Mistress Murder (9 page)

The bookie grinned falsely in greeting.

‘Hi, Snigger, how's tricks? Give me whisky and soda and have something yourself.'

Snigger served them and poured a beer for himself. He wondered what this ingratiating overture was leading up to, as normally Draper ignored him.

‘Snigger, has Mr Golding been in lately?'

Conrad, with a pathetic attempt at nonchalance slung the question straight across the net.

Snigger, poker-faced, but seething with interest inside, shook his head. He instinctively felt that something was going to break that might be worth a handful of fivers to him.

‘Sorry, Mr Draper, haven't noticed him since last weekend.' He slid the drinks aside to wipe the bar, looking at Draper's taut expression from under lowered lids.

‘Not a sign of him?' Conrad persisted.

‘No … I heard about Miss Ronalde's accident … awful, eh? Perhaps that'll keep him away from here for a bit. In here he met her, see.'

A shadow passed across Conrad's face that was not lost on the astute barman. He began to see the light, fringed with gold guineas.

‘Where can I find Golding?' Draper spoke gruffly now, any pretence at casual conversation gone.

‘Sorry, Mr Draper, haven't the faintest. Think he lives out of town most of the time.'

‘Where? You must know. I know you're pretty thick with him.'

There was anger and pure menace in the ex-wrestler's voice now.

‘I don't. He comes and goes but I don't ask questions. I wouldn't last long in this job if I did.'

Draper half-rose and leaned across the bar.

‘You won't last bloody long as it is, if you don't come clean.' He whispered in a stage voice that made the customers on each side of him look around in surprise and alarm.

Irish, more alive to the risks of making their business too public, tugged ineffectually at Draper's jacket.

‘Lay off, boss, you can't grill him here.'

Draper glared at the barman for a moment then subsided onto his stool. ‘Look, Snigger, there's a few quid in it for you if you tell me how to get in touch with him. I just want to talk some business with him, see.'

Gigal lied with easy fluency.

‘I would if I could, Mr Draper, but I just can't help you. He usually comes in here about every fortnight, so he's not due till the end of the week at the earliest.'

‘Haven't you got a forwarding address, damn you?'

Snigger contrived to look shocked.

‘I don't have addresses of customers, sir … why should I?'

Draper's patience went again. He stretched his big arm across the bar and jabbed Snigger in the chest with an iron finger.

‘I've heard you and Golding are pretty close. If you come across with his address, there's twenty in it for you, see. Otherwise, I'll suddenly find that you haven't paid for a lot of your bets and send a couple of boys over to bounce you – good and hard – get it?'

The amount of venom that he got over in such a low voice impressed even Snigger, but he stuck his ground.

‘I'm sorry, but I can't help you. God knows where he goes to when he leaves here. I'll give him a message if he comes in – what shall I tell him you want to talk about?' Conrad sank back again.

‘Nothing … you keep your trap shut or I'll come and knock you silly. If he comes in, ring me up pronto, understand?'

He threw back his drink and got up suddenly. With a sign to Irish to stay where he was, he strode off towards the back of the club.

‘Nice fellow,' said Snigger bitterly. ‘Buys me a drink and then offers to belt my head off. What's eating him?'

Irish, who was almost awash with neat brandy, shook his head mournfully. ‘He's mad keen to get hold of this Golding character.'

Snigger saw his chance to do a bit more snooping.

‘What for? I hardly know the bloke – only that he used to bring his fancy woman in here for a booze-up and a bit of a hop.'

Irish had been hitting the bottle heavily all day and this, together with fellow-feeling for Snigger as another underdog, made him a little incautious with his tongue.

‘I dunno, ever since he heard about that Rita dame getting the chop, he's been damn near chewing the carpet in temper.' Irish's voice was thick and slurred, and Snigger tried to push him a little further.

‘Was he jealous or something?' he asked, in the right combination of lewdness and offhandedness that would appeal to the Irishman.

‘Ay, maybe he was after being that way,' mumbled O'Keefe, his accent more pronounced than ever. ‘Though bints is ten-a-penny to Conrad. I don't see why he should get so sweated up about this one. He's only been knocking her off for a few weeks.'

Snigger almost heard the jangle of cash registers in his brain as Irish let this drop. Unfortunately, the man seemed to realise that he had said too much and in spite of Snigger's persuasion, he refused to say any more.

Meanwhile, Draper had pushed his way round the edge of the crowded dance floor and reached the stage. He climbed up and went through the side entrance into the corridor and then to Silver's room.

He barged in without knocking and slammed the door behind him. Ray Silver was stooping over a large safe set in the wall behind his desk, busily putting cardboard boxes into a suitcase.

The club owner had taken fright ever since rumours about Rita's death had filtered through to him. Coupling this with Golding and the drug trade, he had had a sudden desire to clear out any incriminating evidence in the shape of heroin, cocaine, and morphine from his premises.

As the betting shop king burst in, he whirled around with a scared expression clamped to his face. He tried to slam the safe door shut, but relaxed when he saw who his visitor was.

‘Draper! What's the idea? This is a private office,' he blustered in an attempt to recover his poise.

Conrad outclassed him without difficulty. He walked to Silver's chair, dropped into it, and put his feet on the desk while he felt for one of his loathsome cigars. It was pure Chicago-ese and Draper savoured every second.

‘Shaddup!' he began conversationally. Silver opened his mouth and then shut it again like a plump goldfish. He could find no suitable words. He looked uncertainly at his unwelcome guest and then at the big steel safe. Eventually he slammed the heavy door shut and came to stand opposite Conrad, the desk between them.

‘What d'you want?' he demanded in a quavering, reedy voice. ‘You surely can't want more fixes already?'

Conrad spoke evenly. ‘Nope, I don't want your junk.'

He picked a shred of tobacco from his cold cigar and went on.

‘I just want to know where you get it.'

Ray Silver sat down on a hard chair opposite Draper. He smiled nervously.

‘Now look, Conrad, you know how it is. If I grassed on my supplier, he'd cut me off dead – and that means you wouldn't get any more.'

It was a weak argument and he knew it.

‘Nuts! You're not the only punter in the street, not by a hell of a long way.'

Silver looked baffled.

‘What's the idea, you trying to get in on the racket or something?'

The idea of a strong-arm man turned bookie trying to muscle in on his brand of graft made the worm turn a little and his tone became belligerent.

Draper waved his hands over the desk in an attitude of submission.

‘All right, I'll come clean.' He spat out his cigar and lit a cigarette. ‘I already know where you get your stuff … it's from Golding, isn't it?'

Silver stared woodenly at him, but Conrad carried on without waiting for an answer.

‘I want to find him … it's urgent. I don't want to cut into your racket – piddling little trade after mine,' he added grandly. He flicked his ash onto the Eurasian's desk top. ‘No, you can keep your pep pill business, Silver, all I want is Golding. And you're going to help me find him.'

The proprietor, relieved to hear that Draper was not after his trade, grinned fawningly across at the bookie.

‘I'd tell you in a flash, Conrad, square I would, only I don't know myself. I've been trying to find out this evening – I'm getting worried about my supplies, if he doesn't show up after that business with that bloody woman.'

Draper scowled furiously. ‘Come off it, slant-eyes! Don't mess me around.'

Silver held his hands out appealingly.

‘God strike me, Conrad, I'm telling the truth. I don't know how to reach him … no address, no phone number, nothing!'

He fidgeted in front of the desk.

‘I heard a squeak today that the narks are wondering about that accident. I don't know what it means, but whatever it is, it don't sound healthy. That's why I'm unloading my stuff.'

He jerked his head at the suitcase lying near the safe.

Draper slowly leaned across the desk and then slammed a great fist onto the centre of the polished top.

‘I don't bleeding well believe you, you damn liar! Your barman has just given me the same patter. You're trying to tell me that you do business with a guy for years, he comes in here regularly and yet you don't know where to find him?'

Silver stood cracking his finger joints in agitation.

‘It's the truth, Draper, honest. I got an idea he lives out of London – he said something once about having a train to catch … he had that flat in Newman Street, of course.' The Eurasian ended brightly, as if this was likely to be great news to Conrad.

Draper leered sarcastically at him. ‘Big deal, I can read the bloody newspapers as well as you.'

He stood up and deliberately dropped his lighted cigarette onto the thick fitted carpet. Ray Silver watched it burn a hole without daring to protest.

‘I'll give you till Monday night to get your memory back, greaseball,' grated Conrad in pure Mickey Spillane speech. ‘Then if you can't do better than tonight, I'll arrange to have the decorations in your club altered a bit – my boys are good at that.'

He stalked out, ignoring the whining of the club owner, who followed him to the end of the passage still babbling excuses.

Silver went back to his office and opened the safe again. He took out a small automatic pistol and handling it with the nervousness of a novice, slipped it into the side pocket of his dinner jacket.

Chapter Eight

There was a lull in the affair for the first couple of days of the new week.

Benbow started to move the machinery of formal investigation into the contacts of Rita Ronalde, the divisional detectives and Sergeant Bray going out into the Newman Street area to follow up the few obvious leads given by the cleaning woman and local garages.

But late on the Sunday night, a prostitute was strangled in an alley behind Poland Street and much of the police effort was diverted to catching the suspect. Even when this was settled twenty-four hours later, there was little that Benbow could do until he had the reports from the Yard laboratory.

At the Nineties Club there was also a period of uneasy waiting. In spite of his threat, Conrad did not turn up with his hoodlums on the Monday night, but at lunchtime the next day, when Silver was eating a huge spaghetti bolognese at his favourite trattoria. A tall and evil-looking Italian sauntered over and stood at his table.

He waited until Silver had a forkful of food almost at his mouth then jogged his elbow so that a couple of yards of the pasta fell into the club owner's lap.

Silver looked up angrily, an oath on his lips. It froze there as he recognised Luigi, one of Conrad's sidekicks.

Luigi leered down at the podgy Eurasian.

‘Draper said for me to tell you,' he said in a throaty Neapolitan accent, ‘He's coming around tonight – so you gotta be a good boy, eh?'

He picked up the salt cellar, pulled the top off, and emptied the whole contents into the middle of Silver's meal. Then he laughed and sauntered out into the street.

The waiters, fellow countrymen of his, had watched the whole performance but, whether from fear or approval, made no attempt to interfere.

Silver cleaned himself up as best he could, then walked back to the Nineties. As he trotted through the streets, cold anger stung his waspish little mind into schemes for revenge.

He wondered what was behind this sudden interest of Draper's in Paul Golding. He himself had spoken nothing but the truth about his ignorance of the dope smuggler's whereabouts. That made this present persecution all the harder to bear.

‘What the hell am I to tell him tonight? The bloody man is plain crazy!' Revenge took second place to anxiety as he padded down Gerrard Street. Everything he had was tied up in the club. He had recently ploughed all his profits from the narcotics business into having the premises lavishly redecorated, to attract the better class of customer – and addict.

He knew that in a few minutes of rough stuff, he would lose both the decorations of the place and the more important goodwill of the clients, who wanted peace and anonymity to conduct their affairs.

He failed to see where Conrad Draper fitted into the Golding scheme. He knew that the betting shop boss took small doses of heroin. Was it conceivable that he was trying to break into the selling game himself?

Draper had a ready-made system of distribution in his chain of gambling offices all over the West End, and Irish O'Keefe had some experience of pushing the stuff. But it seemed all wrong, this approach. He would hardly burst in on what would be his closest rival and demand to meet the wholesaler in such a violent way.

Everyone knew that Draper was a bit touched – if he had been a boxer and not a wrestler in the past, Silver would have put it down to being punch-drunk. But there must be something else going on, something important enough to make Draper threaten him with the treatment usually reserved for the Soho protection rackets.

By the time the half-caste owner had mulled all this over, his short, quick footsteps had brought him to the closed door of the Nineties. He let himself in with his key and found the lights already lit on the staircase.