Blood Brothers (18 page)

‘She’s an old woman,’ Barnard said.

‘There could still be a big bad wolf under grandma’s pinny. Vic seems to think so anyway. Says he’s going to stake her out.’ Barnard spluttered into his whiskey and tried to turn it into a cough. That was not something Copeland had chosen to confide in him and he was sure that was deliberate. If DCI Jackson and Vic Copeland between them did succeed on pressing major charges against Ray Robertson, he thought, or even his mother, they wouldn’t stop there. He would be in their sights too. He drained his glass and made for the door, but before he got there he felt the weight of a heavy arm across his shoulders.

‘Not going, are you, Flash,’ Copeland said. ‘Come on, you’ve hardly met anyone yet. Come and talk to my old guv’nor. He wants to persuade you to join his lodge.’

Barnard sighed. There was no way he wanted to join the superintendent’s lodge, one of those which he knew recruited mainly police officers, or anyone else’s lodge for that matter, but he knew that this was not a good place to annoy Vic Copeland. It would be noted and speculated on and filtered back to the Met and Copeland would take whatever advantage of it he could. He followed the sergeant back into the increasingly noisy throng with a distinct sense of his vulnerability. Maybe Fred Bettany had the right idea, he thought. Get out now while the going’s good.

He allowed himself to be steered towards the bar area where a paunchy man in plain clothes, sweating heavily, his face flushed and the hand holding the whiskey glass not entirely steady, was holding forth to an admiring group of younger officers who appeared to be hanging on his every word. He spotted Copeland and waved an expansive arm.

‘Vic, my old mucker,’ he said. ‘How’s it going in the big bad Met?’

‘Not too bad, guv,’ Copeland replied. ‘Interesting times in Vice.’ He waved in Barnard’s direction. ‘This is one of my new mates. Harry Barnard. The one who pinned Georgie Robertson down, remember? He’s interested in joining the brethren and I thought maybe you would give him a helping hand.’

The superintendent’s bleary gaze fastened on Barnard and he nodded cheerfully. ‘We’ve a full complement here now,’ he said. ‘Apart from the girls, of course, but I don’t rush about recruiting them in the first place. Let’s face it, it’s a man’s job. Any copper who tells you anything different is a bloody fool.’ There were nods of agreement all round. ‘Anyway Harry,’ the superintendent said putting a brotherly arm around Barnard’s shoulder and giving Copeland a conspiratorial wink. ‘Anyway, let me buy you a drink and we’ll have a little chat about the craft.’

H
arry Barnard woke late after his trip to the City, bleary-eyed and with a thumping headache. He could not remember exactly how he had got home in the small hours although when he glanced out of his bedroom window he could see his car was parked askew in the car park below so he assumed he had driven. Not, he thought, the most sound decision he had ever made. The phone began to ring before he had finished making the coffee which he hoped would help restore him to some sort of normality. It was DS Vic Copeland, who did not sound in the best of moods either.

‘Where the hell are you?’ Copeland demanded. ‘I thought we were supposed to be talking to Ray Robertson’s accountant this morning. He’s due here in ten minutes.’

‘Were we?’ Barnard asked. ‘I won’t be in for a while. I’ve the mother and father of all hangovers.’

‘I’ll go ahead on my own then,’ Copeland snapped and Barnard heard the phone slammed down at the other end.

He groaned. He knew that being interviewed by Copeland would be the last straw as far as Fred Bettany was concerned. Shirley was probably booking their flights at that very moment. He wondered bitterly who had won the argument over Spain or the Caribbean. He could not imagine buttoned-up Fred enjoying life in a Hawaiian shirt in either destination. He made his coffee and sniffed the aroma gratefully. Perhaps the morning had not turned out so badly after all if Vic Copeland was closeted with Fred Bettany for an hour or so. He could, he thought, take advantage of that.

He showered and dressed quickly and by nine thirty was exceeding the speed limit down the Holloway Road in the direction of the East End. He pulled up outside Robertson’s gym, not very optimistic that he would find him there, so was not surprised when the sole occupant turned out to be one of Ray’s long-time trainers Rod Miller, in grubby singlet and shorts.

‘Long time no see, Rod,’ Barnard said enthusiastically. ‘Do you know where the boss is?’

Miller shrugged. ‘Not expecting to see him today Harry,’ he said. ‘He said something about going to see his ma.’

‘Really?’ Barnard asked, surprised. Since Georgie Robertson’s arrest he did not think relations between Mrs Robertson and her other son had been anything more than frigid. As he heard it, the old lady did not think Ray was doing nearly enough to help Georgie escape the several serious charges he was facing, not realizing – or choosing not to realize – that Ray was more than content to see Georgie go down for life.

‘That’s what ’e said,’ Miller said. He seemed to have shrunk since Barnard had last seen him, he thought, and he looked distinctly anxious. ‘Did you know he wants me to give evidence at the trial?’

Barnard shook his head. ‘What does he want you to say?’ Barnard asked, knowing that whatever the trainer was supposed to testify to would probably bear little relation to reality. Miller flushed slightly and glanced at the floor.

‘That he made a pass at me,’ he muttered at last.

‘And did he?’

‘Nah,’ Miller said. ‘I’m not a bloody nancy boy, and I don’t think Georgie is either. It’s just something Ray dreamed up to make sure Georgie goes down, innit? Juries don’t like queers.’

‘They don’t,’ Barnard agreed. ‘But I’d duck out of that if I were you, Rod. It’s a dirty trick too far. And Georgie’s brief will make mincemeat of you if you can’t make it sound kosher. You know what they’re like.’

‘He told me to tell Mr Copeland that I’d do it, not you,’ Miller said, his eyes shifty.

‘And did you?’

‘Last Monday.’

‘Well, next time I see Vic Copeland I’ll tell him you’ve changed your mind. Will that do?’ Barnard demanded. ‘In the meantime I’ll catch up with Ray at his mother’s place and tell him not to be so effing stupid. That’s a favour too far, that is.’ Barnard felt genuinely angry at the hapless trainer but even more annoyed with Ray Robertson for thinking that he might get away with such a blatant interference in the case. Barnard could not count the number of times he had warned Ray not to interfere in the judicial process, obviously to no avail, and he wondered now just what else he had got up to in the interests of putting Georgie away.

He went back to his car and headed east towards Bethnal Green and the densely packed streets he and the Robertson brothers had known so well as boys. Barnard had met them both at primary school before they were thrown together irrevocably by being sent to the same farm in Hertfordshire as evacuees to escape the German bombing, the scars of which were still visible in parts of the East End. Georgie was already running wild and revealing a seriously vicious streak before they arrived in the country and Ray had continued to protect Barnard from the younger boy’s attacks and the hostility of their local schoolmates, who had resented the arrival of these outsiders when they arrived in their rural village. Ray had always regarded Harry Barnard’s decision to join the police as inexplicable and deeply regrettable and Barnard was sure that if he had not followed that path after grammar school he would have become as inextricably involved in crime as the Robertson brothers. They had not been thrown together much during Barnard’s early years in the force but once Barnard graduated to the vice squad in Soho they inevitably came face-to-face again and Barnard seriously began to wonder if his career could survive their closely entwined history.

It never ceased to surprise Barnard that Ma Robertson still lived in the small terraced house where she had brought the two boys up, a couple of streets from where the Barnards had lived. Unlike Barnard’s father, her husband had not survived the Normandy landings and by the time Ray and Georgie were fully grown it was their mother who played a crucial role in East End crime, taking over and building on what her husband had started, and expecting her sons to succeed her.

Barnard parked in an anonymous car park near Bethnal Green station and walked slowly down to one of the few pre-war terraced streets which had survived the bombing and post-war redevelopment. He glanced up and down the street before he knocked on the neatly painted front door but could see no one on foot and only a few parked cars at the far end of the road near the local shops. The door was opened quickly by Mrs Robertson herself and Barnard had no difficulty in recognizing the Robertson brothers’ formidable mother, a little shrunken, a little greyer and slightly stooped but still with the sharp, steely eyes he had always known and a face which had only hardened over the years into an expression of complete implacability. She stared at her visitor for a moment as if scanning it for changes too and allowed a hint of a smile to dominate her features for no more than a second.

‘It’s you,’ she said, holding the door open. ‘I’m very popular this morning. But if it’s Ray you want, duck, you’ve missed him. He left about ten minutes ago.’

‘How are you Ma?’ Barnard asked, stepping straight from the front door into the living room where a coal fire crackled in a grate which had never been modernized.

‘How do you think?’ she snapped back quickly. ‘With Georgie still banged up, like he is.’

‘He may be banged up for much longer if the trial goes against him,’ Barnard ventured.

The expression which crossed the old woman’s face and was gone again almost instantly was fierce in its intensity. ‘We’ll have to see about that,’ she hissed. ‘But I know I’ll get no help from you in spite of all Ray’s done for you.’

‘Ray, maybe,’ Barnard said equably. ‘But not Georgie. You know as well as I do there’s never been any love lost there.’

‘Is that all you came for?’ she asked. ‘To tell me that? As if I didn’t know.’

‘I came to catch up with Ray, but I can tell you what I wanted to say as easily as Ray now I’ve taken the trouble to come so far. I was out last night with some coppers at a party in the City and I picked up a hint that their interest in Ray extends to you too. I think you’re being watched, Ma, so be careful, that’s all. If you’re doing anything you shouldn’t be, I’d pack it in if I were you.’

‘Pah,’ Ma Robertson said contemptuously. ‘They’ll have to get up early in the morning to catch me out.’

Barnard shrugged helplessly, knowing he was wasting his time here. ‘Do you know where Ray’s headed? I really need to talk to him.’

‘I don’t know, duck. I’ve no bloody idea. He doesn’t tell me much these days. He spends too much time on his poncey boxing galas to give me or his brother any help.’

Barnard sighed and turned back to the front door. He could, he thought, make much the same complaint but in his case Ray Robertson’s increasing isolation was a definite plus. This was a time when his relationship with any of the Robertson clan was a liability he could do without.

Back at the nick, after a leisurely stroll round Soho, Barnard reluctantly sought out Vic Copeland who was sitting at his desk looking like a particularly smug cat who had just located a copious source of cream.

‘How’s the hangover?’ he asked Barnard. ‘I told you you’d have a good time.’

Barnard shrugged. ‘It’s improving,’ he said. ‘I’ve had worse. How did you get on with Fred Bettany?’

‘Ah now, there’s an interesting thing,’ Copeland said. ‘He didn’t turn up, did he?’

‘Did he let you know why?’ Barnard asked, a tiny worm of worry intruding into his stomach.

‘Nope,’ Copeland said. ‘And didn’t answer his phone, either. When I asked the plods in North London to take a look they said the house was deserted.’

‘Ray Robertson will know where he is,’ Barnard said, trying to project some confidence into his voice. ‘Bettany’s worked for him for years.’

‘Which is precisely why we need to talk to him,’ Copeland said. ‘If anyone knows where the bodies are buried it will be Fred Bettany. And maybe where people get their toes and fingers lopped off. I’d like to get a warrant to search Robertson’s gym down in Whitechapel. I reckon that’s a thieves’ kitchen at the very least. Maybe worse.’

Barnard shrugged. Copeland, he reckoned, was clutching at straws now. There was no evidence that he could see that the body on the building site had any connection with Ray Robertson at all. ‘So did you make any progress on anything at all this morning?’ he asked irritably. ‘What about the other murder, Nigel Wayland? Anything new there?’

‘I’d other fish to fry this morning, once I realized Fred Bettany had stood me up,’ Copeland said evasively. ‘But I thought we could pop into the queer pub at lunchtime, see if his mate Vincent has turned up there yet. If he doesn’t put in an appearance soon I reckon we should put out a call for him. If one of the shirtlifters is dead and another’s disappeared, chances are the second one is either another corpse or a killer, don’t you reckon? Find Wayland’s mate and we’ve cracked the case for those layabouts in King’s Cross. Simple.’

Barnard shrugged. He had no doubt that for someone with Copeland’s history fitting up Beaufort for Wayland’s murder was all in a day’s work. But he wanted no part of it. ‘Let’s have another look at the gay pub then,’ he said. ‘It can’t do any harm.’

‘And we can have a bevvy while we’re about it,’ Copeland said, getting to his feet. ‘If your hangover will take it, mate. I didn’t have you down as a quitter.’

Kate got back to the Fellows’ agency in mid-afternoon. She took the film out of her camera and shut herself in a dark room to develop her pictures but within minutes she had to stop work because her hands were shaking so much. She sat down on the high stool next to the workbench and put her head in her hands.

She had met Carter Price at nine that morning. ‘Where are we off to today?’ she had asked.

‘I thought we’d take a spin around some of the pubs and caffs in the East End and see if we could get a hint where Smith and Mitch Graveney were headed the other day. Neither of them lives out east and I should think if any of Ray Robertson’s associates saw Smith on their turf there would be trouble. He’d be noticed. They stick to their territories on the whole, these crime gangs. They don’t waste time treading on each other’s toes unless they’re seriously provoked.’