A Lesser Evil Part 24

She was still hanging over the toilet bowl when she heard John come up behind her.

'I never saw food poisoning come on just through talking to a rat,' he said, but he wasn't mocking her, his tone was kindly and anxious.

She had to tell him all about it, and he got a wet cloth and wiped her face, then hugged her and let her cry on his shoulder.

'I wish I could tell you they won't carry out their threat,' he said in a low voice. 'But I'm afraid they will. You see, it's not them your old man owed the money to, it's their boss. And they're as afraid of him as you are of them, so they have to get a result.'

'What can I do then?' she cried, realizing that John must know who their boss was. 'I can't get the money, I can't go to the police, and they'll track me down wherever I go! I can't live in fear like this.'

'I'll hide you,' he said. 'You'll have to leave the job and your flat. There's no way I can protect you while you're still around here. Now, do exactly as I tell you and you'll be okay.'

John's plan was that she had to go back into the club and act as if everything was normal. He said he expected they'd posted a lookout to make sure she didn't run for it. Meanwhile he'd work out a plan and tip her the wink when it was time to go.

Nora was on tenterhooks all night. The club was packed to capacity, every one of her girls dancing and drinking with customers, and as she mingled, checking that the bigger groups had enough drinks, smiling and chatting, making sure everyone was happy, she felt she was being watched closely. She was familiar enough with Soho by then to know that a powerful man who employed enforcers would also have informers and spies, and if John helped her, he'd be in the firing line next.

But John didn't come near her again, and by two in the morning when the band was close to ending their final set, she thought he must have had second thoughts about helping her. She was just chasing up a round of drinks for one of the bigger tables when Charles Lownes, a regular at the Starlight, came up and asked her to dance.

Charles was a bit of a joke in the club as he had the bearing and accent of an old Etonian. He always wore a dinner jacket, pleated-front dress s.h.i.+rt and bow tie. He was in his early sixties, and knocked back whisky as if he had hollow legs. Everyone a.s.sumed his wealth was inherited as he was usually one of the last to leave the club when it closed, and always seemed to be going off on little jaunts to Paris and the South of France, usually with a woman half his age.

Nora didn't often dance with customers, especially at the end of the evening when they were drunk, and she hesitated.

'Come on, my dear,' he said, leaning closer to her. 'John asked me to take care of you, and the only way I can do it is if you act as if you think I'm the answer to a maiden's prayer.'

Nora glanced over her shoulder. John was mixing a c.o.c.ktail, and he looked right at her and winked, then looked away.

Charles was a good dancer, light on his feet, and as usual none the worse for the amount of drink he'd put away.

'Trust me,' he whispered in her ear. 'Whatever I say or do, go along with it.'

He kept up a show of trying to woo her right until the club closed, then said in a voice loud enough for everyone around them to hear that he was taking her somewhere for a nightcap. Nora thought this was because if the thugs saw her go with him they'd a.s.sume she'd taken their advice, and they'd be round in the morning to collect her earnings.

John was nowhere to be seen as she and Charles left the club. Duncan, one of the other barmen, had been left to lock up.

Outside in the street the night air was clean and crisp after the smoky atmosphere in the club, but there were still a great many people about, many of them staggering drunk. A cab was waiting for them, and Charles helped her in. Nora glanced out through the back window but couldn't see anyone watching them.

'Wimpole Street,' Charles told the driver, and as the cab moved away he sat back on the seat and put one finger on her lips as if warning her not to say anything about her predicament, for the driver might hear.

It transpired that Charles did live in Wimpole Street, but although he got the cab to drop them there, the minute the cab drove off he led her away. He took her to a mews at the back of neighbouring Harley Street, to a small flat above what had once been stables.

The flat was clean but very austere, the furniture nothing more than a bed, a couple of armchairs and a stove in the kitchen. Charles said it belonged to a friend who normally kept it for his domestic staff, but this friend was out of the country and had asked Charles to oversee some urgently needed repairs. Apologizing for the lack of comforts, he said he would be back in the morning with some food, but warned her she must not go out, answer the door to anyone or put the light on in the room at the front.

She spent over two weeks in that flat, nearly going out of her mind with boredom and loneliness. Charles came most mornings with food, a book or a magazine, and he also brought some toiletries and clothes as the sequined c.o.c.ktail dress and high-heeled shoes she'd arrived in were incongruous in her new surroundings. He could never stay for more than a few minutes, and if he knew what was going on at the club in her absence he didn't tell her.

She was scared too. She would jump at any sudden noise, and with every car that drove into the mews she fully expected Earl and his men to be coming to get her.

On the twelfth day, Charles brought her a newspaper to read.

'Look on the third page,' he said with an impish grin.

The headline was 'Missing Hostess Abducted'. There was also a photograph of her, taken in the Starlight club.

She read with some amus.e.m.e.nt that on the night Charles brought her here, her neighbours reported they had heard her coming in around twothirty in the morning, and some while later heard the sound of her door being forced, male voices shouting and furniture being knocked over and broken. When they looked out of their own front door, they saw two men half-dragging an injured person down the stairs who they a.s.sumed was Amy Tuckett.

Charles went on to tell her that he and John now knew that the man behind the bully boys was a man called Jack Trueman. Nora recalled meeting him just once in her first week at the Starlight, a big man with dark hair, strong, craggy features and cold eyes. One of the girls had told her he owned several clubs, casinos and the kind of hotels in Paddington that were used by prost.i.tutes. Even she said he was a man to steer clear of.

John turned up later that day and told her Amy Tuckett had got to stay missing. It was he who fabricated Nora Diamond, with false references and a National Insurance number. He jokingly called her 'the woman who never was', but cautioned her that if she ever broke her cover, she would be in very real danger. He said Jack Trueman was entirely ruthless, and he made sure that anyone who crossed him came to regret it bitterly.

The Ava Gardner hairstyle and the glamour-girl clothes had to go. Nora dyed her hair dark brown and put it up in an unflattering bun. Charles bought her a matronly navy blue costume and st.u.r.dy court shoes, and the transformation was complete. She became the formidable and very correct Miss Diamond.

Then, finally, she was able to walk out of that mews flat door, when John sent her to the vacant flat in Dale Street.

He knew it had become empty because he lived with his parents and two sisters at number 13. He thought it an ideal place because he could continue to keep a discreet eye out for her. At the same time he couldn't intervene on her behalf with Mr Capel, the landlord, because he didn't want anyone to know he had any connection with her. She told Mr Capel she'd just come up from Suss.e.x to find work in London.

From the day Nora moved into Dale Street, if she ran into John they would just nod and smile like strangers. It was the only way it could be, but she would have given anything for his continuing friends.h.i.+p. She hated Kennington, the flat was awful, and at that time she had no money to decorate or make improvements, but it did feel safe with Frank downstairs, and a newly married couple upstairs.

John had managed to pack a few of her personal trinkets while he was waiting for the men to barge in and hurt her, but however touched she was that he'd done that for her, in reality she'd lost everything for a second time.

This time she had to begin again, finding a job without relying on her looks to give her a headstart. She would also always be looking over her shoulder, afraid of being recognized.

She had felt very alone when she first came to London, but there were people back in Dorset, friends, distant relatives and acquaintances, she cared about, and who presumably cared about her. But once Amy was gone, Nora could never contact any of them again. She cried as she burned her address book, for without her history, who was she?

Soon afterwards she got a job at the telephone exchange, and before long she was promoted to supervisor, in charge of eighteen young telephonists. In some ways it was very similar to her job in the club, except she was no longer a glamorous figure and she couldn't afford to let anyone get close to her for fear of revealing her true ident.i.ty.

Nora had never lost her affection for John, despite her disappointment that he allowed himself to get sucked into crime. Even before he met and married Vera, and bought number 13 from his landlord, his name was linked with some of the most formidable and crooked businessmen she'd met in her Soho days. There was Peter Rachman, an unscrupulous slum landlord who charged sky-high rents to naive and frightened West Indian immigrants, Ronald Beasdale who was in illegal gambling, and Albert Parkin who ran protection rackets.

It was two years ago that she discovered John had become involved with Jack Trueman. There was an article in the paper about the new nightclub Trueman had opened in Soho, and a picture of the club's interior showing John as the manager behind the bar.

Nora knew John was smart enough to have concealed his ident.i.ty that night in her flat when he'd thrashed Earl and his men. She knew too that he would never expose her either. But she was appalled to think John would go to work for such a man as Trueman. How could a man who had once risked his own life to help a vulnerable woman join forces with the thug who was responsible?

Yet looking at it realistically, she knew that John couldn't possibly have remained the same as he'd been a decade before. He had always wanted the 'good life', and he'd taken short cuts to get it. Everyone described him as a villain or a gangster, he'd been in prison, and probably done many bad things which had eroded his idealism. She naively hoped that he'd taken the club management job because he was trying to go straight; she knew it wouldn't be easy for a man who'd done time to find work.

That was certainly the way it looked. Almost every evening she saw him come out of number 13, wearing a dinner jacket and bow tie, and his car was back in the morning. She even heard the street gossip that Vera was happy again because he was home with her more she'd had a miserable time while he was in prison.

Then one Friday evening over a year ago, she saw John and Jack Trueman going into number 11, with Alfie grinning at the door like a Ches.h.i.+re cat.

The pa.s.sing years hadn't changed Trueman that much, though his hair was silver rather than dark. She guessed he must be close to sixty, but he looked far younger and still very fit.

She didn't know which she was most shocked and appalled by, the thought of John consorting with a maggot like Alfie, or seeing the man she'd been told would maim her if he found her, right across the street. Terrified, she drew her curtains, locked the door and sat quaking in her chair, fully expecting the door to burst open any minute.

Yet by the following morning she was calm again. Clearly there was a good reason why John had brought Trueman to meet Alfie, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with her. She told herself that businessmen operating in Soho often had nasty characters like Alfie in their pay, and as John had grown up here in Dale Street and known Alfie all his life, perhaps he thought he could be useful to his boss.

She never saw John go into number 11 again after that night, but she had seen Jack Trueman several times, often in the company of a younger, swarthy man who was equally well dressed. She came to the conclusion that perhaps the men didn't mind slumming it if the stakes were high there or the card games were exciting. She wasn't at all happy about Trueman coming to the street, of course, every Friday night she was a bag of nerves, but it did spur her on to put her name down with several flat-letting agencies, and she hoped she'd be able to leave very soon.

To her shame she remembered feeling nothing but relief when she heard that the Muckles had been arrested. Not anger at what they'd done to their child, not even a tear for Angela, just relief because Trueman wouldn't be coming to the street ever again.

But now John was dead, and as Frank had pointed out earlier to Fifi, it was unlikely to be pure coincidence that two people from the same street had been murdered. Nora felt that something more than gambling must have been going on in number 11, and almost certainly John was killed because he intended to expose it.

She knew that she ought to go to the police right now and tell them about Jack Trueman, but they would ask why she hadn't come forward before. When she was interviewed after Angela's death she'd been asked if she knew or could describe anyone who attended the card games, but she'd told them quite brusquely that she wasn't in the habit of watching out of her window. To backtrack now was impossible. She couldn't name Trueman without explaining how she knew him and that would mean exposing her past and putting herself in danger.

She walked over to the window and looked out. There was a police car outside number 13. 'Poor Vera,' she murmured and her eyes welled up with tears of sympathy.

Frank spent the early part of the evening cleaning his kitchen and tidying cupboards, and only went into his living room when it was dark outside. He moved over to the window to draw the curtains before turning on the light, but paused as he saw Yvette coming out of her house. To his surprise she was hand-in-hand with a man.

After all the misery and anxiety of the past weeks, and the news of John's death today, the sight cheered Frank slightly. He liked the Frenchwoman and in all the years she had lived opposite he'd never known her to have a boyfriend. It was too dark to see if she was dressed up to go somewhere special, but it looked as if she was undecided about something, for she was pulling back.

Frank smiled as the man put his arms around her. Yvette had been living like a hermit for so many years that perhaps she was reluctant to go out. But Frank drew the curtains, not wis.h.i.+ng to seem like a nosy neighbour, and he heard the car drive off seconds later.

He turned on the lamp and television and sat down, but as he reached for his pipe he thought he might go and knock at Stan's door later and suggest they went down to the Rifleman. He'd become almost as reclusive as Yvette in the last few weeks, and it was time he stopped this.

The following morning Fifi left the house for work at quarter past eight. She had hardly slept at all, for images of Angela, Dan, and even John Bolton's body being pulled from the river kept crowding into her head.

It was drizzling and rather cold, and as she walked up the street she thought gloomily of the winter months ahead. The windows in the flat were ill-fitting, the gas fire was ancient and inefficient, and she guessed she'd be frozen most of the time. If Dan didn't come home when he got her letter, perhaps it would be best to try to find a bedsitter, for being miserable but warm had to be better than being miserable and cold.

She was halfway to the tube when a blue car slowed right down and cruised alongside her. There were two men in it, both in their late twenties or early thirties.

'Hey, Fifi!' the pa.s.senger called out of the window. 'You are Fifi, aren't you? Dan said you were tall, blonde and beautiful!'

Fifi's heart leaped at Dan's name. Both men looked like workmen as they were wearing donkey jackets.

'Yes, I'm Fifi,' she said, stopping and bending down slightly so she could see the men better. The driver had dark red curly hair, and she thought he must be the carpenter Dan always called 'Red'. He looked a bit hard and surly. The other man had light brown hair and no real distinguis.h.i.+ng features; he was unshaven, but he had a nice smile. 'How is Dan?' she asked.

'It is you! Thank Christ for that,' the man in the pa.s.senger seat exclaimed. 'We called at your house but you must have just left. We've seen at least six blondes so far, and two of them gave us a mouthful when we called out. I think they thought we were kerb crawlers. You see, Dan asked us to come and get you. He's been taken ill.'

Fifi was instantly thrown into a panic. 'What's wrong with him? Where is he?' she asked.

The pa.s.senger got out of the car and pulled his seat forward to let her get in the back. 'Hop in and we'll explain as we drive you there,' he said.

The rush-hour traffic was heavy, but the driver turned right off Kennington Road past the Imperial War Museum towards Camberwell.

The brown-haired pa.s.senger introduced himself as Martin, and the red-headed driver as Del.

'Some of us went out to do some work on Sunday for the boss,' Martin said, turning in his seat to speak to Fifi. 'It's out Eltham way. Your Dan weren't himself at all, but then he'd had a lot to drink on Sat.u.r.day night. But come the evening he were worse and the boss said he'd better stay the night. Anyways, he weren't any better yesterday and couldn't go into work. The boss said he kept asking for you during the night, so he told us to come and get you and take you out there.'

Fifi was very alarmed. Dan was never ill, and he was also far too independent to dump himself on anyone, especially someone like his boss. He had to be seriously ill.

'Oh, my G.o.d,' she exclaimed. 'What is it?'

Martin shrugged. 'The boss said he had a kind of fever, high temperature and that. He's too weak to get up.'

'Did the boss call a doctor?' she asked.

'I dunno, but I expect so,' Martin said. 'He only called us and told us to get you.'

Fifi had no idea where Eltham was, what it was like or how far it was. But as she asked more questions about Dan and received only very brief, occasionally rather curt answers, she got the impression the men were a bit cross at being expected to act as a taxi.

On top of her anxiety about Dan, she was worried about not turning up at work too. It would look bad after only one day back. But Dan was her main concern, and she wondered if he could've slept rough on Sat.u.r.day night and caught a chill. It had been wet and cold after all, and if he'd got very drunk he wouldn't have noticed. Suppose he'd got pneumonia?

'I thought Arnie lived in Ess.e.x,' she said, suddenly remembering something Dan had told her.

'Who?' Martin asked without looking round.

'The boss,' she said.

'Oh, he's not the top man,' Martin said airily. 'He's just the site manager. Ken's the real boss, but he don't come down the site that much, he's more on the planning side.'

'Oh, I see,' Fifi said, and lapsed into silence again.

They pa.s.sed through New Cross and Lewisham, places she'd heard of but never been to.

'Are we nearly there now?' she asked as she saw they had left behind the Victorian terraces of Lewisham and were in a wider, more pleasant road with many trees and some newly built houses.

'Yeah, nearly,' Del the driver said.

All at once they were driving along a dual carriageway in semi-countryside. There were houses, semi-detached ones built probably in the thirties or forties, with attractive gardens, but fields behind them. It was the kind of area she expected a building-site boss to live in. It reminded her of Henbury back in Bristol.

All at once they turned off the wide road into a smaller one, then into a very narrow lane, with hedges on either side so she couldn't see where they were going.

It was only then that Fifi felt a twinge of unease. She didn't know where she was, she had very little money on her, and she'd never met either of these men before today. Perhaps she shouldn't have got into the car quite so readily?

But she dismissed these thoughts as ridiculous. Of course they were taking her to Dan, why else would they come looking for her? It was wonderful that Dan wanted her with him, and once she got to his boss's house she'd be able to telephone the office and explain.

The lane was very muddy and went steeply uphill. Fifi sat forward in her seat, expecting to see a house at the end of it. But as they reached the top, all at once they were in a wide open s.p.a.ce which went on for miles. All she could see was a big barn and a few sheds.

'Where's the house?' she asked. The rain was heavy now, drumming on the car roof, so perhaps this was why the barn looked so sinister and remote.

'Oh, the house!' Martin exclaimed. 'It's behind the barn, you can't see it from here.'

Fifi noticed he had a hard edge to his voice and she didn't like his furtive glance at Del.

Her heart plummeted as she realized she had been conned. The whole thing about Dan being sick was just a ruse to get her out here. Why, she didn't know, but she felt it was most definitely the kind of danger Yvette had warned her of.

Common sense told her she mustn't show she suspected anything. She must play along with them, and as soon as they let her out of the car she'd make a run for it.

But as Martin opened the car door, she looked down at her shoes. They were her favourite ones, with very pointed toes but comfortable, the heels only a couple of inches. She wouldn't be able to run in them, though, not on rough ground. Her skirt was tight too; they'd catch her in no time.

'Out you come then,' Martin said as he pulled forward his seat to let her out and held out his hand to her.

Del got out on his side, and skirting round the back of the car, he grabbed Fifi's free arm, making flight impossible anyway.

Just the way they held her proved her fears were completely justified. 'Dan's not here, is he?' she said bleakly. 'What's this about?'

'Don't you ever stop asking questions?' Martin said impatiently, not even looking at her. 'Come on or we'll get soaked.'

She tried to pull herself free, but they were holding her too tightly, and they frogmarched her towards the barn.

Fifi struggled, and looked around her desperately. It was just on nine in the morning, but there was no one in sight. Not a man with a dog, a farmer driving a tractor, no one. She couldn't see any house. There was a wood to her right, which possibly had a house beyond it, but nothing else, just acres and acres of stubble from wheat or barley that had recently been harvested.