He turned his head away while he rooted in his pocket for a handkerchief to wipe away the tears. I remained silent. I couldn’t help his grief; that was his own burden.
‘We identified the body by her jewellery and the suitcases in the boot which survived the worst of the flames.’
‘There was no one else in the car?’
‘No.’
There was a possible scenario forming here. I wasn’t sure if it had occurred to Mr Garner, but at the present time I was not about to alert him to it.
‘This other person…her lover never came forward?’
Garner shook his head with some vehemence. ‘I wish to God he had. There are so many unanswered questions. Like, what happened to the money.’
‘The money?’
‘Unknown to me at the time, Beryl had drawn everything out of our joint account, over a thousand pounds, the day before the accident. No doubt it was to be used to set up the little love nest with her fancy man.’
The case was intriguing and had possibilities. I was slowly being drawn in.
‘So in fact you don’t really believe you saw a ghost. You believe you saw your wife—living and breathing.’
Garner nodded. ‘I do. It was her all right and she looked as guilty as hell. I want you to find her. I want my money back.’
‘Finding her will not be easy. We have no clues as to where she is or what she is doing now.’ I paused and raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘Or do we?’ Maybe old Brian was keeping something back from me.
‘None that I can think of, except she was on South Kensington tube station at eight-thirty yesterday morning.’
I lowered my eyebrow in disappointment. That piece of information was about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
‘Do you have a picture of your wife?’
‘I do.’ Garner fished a shiny snap from his wallet and passed it over to me. The woman staring back at me from the grainy photograph seemed fairly nondescript. She had fair curly hair with a snub nose and wide fleshy lips. She was dressed in a tight jumper and a pencil skirt. She wasn’t smiling.
‘That was taken about six months before…before the accident.’
‘And when you saw her yesterday, she looked much the same as she does here?’
‘A little thinner maybe, but yes.’
‘Did she have any distinguishing features…a mole, a scar something like that?’
‘No. She wore glasses to read. She was quite vain about them. She didn’t like to wear them in public.’
‘What about family?’
‘Her mother’s still alive, but they didn’t really get on. She had a brother but he was killed at Dunkirk.’
‘Friends?’
‘No special one as far as I know.’
The situation looked hopeless. This jigsaw had so many pieces missing that it wasn’t clear what the overall picture was.
I sighed and spread my hands on the desk. ‘I’ll be frank with you, Mr Garner, I reckon I’ve as much chance of finding your wife as you have of nabbing a black cat in the black out…but I’m prepared to try, if you’re prepared to hire me.’
‘Oh, I am. I am.’
When Brian Garner had gone, I sat quietly at my desk nursing a cigarette, watching the grey tendrils drift aimlessly to the ceiling. I had taken down as much detail as my client could give me about his ‘ghostly’ wife—date of birth, where she worked and so on in the hope that something would provide me with a lead, something that would point me in the direction of the truth. As I turned this information over in my mind while I watched the patterns of the drifting smoke, I did not feel particularly inspired.
However, beggars can’t be choosers and while I was not exactly a beggar, work had been thin on the ground of late. As a one-eyed private detective trying to scrape a living in the damaged capital, I was feeling the pinch. So here I was—about to chase a ghost. However one thing did excite me about the case, something that had been the deciding factor in me taking it on. If Beryl Garner were alive and kicking and living a completely new life, as hubby Brian believed, whose body was it in the burnt-out car? Who had died in her place?
Four
Detective Inspector David Llewellyn peered into the interior of the car and gazed stoically at the corpse of Paulo Ricotti. The blood around the savage wound to his forehead had dried now and formed a dark blackcurrant-coloured crust with spidery tendrils down his face. The sightless eyes continued to stare down at the dashboard still registering his final moments of shock. It was, thought Llewellyn, like a tableau from the chamber of horrors at Madame Tussaud’s wax museum: gruesome and strangely unreal.
‘Well, there can be no doubt regarding the cause of death.’ The remark, barely more than a whisper, was addressed to himself, but Sergeant Stuart Sunderland, who was standing close behind him and also gazing at the dead man, took it as a prompt for one of his dour ironies. ‘Some kind of violent headache I should say,’ he observed.
‘Well, it looks rather like a tit for tat job.’
‘You mean the Bernsteins.’
Llewellyn pulled back. He’d seen enough. Viewing dead bodies first thing in the morning on an empty stomach was not one of his favourite pastimes. ‘Yes,’ he said, before taking in a gulp of fresh air. ‘All the evidence pointed to Ricotti for Michael Bernstein’s murder a few weeks ago but, as you know, there was no proof. It wouldn’t be surprising if the Bernstein boys decided to take the law into their own hands. A return match if you like.’
Sunderland frowned. ‘They’re wrong ’uns, but I would have thought murder was a bit out of their league.’
‘You could be right. Certainly I think old man Leo is past putting a bullet in someone’s brain, even if it is to revenge his beloved brother, but the two young ones…who knows. I would have said they lacked the guts to go that far, but in family matters there are no boundaries.’
‘Well, we’d better round them up and have one of our chats.’
David grinned. ‘Always the diplomat, eh, Sunderland.’
‘I try, sir.’
‘However, on this occasion I think I’ll leave the Bernstein boys alone for a few days. Let ’em stew. If they are responsible for this’—he gestured to the corpse—‘they will expect us to come pounding on their door. If we don’t, that might confuse them a bit, make them nervous, careless even and make it easier for us to eventually prise the truth out of them. If they are involved, that is. In the meantime, let’s get our friend here back to the Yard and see if the path boys can dig out the bullet. That might give us something to work on—but I doubt it.’
David Llewellyn slammed the car door shut and breathed deeply, expelling the stench of death from his lungs.
*
Twenty-four hours later, nine o’clock on a winter morning and the dawn was still struggling to make its presence felt. The year had just slipped into December and dark shadows of night lingered in the streets while a patina of frost decorated the pavements and roofs. Pedestrians wrapped up like mummies against the cold exhaled steam as they hurried by. Vic Bernstein was striding purposefully towards the Bamboo House, the Bernsteins’ night-club on Bedford Street in Covent Garden when a voice called out to him. He turned and saw his brother some steps behind.
‘What’s it all about?’ Anthony asked, without ceremony.
Vic gave a shrug of the shoulders. ‘Search me. Some sort of family conference, that’s all I was told. The old man rang me late last night, told me to be at the club by nine-thirty. Said it was urgent.’
Anthony nodded. ‘I got the same message. I think I’ve got an idea what’s up. Look, let’s grab a cuppa before we meet him. I’ve got something to show you.’
The brothers repaired to a little café around the corner from the Bamboo House. Once seated at a corner table and having given their order to the girl on duty, Anthony pulled out a newspaper. ‘You seen the Mail today?’
Vic shook his head. ‘I’ve seen nothing this morning. I only surfaced about an hour ago.’
�
��Then I think you’d better have a gander at this.’
Anthony folded the newspaper over and passed it to Vic, his finger indicating a small item on page four headlined MURDER IN KENSINGTON.
Vic read it carefully and then emitted a low whistle. ‘So, someone has done in our friend Ricotti. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer chap. Whoever bumped him off certainly did us a favour.’
Anthony leaned over the table and grabbed Vic’s sleeve. ‘It wasn’t you, was it?’ he said in a hoarse whisper.
Vic smiled. ‘Of course not. I’m not that stupid. And I presume it wasn’t you.’
At this point the girl returned with their mugs of tea and they sat back in their chairs and said nothing until she was gone.
‘You don’t think Dad had anything to do with it, then?’ said Anthony.
‘Are you joking? Not at all. You know as well as I that the old feller’s lost his nerve. He’d think twice before swatting a fly. The fire has gone out of his belly. It’s time he gave up and let us take over. Now Michael’s gone there’s no firm hand on the tiller. I’m itching to get my hands on things.’
‘I don’t want to push him. He’ll go in his own good time.’
‘Maybe, but his time does not suit mine.’
Anthony did not reply; he didn’t want this conversation again. He was not as eager or desperate to take over the Bernstein business as his brother. Vic was in a different league to him. He had brains and ambition while Anthony was quite happy to play second fiddle—for the time being at least. Responsibility was not one of his strengths. He liked girls and gambling—business got in the way of these pursuits. His eyes drifted back to the newspaper report. ‘Who, then? Who killed Paulo Ricotti?’
Vic pursed his lips. ‘Don’t know. But, as I say, whoever it was did us a favour. In one sense a least.’
‘What do you mean “in one sense”?’
‘Well, the police are bound to think one of the Bernsteins did it and be on our tails. Still we can cope with that, I reckon. Especially as in this case we are innocent.’
Anthony tugged at his tie. ‘I can get guys to vouch for me—whatever time the bastard was done in.’
Vic grinned at his brother. It wasn’t a warm grin, but one imbued with icy mockery. ‘I’m sure you can.’
‘You, too, eh?’ said Anthony, missing the sarcastic tone in Vic’s voice.
‘Indeed…“whatever time the bastard was done in”.’ He chuckled at his own conceit and then suddenly rose from his chair. ‘Well, as we didn’t kill the bastard, we really have nothing to worry about.’ He smacked the newspaper with his gloves. ‘Anyway, no doubt that’s what the old man wants to see us about. Come on then, let’s see what he has to say.’ Vic rose swiftly, snatched up his hat, slipped on his gloves and headed for the door. Anthony grabbed his mug of tea and took a final gulp before racing after his brother.
The Bernsteins’ club, the hub of their little empire, was lively and crowded at night, but at nine-thirty in the morning it was a dank, dismal and rather depressing place, reeking of stale alcohol, sweat and cigarette ash. Old Barney, the cleaner-cum-caretaker, let the brothers in and they made their way up the back stairs to Leo’s office. They entered without bothering to knock and discovered their father in conversation with a young woman who was sitting casually in an armchair before his desk. She was wearing a smart dark suit with a white blouse with ruffles at the neck. At first glance Vic observed that she was pretty, self-assured and appeared somewhat aloof. She was slim with shiny black hair and feline grey eyes. She glanced casually in the brothers’ direction as they entered, but she did not register any emotion.
‘Take a seat, boys,’ said Leo uneasily.
They did so without a word. Anthony was desperate to ask his father who this bit of skirt was but uncharacteristically he held his tongue.
Leo sat forward in his chair and rubbed his hands together nervously. ‘Victor, Anthony, I want to introduce you to Gina.’ He paused nervously before adding, ‘She is your cousin.’
‘Cousin?’ Anthony shook his head in confusion. ‘This is news to me that we had a cousin.’
‘Gina was your Uncle Michael’s daughter.’
‘But he didn’t have a daughter,’ said Vic.
‘I reckon I’m proof that he did,’ said the girl, her voice quiet but steely. ‘Yes, I’m the daughter. The one you never knew about.’
‘She is telling the truth. I can vouch for that,’ said Leo. ‘Michael always wanted a boy. A young man who would one day succeed him as head of the family business. But it was not to be.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Anthony. ‘We know Aunt Sophie had a little boy who was born dead and she died shortly after…’
Leo nodded. ‘Yes, that’s how it was. But around the same time, when Aunt Sophie was very ill, Michael had an affair with a young actress and she gave birth to a baby girl…a daughter Michael treasured above all things.’
‘Are you serious?’ asked Vic, his features darkening with consternation.
‘I know this will be a bit of a shock for you two—’
‘Shock!’ cried Anthony. ‘That’s a bleedin’ understatement. Are you telling us that this…this girl here is our cousin. Uncle Michael’s—’
‘Bastard?’ said Gina coolly. ‘If you want to put it like that. Yes, I am Michael Bernstein’s daughter. I was the secret child. No tough young fellow to follow in my father’s footsteps—just a girl. So I was hidden away from the world. Protected from what my father regarded as his violent way of life. He wanted me well away from any potential enemies, too. I was his sweet innocent little girl, his lady, and I was treated as such. Only Uncle Leo knew of my existence.’
‘Is all this really true?’ Vic asked his father. His voice was low and cool, but there was a note of anger there.
Leo nodded in assent. ‘I was only doing what my brother wished. He made me swear.’
‘So where the hell has she been all this time?’ growled Anthony.
‘She will tell you,’ said Gina. ‘Shortly after my birth I was taken to Ireland. I was brought up by nuns—’
‘Christ almighty!’ exclaimed Anthony, his eyes bulging with disbelief.
‘My father wanted me to be a good girl.’ She almost smiled. ‘He visited me regularly and made sure I was happy. When I left the convent—unscathed by the holier than thou attitude and the Catholic drivel they tried to instil into me—my father set me up in a small flat in Dublin and provided me with a comfortable income but would not hear of me coming back to London. He said he didn’t want me to be near the business. He didn’t want me to be contaminated by it and the people involved in it.’
‘Charming!’ observed Anthony.
‘But he was wrong. I wanted to be contaminated…I am a Bernstein after all. I am part of the family, part of the business.’
‘That is a matter of opinion,’ said Vic.
‘Yeah,’ said Anthony. ‘I reckon Uncle Michael was right. This isn’t a business for women.’
‘Well, it’s certainly not a business for lily-livered men.’
Anthony half rose from his chair in indignation. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Gina Bernstein’s relaxed features suddenly changed. Her jaw tightened, her nostrils flared and her eyes blazed with anger. ‘I’ll spell it out for you, shall I? It means that you’re a bunch of bleedin’ cowards. That’s what it means. Some jumped-up eyetie bastard kills my father, your uncle, and you do nothing about it. Nothing. You just hide like frightened rabbits in your warren. Paulo Ricotti murdered the head of the family, your own flesh and blood, and you do nothing!’ Her voice was fierce and shrill and the last word echoed around the room like a curse.
The three men remained silent. Each, in his own way, was acknowledging the truth of Gina’s assertion, no matter how begrudgingly.
‘It was left to me to avenge my father’s death.’
‘You! You mean it was you…’ said Anthony, his eyes wide with disbelief.
‘Yes, it was
me; I put a bullet in that Italian bastard’s head.’
Vic brought his hands together in a slow hand clap. ‘Bravo. Give the girly a coconut.’
Gina did not rise to the bait. ‘That remark just about sums you up, Vic. Sarcasm in place of guts.’
‘Why, you—’ Vic took a step in her direction and raised his hand.
‘Sit down, Vic,’ Leo ordered. ‘We’re not here to argue. Gina is family.’
‘And you wouldn’t hit a woman, would you, Vic?’ Gina said softly.
‘What the hell does she want—coming back here after all these years?’ asked Anthony.
‘I’ll answer that, Uncle Leo,’ said Gina. ‘As the daughter of Michael Bernstein, I have come to take charge of the business.’
‘The hell you have,’ snapped Anthony, casting a glance at Vic for confirmation of this assertation.
‘It is her right,’ Leo said wearily.
‘What do you mean, it’s her right? How can she turn up here out of the fuckin’ blue and think she can just take over? She knows nothing of the business. She’s just a scrap of a girl with a big mouth.’
Gina gave a wry smile. ‘Yes, you’re right there, Anthony, I do have a big mouth. I’ve found it helps when you want things done. Unbeknownst to Dad, I ran my own little operation in Dublin and did very nicely out of it, thank you. Apart from the big mouth, I’ve also got a sharp brain and a strong stomach. At present the Bernstein family business is stagnant—it’s going nowhere. I intend to change all that.’
‘She deserves our support. It is her right as Michael’s daughter,’ said Leo. ‘You boys must toe the line.’
‘The hell I will,’ barked Anthony. ‘No young tart is going to tell me what to do.’ He rushed from the room, slamming the door hard as he left.
‘He’ll come round,’ said Leo. ‘He’s always been a hot head.’
‘And what about you, Vic?’ asked Gina turning to him.
With slow deliberation, he took a pack of cigarettes out of his coat pocket, extracted one and lit it. ‘What have you in mind?’ he said quietly, blowing the smoke over his shoulder.
The Darkness of Death Page 3
