Leo Bernstein seemed surprised and somewhat unnerved to see them. He was seated in his office behind a big desk apparently studying some kind of ledger. The ashtray at his elbow was filled with stubbed out cigarettes. He looked tired and drained. He rose awkwardly as Llewellyn and Sunderland entered and his eyes regained some of their fire.
Bernstein cut to the quick. ‘What’s that one-eyed toe-rag doing here?’
David seemed amused at the description. I was sure that he’d use it himself on future occasions when he wanted to irritate me.
‘Let’s say he’s helping the police with their inquiries,’ he said.
‘Inquiries about what?’
‘Murder,’ said David.
Leo Bernstein’s face paled but he said nothing.
David continued, ‘Your sons, Anthony and Victor Bernstein have been involved in the murder of a young girl.’
‘Murder! That’s nonsense. Who is this girl?’
‘Gina Andrews.’
Leo gave a strange gargling noise in the throat and fell back in his chair, his face white with emotion. ‘Gina?’
David nodded, but Bernstein did not notice, he was staring into space, his mind in shock. Suddenly, he looked very old. The face had sagged, the shoulders stooped and his eyes moistened.
‘Who was she, Leo? We know you knew her.’
‘Knew her,’ he replied slowly, all his bravado having dissipated. ‘Yes, of course I knew her.’ He glanced up at David and gave him a bitter smile. ‘Well, I might as well tell you now. You’ll find out sooner or later anyway. She was my brother’s child. She was a Bernstein. Michael’s daughter. She was his secret child, born out of wedlock to a young actress. He paid for her to go to Ireland and bring Gina up there, away from the business. Away from the way we earn a living. But he visited her from time to time. He never lost touch. In the family, I was the only one who knew about her. Even his wife had no idea. He loved Sophie, his wife, and he wouldn’t have hurt her for the world. She died never knowing…’
Bernstein fumbled in his pocket for a handkerchief. Clumsily he dabbed the incipient tears that were beginning to roll down his cheeks.
‘So why did Gina come back?’
‘When Michael was murdered…she came back…for…the funeral. To pay her last respects to her beloved papa.’
‘She came back for revenge,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that the truth? She believed that Paulo Ricotti had murdered her father and she came back to exact retribution. She killed Ricotti, didn’t she? An eye for an eye.’
Leo’s silence spoke volumes.
‘So why did Anthony kill her?’ I knew I was breaking my promise of being a silent witness, but I just couldn’t help myself. I knew we were getting nearer the truth and like a tenacious terrier, I couldn’t let go of the bone now.
‘That’s rubbish. My Anthony wouldn’t kill his own cousin.’
‘It’s true. I saw him do it, Leo. In fact he made two attempts. He tried to strangle her in her flat and when that failed, he went to the hospital where she was recovering and had another go. This time he was successful.’
Tears now flowed down the old man’s face. He turned his head away from us and cleared his throat noisily in an attempt to stifle his sobs. We stood silently watching his grief overcome him. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the man. He was an old crook, but murder was not in his blood. He was a proud family man, even though the family were corrupt felons, but now he was presented with a nightmare situation of family killing family.
‘Why did Anthony kill Gina? What was his motive, Leo?’ It was David’s strong, unemotional voice that broke the silence.
Still unable to speak, Leo shook his head in bewilderment.
‘Oh, don’t give me that, Leo. You must have some idea.’
‘Do you think I would be so upset, if I knew? I’m as much in the dark as you are.’ He paused and his eyes flickered with curiosity as though a new thought had come to him. ‘What about Vic?’ he said. ‘You mentioned Vic. How could he be involved?’
‘Oh, believe me, he’s involved,’ I said, touching the bandage around my head.
‘Well, we need to find these two and fast,’ said David. ‘And you’ve got to help us.’
‘Help the police, you must be joking.’ He dried his eyes vigorously. ‘You can go to hell.’ The old Leo had, momentarily, reasserted himself.
‘It will be all the worse for you if you don’t help us now, Leo.’
‘You can’t expect me to squeal on my own flesh and blood—whatever you do to me.’
David leaned forward placing both hands on Leo’s desk. ‘Have you not got it into your head yet? They killed their own flesh and blood, as you call it. Anthony murdered Gina, your brother’s daughter. He strangled her while she lay helpless in a hospital bed. He showed her no mercy. And he was aided and abetted by Vic. They were both in it together. You cannot protect them any more, Leo. You know where they are likely to be hiding out. You must have a few boltholes around town. Where have they gone to ground? You have got to tell us!’
Leo’s resolve weakened and he tried to speak but failed. Instead he just shook his head.
‘Stop prevaricating, and tell us where you think they might be.’ David was beginning to lose patience now. ‘If not I’ll slam you in a cell and make sure you stay there for a bloody long time.’
Strong emotion rippled across the old man’s face as he struggled with his conscience. He knew what he had to do but it went against all his natural instincts. He was being asked to shop his own sons.
‘Come on,’ cried David, thumping the desk. ‘For Christ’s sake tell us...!’
‘Well,’ said Leo quietly, ‘there is one place…’
*
An hour or so later two police cars drew up outside a ramshackle building on waste ground by the Thames in Wandsworth. After Leo Bernstein had very reluctantly given us the location of this bolthole, David had been on to the Yard to organize a group of armed officers to join him in smoking the two Bernstein boys out. Despite all protestations, I travelled with David and Sunderland. I wasn’t going to miss out on the gunfight at the OK Corral.
Dusk was already falling fast and the shadows of night were growing stronger along the riverside. The cars had parked some hundred yards away from the building, which was already blending with the encroaching night sky. There was some ground cover in the form of shrubbery and long grass and David deployed the three officers with rifles to get closer with their weapons trained on the door and two windows.
‘What now?’ I asked simply.
‘Now I put my head into the lion’s mouth,’ said David. ‘And you stay where you are!’ He left the car and walked slowly towards the building. He stopped about twenty feet from the door. There was just a gentle breeze bringing with it vague river sounds from the Thames—the rest was silence.
‘Hello, there,’ he called, addressing the door of the building. ‘This is the police. Come on, Anthony and Vic Bernstein, come on out. There’s no escape. We are armed. Just give yourselves up. Make it easy on yourselves.’
His voice echoed strangely in the air. There was no response.
David waited almost a minute before speaking again. ‘Please don’t be foolish. Come out now and you won’t be harmed. Open the door and walk out.’
I could see David’s shoulders tense as he waited for something to happen. I prayed that it wasn’t going to be a bullet fired at him. However, again there was no response.
‘Perhaps we got it wrong,’ murmured Sunderland, more to himself than to me.
‘I don’t think Leo would have given a false lead.’
David waved for the snipers to move closer to the building.
‘If you won’t come out, I’m coming in,’ he cried, pulling a revolver from his pocket.
‘And so am I,’ I murmured to myself. In an instant I had slipped out of the car and sprinted in a crouching position to join David. Well, I couldn’t just sit and watch as my old friend risked his life alone.
<
br /> David turned slightly and saw me approach carrying my gun. He gave me a grim half grin. ‘I told you to stay in the bloody car.’
‘I had to be with my old partner at the shoot out.’
You watch too many cowboy films,’ he said, with a smile.
‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.’
‘Well, let’s do it then.’
Slowly we approached the door of the building. It looked innocent enough with its faded peeling paint, cracked wood and rusting handle, but we both knew it could fly open at any moment to reveal two desperate men with guns.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the snipers moving in even closer. This should have been some comfort, but it wasn’t. Their presence was not going to stop any bullets aimed our way.
‘We’re coming in,’ David called, as we reached the door. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’
He glanced at me and gave a brief stern nod.
Slowly, he opened the door and let it swing wide on its creaky hinges. A smell of damp and decay assailed our nostrils, but there was no sound or movement from within.
‘After all that, I don’t think the bastards are here,’ David whispered to me, as he stepped over the threshold.
He wasn’t quite correct.
We entered the building, which was only illuminated faintly by the fading grey daylight struggling in through the grimy windows. However, we were able to observe an ominous shape lying on the floor not far from the doorway.
It was a body.
Glancing round cautiously, we approached it. The body was lying face down and there was a vicious wound to the back of the head, exposing what was left of its brain. It looked very much like the fellow had been shot at point-blank range. Splatters of blood covered a wide area, glistening darkly in the gloom.
Carefully, David turned the corpse over so that we could see its face. Filtered light fell on the rigid features of the dead man. They belonged to none other than Mr Horn-rimmed Glasses himself.
It was Anthony Bernstein.
Thirty-Two
Leo Bernstein had started on the brandy as soon as Detective Inspector Llewellyn and his two cronies, including the one-eyed meddler had left. He felt emotionally ravaged and was having difficulty coming to terms with the news they had imparted. Was it really true that his own sons had actually murdered his niece Gina, his brother’s little girl? It must be. The police wouldn’t lie about a thing like that. It seemed like the plot from some gruesome fairy-tale.
Sadly the brandy was not softening the edges of reality as it usually did; on the contrary it was sharpening up the horror of the situation. As he poured his fourth large glass, almost draining the bottle, he found himself crying. All he had striven for all his life, helping to build up the Bernstein family business by whatever means were at his disposal, had come to nothing, to grey ashes. He never thought of what he did as being so terrible. It was against the law, yes, but it didn’t really hurt anyone. Yes, a few mugs paid more than they should for a few personal pleasures. So what? It was their dough and most of them were ignorant of their foolishness. But now…now there was killing. His own sons…Well, he washed his hands of them. They were his, but they were bastards also.
He sighed and rolled the brandy round in the glass, inhaling its potent vapours.
Now he was alone. Very alone. His wife Susan had died many years ago, shortly after Anthony was born and he had lived through his brother and his two sons. In truth, since his boys had hit adolescence he had felt a distancing in their relationship. If he was honest, and now he could afford to be, he didn’t like them much. Vic was too smart for his own good and Anthony was dim and aggressive. Their values were not his. Their sensibilities belonged to the new cruder age. He knew they regarded him as a relic, someone who didn’t really count any more. That’s why he had treasured his relationship with his brother Michael so much. They were like two sides of the same coin. They could tell what the other was thinking and dream what the other was dreaming. Now Michael was gone the world appeared so much greyer. Life it seemed was a dark tragic joke. Leo took another long gulp of brandy, enjoying the discomfort as it burned his throat.
At first he didn’t notice the door of his office open and a dark figure enter. He was only aware of its presence as it stood over him at the side of his desk.
‘Hello, Dad,’ Vic said.
Leo glanced up in shock. ‘You!’ It took him some moments to take the situation in and when he did, he rose quickly to his feet, dashing the brandy glass to the floor as he did so. ‘You!’ he roared, his fury overwhelming him.
‘Sit down,’ said Vic, pushing the drunken old man back into his chair.
‘You swine,’ muttered Leo, already the fire of anger fading and self-pity taking its place.
Vic responded with a tight smile. He agreed with the assessment. Indeed he was a swine and a bastard and all those other vituperative epithets that could be hurled at him. How else could you survive in the cruel and unfair world? Being decent and honest got you nowhere. He was glad he was a swine and intended to improve upon his past performance in the role.
‘What do you want?’ asked Leo.
‘Now what do you think I want? I want cash. A large amount.’
‘You can go to hell.’
‘Indeed, I probably will, but not just yet, eh? Now get yourself to the safe and scoop me out some cash.’
‘I wouldn’t lift a finger to help you. How could you murder that girl...?’
‘To be accurate, I didn’t. It was Anthony. But I have to admit it, if it hadn’t have been him it would have been me with my hands around her arrogant little throat.’
Leo shook his head in horrified disbelief. ‘Why?’ he croaked.
‘Why?’ Vic’s face muscles tightened and his relaxed insouciance faded. ‘I’ll tell you why. I wasn’t going to let that bitch turn up on our doorstep out of the blue and take over just like that—as though it was her right.’
‘It was her right. She was Michael’s daughter and the eldest.’
‘What the fuck’s that got to do with anything? We built this business up. We took the risks, did the dirty work, while she was living the life of Riley abroad, cosseted by daddy’s money. Then she comes back and thinks she can start dictating what we do. Well, to hell with that. This business, the Bernstein business was my legacy not hers.’
‘Yours! Don’t kid yourself. You’re not a big enough man to sit in this chair.’ Leo gave a bitter laugh. ‘Well, it’s nobody’s now. You’ve brought the roof down on your own head.’
‘It’s a setback, but I’ll live to fight another day. I’ll crawl back up to the top in time. I have the guts, the determination—and I watch my back. Which is more than I can say for Anthony.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You’ll find out in due course. Now, I want that money.’
‘You know the police are after you. No matter where you run, they’ll get you and you’ll hang. You’ve no chance.’
‘We’ll see about that, old man. Now get your fat backside out of that chair and open the safe.’
‘Or what? You’ll kill me, too? Your own father?’
‘Maybe,’ Vic sneered, producing a gun out of his pocket. ‘A desperate man can be driven to do anything.’
Leo froze with horror. The crazy bastard meant it. He would kill him. ‘I don’t recognize you as my son any more. You’re a stranger to me, Victor. A nothing.’
‘That’s fine by me, old man. Just get me the money and then I’ll leave you to your brandy.’
‘Very well,’ Leo said softly. There was little point in refusing. What was a couple of thousand compared to his life and to get Vic out of it.
He took the small safe key out of his waistcoat pocket and crossed the room to where a large painting of a pastoral scene hung over the fireplace. Carefully unhooking the painting from the wall, he revealed a grey wall safe concealed behind it. He stood motionless before it for a moment.
‘Go on,’ prompt
ed Vic. ‘Open up.’
Like a man in a trance, Leo Bernstein did as he was told.
The door swung open to reveal several small brown packages. Vic stepped forward and grabbed one and ripped it open to reveal a wad of white notes. ‘How much?’ he asked, waving the wad at Leo.
‘Each one contains fifty.’
Vic smiled and began stuffing the packages into his coat pockets.
‘Where is Anthony?’
Vic paused only momentarily in his task before replying. He did so without turning to face Leo. ‘He’s somewhere safe. There’s no need to worry about him,’ he said.
Leo returned to his desk and poured himself another brandy. ‘Worried? I’m not worried about him or you. I wash my hands of you both. As far as I am concerned you are no longer family. You are both scum and vermin.’
‘Suit yourself,’ grinned Vic, stuffing the last packet into his coat and moving towards the door. ‘I’ve got what I came for. You’ve served your purpose, old man. So this is goodbye.’
He left the room as swiftly and as silently as he came. Leo stared at the door for some time, his body numb and his brain devoid of thought. A fly landed on his hand and he gazed down at it. A fly, he thought. You rarely saw flies in winter. How come it had survived all this time? And, more particularly, why had it bothered?
*
The train journey had been quite restful. Despite the carriage being full and cramped, most of Max’s fellow passengers had taken the opportunity to catch forty winks during the trip from Nottingham to London. So, apart from some gentle heavy breathing and the odd muted snore, it had been a peaceful journey. She had been too excited to sleep herself. The thought of being back in London, in surprising Johnny and enjoying some time with him before returning to her pantomime chores, kept her mind racing.
King’s Cross was awash with passengers like hordes of predatory ants, carrying, lugging, trailing or hoisting various assortments of cases, valises, trunks, packages and boxes. It seemed to Max that whichever way she turned, the flow was coming at her rather than with her and she had to resort to angling her body sideways first this way and then that. Gradually, with a determined effort, she managed to squeeze her way forward. The noise was deafening: voices were raised like a discordant choir, while engines groaned, hooted, hissed and clanked in accompaniment.
The Darkness of Death Page 19
