A Darker Shade of Blue (27 page)

Holland was young for a detective inspector, no more than thirty-two or -three; something of a high-flyer, he'd recently transferred from the City of London police to run one of the CID squads at West End Central.

The year before, '55, the
Mail
had run a story about police corruption, alleging that many officers in the West End were on the take. The Met issued a bald denial. Everyone from the Commissioner down denied the charge. What evidence existed was discredited or lost. No one was suspended, cautioned, even interviewed. Word was unofficially passed round: be less visible, less greedy.

Holland was the only officer I knew who wasn't snaffling bribes. According to rumour, when a brothel keeper slipped an envelope containing fifty in tens into his pocket, Holland shoved it down his throat and made him eat it.

He was just shy of six foot, I guessed, dark-haired and brown-eyed, and he sat at a table in the rear of the small Italian cafe, shirtsleeves rolled back, jacket draped across his chair. Early autumn and it was still warm. The coffee came in those glass cups that were all the rage; three sips and it was gone.

I told him about Neville's involvement with pushers and prostitutes, the percentages he took for protection, for looking the other way. Told him my suspicions concerning Ethel's murder.

Holland listened as if it mattered, his gaze rarely leaving my face.

When I'd finished, he sat a full minute in silence, weighing things over.

‘I can't do anything about the girl,' he said. ‘Even if Neville did kill her or have her killed, we'd never get any proof. And let's be honest: where she's concerned, nobody gives a toss. But the other stuff, drugs especially. There might be something I could do.'

I thought if I went the right way about it, I could get Foxy to make some kind of statement, off the record, nothing that would come to court, not even close, but it would be a start. Places, times, amounts. And there were others who'd be glad to find a way of doing Neville down, repaying him for all the cash he'd pocketed, the petty cruelties he'd meted out.

‘One month,' Holland said. ‘Then show me what you've got.'

When I held out my hand to shake his, his eyes fixed on my arm. ‘And that habit of yours,' he said. ‘Kick it now.'

A favourite trick of Neville's, whenever his men raided a club, was to take the musicians who'd been holding aside – and there were usually one or two – and feign sympathy. Working long hours, playing the way you do, stands to reason you need a little something extra, a little pick-me-up. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Men of the world. Just hand it over and we'll say no more about it. Oh, and if you've got a little sweetener for the lads … lovely, lovely.

And ever after, if he walked into a club or bumped into them on the street, he would be into them for another fifty plus whatever they were carrying. Let anyone try saying no and they were sorted good.

Inside a matter of weeks I talked with two pianists, a drummer, a guitarist and three sax players – what is it with saxophonists? – who agreed to dish the dirt on Neville if it would get him off their backs. And finally, after a lot of arguing and pleading, I persuaded Foxy to sit down with Holland in an otherwise empty room, neutral territory, and tell him what he knew.

After that, carefully, Holland spoke to a few of Neville's team, officers who were already compromised and eager to protect themselves as best they could. From a distance, he watched Neville himself. Checked, double-checked.

The report he wrote was confidential and he took it to the new Deputy Assistant Commissioner, one of the few high-ranking bosses he thought he could trust.

It was agreed that going public would generate bad publicity for the force and that should be avoided at all costs. Neville was shunted sideways, somewhere safe, and after several months allowed to retire on a full pension for reasons of ill health.

One of his mutually beneficial contacts had been with a businessman from Nicosia, import and export, and that was where Neville hived off to, counting his money, licking his wounds.

I was at the airport to see him off.

Three and a bit years ago now.

I took Tom Holland's advice and cleaned up my act, the occasional drag at some weed aside. Tom, he's a detective chief inspector now and tipped for higher things. I don't play any more, rarely feel the need. There are a couple of bands I manage, groups that's what they call them these days, one from Ilford, one from Palmers Green. And I keep myself fit, swim, work out in the gym. One thing a drummer has, even a second-rate ex-drummer like me, is strong wrists, strong hands.

I don't reckon Neville staying in Cyprus for ever, can't see it somehow; he'll want to come back to the smoke. And when he does, I'll meet him. Maybe even treat him to a drink. Ask if he remembers Ethel, the way she lay back, twisted, on the bed, her broken neck …

FAVOUR

Kiley hadn't heard from Adrian Costain in some little time, not since one of Costain's A-list clients had ended up in an all-too-public brawl, the pictures syndicated round the world at the touch of a computer key, and Kiley, who had been hired to prevent exactly that kind of thing happening, had been lucky to get half his fee.

‘If we were paying by results,' Costain had said, ‘you'd be paying me.'

Kiley had had new cards printed. ‘
Investigations. Private and Confidential. All kinds of security work undertaken. Ex-Metropolitan Police
'. Telephone and fax numbers underneath. Cheaper by the hundred, the young woman in Easyprint had said, Kiley trying not to stare at the tattoo that snaked up from beneath the belt of her jeans to encircle her navel, the line of tiny silver rings that tinkled like a miniature carillon whenever she moved her head.

Now the cards were pinned, some of them, outside newsagents' shops all up and down the Holloway Road and around; others he'd left discreetly in pubs and cafes in the vicinity; once, hopefully, beside the cash desk at the Holloway Odeon after an afternoon showing of
Insomnia,
Kiley not immune to Maura Tierney's charms.

Most days, the phone didn't ring, the fax failed to ratchet into life.

‘Email, that's what you need, Jack,' the Greek in the corner cafe where he sometimes had breakfast assured him. ‘Email, the Net, the World Wide Web.'

What Kiley needed was a new pair of shoes, a way to pay next month's rent, a little luck. Getting laid wouldn't be too bad either: it had been a while.

He was on his way back into the flat, juggling the paper, a pint of milk, a loaf of bread, fidgeting for the keys, when the phone started to ring.

Too late, he pressed recall and held his breath.

‘Hello?' The voice at the other end was suave as cheap margarine.

‘Adrian?'

‘You couldn't meet me in town, I suppose? Later this morning. Coffee.'

Kiley thought that he could.

When he turned the corner of Old Compton Street into Frith Street, Costain was already sitting outside Bar Italia, expensively suited legs lazily crossed,
Times
folded open, cappuccino as yet untouched before him.

Kiley squeezed past a pair of media types earnestly discussing first-draft scripts and European funding, and took a seat at Costain's side.

‘Jack,' Costain said. ‘It's been too long.' However diligently he practised his urbane, upper-class drawl there was always that telltale tinge of Ilford, like a hair ball at the back of his throat.

Kiley signalled to the waitress and leaned back against the painted metal framework of the chair. Across the street, Ronnie Scott's was advertising Dianne Adams, foremost amongst its coming attractions.

‘I didn't know she was still around,' Kiley said.

‘You know her?'

‘Not really.'

What Kiley knew were old rumours of walkouts and no-shows, a version of ‘Stormy Weather' that had been used a few years back in a television commercial, an album of Gershwin songs he'd once owned but not seen in, oh, a decade or more. Not since Dianne Adams had played London last.

‘She's spent a lot of time in Europe since she left the States,' Costain was saying. ‘Denmark. Holland. Still plays all the big festivals. Antibes, North Sea.'

Kiley was beginning to think Costain's choice of venue for their meeting was down to more than a love of good coffee. ‘You're representing her,' he said.

‘In the UK, yes.'

Kiley glanced back across the street. ‘How long's she at Ronnie's?'

‘Two weeks.'

When Kiley had been a kid and little more, those early cappuccino days, a girl he'd been seeing had questioned the etiquette of eating the chocolate off the top with a spoon. He did it now, two spoonfuls before stirring in the rest, wondering, as he did so, where she might be now, if she still wore her hair in a ponytail, the hazy green in her eyes.

‘You could clear a couple of weeks, Jack, I imagine. Nights, of course, afternoons.' Costain smiled and showed some teeth, not his but sparkling just the same. ‘You know the life.'

‘Not really.'

‘Didn't you have a pal? Played trumpet, I believe?'

‘Saxophone.'

‘Ah, yes.' As if they were interchangeable, a matter of fashion, an easy either-or.

Derek Becker had played Ronnie's once or twice, in his pomp, not headlining, but taking the support slot with his quartet, Derek on tenor and soprano, occasionally baritone, along with the usual piano, bass and drums. That was before the booze really hit him bad.

‘Adams,' Costain said, ‘it would just be a matter of babysitting, making sure she gets to the club on time, the occasional interview. You know the drill.'

‘Hardly seems necessary.'

‘She's not been in London in a good while. She'll feel more comfortable with a hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on.' Costain smiled his professional smile. ‘That's metaphorically, of course.'

They both knew he needed the money; there was little more, really, to discuss.

‘She'll be staying at Le Meridien,' Costain said. ‘On Piccadilly. From Friday. You can hook up with her there.'

The meeting was over, Costain was already glancing at his watch, checking for messages on his mobile phone.

‘All those years in Europe,' Kiley said, getting to his feet, ‘no special reason she's not been back till now?'

Costain shook his head. ‘Representation, probably. Timings not quite right.' He flapped a hand vaguely at the air. ‘Sometimes it's just the way these things are.'

‘A little start-up fund would be good,' Kiley said.

Costain reached into his suit jacket for his wallet and slid out two hundred and fifty in freshly minted twenties and tens. ‘Are you still seeing Kate these days?' he asked.

Kiley wasn't sure.

Kate Keenan was a freelance journalist with a free-ranging and often fierce column in the
Independent.
Kiley had met her by chance a little over a year ago and they'd been sparring with one another ever since. She'd been sparring with him. Sometimes, Kiley thought, she took him the way some women took paracetamol.

‘Only I was thinking,' Costain said, ‘she and Dianne ought to get together. Dianne's a survivor, after all. Beat cancer. Saw off a couple of abusive husbands. Brought up a kid alone. She'd be perfect for one of those pieces Kate does. Profiles. You know the kind of thing.'

‘Ask her,' Kiley said.

‘I've tried,' Costain said. ‘She doesn't seem to be answering my calls.'

There had been an episode, Kiley knew, before he and Kate had met, when she had briefly fallen for Costain's slippery charm. It had been, as she liked to say, like slipping into cow shit on a rainy day.

‘Is this part of what you're paying me for?' Kiley asked.

‘Merely a favour,' Costain said, smiling. ‘A small favour between friends.'

Kiley thought he wouldn't mind an excuse to call Kate himself. ‘Okay,' he said, ‘I'll do what I can. But I've got a favour to ask you in return.'

*

The night before Dianne Adams opened in Frith Street, Costain organised a reception downstairs at the Pizza on the Park. Jazzers, journalists, publicists and hangers-on, musicians like Guy Barker and Courtney Pine, for fifteen minutes Nicole Farhi and David Hare. Canapés and champagne.

Derek Becker was there with a quartet, playing music for schmoozing. Only it was better than that.

Becker was a hard-faced romantic who loved the fifties recordings of Stan Getz, especially the live sessions from the Shrine with Bob Brookmeyer on valve trombone; he still sent cards, birthday, Christmas and Valentine, to the woman who'd had the good sense not to marry him some twenty years before. And he liked to drink.

A Bass man from way back, he could tolerate most beer, though he preferred it hand-pumped from the wood; in the right mood, he could appreciate a good wine; whisky, he preferred Islay single malts, Lagavulin, say, or Laphroaig. At a pinch, anything would do.

Kiley had come across him once, sprawled along a bench on the southbound platform of the Northern Line at Leicester Square. Vomit still drying on his shirt front, face bruised, a cut splintering the bridge of his nose. Kiley had pulled him straight and used a tissue to wipe what he could from round his mouth and eyes, pushed a tenner down into his top pocket and left him there to sleep it off. Thinking about it still gave him the occasional twinge of guilt.

That had been a good few years back, around the time Kiley had been forced to accept his brief foray into professional soccer was over: the writing on the wall, the stud marks on his shins; the ache in his muscles that never quite went away, one game to the next.

Becker was still playing jazz whenever he could, but instead of Ronnie's, nowadays it was more likely to be the King's Head in Bexley, the Coach and Horses at Isleworth, depping on second tenor at some big-band nostalgia weekend at Pontin's.