Deep Cover

SIX

The hugely built West Indian male seemed to Penny Yewdall to appear from nowhere, emerging out of the throng that negotiated the steps from Piccadilly Circus underground station to Regent Street. Gold rings adorned his fingers, his shoes were of crocodile skin, and he wore a full-length leather coat with an expensive looking suit beneath it. He towered over her and she caught a powerful scent of aftershave. They made eye contact. ‘Pretty chick,’ he sneered.

Penny Yewdall ignored him and glanced away.

‘Pretty chick, pretty white chick. . pretty honky chick. . little snowdrop chick. Come with me girl, I can show you how to make some real money. . real bread.’

She still ignored him.

‘Real soft bed, chick. . warm bed, clean sheets, better than this cold and damp stairway, pretty chick.’ The man’s harassment of her was public, naked, yet not one person intervened on her behalf. ‘Good clothes, new clothes.’

She continued to ignore him.

‘Real money, chick,’ he chanted, ‘jewellery, good clothes.’ Then he bent further towards her, hinging at the waist with powerful stomach muscles, so close that Yewdall smelled his minty breath through the fog of aftershave, and then the man said, ‘Harry Vicary says to be careful of a geezer called “Mongoose Charlie”, he offs people for Yates.’ Then he melted away into the crowd, leaving her alone once more, sitting in the drizzle with one or two very low denomination coins of the realm in her little plastic beaker, but comforted by the realization that she was being monitored. The crowd had hidden eyes.

She left the stairs at dusk having developed a strange trance-like detachment from the world, which she realized is the norm for down-and-outs — it was evidently the way they survived, mind and body separated from each other. They spent the days lost in their thoughts and memories and fantasies, and the nights lost in their dreams. Again she ate takeaway food from stalls in the street, curled up in doorways snatching sleep — occasionally she was moved on by a uniformed police officer but somehow survived until she felt it was time to go and sit on the stairs at the ‘Dilly Lady’ for another day. On the third day, in the forenoon, she walked to Kilburn and entered the premises of WLM Rents.

‘I expected you yesterday,’ the man said coldly as she approached.

‘You said two days.’

‘I meant the day after the next day.’

‘I thought you meant two full days I had to wait.’

The man sniffed. ‘Never mind. We can help you.’ He opened a drawer and tossed her two keys on an inexpensive key fob. ‘It’s 123 Claremont Road. Do you know it?’

Couldn’t be better, Yewdall thought, but said, ‘No. . I can find it.’

‘Left out the door, on the left just before the railway line.’

‘Got it.’

‘Your room will be the ground floor room, on the left once you are over the threshold.’

‘OK.’

‘But you’ll be working.’

‘Not on the street.’

‘No. Other jobs.’

‘OK.’

Penny Yewdall walked the greasy pavement in a steady drizzle to the address she had been given, the very address central to the investigation, and her room was the room in which the Welsh girl, Gaynor Davies, had been strangled. It could not, she once again thought, it just could not be better. She reached the house and rang the front doorbell. There was no answer. She tried the first key in the lock. It didn’t fit and so she let herself in with the second of the two keys. The house was gloomy. Even mid-morning it had a gloom about it and the smell of damp was strong and gripped her chest. ‘Hello,’ she called. Her voice echoed in the hallway. She walked forward and closed the door behind her, and then let herself into the ground floor room to the left of the hallway. She stepped into the room and stopped. A man stood in the room — tall, muscular, cold eyes. Yewdall and the man stared at each other.

‘I was told this was my room,’ Yewdall spoke nervously.

‘Where you been, girl?’

‘None of your business.’

The slap sent Yewdall reeling backwards until she fell against the wall and then to the floor. The urge to retaliate was strong but she resisted it. The handler was correct. She had to role-play, and weakened, emaciated female dossers take the slaps, they don’t hit back.

‘Where you been!’ The man advanced and stood over her, fists clenched. ‘Where you been! Where you been!’ The man’s eyes burned with anger.

‘Begging. .’ Yewdall panted. ‘I’ve been begging.’

‘Make any money?’

‘Hardly nothing. .’

The man pulled her up by her upper arm and threw her against the wall. He felt in her pockets and pulled out a handful of loose change, and the plastic bag containing twenty pence pieces. ‘What’s this?’ He held the bag up to her face.

‘Money. It’s all I have.’

‘Since when do dossers collect twenty pence pieces?’ Unlike the large, black police officer, the breath of this man was hot and malodorous, a mixture, it seemed to Yewdall, of gum disease, tobacco and alcohol.

‘I nipped a guy for them. He was milking parking meters.’

‘You nipped a guy for them but you won’t work King’s Cross? Mr Yates, he won’t like that.’ The man gripped her forearm.

‘Who’s he?’

‘The man. . he’s the man you work for. You live in his house, then you work for Mr Yates and Gail Bowling — you work for them both.’

‘But I knew the guy.’ Penny Yewdall turned her head away; she looked down towards the floor. ‘Known him for years. We had a thing going once so I didn’t see myself as being a brass. . he wasn’t a stranger.’

‘How does he do it, the parking meters?’

‘He uses tweezers — slides them in and the coin pops back out. Filth to worry about and CCTV cameras but he’s real quick, real lively.’

‘In London?’

‘No. . up in Stoke-on-Trent.’

The man sneered and relaxed his grip, but still held her. ‘Now I know you’re telling the truth — can’t do that in London but up in Stoke they’re still fighting the Second World War. . primitive. Anyway, get yourself washed and clean your clothes, Mr Yates wants to see you — you’ll be working tonight.’ He dropped the bag of coins on the floor and let go of Yewdall’s arm, then left the room, and went out of the house.

Yewdall stood dazed for a moment, and then collected herself and went to the bathroom, where she stripped and washed herself, and then washed her clothing, rinsing them as much as she could. She wrapped herself in a towel and unlocked the bathroom door. Josie Pinder stood in the hallway. The two women looked at each other.

‘I heard you come in,’ Pinder said — short, frail, she had to look up at Yewdall. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Just a slap. . yes. . OK. . I’ve had worse. He says I’m going to work.’

‘Yes, they start you as soon as. That’s Sonya’s towel. .’

‘I. . sorry, I don’t have one. . I was told to wash.’

‘She’s out, dry yourself and put it back; I’ll tell her I used it.’

‘Thanks,’ Yewdall mumbled. ‘I have clothes that need drying.’

‘Bring them to my room; I’ll put them over the radiator for you.’

‘Good of you.’

‘OK, just do as you’re told; that way you survive. The last girl in that room, a Welsh girl, teenage runaway, she made good money working King’s Cross. . Michael brought her back here.’

‘Michael?’

‘The guy who had the room, he died on Hampstead Heath. . in the snow. He brought her back one night, bringing her off the street. . rescuing her. . left her here; said he would get her money to send her back to Wales but Rusher and “Mongoose Charlie” came round and strangled her. They made us watch. Watching someone get strangled. .’

‘Oh. .’

‘Well, that was “Mongoose Charlie” just now. They work for Yates. They left the Welsh girl in the room, told us we’d seen nothing, but said if we grassed then that would happen to us.’

‘Oh. .’ Yewdall sank back against the wall.

‘Yeah. . right. .’ Pinder slid past her. ‘Bring your kit to my room. That one — ’ she pointed to the door at the end of the landing — ‘you haven’t got much there so they won’t take long to dry — heater’s full on.’

The man closed the curtains of the front room window and sat in the deep armchair and picked up the telephone. He dialled the number which he had been given. ‘They’ve been,’ he said when his call was answered. ‘Checking up on her, heavy duty boys.’

‘Yes, we know. I mean we know they’re a heavy team,’ the voice replied. ‘What did they want?’

‘Usual stuff. . what you’d expect. . asking for her. I gave the angry father response. . don’t know where she is, she put her mother through hell. . the number agreed, sent her to good schools, Our Lady of Lourdes. . so she brings trouble to the door and runs away, sent us a postcard from London, so that’s where she is, London — that’s what I said.’

‘Good. When was that?’

‘Midday.’

‘Midday today?’

‘Yes. I didn’t phone you earlier because I can be seen from the street, and it would have looked suspicious if I had picked up the blower immediately.’

‘Yes. . good thinking.’

‘They hung about. They waited. Two guys with pinched faces — had wrong ’uns written all over them. I left the house and walked to the shop at the end of the street. One of them followed me so they were checking me out. They just sat in the car smoking fags, yellow BMW, no idea of blending.’

‘Bit clumsy for Yates.’

‘Well, you’d know that, I wouldn’t, but they tipped the contents of their ashtray in the road.’

‘Did they indeed?’

‘Yes, they did indeed. And it’s nice and dry up here. I saw the weather, you have rain in London.’

‘Yes, we do, intermittent showers, as they say.’

‘Well, dry as a bone here, no threat of rain either. So I’ll go out later, much later, walk around — I won’t miss a bright yellow BMW — pick up the fag ends; two lovely DNA profiles for you.’

‘Thanks. Take care though.’

‘Don’t worry; it’ll be much later though. I’ll phone you in the morning when I have them safe.’

‘We’ll send a motorcycle courier to collect them. Appreciate this.’

‘Your old man angry with you, girl?’

‘My old. . you mean my dad?’ Penny Yewdall sounded alarmed. ‘You’ve seen him?’

‘Yes.’ The woman had a hard, unforgiving face, Yewdall thought; a menacing tone of voice and cold, penetrating eyes. She reminded Yewdall of Mrs Tyndall — the formidable Mrs Tyndall — head of maths at her school. She had first seen then how true it is that fear is a great learning tool, as when one can recall with great precision the details of an incident in which one nearly lost one’s life. Exposed to Mrs Tyndall as she had been, it was, she realized, little wonder that she, and the rest of the form, had made such rapid headway with quadratic equations. But then, and now, she felt sorry for Mrs Tyndall’s family. And here was Mrs Tyndall again. Formidable, overbearing, but this time her name was Gail Bowling. Hard as nails, with a lump of granite where all other mortals have a heart. ‘Yes, we’ve met him, we like to know who we have working for us.’

Yewdall allowed a look of fear to cross her eyes.

‘But you checked out alright — you wouldn’t be standing here if you didn’t.’

‘That’s right,’ Curtis Yates added, sitting in the armchair by the log fire, pulling leisurely on a large cigar. ‘So we can’t make you work the street, but if you want a roof, you need to earn it.’

Yewdall nodded. ‘I need a roof.’

‘We all do.’ Gail Bowling, dressed in a severe black dress and black shoes, handed Yewdall a package. ‘Take this.’

Yewdall stepped forward and accepted the package. It was about the size of a paperback book, felt solid, and she thought it quite heavy in proportion to its size. She stepped back, allowing herself to seem nervous.

‘Deliver it,’ Bowling ordered her, curtly.

Yewdall glanced at the package. ‘There’s no address on it.’

‘Here.’ Gail Bowling handed Yewdall a slip of paper on which was a typed address.

‘I don’t know where this is. I’m new in London.’

‘You’ve got a lovely long train journey ahead of you.’

‘Oh.’

‘Rusher will drive you into Richmond — you needn’t change.’

‘These are the only clothes I have anyway.’

‘Trains, darling. . you need not change trains.’

‘Oh. . I see. . sorry.’

‘Just stay on the same tube. From Richmond to East Ham, follow the journey on the roof of the carriage, just above the windows.’

‘Yes. I’ve seen them — all the stations all in a line.’

‘Get off at East Ham, then walk to the address. Ask a copper if you get lost.’ She smirked.

‘OK,’ Yewdall mumbled and avoided eye contact with the woman.

‘Do you have money for the tube?’

‘No. . Miss.’

‘I like Miss but you can call me Gail — that doesn’t mean we’re friends. You start getting lippy, you start taking liberties. . well. . let’s just say I can be a bad bitch when I need to be and I don’t ever get my hands dirty. If someone needs a slap I get Mongoose or Rusher to do the honours. . follow?’

‘Yes. . Miss. . er, Gail, yes, I follow.’

Gail Bowling turned to Curtis Yates and said, ‘Give her an Adam.’ Curtis Yates obediently stood and took a twenty pound note from his wallet and handed it to Yewdall.

‘Thank you,’ she said, and thought that she had been presented with a useful insight into the Yates firm. He is not the boss, despite all that is said and claimed — The King of Kilburn, indeed. Some king taking orders like that.

‘That’ll get you to East Ham and then back to Kilburn.’

‘I go home?’

‘Straight home, like a good girl.’

‘Yes, Gail.’

‘Just take it to that address. Ring the doorbell, hand it to whoever opens the door and then turn on your pretty heels and get your tail back to Kilburn.’

The journey from Curtis Yates’s home in Virginia Water to the underground station in Richmond was passed in silence. Yewdall kept her eyes straight ahead as the windscreen wipers swept slowly back and forth. ‘Rusher’ Boyd halted outside the tube station and waited for Yewdall to leave the car.

‘East Ham?’ Yewdall said. Rusher nodded once without looking at her. Yewdall closed the door and walked into the booking office and asked for a ticket to East Ham.

‘Right across town, dearie.’ The woman behind the glass screen spoke in a chirpy manner as she printed the ticket and scooped up the twenty pound note Yewdall had tended. ‘Don’t get many wanting to go that far.’ The pink ticket slid across the surface of the counter and was followed rapidly by the change she was due. ‘Not that far, no we don’t.’

Yewdall scooped up the change and did not reply.

The man left the small terraced house on Rutland Street and glanced up at the evening sky, and thought how fortunate that the weather had remained dry, as had been forecast. He let his overcoat hang open and walked to the corner of Waterloo Road, where he turned right and bought a pint carton of milk from the twenty-four hour Asian shop, before returning to Rutland Street. He did not walk up the street, but went past it and took the next parallel road, turned right at the top and turned right again into Rutland Street, thus having walked round the block. Satisfied he was not being followed, and seeing no sign of the yellow BMW, he crossed to where the car had been parked, and in the light of the softly glowing street lamps he carefully picked up six cigarette butts and dropped them into the plastic carrier bag he had been given to carry the carton of milk. He crossed the road again and entered the house. He took the milk from the plastic bag and placed it in the fridge, and then carefully folded the bag containing the six cigarette butts and placed them in a large padded envelope to await their collection. He telephoned the number in London to report the acquisition of the cigarette butts, and then settled down to watch the ten o’clock news before retiring for the night.

Job done.

Penny Yewdall left the underground train at East Ham and walked to the booking hall and to the ticket counter therein. Able to see only the blue shirt and tie of the ticket vendor she asked him the directions to Chaucer Road, East Ham.

‘Chaucer,’ the man spoke with a warm East London accent, ‘that’s among the poets, sweetheart. . all the poets, Shelley, Byron. Turn right as you leave the station, up the old High Street. . Chaucer is between Wordsworth and Tennyson.’

Penny Yewdall, having thanked the torso, left the underground station and turned right as directed and into a cold, windy, rainy night. She crossed Plashet Grove and carried on up High Street North, and turned left beyond a low-rise block of inter-war flats and into Chaucer Road, which revealed itself to be a tree-lined late-Victorian terraced development. She went to number twenty-two, conveniently close to High Street North. She walked from the pavement the few feet to the front door, and seeing only a black metal knocker rather than a doorbell, she took hold of it and rapped twice. The door was opened quickly and aggressively by a large West Indian male of, she guessed, about thirty-five years. He eyed her with hostility.

‘I have to deliver this package,’ she said, holding her ground.

‘From? Who from, girl?’ The man’s attitude was hostile, aggressive, forceful.

‘Gail. . a woman called Gail Bowling.’

The man’s face softened into a brief smile. ‘Where did she give it to you?’

‘At her home in Virginia Water.’

‘Anyone else there?’

‘A man called Curtis, Curtis Yates.’

‘OK. Who drove you from her house to the tube station?’

‘A geezer called Rusher — don’t know any other name for him.’

‘Rusher.’ The man smiled broadly. ‘Alright, girl, you can give me the parcel.’ He extended a meaty paw, took it from her and shut the door without a further word.

‘You’re welcome,’ Yewdall said to the closed door. She turned and retraced her steps to the East Ham underground station and bought a ticket to Kilburn. The errand she had run was clearly a test, but the address was one that could be fed to her handler when it was safe for her to do so — she had to assume she was being watched. She passed a vacant telephone kiosk — it would, she thought, be utter folly, crass stupidity, to enter it and phone her handler. What gofer does that? As she walked she began to glimpse the appeal of undercover work. Penny Yewdall had never seen herself as being an adrenalin junkie, but, but. . life seemed suddenly so much more real, more immediate somehow — the I-know-something-that-you-do-not mentality provided her with an unexpected sense of power and a sense of control, so different from the strange detached attitude of mind she had found herself developing when she had been sitting on the steps at Piccadilly underground station begging for spare change. Throughout the rocking, rattling journey home, she had the strange and unsettling sense of being watched. She was definitely a gofer on a trial run, so no phone calls, no postcards sent to the photographic studio in Finchley. But the address, 22 Chaucer Road, East Ham, she committed to memory; that, and the fact that it was Gail Bowling who seemed to wear the trousers in the firm, not Curtis Yates.

‘You got my prints by false pretences.’ Gail Bowling glared at Vicary. Her indignation was manifest.

‘No. . no I didn’t, I just asked you to look at an E-FIT.’

‘So as to get my fingerprints.’

Harry Vicary shrugged. ‘We can’t use them to prosecute you.’

‘Good, because I am going straight. I did a few stupid things when I was younger but those days are over. I’ve turned the corner. . put all that behind me.’

‘So, working for Curtis Yates is putting all that behind you is it?’

‘Yes, it is.’ She sniffed. ‘I work for a removal company.’

‘A removal company which is owned by one of the biggest and slipperiest crooks in the metropolitan area. . and you are working for him, so perhaps you can see our interest?’

‘Frankly, I can’t.’

‘Well, whether or not you can, we’ve only brought you in for a little chat. . just you. . off the record; in case you want to talk to us.’

‘About what? The weather. . damn miserable this rain but it’s still mild for the time of year don’t you think?’

‘About turning Queen’s evidence against Curtis Yates.’

‘What!’ Gail Bowling gasped. ‘And you really think that I am in a position to do that?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you think I would do that.’

‘We talked to Clive Sherwin yesterday.’

Gail Bowling scowled but remained silent.

‘We made him the same offer.’

‘What did he say?’

‘So you do know him?’

‘I might.’

‘Well, to say he was uncooperative would be putting it mildly. He told us what we could do with our offer.’

Gail Bowling smiled.

‘But the offer was made and it stands, and we make the same offer to you — turn Queen’s evidence. . and we’ll be making it to others in your little outfit. . Put Curtis Yates away, go into witness protection, start a new life in a new town somewhere north of the River Trent.’

‘North of the Trent!’ Gail Bowling sat back in her chair, seemingly amazed at the suggestion. ‘I am. . I have never lived anywhere but London. For me the world stops at High Barnet.’

‘Well. . elsewhere — Cornwall, Devon, if you like the beautiful south so much.’

‘You know what London is like, a collection of little villages — if I moved from Whitechapel to Notting Hill, I’d be just as far from my mates as if I did go north of the Trent.’

‘Not as safe though.’

‘Anyway. . thanks for the offer. But not interested.’

‘Well, think about it, a lot of people want to bring Curtis Yates down. . ourselves. . the Drug Squad. . Internal Revenue and if he falls-’

‘If!’

‘When he falls, a lot of folk will fall with him. The first two or three to squeal will be doing themselves a huge favour — something for you to think about.’

Gail Bowling stood. ‘Just see me to the door.’

Penny Yewdall slept late, then rose nervously, living the part as she had been advised. She left the room wrapped in her coat over her underwear, and padded barefoot along the hallway and into the kitchen. She found Josie Pinder sitting at the table in a short yellow towelling robe, smoking a thin roll-up cigarette and sipping a mug of milkless tea. Her right eye was black and was bruising to the orbit.

‘Nice shiner you got there, darlin’.’ Yewdall sat in a vacant chair at the table. ‘Mind if I join you?’

‘Suit yourself.’

‘Who punched you?’

‘No one punched me. It was a slap, and I don’t mean a push, I mean a slap — flat hand, side of my head, blood flows into the old eye socket; makes it look like a punch but it was a slap.’

‘That true?’ Yewdall sounded surprised, though she had seen the like many times before, usually upon women slapped by an angered partner, but once upon a man, and which had been inflicted by a powerfully built woman whom he had taken as his wife. ‘So who hit you?’

Josie Pinder drew on the cigarette and inclined her head upwards, indicating the rooms on the first floor. Specifically, Yewdall realized, the room she shared with Sonya Clements.

‘So why stay with her?’

Josie Pinder shrugged. ‘Why does anyone stay with someone who knocks them about? It was my fault. . a sense of loyalty — misplaced, I know — lack of self-respect. . it wears you down so you get to accept it as a way of life.’

‘You seem bright, like smart in the head, worth more than this.’

‘Oh, I am smart, Manchester University would you believe? But I was too working class and I was too close to home. I came from Salford, next door to Manchester. One bus from the Uni to the city centre, but only if it was raining, other times I’d walk it in twenty minutes. One bus to Salford, then I could walk home. If I had gone further away, like to Swansea or Canterbury, then I might have battled against the snobbery working-class students meet at university. . but I met her at a dykes’ club in Manchester — thought I’d met my soul mate, so I jacked in civil engineering and came south with ’er.’

‘Civil engineering?’

‘Yes, that was another thing, as well as the snobbery, as well as being little working-class Nellie from the Dellie among these privately educated types, I was penetrating a male bastion. It’s getting better but engineering is still a male preserve. . largely. . no matter what university. So this is the south — hardly what it’s cracked up to be. A room in a house like this and a black eye for touching her. She can touch me all she likes but I can’t touch her. I’m the female. . she does. . I am done to, I need to remember my place.’

‘I know what you mean. Still think that you should leave.’

‘Where?’ She dragged deeply on the cigarette. ‘Like where?’

‘Shelters. .? Back to Salford?’

‘Can’t go home — not like this. . half-starved, dressed in rags — such an admission of failure. If I go to a shelter I’ll get dragged back here.’

‘Who by?’

‘Yates. Who do you think?’ She lowered her voice and glanced around her. ‘These walls have ears. . seems like it anyway.’

‘You’re paranoid.’

‘Believe me, there must be hidden microphones. . Mary, is it?’

‘Penny.’

‘I’m Josie. That accent, Stoke-on-Trent?’

‘Yes, that way. . the Potteries.’

‘Been in London long?’

‘Just less than two years. Can’t go back for the same reason as you. . too proud to admit defeat.’

‘It traps you like that, London does. That’s what Gaynor’s problem was.’

‘Gaynor?’

‘The Welsh girl, she had the room you’re in. She was murdered in there. . remember. . we told you. .’

‘Yes. .’

‘Best not to ask too many questions, but like we said, she was brought home by the guy whose room it really was — brought her in off the street, just to keep her safe. He was going to send her home and he also wanted away from Yates. They both made the wrong sort of noises. . so follow my drift?’

‘Yes, I think so. Am I in danger?’

‘We all are — that’s why her majesty upstairs is on edge. She runs this house for Yates; she tells him everything that goes on here.’ Josie Pinder’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘She would have told him about Mickey Dalkeith and Gaynor planning to leave.’

‘Why didn’t he want them to leave?’ Yewdall paused. ‘Sorry, questions. . I shouldn’t ask. . you’re right. . that’s good advice.’

‘Best remember it, but Mickey was a long-time member of Yates’s firm, more than a gofer. . not real high up but high up enough to know where all the bodies is buried, makes him a liability. Yates had Gaynor strangled in Mickey Dalkeith’s room so Mickey would get fingered for it if he ran, but Mickey does not come home as expected. . turns out he went to sleep on Hampstead Heath instead. He told Sonya where he was going, and Yates and one of his heavies went after him. . followed a set of footprints on the off chance and came across Mickey Dalkeith lying there. So I was told, anyway.’

‘Asleep?’

‘In the snow. . hypothermia. . suicide, I reckon. He must have thought it was his only exit.’

‘I see.’

‘So the police came here investigating Mickey’s death and found Gaynor’s body, put two and two together — Mickey’s slain Gaynor and then topped himself by lying down in the snow rather than do life. So Yates is well pleased. He’s off the hook and Mickey’s not a threat to him no more. But things have not gone away for some reason I don’t know about. The filth is still sniffing around Yates and Bowling.’

‘Bowling?’

‘His female oppo. Watch her if you run into her; they say she’s worse than him.’

‘OK, thanks for the warning.’

‘So that’s why she’s on edge.’ Josie Pinder pointed to the room she shared with Sonya Clements. ‘She came back from the garage yesterday. She had to watch one of Yates’s heavies get a kicking.’

‘The garage?’

‘Yes, a lock-up really, under the railway arches, down the East End somewhere. I’ve never been there myself. He’d been lifted by the filth who took him in for a chat. He says he didn’t say anything to the filth but he got a kicking anyway as a warning. He was one of the heavies who iced Dunwoodie, so he can damage Yates if he wants to do so. You know, turn Queen’s evidence, go into witness protection. This guy, Clive someone, he swore blind he didn’t tell the filth anything, but he got a kicking anyway. . like just a gentle — a very, very gentle — reminder not to ever say anything. . not ever.’

‘Blimey.’

‘So she came back shaking like a leaf ’cos she’d seen a kicking before, but not like that, she says. Went on all day, it did. They stopped for lunch and carried on in the afternoon. They left him on the pavement a mile or so away. Let him be found and taken to hospital. He’ll still be bruised in six months’ time and every waking movement for him will be agony. But you’ll see a kicking.’

‘I will?’

‘Yes. You’re a gofer aren’t you?’

‘Am I?’

‘Have you done an errand, delivered a message or a parcel?’

‘A parcel.’

‘OK, so you’re a gofer, you’re in the firm. You’ll be collected to witness a kicking if someone gets out of order, and they tell you that’s what’ll happen to you if you get left field. Being a girl makes no difference.’

There was the sound of movement from upstairs.

‘She’s getting up.’ Josie Pinder grimaced. ‘She’ll want her tea.’ She stood and partly filled the battered aluminium kettle with water, then ignited a gas ring on the oven and placed the kettle on the flames.

‘How do I get out?’ Yewdall asked plaintively. ‘This is getting too much for me.’

‘You don’t, sweetheart. Feet first possibly. Other than that you don’t get out.’ Josie Pinder reached for a clean mug and placed a little milk into it. ‘You’re in. . and believe me. . you’d better keep your pretty little nose clean, as clean as a whistle. Cleaner.’

Vicary sat down in the chair in front of the desk in the interview suite at New Scotland Yard. ‘We meet again, Mr Yates.’

‘Seems so.’ Curtis Yates was dressed casually in closely fitting casual clothes that showed off his muscular build. ‘So what’s this about?’

‘A chat.’ Vicary smiled. ‘Just a chat.’

‘Then why has my client been arrested?’ The middle-aged man wearing a pinstripe suit who sat next to Yates spoke with a soft voice, which Vicary thought could be disarming if he let it. It seemed to Vicary that he was the embodiment of Teddy Roosevelt’s advice to ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’, a man, thought Vicary, not be underestimated.

‘Because I am doing him a favour.’ Vicary smiled at the lawyer, one Kieran Worth, of Worth, Lockwood and Company. The Rolex on his left wrist spoke clearly of the level of fees he commanded. ‘If he’ll let me.’

‘You want to do me a favour?’ Yates sneered. ‘Don’t go putting yourself out for nothing.’

‘Well, you scratch my back,’ Vicary replied calmly. ‘But we’ve been investigating you.’

‘I know you have. Don’t got nowhere, do you?’

‘Closer than you think. You know we can link you to the murder of Rosemary Halkier. Remember her? Ten years ago now she was your girl. We can link you to Michael Dalkeith’s death, and you’re there in the background of Gaynor Davies’ murder. You see our interest, Curtis? You don’t mind if I call you Curtis?’

‘Don’t mind.’

‘We really want to talk to Rusher. Can’t remember his name but it’s in the file. It’s quite thick now. . the file. . our witness gave a good description of him. Quite close when Rusher was battering Mr Dunwoodie to death in the alley. The geezer with Rusher said, “That’s enough, Rusher”, but Rusher kept on battering away saying, “The boss wants him dead”. So, if we can find Rusher. . and he tells us you’re the boss in question. . well, then, then you go down, for a long stretch. All this smoke that surrounds you, Curtis, this odour of suspicion, it smells like Billingsgate Market at the end of a long summer’s day. Have you ever smelled rotten fish, Curtis? Got a distinct smell all its own it has, like fear. You must have smelled fear from someone. . quite often I imagine.’

‘Maybe. .’

Vicary leaned forward. ‘You see, Curtis, it’s time to think. . now. . off the record — off the record, you won’t be prosecuted for all the men and women you’ve chilled or had chilled. So in a sense you’ll get away with those murders.’

Yates smiled.

Vicary held up a finger. ‘Don’t get cocky, Curtis, because we don’t have to prosecute you for all of them.’ He paused. ‘Just think about that. You’ve only got one life, so all we need is one conviction, and right now we’re looking at three murders which are covered in your dabs.’

‘You can’t link me to them.’

‘Yet.’ Vicary smiled briefly. ‘Not yet. Just needs one of your firm to do a deal for themselves. Like I said, just one conviction will get you a life stretch. I tell you, if I was one of your firm, and I thought you were going to topple, then I’d be squealing very loudly, very, very loudly. You can forget getting out in five years; career crims like you don’t get past the parole board.’

‘That’s coercion.’ Worth smelled of expensive aftershave.

‘It’s the truth.’ Vicary turned to Worth. ‘I am just doing Mr Curtis the favour I said I would do for him if he let me. Now, should he wish to turn Queen’s evidence. .’

‘Use your loaf,’ Yates sneered.

‘It depends how much you want to rescue,’ Vicary explained. ‘You see, it’s not just the loss of liberty. . you’ll be in high security, no soft category D for you. . Parkhurst, Durham, Peterhead. . right up there in Scotland, and in the far north of same. Porridge for breakfast and veggies which have had all the goodness boiled out of them for lunch, with a bit of meat. Same for supper. No women — I know how you like the ladies — and nothing to come out to.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘A proceeds of crime order. Get a team of forensic accountants into your books, your computer database, and everything you cannot prove you came by legitimately can be seized: house, contents therein, cars, everything. The lot, the whole works. That’s how it works. You do twenty as a guest of Her Majesty, come out, fit as a fiddle after all those years of prison life and do you go back to your posh house in Virginia Water? No. . no, you don’t. You come out to a hostel for the homeless and destitute — Salvation Army living. They’re not in the Michelin Guide, but it’s a roof, and they serve meals on time. . just like in prison, But by then you’ll be used to that, because you’ll be well and truly institutionalized.’

Curtis Yates’s pallor paled.

‘Of course you could avoid that. Jump before you’re pushed.’

‘I’ll still end up in the slammer.’

‘Yes. . yes, you will, but the difference is that if you jump, you jump into a safety net. A guilty plea will work towards a parole, but if you’re pushed, that can be messy. . you fall from a great height on to a hard surface.’

Yates remained silent.

‘So far we’ve chatted to Clive Sherwin and Gail Bowling. You’ve got good friends there, they didn’t tell us anything, but that’s only the first two, and you’ve got a lot of geezers working for you. We still want to talk to Rusher, but really it just needs one to see sense and you’re on your way to the Old Bailey.’ Vicary paused. ‘Go to the pub tonight.’

‘The pub?’

‘Yes, up the East End, with the villains, or wherever you sup in Virginia Water. Buy a beer and then look around you, and then think that you can’t take this for granted because it’s liberty. Think that it could be the last time you see the inside of an English pub again, and choose what you want to watch on the TV for the last time. . and retire for the night when you want to. . also for the last — well, maybe the last — time for twenty years, because tomorrow at seven a.m. I’ll be knocking on your door with a warrant for your arrest.’

‘Tomorrow!’

‘Or the next day, or the day after that, but stop taking the good life for granted. We’re closing in on you, Curtis. You should think about working for yourself.’