Fatal Quest (10 page)

‘It must have been,' Woodend agreed.

‘And then, o' course, there was the police themselves. Before the War, they could be shit hot – when they put their minds to it. But see, all the younger coppers were called up, and the only ones left were the ones wot was too old for military service. Well, us young lads could run rings round ole blokes like that, couldn't we?'

‘It must have seemed as if all your birthdays had come at once.'

‘Exac'ly. But that wasn't even the best part. The best part was the
black market
. See, by 1942, almost everyfink was rationed, and stuff wot 'adn't even been worf nicking before was suddenly like gold. I knew blokes wot would 'ave considered it beneaf their dignity,
before
the War, to steal anyfink uvver than jewels. But it didn't take them long to realize that there was good money to be made from 'aving it away with chests of tea, 'cos there was always a market for them. Then again, faces 'oo'd only dealt in fur coats before, found they could sell any coats – even cheap ones – for top dollar. I tell yer, they was real good times.'

‘An' didn't it bother you, even for a minute, that there was a war goin' on at the time?' Woodend wondered.

‘Look, we should all do wot we're best at,' Phelps reasoned. ‘We'd never 'ad made good soldiers, 'cos we wouldn't take orders, but we was very good at nicking fings. In a way, we was like Robin Hood and his Merry Men.'

‘Stealing from the rich an'
sellin
' to the poor?' Woodend asked.

‘That's right,' Ozzie agreed, completely failing to see the irony.

‘An' you never got caught?'

‘Not once. O' course, there was always the
risk
of getting nabbed – the Flyin' Squad 'ad the job of rounding up blokes wot 'ad decided to leave the army …'

‘You mean deserters?' Woodend asked.

‘If yer like. Anyway, they used to raid the pubs that blokes like me used regular, but they never got their 'ands on ole Ozzie.'

Wally Booth hadn't been quite so lucky. He'd been caught by the Squad one afternoon in 1944 and handed over to the army, but before then he'd had what he would probably have described himself as a ‘good run'.

On arriving back in London in '42, Booth had immediately contacted ‘Greyhound Ron' Smithers – a man who'd earned his nickname not for being fleet of foot, but because of his weakness for the dog track, and who had been the kingpin of the black market at the time. Smithers had welcomed his new recruit with open arms, and for the next two years Booth had distributed forged ration tickets, shifted lorry loads of stolen eggs, and sold petrol which, if it hadn't ‘fallen off' a lorry, had certainly been siphoned from one.

Even after his recapture, Booth was not forced to fight for King and country. The army had decided he'd never have the makings of a soldier, so had simply charged him with desertion and locked him up in the glass house for two years.

Released in 1946, Booth had once again joined Smithers's gang, which was still going strong, though now – with more and more things coming off the ration – it had largely moved out of the black market and into the protection racket.

Woodend lit a cigarette, and scanned the list of Booth's known associates. He saw Greyhound Ron's name and recognized two or three others, but never having worked in the Serious Crimes Squad himself, most of them were unknown to him.

So where should he start his investigation? he asked himself.

It was possible that one of those named on this list had been drinking with Booth when he met his death, and – after battling with whatever conscience he had – would feel compelled to come forward and name the killer. Possible, but unlikely – especially if the man who had actually
caused
Booth's death had been a face.

Woodend reached over to his already overflowing ashtray, and angrily stubbed out his cigarette.

The simple fact was that he didn't really
care
who had killed Wally Booth. But he
did
care about who had killed Pearl Jones, and he was far from ready to leave the investigation of her death in the hands of DCI Bentley.

The door of the Wolf's Lair suddenly swung violently open, and the chief inspector stormed through it like a full-blown tornado.

‘Did you tip her off?' he bawled at Woodend, across the room.

‘Tip who off, sir?'

‘The darkie! Mrs Victoria bloody Jones. Did you tell her I was going to have her picked up?'

‘No, sir.'

‘Well, that is strange, isn't it?' asked Bentley, who had drawn level with Woodend's desk, and now seemed to be fighting hard against the urge to smash his sergeant in the face. ‘Because, you see, Sergeant Woodend, when DC Cotteral got to her house, she was nowhere to be found.'

‘She could have gone out shoppin',' Woodend suggested.

‘Do you think I'm a complete bloody idiot, Sergeant?' Bentley demanded.

Yes, sir, Woodend thought.

‘No, sir,' he said aloud.

‘Because actually it
did
occur to me, when Cotteral phoned and told me that she wasn't answering her door, to think that she might have gone shopping. It also occurred to me that since Cotteral had a search warrant in his pocket, it would be a pity to waste it. So I told him to jemmy the door, and go inside. But, as it turned out, he didn't
have to
jemmy it, because the door wasn't locked.'

‘I see,' Woodend said.

‘Do you, indeed?' Bentley hectored. ‘And can you guess what I told Cotteral to do once he
was
inside?'

‘You told him to go straight upstairs, and have a look through her bedroom chest of drawers?'

‘I told him to go straight upstairs and have a look through her bedroom chest of drawers,' Bentley agreed. ‘And guess what? The chest of drawers was empty! So what do you conclude from that, Sergeant?'

‘That's she's gone away.'

‘Exactly! And is there any significance to the fact that she didn't lock her door before she left?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And what significance might that be?'

‘Nobody leaves their front doors unlocked – especially in an area like Canning Town.'

‘And why is that?'

‘Because they know that if they do, they'll find the house stripped when they get back.'

‘So?'

‘So she isn't
going
back.'

‘Sherlock Holmes is not dead,' Bentley said, with heavy sarcasm. ‘He lives on, in the form of Detective Sergeant Charlie Woodend.' He leant over, and put his hands on Woodend's desk. ‘Look me in the eyes, and tell me you weren't the one who tipped off Victoria Jones,' he ordered.

Woodend did as he'd been instructed. ‘I did not tip off Victoria Jones,' he said.

‘Then who
did
?' Bentley wondered.

‘I don't know,' Woodend said.

But he was certainly going to do his damnedest to find out.

T
hroughout the length and breadth of London, much the same things were happening everywhere – men were already at work, women were busy cleaning their houses, and children were sitting behind their desks at school. But Balaclava Street was in this way – as in so many others – different. On this street, the men slept late, dragging themselves from their pits just in time to reach the pub's front door for opening time, the women wouldn't have recognized housework if it had hit them in the face, and the children went to school only when their parents were threatened with fines by truancy officers.

And yet, Woodend thought as he walked up the street, there was, in the middle of all this decay and desperation, a small oasis of tidiness and order – the home that Victoria Jones had made for herself and her dead daughter.

He drew level with Lene's house, and was just reaching for the door knocker when the door itself swung open.

‘Shaw yer coming up the shtreet,' Lene said.

Of course she had, Woodend thought, and noted that though she kept her purple beret on, even when she was at home, she had no such qualms about her false teeth.

Lene led him into her front parlour. There was an armchair positioned right by the window, and though the window itself was sparkling clean, the rest of the room smelled of neglect and indifference.

‘Yer mished all the excitement,' Lene told him, as she offered him a seat on her ratty two-seater sofa.

Woodend sat down gingerly, but not gingerly enough to avoid a cloud of dust and dubious odours from engulfing him.

‘The excitement?' he repeated. ‘You're talkin' about the policeman, are you?'

‘Wot policeman?'

‘The one who went into Mrs Jones's house, about an hour ago.'

‘Oh, 'e was a copper, was 'e?' Lene asked. ‘I didn't know that.'

‘So who did you think he was?'

‘I fort he might 'ave been a burglar.'

‘So you called the Old Bill, did you?' Woodend asked, already suspecting he knew the answer.

‘I didn't call them
as such
,' Lene admitted.

‘Meanin' you didn't call them
at all
?'

Lene shrugged indifferently. ‘It wasn't none of my business, was it?' she asked. ‘Besides, if I 'ad called 'em, I'd just 'ave been wasting police time, 'cos when he came out of the 'ouse 'e was carrying no more in 'is 'ands than 'e 'ad when 'e went in,' she added, in her own defence.

There was something not quite right about this conversation they were having, Woodend thought – something about the woman's whole attitude which jarred.

And then he had it!

Lene, whose entire life revolved around watching what went on outside her window, should have been thrilled to learn that the man who had entered Victoria Jones's house was a policeman. She should have been absolutely bursting with questions about why he had gone to the house, and what he had found there.

But she wasn't.

Which could only mean one thing – that Cotteral's visit had been little more than an anticlimax. That something far more exciting had preceded it.

‘Would you like to tell me about what happened
before
the copper turned up?' he asked Lene.

‘Gawd Almighty, I fort yer'd never ask,' Lene replied. ‘What 'appened was that that big black car wot I told yer about come back again.'

‘The one driven by the man who watched Pearl?'

‘That's right. Only, it didn't park furver down the street, like wot it usually does. This time, it pulled up right in front of that darkie's 'ouse.'

‘An' was the same man in it?'

‘There was
two
men, this time. And I don't fink neiver of 'em was the man wot usually comes.'

‘What did they look like?'

‘They was big blokes, wiv their 'ats pulled down over their eyes.'

‘So how do you know one of them wasn't the man who usually comes?'

‘'E's smaller. There's a few inches between 'is 'ead and the roof of the car, but these two was scraping it with theirs.'

I wish all witnesses were like you, Lene, Woodend thought.

‘What did these two men do?'

‘They knocked on the door, o' course, and when the Jones woman answered it, they barged straight in.'

‘You're sure about that, are you, Lene? You're absolutely certain that she didn't
invite
them in?'

‘Invite 'em in? I should say not! The first one pushed straight past 'er, an' nearly knocked 'er flying. Then the second one sort o' jostled 'er inside, and closed the door behind 'im.'

‘An' what happened next?'

‘About ten minutes later, the door opened again, and one of the men stepped out onto the pavement. 'E 'ad a suitcase in 'is 'and, 'e puts the suitcase in the boot, then gets inside the car and starts the engine. Once it's running, 'e gets
out
again, and looks up and down the street, like 'e's making sure there's nobody about. Then 'e makes a “come on” sign with 'is 'and. That's when the uvvers come out of the 'ouse.'

‘Mrs Jones an' the second man?'

‘Course, it was them. 'Oo did you
fink
I'm talking about? King George and Queen Elizabeff?'

Woodend grinned. ‘No, that would have been unlikely,' he admitted.

‘Anyway, this second bloke is 'olding on to the darkie's arm. 'E ain't exactly
dragging
'er, if yer see what I mean. It's more like 'e's guiding 'er. 'E leads 'er over to the motor car and opens the back door. 'E points into the car, and she gets inside. 'E follows 'er, and then the one in front drives away.'

‘So you think she was reluctant to go with them, but not
that
reluctant?' Woodend suggested.

Lene looked at him as if he'd suddenly started speaking to her in an exotic foreign language.

‘Yer wot?' she asked.

‘She wasn't exactly keen on gettin' in the car, but she didn't fight against it, either,' Woodend rephrased.

‘No, she didn't fight against it,' Lene agreed. ‘If yer ask me, she was too bleeding terrified to fight.'

The Royal Albert public house was on Rotherhithe New Road. With its sign hanging over the main entrance and the name of the brewery etched in its frosted-glass windows, it was, in theory, like any other pub in the area. In practice, however, the only people who entered it were those who had been invited to do so, and the two men standing in the doorway – one big, and the other
very
big – were there to ensure that this practice continued to be observed.

When Woodend showed the two men his warrant card, and asked to speak to Greyhound Ron, the bouncers looked less than impressed.

‘Mr Smivvers is a very busy man,' one of them said.