Asprey was a study of invariable disdain, measured and systematic. As his wide mouth let forth a calm yet sustained torrent of abuse, the rest of him remained coldly and pitilessly unmoved by the obvious distress he was causing DeVane. It was like watching the autopsy of a lifeless corpse slowly being taken apart limb by limb, organ by organ, dissected and discarded. And when Asprey’s deliberating and detached beasting had abated, there was no respite for the dapper snapper in the gold lamé suit that must have now seemed about as cool as a clown’s outfit.
The silverback told Vince to pay attention. He threw a one and a three, and cursed.
Goldsachs then took over. And it was a hostile takeover. It was a different approach from Asprey’s. Goldsachs got right in DeVane’s face: leaning across the table, he looked as if he was going to eat him. But it was those eyes that did it for him, those terrible eyes emitting tractor beams of indignant disgust. Goldsachs finally waved him away with a dismissive hand as though he was swatting a fly from a sandwich.
The silverback roared. Something had happened in the game that he was very pleased about. Vince looked pleased for him, too, although he had absolutely no idea what had happened because he wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention.
He turned quickly to see the hot glow of Nicky DeVane’s lamé suit making its way out of the drawing room. Vince stood up.
‘What’s going on?’ asked the old silverback.
‘Sorry, Sir Peter, nature calls. And much as I’d like to cock a leg and take a piss on the carpet, this is only fancy dress.’
Sir Peter chuckled heartily. ‘Oh, yes. Rather! Rather!’
Vince picked up the pack of Montcler playing cards from the table and pocketed it. He then followed DeVane as he proceeded down the stairs, shakily, as if he’d aged fifty years in five minutes. Without picking up his two models, who were now in conversation with a couple of horned rhinos, he then headed for the spiral stairs that connected the Montcler to Jezebel’s.
Vince followed. He didn’t need to keep a distance, because DeVane was preoccupied, and mortified, and clearly everything was just a sickening blur to him. Once downstairs, he headed straight for the bar and took up residence on a stool, ordering up a cocktail called a Long Island ice tea. Vince watched as the bottle-spinning barman created this highball of hard liquor: rum, gin, vodka and tequila all went into the mix.
‘Poor Nicky,’ said Isabel. ‘He looks like a man whose world has just caved in on him, and he’s been pulled out from under the wreckage and given a blood transfusion – but they forgot to put any fresh blood back in.’
Vince agreed. They were seated on a couch that had a clear view of DeVane propped at the bar. Vince had already told her what happened upstairs, and Isabel had described it as a ‘mobbing up’. In light of what he’d witnessed, it didn’t need that much explaining, but explain it she did. ‘It’s an Eton term. It’s what happens at school when your friends decide to turn on you.’
Vince reached into his jacket pocket and took out the pack of cards, broke the seal and took the cards out. They were the same as any other pack of cards, just customized with the Montcler seal and house colours on the back: red and green. And with something else that set them apart, made them just that tad more classy, that little more special. The cards had a gilded edge, so when piled up and viewed from the side they looked like a little block of gold, like an ingot. Vince allowed himself a cautious smile at this observation.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘Playing patience.’
They didn’t have to be that patient, as Nicky DeVane wasn’t nibbling his drinks; he was sucking them down. He was now on his fourth highball of the powerful firewater that was meekly, and misguidedly, called a Long Island ice tea. The inhabitants of Long Island must have been a pretty raucous crowd, making Vince wonder what they put in their morning coffee: nitro-glycerine and TNT?
At the bar, Nicky DeVane began to talk. Loudly. And the talk was of James Asprey and Simon Goldsachs. Before long, DeVane was up on his feet, digging in his heels, and complaining to all those around him about his treatment at the hands of those bastards. Who the hell did they think they were? DeVane made it clear that he knew things, he knew things about them, things that could bring them to their knees! The bartender attempted a quiet word with him, but DeVane volleyed with some more loud ones. The bartender put through a call.
Within minutes, Leonard was down from the gaming club and at DeVane’s elbow, an elbow that was still hoisting more booze down his throat. He told DeVane that he had to leave the club, and he had to leave now. A taxi was waiting to take him home.
Vince reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys and handed them to Isabel. ‘I’ll meet you back at my place.’
‘Where are you going?’
Vince nodded towards DeVane, whose tight little frame was surging upwards with rage and remonstrating with pointed fingers at the dead-eyed, immovable, implacable Leonard.
Isabel looked at her old friend, with his booze-mad eyes and his angry spittle-propellant of a mouth, and got the message. If she felt any pity for him, she wasn’t showing it. She was all business and on with the programme. She took the keys, collected her coat from the cloakroom, and left the club as stealthily as a cat slipping out the kitchen door.
Nicky DeVane was meanwhile being ejected from the club by Leonard, and Vince followed. As he stepped out from under the club’s striped canopy, he saw Nicky DeVane negotiate both the kerb and the waiting cab. Leonard stood watching too, and the two men glanced at each other. Vince could almost hear him wondering, Who is that masked man?
Then Leonard’s cold eyes caught fire and he said: ‘Goodnight, Detective Treadwell.’
‘Goodnight, Leonard.’
Leonard, no doubt in a hurry now to inform his superiors about-faced and went back into the club. Vince made his way over to DeVane, who was just about to close the cab door when Vince jumped into the taxi beside him.
‘Shift up, Nicky,’ he said to DeVane with the reassuring conviviality of an old friend. And, in the conspiratorial tone of a kidnapper, he instructed the taxi driver: ‘The Criterion.’
‘Good idea!’ said DeVane. ‘I could use a drink!’
‘I’m right ahead of you, Nicky.’
‘Who are you? The big bad wolf? Well, I’m no little Red Riding Hood – or the three little piggies for that matter, or . . . Who are . . .’ Vince then took off his mask. ‘Ah, the detective. I’ve got some bloody stories to tell you!’
Vince smiled. ‘Again, Nicky, I’m right ahead of you.’
CHAPTER 50
The bar of the Criterion International Hotel was big, badly lit, modern and very anonymous. If there were other people in it, they didn’t register any more than the plastic palms, the innocuous piped lounge music or the velour décor. Once seated at the long bar, DeVane ordered up another Long Island ice tea. Vince slipped the barman a folded five-pound note and told him to keep them coming, but keep them light on the spirits and heavy on the Coke and soda. He didn’t want DeVane living up to his reputation as a lightweight and taking a nap in the bar nuts, just as he had done at the Imperial.
‘Ahhhh,’ Nicky said, taking his first sip as if he’d just sailed through the desert using his tongue as a rudder. ‘Now, do tell me, Detective, what can I do for you?’
Vince took the pack of cards out of his pocket, split the pack and gave them an expert shuffle, folding them into each other one way, then making them arc and fold into each other the other way. He then fanned them out like a choreographed troop of Busby Berkeley dancers.
‘Oh, bravo, maestro. I see you’ve done this before.’
‘I’m not much of a card player,’ said Vince. ‘To be honest, I find sitting around waiting for your luck to show up rather dull. But I did learn a couple of tricks. It impresses the girls, eh, Nicky?’
‘Quite so, Detective.’
‘That time I went to your studio, I saw you doing a neat little card trick, too. The g
irls looked impressed.’
Nicky smiled at the thought, then quickly looked around him, as if he had mislaid something. ‘Where are they?’
‘The girls? You left them at the Montcler. It’s okay, we don’t need them now.’
DeVane discharged a town-drunk hiccup, then said, ‘What on earth were you doing at the ball?’
‘I have high friends in low places. Tell me about the card tricks you know.’
‘Card tricks? I’ve forgotten most of them. I used to do magic at school. Never much of a lad for sports, but I was one of the youngest to gain entry into the Magic Circle. At school it was a marvellous way to avoid bullying and buggery. And, eventually, as you say, Detective, a way to get the girls. Vince, isn’t it?’ Vince nodded. ‘May I call you . . .’
‘I’d be offended if you didn’t.’Vince handed him the playing cards. ‘Show me a trick, Nicky.’ DeVane, happy to be asked, picked up the pack of cards and gave them a confident shuffle.
Vince then said: ‘Show me the trick Johnny Beresford was pulling with Billy Hill.’
On hearing this, DeVane fluffed his shuffle, and the cards cascaded from his hands and the smile fell from his face.
‘I know all about Beresford and Billy Hill, and the card scam. You lied to me, Nicky. You lied to me under police questioning, which is a bit like lying under oath. You told me that you didn’t know Bernie Korshank, that you’d only met him once, briefly, at the Imperial. You lied, because I know he came to your studio and you took his picture. You were so proud of your work, you even signed your name in the corner.’
DeVane looked flushed, but not in a good way. ‘Yes, I’m sorry, I did know him. I met him through Johnny. Silly of me to lie, but I panicked, you see. I didn’t mean to—’
‘Yeah, you panicked, Nicky, because Bernie Korshank works for Billy Hill, and that puts you in the frame with him.’Vince watched as a big tear bellyflopped into DeVane’s drink. He almost felt sorry for him. It was a bad night for the dapper snapper, and it was getting progressively worse. Vince felt so very sorry for him that he upped the ante. ‘I spoke to Billy Hill. He came round to see me, and we chatted. Affable fellow. Even reasonable, up to a point.’
‘What did he . . .’
‘I know you were in on the card scam with Johnny Beresford.’ Vince didn’t know, but he suspected. But now he did know, because there was no denial from DeVane. ‘I could haul you in right now for card cheating at the Montcler, and let’s see where it leads us. You think you’ve been ostracized now? Wait until that shit hits the fan – and the papers.’ Nicky looked up at Vince with sodden and quizzical eyes. ‘I saw what happened, Nicky, with you and Asprey and Goldsachs. I saw them mobbing up on you.’
‘I’m finished with them,’ he said, sniffing back more tears.‘They can go to hell.’
‘But it’s not them you have to worry about, Nicky. It’s Billy Hill.’Vince let that sink in, then watched as the anxiety and selfpity on the man’s face turned into unbridled fear. ‘If I put you in the frame with Billy Hill, maybe he’ll dispense his own justice. He’ll shut you up just like he did with Johnny Beresford.’
The tremulous voice asked, ‘You think . . . Billy Hill killed . . . Johnny . . .’
Vince didn’t think Billy Hill had killed Beresford, because Billy Hill told him he hadn’t. And Vince had believed him. But for the purpose of turning up the heat on the already broiling DeVane, he gave as non-committal a shrug as he could muster without falling off his stool, and said, ‘I’m not interested in card cheating, Nicky. It’s murder I’m interested in. Always was, always will be. And I think you know more than you’re telling me.’
‘I know nothing.’
‘I think you know everything. Asprey’s washed his hands of you. You’ve been hung out to dry. But I can help you. I can keep your name out of the card cheating, and away from Billy Hill. So if you know what’s good for you, you’ll tell me everything. Everything.’
Nicky DeVane looked as drained as his glass. As one of the only two customers sitting at the long bar, Vince easily caught the attention of the complicit young barman, who was reading a copy of Playboy that he had stashed under the counter. Again he went in heavy on the fizz and light on the firewater. Nicky DeVane took on board some heavy slugs of his drink and, along with them, Vince’s words. He knew he was backed into a corner that could potentially turn into a dead end. Because he knew Billy Hill was bad news. And now, he thought, that the news had just got worse: Billy Hill had lived up to his underworld reputation as a ruthless operator and killed Johnny Beresford. These were the thoughts running through Nicky DeVane’s head, because these were the thoughts Vince had put in his head. And this is why Nicky DeVane now told Vince everything.
‘Johnny was scared. A friend of his, Hugh McGowan, used to own the Hideaway club in Soho, until he got muscled out by two brothers from the East End. A deeply unpleasant duo. You may have heard about it?’
‘Everyone heard about it, Nicky. It was in all the papers.’
‘Quite so. Well, Johnny had warned Aspers that you had to be careful with these people, Billy Hill and his ilk. You couldn’t just use them and discard them. It’s like a Faustian pact. So, to get Billy Hill off his back, he told Aspers about a card scam he’d been working on. It was called the Gilded Edge.’
Vince picked the Montcler playing cards up off the bar and fanned them out, their gilded edges glistening under the available bar light. Nicky eyed the cards and said: ‘Aspers liked the sound of it. He certainly liked it more than just giving Billy Hill money. And it was a way for them to “win” more money, which they needed.’ Vince’s eyebrows arched in surprise at this, and Nicky DeVane clarified. ‘Things weren’t as rosy in the garden as they seemed. Johnny’s luck in business had soured some time ago, and he had recently taken some heavy losses in certain big investments. And Aspers had sunk a fortune into turning a country pile he’d bought in Canterbury into a private zoo. He used to joke that feeding monkeys doesn’t cost peanuts. So they could both do with the money.’
‘And not forgetting greed.’
‘Quite so,’ conceded DeVane. ‘Anyway, Aspers gave the goahead, but he laid down the ground rules. They were only to cheat certain players, obviously ones that they didn’t care too much about. And if they got rumbled, well, one of them would have to take the fall. And that one was to be Johnny, since Aspers would plead total innocence and ignorance of the matter. He wouldn’t know a thing about it. Fair dos, thought Johnny, what good would it do to drop them both in it?’
‘What indeed,’ deadpanned Vince. ‘So what was your part in it, Nicky?’
‘For the scam to work, Johnny needed someone else to go along with it and read the cards with him, and share the luck, as it were. To be honest, Vince, me and Johnny had been rigging games and cheating at cards since Eton. We used to subtly bend the corners of the pack: a high-value card would be bent upwards, low-value downwards. It was an old magician’s trick I learned in the Magic Circle. What you do is hold the cards lightly, and shuffle gently so as to maintain the bend at the edges. Of course, it was never guaranteed, but it gave you odds of about 60 to 65 per cent. Enough of an edge to come out on top.’
‘What were the odds for the Gilded Edge?’
‘Bigger and better. Johnny had twenty/twenty vision, so I’d say at least 80 per cent, maybe more. Johnny and Aspers made a lot of money that way. Certainly enough to satisfy Billy Hill with his cut.’
‘And your cut?’
‘I got a flat fee. When my father died, I got clobbered with death duties, and it paid those with change to spare.’
‘So you, Johnny Beresford, James Asprey and Billy Hill. Who else knew about it?’
Nicky DeVane pursed his lips in a gesture of serious thought, then gravely replied, ‘It was top secret. I mean top secret. Loose lips sinks ships, and all that. I never talked to anyone about it – not even to Johnny. We just did what we did, and he would give me an envelope with my payment once a month. Sometimes it was more tha
n I expected, sometimes it was less, but I never questioned it either way. And I never discussed it with him, even when we were alone together. I did mention it once, in a roundabout sort of way, and Johnny gave me such a baleful look that I never mentioned it again. It was the great unsaid. If it ever got out, it could have ruined us all. Plus the fact Billy Hill was involved, so there was the added factor of fear.’
‘How about Simon Goldsachs – did he need the money too?’
DeVane detected the irony in Vince’s voice and replied, ‘God, no. Simon’s aiming to be the richest man on the planet . . . wouldn’t surprise me if he gets there. But I assume that he knew. He does have a share in the Montcler, after all, and he and Aspers are as thick as thieves. As you witnessed tonight.’ DeVane looked bitter, then took another swig of his drink, swilling it around like mouthwash before sucking it down. ‘It was the things Simon used to say, in a roundabout sort of way, that made me think he knew all about it. Simon was always warning Aspers to be careful with his animals, saying that wild animals could never be fully tamed or trusted. But it was the way he said it, very analogous, so I always thought maybe he was referring to Billy Hill and his ilk. And if you’re right about him killing Johnny, it was good advice.’
‘How about the other two, Lucan and Guy Ruley?’
‘Lucky?’ DeVane asked, before shaking his head dismissively. ‘As you know yourself, he’s far too unbalanced. A degenerate addict of a gambler, so he could never be trusted.’
‘Guy Ruley?’
DeVane gave a listless shrug that seemed to sum up his attitude towards Ruley, then qualified it with, ‘I’ve never got on with Guy. Never had much to say to him. Simon Goldsachs gets on with him, respects what he does. Something in mining and engineering . . . all sounds very . . .’
‘Practical? Useful?’
‘Boring.’
‘Ah.’
Gilded Edge, The Page 37
