‘Yeah, and I had to take it out for him. You’d think it was major surgery.’
‘And anyway, what would he do it for? He’d have to have a reason. I mean—’
‘He was all right,’ Mandy added. ‘He liked his job and everything. He wasn’t an unhappy person, was he Maur?’
‘No, that’s what I’m saying! I mean, he used to chat to us and everything. If he’d been feeling really rotten, he’d have come and told us, wouldn’t he?’
Slider didn’t feel tempted to go into that, or into what Atherton called the conspiracy theory. Instead he offered the easier explanation.
‘He left a note,’ he said.
‘A note?’ Maureen said.
‘A suicide note,’ Slider elaborated. ‘ “I can’t stand it any more” – that sort of thing.’
‘What, Ronnie did?’ Maureen said blankly.
‘So it seems,’ Slider said patiently.
‘Ronnie left a suicide note?’ Mandy came in now like the chorus in Gilbert and Sullivan. Yes he did, he did, he did it, yes he did. Did he do it? Yes, he did it, yes he did!
‘We found it on the mantelpiece.’
‘But – but who wrote it for him, then?’ Mandy asked in an utterly foxed voice.
‘What do you mean, who wrote it for him?’ Slider asked, giving in to the general trend towards gormless incomprehension.
‘Well, Ronnie couldn’t write,’ Mandy said.
‘I mean, he couldn’t read or write,’ Maureen amplified earnestly. ‘He was, like, illegible.’
‘That’s right,’ Mandy confirmed with a nod.
Slider looked from one to the other. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Course!’ said Mandy. ‘He was really sensitive about it—’
‘Ashamed.’
‘He didn’t like anyone to know. But he used to come to me sometimes to ask me to read things to him – like when he got an official letter or anything. Me or Maureen—’
‘We was the only ones what knew. I had to read his poll tax thing for him once, didn’t I Mand? He couldn’t read anything, and he couldn’t write except just to write his own name, like, that was all.’
Mandy said. ‘The poor bloke really hated it, being, you know, whatsitsname. So he never let on to anyone, only me. And Maureen, because she was in the room once when he come down to ask me something. But we promised never to tell anyone.’
Slider was silent, piecing things together. That was why the note had made him uneasy. It had chafed against his previous perception that there was no reading matter in the room, not a book or newspaper or letter. A man who couldn’t read or write naturally would not accumulate paperwork, and would be the last person in the world to pick up a handbill about a disco, or a dropped pencil. He had not written that note – which meant that it was a forgery, left there to suggest suicide by someone who didn’t know Ronnie’s secret. Someone who had murdered him by cutting his throat from ear to ear.
Unless Mandy and Maureen were lying – but they seemed completely in earnest. He remembered belatedly the original purpose of his visit, and asked them about the Chinese man upstairs. They were willing enough to talk, but could not tell him anything useful. There had been three who had taken that room. The first had been there for ages – that was before Maureen came – but Mandy had never got friendly with him. He would nod if they passed on the stairs but she didn’t recollect ever speaking to him, except to say hello.
The others had only stayed a short time, the last one just six weeks. He had left, ooh, when was it, Maur? It was the Monday, wasn’t it? The Monday before all this had started with Ronnie and the police and everything. Yes, that’s right, Monday last week. No, they had never spoken to him. He came and went at different times, and kept himself to himself. They did not know his name or where he went to.
Did he ever get letters, phone calls?
Not that they remembered, no.
What about visitors? Did they ever see him with anyone?
No, no they didn’t think so. Wait a minute though, Maur, what about that time they’d been coming back from the Seven Eleven one afternoon and they saw him getting out of a car on the corner of Notting Hill Gate? Oh yes, and it was a foreign car, wasn’t it? With a funny number plate.
What did they mean, funny?
Oh, with funny letters and numbers. And red, it was printed in red.
Had they seen who was driving it?
‘No – no, not really. It was too far away. The Chinese bloke had just got out and walked off down Pembridge Road, and the car drove off. It was a man driving, though, wannit Mand? Yes, a man. In an overcoat.
Slider pondered this unhelpful, intriguing news. The only connection he could make in his mind was with the man in a camel coat who had been seen coming out of the alley.
‘What colour overcoat was it?’ he asked.
They looked at each other. ‘Black?’ Maureen said.
‘No, it was blue,’ Mandy said firmly after a moment. ‘Dark blue. Not navy, though – a bit lighter than that.’
Slider contemplated this new information without enthusiasm. He began to feel that he was going to be on this case until retirement.
Atherton dialled the number of the Blue Moon Chinese Restaurant and Take Away and after a long wait was answered by a breathless male voice.
‘Harrow? Broo Moo Lestoh Ta’ Awa’, We crosed ri’ now.’
‘All right, Kim, you can cut the Nanki Poo crap. I’m not a tourist,’ Atherton chuckled.
The voice became expansive and cockney. ‘Is that you, Jim? How’s it going, mate?’ Kim Lim – known as Slim Kim – was an old and useful contact of Atherton’s from his Bow Street days, when he had chopsticked his way in nightly excursions from one end of Soho to the other. ‘Long time no see!’
‘You don’t need to talk pidgen to me. How’s the noodle business?’
‘Not what it used to be, but then what is? Rent going up like a rocket, hardly a tourist in sight. Who’d be in catering?’
‘Don’t give me that shinola. I know the restaurant’s only a front for your opium den. You and your dad are the two richest men west of Regent Street.’
‘Believe that’n you’ll believe anything,’ Kim said cheerfully. ‘By the time we’ve paid protection to the Tongs and the Bill, there’s hardly enough rice left in the bowl to feed a Peking Duck. What can I do for you, anyway?’
‘I want to bum a favour off you. I’ve got to interview a Chinese family – restaurant proprietors – who don’t speak English, or pretend not to—’
‘Same thing.’
‘Exactly. So I wondered if you would come and translate for me. You’re the perfect man for the job. You understand how to conduct an interview and you know how to speak to them – they being your own people.’
‘How many times have I got to tell you, I’m not Chinese, I’m Malayan.’
‘But you speak the lingo.’
‘Now who’s talking pidgen. What dialect?’
‘Cantonese, I think.’
‘There’s Cantonese and Cantonese. Still, I can only give it a try.’
‘Thanks, Kim. You’re a prince! Can you come now?’
‘Yeah, all right. Shall I come to the station?’
‘Please. I’ll stand you lunch afterwards.’
‘All right. No cheap Chinese crap, though. Somewhere nice.’
‘What about the kosher place on the corner of Goldhawk Road?’
‘Ace! I’m really into all that! They do this pickled fish thing—’
‘I know. They pull out all the stops, and one of them is the Lox Angelicus. “And suddenly there were with the bagels a multitude of the heavenly host.”’
‘What? You’re raving.’
‘Skip it. Goodbye, sweet prince.’
‘See you soon. God bress!’
Atherton knew a Stonewall when he saw one, even if it was speaking in hieroglyphics. Slim Kim Lim and his pal Jim accepted the offer of tea, and sat at one side of a table in the dimly lit restaurant w
hile Mr Hung Fat and the eldest Master Hung Fat sat at the other side being inscrutable. Mrs Hung Fat and a Miss Hung Fat stood behind them in distaff silence and watched the conversation go back and forth like spectators on Centre Court.
Kim spoke a great deal, Master Hung Fat very little, and Big Daddy hardly at all. Atherton hardly needed telling that they were repeating all their former advices – that they saw, heard and knew nothing. There was only one little moment of excitement, when the lady of the house suddenly leaned towards her husband and broke into a patter of anxious talk, with little fluttering hand movements. It lasted until he turned and silenced her with a few stern words, and dismissed her to the kitchen, whence she departed with her daughter hanging sympathetically on her arm.
Kim extricated them shortly afterwards. Outside in the street Atherton addressed him urgently out of the corner of his mouth as they walked away, aware that they were probably being watched from behind bamboo curtains.
‘What was Momma Fat going on about? Poppa shut her up pretty quickly, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, she broke ranks there for a minute,’ Kim said dubiously. ‘Trouble is, she dropped into a different dialect, and I couldn’t latch onto it.’
‘You probably weren’t meant to.’
‘I think she wanted to tell us something, and he was telling her to keep her mouth shut. One bit of what she said sounded like someone’s name.’
‘So there is something to know,’ Atherton said, gratified. ‘How can we get it out of her?’
‘Is there a back way into the restaurant? A kitchen entrance?’
‘Yes, there’s an alley. You go round this corner—’
‘I don’t think she’d be too surprised if we turned up at the back door,’ Kim said wisely. They turned the corner and slipped into the alley like a couple of burglars. It was a narrow, dank and malodorous passage, serving all the shops except Dave’s, which had its back access from the other end. They had only crept half way down it when a slight figure emerged from the back door of the Hung Fat, looked both ways, and came hurrying towards them.
It was the daughter. She laid a hand on Kim’s arm and spoke in a rapid and urgent undertone in Chinese. He replied briefly, and then turned to Atherton.
‘It’s the goods, Jim. Her mother’s sent her to’
‘I tell him,’ the girl interrupted quickly. She spoke English with hardly an accent, and only a trifling difficulty with l’s and r’s. ‘My mother wanted my father to tell you, but he said no, it was a family matter, and we do not talk about family to outsiders. But my mother is worried, and she thinks you may be able to help. It is my brother-in-law, you see – my elder sister’s husband. Well, he is half English anyway, so my father does not like him. He did not want her to marry him, but there were reasons—’ She paused and shrugged, to show there were family matters even she would not discuss.
‘What’s his name, your brother-in-law?’ Atherton asked quickly.
‘Lam. Michael Lam. My sister married him two years ago and they have a little boy, and now she is pregnant again, but he has disappeared.’
‘Disappeared?’
‘Yes. He went away on Tuesday night, to go to Hong Kong on business for my father. He said he would telephone from his hotel on Thursday and he would be back on Saturday. But he did not come back, and when my brother telephoned the hotel they said he had not been there, and the man he was supposed to meet on my father’s business says he did not come. So now my father thinks Michael has run away because he is a worthless person, and he never wishes to hear his name spoken again. But my mother is afraid something has happened to him, and she wants you to help to find him because my sister cries all the time and her baby will be born without a father.’
She looked nervously behind her, and Atherton saw that he must order his questions quickly.
‘You say he left to go to Hong Kong – did he actually get on the plane?’
‘I don’t know. He left here alone in his car to drive to the airport, and that was the last time we saw him.’
‘Heathrow?’
‘Yes.’
With rapid questions he elicited the details of the flight time and number, the number and description of the car, and a description of Lam, scribbling frantically against time.
‘And where did he—’
Behind them, the mother looked out from the kitchen door and called something soft and frantic.
‘Oh quickly!’ the girl said, making little pushing movements with her hands. ‘You must go! Don’t let my father see you!’
‘One last thing,’ Atherton said desperately as Kim pulled him away. ‘Where did Michael have his dental work done?’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ Kim muttered.
‘It’s important,’ Atherton hissed.
The girl was backing away, looking frightened. ‘I don’t know. I will try to find out.’
‘Tell anyone at the police station. My name’s Atherton.’
She nodded and was gone, and they hurried away. Atherton half expected a well-thrown kitchen knife between the shoulder blades, and when they got out into the street, he found his hands were sweating.
‘What was all that about his dental work?’ Kim asked indignantly as they headed for Atherton’s car. ‘You don’t want to know about his tailor as well, by any chance? Or where he went to school.’
Atherton shook his head. ‘We’ve got a corpse,’ he said tersely. ‘Unidentifiable, except that we know from the teeth it’s probably Eurasian.’
‘Local?’
‘It was found in the back yard of the fish bar,’ Atherton said with a jerk of the thumb in the direction of Dave’s. ‘On Wednesday morning.’
Kim whistled softly. ‘What a bummer,’ he said.
Slider found Kathleen Sullivan in the basement, where she had a flat, a laundry room and a supply room. She was ironing, a fag clamped in the corner of her mouth and her eyes screwed up to avoid the rising smoke. Every now and then a little ash would tumble onto the ironing-board. Sometimes she noticed and brushed it away, and sometimes she ironed it firmly into the blouse of the moment.
‘The Chinese boy? Oh, he was very nice, very respectable. Lee Chang, his name was. He was only here a short while though. Yes, he left last Monday.’
‘Suddenly?’
‘Oh no. He gave a fortnight’s notice. There was nothing funny about it. Packed his stuff Monday afternoon and off he went about six o’clock.’
‘And before that?’
‘I can’t remember his name, the one before. Had a lot of x’s in it. Of course, they change the spelling these days, don’t they? I remember the days when Peking was Peking. I never got to know him, really – kept himself to himself. A bit unfriendly – but perfectly respectable. And then we had one a couple of years ago – Peter Ling. He was here a long time. I got very fond of him. He used to say I was like a mother to him. Gave me a box of chocs when he left – Black Magic. Not that I like them,’ she confided, flinging the green blouse over a chair back and hoiking a red one out of the basket. ‘Too many hard centres. Dairy Box, now, that’s the chocs I like – but how was he to know? It’s the thought that counts, that’s what I say.’
‘That room up there – next to Ronnie’s – you seem to keep it specially for the Chinese, don’t you?’ Slider said conversationally.
She was unconcerned by the question, speaking in jerks as she thumped the iron up the blouse’s armpits. ‘Just the three. Coincidence, probably. Or maybe they pass the word around, I don’t know. I’d sooner have them than a lot of others I can think of,’ she added emphatically. ‘They don’t make trouble, and they leave the place clean.’
‘So they just turned up, looking for a room?’ She grunted through the cigarette, which might have meant assent or merely indifference. ‘How did they know it was vacant? Was it advertised?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said robustly. ‘Not my business.’
‘Well, whose business is it?’ No answer. ‘Who sends along the new tenants wh
en a room becomes vacant?’
‘I look after the house, clean it, change the sheets. I’m paid to mind my own business. I’ve been here ten years – d’you think I want to be thrown out on the street?’ she said angrily, smacking the iron down onto the red blouse’s death throes.
He decided to try a little pressure. ‘Mrs Sullivan, you’ve got at least three girls in this house who are operating as prostitutes. Mandy says it was you who interviewed her when she came for the room, and that you knew what her trade was.’
She put down the iron and actually removed the cigarette from her mouth to face him and say, ‘Look, mister, this is a clean house and no trouble. What the girls get up to is their business. If they want to sleep with a different man every night, it’s not against the law.’
‘Prostitution isn’t illegal,’ Slider agreed, ‘but running a brothel is, and so is living off immoral earnings.’
‘Now you listen to me! I’ve never taken a penny from any of those girls, and nor would I! I’m a good Catholic, and I wouldn’t dirty me hands with the wages of sin. You want to mind what you’re saying to a decent woman.’
She seemed genuinely outraged, but Slider thought he detected a shadow of fear behind it. He pressed his advantage home. ‘I believe you, Kathleen, but the magistrates may not, especially as you’ve got one or two little things on your record already.’ This was a shot in the dark, but it seemed to be on target. She was silent, looking at the ironing-board in a troubled way.
‘I’ve no wish to make trouble for you. All I want is a bit of help. You answer my questions honestly, and you’ve nothing to worry about. Don’t forget I’m investigating a very serious crime. You don’t want to get mixed up in that, do you?’
‘What do you want to know?’ she asked in a subdued voice.
‘About the Chinese boys,’ he began.
‘If it’s Lee Chang you’re wondering about,’ she said quickly, looking up, ‘you’re barking up the wrong tree. He was as respectable as they come – American he was. He worked up at the NATO base.’
‘At Northwood?’ Slider said, and she nodded; but even as he said it, other things were beginning to click into place. Northwood was practically next door to Chorleywood. And someone had mentioned Chorleywood before, in this very house. ‘Tell me about the rooms – what happens when they become vacant?’
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