Gone Tomorrow (29 page)

‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Slider said. ‘It’s all so perfect. He hadn’t been to the Shamrock in months, so why suddenly did he go there that particular evening and stay so long, with extra precautions to establish the time he left?’ He answered his own question. ‘Perhaps because he knew Lenny was going to be eliminated. Maybe he was warned to make sure he was covered.’

He looked round, and saw no absolute resistance to the idea. ‘Let’s look at the sequence of events,’ he continued. ‘Lenny goes into the Phoenix, as we’re told he often did, and if we believe Everet Boston he had every reason to because Collins was his contact. He goes in just before eleven, let’s say to transact some business with Collins or to give or receive a message. He’s not expecting to be molested by Eddie Cranston. An argument starts. Collins tells him to take it outside. Eddie tries to make a fight of it but Lenny knows he mustn’t get involved with that sort of thing, so he slugs Eddie a good one and instead of following it up, legs it like one John Smith, and heads home.

‘We next find him talking to some professional minder types outside his own home at about half past eleven. Shortly after that Sonny Collins pushes off to establish himself an alibi. And later that night Lenny is killed very neatly and efficiently by a single stab wound to the heart by some one or some ones who go through his pockets to remove something but leave his wad of money behind. Later again, Lenny’s house is expertly turned over and his girlfriend hastily packs her bags and runs for it – we don’t know whether before or after, or whether the people who searched the house also took her with them, either by force or otherwise. Everet is sure they’re after the girl – presumably
because she knows too much about the outfit, maybe even who the Needle is.’

‘Guv,’ said Mackay, ‘if it was the minders who done Lenny, why didn’t they do it when they met him at half eleven? Why wait until later?’

‘Well, they wouldn’t want to kill him in a public street, would they?’ Anderson said.

‘They could have taken him inside his house and done it there,’ Mackay said.

‘Yes,’ Slider said. ‘That’s a point. Any suggestions?’

‘Maybe he wasn’t due to be done then,’ McLaren said. ‘Maybe the minders reported back something he’d said, and it was that that made the Needle put the order out on him.’

‘Or maybe he’d said something to Sonny and Sonny reported it,’ Swilley said. And got his orders to get himself an alibi at the same time.’

‘Maybe what Sonny reported was the fight with Eddie,’ Hollis said.

‘That’s certainly a possibility,’ Slider said. According to Everet, Lenny wasn’t a team player and that was what the boss objected to. We’ve got him running for Herbie Weedon and crossing money to fund his gambling habit. We’ve got him selling dope in the park on the side. And we’ve got a lot of iffy goods in his flat which he may have been processing outside of his job for the boss. If he was seen as the weak link and likely to bring police attention down on the gang, that would be good reason to get rid of him.’

‘They got rid of Herbie Weedon just for wanting to talk to me,’ Atherton said. ‘And Everet Boston is running for his life. Could it be that the boss is determined to stop us making any connection between the lowlife and him?’

‘Maybe what was lifted from Lenny’s pocket, apart from his keys, was some kind of paperwork that would link him with the boss or the gang,’ said Swilley. ‘His betting book, for instance, maybe with a telephone number or something in it. He must have written down the bets somewhere, and we never found anything like that.’

‘Yes,’ said Slider, ‘and there was an inkstain on the inside of his empty pocket. Maybe he habitually carried his betting book in there, along with a Biro, which leaked at some point, as they always do.’

‘Brilliant, boss. And we thought something was lifted from beside his telephone at home – which could have been an address book or something similar.’

‘But why kill him in the park like that?’ Mackay said. ‘I mean, it’s a public place. Anyone could have seen them.’

‘Well, evidently anyone didn’t,’ Atherton said. ‘When you think about it, it’s one place they could be sure there’d be nobody around, and it’s not overlooked. They’ve only got to walk up the street and through the gates – no suspicious climbing over because they know Lenny’s got the key. And we know nobody notices anyone walking up the street, particularly late at night, because he’s been doing business there for years and we’ve never had word of it. And the woman who
did
see the two heavies walking away didn’t think anything about it. She didn’t come forward for a week, thinking there was nothing in it.’

‘There’s people coming and going to the BBC’s back door all the time,’ Swilley said. ‘I suppose that’s cover.’

‘I’ve said before,’ Slider continued, ‘that the way Lenny was left, sitting on the swing, looked like a joke. That and the park chain round Herbie Weedon’s neck could point to the boss having a nasty sense of humour.’

Porson spoke up suddenly, surprising them all: they’d forgotten he was there.

‘All this is all very well, but it’s all supperstition. Maybe, maybe, maybe. You’ve got no murder weapon, no witnesses, no suspects. If it was a gang killing, it’ll have been orders to some hood to carry it out. There’ll be nothing to connect the killer with the victim.’

‘Except the boss,’ Slider said. ‘We’d have to trace it back from the boss.’

‘Ah yes, the boss. But you don’t know who he is. You’ve got no evidence he even exists, apart from the word of one villain on the run.’

‘I think he exists. I think Everet Boston is telling the truth,’ Slider said steadily. ‘He’s got no reason to lie; it makes sense of a lot of things; and he’s genuinely scared, both for himself and for his cousin.’

‘Well, as it happens,’ Porson said, ‘I agree with you. But it doesn’t get you any further forward. Who is the boss?’

‘Everet called him the Needle.’

‘And you think it’s this Trevor Bates bloke?’

Slider hesitated. ‘There’s nothing to connect him except the leather jacket, and that could be a coincidence.’

Porson eyed him cannily. ‘But you don’t think it is?’

‘It’s just a hunch,’ he admitted.

‘Well, I’m all for hunches,’ Porson said. ‘You can’t learn hunches at bloody Keele University.’

Palfreyman really had got up his nose, Slider thought. ‘Four jackets,’ he said aloud. ‘Garfield sold Lenny four. He wore one himself, sold one to Everet and one to Thomas Mark. Who had the other one, I wonder? And why did Bates lie about it? To cut us off at the pass? But how much did he know about the jacket’s origin? I suppose there’s no reason Mark shouldn’t have told him, just idly in conversation, that he bought it from Lenny. That would be enough to make him want to stop that line of enquiry.’

But Atherton shook his head. ‘You don’t know for sure that’s where Mark got it, guv. Anyway, Bates apparently makes a fortune out of property. Why would he want to mix himself up with stuff like illegal bookmaking, and small-time crooks like Boston and Baxter? Why would he risk it? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘A lot of fingers in a lot of pies. Diversification. Running a huge empire. Pulling the threads and manipulating people. Pulling the wool over our eyes.’

‘A Moriarty complex, in fact,’ Atherton said. ‘But we’ve no evidence at all that he’s crooked.’ He stopped.

Slider looked at him. ‘Something just occurred to you.’

‘My contact at the Cultural Legation,’ he said, a little unwillingly. ‘When I asked her if she knew Trevor Bates, and described him, she said no, but,’ he shrugged unwillingly, ‘I think she was lying.’

‘A hunch, eh?’ Slider said innocently.

‘It was just a look in her eye. But I’ll swear she was straight. Apart from anything else, the Americans are very careful about the people they send over.’

‘All right,’ Porson said. ‘Here’s what we do. Sonny Collins is your man. Turn his drum over. Check his phone records. I’ll okay the warrants. And go into his past with a tooth-comb. Also this Trevor Bates. Find some connection between them. We can’t
touch Bates as it is. Until we find out he’s not pure as the driven, he’s sacrospect. But if we can get anything on him at all, we can look into his financial affairs, check his bank accounts, and I think we’ll find enough to start putting pressure on him. There’s not one of these entry preeners can stand being put under the microphone. And,’ he added on a different note, ‘go up and down Frithville Gardens, ask everyone who they saw coming and going. Yes, I know you’ve asked ’em already, but ask ’em again!’ He looked round them, and the animation faded from his face, leaving a bleakness as embarrassingly naked as his head.
‘That’s
police work,’ he said. ‘Ninety-nine per cent perspiration, and one per cent sheer bloody luck. Get on with it.’

Since Sonny Collins lived in the flat above the Phoenix, there was some urgency in getting there with a search team before the pub opened. So when the warrant was forthcoming, Slider and Atherton went round there with half a dozen uniform PCs and Porson’s promise that if they found anything at all interesting he would order up a Polsar team to take the place apart.

What they found when they got there was no answer at any door or to the only telephone number they knew. The pub was silent, the curtains were drawn upstairs, and the youth with a ring in his left nostril who acted as barman (cash in hand – no National Insurance, no pain, Slider would bet) was hanging around, knocking at the door and peering up at the flat. As soon as the cars drew up he had it away on his tiny toes. To chase a fleeing man is as instinctive to a copper as to chase rabbits is to a dog, and PC D’Arblay was out of the car before it had come to a complete halt; but chummy had too substantial a lead. He shot down the cut between Evans House and Davis House and was lost to them. Slider consoled D’Arblay as he came panting back that they could find him if they needed him.

‘But I expect,’ Slider said when their own knockings had gone unanswered, ‘he was just trying to report for work.’

‘But work there is none,’ said Atherton. ‘Where’s our Sonny? Gone away?’

Slider looked up at the curtained windows and shivered a little in the May warmth. Somewhere nearby – in the park probably – a blackbird was singing, and the chippy in the parade of shops had started frying the first batch of the day. Those
were the sounds and smells of life; but the closed curtains gave him a premonition of death.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Force an entry.’

There was a separate door round the side for the flat. Renker and Coffey burst it in, while the others held the gathering crowd at bay. Inside was a tiny lobby with a locked door into the bar and stairs straight ahead. Slider listened, and then with Atherton at his shoulder started up the stairs.

The flat consisted of a sitting room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom, all with the unrelieved flat walls and mean proportions of the sixties. It was sparsely furnished, and unexpectedly clean and tidy, the walls painted cream, the floors lino-tiled, everything stowed away in cupboards as if the owner were still at sea and under orders. There was also a spare room which was set up as an office and contained, as well as what was needed to administer a public house, a powerful two-way radio. So that, Slider thought, was how information and orders were passed without bothering British Telecom.

Mr Colin ‘Sonny’ Collins was in his desperately tidy bedroom, lying naked under a sheet on the hard single bed. On the locker beside the bed was an empty pint glass which seemed to have held water, and empty pill bottle with the label removed, and a bunch of keys with a luggage label attached on which was written in capitals HW. Collins’s eyes were closed, his hands folded together on his chest as if he had composed himself with an easy conscience for sleep, but he was dead and cold.

‘Pipped at the post,’ Atherton said. ‘Blast and damn it! So they decided to sacrifice him?’

Or did he sacrifice himself? Slider wondered. He liked that possibility even less.

‘But how did they know we were on the way?’ Atherton went on. ‘You don’t think they’re bugging us, do you?’

‘I hope not,’ Slider said. ‘But I dare say they’re bugging Everet Boston. Mobiles are relatively easy to hack into. He pointed us at Sonny. Don’t forget he said he was the control for him and Lenny.’

‘So they didn’t trust Sonny to keep his mouth shut?’

‘Maybe. Maybe he didn’t trust himself. Whatever he might have told us, we’ll never find it out now.’ He looked at the pill bottle – sleepers? Probably. You could force a person to take
sleepers by threatening a worse death, but Slider couldn’t see Sonny Collins caving in without a fight, and there was no sign of a fight, on him or in the flat. But if he took them voluntarily, what order of loyalty did that suggest? It wasn’t nice to think about. ‘Maybe the pill bottle’s a ruse and we’ll find there was a different cause of death,’ he said. ‘Mustn’t pre-empt the postmortem.’

Atherton nodded. ‘What about those keys, left prominently for our attention?’

‘I shouldn’t be surprised to discover that HW was Herbie Weedon, would you?’

‘Not overwhelmingly. We’re being led by the nose to the supposition that Sonny killed Herbie.’

‘Well, maybe he did,’ Slider said. ‘Anything’s possible.’

Porson looked even more haggard than in the morning. ‘This is getting out of hand, God damn it! What the hell is going on?
We’ve already got two murders on our hands and now this! We can’t have our ground littered with bodies like Amsterdam after an England away! And not a suspect for any one of the three!’

‘I think we’re meant to take it as confession and suicide,’ Slider said cautiously. ‘The keys are the keys to Weedon’s office and house. We’re meant to assume that Collins did Weedon and then topped himself.’

‘Then why no note?’

‘Maybe they thought that would look too obvious. This way is more natural-looking – more subtle.’

Porson gave him a ripe and goaded look. ‘Subtle? A subtle criminal? This is not Ealing Studios! What are you going to give me next, the cockney char? The tart with the heart of gold?’

Slider withstood the blast. ‘They left the keys in case we wanted the evidence. The way I see it, it’s an invitation to us to let it go.’