The Cinderella Killer (16 page)

‘Yes, I feel that too,' said Kitty.

Charles felt he ought to say something calming. ‘We don't know it's something terrible. She may have had reasons of her own to make herself scarce.'

‘Rather odd, though, happening at the same time as the murder,' said Laura. ‘Feels like the two things must be connected.'

‘I know what you mean. And of course her car's missing too. At least I assume it is, Kitty?'

‘Yes, haven't seen the Figaro since she went off in it on Friday.'

‘But you did tell the police about it?' Charles wasn't sure how far the dancer's bloody-minded non-cooperation with the authorities would go.

‘Oh yes, they've got the registration number and what-have-you.'

‘Maybe they've already found it,' suggested Charles.

‘If they have they're hardly likely to tell us, are they?'

‘No. Maybe they'll announce something in one of their press conferences.'

‘Maybe.' Kitty still sounded very dispirited.

Charles turned his attention to Laura Hahn. ‘Actually, there is one thing I'd like to ask you, since you clearly know Jasmine del Rio pretty well.'

‘I thought I did,' came the embittered reply.

‘Did she ever talk to you about having used the name Marybeth Docker?'

The response was immediate. ‘Yes, that was what Jasmine called herself when she was in the States, trying to make a career out there. Way back, when she was just in her teens.'

‘Did she talk to you much about that period?' asked Charles.

‘Not a lot. I don't think it was one of the happier times of her life.'

‘Did she ever say why she changed her name?'

‘I think it was probably to sound more American. Trying to get work out in LA for an unknown was pretty hard. For an unknown Brit it was even harder. I think that must've been when she picked up that mid-Atlantic accent she never really got rid of.' Laura spoke with fond nostalgia. Clearly the feelings she had for her ex-lover remained strong.

Charles asked, ‘Might her reinvention of herself in the States also have had something to do with her age?'

‘You're probably right. From what she told me, she was only fourteen when she went out there. So yes, that could be another reason for her obscuring her origins.'

‘Did she talk to you about any relationships she had while she was out there?'

‘Sexual relationships?'

‘Yes.'

‘Only in pretty general terms. I think there were plenty of predatory men round LA at the time. So what else is new? There are predatory men around everywhere all the time. But I got the impression from Jasmine that some of the dancing jobs she got involved her putting in some work on the casting couch.'

‘That doesn't still happen, does it?' asked Kitty, sounding surprisingly shocked by the idea. ‘It's never happened to me.'

‘Then you've been unusually fortunate. The casting couch has always happened,' Laura replied. ‘Even in these right-on, politically correct days it still happens. Power goes to men's heads – and not just their heads. But, anyway, in Jasmine's case we are talking twelve, fifteen years ago. Gender politics hadn't advanced so far back then.'

‘Did she mention any names?' asked Charles. ‘You know, of the men she supplied sexual favours to?'

‘No. I didn't get the impression any of them were particularly memorable. She just did what she needed to do to get the job. When it came to sex, Jasmine always did have a very pragmatic side to her,' Laura concluded ruefully.

‘And she didn't mention the name of Kenny Polizzi?' The director shook her head. ‘Or any other big-name star?'

Another shake of the head. ‘Anyway, would Kenny Polizzi have been a big star back then? I thought he came from more or less total obscurity to star in
The Dwight House
.'

‘You could be right.' Charles sighed with frustration and looked at the swirl of brown in the bottom of his espresso cup. Now he really did need a proper drink. ‘If only we could find Jasmine and ask her.'

‘That is the problem, yes.' Laura looked desperately sad for a moment before she quickly covered up the feeling. She looked at Kitty. ‘It's unlike her just to take off in the middle of a job, isn't it?'

‘She'd never do that. She's got, like, this really strong work ethic. Once she'd signed up to do something, no matter how sick she was feeling, she'd always turn up.'

Laura nodded. ‘That's the impression I got of her. Mind you, a good few of my other impressions of her were wrong, so …'

‘No, she'd never just piss off. Jazzy's a professional.'

‘Hm.' Charles made one last attempt. ‘Laura, you can't think of anything else, can you? Anything else Jasmine told you about her time in the States …?'

‘Well, there was one thing. At the stage when our relationship was going really well, when we were even talking of buying a flat together, she did say she'd got about fifteen grand tucked away in a special account. She described it as her “LA haul”.'

‘Do you think she just meant the money she'd managed to save while she was out there?'

‘No, I don't think it was that. From the way she described her life in LA, she was hardly making enough to keep herself clothed and fed, let alone to give her a chance to save any.'

‘Well, however she got it,' said Kitty bitterly, ‘it's gone now.'

‘Really?' Laura looked shocked.

‘Last bastard she lived with cleaned her out completely.'

‘God, she was always such a bloody idiot when it came to men.'

Charles wanted to get back on to the provenance of the dancer's stash. ‘So if Jasmine didn't save it, Laura, where did it come from?'

‘Well, I think … from things she said … that this was some kind of pay-off she'd got from someone.'

‘Was she ever more specific about it?'

‘She did once describe it as her “hush money”.'

‘Did she?' said Charles, his mind racing.

FIRST BROKER'S MAN: What makes you drink so many pints of beer?

SECOND BROKER'S MAN: Oh, nothing makes me. I'm a volunteer.

T
his time when Charles rang Lefty Rubenstein's mobile there was no answer. So he left the lawyer a message, asking him to return the call. It was frustrating because Charles needed Lefty to validate the chain of logic that was joining up in his head.

Of course there was another line of enquiry Charles had yet to explore, and he felt diffident – not to say a little frightened – to go too far down that route. It was to follow up the information Lefty had given him about the Eastbourne drugs trade.

Still, after a couple of restorative double Bell's, he felt braced for the task. He comforted himself with the thought that he would probably be travelling up a blind alley. The police must have followed the same investigative route, so there was a very strong chance that Eastbourne's dealers would be lying low until the storm blew over.

I don't have much of a genuine detective instinct, Charles mildly chided himself, setting off on a sleuthing mission in the hope I won't find anyone to interview.

The pub whose name Lefty had given him was called the Greyhound, set in the less tourist-friendly part of Eastbourne. There was a broad street called Seaside Road which ran parallel to the front. Though one end joined Terminus Road, Eastbourne's main pedestrian shopping centre, Seaside Road grew shabbier the further east it went. There were more and more ethnic food stores and takeaways, and though there were still some fine Victorian villas, they were not very well maintained and bore the telltale signs of multiple occupancy.

Charles found the Greyhound easily enough. Permanent chalk boards outside promised the usual delights of Sky Sports, Curry Nights, Karaoke and Special Two-for One Meal Deals. Inside, large screens at either end of the bar vied with each other, one providing football, the other music videos. The clientele was not up to that of the Grand Hotel, but it was not as rough as Charles had expected. There was an allowance of shaven-headed men with tattoos and women with hair pulled tightly back from their faces, but there were also respectable-looking pensioners, and even some extended families wading their way through plates piled high with what mostly seemed to be chips.

That sight made Charles feel hungry. He'd only had a sandwich at lunch and that seemed a long time ago. He wondered if eating a meal was a good cover for an undercover operative investigating the drugs trade and decided reluctantly that it wasn't. That decision also affected his choice of drink. If he'd been eating he'd have gone for the red wine. Without food it'd be another large Bell's.

The bar staff didn't look that interested in their clientele, but the one who served him was polite enough. And Charles knew he had to take advantage of that moment of human contact. He had to ask about the name that Lefty had given him. It made him feel rather like the shifty Russian agent he'd played in a television Cold War thriller. (‘With Charles Paris representing the Soviet opposition, democracy will be safe for a good few years.'
Observer.
) So, as he took his change, feeling rather embarrassed, he asked, ‘Has Vinnie McCree been in tonight?'

To his surprise the girl knew who he was talking about. She looked at her watch. ‘He won't be in till later. Always pops in for his couple of pints round nine thirty.'

Charles consulted his watch. Three-quarters of an hour to wait. He would have that meal after all – good idea. He added to his order a rump steak with all the trimmings and a large Merlot.

And then if he lost his bottle before Vinnie McCree arrived, he could at least go back to his digs on a full stomach.

Charles Paris wasn't sure what he expected a drug dealer to look like, but Vinnie McCree certainly wasn't it. A paunchy, balding man in his sixties, he entered the pub wrapped up in an old British Warm coat. His face was suffused with red, the kind of broken-veined complexion Charles feared he too might have in a few years' time. And Vinnie seemed to be very much a regular – a favourite almost – in the Greyhound. He knew all the bar staff by name and one of them was pulling his pint even before he reached the bar. The girl who had served Charles's large Merlot (and his second one, and the third) had a whispered word with the new arrival and pointed across to where the actor was sitting.

As soon as he'd paid for his pint and taken a large swallow from it, Vinnie came across. ‘You were asking for me?' He had quite a thick Scottish accent, but he didn't sound surprised. Maybe Charles's approach was the one used by everyone who wanted to buy drugs.

‘Yes,' said Charles, who hadn't really planned this bit of his investigation. All he knew was that the noise from the football analysis and the music videos was too loud for them to worry about being overheard.

‘What did you want to see me about?' asked Vinnie.

‘A small matter of cocaine.' He didn't feel as airy as he made the words sound.

‘Oh, good,' said Vinnie. ‘Are you going to sell me some cocaine? Are you a dealer?'

The confusion was quickly sorted out. The two men established that neither of them was actually a drug dealer, and then they had to explain what they were. That Charles Paris was an actor from the cast of
Cinderella
at the Empire Theatre was readily clarified. What Vinnie McCree was doing took a little longer to sort out.

It took so long that the explanation needed to continue past the Greyhound's closing time of eleven o'clock. ‘Come back and have another drink at my place,' said Vinnie, and Charles had just reached that level of drunkenness where having another drink anywhere seemed a very good idea. The fact that only half an hour before he'd been prepared to defend himself against an assault from Vinnie McCree now seemed incongruous.

The flat he was taken to was very close – the pub really qualified as a ‘local' – a shabby conversion in a large shabby house. The hallway smelt of mould and damp, and inside the flat was added a distinct whiff of urine. There was also, Charles realized in the enclosed space, an unwashed sourness emanating from his companion.

Vinnie's home was clumsily designed, with a bathroom separated off by a shoddy partition. There didn't seem to be any evidence of a kitchen area or cooking equipment apart from a kettle. A proliferation of empty bottles suggested that most of the meals Vinnie took were liquid.

And the space was unbelievably untidy, every surface covered, each wall stacked high with newspapers. However much he tried to, Charles couldn't be unaware of the squalor. Nor of comparisons to his own studio flat in Hereford Road in London. Though he hadn't yet reached Vinnie McCree's level of seediness, his own living conditions were moving in that direction. Not for the first time Charles felt that he must take control of his life. Tidy up Hereford Road. Cut down on the drinking.

That thought lasted until Vinnie produced an unopened bottle of Famous Grouse, the whisky that Charles found closest in taste to his beloved Bell's. And once they were both supplied with grubby glasses of the stuff, Vinnie picked up the conversation where they'd left it off. It would have to be described as a conversation, thought Charles, though Vinnie was very definitely doing the lion's share of the talking.

He was, they'd established in the pub, a journalist, but Vinnie didn't seem to think he'd adequately described the kind of journalist he was.

‘People who call themselves journalists these days haven't a clue what the job really entails. They sit beside their bloody laptops in Wapping or somewhere, they eat sandwiches and drink bloody mineral water at their desks and they never see the outside world. When I was working in Fleet Street it was very different. Only time we spent in the office was for editorial conferences or sometimes writing up our copy. The rest of the time we were out
finding
bloody stories. Being a journalist back then meant being an investigator. We followed clues, we tracked people down, we made them talk to us – one way or the other we found out the bloody truth!'