They were seated in Leo’s oak-lined office on the top floor of the Bamboo House. David knew it as the sort of club where the crooked rich came to spend their ill-gotten gains on black-market food and booze and a fritter away a small fortune on a dodgy roulette wheel. There were many such establishments in London now. They had grown in number since 1939 like dark festering cultures in a Petri dish. If he had his way he’d close down the whole damned lot of them, but first of all, of course, he’d need the proof and even if he had that, he feared that he’d be leaned on heavily by certain factions in the establishment to turn a blind eye. It was in the interest of certain exalted personages that such places functioned without constraint. All that was really left for David was the ability to pick off the odd corrupt individual connected with these fun palaces who had grown a little careless.
Seeing Leo Bernstein on his own territory wasn’t an arrangement that David Llewellyn liked. He much preferred to question ne’er-do-wells in his own office at Scotland Yard—or better still in a dank cell at the same establishment, but at present he had no official reason to force Leo to make a trip to the Yard.
‘I wondered how long it would be before you came a knocking at my door, Inspector,’ Bernstein said, puffing contentedly on the cigar. ‘I heard the news about Paulo Ricotti. Terrible business.’
‘He was shot in the head at point-blank range.’
‘And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer chap.’
David flipped his trilby to the back of his head. ‘Let’s cut out the bullshit, Leo. I smell revenge.’
‘How dramatic, Inspector. Revenge for what?’
‘The guy who got his throat cut down by the river a couple of months ago.’
For a brief moment, Leo Bernstein’s face dropped its supercilious mask and Llewellyn could see the pain and misery in his eyes. ‘You refer to my brother’s death,’ he said at length, the mask back in place.
‘His murder, yes.’
‘And how are your investigations progressing in that direction? Can we expect an arrest any day now?’
David narrowed his eyes with irritation. He knew Bernstein had him there. The detective was pretty sure Ricotti had been the killer but he had no proof. The fellow had covered his tracks with extreme care. David had brought Ricotti in for questioning, but there was no chink in his smooth Italian armour and he’d had to let him go. As a result, it seemed clear to him that one of the Bernsteins had taken the law into their own hands: an eye for an eye.
‘Your silence speaks volumes,’ Leo Bernstein was saying. ‘So, Inspector, what exactly is the reason for this visit? You’ve not come to arrest me for Paulo Ricotti’s murder surely?’
‘Maybe. You or one of your boys.’
‘Come now, Inspector. You know us. You’ve taken an interest in our little dealings over the years. You see us as naughty boys. Well, maybe we are naughty boys at times—but murder?’ He shook his head and pursed his lips in a reproving fashion.
David knew he had a point. The Bernsteins were villains, greedy and unscrupulous, but murder really wasn’t in their line. However he wasn’t naïve enough to be aware that sometimes even the mildest of men can become dangerous if provoked enough.
‘I assure you, Inspector,’ Leo Bernstein continued, ‘that I can provide you with a water-tight alibi if required. And that goes for my two boys also.’
Suddenly David Llewellyn’s spirits sank as he realized he had to accept that he was reaching yet another dead end. If the Bernsteins, one or all of them, had been responsible for killing Ricotti, it wasn’t going to be easy to prove. Not easy? It would be almost impossible unless he had one of those miraculously lucky breaks that cops seem to get in the movies. But this was real life and far more complicated. Neat, happy endings were far less frequent.
With a heavy heart he rose from his chair and moved to the door. ‘It’s not over yet, Leo. We’ll nail the guilty one, have no fear. You are being watched, you and your family. One slip and we’ll have you.’
It was an empty threat, but he felt obliged to make it. It helped him feel better and gave him a suitably dramatic exit line.
After David Llewellyn had gone, Gina Bernstein came into the room by another door.
‘You heard all that?’ said Leo.
Gina nodded and extracted a cigarette from an ebony box on Leo’s desk. ‘They haven’t a speck of proof that we’re involved.’ A ghost of her smile touched her lips as she corrected herself. ‘That I’m involved.’
Leo clicked the onyx lighter and lit Gina’s cigarette. He admired the girl’s nerve and her self-assurance. But he also found it a little disconcerting. There was something of Michael’s sharpness and swagger, but she lacked his warmth and humanity. Such steel and resilience in a woman so young was not natural. When he considered Vic and Anthony, they seemed like reckless children compared to Gina.
‘You need to keep a low profile for some time. If the cops get a whiff that you’re a Bernstein…’
Gina crossed to stare out of the window into the dingy street below. ‘I know that. It suits my purposes for the moment to be little Miss Gina Andrews. But that doesn’t mean we can’t set certain things in motion. Move forward.’
‘Move forward?’
‘I was serious about taking over, you know. I have plans.’
‘Perhaps we should wait until the dust settles over the Ricotti business.’
Gina shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, her voice blade sharp. She flashed her eyes at Leo defying him to challenge her. He didn’t. He was now a different man from the one who had so smoothly dealt with Inspector Llewellyn. That had been a performance, one that he’d been used to giving, but now he was cowed, dominated, and if he was honest with himself, a little fearful.
‘I want to move now,’ Gina continued. ‘I have plans which I intend to get off the ground, tout suite. We need a family conference. Can you arrange that? Get the boys here for eight this evening.’
‘Well, yes, I could…’
Gina turned to him, her face hard and emotionless. ‘Well, do it. I want to get my show on the road.’
Seven
With my overcoat pulled around me for warmth and my hands stuffed deep into my pockets, I trudged my way up Tottenham Court road en route to Priory Court and the dubious comforts of home. It was around four in the afternoon and already the streets were dark, ambushed by the shifting fog and the encroaching winter night. Pedestrians loomed up before me like shapeless ghouls before gliding past and disappearing silently into the gloom once more. Muted traffic was heard but barely glimpsed, with the occasional sharp high-pitched croak of a motor horn rending the air like the cry of some strange bird.
As I trudged through the murk, I tried to weigh up how successful I’d been in my investigations that day. After chatting with my hairdresser friend, Harold Crabtree, he of the erratic bow tie, I had taken a trip to the last known address of Sylvia Moore. This endeavour had been blessed with mixed results. It was to a small boarding-house in Islington where the landlady was most reluctant to release any information about her former lodger, or indeed any information at all. The lady in question was the formidable Mrs Bentley, Hermione to her intimates, if she had any. She was a woman of some fifty-odd years, wiry of build with a face like an angry whippet, her features moulded by a thousand disappointments. She appeared at the door draped in a wraparound pinafore and headscarf tied into a turban, arms folded across her skinny chest, ready to repel boarders.
I knew that if I mentioned that I was a detective, I would get no further with the interview. Hermione’s whole demeanour oozed suspicion and self-protection which, I suppose, in wartime wasn’t a bad thing, although it made my job a lot tougher. ‘I don’t buy things from tinkers,’ she said, before I had been able to take a breath.
‘Quite right too,’ I smiled, raising my hat in an approximation of a gentlemanly gesture—the way I had seen the toffs do it in the movies. Indeed, I realized that if I was going to make any headway with this wiry dragon,
I had to indulge in some play-acting of my own. I wasn’t going to get anywhere by plying the truth so I sharpened up my vowels and planted a lively smile on my mush.
‘I’m an agent for Bairstow, Waghorn and Brown, the solicitors in the Strand.’ I made a little pantomime of trying to find a card in various pockets to verify my statement. Needless to say, I failed, but by the time my hands had stopped searching I had moved on to purvey more false but hopefully enticing information.
‘I am attempting to contact Miss Sylvia Moore.’
For a moment she seemed to chew on some inedible titbit that she had excavated from a gap in her teeth before replying. ‘Sylvia? She no longer stays here.’ The voice was harsh and sour.
I suspected as much. That would have been too easy. However, I was prepared for such an eventuality. I nodded sympathetically. ‘That is a pity. You see I have some very good news for her concerning an inheritance.’
The fierce blue eyes sharpened with interest. ‘Inheritance,’ she repeated the word slowly, as though she had never heard it before and knew nothing of its meaning.
‘Yes. She has come into a tidy sum of money.’
‘Has she now?’
‘I cannot go into details. You will appreciate it is a matter of the strictest confidentiality but’—I leaned forward conspiratorially and lowered my voice—‘it’s a very tidy sum indeed, I can tell you.’
Old Hermione was definitely interested now. Her eyes brightened and a pallid tongue licked her lips. ‘She never struck me as someone who had wealthy relations. Are you sure you’ve got the right person?’
‘Oh, yes.’ I nodded vigorously. ‘I’ve spoken with Mr Crabtree, Miss Moore’s previous employer, and the trail has led me here. This is her last known address.’
‘A tidy sum, you say?’
I mouthed the words ‘A thousand pounds’, and Hermione’s jaw dropped open.
‘Heavens above!’ she squawked.
‘When did Miss Moore move away? Was it recently?’
‘No, no, it wasn’t recently. She’s been gone about a year, I reckon.’
‘Oh dear. How disappointing. Do you happen to know where she is now?’
Once more the features tightened and the eyes narrowed. ‘Who do you say you’re from?’
‘Bairstow, Waghorn and Brown, the solicitors in the Strand,’ I said, relieved I’d remembered the names that I’d conjured out of thin air. ‘You can give them a ring if you wish to verify my story.’
But please don’t—they do not exist.
‘We ain’t got no telephone here. Who’s left her this cash then?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m afraid I can’t say.’
Hermione did not like this. A deep corrugated frown appeared on her forehead and her hand reached for the door handle. I knew I had to dig out more lies.
I looked around me in an exaggerated fashion as if to ascertain that we were indeed alone with no one within eavesdropping distance, and then I leaned towards the wizened harpy once again uttering my lies sotto voce. ‘It’s an old aunt from Worthing who popped her clogs about two months ago. Apparently Sylvia was her favourite niece. Very favourite. A thousand pounds favourite.’
Hermione nodded, her face alive with envy. ‘Wait here,’ she said at length.
She returned a few minutes later with a scrap of brown paper torn from a piece of wrapping I assumed. It bore some scribbled writing in pencil.
‘This is the address I had off Sylvia. She gave it me when she left in case any post came here for her. Nice girl in her own quiet way.’
I raised my hat again. ‘Much obliged,’ I said with as much unction as I could muster.
‘A thousand quid, eh?’
I nodded.
‘Lucky bugger.’ With this parting shot, the lady closed the door on me.
The address was Cartwright House, Kensington. Certainly a more salubrious environment that Mrs Bentley’s gaff in Islington. It looked like our Sylvia had gone up in the world—come into some money perhaps. But not left to her by a fictitious old aunt from Worthing. It was now heading towards 2.30 and I hadn’t had any lunch, so in order to stop my stomach rumbling any louder and annoying my fellow pedestrians, I called in at a snack bar by the tube station and had a mug of hot tea and a paste sandwich. We private detectives know how to live it up.
As I devoured my repast, I decided to put off my visit to Cartwright House until the following day. I was rather tired and already the short wintry day was beginning to fade. Sylvia Moore would have to wait until tomorrow. Besides, I had a date that evening with my girlfriend Max. I still felt odd using that term ‘girlfriend’. I’d had a few encounters with girls before I lost my eye at the beginning of the war, but very little since and certainly nothing that could be said to have been on a steady footing. Max had brought a warmth and a kind of serenity to my life and although we had only been ‘walking out’, as they say, for about three months, I knew I wanted her around for good. Affection had been at a premium in my life so far. And the lack of a mother and father had made me insecure and uncertain regarding personal relationships. Having just one eye didn’t help much either.
But, I thought, with a smile, that was the old Johnny. Now I had Max and somehow she made me feel whole. Simple pleasures took on an extra dimension sharing them with Max. The thought of our planned trip to the pictures tonight to see Bogart and Bergman in Casablanca and, with luck, sharing a bag of chips afterwards sent a tingle of pleasure running through me. This was to be our last date for a while because Max was off to Nottingham to help with the masks and costumes for their pantomime there.
As I approached my hearth and home, the paste sandwich began to fight back and once again my stomach began to rumble. Since the outbreak of the war both me and my stomach had forgotten what it was like to experience decent, wholesome, well-cooked food. I suspected that if, by some miracle, I could get hold of a thick, juicy steak with all the trimmings, the whole experience would be so alien to me, I’d probably explode.
With this whimsical thought running around my head, I let myself into my office and moved beyond into my cramped little sitting room. There I found Peter waiting for me, sitting in the gloom with only the orange glow of the electric fire to provide illumination. This was an unexpected visit and, by the look on his face, something was wrong. He presented a very disconsolate picture, sitting glumly on the sofa, his youthful features wreathed in misery.
‘Hello,’ I cried cheerily, clicking on the main light and pretending not to notice his dour demeanour. ‘I didn’t expect to see you today.’
‘I had to come,’ he said quietly.
‘I see. How about putting on the kettle? I’m dying for a cuppa.’
‘Johnny, you’ve got to get me some long trousers!’ The words rushed out in a manic torrent.
‘Really?’
‘Nearly everyone in my class has them. And now they’re starting to laugh at me, calling me Peter Knobbly Knees.’
I wasn’t quick enough to stop the smile reaching my lips.
‘It’s not funny,’ cried Peter petulantly. He stood up and flapped open his rain coat to reveal his knees, pale, forlorn and slightly grubby. I could see what his classmates meant. ‘I’m too tall to go around like a schoolboy any more. I’m nearly as tall as you.’
This was a slight exaggeration, but I could see that the boy had a point. I had not realized how tall he had grown and how incongruous this lanky lad looked in the grey woollen short trousers that exposed his pallid knees in an almost surreal way. I’d known Peter for about three years. As a little ragged orphan boy he had entered my life in 1940 and had somehow stuck to me like a limpet. I had become his unofficial father, brother and pal. I was very fond of him. I suppose I still thought of him as that eleven-year-old ragamuffin and not noticed that he was actually changing into a young man.
‘I see what you mean,’ I said sympathetically. ‘Come round on Saturday morning and we’ll pop down Oxford Street and find you a nice pair of flannels, how abou
t that?’
Peter’s mournful face uncrumpled itself and he beamed. ‘Really? I can get some grown-up pants?’
I nodded, grinning too.
‘Gee, Johnny, that’s wonderful.’
‘Now, how about that cuppa?’
*
My date with Max that evening was special for all sorts of reasons and I remember it vividly. We caught the early show of Casablanca and loved it, but instead of the bag of chips afterwards, I splashed out and we went to The Velvet Cage, my favourite nightspot, for a drink and to listen to some jazz. Max was particularly affectionate that night—and sad. She did not relish leaving for Nottingham the next day, leaving behind her little shop and me.
‘I feel a little like Ingrid Bergman having to go when I want to stay,’ she said clasping my hand tightly.
‘We’ll always have Paris,’ I said, raising my glass and clinked hers. ‘Here’s looking at you, kid.’
She grinned and snuggled nearer, her large grey eyes misting slightly. ‘Before I go away, there’s something I want to tell you, Johnny.’
I tensed slightly. ‘Yes...?’
‘Don’t look so worried. It’s nothing to be upset about. At least I hope not. I just wanted to tell you that I love you.’
Her words took my breath away. I literally shook with emotion. I cannot remember in my wretched orphaned, one-eyed life anyone saying that to me before. It was an expression that was alien to me. I was delighted and overwhelmed by Max’s declaration, but she could not be fully aware of the greater implications of what she had told me. I was lost for words and so I took her in my arms and kissed her.
‘That makes two of us,’ I whispered eventually when we pulled back from the embrace. It was an inadequate response but it was the best that I could come up with at the time.
Max leant forward and kissed me again, gently on the cheek this time. ‘That’s convenient then,’ she said, smiling.
Eight
Hermione Bentley was just settling down with a mug of cocoa and a glass of rum with the intention of listening to some dance-band music on the radio when there was a loud knocking at her front door.
The Darkness of Death Page 5
