Seventy-Seven Clocks

∨ Seventy-Seven Clocks ∧

19

Lured

Jerry watched the platform posters slide by as the Tube train lurched on towards Chelsea, and thought back to the Friday when Max Jacob had appeared at the Savoy, summoned by one of the Whitstable brothers. Could that summons have somehow concerned the Waterhouse painting?

Suppose Peter had asked his lawyer to collect the package hidden in 216. Why would a respectable professional be skulking around with a pile of obscene photographs? Could it have been why Jacob was murdered?

Removing the envelope from her pocket, she longed to remove the single damaged piece of photograph, but did not wish to shock the stern-faced woman seated next to her. She held the envelope closer and noticed a row of digits. Someone had sealed the pictures in the envelope, then written a telephone number on top in pencil, hastily erasing it afterwards. In a few moments she had worked out the sequence, seven numbers and part of a name, the letters And. It could be Andy or Andrew. As soon as she alighted from the train, Jerry checked the penciled number and rang it from a call box at the corner of Sloane Square.

“Is that Andy?”

“Who’s calling?”

“A friend of his.”

“Hang on, I’ll get him.”

The receiver was set down and taken up a few moments later.

“Who’s this?” The voice had a heavy cockney accent. “My name is Jerry. I’m a friend of one of your clients.”

“Yeah? Which one?”

She cleared her throat. Time to take a chance. “I saw the set of photographs you left at the Savoy. Very impressive. Did you take them yourself?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t take no photos.” Andy was indignant, or at least feigning it. She doubted his reluctance to talk would hold up for long if money was mentioned. Across the capital, the recession was biting deep; jobs were competitive on both sides of the law.

“I have some of them in front of me right now, and one has your telephone number written on it.” She tried to sound as friendly as possible. “I thought you might be available for another job. I’ll make sure you’re well paid.”

“What have you got there?”

Jerry turned the piece of photograph over, trying to see it in the dim light of the booth. Two bodies, naked, a full breast, unappetizing buttocks, a sausage-like erection. The man was still wearing black socks. No light in the room apart from the camera flash. Judging by the odd angle of their limbs, the revelers hadn’t expected to be captured for posterity.

“Well,” said Jerry casually, “the first one shows a gentleman enjoying himself with a very young lady in one of the suites, two sixteen, I think. I’ll pay you double the amount you were paid before.”

She held her breath and pressed her ear hard to the receiver. For a moment there was only the hiss of the open line.

“What, you want some more done?”

“That’s right, with the same couple. Could you do that?”

“I can’t get hold of the girl again. It’d have to be a different one.” So he supplied the woman, too. Handy service. “He’s not going to go for it twice, though.”

“Leave that part to me,” said Jerry. “I want you to get whoever you think he’d like.”

“Well, the Japs love blond girls. I could – ”

“Kaneto Miyagawa.” Suddenly it was obvious. Jerry drew a slow breath as the realization dawned.

She quickly replaced the receiver and left the booth. She needed to think. Andy had sent a girl to the Japanese executive at his hotel. She must have been a real professional; the Savoy would never have let her near his room without a valid reason. It meant that Miyagawa had arrived in London earlier than Joseph had realized. The Tokyo executive had been careful, but someone knew of his libidinous nature, and had exploited it.

She tried to reconstruct the order of events. The girl had come to Miyagawa’s hotel room, leaving the suite door unlocked, ready for someone to burst in and take compromising pictures. Which meant that someone had paid to have Miyagawa set up. Had the Tasaka Corporation been blackmailed out of the Savoy deal by the lawyer Max Jacob? Could the photographer have been instructed to do so by the Whitstables? She imagined the dishonour: the respected head of the Tasaka Corporation caught red-handed and blackmailed into abandoning his plans for the Savoy. By doing so he would avoid a scandal that would shatter company confidence and slump share prices. But could the Japanese have hit back by taking their revenge on both Jacob and his employers? And if this was true, why go to the trouble of killing the lawyer with a snake? Was this really the sort of thing that happened among the city’s power elite? It seemed more suited to an episode of The Avengers.

She needed to go to the police with the information, but first she would put her theory to the test. It would mean calling Joseph as soon as she reached home.

♦

Elton John’s ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ came to an end, and Paul McCartney and Wings launched into ‘Band On The Run’.

Michelle turned off her transistor radio and listened for a moment, but no sound came from upstairs. From the window overlooking the lawn she could see low clouds shielding the weakening sun, like courtiers protecting a dying monarch. The garden foliage had darkened to the colour of tinned spinach. The bare winter branches of the cherry trees knocked in the rising wind.

“Daisy, what are you doing?” she called.

Small footsteps crossed the ceiling, then stopped.

“Playing.”

“Do you want a glass of milk?”

“No, thank you.” A tiny clipped voice, precise and polite. Michelle shrugged and headed for the kitchen to make some tea. At the age of twenty-three she had retained the plump figure and bad complexion of her late teen years, and was resigned to the fact that unless she lost some weight she would be unlikely ever to find a boyfriend. Not that she particularly cared. The magazines went on about finding a partner, as if it was the only thing in life that mattered.

Michelle preferred the company of small children. The pleasures of tending them had been bred into her by years of baby-sitting her younger sisters. Her responsible attitude reflected the genuine warmth she felt for her young charges. Still, she had never met a child like Daisy. A pretty little thing, thin and blond, with translucent pale skin and large blue eyes that stared flatly and observed everything. At the age of seven, Daisy seemed to have no friends at all. She never returned from school with the other girls in her class, and spent her free time playing alone in her room.

Her brother Tarquin was now eleven and had been packed off to boarding school. Daisy’s parents were hardly ever at the house. The father worked for one of the venerable City banks, and the mother was always organizing charity lunches. It seemed to Michelle that Mrs Whitstable was a modern-day Mrs Jellyby, spending so much time worrying about fund-raising for needy children that she failed to notice how introverted her own offspring had become.

She switched on the kitchen lights, momentarily alarmed as they buzzed and dimmed before returning to their full capacity. As the electric kettle clicked off, Michelle opened the caddy and dropped a teabag – a recent innovation she had only just come to grips with – into her mug. She tuned the radio to a phone-in, and failed to hear the wavering song that sounded from the street beyond.

Daisy rose from the floor of the playroom and listened. The tune was different from the usual one they played. Michelle had told her that it was called ‘Greensleeves’. The new one was much prettier. And fancy him coming around at Christmas! She looked up at the mantelpiece, at the tiny gold christening clock her grandfather had given her. The money bear sat next to it.

“Michelle, can I have an ice cream?” she called, but quite softly, so that Michelle might not hear her. She knew it was too near teatime for her to be allowed one.

Outside, the lilting melody played on. In the summer the van parked at the end of the street, but today it sounded as if it had stopped right outside the front door, as if it had come especially for her.

Daisy ran to the head of the stairs and looked down. The lights were already aglow on the Christmas tree in the hall, and it was growing dark beyond the frosted glass of the front door. She wasn’t allowed out of the front of the house by herself, because of the traffic. But Mummy and Daddy had gone to London, and Michelle was in the kitchen.

It wasn’t fair. She could eat an ice cream and still be hungry for dinner. In the street, the song came to an end. Her mind made up, she raced for the money bear and opened his secret door, releasing coins into her palm. Then she returned the bear to its place, tugged her skirt down, and descended the stairs.

She heard the radio fading down, and crockery being moved about in the kitchen. Michelle was probably foraging for something to eat. No wonder she was so fat. Daisy quietly opened the door and slipped the safety latch on, praying that she would not be too late. The van sat silently at the kerb. It was different from the one that visited in the summer, white instead of blue, and there was no man serving at the window. She walked to the edge of the pavement and looked up, puzzled. From within came a delicious smell of chocolate. Just then, the melody began its warped tape-loop again and the van slowly started to roll out into the street.

“Wait, please. Wait!”

Daisy darted forward with the coins clutched tightly in her hand. The van rolled slowly towards the disused railway arches at the end of the road, its distorted tune tinkling on. Daisy looked back at the house, and the opened front door. It was raining lightly, and there were no customers to be seen. The van driver hadn’t spotted her. Now that she had looked forward to it, she wanted the ice cream more than ever. She ran after the van as it rolled to a stop beneath the darkness of the railway arch, its red taillights glowing.

Daisy could see the driver moving from his seat to the counter window. Perhaps he had seen her after all. Inside the archway the song echoed eerily. Daisy stood beneath the window, her money hand raised in a pale fist. The interior of the van was in darkness. She wanted a Ninety-Nine ice cream cone. How could the man see to fill it properly?

She was about to ask him when he suddenly moved forward in the gloom and leaned down from the window, scooping her up in one swift motion and clamping his hand across her mouth. The counter panel slammed down, sealing the van shut, and the vehicle rolled swiftly away into the darkness of the tunnel beyond.