Blood Brothers (9 page)

There was silence at the other end of the line and it took some time for Robertson to cut through the crackle. ‘Do you know where Fred Bettany lives?’ he asked.

Barnard shifted uneasily. ‘Somewhere in Hampstead,’ he said cautiously. ‘Not far from where I am?’

‘Meet me there at nine,’ Robertson cut in, dictating the address. ‘I’ll fix it with Fred and Shirley.’ He hung up abruptly, leaving Barnard slightly breathless. He had no doubt that whatever the Bettanys’ plans for the evening were they would now be put rapidly on hold. What Ray Robertson wanted Ray Robertson generally got. He just hoped that Shirley Bettany, his occasional lover, betrayed not a hint to either her husband or Ray that in these circumstances he himself would be a very unwelcome visitor to her family home.

Barnard parked outside Fred Bettany’s house shortly before nine without the usual precautions when he was visiting Shirley. There were no other cars parked on the road where most of the large houses had ample drives for family parking, and he waited until Ray Robertson’s Jag pulled up behind him.

‘Come on,’ Robertson said without bothering with a greeting. ‘I’ve told Fred to take his missus out for a drink while we have a chat.’ He rang the doorbell impatiently and Bettany, already in his coat, trilby in hand, opened it almost immediately. He flashed Barnard a look of inquiry before calling for his wife, who appeared on the stairs in a fur coat and hat with a tiny veil over her eyes. The pair were obviously not dropping into any old boozer, Barnard thought ruefully.

‘Come in Ray,’ Bettany said. ‘Trouble?’

‘Nothing to concern you, Fred,’ Robertson said, holding the front door open so that Bettany and his wife had no choice but to exit.

Shirley avoided Barnard’s eyes as he hurried past her, catching just a waft of an expensive perfume and the rustle of silk, as he went inside closely behind Robertson.

‘Now then, Flash,’ Robertson said, leading the way into the Bettanys’ extensive sitting room at the front of the house and pulling the curtains closed. ‘What the hell is going on?’

‘I wish I knew,’ Barnard said flinging himself into one of the soft armchairs, carefully avoiding the sofa where he and Shirley had fairly recently dallied. ‘Scotland Yard is calling the shots. They’ve put a DS called Vic Copeland into Soho, allegedly to clean up the nick.’

‘Copeland? Isn’t he the bastard who killed someone? He was a City of London cop then. Has he joined the Met?’

‘Unfortunately yes,’ Barnard said.

Robertson nodded slowly. ‘Can’t be good, can it? I heard he was lucky to get away with what he did. It was only because the casualty had a string of convictions as long as your arm that he swung it with the coroner. I didn’t know the poor beggar personally but I know a few people who did. He was a harmless enough sneak thief, as it goes, no violence in him. Hardly likely to launch a ferocious attack on someone of Copeland’s size, as alleged.’ Robertson shrugged and glanced around the room enquiringly. ‘Never mind. I think maybe we can treat ourselves to a glass of Fred’s Scotch,’ he said, making free with one of the well-filled decanters on a sideboard.

The two men tasted their drinks and nodded in satisfaction.

‘So what’s Copeland got on me? Or hoping to get on me?’ Robertson asked.

‘Nothing specific as far as I know. But he and the Yard seem to be convinced that the body that was found on the building site at Tottenham Court Road has connections with you, or the Maltese or even Reg Smith. They see it as a gangland execution of some sort – the poor bastard had no fingers and toes as if he’d been tortured for information or maybe just as an example to others. They’re going to be looking very hard at what you’re up to. And the rest. And I’ve a nasty feeling I’m on their list too, long term. In any event, Copeland’s coming to see you tomorrow and I’m supposed to be coming with him. And I’ve no doubt that he’s planning to record what we say.’

Robertson laughed. ‘Just shows I was right not to link up with Smith,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I’d more or less decided to give him a miss. I reckon you and Fred were right about him. He’s trouble. Does Copeland know for sure me and Reg have had words?’

‘Not as far as I know,’ Barnard said. ‘That’s what he’ll be wanting to know.’

‘Right,’ Robertson said.

‘But what I want to know is whether you’ve heard any whispers about the digitless victim, who he is or why he might have been killed,’ Barnard asked.

‘None at all, Flash,’ Robertson said. ‘Not a dicky bird. You know I don’t go in for that sort of thing. Not my scene. The Maltese can be vicious and so can Smith, but I’ve not heard so much as a whisper and I’ll tell your mate Copeland that, don’t you worry. What’s your own take on it? You don’t sound as if you go along with his theory.’

Barnard hesitated for a moment before he went on. He knew that his own suspicions as to the identity of the murder victim would concern Robertson far more than anything else and not for the reasons that Copeland might suspect. ‘I saw the body,’ he said. ‘He was difficult to identify even after he’d been cleaned up a bit at the morgue. But he had a look of the old tramp who’s a witness in Georgie’s case. A crucial witness, as it goes.’

‘You think someone’s got to him and topped him?’ Robertson asked, his face flushing a dangerous shade of pink.

‘I can’t get anyone to admit that any witness has gone AWOL, but if one has, there are people at the Yard who will put you top of the list of suspects. They’ve never really swallowed the idea that you were the main man when it came to wanting Georgie put away. They’re convinced blood must be thicker than water.’

‘So’s my old ma,’ Robertson said with feeling. ‘But they don’t realize what a psycho Georgie’s become the last few years. I couldn’t trust him an inch any more. You know he’s always been a nutcase ever since he was a boy.’

‘The cats,’ Barnard said, thoughtfully.

‘The cats,’ Robertson agreed.

‘You need to make all this pretty clear to Copeland when we come calling, as well as the fact that whoever the victim was he wasn’t one of your associates. We need to cover both possibilities. But if I’m right – and no one believes me so far – who would have a reason for interfering with Georgie’s trial? The only person I can think of is your ma.’

Robertson snorted in disbelief. ‘She still thinks the sun shines out of Georgie’s bum, and I should be busting a gut to get him off,’ he said. ‘But she’s an old woman now, Flash. There’s no way she could be interfering with witnesses. Most of her and my dad’s old mates are dead now, long gone. Who would she get to help her?’

‘God knows,’ Barnard said. ‘I don’t like any of this, believe me. Just thought I’d fill you in. Just in case. You know as well as I do that if I’m right there’ll be more than one witness ready to drop out – even if no one comes calling to help them on their way. They’ll be scared witless.’

‘And I’m grateful, mate,’ Robertson said, getting to his feet. ‘But I think it’s your imagination running away with you. And there’s no reason I need to start cutting off fingers and toes for any other reason, though I can’t speak for the Maltese or Reg Smith. Copeland may be right to think about them. Let’s take it as it comes, shall we? But if you do find anything to prove someone’s trying to mess with my brother’s trial, let me know. That I can seriously do without.’

When Kate O’Donnell got to the picture agency next morning she found to her surprise that Carter Price was already ensconced with Ken Fellows in his office, the air thick with cigarette smoke which caught her breath when she opened the door on hearing her name hailed in raucous tones.

‘You called?’ she said, although she knew both men were impervious to her sarcasm, although she heard a chuckle from one of her colleagues in the busy photographers’ room behind her.

‘Come in, Kate, and shut the door,’ Fellows said. ‘Carter here would like to take you out with him this morning for a bit more snooping around. You haven’t got anything else on, have you?’

Kate shook her head. ‘Where are we going this time?’ she asked Price.

‘Another little trip south of the river. I think we’ll take a look at Mr Smith’s home territory. I hear he’s moved up in the world since he left Bermondsey. Got himself a view of Blackheath which is a different neck of the woods altogether.’

‘Fine, if that’s OK with Ken,’ Kate said.

Her boss nodded equably and Kate went back into the office to put a new roll of film into her camera and put her coat on again. Outside, Price ushered her into a much smaller car this time which was parked half on the pavement and causing a passing taxi driver to have a red-faced rant as he tried to squeeze past.

‘Another borrowed car?’ Kate asked.

‘Yeah, sorry we can only run to an A40 this time, but it’s pretty inconspicuous. No one will notice us in this if we do a couple of circuits of Smith’s place.’ He pulled into the centre of the road to allow Kate room to get into the passenger seat.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Blackheath it is.’

As far as Kate could see they took more or less the same route as they had taken to Bermondsey but did not pull off into docklands. The traffic was heavy but eventually they climbed a steep hill and emerged to find flat grassy open space on either side of them.

‘Wat Tyler led his rebellion round here,’ Price said. ‘There’s a road named after him somewhere.’

Kate looked bemused. ‘You must be a Londoner born and bred,’ she said, racking her brains and finding no trace of Wat Tyler.

‘Oh yes,’ Carter Price said. ‘I was born in Deptford, remember, and you can’t grow up there without being a bit fascinated by the local history. The Navy was on the doorstep in more ways than one. Anyway this is Blackheath and this is the road where Reg Smith has apparently taken root.’ He took a right turn into a road of Victorian villas which immediately began to head downhill and parked unobtrusively behind a van. ‘That’s Smith’s place,’ he said, pointing to a tall stucco three-storey house with a far more substantial fence around it than most of the similar houses, and a sturdy wrought iron gate closing off parking space for several cars.

‘There’s his Bentley,’ Price said. ‘I reckon we’re in luck. He seems to be at home.’

Kate leaned back in her seat and surveyed the scene. The road was tree-lined and quiet, dropping away from the heath. Some of the houses appeared to have been turned into flats but there was almost no sign of movement anywhere. ‘What if he stays in all day?’ she asked. ‘We could get pretty uncomfortable, and hungry, come to that.’

‘Well they call this Blackheath but in fact this road runs down to Lewisham, comes out quite near the station, so we’re close to amenities if we need them. Let’s see how it goes, shall we?’ He turned off the engine and put an arm behind her with one hand on her shoulder but she wriggled away.

‘My pictures are what you’ve paid for,’ she said tartly. ‘Nothing else.’

He shrugged and pulled a wry face but took his arm back to his own side of the car.

Kate delved in her bag and pulled out some prints. ‘These are what I took outside the pub in Bermondsey. They’re very dark, which is what we expected, but this one which catches the people on the terrace I thought you might be interested in.’

Price took the prints and studied the one she had placed on top. ‘I’ll swear that’s Smith, even just in silhouette,’ he said. ‘But this one here looks familiar too. The light from inside is just catching his face. But I can’t quite put a name to him. I’m sure we’ll do better in daylight, petal.’

DS Harry Barnard spent the morning with Vic Copeland doing a quick survey of the bookshops which trod a delicate line around the laws of pornography and obscenity in the narrow streets of Soho.

‘When did you last raid any of these places,’ Copeland asked. ‘What they put on display is on the edge but what’s in the back rooms must be well over it. Do any of them specialize in queer stuff? It seems to be a bit of an obsession with your DCI?’

‘There used to be one but the owner got stabbed when we had that queer murder case. You remember?’

‘Oh yes, I do remember. That’s when you mislaid DCI Venables, isn’t it? You never know who to trust in this game, do you? Anyway, let’s save porn for another day. We can give the God-fearing Mr Jackson a treat later. Let’s work out a strategy for tackling Ray Robertson this afternoon.’

Barnard glanced at his watch. ‘I’m meeting someone for a quick bevvy,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you back at the nick at one thirty. That gives us an hour to get down to the Delilah to see Robertson, no problem.’

Copeland shrugged and turned away. ‘See you later then,’ he said. ‘Be good.’

As Copeland headed west to the nick, Barnard weaved his way through the narrow streets and alleys, crowded now with lunchtime visitors to the cafes and bars, until he reached a towering gothic church on the northern edge of his patch, with a crumbling vicarage next door. He rang the heavy doorbell and it was opened after a long wait by a cleric in a pale blue sweater whose face brightened when he saw who his visitor was.

‘Harry,’ said the Rev David Hamilton. ‘What can I do for you? You’re not bringing me more waifs and strays are you?’

‘Not this time,’ Barnard said. ‘Can I have a word, though?’

‘Of course,’ Hamilton said. ‘Come in.’ And he led the way, with a pronounced limp, to his study overlooking the neglected looking churchyard at the back of the building and waved Barnard into a chair. ‘What’s your problem?’ he asked.

‘You’ve got your ear close to the ground,’ Barnard said, offering the vicar a cigarette, which he waved away, and lighting his own. ‘I need to pick your brains.’

‘Feel free.’

‘Do you remember the old tramp who saw more than he should have done when there was that unfortunate death here?’

‘Hamish, wasn’t he called? Very smelly, very Scottish. Wasn’t inclined to listen to me. Yes, I remember him,’ the vicar said.

‘Have you seen him recently?’

David Hamilton looked puzzled. ‘I thought he was being looked after until the trial,’ he said. ‘Has he run off? It’s probably because you’re not keeping him topped up with booze.’

‘Probably,’ Barnard said. ‘I’m not sure about this but I thought I saw him recently and I was worried about his safety, that’s all. Can you let me know if he crosses your path?’