Fatal Quest Read online

  ‘How long has this been goin’ on?’ he asked. ‘Months?’

  Lene gave him a look which was even more pitying than the last one. ‘Months?’ she said. ‘Yer must be joking!’

  ‘Then how long has he been comin’?’

  ‘Bloody hell, it must ’ave been years!’

  The Conway Club had no sign over its entrance to announce its existence, since the management had long ago decided that if you didn’t already know it was there, then it probably wasn’t for you anyway. Its customers were mostly journalists who plied their trade in nearby Fleet Street – hard-drinking men who lived under the constant pressure of deadlines. Ladies – of any sort – were generally discouraged.

  It was at the bar of the Conway Club that Tom Townshend was sitting, a ten-year-old malt whisky in one hand and a Craven A cigarette in the other. He was aware that other hacks kept glancing at him, some with looks of pure admiration on their faces, some with expressions which burned with deep envy – and he didn’t give a damn about any of it.

  Townshend had started out his career as a cub reporter on his local newspaper, and, but for the War, would probably have been perfectly content to carry on covering christenings, weddings, and jam-making competitions at the local Women’s Institute, until the day he retired. The Normandy landings had changed all that. He had seen his comrades die in ways it was too horrendous even to describe. He had killed men he didn’t even know, but who, he suspected, were just as decent and ordinary as he was himself. And he had faced death himself on numerous occasions, and had come to understand that if a certain bullet had been two inches further to the left, or if a certain German soldier had swung his bayonet just a little quicker, he would have ceased to be.

  And so it had been a new Tom Townshend who had walked though the gates of the army camp in his demob suit – a Tom Townshend who had learned to value life, and was determined to make his mark on it.

  It had taken him just four years to go from junior reporter on the Daily Globe to its crime editor, he reflected, as he sipped at his whisky. And that did not have to be the end of it. Many of those who knew him saw even this as just one small step in his inevitable rise – and who was he to disagree?

  He felt a light tap on his shoulder, and turned to see the big man in the hairy sports coat who was standing next to him.

  ‘A pint of your best bitter, Horace,’ he called to the barman. ‘And since it’s for one of our friends from the North, you’d be well advised to make sure it’s got a good head on it.’

  ‘Good to see you, Tom,’ Woodend said, holding out his hand.

  ‘Good to see you, Charlie,’ Townshend replied, taking it. ‘But I assume you’re not here by chance.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Woodend agreed.

  ‘So to what do we owe the honour of your presence amongst us? It can’t be to re-fight old battles, since we’ve already clearly established that it’s only because of the efforts of Sergeant Charlie Woodend and Corporal Tom Townshend that Adolf Hitler isn’t living in Buckingham Palace today.’

  Woodend grinned. ‘You always did exaggerate the part we played in the War,’ he said. ‘Me, I’m more realistic. I believe that even without us, the Allies could probably still have won.’

  Townshend returned the grin. ‘Why don’t you tell me what it is you want, Charlie?’ he suggested.

  Woodend took the picture of the dead girl out of his pocket, and laid it on the bar. ‘She was killed last night,’ he said. ‘No one’s claimed the body yet.’

  Townshend shook his head. ‘Poor little bugger,’ he said sadly. ‘I take it that you’d like me to print her picture in the paper?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And what sort of headline would you like? Something on the lines of “Do you know this girl?”’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, if it’ll help you to put a name to the face, I’d be glad to do it,’ Townshend told him.

  ‘Actually, I already know who she is,’ Woodend confessed.

  ‘Then why …?’

  ‘Because other people know, too – only they won’t admit it. But once her picture’s been printed – an’ once you get a couple of dozen calls identifyin’ her – they won’t have any choice but to acknowledge the truth, now will they?’

  Eight

  There were three detective constables already at their desks when Woodend arrived at the office the next morning, but two of them were busily pretending to be absorbed in their work, and it was only DC Cotteral, with an unpleasant smirk on his face, who seemed willing to even acknowledge the sergeant’s presence in the room.

  ‘Did you happen to glance at the morning papers on your way to work, Sarge?’ Cotteral asked.

  ‘No,’ Woodend replied. ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Not even the Globe?’

  ‘Not even the Globe.’

  ‘Well, the guv’nor’s seen it,’ Cotteral said, as his smirk widened. ‘Oh yes, he’s seen it, all right. And now he wants to see you!’

  The chief inspector was sitting at his desk, with a copy of the Globe spread in front of him. When Woodend entered his office, he picked up the paper with his left hand, and pointed to the picture of Pearl Jones, prominently displayed on the front page, with his right index finger.

  ‘That’s the dead darkie,’ he said, unnecessarily. ‘Do you happen to know, Sergeant Woodend, how this hack – ’ he glanced at the by-line – ‘how this hack, Townshend, managed to get hold of the picture?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Woodend said, forcing himself to do his best to sound convincing – but not giving a damn that he was failing.

  ‘Yes, I’d be very interested indeed to know how he got his hands on it,’ Bentley mused. ‘Come to think of it, you had a copy of the photo yourself, didn’t you, Sergeant?’

  ‘I did, sir,’ Woodend agreed. ‘But then so did the morgue. In fact, I’d imagine that the morgue had more than one copy.’

  ‘Suppose I was to ask to see your copy right now,’ Bentley said. ‘Could you show it to me?’

  ‘I’m not sure I could, sir,’ Woodend admitted. ‘In fact, now I think about it, I’m almost sure I threw it away when you took me off the case.’

  ‘How convenient,’ Bentley said. ‘Well, I suppose you must be feeling like a real smart-arse this morning, mustn’t you, Sergeant?’

  ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

  ‘Don’t try playing the innocent with me,’ Bentley growled. ‘Ever since the paper hit the streets, the switchboard’s been jammed with callers identifying the darkie in the picture as Pearl Jones. Which means, doesn’t it, that you were right all along?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I suppose it does.’

  ‘But much more important than any petty feeling of triumph you might have, it means that the mother lied to me. To me!’

  ‘She does seem to have done,’ Woodend agreed.

  ‘But she’s not the only one who’s made a fool of me,’ Bentley continued. ‘By handing that picture over to the Globe – and there’s no point in denying it was you, because I won’t believe it – you’ve made a fool of me, too.’

  There was no logic to that argument, Woodend thought, but then logic had never been one of Bentley’s strong points.

  ‘Does it really matter who gave the picture to the newspaper, sir?’ he asked. ‘Isn’t the important thing that it’s clearly established, once an’ for all, who the dead girl is?’

  ‘Of course that’s the important thing,’ Bentley agreed gracelessly, and without a great deal of conviction. ‘But the authorization to print it should have come from me, not from some young copper who was still in shitty nappies when I first started collaring villains.’

  But you didn’t authorize it, Woodend thought. And I don’t think you ever would have authorized it.

  ‘Victoria Jones has made me look bollock-brained,’ Bentley said. ‘A nigger has made me look bollock-brained. Well, it won’t be long before she starts to feel sorry she ever did that. Because the kid gloves are off, as far as I’m conc
erned – and within an hour or so, I’ll have her spilling the beans.’

  ‘Spilling what beans?’ Woodend asked, before he could stop himself.

  ‘What beans do you think I mean, you moron?’ Bentley asked. ‘She’s been up to her sweaty armpits in something very bent, and it’s more than likely that her daughter was involved in it, too.’

  ‘I don’t think it is likely at all, sir,’ Woodend said. ‘According to Pearl’s headmistress, she was a—’

  ‘Did I ask for a comment from you, Sergeant?’ Bentley interrupted.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then keep your trap zipped until I tell you that you can speak. As I was saying, the kid was probably involved in some shady business or other, which was why she was killed. And look at how she was killed! With a razor! That’s a typical underworld weapon!’ Bentley paused. ‘You should have told me the murder weapon was a razor, Sergeant. If I’d known about the criminal connection earlier, I’d probably have had this case sewn up by now.’

  ‘I did tell you,’ Woodend protested. ‘When I briefed you yesterday morning, one of the first things I said was that—’

  ‘Don’t you dare contradict me, Sergeant!’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘And I will not be lectured to about how to conduct a complex case by a man who seems completely incapable of conducting even a simple one,’ Bentley said. ‘Or am I wrong about that? Have you already arrested Booth’s murderer?’

  ‘You know I haven’t.’

  ‘Do I?’ Bentley asked. ‘You didn’t tell me about the razor, so why should I assume that you’d tell me about making an arrest? After all, why I should I need to know? I’m only your guv’nor!’

  Woodend said nothing.

  ‘Are you, in any way, shape or form, on top of the case I’ve assigned you, Sergeant?’ Bentley wondered. ‘Did you even know that the landlord of the Waterman’s Arms has been released?’

  ‘I imagined he would have been by now.’

  ‘That’s not what I asked. Did you actually know?’

  ‘No, sir, I didn’t.’

  Bentley shook his head, despairingly. ‘Do you know what the real trouble with you smart-arses is?’ he asked. ‘It’s not that you’re cocky and self-righteous, although that’s bad enough – the real trouble is that you’re not half as smart as you think you are.’

  Wally Booth had a long criminal record. But there were no surprises there, Woodend thought, as he skimmed through the file at his desk. In fact, since it was highly probable that he’d been a regular patron of the Waterman’s Arms, it would only have been surprising if he hadn’t had any form.

  Booth’s criminal career had begun in the 1930s. He’d been a cat burglar at the outset of it, but – like many young men with the ambition to get on in their chosen profession – he’d soon graduated to smash-and-grab raids.

  It was during one of these raids – on a jeweller’s premises on Bond Street – that he’d first come seriously unstuck. The car which the gang had been using for their getaway had stalled not thirty yards from the shop, and Booth had been arrested and given a two-year stretch for his part in the raid.

  When he’d been released, in May 1942, he found that the reception committee waiting for him at the gates took the form of two military policemen, who immediately handed him his call-up papers and informed him he was in the army now.

  Booth’s military career had been neither long nor glorious. After only two days in an army camp near Bradford, he’d done a runner, and headed straight back to London, which – according to an old lag called Ozzie Phelps, who Woodend had once been handcuffed to in the anteroom of the Bow Street Magistrates’ Court – had been a thieves’ paradise during the War years.

  ‘He did a good job for us, did ole Adolf Hitler,’ Phelps had said. ‘It was ’cos of his bombing raids that we ’ad the blackout in London, yer see, which is the finest fing that ever ’appened to a burglar. Yer didn’t ’ave to worry about the street lights any more, ’cos there wasn’t no street lights. And making yer getaway was a lot easier in the dark.’

  ‘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.’