Bodies (6 page)

“An agency?”

“For theatrical work, advertising, posing. Anybody who needs a bit of good-looking body—chaps or girls—goes along there. It's run by this guy who was Mr. Southport 1974. The money these jobs bring in isn't enormous, but it keeps body and soul together.”

“I see. So Wayne was becoming something of a professional?”

“Just to make ends meet. I do the odd bit myself. And if by professional you mean the mucky stuff, forget it. Wayne was a lovely clean-minded boy. He never went in for that. That I know for definite.”

“I see. Do you know where Wayne was—is—living?”

“Oh Lord—let me see. I've been there once . . . he moved there after he left home . . . Cramby Gardens. That's it. Just off the Finchley Road. Bed-sitter, but very large. He's turned it into a sort of mini-gym, of course. He's got a lot of first-rate gear, has Wayne.”

“You say he left his job and left home. Why was that?”

“Well, they were connected, really. Wayne was a garage mechanic—had quite a good job in Hendon. But he found that his work got in the way of his training programme. He tried to combine the two, but there was no way he could do it. He was never going to be world class unless he gave it total concentration and commitment. That was what led to the bust-up at home.”

“Really?”

“His dad didn't understand that kind of dedication,” went on Jeremy, his expression of almost childlike naïveté contrasting with the glistening sweat on his enormous shoulders. “For Wayne his training programme was his way of life. He was working his way forward to a holistic bodybuilding philosophy. His dad just went on about “lazy layabouts”—which was ridiculous, of course—and so in the end Wayne had to leave home. He didn't want to, because he was very fond of his kid sister, but he had no option.”

I had an idea.

“His kid sister wasn't called Debbie, by any chance, was she?”

“Yes. I think she was.”

“Did Wayne have a girlfriend?”

“A girlfriend? Oh, I don't think so. There were
girls,
now and then, of course, but I don't think there was ever a regular girlfriend, in that sense.”

“I suppose it would have interfered with his total commitment to his programme.” “Well, it would really.”

“No place for girlfriends in his holistic bodybuilding philosophy?”

“I expect he would have worked out a place for one in time, if he could have found someone with equal dedication. Quite frankly, it's a problem for a lot of us.”

“I can see that it must be.”

Jeremy was looking round at his weights, drawing a large forearm over his brow. He was itching to get back.

“Well, it's nice to talk with someone who really understands the problems,” he said. “Do you build?”

“I dabbled at one time. I think I outran my mortgage limit.”

“Do you really think this body is Wayne? Gee—he'll be a great loss to the sport.”

“I think it very probably is. Now, there's the question of identifying the body.”

Jeremy's massive, top-heavy body backed away, but not, as I thought, in horror.

“You'll have to count me out. I'm in the middle of my programme. If you don't carry the programme through without a break it's practically a day wasted—isn't that right, Charlie? You take Charlie along. He knew Wayne perfectly well.”

I'd already decided to do that if I could. As well as the identification, I wanted to chat about the general set-up Wayne was in, and I knew I wasn't going to get any sense out of the sort of person who talks about holistic bodybuilding philosophies. As Jeremy retreated towards his weights and bars I turned back to Charlie, who had raised his eyebrows eloquently at this last exchange.

“Any chance?”

“Oh, I'd do anything for the police. You put my old man away. Still, I need my lunch.”

“An apple, a nut and a wholewheat rusk?”

“I was thinking more of a wholewheat steak and kidney pie with
two veg, at the Clarendon down the corner.” He lowered his voice and said darkly: “Don't confuse me with these dumbclucks, right?”

“What say you go with Inspector Joplin here to identify the body, and we meet at one of the restaurants near to the
Bodies
office in Windlesham Street? We'll stand you lunch in return for a chat, and it'll look better on the expense sheet if it's near the scene of the crime. Say the Greek one a couple of doors down on the other side of the road?”

“You're on,” said Charlie. He went over to a youth exercising on the Chest Pulley, and brought him back to man the office. He was a thin adolescent who seemed to bulge in unexpected places—no doubt at some middle staging-position between six-stone weakling and Charles Atlas. Charlie pulled on the top of his track suit, and I saw him and Joplin off in the police car in the street. Charlie by now was quite philosophical about it.

“You won't believe this,” he said, as he got in, and put the window down to talk, “but though I've seen some bodies in my time, this one will be the first that's dead.”

“You surprise me,” I said. “By the look of some of those in there I'd have said you would have seen several.”

“Are you joking, man? They're all fit men and women. They all make it to the ambulance!”

T
HE GREEK RESTAURANT
nearly opposite the
Bodies
office was called the Knossos, and its proprietor was Mr. Aristid Leonides, late of Famagusta. I remembered it—and him—well, though I had not actually eaten there since the days of the Vice Squad investigation. I peered through the door into a murky interior and saw that it was half full of men with melancholy moustaches, some of them with their families. It looked like an audition for a remake of
Zorba.
It is said to be a good sign when you find compatriots of the proprietor eating in his restaurant, though I do sometimes wonder if the Greek, Italian and Chinese restaurateurs don't arrange to eat in this or that restaurant serving their respective cuisines on a turn-and-turn about basis, to give their places a reputation with the British. Anyway, all these portly men with their boisterous families certainly gave the place atmosphere, and the proprietor, Mr. Leonides, came bustling forward on his little patent leather shoes, beaming and sweating in the way proprietors have. I think he dimly remembered me, and at my request I was shown to the loneliest corner of the room.

“There will be three,” I said. Then I took out my identification and showed it to him. “Police. I wonder if I could ask you one or two questions?”

Mr. Leonides studied it for ten or twelve seconds, no emotion showing on his impassive face. Then he said:

“Too high up for licensing regulations. Is it this business opposite?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know nothing about that. But just wait a bit. Elena!” He called to his wife, and she came and took over his place near the door. A dark-eyed girl perhaps just into her teens came and sat at the cash register, but he shooed her back behind the scenes.

“Is too young,” he explained. “We don't want no trouble with the police.”

“I'm not aiming to give you trouble,” I said, “All I want is any information you can give me.”

That, it seemed, was very little. Living in the vicinity of Strip à la Wild West you got accustomed to the sounds of shots, and you certainly didn't notice if the shots came at the wrong point in the hour. Who was to know if they had changed their starting time, or their act? It wasn't the sort of place that
he
would think of patronizing. Yes, he did sometimes stand around the doorway if business was slow, and yes, he would sometimes have noticed Bob Cordle or Phil Fennilow, or some of the models, coming and going across the way. But it was a quite idle notice, and he couldn't say whether it was Monday or Thursday he saw them, let alone precisely at what time.

“Didn't they ever come in here, these people?” I asked him.

“Sure they come in here, now and again. Not the man who run it, this Fennilow, I never had him in here, but Cordle and the models—sometimes together, sometimes on their own.”

“Impressions of them?”

“Cordle—he was a lovely man. One of the best. Always friendly, sympathetic, no hassle, no complaints. I feel real sad about the way he got killed. They must have been gunning for one of the others. The models? Some lovely girls. Real lovely. Some a little bit—you know—tart. But not all. Some real good-educated girls there was among them.”

“I know,” I said. “I have a very good-educated corpse on my hands. What about the men?”

He screwed up his mouth and flung out his hands in a gesture of skepticism.

“The men, they was a bit different. Some was just good-looking, like the women, but it's different in a man, isn't it? And then there was the muscle boys. Always wanting salad with no oil, or special stuff it wasn't worth my while to go to the trouble of cooking. “What's in
that?” they say all the time—as if I know! You think I keep track of what's in all these things? My Elena's an artist, not an accountant. She don't note everything down, is different every night. No, some of those boys there are a real pain in the neck.”

We were interrupted by the arrival of Joplin and Charlie. Mr. Leonides got up with a perceptible sigh of relief, and began bustling them into chairs around my table.

“You gentlemen all police? You all gentlemen from Scotland Yard?”

“I should sink so low,” said Charlie, sliding himself into his seat. He did not look happy. I had the impression that if Charlie could have gone pale, he would have.

“It was him,” said Joplin. “Wayne Flushing is his name. Or was.”

“That was
not
a nice sight,” said Charlie. I shoved the menu at him, and he took it to take his mind off the sight.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Within reason,” I said.

“Just what is it you want from me for this bribe?” he asked, after we'd all ordered.

“Just talk. Talk about the people at the gym. I'll throw in a few questions now and then, but at the moment I'm at the stage of not knowing exactly what questions to ask. Just chat about the sort of people who come, what they do, how they live, what their problems are. Talk for your lunch.”

Charlie sat thinking for a bit as the proprietor fussed around with our bottle of wine. He was obviously trying to get his life-style sorted out in his own mind. When Mr. Leonides went away, he began with himself.

“I got the job because the bosses—the ones in the City, or their underlings—thought the Soho gym was likely to be a pretty tough place, and they wanted someone who looked as if he might be dangerous in an argy-bargy.”

“And are you dangerous when the need arises?”

“Try me some time when you're not on duty. Of course I can take care of myself. I've had to.
And
I'll take care of anyone who doesn't believe it. But the point is, it's quite unnecessary. With ninety-five per cent of the customers, there's not a snowball's chance in hell of their ever wanting to get in a fight.”

“And the other five per cent?”

“I'll come on to them later, if you want. I thought you were interested in the body boys, like Wayne. You'll have seen today a fair cross
section of our clients. There are the middle-aged who want to torture themselves back into shape: perhaps because they fear death is just around the corner if they go from one enormous business nosh-up to another without doing anything energetic in between, or because some girl or other has suggested they're not coming up to scratch in some way or another—anyway, there's that sort of person. And their fat wives. And some girls with the keep-fit craze: they're harmless enough, and often quite pleasant. And then there are the body boys.”

“Yes.”

“Now, the last thing they want is a bit of barney with anyone. Might get a bruise, or break their skin some place, or even strain one of those beautiful muscles. They're in love with themselves and their bodies, and their bodies have to be perfect—flawless diamonds. They are the most docile people on earth. Sheep are aggressive compared to them.”

“You'd think they'd want to use all that splendid muscle-power,” said Joplin, apparently mystified.

“They don't want to use it, they want to
show
it. It's like having a fabulous collection of old cars, and never taking any of them out on the road.”

“Right. I get the message,” I said. “Now, what about them personally? What sort of people are they?”

“Well, you saw Wayne's pal, Jerry Greave. Did he strike you as the world's greatest brain?”

“No. Still, I wasn't expecting all of them to be candidates for
Mastermind.”

“No. Fair enough. It was the particular
sort
of dimness I was trying to get at.”

“Something—
naive?”
I suggested. “Almost simple-minded? That wasn't quite what I'd been expecting.”

“That's it. Naive. Silly, rather than stupid. Blinkered.” Charlie wagged a big finger in my direction as he began tucking into a plateful of lamb. “Most of them are quite unconscious of anyone else in the world, or any other point of view, and can't believe that anyone else can be less interested in their bodies than they are themselves.”

“That sort of tunnel vision can be dangerous. One of the most dangerous things there is.”

“That's right. And I could imagine one of them . . . blundering into something. Quite unconscious of the danger. Because they're in
a grown-up world without being quite grown-up themselves. Get me?”

“I get you. It sounds right, it sounds interesting. I wonder about them morally.”

Charlie made a derisive gesture with his large hands, which were now wielding a knife and fork.