Dressed To Kill (A Kate O'Donnell Mystery) (10 page)

‘It’ll be here or at the station,’ Barnard added.

‘We can’t talk here,’ Lubin said abruptly. ‘Kate, will you finish this session off, please, and Ricky and I will go down to the pub with the officer. It’ll be quiet as early as this.’

Barnard nodded his agreement. ‘I’ll talk to you separately,’ he said. ‘Mr Lubin first, if you don’t mind. I’ll phone Mr Smart when we’ve finished.’

The two men shrugged but did not argue and Lubin set off down the stairs at speed.

Barnard hesitated as he passed Kate. ‘A word in your shell-like,’ he said. ‘Keep clear of the jazz club for a bit. It could be a bit uncomfortable there, even for the audience.’

Her eyes widened but she said nothing, realizing that Ricky Smart was watching them closely, and Barnard turned quickly and followed Lubin downstairs to where he was waiting impatiently on the pavement.

‘I’ve not got time to waste,’ he snarled when the sergeant came out of the studio’s door and led the way into the cavernous and empty lounge bar of the pub on the corner, which was not yet serving in spite of its open door. Barnard flashed his warrant card again at the barman this time and he shrugged indifferently and waved them in.

‘So tell me a bit more about Jenny Maitland,’ Barnard said as soon as they had sat down at a corner table. ‘When did you recruit her? How long did she work for you? Why did you sack her?’ Barnard fired the questions like bullets until Lubin waved a hand to stop him.

‘We take on lots of girls,’ he said. ‘She was no different from a dozen others who’ve worked for me over the last year. They’re all dazzled with the idea of modelling but when it comes to it, very few of them are any good at it. They don’t move properly or they get too fat or they lose their looks very quickly. I’ll give them a try. Some studios can’t be bothered. But you can’t always tell at first glance just how good they will be. Sometimes they blossom, you know?’

‘How do you find them in the first place?’

‘Ricky has contacts in some of the schools. It’s generally girls who are leaving when they’re fifteen. They’re not taking exams and they don’t have much choice of jobs. In the East End its factories or shops mainly, until they get pregnant and have to get married, so anything that looks a bit more glamorous they’ll jump at. You’ll have to ask Ricky for the details. I don’t have anything to do with all that.’

‘And you pay them?’

‘Of course, but only for the sessions they do. They won’t get rich on that. But if their face fits, if one of the magazines likes them, then they can do very well in the long run. Look at Jean Shrimpton – she came from nothing to New York in no time at all.’

‘But Jenny wasn’t one of the ones who did very well, was she?’ Barnard said.

‘Not really,’ Lubin said. ‘She was putting on weight and didn’t move very well. She was pretty enough, willing enough even, but not right for a model. It wasn’t working out.’

‘Do you sleep with the girls, Mr Lubin? I’m told there’s a very relaxed attitude to sex in your studio, and some of these girls, like Jenny, are below the age of consent. Do you bother about their moral welfare while they’re working for you?’

Lubin shrugged and didn’t answer.

‘Or do you expect favours in return for employing them, taking their pictures?’ Barnard persisted.

‘My studio is not a knocking shop, if that’s what you’re asking,’ Lubin snapped. ‘I don’t know what people do in their spare time.’

‘But Jenny Maitland got pregnant somewhere, about two or three months ago, according to the pathologist who examined her,’ Barnard said. ‘She was pregnant, and somebody must have got her that way. Exactly how long is it since she did any work at your studio?’

Lubin sighed dramatically. ‘Two, three, four months maybe,’ he said. ‘We’ll have a record in the office of the last time she worked for me. But the baby’s not mine, Sergeant, I promise you that.’

‘So you did sleep with her before she left?’

Lubin shrugged. ‘Long before,’ he muttered. ‘The baby’s not mine. I haven’t been with her for months. You’d better ask Ricky maybe. He makes pretty free with his favours.’

‘I’m sure he does,’ Barnard said, recalling Kate’s comments about Smart’s unwanted attentions. ‘So, when you drop these kids, do you suggest where they might get alternative work, do you check at all if they go back where they came from? Or do you just dump them on to the streets of Soho to sink or swim, these kids of fourteen and fifteen?’

Lubin shrugged again and did not reply.

‘So how many of them end up as tarts?’ Barnard asked. ‘Do you point them in that direction?’

‘Certainly not. I wouldn’t know what they end up doing. I don’t generally see them again. As far as I know they’ve gone back home to Hackney or Shoreditch or wherever. Ricky’s the only one who knows where they all came from, he keeps the records, addresses and things like that. I expect he’ll remember. There are no promises in the rag trade. I never tell them I’ll magic them into Jean Shrimpton. How could I?’

‘And you never saw Jenny Maitland again after she stopped working for you? You’re sure of that?’

‘Quite sure,’ Lubin said. ‘I’m a very busy man.’

‘I’m sure you are, Mr Lubin,’ Barnard said, snapping his notebook shut. ‘That’ll be all for now but I may need to talk to you again. Can you stay here while I ask Ricky Smart to come down for a chat now.’

Lubin scraped his chair back noisily and watched Barnard call the studio from the bar.

Barnard did not totally believe anything he said, but he reckoned that if anyone was funnelling girls into prostitution it was more likely to be Smart than his boss. A man who regularly trawled the East End for pretty girls for one purpose could just as easily recruit them for another.

Smart kept Barnard waiting and came into the empty pub scowling. ‘I don’t know why you’re still pestering us,’ he said, flinging himself into the chair opposite Barnard. ‘It’s months since this kid left the studio. I’ve no idea what she’s been up to since then.’ His eyes met Lubin’s briefly before the photographer left the bar, but they did not speak.

‘You’ve never set eyes on her since?’ Barnard snapped. ‘If she’s been working round here I find that hard to believe.’

‘I’ve not seen her,’ Smart said flatly.

‘Did you sleep with her when she was working here? Could the baby she was expecting have been yours?’

‘No I bloody didn’t, and no it couldn’t. I’d take care not to get young girls pregnant.’

‘Could it be Lubin’s?’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ Smart admitted reluctantly. ‘He puts himself about a bit. And he doesn’t draw the line at kids, either.’

‘Where were you last Wednesday, when you weren’t at work?’

Smart furrowed his brow and made Barnard wait. ‘I was out with a bird as it happens. You can check it out if you must. And she stayed the night at my place. All above board.’

‘Let me tell you something, Mr Smart,’ Barnard said quietly. ‘I’ve worked in Soho for a long time, and I know everything that goes on here, the good, the bad and the indifferent. I know all the bad boys and I know what they do, even if I can’t always prove it. I know who runs the girls on these streets and I know that for the last few years there’ve been no gang wars. Peace has broken out. The villains have rubbed along together and that’s mainly because the big beggars have split the business between them. Now if someone else thinks they can muscle in on some of that trade – running a string of girls of his own, for instance – I would ask them very seriously to think again.’

‘What’s this to do with me?’ Smart asked angrily.

‘I don’t know that it’s anything to do with you. I’m just telling you in case the idea crosses your mind, or Andrei Lubin’s for that matter. It’s a warning, if you like. You seem to be very efficient at bringing pretty girls up from the East End into Soho to be models, and then equally efficient at losing track of them, or so you say. But you need to be aware that the last man who tried to set up a business that trod on Maltese territory was found floating in the Thames with all his fingers and toes and a few more intimate bits missing. And that was just a very small war. Nobody wants that, Mr Smart, least of all the brass over at the nick. So bear it in mind.’

Kate was so busy with her camera that she was not aware that Andrei Lubin had come back in and was standing behind her as she waved the girls from one pose to another, taking shots in rapid succession while the girls changed position to her instructions. In the end he reached roughly round her and took the camera out of her hand, to continue the succession of shots almost uninterrupted.

‘Take a break now,’ he said and Kate took her place again on the high stool in the corner, realizing that working at this sort of intensity was more demanding than she had supposed. Eventually even Lubin had had enough, turned off the fans and told the four girls he had been using that they could get changed and take a half hour break for refreshments. The girls clustered like a gaggle of exotic birds behind the flimsy screens where they changed back to their street clothes while Lubin approached Kate, winding the film in the camera to its end and removing it, with a steely gleam in his eye. He handed her the exposed film.

‘Get that developed ASAP,’ he snapped.

She slid off her stool, annoyed that she seemed to be expected to carry on working while everyone else got a break, but she realized Lubin had not finished.

‘Ricky told me that you seemed to know that copper,’ he said. ‘How come?’

Kate felt cold. ‘I met him months ago when my brother was in some trouble with the law,’ she said truthfully. ‘He’s difficult to avoid if you work in Soho. He’s around the place all the time. It seems to be his territory.’

‘Is he your boyfriend, then?’ Lubin persisted.

Kate shook her head vigorously. ‘Definitely not,’ she said. ‘I had a meal with him once but he’s not my type. He was just telling me to keep away from the Jazz Cellar. He said there’s going to be trouble there. You know Jenny Maitland’s body was found out at the back.’

‘I don’t like these coppers asking all these questions. We haven’t seen that little tart here for months. We don’t know anything about what she’s been doing since she left. So don’t you go giving the police any other impression or you can go back to Ken Fellows with a flea in your ear, and he won’t get the money back he’s paid me either. Understood?’

‘Of course,’ Kate said. ‘I’ll get on with the processing now, shall I?’

‘Ricky and I will be in the French pub if you’ve got any problems,’ Lubin said turning away and beckoning Smart to follow him.

Kate closed the darkroom door with a bad-tempered bang and pushed her hair out of her eyes. Outside she could hear the girls leaving but to her surprise there was almost immediately a faint tap on the door. She had not yet released the morning’s film from its reel so she turned out the red light and opened the door again to find Sylvia standing there, dressed in her everyday clothes and biting her lip.

‘I just thought I’d tell you,’ she said. ‘I’m having it done Monday morning. I’ll probably be back at work in the afternoon. Can you tell Andrei I’ll be late in? Don’t tell him why, for God’s sake.’

Kate took her by the arm and hugged her. ‘Are you sure?’ she whispered, suddenly feeling heartbroken, as if she herself were responsible for what was happening to this girl.

‘There’s no choice, is there,’ Sylvia said dully. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. I just wanted to thank you for helping me. I may not get another chance.’

Kate sighed. ‘What on earth’s going on here, Sylvia? Don’t you have any idea what might have happened to Jenny Maitland?’

Sylvia hesitated for a moment and then grasped her arm and pushed her back into the darkroom and closed the door. ‘There is something going on,’ she said. ‘But I don’t really know what it is. Jenny told me she had been away with Andrei, somewhere in the country, and had slept with him there. It’s not unusual for him and Ricky to get the girls into bed if they can, but it’s usually just a quick fling here at the studio. But this was different, she said. There were lots of posh people there, and food and wine and stuff, and she and Andrei had a proper bedroom. She said he asked her afterwards if she’d enjoyed it, and she said she had in a way. It was nice to see how people like that lived, she could get used to it, she said. And he asked her if she wanted to go again, and she said OK, she didn’t mind. But it was only a couple of days later that she stopped coming in, and in the end he said he’d sacked her, so he must have changed his mind about taking her away again. You never really know where you are with Andrei, or Ricky for that matter. One minute you’re in their good books – and usually in their bed – the next you’re not. One minute nothing’s too good for you, the next you’re out the door. You want to watch out yourself. I’ve seen the way Andrei looks at you when he doesn’t think you’re looking.’

‘And Ricky can’t keep his hands to himself,’ Kate said bitterly. ‘I tried to get back to my own agency but my boss wouldn’t have it. He said I’ve got to complete the month we agreed.’

‘Watch out for yourself then, is all I can say,’ Sylvia said.

‘And what happens if you’re pregnant?’ Kate asked.

‘You’re out, as soon as it shows, and that doesn’t take long with the clothes we’re modelling, does it?’ Sylvia said. ‘They don’t want to know. That’s why I’ve got to go ahead tomorrow. I’ve got no choice, have I? I need to work and I can’t work in this state. I can’t go back home. There’s no one there gives a damn about me.’ A tear slid down her cheek slowly and she wiped it away with the back of her hand.

Kate glanced at the still undeveloped film lying on the worktop beside her. ‘Go and have some lunch with your friends, la,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to finish this film by the time Andrei gets back or I’d come with you.’

Sylvia gave her a wan smile and reached up and gave Kate a kiss on the cheek, before spinning away and opening the door. ‘Ta,’ she said. ‘You’ve been a help. Really you have. It’ll all be all right after tomorrow.’

‘I hope so,’ Kate said. ‘Really I do.’

A
t eleven that evening the Jazz Cellar was buzzing, the atmosphere steamy and thick with cigarette smoke and alcohol fumes and more, the band slick with sweat as they pumped out Basin Street Blues and the punters at crowded tables moving rhythmically to the beat as they ate and drank. The noise was so intense that at first no one noticed the uniformed police officers crowding through the main entrance but when a sledge hammer smashed in the fire exit at the side of the stage, sending splinters of wood spraying on to the stage and the audience, the musicians stopped abruptly, instruments trailing into silence, and the audience cried out or gasped in panic as the decibels dropped and the entire room quickly fell silent.