Kiss Me Quick (36 page)

Reaching the end of the walkway, he found himself standing in a lit-up space, looking back at himself. It was a room full of mirrors, gilt-framed like the ones adorning the walls of the flat in Adelaide Crescent. They hung on the walls or were stacked up in piles. Everywhere he looked he could see himself. Then the lights here went out.

Swallowed in blackness suddenly, he shuddered and dropped his torch. He heard it roll away, then begin a clanging descent down metal stairs to the ground floor. The noise echoed around the warehouse. But it wasn’t the noise that bothered Vince; it was the enveloping dark. He had never quite overcome his fear of the dark, and his terror of something deadly hiding in its layers. He stood rooted to the spot, as if waiting for further instruction.

As his eyes adjusted, Vince found himself looking into a face that was twisted, ugly and surreally grotesque. It looked as if it was melting. Then he remembered the old adage: never look into a mirror in the dark.

A light went on, illuminating another walkway leading off to the right side of the mirrored space. The shelves on either side of the aisle were stacked high with antiques: silverware, old clocks and small items of furniture. The type of wares sold in Vogel’s shop, therefore he was getting warmer.

It was another twenty yards until he reached the end of the walkway and found himself standing on a balcony. About thirty foot in diameter, with waist-high railings running all the way round, it was a viewing gallery that looked down into a black abyss. A pit!

It was official, thought Vince: Jack Regent was the Devil, and he himself was now standing at the gates of Hell!

On closer inspection, he realized that the pit, about fifteen foot deep, was merely a room on the level lower down. Not quite the entrance to Hades, but certainly unusual enough, the black room below was covered floor to wall in black plastic sheets. In the centre of the plastic-clad floor stood about fifty pieces of
black-toned
furniture. Heavy bureaus, bookcases and tables, it was the same ebonized furniture he’d seen in Jack’s flat and in Vogel’s container. To one side of the gallery there was a ladder that led down into the same room. Above his head extended a huge black plastic canopy secured by ropes attached to a winch. It was now clear the canopy could be lowered to form a kind of tent. Whatever its purpose, it was undeniably a room that could be sealed off. Vince sniffed the air, detected a sharpness about it; the tang of chemicals of some description, though Vince couldn’t place them.

The final instruction. A flicker of flame guided Vince’s eyes up and away from the black pit and over to the gallery opposite, where a man now stood. Vince couldn’t see his face, because it was obscured by the wide brim of a hat. A grey fedora with a black band encircling it. It matched the long grey gabardine trench coat that was knotted at the waist and worn with the collar turned up, over an open-neck black shirt. Vince realized he couldn’t see his feet. The light was weak, and the man’s
movements
were playing to it perfectly; he wanted to be obscured, half lit and half in the shadows. The wide-brimmed fedora dipped down to meet the flame of the slim gold lighter that was
igniting
a cigarette. Even before Vince smelled the smoke from the pungent French cigarette, he knew this was Jack Regent.

Vince felt his chest tighten and his guts seize up, as if being clenched in a giant fist. A jolt of adrenalin shot through him and his hands gripped the gallery rail. He took a deep intake of breath, and slowly exhaled, steadying himself. The dark room below Vince really did feel like an abyss now. They were only a short distance apart, but it felt like a chasm was opening up. The closing of distance in the hunt meant nothing, for Vince had no control. He hadn’t tracked Jack. Jack had led him here.

Vince wanted to see his face clearly, but the lighter’s flame was extinguished, the wide brim of the fedora pulled down further. Then Jack retreated from the gallery, moving further into the darkness.

‘Jack Regent?’

No response. Just the glowing tip of the cigarette.

Vince swallowed, then announced, ‘My name is Detective Vincent Treadwell.’

‘I know who you are, my boy.’

‘Of Scotland Yard.’

‘Please, Vincent, I ask that you not speak to me in the
procedural
patter of a policeman. The time for that has passed, has it not?’ Without giving Vince time to answer, he continued, ‘It’s not the job I object to, you understand, it’s the method of the delivery. Yet you, I hear, are an educated, intelligent young man, so don’t bore me with your “Treadwell of the Yard” affectations. Ask me whatever you like, Vincent.’

The tone of the voice was low but strong. It could have been the acoustics that gave it strength, but Vince doubted that. It belonged to a man who didn’t have to raise his voice to be heard. The constant flow of cigarettes had also worked their magic. His accent, whilst not strong, worked to endow his voice with a
cut-crystal
pronunciation that gave it a natural authority which Vince never doubted.

Vince glanced down into the pit. ‘Is this how you’re smuggling in the heroin – in Vogel’s furniture?’

‘That’s right. Morphine paste flown in from Indochina, with help of the French colony there. Then processed, to some degree, in Marseilles. Then shipped over here.’

Vince made a point of not appearing too impressed. ‘How long do you think you’ll get away with it?’

‘Until I’m caught, I suppose, is the answer you want. If I could give another, more truthful, guess, it would be, for as long as I choose. But you know, Vincent, we two are just specks of dust in the great scheme of things. I have no more control over my fate than you do of yours. We’re all just playthings for the gods. That’s something I’ve suspected all my life, but really, really only just found out for sure tonight.’

‘Your turn to do me a favour, Regent – spare me your
philosophical
insights. You’re a low-life killer, nothing more, nothing less.’

The fedora-wearing head remained dipped, as he took a long draw on the cigarette, before pluming a vapour trail of smoke across towards Vince, as if it held a bullet.

‘Very well, cards on the table. How are you going to catch me?’

‘Interpol already possesses a lot of information on heroin smuggling by the Unione Corse.’ Vince looked for some reaction to the mention of that crime organization, but none was
forthcoming
. ‘I got your present,
Rinieri
.’ Again, no reaction from Jack to the mention of his birth name. ‘The Moor’s head. I’ve heard all your clan wear it.’

‘Max Vogel told me you had a fascination with such tokens. I hoped you’d appreciate it. A gift from me to you.’

‘What do you wear yourself, Jack, the ring or the pendant?’

‘You want me to tell you if I’m a member of a secret society? If I did, I wouldn’t be much good as a member, would I? Yet again, Vincent, your imagination is at play. There’s no intrigue involved, just business. Corsicans have been smugglers all their lives. It’s in our blood.’

‘Smuggling the heroin in furniture isn’t exactly foolproof.’

‘But it is if the fool isn’t listening. I didn’t say
in
the furniture.’ Jack left that hanging in the air to be processed, then continued. ‘I’ve found a secret formula, able to turn dust into gold. Better than alchemy, my dear boy, simple chemistry. The morphine paste is carried in the lacquer painted on the furniture. Therefore invisible to the naked eye. First the furniture is painted black, as befits the oriental style. The morphine paste is then painted on to the furniture, the flat surfaces, table tops and drawer panels. Then it is sealed with lacquer. As I say, invisible to the naked eye. So, you see, even if the furniture is confiscated, they can chop it to pieces but they’ll never find anything. In fact, they’ll have to pay us to replace it. Only to bring in the next shipment.’

Vince thought he heard a small laugh from Jack – as if playing to the gallery. Vince looked back down into the pit. The sealed plastic room made sense now. The lacquer was sanded off the wood, coming off in a white powder that was collected. Being as precious as
gold dust
, the powder must then be protected from the elements or contamination within the sealed pit. And, coming off in a white powder, the black plastic would show it up clearly. Perfect, apart from one thing:

‘You must lose more of the morphine than you retrieve.’

‘When we first started, we lost about sixty per cent. Still enough to make a profit, but not enough considering all the effort. Through trial and error, we’re now down to a mere ten per cent loss. And there’s still room for improvement. We’re working towards and will settle for a loss of five per cent. The process of separating the morphine from the lacquer involves a new
discovery
. The lacquer itself is a natural gum harvested from seed, like rape seed. I won’t bore you with the science but, needless to say, like all genius solutions, it’s deceptively simple.

‘By the time it’s stripped off the furniture and the powder is processed, it comes out at seventy-five to eighty per cent pure. Again, there’s room for improvement, and we think we can do better, refining the process towards a purity of ninety per cent. By the time it’s been packaged for consumption, it will give us a yield of a million and a half, two million, pounds for each shipment. Enough to trade off for a year, all over this country, all over Europe. But we won’t get greedy: we’ll make sure our product is easily available and reasonably priced at first. That way you build up your market, build up an appetite, create a hunger.’

Vince considered Jack’s plans, reckoned they were no more than he expected of him – brilliant. But the fact that he was laying them out for him made the next stage of Jack’s intentions clear. Vince was never going to leave this warehouse alive.

‘The trouble, is Regent, your junk kills people the minute it hits their bloodstream. That’s diminishing returns. Bad economics to kill your customers.’

‘I take it you’re referring to the plague, as the papers are
calling
it.’

‘I’m no poetic hack. I call it heroin. I call it
your
heroin.’

‘That was most unfortunate. But you’re wrong, it has nothing to do with me.’

‘Everything has something to do with you in this town, Regent, and all of it bad. Why should the bad junk be any different?’

Again, Vince thought he heard a low laugh, or maybe a sigh of derision.

‘You’re a very literal young man. What I meant was, that batch was the product of experimentation as we were refining the
process
. And, yes, some of it went bad, fatally bad. Very unfortunate, and indeed
very
bad for business. I could do without such
publicity
. It was never meant to be put out on the streets, and I myself certainly didn’t put it out there. I would have been a fool to do so. It was stolen from me, you see. From what I hear, your brother had a part to play in that.’

‘It was given to him by Henry Pierce.’

Vince watched as Jack, his expression still obscured by the brim of the hat, took a moment to reflect.

Then he stubbed out the cigarette. ‘Ah, Henry.’ Jack’s voice denoted the wistful disappointment you’d feel for an errant child. ‘Henry told me he gave it to your brother as a reward for getting rid of a body in Soho. But, of course, you know all about that, Vincent.’

He was still unnerved by Jack calling him ‘Vincent’, as if Jack had known him all his life. When in fact it was the reverse: it was Vince who had known Jack all his life. From a hallowed distance, of course, like you would know about a legend, or even a movie star. Was that it, thought Vince, was he star-struck? Awed by the very presence of Jack Regent? Vince knew what a dangerous state of mind that could be, and shook the thought from his head.

‘By the way,’ said Jack, ‘I had nothing to do with the Soho
business
. I know Duval, just like I know a lot of people. But those films he and Eton and Henry were involved in, it wasn’t to my tastes.’

Vince gave a sour laugh. ‘Bit late to get morals, Regent.’

‘Morality has nothing to do with it. Not enough profit involved. But those films are not what you think they are. They’re flights of fantasy. Degenerate flights, but fantasy all the same. No one dies in them. That just comes from
your
imagination. After all, you’re the one being accused of murder.’

Vince grabbed the rail so hard that he dislodged it from its spindles.

‘Take it easy, my young friend. You don’t want to fall in.’

‘I know what I saw. And I know that I didn’t kill anyone.’

Jack issued an audible sigh and shook his head, seeming almost to pity the young detective. ‘I didn’t say you did kill anyone – just that you were accused of it. Just like you’re accusing me. You think too highly of me, my young friend. I didn’t even know Henry was involved with the film business – not until some of my heroin went missing. That bad heroin he paid your brother with. Most regrettable.’

‘Is that why Pierce wanted to get rid of you?’

‘No, that’s not why.’

‘Then why did Pierce set you up?’ asked Vince, as he slowly began to move around the gallery towards Jack.

‘You still want to play the policeman?’

Vince carried on taking steady strides, knowing he had to make his move and not wait for Jack to move first. Knowing he couldn’t be awed by Jack.

‘Look behind you, Vincent …’

‘Oldest trick in the book. You can do better, Regent.’

‘No tricks.’

Vince halted, but kept his eyes on the Corsican.

Jack pointed to a side passage leading away from the gallery. ‘Through there you’ll find a room, and in that room you’ll find the answers to all your questions. You’ll find out if you’re the killer. You might not like what you hear, but that’s the lot of a detective, I guess.’

Vince quickly looked around and saw that the passage led to a door. When he turned back again, Jack was gone.
The oldest trick in the book.

But it was no trick, since Jack could have disappeared into the shadows of the warehouse any time he wanted to. He was now offering him two doors: an entrance and a exit. A past and a future.