Death Trap (3 page)

‘Then I will ring you with some suitable times.'

The brief interview was clearly at an end and Carey found himself helped into his coat and ushered to the front door by the silent manservant. On the landing he waited for the lift with a feeling of distaste. If he and Miles had not been pretty desperate, he thought, he would not have come to this slimy foreigner in a month of Sundays. Where the hell was he from, he wondered. He didn't look like a Jew, but you never knew. A Slav, more likely perhaps, one who had got into the country during the war and stayed behind, as too many of them had. But wherever he had been born he had been long enough in the country to learn pretty good English and do very well for himself. ‘Bastard.' All the resentment of the dispossessed coloured Carey's reaction as the lift descended. But he knew that his old school-friend would jump at the deal. He was as desperate for cash as he was himself and at least had the advantage of very nearly owning something which was eminently saleable in the current housing shortage in London, even if it did mean doing business with the likes of Lazlo Roman. The only thing which stood in his way was his mama, who apparently did not like Miles's plans at all.

K
ate O'Donnell had had a frustrating day at work, largely spent hanging around the reception area of a West End recording company waiting for Gerry and the Pacemakers to turn up. Her boss, Ken Fellows, had assured her that morning that the band would be there that day some time, and that the agency should add them to their growing portfolio of musical pictures, largely provided by Kate herself. Ken, she had thought, reckoned he had become an expert on the exploding music scene in the short time she had been around and pushed his sceptical interest in that direction.

‘They could be as big as the Beatles,' he had said with all the certainty of a new religious convert. ‘They've had two Number Ones.'

‘Maybe,' Kate had said doubtfully.

‘So get down to Columbia Records and see if you can catch them with a gang of hysterical teenagers,' Ken said. ‘Don't you know any of them? Wasn't Gerry Marsden at art college with you too?'

‘'Fraid not,' Kate said, surprised Ken knew the band leader's second name. He really was doing his homework, after a very reluctant start, she thought with an amused satisfaction.

‘Well, if you make contact I'm sure you can charm them with that accent of yours,' he said.

Kate had shrugged and done as she was told, inured to the insult, but on this occasion had no luck. No one would confirm or deny that the band was due in that day, but in fact they never turned up. Dispirited, hungry and tired by the end of the afternoon, she trailed back through Soho's narrow, crowded streets to report her lack of success. It was a good thing Ken had finally signed her up the previous day, she thought, or he might have been tempted to change his mind about her job. In the event, it was a relatively benign boss, breathing alcohol fumes in her direction, she had reported back to.

‘You can't win them all,' he had said, leaning precariously back in his chair, a cigarette dangling from his lower lip. ‘Have an early night, if you like. Get yourself off home. I suppose you think you've earned it.'

Kate took him at his word and was down the narrow wooden stairs and out of the door before the usual rush of workers leaving the cramped offices of Soho hit the streets. She set off towards Oxford Street, planning to do some window shopping before making for the underground at Oxford Circus, but before she had reached the top of Frith Street her stomach lurched as she recognised a familiar figure coming in her direction, overcoat unbuttoned and trilby at a rakish angle.

‘Well, well,' Harry Barnard said with a smile. ‘I was only thinking about you this morning as I went past your office. I was wondering if you were still here or if you'd gone back north. Did Ken Fellows keep you on, then?'

‘He certainly did,' Kate said sharply.

‘Well done,' Barnard said. ‘I must say I never thought he'd take on a girl. It's not usually reckoned to be a job for a woman.'

‘Times are changing, Sergeant Barnard,' Kate said, acid in her voice. ‘Maybe they'll change for the police too, one day.'

Barnard shrugged. ‘Can't see me working for a woman DCI in the near future,' he said. ‘Or ever, to be honest.'

‘Anyway, I'm glad I bumped into you,' Kate conceded, trying not to let an ounce of warmth into her expression. ‘As it happens, I need some advice about the law.'

Barnard glanced around the bustling street and then took her elbow and led her round the west side of Soho Square. ‘Coffee, or something stronger?' he asked.

‘Coffee, thanks,' Kate said, and followed him into a steamy cafe in Carlisle Street. She watched him as he went to the counter and ordered two frothy coffees in glass cups and carried them back to their table. She could feel her heart beating a little faster than normal and was annoyed at her reaction to this chance meeting. She did not trust Harry Barnard an inch but she had to admit that he was an attractive man, and suspected that he still felt the same about her, although she had rebuffed every attempt he had made to take her out for an evening, even after the case which had entangled her brother, Tom, had been resolved.

Barnard stirred a couple of spoons of sugar into his coffee, offered Kate a cigarette, which she refused, and lit his own thoughtfully. ‘So what can I do for you, Miss O'Donnell?' he asked, blowing smoke towards the ceiling. ‘You've not stumbled into another murder case, have you?'

‘No, of course not,' Kate said. ‘But there is something nasty going on where I live, and I want to know if it's illegal, that's all.'

‘You're still in that dump in Notting Hill, are you, with your friends? I did tell you that's not a good area for girls to be on their own. What's happening? Have a couple of tarts moved in? Or is it marijuana? There's a lot of that about down there too. The West Indians treat it just like tobacco.'

‘No, no, it's nothing like that. Our house is very run down, though. Marie says she doesn't think the landlord has done any work on the place since she got there and that's nearly a year ago. But what he is trying to do is get some of the tenants out, the ones who pay a low rent, who've been there a long time. There's an old couple on the first floor – they say they've been there since the war – and there were a couple of thugs with an Alsatian dog round there yesterday threatening them, more or less telling them they had to go. It was awful. We were thinking of going to the police to complain but I thought I'd ring you first and check if it would do any good.'

Barnard sipped his coffee and looked at her thoughtfully through the steam. ‘Do they put something into the water in Liverpool?' he asked. ‘Something special from the River Mersey, is it?'

‘What do you mean?'

‘You must get this battling crusader spirit from somewhere,' he said. ‘It's not natural.'

‘My da was a docker for a while, till he did a flit. And my mam was always playing hell about something in the neighbourhood. It was never a quiet life at ours, so I suppose it must be born in. My parents were both as tough as old boots. I don't like to see nice old people being bullied. It's not right. But I don't know what I can do about it.'

‘Right,' Barnard said.

‘So I go to the police?'

‘Well, you could try, but I think they'll just tell you that tenancy disputes are a civil matter. Are you sure these people are up to date with the rent? If they're not they'll not have a leg to stand on if they go to law. They'll still get chucked out one way or another.'

‘I'll ask them,' Kate said more soberly, finishing her coffee.

‘Do you know who the landlord is?' Barnard asked. ‘Is it a bloke call Rachman? Or one of his companies?'

‘I've no idea,' Kate said. ‘I'll ask Marie. Why?'

‘If it's him, I should be very careful. He owns a lot of property round there – or he did. He's supposed to have died last year, though there's some who think that's just a trick to get himself out of the spotlight. He was getting a very bad name with the newspapers and TV. His speciality was getting controlled tenants out of properties, then dividing them up and letting them out at rack rents, mainly to West Indians who can't get homes anywhere else because of the colour bar. I don't know what's happened to his properties since he died, but I guess there'd be plenty of people queuing up to take them over. I know the Robertson brothers here in Soho were leaning on Rachman a few years ago, trying to take a cut. If you're in a Rachman house I'd advise you all to get out as soon as you can.'

Kate stared at Barnard, horrified. ‘I was going to start flat-hunting right away now I've got a permanent job. Are you saying Marie and Tess should move out too?'

‘If you've got thugs with dogs on the stairs, I wouldn't hang around if I was you. Whoever the landlord is, he's not someone you really want to know, is he?' Barnard said. He put his hand over Kate's for a second. ‘Notting Hill's a rough old place,' he said. ‘It's not so long ago that there were riots in the streets between the newcomers and the local teddy boys, black against white. Go down to the nick to complain if you like. See if you can get to see a mate of mine down there, DS Eddie Lamb, generally know as Baa Lamb. He's a good bloke. He should be able to fill you in on what's going on. But keep looking for somewhere else to live. This sort of thing's been going on for years and I don't reckon it'll stop soon, the way people are scrambling for somewhere to lay their head. The best thing for you and your friends to do is get out.'

‘Eddie Lamb,' Kate said faintly. ‘Right, I'll remember the name.' She glanced at her watch. ‘Thanks for your help,' she said, her tone suddenly dismissive. ‘It was nice to see you again.'

Barnard gave her a rueful smile. ‘I don't suppose you feel like a meal later?' he asked.

Kate shook her head. ‘I need to get back to see what's going on at the house,' she said, very aware that the invitation seemed more seductive than it had when it had last been issued several months ago. At some point, she thought, the invitations would stop coming and she was not sure that was really what she wanted, but that was the last thing she wanted Barnard to know just now. He smiled again and shrugged.

‘Never mind,' he said. ‘I'm glad to see you haven't had to go back home to Liverpool anyway. I may see you around.'

Kate strap-hung her way back to Notting Hill Gate on the crowded Central Line tube, and then walked slowly through the dusty streets of Victorian terraces towards the only place she could so far call home in London, and that for not much longer. Most of the houses she passed were high and shabby, with basements below pavement level and attics three or four floors up, just like the one she was living in with Marie and Tess. Very few were in a good state of repair, the woodwork was unpainted, the stucco cracked and flaking, the steps under the porticos broken down and the columns themselves sometimes looking positively dangerous. And now she looked closely she could see that many of them had rows of doorbells which seemed to indicate an unfeasibly large number of flats within, and generally those were the houses where the occasional resident going in or out seemed to be almost always black. It looked as if Harry Barnard's analysis was accurate. She must remember to ask Marie who their landlord was.

Kate was familiar enough with black faces. Liverpool had sheltered a black community for generations, as seamen had arrived in the city from around the world and settled, mainly in Toxteth. But she could not say that she had ever really known anyone black. The communities in the city lived parallel lives, the minority almost invisible to the majority. You did not often see a dark face in the centre of Liverpool. Here, she thought, black and white lived cheek by jowl with, as far as she could tell, not too much friction, though she knew there had been riots and lads had been jailed. And she knew that the colour bar Harry Barnard had mentioned was real enough. She had seen notices on houses renting rooms which made it quite clear: no blacks, no Irish, no dogs. From an Irish family herself, they made her wince. Perhaps Marie's flat was protected like that, she thought, since all the tenants in the house were white. She glanced at a West Indian passerby, a smartly dressed woman in a flowery hat, and felt uneasy. There was a lot more going on around here than she and her friends understood, she thought. Notting Hill's a rough old place, Harry Barnard had said. She and her mates from the north obviously hadn't a clue.

Just as she was about to climb the worn steps to her front door she heard a noise from the area entrance to Cecily Beauchamp's flat and glancing down she saw the old woman herself in the doorway, gesturing in her direction imperiously.

‘Hello,' Kate said. ‘Are you all right?'

Mrs Beauchamp beckoned again. ‘Could you spare me a moment, young lady?' she said. ‘I'd be most grateful.'

Slightly reluctantly Kate turned down the steps and followed Cecily Beauchamp into her flat. Something must have happened, she thought, for her to be allowed over the threshold this time. The basement flat was extensive but the ceilings were low and the windows, half below ground level, let in little light, and the walls and woodwork cried out for a coat of paint. But the carpets and furnishings looked expensive and every surface – the mantelpiece, shelves and side tables, were covered in fragile looking china and glass, with an occasional piece of silver in pride of place. Mrs Beauchamp, Kate thought, must be loaded, which was nice, but if so, this was an extraordinary place for her to be living, and an open invitation to any passing thief.

Mrs Beauchamp was obviously aware of Kate's surprised survey of her home and waved her into a chair. She was a tall, thin woman with grey hair pulled back to the nape of the neck in an old-fashioned style and with an imperious manner, but her face was finely lined and pale, the skin tight over the cheekbones, and it looked, in the poor light, that she had attempted to apply make-up but merely smudged foundation unevenly, and botched her bright lipstick. Kate wondered if her sight was failing. She waved vaguely around before sitting down close to the empty fireplace where an electric fire was turned off. The flat was cold and smelled of damp and lavender water.