Stealth (15 page)

‘Was what he offered you as I've described?'

‘Just two gold chains, one with a locket. No ring.'

‘Did you recognize his voice as the man who had contacted you by phone?'

‘Might have been; hard to tell as he sort of muttered in a strange way on the phone. Might have been drinking.'

‘The tall man drank your whisky in the club.'

‘Yes, that's right, he did.'

‘D'you know his name?'

‘No, and I didn't ask. I didn't want to know.'

‘What did he look like?'

‘Ugly bastard. Scar on his face. Big mouth, horrible teeth. Scary. I don't really know how I had the bottle to tell him to sod off really. Sometimes, if I shut my eyes I can still see him, staring at me.'

I wrote Hamlyn in my notebook, underlined it and said, ‘Is there anything else you can remember?'

‘There might have been another bloke with him, sort of hanging around by the door.'

‘Can you describe him?'

‘Nah, the place was heaving. I only caught a glimpse of him.'

‘Did you see the man who spoke to you just that once?'

‘Yes, but the woman who runs the launderette for me said a tall bloke had been asking for me.'

‘Are you sure you've never seen him before? Not even in the past, years ago?' Patrick asked.

‘No.'

‘Think.'

Da Rosta thought for quite a long time. Then he said, ‘It can't have been the same bloke because he didn't have a scar and had his hair in dreadlocks but he reminded me of someone who used to work for a bloke who used to be a chum of mine, Danny, who had a second-hand car place in East Ham. This character used to clean the cars and things like that, little more than an errand boy really. Now Danny knew his way around but this bloke made him really twitched and apparently used to work as a heavy for local mobsters in his spare time. I think Danny gave him the heave-ho in the end because he was putting the buyers off.'

‘Was this Daniel Coates?'

The man's eyes widened. ‘Yes. But—'

‘How did you meet him?'

‘Inside,' da Rosta snapped. He switched on a sickly smile. ‘Do I get my police protection now?'

‘Not yet. You said Coates used to be a chum of yours. Is he not now?'

‘Nah, we fell out over a bird.' He sighed. ‘I was a bit thinner in those days.'

‘Tell me, this man in the bar wanted fifteen grand just like that. Did he imagine you'd have that kind of cash on you? I can't believe he'd have accepted a cheque.'

‘No, he said I could pay the next day by leaving the money in a place we'd arrange in the launderette. But, as I said, I told him to get stuffed.'

‘We were told this happened around two months ago. I would have thought he'd have carried out his threats before now. Did he contact you again?'

‘Er – yes.'

‘When?'

‘About ten days ago. Said I'd soon be in hell with all the others if I still didn't pay up.'

‘Same arrangement as last time – money left in the launderette?'

‘Yes, in a little cupboard at the back that has a pile of magazines on it for the punters to read while they're waiting for their stuff to wash.'

‘In view of what's happened I presume you didn't agree to do what he wanted.'

‘I did say I'd pay him but said he'd have to give me a couple more weeks to get the cash together. I thought it would buy me a bit more time. He gave me two days but in the end I didn't do it.'

One did tend to admire the man's courage.

‘Did the woman who works for you notice anyone come in and look for a package?' Patrick went on to ask.

‘No, but I didn't tell her. She got a bit twitched about the tall bloke first time round and I thought she'd up and leave if she knew someone like that was coming back.'

‘I take it this man always rings you – you can't contact him.'

‘No, I can't.'

‘Did you know the other mobsters who were murdered?'

‘I knew Fred, Fred Duggan. But didn't he have a genuine accident? The silly sod was never sober and could have fallen, hit his head and gone in the river as easy as getting out of bed in the morning.'

‘He was murdered,' Patrick told him. ‘Head seriously bashed in by several blows. And Tom Berry, or Jerry? Did you know him?'

Da Rosta shook his head. ‘No. He was Fred's sort of boss and didn't chum up with no one. Right off the wall, according to Fred.'

‘What about the man from Estonia known only as Rapla who was shot about a month ago?'

‘Never knew him.'

‘Who's next then?'

‘God above knows.'

‘You must have an ear to the ground. Who else is in the firing line?'

‘Dunno. Everyone's clammed up.' Another phony smile. ‘Do I get my protection now?'

‘If you'll agree to testify against this man when we finally catch up with him.'

‘OK – I promise.'

‘You already have protection,' he was informed.

I asked myself what a mobster's promises were worth.

‘It looks as though what Coates told you on the boat about his car business and Hamlyn working for him was the truth,' Patrick said as we made our way towards the hospital exit. Although we had no real leads he was cheerful. Was it because it appeared he really had saved the man's life by his actions? A little less guilt rolling around in his mind?

‘There was no real reason for him to lie about that though, was there?' I pointed out.

‘And da Rosta used to be a chum of his. This is where the list of those being targeted starts to make sense. I suggest we try to find out if there's a connection between them and any of the previous mobsters who've ended up dead. Perhaps Hamlyn knew them all. By the way, you're a genius for asking da Rosta about Miss Smythe's jewellery.'

‘Thank you, but I'm sure Hamlyn will have got rid of it by now. It was interesting what da Rosta said about another man hanging around by the door of the club. I wonder if that was Anthony Thomas.'

‘Could have been – or a hired bruiser. Mike may want Hamlyn picked up now.'

‘I think you'll find he's much more interested in getting hard evidence against Hereward Trent first so he can arrest them both.'

‘That connection is going to be very difficult to prove. Unless Hamlyn drops him in it.'

‘Which he would, fast.'

Patrick laid a hand on my arm. ‘Honeybunch, I think it's only fair that you share your theory about Trent with me.'

‘Greenway might go off at a tangent and if I'm wrong . . .'

‘Fine, we don't tell Greenway until we're really sure.'

I did not speak again until we were in the car. ‘I think it's possible they're using Trent. Hamlyn might have something on him from his past – he seems to go in for that kind of thing. Trent has the respectability, outward or genuine, that Hamlyn can hide behind: a big house in a respectable district where he can conceal loot and weapons and hold meetings with his hired thugs without any fear of police interference. Rosemary Smythe witnessed things like that. And, as you yourself noticed, Trent was a bit hesitant about his wife and children's actual whereabouts. They might be being held as insurance.'

‘It should be easy to find out whether the kids are at school or not.'

In this Patrick was wrong for these days schools are very reluctant to reveal anything about their charges, especially over the phone, and I cautioned against going down that route. Finally, and not wishing to risk a head teacher telling Trent that the police had been making enquiries about his offspring, Patrick requested that a short-term watch be put on the house at a time when children might reasonably be expected to come home from school. True enough, a plain-clothes woman PC having been despatched to do the job that same day, the au pair departed in the car and arrived back shortly afterwards with two young girls, both wearing the uniform of the local primary school.

‘She saw no sign of the wife,' Patrick reported, putting his mobile back in his pocket. ‘She's probably staying with a friend, or visiting her parents.'

‘Does she work?' I wondered.

‘I wouldn't have thought so. They're loaded, aren't they?'

‘Women with wealthy husbands often have paying interests,' I reflected. ‘Some are into interior or garden design or even carry on with their professional careers as doctors, dentists, judges, civil engineers, television presenters, chefs, you name it. Some have been known to write books.'

My husband performed an abject grovel on the table before him, hands over his head.

‘You can come out now,' I said, when I could speak for laughing.

When enlarged and digitally tweaked, the photograph of Anthony Thomas that Patrick had taken with his phone proved to be good enough to be used for general identification purposes and was duly placed in relevant files. Otherwise, routine work went on. Findings on the strands of wool that had been removed from the rose thorns in Hereward Trent's garden were quite detailed but not a lot of use. The wool was from Scottish sheep and likely to have been machine, rather than hand, knitted due to technical characteristics that I could not make head nor tail of. I gathered that the lab had had expert opinion on this. This person had gone on to report that the dye was not of vegetable origin but of a commercial type not commonly used by the main manufacturers, such as Pringle. He, or she, had tentatively suggested that the garment, probably a man's due to the weight of the wool, had been made in Scotland at a small mill, and possibly bought there. The lab reported that there was no definable human DNA on the sample.

My next contribution to the investigation, there not being a lot else I could do right now – we still had no real leads – was to grit my teeth, go out, buy and begin to read Clement Hamlyn's books to try to find out more about him. There were five: four best sellers, the fifth published only a week previously and rapidly heading in that direction. In order of publication they were:
Chill, Heat, Blood,
Burn
and
Rage.
It was
Burn
that had been dramatized for television; the others, I knew, were to follow, and as it was set in wartime London I was assuming that the title referred to the Blitz. No, wrong, it was hatred that burned, I would discover, not buildings.

Patrick walked into Greenway's ‘snug', the room adjoining his office that I was being permitted to use, where, on rare occasions, the commander relaxes, just in time to have
Chill
whistle passed his nose and thud into a far corner.
Heat
and
Blood
rapidly followed. ‘Not quite your thing?' he hazarded, an eyebrow raised.

‘They're unreadable,' I raged. ‘Sorry, but it's beyond the call of duty.'

‘It was your idea.'

‘I know, but the violence is sickening, the language revolting and it's making me feel like a middle-aged ninny for being disgusted by them.'

‘Good plots?'

‘Yes, not bad – as far as I can tell.'

He gathered up the paperbacks and tucked them under one arm. ‘Lunch?'

After refreshment I tackled
Burn
. I had more interest in this one due to the Richmond connection. The storyline involved a detective sergeant in the Met whose house in Islington was bombed, killing his wife and baby son. At this time he was working on a murder case, a bank manager in Richmond having been found stabbed to death in Richmond Park. It was left to the reader to work out for themselves whether at this point the DS loses his sanity and blames the killer for the death of his family, but he commences an obsessive and almost frenzied hunt for him. This takes him deeply into the London criminal underworld.

I skipped most of this, unable to stomach the way this crazed cop rapes, batters and even murders his way to get to the man he hunts – finally, having narrowly failed to find his target and been badly injured in a fight with a gang boss and his honchos, he becomes delirious and wanders the streets of Richmond close to the house where the murder victim lived, hoping for inspiration. He meets an old woman who tells him that on the night he was killed she saw the banker with a man she knew had ‘business dealings' in the area but refuses to tell him his name, panics and runs back into her house, slamming the door. He breaks in through the back.

I read on, not even aware for a little while that I was no longer alone in the room.

‘Time to knock off for the day?' Patrick suggested quietly.

I laid the book aside, realized that it was getting dark outside and took a deep breath before saying, ‘It would appear that Hamlyn acts out his plots.'

‘Before or afterwards?'

‘As far as this one's concerned, afterwards. His main character, a cop, loses his temper and throws an elderly woman down the stairs when she refuses to tell him the name of a potential murder suspect, discovers she's still alive and strangles her when she still won't, or can't, speak. Great detection work. I think the man's as mad as this character he writes about.'

Patrick's mobile rang and I guessed it was Daws as Patrick called him ‘sir'. Greenway put a stop to the courtesy as far as he himself was concerned a while ago, adding: ‘You used to be a lieutenant colonel, for God's sake.'

‘Interesting,' Patrick commented after the call ended. ‘Although Hereward Trent has never officially been in trouble with the police there was a hushed-up scandal at a golf club he used to belong to when they lived in Essex – funds going missing when he was club treasurer. I say “hushed up” but Daws has discovered that because the club practically went bankrupt because of it, it made the local papers, only Trent's name wasn't actually mentioned. Everyone in the district knew who was responsible. It put an end to his position on the town council as well and he and his wife moved away – to Richmond.'