Authors: Laura Wilson
Stratton's War (57 page)
‘Bollocks.’
‘We have witnesses, George.’
‘What witnesses?’
‘You were seen leaving the house.’
‘You said that before.’
‘About the other time, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you did go there twice.’
‘I never said that.’
‘Oh, well . . .’ Stratton crushed out his cigarette and pushed back his chair. ‘Looks like we’ll have to proceed with the charges. It’s a shame.’ He stood up. ‘You see, Colonel Forbes-James is quite a magician. One wave of his wand and all this could go away - provided, of course, that he likes what you’ve got to tell him. But if you’re not prepared to talk to us, then . . . Well, I’m afraid they’re changing the law, George. Looting’s going to be made a capital offence, and by the time your case gets to court I should think they’ll be about ready to make a nice big example out of somebody, and with your record . . .’ Stratton shook his head sorrowfully. ‘I don’t hold out much hope.’
Forbes-James rose. ‘Time to go, I think, if you’ve nothing more to say to us, Mr Wallace . . .’
‘Don’t make no difference,’ said Wallace, bitterly. ‘You’re saying you’ll drop the charges if I say I done the Morgan woman. You must be joking.’
Stratton furrowed his brow. ‘Why would we do that?’
‘Because murder’s a topping offence, too - in case you’d forgotten. ’
‘Who said anything about murder?’ Forbes-James sounded genuinely puzzled. ‘Did you, Inspector?’
‘Heavens, no.’ Stratton shook his head in bewilderment. ‘Accidents happen, George. You know that. Anyone can make a mistake.’
Wallace stared at them. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Come, Mr Wallace,’ said Forbes-James, gently. ‘We just want a spot of information. Surely that’s not too much to ask - in the circumstances?’
‘Wait a bit. You’re saying that if I tell you what you want to know, you’ll drop the jump-up, and you won’t charge me with nothing else?’
‘That’s right.’ Forbes-James made an expansive gesture.
Bloody hell, thought Stratton. ‘There is the matter of breaking and entering at Mr Vincent’s flat,’ he said.
‘I’m sure we can all forgive and forget,’ said Forbes-James, smoothly. Machin won’t, thought Stratton. When he finds out, he’s going to have my head on a plate. Never mind squaring the station at Tottenham over Johnny . . . By the time it was all finished, his name was going to stink worse than Wallace. Of course, from his family’s point of view, Johnny’s release was a good thing - a spell in Borstal would, in all likelihood, make him worse, not better - but all the same, the copper in him couldn’t approve of riding roughshod over the law. ‘We don’t want you to confess to anything, Mr Wallace,’ continued Forbes-James. ‘As I said, we simply want information. And if you give us what we want, you’ll be free to go.’
Wallace stared at him in disbelief. ‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that. Once we’ve established you’re telling the truth, of course.’
‘Hold up,’ said Wallace, ‘Never mind me telling the truth - how do I know if you are? He,’ Wallace jerked his head at Stratton, ‘give me all that before, how he’d help me, then look what happened.’
‘Circumstances change, Mr Wallace. You’re a lucky man. You’ve come to the attention of higher authorities.’
‘You mean I’m talking to the organ grinder, not the monkey?’
‘I shouldn’t have put it quite so crudely myself, but . . .’ Forbes-James shrugged. Charming, thought Stratton. Kick me in the balls while you’re at it, why don’t you?
Wallace stared at them both, then shrugged. ‘Fair enough.’
‘Good,’ said Forbes-James. ‘Now that we all understand each other, let’s have that little chat, shall we?’
‘I never meant it to happen,’ said Wallace. ‘Straight up. She fell. Like I told him,’ his eyes flicked towards Stratton, ‘and I don’t know who Abie was collecting the stuff for.’
‘Did you know what was in the box?’
‘No . . . Well, I knew it was something to do with her, but—’
‘Her?’
‘Mabel Morgan. Her films. She thought we was coming to buy the stuff off her, you see.’
‘Stuff?’
‘Film stuff. She thought we was coming from some rich bloke who liked old films and that. For a private cinema or something. I said to Abie, she’ll never believe that, but Abie said she’d fall for it, and she did.’
‘So she was expecting you?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Who set it up?’
‘Abie. Sent someone round to the Wheatsheaf, all respectable and that.’
‘If she was expecting visitors,’ Stratton interrupted, ‘why didn’t she have her teeth in?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps they didn’t fit.’
‘She was wearing make-up,’ said Stratton. ‘She’d have had her teeth in.’
‘Well . . .’ Wallace looked towards Forbes-James for guidance.
‘Answer the question, please.’
‘Fell out, didn’t they?’
‘What, they dropped out of her mouth onto the floor? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.’
‘Well, she got nasty, didn’t she? All smiles at first, then when I said we wouldn’t give her nothing, she said we couldn’t have the stuff, so . . .’ Wallace shrugged. ‘I had to . . . you know . . .’
‘Hit her?’
‘I might of given her a tap. That’s when the teeth came out.’
‘Both sets? That’s more than a tap.’
‘I didn’t say I liked doing it,’ said Wallace defensively. ‘It was business.’
‘Whose business?’ asked Forbes-James.
‘I don’t know. On my life.’
‘You don’t seem to know much, Mr Wallace,’ said Forbes-James. ‘Or not enough, anyway. Perhaps I should leave you alone with Inspector Stratton for a few minutes to refresh your memory.’
‘Won’t make no difference.’
‘Won’t it? Well, let’s try a few more questions and see what you make of those. Inspector?’
‘McIntyre Brothers,’ said Stratton, hiding his irritation at being reduced to the status of a heavy. ‘Firm of builders. Premises in Cleveland Street. Heard of them?’ Wallace stared at a spot on the wall above their heads, apparently deep in thought. ‘In particular, a man named . . .’ Stratton leafed through his notebook for the name of the shifty-looking labourer. ‘Curran. Thomas Curran.’
‘I might know him.’
‘Might?’
‘He done some business with Abie. Supplies and that. Bit of redistribution.’
‘Recently?’
Wallace shook his head. ‘Not that I know. It was back . . .’ He screwed up his face in thought. ‘February, March . . . I was minding the shop.’
‘The billiard hall?’
‘That’s right. I was there. Abie’s told me he’s got to see someone about a job, and then he comes back - that was late, after we’d closed, so I let him in.’
‘Was he alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘What happened?’
‘Abie’s told me to take the motor round to the garage - round the back - and clean it up inside.’
‘Why?’
‘It was just a bit of dirt in the back and on the seat, and a few footmarks and that, and a bit in the boot. When I come back, Abie’d cleaned himself up.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There was mud on his shoes when he come in. Earth and that. Lime. He asked me to wash the floor.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘Such as what?’
‘Such as blood.’
‘Nothing like that. Just a bit of dirt.’
‘How did you know he’d been to see Curran?’
‘Abie told me. Said he’d had some stuff off him - wood, I think he said - and put it in the car. Mucked up his clothes.’
‘Come off it, George. Abie’s not going to bother going out for a few sticks of wood.’
‘That’s what he told me.’
‘Did he say anything else?’
‘Nothing. Just asked me if I done the car all right, then told me to get off home.’
‘Right.’ Forbes-James, who’d had his eyes closed for most of this exchange, suddenly sat up and pushed back his chair. ‘That will be all - for the time being, at least.’
Wallace half-rose, but at a gesture from Stratton sat down again. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’ he asked.
‘You’re staying put,’ said Forbes-James. ‘We’re not finished with you yet.’
SIXTY-SEVEN
Stratton followed Forbes-James up the stairs to the front of the station, where they stood outside, smoking. Further along the street he could see Arliss, moving along slowly with one of the reservists. Arliss’s demeanour and measured walk gave off an air of dignified, disciplined patience, but Stratton knew a state of stupefied boredom when he saw one. He found himself grinning, despite his annoyance. ‘Nice to have some fresh air,’ commented Forbes-James.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do you know this man Curran?’
‘I interviewed him after we found the body.’
‘Well, you’d better go and see him again. See if you can’t confirm Wallace’s story. I don’t imagine,’ he added, raising his eyebrows, ‘that Curran’s employer knows what he’s been up to.’
‘Highly unlikely,’ agreed Stratton. ‘It depends if he’s prepared to drop Marks in it in exchange for a bit of leeway, but I don’t hold out much hope. Abie Marks isn’t the sort of man you want to cross.’
Why, Stratton asked himself for the hundredth time as he trudged back inside, was everything so bloody complicated? He was used to witnesses who were too scared to talk, but at least he normally knew the aim of what he was doing: catching villains and putting them away. Simple. Forbes-James, he was sure, had other ideas, and if that meant guilty men walking free, then so be it. He could imagine Johnny, his statement having mysteriously been discarded, newly released and regaling his friends with tales of how the cops hauled him off to the station in handcuffs and worked him over, but he hadn’t talked . . . It would raise his stock in their eyes, make him cock of the walk, and whatever authority old Uncle Ted possessed would be gone, placing him on a level with the despised Reg. Two pathetic little men, powerless cogs in the world’s machinery like flies in a spider’s web, whereas he, Johnny, would be someone to be reckoned with, looked up to . . . Stratton groaned.
‘You all right?’ Jones looked up from a pile of papers as he entered the office. ‘You look bloody terrible.’
‘Thanks. You’re not much of a matinée idol yourself.’
‘I’ve got too much to do, and I can’t find anything. We had two soldiers come in this morning saying they robbed a hotel back in 1938 and now they’ve seen what the army’s like they’d rather be in prison. Of course, the army’s not going to want them back, so we’re stuck with them. Second time it’s happened this month. And there’s another jeweller been turned over, and a furrier, a jump-up in Hanway Street, and another tom’s got herself killed, and for all the good I’m doing I might as well wipe my arse with this lot.’ He lifted up a handful of papers and let them flutter to the floor. ‘A good half of it’s yours, by rights.’
‘I wish I could help,’ said Stratton, sincerely. ‘You haven’t come across a man called Thomas Curran, have you? Works for a building firm called McIntyre Brothers.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘Never mind.’ Stratton picked up the telephone. ‘I thought it was too much to hope for.’
Learning from the clerk at McIntyre Brothers that Curran was working on a site in Covent Garden, Stratton went over there and found him sitting on an upturned fruit box, smoking and reading a paper with a bunch of other workmen, none of whom he recognised. ‘Remember me, chum? Detective Inspector Stratton, CID.’
Curran turned pale, but said nothing. Stratton addressed his comrades. ‘I’m here to speak to Mr Curran, and we’d like a bit of privacy, if you don’t mind.’ With studied nonchalance, the men drifted away just far enough to re-position themselves within earshot, where they pretended to talk amongst themselves. ‘I’m sure you’ve got work to do,’ Stratton said to them. ‘Now scram. Unless, of course,’ he added to Curran, who was looking extremely worried, ‘you’d prefer to accompany me to the station.’
Curran shook his head. ‘Can’t do that, sir. Get myself in trouble.’
‘You’re already in trouble,’ said Stratton. ‘But,’ he smiled at Curran, who was sagging on his box, twisting his cap in big, freckled hands, ‘this is your lucky day, because I’m going to give you the chance to get yourself out of it. Now I’ve been hearing a lot about you and your activities. Got yourself a nice little earner, I understand, selling building materials on the side.’
‘I never.’ Curran’s face wore a look of virtuous denial. ‘On my life.’
‘That’s not what I heard. I heard you’d been doing business with the big boys. Or rather, one big boy in particular, a Mr Marks. Known to his friends as Abie.’
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