Killing Time (14 page)

Across the other side of the yard in a new, brightly-lit and tropically heated portakabin, the radio side of the operation was worked by Monty’s wife Rita and his mistress Gloria in a comfortable atmosphere of tea, bourbon biscuits, knitting, family photographs and refained gentility. They called the cabbies ‘dear’ and ‘my pet’ and asked tenderly after their wives’ ailments, but ruled them with a rod of iron. They would not tolerate the word ‘can’t’, and fined them for bad language
on a sliding scale from a simple damn upwards. ‘That’s twenty pence in the Swear Box, my darling,’ they would say primly when some benighted cabbie trying to find an invisible fare at a mythical address let loose with a
bloody
over the air; and such was the force of their personalities that the next time the transgressor was in the yard, he would go into the cabin and pay his dues. The box was emptied every week after the lucrative Saturday Night Swear, and the proceeds went towards taking disabled children on an annual adventure holiday.

‘Isn’t that doing evil that good may come?’ Slider once asked Rita, and she primmed her lips and said, ‘I don’t suppose the kiddies mind, dear.’

Slider was always amazed by Monty’s
ménage à trois:
he couldn’t understand why he bothered. The two women were so alike that people often thought they were sisters. They were the same age, height and build, with the same solid, well-corseted figure and the expensively dull clothes of prosperous middle age. Both wore their hair permed and sprayed to the same style by the weekly attentions of the same hairdresser – Rita’s was tinted mauve and Gloria’s platinum. Both wore their glasses round their necks on a chain – Gloria’s made of pearls and Rita’s of little gold beads. Gloria’s smile had more teeth in it – she had captured Monty by her vivacity, and was now stuck with it, Slider deduced – but otherwise there was nothing to choose between them. Perhaps that was why Monty hadn’t.

The two women were the best of friends, and between radio messages chatted seamlessly in the manner of those who know each other’s thoughts. They treated Monty with the same arch and half-affectionate exasperation as they treated the cabbies, corrected his manners, deplored his smoking, doctored his ills and chose his clothes. Slider couldn’t imagine what Monty got out of it.

Slider tacked past the cabin, hoping to escape notice, though he saw through the brightly lit window that Rita turned her head, her jaws never ceasing to move as she talked to the public, the cabbies and Gloria, switching from one to the other as effortlessly as American TV programmes switch to adverts. Under the right-hand arch a black cab was up on the lift and one of the mechanics, Nick the Greek, waved a friendly spanner at Slider from the inspection pit as he crossed to Monty’s office.

Monty removed a cold cigar from his teeth and struggled courteously to his feet. He was a short, wide man with a thick, collapsing face, despairing hair, sad brown eyes behind heavy glasses, and a full lower lip permanently deformed by having to accommodate huge Havana cigars. They were expensive, and the ladies tutted, so he hardly ever smoked them, just lit them and let them go out. That way they lasted.

He seemed glad to see Slider. ‘Well, well, well! And what can I do for you today, young sir?’

‘Hello, Monty. How’s business?’

His face buckled with instant gloom.
‘Well
bad,’ he said confusingly. ‘When is business anything
but
bad? Heads above, just – that’s the best we can hope for. It’s a wonder I can sleep at night.’

‘Come off it, you old fraud,’ Slider said. ‘I see you driving about in a new Bentley.’

‘It’s not new, it’s two years old,’ Monty protested. ‘I only got it to give my bank manager confidence, stop him foreclosing on me. I tell you, Mr Slider, I’m brassic. What with the cost of cabs, insurance through the roof, rates up fifty per cent this year, new Health and Safety rules coming off by the yard every week – it’s as much as I can do to turn a penny. And Mrs Green is not a well woman, you know.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. She looks bonny enough,’ Slider said, glancing towards the cabin.

‘My mother,’ Monty elucidated. ‘She can’t manage the stairs, you see, which means either putting in a stair lift, or making her a bedroom downstairs. Either way, it’s all expense. And the mortgage enough to make you faint.’ He sighed. ‘I wouldn’t wish this life on a dog, I promise you.’

So Monty lived with his mother as well as his wife and mistress, did he? Perhaps the one phenomenon accounted for the other. ‘You know,’ Slider said, ‘five minutes talking to you does me the power of good. Makes the world outside seem so bright. You should work for the Samaritans.’

‘You try getting cabbies to pay up at the end of the week, you’ll soon know all about working for charity,’ Monty said, and busied himself relighting his cigar. Honour satisfied, he went on more cheerfully, ‘Anyway, what can I do for you? I suppose you’re on this business of PC Cosgrove? Rotten
bloody shame that was, pardon my French. Is there any improvement?’

‘He’s still in a coma, but stable, they say.’

Monty shook his head. ‘Rotten business. He’s such a nice geezer, too. He was round here, you know, just a few days before it happened.’

‘Was he? What about?’

‘Just chewing the fat. He used to pop in from time to time – have a bunny with Rita and Gloria, cuppa tea, time of day, that sort of thing. It was on his way home. How’s his wife taking it? I feel sorry for her, another nipper on the way, can’t be easy.’

‘She’s bearing up, I believe. But I’m not on that case – that’s Mr Carver’s. I’m here about something else – a murder last Tuesday. I want your help.’

‘Right you are,’ Monty said, looking intelligent. ‘Anything I can do. Always happy to assist the boys in blue.’

‘I want to trace the cabbie who picked up a fare from the White City on Monday, late morning.’ He gave Jay Paloma’s address and description. ‘He went up to Town somewhere – I want to know where. It could be one of yours. This bloke went everywhere by cab – nervous type – so it’s probable he telephoned for a cab and he may well have used your firm.’

‘We can soon look that up,’ Monty said.

‘If not I’d like you to put the word about for me.’

‘Fair enough. You’re sure it was a black cab?’

‘Yes, he didn’t trust minicabs.’

‘Pity he’s dead, then. Can’t afford to lose people like that -there aren’t enough of ’em. Got a picture?’

‘I’m getting them done now. They’ll be round this afternoon.’

‘Right. Let’s go and look at the book of words.’

They went out into the yard together. ‘Oh, by the way,’ Slider said, ‘I’m interested in one of your drivers, Benny by name.’

‘Benny the Brief or Benny Bovril?’

‘Benny the Brief. Is he all right? Reliable?’

‘He’s all right,’ Monty said. ‘He can be a bit of a pain in the neck – too much of this—’ He imitated a yacking mouth with his fingers. ‘But he’s all right. Funny old sort – bit of a reader. Knows a stack about the law. The other drivers take the piss out of him, pardon my French, but they all go to him when they want to know something. Walking encyclopaedia. Is he in trouble?’

‘No, no. I just wanted to know if I can believe what he tells me.’

‘Oh, he’s honest as the day, old Benny. Had a tough break a few months back – his old lady died. The Big C. Went just like that. Been married a coon’s age, as well. He took it really hard – sold the house and everything in it, went to live in lodgings, said he couldn’t bear to have her stuff around him, reminding him all the time. Worked every hour God sent. I said to him, “Benny,” I said, “you’ll crack up. Take a rest,” I said. But no, he wanted to work. Kept his mind off, he said. He’s eased off now, though – not been doing much at all, hardly turned in two tanners last week. Just as well, I suppose, or he’d come to grief, and I’d be sorry to lose him. Funny old bugger, but he’s all right.’

They reached the cabin, and Monty climbed the steps and opened the door onto the Yardley scented, pot-plant-benighted bower. ‘It’s like the hanging gardens of Babel,’ Monty muttered over his shoulder for Slider’s benefit. The women’s voices and the squawk of the radio were like birds’ cries: Slider had a momentary vision of Rita and Gloria as brightly-coloured parrots swinging about the tropical branches. But they were nothing if not businesslike. When Monty explained Slider’s quest, they consulted the day-book for him without ever ceasing to answer the phone and speak their mysterious incantations to the invisible spirits of the cabbies. But there was no record of a call to that address or anything near it, or for the name of Paloma or McElhinney.

Still, Slider was hopeful as he left the yard. Jay had been as bright and distinctive as his avian namesake, and if Monty circulated the query, someone ought to remember him.

Hart tagged on to Slider as he went past. ‘Guv, I got a message for you, but I don’t know if it’s genuine or not. It sounds like someone’s pulling our plonker.’

‘What is it?’

‘Well, this bloke said his name was Tidy Barnet. I mean, that’s gotta be a joke, ennit?’

‘He’s a snout of mine,’ Slider said. Barnet was his real surname. He had had an older brother whose nickname was Scruffy, so Tidy’s sobriquet was inevitable. ‘What did he want?’

‘He just said to say,’ Hart looked down at her pad to check it,
‘Tidy Barnet says tell Mr Slider to ask Maroon. Does that make sense?’

‘It does to me,’ Slider said. ‘He didn’t say ask her what?’

‘No, guv. That’s absolutely all he said, word for word.’

‘Right,’ said Slider. They reached his room. ‘Have those photographs gone round to Monty’s garage?’

‘Ten minutes ago. And I’ve got some good news and some bad news.’

‘Bad news first.’

‘Them fingerprints off the bottle – all negative. No match in the records. Whoever he is, he’s got no recent form.’

‘Damn,’ Slider said. ‘Given the MO, I wouldn’t have thought that was his first attempt at violence.’

‘Maybe he’s too professional to get caught,’ Hart offered.

‘You’d better pray he’s not,’ Slider said. ‘What’s the good news?’

She grinned triumphantly. ‘We got a witness.’

‘Eye-witness?’

‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning wiv B. A big black bugger in boots kicking the door in at half past eleven Tuesday night. Female living opposite. She does office cleaning at nights, and she’s just got home, walking along the balcony feeling in her bag for her key, when she hears this wallop, looks across and sees chummy just kicked the door in and going in the flat.’

‘You’re sure it’s the same flat?’

‘It’s right opposite. She pointed it out to me. Same floor and everything. No mistake, guv.’

‘She must have been questioned before. Why didn’t she say anything?’

‘I looked up the notes, and one of the woodentops knocked on her door first time round, but she done the free wise monkeys. When she sees it happen, she just reckons someone’s forgot his key, none of her business, right? But when they come round asking about murder, she gets scared. She reckons if she says anything, she’s next on the list. So she stays schtumm.’

‘How did you persuade her to unbutton?’

Hart grinned. ‘You either got it or you ain’t. Plus a few freats.’

‘You what?’ Slider was alarmed.

‘Oh, nothing too pointed,’ Hart said airily.

‘What description did she give you? Did she get a good look at him?’

‘Not really. Well, those flats are lit up like Colditz on a bad night, but he had his back to her, and she wasn’t stopping to stare.’

‘But you say she thought it was the occupant who had forgotten his key? She thought it was Paloma, in fact?’

‘Oh, she never knew Paloma. Never knew who lived opposite. It’s like that in them flats. You know the people on your own balcony – sometimes – but that’s that. The block opposite’s like the other side of a river and the bridge is out. Different country. Strange natives wiv peculiar customs.’

‘Thank you, Michaela Dennis.’

‘Who?’

‘Skip it. So we’ve got nothing at all by way of description?’

‘Well, she said he was black. And he was big.’

‘The PC could have told her that.’

‘Yeah, but I asked her how big, and she said like massive. As he went in the flat, he had to duck his head. Now, I measured and them doors is standard six foot six high.’

‘If he’s more than six foot six tall he’ll be easy to find.’

‘Yes, guv,’ she said intelligently, ‘but he needn’t be that big. I mean, internal doors can be anything from six foot, six-three, six-four, yeah? Well, a bloke who’s only six-two, six-three can get used to having to duck, and it gets to be a habit. Self-preservation. But there ain’t that many blokes six foot three even, and she said he was big with it, like a weight-lifter.’

Slider nodded, thinking. ‘Well, if she didn’t see his face it’s no good trying to get her to come in and look at some pictures. Still, I suppose at least it’s further confirmation of the time.’

‘That’s what I fought. So what’s this message, boss? About maroon. Maroon what?’

Slider thought about what had happened last time he went out in the field without telling anyone where he was going, and explained. ‘Maroon is a person,’ he said. ‘Maroon Brown. She’s a prostitute, lives in Percy Road.’

‘Appropriate,’ Hart said. ‘Is that her working name?’

‘Strangely enough, it’s her real name. It’s short for Mary Oonagh. She had an Irish grandma who brought her up.’

Slider told what he knew of the story. Maroon’s grandma at age sixteen had got herself up the duff by a black stoker from a ship which had put in to Cork Harbour for repairs, and shortly put out again. Rather than face her family she had run away to London to have the baby. The war had just ended and the men were beginning to come home, and she had supported herself by working part time in a café and part time on the game. The baby, named Alice, had grown up to show a preference for her father’s lineage, and at sixteen had followed family tradition by succumbing to the charms of a West Indian lorry driver and becoming pregnant.

‘Of course, by the time the kid was born the father had already disappeared. So Alice did the same.’