The Graveyard Shift

by Jack Higgins

  He took a deep breath. ‘What in the hell is that thing on your head?’

  Nick took it off with a slight smile. ‘This, sir? It’s what the Germans call a Schildtmütze. Everyone will be wearing them soon.’

  ‘God save us from that,’ Grant said, sitting behind his desk.

  ‘Something wrong, sir?’

  ‘Oh, no, if you want to go around looking like one of those burks who stands behind the ­good-looking bird in the adverts in the women’s magazines, good luck to you.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, that’s exactly how I do want to look, sir,’ Nick replied calmly.

  Grant glanced up sharply, suddenly conscious that he was being taken by this supremely confident young man and discovering at the same moment – and this was the most surprising thing of all – that he didn’t really mind.

  He started to smile and Nick smiled right back at him.

  ‘All right, damn you, one point each. Now sit down and let’s get started.’

  Nick unbuttoned his coat, sat in the chair opposite and lit a cigarette as Grant continued. ‘Brady’s getting you all the files you’ll need for background on this one, but these are the main facts. Nine years ago, Ben Garvald, one of our better known citizens, went down the steps for a ten stretch. He was released from Wandsworth yesterday morning.’

  ‘And you’re expecting him back?’

  ‘His wife is, his ex-wife I should say. That’s Bella Garvald. She divorced Ben and married Harry Faulkner five years ago.’

  ‘Harry Faulkner the bookie?’

  ‘Never let him hear you call him that, son. Turf Accountant sounds better. He hasn’t soiled his hands with a ready money bet in years. Got his fingers in all sorts of pies these days. Even runs his own football pool.’

  ‘That isn’t all he runs,’ Nick said. ‘From what I remember when I was on the pavement in Central Division, he owned half the cat houses in Gascoigne Square.’

  Grant shook his head quickly. ‘Try proving it, and in any case, that isn’t what we’re interested in tonight. It’s Ben Garvald we’re after.’

  ‘He’s in town?’

  ‘That’s what I want you to find out and in a hurry. Apparently he made the usual threats to his wife when the divorce went through. She’s afraid he’s going to show up and spoil her rich full life. Especially tonight. She’s throwing a big party for Harry at their place in St Martin’s Wood. It’s his birthday.’

  ‘How touching,’ Nick said. ‘She’s made an official complaint?’

  ‘Her sister has. That’s a Jean Fleming. She’s a teacher. Runs her own prep school in Oakdene on the York Road near the city boundary.’

  Nick had pulled Grant’s desk pad forward and was making rapid notes and now he looked up sharply, a frown on his face. ‘Fleming – Jean and Bella Fleming. I wonder if they could be the same?’

  ‘They were both raised in Khyber Street, that’s on the south side of the river.’

  ‘That’s it,’ Nick said. ‘My mother kept a shop on the Hull Road just around the corner from Khyber Street. I lived there till I was ten, then we moved to a bigger place in Brentwood.’

  ‘You remember them?’

  ‘I couldn’t forget Bella. She was the best known tart in the district. Half the population did nothing else except wait for her to walk by. One of life’s great experiences. I was too young, I didn’t know what was happening to me. I do now.’

  ‘And never been the same since,’ Grant said. ‘What about Jean?’

  Nick shrugged. ‘Just a scrawny kid about my own age. I don’t think we ever did more than pass the time of day. They didn’t use our shop. My old lady wouldn’t give credit.’

  The door opened and Brady came in, a pile of files under his arm. He ignored Nick and said to Grant, ‘Where do you want these?’

  ‘In the outer office.’ Grant looked enquiringly at Nick. ‘Need any help? You haven’t got much time.’

  ‘Up to you,’ Nick said, ignoring Brady.

  ‘All right, Jack can give you a hand for half an hour. If you want any advice, just come in.’

  He pulled a file forward and Nick got to his feet and walked into the outer office. As he took off his raincoat and hung it on a stand, Brady dropped the files on one of the desks.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ he said woodenly.

  ‘That depends,’ Nick said. ‘What have you got there?’

  ‘Garvald’s personal file and the files on everyone else who was close to him.’

  ‘Fine,’ Nick said. ‘I’ll take Garvald myself. You start making abstracts of the others.’

  Brady didn’t argue. He left Garvald’s file on the desk, picked up the rest, and went to his own desk in the corner by the window and started to work immediately.

  Nick opened Garvald’s file and examined the ID card. The face which stared out at him was tough, even ruthless, but there was strength there and intelligence, even a suggestion of humour in the slight quirk at one side of the mouth.

  As usual, the card carried the briefest of details and referred only to the offence and charges for which Garvald had last been sent down, namely factory breaking and the stealing of £15,817, the property of Steel Amalgamated Ltd. of Sheffield.

  The story contained in the confidential file attached was even more interesting.

  Ben Garvald had served for two years in the Marine Commando during the war, being demobilized in 1946. Three months later he was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment for conspiracy to steal.

  A charge of conspiracy to rob the mails had been dropped for lack of evidence in 1949,

  and in 1950 he had been recalled from the

  reserve to fight in Korea. A bullet in the leg had brought him home in the early part of 1951 with a permanent limp and a 331⁄3 per cent disability pension.

  Between then and his final conviction in June 1956, he had been questioned by the police on no less then twenty-seven occasions in connection with indictable offences.

  The door to Grant’s office opened and he came out, a cigarette dangling between his lips. ‘Got a light?’ Nick struck a match and the Superintendent sat on the edge of the desk. ‘How are you getting on?’

  ‘Quite a character,’ Nick said. ‘From the looks of this, they’ve tried to hang about every charge in the book on him at one time or another.’

  ‘Except for living on immoral earnings and that sort of thing, you’re probably right,’ Grant said. ‘A funny bloke, Ben Garvald. Every villain in town was frightened to death of him and yet where women were concerned, he was like someone out of one of those books they like reading. He treated Bella like a princess.’

  ‘Which would explain why he was so cut up when she decided to divorce him. I’ve just got to the entry on his last job, the one he got sent down for.’

  ‘I can save you some time there,’ Grant said. ‘I handled it myself at this end. Garvald and three associates lifted over fifteen thousand quid from the Steel Amalgamated works in Birmingham. Wages for the following day. The daft beggars never learn and I don’t mean Garvald and his pals. Anyway, they didn’t hit the nightwatchman hard enough, he raised the alarm and Birmingham police sewed the city up tight.’

  ‘Too late?’

  ‘Not quite. There were two cars. One of them crashed and went up like a torch taking a well-known peterman called Jack Charlton and his driver up with it.’

  ‘And Garvald?’

  ‘He and the other bloke crashed a road block and got clean away. We lifted Garvald next day and the nightwatchman picked him out at an identity parade with no trouble at all.’

  ‘And the money?’

  ‘Garvald said it was in the other car.’

  ‘A likely story.’

  ‘Strangely enough I was inclined to believe him. We certainly found traces of some of it in the ashes. That’s as far as we got anyway and we didn’t get the other man.’

  ‘So Garvald kept his mouth shut?’

  ‘True to the code. Went down the steps like a man.’
>
  ‘The bloke who was with him in the car that night, did you have any fancy ideas at the time?’

  ‘Plenty and they all came down to Fred Manton.’

  ‘Manton?’ Nick frowned. ‘Doesn’t he run that place in Gascoigne Square – The Flamingo Club?’

  Grant nodded. ‘He and Garvald were partners in a small club on the other side of the river at the time of the robbery. Trouble was, too many customers came forward to swear that Fred Manton had been in the club all night and one or two of them were pretty respectable citizens.’

  ‘Has Manton got any form?’

  Brady crossed the office and placed a foolscap sheet in front of him. ‘There’s an abstract of his file.’

  Nick examined it quickly. Frederick Manton, 44, club owner, Gascoigne Square, Manningham. Four previous convictions including thirty months for conspiracy to steal; larceny; loitering with intent. On eighteen occasions the police had thought he might be able to help them with their enquiries, but Manton had always managed to walk right down the Town Hall steps again.

  ‘Let’s suppose you were right about Manton after all,’ he said to Grant. ‘And that the cash from the Steel Amalgamated job didn’t go up in smoke. A place like the Flamingo must have cost a lot to get started. It would be understandable if Garvald turned up and wanted a slice of the cake.’

  ‘Ingenious, but there’s only one fault.’ Grant got to his feet and moved towards his office. ‘Harry Faulkner owns the Flamingo Club. Fred Manton’s just hired help as far as he’s concerned and don’t try to drag Harry Faulkner into this. His cars are worth fifteen grand alone.’

  The door closed behind him and Nick looked up at Brady. ‘What about the rest?’

  ‘There are nine here, all people he was pretty thick with,’ Brady said. ‘Five of them are in one nick or another. Four are still around. They’re on top.’

  He dropped the abstracts on Nick’s desk, walked to Grant’s door, opened it and leaned inside. ‘All right if I take my break now?’

  Grant glanced at his watch. ‘Fine, Jack, see you back here about midnight.’

  Brady closed the door, took his raincoat from the stand, and pulled it on as he went out into the corridor. He stood at the wire grill of the lift shaft impatiently pressing the button.

  If Ben Garvald was in town, there was one place he was bound to go, one person he was certain to visit. That much was obvious to anyone with any experience and if he was there, he – Jack Brady – would have him back at Headquarters within an hour at the outside while that clever sod Miller walked the pavements looking for him. It would be interesting to see what Grant had to say then. When he got into the lift, he was trembling with excitement.

  Chapter 5

  Round about the time Jean Fleming was having her interview with Grant, Garvald was dropping off a truck at a bus stop on the North Circular Ring Road that linked the city with the A1. Ten minutes later, he boarded the first bus to come along and left it half a mile from the city centre, going the rest of the way on foot.

  The journey from London could have taken no more than a comfortable four hours in a Pullman car, but that would have been too conspicuous an entrance into the city under the circumstances.

  There were people to see, things to be done, accounts to be settled – notably Sammy Rosco’s – but first he needed a base from which to operate.

  He found what he was looking for without too much trouble, a third-rate hotel in a back street near the centre of town. When he went in, a woman in a blue nylon overall was sitting behind the reception desk reading a magazine. She could have been anywhere between twenty-five and thirty with dark curling hair and bold black eyes.

  Garvald rested an elbow on the desk. ‘And who might you be?’

  She closed the magazine, a spark of interest in her eyes and responded to his mood. ‘A poor Irish girl trying to make an honest living in a hard land.’

  ‘God save the good work,’ Garvald said. ‘You can give me a room for a start. A room with a bath.’

  ‘All our rooms have a bath,’ she said calmly. ‘There’s one at the end of the corridor on each floor.’

  She took a key down from the board, lifted the flap of the reception desk and led the way up the stairs.

  The room was no better and no worse than he had expected with the usual heavy Victorian furniture and a worn carpet. A modern washbasin with tiled splashback had been fitted in one corner. He dropped his holdall on a chair, walked to the window and looked down into the street as the woman turned back the bedspread.

  ‘Will that be all?’ she said.

  Garvald turned. ‘Any chance of a drink?’

  ‘We aren’t licensed. There’s a pub down the street.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not to worry. I could do with an early night, anyway.’

  She dropped the key on the dressing-table.

  ‘Anything you want, just ring. I’m on call all night.’

  Garvald grinned. ‘The thought of that’s more than flesh and blood can stand.’

  She smiled right back at him and the door closed behind her. Garvald’s grin disappeared and he lit a cigarette, sat on the edge of the bed and leafed through the phone book. There was no entry for Sammy Rosco and he sat there for a while, a slight frown on his face, trying to think of someone he could trust. Someone from the old days who might still be around.

  He discarded the names as they came to him one by one, and was left finally with only Chuck Lazer, the quiet American who’d been resident pianist at the old One-Spot when Garvald and Fred Manton had run it together.

  But Chuck would never have stayed on, couldn’t have. He’d have gone back to the States years before, so much was obvious and yet, when Garvald looked in the phone book again, the name jumped out at him. Chuck Lazer – 15 Baron’s Court.

  He reached for the telephone, hesitated, then changed his mind. This was something that would be handled better in person. He pulled on his hat and left, locking the door behind him.

  At the head of the stairs he hesitated, then moved along the corridor and tried a door at the end. It opened on to a narrow flight of dark stairs and he went down quickly, a stale smell of cooking rising to meet him through the darkness. At the bottom, he found himself in a dimly lit passage facing a door. He opened it and stepped into the alley at the side of the hotel.

  To save time he took a taxi from a rank in City Square. Lazer’s address was not far from the University, a district of tall, decaying Victorian houses which had, in the main, been converted into cheap boarding houses or flats.

  Garvald followed a narrow path through an overgrown garden and mounted several steps to a large porch. He could hear laughter from somewhere inside and music as he examined the name cards beneath the row of bell pushes.

  Chuck Lazer had Flat 5 on the third floor and Garvald opened the door and moved into the hall. As he closed it behind him, a door on his right opened, music and laughter flooding out and a young man with tousled hair and a fringe of beard emerged, carrying a crate of empty bottles.

  Garvald paused at the bottom of the stairs. ‘Chuck Lazer wouldn’t happen to be in there, would he?’

  ‘Good God, no,’ the young man said. ‘Booze and bints, that’s all we go in for, old man. Not Chuck’s style at all. You’ll probably find him in his pit.’

  He disappeared along the corridor and Garvald mounted the stairs quickly, a slight frown on his face, wondering what all that was supposed to mean.

  It was strangely remote from things up there on the third floor and the music sounded faint and unreal like something from another world. Garvald checked the card on the door, listened for a moment, then knocked. There was no reply and when he reached for the handle, the door opened to his touch.

  The stench was overpowering, a compound of stale sweat, urine and cooking odours mixed with some other indefinable essence that for the moment escaped him.

  He switched on the light and looked around the cluttered, filthy room to the narrow bed against the far
wall and the half naked man who sprawled on it face down. Garvald opened a window wide, drawing the damp, foggy air deep into his lungs, then lit a cigarette and turned to the bed again.

  On top of a small bedside locker were littered the gear which told the story. A hypodermic with several needles, most of them dirty and blunted. Heroin and cocaine bottles, both empty, a cup still half-full of water, a small glass bottle, its base discoloured from the match flame and a litter of burned-out matches.

  The bare arm hanging over the side of the bed was dotted with needle marks, some of them scabbed over where infection had set in. Garvald took a deep breath and turned Lazer on his back.

  The American’s face was fleshless, gaunt from malnutrition, a dark beard giving him the appearance of an emaciated saint. He stirred once and Garvald slapped him across the face. The eyelids fluttered in an uncontrollable muscular spasm, then opened, the dark eyes staring blindly into an eternity of hell.

  ‘Chuck, it’s me,’ Garvald said. ‘Ben Garvald.’

  Lazer stared blankly at him and Garvald placed his cigarette between the man’s lips. Lazer inhaled deeply and started to cough in great, wrenching spasms that seemed to tear at his entire body. When he finally managed to stop, he was shivering uncontrollably and his nose was running.

  Garvald threw a blanket over his shoulders. ‘It’s me, Chuck, Ben Garvald,’ he said again.

  ‘I read you, loud and clear, Dad. Loud and clear.’ Lazer started to shiver again and pulled the blanket up around his neck. ‘Christ, I need a fix. Oh, sweet Jesus, I need a fix.’ He took a great shuddering breath as if making a real effort to get control and looked up at Garvald. ‘Long time no see, Ben.’

  ‘Thanks for all the letters.’

  ‘There was never anything worth saying.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. What about Bella?’

  ‘A harlot, Benny boy. A lovely whore, dancing with tinkling cymbals to the tune of whoever tossed the largest gold piece.’

  ‘They tell me she got married again.’

  ‘The pot of gold, Benny boy. The end of the rainbow. Didn’t you know?’