2 The Imposter

by Mark Dawson

  He flushed. “Let’s see what Joseph and Chiara think about that.”

  She waved that aside and took another sip from her glass. “That doesn’t really matter.” She smiled thinly at him and, again, he was put in mind of a predator addressing its prey. “There’s one other thing you should know. I had a letter from Victor last week. He’s coming home. Next month, or the month after that. He is everything my brother was, and more. He’s better than Joseph––you won’t be able to pull the wool over his eyes quite so easily. He’ll see you for precisely what you are. A parasite. A leech. And we won’t need you then. You will be of no further use. And Victor will brush you off.”

  * * *

  THE GUESTS SPREAD out beneath the huge marquee, some dancing on the wooden platform that had been set out as the dance-floor, others sitting at long tables piled high with food and gallon jugs of wine. The bride sat in her beautiful dress at the raised top table with both of her sisters––her maids of honour––together with her other bridesmaids. The band finished the first half of their set and broke for refreshments. A young Italian tailor from the Hill picked up a discarded violin, wedged it awkwardly beneath his chin, and began to sing a Sicilian love song. Edward walked around the perimeter of the tent, trying to forget the conversation with Violet. He managed to smile warmly at those guests who caught his eye, a few of the men reaching back from their tables to shake his hand. Joseph was sitting with Eve, his hand resting on her knee beneath the table. Jimmy was in conversation with an older woman Edward did not recognise, a smile playing on his lips. Violet, Chiara and her sisters were talking animatedly.

  Edward found his way to the entrance of the tent. It was a beautiful evening, shafts of golden sunlight falling on the freshly cut lawns that rolled down to the lake. He allowed himself to daydream. He imagined their honeymoon, landing in Sicily, the first time he had returned there since the accident that had seemingly doomed him to a life without the status he cherished. He thought about the burning sun, the startlingly blue sea, the sluggishness in the air. He thought about the woman in the harbour, the furious argument after she had confronted him and then, eventually, his hands pressing down on her shoulders until her thrashing and kicking became spasmodic and, finally, stopped.

  A foul memory he would try and forget.

  It meant nothing now.

  He turned and looked back at Halewell Close, the imposing spires rising above the ridge of the marquee. It was a marvellous place and it was such a shame that it had been allowed to fall into decrepitude. The Costellos did not really appreciate it. It was just another bauble to own for them. Edward saw it for what it was, respected all the history that it must have seen, and valued it.

  Damn Violet.

  Damn Victor.

  Damn them both.

  He would have the house, in due course, and when he did, he would look after it properly.

  He caught himself. For a moment, it felt as if it were something that he must have imagined. Was it all real? Had he really done it? Perhaps he was still in the jungle; a fever dream, sweating under canvas somewhere.

  He walked away from the tent, down the sloping lawns to the boathouse.

  He smelt the aromas emanating from the cook tent, felt the moisture on the breeze coming off the lake.

  He wasn’t imagining it. It was true. He had done it. He would have the house, and one in France, and one in Italy. He would keep his London apartment. He would have cars, all the newest models, and a new suit whenever he felt like one. He would have everything that he wanted. Everything that he deserved. He ran his fingers along the splintered balustrade that guarded the drop to the water below and thought back to the night he had stood with Joseph on the same spot, and agreed to rob a house with him. It was less than a year ago although it seemed longer than that. He looked into the gently rolling waves, stirred by the breeze, and thought of Billy Stavropoulos. There had been a week of bad dreams in the immediate aftermath of that night on the sea. Billy would appear at the foot of his bed, dripping wet, with seaweed festooned over his head and across his shoulders, limpets stuck to his face. He would stand over Edward’s sleeping body, staring down at him, his eyes a filmy white as salt water puddled around his feet. Sometimes, when the dream was at its worse, Billy would be joined by a second figure. A woman, barnacles on her fingers like rings. Occasionally, every now and again, Jack Spot would loom behind her, a bloody hole cratering the middle of his face. Edward would stir with a sudden start, sweating, wondering for that first instant of wakefulness what was real and what was the dream. After the first week, the nightmare passed. He rarely had it now.

  He turned back to face the marquee. The evening sun was low; he had to shield his eyes and yet it was still getting cold. He allowed himself a final moment of peacefulness before he made his way back up the lawn and into the tent.

  He was intercepted before he was halfway there.

  “Jack Stern?”

  His stomach plunged.

  “Excuse me––Mr. Stern?”

  He turned.

  A man was coming towards him.

  He was solidly-built, in his mid-forties, and carried a leather briefcase. He had salt-and-pepper coloured hair, cut very short on the sides, and a solid jaw covered with just a little too much flesh, like the rest of him. His face was the very picture of inscrutability. One couldn’t tell a thing from that face, Edward thought. Whoever he was, he was a professional.

  “I’m sorry?” he said. “Do I know you?”

  “My name is Arthur MacCauley,” he said. “I’m a private detective.”

  “A private detective?”

  “My client has engaged me to try and find the man in this photograph.” He reached into his briefcase and took out a newspaper. He held it up: it was the article that Henry Drake had written with Edward’s picture next to it. “This is you, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. That was almost a year ago.”

  “Yes, I know. It only just came to my attention. How about this?”

  Edward looked at the photograph that the man held up. It was of a young man, in his early twenties, his hair cut fashionably short, his skin fresh and clear. He was well dressed in a dinner jacket, a white shirt and a black bow-tie. He was next to another man, similarly dressed, his arm around his shoulders. Both of them were smiling broadly, staring right into the camera. It was him. He could remember where the picture had been taken.

  Cannes.

  Eight years ago.

  A world away.

  Another lifetime.

  “No, that’s not me.”

  “Please, Mr. Stern. Really?”

  “I’m sorry,” he protested, “but it isn’t.”

  He lowered his voice a little. “Let’s not make a scene, Jack. Alright? What do you say? I know today’s your wedding.”

  “That’s right––it is my wedding. And you’re trespassing, sir. If you don’t leave I’m afraid I’m going to have to call the police.”

  He smiled at him. Completely unthreatened. “You want to do that?”

  Edward almost turned away from the man, ready to leave him there on the lawn, but he stopped and, in that second, he anticipated his defeat and the consequences of it. Exposure. Disgrace. Scandal. He changed his mind. No, he thought. He wasn’t finished. He could carry this off, just as he had carried everything off before. The show wasn’t over yet. He fabricated a sigh. “Jesus Christ. But at least let me smoke a cigarette first?”

  “And then we go back to London.”

  He reached into the pocket where his cigarettes were and felt the sharp point of the letter opener. He turned and pointed down the lawns to the lake and the boathouse. “It’s quieter down there. We can talk about whatever you want.”

  “After you,” MacCauley said.

  The Soho Noir series begins with THE BLACK MILE. For a free sample of the first chapter, read on.

  CHAPTER 1

  MONDAY, 10th JUNE 1940

  DETECTIVE INSPECTOR FRANK MURPHY stepped away from th
e girl’s body and went to the window; the yelling from the crowd outside was louder. He pulled the thick black-out curtains aside. It was dusk, eight o’clock, a silvery moon rising above the rooftops. An ARP Warden walked his rounds; tarts and their johns found their alleys; tail-gunners from the Piccadilly Circus Meat Rack flounced theatrically, touting for trade. The noise was coming from the junction with Frith Street, away to the right. A large crowd had gathered outside the Vesuvio Restaurant. A dozen bobbies had formed a buffer and two mounted officers kept skittish horses in line. Frank watched as a pair of men were led out of the front door, escorted on either side by lads from Tottenham Court Road C.I.D. The crowd bayed as a couple of the woodentops stepped up to clear a path to the Black Maria parked by the kerb.

  The restaurant’s large plate glass window shattered as a brick was flung through it.

  “It’s getting worse,” Frank said. He watched as the two men were put into the meat wagon. Locals hammered their fists against the sides. “What a mess.”

  Detective Sergeant Harry Sparks was going through the girl’s belongings. “Mussolini getting chummy with Hitler, that’s that as far as I’m concerned—we can’t take chances with ‘em. Risk of a Fifth Column, that’s what they’re saying. Best keep them out of the way for the duration.”

  Frank let the curtain fall back across the window. “Maybe,” he said. He turned back into the room. It was a tart’s lumber, a cheap single room where punters would come up to get what they’d bought with their oncer: five minutes of slap and tickle and a dose of the clap so bad it’d peel the jewels right off. Cheap furniture, dirty clothes strewn about, unwashed pots and pans in the sink. Squalid. The business transacted inside was gruesome and desperate but it was hardly novel. Frank had seen plenty of rooms like this in Soho and Fitzrovia, especially in the last month.

  A neighbour had noticed the door had been shut for three days and had stopped the local bobby. The woodentop had put his size twelve through the flimsy door and discovered the poor girl. Her body was spread out across the single divan. Her tongue protruded from between bluish lips and the bruises around her throat were dark and evocative, the shape of fingers from where they would have met beneath her chin. She had been stabbed a dozen times, probably more than a dozen, and her blood was on the walls, the floor, soaked into the bedding.

  “What do you want me to do, guv?”

  “Wake Spilsbury up—he better take a look.”

  “What do you reckon?”

  Frank looked at the girl: seventeen or eighteen if she was a day, a grim and brutal life cut short. He’d been working on the case like every other detective on the manor and he recognised the handiwork. “It’s him.”

  He was sure. He’d only taken five days’ rest this time.

  Whoever this poor doxy was, she was one of his.

  Number five.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mark Dawson is the author of the breakout John Milton, Beatrix Rose and Soho Noir series. He makes his online home at www.markjdawson.com. You can connect with Mark on Twitter at @pbackwriter, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ markdawsonauthor and you should send him an email at mark@markjdawson.com if the mood strikes you.

  ALSO BY MARK DAWSON

  Have you read them all?

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  Free to download here

  The Black Mile

  London, 1940: the Luftwaffe blitzes London every night for fifty-seven nights. Houses, shops and entire streets are wiped from the map. The underworld is in flux: the Italian criminals who dominated the West End have been interned and now their rivals are fighting to replace them. Meanwhile, hidden in the shadows, the Black-Out Ripper sharpens his knife and sets to his grisly work.

  Buy it here

  The Imposter

  War hero Edward Fabian finds himself drawn into a criminal family’s web of vice and soon he is an accomplice to their scheming. But he's not the man they think he is - he's far more dangerous than they could possibly imagine.

  Buy it here

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  In this dip into his case files, John Milton is sent into North Korea. With nothing but a sniper rifle, bad intentions and a very particular target, will Milton be able to take on the secret police of the most dangerous failed state on the planet?

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  John Milton has been off the grid for six months. He surfaces in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and immediately finds himself drawn into a vicious battle with the narco-gangs that control the borderlands.

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  When a girl he d
rives to a party goes missing, John Milton is worried. Especially when two dead bodies are discovered and the police start treating him as their prime suspect.

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  Ghosts

  John Milton is blackmailed into finding his predecessor as Number One. But she's a ghost, too, and just as dangerous as him. He finds himself in deep trouble, playing the Russians against the British in a desperate attempt to save the life of his oldest friend.

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  Salvation Row (summer 2014)