The Players And The Game (15 page)

‘A little information about your business.’

‘Not local, are you? I’ve had the locals round. I said to him and I say to you, I run a postal service, that’s all, and I’m not responsible for anything outside it. Every page of the mag says it’s an offence to send pornography through the post. I can’t help it if the silly buggers do it, can I?’

‘Look, Miss – what’s your name?’

‘Norman.’

‘At present I’m not interested in the way you run your business. How long’s it been going, by the way?’

‘Just a few weeks. Why?’

‘Start it up with this Alastair, did you?’

‘No. He was what you might call transient. Bed and board. Couple of friends gave me the idea. There’s a dozen mags like
Meet Up
.’

‘And from the look of that lot of envelopes you’re not doing too badly.’

‘We meet a need.’

‘I dare say. So you run it on your own? Just with Georgie here?’

‘That’s right. Georgie sticks on stamps, posts letters. He’s got a couple of friends who come in to help. Otherwise it’s just me.’ She looked at her pink nails. ‘Do you want Georgie?’

‘How could anybody want him? I’ll bet his mother doesn’t.’ Georgie moved towards the door. ‘Just a minute, son. I don’t want you, but I do want your name and address. Give it to the sergeant.’

When the boy had gone Alberta Norman crossed fat legs. ‘What can I do for you? I like to keep in with the law.’ Her voice had a tinny quality that seemed synthetic. Indeed to Hazleton her whole personality appeared false, as though she were a bad actress. But this was not his immediate concern.

‘I want the name and address of one of your advertisers.’

‘They’re confidential, or supposed to be,’ she said, and Hazleton knew there would be no trouble. More than that, he felt that she knew what he had been about to ask.

‘I suppose I shall have to give you what you want. Men usually do get what they want, don’t they? What’s the number?’

‘E. 203.’

She opened a box on her desk and started to flick through the cards, took one out and handed it to Hazleton. It was typed, and in the top left hand corner said E. 203. On the body of the card was the address: Abel Giluso, Batchsted Farm, East Road, Sutton Willis.

‘I’ll keep this.’ She did not protest. ‘Have you ever met this man, Giluso?’

‘No, he’s never been in. Just sent his money and some letters, like most of ’em. Then I post on the letters, that’s all.’

‘Nice little racket,’ Brill said appreciatively. ‘What’s in here, then?’ He had his hand on the filing cabinet. She came round the desk screaming something, and slapped at his arm. Brill was conscious of a thick hot body against his own, then her semi-precious glasses fell off and he stooped to pick them up.

‘Come on now, what’s in here?’

‘That’s my business. Anyway, it’s locked.’

‘Come on, come on,’ the DCI said impatiently. ‘I’m not worried about any other little games you’re up to. Open it up.’

She took a key ring from her handbag, unlocked the cabinet. Inside was a collection of sex devices, from oddly shaped and pimpled condoms to massagers, corsets and rubber suits. Brill burst out laughing. ‘What do you lock these up for? You can buy them in any of the sex supermarkets.’

‘Georgie and his friends, they play around with them.’

It seemed to Hazleton that this was a deliberate diversion. ‘Giluso. Have you spoken to him on the telephone, had any letters written to you?’

‘No. I tell you, all they have to do is fill in the form, there’s no need to write.’

‘Do you keep a record of what letters you send on?’ She shook her head. Hazleton pushed his face into hers. ‘You’re in trouble, Bert. A lot of trouble. We want to talk to Giluso, and I think you know where he is, don’t you?’ She shook her brassy head again. ‘If you’re lying to me, Bert, I’ll see you get done. You’ve got form already, don’t tell me you haven’t, but I’ll really see you get done. Now, how many letters did this Giluso have? And what else do you know about him?’

‘I don’t know anything. Never seen him, never spoken to him. How many letters? I don’t know, maybe half a dozen.’

Some smell came from her to the DCI’s sensitive nostrils. He felt sure that she was lying.

‘You open the letters, don’t you?’ Brill said. ‘You’re not supposed to, but you do. Then you stick ’em back again. Could be useful for blackmail. I bet you make a nice little bit in black on the side.’ She shook her head again, took off her glasses and twirled them. ‘And while we’re about it, what’s the point of wearing these?’ He took them from her, gave them to Hazleton. ‘Plain glass. I noticed when I picked them up.’

Her eyes flickered. ‘They go with the job. They’re the kind of thing people expect me to wear, those who come in. And look here.’ She opened half a dozen of the letters addressed to her. Sealed envelopes dropped out, with their code numbers on the back for addressing. Pound notes and postal orders dropped out too. ‘With money like this coming in, why would I need to try anything else?’

Hazleton felt that he was wasting time. No doubt Bert was playing round in some way or another with pornographic material, but there seemed no point in going through all her files. He picked up the card index on the desk, handed it to Brill.

‘That’s my living you’re taking away.’

‘Think yourself lucky I’m not taking you as well. If there’s nothing we want here you’ll get it back.’

‘It won’t do any good. They’re mostly accommodation addresses.’

‘We’ll see.’

When the two men had gone Bert Norman reached for the telephone.

Eighteen-thirty hours. Sutton Willis was in the southern part of the county, fifteen miles from Rawley. They drove along roads crowded with grim-faced holiday week-enders travelling bumper to bumper as they moved like lemmings to the sea, then turned off into country lanes. It was still hot, and as Brill looked through the cards he found his fingers sticking to them. When he had finished he put them back in the box.

‘Nothing that strikes me, sir, except that a lot of ’em look like accommodation names as well as addresses, the men anyway. John Jones, c/o 84 Abernethy Street, Worcester, that sort of thing. Several Smiths, mostly William. Doesn’t look as if the women bother with it, their names sound more likely. Natural enough, I suppose, the men have mostly got wives and families, the women are either on the game or what you might call professional amateurs. My girl’s got two or three friends who’d do anything for a fiver.’

‘Has she now? You want to watch it.’

‘Liz wouldn’t step out of line. She knows if she did she’d be in trouble. Right here for Sutton Willis.’

They turned right. Hazleton said thoughtfully, ‘Abel Giluso. That’s not like John Jones. Maybe it’s his real name, and he is a foreigner.’

Sutton Willis was a dozen houses and a village shop. They asked an old man the way to Batchsted Farm.

‘Batchsted Farm you want, is it?’

‘You got cloth ears, dad? That’s what I asked for,’ Brill said.

The old man had been about to make some further remark, but he cut it off. ‘Turn left at the crossroads, half a mile to the right there’s a cart track. Farm’s along there, you can see it from the road.’ He turned his back on them.

They turned left at the crossroads down a narrow lane, and slowed down. It was more like a mile than half a mile when they stopped and got out. Hazleton swore.

Beside the cart track a notice board said:
Batchsted Farm. Residence and 3 acres. For Sale by private treaty.
Apply J. Darling and Co., Bishopsgate, Rawley. The notice was old and the paint faded.

Across the fields could be seen what looked like a deserted farm. As they went down the track this impression was proved correct. A solid, ugly brick farmhouse confronted them, its windows blind with boards. Several outbuildings, wooden structures in various stages of decay, surrounded a farmyard where grass grew. A cat delicately picked its way among cans and broken bottles. They walked round the back in silence. There was a pond that looked deep and dirty. Broken fences led to weedy fields. Brill pushed at one of the back doors and it gave.

‘We’re in,’ he called, and bent down to look. ‘Somebody’s forced an entry. Not too recent though, by the look of it.’

Hazleton was not an impressionable man, but he remembered what they had found at Planter’s Place, and found himself a little reluctant to enter the farmhouse. Brill had brought a torch from the car, and Hazleton let him go ahead, shining it about and making occasional facetious comments.

‘Kitchen, I suppose. Smells high enough, doesn’t it, who’s been eating gorgonzola? Careful when you tread there, sir, that looks to me like a dried turd, and I don’t mean dog turd at that. Living-room. Someone’s made a fire, but it looks like a good while back. Hall and stairs. Hallo, hallo, nobody’s going to get up
those
stairs in a hurry.’

The stairs were broken, with three complete treads missing. When Brill pulled at them another piece came away.

‘I don’t know what you think, sir, but I should say nobody’s been doing anything criminal here lately.’ The DCI did not comment on this evident truth. Brill’s ebullience was getting on his nerves. When they were outside he led the way to the outbuildings, and resolutely pulled open the door of the first
.
There was a rustling sound. A pair of eyes looked out of the darkness. Then Brill shone his torch and a large grey rat blundered past them and disappeared round a corner.

‘Now what was he gnawing, some nice bit of tender meat?’ said the irrepressible Brill. The torch revealed the carcass of a pigeon. ‘No, just a bit of nature red in tooth and claw. This was once a coal hole, by the look of it. Shall we try the next?’

But the other outbuildings held nothing more interesting than broken bicycles, bits of tractors, rusty farm tools. When they had finished they stood staring at the derelict place.

‘The question is,’ Hazleton said, ‘what was the idea of Giluso getting his letters sent here, how did he get them delivered, when did he collect? And where from?’ He slapped his thigh. ‘That For Sale sign. There’s some sort of box just by it.’

The box was a plain wooden one with a slot in it, of a kind more common in America than in England. There was a lock, which Brill broke with a car spanner. Inside was a letter addressed to Mr A Giluso, with the number ‘E. 203’ on the back. The letter was posted from East Dulwich, obviously by Georgie or Bert. It was signed Estelle, gave a telephone number, and said that she was a real dolly swinger, 21, able to give any man a good time. She didn’t live in Sussex but had her own cosy pad in Bayswater. She liked anything kinky, and was sure she would give satisfaction. She would expect a little present.

‘That’s one dolly swinger who won’t fall into Dracula’s clutches,’ Brill said.

Hazleton’s patience had worn through. ‘Brill, this case isn’t a joke. It’s about a mass murderer. What’s the matter?’

Brill could hardly speak. When he could get out the words he said, ‘Dracula, sir.’

‘What about him?’

‘Have you got a piece of paper? There’s a pad in the car.’ He leaned up against the car door writing, then turned with a wide smile and showed the paper to Hazleton. It said: Abel Giluso Bela Lugosi

‘It was saying “Dracula” that put it into my mind. Anagram, you see. There’s some use in doing crosswords after all. You remember Lugosi played Dracula quite often, he had those funny eyes, he was in lots of horror films.’

Hazleton did not remember. It was years since he had been to a cinema. Brill went on.

‘Dracula was a vampire, used to suck his victims’ blood. Wasn’t there a lot of blood about with the Allbright girl?’

The DCI remembered the cuts and bits. ‘There was.’ He stared at the names and said sourly, ‘Very clever. It takes us one step back, though, instead of forward. If Abel Giluso’s just an assumed name –’

‘And it is,’ Brill said perkily.

The DCI glared at him. ‘Then it’s pretty certain he didn’t ever live at this farm. So how did he get his letters directed here?’

Nineteen-forty-five hours, Saturday evening. It was still hot. Hazleton was back in his office. He bit ferociously into roast beef sandwiches while listening to a chastened DC Paterson, who had been trying to check on Vane’s Friday night movements.

‘Most of what he says is all right, sir, but there seems to be one gap. Left home at twenty-forty-three–’

‘Lost you two minutes later,’ the DCI said through bread, beef and mustard.

Paterson sat quietly sweating, hating Hazleton. ‘Went to the Spread Eagle at Pranting as he said, then the Red Lion outside the village. Landlord recognised his picture. Left about nine-thirty. Then the other pub he mentioned, the Duke’s Children at Green Common, that’s only seven miles away, but he didn’t get there till about ten-thirty. Barman recognised the picture, remembered the time roughly. He’s pretty sure it wasn’t before ten-fifteen. He left just before eleven, in time to call on his father-in-law. But it doesn’t take an hour to drive seven miles.’

‘He mentioned another pub he might have gone to.’

‘Not between Pranting and Green Common. I’ve been in them all. They’re mostly for locals, and they recognise strangers.’

‘Bloody awful beef.’ Hazleton removed a piece of gristle, and considered. There was perhaps three-quarters of an hour of Vane’s time on Friday night left unaccounted for. It did not seem that, with or without a partner, he was likely to have caught and killed Pamela Wilberforce in that time. It was possible, of course, that she was being kept as a prisoner somewhere, but the odds seemed to be that Vane had been telling the truth, and that he made a call at a pub which Paterson had somehow missed, or where he had not been recognised.

He dismissed Paterson and looked at the home address of the estate agent handling Batchsted Farm.
J N Darling, Oakdene Cottage, Crampton.
Crampton was about three miles out of town. He bit into another beef sandwich and remembered that he had not told his wife he would not be back for dinner. He became aware also that he had not had the coffee he had ordered. He buzzed the desk.

‘Where’s that muck you call coffee?’