Chapter Eleven
Penny was very quiet next
morning and I put that down to my offer to take her back to the States. Likely,
she still felt uncomfortable with the idea, even if I had little or no doubt
left in my mind. I wanted her.
Funny
how I felt more sure of things now. More certain about her. Just being with her
convinced me that what I felt for her was real, and we had all it took to make
a go of things together. After breakfast I left her in a contemplative mood
while I drove into the city.
The
centre of Belfast was relatively quiet but people were gathering in the
Shankhill Road area. Troops in full battle gear were sealing off side roads and
marshalling the crowds into containable sections. It looked like a march of
some sort was about to take place so I joined the crowds.
The
main marching season is in August. That’s when the various Orange Order Lodges
dress up in suits, bowler hats and brightly coloured sashes and parade through
the streets of cities throughout Northern Ireland. It was well past the regular
marching season, but some sort of parade was planned to pass through the city
on this particular day. I can’t recall what it was for.
Eventually
the sound of a Lambeg drum boomed down the length of the street and then a pipe
band began to play. I stretched on my toes to see over the heads of other
observers as the parade made its way towards us. It came with lots of noise
from the band at the front, but what followed was as near as one could get in
Northern Ireland to a dignified procession. Nevertheless, I wanted none of it. I
hurried away afraid to admit to myself that I just didn’t understand it. I
wasn’t geared up for all this.
Trash
was blowing about in the street when I made my way to Rourke’s police station.
A cold wind was blowing in from the east, lifting litter and dust and blowing
it about like tumbleweeds in a Western movie. No one seemed bothered by it.
The
guy at the security desk stared me in the eyes and asked what I wanted.
“I’m
with Reuters. I need a line on that march in the city. I figured—”
He cut
me short. “Show me your press card.”
“Ain’t
got it with me.”
“You
expect me to believe that? How long you been here in Ulster?”
Only the
Protestants called it Ulster. Otherwise they call it Northern Ireland. The
Republicans called it the North of
Ireland. Subtle difference. Sometimes they call it the Six Counties. It’s all a
silly game, of course. They’ll get over it one day.
“Ain’t
been here long.” I was in no mood for answering asinine questions.
“How
long?”
“A few
days.”
“Have
you been here before?”
“Where?”
“Here.
This police station?”
“Why?”
“Just
answer the question, will you?”
“Yes.”
He
wrote something in his open log book and then frowned. “Why d’you wanna see
Chief Inspector Rourke?”
“Tell
him Henry Bodine wants a word in his ear. He’ll understand.”
In
fact Rourke probably didn’t understand. The main reason I wanted to talk to him
was because he had bugged me and I aimed to return the compliment. Nothing more
than that.
The
cop at the security post wasn’t to know my true motives, but he dragged himself
off to an adjacent room where I saw him pick up a phone. A few minutes later he
came back. “The Chief Inspector will see you. You got any weapons on you?”
“No.”
It was an honest answer, but he frisked me anyway. Then another guy led me
upstairs to Rourke’s office.
Rourke
looked different from the way he had when I first went into that office. That
time he’d been putting on some sort of act for my benefit, this time he wasn’t.
He was looking more relaxed with his coat was off and his sleeves rolled up.
And a smell of stale cigarette smoke hung around the room.
“Take
a seat, Bodine. What’s the problem this time?” He sounded like a head teacher
interviewing a disruptive schoolboy.
I sat
down slowly and rubbed my chin, making him wait for an answer. Eventually, I
said, “I reckon it’s time you stopped messing me around. Why don’t you come
clean and tell me all you know about my sister’s death.”
“You just
don’t give up, do you?”
“Must
be something in the air.”
He
smirked for a long minute while he casually lit a cigarette, probably believing
he had the edge on me. He had one leg crossed over the other and he was leaning
back in his chair. He just stared at me like I was the dumbest sort of jerk
he’d come across in a place where dumb jerks grew on trees. That full minute
passed in silence and then he leaned towards me and pointed at me with a
crooked finger.
“I
warned you to keep out of our enquiries.”
“Guess
I wasn’t listening too well.”
“Pity.
It could get you killed.” He leaned back again in his seat and drew deep on his
cigarette. “You really don’t understand what you’re getting yourself mixed up
with. You really don’t understand what it’s like over here in Northern Ireland.
You’re an innocent abroad, Mr Bodine.”
I
didn’t like that remark. I’d seen more blood and guts on the streets of Sarajevo
than he’d seen on the streets of Belfast. Probably much more. And I didn’t need
a lecture from the likes of him. Besides, I’d heard that term ‘innocent abroad’
before. I heard it from the four-star general who had me court-martialled.
“Cut
the crap.” I kept my tone cool but insistent. “Just tell me about the other
bombing.”
“What
other bombing?” His eyebrows creased together. He went tense.
“That
second bombing, the one in which the other girl was killed. The same night Marie
was murdered. What sort of vehicle was it that got blown up?”
He
averted his gaze and fiddled with a pen on his desk. “A taxi.”
“What
happened to the driver?”
“Why
do you want to know?”
“Curiosity.”
“It’s
none of your business.”
I
added a threatening tone to my voice, trying to wind him up. “I could find out
some other way. You want me to start poking my nose in a few other doors? Might
even get the press interested in what happened. You want that, Chief
Inspector?”
He
kept his composure; I’ll say that for him. “You’re too persistent, Mr Bodine.
That’s not a good thing in this country. I’ve already warned you about
interfering in police matters.”
“So
cut the crap and tell me. What happened to that other taxi?”
He
breathed deeply, glanced at a clock on the wall behind me and then made up his
mind to answer. “The driver was let off. The cab was stopped by a gang of
hooded men and the driver was told to get out. The girl must’ve thought she’d
escaped when they marched him away and left her alone inside the cab. Then the
vehicle exploded.”
“What
sort of explosive?”
“Semtex.”
“Trade
mark of the Provisional IRA?”
He
nodded.
I
persisted, knowing I had him on the roll. “What was the girl’s name? I could
find out some other way if you won’t tell me.” But I had already guessed the
answer. I needed only his confirmation.
He
considered his reply for a mere moment. “Christine Fisher.”
I shot
him a sour look. “The girl you knew nothing about!”
He was
wrong-footed and he knew it. In the short silence that followed, I stared him
in the face and made him suffer. He tried to cover up his mistake anyway. “The
name didn’t mean anything to me last time you asked. We get so many killings,
you understand.”
I
understood only too well. “You’re telling me Christine Fisher is dead?”
“Yes.”
Christine
Fisher was dead and Marie was dead. Killed the same night. That didn’t help me
prove conclusively that they were not one and the same person. I might have to
go looking for bodies to prove it to the cops back home.
“You’ve
told the FBI?” I snapped.
“The
FBI?” He screwed up his face. “What the hell! Why should we tell them? It’s
none of their concern.”
“Fisher
was American.”
“There
are proper channels, Mr Bodine. Diplomatic channels. We used them. Miss Fisher
was just an innocent American tourist and we made sure that the American
authorities were properly informed.”
He
really must’ve thought I was the dumbest sort of idiot ever to sit in his
office. The driver was let off and the girl was blown up. And he wanted me to
believe she was just an innocent tourist?
I rose
to leave. I’d bugged him enough to pay back his visit at Penny’s apartment and
I felt satisfied. I’d also learned something of real value. “Any more you want
to tell me?”
“No.”
“Thanks
for your time, anyway.”
“Stay
out of our business, Bodine.” He shot the warning across my bows as I turned
away.
“I’ll
stick to what concerns me.”
“Be
sure you do!” Rourke called after me, but he didn’t rise from his desk when I
walked out. He didn’t even say goodbye.
I went
back to the city centre and found a coffee shop where I spent half an hour
mulling over what I’d heard from Rourke. I’d learned a lot but the bastard
still knew far more than he was telling and that made me pretty mad at him. One
way or another, I’d get to the bottom of it. I bought a second coffee and a
newspaper and read about what atrocities were being committed in other countries.
The front page had a piece about the killings in Bosnia and that brought back
further bleak memories. It was turning into quite a day and not yet lunchtime.
When I
felt a bit more relaxed I drove on through Belfast towards the place where Marie
was killed. Driving up the Crumlin Road, I soon found the spot where the repair
gang were still working at the bomb crater. They acted like it was casual,
everyday labour, which it probably was.
I
parked nearby and stood in the middle of the sidewalk, imagining what had
happened here. It wasn’t too difficult to picture the scene: a dark street, a
vehicle approaching. Someone pulling up to the kerb and off-loading a trash can
full of Anfo. You don’t carry a load like that in your hands so there had to be
a vehicle involved. The murderers wouldn’t have taken any chances about being
caught so they would have arrived only minutes before Sammy Wilde’s cab was due
to come down that road.
Once
the trash can was in place, one of them would have driven off and the other
would have hidden in a doorway to trigger the bomb. So there had to be two of
them, one to drive the vehicle away from the bomb and another to stay with the
trigger.
Meanwhile,
on the other side of town, another girl was deliberately blown up. Two terror
attacks and two victims. What was the connection? Which of the three victims
was the key to the whole thing? Sammy Wilde, Protestant taxi driver, small time
crook, bit of a ladies man? Christine Fisher, stripper and narcotics dealer? Or
Marie Bodine, dancer turned stripper living with a Catholic drug addict? Who
were the bombers really after? And why?
I
looked around, studying the anonymous faces in the street. Footsteps stopped
behind me and I swung round without thinking. A short little woman, aged and
wrinkled stood watching me. She had on a well-worn grey coat that fell almost
to the side walk and a black shawl over her head. A plastic supermarket bag
dangled loosely from one thin wrinkled hand.
“You’ve
been here before, so you have. I saw you.” She had a high pitched, quavering
voice. “Standin’ just there and watchin’ us, so your were.”
“You’re
very observant.”
She
studied me suspiciously. “Round here you have to be, so you do. What with them
terrible bombs, and all. You have to keep an eye on anyone new around here. Are
you a newspaper reporter or somethin’?”
“No.
Just a visitor.” I hesitated. “Someone I knew was killed here.”
“In
that explosion?” She nodded towards the work going on nearby.
“Yes.”
“Ah,
them two.” She nodded sagely. “That taxi man and the dirty little whore with
him. He was a crook, so he was. And they do say she was a prostitute, you
know.”
“Really,”
I replied testily. I noticed for the first time that the woman smelled. Made it
easier for me to hate her guts.
“Aye.
And I saw it happen, so I did.”
I
jumped. “You saw it?”
“Sure,
an’ I did.” She pointed to a first floor window some way down the street.
“That’s where I live. I was at me window. Well, I do so like to watch what’s
going on, what with being on me own. And you have to be so careful about
strangers around here. That’s how I noticed you before, do you see?”
“Sure,
I see.” I urged her on. “Tell me about it.”
She
nodded towards the crater. “You knew about those two?”
“Sort
of. What happened?”
“Well,
I saw them two men pull up and leave the dustbin in the street. It’s not the
sort of thing you expect now, is it?”
“You
saw them? You saw what they looked like?”
“It
was dark but my eyes aren’t as bad as people make out. Not when I’ve got me
glasses on. Me best glasses, they were. Broken now, of course.”
“You
told the police about this?”
“Of
course. I’m a good, honest Loyalist, so I am.” Her chin jutted defiantly.
“Besides, I was terrible shook up, so I was. Me windows was smashed and me
glasses and they had to take me to the hospital for some sedation. And me just
a poor widow! Them terrible Catholics should all be put behind bars. Better
still, they should be hanged.”
“What
were they like, the two men?”
She
shrugged. “Just two men. One was a fat man and the other was a big man like the
Reverend Ian, God bless him. ’Twas the big one who stayed in the doorway over
there to set off the bomb.”
“Did
the police ask you to identify them?”
“Sure
they asked. Made me look at some photos, but I couldn’t pick out who they were.
It was night, you see, and I couldn’t see the faces too clearly. You are a reporter, aren’t you? I can tell
these things.”
“Yes,
I’m a reporter,” I conceded. It seemed the easiest way.
“You’ll
not say that I spoke to you. T’would mark me out for them murderous bastards.
They’d think nothing o’ killin’ me in me bed.”
“I
promise I’ll say nothing to anyone.”
“You
knew them, did you? The ones what got killed?”
“I’ve
come across one of them.”
“Take
my word for it, they were no good. Both of ’em. You say that when you write
about it in your newspaper. One was a crook and the other was a filthy little
slut of a prostitute.”
“I’ll
remember what you say.” I resisted the urge to wrap my hands about her throat.
Seemingly
satisfied, she shuffled on down the street.
It was
just coming up to eleven o’clock and I had more time to use up before I went
back to the apartment for lunch with Penny. Maybe this was a good moment to
confront Pat Mulholland once more.
I made
my way back to the apartment at the Divis, left the car parked nearby and hoped
it would still be in one piece when I got back to it. The local drop-outs were
hanging about, just as before, and they gave me the same sort of visual
going-over, but I bluffed it out. With some misgivings, I walked straight past
them without giving them a second look.
I
didn’t pick up the sound of screaming kids inside the apartment when I
approached. Mulholland was alone and that suited me well. He looked at me suspiciously
through the half opened front door, skin pale like parchment and eyes still
dulled from years of drug abuse. He hadn’t shaved for days.
“I
want to talk to you, Mulholland.”
“Piss
off.”
Before
he could close the door I had my full weight on it and crashed into the
apartment with Mulholland squashed up against the wall of the hallway. I went
on in and slammed the door shut behind me.
He
just stood there, silent and trembling.
“I
said I wanted to talk to you, runt!” I grabbed the front of his filthy
sweatshirt and brought my fist up under his chin. “You want to do this the easy
way or the hard way? Me, I’m happy to do it the hard way.”
“What
do you want?” His eyes were dilated. Bloodshot. All the charm that had misled Marie
into following him to Ireland was hidden behind the after-effects of a fix
which had gone bad.
I
eased off my grip. “Information about Marie.”
“I
told you all I know.”
“No,
you didn’t. But you will.”
“So
what do you want now?”
“What
were you and Marie doing in London? Where did you live?”
He
breathed deep before he replied. “In a squat. Somewhere around Earls Court. God
knows where, exactly. We were moving about a bit, so we were.”
“Is
that where you met her?”
He
slumped back against the wall, his hands shaking. “She was down on her luck and
someone brought her into the squat. You wouldn’t know what it was like, Yank.
Your bloody sister was living rough when they brought her into the squat.”
The
information hurt, but I needed to find out more. “Where did Marie live before
that? What was the last real home she had over there?”
“Dunno.”
I
tightened my grip on him again. “Yes you do. So tell me!”
“All
right, all right. She said she lived in various places. What the hell is this?
Am I supposed to know what she was up to in London?”
“You
know some of it, Mulholland.” I paused to calm my thumping heart. No point in
risking a heart attack over the louse. I moderated my voice. “Last time I spoke
to you, you said Marie had been living with someone over there. It was before
you met her, you said. I want to know who he was.”
“Why?
She died over here, not in London.”
“It
could be useful. I want to know what she was doing over there.” The truth about
Marie went deeper than just the tragedy here in Belfast, I was certain of it
now. I had no proof, just intuition. What happened here was an end game, not
the full story. I needed to talk to whoever she was living with in London to
find out exactly what went wrong with her life.
Mulholland
tried to shrug his shoulders. He was beginning to come round so I further
relaxed my grasp on his shirt. He slumped against the filthy wall and breathed
deep. “What’s it all to you? You can’t help your precious sister now.”
“I
want to know who she was living with.”
“Why?”
“Don’t
argue with me, Mulholland. I need to know and it might be important. Look, are
you gonna tell me or am I gonna have to beat it out of you?”
“You’re
nuts. Besides, there’s nothing much to tell, is there? She lived with some
stuck-up English bastard for a while. I know that much.”
“Where?”
“I
don’t know. Someone told me he’d got this big place out near Wimbledon Common.”
“Keep
talking.”
“Aw,
shit. He lived with his snobby English wife in his snobby big house, but he
kept Marie in a poky little flat in Kensington. She was his hide-away tart. His
mistress. She slept with the bastard to keep herself in bread.”
I
brushed aside the pain of this new revelation. “Marie told you this?”
“Like
hell she did. She wouldn’t talk about it, would she? Someone else told me after
me and Marie got together. Every time I asked her, she wouldn’t talk about it.
She was like that, you know. Hell, you should know. She was your sister.”
“What
was he called? The man she lived with?”
“Whiteman.”
“Whiteman?
That’s all you can tell me?”
“What
else is there?” He leaned towards me, lips drawn back to expose his rotting
teeth. “Except that she whored for the bastard.”
“Watch
your tongue, punk. Just watch was you say about Marie.”
“You
gonna make me, Yank?”
“Yeah.
I might enjoy pushing your nose down on top of your tonsils.”
“Go
on.” He gestured with his hands, taunting me to attack him. “Go on. Make your
day. It won’t change anything, you know. God, if I hadn’t gone over there to
England, none of this would have happened to me.”
“So
why did you go over there?”
“To
get a job, what do you think? Only there weren’t no jobs to be had. At least,
not for the likes of me.”
“And
you came back here expecting to get a job?”
“I
came back, Yank, because London was a God awful place to live.” His face
twisted into an expression of disgust. “They’re not friendly over there, not
like us.”
Through
the hall window I could make out the tribal graffiti on the walls of the
apartment block opposite. “This is a friendly place?”
“Irish
people are the best.”
“And Marie
came with you?”
“She
didn’t have to. She should have stayed over there. She could have whored for
some other rich bastard.”
My
fist suddenly tightened about the neck of this sweatshirt. “I told you to watch
what you say about my sister!”
“You
gonna make me? Gonna beat the shit out of me are you? Go on, show us what you
Yanks are made of!”
Somehow,
it just wasn’t worth it. I let go the runt and stood back. “I thought you had
some feelings for Marie.”
“I did
once.”
“Seems
to me you’d lost interest in her when she died.”
“Lost
interest? What the hell do you mean?”
“You
weren’t in love with her.”
“I
could take it or leave it.” He reached into his pocket for a smoke. His hand
was shaking. I resisted the urge to beat him to hell right there and then.
“You
said you’d threatened to leave her.”
“So
what? It was only a threat to get her to stop the strippin’ lark. I wouldn’t
have done it, not with her bein’ pregnant. In the end she was the one who
wanted us to split up.”
“Because
of your drug addiction?”
He
drew deep on his reefer and slowly began to calm down. “Nah. She could take
that. She knew all about the drugs scene. The trouble was she threatened to
have an abortion. I told her I wouldn’t allow it.”
I
looked about at the squalor of the Mulholland apartment. “She couldn’t face
bringing up a kid in a dump like this, eh? So what did she do about it? Who did
she go to for help? The Irish American Woman’s Aid Centre?”
“Yeah,
she went to them. For all the good it did her.”
“Who
did she see there? Give me a name.”
“I
can’t remember any names.”
I
moved close in and hissed at him through gritted teeth. “Give me a name.”
“All
right, all right. Look, I heard there’s a guy called Milligan mixed up with
those people. Maybe Marie saw him.”
“Where
did you hear that name?”
“On
the streets. He’s pretty well known around here. But don’t say I told you.
Look, it’s a name, isn’t it? Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe Marie saw a priest or
someone like that. Why don’t you go and ask them yourself?”
“I
might just do that. And then again, I might come back here and ask more
questions until you tell me all you know.”
“Piss
off! If you think you can come in here and take it out on me, you’d better
think again. At least we don’t have any abortions in our family! There’s some
things we don’t sink to!”
He was
getting belligerent again so I decided to try to play it cool. But I didn’t
give myself enough time to think before I went on, “Okay, buddy. Let’s get back
to what actually happened to Marie. Just now you said you could take her or
leave her. Did you hate her enough to kill her?”
“You
bastard! I’d kill the man who killed Marie, if I knew who it was. Kill him with
me own hands, so I would!”
“Good.
If I ever find out who did it, I’ll let you know. Give you the chance to prove
yourself.”
“Get
out of here, Yank!”
“Yeah,
I’ll do that. And I’ll call you when I know who killed Marie.”
I left
him shaking in the hallway, struggling to light another reefer. Outside it was
grey and overcast, but even the depressing atmosphere of the city felt clean
after the Mulholland place. At least I now had two more names to work on. An
Englishman called Whiteman and an Irishman called Milligan. I stored the information
away for future use.
A
bunch of scruffy kids was gathered around the car when I got back to it. A
couple of them were sitting on the hood, feet up and smoking. The others stood
around: silent, sullen and bleary-eyed. They must’ve been about thirteen or
fourteen years old and should’ve been in school, but sitting on my hire car
seemed to interest them more. No one made any effort to move until I started
the engine and then the two jerks slowly slid off the hood, defying me to move
away before they were back on the side walk. Someone gave me two fingers as I
pulled away from the kerb.
I made
my way back into the city and left the hire car in a regular parking lot. It
was close on mid-day and I’d said I’d be back at the apartment around two. That
left me with time for some more poking around. Car theft anywhere in Ireland is
a bad problem and the depressed areas of Belfast take more than their share of
it. Penny had warned me that the Falls Road is no place to park any car and
expect it be around when you went back for it, so I took a taxi to the Irish
American Woman’s Aid Centre. If Father O’Hagan was in Belfast this was the only
place I knew where I might find him. And I had a need to ask him a few pointed
questions. But, first, I would try to find this guy, Milligan.
The
Centre had once been a small shop, probably a local grocery store. Now, the
display window was boarded up and the signboard overhead was faded away to
almost bare wood. A printed notice pinned to the door said: Woman’s Aid Centre.
Below that, a handwritten notice read: Closed.
I
stood outside on the sidewalk for a few minutes, sizing up the atmosphere. A
persistent drizzle was now washing the roads and leaving them glistening with a
deceptive shine. As if washing was the same as cleansing. I pulled my coat
collar tight about my neck and shivered. You didn’t have to be clued up on the
Irish problem to see that this place was bad news. The usual IRA tribal
graffiti decorated the walls; obscene in the fact that people round here took
it seriously. A gable-end mural stared down at me, IRA uniforms and Irish
tricolours mixed up like they belonged together. The street was dirty and the
few pedestrians nearby had a strange, weary look about them.
Ignoring
the sign, I tried the door. It opened with a long creaking noise that would
have sounded good in a horror film. I took a deep breath and went inside.
The
main door led into a small hallway, off of which was a dimly lit room. It was
empty, just bare floorboards and a few empty boxes lying in the corner. Another
door, directly opposite, was standing ajar and I walked slowly towards it. The
floorboards creaked as I came closer and saw that the door led into another,
smaller room. A man in military fatigues was sitting at a small desk.
I
frowned. What the hell was going on here? Women in need of help shouldn’t be
turning to the local paramilitary hoodlums. The man he had his back to me, but
he spun round when the floor creaked under my feet. He dropped one hand down to
an Armalite on the floor beside him.
I
stiffened, put up one hand and stood rock still. “Hold it, buddy. I ain’t here
to cause no trouble.”
At
first he looked real scared, as if he thought I was there to assassinate him.
He rose to his feet and I saw then that he was no more than five foot three or
four tall, but paunchy with it, the bulging effect of late middle age. He had a
swarthy look about him and hadn’t shaved for some days. Dull grey eyes were
ringed with dark circles and thin grey hair sat uneasily on top his skull.
“What
do you want? Who are you?” The Armalite hovered in my general direction and my
flesh went icy cold.
“Name’s
Bodine. Looking for Mr Milligan.”
“Why?
What do you want?” His voice had an air of real animal fear. His fingers
clutched the gun so that the knuckles turned white.
I kept
my voice as calm as I could muster. “Trying to find out something about a girl
who may have come here for help. Name of Marie Bodine, or she might have called
herself Nancy Kelly.”
“What’s
she to you?”
“She
was my sister. My name’s Henry Bodine.”
His
eyes moved about shiftily. He thought for a moment and then said, “Never heard
of her.”
“What
about Mr Milligan. I’d like to speak to him. He might know something.”
“I’m
Milligan.” His voice wavered. “And I never heard of your sister.”
“Is
there someone else—”
“No.
Now get out of here.”
I saw
no point in arguing with the open end of a gun so I backed away. I had intruded
on something the public wasn’t meant to see but, then, paramilitary uniforms
weren’t exactly scarce on the streets of Belfast. Milligan’s eyes followed me
all the way across the empty room to the door which I carefully closed behind
me.
Once
outside the building I stopped and breathed deep. This was getting too serious
by half and I suddenly remembered Chief Hanson’s warning. Perhaps he’d been
right all along.
I had
nothing much else to do that could brighten up what was proving to be a dark
and depressing day so I went back to see Tessie Gidley. This time I didn’t even
bother to wait for an introduction, just swept past the broad in the outer
office and let myself into the inner sanctum. Mrs Gidley was none too pleased
but then I didn’t expect her to be.
“What
do you want now, Mr Bodine. Ain’t you got the manners to knock before you come
barging in here?” She half rose to her feet, face flushed with sudden anger.
I
decided not to beat about the bush. “You employed Christine Fisher. You did,
didn’t you?”
“Who
told you about her?”
“Never
mind. I want information about her. Like; when and why you employed her.”
Her
face flushed red with anger. “If my Billy was here—”
“But
he ain’t. So tell me about Fisher.”
She
sank back into her seat and bared her teeth at me from behind the desk. “She
don’t work for us. Not any longer, she don’t.”
Hardly
likely if the girl was dead. I snapped, “Why not?”
“We
got rid of her as soon as we knew—” Her voice tailed off. She was
lying, I could feel it in my bones.
“As
soon as you knew what?”
“That
she was up to no good.”
“What
sort of no good?”
Tessie
Gidley waved her arms in the air, obviously agitated by the questioning. “She
was into drugs. Ask the police, they know all about it.”
“That’s
as maybe. Did Fisher ever fill in for your girls at the Blue Taboo?”
“No,
she did not. Now, bugger off, will you. And don’t go poking your nose in here
again.” Once again I got that intuitive feeling that the woman was lying. For
an actress, she had a poor command of her own body language.
“All
right, I’ll go. But just one last question, Mrs Gidley. Who was Sammy Wilde
booked to carry that night in his taxi?”
“I
don’t remember.”
“Yes,
you do. Who was it?”
A
black look preceded her response. “He wasn’t supposed to be carrying anybody.
He was supposed to be on his way to collect a girl. There wasn’t supposed to be
anybody in the cab with him.”
“Who
was he collecting?”
“What
the hell does it matter?”
“Who?
Christine Fisher?”
She
looked down at her desk and snarled. After half a minute she grunted. “Uh-huh.”
“Is
that a yes?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Funny.
That’s what I figured you’d say. Christine Fisher: the girl you no longer
employed!”
“We
was going to get rid of her.”
“I’m
sure you were. Do the police know she should have been in that taxi later that
night?”
“Yeah,
they know.”
“Well,
now. Surprise, surprise.”
I felt
at last I was getting somewhere, but it was all so confusing I might just as
well have been getting nowhere. I left Tessie Gidley to continue with her own
business and I took myself off to the city centre where I had myself a cup of
bad-tasting instant coffee at a hamburger bar. After that I recovered the hire
car from the parking lot and headed back to Penny’s apartment. That afternoon
she had a matinee show on the opposite side of town at the Pickled Herring Club
and I had insisted on driving her.
The first
signs of commotion appeared before I got near the apartment: racing fire
vehicles and the distant wail of a police siren. People in the street were
stopped and pointing. A pillar of smoke bubbled up over the tops of the houses.
Another
bomb, I guessed, and drove on. But, the closer I got to the apartment the more
the streets were blocked. Eventually I left the car down a side alley and
walked the rest of the way.
I
turned the corner into Penny’s street and stopped dead in my tracks. The fire
was in the building where she lived. Three bright red fire appliances were
pulled up in the road, water hose lines snaking along the tarmac, ending at
intense groups of firemen. People were running about in all directions. The
noise was suddenly overwhelming. Ugly yellow flames licked out of the windows
of Penny’s apartment and black smoke billowed up into the overcast sky.
Oh
God! I began to run towards the building.
“Hey!
You! Get back!” A fireman detached himself from a group in front of the
building, ran towards me and held me back.
“You
can’t go in there!”
I
stood staring at the building and pointed up to Penny’s apartment. “There was a
woman inside. Is she safe?”
“A
woman in there you say? You’re sure of that?”
“Of
course I’m sure.”
“Stay
here and I’ll check. You’ll stay here, won’t you?”
“Yes,
yes! Find out about the woman!”
He
rushed across to a group of firemen in front of the building and came back
moments later. “No one came out of there. Do you know this place?”
“I was
staying here.”
“Sorry,
pal. If you know there was someone inside, the police will want to talk to
you.”
I felt
a wave of nausea wash over me.
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