Death Trap (10 page)

Barnard took Kate's arm. ‘I'm sure she doesn't,' he said.

‘Maybe we should stick to street scenes,' Kate said to Barnard in little more than a whisper.

‘Maybe we should,' he agreed, getting to his feet. ‘Maybe it's time for us to move on.'

King Devine laughed loudly before reaching across and stroking Kate's cheek. ‘If you change your mind, darling, just knock three times. I'll tell my man on the door to be sure to let you in. By yourself, mind.'

They walked slowly back to Barnard's car in silence.

‘I'm sorry, Kate,' he said at last when he had paid off the boys he had commissioned to keep the car safe. ‘I shouldn't have taken you there. And you shouldn't have mentioned Mackintosh to Devine. There's obviously no love lost there. I guess the tart who was killed was one of his. He'll not be best pleased if that's the case.'

‘Oh dear,' Kate said, realising just how deep the water was that she had dipped a toe in. She got into the car but as Barnard shut the passenger door behind her she realised that another car, long and low, had pulled in behind them and a bulky looking man in a heavy camel coat and a hat pulled down to the eyes had got out and approached Barnard. Feeling nervous she opened the window and the stranger tipped his hat in her direction. To her surprise he turned to her first.

‘Good evening, Miss O'Donnell,' he said, and she recognised Ray Robertson.

‘A bit off your usual turf, Ray,' Barnard said, just for once sounding uncertain, Kate thought.

‘I might say the same for you, Harry boy,' Robertson said. ‘I recognised your car and saw you strolling back so I thought I'd wait. Sampling a bit of West Indian nightlife are we? There's a few people done that and come to grief recently. All those jumped up little tarts around Profumo and the rest, for a start.'

‘I think that's all well over,' Barnard said. ‘So are you honouring King Devine with a visit yourself?'

‘I told you I was in some negotiations down here, Flash. Though all things considered that may be more than you need to know,' Robertson said. ‘I should stick to your own patch, if I were you. I don't think you'll find any pickings down this way. The local nick's got all that well sewn up, haven't they?'

Barnard laughed though without much mirth. ‘You may find the same yourself, Ray,' he said, moving round to the driver's door and giving Robertson a quick wave before getting in. He switched on and gunned the engine before pulling away fast, leaving Robertson watching thoughtfully.

‘I reckon he's overreaching himself in this neck of the woods,' Barnard said quietly. ‘Devine doesn't look the sort of guy who'll be willing to share anything at all.'

On Sunday morning Kate and her two friends left the house soon after ten clutching a piece of paper with two addresses on it and a London A to Z. Kate still felt slightly shaken after her previous evening's adventures. She and Harry Barnard had left King Devine's club, escorted by his minder who seemed to have been put into an ebullient mood by their encounter. On the pavement outside Barnard had put an arm around Kate's shoulders and apologised.

‘I didn't think we would run into that sort of trouble,' he had said. ‘I should have been more careful. And you must mind what you say. I don't imagine Mackintosh is any friend of Devine or the King of him. From what I hear, Nelson Mackintosh is into West Indian politics, and not very popular with the powers that be on that count. King Devine is a gangster, plain and simple and the local cops find that much easier to deal with, as it goes. From your point of view I don't think either of them is someone you really want to know.'

After their brief, surprise encounter with Ray Robertson, they had ended the evening with a couple of drinks in the Windsor Castle, a quieter pub at the more respectable end of the neighbourhood before the sergeant dropped Kate back at the flat. He had put an arm round her shoulder again before she got out of the car.

‘What are you doing tomorrow?' he asked.

‘Flat hunting,' she said. ‘We've fixed up two places to go and look at in Shepherd's Bush. Tess says it's not too far away and a bit cheaper than here.'

‘There's another street market down there for you to patronise,' Barnard said with a smile. ‘And fewer dodgy landlords, I think. You should be OK, in spite of the genius you seem to have for attracting unwanted attention.'

Kate looked at him with a sly smile. ‘I do, don't I?' she said. ‘If it's not robbers its cops. I'll have to be more careful in future.'

‘Ouch,' Barnard said. ‘Can I ring you again?'

‘Only if you tell me what I can do to help Nelson Mackintosh,' she said, suddenly deadly serious. ‘He has this clever son that Tess teaches. And whatever you say, I really liked the man. I can't believe he killed some woman in the street. It just doesn't seem real.'

‘Leave it alone, Kate. It really isn't anything you should be involving yourself in,' Barnard had said firmly. ‘If you like, I'll see what's happening at the nick, and let you know. They can't keep him without charging him and taking him to court on Monday morning. I'll let you know. I promise.'

And with that she had had to be content.

The three flatmates took the tube to Shepherd's Bush only to be disappointed in their search. The first flat, half of a terraced house on the Hammersmith side of the Green, had already been let, and at the second, in a side street off the Uxbridge Road, with a handwritten notice on the door making very clear that blacks and Irish were not welcome as tenants, the landlady had to be persuaded that their accents were from Liverpool not Dublin before she would let them in to see a flat even more pokey that the one Marie and Tess were already renting.

‘That so-called single bedroom would make me claustrophobic,' said Marie as they hurried away. ‘It was minute.'

‘It didn't even have a proper window,' Kate agreed. ‘And it wasn't very clean. And there was a very funny smell in the bathroom. How can they get away with it? It's worse than Scottie Road.'

‘Oh, I wouldn't go quite that far,' Tess said laughing. ‘But there's a terrible shortage of accommodation. It's a nightmare.'

Dispirited, they trailed back to the Green and decided to take a bus back to Notting Hill Gate, from the top deck of which they had a grandstand view of the substantial properties along Holland Park Avenue. Money sat cheek by jowl with poverty in this part of London, Kate thought, in a way it didn't in Liverpool. On the right she could see the tree-lined avenues leading down to Kensington. On the left a ribbon of elegance only a couple of houses wide hid the dilapidated terraces split into a multitude of flats from which the likes of Cecily Beauchamp's son were making a fortune.

‘Maybe we should try a different part of London altogether,' she suggested as they dropped off the bus and took themselves into the coffee bar that Barnard had taken Kate to the day before.

‘This is very convenient for you and me getting to the West End,' Marie said doubtfully.

‘And it couldn't be handier for my school,' Tess put in firmly. ‘I don't want to be travelling miles every day if I can possibly avoid it. Some people down here in London travel for hours to get to work.'

‘So on with the search then? Agreed?' Marie said, and the other two nodded, if slightly doubtfully. She glanced at her watch. ‘I need to go,' she said. ‘The Lagoon's opening at twelve. I'll be late if I'm not careful.' And she was away in a flurry of red hair and flying coat, every inch the actress she had not yet managed to become.

Kate and Tess finished their coffee more slowly and then began the walk back to 95 Argyll Gardens. As they approached the tall, drab house with its cracked steps and chipped portico, they saw a black youth watching them intently from the other side of the road.

‘That's Benjamin Mackintosh,' Tess said quietly, a hint of anxiety in her voice, as the boy crossed the road in their direction. ‘I wonder what he wants.'

‘Looks as if he's going to tell you,' Kate said.

‘Miss,' the boy said to Tess. ‘Can I talk to you for a minute?'

‘How did you know where I live, Ben?' Tess asked, and Kate heard the tension in her voice and realised that maybe Tess was living too close to her school for comfort.

‘My dad told me. My dad's in trouble with the police and I thought you might be able to help.'

‘I'm really sorry to hear about that, Ben,' Tess said. ‘But I'm sure that what you need is a solicitor, not a teacher.'

‘The police are fitting him up,' the boy said more vehemently. ‘They do it all the time. They hate us all and they 'specially hate my dad because he stands up to them.'

Tess sighed. ‘Ben, I'm really sorry your family is having this trouble but I can't get involved in this sort of thing. I'm a teacher not a lawyer, and anyway it's something your mother should be dealing with. It's not something you can handle. I'm sure she can get some legal help for your father. I'm sure it's all a terrible mistake and he'll be home soon.'

‘If you really want to know, miss, they came and searched the house and the cafe, said they found ganja but I know my dad would never have that in the place,' the boy persisted with a mutinous look.

‘I'm sorry, but there's really nothing I can do,' Tess said firmly, and turned away to go into the house.

Kate flashed the boy a sympathetic look and followed her. ‘Poor kid,' she said after they had closed the front door.

‘Yes, of course,' Tess said. ‘But it's not my job to help his family. I don't think the school would want me interfering. I wouldn't know where to start.'

No, but I might, Kate thought as they set off up the stairs.

‘I thought he was really concerned about the boy when he came to school, the father,' Tess muttered, almost to herself. ‘But what do I know about him really? Or Ben for that matter. I know we liked Nelson Mackintosh when we bumped into him and went to the cafe, but we have no idea what he's really like, or what he's involved in. You said yourself your copper warned you it's a dodgy area and we should move away. Perhaps he's right.'

‘He may be,' Kate said. ‘But you're right to be worried about that boy. I saw him when I was out with Harry last night, right down where all the nightclubs are. It must have been well after his bedtime, and he didn't show the slightest intention of going home. Far from it. He looked as if he had every intention of staying out for the rest of night.'

K
ate sat opposite Ken Fellows in his tiny cluttered office, watching him intently while he thought about her proposal to take a series of photographs in Notting Hill.

‘I suppose this murder will put it in the news again,' he said. ‘People haven't forgotten the riots down there in fifty-eight, was it? If it looks like kicking off again we'd be ahead of the pack if we had your pics in the bank. Have they charged this man they've arrested?'

‘No, I don't think so,' Kate said. ‘Though they will pretty soon. He has to be taken before a magistrate within a certain length of time, or let go.' The formalities of court procedure were indelibly seared on her mind from the time earlier in the year when her brother Tom had found himself in the dock. That case had ended happily for Tom and he was now back in Liverpool taking some time to recover from his ordeal with friends who had stood by him in the dark days. She hoped Nelson would be so lucky.

‘I heard that some people were trying to organise some sort of West Indian carnival down there. That would make a good picture story. It'll wind a lot of people in Kensington up. They'd much rather the West Indians went back home.'

‘Yes, I heard something about that. I'll check it out,' Kate agreed quickly, seeing Fellows's scepticism beginning to crack. Now she was permanently on his team, she began to see that she could come up with ideas that her mainly middle-aged male colleagues could not. There was a sea change in society that she was in tune with and Fellows needed to tap into and she guessed that he was beginning to recognise that. She was beginning to see that he needed her just as much as she needed him.

‘This news magazine Tom Vallens says he's launching might be interested,' Fellows said. ‘I'll give him a bell. And there's the new
Sunday Times
magazine. I guess if they think it's worth doing, the other Sunday papers will follow on behind, for the advertising if nothing else. We could be looking at new opportunities for photo journalism.'

‘So I can go ahead in Notting Hill then?' Kate asked.

‘Yes, I don't see why not,' Fellows agreed. ‘But keep me up to date with these Liverpool bands of yours as well. It looks as though you were right. They're going to be really big. Can you get me some exclusive pictures of the Beatles?'

‘I can try,' Kate said. ‘But they've signed up with Brian Epstein as a manager, and I think he's keeping a pretty tight grip on their publicity. I might try to contact Cynthia Lennon again though. Now she's got the baby I guess she's even more out on a limb than she was before. And there's always the kids in the street, and at the concerts. It's getting as bad down here as it was at home now, hysterical girls screaming their heads off.'

‘I've never seen anything like it,' Fellows said. ‘If I had a daughter I'd tan her backside. Some parents don't seem to care.' Kate grinned. The massed parents of Liverpool had failed miserably to control their teenagers from going wild for John Lennon and his mates, and she did not expect that the parents of London would fare any better.

‘I'll keep an eye on what's going on,' she said. ‘Gerry and the Pacemakers are doing well but I don't know any of them personally. But Dave Donovan doesn't seem to be making any headway. I heard he's thinking about going back home. I'll talk to him. He'll have all the latest crack.'