Killing Time (16 page)

‘You didn’t go to the police?’ Slider said, more to keep her talking than because he thought she might have.

She looked derisive. ‘You kidding? Jonah would have killed me. I was lucky he hadn’t killed me as it was, hitting me like that. Like I said, I think he was a bit lit up, because normally he was careful. He never hit people, or if he did he kind of pulled his
punch, because he’s a monster, is Jonah. Six foot six and built like a brick khasi, with hands on him like—’ She demonstrated with her hands apart. ‘So he’d gotta be careful.’

Hart stirred, and out of the corner of his eye, Slider saw her look towards him. Maybe they were here for the Paloma case after all. Maybe there was a connection that hadn’t been suspected.

‘Do you know where Jonah works now?’ Slider asked.

‘Oh, he’s still with Yates. He’s mostly at the Pink Parrot.’

‘That’s another of his nightclubs, is it?’

‘Yeah. Down Fulham Broadway. Used to be a gay club, but it’s more mixed now.’ Maroon looked from Slider to Hart and back, the cosy confidence she had built up for herself evaporating. ‘I don’t want him to find me,’ she said urgently. ‘D’you understand? He’ll kill me if he knows I’ve spoken to you.’

‘You haven’t told me anything against him yet,’ Slider pointed out soothingly.

‘He wouldn’t care about that. If he even saw me talking to you—’ She wrapped her arms round herself. ‘You gotta promise me.’

‘I promise you,’ Slider said. ‘I won’t use your name. I’ll find some other way. Go on now.’ She still hesitated, so he primed her with the irresistible. ‘Tell me about you and Andy.’

When Maroon was still in hospital with her broken face, Andy Cosgrove had come to visit her. He heard the word on the street, and came to see if he could help her.

‘He was shocked when he saw what Jonah had done to me. He tried to get me to make an official complaint, so he could arrest Jonah, but I wouldn’t. But anyway, after that he kind of interested himself in me. Andy helped me find somewhere to live and – well – he was around a lot and—’ She shrugged eloquently.

‘You became lovers,’ Slider offered delicately.

Maroon was pleased with the euphemism. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘That’s it.’ Reading between the lines, Slider guessed that from Cosgrove’s point of view it was a case of the seven year itch. His marriage was no longer new, and his wife had begun to discover that being a copper’s wife was not all roses, which had soured her temper. She had just had another child and sex was off-limits, and the baby was making the nights hideous. Cosgrove had succumbed to the comforts a grateful ex-whore was more than willing to offer. Slider was not surprised – it was a story he had heard many times before – but he was rather shocked that it was Andy Cosgrove, the Father Christmas of W12, who had sinned so callously against his wife. It seemed, however, that an affection had built up between Cosgrove and Maroon beyond mere sexual gratification, and he had done her a great deal of good. The affair had taken on a regular, almost domesticated pattern, and, his needs being satisfied, Cosgrove had begun to be a better husband at home too.

And then Maroon’s sister turned up, come to the big city to seek her fortune.

‘I didn’t know you had a sister,’ Slider said.

‘Nor did I,’ Maroon said.

It seemed that when Maroon’s mother Alice had fled parental responsibility, she had headed up the A1, the Great North Road, which in those days had a romance and glamour to its name, and also led in the direction it was possible to get the furthest away from London. Over the years, Alice kept moving north. Occasionally when conscience bit or good luck came her way, she sent some money for her mother or a birthday card for her abandoned infant, and in that way she and Maroon’s grandma kept in distant touch.

Eventually Alice reached Aberdeen, and feeling it impracticable to go any further north, settled down within handy reach of the docks. One day she found herself pregnant again. It was not at all in her plans to bring up a child, and as soon as the baby was born she hastened to her mother, who by then had moved back to Ireland, Maroon having left home. Alice arrived one day with baby Molly and left the next, in the early hours, without her. She had told her mother nothing about the baby’s father except that he was Maltese – there was a large community of immigrants from Malta living in Aberdeen. Grandma, resigning herself to another surrogate motherhood, referred to the baby affectionately as ‘my little Maltesa’, and the nickname stuck.

‘And you didn’t know anything about her until she arrived on your doorstep?’ Slider asked.

‘Well, I never was one for writing letters, and Gran never got round to it,’ Maroon said. ‘Anyway, one day, about a year after I left Billy Yates, this kid turns up and says, hello Maroonagh, I’m your sister. She was just sixteen. Gawd, she was pretty!’ Maroon’s face softened with remembered delight. ‘Brown eyes and hair like mine, but not dark like me, kind of honey-coloured skin, and sharp little features like a little cat. And she was bright, too, up for everything, always on the bubble. I loved her to death. All I wanted was the best for her. I never wanted her to go on the game like me. I wanted her to get a job and get married, do everything properly, like I never done.’

Everything would have been all right, if it wasn’t for Jonah Lafota. He blamed Maroon for his demotion, and wanted his revenge on her, but felt that her close liaison with the local community copper made her a dangerous target. When Maltesa
came to town, it looked like the perfect opportunity to make Maroon suffer.

‘He went after her. I didn’t know at first. He sweet-talked her, showed her the bright lights, told her how much money she could make as a high-class call girl, if she had the right manager.
Manager!’
She spat the word. ‘When I found out, I was furious. I nearly snatched her bald-headed, told her if she wanted to throw her life away, she might as well go and jump off Westminster Bridge and get it over with. Of course, it was the wrong thing to say to Maltesa. She never would take telling. Got on her high horse right away. I tried everything I could, but she wouldn’t listen. She said she could make a fortune in a couple of years, and then we could go off and live in Spain or somewhere. Oh, she was full of it!’ Maroon said bitterly. ‘Like any little kid dreaming of Christmas, it was all going to be so easy. And she could take care of herself, I needn’t worry, she was up to all the tricks, no-one was going to take her for a ride.’

There was a heavy silence. ‘What happened?’ Slider asked at last.

‘Jonah introduced her to drugs. She thought it was all part of the high life, and she could handle it. Of course she couldn’t. Gradually she just – disappeared. Jonah made her work for her fixes, and she did things she didn’t want to tell me about, so I saw her less and less. I pleaded with her, but it only turned her against me. She changed, that kid – her whole personality. It’d break your heart to see her moody and sullen like she was towards the end. I don’t know what she was doing for Jonah at the finish, but he made sure she still got the stuff. She died in 1994. She was only twenty.
He
did that.’ There was a pause while she lit another cigarette from the stub of the current one. ‘She was a good kid at heart, just too full of spirit. Ready to try anything. She was easy meat to him. I’d have done anything to save her, but there was nothing I could do. After she died, I just wanted to run away. I think I went a bit mad. I drank a lot. I left the flat and moved around, bedsitters and that. There didn’t seem any point in anything any more. And then Andy found me again.’ She looked up. ‘I hadn’t told him anything. He didn’t know what happened to Maltesa. He didn’t know where I’d gone. I should’ve told him, I suppose. He was worried about me, bless him. Well, he found me, I don’t know how. I told him
everything, and – and I begged him to get Jonah for what he’d done to my sister. I didn’t have any proof, you see. I must have been mad to try and get him involved. I should’ve known how it would end.’

‘What did Andy promise to do?’

‘First off he went to some boss man in your place,’ she nodded to Slider, ‘to ask for a proper investigation. I forget his name, but he was some high-up detective, Barlow or Barnet or some such—’

‘Barrington?’ Slider said, hiding his astonishment. How had he heard nothing of this?

‘Yeah, could be. Anyway, Andy told this bloke everything, and this Barrington or whatever, he told Andy there was no way he could investigate it, and he told Andy to drop it. Absolutely forbid him to mention it to anyone. Andy was really shaken. He thought maybe this Barrington was in league with Billy Yates, maybe they was both masons or something, because Billy Yates has got loads of friends in high places –
you
must know that – which is why he’s never got into trouble with the law. But anyway, Andy said to me don’t worry, he’d go into it himself, and when he’d got the evidence, this Barrington’d have to do something.’ She puffed rapidly on her cigarette; her voice was growing husky with too much smoke, taken too hot. ‘I should’ve stopped him – except I don’t suppose he would’ve stopped for me, not once he’d got the idea in his head. Stubborn as a donkey, Andy. But I never thought – I never thought—’ She swallowed hard. ‘Jonah must’ve got wind of what he was doing, and done him over. And he’ll come after me next. That’s why you mustn’t tell anyone where I am. Don’t write it down anywhere. And don’t come here again – promise me!’

‘Maroon—’

‘And get Jonah!’ she added fiercely. ‘Forget the other, just promise me that! I don’t care any more if he gets me, as long as you get him. I’d kill him if I could, but look at me—’ She spread her arms. ‘What could I do against a bloke his size? So you got to do it for me. If he ain’t dead, I want him locked up, and throw away the key, for what he did to my poor Maltesa, and my poor Andy!’

When Slider swung the wrong way onto Uxbridge Road, Hart
turned to look at him, and wondered at the grim concentration on that usually benign face.

‘Guv?’ she said tentatively. ‘Was that straight up, d’you reckon, or was she spinning a yarn?’

‘I think she was telling the truth as she knows it,’ Slider said, his voice vague from the depths of thought.

‘But that stuff about Mr Barrington – he was the Super before Mr Honeyman, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ Slider said.

‘Didn’t he commit suicide?’

‘Yes,’ Slider said, reluctantly. Hart was silent. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered her unasked question. ‘I’d hesitate to think it for a moment. Mr Barrington had been under a lot of strain, but he never did anything to make me think he was corruptible.’

And yet, Slider thought, hadn’t he always felt a mental question mark hanging like a dark cloud over the winding up of the Cate business? It was not something he would ever discuss, not even with Atherton, not even with Joanna: but Barrington had been very close to Colin Cate, had hero-worshipped him, and when Cate turned out to have feet of clay, Barrington was shaken to his roots. He had left the building without saying where he was going, returning hours later in a state of nervous exhaustion, without explaining his whereabouts. And it was during those hours that Colin Cate had been shot dead by a marksman with a rifle. Barrington, who had killed himself only a few weeks later, had been a notable shot in the army, and had trophies galore from his shooting club.

Was it possible that Barrington had been as bent as Cate? That his relationship with Cate was not that of the innocent patsy, which Slider had always assumed? That he had had a corrupt relationship with that other powerful local businessman, Billy ‘The Pom’ Yates?

‘You’re not to mention this, Hart,’ he said. ‘This is absolutely taboo, do you understand?’

‘Sir.’

‘I will put an investigation in train as to what, if anything, Cosgrove said to Barrington and vice versa, but it’s a very delicate business, and I shall have to tread carefully. So I don’t want any gossip muddying the waters. Not a word of this to anyone. If it gets out, I shall know it was you that spread it,
and you’ll be stuck on so fast your eyes will spin like a fruit machine, savvy?’

‘Yes, sir.’ They rode in silence for a while. Then Hart said, ‘The other business, sir, the Paloma case – it looks as if it could have been this Jonah that whacked him, dunnit? I mean, Paloma worked for Yates, and there can’t be that many six-foot-sixers with humungous plates knocking about.’

‘It’s hard to resist that conclusion,’ Slider said. ‘But what did Jonah have against Paloma?’

‘If Jonah’s one of Yates’s hard men, maybe Yates told him to rub Paloma.’

‘That just moves the question one pace sideways – what did Yates have against Paloma?’

‘And where does Andy Cosgrove fit in?’ Hart ruminated a moment. ‘D’you think there’s some drugs connection? If Cosgrove was trying to find out where Jonah got the stuff from, Yates might’ve started thinking he was a nuisance he could do without. And Paloma was supposed to be buying drugs for his friend.’ She stopped, lost, and finally shrugged. ‘I dunno. But I can’t help feeling there’s got to be a connection.’

‘There’s no fire without smoke,’ Slider finished for her. ‘Well, at least we’ve got some lines to follow up.’

‘Talking of following, where are we going, boss?’ Hart asked, taking the opportunity.

Slider looked about him. They were in Acton High Street. ‘Why didn’t you tell me I was going the wrong way?’

Atherton was looking much better. ‘They’ve taken out some of the tubes,’ Slider observed.

‘I’m on liquids,’ Atherton said. ‘No-one looks their best with that much plastic around. You, on the other hand, look terrible.’

‘I’m just tired. I’ve knocked off for an early night.’ It was a quarter to eight, but Atherton knew the score and nodded. ‘Joanna’s got a session until nine, but it’s only at Barnes, so she should be home by half past. I thought I’d have some grub ready for her.’

‘Not the Seduction Special? Your spag bol?’

‘It’s not the only thing I cook. You talk as if I was a one-trick pony.’

Atherton looked wistful. ‘I’d be glad to be able to eat hospital jelly and Dream Topping.’