Death of a Cave Dweller Read online

  “About his music?”

  “About life, really. He wasn’t like the other Seagulls. You’d see the four of them in the pub when they had money – all gettin’ pissed – but you could tell just by lookin’ at him that Eddie would rather have been at home watchin’ the telly if he’d had any choice.”

  “‘If he’d had any choice’?” Woodend repeated. “You mean someone was forcin’ him to be there?”

  “Maybe I’m puttin’ it badly,” Clarke admitted. “It wasn’t really a question of force. He was there because Steve Walker wanted him to be there.”

  “And what Steve Walker says, goes, as far as the rest of the Seagulls are concerned?”

  “Not for all of them – Billie an’ Pete can be quite independent when they want to be – but it did as far as Eddie Barnes was concerned. Anyway, that’s how it looked to me.”

  “An’ there was never any sign of the worm turnin’?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You never got the impression that Eddie resented bein’ bossed around by Steve?”

  Ron Clarke shook his head firmly. “I really must be makin’ a mess of explainin’ myself,” he said. “It wasn’t like Steve was the boss an’ Eddie was his slave. It was more like Steve was Eddie’s big brother. Steve’s a couple of years older than Eddie is . . . was. I think that made a difference.”

  “So Steve Walker must be really cut up about Eddie’s death?” Woodend suggested.

  “That’s puttin’ it mildly,” Clarke replied. “He’s devastated – totally devastated. I think, if he’d been given the choice, he’d have preferred it to be him what got electrocuted.”

  Mickey Finn was singing about some other guy who’d taken his girl away from him. Woodend glanced down at his watch, and wondered whether he should stay until the end of the show. On reflection, he didn’t think he would. He’d probably learned as much as he could from one session, and besides, the heat in the place was making his armpits itch.

  Five

  Rick Johnson was no longer maintaining a lonely vigil at the club door. He had been joined by a slim pretty girl, with long dark hair. She reminded Woodend of his own daughter, Annie, who, at that time of day, would be in school. He wondered why this girl wasn’t sitting at her desk, too.

  “So you’ve seen enough of the club already, have you?” Johnson said aggressively.

  Woodend gave the girl a friendly smile, then turned his attention back on the doorman.

  “Is this one of those difficult customers that Mrs Pollard pays you to keep out?” he asked.

  “She’s my wife!” Johnson said, scowling.

  Jesus Christ, Woodend thought. His wife!

  She had to be older than she looked, but even so, she could barely be of marriageable age. The chief inspector found himself wondering exactly what set of circumstances would make a sweet little kid like her end up married to a bruiser like Rick Johnson.

  “How do you do, Mrs Johnson? I’m very pleased to meet you,” he said.

  Instead of answering, the girl looked down at the ground. Her long dark hair now obscured her face, but Woodend would have been prepared to bet that she was blushing.

  “My wife doesn’t talk to strangers,” Rick Johnson said, as if she weren’t really there at all.

  “Very wise,” Woodend said. “An’ you should tell her not to take toffees from them, either. That’s what I’ve always told my little girl.”

  Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heel, and strode across the road. Whatever had made her marry Johnson, a man with a criminal record? he asked himself for a second time.

  It was only a few short steps to the Grapes, the pub where he had told Rutter and Inspector Hopgood to wait for him. Woodend pushed open the door, stepped inside and took a look around him. The bar had a wooden floor and scrubbed wooden tables. Many of the customers seemed to be off-duty postmen, but there was also a smattering of young lads, some of them with guitar cases propped up next to them. So this place was the watering hole of the kids who played in the Cellar Club, the chief inspector thought. That was a very useful thing to know.

  The two policemen were sitting at a table by the window. Both looked as if they had run out of things to say to each other long ago. Woodend bought a pint of best bitter at the bar, then walked over to them and eased his large frame into a free chair.

  “I’ve been telling your sergeant here that I’ve fixed you up with a nice big office back at the station, sir,” Hopgood said.

  “That’s very kind of you, Inspector,” Woodend replied, “an’ I’ll make sure that word of how helpful you’ve been to us gets back to your bosses.” He paused for a second. “But there’s no point in wastin’ much space on us, because we’ll hardly ever be there.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t quite follow you, sir,” Hopgood said. “If you’re going to conduct a murder inquiry, you’ll surely need—”

  “While I get some ale down me, why don’t you explain to the inspector how we work, Sergeant,” Woodend interrupted.

  Rutter sighed softly to himself. Breaking in the new help was always a tedious business, which was why the chief inspector was leaving it up to him. Still, he supposed that was what a bagman was for – to do the tedious business.

  “Mr Woodend doesn’t like to get too far away from the scene of the crime,” he said.

  “Meaning what, exactly?” Hopgood asked.

  “Meaning he doesn’t have much use for police stations.”

  Doesn’t have much use for police stations? The idea of not basing things at the local nick was inconceivable to Hopgood.

  “So where exactly will he be conducting his investigation from?” the inspector asked.

  Rutter looked across at Woodend questioningly.

  “Where would you guess I’ll be conductin’ my investigations from, Bob?” the chief inspector asked.

  It wasn’t very hard to work out the answer, Rutter thought – not when you knew Woodend as well as he did.

  “You’ll probably be running it from inside the club itself, won’t you, sir?” he asked.

  “Spot on,” Woodend agreed.

  “But . . . but at midday and during the evening, it’s full of teenagers,” Hopgood pointed out.

  Woodend grinned. “Quite right. An’ by some happy coincidence, those are just the times that this hostelry – which you can see for yourself is so convenient for the crime scene – is open.”

  “You can’t run an murder investigation from a pub,” Hopgood said, clearly outraged.

  “Not only could I, but I have done on a number of occasions, Inspector,” Woodend replied mildly. “You can learn a hell of a sight more sittin’ in a pub – right in the middle of things – than you ever would behind the closed doors of the local cop shop.”

  “But that’s just not the way things are done in Liverpool, sir,” Hopgood protested.

  “Maybe it isn’t – but it’s the way I do ’em.”

  Hopgood took a deep breath. “You’re here as guests of the Liverpool Police,” he said, “and I’m afraid that my superiors are going to insist that you observe the proper form.”

  Woodend sighed, not softly as his sergeant had earlier, but with all the exasperation of a man who has obviously played this same scene through dozens of times before.

  “How many murders do you reckon we’ve worked on together, Bob?” he asked Rutter.

  “Six,” the sergeant replied. “Starting with the case of that young girl in Salton and—”

  “Forget the details,” Woodend said airily. “An’ of those six, how many times have we caught the killer?”

  “Six,” Rutter said, doing his best to hide his smile.

  “Six out of six,” Woodend said musingly. “Not a bad record, all in all.” He took another sip of his pint of bitter. “Am I makin’ my point clearly enough for you, Inspector?”

  Hopgood flushed. “Your methods are unorthodox, but you usually get results?”

  “Nearly right,” Woodend a
greed. “My methods are unorthodox, and since I’ve had this bright grammar-school lad workin’ with me, I’ve always got results. So you can just relax, Inspector. Leave us to do things our way, an’ we’ll find your killer for you.”

  Hopgood stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, sir, I have to go and make a phone call,” he said.

  “I’m sure you do,” Woodend agreed. “An’ while you’re talkin’ to your boss, tell him that if he’s not happy with the way I’m conductin’ my inquiries, I’m more than willin’ to catch the next train back to London. My roses’ll appreciate me gettin’ back, even if no bugger else does.”

  Rutter grinned as he watched the inspector make his way hurriedly towards the pay phone in the corridor next to the toilets.

  “You don’t have any roses, sir,” he pointed out.

  “No, I don’t. But then again, they’re not goin’ to send us back to London, either.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “Oh yes. They need somebody to take the blame for not comin’ up with a murderer, an’ we’re the lucky devils who’ve drawn the short straw.”

  Rutter frowned. “So you’re not really as confident as you sounded a few minutes ago?”

  “Well, of course I’m not sure,” Woodend replied. “Detection’s hardly a science at the best of times. It’s not like workin’ in a laboratory, when the only thing the rats are interested in is food, an’ there’s only two or three ways they can get it. Murderers’ minds are much more complicated than that. So I’m never confident I’m goin’ to get a result. An’ when I say that, I’m talkin’ about a result in the straightforward cases – which this one obviously isn’t. But one thing I am sure of – we’ll have more chance doin’ it my way than if we behaved like the good little bobbies Inspector Hopgood wants us to be.”

  “So what line do you think we should be taking?”

  “I won’t know until I’ve had a root around an’ stirred things up a bit,” Woodend admitted, “but if you’re askin’ me to put my money on anythin’, I’d say we should start by lookin’ for a motive.”

  Inspector Hopgood returned, still looking flushed. “I’ve spoken to my Chief Super, sir,” he said, “and he says the last thing he wants to do is inhibit your investigation.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it,” Woodend said. “Now would you like to tell me what strings are attached?”

  “No strings, sir,” the inspector replied unconvincingly. “But the boss did mention in passing that he would appreciate it if you’d keep him up to date with developments.”

  “A very reasonable request,” Woodend said easily. “Tell him to rest assured that as soon as they are any developments to be reported, he’ll be the first to know about them.” He checked his watch. “The club should be just about closin’ now. Time for us to make a move.”

  “You’re going back to the Cellar?” Hopgood asked.

  “I am if my sergeant made the phone call I asked him to make. Did you, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir,” Rutter replied, deadpan.

  Hopgood was slowly piecing things together. The quiet conversation the sergeant and the chief inspector had had in the doorway of the Grapes before Woodend went off to the club. The fact that Rutter had excused himself, saying he wanted a pee, and had been gone for nearly five minutes.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to be at all! If anybody was to keep anything from anybody else, it should be him keeping vital facts from Woodend and Rutter, so he could conduct his own investigation. Yet despite the fact that the Scotland Yard men had been in Liverpool for only a couple of hours, they were already blind-siding him.

  “So you made the call, Sergeant, but you didn’t think to tell Inspector Hopgood about it?” Woodend asked innocently.

  “Must have slipped my mind, sir,” Rutter confessed.

  Woodend shook his head. “These young lads we have to work with,” he said to Hopgood. “They’ve no idea how to a proper job, have they? I blame it on the army. You used to go in a boy an’ come out a man, but they seem to handle the conscripts with kid gloves these days.”

  Hopgood wasn’t fooled for a second – but then he suspected that Woodend hadn’t wanted him to be.

  “Would you like to tell me about the phone call now, sir?” he asked through gritted teeth.

  “Oh aye. That list you gave us down at the Chandler’s Arms is already provin’ very useful. I asked the sergeant to phone the Seagulls’ manager at work, an’ tell him to round up his lads an’ meet us in the club as soon as it was closed for the afternoon. Did you succeed in that mission, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So that’s what we’re doin’, Inspector. We’re goin’ back to the club to talk to the Seagulls.”

  He should never have given them the bloody list, Hopgood thought. He should have made them come to him for every name and every address that they required. But how could he have known that the stories they told about Woodend in the canteen were only a pale imitation of the real thing?

  “I suppose I’d better come with you and make the introductions,” the inspector said, trying to sound casual.

  Woodend drained the last few drops of his pint. “Thanks, but that won’t be necessary,” he said.

  “It’s no trouble.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t,” Woodend agreed. “But I’m equally sure that a hard-workin’ bobby like you can find better things do with his time than tag around behind me. Besides, bein’ questioned by two policeman is intimidatin’ enough for most people – even if one of them is no more than a lad. There’s no point in completely overwhelmin’ ’em with three.”

  “As you wish, sir,” Hopgood said, ungraciously.

  “Thank you, Inspector,” Woodend replied. He turned to Rutter. “Before we leave Liverpool, you really must remind me to have a word with the Chief Super about how co-operative Mr Hopgood’s been.”

  Hopgood watched the two Scotland Yard men leave the pub. They had won this particular round, he told himself, but if he had anything to do with it, the hand raised in victory at the end of the contest would be his.

  Six

  The typists and shop assistants who had been gyrating to the beat of Mickey Finn and the Knockouts had drifted back to their desks in the typing pools and their positions behind department-store counters, and without them to fill up the space, the brick-vaulted Cellar Club seemed achingly empty. Not that it had been entirely abandoned. Rick Johnson and his wife were sitting on a couple of the hard chairs facing the stage, talking in low and urgent tones, and four young men were standing by the snack bar, looking very ill at ease.

  “We’ll be with you in a couple of minutes,” Woodend called to the men at the bar. He turned to his sergeant. “We’ll go an’ have a look the murder scene first, shall we?”

  They walked up the side of the middle tunnel, their footsteps echoing off the arched ceiling. Once they had mounted the small stage, Woodend swung around to face the back of the club.

  This was almost the last thing Eddie Barnes ever saw, he thought – a cramped, sweaty cave of a place, full of adoring female fans.

  There was no door separating the dressing room from the stage, just a jagged gap in the wall, where the bricks had been knocked out.

  Woodend sighed. The fellers who had built this place, back in Charles Dickens’ day, had taken pride in their work, even though they knew that it was only going to be used for storage. The ones who had modified it – to make it into a place for people – hadn’t been bothered to make more than a botched job of it. And they said progress was always a good thing.

  Bending his head to avoid banging it, Woodend stepped through the gap. The dressing room itself was longer than it was wide, and was illuminated by a single, naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Near the door was a cupboard which contained the disc jockey’s turntable and records. Beyond that were several rickety chairs and an equally rickety table. The whole place stank of sweat and stale cigarette smoke.

  “Ah, the glamour a
n’ magic of show business,” Woodend said, almost to himself.

  He picked his way between the chairs to a small, stained sink. It didn’t take a detective to work out that the lads who played in the groups used this more as a toilet than for washing – the smell of urine provided all the evidence anyone would need.

  Guitars and amplifiers were heaped up in a pile next to the sink, and beyond them was a curtained-off area. Woodend drew the curtain back, and found himself looking down at a battered couch.

  “Looks like they have all the comforts of home in here,” Rutter said, over his shoulder.

  “Aye, a real little palace all right,” Woodend replied.

  The two policemen climbed down the steps again, and Woodend walked over to Rick Johnson and his wife.

  “Why don’t you slip out and have a cup of coffee?” he suggested. “Half an hour should be long enough.”

  Johnson jumped slightly, as though he’d been so wrapped up in his conversation he hadn’t even heard the chief inspector’s approach.

  “If we want coffee, we can get it here,” he said.

  Woodend shook his head disbelievingly. “Don’t play thick with me, lad. You know what I meant. I want you out of here, so I can have a private conversation with the Seagulls.”

  “I’m not supposed to leave the club unless the door’s locked behind me,” Johnson said.

  “What? Worried about burglars when you’re leavin’ two bobbies inside?” Woodend asked. “Trust me, lad, the place’ll be safe enough.”

  “I’ve got my instructions,” Johnson said stubbornly.

  “I think we’d better go, Rick,” his wife told him. “After all, if this policeman wants to—”

  “Keep your trap shut, Lucy!” Johnson said angrily.

  The woman – the girl! Woodend couldn’t think of her as a woman, even if she was married – looked down at her hands, which were clasped tightly together on her lap. Her brown hair, which curled in to cover her cheeks, shifted slightly, and the chief inspector saw the bruise under her right eye.