I left Cartwright House with something of a spring in my step. Slowly but surely I was moving forward. No big questions had been answered yet, but at least I wasn’t facing a large blank brick wall. I wondered what the considerate Aunt Ada had meant by her reference to Sylvia’s ‘sad loss’. Perhaps she had a boyfriend or husband killed in action. Unfortunately that was an all too common occurrence these days. As my thoughts petered out regarding the case, I found my mind wandering towards Max again. I wondered if she had reached Nottingham yet. I tried to picture which of her outfits she would be wearing for the journey. It brought a smile to my face.
So, I now had to find this high class salon, the extravagantly named Madame Rene’s. Aunt Ada had said it was ‘in such a nice area’. Well Kensington was a ‘nice area’ and that’s where Sylvia lived so I reckoned it was worth checking to see whether it was somewhere in the vicinity.
Kensington High Street was busy with shoppers, mainly woman in thick winter coats and neat hats. I popped into the first newsagent I came across. I bought a copy of the Daily Mirror and then asked the grizzled fellow behind the counter if he knew where I could find a ladies hairdressers called Madame Rene’s. He gave me an odd look.
‘I’m not sure, mate,’ came the reply. ‘The missus attends to my barnet.’ He grinned, rubbing his hand over his balding pate. ‘What there is of it. Let me see…Madame Rene’s sounds a bit posh, don’t it? There is rather a posh place on Scarsdale Road, down the High Street to your left and third road going off to your right.’
He was correct. The ‘posh place’ was indeed Madame Rene’s Beauty Parlour. I’d hit bull’s eye with my first throw of the dart. And it was a ‘posh place’ indeed. Certainly the exterior was several notches up on Chez Harolde. There were two tubs with small conifers either side of the door and a crimson doormat with the name of the establishment emblazoned on it in cream lettering. I wiped my feet and entered.
A tall, elegant, but rather imposing woman moving regally towards middle age was at the appointments desk. She eyed me with barely concealed disdain. I suppose that as a man I was in alien territory and as a man in a shabby overcoat and even shabbier trilby, sporting an eye patch I was out of my sartorial depth also.
‘How may I help you, sir?’ she said, as though that was the last thing on earth she would wish to do.
‘I’d like to see the manageress.’
Now that surprised her. ‘May I ask what is the nature of your business?’
‘It is a very personal and private matter…of the greatest delicacy.’
She cast an eye at the copy of the Daily Mirror I was carrying and her lips quivered with distaste.
I leaned forward and lowered my voice. ‘There is a certain amount of urgency involved if we are to prevent the scandal getting out.’ I tapped my newspaper apparently in an absentminded fashion.
Her eyes widened with alarm. ‘Please wait here,’ she announced, in her Kensington-honed clipped tones and disappeared through a door on her left.
I did not have to wait long.
My snooty friend emerged in less than a minute with another woman, shorter, fatter and older, but wearing a vibrant gown that probably cost more than I earned in a year. I took her to be Madame Rene.
‘You wish to see me, Mr...?’ Her voice and manner were out of the same stable as her tall companion.
‘Hawke. John Hawke.’
‘Please come through to my office.’ She bade me enter.
The room could hardly be regarded as an office. Not in my world anyway. True, there was a desk at one end, but there were also a couple of well-upholstered carved chairs, a chaise-longue and bowls of artificial flowers everywhere. The overall colour was powdery pink and the air was thick with the sweet smell of women’s perfume. It was like wandering into a giant box of Turkish Delight.
Madame Rene reclined gracefully on the chaise-longue and, with a flowing gesture of her hand, indicated that I should avail myself of one of the carved chairs.
‘How may I assist you?’ asked Madame Rene.
‘I am making enquiries regarding one of your employees: Sylvia Moore.’
Her eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘Sylvia?’
I nodded. ‘She does work for you?’
‘Yes,’ she replied slowly. I could feel the drawbridge being hauled up so I came out with the old story about representing a firm of solicitors—the remarkable but fictitious Bairstow, Waghorn and Brown—and that Sylvia was in line for a small inheritance. As I completed my tidily presented pack of lies, I saw Madame Rene relax a little, although she still viewed me with some suspicion. I suppose she was wondering what a flashy firm of solicitors was doing employing a scruffy character like me.
‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘Well, yes, Sylvia works for me. She is one of my senior consultants, but I’m afraid she is not here today. She rang me this morning to say that she was feeling unwell and would not be in. I must say that is not like Sylvia at all and it is highly inconvenient. I have the Duchess of Bridgestock coming this afternoon and she always insists that Sylvia attends to her hair. It’s very dry and difficult.’
I nodded sympathetically while masking my own disappointment. This was getting to be a habit. Little Sylvia seems to have slipped through my grasp again.
‘However, she did assure me that she’d be back in the salon on Monday.’ With some effort Madame Rene pulled herself up from the chaise-longue to indicate that the interview was drawing to a close.
‘I’ll call back then.’ I rose, too, and moved to the door. ‘If I could crave your indulgence, however…’
Madame Rene’s eyes widened with apprehension. ‘In what way?’ she asked warily.
‘Please don’t tell Miss Moore anything about my visit or enquiries. We at Bairstow, Waghorn and Brown are keen to be the first to impart the good news. We want it to come as a complete surprise to our client. So, if you don’t mind, mum’s the word.’
‘As you wish, Mr Hawke. As you wish,’ she replied, ushering me from her richly scented lair.
As I returned to the cold and dreary streets once more, a little cloud of disappointment settled around my shoulders. I realized that despite my various efforts, I was still not significantly further in my pursuit of Beryl Garner. Both she and her cohort, Sylvia Moore, were proving most elusive. In fact they had performed a very effective disappearing act.
Ten
The two figures entered the little tobacconist’s shop just after noon. The bell above the door tinkled to announce their presence. There were no other customers on the premises and the owner Ralph Cousins had just brewed himself a cup of tea in the back room. He was about to lift the steaming mug to his lips when the customers entered. With a sigh of resignation, he placed the mug down on his desk and went into the front of the shop hoping he could deal with these customers before his tea went cold. There was a tall, thin, young woman, pretty with bright red lipstick and a well-set-up young man whose expression suggested that he had got out of the wrong side of the bed that morning.
Before he could greet them with his customary, ‘Good day, what can I do for you?’ they began behaving oddly. The man flicked the Yale lock on the door, snapping it shut, and swivelled round the ‘Open’ sign so that it read ‘Closed’ to those outside the shop. He then pulled down the blind.
‘Hey, what do you think you’re doing?’ the old tobacconist said, half in anger, half in apprehension.
‘We are just securing some privacy before we conduct a little business,’ said the girl pleasantly enough, but her features were hard and cruel.
‘What kind of business?’
‘Insurance business,’ she said, and gave her companion a nod. On cue, he pushed a glass display cabinet, which was perched on the far end of the counter, to the ground. It crashed to the floor, the sound resounding around the tiny shop. The glass smashed immediately, with bright dagger-like shards skittering across the wooden floor, glittering in the dim illumination. The man then kicked the side of the case, splintering the w
ood. He beamed with satisfaction.
‘What a nasty accident,’ he said, the sarcasm redolent in his voice.
‘That was no accident: you did it deliberately. Are you mad or something?’
‘My friend is so careless,’ said the girl. ‘But then there are so many careless individuals in the world, aren’t there? Clumsy folk who have no concern or respect for other people’s property. Isn’t that right?’ The question was addressed to her companion who, in response, stepped behind the counter and knocked a whole row of cigarette packets on to the floor and then proceeded to stamp on them, squashing the contents beneath his heel.
‘Stop it! Stop it, you crazy bastard!’ cried Ralph Cousins stepping forward towards the vandal who, in an instant, withdrew a pistol from his overcoat pocket. ‘I wouldn’t come any closer, if I were you, old man. I don’t like to be touched. And there’s no insurance against one of these.’
Ralph Cousins froze in his tracks.
‘All this has been most unfortunate, Mr Cousins,’ said the girl in soothing tones. ‘And I’m sure you would not want it to happen again.’
The shopkeeper was now shaking with fear, which for the moment robbed him of speech.
‘However, we are in the position of being able to guarantee that it will not happen again. That is very fortunate for you, isn’t it? All you have to do is take part in a little private insurance policy we have arranged for you. For a mere twenty pounds a month, we will give you the assurance that no further accidents of this nature will take place again.’
‘Unless, of course, you miss a payment,’ added the tough young man.
‘A cheap and secure form of insurance,’ continued the girl. ‘So, if you’ll reach your hand into the till and withdraw twenty pounds, we’ll be on our way.’
At the mention of the twenty pounds, the old tobacconist felt his heart constrict. ‘But…but I haven’t got twenty pounds in the till. This is a small shop…’
‘Oh, dear,’ said the man raising his voice. ‘Oh dear!’ With a vicious sweep of his arm, he dragged another row of cigarette packets from the shelf to the floor and stamped on them heavily. ‘This could go on a long time unless you cough up the cash,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to be left without any stock at all, do you?’
Ralph Cousins’ face reflected the horror he felt as this nightmare continued. ‘I have a little money in the back…’
‘That’s a good boy. Off you go and get it.’
With an ashen face and shaking hands, Ralph Cousins scurried into his back room and returned some moments later with a wad of notes. Gingerly, he held them out to the man.
‘I’ll take those,’ said the girl, and after a quick count she stowed the money in her handbag. ‘It was good to do business with you, Mr Cousins. It is a wise investment indeed. We’ll leave you to tidy up.’ She moved to the door as did her accomplice who unlocked the Yale, released the blind and swung the ‘Open’ sign round again.
‘Don’t forget,’ said the man, as a parting shot, ‘one of our representatives will call around next month to collect our premium. And just a warning…complaining to the law will only bring you more trouble. Believe me, Mr Cousins, that is not an idle threat.’
The bell tinkled again as the two intruders left.
Ralph Cousins stood for some time shocked into inaction, staring at the damage that had been done inside his shop. His home had suffered bomb damage in the blitz, but somehow this was worse. These intruders weren’t the Nazis. They weren’t the enemy. They were British. Bloody British gangsters.
In a slow, mechanical fashion, with eyes moist with emotion, he began to clear up the mess.
*
Some time later, not far away from Ralph Cousins’ shop, in a shady corner of a shabby pub on Henrietta Street, Gina and Vic Bernstein were enjoying a drink. ‘You were good, Vic,’ said Gina, swilling her gin and tonic around in her glass. ‘A natural.’
He grinned. ‘Well, I’m not exactly a novice.’
For a moment they sat in silence and then Vic said, ‘What interests me is why you chose me rather than Anthony for this caper?’
It was her turn to grin. ‘There’s no competition. He’s a hot head. He hasn’t yet realized that in our business self-control and an unemotional approach are essential. I suppose he might learn in time, but, at the moment, he’s immature; he could easily become a liability. I suggest you keep your eye on him.’
Vic sipped his beer. ‘I do. I’ve had to pull him out of a few scrapes already.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me. Anyway, after our successful little experiment this morning with Mr Cousins, I’m turning the whole project over to you. You know how it works. It’s simple but effective. You oversee the project now and set Anthony on with a reliable partner to do the calls. Can you find one?’
‘I know a chap. We’ve used him before.’
‘Good. Put him on the payroll. I’ll provide you with a list of places to target and we’ll give it a month’s trial. See how it goes. If we get twenty premises on board—small shops too frightened to do anything about it—we should clean up very nicely. In time it will bring us in a tidy sum. Within a year we should be ready to branch out with another club.’
Vic lit a cigarette and scrutinized the girl carefully. ‘You are driven, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. I have a lot of time to catch up. I was kept from the family business against my will for most of my life. What Pops didn’t realize is that I may be a girl, but I am also a Bernstein through and through. I’ve got brains and guts and the determination. And the balls. Don’t forget it.’ She gave Vic’s face a friendly pat. ‘I’ve dreamed of this moment. Believe me, boy, I’m going to take this family somewhere, whatever it takes.’
*
Max struggled into the buffet bar at Nottingham Station and ordered a coffee and a Bath bun. She sat at the table nearest the stove and warmed her hands. The journey from London had been an uncomfortable one. There had been no heating on the train and the cramped compartment in which she had been sitting had ice on the inside of the window. With the help of the hot coffee and the gentle glow of the stove, she began to thaw out.
She pulled a fountain pen and one of the blank postcards stowed in her bag and began writing. She was surprised how much she was already missing Johnny. It was true that in London she would often not see him for days, but she knew that she could if she wanted to. There was the comfort and reassurance of the close proximity. But now they were truly separated and it was unpleasant. The act of writing the card would help to bring him closer. To be in contact with Johnny, however tenuous, gave her solace, for here she was in an unfamiliar city about to start work with a set of strangers. It was a situation that she had experienced before on several occasions, but she had never left a man she loved behind before to do so. Well, she’d never really been in love before. As this thought came to her, her eyes misted a little.
She sniffed heartily in an attempt to sweep away such maudlin sentiment and finished writing the card. Putting it to one side for a moment, she rummaged in her bag for a stamp. When she picked the card up again, she noticed that the hack where she had written her message was smeared in the corner by a small blob of tomato ketchup. In the dim light of the buffet, it looked like a splash of blood.
*
It was early evening when Vic strolled into the Dog and Duck, a rough and ready pub on Branch Street in Shoreditch.
‘Dregsville,’ Vic muttered under his breath, as he made his way to the bar. The air was stale and smoky and the sawdust crunched beneath his feet. He attracted quite a bit of attention in his dark-blue overcoat and smart trilby. The rest of the customers, mainly men, could, by contrast, have entered a scarecrow competition. Shabby and worn-out clothes were de rigueur at the Dog and Duck. Envy and distrust of this stranger—this toff—radiated from their haggard faces and mean-spirited eyes, but their attention span was brief. Quite quickly they returned to their drinking and desultory conversations. The barman, a Woodbine dangling f
rom his lips, managed to mouth the word, ‘Yes’ as a form of invitation to buy a drink.
‘Half a bitter and have one yourself,’ said Vic.
The barman’s features softened. ‘Right,’ he replied, the cigarette only just remaining in place. He pulled the half-pint and plonked on the bar counter, spilling some of the contents in the process. Vic handed over a shilling. ‘Keep the change. Is Archie Muldoon in?’
‘Who wants to know?’
‘I do. He does a little work for me from time to time.’
The barman eyed the stranger carefully. He didn’t think he was a copper. He was too well dressed and smooth. Besides coppers don’t flash shillings around. What the hell, he thought at length. I’m not Muldoon’s keeper. ‘He’s in the back room,’ he said, nodding his head towards a door at the side of the bar.
Vic picked up his drink and sauntered through into the ‘back room’ where a card school was in progress. Four men were hunched over a small round table in the middle of which was a small pile of copper coins. Each face turned in Vic’s direction as he entered. Only one of them registered recognition.
‘Hello, Vic. Long time, no see,’ said Archie Muldoon with a mixture of surprise and apprehension.
Vic always thought of Archie as The Crumpled Man. Everything about him was in this condition from his crinkly uncombed hair, to his screwed-up bulldog of a face to the creased pinstripe suit that encased his ample body.
‘I’d like a word,’ he said. ‘But finish your hand first, eh?’
The other three men who had eyed Vic up on his entrance had already returned their attention to their cards.
‘Sure, won’t be a mo,’ said Archie.
He was true to his word. The game was over in a trice and Archie lost his money. Vic surmised that he had been losing all night. As usual. Archie was a mug where money was concerned.
‘Let me buy you a drink and then we can chat over a proposition I have in mind,’ he said.
The Darkness of Death Page 7
