Gilded Edge, The (14 page)

The other member of Beresford’s set sat playing backgammon at a table with another man. A small crowd had already gathered around the pair, giving an indication of the stakes they were playing for, and the skill with which they were doing it. Simon Goldsachs was hunched over the table in intense deliberation but, unlike Lucan, he seemed to know exactly what he was doing. And he clearly enjoyed doing it, and thus concentrated fully on the task in hand. As Vince passed by, Simon Goldsachs glanced up at his audience while he loaded the dice into the cup to take his throw. It was the eyes that struck Vince most. They looked as if they could not only bore right through you, but sum you up in a second and then bury you on the spot. His opponent looked Mediterranean, and Vince could almost tell by the cut of his suit that he was Italian. The gesticulating hand movements backed this up, even in the act of smoking a cigarette or throwing the dice. Vince particularly noticed the Italian’s watch, because it was meant to be noticed: a gold chronograph, an Audermars, with all its sub-dials and pushers. What made it so noticeable in a room probably packed with Pateks, Perregauxs and Rolex Presidentials, discreetly hidden under French cuffs, was that this man wore the watch fastened
over
his cuff.

‘Is that Simon Goldsachs?’ asked Vince.

‘Yes. He’s playing with Mr Agnelli, the owner of Fiat.’

Vince gave a nod of recognition, then shook his head in condemnation. ‘I once had one of those. I spent half the time standing at the side of a road kicking the tyres.’

Leonard continued smiling, but not laughing.

‘Enter’ came the command, and Leonard opened the door warily. Vince noted the man’s nervousness, which worried him. Because not looking nervous, flustered or showing any emotion at all was part of Leonard’s well-practised stock-in-trade. Vince entered, and the door was quickly shut, with Leonard wisely staying behind it. The thing sprang at him from the floor, its eyes flashing a demonic emerald green. Its gaping twisted mouth growled, exposing a long purple tongue rough enough to scrape the flesh off your dead bones, and it had teeth and claws big enough and sharp enough to get you into that sorry position. The tight-packed muscle down its back and across its shoulders and shanks rippled under shimmering black velvet fur.

‘Settle down, Zarra,’ said James Asprey, pulling on the long leash that secured ‘Zarra’ to the radiator. Zarra was a panther. Not a fully grown panther, but not a cuddly kitten chasing a ball of string either.

‘Do excuse Zarra, Detective, she has terrible manners. Obviously thinks you’re after her steak.’

‘Just as long as Zarra doesn’t think I
am
her steak.’

Asprey was seated behind his desk, and before him sat a sirloin steak with all the trimmings. Asprey cut it into slices and handed the plate down to the big black cat.

‘It’s time for her walk, you see.’

‘Where do you walk her?’

‘Around Berkeley Square,’ replied Asprey, in a low languid drawl.

‘I bet that gets the nightingales singing.’

‘That’s why I have to feed her first. Last time she went out hungry, and ended up killing a bloody Jack Russell.’

‘What happened to the owner?’

‘He or she wasn’t attached to it at the time, and I didn’t hang about to hear their complaints. I dumped the dog in the basement, got in the motor and scarpered.’ Asprey fixed him with a challenging look. But he needn’t have bothered, since Vince wasn’t on dead dog duties this week. ‘I don’t suppose I should walk her in public, as there’s probably some law against it. But laws are made to be broken – that’s how we change them, don’t you agree, Detective . . .?’

‘Treadwell. Vince Treadwell. I know how you changed the gambling laws in this country by breaking them. I know quite a bit about you, Mr Asprey.’ This stirred some interest in Asprey, in the form of a raised eyebrow that bade Vince to continue. ‘You started out bookmaking whilst still at Eton, got sent down from Oxford for running card schools – and threatening to break a fellow student’s legs when he wouldn’t pay up on a wager.’

Asprey gave a short raucous laugh at this memory. ‘Phileas Ainsworth. Modern languages. And he didn’t understand the words “pay up” in any of them. The little turd thought it was all fun and games, until the credit ran out and it was time to stump up. A reputation is worth far more than a degree, and it’s stood me in good stead ever since.’

‘Back in London you decided against a career in the City, or in the Foreign Office, where the rest of the men in your family had distinguished themselves, and started working for the bookmaker Sid Amberg, to really learn the game.’

‘Ah, Siddy, bless him, one of the finest desert dwellers to walk across the Red Sea and make it to Oxford Circus. Do go on, Detective Treadwell. The memories are priceless.’

Vince did something he wasn’t invited to do and sat down on a red leather Chesterfield set against the wall. He deliberately forwent the chair closest to Asprey’s desk. The room wasn’t small, but it surely felt that way with Zarra at one end of it. She looked a lot more dangerous than the one Cary Grant had to contend with in
Bringing up Baby.

Vince continued: ‘You soon set up on your own book, with a share from Sid, and started running chemmy parties at various upmarket locations, the Ritz to name but one.’

Asprey’s brow furrowed, weighing the detective up, reassessing him, then granting him a nod of approval. ‘Well done. I’m a man who appreciates good information. As a bookmaker and layer of odds, it’s key to success. And this is very good information you have, very good.’

‘A lot of it’s a matter of public record – if you can be bothered to dig. And I like to dig. You took a gambling pinch in ’58. It made all the papers. Society amusement more than scandal. In fact, it made your reputation, as the rakish gentleman gambler.’

‘Never my intention, Detective. My intention was to make money, and have some fun along the way. But mostly to make money.’

‘And you made money – a lot of money. I heard you were clearing almost half a million a year.’

At last, Asprey looked something like surprised. ‘And where did you get this information? Because
that
certainly isn’t a matter of public record – not even my accountant knows.’

‘I checked with a retired detective, DCI Teddy Maybury.’

At the mention of his old nemesis, Asprey stopped smiling. ‘Retired indeed – retired on a pension supplied by me. I forget the amount of times Maybury broke up our little games. He was only looking for a pay-off, of course.’

‘Of course,’ agreed Vince, with a couldn’t-care-less shrug. ‘Teddy told me your mother, Lady Asprey, used to straighten them out. A formidable lady, so I hear.’

‘My mother had a way with policemen, the common touch you might say,’ said Asprey, smiling again. But it was the hooded, humourless eyes that Vince noticed as the owner of the Montcler Club delivered his next slight. ‘She would convince them that they were being rather silly, very prudish and extremely boorish, and altogether living up to their reputations . . .’

This slight wasn’t so slight, however. It was looking for – and demanded – a big fat retort. And Vince would have delivered one, both barrels, but for the fact he had been distracted. He was staring at Zarra. The beast was up on its paws now, its back arched, head bowed, fur bristling and trembling with a look of contorted concentration. Its tail was up and swishing from side to side like a windscreen wiper. It was taking a shit.

Asprey followed Vince’s gaze, looked down unperturbed at his pet panther unpacking on the polished floor and, barely missing a beat, nonchalantly continued: ‘But, of course, the police, though puerile and puritanical, were predictably and very punctually taking their cut. Yes, you could set your watch by Maybury and his mob from West End Central. But by that time things had really taken off. I had so many friends and contemporaries who were now politicians or in positions of power, and were gambling with me, that they really would have been arses to do anything other than make it legal. On any given night, there’d be front-benchers here from both sides of the Commons. Not to mention my ermined and robed friends from the upper house. You see, Detective Treadwell, the aristocracy of this great country have always gambled. It’s their birthright, and gambling is the last bastion of honour in this country. In these straitened times, it’s all we have available to us to test our mettle. And no mean-spirited little mercantile-class law was going to put a stop to it for long.’

With that, Asprey sighed and averted his languorous eyes from Vince; eyes that, by the end of his little monologue, were filled with antipathy for the world he found himself living in. He leaned back in his throne-like chair, hooked his thumbs into his waistband – and considered Zarra, curled around his feet like a discarded fur coat, as she licked her arse.

James Asprey was a tall, gaunt figure of a man. The dark blue three-piece suit he wore was covered in dried drool from Zarra. It looked as if it needed a good cleaning, or a good throwing out. But that was typical of Asprey’s class: they never threw anything away. It all got handed down, everything from the grand houses they lived in, the furniture they sat on, to the three-piece Kilgour or Anderson & Sheppard suits they lounged around in. Asprey had wavy sandy hair and looked older than his thirty-nine years, with a face that was long and suitably equine-looking for an ex-bookie. The mouth was wide and fleshy and flexible, and could smile winningly if it needed to; like when meeting and greeting a big-money gambler about to spend it at his tables. His eyes, at the same time, remained hooded and glacially impenetrable. Vince had noted how everything that Asprey said and did seemed to take just that little longer than was necessary. His movements were slow and confident, and Vince had the feeling that James Asprey didn’t hurry much for anything. He was working to his own personal timeframe and wouldn’t be rushed, cajoled or stirred by the demands of the human race, a race he misanthropically refused to break a sweat for. Even with the animals he loved, he was the leader of the pack, and Zarra was going to have to damn well wait for her walk; and meanwhile could shit on the floor as much as she liked.

‘That’s all very interesting, Mr Asprey. Now you can tell me about Johnny Beresford?’

At this, Asprey straightened up in his chair, arranging himself in a more businesslike fashion. He reached into his inside breast pocket and pulled out a silver cigarette case, flipped it open and offered one to Vince. ‘Bespoke blended, Turkish mainly.’ When Vince declined, Asprey lit a cigarette for himself with a gold and enamelled Caran d’Ache lighter, and hungrily sucked down the pungent Turkish smoke.

Then he said: ‘Johnny was a friend. One of the few. One of the best. I’d trust him with my life. Like all my friends, he loved to gamble; wouldn’t be my friend if he didn’t. Johnny was with me from the start. He was here at the club most nights and, unofficially, he was my floor manager of sorts. The rare occasions I’m not here, Johnny is, he takes care of any gaming problems that may arise. Everyone loves him, one of the funniest buggers I know. And he’s a terrific card player, so he plays . . .’ Asprey stopped, having caught his use of the present tense. Obviously still snagged on the past. He took what seemed a laborious breath to quell the emotion in his voice, and then gave a slight smile, as if to correct himself; he wouldn’t be making that mistake again. ‘Johnny played for the house. He brought a lot of players in. They wanted to play against him, pit their wits. They wanted to play the best. And for a long long time he was simply that.’

‘A professional gambler?’

Asprey’s head jolted back, as if struck by a humorous memory. ‘When he left the army, he put down “gambler” as his occupation in his passport. Probably not the wisest thing to do when you travel. People assume you’re on the dodgy side, and of course it’s not legal in a lot of places. But he thought it
rakish,
and didn’t want to appear a bore, even to some chap at passport control. Putting down businessman on his passport he thought was terribly dull. But, of course, it wasn’t a complete affectation, as he did derive a portion of his income from gambling. How big the portion, even I couldn’t tell you. He had lots of interests, fingers in lots of financial pies.’

‘And enemies? I imagine a professional gambler with his fingers in lots of pies would make a few.’

Asprey looked genuinely surprised, then genuinely amused. ‘Where do you think you are, Detective? A saloon in Dodge City full of twitchy-fingered cowpokes drunkenly accusing each other of cheating?’ Then he shot out his hand, shaped it like gun, and mimicked the action of a fast-on-the-draw gunslinger. ‘Good lord, no sir. We lose like we win, and vice versa, without celebration or commiseration but with dignity. It’s just bad manners and bad form to do it any other way. If you want emotional catharsis, go join the herd and play the slot machines at Las Vegas – or Brighton. We’re gentlemen here.’

‘And yet Beresford still ended up with a bullet in his head – just like in Dodge City.’

‘You have the culprit in Isabel, the wretched creature,’ said Asprey, crushing out his half-smoked cigarette in the cut-crystal ashtray. He must have seen the look that Vince gave him, because he tempered his last statement with, ‘A nice enough girl. Considered quite intelligent, I believe, but she clearly had her problems, as I’m sure you know. As I’m sure everyone knows now, if the papers are anything to go by.’