Dressed to Kill

by Patricia Hall

  On her way down Frith Street she passed the open door of the Jazz Cellar just as Stan Weston and Chris Swift were coming out, neither of them looking very happy.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’ll have some pictures to show you from the other night as soon as I’ve developed them. Sorry I’ve taken so long over them but I’ve been a bit busy with one thing and another. Can I bring them round tomorrow maybe?’ Weston looked at her for a moment as if he did not quite recognize her. He looked tired and seriously worried, dark bags under his eyes.

  ‘The photographer girl,’ Swift said. ‘You let her take pictures the other night. You remember, before we got done over by the Old Bill.’

  Weston nodded and offered Kate a faint smile. ‘Oh yes, course,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow’ll be fine. Hopefully we’ll be back to normal tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re not normal yet?’ Kate asked, surprised. ‘No one got hurt, did they? You should see the way the bizzies wade in on a Liverpool Saturday night when they’ve found something – or someone – they’ve taken a dislike to. They chuck them into the paddy wagons like sides of beef when they’ve finished with them. Half of them are unconscious by the time they get to the bridewell.’

  ‘Depends on whether you think getting arrested is the same as getting hurt,’ Swift said tartly. ‘They kept me there all night for no reason at all that I could see, and Muddy Abraham’s still there.’

  Kate was slightly surprised by the vehemence Swift showed. He had seemed the least talkative of the band members when she had been taking photographs of them, almost to the point of avoiding her lens if he could. She had wondered if he was one of those people who really hate having their photograph taken.

  ‘We can’t put on a normal show, not with Muddy Abraham still banged up,’ Weston said angrily. ‘People come a long way to hear him. We’re on our way to see a brief to see if we can get him out. They’ve only charged him with possession of marijuana, that’s not enough to be remanded for days at a time. I don’t know what the hell’s going on.’

  Kate could see how worried the band leader was. ‘I may know someone who does know what’s going on, but I’ve no way of contacting him just now,’ she said. ‘I know he’s in a meeting. I’ll see what I can find out later and tell you when I bring your pictures in tomorrow. See you later.’ And she swung on down the street wondering why she felt distinctly elated by the idea of putting in a call to Harry Barnard, even if it was on someone else’s behalf.

  But when she finally made contact at the station with Barnard the sergeant did not sound particularly pleased to hear her voice and sounded exceedingly reluctant to explain why exactly Muddy Abraham was still languishing in a cell.

  ‘Something else dodgy has come up with Abraham,’ was all he would say over the phone.

  ‘This is another case of you lot trying to pin things on a black man because you don’t like the look of him, is it?’ she asked angrily. ‘Like in Notting Hill?’

  ‘Not me, darling,’ Barnard came back quickly. ‘This is nothing to do with me, honest to God, believe me.’

  But Kate had already hung up without saying goodbye.

  ‘Damn and blast,’ Barnard said to himself after he listened to the crackling of the dead line for a moment before he realized Kate had gone. He had been distracted from the Muddy Abraham case when Ricky Smart’s body had been discovered but he knew he had also been curiously reluctant to pass on to DCI Jackson what he had learned about Abraham’s history at the American embassy. But his instinct for self-protection kicked in hard now and he carefully inserted a sheet of paper into the typewriter on his desk and painstakingly began to type up his report on the American musician with two fingers, aiming for it to be on the DCI’s desk before complaints from the Jazz cellar’s lawyers hit the same spot.

  Kate succeeded in prising Tess out of school for a couple of hours the next morning when she had free periods from teaching and they made their way to the Kings Road in arty Chelsea where it was immediately obvious that fashion had moved into a whole new dimension just a couple of underground stations from where they shared a flat in Shepherd’s Bush.

  ‘If they wore their skirts much shorter they’d get arrested,’ Tess said as they followed a couple of skinny girls in very short skirts and patterned tights into Mary Quant’s Bazaar emporium, the first shop she had opened in the mid-fifties long before she became well known as the leader of the fashion revolution.

  ‘I must have one,’ Kate said, her eyes gleaming with excitement.

  ‘They wouldn’t let me into school in one of those,’ Tess said. ‘They’re already bringing out a tape measure when some of the girls hitch their uniform up round their knickers. I can just guess how this is going to go down with the nuns at St Aloysius back home. Not that I really want to look like a tart, anyway.’

  ‘Oh, come on, la, this is just a bit of fun. I’m going to get a skirt and some boots, and then see if I can find a slinky top to go to this do Tatiana wants me to take pictures at.’

  ‘Will that do?’ Tess asked doubtfully. ‘What a pity we lost so much stuff in the fire. You could have worn that lovely green dress you got at Bon Marche. You looked really great in that.’

  ‘Even if I still had it, it’s just the sort of thing Tatiana hates,’ Kate said. ‘She’s aiming to be the next Mary Quant. Her hero is some French designer who’s gone all geometric, black and white and long shiny boots. I wouldn’t go that far, but I do want her to think I’ve made an effort to get into the groove. Come on. I’ll try some boots. Come and help me choose. Let’s live dangerously for once.’

  In the end she came away with a black miniskirt that ended mid-thigh, some patterned tights and a pair of knee-high black boots and, as an afterthought, a soft peaked cap, which she immediately put on and pulled down rakishly over one eye.

  ‘You look like a barrow-boy,’ Tess complained, laughing. ‘You’ll never get away with all that when you go home to see your mam.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ Kate said. ‘I bet you the kids in the Cavern are into all this gear. Those wretched beehive hairdos and massive skirts were disappearing even before we left. This is the sixties.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ Tess said. ‘But if the head of Fifth year is tearing a strip off girls who’ve shortened their school skirts by rolling them over to make them shorter, what are they going to say to the staff? They’ll be measuring us with tape measures too, la, if this goes on.’

  ‘Nothing less,’ Kate said. ‘Now I must get over to Tatiana’s studio to show her this lot, and I’ll have a look around Oxford Street to see if I can pick up a good blouse to go with them. See you later, alligator.’

  ‘In a while,’ Tess muttered gloomily as she looked for a bus to take her back to Holland Park and the confines of school. She was, she thought, just a little bit jealous of her friend.

  ‘Mm, that’s not bad,’ Tatiana Broughton-Clarke conceded when Kate displayed her purchases with undiminished enthusiasm an hour or so later. ‘You say Ken Fellows helped you out? That’s a coup anyway. He’s not known for chucking money about.’

  ‘He’s frightened that Andrei will close the studio down after this murder. Andrei seems to be wondering if anyone’s coming for him next. So Ken’s looking for new ways into the fashion scene.’

  ‘Andrei always was a scaredy cat, even when we were kids,’ Tatiana said. ‘It was Ricky who was the driving force in that set-up, the one with the ideas and the energy to get things done. Andrei provided the contacts but Ricky did the work. Andrei won’t be able to cope on his own.’ She looked thoughtful for a moment, as if trying to work out the implications of her cousin’s predicament for her own business.

  ‘So put your new gear on then,’ she said eventually. ‘Let’s have a look at the new you. You can change behind that screen if you’re shy.’

  Kate did as she was told, ran a comb through her dark curls and stood for a moment before a full-length mirror, liking what she saw.

  When she emerged, Tatiana agreed.
‘Not bad at all,’ she said walking round her and pulling the outfit straight there and there. ‘I think that’ll do for Rupert’s next little gathering. After all, you’re going to be working. aren’t you? You’re not going to be one of the guests as such. No need for couture or anything. So tell Ken that I’d like to go ahead with that idea. And I’ll be in touch when I’ve got some more designs ready to launch. In the meantime he should tout you round the fashion houses. You’re not half a bad little photographer, you know.’

  After he left the nick that evening, having given up on the passing fancy that he might persuade Kate O’Donnell out for a meal a little later on, he took a detour back to his manor and peered into the murky bar of one of the less fashionable pubs in the area, which he knew was an occasional haunt of some of the Maltese who lived and worked off the back of local prostitutes. It was early and the bar was almost empty but he did spot one familiar figure hunched over a half-drunk pint at a corner table. He pushed open the swing door and put a none-too-gentle hand on Joe Inglott’s shoulder.

  ‘Long time no see, Joseph,’ he said. ‘But you’re just the man I need to talk to.’

  The dark eyes in a thin, walnut face popped and Inglott wriggled out of Barnard’s unwelcome grip.

  ‘Come on, Joe,’ Barnard said easily, taking the seat across from his victim in such a way that he could not easily move from his own seat. ‘A little chat is all I want. You’ve done well enough out of me over the years to help me out when I badly need it. I want to know what’s going on with your man and the girls. It looks to me as if someone’s been trying to muscle in and we both know Mr Falzon won’t be very happy about that.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about anything like that,’ Inglott insisted. ‘The Man is in Malta, I heard. Gone to see his mother who is ill, dying maybe.’

  ‘So what are you saying? He’s too far away to know what’s going down on his patch? I don’t believe that for a minute. He has eyes and ears here and I believe international phone calls are much better than they used to be.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about things like that, Mr Barnard, I swear to God I don’t.’

  ‘A girl who was obviously on the game, very young, was found dead, you know that. Was she one of yours?’ Barnard snapped. ‘Did she annoy your boss in some way? Was she punished for stepping out of line, or was she being organized by someone else entirely – Ray Robertson maybe – wanting in on the trade, or someone completely new?’

  Inglott buried his face in his nearly empty glass and shrugged helplessly. ‘I heard she was a new girl, someone we didn’t know, that’s all I heard, honest to God.’

  ‘So are we on the edge of a gang war, here, Joe? Or just a minor skirmish to warn someone off? My boss is very anxious to know. You know I’m not mean if the information is good.’

  ‘I’ll keep an ear open for you, Mr Barnard, I promise,’ Inglott said, his face chalk white and the hands holding his empty glass trembling visibly.

  ‘When is your boss likely to be back from Malta?’ Barnard asked.

  ‘No one knows that,’ Inglott said. ‘I think he doesn’t know that himself. It is his mother, you understand.’

  Barnard sighed heavily. ‘So I have to rely on you, Joe. You need to come up with the goods. Understand?’ He got up from his seat and gave Inglott’s shoulder another heavy squeeze. ‘Let’s meet again,’ he said. ‘This time the day after tomorrow. It will be worth your while if you can tell me something useful, I promise.’

  ‘I try, Mr Barnard, I try.’

  FOURTEEN

  Kate O’Donnell looked at DS Harry Barnard with a mixture of fury and incredulity.

  ‘He what?’ she asked, putting down her coffee so hard that it slopped over her desk at Ken Fellow’s agency and threatened to spoil a batch of contact prints she had been working with. Looking embarrassed, and closely watched by a couple of Kate’s colleagues who were sitting at the far end of the photographers’ room, Barnard dug a handkerchief out of his pocket and made an attempt to mop up the spilled liquid.

  ‘Here, give it to me,’ Kate said impatiently, completing the task quickly and handing him back a sodden white handkerchief now stained brown. ‘So why on earth does DCI Jackson want to see me in such a hurry?’

  ‘Lubin has locked up the studio and disappeared,’ Barnard said. ‘You’re the only person we knew of who we could contact. I know it sounds pathetic but I did call his cousin, what’s her name? Titania?’

  ‘Tatiana,’ Kate said crisply. ‘Doesn’t she know where Andrei has gone?’

  ‘He could be anywhere from New York to Venice, apparently,’ he said. ‘Anywhere, in fact, except Russia.’

  ‘No, he certainly wouldn’t go there,’ Kate said feelingly. ‘You should hear him ranting about Khrushchev and Fidel Castro and the mess they got us into last year.’

  ‘Well, they did nearly start World War Three,’ Barnard said feelingly. ‘They’re worth a rant. I’m not one to panic but I did go to bed that night not sure I’d still be here next morning.’

  ‘Yeah, it was scary. A lot of the students at college stayed up all night singing stuff, as if that would make nuclear bombs go away.’

  ‘Anyway, Lubin has bolted, the place is locked up and Jackson reckons you’re the person who might help us with our inquiries and he wants to talk to you right now, no ands or buts or excuses. I didn’t want to send some uniformed clod over to bring you in and let you think you were under arrest so I came myself.’

  ‘Well, thanks,’ Kate said unconvincingly. ‘Does your boss know I have some history with you people?’

  ‘I filled him in,’ Barnard admitted. ‘Judiciously,’ he added. ‘Though as he has me down as a queer because I choose to wear the odd Liberty’s flowery tie, that may have been a mistake. As he will happily tell you himself, he doesn’t like poofs and nancy boys. He wants them all locked up.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Kate said drily, thinking of her brother. ‘Come on then, let’s get this over. I’ve got work to do.’

  They walked together to the police station through the bustling streets of Soho, past Berwick Street market which always attracted crowds of shoppers to its overflowing fruit and vegetable stalls, set up just a stone’s throw from the city’s main shopping arteries. At the end of Marlborough Street, where the magistrate’s courts were just beginning to pull in defendants and lawyers for the day’s business, Kate steered Barnard into Carnaby Street.

  ‘Tatiana reckons I need to splash out a bit if I’m going to become a fashion photographer,’ she said. ‘Let’s see what they’ve got down here.’

  Barnard glanced at his watch. ‘Five minutes,’ he said, humouring her. ‘The DCI’s not a patient man. He really wanted to send a plod to fetch you. I can just imagine how you would have felt about that. I had to work really hard to talk him out of it.’

  Kate shrugged. ‘‘Let’s get it over with then,’ she said. ‘It shouldn’t take long. I really don’t think I can tell you much about Andrei or Ricky that you don’t know already. You realize I’ll have to tell him that Ricky attacked me.’

  ‘That’s fine. Just keep my name out of it,’ Barnard said.

  He took Kate to an interview room and brought her a cup of coffee before reporting back to DCI Jackson.

  ‘Do you want me to sit in, guv?’ he asked.

  ‘You can take notes,’ Jackson said frostily. ‘But I’ll ask the questions as you know the girl.’ He led the way back to the interview room and sat down opposite Kate, waving Barnard to a hard chair by the door.

  ‘Good morning, Miss O’Donnell,’ Jackson said. ‘I understand you’ve been here before.’

  Kate nodded warily. Her brother’s brush with the law was not something she wanted to go over with this unsmiling, pink-faced Scot, especially after what Barnard had told her about him. ‘How can I help?’ she asked.

  ‘How long have you been employed at Andrei Lubin’s studio?’ Jackson asked.

  ‘I’m not strictly speaking employed there,�
�� she said. ‘I work at the Ken Fellows Agency, but I’m at Lubin’s place for a month to learn something about fashion photography. I’m in the middle of my second week.’

  ‘So your impressions of what has been going on there are extremely limited,’ Jackson said with some irritation.

  ‘It’s a very small set-up,’ Kate said. ‘Just Andrei taking pictures and Ricky doing most of the admin and fixing, and recruiting the models, of course. That seems – seemed – to be his speciality. There’s a part-time secretary called June, who pops in and out, and the girls come in as and when they’re needed.’

  ‘The girls?’ Jackson said. ‘Jenny Maitland was one of the models Lubin used, I understand? And she seems to have ended up on the street before she was killed. Did anyone know how that happened.’

  ‘I never heard anyone suggest how that might have happened,’ Kate said. ‘I never met her, of course, and I’m not sure how many of the other girls knew her personally. She worked there months ago, apparently, and the turnover is very high. I never picked up that anyone had seen her recently. But there was another death as well as poor Jenny. Sylvia Hubbard, who died after an abortion, and was working there until a few days ago. It was Sylvia who told me that Andrei and Ricky Smart used the girls themselves for sex. I was horrified, some of them were very young. I tried to get out of the place, but my boss was very keen for me to stay till my time was up.’

  ‘Did this girl say that one of the men at the studio was the father of her baby?’ Jackson asked, not hiding his distaste.

  ‘She said either of them could have been,’ Kate said quietly.

  ‘And did she know Jenny Maitland?’

  ‘She did,’ Kate said. ‘She was very upset by her death.’

  ‘And did she offer any explanation for why Jenny Maitland ended up as a tart? Do you think either of these men at the studio put her up to it?’

  ‘They could have done, I suppose, but I’ve no way of knowing if they did. Sylvia didn’t say anything about that.’

  ‘And did either of the men make advances to you, Miss O’Donnell?’ Jackson asked.