by James White
“And Ramona was a lead?”
“She was moving in circles that brought her to our attention, specifically with some of the German company she was keeping. We’re increasingly worried about the situation in Germany and in particular the aims of some factions with respect to Britain.”
“Do you know the names of anyone she met?”
“Yes, we observed her talking to men affiliated with the Italian Government and with the German National Socialists on two occasions at clubs.”
To Carruthers’ obvious astonishment, Nick let out a laugh.
“Talking to men? She was a nightclub hostess.”
“Quite, but these men were not savoury types.”
“Most men in nightclubs aren’t,” observed Nick dryly.
“Something you would know all about.”
“You know what I think? I think you’re clutching at straws because you’re frightened of what you don’t know. Maybe Ramona was a lead, maybe she wasn’t, but when you heard I’d reported the murder you leapt on it because it slotted into place because of my past. You hoped if you leaned on me you might learn something new. Or, should I say, something, because you seem to have an awful lot of nothing at the moment.”
Carruthers shuffled his feet. “It’s complicated. We don’t want to compromise what we’ve got.”
“You don’t appear to have an awful lot,” Nick sniffed.
“We have you.”
“I already told you–”
Carruthers waved his hand impatiently. “Irrelevant. You can help us, you’re trained in this, you know these streets, these people, the clubs and bars they go to.”
“I was cashiered.”
“Think of your duty, man!”
“I did my duty from 1916 onwards, more than my fair share,” Nick said quietly, “so don’t talk to me about duty. Besides duty doesn’t pay the bar tabs.”
“Ah, now we get to the crux of it. I forgot you spend your time swilling around the West End in a haze of liquor. Those must be some awfully large tabs.”
“Exactly.”
“Why does a man like you walk away from the King’s commission? For what? To spend your time skulking around the West End with gangsters and immigrants?” He shook his head. “An officer,” he sneered, “slumming it. I don’t get it.”
“You don’t have to get it.”
“It helps me if I do get it. Why aren’t you sticking with your own kind?”
“I had enough of what you’d call my own kind in the war. Have you been to war?” Nick let the question hang, enjoying the fleeting look of discomfort on Carruthers’ face before he brusquely changed the subject.
“I’ll have to get authorisation, but I’ll offer you a weekly wage of half pay from what you were on. Cash.”
“Half?” Nick shook his head.
“Look, this might be a chance for you to get back in the game. Look at you: early thirties, already washed up and washed out, living off a pension and scratching around for work from petty gangsters and their molls. This could give you something worthwhile.”
“You presume to know an awful lot about what I consider worthwhile, Mr Carruthers. Someone is already dead; I have no intention of joining them.”
“Really? I’m told you don’t remember getting home last night. No one saw you after you left the Black Horse pub dead drunk just before midnight. You can’t even tell me where you were apart from at home, on your own. You could have killed her.”
“Could have, we both know that, but didn’t.”
“Funny, our man’s at your apartment; he just found the gun there that was used to shoot Julia Cortez…”
Nick thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and felt the comforting smooth warmth of his brass knuckleduster. He had to fight the urge to smash it into Carruthers’ face. He calmed himself. “You wouldn’t.”
“And I wonder if your companion Miss De Vere would be quite so keen if she knew what happened in Vienna, and why you had to leave the FO quite so soon. Not to mention some of the very patriotic, but thoroughly nasty things you did before that. You know how this works, Mr Valentine. Hell, are you even sure you didn’t do it? I’m not.”
Nick felt his jaw twitch and he was suddenly aware of the pressure on clenched teeth. He exhaled with a hiss of air. Carruthers had voiced something that Nick had been wrestling with since he stumbled onto the body in the alleyway. He didn’t think he’d done it, but he had to admit, the possibility existed, only that would have made no sense, but then experience told him death rarely did. What price his own piece of mind?
“Well, in that case, I suppose I’ve got myself a job,” Nick replied after what felt an age.
“Good. Find out what you can. I can give you some names: Jurgen Platt, German, closest known associate of Cortez is someone we’re interested in at this point. His known associates, Bruno Manzelli, political consul at the Italian embassy, and Gunther Braun, German also. Gunther and Jurgen share a flat and run an import/export business from an office in Soho, with a warehouse in Wapping. However, you’re most likely to find them at The Blue Rose Club. You know it?”
Nick’s face gave nothing away, but his blood chilled. Clara, his girlfriend, worked at The Blue Rose. She’d been working there last night.
“I know it,” he said quietly. “Have you searched Ramona’s flat?”
“Of course. We’ve been over it with a fine toothcomb. It’s clean. Find out what you can. I want you to report only to me. We’ll meet at the Fitzroy Tavern on a Friday, when it’s busy, the artists bar downstairs, six tonight. I’ll have your money for you next time we meet. Any questions?”
Nick shook his head.
“Just so you’re clear, I don’t trust you. We’ll be watching.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” replied Nick, standing and moving to the door.
“Oh, one more thing.”
“What?” Nick paused with his palm on the door handle.
“The body had been searched, but they missed this.” Carruthers held out a small, tattered piece of paper, eyes narrowed. Nick took it. His stomach lurched. Scrawled on it in barely legible writing was Nick’s address. He nonchalantly stuffed the note in his pocket.
“Any idea why she had that?”
“None at all.”
“Of course. We’ll be watching.” Carruthers flashed that thin-lipped, insincere smile.
Nick nodded. He headed out the door, feeling Carruthers’ eyes on his back. He needed fresh air, needed it now. A prickling sensation of dread was already rising like nauseating bile, bitter in his dry mouth. The handwriting on the note was his own.
CHAPTER 2
The first thing Nick needed was a drink. He blinked in the watery sunshine as he stepped out of the police station, gulping in breaths of damp fresh air that whispered of rain to come. He paused, trembling slightly, thrust his hand in his pocket and felt the crumpled paper. He looked up at the nodding green branches, breathing hard to try to quell the nausea. Steadying himself, he stumbled shakily onward, his mind racing, trying desperately to fill in the blanks of the previous night and make sense of everything he’d just heard. The hangover didn’t help, but it was the dread coursing through him, the memories that the chat with Carruthers had brought rushing back, of dark times and darker deeds.
The Ship was nearest and Nick felt better as soon as he had a double measure of whisky in his hand. The watery sunlight outside threw dappled patterns through the stained glass panes onto the dark wood bar. Hunched in the embracing gloom of the pub, leant against the bar, Nick felt better. Better still once the first was inside him and he had a second. He should get home. By now Clara would have finished work and come around; she’d be worried not to find him there. He wondered if she’d found anyone else there; Carruthers would surely have had his apartment searched. Not that he cared. There was nothing there worth finding, or that Carruthers’ men would find, more to the point. Clara. Why did the dead girl have to know Clara? It was all too close.
Nick
didn’t like being coerced. He liked it only slightly less than he liked finding dead bodies of people he knew, or dead people he knew outside his flat with his address in their pocket. He had an idea how it had got there; Clara had mentioned that a friend of hers was having trouble with a loan, or more exactly, with the people that had loaned to her. Nick had scrawled his address on a piece of paper and told Clara to tell her friend to get in touch. He let out a sigh. He would have ended up involved in this one way or another. Somehow he didn’t think this was about a bad debt. Dead debtors don’t pay; they also don’t attract the attention of people like Carruthers. He drained his second glass of Scotch, wincing slightly, but it helped to settle the bilious feeling that had crept over him earlier, and went some way to dispelling the fatigue nagging away at the ragged edges of his eyes. He toyed with the idea of one more, idly fingering the glass, before resigning himself to heading home to face Clara and whatever else the day had to throw at him.
He’d barely slipped the key into the lock before Clara threw the door of his apartment open, concern glimmering in those pale blue eyes. Her blonde bob was ruffled, her eye makeup smudged and there was the hint of tears in the smudged mascara. Nick felt his heart wrench; Clara’s face was an open book, so expressive. He hated seeing her upset. She threw her arms around him; her head nestled against his shoulder.
“I’ve been so worried!” she sobbed.
Nick slipped his arms around her slender frame. Behind her he could see that the apartment had had a good going over by Carruthers’ goons. The furniture lay in disarray, drawers pulled out, rugs pulled up.
“I got home and the door was open. The apartment, it was like this and you were nowhere. What has happened?” The words fell out with that light Franco/Germanic lilt that Nick so loved. Perhaps he associated a Swiss accent with safety after what happened in Vienna. Her voice had certainly been one of the things that had attracted her to him, besides the obvious of her stunning looks. It was funny the power a certain voice could have to stir the emotions so powerfully.
She pulled away and looked him deep in the eyes as if looking for something. He avoided her gaze, pushed the front door shut with his heel and led her to the sofa. Pausing to pull the cushions straight, he motioned for her to sit down. She settled herself neatly, flicking back her hair so that it caught the light, a sight that still took Nick’s breath away. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Late last night, well, early this morning really, I heard a shot outside. I went out and found a body, called the police and I’ve been at the station ever since.”
“But it’s nearly midday,” Clara exclaimed. She looked around the flat, bewildered. “The police? They did this?”
“I guess so, darling.” He felt bad lying, but he wanted to protect her. He had worse to tell her after all.
“But why, Nick? You reported a crime and they did this? I don’t understand.”
Nick reflected that there was a lot Clara didn’t know about him yet, about his past, but he couldn’t bear to think about it himself, yet alone share it. To her he was a nightclub louche who’d been in the war. It was partly true. Now wasn’t the time for sharing, though. If she knew about his real past, she wouldn’t be surprised they turned this place upside down. She also probably wouldn’t stick around. Who would? Luckily there was another reason he could give her, although it hadn’t been that lucky for Ramona.
“I’m afraid I’ve got some rather bad news, Clara.”
She stopped sniffing and looked at him. The flat seemed suddenly still. He cleared his throat.
“It’s about one of your friends: Ramona.”
A look of confusion swept over Clara’s face then she obviously remembered. Nick was relieved they obviously hadn’t been that close.
“The body, it was Ramona. I’m so sorry.”
Rather than the floods of tears he’d been expecting, she looked at him quizzically. He felt almost as if she was now on guard.
“Ramona?” She spoke the name as if testing it out for the first time.
Nick nodded.
“But…” She paused, her forehead tense in concentration. “You found the body, you told them you knew her and they suspected you?”
“Almost. I didn’t know it was her; it was dark. I just checked for a pulse.” He would spare her the gruesome details. “The police identified her. I don’t know how, but they knew that she knew you and that I knew you. I think they rather put two and two together and came up with five.”
Clara smiled sadly. “Another of those English expressions, but how tragic. Why would anyone murder Romana?” she mused.
“I don’t know. Do you know of anyone that might want to kill her? Who did she see at the club? Was she in any kind of trouble?”
Clara looked at him sharply. “Why do you want to know? Surely this is something for the police, darling?”
Something about her reaction unnerved him. She’d bitten on his question too hard and too quickly but it was probably shock. He let it go.
“I’m just curious. Wouldn’t you be if you’d been locked up and questioned for hours about a body practically on your doorstep?”
“I suppose,” replied Clara in a tone that suggested she wouldn’t be at all.
“There’s something else.”
“There is?”
“Yes.” Nick held out the piece of paper. He watched her closely and there was a flicker of something before she took it. She made a show of reading it slowly, but he’d seen that she already knew what it was before her fingers had closed on it. Clara bit her bottom lip and stared at the piece of paper. Nick sat next to her.
“Clara,” he began softly, “I gave that paper to you, just last week.”
She nodded and put it down on the coffee table.
“What’s going on?”
He could see she was wrestling with something then she turned to him and took his hands.
“I was talking with Ramona one night and she told me she was in trouble with money. She’d got a loan, but the guys she’d borrowed the money off, they were getting quite heavy with her.”
Nick nodded for her to continue. She swallowed nervously.
“I know you know people around here, people that can sort these kinds of problems out. I never pry, darling, but I know the things you do.” She laughed and gestured at the shimmering dress. “We all do questionable things to pay the rent.”
Nick felt a flutter of angry jealousy; his mouth tightened.
“So, like I told you, I had a friend in difficulty, you wrote down your details, I passed them to her and told her to get in touch. Did she?”
“No.” Nick ran a hand through his hair.
“So I guess whoever wanted this money must have killed her. Poor Ramona.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What?”
“A dead Ramona’s not going to pay back any money is she?”
“I suppose not,” Clara pouted, looking more beautiful than ever with her luscious red lips pushed together. She looked around the flat. “I suppose we should tidy up.” She stood and Nick marvelled at how gracefully she moved, her long silk dress hugging the slim contours of her body like a second skin. “Tea?” she smiled at him, moving to the kitchen.
“Sure.” He listened to her clanking around in the kitchen and she reappeared.
“Help me out of this will you,” she asked, turning round, the dress half undone at the back. Nick slid the rest of the hooks open and she graceful stepped out of the dress, slinging it over a chair back and padding back to the kitchen in her underwear. He was finding it hard to think.
“Slip a tot in mine will you?” he called out. There was an answering grunt of disapproval. Too bad.
Clara appeared with two steaming mugs of tea and Nick could smell the liquor on his. It helped clear his head. Clara turned to the bureau and started shovelling some of the debris back into the drawers.
“You had any new faces at the club?”
“We’ve always got new f
aces. That’s what clubs are for,” she replied with her back to him.
“New men, Italians, Germans?”
Clara stiffened almost imperceptibly. Nick instantly felt bad he’d noticed. He hated catching himself using his training like this.
“Like I said, there are always new faces.”
“New faces that Ramona knew?”
She slowly closed a drawer, but didn’t turn around. “Sure, Ramona knew a lot of men.”
“She did? But she still had to borrow money?”
“Times are hard and Ramona had expensive tastes.”
“I wonder what else she had. She ever talk to you about politics? About Spain?”
Clara whirled, her eyes showing confusion and anger. “Nick, what is this? Am I in the police line-up now? Why can’t you leave it?”
“I’m just curious. Curious and implicated by that piece of paper in her pocket.”
“So? You had nothing to do with it.”
“Not yet. The police might change their mind, though.”
“You still won’t have had anything to do with it even if they do. I don’t see where this silly questioning is going to get you.”
Nick nodded. He already made up his mind not to tell Clara about Carruthers; there was no point in worrying her. He knew she was only looking out for him, but still, he was going to have to dig or end up on the wrong end of a trumped-up charge, or worse, risk losing Clara. He had no doubt Carruthers could and would make good on his threats. Clara was the one good thing he had. He decided to try a different tack.
“Okay, do you know who was leaning on Ramona over the money?”
Clara gave a sigh. “Teddy Adamson was a name I’d heard. Please leave it, Nick.”
Nick nodded. He knew the name. Adamson was a Soho street hustler, into low level stuff; he could get heavy, had a couple of men, but no serious muscle. Like Nick he was freelance, he wasn’t affiliated to any of the bigger gangs, which was going to make things easier.
Clara carried on tidying up in silence. Nick drained his tea and watched her, marvelling at the way she moved. He was a lucky man. He got up and threw his arms around her.
“How about we leave this and go to bed?” he whispered, nuzzling her ear, feeling her soft curves fit into him. She nestled in close and turned her face to kiss him then shrugged him off.
