Death Trap (14 page)

Kate watched her go before opening the front door and climbing the stairs slowly, wondering how to tell Tess the unhappy news from the basement. It was half an hour later that she happened to glance out of the window, curious to know whether the police and Miles Beauchamp had finally gone. The police cars had disappeared almost as quickly as the mortuary van but Beauchamp's Jaguar was still parked outside and as she watched she saw him come out of his mother's flat carrying a suitcase and a large, crammed shopping bag. He had not wasted much time in collecting up what Vera called his mother's treasures, she thought. And she wondered if it was prudence or greed that drove him as she grabbed her camera and took a couple of quick shots of the landlord, his car and his booty. You never know when they might come in useful, she thought.

T
ess seemed restless after she and Kate had eaten and watched the television news. More often than not she spent her weekday evenings marking books or preparing lessons for the next day, but tonight she slammed a folder shut at half past eight and got to her feet with a sigh.

‘I think I'll go round and see Mrs Mackintosh. I want to see if Ben has turned up.'

‘Are you sure?' Kate asked. ‘I thought your boss told you not to interfere.'

‘She did,' Tess admitted. ‘But that doesn't feel right. After all, his father took the trouble to come into school and ask me to keep an eye on him. That's really what I think I should do.'

Kate put down the
Sunday Times
magazine she had been studying closely to see if she could pick up any tips from their photographers, and nodded. ‘I'll come with you,' she said. ‘I'd like to know what's happened to Nelson as well as Ben.'

They walked together back down the now familiar route to Portobello Road, each sunk in their own thoughts. Kate had been more shaken than she had admitted to her friend by the discovery of Cecily Beauchamp's body and could not help brooding on the dismissive way her death had been treated by the police and the doctor and even her son, who had turned out to be far more interested in her possessions than in the manner of her death. Something, she thought, was seriously wrong there but whether it was merely her own feeling of shock making her uneasy or something more tangible she could not be sure.

To her surprise they found Nelson Mackintosh's cafe open for business and a handful of customers inside drinking coffee and soft drinks. But the chat was subdued and Abraham Righton, who was behind the counter, gave the two friends an anxious glance when they opened the door and hesitated.

‘Come in, come in,' he said. ‘Friends of Nelson is all welcome.'

‘This is my friend, Tess, one of Ben's teachers,' Kate said. ‘She wanted to see Ben's mother to see if he had come home yet.'

Righton looked anxious and shook his head briefly. ‘The answer to that is no,' he said. ‘And to be honest I'm seriously worried about that boy. I don't tell his mother that. She has enough to worry about. But I see him sometimes with people I don't like to see him with. There are a lot of good people round here, and some very bad ones and they like to pull in the young people, recruit them, get them into things they don't really understand. That's what I fear for Ben, and that's what Nelson always feared.'

‘What's he getting into?' Tess asked. ‘Drugs?'

‘There are drugs in the neighbourhood.' Righton said quietly. ‘In the clubs and pubs, not so much round here but in Notting Dale.'

‘Organised by King Devine?' Kate asked, an edge of anger in her voice which was by no means concerned only with drug dealing.

Abraham looked startled. ‘You know of him?' he asked. ‘He's a powerful man. But maybe Ben is involved with him. He hates Nelson so it might make sense to recruit his son. He will know that will hurt Nelson more than anythin'.'

‘I can see why you don't want to tell his mother,' Kate said. ‘But what about Nelson? Has Evelina seen him?'

‘She has, and she says he looked as if he'd been beaten half to death,' Righton said. ‘Evelina is beside herself. Just like they used truncheons to clear some of the folk who were outside the court yesterday. A lot of people are very angry in the neighbourhood.' He turned to Tess. ‘If I can find Ben, will you talk to him, Miss? He won't listen to me or his mother. We need some help here.'

‘Of course I will,' Tess said at once. ‘But can you find him?'

‘We'll do our best,' Righton said. ‘I know some places to look, at least, though I don't want to tell Evelina all the details. It will only worry her more.'

At that moment the conversation was brutally interrupted by the shatter of breaking glass as a missile came through the cafe window and splinters flew all over the tables and the customers. There was a roar of anger from Righton and he and several of the customers dashed out into the street and gave chase to a group of white teenagers who swiftly disappeared in the direction of the main road. Kate and Tess, who had been far enough away from the window not to be touched by the flying glass, followed everyone else into the street only to find Righton and his friends walking slowly back.

‘Are you going to call the police?' Kate asked, pulling her camera out of her bag and taking a couple of shots of the shattered window.

‘I don't think there's much point in that,' he said. ‘They won't come here except to trash the place themselves and that's a fact. You know what they did the last time. You saw that, didn't you?'

‘I've got pictures,' Kate said grimly. ‘With a bit of luck I'll be able to get them published as well. Just give me a little time.'

At that moment Evelina Mackintosh came out of the cafe looking on the verge of tears. ‘Who was it, Abraham?' she asked.

‘Just boys,' Righton said. ‘Some of them younger than Ben and all of them better runners than me. I'm sorry, Mrs Mackintosh. Really I am.'

‘It's not your fault,' she said. ‘But I don't think it's safe for Joseph here any more. I'm going to get him up and take him across to my sister in Westbourne Grove. I think he's better away until his father come home.' She glanced at Kate and Tess. ‘He will be coming home soon, my dears,' she said firmly. ‘His lawyer say that's definite.'

‘I think that a good plan for Joseph,' Righton said. ‘You do that and me and the boys will board up the window so it safe tonight. In the morning we'll see about getting it mended.'

Evelina nodded and went back inside with her shoulders slumping in spite of her brave words as she headed back upstairs to her flat.

This was all too much, Kate thought as she watched Evelina's retreating figure, and felt a surge of anger on her behalf. It should not be happening. She took a few more shots of Righton and the remaining customers beginning to clear up the shards of glass, which, by some good fortune, did not seem to have done anyone any serious damage and then glanced at Tess.

‘Will you let us know as soon as Ben turns up?' she asked Righton. ‘I don't suppose he'll turn up at school but I'm sure Tess will let his mother know if he does. You can contact her at school or either of us on this number.' She scribbled their phone number on a sheet of paper from her notebook. ‘You have to let it ring,' she added. ‘We're a long way from the phone in the flat right at the top of the house.'

Dispirited, they turned away from the new chaos which had been visited on Poor Man's Corner.

‘This all makes me feel so helpless,' Tess said as they approached the brighter lights of Portobello Road again. ‘I had no idea things like this went on in London. Kids come to school and you've no idea what problems they've got at home.'

‘Well, Harry Barnard would say you and Marie chose the wrong area to live in,' Kate said gloomily. ‘He says we should get out as quickly as we can.'

‘That's easy to say but not so easy to do. You know that.'

They trudged back in the direction of Argyll Gardens, each lost in their own gloomy thoughts for a few minutes until they became aware that the group of young men and boys they had passed on the corner close to the cafe were still behind them and apparently getting closer in a way which soon became threatening. Kate took Tess's arm and pressed her to walk more quickly but the gang, with Elvis quiffs and vaguely teddy-boy appearance, also speeded up and had soon surrounded them.

‘What you doing, going to that caff?' someone shouted to general murmurs of agreement from the rest.

‘Nigger-loving tarts,' came another cry, as the girls found themselves prevented from going any further. The group must include the boys who had thrown a missile through the cafe window, Kate realised, and thought with horror that their presence inside might have been what provoked the attack. The barrage of abuse got louder and the deliberate jostling increased in intensity and Kate, still clinging to Tess's arm, could feel her friend shivering with fear.

‘It's none of your business but we went to see Mrs Mackintosh about her son,' she shouted in desperation. ‘This is one of his teachers. We're from the school, Holland Park School.' Kate was not sure that the gang believed her but it seemed to give them a slight pause. Some of them, she thought, were young enough to still be pupils there.

‘Mackintosh is an effing murderer,' the ringleader said, grabbing Kate's arm and squeezing hard. ‘Didn't you know that, darling? An effing black murderer who killed a white girl. His son don't deserve nothing. They should all be sent back to where they came from. We don't want them in our schools. We don't want them here at all.'

‘We have to do our job,' Kate said with a firmness that took every ounce of will to summon up. She could hear Tess gasping for air beside her and knew she had to end this confrontation before panic overwhelmed her friend. She pulled her arm away from her assailant's grasp and to her immense relief he let her go. ‘So let us past. It's not what you think. You've got it all wrong. We're from the school to talk about Ben Mackintosh with his mother.'

Just as suddenly as the tension amongst the gang had risen it drained away and the three or four young men barring their way drifted aside.

‘You don't have to go running round after black kids,' the ringleader muttered. ‘You don't have to do that at all.'

But the anger had gone and Kate hauled Tess firmly away in the direction of Argyll Gardens.

Once safely back at 95, Kate made hot, sweet tea for Tess, who sat trembling on the sofa, all colour drained from her face.

‘Drink this,' Kate said, handing her the mug. ‘That was very scary, la. I won't be going down there again. This murder seems to have really stirred things up. And it's given nasty little thugs like that an excuse to go after the West Indians again. All that was supposed to be over years ago, but it isn't, is it? It's still just under the surface with some of these men. We could go to the police and complain, I suppose, but as far as I can see some of the coppers are just as bad. They won't want to know, just like they didn't want to know when the Wilsons were being harassed.'

‘Why don't you talk to Harry Barnard about it?' Tess asked. ‘We should complain. It's not right to let them get away with it.'

Kate sighed. ‘Maybe I will,' she said. But after her acrimonious recent meeting with Harry Barnard, that was not what she really wanted to do. She would not try to call him tonight, although he had given her his phone number earlier in the year. She would sleep on it, she decided.

Kate O'Donnell was the last person on Harry Barnard's mind that evening, and she would not have found him at home at his flat in Highgate if she had decided to call, although he was not very far away. Fred Bettany and his wife Shirley lived in an extensive property just a stone's throw from Hampstead Heath, in a tree-lined avenue which shouted wealth from every walled forecourt and burglar-proof door and window. Harry Barnard appreciated the Bettanys' house and appreciated even more the occasional welcome he received from Fred's wife when her husband was away.

Bettany was Ray Robertson's accountant, and the sergeant had met Shirley at one of Ray's occasional boxing galas to which he invited not just old friends from the East End like Barnard himself, but increasing numbers of London's rich, glamorous or powerful celebrities. Barnard was always amazed at how readily his guests overlooked Robertson's underworld reputation, seduced by an evening of fine dining and copious champagne, with the violence usually confined to the boxing ring and photographers on hand to chronicle it all in the gossip columns. Harry had spotted Shirley, tall, blond and beautiful and wearing what was obviously a very expensive evening dress the first time he had accepted one of Ray's invitations, but it had taken him some effort, and a shared lack of interest in the sport on offer, to impress himself sufficiently for her to agree to have lunch with him in a discreet restaurant in West London where they were unlikely to be seen by anyone who knew them. After that tryst things had moved quickly and she became a regular visitor to his flat and he an occasional guest of hers, usually when Fred was out of town.

He parked his very recognisable car some distance from the house and walked down the avenue at about eight that evening, full of anticipation. Coming here was risky, but even that added to the excitement he always felt when he and Shirley met. Tonight she opened the door as soon as he rang the bell. She was wearing a diaphanous negligee so loosely belted that it offered tantalising glimpses of her breasts and even more as she closed and locked the door behind him and leaned back against it provocatively with a welcoming smile. His response was immediate and he pulled her into the sitting room and pressed her onto the huge sofa in front of the fire without a word.

Quite soon, with large glasses of Fred's best malt whiskey in front of them, and Sinatra on the turntable, Shirley sighed. ‘We haven't got too long,' she said. ‘He's gone west somewhere with Ray to close a deal with some West Indian bloke. All sounds very dodgy to me, but I don't say anything. They wouldn't listen. How can you trust these people? They're only just down from the trees.'