The Chelsea Murders (13 page)

He had cut out the required words from the newspaper, but there was one he couldn’t find, so he had written it in with a new fibre-tipped pen, and had then thrown the pen away. He had seen how the police had gone about fingerprinting
everything
, so he was very careful with his handkerchief.

Despite his wife’s reassurance, he knew that the police would know from whom it had come. But he knew they couldn’t prove it.

And he had a duty to Wu. He posted it.

It was the second Saturday in a row that Warton and Summers had worked. They looked together at the sheet of airmail paper and the words stuck on it. One word had been written in with a fibre-tipped pen: $2,500. The complete message ran:
FOR CERTAIN THERE WAS $2,500 IN THE BOX.

Warton studied it and looked at Summers.

‘Chen, eh?’ he said.

‘Could be, sir.’

‘Not a doubt of it. First break, Summers!’

After a discussion with the Yard, and in view of the new policy, the story was given a few hours later to the Sunday Press.

B
Y
Sunday, Artie and Steve were certain they were being followed, and Artie wondered how far they would follow him. He was up early in the morning, and off to Euston.

His tail had to do some fast work buying himself a platform ticket; but he was on the same train with him to Liverpool. He paid the ticket inspector in the corridor, and took a receipt.

At Liverpool, he was in the next taxi after Artie, and once he’d marked the address, found the nearest phone and rang the Yard in London. The Yard liaised with Liverpool C.I.D. and got him immediate reinforcement, and the tail worked watch and watch with them.

But he was sleeping in his hotel when Artie suddenly took off for London early on Monday evening, so the Liverpool tail found himself en route for Euston, and thus in the same position as the London man on the outward journey. He followed Artie to the Albert Bridge Road, noted the address, and then found a phone and explained himself to the Yard.

The Yard contacted Warton’s Incident Room, and in ten minutes the Liverpool man was relieved; and just about in time. Artie and Steve were both leaving.

They had spent a few hilarious minutes in the flat. Steve had a suspicion the place was bugged and had indicated as much to Artie, so they’d communicated what they wanted to say in sign language, and talked of other things for anybody else’s possible interest. Artie had needed immediate relief in the
bathroom
, and found a fresh subject to talk out loud about when he emerged. ‘Damn it, I could have brought the old toilet sign you made, “God Bless This Crapper”. Remember it?’

‘How have you got that?’

‘I must have packed it by mistake, couple of years ago. It could go up here.’

‘Next time. How were things at home?’ Steve said, nodding away.

‘Great,’ Artie said, giving him a similar nod, and also a thumb and forefinger sign. ‘I only slipped in here to say hello. Want to walk me up the road?’ He was making a talk-talk sign.

‘Sure.’ They left together, and immediately they were in the street Steve said, ‘What the hell is this two and a half thousand?’

‘Christ, you didn’t believe that?’ Artie said. ‘They fed the Press that stuff.’

‘Why would they?’

‘Who knows? Look, we were there. We
know
what was there.’

‘After someone else was there.’

‘Why would anyone take two thousand and leave five
hundred
?’

‘That’s what I’ve been wondering,’ Steve said.

Artie didn’t say anything for a while, then he said, ‘Well, screw it. I tell you, it’s a put-on. Anyway, there’s more
immediate
things.’

He told Steve some of them. Steve saw him to the bus, and went back home, a bit worried. He didn’t like some of what he’d heard. Artie was unpredictable, and rash. The little parcel of dollars could be the source of a lot of trouble.

He worried all the way back home.

His tail walked all the way back behind him.

Artie’s tail carried on to Putney.

Warton got the reports on all these movements on Tuesday, and also studied the stuff from Liverpool. Artie Johnston hadn’t moved much from the parental home. There had been plenty of them in it: mother, father, four other children. The father and one of the sons were dockers. Artie had waited till they’d come home from work on Monday evening before suddenly taking off again for London.

Dollars, Warton thought.

There was many a salt at the docks prepared to swap a dollar or two. The father and brother hadn’t been tailed. Only Artie had been tailed; and he had barely stirred.

About twelve, Summers came in with further news.

‘Film lab’s on the line, sir. Our Artie is trying to bail his film out.’

‘For how much?’

‘Two hundred pounds. Cash.’

‘Hah!’ Warton smote the desk. ‘I told you, Summers – first real break. Always the weak spot, money. Right. Tell them to hold the film. I’ll have him and the money here.’

The blackie was quite a tiger when Warton saw him; had lashed himself into a rare fury. Warton liked this. People in a rage were useful; rash.

‘What right you think you got to do this to me?’ Artie said. His lips were crinkled and bluish.

‘Wanted to congratulate you,’ Warton said. ‘I hear you’re in a position to get your film out now.’

‘Screw you and your congratulations,’ Artie told him.

‘Where’s the money from?’

‘That’s my business.’

‘Ten-pound notes, eh?’ Warton said, looking at them. ‘Didn’t have those when I saw you last.’

Artie opened his mouth and closed it.

‘How are things in Liverpool?’ Warton asked pleasantly.

‘None of your fugging concern.’

‘Dad in steady work down at the docks?’

‘And watch your fugging mouth,’ Artie said.

‘Watch yours, Johnston,’ Summers sternly told him.

‘Quite all right, Summers,’ Warton said. ‘Now, do you want to tell me where it’s from, or shall I put a few inquiries forward in Liverpool?’

He already had a few inquiries going forward in Liverpool.

Artie’s mouth had crinkled more, and he was opening and shutting it. ‘Well – I got it from a friend,’ he said.

‘Got a name, your friend?’

Artie’s mouth opened and closed again. ‘Frank,’ he blurted at last, wildly.

‘What – Colbert-Greer?’

‘Only – look – I’d like a word with him first,’ Artie said.

‘I bet you would,’ Warton said, and gave Summers a nod.

Artie waited in another room while Colbert-Greer was brought.

It was Frank’s day up among the Pre-Raphaelites in Manresa Road, and he was flustered at the disturbance.

‘I understand,’ Warton said, ‘that you gave Artie Johnston some money – that right?’

‘Well, what about it?’ Frank said.

‘Care to tell me how much?’

‘Two hundred pounds.’

Warton blinked.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘Well – isn’t that personal?’ Frank said.

‘From the bank?’

‘No.’

‘Give him a cheque?’

‘I gave him the money.’ He peered. ‘Is that it there?’

‘I must ask where you got it,’ Warton said.

‘Must you? Well …’ Frank said, ‘it was from a friend.’

Warton looked curiously at Summers. It was slowly occurring to him that Colbert-Greer’s alibi could bear some closer scrutiny.

‘What’s the name of the friend?’ he said.

‘Willie.’

‘Willie what?’

Frank paused.

‘Ricketts,’ he said, consideringly.

‘Where is he?’

‘Well, there you’ve got me,’ Frank said.

‘He just gave you two hundred pounds.’

‘He sent it.’

‘By cheque?’

‘You have some kind of hang-up on cheques,’ Frank said. ‘There’s money, you know. That stuff there. He sent it.’

‘Where from?’

‘Well, I don’t know where from.’

‘Okay, take your time,’ Warton said. ‘It came by mail, did it? Registered mail?’

Frank thought. ‘No. Just the ordinary stuff. In an envelope, you know.’

‘Two hundred quid in an envelope. Any letter with it?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Frank’s eyes gleamed a little. ‘He said he might send me more later.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, he owes me it, really.’

‘What for?’

Frank paused a while. ‘I’ve got a cottage, you see,’ he said, ‘in the country. It was my father’s. Miles from anywhere. I let him have it for a long time.’

‘This is Willie, is it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you saying it’s back rent he’s paying you?’

‘He seemed to regard it in that way.’

Warton looked at Summers and back to Frank.

‘Where’s the letter?’ he said.

‘I threw it away.’

‘Was there an address on it?’

‘He doesn’t put addresses,’ Frank said.

‘Have you heard from him before?’

‘Now and again.’

‘Well, what was his last address?’

‘At my cottage.’

‘I see.’ Warton exchanged another glance with Summers. ‘You didn’t look at the postmark?’ he said.

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Not curious at all – two hundred pounds arriving just like that?’

‘Well – bucked,’ Frank said. ‘It was so nice for the film, just now.’

‘Yes. Anyone in the house hand you this letter?’

‘No. I picked it off the mat. I was first at the post.’

Warton stared at him for some time. ‘I expect what
happened,’
he said, ‘is that you just happened to be going out, so you read it in the street, and threw the letter and the envelope away somewhere on the way, and you don’t know where.’

‘Well, that’s it exactly,’ Frank said.

‘Yes. This Willie. What does he do for a living?’

‘Willie. Well, Willie,’ Frank said slowly, ‘is basically a sort or. painter, I would say.’

‘And he’s going to keep on sending you money, is he?’

‘That would be fun,’ Frank said. ‘But I don’t know.’

Minutes later, Summers saw him out, and was immediately back.

‘I want that Indian he was with checked out, every second of the way,’ Warton said. ‘Also test the old girl’s memory again. As for bloody Willie – well, try him.’

‘Try what?’

‘Ng.’

They arrived at a procedure in the end, though.

And Warton let Artie go; though he kept the money.

The Indian turned out to have been having a long solitary stroll, without a watch, before arriving at Frank’s on the night of Mr Wu’s death. On close interrogation, he recalled that it was Frank who had told him the time was a few minutes to seven when he arrived.

The old lady below had said to the detectives who had visited her again, ‘There he goes,’ when the footsteps sounded above. But the footsteps had proved not to be Frank’s but those of a person in the flat next to Frank’s.

By five that evening, Frank’s alibi was rather shaky, but at five-thirty a detective-sergeant called in to say that an agent in Pimlico had an artist by the name of Wilson Murray Ricketts on his books. The last address the agent had for Ricketts was at Lelant, near St Ives, Cornwall.

He had no phone number for him, so the St Ives police were contacted.

St Ives reported back the following day that the address in Lelant, a remote one, was that of a shed attached to an
abandoned
tin mine. There was nobody in the shed and they were trying to trace the last occupant.

It took them another whole day to do this, and it was 5 p.m. on Thursday before the local inspector called Warton.

The former occupant of the shed was an artist called Wilson M. Ricketts, now living with another artist, a Belgian. ‘Queer as a coot,’ the inspector said, ‘and very annoyed, sir, I can tell you.’ It seemed that W.M. was known as Willie, and he had lived for a period with Colbert-Greer. To show his contempt for him, and while intoxicated, he had sent him
£
200 as rent, and was infuriated that he should now put the police on him for more. ‘He said that in his letter he promised to pay him the wages of a whore. You know, sir,’ he apologized, ‘we have some funny ones here.’

‘Very good. Much obliged to you, Inspector,’ Warton said dully. ‘And nice work.’

He paused a while after hanging up and looked at Summers, who had been listening with him. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘give him his money back.’

‘Still keep the tail on, sir? We’re a bit pushed.’

‘No, no,’ Warton said. ‘This never looked like his work. You can take the tail off him. It’s Artie or little Steve, Summers, for certain.’

So the tail was taken off Frank, and his money returned; and at six-thirty that Thursday he popped in to
Chez Georges
and gave it back to Artie again.

Artie, rather sombre, was in the kitchen.

On Friday morning, Artie reported to the labs, and paid in his
£
200, and got the film.

They were shamefaced at the labs, but he didn’t bother with them. They had to be used, like everything else.

He took the cans, and dropped them in to Steve at Blue Stuff.

Pressure was needed now. Steve would edit what he could of the film. Artie had to organize showings. They needed money, and soon.

Artie thought that money would turn up soon. But he didn’t
want the police breathing down his neck when it did. So he worked hard all day; and brooded while he worked. Some aspects of Steve worried him.

Steve was thinking along parallel lines.

Some aspects of Artie worried him. When he got home that evening, he swore.

Artie had brought him the cans, but he hadn’t brought the editing gear. This stuff was at Artie’s flat: Putney. He was tired, but he immediately phoned Artie and went to the restaurant to get the key.

It wasn’t an amicable visit. Albert the chef was limping around swearing in the kitchen, and he gave Steve a burst of passionate French.

‘What’s that about?’ Steve said.

‘People in his kitchen. Frank was here yesterday. Screw him. Anyway, don’t forget to leave the key under the mat.’

‘Okay.’

Steve pushed off to Putney, thoughtfully. No word of apology from Artie at forgetting the gear. But he kept calm. He had work tonight and needed all the freshness he could muster.

He let himself into Artie’s flat, and picked up the gear. It was in a box, and as he hefted it off the shelf a folder sticking to the underside fell to the floor, spilling papers.

Steve put the box down and bent to pick them up, and paused. The papers were sheets of sketches and dialogue. A closer inspection showed it was an alternative version of the script.

Alternative ideas for the script had always been discussed.

These ideas hadn’t been discussed.

Steve took off presently with the editing gear, leaving the key under the mat, and caught a cab at Putney Bridge.

He thought hard in the cab about what he had just seen.

An hour later, Artie suddenly thought of it, too, and his stomach knotted up.

He’d meant to lock the folder in a drawer. He’d meant to deliver the editing gear himself. He kept making these slips. He remembered that Steve had had to remind him, when they
were running from Denny’s, that they had an appointment with him. It was Steve who had cautioned that they might be searched. On his own he made too many slips.