Killing Time (35 page)

‘I gather Jonah Lafota has departed,’ Slider said when they’d stopped.

‘Not this life, unfortunately,’ Norma said.

‘Sprung last night,’ Hart said resentfully. ‘Pity poor Candy.’

‘The fact is, ladies and germs,’ Slider said, ‘much as we may
regret it, Jonah was telling the truth and Paloma was dead when he got there.’

‘We can still nail him for conspiracy can’t we, guv?’ Anderson pleaded.

‘And that filth, Billy Yates,’ Norma added. ‘We can’t let him off.’

‘I’m afraid there are bigger things afoot, and we are under orders not to frighten the rabbits.’ Chorus of groans. ‘But I am assured,’ he raised his voice over the woe, ‘that they will be going down and that deserts will be just. Eventually.’

‘Mushroom time,’ Anderson commented. ‘Get your heads down, here it comes.’

Slider ignored him. ‘So let’s concentrate our minds on the problem in hand, which is still who killed Jay Paloma. We’re back to basics. Whoever it was, it wasn’t the invisible man, so let’s get out there and ask questions. I can’t believe that nobody saw the murderer arrive and – more importantly – leave. However calculating he was, he’d have been in a state of nervous tension, and maybe blood-spattered when he left. Someone saw him, they just haven’t remembered it yet.’

They dispersed, muttering. He called them back. ‘Oh, and some good news, to speed you on your way. The latest report from the hospital is that Andy Cosgrove’s coma seems to be lightening. So there’s a good chance he’s going to come out of it.’

That at least produced a spatter of lighter expressions. McLaren, unwrapping a Topic bar, said, ‘If he does come out of it, and he’s still got all his marbles, he’ll be a fool if he doesn’t leave the Job. Once you’ve been in a coma like that, any little bump on the head can send you back down, and the next time you never come up again.’

Norma, who had a street gazette in her hand, threw the book at him.

Slider had all the documents of the case spread out over his desk, and when the phone rang it took him a minute to find it.

‘Inspector Slider? My name’s Larry Mosselman.’ When Slider didn’t react he went on, as if it explained everything, ‘They call me Mr Atlas.’

‘Sorry?’

‘You know – Mosselman, muscle-man?’

‘Ah! You’re a taxi driver?’

‘That’s right. I thought you were expecting me to call. Lenny Cohen’s been putting the word out that you’ve been looking to contact the driver who picked up a certain party on Monday the fifteenth?’

‘You know Lenny, do you?’

‘Everyone knows Lenny the Lion. We’ve played golf together once or twice, but he’s a bit out of my league now. Well, he does a lot of nights, so he gets the practice.’

‘You’re not with the same company as him?’

‘No, I work for Jack Disney’s garage in Old Road, Hackney – just behind the Victoria Park?’

‘Yes, I know it.’

‘Anyway, in connection with your enquiry, I heard about it when I went in yesterday to settle up, and I think I might be the cabbie you’re looking for. As far as I can tell from the picture, my fare was the same man, and I did put him down at the Lanesborough rank about twenty to twelve that Monday.’

‘Did you see where he went then?’

‘He walked on up the street, as if he was heading for the hotel entrance. That’s all I saw, because I wasn’t putting on myself, so I pulled away. But what made him stick in my mind,’ Mosselman went on intelligently, ‘was that when I picked him up, he’d just got out of another cab.’

‘Had he? Well, we did suspect he might have. He was trying to be cautious, cover his tracks.’

‘Not very good at it, though, if he let me see it,’ Mosselman said. ‘And Lenny saw me drop him as well. Mind you, he looked like a bit of a daft ponce, if you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘Talking of which, can you give me a description of your fare?’ Slider said, to be on the safe side. He took down the details, which as far as they went fitted Paloma. ‘And where did you pick him up?’

‘Hammersmith Broadway, about ten past eleven. On the gyratory, outside the new building where the post office used to be. He was standing on the kerb, on the wrong side of the railings. He waved me down, but traffic was slow so I’d had
plenty of time to clock him as I approached, and I’d seen him get out of the other cab and pay it off. Anyway, he got in and asked for the Lanesborough, and I took him there.’

‘Right,’ Slider said. ‘Thanks. Well, it may not turn out to be important now, because we’ve found out where he ended up that day, but we’re always glad to have the loose ends tied up. It all adds to the picture.’

‘Right you are. Glad to help,’ said Mosselman. ‘Do you want me to come in and make a statement or anything?’

‘I don’t think it’ll be necessary, but I would like to take your address and phone number in case we need to contact you.’ He wrote to Mosselman’s dictation, and then added, ‘By the way, I don’t suppose you saw the driver of the cab this man got out of?’

‘No, I didn’t see the driver, but I saw the name on the side of the cab. It was one of Monty’s Radio Metrocabs.’

‘Was it, indeed? Thank you, Mr Mosselman,’ said Slider.

Monty was not in his hutch, for once. Winston, one of the mechanics, said he had gone to hospital.

‘Nothing serious, I hope?’ Slider said.

‘Nah, s’just ’is check-up. It’s routine, right? Like, ’e ’ad this ’eart attack, like years ago, an’ they make ’im go, right, like, every six months, reg’lar.’

‘I see. I’m glad it’s nothing bad. Wouldn’t want to lose another good man,’ Slider said. Winston stared at him with his mouth open, and Slider hoped he was better in the motor mechanical field than he was at deciphering human speech. ‘I’ll just go and speak to Mrs Green,’ he said clearly, and left the mechanic to work on that.

Rita was also missing, and the bower was surprisingly peaceful without her. Gloria gave Slider a toothy smile and invited him to sit down, offering him tea and biscuits with an eagerness that suggested she could not stand the near-silence. ‘She’s gone with Monty to see the specialist,’ she explained when he asked after Rita. ‘I think she wants to persuade him to make Monty give up the cigars.’

‘But he doesn’t really smoke them. He lights them and they go out. He probably just likes something in his mouth.’

Gloria wrinkled her powdery nose. ‘They stink. I hate those
things,’ she said. ‘Is there something I can help you with, or did you particularly want Rita?’

‘No, you can help me,’ Slider said. He told her about Mosselman’s information. ‘I’d like to check the day book again, in case we’ve missed anything.’

But the day book produced nothing that looked remotely like Jay Paloma. ‘He’s sure it was this cab company?’ Gloria said at last.

‘He said he saw the name on the side.’

She shrugged. ‘Then I suppose someone was doing him a favour.’

‘But the cabbie saw him pay,’ Slider said.

‘Well, it couldn’t have been on the clock,’ Gloria said. She looked at Slider. ‘It could have been Benny the Brief, I suppose. He was always round there, wasn’t he, round the flat, ’cause he was friends with that woman.’

‘It crossed my mind,’ Slider said, ‘but why wouldn’t he have mentioned it to me?’

‘Maybe because he didn’t put it on the clock, and didn’t want to get into trouble. Is it important? That wasn’t the day the chap got killed, was it?’

‘No, it wasn’t. Probably it isn’t important.’ He thought a moment. Gloria was low man on Monty’s totem pole, and had to toe the party line when Rita was around. This was a golden chance to get her views un-iced. ‘What do you make of Benny Fluss?’

‘He’s all right,’ she said indifferently.

‘D’you like him?’ She made a face. ‘Tell me what he’s like.’

‘He’s a boring old fart,’ she said, surprising the hell out of Slider, who almost looked round for the Swear Box. She saw his surprise and blushed a little. ‘Well he is,’ she said defensively. ‘Jaw, jaw, jaw. And never admits he doesn’t know something. Makes it up as he goes along, and if you catch him out he bullshits and makes out he said something different. Can’t be in the wrong, you know the sort; and patronising? Rita and me might be moron slaves.’

‘I gather you don’t like him,’ Slider said mildly.

‘Oh, he doesn’t bother me, really. Don’t see enough of him to get worked up. Monty thinks he’s a hoot, plays him along, you know, to get him to talk. But there’s a side to him I don’t
like.’ She lowered her enormous, lavvy-brush lashes and looked at Slider sidelong. ‘He was in trouble once, did you know?’

‘Police?’

‘It didn’t come to that, but it ought to’ve, in my view. You see, Benny had a half-flat in those days – about ten years ago, this was.’

Slider nodded. Half-flat was the arrangement where two drivers shared the same cab, one driving days and one driving nights.

‘Anyway,’ Gloria went on, ‘he found out that the other driver was seeing Gwen – Benny’s wife, Gwen – while Benny had the cab. There was a terrible to-do. Benny went round to Sam’s – Sam was the other driver, Sam Kelly – and beat him up. Did a real job on him. Terrible it was. Well, I know Sam was in the wrong, but Rita and me thought Benny went too far, and the police should’ve been told. But Sam wouldn’t make any complaint against Benny, so I suppose he thought it was coming to him, but as soon as he was out of hospital he moved right away and we’ve never seen him since. But after that I could never really laugh about Benny like Monty does. I mean, it’s in him somewhere, isn’t it? And who’d have thought he could be that jealous about Gwen? I know they’d been married a long time, but I never got the impression he cared tuppence for her, seeing them together. It’s a funny thing, jealousy, isn’t it?’ she finished on an academic note.

‘It certainly is,’ Slider said, substituting it at the last moment for how would you know?

He sat in his car and made the necessary calls. There were several of them, and by the time he got to the corner of Wood Lane, Hart was waiting for him.

‘I’m spose to give you this,’ she said, waving the warrant as she climbed in. ‘What’s cooking?’

‘Benny the Brief,’ he said.

‘The tame cabbie?’ she said with evident surprise.

‘I’ve been thinking about time scales,’ Slider said. ‘Six months ago, his wife died. At the same time the silent phone calls start. Three months ago he asked Busty Parnell to marry him and she turned him down. From that point Jay Paloma starts getting threatening letters.’

‘You think he sent them? What for?’

‘Jealousy,’ Slider said. ‘The oldest, blackest, meanest emotion. He’s been looking on Busty as his own property for years, but while he was married it never occurred to him to do anything about it. After all, he was comfortable as he was. But once he’s a widower he starts to think he could have her all to himself, marry her and take her home for keeps. He’s so confident of the outcome he sells the marital home so that they can get a new place together. He hasn’t even asked her yet, but he’s sure she’ll jump at the chance of changing her unsatisfactory life for security and Benny’s fascinating company. Only when the moment finally comes, she refuses him. She prefers to live with a painted popinjay who earns his living doing unspeakable things in a basement club.’

‘Bit of a bummer,’ Hart agreed.

‘He can’t hate her for it, of course: his hatred is aimed at Jay, his rival for Busty’s affections.’

‘So he starts sending poison pen letters, you reckon? I s’pose it makes sense.’

‘I don’t know whether he hoped to scare Paloma into leaving Busty,’ Slider said, ‘or if it was just venting his feelings. Bit of both, maybe.’

‘The letters was posted from different places all over London, wun’t they?’ Hart remembered. ‘A cabbie’d have no trouble sorting that side of it.’

‘Yes, and living in lodgings rather than in a shared home he’d have the privacy to make them up.’

‘So if it was him, what d’you think triggered the murder?’

‘Jay Paloma was going to take Busty away from him. Jay had been saving money for them to buy a place together in Ireland – his dream plan. It might have remained a dream, except that he had reached a crisis in his life. He’d hated having to buy drugs for his lover, but now the supply was cut off he was probably worried about what would happen to Grisham. He must also have worried for his own skin – could he trust the supplier not to bust him? There was the paint-throwing incident at the Pomona which upset him; and the poison pen letters were getting him down. His quarrel with Grisham was probably the last straw. He was now so fed up with his situation that he decided their savings were enough for him and Busty to get out and put the
plan into action. And Busty was happy enough to go along with it.’

‘Yeah,’ said Hart, staring forward. ‘We saw Paloma going was reason enough to make Grisham mad, but we never fought about Parnell and Benny Fluss. Good one, guv.’

‘I should have got onto it before,’ Slider said. ‘I should have picked up on the discrepancy in the statements. You see, Busty told me that on that last day, Jay was chatting cheerfully to her
and
Benny about his plan, but Benny said Jay didn’t speak to him at all, and that he was low and depressed. I think Jay had probably told him they were definitely going when Benny drove him to Hammersmith the day before, and that was when Benny decided to do it. So he didn’t mention that journey to me – in fact, he said he never drove Paloma – because in his own mind it was connected with his guilt. And he projected his negative emotions onto Jay the next day, and remembered him as being low and depressed.’

‘Well, you would be, wouldn’t you, if you was gonna get done that day?’

‘Quite. Of course, all this is conjecture. But Paloma let the murderer in and sat and chatted with him, which meant he must have known him well; and Busty said he hadn’t any friends, and never saw people at home. Also, Benny was the one person who knew Paloma would be at home alone. He drove Busty to her sister’s, and he knew she would ring him to be collected from there when she wanted to come home, so there was no danger she’d walk in on them.’

Hart nodded. ‘What about the weapon?’

‘Joanna suggested this morning that it could be a heavy spanner. Something Benny would have to hand in his cab. Also we know the murderer wore leather gloves; and when I first met Benny he was wearing a pair of brand new ones.’