Killing Time (3 page)

‘And what about you? What were you doing?’

‘I had a spot at a night club in Earl’s Court – a sort of striptease.’

Slider had a fair idea which club. ‘Striptease?’

Jay Paloma looked haughty. ‘It wasn’t what you think. In fact, it was my best gig after
Hanging Out
closed. I came on in this evening gown and white fur and diamonds and everything, and did this wonderful routine. Like Gypsy Rose Lee, you know – all I ever took off was the long gloves. Absolutely classical. It brought the house down! Well, anyway, Val and I bumped into each other in the street, and we were so glad to see each other, we decided to share again. We had this place in Warwick Road to start with, and then we moved out here.’

Fascinating though this was, Slider had a lot to do. ‘So what did you want to talk to me about?’ he asked, with a suggestion of glancing at his wrist.

Jay hesitated. ‘I say, look, d’you mind if I smoke?’

‘Go ahead.’ Paloma reached for the pocket of the jacket. The cigarettes were in their original packet, but the lighter looked expensive, a gold Dunhill, Slider thought. ‘It always amazes me,’ he added as he watched the lighting-up process, ‘how many of you dancers smoke. I’d have thought you’d need all your breath.’

Jay Paloma looked up from under his brows and smiled in a fluttery, pleased way – because Slider had called him a dancer, perhaps. ‘It keeps the weight down. You don’t—?’

‘No, thanks.’ Slider pushed the ashtray across the table and prompted him again. ‘Well, now, what can I do for you?’

‘I’ve got a problem,’ Jay said. He puffed at his cigarette. ‘I think – well, I suppose you won’t believe me, but I think someone’s trying to kill me.’ The big blue eyes turned up appealingly at Slider. He was certainly nervous. He was sweating – Slider could smell it, even through what his daughter Kate would have called his anti-shave. Light and lemony:
Eau Sauvage.
Slider recognised it, because it was the one O’Flaherty favoured – though O’Flaherty, the patriot, pronounced it O’Savvidge.

‘What makes you think so?’ Slider asked encouragingly.

The tense shoulders dropped a little. ‘Well, there’ve been, you know, funny phone calls.’

‘Heavy breathing?’

‘Not exactly. No. I mean, it rings and I pick it up, and there’s just silence. I know there’s someone there, but they won’t speak. And then, ten minutes or so, it rings again. Sometimes it goes on for hours. I take the phone off the hook, but as soon as I put it back on, it rings again. I can’t leave it off all the time because of work. I mean, you never know when someone might want to get hold of you.’

‘It could be kids.’

‘Kids wouldn’t go on and on like that, would they? I mean, they’d get bored and go off and do something else.’

That was a point. This man had obviously thought about his predicament, which made Slider more inclined to believe him.

‘Has Busty picked up these calls too?’

‘No, that’s another thing. It never happens when she’s home. It’s as if,’ he shivered subconsciously, ‘as if he’s watching the house, and knows when I’m home alone.’

‘Have you seen anyone hanging around? Anyone suspicious?’

He shook his head. ‘But it’s a block of flats. There are always people around, coming and going. And plenty of places to hide, if you wanted to watch someone.’

‘How long has this been going on?’

‘Oh, months now. Six months maybe – but I didn’t think much of it at first. I mean everyone gets those dead calls, don’t they? But about three months ago, the letters started coming.’

‘Letters?’

Jay nodded, almost reluctantly, ‘At first they weren’t really letters, just empty envelopes. Like the phone calls. Sort of unnerving. You tear open an envelope and there’s a piece of blank paper in it. But then the messages started to appear.’

‘Written? Typed?’

‘Cut out of newspapers and stuck on, you know the sort of thing.’

Slider knew. He sighed inwardly. It was so hackneyed. A hoax, he thought. A spiteful hoax by someone who had taken a dislike to Jay Paloma. A homophobe perhaps, or a purity-nut with a personal campaign to rid the world of sleazy entertainers.

‘And what did they say?’ he asked.

‘It started with one word – “You”. Then the next had two words – “You are.” By the end of the week it said “You are going to die.”’

‘A new letter each day for a week?’ This was unpleasant. It was beginning to sound obsessional. Poison pens could be obsessional, of course, without ever meaning to carry out their threats. But there was always the risk that they might convince themselves, steep themselves in their own culture to the point when the unthinkable last step became the inevitable next one.

‘Every week.’ The head drooped. ‘They got worse – about what he was going to do to me. Cut my throat. And – other things.’

‘I suppose you haven’t brought them to show me?’ Slider said, in the tone that expects the answer no.

‘I didn’t keep them. I destroyed them,’ Jay said, still looking at the floor.

‘That’s a pity,’ Slider said mildly.

‘I couldn’t bear to have them in the house. And I didn’t want Val to see them. I didn’t want to worry her.’

‘You didn’t notice the postcode, I suppose?’

‘All over the place,’ he said. ‘London postcodes, West End, Earl’s Court, Clapham – Heathrow once. All different.’

‘What sort of paper? What sort of envelopes?’

‘Just plain white notepaper. Basildon Bond or something. And white envelopes, the long sort, self-sealing. The name and address was printed – you know, like on a printer, on a label. And the words inside, like I said, cut out of newspaper and stuck on.’

‘Well, if you get another one,’ Slider said, ‘perhaps you’d keep it and bring it in to me.’

‘You don’t believe me,’ Paloma concluded flatly.

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘But you’re not going to do anything?’

‘It’s difficult to do anything without having an actual letter to work on.’ Paloma continued to look at him with a half-defiant, half-angry look – Princess Di at bay, badgered by a
Sun
reporter. ‘Look, I believe you’re frightened,’ Slider went on, ‘and that’s evidently what the letter merchant wants. It doesn’t follow
they’ll actually do what they threaten.’ Paloma said nothing. ‘You haven’t told me everything yet,’ Slider said after a moment. ‘Something else has happened to trigger your coming here.’ No answer. ‘I don’t think it was an easy step for you to take.’

‘You’re right,’ Paloma said, softening at this evidence of Slider’s percipience. ‘I don’t like police stations. I don’t like police – most of them anyway. But Val said – she said you were different. So I thought—’ Slider waited in insistent silence. Paloma swallowed and took the plunge. ‘A photograph. This morning. Cut out of a book or something. Of a dead body, all beaten up, with its throat cut.’ He reached out and stubbed out his cigarette with a violently trembling hand, and then quite suddenly turned corpse-white. Slider had been vomited over many times in the course of a long career. It taught you quick reactions. He shot out of his chair, grabbed the back of Jay’s neck and pushed his head down between his legs. Jay moaned and dry-retched a couple of times, but didn’t actually throw up.

‘Breathe deeply. In, and out. In, and out,’ Slider commanded.

After a bit Jay sat up again, still pale but not quite so green.

‘D’you want some water, or a cup of tea?’ Slider asked.

‘No. No, I’m all right, thanks. Thanks,’ he added more particularly, eyeing Slider consideringly. He lit another cigarette, and Slider sat down again, keeping a wary eye on him.

‘I suppose,’ Slider said at last, ‘that you didn’t keep this latest mail-shot either?’

Paloma shook his head. ‘I burned it. In the ashtray.’ He gestured tremblingly with his lighter. ‘I couldn’t bear it hanging around.’

Slider sighed. ‘It would have helped if you’d brought it to me.’

‘I didn’t know I was going to come in,’ Paloma said. ‘I only decided at the last minute. And I felt – I don’t know – that if I didn’t get rid of it, it might, you know, happen.’

Superstitious, Slider thought. Understandable, but not helpful. He said, ‘If anything else comes, any more of these letters, or anything you’re suspicious of, bring it to me unopened, will you?’ Paloma assented. ‘So, now, who do you think is doing this?’

‘That’s what I’ve come to you for.’

‘Quite. But you know more about your life than I possibly
can. It has to be someone you know, someone who knows you.’ He surveyed Paloma’s face. ‘And in my experience, the victim usually has a pretty good idea who.’

‘But I don’t,’ Paloma said, his chin quivering with suppressed tears. ‘I don’t have the slightest idea.’

‘Who have you upset? Who has a grudge against you?’

‘No-one. I don’t know.’ He drew a long, trembling drag on his cigarette. ‘I don’t know anyone who would do such a horrible thing. The phone calls maybe, but not the letters. Not the – not the picture.’

‘If you’re working at the Pomona, I should have thought you must have rubbed shoulders with plenty of people capable of that sort of thing,’ Slider said.

Unexpectedly, Jay flared. ‘Oh, now it comes out! Val was wrong – you’re just like all the rest! You despise people like us. You think we deserve whatever happens to us!’

‘I’m not in the despising business,’ Slider said. ‘Look here, son—’ This was chronologically generous, but the blush of anger made him look more than ever like a beleaguered Princess Di, and who would not feel fatherly towards her? ‘—as long as what you do isn’t against the law, it’s none of my business. Sending threatening letters is. So why don’t you tell me who’s behind it?’

‘I don’t know!’ Jay Paloma cried. ‘I tell you I don’t know!’ He ground out another cigarette with shaking hands. There were tears on his eyelashes. Slider studied him. He was plainly in trouble, but there was a limit to what sympathy could achieve.

‘Well, that’s that, then,’ Slider said, standing up.

Paloma looked up. ‘Aren’t you going to do anything about it?’

‘What would you like me to do?’

‘Just stop it. Stop him sending things.’

‘Stop who?’ Silence. ‘If you won’t help me, I can’t help you.’

‘I’ve told you everything I know,’ Paloma said sulkily. And then he was overcome with his grievance. ‘I should have known you wouldn’t do anything. Who cares if something happens to someone like me? If I was a film star or a famous actor, if I was—’ He named a couple of big stars who were prominent homosexual campaigners ‘—it’d be different then, wouldn’t it?’

‘I’d say the same to them as I’ve said to you,’ Slider said patiently. ‘Unless you give me something to go on—’

‘I’ve
told
you about the phone calls and the letters. I want protection.’

Slider’s head was aching. He grew just a touch short. ‘A policeman on guard at your door, perhaps?’

‘You’d do it for them, all right,’ Paloma snapped. ‘But I’m just a nobody. What I do is sordid, but when they do the same thing it’s smart and fashionable. Just because they’re rich and famous. Some Hollywood bimbo gets her kit off and humps on screen, and she gets an Oscar. If I do it, it’s pornography.’

‘If anything else happens,’ Slider said, ‘come and tell me about it. And if you get any more of these letters bring them in.’ He walked to the door. ‘Give my regards to Busty.’

He left behind a seething discontent and a chip rapidly swelling to the size of a musical-comedy epaulette, but there was nothing else to do. When Paloma overcame his reticence enough to disclose who he was afraid of, a discreet visit of disencouragement could be made, and things could go on from there. He was already on the edge; another postal delivery would probably be enough to unseal his lips.

A smart rap at Slider’s open door on Tuesday morning recalled him from the sea of reports through which he was swimming: the whole of Monday had been spent on paperwork without making any appreciable inroad into it. A young, slight, very pretty black woman stood in the doorway. She had short-bobbed, straightened hair held back by a black Alice-band of plaited cotton, small plain rings in her ears and a gold stud in her left nostril. She was wearing a green two-piece suit and an enquiring look.

‘Scuse me, sir, Mr Slider?’

‘Yes?’

‘I fink you were expecting me. Tony Hart?’ The information failed to connect up across the spaces of Slider’s brain, and he merely stared stupidly. She smiled a 150-watt smile. ‘Don’t worry, guv, I’m used to it. It’s always ‘appening. You were expecting a bloke, right?’

‘I – er – yes, I suppose so,’ Slider managed, remembering Nutty’s information at last.

‘Well, look at it this way,’ she said chattily, ‘you’re fillin’ two quotas at one go wiv me, right? They call me the PC DC. Pity I ain’t a lesbian, or I’d be well in demand.’

Slider stood up and extended his hand. ‘I’m sorry, you took me by surprise. I’m very glad to have you here.’ They shook. Despite her look of slenderness she had a strong hand, and was as tall as Slider. ‘Is it Toni with an “i”?’

‘No, guv. Would you like it to be?’

‘Short for Antonia?’

‘No, actually it’s just Tony on me birth stificate. I was named after me dad. Me mum’s a bit of a weirdo. She called me sister
Billy after her baby bruvver. Her older bruvver was called Bernard, so I s’pose me sister had a lucky escape.’

Slider suppressed a smile, suspecting that this genial patter served the same purpose as a conjurer’s. Major television drama series notwithstanding, women still had a toughish time surviving in the Department, and a joke or two and a bit of camouflage was probably the best defence. ‘I’d better take you through and introduce you to the firm,’ he said.

‘Rightyoh,’ she said chirpily. ‘Is there much on at the moment?’

‘Routine. Nothing very exciting. But we’re always busy, and at the moment we’re short-staffed.’

‘Yes, guv, I heard about DS Atherton. That was a bastard.’ Slider looked at her, surprised, and she gave him a sidelong look. ‘Yeah, all right, Lambeth is south of the river, but the newspapers come in once a week on the flyin’ boat. How is he, sir, DS Atherton?’