Brigade: The Further Adventures of Inspector Lestrade (15 page)

‘I’m extraordinarily glad to see you, Sergeant.’ Lestrade shook his hand. Charlo whisked him behind a plane tree. ‘What the hell’s going on? When I saw Frost a few days ago he was all for reinstating me. Now I find I cannot even get to see him. And that fanatical nonsense of Gregson’s is all over the papers.’

‘I don’t know, sir.’ Charlo scanned the upper storey windows of the Yard for signs of life. ‘All I know is, I’ve been ordered off the case. I’ve been told,’ he edged carefully round the tree, ‘that if I have any dealings with you whatsoever, I’ll lose my job.’

Lestrade fumed. ‘You got this from Frost?’

‘Himself,’ nodded Charlo.

‘Well, that’s it,’ shrugged Lestrade. ‘Good luck, Sergeant. I’ll see you around perhaps, one day.’

‘Inspector,’ Charlo stopped him. ‘If I can get over this damned pleurisy, I’ll stay in touch. Where can I reach you?’

‘Sergeant, you are putting your head on the block. You realise that?’

‘I’ve been called a chip off the old block before, sir.’ It was the first time Lestrade had seen Charlo smile. Lestrade slapped his arm in gratitude, a little too heartily as it transpired, for Charlo winced with pain.

‘The Grand Hotel. Under the name of one Athelney Jones, Inspector of River Police.’

Charlo positively beamed.

‘Listen. I understand that Monsieur Goron, Head of the Sûreté is visiting the Yard. Any idea of his movements?’

‘It’s common knowledge where he goes of an evening, sir. Fatima’s.’

‘Does he now?’

‘Why do you want him?’ Charlo was puzzled.

‘I’m not really sure, Charlo. Take care of yourself And he vanished again.

The lamplighter was doing his rounds in the Haymarket when Lestrade and Bandicoot found their quarry. A squat, iron-grey man with untypical pince-nez bustled through the doorway and the knot of evening strollers.

‘Well, well, well.’ Lestrade clicked his tongue.

‘What is it, Sholto?’

‘You never did find your way round town, did you? In a professional way, I mean. That establishment is Fatima Charrington’s, the best-known bordello in London.’

‘Fatima’s?’ Bandicoot was impressed.

‘The logical successor to Kate Hamilton’s,’ said Lestrade.

‘But what would a man of Goron’s reputation be doing in there?’

Lestrade looked with faint surprise at his ex-and-acting-constable. ‘Bandicoot, before you and Letitia go through with your ceremony, remind me to have a word with you,’ and he dashed away across the street.

Bandicoot had not seen the inside of a bordello before, but on the surface it was no different from the hundred or so music halls that littered the West End. Waiters scuttled here and there with trays of champagne. Customers lounged around, laughing and eating grapes proffered by attractive young ladies. On the stage, garishly lit with sulphur, a painted woman sang ‘The First Shove is the Sweetest’, to a rather discordant accompaniment by a female quartet. Here and there, heavies stood in key positions; one near the bar, another at the door, two more by the stage. The air was thick with smoke and the fumes of alcohol, all of it very expensive.

‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’ An enormous lady with a blonde wig piled high and cascading over one bare shoulder about the width of Bandicoot’s chest barred the way.

‘Miss Charrington, I presume?’ ventured Lestrade. Fatima curtseyed, her breasts wobbling like so much whale meat.

‘Athelney Jones, Scotland Yard. This is Constable Bandicoot.’ And as if to forestall her complaint, ‘Don’t worry. This is not an official visit. We are here at the request of Monsieur Goron. May we see him?’

‘In person or through the spy hole, dearie?’ Fatima asked.

Lestrade chuckled. ‘In person, please.’

‘This way. Now, dearie, what can we interest you in? A chambermaid, is it? Vicar’s daughter? Perhaps – yes, I see it. An Amazon?’ She was fondling Bandicoot’s arm, gazing into his rather crossed blue eyes and running her toad-like tongue over her thick lips.

‘Madame, please. I think you have misunderstood …’

‘Oh, I see,’ and she dropped her fatal charm. ‘You want Bertram’s across the road. Errand boys. Barnardo brats. More cottage loaves in there than a bakery.’

Bandicoot’s mouth opened in silent protest.

‘Monsieur Goron,’ Lestrade reminded Fatima, and she took them up the velvet stairway to an upstairs room, past chandeliers tinkling and dazzling in their myriad brilliance. ‘Keep your hand on your wallet, Bandicoot – and leave the talking to me.’

Monsieur Goron sat in an elegant parlour, reclining on a chaise longue of immense proportions. He looked vaguely comical in his pink underwear and top hat, which he now tipped to the newcomers and raised a glass of vintage champagne. The Sûreté certainly do themselves proud, thought Lestrade.

‘Who are zees gentlemen?’ he asked Fatima. ‘I distinctly ordered two ladies. And besides, zees two are both white.’

‘I fear there will be a slight delay, Monsieur,’ she fawned, in what Lestrade would have sworn was a telephone voice had she had such a piece of apparatus in her hand. ‘Celeste and Angeline are not yet ready. They are making themselves extra beautiful for you. In the meantime, these gentlemen would like to join you.’

‘Oh, I see. You wish to see ’ow an expert operates, uh? Well, I ’ad no idea zat ma reputation ’ad spread so far.’

‘It has, Monsieur Goron, but it is not your prowess in the boudoir we wish to assess.’

‘Non? Perhaps eet ees a matter of length?’

‘Good God!’ Bandicoot was beside himself with indignation.

‘No, this is professional business,’ insisted Lestrade. ‘My name is Athelney Jones, Inspector of Scotland Yard. This is Constable Bandicoot.’

‘
Ah, Inspecteur. Enchanté. Enchanté
. You know I am studying La Yarde Ecosse for a few days. You are in charge of the River Police, non?’

‘Er, yes,’ lied Lestrade.

‘Bon. And do you find ze Londres underworld ees particularly prone to ply the river?’

‘Er, no more I am sure than their counterparts in Paris ply the Loire.’

‘Seine,’ said Bandicoot.

Lestrade wondered momentarily whether this was Bandicoot’s summation of Goron’s state of mental health. It was not particularly helpful or relevant.

‘Whenever I come to Londres, I like to spend my first night at Fatima’s,’ and he kissed the chubby, bejewelled hand of the lady as she swept past in search of Celeste and Angeline. ‘I particularly like two girls at once.’ Bandicoot was surprised he had the stamina. ‘One white, ze other black. It adds to ze zest of the thing, don’t you think?’

Lestrade did.

‘Uh, Bain-de-Coute, what ees your preference? Non, don’t tell me. Beeg, uh? Blonde, like yourself? Probably ze older woman? I know, eet ees ze thighs you go for, locked around your back, uh? I can tell you are a leg man.’

Lestrade sensed the ‘constable’ tensing at his side. He realised that Goron’s description fitted Letitia Lawrenson exactly, although he couldn’t really speak for the thighs. His cry of’ ‘Not this one, Bandicoot,’ was drowned as the young man snapped at the supposed insult to his lady’s honour and, snarling, flung himself at the prone Goron. Lestrade need not have worried, at least not about the little Head of Sûreté. The Frenchman deftly rolled off the chaise longue and brought his shin up smartly into Bandicoot’s groin. Another second and Goron was upright, the twin barrels of a vest pocket pistol nudging Bandicoot’s ear. It had appeared so fast Lestrade had no inkling where it had come from.

‘Ees thees ’ow you London bobbies treat visiting dignitaries from abroad?’ snapped Goron.

‘Er … a test,’ Lestrade was suddenly inspired. ‘We have of course heard of your legendary command of self-defence.’

‘Ah, oui, the
Système Goron
.’

‘Quite so, and Assistant Commissioner Frost has given orders that various constables should learn all they can from you.’

‘The hard way,’ Bandicoot mumbled into the silk of the chaise longue.

‘Personally, I would like to know more of your Cook-shop.’

‘What?’ Bandicoot struggled upright as Goron uncocked the hammers of his pistol and equally skilfully secreted it God-knows-where about his person.

‘Quiet, Bandicoot. The grown-ups are talking,’ said Lestrade.

‘Goron’s Cookshop, young man. A suite of rooms at the Sûreté where I interrogate prisoners. Of course, in this sophisticated age, this
fin de siècle,
such things should not be necessary. But you know, both of you, what scum stalks ze earth. I can do things with a leather thong that would make your eyes water – literally.’

‘There is one case you can help me with, sir,’ said Lestrade. ‘Poppy Vansittart.’

‘Ah,’ said Goron, adjusting himself on the sofa once more and pouring more champagne. ‘An Englishman in Paris.’

‘You knew him?’ Lestrade asked.

‘Oh, yes, quite well. Aahh,’ and he rose as Fatima returned with an ingratiating smile. ‘Celeste and Angeline.’ Fatima beckoned with a pudgy finger. He whispered as he passed Lestrade’s ear, ‘Actually, their names are Gertrude and May and they are both from Glasgow, but Monsieur, the grip … Shall we talk as I perform?’

‘Thank you, no, Monsieur,’ Lestrade declined. ‘That is not quite the British way. We will wait for you here.’

Goron shrugged and left the room, unbuttoning his flies.

‘Bon appetit,’ Lestrade called after him.

What a tasteless remark, thought Bandicoot, but he was still recovering from the kick in the groin and thought he would let it pass.

For a while, they waited, helping themselves to Goron’s champagne, then Lestrade slowly leaned forward and put his glass on the table.

‘Bandicoot,’ he murmured, ‘I want you to say nothing. Anything you do say may well be taken down and conceivably used against you. You see, we are about to be raided by the police.’ Even as they made for the door, the whole building shook with crashing glass and the scream of police whistles. Truncheons rained through the air as blue helmets appeared at every window. Naked girls ran everywhere, screaming and crying. Equally naked gentlemen, tugging on recalcitrant combinations and grabbing somebody else’s hats, canes and scarves, hurtled along the corridors and tumbled down the stairs. In an instant, the place was in uproar.

‘What will Letitia say if this gets out?’ Bandicoot wailed.

‘Not half as much as if
we
don’t get out. Come on. Remind me you were an Eton boxing champion,’ and he dashed off along the corridor.

‘’Ere, I want a word with you,’ called a uniformed constable. Bandicoot planted a straight left on his nose and the constable crumpled. A second sprang at him, truncheon raised. Bandicoot ducked aside, threw the constable against a wall and tripped up a third.

‘That’s the way,’ shouted Lestrade. ‘Not bad for a beginner,’ and began to check the rooms one by one while Bandicoot, like a latter-day Horatius, kept the landing so well. The first two rooms were empty, but the third caught the attention of the hastening Lestrade for longer than he intended. A tall, distinguished-looking gentleman was sitting, fully clothed, talking on the telephone. It was obvious he was wearing a false beard and his conversation was not of the ordinary.

‘And then what would you do, Fifi?’ His voice was strained and his eyes bulging. Lestrade noted that the wires ran through a hole in the wall, presumably to an adjacent room.

‘Fifi, what then? I am desperate.’

A semi-naked girl wearing headphones rushed past Lestrade.

‘I believe your telephonist has gone,’ said Lestrade. The tall man dropped the apparatus and leapt to his feet. In doing so, his beard fell off at his feet.

‘Why, Mr Chamberlain,’ smiled Lestrade, ‘I didn’t recognise you without your monocle,’ and the tall man swept past him into the battle-ground below.

‘Hurry, Lestrade. Er … I mean Inspector Jones. Er … I mean … oh, God?’ Bandicoot was valiantly fending off punch, kick and club alike. He could not hold out for ever. One of his wrists was handcuffed already. At the end of the passage, the lights had gone out, but Lestrade recognised the accent in the eighth room he tried.

‘
Ah, chéries. Vous êtes merveilleuse. Merci, mes petites. A bientôt
,’ and the Head of the Surete backed into Lestrade. In a flash, the pistol was against the inspector’s nose, or what was left of it.

‘Oh, Jones. Eet ees you. Not your idea of un petit joke this, uh?’

‘Certainly not,’ said Lestrade. ‘If my memory serves me correctly, there is a fire escape here somewhere. I would like to talk further with you, Monsieur Goron. Will you wait in the street below while I bail out our friend?’

Goron tugged on his evening jacket and with an agility astonishing in a man his age, and bearing in mind his activities for the last few minutes, leapt out of the fire escape. Celeste and Angeline emerged, staggering uncertainly from the darkened room.

‘Eh, hinnie, he’s one hell of a goer, that one.’

‘Aye, chuck. You can say that again. They’re a’ the same, these bloody coppers!’

Lestrade realised the odds at the end of the corridor were lengthening, so he searched around frantically for assistance. If only he hadn’t left his trusty knuckle-duster and switch-blade in his room at the Grand. He ought to have known better, going to Fatima’s of a Saturday night. What came to hand, however, was every bit as useful - a chamberpot. He threw the contents at the first constable and clanged a second across the head with it.

‘Come on, Bandicoot. Anybody would think you were enjoying yourself. Get out of it, lad,’ and he kicked another attacker in the pit of the stomach. For a split second, he recognised the plain-clothes figure making up the stairs through the jostling mass of bodies – Edgar Bradstreet, Gregson’s man. What was he doing in a routine raid by the Metropolitan Police? Bradstreet had time too, to recognise Lestrade as the inspector flung the chamberpot, pretty with pink flowers, and followed Bandicoot into the darkness of the fire escape and the night.

Lestrade’s superlative knowledge of the streets enabled the three respectable fugitives to dodge the crowds of ladies of ill repute, shame-faced clients busily waving bundles of notes at policemen and the scattering Saturday-night crowds, drawn like flies to a corpse to the noise and scandal of the Haymarket. The name of Fatima would resound in many a magistrates’ court on Monday morning and would meet the furious gaze of many a wife across the breakfast table from a nervous, sweating husband. It was the way of the world. It was what made the nineties naughty. As dawn broke, pearly and hot as ever over the sleeping city, three policemen, one foreign, one suspended, one retired, sat in the rooms of the Grand Hotel, sipping champagne. It had been Goron’s first request as he arrived with the exhausted Bandicoot and Lestrade at their rooms. Now, as they recovered, the Frenchman once again produced his pocket pistol and held it generally at Lestrade’s head.