. ‘Look, George, I’d just as soon write you out of this one, because, God help me, I like you. But you keep coming into the frame, and when a head pops up, it’s only human nature to shoot at it. I know you were involved with the Nearys before, and the word on the street is that you’ve been asked for another dance. And you’ve been seen in company with Colum Neary, so don’t give me that innocent crap. Now you and Neal were locked into some large sums of money together, and Neal’s turned up dead. If you’d like to show me how I can add all those twos together and come up with less than four, I’ll be happy to go along with it.’
Gorgeous George looked up and smiled, but his eyes had the long, remote stare of the veldt, as unrevealing as mirrors. ‘Neal approached me in the Shamrock club. I put some money on some horses for him, and they won, and I took a cut for myself. That’s all there was to our relationship. As for Colly Neary — I sell second-hand cars.’
‘To a man who’s driver for a gang of bank robbers, protectionists and racketeers?’
‘Erstwhile,’ said Gorgeous. ‘Colly didn’t go over the wall, remember. He’s paid his debt to society. And as long as my cars aren’t stolen, I can sell them to anyone who wants to buy them. Unless the law’s changed since I set up in business.’
‘How would you like to tell me exactly where you were on the Sunday night and Monday morning that the Master Baker Motel caught fire?’
‘Happy to oblige. As it happens, I went up to Chester on Sunday afternoon to stay with some friends – the Wilmslows, very nice respectable people. They had a few people in to dinner on Sunday night, and I stayed over until Monday for the race meeting.’ The smile was gentle and tormenting. ‘I have the perfect alibi, you see. Rotten luck for you, though.’
Slider was not surprised. He was dealing with a professional, and he knew the alibiferous Wilmslows would check out, and that the horses would have run, and won, as per the list he would be given. And the sums supposedly won for Neal would be small enough not to be remembered by the bookies at the courses. The question was, why did Gorgeous feel he needed to exercise his professionalism over this matter, unless there was something dodgy about it?
‘I’m a thorough man,’ Gorgeous George said, reading his mind. ‘You’re on the wrong track,’ he added softly. ‘The wrong track altogether.’
‘All right. Let’s talk about something else, shall we? Let’s talk about Helen Woodman.’
For the first time something flickered in the golden eyes. ‘Helen Woodman?’
‘Oh, don’t say you’ve forgotten her, George? A lovely-looking young woman like her, who rents your flat from you for three weeks, and disappears without a trace on the day Richard Neal does his now famous Burger King impersonation? She’d be heartbroken to think you didn’t remember her – particularly after such a long and fruitful acquaintance.’
‘You call three weeks long?’
‘Ah, you do remember her then? But it was more that three weeks, wasn’t it? You knew her before she came asking to rent your flat. Otherwise you wouldn’t have rented it to her at all.’
The Wilhelm stuck to Gorgeous’s lower lip. He removed it carefully, wet the centre of his lip with the tip of his tongue, took a long draw, and then put the cigarillo down on the edge of the ashtray as he blew the smoke slowly out towards the ceiling-fan.
‘Your two minutes is up, George,’ Slider said pleasantly. ‘You’re going to have to answer, or you’re out of the contest, and you lose your deposit.’
The h
ead was lowered, the eyes levelled, the shoulders squared, the hands placed side by side on the desk top. The body language was that of a man preparing against all the odds to tell the truth and be damned; which, Slider thought, probably meant he was about to be presented with the finest pork pie since Messrs Saxby’s Gold Medal winner took the 1928 Northamptonshire Cooked Meats Exhibition by storm.
‘Look,’ said Gorgeous – sure sign of impending prevarication – ‘I want to be shot of this. I want to tell you the truth, but I’m not sure you’ll believe me.’
‘Why shouldn’t I? You’ve told me so many lies already, you must be nearly out of stock.’
Gorgeous sighed. ‘Don’t take it like that, Bill. This Helen Woodman business – it looks worse than it is, which is why I want to be rid of it, because it’s going to bugger up my legitimate business. And no-one is going to believe it’s got nothing to do with anything, which it hasn’t. You’re my best chance.’
‘Thanks. You think I’m more gullible than the rest, do you?’
‘Not at all. It’s just that you’ve got more imagination than the average copper. You’re not dead from the neck up, like the rest of ’em. I have great respect for you, Bill: I wouldn’t offer you a plastic daffodil.’
‘How do you feel about profiteroles?’
‘Come again?’
‘Skip it,’ said Slider. ‘All right, I’ll buy it. Tell me about Helen Woodman.
‘I did know her from before. You’re right about that. But it was a casual and completely innocent acquaintance. She was a barmaid in a pub I used to go to sometimes a few years back.’
‘How many years back?’
‘1987. The early part of 1987.’
‘What was the name of the pub?’
Death Watch Page 27
