In Pursuit Of The Proper Sinner (48 page)

Up above them, a light fixture revolved. It was fitted with spots, one of which pooled illumination directly downwards round the stocks, and others which were appendant like arms, and which revolved as the fixture did and slowly illuminated the rest of the action within the club.

“Oh my,” Nkata murmured.

Lynley couldn't fault the DC's reaction.

To the rhythms of the Gregorian chant, several men in dog collars attached to leads were being led round the club by fierce-looking women in black body-suits or leather G-strings and thigh-high boots. An elderly gentleman in a Nazi uniform was attaching something to the testicles of a naked younger man manacled to a black brick wall while a woman strapped to a nearby rack writhed and shouted “More!” as a steaming substance was poured from a tin jug onto her bare chest and between her legs. A blowsy blonde in a PVC waistcoat with a cinched-in waist stood arms akimbo on one of the club's tables as a leather-masked man in a metal G-string ran his tongue round the spike heels of her patent leather shoes. And while these activities were going on in nooks, in crannies, and in the open, a costume stall appeared to be doing a satisfactory business with club members who were hiring everything from cardinals’ red cassocks to cats-o’-nine-tails.

Next to Lynley, Nkata took out a snowy handkerchief and pressed it quickly to his forehead.

Lynley eyed him. “For a man who once organised Brixton's knife fights, you've led something of a sheltered existence, Winston. Let's see what Lash has to say for himself.”

The man in question seemed completely oblivious of the activities going on in the club. He didn't acknowledge the presence of the two detectives until he'd counted six shots of gin into a shaker, added vermouth, and dashed into the mix a few splashes of juice from ajar of green olives. He screwed the cap onto the cocktail shaker and began to do the shaking, which was when he looked their way.

As one of the revolving lights hit him, Lynley saw where the man's sobriquet had come from: A ragged scar ran from his forehead and across one of his eyelids, cutting a swathe that had removed the tip of his nose and half his upper lip. Slash would probably have been more appropriate since the scar was obviously the legacy of a knife. But he'd no doubt wished to stay with the theme of the club. Lash suggested that an element of the voluntary had been involved in his maiming.

Lash looked not at Lynley but at Nkata. Abruptly, he set the cocktail shaker to one side. “Fuck,” he snarled. “I should of killed you when I had you, Demon. That ransom idea was bullshit on wheels.”

Lynley looked at his DC curiously. “You two know each other?”

“We—” Clearly, Nkata was seeking a delicate way of framing the information for his superior officer. “We met once or twice in the 'lotments near Windmill Gardens,” Nkata said. “Some years back, this was.”

“Weeding out dandelions from the lettuce patch, I dare say,” Lynley noted dryly.

Lash snorted. “We 'as doing some weeding, true enough,” he said, and then to Nkata, “I always wondered where you wanked off to. I might of guessed it'd be to something like this.” He took a step towards them and peered more closely at Nkata. His misshapen lips suddenly parted in what went for his smile. “You sod!” he cried, giving a bark of happy laughter. “I knew I marked you that night. I swore up and down all that blood wasn't mine.”

“You marked me,” Nkata said congenially, tapping the scar that ran across his cheek. He extended his hand. “How are you, Dewey?”

Dewey? Lynley wondered.

“Lash,” Dewey said.

“Right, then. Lash. You straight? Or what?”

“Or what,” Lash said, and smiled again. He took Nkata's offered hand and shook it, saying, “I just bloody knew I marked you, Deme. You 'as good with a knife. Shit. Just take a look at this mug if you don't believe me.” This last was said to Lynley, and then back to Nkata, “But I was always fast with the razor.”

“True enough, that is,” Nkata said.

“What d'you lot want with Shelly Platt, then?” Lash grinned. “Can't be looking for her usual.”

“We'd like to talk to her about a murder,” Lynley said. “Nicola Maiden. Is the name familiar?”

Lash considered this as he poured martinis into four glasses arranged on a tray. He speared on toothpicks two stuffed green olives per glass and plopped them into the cocktails before replying.

“Sheila!” he barked. “It's up.” And when the barmaid teetered over in platform boots and a fishnet teddy that showed far more than it could ever conceal, he slid the tray to her and turned back to the detectives. “Great name, Maiden. For this sort of place. I'd of remembered. No. Don't know her.”

“Shelly did apparently. And now she's dead.”

“Shelly's no killer. A bitch and a tart with a temper like a cobra. But she's never done harm that I ever heard.”

“We'd like to speak to her nonetheless. I understand she's a habitué of the club. If she's not here now, you might want to tell us where we can find her. I can't think you'd like us hanging about till she arrives.”

Lash glanced at Nkata. “He always talk like that?”

“Born to it, he was.”

“Shit. That must put the mockers on your style.”

“I cope,” Nkata said. “Can you help us out, Dew?”

“Lash.”

“Lash. Right. I forget.”

“Can,” Lash said. “For old times and the like. But you didn't hear it from me. That straight?”

“Got it,” Nkata said, and he took out his neat little leather notebook.

Lash grinned. “Chrisamighty. You are legit, eh?”

“Keep it to yourself, mate, won't you?”

“Shit. Demon of Death a cop.” He chuckled. Shelly Platt worked the streets round Earl's Court Station, he said. But at this time of day they wouldn't find her there. She did the dusk-to-dawn shift, and that being the case, they'd find her kipping in what went for her lodgings. He recited the address.

They nodded their thanks and slipped out of the club, where, once in the black-walled corridor, they saw that a partitioned section of the passage had been opened. What had appeared to be an expanse of plaster painted in funereal hue was now folded to one side, and in its place was a small shop with a counter stretching its width. Behind this stood a ghoulish woman with purple hair worn in a style reminiscent of the Bride of Frankenstein. Her lips and eyelids were highlighted in black. Body studs erupted from her face and her ears like a fatal visitation of the king's evil.

“Off your patch, you lot,” the woman said with a smirk as Lynley and Nkata passed her. “But I c'n make it worth your while calling in, if you've a mind for it.”

Lynley's attention went to the goods she had on offer in her shop. Displayed within was everything from sex toys to pornographic videos. The counter itself was a glass case decorated with an artful arrangement of jars containing Shaft: The Personal Lubricant as well as leather and metal devices of various shapes and sizes, upon whose use Lynley didn't care to speculate. But as he passed, he caught sight of one of these devices, and his footsteps slowed, then halted altogether. He squatted in front of the case.

Nkata said, “'Spector,” in the agonised tone of a schoolboy whose parent has committed an unforgivable indiscretion.

“Hang on, Winnie,” Lynley said. And to the purple-haired woman, “What is this, please?”

He pointed and she brought out a chrome cylinder. It was identical to the one he'd found among the items taken from Nicola Maiden's car.

“This,” she said proudly, “is imported from Paris, this is. Nice, don't you think?”

“Lovely,” Lynley agreed. “What is it?”

“A ball stretcher.”

“A what?”

She grinned. She brought out a life-size, anatomically correct, male blow-up doll from the floor behind the counter and stood him up, saying to Nkata, “Hold him upright, will you? He's generally on his back, but in a pinch and for a demo … Hey. Grab him by the bum or something. He's not going to bite you, luv.”

“I'll keep mum about it,” Lynley said to Nkata, sotto voce. “Your every secret is safe with me.”

“Funny, you are,” Nkata said. “I never touched any bloke's bum. Plastic or otherwise.”

“Ah. First times are always the most anxiety-laden, aren't they?” Lynley smiled. “Please help the lady out.”

Nkata winced but did as she'd asked him, hands on the plastic buttocks of the doll who was turned sideways and stood astride the counter.

“Right,” the shop assistant said. “Watch this, then.”

She took the ball stretcher in hand and unscrewed the two eye-bolts on either side of it. This allowed it to open on its hinge so that it could be fastened neatly round the scrotum of the plastic doll, leaving its testicles dangling beneath. Then she took the eyebolts and replaced them, explaining that the dom screwed them in as far as the sub wanted, increasing the pressure on the scrotum until the sub asked for mercy or said whatever predetermined word had been agreed upon to cease the torture. “You c'n hang weights here as well,” she said pleasantly, indicating the loops of the eyebolts. “It all depends on what you like and how much it takes to get you ready for relief. Most blokes generally want beatings as well. But then, that's blokes, isn't it? Sh'll I wrap one up for you?”

Lynley fought back a smile at the thought of presenting Helen with such a souvenir of his day's activity. “Perhaps another time.”

“Well, you know where to find us,” she told him.

Out on the street once more, Nkata breathed out a gusty sigh. “Never thought I'd see something like that. Whole place gave me the wim-wams, man.”

“‘Demon of Death?’ Who would think that someone meeting Mr. Lash for a bout of knife play would go faint at the sight of a little torture?”

Nkata's lips twitched. Then he grinned outright. “You call me Demon in public, man, our relationship is finished.”

“I stand advised. Come along, then.”

It was, Barbara Havers decided, ridiculous to trek all the way back to the Yard once she'd bought her lunch off a cart selling stuffed pita bread at the end of Walker's Court. After all, Cork Street was so close at hand. Indeed, tucked just to the northwest of the Royal Academy, Cork Street was nothing more than a hop, skip, and jump from the car park where Barbara had deposited her Mini prior to seeking out 31-32 Soho Square. And since she was going to have to pay for a full hour of parking time whether she used the full hour or not, it seemed much more admirably economical to trot over to Cork Street right then while she was in the area rather than to return at the end of the day when she'd dutifully—not to mention uselessly—slogged through a few more hours at the computer terminal.

She dug out the business card that she'd found in Terry Cole's flat and confirmed the name of the gallery that was engraved on it. Bowers, it read, with an address on Cork Street. And Neil Sitwell beneath that. Time to see what Terry Cole had wanted or hoped for when he'd collected the card.

She sauntered along Old Compton Street, crossed over into Brewer Street, and dodged the Saturday shoppers, the traffic surging up from Piccadilly Circus, and the tourists seeking the Café Royal on Regent Street. She found Bowers without any difficulty because an enormous lorry parked directly in front of it in Cork Street was blocking traffic and incurring the ire of a taxi driver who was shouting imprecations at two men unloading a crate onto the pavement.

Barbara ducked inside what appeared to be not a gallery—as she'd originally supposed from the card, the address printed upon the card, and Terry's artistic aspirations—but instead an auction house not unlike Christies. Apparently, an auction was in some stage of preparation and the goods on offer were what was being unloaded from the lorry that was parked outside. These were paintings in ornate gilt frames, and they were everywhere: stacked in crates, propped against counters, hanging on walls, and lying on the floor. Stepping around them and among them, blue-smocked employees with clipboards in their hands made notations which seemed to relegate each piece to areas signposted with the words Frame Damage, Restoration, and Suitable.

Behind a counter, a glass notice board was hung with posters that advertised past and future auctions. In addition to paintings, the house had sold to the highest bidder everything from farms in the Irish Republic to silver, jewelry, and objets d'art.

Bowers was much larger than it looked from the street, where two windows and a door suggested entrance to a humbler establishment. In reality, inside, one room appeared to open into another and that one to another, all the way to the top of Old Bond Street. Barbara wandered through, looking for someone who could point her in the direction of Neil Sitwell.

Sitwell turned out to be the major-domo of the day's activities. He was a rotund figure with a rug on his head that made him look like a bloke wearing yesterday's road kill. When Barbara came upon him, he was on his haunches inspecting a frameless painting of three hunting dogs capering beneath an oak tree. He'd placed his clipboard on the floor and stuck his hand through a large rip in the canvas that ran from the right corner like a bolt of lightning. Or a commentary on the work itself, Barbara thought: It looked to her like a fairly dismal effort.

Sitwell withdrew his hand and called out, “Take this to Restoration. Tell them we'll want it in six weeks,” to a youngish assistant who was rushing by with several other paintings stacked in his arms.

“Right, Mr. Sitwell,” the boy called back. “Will do in a tick. These're going to Suitable. I'll be right back.”

Sitwell shoved himself to his feet. He nodded at Barbara and then at the painting he'd been inspecting. “It'll go for ten thousand.”

“You're joking,” she said. “Is it the painter?”

“It's the dogs. You know the English. Can't abide them myself. Dogs, that is. What can I do for you?”

“I'd like a word, if there's a place we can talk.”

“A word about what? We're overwhelmed at the moment. And we've two more deliveries coming in this afternoon.”

“A word about murder.” Barbara offered him her identification. Presto. His attention was hers.

He ushered her up a cramped stairway, where his office occupied a cubbyhole overlooking the showrooms. It was furnished simply, with a desk, two chairs, and a filing cabinet. Its only decorations—if they could be called such—were the walls. These had been covered with cork board from floor to ceiling and on them were pinned and stapled a veritable history of the enterprise in which Mr. Sitwell worked. It appeared that the auction house had a distinguished past. But like a less noticed child in a home of high-achieving siblings, it needed to shout about itself to be heard above the notoriety given to Sotheby's and Christie's.