One Fight at a Time (30 page)

He went back into the meeting room. Sat at one end of the long table, reading through Nicholas Hope’s address book again. Between them, he and Mel and Adkins’ junior clerk triple checked the list.

“So what now?” Mel asked

“Go through all the names once again,” Grover said. “See if you can come up with any current connection to Nick Hope.” He picked up the shortlist. “I’ll take these fourteen with me.”

*

He walked into
El
Paradis
ten minutes later. Zampa offered him a drink. The barmen provided the best coffee black market money could buy, and Grover waited for Zampa to respond to his proposal. Zampa sipped at his cup and put it back in the saucer.

“Do you intend to share any of the information you have uncovered with the police, any time in the near future?”

Grover shook his head. “Not if we can do a deal. I won’t need to take anything to the police if Harry doesn’t go to trial.”

Zampa took that on board.

“All this fucking nonsense,” he said, “which began with the murder of Nicholas Hope, has done nothing for business. It’s dragged us into the spotlight and spread like some kind of plague among my associates. Fortunately, that appears to be under control. And I can assure you, none of us, are involved in whatever happened at Blenheim Villas.”

He looked at Grover dead centre. Their eyes locked.

“I give you my word,” he said.

Grover smiled. “That’s good enough.”

“I’ve tightened up security,” Zampa said. “I have just had a meeting here with a couple of miscreants who will now return to towing the line. And messages have gone out to others who may need reminding of the house rules. Are you with me so far?”

“Absolutely.”

“So if we can come to an agreement, whereby you cease and desist from interfering in my business, I will give you all the help I can.”

“That sounds like the beginnings of a deal,” Grover said.

“Okay. Finish what you have to say.”

Grover picked up his coffee cup, swallowed the contents and put the cup back in its saucer.

“Okay. Cards on the table... I have encountered battalions of malcontents on my way to here and now. I spent twelve months with what was left of the Third Reich trying to kill me. And then another five years working in the mire of starvation, misery and fear left behind. Your operation would not register on that scale of atrocity at all.”

He waited for a reaction from Zampa. Nothing. He went on.

“I’m tired of blackmailers and black marketeers, two bit chancers, extortionists, fences, thieves and hit men. I’m not surprised by any of the rackets going on. This is a world in turmoil. Europe is full of rootless people with no homes and no meaningful lives to lead. The UK is crowded with men trained to kill, who’ve come back to what remains of the communities they knew, with Lugers they took from dead Germans. Only to discover this isn’t the home for heroes they fondly hoped it would be. That’s a cork still waiting to pop”

He paused again. Still no reaction from Zampa.

“As I said, all that I know has been shared with Harry’s defence team. No one else. If Harry does not have to climb into the dock on Thursday, the information will stay locked away and inaccessible”.

Zampa stared at him. Grover sat still, waiting for him to call up James and Jonathan to throw him out. Instead, Zampa poured himself another cup of coffee and offered the pot to him. Grover shook his head.

“No thanks.”

Zampa added milk to his cup and stared at Grover again.

“You’re obviously not intimidated by the thieves you have fallen among,” he said. “Which is courageous. And I’m flattered that you need my help.”

“It’s a two way street,” Grover said.

“Let me finish,” Zampa said. “You must also be aware that no one talks to me the way you have just done, without at the very least, getting a marker next to his name.”

“I figure we’re both clear on who and what we are,” Grover said. “So neither of us needs to act tough.”

Zampa smiled the familiar house smile again.

“So?...”

Grover took the address copies from his jacket pocket and waved them at Zampa.

“Fourteen names from Nicholas Hope’s address book. The ones we don’t know anything about. You have most of the wannabes in this city neatly corralled. So we’d like you to identify them for us.”

Zampa looked across the room. Asked the barman to come over and clear the table. That done, he took the three pages and laid them down side by side and scanned them one by one, taking his time. Grover stood up, went to the bar and asked for a glass of water. He meandered back to the table, sat down and drank as Zampa read on. After three or four minutes spent reading, he looked up at Grover.

“Some of the entries are written in full. Names, addresses and telephone numbers. I’m aware of them. None are connected to any piece of chicanery I know about. Some of the names have numbers only. Again, a section of the community with a reasonable sense of right and wrong. Not nature’s noblemen I agree, but definitely not of a murderous disposition.”

“Which leaves only those who are entered under their initials,” Grover said.

“I can put names to four of them,” Zampa said.

“Okay. So…?”

“The first set of initials, TD, I don’t recognise.”

“Neil Adkins couldn’t be sure, but he suggested that was Thomas Denning. He has two convictions for distributing pornographic material.”

Zampa looked like he had eaten something distasteful.

“Fucking pervert. He’s obviously not a member here.”

“And the rest?”

“DF, is probably Douglas French,” Zampa said. “BH, could be Bill Harris, the editor of the
Post
. I would suggest that RM, is the late Robbie McAllister. And WBS, can only be William Bullivant-Shaw.”

He sat back in his chair.

“BH and RM, okay,” Grover said. “Who’s Douglas French?”

“He runs two pubs. He leases one of them from Courage Breweries and the other he owns.
The
Broken
Gate
. You know the place, I’m led to believe.”

Grover watched, as in slow motion, his host’s face froze into a mask. If he had doubted Zampa’s claim to know everything about everything, he had no cause to do so now. For the first time in their relationship, Grover experienced real menace aimed in his direction. Powerful, implacable, no quarter given. Like on Omaha Beach. It took him several seconds to stop the pulse in his head pounding. Satisfied that his message had been received and understood, Zampa allowed the mask to slip.

“Mr French is not a member of
El
Paradis
.”

“Bill Harris is,” Grover said, recovering some ground. “I saw him here, if you recall.”

“He is, yes.”

“What else is he?”

Zampa stayed silent.

“All the help you can, you said a few minutes ago.”

“Bill Harris is not a murderer.”

Suddenly Zampa smiled again. This time, like a nanny indulging the toddler in her care. Grover decided to move to more potentially fertile ground.

“What about Robbie McAllister? Nothing you say is going to bother him now.”

Zampa nodded.

“He was a very conflicted man. With a chip on his shoulder and a head full of demons. It seemed he had promise as a boxer. Pat Halloran believed in him, but McAllister couldn’t control his temper, couldn’t focus when he needed to. He was always broke. Roly Bevan lent him a few pounds here and there. Until he lost patience.”

“So, after the beating he took, in anger and desperation he shot himself. Is that what you’re suggesting?”

Zampa shook his head slowly. “Robbie McAllister was a homosexual.”

Grover sat back and looked at him.

“He had the best cover available,” Zampa went on. “He was in the butchest of professions. No nancy boys in the ring.”

“So if Robbie was homosexual, what of the others? Bill Harris, was in here with some kid, maybe nineteen or twenty.”

Zampa moved in his chair. Crossed his left leg over her right, and looked down at the crease in his trousers.

“Okay,” Grover said. “What about the last guy, WBS? Is he a client?”

“No. But I do know him. He used to come here when my father was running the billiards room. They were friends, back in the thirties. Until some business deal went wrong. Bill Bullivant hyphenated Shaw. He always insisted on the hyphen. Thought it gave him class. Not that he showed any. He claimed that his mother, Sarah Bullivant, had been an actress before she married. He was gassed during the first war. I remember he had trouble with his breathing. He was a special constable during the recent conflict.”

“What’s that?”

“Specials get appointed by local forces. They’re volunteers, expected to do around twenty hours a week on the beat. They take the police oath, get a uniform, a whistle and a truncheon. A lot of men who were too old for active service or didn’t pass medicals in 1940 and ’41, joined the specials.”

“What does he do now?” Grover asked.

“The last I heard, he was working as a caretaker in a children’s home. It shouldn’t be hard to find him. There are only two in the city. St Jude’s and St Christopher’s.”

Grover swallowed and took a deep breath.

“How old will he be?”

“Late 50s I would have thought.”

“Do you remember what he looks like?”

“Not really. I haven’t seen him for years. I remember he didn’t have much hair.”

Grover constructed his next sentence, word by word.

“Nick Hope, spent most of his childhood at St. Christopher’s. Hating every minute of it.”

Silence filled the office like air inflating a balloon. Zampa ended the conversation.

“Over to you,” he said.

Grover called Mel from the pay phone booth in the entrance hall.

“Eric Marsden says he has no idea why he’s in Nick Hope’s address book,” she told him. “He won’t say any more to me, but he wants to talk with you. As soon as possible. It seems he trusts you.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Forty-five minutes later, Marsden unlocked the door of his chalet and waved Grover past him. Grover stood in the centre of the room and looked around. It was as cheerless as he remembered it.

Marsden gestured to the armchair. “Would you like some tea?”

“No thank you.”

Marsden closed the chalet door. Grover sat down.

“You wanted to talk to me...”

Marsden opened his mouth and then closed it again. Grover waited for a moment or two, then cut to the chase.

“Tell me about Bill Bullivant-Shaw.”

Marsden stood rooted to the spot, his back to the door.

“He’s er... he’s the caretaker at St. Christopher’s Childrens Home, in Bristol.”

“And?...”

“Well he looks after the place. Has done since before the war.”

“And how do you know this?”

He waited for Marsden to rev up. Eric was taking his time.

“Alright, let me start the ball rolling,” Grover suggested. “Did Harry tell you anything about the contents of Nick Hope’s address book?”

Marsden looked at him in some confusion. Grover continued.

“Did you know Nick Hope?”

“For a year or two. But a while back.”

“Is that all? Come on Eric, you said you wanted to talk to me.”

“Yes. I did. Alright.”

“So what’s your connection with St Christopher’s?”

“I worked there during the war.”

There was more on the way. Grover waited. Marsden cleared his throat.

“I didn’t fight you see. I was a conscientious objector. I was jailed for fifteen months between spring 1940 and autumn 1941.”

“That seems a bit heavy for simply refusing to fight.”

“Actually there was more to it. I was arrested after taking part in an anti-war demonstration. Somebody started a fight. I hit a policeman, who was later found injured. He was in hospital for a while. I was charged, convicted and sent to jail. Some irony in that don’t you think? A committed conshie, sent down for causing actual bodily harm. I was released on the understanding I spent the rest of the war doing something useful in the community. I worked in St Christopher’s until VE Day. As a cleaner.”

“So you knew Bill Bullivant-Shaw?”

“The bastard.”

Grover had let Marsden loose and now it started to pour out. He looked straight into Grover’s eyes.

“You know the saying, ‘everybody has one job which fits them’? Well, the caretaker’s job fitted him like a glove. Manna from heaven...” He took a deep breath, his shoulders heaved. “The slimy bastard was a child molester. Boys or girls, it didn’t matter. And he lived in the place. Had access to them round the clock. I found out one night when I was working late. We had an inspection coming up the following day. Someone from some government department. A routine annual thing. I was told to clean two of the dormitories, while the kids were having some reading sessions in the hall. I found one of them, alone in his bed, sobbing his heart out. I tried to help, find out was wrong. Comfort him I guess. The poor little sod mistook that for the prelude to a repeat performance of what had just happened to him. He rolled off his bed and hid under it. He lay on his stomach, his face pressed into the floorboards. Rigid with terror. Holding on to a teddy bear. That’s something I’ll never forget. Jesus...”

He choked at the recall and faded into silence.

“And that kid was Nicholas Hope. Right?”

Marsden swallowed. Nodded at Grover.

“And you didn’t do anything about this. You didn’t report it?”

“No. To my eternal shame I didn’t. I decided I had too much shit in my life as it was. I wasn’t going to rock any boats. I spent the next two years at Saint Christopher’s keeping well out of Nick’s way. In the end, I think he came to realise I wasn’t going to do anything to him. But I guess he never got to trust me.”

“Was the current head honcho, Baines, there at the time?”

“Who?”

“Baines.”

Marsden shook his head. “The bloke in charge back then was Richard Farmer.”

“Is he still around?”

“No, he’s dead. Run over by a reversing coal lorry, five or six years ago. The driver was ashamed and embarrassed. But it was probably the best good deed he ever did. If only he knew it.”

Marsden began to shake. He sat down on one of the beds, tilted his neck back and closed his eyes. He clenched his fists to stop the tremor in his hands.

“Are you okay?” Grover asked.

Marsden dropped his head down between his knees. He regained some control. Grover sat in the armchair and waited. It was a while before Marsden straightened up again.

“Sorry.”

Grover waited some more. Watched the colour seeped back into Marsden’s face.

“I’m alright now,” he said. He pointed at the sink unit, in the corner to Grover’s right. “Can you get me a glass of water?”

Grover took a glass from the shelf above the sink, filled and handed it across the desk. Marsden sipped the water.

“Thanks.”

He began to breathe steadily. He drank some more.

Grover had one more question to ask.

“Was Nick Hope blackmailing you?”

Marsden looked at him over the rim of the glass.

“Dear God no...”

“I ask, because he was blackmailing Bullivant-Shaw and a bunch of others listed in his address book.”

Marsden lowered the glass onto his lap.

“I swear. I’ve had no connection with Nick Hope since the summer of 1945.”

“Okay,” Grover said. “Can you hazard a guess as to why you’re listed?”

“No. Well, I guess he didn’t forget me. Perhaps he didn’t want to. If that’s the way it was, I can’t blame him. After all, I was part of the conspiracy of silence.”

He took another drink. Grover got up out of the armchair.

“I’ve got stuff to do Eric,” he said. “Will you be okay?”

“Yes. I’ve got stuff to do too.”

Grover stepped to the chalet door and opened it.

“Get him Ed,” Marsden said, his voice now as steady as plainsong. “Beat the bastard’s brains out.”

Grover grinned at him.

“This from a pacifist.”

He left the chalet and closed the door.

*

The return journey to Bristol was smoother than the outward. Grover kept his foot down all the way and
Salome
surged into the grounds at the front of St Christopher’s, barely thirty-five minutes after leaving Brean Sands.

There was something happening. The kids were being bundled on to three buses. Staff and visitors’ cars had been moved to a corner of the forecourt. Grover squeezed the jeep into the only space available, next to a dark blue Standard 8. He quizzed one of the adults. It appeared the whole place was going to a monster anniversary picnic at St Jude’s, which boasted more space and two playing fields. Enough to accommodate both sets of inmates. Mr Baines was the last person on to the last bus in the line. Mrs Holland waved them ‘goodbye’ from the entrance steps. She greeted Grover as warmly as she had the last time he visited. He told her he was looking for the caretaker.

“A few moments ago, I saw him doing something at the far end of the main corridor,” she said. “He may have gone upstairs. Or he could be down in the basement.”

“Is it okay if I go and look for him?” he asked.

“I don’t see why not. I’ll be in the office if you need me.”

Grover left her watching the last coach negotiating its way into the main road traffic and set off along the hall.

No Bill Bullivant-Shaw.

Grover ran up to the third floor taking the steps three at a time. He checked along the length of the floor and then worked downwards.

No one.

Back on the ground floor, he located the basement door, at the foot of the stairs. He tried the door handle. Gently swung the door open. Stepped on to the top of a flight of stone steps. The light switch on the wall by his right ear was flicked to on. Where Grover stood, he was in shadow. A couple of one hundred watt bulbs lit the basement on the other side of the huge furnace. Coal was piled up on the floor – at the bottom of a chute, which began below a hatch up at ground level. The temperature must have well up into the 70s.

The ambient noise was a dull hiss. Accompanied by the regular clicking of some old thermostat, maintaining the heat levels around the building. All this loud enough to disguise the soft clump of his shoes, as he dropped down to the basement floor. He stood stock still and listened. Now he could hear the muted roar of the furnace.

And the sound of a man’s voice, singing
The Alphabet Song
. Bill Bullivant-Shaw doing a lamentable impersonation of Perry Como.

Grover stepped out of the shadows. The huge furnace was to his left. Pipes ran into and out of it like lengths of spaghetti. There were valves on the pipes, with wheels to close and open them. There was a small, tatty desk in the far right hand corner. Bullivant-Shaw was sitting behind it on a plastic chair, looking down at some paperwork, no longer singing, but biting the end of a pencil held in his left hand. He registered Grover’s presence and looked up.

“You’re the Yank,” he said. “You’re not allowed down here.”

Grover raised his hands.

“I know, but we have some things to straighten out.”

“What things?”

“Things like child molesting, buggery and murder.”

Shaw stared at him, gob-smacked. Grover stood still, waiting for more of a reaction. Using his left hand again, Shaw opened a desk drawer, pulled out a neatly honed, black oak baton – about twenty inches long, with a fluted handle. His ‘specials’ police truncheon. He placed it on the desktop and stood up.

“You knocked Nicholas Hope unconscious with that,” Grover said.

Shaw sneered at Grover. “So you say, Yank.”

“Not just me. The evidence is mounting.”

The sneer left Shaw’s face. Grover went on.

“Do you remember Eric Marsden?”

Shaw looked confused for a moment, then shook his head.

“No.”

“He was a cleaner here, during the war. He remembers you.”

The sneer pasted itself back in place.

“The conshie, yes. They sent him here to clean the toilets and swill out the drains. Because he refused to fight for his country.”

“Like you did the first time around.”

“That’s bloody right.”

He sounded hoarse. As if needed to clear his throat.

“Got gassed as a reward,” Grover said.

“Yes I bloody did,” Shaw yelled. Then broke out in a coughing fit as if to prove it.

Grover moved towards him. Shaw recovered, picked up the truncheon with his left hand and stepped out from behind his desk. The two men were now three or four paces apart.

“Mr Marsden is prepared to testify that you regularly abused Nicholas Hope.”

“That’s bollocks.”

“And other children in this place, over many years.”

Shaw began to shake his head. Grover continued.

“We have bank statements which show the cash payments you made to Nicholas Hope. He was blackmailing you. He had nursed the memory of all those years you brutalised him. And as soon as he was given the opportunity to make his move, he set about it. You paid up for a while, then decided enough was enough. You went to his flat, knocked him senseless with the truncheon, tied him up, beat him, sodomised him and then slit his throat.”

Shaw was looking at Grover, stunned. He recovered a fraction.

“Do I look fit enough to do all that?”

Grover pointed to the truncheon. “Nick would have been out of it from the moment you hit him.”

Shaw shifted the weight of the truncheon in his hand.

“It’s over Shaw. Now give that to me.”

Shaw took a couple of paces forwards. Grover held up his right hand.

“Don’t do it, Bill. You can’t win this one. I’m a trained killer. You’re just a bald, overweight, repressed, slimy, sadistic deviant.”

In a rage, Shaw leapt at him and swung the truncheon. Grover saw it coming and swayed back out of range. He crabbed to his right. Shaw stepped in front of him again, in the process moving closer to centre of the room. There was now a straight line from the coal chute shoot behind Grover to Shaw and behind him, the furnace. Grover took half a step back. His right heel pressed down on the business end of a long handed coal shovel. He stood stock still. Waiting. He knew that Shaw had no idea what to do next, but he needed room; needed Shaw to be a couple of steps further back. He swayed into a southpaw boxing stance, shuffled his feet and yelled out.

Shaw reacted in surprise and, instinctively, took a step backwards. Which left Grover with the time and space he needed. He bent down, picked up the shovel, swung it up into the air and round in a circle, like a hammer throwing winding up. He had a longer reach than Shaw had with the truncheon. Shaw stepped back another pace. Grover swung again. Shaw swayed out of the way, over-balanced and fell back against the furnace door. He yelled as the heat seared through his shirt. Dropped his arms and stumbled forwards, arching his back and moaning in pain. The truncheon slipped out of his hand.